Category Archives: For the love of books

2019 Monthly Status Update: May

Posted in For the love of books by

update-your-content

May was such a productive month for me! I had Bout of Books mid-month and the last couple days of the month I have been at a reading retreat. I got a lot of reading done and really had a great month! So anyways, here are some highlights from May for me:

Monthly Stats:
# books read this month: 9
# pages read this month: 3,297
# books read year-to-date: 31
# pages read year-to-date: 10,454

Favorite Books I Read this Month:

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The Bride Test by Helen Hoang – 4.75 stars – I loved this one, it was a great read!

Other Posts this month:

No Other Duke But You BLOG TOUR!! 
Getting Hot With the Scot BLOG TOUR!! 
Bout of Books 25 – many posts! 
Product Review – Cashmere Writing Gloves 
Product Review – Color Street Nails

Next Month TBR List:

-Waiting For Tom Hanks by Kerry Winfrey
-It’s Hot in the Hamptons by Holly Peterson
-The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda
-One Night at the Lake by Bethany Chase
-Rogue Most Wanted by Janna MacGregor

Product Review – Color Street Nails!

Posted in Blog tour, For the love of books by

Also featured in the pictures are Color Street Nails!! Lyman’s Lovely Nails Business Page My mother-in-law sells these and they are super easy to use, are made of 100% nail polish, and come in so many fun designs. The nails featured in these pictures are the Home of the Brave design. They are also super affordable, definitely check them out!

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**I was provided with this free product in exchange for an honest and fair review.

Product Review – Cashmere Writing Gloves!

Posted in Blog tour, For the love of books by

I was recently approached by Literary Book Gifts with an opportunity to review one of their products, the Cashmere Writing Gloves. For those of you that don’t know, Literary Book Gifts is an online retail store that features many reading related items. From their site – “Literary Book Gifts is a webstore that celebrates these high-quality works of literature that so many of us have enjoyed reading. Books and authors are always in mind when creating each addition to the catalog. The titles and authors are chosen to suit young adults, women, and men alike. These stories are meant to be enjoyed long after reading the final pages and the cover is closed. As designs, now they can be.” There’s a huge variety of gifts for any book lover. Some of the T-shirts and totes on the site look awesome and there’s a variety of books featured! I’m sure I’ll have to buy one of my favorites.

I received a pair of the Cashmere Writing Gloves in Heather Purple. The gloves are very comfortable and will definitely keep my hands warm on those cold nights when my hands are outside the covers to hold a book or turn a page! They’d also be great for writers to keep their hands warm while working on their next great novel!

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As you can see from the photos, the gloves cover the whole back of your hand and have two finger openings, one for the thumb and then one for the other four fingers. The gloves are soft and comfortable and I’d recommend them! They’re a little steep at $52 but they’re cashmere and, from what I’ve experienced with them so far, they are a good quality product.

**I was provided with this free product in exchange for an honest and fair review.

Bout of Books 25 Update – Day 7 & Wrap Up

Posted in 2019, Bout of Books 25, For the love of books, Reading Challenges by

oJKtz8s

So for one of my goals this year to help me focus more on reading and having concentrated time for reading, I decided to participate in two of the three Bout of Books reading challenges / read-a-thons this year! This was the second one for this year, with the first being in January. I was actually super successful over the last week with setting aside time for reading and I was able to get a lot done!

First let’s do my Day 7 (Sunday) update on reading.

Update

Sunday

Time spent reading: (Approximately) 3 hours
Number of pages I’ve read today: 212 pages
Total number of pages I’ve read: 1,375 pages
Books read: Continued reading My Favorite Half-Night Stand
Challenges: I did not do the challenge post for today

And now let’s look at how I fared for my overall Bout of Books 25 wrap up:

Time Devoted to Reading

I plan to read at least 1.5 hours each day during the week, with hopefully additional hours on Saturday and Sunday. Monday I’ll be at the spa with my Mom for Mother’s Day but hopefully can find time to read during the day while we’re there.
I met the daily reading goal 5 out of the 7 days. Tuesday I had to work too late and then Friday I had a bunch of other things I was getting done plus dinner out with family! I read extra some of the other days though so I made up for it. Overall I read over 20 hours for the challenge!

