August TBR and July Wrap-Up

July has been kind of a crazy month. We are still on summer break here in Oklahoma City, so I've had both the baby (who is CRAWLING!) and my pre-teen to contend with. Add overnight company and projects around the house and then throw in an extra baby for 2 weeks (I'm babysitting for a friend of a friend and remembering why running my own in-home daycare will never be for me) and I've been a little short on reading time.

Still, I've managed to knock out a few books on my stack, so I'm pretty pleased with myself. 

First up was an advance copy of I Never, by Laura Hopper. I requested (and received) a copy of this one from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I Never is a good first effort, but falls flat. I was originally really excited to see another sex-positive YA book but ultimately, it just wasn't that great. Hopper has come up with a good story here, but somehow there's no magic in the text. It's all telling, no showing and there's almost a mechanical feel to it. Still, I think Hopper has promise and I'll most likely check out her next book, should she write another one.

Another book I finished this month was The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey. I was surprised by how much I liked this one. While I consider myself a fan of YA dystopian fiction, I do find some of it to be a bit tedious and far fetched, even for sci-fi/fantasy - too often the author comes up with a great premise but then gets bogged down by detail and lazy story-telling. Yancey doesn't seem to struggle with this at all and does a great job of dropping the reader right into the middle of the story without making one feel lost or confused. Not every author can pull that off. I have big plans to check out the rest of this series in the very near future.

The last book for July (that I finished, at least) was Love May Fail, by Matthew Quick. I've got a full review up of that one here.

Currently I am reading After You Left by Carol Mason and Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter. Next up will be Longbourn by Jo Baker (finally- this one's been on my TBR list since it came out back in 2013) and then...I'm not sure. August is going to be another busy month as we gear up for back to school, so it may well be quiet around here for a few more weeks.

July TBR

Posting this a teensy bit late. I'd blame my newborn, but seeing as she's 6 months old and therefore no longer a newborn... I don't think that excuse flies anymore.

My goal this month is to finish up Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine. I don't know if I'll be posting a standalone review of this book. It's good, but in that generic thriller kind of way, you know? I am a little over halfway through with it though, so I could change my mind. I will say that it's a solid read. Excellent for summer afternoons by the pool, even if it is a little intense.

I'd also like to finish up Who Do You Love by Jennifer Weiner. I'm not in love with this one yet, but I'm also not very far into it yet.

I've got a couple of ARCs on my TBR list that I can't talk about yet that I will also be attempting to get to this month.

Now that summer is fully upon us and my oldest is begging to go to the pool just about every day, I expect I will be getting more and more reading time. Sadly I will also probably have less and less writing time, so look for updates to continue to be sporadic until I get this whole stay-at-home-mom-with-a-side-business-and-a-blog-that-needs-to-be-updated-thing-down.

January Wrap-Up and February TBR

Ok, is it just me, or is this year FLYING by? I swear, it was just Christmas and now it's the middle of February?  No. Stop.

That said, I'm behind. I know I'm behind. I know that this is, what, the third month in a row that I'm behind on my wrap-ups and TBR lists?  So this month things are going to be different. I've overextended myself and I'm going to attempt to simplify.

In the last few months both my book reviewing commitments and my yarn-dyeing business kind of started blowing up all at once. Funny how that works, isn't it? One day you have all the time in the world, the next you have 10 books to read by the end of the month (and you don't want to blow it because you want the publisher to take you seriously the next time around) and you have shop commitments you hadn't anticipated. Yarn dyeing takes a lot of time y'all.

Plus there's my day job which I won't talk much about here except to say that it's about 4 times more stressful than it needs to be. So that's awesome.

All that, coupled with some health problems over the last year have led to one very stressed out blogger.

I'm getting better though. I'm making a dent in my to-do lists, I've applied for another (lower stress) position inside my current company, and my health issues are getting better by the day. This week I finally feel like I can catch my breath and as though all those commitments aren't quite the chore that they have been. Now the key is to not overload myself again!

So. Despite the title of this post, there is no January wrap-up other than to say that I finished all the original Oz books and have now moved on to finally (!) reading The Count of Monte Cristo. It's been on my TBR list for.ev.er. and I'm always a little embarrassed to admit I haven't read it yet.

