Source: Owned

Book Buddies Review: The Raven Boys

Posted November 25, 2015 / Book Buddies Reviews, Book Reviews / 5 Comments

Book Buddies is a discussion-style review that takes place with one of my two buddies. (Learn more and see past reviews here) We both read the book and then have a private discussion about it. We post our discussion as a review on the last Wednesday of each month. You’ll be able to see our similar/different opinions on the overall book, characters, writing style, etc. – just like a regular review. The first half our discussion will take place right here, and the second half will be on Kaitlin’s blog! (Link below) View Kaitlin’s part of the discussion here. Some spoilers ahead! How did you feel when you started? Did the hype make you excited or nervous? Kaitlin: I definitely did not know what to expect from this book because the synopsis had been super vague about what was going down within this book. All I know was what happened in the beginning chapter and that Blue would eventually become attracted. I don’t think hype really affects my enjoyment for books too much. It motivates me to try to enjoy a book that has lots of love to it but other than that, I mostly enjoy the majority of the books I read so hype is never a huge problem for me when it comes to how I enjoy a book. Lauren: I know what you mean about motivating you to enjoy it! That was such a driving factor in my enjoyment of this book. I felt like I needed to like it because everyone else […]

The Nostalgia Project | Gallagher Girls

Posted November 18, 2015 / Book Reviews, The Nostalgia Project / 10 Comments

The Nostalgia Project is my way of revisiting and rereading old favorites from my young adulthood to see if they still resonate with me. Learn more here and read old posts or reviews here! My first successful series revisit within The Nostalgia Project has come to an end! Let’s be honest, I totally cheated with this one. I had determined last year that I was planning on rereading the Gallagher Girls series by Ally Carter because there were three remaining books I never managed to read. I started listening to the audiobooks back in October 2014 and steadily trucked through the series until December. I then bought books five and six to finish off my collection… and didn’t get around to reading them. I finally picked up book five to finish them off before the end of 2015. Because I individually reviewed the previous four books, I’m going to continue that here first. Then, you’ll see my thoughts on the entire series and what I learned at the bottom. This has to be one of my favorite books in the series. It’s hard to say that now, considering that all of the previous books blend together when you haven’t read them in a year, but I just feel it. I haven’t physically read a book in this series since the first few books came out and I forgot how addicting they are! It’s a totally different experience with the audiobooks. I thought that some parts of the book were frustrating because of the […]

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 […]

Review: Cinder

Posted September 18, 2015 / Book Reviews / 11 Comments

Let me start out by saying, YES I finally read this book! Yes, for the first time. No, I’m not sure what took me this long. When Brittany mentioned a Lunar Chronicles readalong for this year, in preparation for the newest release, I knew that this would be my reason to finally read the series. I’ll say quickly: I’ve never had this much trouble coming up with a Friends connection for my GIF below! It usually takes me forever to find or create the right GIF, but the reference itself comes right into my brain. Regardless, I think this book is just so unique and hard to classify that – for once – my Friends-obsessed brain had some trouble! Well, what did I think? This was a really great series-starter! I’m so intrigued with this world and can’t wait to see what happens in the next installment. Cinder was an interesting character – she’s a cyborg who dealing with the prince’s sudden interest in her and her sister’s sudden illness, all while slowly learning some insane things about herself and her past. I didn’t fully connect with her for some reason, but that didn’t really damper my enjoyment for the book overall. It seems like her story is going to be the one carried through the rest of the series, all while highlighting new characters and, probably, locations. There’s this phenomenon that happens to me sometimes while I’m reading that I call being “mockingbirded.” When I was in high school reading To […]

Musical Memories ft. Just Listen

Posted June 16, 2015 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

When Cristina and I discussed our new mini feature, Book Buddies Ask, we decided to start with the Sarah Dessen novels we both planned on reading or rereading this summer. Our first question debuted over on my review of Saint Anything (and hers!). I decided to reread Just Listen when she told me she was on the blog tour, but am still working my way through it. This post was inspired by the strong musical elements of the novel, as well as some general thoughts about it. “A song can take you instantly back to a moment, a place, or even a person. No matter what else has changed in you or the world, that one song stays the same, just like that moment.” When I read Hannah’s post last week about memories tied to music, I thought it would be a great way to discuss Just Listen. I started spiraling through Spotify and making my own memories-related playlist. I listened to it all day at work and reflected so much on different memories in my life. I don’t think I got much work done, but what else is new. Like her, I don’t really consider myself to be a crazy music person. There are actually plenty of days where I don’t listen to music at all, thanks to my addiction to audiobooks. I will say that there will always be songs that make me crank up the volume when I catch them on the radio. (Namely, most classic rock songs.) Check […]