Top Ten Tuesdays #75: Historical Fiction

Posted February 2, 2016 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 15 Comments

Top Historical Time Periods I’m Interested in (and the Historical Fiction Books I Plan to Read!) 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. This week’s topic can be widely defined as books in the past or future (Top Ten Historical Settings You Love/ Ten Historical Settings You’d Love To See or Top Futuristic Books You Love/ Ten Futuristic Societies I’d Love To Read in Books). I’m not really clever enough to think of futuristic things/time periods and am not a history buff. Because of this, I decided to put my own spin on this topic. I’ll be sharing the top ten historical fiction books I plan to read, and the time periods they happen during. I hope you’ve read some of these so you can tell me what to read first! I’ve only read a handful of historical fiction books, and most of them involve some kind of magical or fantasy elements. I’m not sure why I haven’t read more, to be honest. I am generally interested in some parts of history and think these books could be super interesting. This list will hopefully be a nice jumping off point for me to get going on my history lessons. I started to compile this list by thinking of the time periods that […]

Mini NA Reviews: Faking It and The Score

Posted February 1, 2016 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

After really despising the previous book in this series (and DNFing it), I couldn’t decide if I wanted to read the rest. Because this is a companion series, I was tempted! New characters but the same Cora Carmack writing I generally enjoy? Why not?! I finally decided to go for it via audio (after testing out a sample, because the narrator ruined it last time). I have to say, this book was the complete opposite for me! The narrators were perfect and didn’t feel like young children reading books about sex. The characters were so fun and the narrators did an awesome job of capturing their personalities. I knew from the first few chapters that this one would give me a totally different experience. Thank god! I’ve been feeling annoyed by anything resembling instalove lately, and unfortunately SOME of this fell in that category. I rolled my eyes a bit throughout but it’s because I’m bitter about romance, and have been for the past few months. I liked their chemistry from the very beginning and fake dating is a trope I looooove. It was also a case of opposites attracting, so that was fun. Beyond the romance, Max had a lot of complicated personal and family-related things going on. Cade did too but they weren’t really addressed at all. It was focused a lot on HER and her problems, and I wish he got more attention. As far as characters are concerned, I wished for more about him and less […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin – January 2016

Posted January 31, 2016 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 12 Comments

The Bookmark Lit Bulletin was created to wrap up each month and prepare for the next. I share my life happenings, book haul, books I read and reviewed, posts I shared, challenge updates, and more from the previous month. I also let you know what may be coming up on the blog in the coming month. You can read past bulletins here and learn more about the feature here. I don’t know what was going on at the beginning of the month, but I couldn’t stop reading! I read quite a few addicting ebooks in a row and just never let up for the first half of January. I did try to slow it down a little towards the end of the month because my resolutions told me to! Average rating for books read in January: 4.12 stars Highlights of the best and worst… Best of the Best | Pleasantly Surprised | Disappointed All of the books read this month: Average rating for books reviewed in January: 3.65 stars Secret Sister Project The last fabulous package from my Secret Sister came this month. She also revealed herself to me – Ashley from The Quiet Concert! She’s done such an amazing job of surprising me each month and really getting things I’d love. This package was no exception – two books I’ve been really wanting for a long time, actually – Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella and The Catastrophic History of You and Me by Jess Rothenberg. She also got some fuzzy socks, an ornament shaped like an L, cupcake […]

Blog Tour | ARC Review: Reign of Shadows

Posted January 29, 2016 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments

