Monday, February 4, 2019

January 2019 Book Haul!


Well, I have to say that I did a lot better this month in terms of acquiring books. I'm trying out a book buying restriction and it's working somewhat. I think this month was just a lot and I could only slowly get into it. I'm hoping that February is an even smaller haul! This month I got 9 books (outside of school textbooks) and I'm excited about all of them. Additionally, 6 of them were either gifts or sent to me for free. When it comes down to it, I only purchased 3 books this month and that's a very good number compared to other months!

The first book that I got this month was a signed copy of Gray Wolf Mate by Dianna Love. I participated in the Indiegram tour for this book and was provided with a copy from the author to take pictures of. It came with a swag pack, too, which was exciting. I don't know much about it except it's about shifters and paranormal romance, which is my long-term guilty pleasure. You can find my Indiegram tour stop here :) 

Then I received a copy of Till Death Do Us Part by A.J. Lee from the author herself in exchange for an honest review. This is a zombie survival reverse harem story that I've already read and reviewed. You can find that review here, but just briefly I did enjoy this book and recommend it to RH lovers.

The next two books I got were signed copies of Briobands and The Things I Never Said by Olivia Esther. One of my friends got me these two for Christmas and I'm super excited to read them this year! One is fiction and the other is poetry and I'm pumped for both of them.

Then I received an arc of The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons from Tor in exchange for participation in the blog tour hosted by Jean the Book Nerd. You can find my blog tour post here and my full, non-spoiler review of this book here. Overall, this book was enjoyable and I'm pretty excited for the sequel to come out next year.

Then my preorder for The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi came in and I'm beyond excited to have this book in my hands. I've heard nothing but good things about this book and hyping up this book as part of the street team has gotten me super excited to read it. You can find more information about the book here!

Then I decided to go ahead and get a copy of Sightwitch by Susan Dennard. This is an illustrated novella told from Ryber's perspective that is set before Truthwitch but was released after the second book in the series. After reading it, I fully believe that readers should read this novella after the second and before the third books in the series. You can find my review here.

I was then graciously sent an arc copy of The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty from Harper Voyager US in order to promote it on my Instagram. I've heard nothing but good things about these books and I can't wait to dive into the first book very soon! Definitely stay tuned for reviews for both of the books in this series!

Lastly, I got Circle of Shadows by Evelyn Skye in my January Fairyloot. This was such a fun box and I liked almost all of the items in it. I especially loved this edition of Circle of Shadows which came signed and with light purple sprayed edges!

Well, those are all of the books that I got in the month of January! I'm hoping that my February haul is even smaller, but I've already gotten a couple so far. Here's to a good month ahead!



Thanks for reading!
xoxo
Lauren



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Saturday, February 2, 2019

Let's Talk: "Till Death Do Us Part" by A.J. Lee

Title: Till Death Do Us Part
Author: A.J. Lee
Genre: Dystopin/RH
Page Length: 605 pages
Publication Date: October 30, 2018
Date Started: January 22, 2019
Date Finished: February 1, 2019
Rating: 3.5 // 5 stars

*I was sent a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review*

My first impressions of this book are that this book was enjoyable and I'm definitely excited to see where the story goes next after that ending (if we get a second book, that it). I thought the characters were enjoyable and the plot to be pretty interesting. Overall, I would recommend this to RH lovers!

I did have a few smaller issues with this book. The first was that it took me a little while to really know who was who. The characters that our MC meets all have nicknames for each other, but the MC calls them by their real names in her narration. It was hard for me in the first hundred or so pages to understand who was who. Eventually I got a hang of it, though. The other thing was that one of the characters' nickname was Pops. I kept picturing an 80 year old man, not the potential love interest that we were supposed to think of.

Other than that, I didn't fully connect with the characters and story the entire time. I thought the characters were enjoyable and I'm definitely invested in their stories, but I didn't 100% connect with them. I think more conversations between the MC and the characters individually would have helped me with that. I thought the story was interesting, but I wasn't dying to pick the book up every time I had to put it down to deal with responsibilities.

