Random|| Life Update.

Hey!

It’s been a few months since my last update, so I figured I would hop on here again and do another little update. Life has been rough lately, to be honest. The second half of the year has just been pretty hard, especially for my family. 😦 I’ve also been busy with work; it’s been a lot. I’m mentally drained 90% of the time with everything going on and then work on top of it. I feel really down and full of anxiety most of the time. Everything feels like too much at the moment. I miss blogging, but I don’t really have too much to blog about or if I do have something to blog about, I’ve let so much time pass before I get around to doing it that it doesn’t feel important anymore. 😕

Since my last post, I have only read six books. I’ve been reading maybe 1 or 2 books a month. It is taking me FOREVER to finish books. I am so sad about this because I want to read MORE, but I am too distracted to really get much reading done. I did complete my Goodreads challenge though, so I am happy about that. One less thing to worry or stress about! I usually spend a lot of my time playing video games instead. I’m hoping that next year I can get back into the swing of things and will read more!

I usually like to do a big Halloween TBR, but I’m not going to do that this year. I know I probably wouldn’t get through most of them if I did make one. Not with how long it is taking me to read books these days haha. There are two books that I really hope to read in October and one that I am currently reading that want to try to finish before the end of the month too. Here is my very small October TBR haha.

shiverneverwhistatnightmothered

Shiver by Junji Ito
Never Whistle at Night by Shane Hawk (+more)
Mothered by Zoje Stage

I’ve read some of Shiver and so far I really like it. It’s my first time reading a Manga too! At first I was kind of confused by how to read it, but I figured it out lol. Never Whistle at Night sounded really good and I love the cover so much, so I ended up preordering the book and I’m really looking forwarded to reading all the stories. Mothered is a book that I started last month that I really hope to finish this month.

I did a little Halloween decorating over the weekend. I still have more that I want to do, but I’m not sure where I want to put other things yet and it also depends on my mood. I’ve been feeling weird lately with everything going on in my life that sometimes I just feel “blah” and don’t want to do anything or things don’t seem interesting to me anymore. 😦 But anyway, so yeah, I did a little decorating for Halloween! Here’s what I’ve done so far.

image6image1image0image2

The vase of flowers I made myself with different artificial flowers and I think it came out really nice! I made two of them. I have a vintage looking ghost that I plan to put outside and some jack-o-lantern string lights that I want to put along my little fence in my front yard, so I still have that to do. So far I really like what I’ve done though. 🙂 Definitely putting me in the Halloween spirit! 🎃

I think that is all I got for this post. It’s almost 9pm and I want to go relax before I have to go to sleep and work tomorrow, sigh. I will end this post with a picture of two of my furbabies though. Leaf & ColbyJack.

I hope you have an amazing rest of the week!

It’s been awhile…

HEY!!

I have not posted since February. 😔 Huge fail on my part, I’m sorry. I had posts that I wanted to do about the books that I read last year and never got around to them. I missed all my monthly wrap ups and book hauls for this year too, sigh. No gold stars for me when it comes to blogging this year. I’ve just been busy with life and stuff, I guess. I also haven’t been reading that much this year, not like I normally would. A lot has to do with work because I used to be able to listen to audiobooks while I work, but not that’s harder to do since I’m on the phone a lot with work now, which I HATE. That’s about the only thing I don’t like about my job, the phone calls.

I’ve been traveling a lot more this year though, so that’s kept me busy too. I’ve gone to Georgia and I’m going again next month. I’ve gone to Illinois and I’m going again next month. I’ve also gone to Colorado this year too. It’s been fun getting out of Florida for a little while. I’ve been able to check out a bunch of bookstores on my travels and get new books from them. That’s been super cool. I love checking out bookstores when I travel to places. It’s one of the first things I look up to do in new places lol. Picture below that I took on the way to Colorado. You can check out my Instagram account to see more pictures from my travels! 😊 I may or may not do a post on the blog at some point. My Instagram is: heyyitsashley


I mentioned at the start of this post that I haven’t been reading much. Some months are good and I read a decent amount then others I read one book, sigh. I have only read 24 books so far this year and that seems like such a small number to me, but realistically I know it’s not that bad since the year is only half over! I think I’m just being too hard on myself. I am bummed that I have yet to read a five star book too! Have I become too picky in what I give five stars too? lol. I have no idea, but yep…out of the 24 books that I’ve read, there have been no five stars! Lots of four starts though and that’s still really good! Next I’ll do a mini book update of the last book I read and the book I’m currently reading.

image4image5

First book pictured is the last book that I read, which was The Last Word by Taylor Adams. I got it as one of my BOTM picks for May, I believe. It was actually really good and I had a lot of fun reading it. I flew through it! I gave it four stars. I liked it so much that in my June BOTM box, I decided to add his other book they had as a previous years choice, No Exit and I’m excited to read it. I am currently reading The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood. I bought this book back in 2021 and never got around to reading it, so I decided to finally do it. I am about 40% into it and so far I really like it! I am glad I finally picked it up and I’m sure I’ll want to read Ali’s other books too.

I can’t promise that I’ll be around a lot the rest of the year year, because clearly I haven’t been so far. I do hop on from time to time though, I just haven’t written any posts. I do attempt to do one and then I never finish it and it sits in my drafts, sigh. I’ll try to do a post once in a while though. Maybe little updates like this until I know I can come back like normal again. I think I’ll work on a post for the end of the month of all the books that I’ve read so far this year since I haven’t done my monthly wrap ups aside for my January wrap up. That way you can see what I’ve been reading this year! 😊

I think that’s all for this little update. I need to start getting read for work. I’m just glad it’s Friday! I’m so read for the weekend. It’s been a stressful week and I get to visit my mom for the weekend, so that’s cool.

I hope you have a great Friday and weekend!

Book Haul|| January.

Hey!

I am sharing my January book haul with you today! I’ve been a lot pickier over the last few years with the books that I buy, mostly due to the fact that there’s a lot of times where I buy books and never read them until years later lol, oops. So, I’ve tried to be selective with what I buy. A lot of the time sticking to auto-buy authors. Rare occasion I’ll have an impulse buy though. There were a couple books that I got in January that I saw around a lot on social media and decided to buy them. I’m happy with the books that I got in January though and that’s all that matters. 😜 With that being said, let’s jump into my January book haul. You can check out a full list of the books that I own over here. There’s links to different pages on my blog that show my e-books and my physical books.

Print Books

thestolenheirnickandcharliethingswenevergotoverthedeadromantics

The Stolen Heir by Holly Black
Nick and Charlie by Alice Oseman
Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score
The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston

I bought the Folk of the Air series in the special edition Barnes & Noble black covers, but I decided to go with the regular white cover for The Stolen Heir duology. I have so many black cover books, so I wanted to break them up lol. I am really excited to read it! I saw Nick and Charlie at Target and had to have it! I love the Heartstopper graphic novels, so I’m excited to read the novella. I seen Things We Never Got Over so much on Instagram and I was curious about it, so I decided to get it. Then it got delivered to my house and it’s HUGE for a romance book. I did not realize how big it was. I only ever saw the cover and not the actual spine, and OMG LOL. Now I don’t even want to touch it. Huge books intimidate unless I read on my Kindle and can’t actually see the true size haha. I’ve been wanting to read The Dead Romantics, so I decided to buy it when I saw it in one of the bookstores we went to in Georgia.

ABBE7248-9724-4621-A969-6527CD774ED1


E-Books

remembermealwaysnofilterandotherliesaddictedtoyounightangels

Remember Me Always by Renee Collins
No Filter and Other Lies by Crystal Maldonado
Addicted to You by Krista Ritchie, Becca Ritchie
Night Angels by Weina Dai Randel

I’ve been wanting to read Remember Me Always and No Filter and Other Lies, so I was stoked when they were both on sale in January for like $1.99 each. I love an e-book deal! I’m actually reading No Filter and Other Lies now and so far I like it. I seen Addicted to You a few times on Instagram and the e-book was only $4.99, so I got that one. Night Angels was free through Amazon First Reads. It sounded really good, so I chose to get that one. I like reading about World War II.

What new books did you get in January? Have you read any of the ones that I got? Feel free to link me to your haul post, so I can check it out!

In case you missed it;
Wrap Up|| January.
2023 Reading Goals.

I hope you have a great day!

Wrap Up|| January.

Hey!

I cannot believe January is over! The first month of the new year flew by. I ended the month with the worst luck! Story time? So my friend, my younger sister, and I decided it would be cool to relive our childhood by rollerblading together again after it being 20 years since the last time we rollerbladed. Us three used to do it all the time as kids together. We all bought rollerblades and were so stoked to take them out. It was all going so well and we were having fun and then we decided to go down this hill that didn’t look so big…big mistake! We were catching so much speed. At one point I’m thinking to myself, “I’m going way too fast, what do I do?”. I tried using the brake, but it’s been so long since I’ve ever used rollerblades that I really had no idea what I was doing and I was just going so fast. So, I decided to steer myself toward the grass and then I took a hard fall. My sister and my friend fell too, but their falls weren’t as bad as mine. My friend and I were laughing about it in the moment, because we really had no idea how bad it really was. Plus, there were crowds of people around, so we just played it cool haha. 😛

image0-2

Afterward, we left the park and got something to eat and then I realized I may have really messed up my shoulder. I decided to go to urgent care to get it x-rayed and YEP! I fractured my right shoulder. I’ve had to limit the use of my right arm, but luckily I can still use my hand. I need to get some other tests done to see if anything else is injured. I really hope not because I do not want to end up having to get surgery. 😦 I definitely regret going to the hilly park. And now it will be a while before I can get back on my rollerblades, which is sad because we were having a lot of fun until we fell. I’m hoping this injury heals up quickly. I have to wear a sling on my right arm, but I usually take it off when I’m working and try to not move my arm/shoulder too much. It’s not really painful until I move my shoulder or arm in a position that it can’t. I’m living in button up shirts, because trying to put clothes on when I can’t lift my arm hurts sooo bad. Fingers crossed this heals fast though and I don’t need surgery!

