Wednesday, July 15, 2015

June Wrap-Up & July TBR | 2015

Hey, hi, hello! Long time no see! I have been neglecting my blog since I finally started my youtube channel, so I’m just gonna make this quick. These past few months have been pretty successful reading months for me. I read quite a few books in June…it was definitely the month of novellas and new adult for me! And I rated most of them pretty high, so lots of good books = happy Katie! I’ll also include my pretty ambitious July TBR. It’s a little less ambitious than my original TBR from June, but I’m feeling pretty confident about it! I also have a late blog post coming explaining how I adjusted my June TBR to be successful. Check that out if you’re interested in a long ramble about changing TBRs! Thanks for sticking with me while I figure out my crazy b/vlogging schedule!

June Wrap-Up:
1. Lover Enshrined - J. R. Ward
2. Father Mine - J. R. Ward
3. Finding It - Cora Carmack
4. Fallen Too Far - Abbi Glines
5. Keeping Her - Cora Carmack
6. Rapture - Lauren Kate
7. Inking Him - Cora Carmack
8. Never Too Far - Abbi Glines
9. The Gathering - Kelley Armstrong
10. The Assassin’s Blade - Sarah J. Maas
11. Seeking Her - Cora Carmack

July TBR:
1. Between the Lines - Jodi Picoult
2. Off the Page - Jodi Picoult
3. Talon - Julie Kagawa
4. Ugly Love - Colleen Hoover
5. Clockwork Prince - Cassandra Clare
6. Lover Avenged - J. R. Ward
7. Twisted Perfection - Abbi Glines
8. Forever Too Far - Abbi Glines
9. Simple Perfection - Abbi Glines
10. Rush Too Far - Abbi Glines
11. Sweet Evil - Wendy Higgins
12. Half-Blood - Jennifer L. Armentrout


Also! You guys should be proud of me, I started cleaning out my Goodreads to read list! This is probably way more work than it should’ve been, but I made a spreadsheet of every book on my list by author and marked the series & number in the series (if it was a series) and included a box to check whether I read it or not and whether I owned the book or not. THEN. I went through and crossed off all books I either wasn't interested in anymore, or books where I had an entire series on my list and hadn’t even read the first book yet (crossing off the rest of the books and leaving the first if I was still interested). Now I get to go through the list on the actual Goodreads and cross them off to make room for books I’m actually interested in. It’s going to feel so good to see what that number goes down to from 504 :)

Q of the blog: What is the book on your TBR list that you are most excited to read?

Changing TBRs/Current Reads Ramble

 **I typed this in June and it's super late, but I figured I'd post it anyway to explain my June Wrap-Up! But it's here if anyone is interested.

So. I somehow knew this would happen with my TBR this month. I think it happens to everyone. No one ever really sticks exactly to their TBRs for the month. Sometimes we don’t have time to read everything, sometimes we finish everything early on in the month, sometimes we decide there’s other things we want to read, sometimes we aren’t really feeling the books we originally put on the list. There are so many factors. Mine was a little bit of everything…except finishing everything early. That did not happen.

I did decide to put two books on the top of my June TBR away for now—The Coldest Girl in Coldtown (which I wasn’t really into in the first place, but just wanted to finish) and Red Rising (which I am really interested in reading, but I’m just not feeling it right at this current moment). SO. Those two I returned to the library and they’ll sit there taking up space for a little bit on my Currently Reading shelf on goodreads (annoying) until I finish some of the books I’m really wanting to read right now.

So thats two books that are sitting on my currently reading shelf on goodreads, even though I’m not actively reading them at the moment. Along with Between Shades of Grey which has been on there since Fall semester of my junior year…oops. I do wanna finish it I swear!

Now, the other two reasons I talked about: having too many books on my list for the month and deciding there’s other things I want to read. If you guys remember, I had A TON of books on my TBR for this month. A ton. More than I read in May and I read a lot for me in May. And a lot of them were decently sized books (400 pages is a lot for me). I still have a lot on there because I’ve replaced the books I took off with others, but some of the ones I replaced are short, so that’s not too bad! Heres’ the reason behind that, if you don’t mind my rambling.

