Books I Read This Month 
Reviews This Month:
These Broken Stars (4 Stars)
Vanishing Girls (3 Stars)
Making Pretty (2.5 Stars)
A Court of Thorns and Roses (5 Stars)
The Summer of Chasing Mermaids (3.5 Stars)
Extraordinary Means (3 Stars)
Immaculate (4 Stars)
Stats
Total Books Read: 6
Total Novellas Read: 0
Rereads: 0
Favorite Book Read This Month: Hands down, A Court of Thorns and Roses.
Least Favorite Book Read This Month: Making Pretty by Corey Ann Haydu. I wanted more resolution and better decision making by the protagonist.
Book that Most Surprised Me This Month: Immaculate by Katelyn Detweiler. I was a bit wary about how the religious aspect was going to be handled, but the story is SO good, not preachy, and well-written!
Reading Challenge Updates
Goodreads 2015 Reading Challenge Progress: 42/70
Fairytale Retelling Challenge: 5/8
Reread Challenge: 12/12 (Rereading all of the Princess Diaries books fulfilled the challenge!)
*Note that the status bars for challenges in my side bar are slightly different because they only count books I wrote full reviews for.
Notable Posts This Month
Are We Too Hard on Our Heroines?
Tinkerbell 10K Run at the Disneyland Resort
Moving to Self-Hosted: Everything You Wanted to Know About My Experience
Favorite Quote This Month
“Here’s a secret…There’s a difference between being dead and dying. We’re all dying. Some of us die for ninety years, and some of us die for nineteen. But each morning everyone on this planet wakes up one day closer to their death. Everyone. So living and dying are actually different words for the same thing, if you think about it.” –Extraordinary Means by Robyn Schneider
Updates About My Life This Month
This was my first full month of being on self-hosted and I can concretely say that I LOVE IT! There were definitely a few issues I had to work out and it’s a continual learning process, but I am so happy with having my own wordpress.org space. I had my highest number of views ever in May (beating my highest number of views ever before I went self hosted by 1,000+ views) and posted my 300th blog post! You can check out my thorough post about moving to self hosted, but I’m also glad to answer any questions you may have!
I was lucky enough to receive several review copies in May so it was a very review heavy month. In June I’m hoping to do some more features and discussions, and I have three big events coming up: Bay Area Bookfest, ALA, and the Scholastic Warehouse Book Sale. I’ll be doing recap posts for all of these, so be sure to look out for that! I’m also starting a new job for the summer this month, and as it’s full-time I’ll be doing my best to schedule posts in advance and continue to answer comments in a timely manner!
I’m also going to be participating in the Summer of Sarah Dessen read-along as much as possible, and I’m starting off this week with Saint Anything (my first Dessen book in years, and I’m loving it so far!) Other books that will be sure to be on my TBR this month are Emmy & Oliver, Just Listen, The Heir, and Crimson Bound.
What are your plans for the first month of summer?
Congrats on your 300th blog post and first month of self-hosting! I’ve heard so much about a Court of Thrones and Roses recently, and I think a trip to the bookstore will be in order soon!
Thank you so much! I highly recommend ACOTAR, especially if you like romance and older-skewing YA!
Congrats on your 300th blog post and your first month of self-hosting! A Court of Thorns and Roses seems to be everywhere recently – a trip to the bookstore may be in order! It looks like you had a great reading month!
Thank you! ACOTAR definitely lived up to the hype for me, I highly recommend it!
So glad to hear being self-hosted is going so well for you! And you are reading The Winner’s Crime, I loved it so much. Hope you have a great June!
Thank you! I’m hoping to finish the Winner’s Crime this week, although I’ll admit I’m finding it slower going than the Winner’s Curse!
Great that your big move worked out so well for you and that you are so happy with it. Looks like you had a wide ranging rating for the books you read this month. Immaculate sounds like one you’ve interested me in.
Thank you! Immaculate was one that was truly a surprise for me in terms of how wonderful and well-written is it, but it’s one of my favorite debuts of the year!
300th post – well done! And congrats on completing your first month as a self-hosted blog! 😀
Thank you so much! 🙂
Yay! You have made it through your first month of self hosted. Does it feel different!? 😉 Dang girl! 300 posts is a huge amount of writing and words and I congratulate you on your glorious achievement! Hope you have a great June and I can’t wait to see you at Bay Book Fest.
~Kaitlin
At first it felt a little different and disconnected since I wasn’t on wp.com which has some social media like functions, but now I’m totally used to it! (And I still use wp.com’s reader to comment on blogs through my account there, since it still exists!) Have you confirmed if you’re going to the festival?
Congrats on the successful move! Looking forward to Saint Anything too.
Thank you! Saint Anything ended up being really enjoyable, although that’s no surprise considering it’s Sarah Dessen!
What a great month! Honestly, Making Pretty sounds like it could either be really great or a huge disappointment. And I’m so glad moving to self-hosted worked out so well for you! I wish I could do it, haha. I hope June is just as great for you!
Go for it! It’s scary but SO rewarding! I’ve seen a lot of bloggers who LOVED Making Pretty so I think it really depends on how well the protagonist works for you (which she did not for me). However, it still has some really interesting topics with the whole focus on plastic surgery, so I’m glad I read it!
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