MORE LINKS: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | Indiebound | iBooks | The Book Depository Oh man, what a book! Within the first few pages, I didn’t want to stop reading. I had pulled it up on my Kindle and wanted to see how the beginning would go and kept reading for 10 minutes (even though I had somewhere else I needed to be). I didn’t expect to be so interested and engaged within the first few pages of the book! This feeling did not end; I couldn’t stop reading until I reached the last page. The book reminded me a bit of Princess of Thorns, which I absolutely adored. There was a journey with someone who didn’t necessarily want to journey with another person, a tiny bit of gender-bending, and interesting creatures/people along the way. I just love stories like this apparently. (Any recs for other journey-style fantasy books?!) I loved Luna and Fowler. The set-up for the story was fantastic, with Luna living in her tower, letting Fowler and his companions into their lives, and starting their journey. I shipped them kind of immediately. I couldn’t help it. I liked that the two of them took a little while to get to the same place as me, re: their feelings for each other. I shipped them before they even knew they liked each other. Like I said above, this book featured a cool journey in the DARK because there’s a perpetual eclipse over the kingdom. I think this plot point […]

Book Buddies Review: The Dream Thieves

Posted January 28, 2016 / Book Buddies Reviews, Book Reviews / 4 Comments

Book Buddies is a discussion-style review that takes place with one of my two buddies. (Learn more and see past reviews here) We both read the book and then have a private discussion about it. We post our discussion as a review on the last Wednesday of each month. You’ll be able to see our similar/different opinions on the overall book, characters, writing style, etc. – just like a regular review. The first half our discussion will take place right here, and the second half will be on Kaitlin’s blog! (Link below) View Kaitlin’s part of the discussion here. Some spoilers ahead! In our discussion of THE RAVEN BOYS, I asked which character was your favorite. Has your answer changed now that we’ve gotten to know them a bit more? Kaitlin: Oh man, this is a hard question because all of the characters are so good. In this book, the boys did some things that I really did not agree with but I am leaning towards Noah or Gansey for my favorite Raven boy. Adam and Ronan did some things that had ticked me off a bit so that had caused me to like them a bit less compared to Gansey and Noah. I really liked Blue in this book as well and it was really great to read more about Maura, Calla, and Persephone because all four of these ladies are such great characters. Lauren: I agree! I think Gansey might be my favorite for some reason, but I really want to get in his head even […]

Review: The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

Posted January 27, 2016 / Book Reviews / 13 Comments

I love the ideas of fate and destiny and coincidence and choices. This is something I actively want to read about and think about all the time. I thought this book could be a slam-dunk for me because of it, but I was left wanting more. I don’t know if I’m just a bitter reader these days, but my increasing ability to pick out plot twists ahead of time is starting to grate on me. Even smaller ones in contemporary novels become obvious and I get frustrated. I don’t expect every book to surprise me, but I want to at least be happy overall. This book shows Hadley heading overseas to her father’s wedding, to a woman she’s never met. There are admittedly a lot of family feels that most children of divorce (hi there!) can relate to (yep). I appreciated the honest thoughts Hadley had about her father and their relationship, but it seems unlikely that all of this would happen in a 24 hour period. This timeframe was another thing that led me to this book – I loved the idea of meeting in an airport and having a quick rendezvous, wondering if you’ll see each other again. The short timeframe of course can lead to a feeling of instalove, but I understand how a connection like this can be made in this kind of circumstance. It didn’t bug me too much. The characters were pretty good. It was definitely a character- and family-driven story, but I always feel like I’m […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #74: Freebie

Posted January 26, 2016 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 33 Comments

FREEBIE: Top Backlist Books I Own and Plan to Read Soon 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. So I definitely am making it a point to read more backlist books this year, as well as focus on shrinking my physical TBR. I signed up for two challenges to target this goal and thought it would make a fun TTT topic to combine them. Today’s freebie has become the top ten backlist books I own and plan to read sometime very soon. I buy a decent amount of newer releases, but find that I have a LOT of older books sitting around that deserve to be read. This can also serve the purpose of a little TBR list for my challenges. I decided to go with books published any time before 2014, and a couple that were put out in 2014. I wanted to focus on some of the much earlier titles instead, because books that came out the first year I started blogging (2014) don’t feel super backlist-y to me! I think it’s just because I can’t believe its 2016 or something. Regardless, here are some of the books I currently own and will hopefully read sometime in the near future!Megan Meade’s Guide to the McGowan Boys by Kate Brian […]