But anyway, let’s get into my January wrap up. I actually read quite a few books in January, which has been great since the last five months of 2022 I barely read anything. I think I read more books in January than I did in the last five months of 2022 lol. I am hoping the year continues to go this well, but who knows. I’m already starting to slowly feel bleh again, but I think that’s because I’m feeling down about this injury and it’s been on my mind a lot since it happened. It only happened like four or five days ago. So, in January I read SEVEN books! A few were audiobooks and the rest were books that I read myself. You can find a full list of the books that I read in January and the other books I read throughout the year over here. All will be linked to Goodreads below and I will also link to individual blog posts for them if I did a review. Here are the books that I read and listened to in January...

Print/E-Book Books:
These are the books that I read myself (not audiobooks) throughout the month of January.

actsofdeperationtidesongwhataboutwilltheasylumconfessions

Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan – 2 out of 5 stars
Tidesong by Wendy Wu – 4 out of 5 stars
What About Will by Ellen Hopkins – 4 out of 5 stars
The Asylum Confessions by Jack Steen – 3 out of 5 stars

I started Acts of Desperation months before I finally finished it. It was pretty boring, to be honest. There were a bunch of times where I thought about DNF and maybe I should have. But I was already about 60% into it and I finally got myself to finish it in January. Tidesong was a cute graphic novel. I really had fun reading it and all the illustrations are so pretty. I started What About Will at some point last year and never got around to finishing it. I ended up not being in the mood for it. I finally finished it last month and I really liked it. It was really sad, but had its happy moments. The Asylum Confessions was just a random book I found for free on Amazon. It sounded interesting and it was only about 270 pages, so I decided to check it out. I liked it and some of the stories were interesting, but some were just weird. I don’t like how the author wrote the book either, but I guess I shouldn’t complain too much since right at the beginning he says he’s not an writer lol.


Audiobooks:
These are the books that I listened to the audio versions throughout the month of January.

loveinthetimeofserialkillersdarklydreamingdexteritendswithus

Love in the Time of Serial Killers by Alicia Thompson – 3 out of 5 stars
Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay – 3 out of 5 stars
It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover – 4 out of 5 stars – Review

Love in the Time of Serial Killers sounded pretty interesting, but it wasn’t what I expected. I liked it, but it was just “meh” and didn’t blow me away or anything. I also really didn’t like the main character. My husband and I listened to Darkly Dreaming Dexter on our drive to Savannah, GA. I figured it would give us something to do and we both love the TV show Dexter. I liked the book, but I was hoping I would love it. I guess because I love the TV show so much and watched the show first it influenced my feelings of the book. I still want to listen to the audiobooks for the other books too. I may save them for road trips with the husband though, so we can finish the series together. Might take a while, but that’s okay! It Ends with Us was a reread. I read the book back in 2016, but wanted to reread it again before picking up the sequel. I really liked it as much as I did when I read it in 2016. The review linked above is the one I wrote back in 2016.


Currently Reading:
These are the books that I started to read in the month of January, but didn’t get a chance to finish them before the month ended.

itstartswithus

It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover

Since I did an audiobook reread of It Ends with Us, I wanted to read It Starts with Us shortly after. I am really excited to finally read it. I’m currently about 75 pages into it and I like it a lot so far. I’m excited to see where it goes.

What books did you read in January? Have you read any of the books that I read? Feel free to link me to your wrap up post, so I can check it out!

I’ll try to find some time this weekend to catch up with your posts and comments. 🙂 It’s been a crazy week with my fractured shoulder and trying to navigate using mostly one arm haha. I’m not allowed to do heavy-lifting, pushing. or pulling. The orthopedic doctor said the heaviest thing I can lift is a coffee mug lol. Sigh.

In case you missed it;
2023 Reading Goals.
2022 Year in Books.

I hope you have a great day!

2023 Reading Goals.

Hey!

I hope you’re having a great start to the new year. I can’t believe the first month of the new year is almost over! I thought I would once again post my reading/blogging goals for the year. I know this post is so late though, oops. 😛 Some of these goals may be repeats or similar from last year, because I really want to continue to stick to those goals this year as well or finally accomplish them if I haven’t in past years. I’m keeping my goals list short this year, because 2022 was a really difficult year as far as reading and blogging go and I don’t want to overwhelm or stress myself out this year.

2023 Goodreads Challenge. My Goodreads challenge goal for this year is to read 25 books. I lowered from 50 to 25 this year because last year I didn’t complete the challenge and my reading habits have changed quite a bit over the last couple of years to where I am not reading as much as I was before. I figured a smaller goal of 25 books would be good for me. I don’t have to stress too much and it’s more attainable. I am already doing REALLY well this month with reading, so I’m hopeful I’ll complete this goal this year. *knock on wood* 😛

Read 10 of my older books. I have so many books that I own and a lot of them are unread, sadly. I buy more books than I read as I’m sure a lot of us bookworms do. I want to read at least 10 of my older books this year. I almost completed this goal last year of reading 20 of my older books, but since I was barely reading at all I didn’t complete this challenge. I’m lowering the number this year since I lowered my Goodreads challenge. I am hopeful that I can accomplish reading 10 of my older books this year! For this reading goal, they have to be books that I bought in previous years. So, books that I buy this year do not count toward this.

Finish at least two book series. I’ve started quite a few books series that I never got around to finishing over the years. This year I want to put a little more focus into doing just that! So, I think I’ll start with a goal of finishing at least two of those series. At this point I am not sure which ones yet, but I’ll keep you post!

Declutter bookshelves & Kindle. I own A LOT of books. There are books on my shelves and my Kindle that I probably will never get around to reading, lost interest in reading, and books that I didn’t like. There’s a local bookstore that I can donate them to for store credit, which is nice. There’s a lot a couple Free Little Libraries around town that I can share there too. I  think doing this will make me feel a little less guilty or stressed that I have so many unread books. This will also give me the chance to reorganize my bookshelves, because I’ve been wanting to do that.

Be more active. I really want to try this year to be active more on my blog with posting more and coming up with new content to post. I also want to connect with you more again! I know I haven’t been around much over the last few years and last year was REALLY bad with being here. Hoping to be more present. 🤞🏼 I really enjoy blogging and have met so many amazing friends in the book community, so I am hoping that I can get back into the swing of things again. I miss you guys! 🖤 I’ll try to hop on once a week if I can to catch up with you. Of course I hope to be on more than just once a week, but starting slow and hopefully my spark for blogging with come back.

There may be new or smaller goals that pop up throughout the year and that’s fine. This is just a list of the main goals that I really hope to stick to and achieve for 2023. Reminder to myself: no pressure if you don’t, it’s okay!

What are some goals you have for this year? Feel free to link me to your posts if you have one!

I need to work on my January wrap up, January book haul, and a couple blog posts about the books that I read in 2022. So, you’ll definitely see more from me on the blog soon. 🙂

I’ll end this post with a couple pictures. My husband and I went to Savannah, GA to visit a week ago and I stopped at a couple bookstores (of course). One of the bookstores I went to was called A Book Lady Bookstore. It was pretty cute and so many books! Here are a couple of pictures I took at that bookstore.

image0-1image1-1

In case you missed it;
2022 Year in Books.

I hope you have a great day and weekend! 🙂

2022 Year in Books

Happy New Year!

I know I am late in posting my 2022 year in books update, but what else is new? I’ve been posting everything ridiculously late this past year, sadly. 2022 was definitely NOT my year as far as reading and blogging goes. It has been pretty sad thinking back to last year and how much reading I wanted to do, but just didn’t get to do. I was stuck in a HUGE reading slump that took over the second half of the year. I started doing more at my job that cut into how much time I could actually listen to audiobooks, so that made me take a hit as well with finishing books; especially since 2022 was the year I listened to mostly audiobooks. I filled most of my downtime with video games because it was hard for me to focus on reading books. I am hoping this year will be different and I’ll have a better balance between reading, video games, and life in general. But enough of that for now, let’s get into my 2022 year in books wrap up. In this post you’ll find updates on my Goodreads challenge, some different types of charts of what I read, and a recap on how I did with my reading goals that I made at the start of 2022.

My Goodreads reading challenge was to read 50 books in 2022…

33 books read for challenge.
25 of those were audiobooks.
6,925 pages read.
4 books I DNF
(DNF books are not counted in my Goodreads challenge totals)

As you can see above, I failed my Goodreads challenge for the first time since I’ve started participating in it seven years ago. 😦 I was so bummed about it, but I was just not reading much this year. Toward the middle of the year it was hard for me to pick up any books or listen to any audiobooks as I mentioned above. There were two months out of the year that I didn’t finish a single book. Work got busier and after work I was just so drained from the day that reading was not my number one priority. I wanted mindless things to do instead, so I played games or watched tv. Fingers crossed 2023 goes better with my reading challenge, I plan to lower my goal for this year.


Now let’s get into some different charts about the books that I’ve read and listened to this year. I started using StoryGraph last year because it was easier to get graphs made for me through out the year instead of having to make them all myself like I did the previous year. Plus, there’s a lot more variety in charts and categories. Before I get to the charts, I’ll start off with my rating scale, so you can get an idea of how I rate books. I don’t do half star ratings and I use Goodreads’ rating system with how I rate the books that I read. It’s simple and works for me. Below is how Goodreads has their star ratings set up.

5 stars – it was amazing
4 stars – I really liked it
3 stars – liked it
2 stars – it was ok
1 star – did not like it

This first chart will show you an overall look at my start ratings of all the books that I read this year and the second chart will show you the different “moods” of the books that I read. I really liked looking at the mood chart and seeing all the different moods in the books that I read. Emotional books were the winner this year! It was also interesting seeing that of all the books I read, the average rating was 3.76 stars. I think I was really picky with giving out five stars or because of the reading slump, nothing was really blowing me away.

The next chart will show the format of the books that I read being audiobook, e-book, and print books. Audiobooks were definitely the winner in this category! The chart after that will show the type of books I read being either fiction and non-fiction. I read a lot more fiction than non-fiction, but that’s usually how it goes every year.

format2022booksfiction:nonfiction2022books

And finally, this chart below shows the different genres I read this year. There were a lot of different ones, but a few were the stand outs as you can see below. Young Adult, Romance, and Contemporary were the top three of the year!


Now onto my 2022 reading goals and whether I think I accomplished them or not. You can check out the actual post I made in January 2022 of my goals over here, but here is just a small recap of what they were. That post has longer explanations of what each of these goals were.

2022 Goodreads Challenge. As mentioned above, my Goodreads challenge was to read 50 books in 2022. I only read 33 books, so, it was a fail. 😦 My goal for this year is going to be a lot less though. Over the last couple years I haven’t been reading as much, so I am going to do a smaller more realistic goal for me right now.

