August Monthly Wrap-Up

Books Read: 11

I meant to get caught-up on my reviews during my stay-at-home vacation in August, but I decided that naps and board games were more important. I’m hoping to get back on track in September.

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Quick Review

 Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

Published: 2013
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Series: Reckoners #1
Rating: C

This was our book club pick for July, which I was pretty excited about since Sanderson has been on my TBR pile for years. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really get into it. The world building was pretty awesome, but the main character, David, and his love interest/crush, Megan, drove me insane. Every time Megan opened her mouth was like nails on a chalkboard to me. While I won’t be continuing with the series, I’ll give some of Sanderson’s other stuff a shot.

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Odds and Ends

• September is library card sign-up month! Show your local library some love and sign-up or renew your card today. Already have a library card? You can join the fun by posting what your library happiness is on either Twitter or Instagram. Use the hastag #LibraryHappinessIs for a chance to win $100 dollars from the American Library Association. (ALA.org)
• In case you missed it, John Lewis crowd surfed while promoting the release of March: Book 3 on the Late Show. (CCN.com)
• Marvel reveals what Thor was doing during Captain America: Civil War. (TheMarySue.com)
• I don’t care who you are. This American Horror Story season 6 teaser trailer is terrifying as hell and I wish YouTube would stop subjecting me to it. All I want to do is watch Mystery Science Theater 3,000. Not have nightmares of this doll crawling toward me across the ceiling a la Trainspotting.

June Monthly Wrap-Up (Challenge Progress)

June certainly jumped straight into roasting summer. I didn’t get too much reading in this month, but I do have reviews written for everything I read. That’s the first time this has happened in a long time. I also made some good progress on a few challenges. I’m actually on time with a couple of them!

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Reading Challenge Progress

I’m on schedule for the “New to You” and “New Release” challenges! A bit behind on the other two though. At this point I’m just aiming to get my TBR pile down to 150 by the end of the year, rather than down to 100. I’m putting myself on a book buying ban until the end of the year to help with that. The only exceptions to the rule are for titles I already had on pre-order.

May 2016 Wrap-up

May was a much better reading month for me than April. I still only read a handful of books, but a lot more of them fit within my challenges for the year. So, I felt more accomplished at the end of the month. Plus, I managed to read and review most of them.

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Quick Reviews

The following two books are ones I read in May, but don’t have enough to say about them to justify a review post of their own.

 Wild Things by Jennifer Ashley

Published: 2016
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Serie: Shifters Unbound #7.75
Rating: B

This is one of Ashley’s novellas set in her Shifters Unbound series. It was a cute story that focused on wolf shifter Mason McNaughton going on a quest to find a healer for his people. I loved the parts that took place in New Orleans and wished we could’ve stayed there longer than we did. Things started to feel a little old hat when Ashley brought Mason and his psychic back to the shifter town. Still, this was a solid novella.  

April 2016 Wrap-up

April went by so fast! This was probably my best reading month of the year, so far. In total, I got through 11 books. Most of those were either literary fiction or manga, which is a departure from my usual fantasy/paranormal romance reads.

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Quick Reviews

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Published: 1951
Genre: Classic
Rating: B+

I debated doing a full review for this one, but honestly I think most people have a pretty good idea of what “Catcher in the Rye” is about or have read it already. While I liked this one, I think I would’ve enjoyed it a lot more had I read it in my angsty teen years.  The characterization of Hayden is done wonderfully, but he tended to annoy me. As a teenager, I’m sure I would have identified and sympathized with him a little more.

March 2016 Wrap-up

Another kind of tough month. Still dealing with health issues, so my reading and blogging has been lagging.

I did manage to read 4 books this month though.Not bad, but not my best either. A large chunk of my time this month went to re-watching Arrested Development.

Quick Review

 Shadow Mated by P. Jameson

Published: 2016
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Rating: D+

This one had a lot of potential, but Jameson resolved the tension between the two main characters too quickly. I think that’s my issue with this series lately. Jameson brings up a conflict, but resolves it a couple of pages later and seems to go the easy route doing so.