February's TBR is that I'm working through a pile of books to review - most are due to publish in early March, so those reviews are coming soon. I managed to get to the library tonight for the first time in a long time and picked up Did You Ever Have a Family and Before I Fall; both of which I have been assured I will either love or hate.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to snuggle up in bed with an advance copy of Peter Straub's new short story collection. It's called Interior Darkness and it comes out tomorrow, February 16. I hope you'll check it out. It looks like it's going to be a good one.

Loose Ends

Obviously the holidays took a lot out of me this year! I am so behind in almost everything in my life right now that at this point, I'm just going to combine a whole lot of what should have been individual posts into this one. Thanks for bearing with me. Hopefully things will settle down soon and I'll be back to a normal schedule.

First up - December wrap-up. I finished quite a few good books in December. I've got standalone reviews up for most, so I won't re-hash. I'm still working my way through the Oz books - I'm on book 11 now and let me tell you - they just keep getting weirder. Also? Not such a fan of continuity, that L Frank Baum. I'm just saying... Don't get me wrong, I'm loving them, or else I'd stop reading them, but I feel compelled to point out that if these were written today, you'd have fans howling over errors in canon as the books go on. He truly just made it up as he went along and changed his universe to suit his needs. You kind of have to admire that, in a way.

Next - January. I've gotten a good start to my reading year. I've pledged 100 books in this year's Goodreads challenge. Last year I'd pledged 150, but life got in the way and I just couldn't do it. 2015 was a bad year for me, personally and I had some medical issues that made it hard to focus my attention on much of anything for a good chunk of the year. I'm back on track now, but taking it easier this year.

Also - a few short and sweet reviews:

Movie Star by Lizzie Pepper by Hilary Liftin - OMG, such a fun read! I devoured this one! It totally fed my love of celeb gossip and kinda sorta seemed like a plausible behind-the-scenes post-mortem on the whole TomKat thing. Definitely recommend this book.

The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan - I've loved the authors' blog, www.gofugyourself.com forever, it seems like and I always read their books as soon as I have the chance. This one was really good. It's similar to Movie Star in that it's a fictionalized retelling of the whole Will and Kate story. Only this time it's Nick and Bex. And Bex is an American. I recommend this one, but I'm not quite so gushing over it as I was for Movie Star. Some parts felt a bit drawn out and I wasn't 100% satisfied with the ending - maybe there's a sequel planned? - but overall, it was great.

After the Crash by Michel Bussi - I received a copy of After the Crash from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Honestly? I loved this one. (I am really starting off my year right - three books in a row that I have really enjoyed!) After the Crash is a fast-paced suspense novel  that begins with a plane crash in which all on board are killed - except for a 3-month old baby girl, found in the snow outside the wreckage, thrown from the plane. What at first seems to be a miracle for one family quickly turns into a nightmare for two. Turns out, there were two babies on that plane - both girls, both born within two days of each other. Set in the days before DNA testing could have solved everything quickly and easily, the mystery of who the little girl really is eats away at both families. Full of twists and turns and excellent writing, this one was hard to put down and is recommended for anyone who loves a good mystery/suspense novel.  I look forward to reading more by Bussi.

Finally - January TBR. This month I'm focusing on finishing up the Oz books and making my way through the STACK of piled up ARCs I need to get through. Wish me luck!

November Wrap-Up and December TBR

Slacker slacker slacker. That's me.

It suddenly struck me today that it's already December 3 and I still hadn't posted my November wrap up OR my December To Be Read lists so here we go with a combined post.

November was kind of hectic for me. Between holiday preparation, a busy workload at my day job and a little traveling (not to mention a fabulous ice storm that knocked out our power for 3 days...) I have barely had time to read, let alone write about reading.

Still, I did manage to get a little bit accomplished.

I finished off the Anne of Green Gables series. I'm so glad I took the time to re-read these books. They are such gentle, peaceful reads. I have to say, the final book in the series, Rilla Of Ingleside, is possibly one of the better books I've read about World War I. I'm a little surprised that this one isn't taught in schools alongside the WWI history unit.  There's lots of detail and it really brings the events of the war, the different battles, the effect it had on the folks back home, etc, into focus without getting mundane or boring.

