My reading goal for this year was originally 15. I moved it up to 20 in the summer and I ended up reading 28 books this year. That probably isn’t a lot to most people, but I work 6 days a week and often work 8-10 days straight. I’ll take it!
I’m still working on unhauling my books and cleaning up my tbr. I see a few people on here do the “Down the TBR Hole” posts, but does anyone else just do a mass delete at the end of the year? I just deleted any Kindle book from my Amazon wishlist that had been on there for longer than 5 years (Added in 2018 or earlier) and removed them from my Want to Read shelf on Goodreads. There were 41. I’ve also gotten rid of a few more physical books since my last post about unhauling. Of course, I’ve purchased more too.
My main reading goals for 2024 are:
-Read 20 Books
-Stick to a book buying ban
What are your reading goals for next year? Do you set reading goals?
“Can a love triangle have only two people in it? Online, it can… but in the real world, it’s more complicated. In this debut novel Marisa Kanter explores what happens when internet friends turn into IRL crushes.“
I won this in a First Reads giveaway on Goodreads, but all opinions are my own. I really enjoyed this book and, even though it took me a month to read, it’s will be a quick read for most people. The only thing wrong with this book is that the main character organizes her books in reverse alphabetical order. It almost set my OCD off.
The characters are really well done in this book. Each one has their own unique set of goals, fears, and issues to overcome. Whether it’s family issues, college admissions, overcoming grief or anxiety, everyone is dealing with something.
The relationships in this book are all very well done. First you have Halle and her brother Ollie, who are great siblings. Next the siblings and their Gramps who start off rocky and eventually become a great little trio. At school, Halle becomes part of “Le Crew,” Nash’s friend group. They’re a bit messy at times, but they become important to her. Kels and Nash, who are online best friends, but have never met in real life (and Nash is in love with Kels). The best one, in my opinion, is the relationship between Halle and Nash. They become friends and then more, but he doesn’t know she’s Kels. There’s also the relationship that quite a few characters have with their Jewish faith. I’m not Jewish, but I like that the author knows that in CT, there’s no school on certain Jewish holidays. It shows she did her homework.
Halle’s secret life as Kels is a very relevant topic with how much of our lives we live online nowadays. It’s great that it showed the effect that lying can have in virtual and actual friendships. I’ve made some great friends online and I love that this book normalizes that. It also made me stop and think about how I act online versus real life, but there’s really no difference. It could be different for others. I really enjoyed the focus on book blogging in this book as well. You can tell how much Halle loves being Kels and running One True Pastry, but Kanter also covers book Twitter, booktube, bookstagram and book drama. I’m super far on the outskirts of any of it, but I do enjoy some of those things. Not the book drama.
I won this in a First Reads giveaway on Goodreads, but all opinions are my own.
This is a quick read and it seems like it was geared more towards high school or college aged people. There was some good advice for me in here, like how to tell if someone is lying, and I like that Samuel uses “a person” instead of “he/she” to describe the reader’s potential love interest, but a lot of it wasn’t very useful to me at this stage in my life.
I like that each chapter ends with an interview (even though I didn’t know who most of the people were). My favorite interview the author did was with actor/producer Stefan Brogren. I love Degrassi! (He plays Snake in the original series from the 80’s and the reboot.) Getting his insight into the show and learning more about him was cool.
Almost, Maine starts off with a girl named Ginette going to see her best friend, Pete, whom she likes. When their date doesn’t go as planned, she walks home and we get a side story set in each place that she passes on the way.
At first, I really liked the writing style. It flows well and I love the author’s descriptions. I felt I could see the people and places. By the 3/4 way point, it started feeling a bit repetitive. I get it. It was 19 degrees.
Some of the situations seem almost possible and others are pretty far fetched. It’s not something I’d read again, but it was pretty good. If you like romance with some magical scenarios and the northern lights as a backdrop, this could be the book for you.
I won this book in a First Reads giveaway on Goodreads. All opinions are my own.
In this hilarious follow-up novel to the New York Times bestseller I Hate Everyone But You, long distance best friends Ava and Gen have finally made it to the same time zone (although they’re still over a thousand miles apart).
Through their hilarious, sometimes emotional, but always relatable conversations, Ava and Gen are each other’s support systems through internships, relationship troubles, questionable roommates, undercover reporting, and whether or not it’s a good idea to take in a feral cat. Please Send Help perfectly captures the voice of young adults looking to find their place in the world and how no matter how desperate things seem, you always have your best friend to tell it like it is and pick you back up.
I won this book in a First Reads giveaway on Goodreads, but that doesn’t influence my review at all.