ARCs/no ARCs. This goal was to not request any (or many) ARCs and to focus on reading the ones that I had pending from 2021. This goal was 50/50 completed. I did not request any ARCs at all, but I also did not get around to reading all of the pending ARCs that I had and get my reviews up for them. I had six pending ARCs; I read two of them and only reviewed one of the two. I may try to read the other four this year, but I won’t hold myself to that. I think I just want to start fresh and do better this year for any future ARCs and reviews.

Read 20 of my own older books. This goal was to read any books that I bought before 2022. I did not accomplish this one either, sigh. BUT I got close! If I would have read more books this year and accomplished my reading challenge, I 100% would have since I read 14 older books! So, I’m not too upset about this one.

Declutter bookshelves & Kindle. For this goal I wanted to go through my bookshelves and donate books I wasn’t going to read or books I didn’t really like. I also wanted to delete books from my Kindle that I didn’t like and books that I didn’t think I would ever read. I never got around to doing this. I plan to try again this year though.

Write more reviews. As the goal says, I wanted to review more books on my blog. Total fail! I think I only wrote one review in 2022, oops. I wasn’t reading much and when I did read, I just didn’t have the motivation to review what I wrote.

Be more active again. My last goal for 2022 was to be more active on my blog and as you guys probably noticed, I was not on here so much. I’m sad that I failed this one the most because I feel SO disconnected from the blogging community and love you guys and love catching up with you. I think once COVID began, it just changed everything and I haven’t really been the same since as far as blogging, reading, and life in general. :/

How did you do this year with your reading goals? How many books did you read in 2022? Feel free to link me to your posts, so I can check them out!

I am working on my 2023 reading goals post and I’ll be doing a series of posts where I share every single book that I read last year in different posts based off their star ratings. The first post will be all my five star and four star reads of 2022! Those will probably come at the end of the month or in February. This week I am off to Savannah, GA for a few days, so I may not have time to get anything up on my blog this week. Hopefully once I get back and have some time after work, I can catch up with reading your posts too. 🙂

I will end this post with a picture of my cat ColbyJack. He had a rough start to the new year, but he’s finally back to being himself.

I hope you have a great day! 🖤📖

Wrap Up|| July – November.

Hi! Happy December! 🙂

A couple weeks ago I posted my wrap up for the months of April through June, so this post will be dedicated to the books that I read from July through November. In my last post I mentioned how I haven’t been reading much and that I hadn’t changed throughout the rest of the year. Although, July was probably my best month and then it started to go downhill after that. I didn’t even finish a single book in September. 😦 I’m so behind on my Goodreads challenge and I don’t see myself completing it this year. I think at this point in time I am 12 books behind, sigh.

With that being said, I am going to jump into my wrap up for July through November. You can find a full list of the books that I read so far this year over here. All will be linked to Goodreads below and I will also link to individual blog posts for them if I did a review.

anatomyaristotleanddante2thestrangerinthelifeboatfatchancecharlievega

Anatomy by Dana Schwartz – 3 out of 5 stars (July)
Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World by Benjamin Alire Saenz – 5 out of 5 stars (July)
The Stranger in the Lifeboat by Mitch Albom – 3 out of 5 stars (July)
Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado – 4 out of 5 stars (July)

thisviciousgracefindingchikathefervorbirdsofcalifornia

This Vicious Grace by Emily Thiede – 4 out of 5 stars (July)
Finding Chika by Mitch Albom – 4 out of 5 stars (July)
The Fervor by Alma Katsu – 3 out of 5 stars (July)
Birds of California by Katie Cotugno – DNF (July)

tuesdayswithmorriegallantimgladmymomyourscruelly

Tuesedays with Morrie by Mitch Albom – 3 out of 5 stars (August)
Gallant by V.E. Schwab – 4 out of 5 stars (August)
I’m Glad my Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy – 4 out of 5 stars (October)
Yours Cruelly, Elvira by Cassandra Peterson – 4 out of 5 stars (November)

Even though I didn’t read as much throughout August, October, and November; I did read some pretty good books and a handful of them were books that I’ve been wanting to read for a while now. Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World was definitely my favorite and the only five star that I gave for these. I was looking for something Halloweenish to read in October, so I started Yours Cruelly, Elvira and while I didn’t finish it in October, I did finally get it finished last month. I actually really liked it and reading about her life. She definitely had some crazy stories and a pretty wild life, but there were a lot of fun moments and she’s pretty funny. 👻 Caught up on a couple Mitch Albom books I haven’t read. I think there’s only one left that I haven’t read yet. I’ve always liked reading his books. Overall, I am happy with the books that I read.


I need to work on 2023 pages and posts for my blog. Maybe change up the look a bit. I also need to update my 2022 book spreadsheet. I am really hoping that I will come around here more at the start of the new year because I miss blogging. Even if I post other types of posts and not just book related ones when I’m not reading much, I still want to blog and I want to catch up with you guys. Like I said in my last post, I feel out of the loop in the book community now. So behind on all the new releases and upcoming releases. I’m sure there are a ton of books I should have bought and haven’t because I missed them! Speaking of buying books, I may or may not do couple wrap up posts. It’s been so long and I’ve gotten a lot of books since the last one. So it might end up being a big post or one that needs to be separated like these wrap ups were. We shall see!

To end this post, here is a picture I took to celebrate that it’s now the Christmas season!!! 🎄 Does anyone have their Christmas trees up yet? I have mine up, but still need to put on the ornaments. If you don’t celebrate Christmas, what do you celebrate? Any fun traditions?

In case you missed it;
Wrap Up|| April – June.

I hope you have a great day and weekend!

Wrap Up|| April – June.

Hi 🙂

I’m still alive…just very much absent on here right now. I haven’t been feeling very motivated to blog. I haven’t really been that motivated to read either. There’s even a month that I didn’t read a single book! 😦 It’s sad because I want to read, just haven’t felt like actually sitting down to read for long periods of time. I’ll read a few pages and then end up not being in the mood to read and stop, so it takes me FOREVER to even finish a single book these days. April, May, June, and July were okay months for reading because I was listening to audiobooks as well. But I started doing more work at my job that is a lot more complex, so listening to audiobooks isn’t easy while working anymore. This year I listened to a lot of audiobooks at the start and that’s how I got a lot of my reading done, so my numbers have definitely taken a hit and I’m actually 10 books behind on my reading challenge, ughh. With not being able to listen to audiobooks much anymore, my reading has taken a huge hit in August, September, October, and currently this month as well.

With that being said, I am going to jump into my April, May, and June wrap up. I’m combining them into one post because it’s not that many books. My next post will be July through November books that I’ve read combined. You can find a full list of the books that I read so far this year over here. All will be linked to Goodreads below and I will also link to individual blog posts for them if I did a review.

youllbethedeathofmethefourwindshomefrontinhertiencetheexhex

You’ll Be the Death of Me by Karen McManus – 3 out of 5 stars (April)
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah – 5 out of 5 stars (April)
Home Front by Kristin Hannah – 5 out of 5 stars (May)
Inheritance by Elizabeth Acevedo – 3 out of 5 stars (May)
The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling – 3 out of 5 stars (May)

homicideandhalohalobookloversthenightingaleflowersintheatticthemidnightlibrary

Homicide and Halo-Halo by Mia P. Manansala – 4 out of 5 stars (May)
Book Lovers by Emily Henry – 4 out of 5 stars (May)
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah – 5 out of 5 stars (June)
Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews – 3 out of 5 stars (June)
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig – 3 out of 5 stars (June)

I had a few five star books during these months, which was great because it seems like five stars are rare with me these days. Could be the reading slump making me not be as into books though, who knows. I can’t get enough of Kristin Hannah and it seems like all the books I’ve read of hers have been five stars! There were a few books where I expected them to be amazing and fall in love with them, but then they ended up being only three stars, like You’ll Be the Death of Me and The Midnight Library. I still liked them though. Three starts to me means that I liked them, so it’s okay. 😛

I don’t know how much I will be around the rest of this year, to be honest. I think I might just take the rest of the year to just chill and try to catch up on what posts I want to do to close out the year and hopefully start fresh in 2023! Maybe I’ll get out of this crazy reading slump that I am in and read more and actually want to post on here again. I feel so behind with you guys and all the new books that have been released and are going to be released! I feel so out of the loop in the book world these days! Sigh. Fingers crossed things go back to normal here for me! 🙂

Feel free to link me to any posts of yours that you think I should check out! Also, fill my comments with book recommendations since I am so lost in the book world now lol. ❤

I hope you have a great day and weekend!

Random|| Life Update.

Hi! 🙂

It’s been quite a while since I have posted on my blog. I think my last post was in April!! I haven’t really had the motivation to blog. I needed a bit of a break and maybe I still do, I’m not sure yet. I honestly haven’t really been reading that much lately and if I do, it’s been mostly audiobooks. It has taken me so long to read books on my own, which is so sad. 😦 I want to get back into reading on my own again, but I just have trouble really being able to focus on that for too long.

I haven’t really had the motivation to do a lot of things, honestly. I was doing so good at working out and eating better all year (I even lost 20 pounds!) and then that kind of stopped over the last month and a half because I just haven’t had the motivation to continue, sigh. I want to get back into reading, I want to get back into blogging, and I want to get back into a healthier lifestyle again with exercise and food. Right now, I just don’t really know how to though.

Since I haven’t been doing those things anymore, I’ve spent a lot of my time lately playing video games on my Nintendo Switch or catching up with TV shows. It has been fun getting back into video games. Currently playing Spiritfarer, Cozy Grove, and Unpacking. I also occasionally hop back on Animal Crossing once in a while. I am trying to finally complete my museum. I was playing Cat Cafe Manger for a while too until I beat the storyline and stopped. I liked that you run a little cat cafe and can lure stray cats to your little cafe and then adopt them out lol. I may start playing again, so I can unlock everything. I am constantly checking the Nintendo shop for more games to play. I need to stop and actually finish all the games I started though lol. I guess buying new games is as addicting as buying books. 😛

Let’s talk a little about books…like I mentioned above, a lot of my reading has been audiobooks. It’s easier to listen to audiobooks right now because I do that while I’m working. I wish I was reading more on my own, but right now audiobooks just work better for me. If I didn’t listen to audiobooks, I would probably not be finishing any books at all. I am going to start working on wrap up and book haul posts to hopefully post on my blog soon. I may combine some months together since there were a couple months where I only read/listened to 2-3 books each month.