Inside & Out #23: Erica from Novel Ink

Posted January 25, 2016 / Features, Inside and Out / 9 Comments

Admiring book covers and bookmarks, shared by you! Welcome to INSIDE AND OUT. This feature includes two of my absolute favorite book-related things: bookmarks (inside) and book covers (out)! I’ve invited guest posters to share their favorite book covers and bookmarks here on the second and fourth Mondays of each month. Sign-ups are always open (see bottom of post)! Check out past posts here. Erica from Novel Ink Twitter: @novelink_Erica| Instagram: @divingunderthecover Tell me a little about yourself: I’m Erica, 21, lover of books and anything chocolate…among many other things. I have been blogging for a year and it has been such an amazing experience. I love designing, re-organizing my bookshelves and binge watching Netflix (Grey’s Anatomy, Ghost Whisperer and One Tree Hill are my favorites)! Talk about your blog (what you blog about/kinds of books, features, etc.): I co-blog with my best friend whom I have never met (boo), Christy. She is amazing and we blog about our love for books. We love to discuss so whether it’s a review or a random discussion post it’ll be about books! We don’t have features right now, but 2016 will hold some amazing new things. Favorite genre: Contemporary Romance, but I’m really loving Fantasy. Three books you recommend most often and why: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green – this book was gifted to me from my boyfriend and it is was brought me back into the reading world. Not only that, but it made me want to start blogging so it holds something true […]

ARC Review: Call Me, Maybe

Posted January 23, 2016 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments

What worked I liked the premise of the story, even though it felt a bit contrived. They meet each other because they accidently switch phones at the airport and are stuck with the wrong phone for a few days. They start chatting and eventually it turns into a relationship when they both return home to Chicago. There was some solid banter between those two! I loved their relationship; it felt really natural for most of the book. It developed a bit too quickly (especially at the end), but I did like how quickly they ~physically~ got together. It was real! Plenty of people do that sooner rather than later, and I appreciated that truth. I looooved the book blogging and romance reader elements. Honestly, that was probably my favorite part. She felt a lot of the things that we all feel on a regular basis. I could relate to almost all of her blogging-related feelings and issues. Everything below that I didn’t like about the book is all in hindsight. I really enjoyed it while I was reading – for the most part – and it was super addicting. What didn’t work It was alllll smooth sailing until a bunch of angst and miscommunication piled up at the end. Seriously, the pacing was quite off. Before all of the miscommunication at the end, she would irritate me by asking him so many personal questions and not really answering any in return. He was an open book for her to prod at, […]

Organization Part Four: Reading Notebooks

Posted January 22, 2016 / Discussions, Features / 11 Comments

Inspired by my recent organizational acquisitions (and posts by Hannah), I wanted to share some information about how I keep myself organized – primarily for blogging and reading, but also a little about my personal organization, too. Part Four: Revamping & Reorganizing Bookish Notebooks I realize that this is kind of a broad category because I plan to talk about how I take notes while reading as well as where all of my book-related notes exist. I’ve been trying to revamp my TBR creation methods and haven’t had a lot of success. Now that I changed over into a different method that actually helps me take better notes while reading, I revamped my Foxy Dori a little bit. Here’s how I’ve switched everything up lately. The Old Way A major Foxy Dori redo has occurred since you last learned about my traveler’s notebook. I shared how mine contained various sections to hold multiple notebooks and clear pockets to hold things. In case you forgot, here are some of the features of this wonderful invention: Dashboard, including clear pockets and pouch: basically a piece of laminated paper folded in half, to create a separate section inside of your traveler’s notebook – I keep my pockets, bookmarks, notepads, etc. in here. Book notes notebook: a place for me to write notes as I read (and reference later to write better reviews) – this is the biggest issue area for me, and the reason for this entire revamp. Post planning and other notes: a separate notebook that contains graph paper for […]