Monthly Archives: February 2016

2016 Book #15 – In Real Life by Jessica Love

Posted in 2015, Book reviews, Bookish Bingo Holiday 2015, Reading Challenges, Young Adult by

41NZ+T0vkHLTitle: In Real Life
Author: Jessica Love
Date finished: 2/24/16
Genre: Fiction, thriller/suspense
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: March 1, 2016
Pages in book: 224
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: The Reading Room NOTE: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

Hannah Cho and Nick Cooper have been best friends since 8th grade. They talk for hours on the phone, regularly shower each other with presents, and know everything there is to know about one another.
There’s just one problem: Hannah and Nick have never actually met.
Hannah has spent her entire life doing what she’s supposed to, but when her senior year spring break plans get ruined by a rule-breaker, she decides to break a rule or two herself. She impulsively decides to road trip to Las Vegas, her older sister and BFF in tow, to surprise Nick and finally declare her more-than-friend feelings for him.
Hannah’s surprise romantic gesture backfires when she gets to Vegas and finds out that Nick has been keeping some major secrets. Hannah knows the real Nick can’t be that different from the online Nick she knows and loves, but now she only has night in Sin City to figure out what her feelings for Nick really are, all while discovering how life can change when you break the rules every now and then.

My rating:  3.25 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book will count towards my “Holiday 2015 Bookish Bingo” reading challenge, marking off the “Blue Cover” square, since it has a blue cover. This book is about a girl named Hannah who decides to start breaking some of her rules. All her life she’s been the good girl and the obedient one. But now she is a senior in high school, she’s on spring break, and she decides that its high time she went to Las Vegas (only 4 hours away from her). Not to gamble but to meet the boy that she’s been talking to (pretty much non-stop) for the past four years. He’s her best friend and possibly more than her friend and she’s going to surprise him by showing up at one of his band performances.Little does she know that she’s the one who is going to be surprised (gasp).
So Hannah, her sister Grace, and her best friend Lo travel to Las Vegas and spend the night with Hannah’s best friend Nick. Along with him they also spend time with Nick’s brother Alex and friends Oscar and Jordy, as well as Frankie, Nick’s girlfriend (double gasp). What ensues is a wild night out on Las Vegas for a girl (Hannah) who is only used to following the rules. Hannah learns how to let lose and have fun and not just do exactly what she’s supposed to do.
Overall I thought this was a cute story. I connected with Hannah a little bit since I too was a goody two-shoes in high school. I have to be honest though, she and I were very different in the teen angst department and I found that piece of the book somewhat frustrating. I was never one to keep my mouth shut when I liked a boy so my angst was always of the “oh he doesn’t like me that sucks, oh wait look there’s some new shiny thing” while Hannah’s angst is more “oh I love this boy to pieces but I’m going to keep it to myself and be sad that he doesn’t know I like him.” I find that angst to be overly frustrating because how are you ever going to know if he likes you back if you don’t say anything. Other than that though the characters were cute, the story line was funny, and it was a quick read. Perfect read for this summer when you’re looking for something light to read on the beach!

The bottom line: This was a quick, light, and cute read. High on the teen angst scale but other than that it is a cute story about a girl taking chances and falling in love.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2016 Book #14 – Try Not To Breathe by Holly Seddon

Posted in 2015, Book reviews, Bookish Bingo Holiday 2015, Fiction, Reading Challenges, Thriller by

412ZKAIR+wLTitle: Try Not To Breathe
Author: Holly Seddon
Date finished: 2/24/16
Genre: Fiction, thriller/suspense
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: February 23, 2016
Pages in book: 368
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: NetGalley NOTE: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

Some secrets never die. They’re just locked away.
Alex Dale is lost. Destructive habits have cost her a marriage and a journalism career. All she has left is her routine: a morning run until her body aches, then a few hours of forgettable work before the past grabs hold and drags her down. Every day is treading water, every night is drowning. Until Alex discovers Amy Stevenson. Amy Stevenson, who was just another girl from a nearby town until the day she was found unconscious after a merciless assault. Amy Stevenson, who has been in a coma for fifteen years, forgotten by the world. Amy Stevenson, who, unbeknownst to her doctors, remains locked inside her body, conscious but paralyzed, reliving the past.
Soon Alex’s routine includes visiting hours at the hospital, then interviews with the original suspects in the attack. But what starts as a reporter’s story becomes a personal obsession. How do you solve a crime when the only witness lived but cannot tell the tale? Unable to tear herself away from her attempt to uncover the unspeakable truth, Alex realizes she’s not just chasing a story—she’s seeking salvation.
Shifting from present to past and back again, Try Not to Breathe unfolds layer by layer until its heart-stopping conclusion. The result is an utterly immersive, unforgettable debut.