I listened to This Vicious Grace by Emily Thiede that I got an ARC on Netgalley a while back, so hoping to do a mini review of that and try to read the other few ARCs that I have left, so I can finally review them. I also want to catch up with you! I know I have quite a few posts to catch up on. Since I’ve been mostly out of the loop in the book community lately, I’m probably missing out on a lot of new releases and upcoming releases; so it will be nice seeing what you have been reading and what you recommend. Hopefully I can do all of this soon!

Next week I start training for my job and the training is for about 3-4 weeks, so I may be a bit busy for the next month. Hopefully once I get trained at my job and start getting the hang of all the new tasks I will be doing at work, I’ll be less stressed and be able to get back into reading and blogging again. *fingers crossed* We’ll see how it all goes!

I hope you are doing great! Feel free to let me know how things have been and any new favorite books you’ve read recently! 🙂 Hopefully I will catch up with you soon! ❤

Book Haul & Wrap Up|| March.

Hey!

I’ve been pretty much non-existent here this past month. I just didn’t really have the motivation to blog or even read much. I guess it was kind of an unofficial hiatus from here and it might be this month as well. I try to pick up a book and then I end up putting it back down. I haven’t really been able to focus too much on reading. I’ve been passing time with TV shows and diamond painting instead. I haven’t finished a single book myself since the beginning of February. If I do “read” a book it’s been audiobooks. I did manage to listen to three audiobooks this month, but that’s all of the reading (well listening) I got to in March. It’s almost two weeks into April and I still haven’t picked up a book (or audiobook), sigh. I’m going to try to read a little bit each day even if it’s only a few pages; hopefully that’ll spark something in me that will make me want to read more again!

Today, I am sharing my March wrap up and book haul though! I may not have read anything like I wanted, I still listened to a few audiobooks. I also did do a little book buying. I am combining the posts together since my haul and my wrap up are small. This post is also almost two weeks late, so I want to just get it up. I’ll start with my March book haul and then get into my wrap up after that! You can check out a full list of the books that I own over here. There’s links to different pages on my blog that show my e-books and my physical books. Here are the books that I got in March…

thefriendzonegallanttheravenstale

The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez
Gallant by V.E. Schwab
The Raven’s Tale by Cat Winters

Final cover.inddfallorplayingforlove

Windfall by Jennifer E. Smith
Fall or, Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson
Playing for Love by Jeevani Charika (e-book)

These are the books that I bought in March! I am pretty excited about them all and even more so because I got them all on sale aside from Gallant. There’s a store here that sells books at HUGE discounts and I was able to get them there for under $4.99 each. Fall or, Dodge in Hell scares me though because it’s so HUGE!! It sounded so good though, so I decided to get it. The others are books I’ve seen around and that caught my attention. WIth the prices being so cheap, I decided to get them.

What books did you get in March? Have you read any of the ones that I got?


And now for my wrap up! I’m sad I didn’t read as much as I wanted to, but I’m just glad I was able to finish something even if they were audiobooks. I’m still trying to mostly read books I own and the older the better, so two of the books I listened to are older books that I own. You can find a full list of the books that I read in March and the other books I read throughout the year over here. All will be linked to Goodreads below and I will also link to individual blog posts for them if I did a review. Here are the books that I listened to in March…

spinningsilverthepatientastudyincharlotte

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik – 3 out of 5 stars (Audiobook)
The Patient by Jasper DeWitt – 2 out of 5 stars (Audiobook)
A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro – 4 out of 5 stars (Audiobook)

Spinning Silver was a book that I’ve owned for quite some time, so I decided to finally read it. I bought it awhile ago in a Book of the Month subscription box. I really enjoyed it at the beginning and was having fun with it, but then it started to drag on and I was impatiently waiting for the end to come. Overall, it was good and I liked it. It just started to get a little too boring for me after a while. The Patient is just a random book that I found on my library’s website that sounded interesting. The husband and I had a four hour car ride home from visiting my mom, so I found a book we could listen to together. It was good at the start, but the end was just so dumb and unrealistic with everything else that happened in the book. The ending just didn’t fit with everything else. It was weird and dumb how it ended. I gave it two stars, the husband said he would give it four stars…smh lol. A Study in Charlotte is another book that I’ve owned for a while and decided to finally read. I really liked it and had a lot of fun listening to it. I’m excited to listen to the sequel.

What books did you read in March? Have you read any of the books that I read? Feel free to link me to your wrap up post, so I can check it out!

That’s all I got for this post. I am going to try find some time this week to catch up with your posts. I’ll have a little extra time to myself this week, so it’ll be nice getting back on here and see how you are doing! 🙂

I hope you have a great day!

Book Haul & Wrap Up|| February.

Hey!

I usually do my book hauls and wrap ups separately, but I decided to combine them for this month because both are pretty small with the amount of books I bought and read throughout February. Lately, it’s been hard for me to just sit and read. I don’t know if it’s because I’m in some kind of reading slump or what it could be. I didn’t even really want to listen to audiobooks, but I forced myself this month because if I didn’t, then I wouldn’t really have much to share as far as reading goes. Same with buying books. I’ve been really picky these days of what I buy as far as books go, so I didn’t really buy much this month.

Let’s jump into my February book haul and then get into my wrap up after that! You can check out a full list of the books that I own over here. There’s links to different pages on my blog that show my e-books and my physical books. Here are the books that I got in February…

daughterofthedeepsweettalklikeme

Daughter of the Deep by Rick Riordan (Physical Book)
Sweet Talk by Cara Bastone (E-Book)
Like Me by Hayley Phelan (E-Book)

I always have fun reading Rick Riordan’s books, so I had to get Daughter of the Deep. I had no idea he even had a new one, so I was stoked when I found out. Sweet Talk is the second book in the Love Lines series. I read the first book Call Me Maybe and really liked it, so I got the second one. Like Me was free with Amazon First Reads. It sounded interesting, so why not since it was free lol. So, as you can see my book haul for February was pretty small! Only one physical book and two e-books.

What books did you get in February? Have you read any of the ones that I got?


And now for my wrap up! I didn’t have much luck with reading this month as I mentioned earlier in this post. I just couldn’t focus on reading. I would sit down, try to read, and then just wanted to pick up my phone instead. Maybe I need to start turning my phone off and put it in another room and set time where I read for at least 30 minutes to an hour each day or something. For February I read one book, which took me an entire month to finish a book under 300 pages ughh. I listened to three books. And I had a DNF book that was also an audiobook that I tried listening to. You can find a full list of the books that I read in January and the other books I read throughout the year over here. All will be linked to Goodreads below and I will also link to individual blog posts for them if I did a review.

callmemaybeelizaandhermonstersthechalkmanmebeforeyou

Call Me Maybe by Cara Bastone – 4 out of 5 stars – (E-Book)
Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia – 4 out of 5 stars (Audiobook)
The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor – 3 out of 5 stars (Audiobook)
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes – 4 out of 5 stars (Audiobook)

I’m still trying to read a lot of my older books that I’ve had on my shelves for a while and this month I did really good with that. Aside from Call Me Maybe (I bought it last year), these others were books that I’ve had for a while and had not read yet. Call Me Maybe was really cute and I had a lot of fun reading it. It took me all month to read it and it’s only a little over 200 pages, but I am happy I was finally able to finish it because I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed Eliza and Her Monsters. It was not what I expected, but that was a good thing. There were things I didn’t like about it like how Wallace seemed kind of selfish to me in the end and I also really wasn’t a fan of the fanfiction that was included in the story. The Chalk Man was good, but I felt like there was something missing. It was kind of weird too. I think I was expecting something else. I’ve been wanting to read Me Before You for a while now and I finally did! It was really good, but so sad. I didn’t really like how it ended though.

thisgirl

This Girl by Colleen Hoover – DNF

I really liked Slammed and Point of Retreat, but The Girl was a DNF for me. I was bored throughout listening to the audiobook and Layken was really annoying and whiny. I feel like it could have been better without her commentary after each flashback from Will’s perspective.

What books did you read in February? Have you read any of the books that I read? Feel free to link me to your wrap up post, so I can check it out!

I am hoping that March will be a lot better as far as reading goes. I want to get back into the swing of things and actually be able to read books myself again! I have a couple of ARCs that I really want to try to read in March, so I can finally get my reviews up for them. Fingers crossed that happens! I’ll catch up with you posts soon. I’ve been trying to blog hop at least once a week and I’ve been pretty good at sticking to that over the last few weeks. 🙂

I’ll end this post with a picture of one of my cats (ColbyJack) hanging out on one of my bookshelves.

I hope you have a great day!

Wrap Up|| January.

Hey!

January went by way too fast. I didn’t get to do most of the things that I wanted to do or read as much as I wanted to. There are blog posts that I hoped to work on and get posted throughout the month; that ended up not happening. I wanted to catch up with your posts and didn’t get the chance until earlier this week. I feel like the month went by in the blink of an eye! This month I need to play catch up on those posts I didn’t get to. Let’s focus on the positives of the month though…

I read mostly books that I own minus one that was from the library (that I got before 2021 ended) that happened to be a DNF. Since it was a DNF, I don’t count that. I have been mostly staying away from the library so far this year, which is another positive. I do get audiobooks from my library of books that I own and don’t count that against my goal since I am listening to books I do own. And lastly, I was able to post a review and check off an ARC from my list of older ARCs that I didn’t get the chance to read/review last year.

January hasn’t gone exactly to plan with blog posts and stuff, but I have been making progress with some of my 2022 reading goals already! Now, I’ll jump into my January wrap up. You can find a full list of the books that I read in January and the other books I read throughout the year over here. All will be linked to Goodreads below and I will also link to individual blog posts for them if I did a review. Here are the books that I read and listened to in January...

Print/E-Book Books:
These are the books that I read myself (not audiobooks) throughout the month of January.

aristotleanddante1somethingsistillcanttellyou

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz – 5 out of 5 stars
Some Things I Still Can’t Tell You by Misha Collins – 3 out of 5 stars

Aristotle and Dante was a reread. I wanted to refresh my memory of it since the sequel recently came out and I am hoping to read it this month. I loved it just as much as I did the first time I read it back in 2015 (I think). I mentioned before how I really like Misha Collins, especially from knowing him from the TV show Supernatural. His book of poems Some Things I Still Can’t Tell You was good, but I didn’t love it. I found it hard to really connect to any of the poems. But it was interesting getting a different glimpse into his life and who he is through his poems.