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Reading Challenge Progress

Another slow reading month for me, but I did manage to get a couple of books in for the New Release challenge. I’m still going the wrong way with my TBR challenge though. I added almost 10 new titles to the pile… even with cleaning my bookshelves this month.

 New To You Reading Challenge

2016 Goal: 25 “New to Me” Authors

Total Goal Progress: 6/25

• January
  • John Scalzi (Redshirts)
  • Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows)
  • Sarah J. Mass (A Court of Thorns and Roses)
• February
  • Naomi Novik (Uprooted)
  • Goldy Moldavsky (Kill the Boy Band)
  • Garth Nix (Newt’s Emerald)

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 Read My Own Damn Books Challenge

2016 Goal: Clear my TBR pile down to 100 books

TBR count at the beginning of the month: 177

TBR count at the end of the month: 184

Still going a little in the wrong direction, but not as bad as last month.

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 2016 New Release Challenge

2016 Goal: 1 – 15 books – New Release Newbie

New releases read in March.: 3

Total Goal Progress: 6/15

• January
  • The Vampire’s Fake Fiancee by Kristen Painter
• February
  • Kill the Boy Band by Goldy Moldavsky
  • Secretly Mated by P. Jameson
• March
  • Shadow Mated by P. Jameson
  • Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs (review to come)
  • The Murder of Mary Russell by Laurie R. King (review to come)

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Challenge Host: Herding Cats & Burning Soup

Dates of Challenge: Jan. 1, 2016 – December 31, 2016

Sign-up Post:Click here

Goal Level:

• Paranormal Romance
  • Goal: Level 4 (Going for a Swim): 50 books
  • Progress: 2/50
    • The Vampire’s Fake Fiancee by Kristen Painter
    • Shards of Hope by Nalini Singh (review to come)
• Fantasy/Urban Fantasy
  • Goal: Level 1 (Sunbathing): 6 books
  • Progress: 4/6
    • Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs (review to come)
    • Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
    • Uprooted by Naomi Novik
    • A Court of Throns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

 

 

February 2016 Wrap-up

Glad that February is officially over and we’re one month closer to spring. I’m ready for some warmer weather.

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Quick Reviews

 Deadpool Killustrated, vol 2 by Cullen Bunn

Published: 2013
Genre: Comic
Rating: D+

This wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be. I think I expected a little more interaction between Deadpool and the classic literature characters than we got.

 Secretly Mated by P. Jameson

Published: 2016
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Rating: D+

P. Jameson’s erotic paranormal romances are one of my guilty pleasures. Unfortunately, this one wasn’t that great. It felt more like a set-up for the next installment in the series. So, the main couple kind of bored me.

January 2016 Wrap-up

January zoomed right on by. I’m glad it’s February though, one step closer to spring! It hasn’t been a bad winter here, but I’m tired of the freezing cold.

I’ve been on a young adult fantasy genre kick lately, which is odd for me. Usually, I only read a couple YA’s a year. I’ve already read 3 so far and am working on number 4.

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Quick Reviews

In total I read 7 books in January. I managed to review most of those already. However, there are a couple that I don’t plan to write full reviews for. So, here’s a couple of quick thoughts on those two.

The Vampire’s Fake Fiancee by Kristen Painter
Published: 2016
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Rating: C

This was a cute and funny paranormal romance. Essentially, this is one of those romances where the leads pretend to be in a relationship and end up falling in love. There were aspects that I didn’t really care for though. Such as the cliched “evil other woman” character. But overall, this was an ok read.

November 2015 Wrap-Up

It’s officially the holiday season. For me and my family this means Christmas shenanigans.

For the blog, I’ll be using December to officially launch a new weekly feature called “Film Friday”. I’ve been flirting with this idea for a couple of months because I wanted an outlet to share what I’ve been watching and loving recently. I’ll still be predominately a book blogger, but once a week I’ll be taking a break to talk about a movie or TV show. For this month, I’ll be focusing each week on highlighting my favorite Christmas themed films.

