March in Review: 8 Books

I have another personally weak month to wrap up, but at least I’m getting it down on time!!

I read 8 books again this month, which I’m reminding myself is still meeting my goal of reading 8-9 books each month so I am still on track, but I’m not very impressed with myself.

However, most of the books I read this month I really enjoyed, and I can’t wait to talk about them more in my wrap-up next week!

Different from my monthly wrap-ups, which focus more of patterns in my reading habits and is just me rambling on forever (because that’s my brand), monthly reviews are more like lists: easy to scroll through to get the whole picture of my reading month. Listed is the title, author, publication date, and cover along with the genre and age range (if applicable). I also have my rating and a three-word description of my reading experience! The links will either go to a longer review I wrote on this blog or a shorter review I wrote on Goodreads. All the cover photos are linked to their Goodreads page.

📘 March TBR
📙 2019 TBR
📕 Prior TBR
📗 Down the TBR Hole

Horimiya vol. 11 by Hero and Daisuke Hagiwara
Published: Jun 26, 2018
YA Romance
adorable, random, fanfic-y
🌟🌟🌟🌟

The Bold World by Jodie Patterson
Published: Jan 29, 2019
Memoir
educational, moving, lyrical
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Girls & Sex by Peggy Orenstein 📕 📗
Published: Mar 29, 2016
Nonfiction
readable, questionable, opinionated
🌟🌟

January 2019 Book Birthdays: 8 Books

Welcome to a new monthly installment! This originated as an anticipated new release list for the first half of 2019 but it was way too long, so I cut it down to the first quarter of 2019, and then I ultimately decided it was just more manageable for me to do this at the beginning of each month! This way it’s fresh in my mind and all the covers will be released and it will just be overall pleasant for everyone involved!

I have six books on this list ranging from middle grade, young adult, to adult (with the majority being YA this month). I am beyond excited for all of these books!

I’ve set this post up with the book, a simplified summary from Goodreads, and a short note about the book. Cover photos are linked to their Goodreads page!

(These dates reflect US releases.)

The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart (January 8)

 Five years. That’s how long Coyote and her dad, Rodeo, have lived on the road in an old school bus, criss-crossing the nation. It’s also how long ago Coyote lost her mom and two sisters in a car crash. Coyote hasn’t been home in all that time, but when she learns that the park in her old neighborhood is being demolished―the very same park where she, her mom, and her sisters buried a treasured memory box―she devises an elaborate plan to get her dad to drive 3,600 miles back to Washington state in four days…without him realizing it. 

Ok so I was completely enamored by this cover but briefly skimming the dozens of 5-star ratings has me convinced that I absolutely need this. I’m probably going to cry reading it, but what else is new!!

Down the TBR Hole #33: Books 541-560

Lia from Lost in a Story’s challenge “Down the TBR Hole” has helped me whittle down my massive virtual TBR, or at least get me thinking critically about what books I’m actually going to read. I’ve realized I’ve added a lot of books in 2012 and 2013 that I’ve never read and will probably never get around to reading!! There’s also a ton of books that I added in the moment that I’ve never even thought of since then.

“Down the TBR Hole” works like this: order your Goodreads “to be read” shelf with the oldest books first and remove the ones you’re no longer interested in reading. I’ve added in two of my own personal rules: if I have multiple books in a series I’ll only keep the next (or first) one I have to read, and I’ll remove complete works or collections (unless it’s a collection I already own).