My Goals

My goals for this read-a-thon are that I’d like to participate in as much as I can: the daily posts plus reading every day. I’d really like to just focus on getting back into reading. My traditional busy season at work goes from January to April and it was a killer this year. I gave up on reading for April since all I was doing was making myself more tired. I’ve just recently picked up reading again and it’s been going well but I need to get back on board with my reading schedule in a big way.

I was able to read every day! Which was a big deal for me – I didn’t read hardly anything in April. I only participated in one of the daily challenges but I did that so I could concentrate more on reading! 

Books to Read

  • Read The Bride Test by Helen Hoang Finished and reviewed!
  • Read The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren Finished and reviewed!
  • Read Next Girl to Die by Dea Poirier Finished and reviewed! 
  • Read a book for my Bookish Reading Challenge Started and got almost all the way through – review to come soon for My Favorite Half-Night Stand by Christina Lauren
  • Read The Suspect by Fiona Burton Did not get to

 

Overall I thought I did super well with this challenge and made a lot of time for reading! I’m looking forward to participating in a Bookish Bingo challenge next month and hopefully get lots more reading done!

Bout of Books 25 Update – Day 6

Posted in 2019, Bout of Books 25, For the love of books, Reading Challenges by

oJKtz8s

Posting this a day late since we were too busy having tons of fun this weekend! Saturday was goal day so I got a lot of reading done and it was great! It was the perfect relaxing day spent with my Mom and also dinner with the family. So anyways my Saturday’s progress is below:

Update

Saturday

Time spent reading: (Approximately) 7 hours
Number of pages I’ve read today: 372 pages
Total number of pages I’ve read: 1,163 pages
Books read: Continued reading Next Girl to Die and started My Favorite Half-Night Stand
Challenges: I did not participate in the challenge for yesterday – I focused on reading for the day!

Stay tuned for continued progress made in my next post on my Sunday update!!

2019 Book #28 – The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren

Posted in 2019, Book reviews, Bout of Books 25, Contemporary romance, Fiction, For the love of books, Reading Challenges, Romance, Women's fiction by

519MFfKuuAL._SX320_BO1,204,203,200_Title: The Unhoneymooners
Author: Christina Lauren
Date finished: 5/16/19
Genre: Contemporary romance, women’s fiction
Publisher: Gallery Books
Publication Date: May 14, 2019
Pages in book: 416
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 two sworn enemies, anything can happen during the Hawaiian trip of a lifetime—maybe even love—in this romantic comedy from the New York Times bestselling authors of Roomies.

Olive Torres is used to being the unlucky twin: from inexplicable mishaps to a recent layoff, her life seems to be almost comically jinxed. By contrast, her sister Ami is an eternal champion . . . she even managed to finance her entire wedding by winning a slew of contests. Unfortunately for Olive, the only thing worse than constant bad luck is having to spend the wedding day with the best man (and her nemesis), Ethan Thomas.

Olive braces herself for wedding hell, determined to put on a brave face, but when the entire wedding party gets food poisoning, the only people who aren’t affected are Olive and Ethan. Suddenly there’s a free honeymoon up for grabs, and Olive will be damned if Ethan gets to enjoy paradise solo.

Agreeing to a temporary truce, the pair head for Maui. After all, ten days of bliss is worth having to assume the role of loving newlyweds, right? But the weird thing is . . . Olive doesn’t mind playing pretend. In fact, the more she pretends to be the luckiest woman alive, the more it feels like she might be.

My rating: 4.0 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.

I’ve loved the last couple novels I’ve read by Christina Lauren (technically a pen name for two authors writing together). They’re books are addictive! The characters are always so engaging and find themselves in the funniest situations. The story lines really draw in the reader and engage them emotionally. I don’t want to put the book down but at the same time don’t want it to end! In this book, Olive and Ethan were both very interesting characters and were adorable once they figured out how they felt about each other. One thing I didn’t care for was that the story was told all from Olive’s point of view but then switched to Ethan’s point of view for the last chapter only. To be honest I was annoyed with Olive’s melodramatics mid-way through the book and thought it would’ve been nice to get someone else’s thoughts. And also it was hard to understand Ethan’s thoughts in the last chapter when its the reader’s first look into his brain. Overall though I really liked the book and I would recommend it!

