The Heir and the Spare by Emily Albright | Review

Posted January 11, 2016 in Reviews / 8 Comments
The Heir and the Spare by Emily Albright | Review

One of the most coveted items I received in my Christmas Haul, I was so incredibly excited to get my hands on The Heir and the Spare as I am a total sucker for anything featuring the modern-day-royalty story line. Two of my favorite reads from 2015 were The Royal We and Royal Wedding, so I was sure this was going to be another book that I could indulge in. In fact, it’s the first book from my Christmas Haul that I dove into. However, I wound up being extremely disappointed by the quality of the writing, predictable plot elements, […]


All About Those Challenges: 2016 Reading Ambitions

Posted January 6, 2016 in Challenges / 9 Comments
All About Those Challenges: 2016 Reading Ambitions

Another year, another set of challenges. This year I am aiming for low pressure challenges that will help me to focus on books that I already own and new releases I’ve been anticipating for a while. See below for my list of reading challenges I will be participating in (so far!) for 2016! Goodreads Challenge Goal: 50 Books I haven’t had a Goodreads challenge that decreased the number of books I aimed to read since I started the challenges back in 2011. Last year I finished at 74 books (my goal was 70). Ideally I would like to hit the […]


The Fill-In Boyfriend by Kasie West | Mini Review

Posted January 4, 2016 in Reviews / 10 Comments
The Fill-In Boyfriend by Kasie West | Mini Review

I picked up my first Kasie West books in the hopes that it would add some levity to my reading schedule. I was in the middle of slogging through Illuminae (which is very good, but also very depressing) and needed something easy and fun to read- you know, something I could read in the bathtub or while waiting for an appointment. While The Fill-In Boyfriend definitely was fun, fluffy, and quick, I felt like I missed the rave-worthy aspects that I’ve heard so much about regarding West’s writing. The best and worst thing about this novel was the character development. […]


2015 Year In Review | December 2015 Month in Review

Posted January 3, 2016 in Month In Review / 4 Comments
2015 Year In Review | December 2015 Month in Review

Ah, statistics. While I intend to keep a much more thorough pulse on my stats in 2016 thanks to Crini’s AMAZING spreadsheet, I thought I’d share some of my 2015 year end stats with my December 2015 wrap up! 2015 Stats Total Books Read in 2015: 74 Read an average of 6 books per month. Total Pages Read in 2015: 23,973 Read an average of 66 pages per day. 5 Stars in 2015: 15 (20% of total books read) 4 Stars in 2015: 18 (24% of total books read) 3 Stars in 2015: 28 (38% of total books read) 2 […]


Book Buddies Review: Snowed Over

Posted December 30, 2015 in Book Buddies Reviews, Reviews / 1 Comment
Book Buddies Review: Snowed Over

Cristina and Lauren Read: Book Buddies is a discussion style review I participate in every other month with my friend Lauren who runs the blog Bookmarklit. We choose a themed book for the month, read it, and the have a discussion where we both discuss themes and aspects that really stood out to us. Book Buddy Reviews are posted during the last week of the month.You can see our review in a Q&A format with half posted here, and half on Lauren’s blog! 1) Do you feel this really fell into the “New Adult” category? Why or why not? C: […]


Top Ten Most Anticipated Releases For the First Half of 2016

Posted December 28, 2015 in Top Ten Tuesday, Weekly Features/Memes / 32 Comments
Top Ten Most Anticipated Releases For the First Half of 2016

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by the fantastic blog The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s theme is looking ahead to my most coveted releases of within the first 6 months of 2016. I love TTT topics like this because I gather so many ideas (and add so much to my TBR!) from reading what others are excited about! In order of release month, here are my most anticipated reads being released in the first half of 2016! Passenger by Alexandra Bracken- January I cannot even with how excited I am for this one. Max pre-ordered it […]


To All The Books I Neglected to Review…

Posted December 28, 2015 in Reviews / 19 Comments
To All The Books I Neglected to Review…

I’m sorry. It’s not you, it’s me. Life just got in the way and I forgot to flesh out my thoughts about you, with fingers to keyboard. With 2015 coming to a close, I realized I absolutely could not allow the new year to dawn without writing at least a mini review for you. Some of you were great, and some of you left much to be desired, but your lack of a previous review was due to my own frenzied schedule. I am now doing you your due diligence and letting the world know what I thought. I’m actually […]


Christmas (Book) Haul and Recap 2015!

Posted December 26, 2015 in Features, Stacking the Shelves / 21 Comments
Christmas (Book) Haul and Recap 2015!

Merry Christmas, blogosphere! This holiday season definitely snuck up on me, and while it was a crazy rush Christmas shopping and prepping for the holiday, I managed to finish all of the essentials! I received some wonderful gifts (and books!) this year and thought I would share them here! Max and I started the morning at our place with our personal tree and gift exchange. As it’s our first full size tree together (and not one of the mini-trees used in our college dorms and previous apartments) the decorations are a little sparse, but we do love it! One of […]


An Unpopular Opinion on Winter by Marissa Meyer | Review

Posted December 21, 2015 in Books, Reviews / 30 Comments
An Unpopular Opinion on Winter by Marissa Meyer | Review

I am an outlier. A black sheep. The reader who seemed to have missed the memo that this was an amazing, flawless, work of utter perfection. So I’m going to start with a disclaimer: I love Marissa Meyer. I’ve met her twice. I think her skill at writing fairy tale retellings is magnificent. Her characters have depth and feel like my own friends. I coveted the release of Winter. I dragged myself to Barnes & Noble after an eleven hour work day to buy it in person to ensure that I received a copy that was in pristine condition. And […]


Top Ten Books I Read in 2015

Posted December 14, 2015 in Top Ten Tuesday, Weekly Features/Memes / 33 Comments
Top Ten Books I Read in 2015

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by the fantastic blog The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s theme is perhaps the most important of the year, choosing 10 of the 70 books I’ve read for the illustrious category of “best books I’ve read in 2015.” I’ve decided to not only list the ten best books I’ve read this year (in no particular order), but give them superlatives as a nod to their greatness. Most likely to encourage you to be yourself: Most nostalgia-inducing: Most worthy of the hype: Most likely to feed your royal addiction: Most likely to […]