Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Review: Little Black Dresses, Little White Lies

Posted November 18, 2016 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments

Initial Excitement Do you ever NEED a book so much, you just can’t believe how perfectly it fits in to your mood? I have been in such a weird reading mood/slump for the past month and a half, for essentially the first time since I started blogging. I was intrigued by this book from the moment I saw it because it sounds exactly like a rom-com I’d love. However, when I sat down to pick up this book for the first time, I just knew it would break my slump and make my reading heart happy again. I was right, thank god. Quick Summary Harper finds out that her summer is going to be better than expected. She ends up getting an internship with Shift magazine (kind of like a Seventeen) in New York City as a dating blogger. She didn’t apply for that internship and has essentially zero dating experience, but she goes for it anyways. She lives with her awesome aunt in a gorgeous, huge apartment, makes new friends at the office, and deals with the “little white lies” she has to tell about her dating history. Storytelling, Setting, and Feels Harper was definitely the classic “clumsy and often clueless” main character that can be really irritating for me to read about. I have to say, the author pulled this character off better than I expected. I hardly ever found myself annoyed with Harper – with a few exceptions of course – and that made for some fun, light reading. […]

ARC Review: Cherry

Posted September 22, 2016 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments

Initial Excitement I was sooooo excited for this book when I saw the premise. American Pie for girls? RIGHT up my alley. Of course the lovely Andi let me borrow her copy and I embarked on it pretty quickly. I love stories with sex-positive themes, and this book was literally nothing but sex-positivity throughout. The entire theme of the book! Summary in a Second Four best friends – Layla, Emma, Zoe, and Alex – form a sex pact to lose their virginities by the time they graduate high school. They’ve got less than 200 days to do it and the book counts down with each chapter. The girls have different relationship statuses at the time and their stories unfold in very different ways. I loved seeing the various types of relationships, situations, and feelings regarding losing your virginity. Storytelling & Setting The story was told from each girl’s perspective but in 3rd person. It was hard to really get close to them even though we were kind of in their head a little bit? In any case, I liked getting all of their perspectives because they each had different approaches to losing their virginity. Each had a completely different experience as they all started losing it too. The story was pretty much 80% about sex and the other 20% was them talking about their friendship and moving on after graduation. I would definitely say romance/relationships weren’t even at the forefront necessarily. I loved that because each girl had a different experience, there […]

Late ARC Review: The Year We Turned Forty

Posted September 14, 2016 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments

Initial Excitement Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke have been on my list for so long. The plot summaries of their books ALWAYS intrigue me but I haven’t been able to prioritize reading them yet. When I got approved for this one, I knew I had to read it as soon as I could. In this case, ARC August was the perfect time to get it done! I love books about parallel lives and time travel, and this one was a fun combination of both, kind of. Summary in a Second Three friends (Gabriela, Claire, and Jessie) are approached by a magician who offers to send them back in time to when they were 40. They can live the entire year all over again and change how they once handled things. Then, when the year is up, they have to decide to either stay in 2005 and live their “new” lives, or come back to 2015 and continue with their “old” lives. All three have to agree on staying there in order to stay, otherwise they all come back to 2015. Sooooo cool. Like I said, sort of a mix of parallel lives and time travel… but still very much a contemporary fiction/romance book! Storytelling & Setting Because I loved the concept behind this one, I was super eager to see how the story unfolded. I’ll admit that it was all pretty predictable for me. The girls were very obvious about what they’d change in their new 40th year. The pacing was a […]

