ARC Review: Weather Girl

Posted February 16, 2022 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I’ve fallen HARD for Rachel Lynn Solomon and her writing. If you’re still somehow sleeping on her near-perfect contemporary books (both YA *and* adult, y’all), you are missing out. She writes such lovely romances with great, complex characters and a good amount of diversity. She has another hit with WEATHER GIRL. I stayed up until 2am reading 90% of the book in one sitting. I just couldn’t stop. This one hits hard in a few areas but managed to also make me smile and actually laugh out loud to myself a few times. I really love that she’s able to balance the tough stuff with the gooey love stuff. Our MC, Ari, deals with depression (like her mom) – while medication and therapy help, she has a ton of “Dark Days” still and struggles with feeling like she’s going to repeat her mother’s history. Is anyone ever going to love all of her, including the dark parts? Will all of her boyfriends leave when things get tough, like her dad did? Ari and her coworker, Russell, decide its time for their bosses to stop making their work (at a Seattle news station) miserable – they plot to get them back together after divorcing. Needless to say, cute single dad Russell (who, by the way, provides some excellent fat rap for a male MC!) and Ari hit it off and start falling for each other. They had sooo much chemistry (which was further emphasized with some very steamy scenes) and I […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #370: Love Freebie

Posted February 8, 2022 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 6 Comments

Love Freebie: Recent Books I’ve Read with “Love” in the Title 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 thought I would keep this one simple… and a bit literal! For this week’s “Love Freebie,” I decided to share the ten most recent books I’ve read with the word LOVE in the title!

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | January 2022

Posted February 4, 2022 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 0 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. I was determined to start 2022 on the right foot and I definitely did! I was hoping to squeeze one more book in for January but just didn’t read much during the last week of the month. I’ve been very burnt out lately training a new employee at work and trying to balance all the things, so reading took a backseat. I’m glad I cranked through seven books before then! 7 books read in January 7 new books • 0 rereads • 0 DNF Pages read: 1966 • Average rating: 4.07 stars Sources: 4 review, 1 preordered, 1 library, 1 borrowed Formats: 3 egalley, 1 audio, 1 hardcover, 1 paperback, 1 mixed Genres: 4 contemporary, 1 fantasy, 1 mystery/thriller, 1 nonfiction Age Target: 11 adult, 2 YA, 1 kids Check out my 2021 challenge sign-up post for more details, goals, etc.! Popsugar Reading Challenge 6 read this month | 6/40 read total Published in 2022, you can read in one sitting, about a secret, different book by an author read in 2021, set in sister cities (x2) Tackle My TBR January: […]

Review Round Up | The Hawthorne Legacy and You’ll be the Death of Me

Posted February 2, 2022 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I was super excited to start this book right away when it was released. I am very particular about what books I buy so it was a big deal to head to B&N on release day and snag this one. For whatever reason, I put it aside on and off over the course of multiple months. I think it’s primarily because I was doing a ton of reading in bed and therefore needed my Kindle with a backlight. As it got closer to the end of the year, I knew I had to crank through and finish it off to reach my reading challenge. Every time I sat down to read this book, I wondered how it was possible I kept putting it down and not reading it for weeks! The short chapters and overall plot make this book super addicting and hard to stop reading once you start. This book picks up soonafter the first, THE INHERITANCE GAMES, ends. Avery has inherited a multi-billion dollar empire, mansion, and all of the family drama that comes along with it, out of the blue. She didn’t know the billionaire who left it for her but quickly finds out how much he loved puzzles and riddles. His will and […]

February TBR

Posted January 28, 2022 / 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. February TBR January was a good month where I got ahead on reading! Here’s hoping February is some of the same. I’ll be focusing on some review copies, as always, and the two library books I’ve had forever. Library Books I managed to read one of my three checked out library books in January. February is hopefully when I’ll get to OF PRINCES AND PROMISES and YOUR LIFE HAS BEEN DELAYED. I also have an audiobook of OPAP. Review Copies I’m actually doing a pretty good job with my 2022 review copies so far! I’ve seen a couple get not-great reviews so I’ve held off, but these three are high on my list to read soon. THESE DEADLY GAMES is obviously a mystery/thriller. LEASE ON LOVE and WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN are both contemporary fiction, with the second one having my favorite time-twisty trope (what if…?). I’m also including KAMILA KNOWS BEST if I can get ahead into March copies. Owned Books I managed to read one of my newly acquired owned books last month and I’m not sure if I’ll get to the other I highlighted in December. I […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #369: New-to-Me Authors

Posted January 25, 2022 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments

2021 Favorite New-to-Me Authors 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 definitely read a lot of favorite authors last year because my reading was so terrible. I still did manage to read books by new authors! I barely scraped up ten here but they were all enjoyable reads – I would read more books by each of these authors for sure.