I Know What I’m Doing by Jen Kirkman
Date added: Dec 13, 2016
remove

Real Artists Have Day Jobs by Sara Benincasa
Date added: Dec 13, 2016
remove

Girls & Sex by Peggy Orenstein
Date added: Dec 13, 2016
keep (physical TBR)

The Lonely City by Olivia Laing
Date added: Dec 13, 2016
remove

But What If We’re Wrong? by Chuck Klosterman
Date added: Dec 13, 2016
remove

Another Day in the Death of America by Gary Younge
Date added: Dec 13, 2016
keep

Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
Date added: Dec 13, 2016
keep (physical TBR)

Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance
Date added: Dec 13, 2016
remove

Hungry Heart by Jennifer Weiner
Date added: Dec 13, 2016
keep (physical TBR)

Party of One by Dave Holmes
Date added: Dec 13, 2016
keep

Lust and Wonder by Augusten Burroughs
Date added: Dec 13, 2016
remove

Sex Object by Jessica Valenti
Date added: Dec 13, 2016
remove

First Women by Kate Andersen Brower
Date added: Dec 13, 2016
remove

Rise of the Rocket Girls by Nathalia Holt
Date added: Dec 13, 2016
remove

All the Single Ladies by Rebecca Traister
Date added: Dec 13, 2016
keep 

White Trash by Nancy Isenbery
Date added: Dec 13, 2016
remove

Blood Brothers by Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith
Date added: Dec 13, 2016
keep

Five Presidents by Clint Hill
Date added: Dec 13, 2016
remove

Cravings by Chrissy Teigen
Date added: Dec 13, 2016
remove

Layered by Tessa Huff
Date added: Dec 13, 2016
remove

Ruling: 13/20 removed

This was incredibly heavy with some non-fiction titles! Let me know if I made good decisions! 😅

5 Winter Reading Recommendations

Yeeeeeeeeeee I made some new graphics!!! I’ve been slowly clamoring my way through Tidyathon by cleaning out my Goodreads shelves and got around to overhauling all of my graphics and I am SO excited!! I also spent this weekend playing around with some different themes; I’m not sure if the one I have atm is going to stay for a while but we’ll see!

The winter solstice is upon those of us in the northern hemisphere and while I feel like December 1st is really the kick-off point for all-things wintery, I am still holding on to the fall with my cold, white-knuckled fingertips.

Winter is my least favorite season because I hate being cold and I absolutely hate the snow, but I can appreciate some winter holidays like New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day and other traditional winter staples: layers of blankets, peppermint anything, snow days, and of course large chunky books.

I tend to gravitate towards two types of books in the winter, either a really dense read or a light-hearted romance so this list will probably be an interesting mix!

I’ve set this post up with the book, a simplified summary from Goodreads, and a short note about the book. Cover photos are linked to their Goodreads page!

Beartown by Frederick Backman

People say Beartown is finished. But their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys. Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.

Starting off this list strong with one of the most wintery-aesthetic books I’ve read! I read this last winter and absolutely loved it. This is definitely heavier than a typical Backman novel, but it’s beautifully complex and unforgiving and written very well.

content warning: sexual assault

Down the TBR Hole #32: Books 521-540

Lia from Lost in a Story’s challenge “Down the TBR Hole” has helped me whittle down my massive virtual TBR, or at least get me thinking critically about what books I’m actually going to read. I’ve realized I’ve added a lot of books in 2012 and 2013 that I’ve never read and will probably never get around to reading!! There’s also a ton of books that I added in the moment that I’ve never even thought of since then.

“Down the TBR Hole” works like this: order your Goodreads “to be read” shelf with the oldest books first and remove the ones you’re no longer interested in reading. I’ve added in two of my own personal rules: if I have multiple books in a series I’ll only keep the next (or first) one I have to read, and I’ll remove complete works or collections (unless it’s a collection I already own).

 

Holding up the Universe by Jennifer Niven
Date added: Nov 28, 2016
remove

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
Date added: Nov 28, 2016
keep (physical TBR)

A Torch Against the Night
Date added: Nov 28, 2016
remove

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
Date added: Nov 28, 2016
keep (physical TBR)

Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty
Date added: Dec 13, 2016
remove

November in Review: 22 Books!

Buckle up y’all because this was an INCREDIBLE reading month and whoa it was insane.

This was a very heavy manga month for me, because I participated in Manga Madness Readathon! While I didn’t complete all the challenges I wanted to during the readathon period (who’s surprised!!!), I did continue reading (i.e.: binging) manga throughout the rest of the month. Honestly, I enjoyed it so much and I’m reading SUCH incredible series right now, and I can’t wait to talk about them during my monthly wrap-up!