Audiobooks:
These are the books that I listened to the audio versions throughout the month of January.

gildedinstructionsfordancingwellmet

Gilded by Marissa Meyer – 5 out of 5 stars – Review
Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon – 4 out of 5 stars
Well Met by Jen DeLuca – 4 out of 5 stars

I received an ARC of Gilded from Netgalley last year, but I didn’t get the chance to read it. My library had the audiobook, so I listened to it and it was SO GOOD! I loved it so much. You can check out my mini review (linked above) to see more of what I thought. I really liked Instructions for Dancing. Nicola Yoon has been hit or miss for her books for me. Some I really love and some are “meh”, but this one was great and I enjoyed listening to the audiobook. I’ve been seeing Well Met around for so long and I bought the e-book last year, but decided to give the audiobook a chance since my library had it available. I really liked it! I can definitely see why it was talked about a lot. It made me really want to go to a Renaissance festival again. Where I used to live there was one two weekends out of the year and that was fun. I am excited to pick up the sequel and hopefully it’s just as good.


DNF (Did Not Finish):
These are the books that I tried to read in the month of January, but they ended up not being for me so I will not be continuing them.

theunitlandline

The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist
Landline by Rainbow Rowell

The Unit was a book that I got from the library last year and didn’t get the chance to read it, so I tried to at the start of this year. It sounded really interesting and I probably didn’t give it a fair chance by I reading about 15% of it before I decided I was done. I felt it was taking too long for anything to really happen and I was losing interest fast. Other books were calling my name instead. I kind of want to give it a second chance, but I know I probably will never get around to that unless an audiobook becomes available. I’ve owned Landline for such a long time now and I finally decided to give it a chance and holy crap was it boooooring. I listened to half of the audiobook and just could not do it anymore. I was so bored and I really did not like the main character Georgie. She was beyond annoying.

What books did you read in January? Have you read any of the books that I read? Feel free to link me to your wrap up post, so I can check it out!

I was able to catch up and comment on your posts a few days ago, so that was exciting. I will probably do that again this weekend and also reply to comments. I need to work on those blog posts of mine that I meant to do in January and never did, sigh. Hopefully this weekend I can do that too. 🙂

In case you missed it;
Book Haul|| January.

I hope you have a great day!

Book Haul|| January.

Hey!

I am going to just jump right into my January book haul since it’s posted late (wanted to get it up a couple days ago) and I will talk more about things that happened in January in my wrap up later this week. You can check out a full list of the books that I own over here. There’s links to different pages on my blog that show my e-books and my physical books. Here are the books that I got in January…

remindersofhimechoesandempireswhenyougetthechanceroxy

I had to get Reminders of Him because it’s Colleen Hoover. I have to have all of her books. I also had to get Morgan Rhodes’ new book Echoes and Empires because I loved her Falling Kingdoms series so much, so I am excited for her new book. When You Get the Chance I decided to get because it mentions LiveJournal and I have had a LiveJournal since high school, so I knew it would bring back memories from those days. I do still use my LiveJournal once in a while. I’m not as active writing in my journal as I used to be back in high school though haha. 😛 I saw Roxy the other day at Target and it sounded interesting and weird. I like Neal Shusterman, so I decided to buy it. Hopefully I like it!

honeydontlistkillingnovemberwhenwewerevikingschosenones

There’s this store here called “Ollie’s” and they sell a ton of stuff discounted and they also have a section in the store of books, so I got these four above from there. I always go there just to check out their book section because I always end up finding something to buy. I don’t remember the exact price I paid for each one, but they were between $1.99-4.99, which is awesome! 😀

Roxy not pictured because I bought it days after posting this on my bookstagram and didn’t want to retake this picture because I really like it.

E-Books:

runningwildsomethingfabulouswellplayedthelobotomistswife

Running Wild by K.A. Tucker
Something Fabulous by Alexis Hall
Well Played by Jen DeLuca
The Lobotomist’s Wife by Samantha Greene Woodruff

I didn’t get a ton of e-books in January. I’ve been becoming more and more picky about buying e-books since I already have so many that I need to read lol. I had to have Running Wild because I love the series so much. I am really excited to read the new book. I really like Alexis Hall, so I decided to get Something Fabulous since it was pretty cheap and sounded good. Well Played was on sale for $1.99 (I think), so I got that because I read Well Met in January and really liked it. The Lobotomist’s Wife sounded pretty good and it was free with Amazon First Reads.

Have you read any of the books that I got in January? Feel free to link me to your haul post if you have one, so I can check it out!

After work today I’m going to catch up with your posts from the last few weeks! I know I didn’t come around much in January like I hoped I would. I also plan to work on my January wrap up, which should hopefully be posted in the next couple days.

In case you missed it;
Mini Review|| Gilded.
2022 Reading Goals.

I hope you have a great!

Mini Review|| Gilded.

gilded

Gilded by Marissa Meyer
5 out of 5 stars

Goodreads Description: Long ago cursed by the god of lies, a poor miller’s daughter has developed a talent for spinning stories that are fantastical and spellbinding and entirely untrue. Or so everyone believes. When one of Serilda’s outlandish tales draws the attention of the sinister Erlking and his undead hunters, she finds herself swept away into a grim world where ghouls and phantoms prowl the earth and hollow-eyed ravens track her every move. The king orders Serilda to complete the impossible task of spinning straw into gold, or be killed for telling falsehoods. In her desperation, Serilda unwittingly summons a mysterious boy to her aid. He agrees to help her . . . for a price. Soon Serilda realizes that there is more than one secret hidden in the castle walls, including an ancient curse that must be broken if she hopes to end the tyranny of the king and his wild hunt forever.


I received an ARC of Gilded from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. It was released on November 2nd, 2021.

I am always unsure when it comes to Marissa Meyers books, especially retellings because I wasn’t really a big fan of the Lunar Chronicles. I still wanted to give Gilded a chance because I love Rumpelstiltskin and was excited for a retelling! If you can tell by my five star rating above, I loved Gilded. I was actually shocked by how much I loved it. There were so many happy and beautiful moments, but so many that were sad and painful too. I really enjoyed the stories that Serilda told throughout the book. She may not be able to spin straw into gold, but she could definitely spin a story. Magic, curses, monsters, and ghosts make for a great book and I had so much fun reading this one. I am now impatiently waiting for the sequel, Cursed, which comes out November of this year!

In case you missed it;
2022 Reading Goals.
2021 Year in Books.

I hope you have a great day!

2022 Reading Goals.

Hey!

I hope you’re having a great start to the new year. I thought I would once again post my reading/blogging goals for the year. It’s always fun to think about and to make lists. Some of these goals may be repeats or similar from last year, because I really want to continue to stick to those goals this year as well or finally accomplish them if I haven’t in past years. I’m keeping my goals list short this year, because 2021 was a really difficult year and I don’t want to overwhelm or stress myself out this year.

2022 Goodreads Challenge. I am keeping my Goodreads challenge to 50 books again this year. The last couple years, if it wasn’t for counting audiobooks toward my reading goal (which I don’t usually do), I wouldn’t have completed my challenges. So, I’m keeping it at 50 books and hope for the best. It was honestly a challenging year for me as far as my mental health goes. I will probably count audiobooks toward my challenge again this year. Fingers crossed I actually read more books myself this year though.

ARCs/no ARCs. This was a goal I had last year and it basically was to not request any (or many) ARCs. I did pretty well with not requesting, but the few that I did request I never got around to reading them. So, I want to keep this goal for this year and I want to focus on reading the ones that I have from 2021 and get my reviews posted for those. I’m sure I’ll still get a few here and there and that’s fine, but I don’t want to request more than I can handle. I really want to just focus on finishing older ones before I request new ones.

Read 20 of my own older books. What I mean by this is reading older books I own, anything I buy this year does NOT count toward this; rereads do not count either. I struggle a lot with this goal every single year, because new books get released and then I read a lot of library books and ARCs. I am drowning in unread books that I bought years and years ago. When I say I’m drowning in unread books, I mean by HUNDREDS of books. I was able to complete this challenge last year and I want to do that again this year and I even increased the goal by five books this year. Honestly, I need to stay away from the library as much as possible. I have my own library at home! 😛

Declutter bookshelves & Kindle. I want to go through my bookshelves and donate books that I know that I won’t ever get around to reading. I also want to delete books from my Kindle that I know I will never read. Right now I have soooo many books and I know a lot of them I won’t actually get around to reading or that I lost interest in. I think doing this will make me feel a little less guilty or stressed that I have so many unread books. There’s a used bookstore here that you can trade books in for credit, so that helps. I can trade books I don’t want for books that I do!

Write more reviews. I’ve been slacking really badly with writing reviews over the last few years. I used to review everything that I read and then for some reason I stopped doing that and started to only review ARCs or new releases. I want to get back into the habit of writing reviews again; whether they be full reviews or mini reviews. I may set a smaller goal within this one by writing at least one or two reviews a month for the books that I read.

Be more active again. I’ve been almost completely MIA this year on my blog. I couldn’t really find a balance between work and other things in my life. I also feel like my mental health was crap almost the entire year, because of that I wasn’t reading much or blogging much. I was putting my time and energy into video games or TV instead. I really want to try this year to be active more on my blog with posting more and coming up with new content to post. I also want to connect with you more! I really enjoy blogging and have made so many wonderful friends over the years through blogging. I want to try at least once a week. Maybe it will be more than that, but if not, once a week is a good balance for me right now.

There may be new or smaller goals that pop up throughout the year and that’s fine. This is just a list of the main goals that I really hope to stick to and achieve for 2022. Reminder to myself: no pressure if you don’t, it’s okay!

What are some goals you have for this year? Feel free to link me to your posts if you have one!

I have a few more posts that I am going to start working on this weekend for all the books that I read in 2021. The posts will be all my five stars, four stars, and so on! 🙂 I also plan to do some blog hopping and reply to comments this weekend too, so I can catch up with you. 🖤

In case you missed it;
2021 Year in Books.
Wrap Up|| December.

I hope you have a great day and weekend!

2021 Year in Books.

Hey!