My rating:  4.25 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book will count towards my “Holiday 2015 Bookish Bingo” reading challenge, marking off the “2016 Debut” square, since this was Seddon’s debut novel and it was released in 2016. This book is kind of jointly about Amy Stevenson and Alex Dale. Alex is a freelance journalist and professional alcoholic. Seems to me she only works about 2 hours every day, she goes for a run after she wakes up and then she has to be home by noon to lock herself away and turn off all her phones and electronics so that drunk Alex doesn’t get barely sober Alex into any trouble.
Lately she has been writing medical columns, which is how she ended up coming upon Amy Stevenson in the Bramble Ward at the hospital. Amy was abducted at fifteen and beaten almost to death and she was basically left in a vegetative state. Recent research by Dr. Haynes though, suggests that about half the “vegetables” of the world are actually fully conscious people who simply can not move, maybe due to paralysis or something else. This is the case with Amy, she has thoughts and memories and can hear what people are saying to her but she can’t figure out why she can’t talk back. Alex starts to investigate what happened to Amy that put her in this hospital, the case has been left unsolved for fifteen years. Along the way she interviews many people who knew Amy when she was fifteen and Alex can feel herself getting closer and closer to the truth.
Overall I really really liked this book. It kept me on the edge of my seat pretty much through the whole book, and I honestly just did not want to put it down. I couldn’t wait to figure out who the bad guy was and what had happened to Amy and what was Alex’s story. Alex is a severely flawed character but she is also deeply lovable not just in spite of but because of her vulnerabilities. There were a couple characters in the story that I wasn’t thrilled with overall but they each had their part to play and the plot overall was honestly just great. I thought it was well paced and interesting at all times and was just such a great debut novel, I can’t wait to see what else this author has in store!

The bottom line: Oh my gosh what a great book. Riveting, I didn’t want to put it down!! Alex was such a flawed main character but I loved her and I loved learning Amy’s story.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2016 Book #13 – Nookietown by V.C. Chickering

Posted in 2015, Book reviews, Bookish Bingo Holiday 2015, Fiction, Reading Challenges, Women's fiction by

71ChsqwxUMLTitle: Nookietown
Author: V.C. Chickering
Date finished: 2/18/16
Genre: Fiction, women’s fiction
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Publication Date: February 23, 2016
Pages in book: 368
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: NetGalley NOTE: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

Recently divorced, 40-something single-mom, Lucy, is lonely, bored and craving physical connection. So, when her trusted long-time married friend, Nancy, begs Lucy to sleep with her husband to save her marriage, Lucy goes for it. It’s such a success, the two friends invent a town-wide underground barter system whereby Nancy’s married girlfriends sub-contract Lucy’s divorcee friends to sleep with their husbands so they don’t have to as often. It’s a win, win, win- for a while. Then it all goes to hell in a hand-basket.
Laugh-out-loud funny, emotionally provocative and at times racy, Nookietown is a story of risk-taking, marriage, honesty and desire, and what one woman rationalizes in order to get what she wants.