Different from my monthly wrap-ups, which focus more of patterns in my reading habits and is just me rambling on forever (because that’s my brand), monthly reviews are more like lists: easy to scroll through to get the whole picture of my reading month. Listed is the title, author, publication date, and cover along with the genre and age range (if applicable). I also have my rating and a three-word description of my reading experience! The links will either go to a longer review I wrote on this blog or a shorter review I wrote on Goodreads. All the cover photos are linked to their Goodreads page.

TOTAL BOOKS: 22

🌟: 0
🌟🌟: 0
🌟🌟🌟: 3
🌟🌟🌟🌟: 11
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟: 8

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Published: Feb 7, 2017
Historical Fiction
quiet, complicated, gorgeous
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

 

Sweet Blue Flowers vol. 1 by Takano Shimura
Published: Sep 19, 2017
YA Romance
sapphic, adorable, sweet
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

 

Sweet Blue Flowers vol. 2 by Takano Shimura
Published: Dec 19, 2017
YA Romance,
soft, friendly, beautiful
🌟🌟🌟🌟

 

Eye Candy: Books I Almost Bought #02

Last spring I made a list of books I almost bought in the bookstore but ended passing up for another book. My typical bookstore routine is to float around and take photos of all the pretty books I want to buy but know I shouldn’t with the intention of buying them some other time.

“Eye Candy” is a series I started in order to have somewhere concrete to list these books so they’re not just taking up space as photos on my phone. I probably need to do these more frequently because as I was preparing to write this I noticed I had taken a photo of the same book in two different bookstores! Ugh I’m terrible.

Hopefully the outcome with this is that by forcing this books out of my phone and into the universe I remember them and add them to my ever-growing TBR and then maybe read them???

This post has a plethora of bookstores: 1 indie, 1 used, and 2 different chains. It contains a total of 14 books!

I’ve set this post up with the book, a simplified summary from Goodreads, and a short note about the book. Cover photos are linked to their Goodreads page!

The Village Bookstore (Indie), Sep 13 2018 (5 books)

If There’s No Tomorrow by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Lena Wise is always looking forward to tomorrow, especially at the start of her senior year. She’s ready to pack in as much friend time as possible, to finish college applications, and to maybe let her childhood best friend Sebastian know how she really feels about him. Until one choice, one moment, destroys everything. Now Lena isn’t looking forward to tomorrow. Not when Sebastian might never forgive her for what happened. For what she let happen.

I hadn’t heard of this book before seeing it in the store and honestly the summary is so vague I have absolutely no idea what it’s about but it sounds so intriguing and also has a surprisingly high rating.

A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares by Krystal Sutherland

Ever since Esther Solar’s grandfather met Death, her entire family has been doomed to suffer one great fear in their lifetime. Ester doesn’t yet have a great fear because anything that might trigger a phobia is off-limits and is meticulously recorded in her semi-definitive list of worst nightmares. Esther thinks she has it all figured out, until she’s reunited with an old elementary school classmate Jonah Smallwood. Together they face their greatest fears, one debilitating phobia at a time, only to discover the one fear they hadn’t counted on: love.

Rereading this summary has me so confused as to why I didn’t pick up this book when I had the chance?? It was also a book I’d never heard of before but wow it sounds right up my alley and also has a surprisingly high rating on Goodreads. 

Summer 2018 Reading Wrap-Up: my (hopefully!!) largest haul of the year

June (& BookCon!!)

