ARC Review: Cut Both Ways

Posted August 27, 2015 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

Sigh. I don’t know. This book had the potential to be really interesting and thought-provoking, but it felt too much like an “issue” book. I don’t mind reading books with clear messages, but it tried to be a lot of things at once. Will’s parents are divorced, his dad’s an alcoholic, he discovers that he has feelings for his male best friend, and he gets his first girlfriend. Lots of drama. It really felt like he was a trainwreck and didn’t help anything with his blasé attitude. Faves The opening of the book was interesting and I completely agreed about his thoughts on divorce. I could relate to him and his feelings about his parents. Beyond that, this book was fairly addicting and fast to read (for the first half). I can’t think of much else that I liked. Oh, he always made fun of Joe Buck and his football announcing. I liked that too. Flaws I didn’t like the choppy, fragmented writing style. I feel like it only added to the fact that Will didn’t have a lot of legitimate thoughts on anything. He was so detached! There was SO much going on in his life, and he didn’t feel connected to anything. His voice was just… not there. He had no interests except from sex. It was LITERALLY all he thought about. Even when shitty things were happening to the people in his life, he still thought about having sex with them. It reminded me of the miserable main […]

ARC Review: The One Thing

Posted August 26, 2015 / Book Reviews / 16 Comments

Faves I have to say, choosing to sign up for the ARC tour of this was completely random. I saw the description of the book and thought it may be interesting, but knew it was something I usually wouldn’t be drawn to. I couldn’t be happier that I decided to try this book! It was amazing. I really liked the main character, Maggie – her voice was real and interesting. I can’t lie that the fact that she lived in Connecticut was a major factor in this! I don’t often get to read books that happen in my home state. Aside from Maggie, I looooved all of the characters. Ben was easily my favorite; he was adorable and hilarious. Maggie’s parents (well, mostly her dad) were definitely interesting too. You don’t normally think about how something like this happening also affects your family. Her mom and dad had to completely alter their lives to make sure she was taken care of, but they didn’t realize how much that affected Maggie, too. She just wanted to try to live as normally as possible. I liked her father’s effort and concern about her. This book definitely made me think. I can’t imagine having sight and then going blind – you know what the world was like but you no longer get to see it. It made me wonder which would be “better,” being born blind vs. going blind. You don’t realize how many things need to change once you lose your eyesight. […]

Beat the Heat Readathon Sign-Up and Progress

Posted August 25, 2015 / Book Challenges, Features / 0 Comments

I’m joining the Beat the Heat Readathon! As usual, you may be thinking I’m crazy for joining another challenge and/or readathon. I mean, I JUST finished Bout of Books on Sunday and am still (technically supposed to be) participating in ARC August. Here are some details about this two-week long readathon, hosted by Novel Heartbeat and Phantasmic Reads: The Beat the Heat Readathon runs from August 24th at 12:00 AM to September 6th at 11:59 PM. What does this readathon entail, you ask? Well, read as much or as little as you want – the main point is to READ! You set your own goal, and for three weeks you read as many books as you can/want to reach your goal! There will be mini-challenges throughout the Readathon for participants, along with a grand prize giveaway at the end! Simple enough! Last year I made my own personal readathon during this time of year to challenge myself to get to all of those light, summery contemporaries before “summer” was officially over. I liked the idea of it but had only been blogging for a few months at that point, so it was pointless to try to host something like that. I found this readathon this year, so that’s even better. Goals and Potential TBR Overall goal → Read between 6-10 books during the two week time period August 24th through 31st → Read books for ARC August, as well as my Book Club’s pick for our July meeting (We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach) […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #53: YA 101

Posted August 25, 2015 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 10 Comments

Ten Books on the Syllabus for Young Adult Lit 101 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 love this week’s topic: the top ten books on my syllabus if I taught a ____ 101 class. I decided to go with the general Young Adult 101 class. The first half of the semester would be the fluffy, feelsy books and the second half would be the heavier topics featured in YA. Second Chance Summer | Saint Anything | All the Bright Places | I’ll Meet You There | Tease Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda |Emmy & Oliver | Meant to Be | To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before | Anna and the French Kiss

Bout of Books 14 Wrap-Up

Posted August 24, 2015 / Book Challenges, Features / 11 Comments

Aaaand that’s a wrap! Another Bout of Books is in the books (lol, I’m so funny) and I actually met my goal for the first time! More info about Bout of Books for newbies: The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, August 17th and runs through Sunday, August 23rd in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 14 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team Here’s a summary of my goals and how well I did with them for this round of Bout of Books: Get all of the summery reading done! Read 5 books from the TBR below (hopefully at least one is a reread) » Check! (minus the reread thing, I didn’t get to that) Read only from this TBR of summer books I already own » Check! (minus the fact that one book is a Sarah Dessen audiobook that I was already reading, finished, and counted) Must read Nantucket Blue for August’s Book Buddies review with Cristina » Check! Participate in at least two challenges and/or Twitter chats » Check! (two challenges, no Twitter chats unfortunately) Challenge Posts & Updates Sign-Up Post and Progress Scavenger Hunt Four Seasons in Book Covers Reading Progress & Tracking Monday August 17th Started: Nantucket Blue by Leila Howland Continued: Keeping the Moon by Sarah […]