So, I started Rapture by Lauren Kate first, which is the last book in the Fallen series. That series was just average for me. Not a favorite, I didn’t really love it, it was just okay for me. But I was interested and invested enough to keep reading and I wanted to know what happened in the end. I’m currently, as I’m writing this, about 100-150 pages from the end and I just feel really meh about it. It’s okay, but I’m not really enjoying it enough to read more than 20 pages at a time, 50 max when I force myself. I read the last page so I know I’m gonna be disappointed in the ending. But I still wanna finish it because I read the whole series already so I’m gonna do this. I also hate DNFing books because you never know what the end will be like. So between reading 3-50 pages a day, I picked up Lover Enshrined and Father Mine from the Black Dagger Brotherhood by J. R. Ward, which is a new favorite series of mine, so I fly through these books. Lover Enshrined is the 6th book in the series and Father Mine is technically 6.5 since it’s a novella. Both 5 stars as usual, loved them, obsessed over them for days, did not want to go back to Rapture, but kept trying because I want it to be over. I felt myself slumping. I didn’t read for a few days and when I tried to pick up a different book from my TBR list to try and remedy that, I felt like there wasn’t anything on that list I was remotely interested in. SO. I put Rapture down for the time being, haven’t picked it back up yet, and picked up Finding It, the third book in the Losing It companion trilogy by Cora Carmack, which I LOVE. Cora Carmack is a new favorite author of mine. I was afraid this book wouldn't help, because the main character it followed I wasn’t super interested in, but it ended up being my favorite of the series! Funny how that works. So that definitely helped with the slump. Not only that, but I decided to grab the next book in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series (although I’m not starting it quite yet), which I originally wanted to take a break from so I don’t catch all the way up and have to start waiting a year between for each book to come out. Along with that, I grabbed another new adult series to start—Rosemary Beach by Abbi Glines. So I’m reading Fallen Too Far right now and I’m really enjoying it so far! I grabbed the second book from the library too in case I wanted to go right to the next one (because I know these actually continue every few books vs a new main character each book), which I think will definitely happen. Along with that, I’ve kept a few of the original books on my list and added a few more, which I’ll note down below. So that’s been my system these past two weeks. Between my family in town for my joint grad party with my sister and going back to work, I’ve been a little busy.

So. Here’s my updated June TBR. I probably still won’t get to everything (because I’m pretty sure my list is longer now), but that is okay! I’ll carry over what I’m still feeling at the end of the month and go from there :)

Thanks for reading my rambling!

Updated June TBR:
Rapture - Lauren Kate
Lover Enshrined - J. R. Ward
Father Mine - J. R. Ward
Finding It - Cora Carmack
Keeping Her - Cora Carmack
Fallen Too Far - Abbli Glines
Never Too Far - Abbi Glines
Lover Avenged - J. R. Ward
Clockwork Prince - Cassandra Clare
Talon - Julie Kagawa
The Assassin’s Blade - Sarah J. Maas
Miss Mayhem - Rachel Hawkins (may remove)
The Gathering - Kelley Armstrong (may remove)

Saturday, June 6, 2015

June TBR | 2015

 Pretty ambitious. But I'm so proud of my reading for last month that I'm feeling a little more confident this month. ALSO, I watched Little Book Owl's interview with Amy Kaufman and she said that there's so little time and so many books to read to waste time reading one that you aren't really enjoying. SO that said, with The Coldest Girl in Coldtown for example, I'm gonna give it a few more chapters of a chance and if I'm really not feeling it, I'm gonna put it away (/return it to the library for now) and spend time reading the books I'm REALLY excited about/wanting to read this summer and I'll pick it up at a later date to finish it. I hate DNFing books, but life/my summer is so short and I have to get a job soon so I want to make the most out of my spare reading time as I can by reading books I am really really excited about. That goes for any books on this list. But especially that one because that's the one I'm really feeling meh about. Plus, I may want to add an Abbi Glines new adult book to this list :) We shall see!

1. Rapture - Lauren Kate
2. Red Rising - Pierce Brown
3. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown - Holly Black (...meh)
4. Finding It - Cora Carmack
5. Keeping Her - Cora Carmack
6. The Gathering - Kelley Armstrong
7. Lover Enshrined - J. R. Ward
8. Father Mine - J. R. Ward (YES SO EXCITED)
9. Clockwork Prince - Cassandra Clare
10. Miss Mayhem - Rachel Hawkins

What's on your JUNE TBR??