It is time to look back on my reading throughout 2021! This post will give updates on my Goodreads challenge, some pie charts of what I read, and a recap on if I did good with my 2021 reading goals that I made at the start of the year. I’m not going to lie, it was a pretty big struggle with reading this past year. My head was just not in it. Too many other things going on and I couldn’t find a balance or any motivation for much of anything. At one point I wasn’t even sure if I would complete my Goodreads challenge. Did I manage to do it?

My Goodreads reading challenge was to read 50 books in 2021…

61 books read for challenge.
36 of those were audiobooks.
1 was a DNF that isn’t counted toward my goal above.

I read 10 books more than I did in 2020! In 2020 I barely reached my Goodreads challenge, so I was happy that I passed it by 11 books this year. Of course I hoped I would have read more like I have in other years, but the last few years have just been really hard on me as far as finding the motivation to read like I used to. Once again saved by the audibooks this year!


I don’t do half star ratings and I use Goodreads’ rating system with how I rate the books that I read. Below is how Goodreads has their star ratings set up.

5 stars – it was amazing
4 stars – I really liked it
3 stars – liked it
2 stars – it was ok
1 star – did not like it

Below is a pie chart of my star ratings of the books that I read in 2021.

I had more 5-star reads in 2021 than I did the year before (2020 I only had seven), but five of those 5-stars were rereads. The 4-stars and 3-stars were pretty consistent between 2020 and 2021. I had more 2-stars this year than I did last year. The 1-star was the same as 2020 and I had less DNF books than I did in 2020. Honestly, my numbers stay pretty consistent throughout everything give or take a few each year. If you want to check out what my 2020 numbers were, you can check it out over here.

You can check out more about all the books that I read in 2021 over here with links to reviews if I did one. I will be doing a series of blog posts coming soon of all the books that I read in 2021 with their star ratings, links to their Goodreads pages, and covers. My first post will be all the five star books of the year and so on. I did it in previous years and decided to continue with those posts, because it’s always fun to look back on the books that I read and share what I loved and maybe didn’t love so much.

And just for fun, here are a couple more random pie charts for the books that I read in 2021. The first pie chart shows the format of the books that I read whether they were ARCs, e-books, print, or audiobooks. It seems this year it was all about the audiobooks. It also looks like I choose reading e-books a little more over print books as well.

The second pie chart shows whether it was an older book that I own, a newer book that I purchased in 2021, or a book that I borrowed. I wanted to get an idea of how much I actually borrow from the library and Kindle Unlimited versus what I actually own. It seems a little even between books I own and books I borrow, but books I own beat out the books I borrow by like four books. I am glad to see that I read a few more older books than I did recent purchases too. I am hoping to see a lot less in borrowed books in 2022 and focus more on my own books.


Now onto my 2021 reading goals and whether I think I accomplished them or not. You can check out the actual post I made in January 2021 of my goals over here, but here is just a small recap of what they were. That post has longer explanations of what each of these goals were.

2021 Goodreads Challenge.
As you can see at the start of this post, I was able to complete my Goodreads challenge of 50 books. I actually read 61 books. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without audiobooks though. As you can see from my pie chart above, audiobooks were a big number of the books that I read. I just couldn’t really focus much on reading this year, so it was a lot easier to put on an audiobook while I read or worked on diamond paintings.

ARCs/no ARCs.
This goal was about not requesting too many ARCs and focus on the ARCs that I didn’t finish the year before. I ended up requesting six ARCs and sadly I only read one of them. I also never did get to read one of the ARCs that I received in 2020 that I had hoped to read. I’m sad about this, BUT you’ll see this as a repeat goal for 2022 because I want to get all of these ARCs read and I want to actually try to stay away from them as much as possibly this year.

2017 or older TBR jar. 
Complete fail with my goal of reading one TBR jar pick a month of my books from 2017 or older. I abandoned this goal after the first month. I just wasn’t in the mood for any of the books that I chose and I didn’t want to force myself to read them, so I decided not to even bother with this one anymore.

Read 15 of my own books.
YES! I was able to complete this goal and actually read 18 of my older books as you can see in one of my pie charts above. This goal was a little similar with the TBR jar because both focused on reading my older books. The difference was my TBR jar was for 2017 books and older, this goal counted any book I bought before 2021.

Write more reviews.
Nope. I think I only ever got around to writing five reviews.

Focus more on my blog and new content. 
Again, nope for this one too. I think I started strong the first month or so, but then after awhile I just got so stuck in my head with other things and busy with work that I just didn’t have enough focus on my blog or coming up with new content for it.

I hope to be around more in 2021!
This one was a let down as well. I did try to blog hop as much as I could, but I know I could have done better. My mind was just not on blogging in 2021. Too much happening in my life and in my head that it was hard to want to be around. I did try to do it at least once a month though. Hopefully that counts for something.

How did you do this year with your reading goals? How many books did you read in 2021? Feel free to link me to your posts!

I did some blog hopping yesterday and it was fun catching up with your posts. Hopefully I can find a balance between life and blogging, so I can be around more. I bought a cool new planner to use for this year, so maybe I can use that to schedule in some blogging time each week. I’ll have my 2022 reading goals posted in the next few days, so be on the look out for that. 🙂 I also have a few other posts that I want to start working on this weekend.

In case you missed it;
Wrap Up|| December.
Book Haul|| December.

I hope you have a great day!

Wrap Up|| December.

Hey!

Today I am sharing my December wrap up. December was a busy and weird month for me. I tried to get into the Christmas spirit by reading and listening to Christmas books, but honestly, this month didn’t feel that Christmassy. I guess maybe because my family and I celebrated Christmas together the first week of December and after that it felt like Christmas was over. I also got some not so great health news from my doctor (nothing super serious just changes I need to make with my eating habits before it becomes serious), so that took away me being able to eat all the fun holiday treats and stuff. It was honestly just a depressing month with so many different things happening and it made it hard for me to focus on reading. I read one book myself this month, which took the entire month to read (finished it on December 30 or 31) and the others were audiobooks. You can find a full list of the books that I read in December and the other books I read throughout 2021 over here. All will be linked to Goodreads below and I will also link to individual blog posts for them if I did a review. Here are the books that I read and listened to in December...

Print/E-Book Books:
These are the books that I read myself (not audiobooks) throughout the month of December.

alliwantforchristmas

All I Want for Christmas by Wendy Loggia – 3 out of 5 stars

All I Want for Christmas was the only book that I read myself in December. I was really hoping to read more and had even bought some new Christmas books, but it just didn’t happen. This book though, it was cute and I enjoyed it. It didn’t blow me away or anything, but that’s probably because I really didn’t have that much Christmas spirit this year anyway and halfway through the book I just wanted to be done with Christmas. I did like it though and thought it was cute.


Audiobooks:
These are the books that I listened to the audio version throughout the month of December.

If the Fates Allow by Rainbow Rowell – 3 out of 5 stars
Oh. What. Fun. by Chandler Baker – 4 out of 5 stars
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens – 4 out of 5 stars
Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw – 1 out of 5 stars

If the Fates Allow and Oh. What. Fun. are both short stories and they were pretty good for what they are. Nothing that really blew me away, but I still liked them. I liked Oh. What. Fun. a little more than If the Fates Allow. I feel like If the Fates Allow was a little boring at times, but it was basically the topic of COVID/social distancing and honestly I am SICK of COVID ughhh. The husband and I usually watch A Christmas Carol movie, but I actually never read the book, so I decided to listen to the audiobook while I worked on diamond paintings and I really enjoyed it. I knew I would since I like the movie. I was looking for something quick to read and my library had Nothing But Blackened Teeth available and I was able to finish it within a few hours. Honestly….it sucked. It was boring. Half the time I didn’t even know what was going on. It was a huge let down, because I was really looking forward to reading it.

What books did you read in December? Have you read any of the books that I read? Feel free to link me to your wrap up post, so I can check it out!

I’ll have my reading goals for 2022 posted soon as well as an end of the year wrap up for 2021. I’m currently working on both of those posts and can’t wait to share them! Once I get all of those drafted and ready to post I plan to do some blog hopping to catch up with you and reply to comments, so that will probably be in the next couple days. 🙂

In case you missed it;
Book Haul|| December.

I hope you have a great day!

Book Haul|| December.

Hey!

Happy New Year! I know it’s the new year, but I’m talking about 2021. 😛 I was slacking and didn’t get around to doing my book haul or wrap up posts for December yet, so today I am sharing my December book haul! I don’t have too much to say, so I am just going to jump right into it. You can check out a full list of the books that I own over here. There’s links to different pages on my blog that show my e-books and my physical books. I finally updated them for 2022! I’ve been saying month after month throughout 2021 how I needed to update those pages lol. Anyway, here are the books that I got in December.

They Went Left by Monica Hesse
Here’s to Us by Becky Albertalli & Adam Silvera
You’ll Be the Death of Me by Karen M. McManus
If This Gets Out by Sophie Gonzles & Cale Dietrich
Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff

I got a few exciting books in December! 🙂 I had to have They Went Left because I’ve read a couple of Monica’s books and have really loved them. What If It’s Us is one of my favorite books and I NEEDED the sequel! I can’t wait to read Here’s to Us! I definitely need to make that a priority, because I need more Arthur and Ben! I’ve been wanting to read If This Gets Out since I first heard about it, so I decided to just buy it. I got You’ll Be the Death of Me and Empire of the Vampire as Christmas gifts and I’m stoked. I really like Karen’s books and I’m excited to read her new one. I’m not really a Jay Kristoff fan because I didn’t have the best luck with two of his books I’ve read so far, but Empire of the Vampire sounds good, so maybe third times the charm? But holy crap it’s HUGE!


E-Books:

The Witch King by H.E. Edgmon
The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun
Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian
If You Tell by Gregg Olsen
The Paid Bridesmaid by Sariah Wilson

There wasn’t very many e-book deals that I wanted in December, but I’ve been wanting to read The Witch King and The Charm Offensive, so I got those. I thought Never Saw Me Coming sounded good, so I got that. If You Tell and The Paid Bridesmaid I got for free with Amazon First Reads. If you’re an Amazon Prime member, then every month there’s a selection of books and you can get one for free; but some months they give out two. I’m looking forward to reading them all.

Have you read any of the books that I got in December? Feel free to link me to your haul post if you have one, so I can check it out!

