2020 End of Year Wrap-Up and Stats

Posted January 3, 2021 / Uncategorized / 10 Comments

100 Books Read This year sucked. Period. It’s the “worst” reading year I’ve had in a while. I reduced my goal from 120 to 100 books – no regrets – and still had to include cookbooks and other shorter books to meet it. I can’t figure out why my reading spreadsheet is telling me I read 102 books when I definitely didn’t, so enjoy these mostly-accurate charts and reading summaries from this garbage year. Books Read As usual, I read mostly contemporary this year. Just over 50% – not bad! I try to aim for under 50% but why not read what I love? I also include this as a very broad category, including romance. I’m also not surprised to see that mystery/thriller is next. I’ve been really trying to read more of those. Nonfiction is up a lot because I counted a ton of cookbooks 😉 I have to admit that I read a lot of egalleys. I request a bunch of books and frankly do a decent job of actually reading them. I’m not surprised that the mixed format category is a close second. Even if I read only a few chapters via audio, I still count it as a mix. This one isn’t labeled – whoops – but 73% of my books were digital. I just prefer to read on my Kindle than bring around a physical copy, especially because I do a lot of reading in bed when the lights are out. Most contemporary books fall […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | December 2020

Posted January 2, 2021 / 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. I pulled it off! I managed to read enough books to meet my (lowered) reading challenge of 100 books. I definitely read some short books, novellas, and cookbooks to make it happen, but I’m proud of myself. I read all of the Christmas books I was hoping to get to except for one! 17 books read in December 17 new books • 0 rereads • 0 DNF Pages read: 5270 • Average rating: 3.8 stars Sources: 9 purchased, 5 review, 1 gifted, 1 borrowed, 1 BOTM Formats: 6 mixed format, 5 hardcover, 3 egalley, 2 paperback, 1 ebook Genres: 9 contemporary, 5 nonfiction, 2 mystery/thriller, 1 fantasy Age Target: 14 adult, 3 young adult Check out my 2020 challenge sign-up post for more details, goals, etc.! Popsugar Reading Challenge 0 read this month | 35/40 read total None this month Monthly Key Word Challenge 1 this month: crown Calendar of Crime Challenge Primary action takes place in the month Romanceopoly 0 read this month | 2 read total Rolls: N/A Rainbow Try a Chapter Unhaul This month’s color: Red Yeah, what are reading challenges anymore? […]

Review Round Up | Chasing Lucky, The Hunting Party, and How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

Posted January 1, 2021 / 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’ve pretty much loved all of Jenn Bennett’s books and this one was good! I have to say it might be my least favorite, but still a very cute, atmospheric read. Annoyingly, I can’t really put my finger on the things that bother me or prevent it from being a fave. Josie returns home to Beauty, RI (kind of like Newport, in my eyes) and encounters her long lost best friend, Lucky, after they were essentially ripped apart five years before. Josie and the women in her family are “cursed” and have bad luck with men. This didn’t really play into the story as much as I expected but was somewhat of an underlying theme. She and her mom are back in Beauty to run her grandma’s bookstore while she’s away with her aunt. It was fun to read about this coastal Rhode Island town but I didn’t get as many fun New England seaport vibes as I was hoping for? The bookstore was THERE but not as present as I would have liked either for some reason. There are a lot of plot points I didn’t expect or remember from the synopsis, if they were in there, like the breaking of a store window and a […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #320: Favorite Books

Posted December 29, 2020 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 2 Comments

Favorite Books of 2020 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. It’s certainly been a weird reading year for me – are you tired of me saying that yet? Probably. In any case, some real winners still made it on my favorites list. Here are the top ten books I read in 2020 (minus cookbooks that I rated five stars haha). 5 Stars 4.5 Stars I only rated six books five stars this year, but there are 17 books with 4.5 stars. I tried to parse it down a little to the 4.5 star books that were closest to five stars haha.

Review Round Up | All the Missing Girls, Dear Justyce, and Second Chance on Cypress Lane

Posted December 28, 2020 / 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! In the shitty year that is 2020, I completely blew it with #ReadForGrace. No calendar reminder could help me keep track of what day it is, apparently. I decided on a whim to start a book a day or two after her birthday and I think she’d be fine with that 🙂 Megan Miranda (and ALL THE MISSING GIRLS specifically) were favorites of hers. I’d been wanting to read this one forever so it was the perfect opportunity. I’m going to keep this review brief because of spoilers, but wow – what a format! The first chapter or two set the scene for the story: Nicolette is managing the health of her aging father and has to return home to NC to help clean the house in order to sell it. You learn that her best friend from high school went missing a decade before. The narrative is then told in reverse, beginning with Day 15 and ending up at Day 1, the day another girl (Annaliese) goes missing. Along the journey, you find out about the complex relationships between Nicolette and her father, ex-boyfriend, brother… a bunch of people who never left town. It took some getting used to, reading a story in reverse, but it […]