Sunday, May 31, 2015

May Wrap-Up | 2015

Well! I did pretty good this month! AND I GRADUATED FROM COLLEGE (cue happy dance and then cry in the fetal position). And it didn't even feel like I was reading that much. I mean I felt like I was reading a lot of the time, but it didn't feel like I read a lot of books. I did feel like I bailed on a lot of fun opportunities with my boyfriend and going out with my friends, BUT THAT IS OKAY because I read a lot of really good books this month! And I made a good dent in my finishing series goal for the summer :) I finished the Blood of Eden series, I'm only one book from the end of Bloodlines, and I read two more books in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series :) Plus City of Fallen Angels. Next month I'm not focusing as much on finishing series, but I do have some books in there to get closer to finishing some series :) SO. Here are the books I read in May:


1. Lover Revealed - J. R. Ward
2. Lover Unbound - J. R. Ward
3. Red Queen - Victoria Aveyard
4. Silver Shadows - Richelle Mead (it's almost over...wah :( )
5. Losing It - Cora Carmack (my first contemporary in a really long time...and I read it in a day! can't wait to read the novella!)
6. The Eternity Cure - Julie Kagawa
6.5. Zeke's Letter to Allie - Julie Kagawa(/Zeke Crosse) *this doesn't really count as a book, but I marked it as read on goodreads so it added a book--I added an extra book to my reading challenge because I don't want that to count as a whole book*
7. The Forever Song - Julie Kagawa
8. City of Fallen Angels - Cassandra Clare
9. Faking It - Cora Carmack

What did you guys read in May? When do your summers start! WHO'S GRADUATING THIS SUMMER?? (WOOT WOOT)

Saturday, May 23, 2015

Current Reading Plan: May 23, 2015/My rambling because I don't have as many friends at home as at school so I have no one to talk to

So, I have a lot of reading goals for the summer. The main being to finish some series that are all out, but that I've been putting off because I don't want to go through the pain of the books and the pain of them ending. But just in general, I have a current plan which is more for me, but I'm posting this just because.

Currently my heart is trying to heal from just finishing The Eternity Cure (which I finished just because I was more than halfway through already and was really into City of Fallen Angels so I wanted to finish The Eternity Cure so I could focus solely on COFA), and because I couldn't just casually go back to City of Fallen Angels like I wanted, I went right into The Forever Song and my heart is still breaking. BUT, when I finish that book I have some plans...
A) I am going to finish City of Fallen Angels because I was actually really enjoying it. I know a lot of people don't like it and say it's their least favorite because it's like the start of a new trilogy, but I was actually really enjoying it. I love the characters so I was just happy to check up on them and see what they're doing, even if it is just more mundane (no pun intended) things starting off a new set of plot lines.
B) While ideally I wanted to go straight into the next Shadowhunter book on my list--Clockwork Prince (since I'm reading the TMI/TID books in publication order)--I think I'm gonna need a little pick me up after the depression I'll likely still be feeling from The Eternity Cure/The Forever Song, I'm gonna go into the next book after Losing It by Cora Carmack, which is technically Faking It. (I'll read the novella from the first book after I read the three main books.) Losing It was such a nice pick-me-up on a bad day, so I'm gonna read Faking It next. Hopefully it'll cheer me up a little and help soothe the book hangover I already have and will likely still have in a few days. Plus I read these books so fast, it'll be a breeze.
C) This brings me to the rest of my May TBR. I won't have time to finish them before the end of May, but I definitely wanna carry those over to June since my June TBR will be very open for a few reasons that I'll explain later. SO. What I anticipate happening is finishing The Forever Song, City of Fallen Angels, and Faking It in May. And possibly starting a new one, but not finishing it. Therefore, I'm carrying over Red Rising, Rapture, and The Coldest Girl in Coldtown. I'd like to read Rapture first because I tend to fly through the Fallen novels and that's the last one in the series so then I'll be done with that!
D) As far as my plans after I officially finish all the books on my May TBR, as I said, I'm leaving my June TBR pretty open with loose guides to what I wanna read. This is because I know I want to read Clockwork Prince in June, but if I want to go straight into the City of Lost Souls, etc, etc after that, I wanna be able to, but I don't want to force myself to finish it all in one big sweep if I'm not feeling it or wanna read something else. AND I'd really like to read the next Black Dagger Brotherhood book about Phury, because then I'll be done with all the full-length novels about all the main brothers (the first ones about each brother, that is). Along with that, I'd like to read the novella about Zsadist (duh because he's my favorite and I've been WAITING for this). So I think after those two, it would be a good place to pause BDB for now because I don't want to get to the end of the series so far and have to wait forever for the next book to come out. (I'll probably post this all in a June TBR also, so sorry for repeating it.)
E) Also, I'd really like to finish the Bloodlines series and read Ruby Circle, but I also don't want to because I've been reading Vampire Academy since high school and once Bloodlines is over, that's really it for the VA world. It's actually the end. And VA is my favorite series of all time (with BDB) and it was one thing when Last Sacrifice ended and we knew we were getting a spin-off. Now the spin off will be over and there will actually be no more for me. That makes me want to crawl into a cave and die. So I wanna read it, but I'm also avoiding it like the plague.
F) Another series I really wanna jump on ASAP and add to section C (the carrying over of my May TBR into June even though this wasn't on my May TBR), Darkness Rising--the spin-off from the Darkest Powers series, which was a favorite of mine in high school. I own the last two of those and I snagged the first one from the library, so I would really like to read those three! My sister read them and loved them. Since we both loved the Darkest Powers trilogy, I am really interested to revisit that world and check out the "new" spin-off trilogy!
G) Last, I really wanna finish the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy before the end of summer, but it's not on my immediate "to do" list, even though that is a favorite series of mine. Along with that, I'd like to knock out Miss Mayhem because it's pretty small and I read Rebel Belle pretty fast (I tend to read contemporary-ish things pretty quickly)!