Going back to November, this was an OK reading month for me. I read and reviewed a handful of full length novels, all of which I managed to review.  I also did some housekeeping on my Kindle by reading a few titles that had been just sitting on my e-reader for a while…none of which I managed to review. Below are some brief thoughts on those titles.

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Under the Mistletoe by Jill Shalvis
Genre: Contemporary Romances
Series: Lucky Harbor #6.5
Rating: D

I really need to admit defeat and realize that Shalvis is just a writer who doesn’t work for me. This is a short (about 80 pages) read in Shalvis’ Lucky Harbor series. Mia returns to Lucky Harbor for Christmas depressed that her boyfriend, Nick, doesn’t want to meet her family. Nick realizes that he’s messed up and follows her to grovel for forgiveness. The story was a little too melodramatic for me and I never actually developed an attachment for the two main characters. If you’re an avid fan of the series, you might enjoy this one since there seems to a lot of character cameos. If you’re not a fan, I’d suggest skipping this one.

October 2015 Wrap-Up

Finally getting back-up on the horse after a lengthy hiatus. October was a pretty good reading month for me, considering I only read a couple of books since May.

For October, I breezed through an excessive amount of Kindle Unlimited books because I didn’t have the attention span to read full length novels at the beginning of the month. Below are my reviews for most of the books I read in October, but didn’t get around to writing a full review for.

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Lion Eyes by Jennifer Ashley
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Shifters Unbound #7.5
Rating: B

Uncollared lion shifter, Seamus McGuire, thinks he might be going feral. On the run from hunters, he meets Bree. Together they must figure out how to convince the local shifter town that Seamus didn’t kill a couple of hunters in a feral rage.

One of the better novellas for this series. I liked Seamus a lot and it was interesting getting a story about a collarless shifter. I don’t recommend this for people who haven’t read any of the main books though.

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Rock Hard by Nalini Singh
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Rock Kiss #2
Rating: C

Ex-Rugby player, Gabriel Bishop, takes over the large company that shy Charlotte Baird works for. Gabriel takes a shining to Charlotte and decides to pursue her, but she’s got a ton of baggage that needs to be worked through first.

Was bored in large chunks of this one and I got frustrated with the games that Gabriel kept playing, trying to get a rise out of Charlotte. This one kind of has that Pepper Potts and Tony Stark relationship dynamic between the characters going on though. So, if you’re into that, this is probably worth a read.

Month(s) in Review: February and March 2015

February and March were reading slump months for me (and April is turning out the same way). This is because for the past couple of months I’ve been in the process of starting a new job and going through a major relocation. With so much going on, my reading time took a major hit, but I’m hoping to get back on track with posting regularly in May.

For February and March, I read a combined total of 9 books. I managed to write reviews for 5 of them. Below you will find short reviews for the 4 books I read but didn’t review and links to the full reviews I wrote in Feb and March.

Total Books: 9

Total Reviews: 5

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Entreat Me by Grace Draven
Genre: Fantasy/Romance
Series: N/A — Standalone Novel
Rating: A –

When Louvaen Duenda’s sister runs off with a near stranger in a misguided effort to save the family, Louvaen pursues them. However, when Louvaen arrives at the castle where the man has whisked her sibling, she finds the cursed inhabitants believing that her sister is the last hope to breaking the curse. This is a wonderful Beauty and Beast retelling with some unique twists and wonderfully developed characters. Grace Draven is quickly becoming a favorite new author of mine.

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Lucky Break by Chloe Neill
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Chicagoland Vampires 10.5
Rating: C

I’ve been avoiding the Chicagoland Vampire series for years, but when I stumbled across this new novella I decided to see if I might be able to get into these books. Merit, an enforcer for master vampire Ethan, is attempting to have a romantic getaway. Unfortunately, the getaway is quickly ruined by a murder and the escalation of a centuries old feud. This was….boring. The writing was fine, but nothing about the world or characters really drew me in. I might have enjoyed this more had it been around 10 years ago, when I was inhaling the Anita Blake series. Back then I probably would’ve found the rules of Neill’s vampire and werewolf society interesting. Now vampire politics in stories tend to annoy me. So, I doubt I’ll be reading any of the full length books in this series.