I have quite a few blog posts that I am working on and hoping to post within the next couple weeks! Lots of 2021 recaps and my reading goals for 2022. Of all the posts I have planned for the next couple weeks, first up will of course be my December wrap up and then my reading goals for 2022. After that, it’ll be all my 2021 recap posts of the books I read.

Since I have a three day weekend and it’s only Saturday, I plan to spend today working on all those blog posts while binge watching the new season of Queer Eye on Netflix! And then I will do some blog hopping once I get some of those blog posts drafted. 😀

I hope you have a great day and weekend!

Book Haul|| October & November.

Hey!

I am here to share with you the books that I got recently. I am combining my October and November book hauls into one post. My November book haul is pretty big, because I went to this store that sells books at a big discount and I found SO MANY that I really wanted. I think the most expensive one was $3.99! There were also some books that I got on Amazon with one of their Black Friday deals. My physical haul for October was pretty small. And for October and November I got three e-books during each month.

You can check out a full list of the books that I own over here. There’s links to different pages on my blog that show my e-books and my physical books. I still need to update it because I have been horrible at keeping track of these pages. I’ll do an update of it before the end of the month though, so it can be updated before the start of the new year.  But anyway, here are the books that I got in October and November.

somethingsistillcanttellyouafacelikeglassaskagainyesitsnotsummerwithoutyou

Some Things I Still Can’t Tell You by Misha Collins (October)
A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge (October)
Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane (November)
It’s Not Summer Without You by Jenny Han (November)

theburningseafirethefaustacttheworldthatweknew

The Burning by Laura Bates (November)
Seafire by Natalie C. Parker (November)
The Faust Act by Kieron Gillen (November)
The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman (November)

aristotleanddante1aristotleanddante2sothisischristmasthelovehypothesis

Aristotle & Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz (November)
Aristotle & Dante Dive into the Waters of the World by Benjamin Alire Saenz (November)
So, This Is Christmas by Tracy Andreen (November)
The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood (November)

Some Things I Still Can’t Tell You was a preorder, because I love Misha Collins and I was curious about his poetry. The books after that one up to The World That We Knew were all the books that I got from the store by my house that had discount books. I always check that store every couple months to see if they have any new ones. I got super lucky this last time because they had so many I wanted, as you can see haha. I got seven from there between October and November. They were all under $3.99 each! The last set of books were the books that I got with the Amazon Black Friday sale they had. It was buy three for the price of two. I ended up getting the boxed set of Aristotle and Dante. I have the first book in paperback, but wanted hardcover so I could get the second book. I loved the first book so much. It was on sale on Black Friday, plus had the other deal on top of that too; I couldn’t pass it up! So, This Is Christmas sounded cute, so I got that to read this month (if I get to it) and I’ve been seeing The Love Hypothesis a lot lately, so I got that one too.

I forgot to add Some Things I Still Can’t Tell You into the picture above, oops.

E-Books:

herperfectfamilytahirainbloomthedesolationofdevilsacre

Her Perfect Family by Teresa Driscoll (October)
Tahira in Bloom by Farah Heron (October)
The Desolations of Devil’s Acre by Ransom Riggs (October)

houseofhollowoutlaweddeeplight

House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland (November)
Outlawed by Anna North (November)
Deeplight by Frances Hardinge (November)

I didn’t get too many e-books over the last two months, but these are the ones that I did get. A lot of them were ones that I really wanted and was stoked to see them on sale. I can’t wait to read them.

Have you read any of the books that I got in October and November? Which one should I read as soon as possible?

I have several posts that I’m going to start working on to hopefully post throughout the rest of December and early January. I’ll have December wrap up and book haul, my year in books for 2021, reading goals for 2022, and posts showing my star ratings for all the books that I read this year! I’m excited to be working on so many posts since I haven’t been the best at posting this year. ❤

In case you missed it;
Wrap Up|| October & November.

I hope you have a great day!

Wrap Up|| October & November.

Hey!

I haven’t updated in two months, yikes! I didn’t mean to go that long without posting to my blog. Life happened, I wasn’t reading much, my October TBR was a fail….so it just kind of made me not even want to blog. My mind has also just been in this weird place for months. It keeps me from wanting to read much, because I’m constantly just always thinking about things going on with me and can’t focus on reading. Just feel kind of stuck within myself, I guess. So with all that, I took an unplanned hiatus, I guess. I’m not really sure how much I’ll be updating this month either, honestly. I am hoping to start over fresh next year and hopefully I’ll start updating my blog consistently. *fingers crossed*

BUT I am updating today, so that’s cool! 🙂 I’m going to share my October and November wrap up. I decided to combined them since I didn’t really read a whole lot during those months. I also plan to post my October and November book haul (also combining them into one post) later this week or Monday. As always, you can find a full list of the books that I read during these months and the other books I read throughout the year over here. All will be linked to Goodreads below and I will also link to individual blog posts for them if I did a review. Here are the books that I read and listened to in October and November.

October Wrap Up

hideandseekerwytches

Hide and Seeker by Daka Hermon – 4 out of 5 stars
Wytches by Scott Snyder – 2 out of 5 stars

I had a TBR list of all the spooky books that I wanted to read in October, but I sadly only read two of the ten books that I had listed. I was really bummed out that I didn’t read more than that. I started a third, but I never got the chance to finish it. Hide and Seeker was so much fun to read and I really liked it. I am so happy I finally had the chance to read it. It definitely had its spooky moments. I was really excited about reading Wytches, but it was a huge let down for me. I honestly felt lost the entire time. The only thing I liked about it was the illustrations.


November Wrap Up

thirteenstosirwithlovesecretyoutubelife

Thirteens by Kate Alice Marshall – 4 out of 5 stars
To Sir, with Love by Lauren Layne (audiobook) 5 out of 5 stars
My [Secret] YouTube Life by Charlotte Seager – 2 out of 5 stars

Thirteens was the third book that I started in October, but didn’t have the chance to finish it. I finally did in November and I really enjoyed reading it. I’ll have to pick up the sequel sometime. I LOVED To Sir, with Love so much. I listened to the audiobook and it was great. I highly recommend! I was really disappointed with My [Secret] YouTube Life. I felt bored most of the time and I didn’t really love the characters. It was interesting getting a glimpse into the “influencer” lifestyle though.

I am currently reading All I Want For Christmas by Wendy Loggia. I want to try to read some Christmas books this month. Not setting that in stone (or a blog post :P) in case I don’t actually do that. We shall see!

I’m going to spend some time this week catching up with your posts. I can’t wait to see what you have been writing about and finding new book recommendations for my endless TBR. Feel free to link me to any posts you think I should check out ASAP. 🙂

I hope you have a great day!

Halloweenie TBR|| 2021.

Booooo!

Happy October! It’s my favorite month of the year! I love all things Halloween, Fall, and Spooky. It’s also my favorite time of year because I get to come up with a fun Halloween themed list of books that I want to read throughout the month of October! I do this every year whether I get around to reading them or not. I always go a bit ambitious when I make it, so I always have at least 10 books (some years more) on my list. I’m not sure how it will go this year as it seems this year I haven’t been reading as much as I usually do. My TBR may change up a little bit since I’m a mood reader and I might throw in some audiobooks that go along with the season as well. We shall see! Here are the books I added to my Halloweenie TBR this year! 🎃👻💀

wytchesthirteenshideandseekertakingofjakecemeteryboys

Wytches by Scott Snyder
Thirteens by Kate Alice Marshall
Hide and Seeker by Daka Hermon
The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass
Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

lostintheneverwoodwhenvillansrisescreamallnightlakesedge1badgirlsneversaydie

Lost in the Never Woods by Aiden Thomas
When Villains Rise by Rebecca Schaeffer (ARC)
Scream All Night
by Derek Milman
Lakesedge by Lyndall Clipstone (ARC)
Bad Girls Never Say Die by Jennifer Mathieu (ARC)

I am really excited about my Halloweenie TBR this year. I think I have a good mix of books that will be spooky and fun to read. Wytches is a graphic novel, so I am really stoked about that. I like trying to find at least one graphic novel to fit into my Halloweenie TBR each year, because it’s cool to see creepy fun illustrations too. I also included a few ARCs that I was sent on Netgalley to review and they seem to fit well in my TBRl. I do own a hardcover copy of When Villains Rise, but it was sent to me on Netgalley last year and I didn’t get the chance to read and review it before the year ended, so I finally want to read it and get my review up. It’s the final book in the Market of Monsters trilogy, which so far I absolutely LOVE.

Have you read any of the books on my October TBR? What do you plan to read in October?

I bought some new bookmarks this year to use for while reading my books throughout the month that are perfect for Fall and Halloween. 😀 I also have a ton from previous years too, so I am all set on a spooky TBR and bookmarks to go with it! ❤

In case you missed it;
Wrap Up|| September.
Book Haul|| September.

I hope you have a great day!

Wrap Up|| September.

Hey!

It’s OCTOBERRRRRR. 🎃 The weather might actually be cooling down a little bit for Florida, that’s exciting! 😛 September was a pretty good month for me as far as things happening in my life. I got a raise at work, working on lowering our mortgage payment, stuff like that. I still feel sad a lot though. I still try to distract my thoughts with reading, TV shows (a lot of Halloween Baking Championship and other competition shows), and video games (still going strong with Stardew Valley lol). But other things in my life are seeming to be really good right now, so I guess I can’t complain too much.

As far as reading goes, it was another month where I didn’t read as much as I wanted or hoped to. I read two books and listened to two audiobooks. That’s okay, but of course I hoped for more. I did complete my Goodreads challenge though! Now I don’t have to worry about if I am going to complete my challenge before the year ends. I was kind of nervous about that a few months ago since I haven’t been reading that much this year. I have three months of no pressure reading now. 😛

Anyway, let’s get to my September wrap up. You can find a full list of the books that I read this month and the other books I read throughout the year over here. All will be linked to Goodreads below and I will also link to individual blog posts for them if I did a review. Here are the books that I read and listened to in September.

Print/E-Book Books:
These are the books that I read myself (not audiobooks) throughout the month of September.

onelaststopafterthefire

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston – 4 out of 5 stars
After the Fire by Will Hill – 4 out of 5 stars

One Last Stop was really good and I really enjoyed it. It wasn’t what i expected either, but that’s probably because I saw it was a Casey McQuiston book and immediately decided I needed to read it and not read what it was about. 😛 The ending was kind of lame though, but the rest of it was so good! I’ve been wanting to read After the Fire for a few years now and I finally did! It was really good; shocking and sad. It was another book where I wasn’t really happy with the way it ended though. With that being said, I definitely recommend checking both of these books out if you haven’t!


