Challenge Check-In and TBR Ideas

Posted May 4, 2023 / Book Challenges, Features / 0 Comments

I’ve gotten to the point in the year where the challenge prompts are not easy to fill organically or naturally anymore – it’s time to make an actual effort to finish things off! As of the end of April, some challenges are definitely looking better than others! Here’s a quick check-in (more detailed than my monthly wrap-ups) on my challenges, how many books I’ve read, what books I can read to finish off some more prompts, etc.! Popsugar Reading Challenge Status: 27 books read out of 50 prompts (54%) Goal = 40 prompts completed It’s pretty good to hit over 50% on a challenge like this around April! Just goes to show it can be easy to fill in certain prompts more so than others. Here are some of the reading plans I have to potentially finish up this challenge and/or get close to my goal. (There are some prompts I’m sure I won’t get to and/or won’t bother planning for them, so this isn’t an exhaustive list of all the prompts left!) Bought from indie bookstore: Legends & Lattes – actually kicking off May with this book so it’ll be finished soon! I bought this from RJ Julia, my favorite indie in Connecticut. About a forbidden romance: Once Upon a Broken Heart – I’m excited to finally get to this series this year! I fully plan to read this and the second book in September/October so I can dive into the final book in the trilogy when it comes out in October. […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | April 2023

Posted May 3, 2023 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 2 Comments

The Bookmark Lit Bulletin wraps up the last month in reading and what was on the blog, as well as what’s coming up next. You can check out my book haul, books read, posts shared, challenge updates, etc. You can read past bulletins here. If you’re looking for more personal updates, you can check out my Lauren Lately feature; it highlights my life events and non-bookish fun from the previous 30 days. April was a pretty good month again, all things considered! We went to the Bahamas with a couple of friends for 5 days so I did a little bit of reading by the beach… but not as much as I would have if we were solo! I definitely failed at my readathons and am just too busy over the next month to think about completing any others. In any case, let’s see how April went! 9 books in April 5 read • 3 reread • 1 DNF Pages read: 3310 • Average rating: 4.25 stars Genres: 4 mystery/thriller, 4 fantasy, 1 contemporary Formats: 6 mixed, 1 hardcover, 1 ebook, 1 egalley Sources: 3 borrowed, 3 owned, 2 library, 1 review Age Target: 5 adult, 3 young adult, 1 middle grade Here are all the books I read this month and the challenges they applied to! Kicked off the Series Reread Popsugar Reading Challenge: With a love triangle (TOG) 52 Book Club: High fantasy and April challenge – contains chocolate (TOG) Buzzword Reading Challenge: N/A Must Read in 2023: N/A Romanceopoly: N/A Mystery/Thriller Reading Challenge: N/A Popsugar […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #407: Random Books

Posted May 2, 2023 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments

First 10 Books Randomly Grabbed from My Shelves (and My Thoughts / TBR Plans!) Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, 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 worked out pretty well because I actually have about 10 bookshelves to pick from (I have more at my dad’s house and randomly here but they’re mostly ARCs and super old copies I need to donate). There are 10 ~good~ shelves to pick from at least! I had Chris go to each shelf and randomly pick a book from each. Here are the results! I’ll Be There for You // This is a cute, random coffee table book about Friends. I have read it and it was pretty good, but obviously nothing to write home about! They All Fall Down // This book has survived a lot of unhauls and I really should get to reading it at some point haha. I don’t know why but it still calls to me! Lore Olympus // I picked this up last month and haven’t emotionally prepared to begin this series yet. Pride and Puppies // I bought this at the used bookstore recently – it’s like the 3rd or 4th book in a series that I’ve started but figured I may as well add it to my […]

May TBR

Posted May 1, 2023 / Book Lists, Features, TBR Lists / 0 Comments

My monthly TBR feature here shows my progress based on last month’s TBR, my plans for this month, and anything else I might be thinking about from a reading perspective. Sometimes I feature a little poll at the bottom so you guys can help me figure out a certain title I should read from a group of books. May TBR April was an interesting month haha. I ended up getting sucked into the ToG reread and throwing away my TBR a little bit. I had planned to participate in two readathons and basically didn’t finish any books or focus on them at all because of my vacation haha. I did read a few books from those TBRs at least… just not during the actual readathons lol. Throne of Glass I thought I would get to QOS in April but it just didn’t happen. After finishing it up (the reread portion of my series binge!) – I’ll be tandem reading EOS and TOD. I’m not sure I’ll actually get to KOS to finish the series without feeling like I’ve overdone it! haha. There’s also a very good chance I end up being desperate to finish the series right away. I have this series as Kindle books and audiobooks but don’t think I’ll actually read another physical book while tandem reading – it’ll be too hard to keep track of even if it’s a contemporary romance. Recently Published Review Copies I have some holdover review copies from April or earlier that I […]