Holiday Review: The Twelve Dates of Christmas

Posted December 27, 2020 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Story This was one of my most anticipated reads for the holiday season and it didn’t disappoint! I loved the idea of following Kate on her twelve dates, set up through the 12 Dates of Christmas program. A local agency developed a matchmaking program where the people would go on twelve predetermined dates with matched partners and see how they get along. They were all seasonal and often festive with holiday themes. Lots of the dates showed some promise and plenty more were major busts, so it was funny to see how they all shook out or what activities the couple would go with. It was pretty obvious where the story was going from the beginning, which was okay by me. I like a predictable holiday romance. It did take me a little while to warm up to the winning love interest though; he was a bit annoying and it felt like he took advantage of her a little bit in the first half of the book (her kindness or friendship, I mean). I won’t say anymore! As I’ll discuss more below, her snow-covered English village was adorable. I could relate to her feelings of wanting to be in the big city (London) for a while but happily returned home to help her father out. She debated if it was the right move but truly loved being there. It makes me want to travel to England as soon as I’m able to get out of the country haha. She had […]

Holiday Reviews: Christmas at Holiday House and Christmas at Fireside Cabins

Posted December 25, 2020 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

Story I’ve enjoyed RaeAnne Thayne’s novels over the past few years. She tends to write great small town romances that verge on too cheesy and wholesome. Well, this one definitely got further into that territory and I was a little put off by it. There were a lot of repetitive thoughts or conversations that made me roll my eyes. Backing up a bit, this one centers around Abigail and her son Christopher. They move to Silver Bells for a few weeks to help out her friend’s grandma before they plan to move from Arizona to Texas for a fresh start. She’s hoping to move on from her husband’s tragic death with a new city and life for her son. While in Silver Bells, she finds a growing attraction to her friend Lucy’s brother, Ethan, who manages the family’s fancy hotel chain. The story also kind of weirdly and randomly has Lucy’s point of view a few times where she wrestles with her feelings for her brother’s best friend. While I appreciated their story, it was kind of weird because the book had three points of view that weren’t split evenly. It was very much Abigail’s story with some pops of Ethan and even less pops of Lucy. It didn’t make a ton of sense to me. Wintery Setting & Holiday Feels Silver Bells was a super cute town and the Holiday House setting was even better. She ends up helping to decorate the mansion with a dozen Christmas trees and […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #319: Books from Santa

Posted December 22, 2020 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 2 Comments

Books I Hope Santa Brings 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 actually only asked for a couple of books for Christmas, so those are included below, but there are other books I hope to order in the new year with gift cards or cash. Essentially this is a list of books I hope to acquire soon with Christmas money… close enough to Santa, right? Books I Asked For Books to Buy with Christmas Gift Cards Books to Preorder with Christmas Gift Cards

Holiday Reviews: In a Holidaze and Season of Joy

Posted December 18, 2020 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 1 Comment

Story I’ve been lucky that there have been a few books this year where I was like “yup this is exactly what I needed.” I’m one of those people who didn’t hop on the Christina Lauren bandwagon until they started writing more rom-com style books, and I’ve enjoyed most of them. Somewhat mixed, but always quick and easy reads. This is easily one of my favorites! This featured a Groundhog Day-style story where Mae keeps returning to the beginning of the trip to try to find out what will make her happy. Can she save the cabin? Will she take a shot at Andrew, her childhood friend and longtime crush? I’ll admit that I usually prefer more “restarts” when I read these books. I won’t say how many times she looped back to the start for spoiler reasons. The big group of people who come to this cabin on a yearly basis were lovely – Mae’s parents (now divorced) and her parents’ college friends, plus all of their kids. There’s somewhat of a SUMMER I TURNED PRETTY vibe with a brother-based “love triangle” (not really, IMO) that I also loved. Benny, their parents fun single friend, was a great confidante for Mae and I loved him. I could have read a lot more about this chosen family! I think that’s one of the main areas where the book was lacking – I wanted MORE of the holiday feels, as discussed below, and more moments with everyone together. I just loved […]

2021 Reading Challenges

Posted December 17, 2020 / Book Challenges, Features / 16 Comments

Am I being ambitious for even thinking about signing up for challenges? I basically stopped actively trying to work on them in 2020 and still managed to squeak out a few additions in the second half of the year by pure coincidence or luck. However, there is something about a fresh slate of challenges and goals that really motivate me. I know turning the calendar to 2021 won’t magically fix the world’s problems but I am finally feeling hopeful about things. That includes my reading life! This is a pretty straightforward challenge, hosted HERE. You basically aim to read books that begin with each letter of the alphabet. They also have mini challenges for each month: JANUARY – A book you purchased in 2020 but didn’t readFEBRUARY – A book with non-romantic love (siblings, parent-child, friendships)MARCH – A book written by a person of a different race than youAPRIL – A book with an Autistic main character (April is Autism Awareness)MAY – A book about a nurse (Nat. Nurses Week 2021 is May 6-12)JUNE – A co-written book (2 authors)JULY – A Christmas book (Christmas in July!)AUGUST – A book by an Indie author (self-published or independent)SEPTEMBER – A memoir/biographyOCTOBER – A book written by a new-to-you authorNOVEMBER – A book outside your normal genreDECEMBER – A backlist title (published BEFORE Jan 1, 2021) I’d like to meet most of these but I’m not 100% sure I will focus on them. It definitely depends on if my reading year looks more like 2020 versus 2019 haha. I’ve done this one for at least three […]