Month in Review: June 2015

Posted July 11, 2015 in Month In Review / 19 Comments
Month in Review: June 2015

Books I Read This Month Reviews This Month Royal Wedding (5 Stars) End of Days (3 Stars) Saint Anything (4 Stars) Just Listen (5 Stars) Emmy & Oliver (3.5 Stars) Even in Paradise (1.5 Stars) Stats Total Books Read: 5 Total Novellas Read: 0 Rereads: 1 (Just Listen by Sarah Dessen) Favorite Book Read This Month: Just Listen by Sarah Dessen. It was a reread from years ago for me, but Dessen’s quiet contemporary writing still had an impact on me! Least Favorite Book Read This Month: Even in Paradise by Chelsey Philpot. This Great Gatsby expectations missed the mark […]


I Have Returned!

Posted July 10, 2015 in Miscellaneous/Announcements / 13 Comments

Hello lovely followers! Today marks the end of my two-week summer vacation hiatus! I am SO excited to be back and jump back into the blogosphere. I’ve spent the past two weeks literally traveling from coast to coast (San Francisco to Washington DC) and I’ve missed the bookish community immensely! Here’s what I did while I was away: ALA SF 2015! Traveled to Washington DC and saw SO MUCH (my favorite was the Lincoln memorial and Arlington Cemetery). I also got to spend the 4th of July in the nations capitol! Visited with family. Spent some much needed time with […]


Announcements, ALA, and a Brief Hiatus

Posted June 26, 2015 in Miscellaneous/Announcements / 10 Comments
Announcements, ALA, and a Brief Hiatus

Hello my lovely readers! I hope your summer is off to a great start! Mine certainly is, but it’s a bit of a bittersweet blessing. Here’s The Sitch I am lucky enough to be going on a two week vacation that starts with ALA this weekend, traveling across country the next, and visiting my hometown and reconnecting with family members the week after that. However, due to so much travel and limited internet access, I am going to be going on a very brief two week hiatus from Friday, June 26- Friday July 10. It’s a decision that I really […]


Parents in YA Literature: Can’t Read With Them, Can’t Read Without Them

Posted June 25, 2015 in Discussions / 20 Comments
Parents in YA Literature: Can’t Read With Them, Can’t Read Without Them

If you’re a long time reader of YA, you know the gripe: readers constantly complaining that the parents are never involved, too conveniently absent, or just nonexistent, period. However, I think there’s been a recent shift in the role of parents (at least in contemporary YA) where authors may be overcompensating by making parents who are TOO overbearing. A balance is nice and definitely makes for good family dynamics, but I find that this “helicopter parenting” in books, while sometimes part of the plot, tends to overwhelm the book as much as a lack of parental authority can. Some recent […]


Book Buddies Review: Even in Paradise

Posted June 22, 2015 in Book Buddies Reviews, Reviews / 4 Comments
Book Buddies Review: Even in Paradise

Cristina & 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)Did the Buchanans charm you? Do you think the author achieved the desired effect of making them a […]


Stacking the Shelves [23]

Stacking the Shelves [23]

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly feature hosted by Tynga’s Reviews where bloggers share the books that they’ve added to their shelves this week, whether borrowed, bought, virtual, physical, etc! So this week I ended up with a bit of an unexpected mini haul! My boyfriend found a bag of books at his office abandoned by some co-workers who had attended ALA midwinter. Upon noting that they were YA and that no one else wanted them, he was able to give them to me! I’m super excited about All The Bright Places (the cover under the book jacket is GORGEOUS) […]


Emmy & Oliver by Robin Benway | ARC Review

Posted June 18, 2015 in ARCs, Reviews / 10 Comments
Emmy & Oliver by Robin Benway | ARC Review

*Thank you so much to HarperCollins and Epic Reads for this review copy! Emmy & Oliver holds a special place in my heart. The author, Robin Benway, is a wonderful, lovely human being and I found out from her via twitter that there was going to be an ARC giveaway of her newest title at the Epic Reads tent at YALLWEST, so it became one of my top priorities during the festival. I was so intrigued by the synopsis, as so often kidnapping is perpetrated by parents in a custody battle, and though the cover seemed like a YA romance […]


Just Listen by Sarah Dessen | Review

Posted June 16, 2015 in Reviews / 3 Comments
Just Listen by Sarah Dessen | Review

“There has to be a middle. Without it, nothing can ever truly be whole. Because it is not just the space between, but also what holds everything together.” *Thank you so much to Penguin Teen for the review copy! I’m no stranger to Sarah Dessen novels. Back in my much younger teen years, I devoured Sarah’s first seven novels, chronically checking them out from my local library every summer. The release of Saint Anything had me nostalgic for Sarah’s quietly profound contemporaries, and within one week I aquired three of her novels, fully intending to make my way through as […]


Sunday Funday: Week in Review [31]

Sunday Funday: Week in Review [31]

Sunday Funday is a weekly(ish) post I’ve started to recap the bookish (and sometimes not-so-bookish) happenings in my life the past week! Feel free to participate, just link back! June 8-14, 2015 Life This week has been exhausting, adjusting to a new full time work schedule and balancing blogging, reading, and other life commitments. BUT there was a light at the end of the tunnel, as on Saturday I attended the Scholastic Warehouse Book Sale! I did an in-depth post of it last year, but essentially it’s when Scholastic opens their warehouses to teachers and educators to come in and […]


Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen | Review

Posted June 12, 2015 in Reviews / 19 Comments
Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen | Review

“You only really fall apart in front of the people you know can piece you back together.” If you’re an avid reader of YA, it’s no secret that Sarah Dessen is considered by many to be the Queen of Contemporary Summer Novels. I read a lot of Sarah’s work back when I was in middle school and high school, long before I started blogging, and I always appreciated the subtlety with which she wrote, while still making an impact with her plot lines and characters. I picked up Sarah’s newest book, Saint Anything, and though it’s been years since I […]