However, I thought the other aspects of this book were done really well. One of my absolute favorite parts of this book was the showing of emotions. The main character is female and typically in a lot of RH books of this nature, the men are stoic or only show positive emotions and are super protective of the girl. But in this book, she was just as protective and active as the men. She would cry and show her emotions, but so would they. The men in this book actively showed their emotions, their love for each other, their fear, their pain, their tears, etc and I loved that. It was so refreshing to see actually emotions from these characters because it made me connect with them more than I would have if they were stereotypical RH characters.

I thought the plot moved pretty fast and I enjoyed the route the story took. I'm not able to comment on realistic-ness because this is taking place in a dystopian zombie-infested world and things are obviously going to happen differently. I thought that it was pretty interesting, though, and I'm curious as to seeing what will happen next if we get a second book. There were definitely a lot of jump scares, some gore, some tough moments where my heart was hurting. But there was also laughter and smut and happiness. I liked seeing the balance because a lot of dystopians only focus on surviving and forget to showcase the happy moments that can still happen.

Overall, I thought this book was a pretty good RH. I'm definitely hoping that we get a sequel because I'd love to see what happens after that ending. A huge thank you to the author for sending me a copy of this book for free and allowing me the chance to experience this story.



Thanks for reading!
xoxo
Lauren



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Friday, February 1, 2019

January 2019 Wrap-Up!


January was a pretty good reading month for me, though I wished I had read one more book. Netflix dragged me in and I ended up binging a lot of shows, though I still managed to read 8 books! Some of them were really good and some were meh, but I'm excited to talk about all of them!



BOOKS READ
1.
Title: The Light We Seek
Author: Katie May
Rating: 3.5 // 5 stars
I really enjoyed this installment in this series. I found that it was both interesting and still maintained quite a bit of the humor that initially drew me to it. I will say that I wish there had been more humor in this one. There was quite a bit more action, though, which was interesting. I didn't find there to be too much character arc development compared to the first book, but if you look you can see where different characters are changing. Overall, I enjoyed this read and it was pretty quick. I'm excited for the next one.

2.
Title: Milk and Honey
Author: Rupi Kaur
Rating: 4 // 5 stars
I thought this was a very moving journey from page one all the way until the end. I'm not big into poetry and this is only the third poetry collection I've ever read, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Some poems I enjoyed more than others but that's just how it goes. I'm left feeling inspired and with the knowledge that you can look for sweetness in any part of life, good or bad.

3.
Title: The Burn Zone
Author: Renee Linnell
Rating: 4 // 5 stars
Review

4.
Title: Windwitch
Author: Susan Dennard
Rating: 5 // 5 stars
Review

5.
Title: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life
Author: Bryan Lee O'Malley
Rating: 4 // 5 stars
This was super fun to read. I definitely think it was also quicker to read because I've seen the movie so many times. Reading this just made me realize how true to the original story the movie is. Some scenes were taken from this exactly and it was really nice to see! I also loved revisiting this story since it's one of my favorites. Definitely going to try reading the next ones!

6.
Title: Lord of Shadows
Author: Cassandra Clare
Rating: 4.25 // 5 stars
Review

7. 
Title: The Yellow Wallpaper
Author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Rating: N/A--Read for class

8.
Title: The Ruin of Kings
Author: Jenn Lyons
Rating: 3.75 // 5 stars
Review TK
Blog Tour Excerpt + Review



BLOG POSTS




TV/MOVIES
I decided not to talk about each of these individually, but to instead just list all the TV shows and movies I watched this month!
  • Ocean's 8
  • Jack Ryan, season 1
  • The Incredibles 2
  • Brooklyn Nine Nine, seasons 1-5
  • Big Time Rush, season 3-4
  • Hawaii Five-0, season 1


Thanks for reading!
xoxo
Lauren



You can follow my bookstagram here. A brand new giveaway will be posted soon!

To get more awesome content like this post, click the follow button to the right!

Beacon Book Box: use the code BOOKSHELF5 for a discount on your order or subscription! 

I am a "BookishTextDesign" Influencer! Use my code LAUREN10 for a discount off your bookmark purchases! Check out the shop here

Get free worldwide shipping with Book Depository using my affiliate link