Review Roundup | Daisy Darker and Wrong Place Wrong Time

Posted April 26, 2023 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

This was such an interesting reading experience – I can now see why this is such a polarizing book haha. This is my first Alice Feeney and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. I have really weird expectations for what her other books may be like?? DAISY DARKER follows Daisy and the Darker family as they head out to her grandmother’s island house for her 80th birthday. They all assume they’ll be learning what they’ll be getting for inheritances because her grandmother always expected to die at age 80. It follows the traditional AND THEN THEY WERE GONE plotline where people start being killed one by one. There’s a big ol’ twist that plenty of people predicted but I felt like an absolute idiot because I didn’t see it coming at all. The book itself was really sad, seeing how they treated Daisy throughout her life. It was super depressing. Because I managed to not really predict anything correctly, I can’t help but give this a pretty high rating. BUT the twist itself is kind of cheesy at this point. Even if I’m not sure I liked it in many ways, it’s definitely going to stick with me. I read this book in one day – I listened to the audiobook when tooling around the house and read the physical copy whenever I had the chance. I’m never mad about an unputdownable book, so I won’t complain too much! I’d been told by some friends I really […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #406: Audio Narrators

Posted April 25, 2023 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments

Favorite Audiobook Narrators Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, 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 don’t actually track this as much as other people do but luckily I’ve written some posts about this in the past to reference. I also went in and looked at some recent audiobooks that I really enjoyed, since the linked post is super old haha. Here are some favorites! Julia Whalen // Kicking off with everyone’s favorite! She’s narrated so many excellent books, including pretty much everything (?) by TJR. She’s narrated so many “classics” across multiple genres – everything from GONE GIRL to BEACH READ. If she’s narrating it, I’m listening to it. January LaVoy // Another favorite of the majority of us! She’s known to me from THE DIVINERS series but she’s also an auto-listen narrator for me. I noticed she also narrates a lot of books by Megan Goldin, who I also love. Tim Curry // Listening to A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS is such an excellent reading experience because of Tim Curry. He’s obviously a famous actor with an excellent voice, so he just totally brings these books to life. I would reread these every few years just so I could hear his voice if possible! Jim Dale // I don’t […]

ARC Review: Return to Hummingbird Way

Posted April 20, 2023 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

This series has been so lovely – I seriously love Reese Ryan’s writing style and how she set up the picturesque town of Holly Grove Island. This book is the second in this companion series and another winner! The first book featured Dexter and Dakota as they embarked on their second chance romance; this one follows Dakota’s best friend Sinclair and Dexter’s best friend Garrett. Mild spoiler for book one, but Dexter and Dakota are heavily featured in this book as they’re planning their wedding. Naturally Sin and Rett are the MOH and Best Man so they’re tasked with pulling off their wedding planning in short order while also working on a joint bachelor/bachelorette party. (Sidenote: if you’re someone who loves when the first couple in a companion series makes an appearance in the next book, you’ll love this one – Dex and Dakota were major characters throughout the story, so you can see their friendships and relationship develop throughout still.) On top of that, they’re both working on redoing Rett’s grandmother’s house to prepare for sale. Sinclair and Rett are both realtors with construction and/or interior design skills so they collaborate on the fixer upper. The only problem? These two don’t really get along. They butted heads in high school, managed to have a quick one night stand years ago, and have generally avoided each other ever since. Rett is back in town to help his family and decides to stick around to work on these projects, but he’s […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #405: Personal Freebie

Posted April 18, 2023 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments

Non-Book Freebie: Recent TV Shows Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, 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 usually enjoy sharing personal things on the blog but it’s been a while since I have! I thought for this non-bookish freebie that I would share some shows that I’ve recently watched… and whether or not I’d recommend them! My husband and I have been really bad about finishing shows lately. We also haven’t even tuned in to the new season of TED LASSO yet! Currently Watching & Rewatching Community // This is one of my top favorite TV shows and we’re in the middle of rewatching! We wanted to prepare for the movie and refresh our memories on what happened. I definitely missed these characters and could see myself revisiting this way more often, like I do with Friends. Party Down // We watched this show during Covid and they announced a reboot soon after we finished. We’ve watched a few episodes of the new season and it’s good so far! Definitely fun callbacks and great characters. Hopefully we get back into it because we’re a few behind as of now. Reno 911 // Chris loves this show and I’ve never seen it so we’ve been watching it on and off. It’s […]

Review Roundup | Confessions, The Golden Spoon, and Lock Every Door

Posted April 13, 2023 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

I recently shared that there are a number of books I planned to read this year based purely on the hype and their popularity in the community. A bunch of my favorite booktubers have read and loved this one, claiming that there is a twist or big reveal at the end of each chapter (there are 6 chapters across a quick book of 240 pages). I was curious (based on the premise) how they would pull that off and decided to finally go for it. After all, I don’t read a lot of backlist books and this looked promising based on everyone’s feelings! Unfortunately this book wasn’t what I expected and the hype was REAL. I couldn’t get everyone’s voices out of my head while reading. I expected wild jaw-dropping twists but it didn’t really read like that to me? Yes, it is definitely twisty and very well-plotted and well-written, but not in the same way people had built it up. Each chapter reveals some new information from a different person’s point of view so the backstory starts to slowly come together. My jaw literally dropped at the end of the first chapter and the build-up of reveals throughout the rest of the story was pretty great. The ending was strong – surprising and very clever. Again, the plotting made a big difference here and the order in which the author included the different character POVs. I expected a new favorite and ended up with a solid four-star read that […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #404: Animal Covers

Posted April 11, 2023 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 2 Comments

Covers with Animals on Them Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, 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. Naturally I took the “covers with animals on them” approach instead of “animals in the book’s title” because I am a book cover girlie forever. I decided to share some recently read (and enjoyed!!) books with cute animals on the cover, as well as some on my TBR. Recently Read On My TBR