Holiday Review: Christmas Wishes and Mistletoe Kisses

Posted December 11, 2015 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

This month I’ll be highlighting different holiday or Christmas-oriented books on the blog. I love reading based on the season, so stay tuned for more wintery reviews. To learn more about what’s coming and my holiday book rating system, check here! My holidays would not be complete without a Jenny Hale Christmas story. I’ve read her two other Christmas books and loved them so much. This year I was provided an ARC from the publisher and had to resist digging in right away. These books are SO EFFING CHRISTMASSY that it would be best suited for the beginning of December, when I want to jolt my Christmas spirit for the month. Of course, it delivered in every way I hoped. I’ll be completely honest when I say that Hale’s holiday stories are formulaic. There’s a girl who starts to work for or help out a workaholic millionaire around the holidays – maybe she moves into his house for a ~reason~ – and they start to fall in love. So far, all three books have followed this general formula. However, in the same way that all AC/DC songs sound the same, I love them all equally and don’t even care if they’re a bit too similar. They’re all perfect. Plus, if you read one once a year, you’re not likely to get sick of a similar story. So, as usual, I loved this one. Abbey was a great protagonist, and her son Max was even better. I loved the family feels […]

Cover Love Part 2

Posted December 10, 2015 / Book Lists, Features / 9 Comments

I wrote a post back in the day about some of my favorite book covers. This was long before I invented Inside & Out and Cover Colors, two features that (even more so) show how obsessed I am with book covers. In that post, I featured a bunch of covers that appear on my Goodreads “Cover Love” shelf… 64 covers, to be exact. Because apparently I’m crazy. But, anyways, I’m here being crazy again because I figured I would update! My cover tastes definitely haven’t changed and I still think you SHOULD judge a book by its cover, but my cover love shelf is now even larger. This post features a grand total of 66 covers. So apparently I just get crazier with time. Without further ado, here are the newest covers that are privileged enough to join the Cover Love shelf!

Review: The Isle of the Lost

Posted December 9, 2015 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

It feels kind of stupid to point out that this book feels very young, considering it skews towards Middle Grade. Goodreads does list both YA and MG as categories for it though. Be that as it may, this book feels very young. I borrowed the book from my 13 year old sister, so that should give you a solid indication of the best audience (she loved it). I couldn’t resist borrowing it from her though, because hello? Disney villains! The premise of this story is just so appealing to Disney lovers. It sat on my shelf for a number of months before I was compelled to read it. I started with the physical copy from her but realized it didn’t really hold my attention in that format. I got the audio from Scribd and decided to truck along, using both formats (until Winter was released and I switched to just audio). Speaking of the audio, the narrator was the worst. Sofia Carson is an actor in the Descendants movie (which is essentially the “second book” in this series, I guess). She narrated the book as if she was over-acting in a Disney movie. So. Yeah. Not fun. The plot was pretty slow as far as pacing is concerned. Most of the action was at the end, and even then… it was anticlimactic. It read like a prequel novella and not a story that was needed on its own. I did like it OVERALL even though I have more complaints than […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #67: New-to-Me Authors

Posted December 8, 2015 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 14 Comments

Top New-To-Me Favorite Authors I Read For The First Time In 2015 Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. I decided to go with nine here because I realized (a) my books are organized with three per graphic and I’m picky about keeping things even and (b) I realized my first Kody Keplinger book was in 2014 so I had to eliminate her. Regardless, these nine authors became auto-buys – lots even after just one book! There are a few other where I just BINGED series and/or entire published works by them. All of these authors will easily stay favorites for me (I hope!) into 2016 and beyond. The picture attached to the author name below reflects the first – sometimes only – book I’ve read by them. HERE YA GO FRIENDS:

Holiday Review: Icing on the Lake

Posted December 7, 2015 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments

This month I’ll be highlighting different holiday or Christmas-oriented books on the blog. I love reading based on the season, so stay tuned for more wintery reviews. To learn more about what’s coming and my holiday book rating system, check here! I had literally no idea what to expect from this book. I couldn’t track down a real synopsis for the life of me. I knew it was one of those HarperTeen books from back in my high school days; they tend to read like a romantic comedy. Early contemporary romance YA, I suppose. I really enjoyed Snowed In last year, which I imagined was quite similar. I remember getting these types of books out from the library after school and reading them in the library. Anyways, the book is about a girl (Kirsten) who goes to stay with her young divorcee sister and her son, because she hurt her leg or something. She is somehow able to live there for a month or two while her sister heals. She’s just… not attending high school, but is able to work on an independent project for the month instead. Pretty not realistic, but okay. Basically she gets involved with some ~boys~ because she wants to bring one to a weekend away with her friends. → A few highlights because I really don’t know what to say: The writing and dialogue felt super awkward (especially the “banter”) Lots of characters were fleetingly introduced at the beginning and I couldn’t keep her friends straight […]

Review: I’ll Give You the Sun

Posted December 6, 2015 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments

Why do I read stories I know I’m not going to like?????? I was pretty damn adamant that I wasn’t going to read this book (evidence 1 and 2). I heard somewhere that the writing style was metaphor-filled like We Were Liars, which I totally loathed. I was right. It was similar and heavy-handed and frustrating. I feel stupid when I read books like that because I can’t tell if the person is being literal or if it’s a metaphor. Anyways, because this book was very middle-of-the-road for me, I’ll break into my usual YES and NO lists… What I Liked In general, I was a fan of the two separate timelines. I thought it was interesting to read about Noah at 13 while reading about Jude at 16, because you wonder how things progress in those 2-3 years. I started putting puzzle pieces together early on and saw some click into place depending on whose chapters I was reading. The storyline was pretty interesting. I was curious to see how it all ended up, especially because it seemed like the twins ended up switching personalities in those few years. I wanted to know what happened to cause that. I thought the ending was sweet. I actually started to think, “did I really hate this book as much as I thought?” when I read the ending. It was enough to leave me with a generally positive feeling about the book, instead of the low score I was planning. What I Didn’t Like […]