My rating:  3.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book will count towards my “Holiday 2015 Bookish Bingo” reading challenge, marking off the “One-Word Title” square, since the title for this book is in fact only one word. I had heard about this book from a couple of different places, one of which was Popsugar’s 23 Books You Should Read This Winter. So when I saw it available on NetGalley I’m not even sure I fully read the description before requesting it. I mean I’m sure I knew the main premise for the story, but still I found myself surprised while reading it that there was just so much sex. It was everywhere, the main character of this book (sorry I should have introduced her already, her name is Lucy Larken (ha)) was constantly having sex (in detail) with a variety of men.
So basically, the short description of what happens is that Lucy’s friend Nancy (with Lucy’s help) starts a service where married women can basically subcontract out the sex part of their life to a lonely divorcee who isn’t interested in getting married again. Takes some of the pressure off her so she isn’t being begged for sex constantly and she doesn’t have to feel guilty about always saying no to sex. Lucy meets and dates a couple of guys while she’s involved in the program, but she doesn’t divulge her “side-business” to them. Lucy is recently divorced and is having a hard time not only getting back out into the dating world but also feeling desirable. So when she starts participating in the Program and starts being so appreciated by these other womens’ husbands just for having sex with them, she starts to feel wanted again and starts to get her self-confidence back.
Overall I thought this was a really interesting premise for a book and I definitely don’t think I’ve ever read anything like it before.I did have a lot of issues with the book but most of them were more personal issues that I don’t think would necessarily affect other readers. I’ll just run through my issues with the book really quickly. Kit was a shitty friend. In the beginning-ish of the book she tells Lucy about how hard Lucy’s divorce was on her (KIT). Like Lucy’s divorce affected and upset Kit so much. As soon as she said that I was like no way get the F out of here. Another issue I had with the book was that the idea would never work. I don’t know any women who would willingly go tell their husband to sleep with another woman, never mind arrange it for them. Nuts. Another thing is that if Lucy really did get pregnant the way she meant to from Peter, that is messed up beyond reason. Just awful awful stuff. Anyways I think those were my main issues, there were a couple of other things but they were small issues. I think that the premise behind this book was just so difficult for me to comprehend and wrap my mind around that it made it harder for me to enjoy the story. That being said though, this book was interesting and had some really great points on marriage and relationships as a whole as well as the importance of being grateful for what you have in life.

The bottom line: I thought that this was an interesting book and actually had some good thoughts about marriage and forgiveness and being grateful for what you have. So yes I would recommend it. Just be warned though, there is lots of sex. I wasn’t expecting that much sex.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2016 Book #12 – The Children’s Home by Charles Lambert

Posted in Book reviews, Fiction, Mystery, Thriller by

51giUwdr+qLTitle: The Children’s Home
Author: Charles Lambert
Date finished: 2/12/16
Genre: Fiction, thriller/suspense
Publisher: Scribner
Publication Date: January 5, 2016
Pages in book: 224
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: NetGalley NOTE: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

For fans of Shirley Jackson, Neil Gaiman, Roald Dahl, and Edward Gorey, a beguiling and disarming debut novel from an award-winning British author about a mysterious group of children who appear to a disfigured recluse and his country doctor—and the startling revelations their behavior evokes.
In a sprawling estate, willfully secluded, lives Morgan Fletcher, the disfigured heir to a fortune of mysterious origins. Morgan spends his days in quiet study, avoiding his reflection in mirrors and the lake at the end of his garden. One day, two children, Moira and David, appear. Morgan takes them in, giving them free reign of the mansion he shares with his housekeeper Engel. Then more children begin to show up.
Dr. Crane, the town physician and Morgan’s lone tether to the outside world, is as taken with the children as Morgan, and begins to spend more time in Morgan’s library. But the children behave strangely. They show a prescient understanding of Morgan’s past, and their bizarre discoveries in the mansion attics grow increasingly disturbing. Every day the children seem to disappear into the hidden rooms of the estate, and perhaps, into the hidden corners of Morgan’s mind.
The Children’s Home is a genre-defying, utterly bewitching masterwork, an inversion of modern fairy tales like The Chronicles of Narnia and The Golden Compass, in which children visit faraway lands to accomplish elusive tasks. Lambert writes from the perspective of the visited, weaving elements of psychological suspense, Jamesian stream of consciousness, and neo-gothic horror, to reveal the inescapable effects of abandonment, isolation, and the grotesque—as well as the glimmers of goodness—buried deep within the soul.