Audiobooks:
These are the books that I listened to the audio version throughout the month of September.

felixeverafterthemaidens

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender – 5 out of 5 stars
The Maidens by Alex Michaelides – 2 out of 5 stars

Felix Ever After was EVERYTHING. Emotional rollercoaster. I laugh. I cried. It made me so happy. It made me so angry. I loved it so much and I am glad that I finally read it. Highly recommend checking it out if you haven’t! The Maidens was a big disappointment to me. I found a lot of it to be boring. I wasn’t that surprised or shocked by most of the things that happened.

What books did you read in September? Have you read any of the books that I read? Feel free to link me to your wrap up post, so I can check it out!

This weekend I am going to catch up with your posts and work on finishing up my Halloweenie TBR post that will probably go up on Monday! 😀 I’m pretty happy with the books that I chose to read this month. Also this weekend, I might check out this new bookstore that opened up here and maybe hit up the farmer’s market since it opened back up again last month. Do you have any weekend plans?

In case you missed it;
Book Haul|| September.

I hope you have a great day and weekend!

Book Haul|| September.

Hey!

The last two or three months I’ve been doing a combined wrap up and book haul, but I decided to do it separate this month because I actually bought more books than I have been the last few months. I felt my September book haul needed its own post, haha. I don’t have too much to say and will save it for my wrap up, so I am going to just jump right into my haul.

You can check out a full list of the books that I own over here. There’s links to different pages on my blog that show my e-books and my physical books. I still need to update it since earlier this year was the last time I did…one day lol. I know I keep saying it, but I swear it’ll happen. 😛 But anyway, here are the books that I got in September.

Print Books:

timewilltellthirteenswhataboutwillhideandseekerwytches

Time Will Tell by Barry Lyga
Thirteens by Kate Alice Marshall
What About Will by Ellen Hopkins
Hide and Seeker by Daka Hermon
Wytches by Scott Snyder

I’m surprised I bought five books this month since I haven’t been buying too many print books this year. I’ve been a lot pickier these days because there are lots of times where I don’t end up reading them right away. I’m sooo guilty of that lol. Probably why WAY MORE than half of the books on my shelves right now are unread. Time Will Tell is a Barry Lyga book and I always buy his books because I LOVED his I Hunt Killers series so much. I haven’t read all of his other books yet (told you I buy books that sit on my shelves for a long time :P), but I like to have them all for when that time comes that I finally want to read, haha. What About Will sounded really good, so I wanted that. I have a love/hate for Ellen Hopkins though. Some books are hits and some are misses for me. Hopefully this is a hit, because I’m pretty sure her last one was a miss. I bought Thirteens, Hide and Seeker, and Wytches for my Halloween themed TBR for October. I plan to post my Halloweenie TBR soon, so you’ll see these on the list along with a bunch more. 🙂


E-Books:

gothedistancepartofyourworldreflectionlovecommentsubscribe

Go the Distance by Jen Calonita
Part of Your World by Liz Braswell
Reflection by Elizabeth Lim
Love, Comment, Subscribe by Cathy Yardley

I really want to read all of these Disney retellings, so I had to get Go the Distance, Part of Your World, and Reflections when I saw them on sale this month. I own most of the series in e-book, but a couple of the books in the series I have physical copies. Eventually I’ll get around to reading them. 😛 I can’t wait to read them! Love, Comment, Subscribe was free with Amazon Prime First Reads. It sounded good, so I decided to pick that one as my free book.

What new books did you get in September? Have you read any of the ones that I got? Feel free to link me to your haul post, so I can check it out!

I plan to do some blog hopping this week since it has been a little bit since I last did that. I am super stoked to catch up with your posts and probably fill my forever long TBR with more book recommendations from you! Feel free to link me to any posts you want me to check out in case I miss them when I go blog hopping. I’ll have my September wrap up posted soon soon (possibly tomorrow) and like I mentioned above, my Halloweenie TBR will be coming soon too. 👻

I hope you have a great day!

Book Haul & Wrap Up|| August.

Hey!

Happy September! That means I can start decorating for Halloween, right? 🎃 So close to my favorite spooky month! I am hoping to make a trip to Target this weekend in the hopes that they have their Halloween decor out. I NEED more! Target always has some really great holiday decor, so hopefully I find some new things I like for this year. I have a couple ideas of what I am looking for and I am hoping they have it. August was a busy month for me. I was finishing up my photography class (which I loved) and then I was able to go visit my family for a weekend. I spent lots of time playing Stardew Valley because once again, this game is addicting. And I got back into diamond painting again. I’m off and on with it. I’ll be really obsessed and do it ALL THE TIME and then I won’t do it for a long, long time until I pick it up again haha. I’ve also been working and got extended at my job to the end of November, which is great.

As you can see from the title of this blog post, I decided to once again combine my book haul and wrap up post together because they are both pretty small for August as well. As you’ve probably seen in the past, I usually do them in separate posts. I will first start with my August book haul and then get into my wrap up after that! I didn’t get many books this month. I believe it was only just six books. Three print books and three e-books. You can check out a full list of the books that I own over here. There’s links to different pages on my blog that show my e-books and my physical books. I haven’t updated that page since early February though (I really need to find some time to do this. I’m slacking, sigh.), so an update for that is coming soon. But anyway, here are the books that I got in August.

Books I Bought:

freshinthewildlightiwasbornforthis

Fresh by Margot Wood (print)
In the Wild Light by Jeff Zentner (print)
I Was Born for This by Alice Oseman (print)

trialsofmorrigancrowthechildrensblocktheyearofthewitching

The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend (e-book)
The Children’s Block by Otto Kraus (e-book)
The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson (e-book)

Fresh and In the Wild Light were two of my August pre-orders and I am really looking forward to reading them; especially Jeff Zentner’s new book. I always love his books, so I’m excited! I buy pretty much all of Alice Osemen’s books, so I decided to buy I Was Born for This since I didn’t have it yet and I want to read all her books before the year ends. The last three are e-books. I’ve been wanting these e-books to go on sale and I was stoked to see them on sale in July! 🙂 I am so stoked to read them. The Trials of Morrigan Crow looks and sounds good, so I had to get it when I saw it on sale. I read a couple chapters of The Children’s Block and hopefully will get back into it soon. I ended up not being in the mood for it, so I put it down for now. But so far what I read I liked. Might include The Year of the Witching in my spooky TBR for October.


And now for my wrap up! You can find a full list of the books that I read this month and the other books I read throughout the year over here. All will be linked to Goodreads below and I will also link to individual blog posts for them if I did a review. Here are the books that I read and listened to in August.

Books I Read:

isntitbromanticsomekindofwonderlandarsenicandadobo

Isn’t It Bromantic? by Lyssa Kay Adams (audiobook) (5 out of 5 stars)
Some Kind of Wonderland by Tara St. Pierre (e-book) (4 out of 5 stars)
Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala (audiobook) (3 out of 5 stars)

Once again I didn’t read as much as I wanted to, but I was able to finish two books that I started in July and one other. Isn’t It Bromantic? was AMAZING! ❤ I loved it so much. I am so stoked we were finally able to get the Russian’s story and it was so gooood. Some Kind of Wonderland was really good and I had fun reading it. I loved all the Alice in Wonderland references and spin on it. I’ll link my review at the end of this post, so you can check it out for more about it. I’ve been seeing Arsenic and Adobo around, so I decided to give it a chance since my library had the audiobook available. It was good, but I didn’t love it. It kept my attention and at times was quite interesting, but I guessed who the killer was pretty fast and wasn’t that surprised. It was neat that they give some recipes from the book at the end!

That’s all for my August wrap up and book haul! 🙂 Feel free to link me to your wrap up posts or book haul posts, so I can check them out. I did some blog hopping yesterday and was able to finally catch up with some of your posts. ❤ If you think I missed any important blog posts, send me a link and I’ll make sure to go look at it. 🙂

In case you missed it;
Review|| Some Kind of Wonderland.

I hope you have a great day and weekend!

Review|| Some Kind of Wonderland.

Some Kind of Wonderland by Tara St. Pierre
4 out of 5 stars

Goodreads Description: Sometimes we all need an escape down a rabbit hole. Since her parents’ divorce, Allyson’s only source of comfort and refuge has been within the pages of Alice in Wonderland, which her father used to read to her every night. Now a quiet and shy teenager, she auditions for her school’s production of the story, despite having no previous acting experience. But no one knows Alice like she does—she’s memorized every word—and she believes that getting the part is the only way her father will return for her. Instead, she is enlisted as an assistant to the stage manager, and she runs afoul of the drama queen cast in the role she desires. Shuffling between a full deck of actors, a fidgety time-obsessed director, and an over-caffeinated costume crew, can Allyson navigate the bizarre world of high school theater? And how will her mother feel when she finds out it’s that story? As fiction merges with fact and her present reality uncovers past memories, what curious things will Allyson discover—and how much will she grow—along the journey through her own kind of Wonderland?


I received a copy of Some Kind of Wonderland from the author in exchange for an honest review. It was released in June of this year, so it is out in the world now!

I am a pretty big Alice in Wonderland fan, so I was excited to get the chance to read Some Kind of Wonderland and I ended up really enjoying the story! One of my favorite things about it was that a lot of the characters in the book had character traits of those in the Alice in Wonderland story. It was fun identifying them and I thought that was a cool touch to the story. I liked Allyson, but there were times where I felt like she acted more like a younger kid than a 15-16 year old. Maybe her love for Alice in Wonderland and that it connected her so much to her father that when he left it kept her mind. It didn’t take away from the story though and I still really liked it. She actually grew throughout the story, so that was a plus.

It was a lot deeper than I originally thought it was going to be too and because of that there were so many sad moments that had me tearing up a little and definitely some laughable moments too. It switched between present day and childhood memories that Allyson was having as she struggled with her parents divorce. Overall, I really liked Some Kind of Wonderland. It was a lot different than I thought it was going to be but in a good way! I really loved all the Alice in Wonderland references and quotes. I definitely recommend checking it out, especially if you love Alice in Wonderland too!

In case you missed it;
Book Haul & Wrap Up|| July.

I hope you have a great day and weekend!