ARC Review: One True Loves

Posted June 22, 2016 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

Woooof, where do I begin with this one? Because it’s Taylor Jenkins Reid, I already had sky-high expectations. I’ve read all of her books now except one and they’ve all blown me away. This is the lowest rating and its 4.5 stars! That being said, it wasn’t my favorite by her, but was still utterly fantastic. Loved it I love the fact that TJR’s books always focus more on character development and emotions than plot. Obviously a lot of things happen to move the story along, but there’s so much emphasis on the character working through her feelings that it takes center stage. This makes her books incredibly quoteable and rereadable. Just fantastic. I really felt the struggle that Emma had to deal with. I mean, what could you possibly do in that situation? You think your husband is dead, you finally move on and get engaged, then the husband returns!? It’s unthinkable. I love how Jenkins Reid gives a thorough backstory on the characters and their relationships before diving in. Like in AFTER I DO, she goes through the whole relationship first to see how it breaks down. You get to know the characters and can really see all sides of the dilemma. The same thing happens here in ONE TRUE LOVES. You learn about Emma and Jesse and Sam, so you really understand why she has a hard time deciding what to do. I was really nervous about the ending of this one. I had a feeling it […]

Blog Tour | Review: Mystic Summer

Posted June 15, 2016 / Book Reviews / 11 Comments

It is my absolute favorite thing to read books that take place in towns or cities I’ve been to before. What’s even better? When it’s a location I know very well and is in my home state! I adore Mystic and haven’t been there in way too long. This book absolutely inspired me to get in the car some weekend soon and take a trip down there. It’s only an hour-ish from where I live and is full of fun things to do. So, needless to say, the setting for this book was pretty wonderful. The author did a fantastic job of setting the scene for people who may have never been there. I’m positive that all readers want to visit Mystic after reading this. Aside from the setting, this book was incredibly enjoyable. Maggie, the main character, starts spending time in her hometown of Mystic when her summer vacation starts. She was a teacher in a Boston prep school but finds out that she may lose her job due to budget cuts. She’s in the midst of helping her best friend plan a wedding, figuring out where she’ll live when her friend moves out, and determining some next steps with her actor boyfriend. When she comes home, she discovers her ex-boyfriend from high school has also returned to Mystic…with a lot going on that she didn’t expect. The two spend time together and you can imagine the rest! I enjoyed Maggie’s personality a lot and loved being inside her head. […]

ARC Reviews: The Epidemic and Dream On

Posted April 25, 2016 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I was SO excited to grab this one from ALA back in January, but OF COURSE I waited forever to finally sit down and read it. There’s something wrong with me, okay? But after the cliffhanger at the end of THE REMEDY, I knew I had to get to it as soon as there was a break in my reading schedule. Honestly, I kind of created a break in my schedule; I knew this book was one I could finish in three sittings or less because I get sooo addicted to Young’s writing. This was definitely the case with THE EPIDEMIC! It took a few chapters for me to be reminded of what happened in the previous book. Thankfully, there was a pretty solid amount of recapping THE REMEDY without feeling like too much information. I still loved Quinn and was wondering what would happen with Deacon, after the previous book’s major cliffhanger about him. The biggest question I had throughout the story was HOW. How is all of this happening? Does Virginia have something to do with it all? How is it possible that suicide became an epidemic – something contagious – instead of something just related to groupthink. I was so eager to get to the end see everything tie into THE PROGRAM and THE TREATMENT. It’s weird reading a prequel series because you know how the world ends up afterwards… and it’s not a pretty place to be. I knew that my final rating for this story […]

Review: We Are the Ants

Posted March 21, 2016 / Book Reviews / 13 Comments

You know you really loved a book when you find yourself immediately tracking down other books by the author. I did end up checking two out from the library (and was planning on doing an author binge review), but didn’t read them in time. The joys of being a mood reader, amirite? So that’s why there’s a bit of a delay on this book review that I actually read a few months ago. But here we go! What a book this was! I wasn’t sure what to expect from this story, but I admittedly had high expectations from all the glowing reviews. There aren’t many reviews, but the ones that do exist are damn perfect. This was a really honest, interesting, and heartbreaking book. It covered every possible topic, fully fleshed out every character, and made me feel all sorts of things. I admittedly do not read a lot of books that fall under the QUILTBAG umbrella, and I plan to change that this year. Really. I think that books about coming out are REALLY important and helpful to those in that situation, but there is much to be said about books that don’t involve that element of the community. It was nice to read a book like this, where the character was already out to his family and it was really never brought up as an “issue.” (You know what I mean; I don’t know what other word to use there.) I could spend all day talking about the characters. […]