My rating:  4.25 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book tells the story of Morgan Fletcher, who was horribly disfigured years ago in a tragic family event. Since then he has hid himself away in his family home, trying to hide his face from the world. He realizes that his face causes fear and disgust and this is something he simply can not deal with. At some point he acquires Engel as his housekeeper, though how she came to find him he is yet unsure. And then after awhile children start showing up at the house, orphans who are in need of a home. And miraculously these strays seem to form a family together, and Morgan is grateful that his new family accepts him as he is and they are not frightened by his mangled features. And then Morgan meets his new friend Crane, a doctor who comes to care for one of the children when they are sick. Crane also is not frightened by Morgan and together they form a deep friendship.
After awhile though Morgan starts to notice something different about the children that live with him. They don’t make very much noise (for children) and they always seem to disappear until someone is looking for them. They seem to already know all about Morgan and his estranged sister and the rest of their family. Morgan starts to question where they all came from and how they came to find him, hidden away in a country estate.
Overall I thought this was a great book. It was mysterious and weird and interesting, just everything you could want in a book. I’m still not 100% sure that I understand everything that was going on at the end but I think that’s mostly because I had a lot of outside distractions going on, I might need to read the last like 20 pages again. And honestly I really want to discuss this book with someone else that’s read it because I do think there are some points that the author leaves open for interpretation and I would just love to get someone else’s thoughts on it.

The bottom line: I would definitely recommend this book! It was fascinating and I am definitely going to be suggesting it for a book club pick, I think this one would be great for a group discussion. Mysterious and weird and just a great read!

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2016 Book #11 – Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonegut

Posted in 2016, Book Clubs, Book reviews, Fiction, Literary Greats, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2016 checklist, Reading Challenges, Terryville - Fiction Lovers by

610pDdsNz1LTitle: Slaughterhouse-Five (or the Children’s Crusade)
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Date finished: 2/8/16
Genre: Fiction, science fiction, literary fiction
Publisher: Delacorte
Publication Date: 1969
Pages in book: 215
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: Terryville Public Library

Blurb from the cover:

Unstuck in time, Billy Pilgrim, Vonnegut’s shattered survivor of the Dresden bombing, relives his life over and over again under the gaze of aliens; he comes at last to some understanding of the human comedy. The basis of George Roy’s great 1972 film and perhaps the signature student’s novel in the 1960’s embracing protest and the absurdity of war.

My rating:  2.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I read this book for the Terryville Library’s Fiction Lover’s Book Discussion group discussion for this month (February). Also, this book will count towards my “PopSugar 2016 Checklist” reading challenge, marking off the “a science-fiction novel” box since this is a science fiction novel. Obviously this is a well known book, popular for many high-school reading lists. I never happened to read this book in high school so I was interested to read it now. It was… weird. Not what I expected it would be. I said this at my book club tonight, but for anyone that watches Family Guy it felt a lot like a Family Guy episode to me, with pretty much any random thing you can think of all thrown into one story line. That’s mostly what this book felt like to me.
Overall this book left me feeling like I missed something. I felt like there should’ve been more of a point or an ah-ha! moment, but I didn’t find one. It was a quick read and kept my interest but other than that I just wasn’t thrilled with the book. Its a classic though, even included on Amazon’s 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime listing. So I can’t say that I don’t recommend it but be prepared for a good dose of weird.

The bottom line: I have to say I would recommend mostly because this is one of those things that I think everyone should read. Like I said before though, be prepared for some just odd stuff.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2016 Book #10 – A Small Indiscretion by Jan Ellison

Posted in 2016, Book reviews, Fiction, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2016 checklist, Reading Challenges, Thriller, Women's fiction by

51aKu5z1x8LTitle: A Small Indiscretion
Author: Jan Ellison
Date finished: 2/6/16
Genre: Fiction, women’s fiction, suspense
Publisher: Random House
Publication Date: January 20, 2015
Pages in book: 318
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: BookBrowse NOTE: I received this book for free from BookBrowse in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

At nineteen, Annie Black trades a bleak future in a washed-out California town for a London winter of drinking and abandon. Twenty years later, she is a San Francisco lighting designer and happily married mother of three who has put her reckless youth behind her. Then a photo from that distant winter in Europe arrives inexplicably in her mailbox, and an old obsession is awakened.
Past and present collide, Annie’s marriage falters, and her son takes a car ride that ends with his life hanging in the balance. Now Annie must confront her own transgressions and fight for her family by untangling the mysteries of the turbulent winter that drew an invisible map of her future. Gripping, insightful, and lyrical, A Small Indiscretion announces the arrival of a major new voice in literary suspense as it unfolds a story of denial, passion, forgiveness—and the redemptive power of love.