• Making Friends by Kristen Gudsnuk (ARC)
• When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore
• I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez
• Emergency Contact by Mary H. K. Choi
• Check Please!: #Hockey by Ngozi Ukazu (ARC)
• The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli
• Christmas by Accident by Camron Wright (ARC)
• Dear Ijewale, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Red Rising by Pierce Brown
• And Then There Were Crows by Alcy Leyva (ARC)
• Lumberjanes: Unicorn Power! by Mariko Tamaki and Brooke Allen
• Geekerella by Ashley Poston
• Pop Sonnets by Erik Didriksen
• The Last Summer of the Garrett Girls by Jessica Spotswood
• The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco
• The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
• When Katie Met Cassidy by Camille Perri
• The Book of Essie by Meghan MacLean Weir
• Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot
• Nothing Happened by Molly Booth
• Dear Life by Alice Munro

July

• The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi
• The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
• Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson
• Honey Farm by Harriet Alida Lye (ARC)
• Ordinary People by Diana Evans (ARC)
• 30 Before 30 by Marina Shifrin (ARC)

August

• The Air You Breathe by Frances de Pontes Peebles
• To Be Honest by Maggie Ann Martin (ARC)
• Fruits Basket Another vol. 1 by Natsuki Takaya
• To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han

June

• Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
• Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen
• Emma vol. 2 by Kaoru Mori
• Check Please!: #Hockey by Ngozi Ukazu (ARC)
• Dreams of Falling by Karen White (ARC)
• The Forever Summer by Jamie Brenner
• Lumberjanes: Unicorn Power! by Mariko Tamaki
• Kimi ni Todoke vol. 3 by Karuho Shiina

July

• Paper Girls vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
• The Museum of Us by Tara Wilson Redd (ARC)

August

• I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez
• Camp Rolling Hills: Freefall by Stacy Davidowitz
• The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutkoski
• The Winner’s Crime by Marie Rutkoski
• Making Friends by Kristen Gudsnuk (ARC)
• The Winner’s Kiss by Marie Rutkoski

NYT Bestseller’s Birthday Challenge 2002

Well well well looks who’s continuing their lofty personal challenge!!

Last September I started a challenge called the New York Times Bestsellers Birthday Challenge. Basically the gist is to read one book off the NYT Bestsellers List from my birthday week every year from the year I was born until now. I started off really strong the first month and then petered out around October once I started my new job. The hardest part was forcing myself to read books in a specific order and to get through four of them per month.

The gist of the challenge is this:

1. Four books will be chosen from the Bestseller List from my birthday week every year.
   • I’m sticking with the adult hardcover list because children and YA lists weren’t added in until much later and wanted to keep it as consistent as possible.
2. Of those four books, two will be fiction and two will be nonfiction.
3. The four books chosen will consist of:
   • The book that holds the #1 spot from each column
   • The book that holds the longest spot from each column (largest # of weeks)

September TBR List (& a Brief Life Update!)

After a brutal summer of eyeing all of the books I brought with me to camp but barely had time to read, I’m barreling into the fall with full force! Today is my first day back at my full-time job, and while it’s bittersweet to be back in a cubicle after ten weeks in the woods, I’m excited to sit in air conditioning and re-organize my desk. I feel almost as if I’m starting a new job; I don’t have any projects going on at the moment!

Outside of work, I’ve been so eager to get back into my reading habits (also my bookshelf needs some reorganization!!). I’ve already made lists upon lists of the books I need to read; I’m so behind after BookCon in June! My writing habits have always needed some work, but what better time to develop a stronger routine than in the fall, the time of academic rebirth!! If you couldn’t tell by my exclamation points, I’m really excited to be back into the groove of things.

I read 3 out of the 6 books from my June TBR. To be honest, only 1 of those books I finished in June, and the other two I finished in July, but since I didn’t have a TBR for July or August, I’m still counting it! Lined up I have seven books on my TBR for the month.

I’ve set this post up with the book, a simplified summary from Goodreads, and a short note about the book. Cover photos are linked to their Goodreads page!

Buddy Read: Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan (own)

When Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, she envisions a humble family home and quality time with the man she hopes to marry. But Nick has failed to give his girlfriend a few key details. One, that his childhood home looks like a palace; two, that he grew up riding in more private planes than cars; and three, that he just happens to be the country’s most eligible bachelor.

This has literally been sitting on my bookshelf for at least two years and it’s always a book I pass up. My friend and I are trying to power-through it before the movie is out of theaters!