Along with the Anne books, I worked my way a little way down on my stack of books for review. This month I had the pleasure of reading Now That She's Gone, by Gregg Olsen as well as Coal River by Ellen Marie Wiseman.  Now That She's Gone was ok - I think I would have enjoyed it more had I read the first book in the series (imagine that!) and Coal River was great, even if the ending was a little... implausible.

I also read some Rainbow Rowell: Fan Girl (not such a fan) and Landline (loved it) to be exact. I still can't quite put my finger on what it is that keeps me from just going nuts over Rowell like so many of my fellow bloggers, but there's just something...

For December my plan is to just get to the end of this year in one piece! I had originally set a goal for myself this year of reading 150 books. Well, that's not going to happen. According to my tracker on Goodreads, I'm 98 books. Given that I have a full time job, a side business (I dye yarn! check it out here!), a social life and this blog... I'm calling it good if I get to 100 for the year.

Now that I'm done with the Anne books, I've started on the Oz books by L. Frank Baum. If you've never read them and have only seen the movie, I highly recommend you check them out. They're fantastic, silly, wonderful little books that are great distractions from the heaviness that day-to-day life can bring.

I'm determined to finish up Avenue of Mysteries in the next week or so. This latest work by John Irving was given to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Unfortunately, I didn't get it until the day before it published (11/3) so I'm a little late with my thoughts on it. I'm liking the book a lot... that's all I can really say for now.

At the library the other night I couldn't help but pick up the latest in the Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella. Sigh. All I can really say about this guilty pleasure book is that, as much as I enjoyed the first few books in the series, please stop writing them Ms. Kinsella. For the love of god. Please. Stop. Writing. These. Books. I started off loving Becky Bloomwood and now I'm just so disgusted by her inability to achieve real, lasting maturity that I could scream. And yet I can't quit reading these awful crack books!  I'm about a quarter of the way through Shopaholic To The Rescue and I just want my life back.

I've got big plans to read a few more books for review (and even get the reviews published on time this month!) and a few more new releases picked up at my local library. Last but not least, I've started on the Mark of the Lion trilogy by Francine Rivers. These books are Christian Fiction classics that have somehow been recommended to me several times (if you knew me in real life, you'd know how funny it is to see me reading Christian Fiction). The first book is good so far. Some of the history is suspect, but the overall view of ancient Roman culture is right up my alley.

October Wrap-Up and November TBR

I'm a little late on this so I'm going to combine what would have been two posts into one.

I didn't get through my whole October TBR list - priorities and review deadlines kept shifting, along with my interests. I  ended up reading One Hundred Names, Coal River, Hollie Porter Builds a Raft, Ghostly, Firsts, Mrs. John Doe, The Girl on the Train, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Anne of Windy Poplars and Anne's House of Dreams.Whew!

My favorites for October were definitely the Anne books. It's been such a joy to go back and re-read these stories that had such an impact on me in childhood and find that, for the most part, they've held up wonderfully. My favorite new book for October was Firsts by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn (and I'm not just saying that because Flynn thanked me for my review when I posted about it on Instagram!). Sadly, it's not out until January, but I'm telling you, it'll be worth the wait.

Now, on to November... This month I've been blessed with an absolute TON of advance copies for review so I'll be a busy bee! Look for reviews on Coal River, by Ellen Marie Wiseman; Avenue of Mysteries, by John Irving; and Now That She's Gone, by Gregg Olsen. I'll also be attempting to finish off the rest of the Anne books. I'm most of the way through Anne of Ingleside now, so I don't think it's going to be much of a problem.

I started Now That She's Gone last night and I'm really enjoying it so far. I read Coal River in October and can't wait to tell you all about it. It publishes on 11/24 so look for my review in the next few weeks. As for Avenue of Mysteries... John Irving is one of my all-time favorites so I cannot wait to get started on that one.

October TBR List

I've got a heavy-ish load on my nightstand this month. In addition to advance electronic copies of The Winter Girl, Bats of the Republic and The Guest Room that I'm reading for review, I'm also finally getting around to The Girl on the Train and am planning to finish up The Distant Marvels and read One Hundred Names, which I picked up at the library last night on a whim. I'm sure that won't be all for me this month, but I haven't decided on what comes next yet.

Any suggestions?