My rating: 3.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. Also, this book will count towards my “PopSugar 2016 Checklist” reading challenge, marking off the “a book set in Europe” square as probably about half of the book took place in Europe (London, Paris, Ireland, etc.). This book was sent to me for participation in Book Browse’s Book Talk. I have never participated in an online book discussion before but I am looking forward to it! I think this book will be particularly interesting to discuss due to the moral and ethical questions raised by some of the events in the novel. The discussion group for this book opens on the site on February 9th so if anyone else is interested in joining in on the discussion you are welcome!
Anyways, so this book is about Annie Black. The book starts off in September 2011, when her son Robbie is involved in a significant automobile accident that has left him in a coma. The narrator (Annie) tells the reader at the beginning of the book that her marriage had fallen apart days before her son’s accident. From there, Annie uses the book as a sort of journal/letter where she talks to her son Robbie. As the book unfolds, Annie explains to Robbie how her and his father came to be together, and the events that shaped not only their relationship in the beginning but also her as a person. The story for Annie really began in 1989 (22 years ago) when she leaves her childhood home to travel (first to Maine to confront her father but this is explained later on in the book) to Europe to start over and find her place in the world.
Overall I liked this book. It had a really interesting story line, definitely different from anything I’ve read before. There was a lot of commentary strung into the story on marriage and forgiveness, which I enjoyed a lot. For some reason though the story line just didn’t really grab me. There were some good plot twists but I saw them coming so it took away from the surprise a little for me. And while I wouldn’t say that overall I was thrilled with this story, there were a lot of things that I liked about the book. One of the things was that I found it interesting that even though Annie is extremely flawed, we are still lead to feel sympathy for her as the main character of the book. While I personally had trouble connecting to some of the characters, there were complex layers of wants and needs in each character in the book.

 

The bottom line: I liked this book, it was interesting and had some great toughts included in the story on marriage and forgiveness. I would recommend it for reading.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

Friday Finds (Feb 5)

Posted in For the love of books, Friday Finds by

FridayFinds-ADailyRhythm2

FRIDAY FINDS is hosted by A Daily Rhythm and showcases the books you ‘found’ and added to your To Be Read (TBR) list.  Whether you found them online, or in a bookstore, or in the library — wherever! (they aren’t necessarily books you purchased).

My finds this week include a historical fiction, two young adult, and two suspense:

  1. Toward the Sea of Freedom by Sarah Lark
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    This book just sounds great to me, traveling from Ireland to Australia, getting separated from your love only to end up in the same place. Sounds fantastic!
  2. After the Woods by Kim Savage
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    This book is about a girl who escaped her kidnapper in the woods, but a year later a different girl is found dead in the woods and the one who escaped has a bunch of memories that re-surface. Sounds creepy and fascinating.
  3. Riders by Veronica Rossi
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    This book is about the four horsemen of the apocalypse, which I really don’t think we see enough books about this topic. Can’t wait to give this a try.
  4. Beside Myself by Ann Morgan
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    Identical twins switch places for a day when they’re six years old, but then one of the twins won’t switch back, which causes the other twin to have never ending mental issues. To be honest I feel like there are about 4 other books that just came out with this story line but I haven’t read any of them yet (can’t even name them all really) but I would love to read this one.
  5. The Ex by Alafair Burke
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    This book sounds really creepy, a man gets accused of a triple-murder, one of the victims was involved in another murder and it all just sounds creepy and exciting.

 

So! Those are my recent finds! What about you all? Any interesting finds lately?

2016 Book #9 – Missing Pieces by Heather Gudenkauf

Posted in 2016, Book reviews, Fiction, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2016 checklist, Reading Challenges, Thriller by

71QVUdo4D4LTitle: Missing Pieces
Author: Heather Gudenkauf
Date finished: 2/2/16
Genre: Fiction, thriller/suspense
Publisher: MIRA
Publication Date: February 2, 2016
Pages in book: 288
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: NetGalley NOTE: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

Sarah Quinlan’s husband, Jack, has been haunted for decades by the untimely death of his mother when he was just a teenager, her body found in the cellar of their family farm, the circumstances a mystery. The case rocked the small farm town of Penny Gate, Iowa, where Jack was raised, and for years Jack avoided returning home. But when his beloved aunt Julia is in an accident, hospitalized in a coma, Jack and Sarah are forced to confront the past that they have long evaded.
Upon arriving in Penny Gate, Sarah and Jack are welcomed by the family Jack left behind all those years ago—barely a trace of the wounds that had once devastated them all. But as facts about Julia’s accident begin to surface, Sarah realizes that nothing about the Quinlans is what it seems. Caught in a flurry of unanswered questions, Sarah dives deep into the puzzling rabbit hole of Jack’s past. But the farther in she climbs, the harder it is for her to get out. And soon she is faced with a deadly truth she may not be prepared for.