Review: First & Then

Posted December 4, 2015 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

THIS BOOK WAS THE CUTEST. It took me a little while to get settled into the plot and the characters for some reason, but once I did… oh boy. So perfect. This is definitely one of my favorite books this year based on sheer cuteness and readability. I read this in basically just a couple of sittings over the course of two days because I was determined to finish and feel all the things. Devon’s annoying younger cousin, Foster, moves in with her family after basically being abandoned by his mom. Come to find out, he’s a great kicker and is invited onto the football team. Their family feels progress and grow slowly throughout the book, as does the romance between Devon and SOMEONE. I’m keeping this sentence spoiler-free but you may be able to guess by the end of the review. Sorry, not sorry. I will also totally reread this book, and that’s a big honor. So far the only books I’ve reread are Sarah Dessen (duh), the Harry Potter series (double duh), and books I read a long time ago because I wanted to finish the series. To have a random YA contemporary (non-Dessen) be thrown in as a worthy reread is kind of big deal. Perfect things are perfect THE FEELSSSS between Devon + Foster (seriously, the way they warmed up to each other killed me) between Foster + Ezra (what a fucking adorable friendship. I can’t) between Ezra + Devon (mmmm what a slow burn, with a […]

Top 10 Books with Unique Storytelling Styles

Posted December 3, 2015 / Book Lists, Features / 18 Comments

Look at me, getting back into the swing of things. That seems like a stupid thing to say since my blog usually has 5-6 posts per week, but I mean back in the swing of my GOALS. I had decided when I first started this blog (and didn’t know of any memes or ARCs or even bloggers) that I would give recommendation lists for people who were seeking specific types of books. I have generally failed with those types of posts. Plus, Top Ten Tuesday does a really good job of creating those list topics for me on a weekly basis. One of my biggest goals (or resolutions) at the beginning of the year was to get back into some of my own recommendation / top ten lists. I made it a point to reevaluate my challenges back in November to see which I could reasonably succeed at finishing, and resolved (again) to do at least ONE top ten recommendation list before the end of the year.Today I’ll be sharing some books that just have a ~different~ style to them that really enhances the message of the book. These come from my “cool story style” shelf on Goodreads, because I recently found that I needed to make some more fun shelf categories. Now that I’m reading way more books per year, I needed to find a way to remember certain details or feelings. (Honestly, it helps so much with TTTs!) Without further ado, here are the top ten books you should read if you’re […]

Reading Recap #6 (including End of 2015 TBR!)

Posted December 2, 2015 / Features, Reading Recap, TBR Lists / 6 Comments

Because my reviews are usually posted at least a month after I finish the book, I never really talk about what I’m currently reading or just finished reading. This Reading Recap feature will let you know the the books I just finished, am currently reading, and plan to read next. Past recaps here! I wasn’t sure what I wanted to listen to for an audiobook, so I decided to use a Scribd credit on Fairest by Marissa Meyer. I also have this out from the library, so I plan on mixing the two of them. (You know how much I love to do that!) I’m also reading Icing on the Lake by Catherine Clark to kickstart my wintery holiday reads. I also found it on Scribd, so that saves a few bucks on the ebook 😉 I love these older romantic comedy-style contemporary books. I want to save some of my really Christmas-oriented books for later on in the month. I somehow finished an 800 page book within a few days and managed to read a total of 17 books in November (that does include a DNF). I read three books in a row that received 4 stars, then had a couple of duds. The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater was a Book Buddies pick for Kaitlin and me during November. I enjoyed it overall, but am mostly intrigued to see what happens next. I Am Princess X by Cherie Priest was a far-fetched but fun read that my real life book club chose for tonight’s meeting. […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #66: 2016 Debuts

Posted December 1, 2015 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 24 Comments

Ten 2016 Debuts Novels I’m Looking Forward To Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. I’m actually terrible about knowing which authors qualify as debuts each year, but thank glob for Goodreads Listopia! Here are some of the 2016 debuts I’m excited for, as well as the sentence in their synopses that had me say YAAAAS GIMME. Blackhearts by Nicole Castroman “Drawn to each other, they’re trapped by society and their own circumstances.“ Firsts by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn “Seventeen-year-old Mercedes Ayres has an open-door policy when it comes to her bedroom.” The Love that Split the World by Emily Henry “The next night, under the stadium lights of the high school football field, she meets a beautiful boy named Beau, and it’s as if time just stops and nothing exists.” Summer of Sloane by Erin L. Schneider “Warm Hawaiian sun. Lazy beach days. Flirty texts with her boyfriend back in Seattle. These are the things seventeen-year-old Sloane McIntyre pictured when she imagined the summer” Underwater by Marisa Reichardt “But her kind act inadvertently played a role in a deadly tragedy.” Bookishly Ever After by Isabel Bandeira “In a perfect world, sixteen-year-old Phoebe Martins’ life would be a book. Preferably a YA novel with magic and a hot paranormal love interest.” Summer of Supernovas by […]