Inside & Out #13: Anne from Lovely Literature

Posted August 24, 2015 / Features, Inside and Out / 0 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. Anne from Lovely Literature Twitter: @amengelhart| Tumblr Tell me a little about yourself: I’m a 27-year old book nerd (and nerd in general) from the Twin Cities area in Minnesota. I’m obsessed with the Marvel universe (Winter Soldier, yessss), video games (Dragon Age!) and of course, books of all types. I read a mixture of YA and adult genre fiction. I also have two high-energy dogs and spend the rest of my time outdoors. Talk about your blog (what you blog about/kinds of books, features, etc.): My favorite genre is fantasy, and I do review a lot of fantasy books on Lovely Literature. However, contemporaries are quickly gaining traction on my shelves! I also do enjoy writing discussions and ask my readers for their bookish advice in my Readerly Advice posts. I also have a co-blogger named Ashley who reads pretty much opposite of me, although it is my greatest victory that I pushed Kushiel’s Dart on her and she loved it! Favorite genre: Definitely fantasy, but this summer I have been loving contemporaries! Three books you recommend most often and why: Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey because it is a great […]

Review: Fangirl

Posted August 21, 2015 / Book Reviews / 12 Comments

Trust me, no one is sadder than I am that this book didn’t work for me. I mean, really, it had a lot of makings for a Lauren book. I used to read fanfiction A LOT about Harry Potter (I was particularly fond of a Draco/Hermione one that I’d give anything to locate again…) and I tend to love books with a college setting instead of high school. Unfortunately nearly none of this book worked for me, yet I couldn’t give it less than 3 stars no matter how much I tried. Let’s dig in a bit, shall we? Oh, Cath. MANY many people have said how much they related to Cath and how they saw so much of themselves in her. Relating to a main character is definitely not necessary for me to like a book. Hell, even LIKING a main character isn’t totally necessary for me. However, I did not like Cath at all. I couldn’t relate to her on really anything. I did not like reading about her at all. It makes me feel kind of… shitty… to be honest? You can tell that she definitely deals with some anxiety about loooots of things, but I couldn’t bring myself to be sympathetic. I honestly didn’t even realize right away that she had anxiety; I just thought she was annoying. It seems like she had friends (mostly through her sister) in high school and was better able to balance fanfic writing and social engagements. Sometimes people clam up in […]

Bout of Books 14 Challenge: Four Seasons

Posted August 20, 2015 / Book Challenges, Features / 12 Comments

Check here for my sign-up post, TBR, and tracking of progress. I’ll be updating you with the books I’m currently reading in these challenge posts. Learn more about Bout of Books here. Challenge: Four Seasons in Book Covers For this challenge, you need to convey the four seasons in book covers – through color, title, cover, etc. You can be literal or take a more creative approach. Anything goes! Just show me four seasons in book covers. (From Kimberly Feye Reads) I decided to share a bunch of pictures for each season because I found too many good ones! Summer reading: (starting top left) reading on my back porch, reading on the beach, books about summertime, swimming with a book and a smoothie, fourth of July colors, book with a beachy cover, summer books (two to read, two already read), summery book haul for Bout of Books, summer watercolors. Autumn reading: (starting top left) creepy books with birds, reading on the back porch with the barren forest, creepy book with Halloween candy, another creepy book with a hot chocolate, apple candle and book, watching football while reading. Winter reading: (starting top left) holiday short stories with a mug of hot chocolate, book Christmas tree, winter-themed read, holiday lights and hot chocolate, holiday book with my Charlie Brown Christmas tree, Christmas book with lights, two holiday reads, three holiday stories with the festive Starbucks cup, holiday story with a gingerbread latte. Spring reading: book with flowers on the cover, springtime-colored sunset, book about softball and baseball, pastel-colored books, […]

How Do You Buy Books? Update!

Posted August 20, 2015 / Discussions, Features / 20 Comments

A long time ago I posted about buying books: my habits, my decision-making process, and why book-buying is hard. In a world where there are multiple formats and locations for purchasing and owning books, how do you decide what to buy and when? I had developed this nifty little chart that showed exactly when and why I’d buy a book in a certain format. My, how things change in less than a year! I’m here today to give you an update on my book-buying habits and how they’ve changed.I would buy a Kindle book if I owned the rest of the series as eBooks, if the Kindle copy was really cheap, or if I didn’t have an audiobook credit at the moment. The biggest reason would be if I just had to have the book RIGHT THEN. Now, some of the same things are true. I’ll buy a Kindle book if I own the rest of the series as e-books. This is definitely true for the Pretty Little Liars and Rusk University series. I already own the beginning books as e-books, why change that? Otherwise, the only actual time I’ll buy a Kindle book is if there’s a big ass deal going on and I need it. I really don’t feel the need to buy Kindle books anymore! I read mostly eARCs on there at this point. I’m more than happy to accept Kindle books as gifts, but I don’t go out of my way to buy them. I think […]

Review: I’ll Meet You There

Posted August 19, 2015 / Book Reviews / 14 Comments

Man, what a book. I was a bit hesitant in a general sense for this book – despite all of the hype and excitement everyone else felt for it – just because it didn’t sound like a ME book at all. It seemed like a grittier contemporary with PTSD, poverty – you name it. For some reason books involving the military don’t work for me. However, this book definitely exceeded my personal expectations and I ended up liking it a lot more than expected. I loved that the issues explored within this book really aren’t seen much in other stories. Sky and Josh are from a really poor town called Creek View, where Sky lives in a trailer park with her mom. She works at a little motel that rarely gets visitors and her mom just got let go from Taco Bell. Sky’s dad died in a drunk driving accident. Josh returned from Afghanistan and is down to only one leg. He has nightmares and flashbacks; he’s not the same person he was when he left. See? Lots of things I’m generally not used to seeing or reading about – from socioeconomic status to trailer parks to PTSD. I really liked the small town of Creek View. It reminded me of my hometown in a FEW ways. I can’t lie – my hometown was definitely more towards the upper middle class… but it was very small and everyone knew each other. The setting of the Paradise Motel was pretty amazing […]