ARC Review Round Up | When You Get the Chance and Bad Luck Bridesmaid

Posted January 19, 2022 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I will never not request a new Emma Lord book! I adored her two previous releases and therefore had high hopes and expectations for this one. I’m not a big fan of musicals or theater-oriented books, generally speaking, so I wasn’t entirely sure Millie or the premise would be for me. However, the whole concept of Millie trying to track down her mother and figure out who she is? That’s right up my alley. That factor plus the author made this an easy NG request. Yet again, Emma Lord nails it. This book was a really nice reading experience. Millie was a bit much (with her drama and Millie Moods) but every time she crossed the line to “annoying,” she would fall back to the “endearing” side soonafter. She definitely had a flair for the dramatic but that was a fun part of her personality in the end. I like how Oliver balanced her out and how naturally they moved away from enemies. Books like this make me wish I liked NYC more – what a fun place to grow up and have the freedom to explore. (I get too nervous in the city lol). The search for her mom (basically a spin on Mama Mia, apparently […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #368: Didn’t Get To

Posted January 18, 2022 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 2 Comments

2021 Releases I Didn’t Get To 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 recently posted the 2021 releases I was eagerly anticipating, and if I managed to read them all (below) so feel free to check out that post as well. I’m going to try to share some of the OTHER 2021 releases I didn’t read and really should get on! Most Anticipated Reads I Didn’t Get to Other Reads I Didn’t Get to

2022 Resolutions and Goals

Posted January 14, 2022 / Book Challenges, Features / 0 Comments

I used to always do these posts (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020) but obviously fell off the wagon for 2021, the first full calendar year of the pandemic. I didn’t even think about making this post honestly! My reading went to shit in 2020 and was even worse in 2021, but I have a renewed sense of energy right now. Generally “resolutions” or the “clean slate of a new year” isn’t my shtick, but sometimes the marking of a new year just helps when setting new goals. It’s an easy marker of time and that’s about it. Try to balance reading and other hobbies better | The resolution to “not be pressured to read; spend time enjoying other hobbies” has been on this list for years now. I used to read during the vast majority of my free time and it got to be draining. I’ve definitely fallen off the wagon a bit in 20-21 though so I’m rephrasing my goal. I want to better balance all of the things I like to do. At this point in my life, that really just means “sometimes listen to an audiobook instead of a podcast” or “stop scrolling on your phone during a wrestling TV show and read instead.” Read 75% contemporary and mystery/thrillers | I used to try to get my contemporary fiction numbers down to under 50% because I wanted to read more widely across genres. I finally achieved this goal! I read 46% contemporary in 2021. I also read 18% […]

Most Anticipated Reads of 2021 – How Did I Do?

Posted January 12, 2022 / Book Lists, Features / 1 Comment

I developed an annual post of “Five Star Predictions” to discuss which books I thought I would rate five stars within that year, and then follow up with a “did my five star predictions come true?” post at the end of the year. It was always fun to not only see if I was correct but also if I actually managed to even READ all of the books. It’s wild how much you anticipate reading something and then just… not even read it. 2020 and 2021 were totally shitty reading years for me and I didn’t even make a predictions post for 2021. When I saw Cristina post about her most anticipated 2021 reads to see how she did with them, I thought that would be a fun alternative for my usual five-star post. I always have two “anticipated reads” posts for the year – one TTT in Dec/Jan for the first half of the year and one in June for the second half. I always include a TON of books instead of just 10 for each section of the year. Here are the details of the 30 books I was excited to read throughout 2021 and how I fared! Overall Stats 30 books on my most anticipated list for 2021 Read 17 books (57%) | Didn’t read 13 books (43%) Ratings of books read: 5 stars = 2 books = 12% 4.5 stars = 6 books = 35% 4 stars = 7 books = 41% 3 stars = 1 […]