Link to author website

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

Bout of Books 25 Update – Day 4

Posted in 2019, Bout of Books 25, For the love of books, Reading Challenges by

oJKtz8s

This week is going well so far! I didn’t get to meet my hours goal every day so far but have been for the most part and am getting some good reading done. And looking forward to Goal Day tomorrow for lots of concentrated reading time! So anyways my Thursday’s progress is below:

Update

Thursday

Time spent reading: (Approximately) 1.5 hour
Number of pages I’ve read today: 142 pages
Total number of pages I’ve read: 736 pages
Books read: Finished The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren (Hopefully will have the review post up sometime this weekend)
Challenges: I participated in the challenge yesterday, If You Like This, Try That – it was fun!!

Stay tuned for continued progress made in tomorrow’s post on my Friday update!!

If You Like This, Try That – Bout of Books 25

Posted in 2019, Bout of Books 25, For the love of books, Reading Challenges by

oJKtz8s

Today’s challenge for Bout of Books 25 is “If You Like This, Try That.” This can be a really fun challenge (if I have enough time to put two thoughts together and type up the post). The organizers of Bout of Books 25 have provided the additional instruction for this challenge:

Put your recommendations hat on, #boutofbooks-ers. For this challenge, pick a book, author, or trope (or whatever!) from your TBR and suggest similar books.

Example 1: If you like Sarah McLean, try Lenora Bell.

Example 2: If you like a modern day, romantic twist on Greek mythology, try Staci Hart’s Hearts and Arrows series.

My examples that I’ve gathered are a mix of different categories and examples, hopefully it helps someone find a new and interesting read!

If you like Crazy Rich Asians, Try The Bride Test

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If you liked First Frost or Glass Kitchen, Try The Simplicity of Cider

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If you like An Anonymous Girl, Try Believe Me

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If you like Fairy-tale retellings genre, Try the Winternight Trilogy

If you like a good revenge story, Try Jane Doe

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If you’ve ever had self-esteem issues or issues with being overweight, Try Good Luck With That

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If you like Wicked the Musical, Try All the Ever Afters

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If you liked those choose your own adventure novels as a kid, Try My Lady’s Choosing

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Bout of Books 25 Update – Day 3

Posted in 2019, Bout of Books 25, For the love of books, Reading Challenges by

oJKtz8s

Still trucking along. I got home from work late again last night so I meant to read only a short amount of time before bed but I should’ve known with reading the new Christina Lauren book that I wouldn’t be able to stop after a half hour. I LOVE the book I’m reading right now – this is the third book by Christina Lauren that I’ve read and they’re addictive. I enjoy them so much and I can’t put them down once I get into them. I also hate for them to end because I just want to keep enjoying the story! So anyways my Wednesday’s progress is below:

Update

Wednesday

Time spent reading: 2 hours
Number of pages I’ve read today: 212 pages
Total number of pages I’ve read: 594 pages
Books read: Continued reading The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren (I’m hoping I’ll be able to finish this one today! I’m enjoying this one so much I’m trying not to rush through it)
Challenges: I did not participate in yesterday’s challenge – Although this prompt was my idea from BoB 23 and I did do it then!

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Stay tuned for continued progress made in tomorrow’s post on my Thursday update!!

Bout of Books 25 Update – Day 2

Posted in 2019, Bout of Books 25, For the love of books, Reading Challenges by

oJKtz8s

Tuesday didn’t go super well reading wise. I was at work until pretty late and by the time I got home and ready for bed it was almost midnight so I limited my reading time to a half hour. Luckily I had read a bunch Monday so I’m still feeling on track, and looking forward to more reading time this weekend. So anyways my Tuesday’s progress is below:

Update

Tuesday

Time spent reading: (Approximately) 0.5 hours
Number of pages I’ve read today: 62 pages
Total number of pages I’ve read: 382 pages
Books read: Started reading The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren
Challenges: I was interested in the challenge today and would’ve liked to participate but I just didn’t have the time.

Stay tuned for continued progress made in tomorrow’s post on my Wednesday update!!