So that's it. My ramblings on my current bookish plans. What are your summer plans?!

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

May TBR | 2015


So, as I said in my fail of an April wrap-up, I'd like to carry over my April TBR to my May TBR, but I also wanted to add a few to that list and there are some I'm not so interested in reading this month. So this post is really just for me, however I will update you guys in case anyone is waiting to see this!

I've decided to remove Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan and Poison Princess by Kresley Cole. I really want to read Poison Princess, but I've decided my reading goals this month is to attempt to finish/make a dent in more series that I've already started, so I'm putting that one on hold for now. I also feel kind of meh about the Coldest Girl in Coldtown, but I will leave that one just in case I can get to it. I'd also like to acknowledge that  since it's already May 13, I did already read two more Black Dagger Brotherhood books, but I'm not adding them to this list because I read those so fast and really whenever I feel like it because they're addicting and I tell myself I'm going to take a break and move on to other books for a little while, but they just won't stop calling my name. So that's that. I'm addicted. Anyway! Here's my updated list, minus any BDB books because there's no telling when I'll feel the need to go back to them (hell, I feel it right now).

1. City of Fallen Angels - Cassandra Clare
2. Silver Shadows - Richelle Mead
3. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown - Holly Black
4. The Eternity Cure - Julie Kagawa
5. The Forever Song - Julie Kagawa
6. Red Rising - Pierce Brown
7. Red Queen - Victoria Aveyard
8. Losing It - Cora Carmack
9. Rapture - Lauren Kate

Friday, May 1, 2015

April Wrap-up fail | 2015

LOL.

This month....let me just take it in for a minute. I am graduating in 8 days. EIGHT. And I had my last day of classes EVER yesterday. It's so surreal. So because of that and trying to hang out with my friends as much as possible and having one of the busiest months (because I had projects on projects on projects and a cappella things, my boyfriend coming up two weekends in a row, me going home for Easter, etc.) I didn't read much in April at all. And what I DID read is not at all what was on my April TBR. I still want to get to the books that were on my April TBR, so that list is going to carry over to May. But I'll share with you what my April looked like book-wise.

So I started a lot of books this month. I started Red Rising, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, and Red Queen. Red Rising I had to put down because it was due at the library and I had to put it back on hold. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown I wasn't really loving, but I got about 70 or so pages in and I do still want to finish it. Red Queen...sigh. I'm 70 pages from the end. I've been 70 pages from the end for about 3 weeks now. I put it down because it felt like it should've already ended and I have had little to no desire to pick it back up. Which is sad because I WAS really loving it, but now I just feel meh. I am going to finish it though. I am. It'll just take like two hours of focus, so I can do it.

As far as what I finished this month. GAH. I recently discovered adult paranormal romance and Lord help me I love it. I started following HeatherLovesReading on YouTube and she talks a lot about J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood being one of her favorite series. WELL. I have never really read much adult literature aside from Nicholas Sparks. I tried Fifty Shades and I didn't like it. The sex parts were too much for me. So I was a little nervous for these books because I was afraid I was too much of a prude. WRONG. I'm not a prude, Fifty Shades just wasn't for me. I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT BDB. It has easily become a new all-time favorite series for me. The stories are amazing and the romance is so sweet. It feels sort of like a guilty pleasure series because a) vampires and b) sometimes cheesy romance. BUT I AM ABSOLUTELY IN LOVE WITH IT. And it's inspired me to try more adult paranormal romance books because I've found that I love it! Anyway, enough about that because this isn't a review. But here are the three books I've read so far/have read in November. All of these were 5 stars for me.

1. Dark Lover
2. Lover Eternal
3. Lover Awakened (MY FAVORITE OMG SO GOOD)

What did you guys read this month?