My rating:  4.5 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book will count towards my “PopSugar 2016 Checklist” reading challenge, marking off the “murder mystery” square, since this book had a number of murders that no one knew who committed them. I’m not going to say how many murders because that would spoil it! So this book is about Sarah Quinlan, who accompanies her husband Jack back to his hometown of Penny Gate after his aunt falls down the stairs. Sarah knows about Jack’s history with the town and why he’s hesitant to return; his dad was drunk driving when he wrecked his car twenty years ago and both Jack’s parents were killed. At least, that’s the version Sarah knows about. Once they arrive in town though, multiple people say something that piques Sarah’s interest and leads her to think there may be more to the story that Jack isn’t telling her.
Overall I really liked this book! I was finishing the book at 11:30 at night and I can’t even tell you how creeped out I was. This book will keep you on the edge of your seat for hours, I couldn’t put it down I was so desperate to find out who the killer was. I thought the author did a fantastic job of really getting the reader into the main characters head and making us as a reader question what we could and couldn’t trust of the other characters in the book. I also really loved Sarah as a character, I was so glad that she stood up to Jack when she found out he was lying to her. I love a main female character with a strong backbone and Sarah was definitely a great example of that. There weren’t many things I didn’t enjoy about this book, there were a good number and twists and turns. The only thing is that the ending ending up feeling almost anti-climactic for me, it happened so fast. It was an ending I didn’t exactly expect though so that was good! Overall though great read and everyone should go read this one!

The bottom line: I would absolutely recommend this book. I could not put it down, it was suspenseful and kept me hooked the whole time. Great book!

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2016 Status Update: January

Posted in 2016, For the love of books, Reading Challenges by

I can’t believe January is over already. Unfortunately I didn’t read as much as I might have liked to this past month, and even more unfortunately these next couple months are going to be pretty busy for me. I’m hoping to find some time in between working hours to read still next month, I have a good amount of books on the TBR listing for next month. Anyways, here is my status update for progress I made on reading challenges this month and some highlights of my posts for this month.

Monthly Stats:
# books read this month: 8
# pages read this month: 2,805
# books read year-to-date: 8
# pages read year-to-date: 2,805

Best Books I Read:
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The Swans of Fifth Avenue
The Return of the Witch

Books I Didn’t Particularly Enjoy: 
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Mirror Mirror – just a lot of really weird stuff going on

Other Posts this month:

Top Ten 2015 Releases I Meant to Get to But Didn’t
Top Ten Books I’ve Recently Added to my TBR

Status of 2016 Reading Challenges:

PopSugar Reading Challenge 2016 Checklist – 2/20 books read
Book Riot Read Harder Reading Challenge – 0/24 books read
Penguin Random House: Challenge Your Shelf A-Z Reading Challenge – 0/26 books read
Holiday Bingo 2015 Reading Challenge – 10/25 books read

February TBR list: 

-Missing Pieces by Heather Gudenkauf
-Slaughter House Five by Kurt Vonnegut
-A Small Indiscretion by Jan Ellison
-The Children’s Home by Charles Lambert
-Nookietown by V.C. Chickering
-Try Not to Breathe by Holly Seddon
-El Nino: The Wild Side of Weather by Bill Limmer
-The Passenger by Lisa Lutz
-I Kissed a Rogue by Shana Galen

Looks like I have a full plate for February already but I also have a stack of books that I bought last year that I’ve been really dying to read, including 2 Kristan Higgins books that came out last year. I also really want to read The Martian after seeing the movie, and read The Witch’s Daughter after reading the book’s sequel. So if I can find some space for those books anywhere in my month then I’ll be reading those as well.

So! That was January and also my plan for February. Looking forward to a busy month ahead! Happy reading to all!