Review: After I Do

Posted March 3, 2016 / Book Reviews / 13 Comments

I’ve now read 2/3 of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s published works and she’s easily a favorite author. 5 stars for both books. Not only are they favorites, but they both taught me so much. Her books just have a way of impacting you unlike any others. I don’t know how she does it, but she takes regular people going through pretty average things (like falling out of love and making decisions) and just makes their stories so incredibly engaging and enthralling. For once, the hype about a book didn’t ruin anything for me. I’m not entirely sure how to describe how much I loved this book and all of the characters, so I’m going to break some stuff down. The realest relationship I loved Lauren and Ryan’s relationship from the very beginning. The book shows how they met and how their relationship developed before getting to the point where they choose to separate. It was a nice segue, showing some different increments over time: when they met, a few years into the relationship, and all the way to months before the book starts. It was truly necessary to see why these people should be together and the kind of relationship they’re fighting to fix. On top of the flashbacks, I just loved them and shipped them like crazy. At the same time, it was so obvious how they started to fall apart. There were so many lessons about keeping a relationship going during each and every moment. The little things can seriously add up. Family feels […]

Blog Tour | Mini Review + Cover Colors: The Impostor Queen (Giveaway!)

Posted January 20, 2016 / Book Reviews, Cover Colors, Features / 23 Comments

LINKS: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | Indiebound | iBooks | The Book Depository It’s no secret that I’m obsessed with book covers. I love the colors, the typography, the different designs that cover artists can create. I even have a guest post feature where people share their favorite book covers and bookmarks! I decided to start up this random feature where I draw color inspiration from my favorite book covers. I may create an outfit, pick out some nail polish, or design a quote graphic. Today’s cover is… The Impostor Queen by Sarah Fine This cover has some cool bright red and peachy tones, mixed with black and very light blue. I usually don’t go ALL out with the makeup aspect, but her makeup on the cover is too pretty to ignore! I thought it would be fun to show some similar colors to the ones she’s wearing on her face. I chose a dress to match the “Queen” font and some black and light blue accessories. The Imposter Queen by bookmarklit featuring a holiday nail polish Mini Review I have been trying to get better about reading more fantasy books. I always say how it’s one of my favorite genres, but I find that over half of the books I read every year are contemporaries. It’s one of my major goals of 2016 to have a better distribution of book genres, and THE IMPOSTOR QUEEN was the first fantasy book I read this year! (Well, aside from finishing up my […]

THE ROOM in NYC | Review: The Disaster Artist

Posted November 15, 2015 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

Alright friends – I’m going to go in a different direction today to introduce this book review, because it requires a backstory. I’m not sure if any of you are familiar with the cult classic movie called The Room, but if you are – please be my best friend immediately. I use the above line on my About page on the blog, because it’s too perfect. All images/GIFs in this post courtesy of Buzzfeed. What the hell is The Room? Good question. When I first started dating Chris, him and our friend, Chelsea, would always go back and forth quoting these terrible lines from a movie. They finally showed it to me and explained how bizarre the creator (and director, and producer, and actor, and writer) of the movie was. Tommy Wiseau is an enigma that refuses to talk about where he’s from (because of his interesting accent), how he got his money (he funded the multimillion dollar trainwreck of a movie by himself), and really anything about his history. He’s a creepy man of mystery. He wears more than one belt a time. He says things like “move on next question” WAY more than a person should, especially when the point of the thing is to be a Q&A. If you’re curious to read more evidence to show just how weird this dude is, read his Reddit AMA. Anyways, this movie is considered “the Citizen Kane of bad movies.” The acting, writing, cinematography — everything — is […]