I really enjoyed this book! I didn’t read the first one, but you can still read this one and not be lost. It’s about two friends, Ava and Gen, who are trying to follow their dreams after college. Ava takes an internship at a late night talk show in New York City while Gen takes a job as a writer at a newspaper in a small town in Florida. They communicate through emails and texts, which was neat. I hadn’t read a book like that in awhile.
I really like the friendship between the girls and how they can just tell each other anything and they know the other one will still be there. It was nice to see that in a book. The book does tackle some important issues while mixing in humor to break it up or make it easier to digest. I honestly prefer that to books that just bombard me with stuff. It made me laugh out loud a few times.
I recommend this to anyone that wants to read a fun book about two friends dealing with life and all of it’s craziness. Oh! There are also cats. I gave it 4/5 stars.
I won this book through a First Reads giveaway on Goodreads and then realized that I already owned a hardcover copy from one of my thrift shop trips. Oops.
It took me forever (four and a half months) to read this because I just couldn’t get into it. This review probably has spoilers. Anita has six boyfriends of various supernatural types (vampire, werewolf, wereleopard) and they’re being threatened by mysterious, powerful vampires known as “The Harlequin.”
Since Anita needs to feed the ardeur every however many hours, there’s lots of sex. Jean-Claude and Richard get put in comas and they need more power, so she sleeps with the head were-rat and they take the whole rat clans power using the ardeur, followed by doing the same thing with the head were swan. I found myself wondering how she even gets people to sleep with her, but then I remembered that any guy who sees her wants her/falls in love with her. Silly me.
Finally some action scenes that aren’t in a bedroom happen and, though she’s injured, Anita’s able to miraculously heal. Unfortunately, someone dies and her friend’s son in injured. He’s in love with her too. Her work friend, Dolph, confronts her about sleeping with monsters and being the human servant of the master of the city, but she doesn’t want to hear it, so she makes him leave.
They get an execution warrant for the vamps, but the vamps call and threaten them first, so they head off for the big showdown. At this point, it just wasn’t exciting enough. She was more concerned about her shirt showing her cleavage at times than fighting vampires. I really don’t think she had her priorities straight. Someone else died during the climactic showdown, but Anita and co won.
Honestly, at that point, I kind of didn’t care. I hate feeling like that with books, but I didn’t. I felt like a deserved a cookie for finally finishing it. I’m done with this series. This book’s going in my donation pile. Both copies.
I won this book in a First Reads giveaway on Goodreads and also got approved for it on NetGalley (I forgot I had requested it. Oops.)
The book focuses on two best friends, J.D. and George. J.D. is the stereotypical smart-mouthed playboy who gets what he wants and George is a nerdy loser who gets nowhere. The book reveals most of the plot by chapter 7 and then adds a bit more to much later on (somewhere near chapter 25). A lot of telling happens and the technical parts bored me. The climax/big action scene was ok and well described with some entertaining bit, but it still wasn’t very exciting to me.
I had completely different expectations of the book based on the description. Maybe it’s just me. I gave it 2.5 stars. I wouldn’t recommend it anyone.
I won this in a First Reads giveaway on Goodreads that I entered because the description sounded funny. I wasn’t disappointed. Freaks I’ve Met is about a man named Jack Fitzpatrick who is moving from Spokane, Washington to Los Angeles, California to be a male model after running into a talent agent at a car wash. That doesn’t exactly work out but, after a few temp jobs, he eventually finds a more permanent job at Freedom Capital, a bond broker. Insanity ensues.
Some of the situations that Jack finds himself in are so outrageous or messed up that they’re just hilarious. I started laughing out loud at this book while reading it in the mall before work. The story flows well and I liked the author’s writing style.
The end of the book was alright and it ended on an entertaining note. If you like to laugh and don’t mind swearing, check it out.
Rebels Like Us is about a girl named Agnes who moves from New York to Georgia for her senior year of high school and gets a huge dose a culture shock. I empathized with her character because moving from CT to MD was like that for me. I laughed out loud when Agnes’ teachers thought she was messing with her by not calling her “Ma’am.”
Honestly, not much happens in the first third of the book besides Agnes meeting and hanging out Doyle, going to school, arguing with her mom, dealing with Ansley (the head mean girl) and avoiding talking to her father, but the book moves along at a good pace and I still wanted to keep reading and I wanted to see what happened to the characters. I generally dislike “instalove”, but it worked for Agnes and Doyle. They’re a cute couple.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of racism at the new school, including segregated proms. I was annoyed at that. I don’t see how that would be allowed in 2017. Agnes, Doyle and their friends make an alternative prom, but it doesn’t sit well with people who want to keep their “traditions” alive, and someone puts a burning cross on Agnes’ lawn. I felt like after that there was a huge lead up to the alterna-prom with all the news coverage and everything, and then the prom itself was barely covered in the book. That was kind of a let down. It’s like Ok, then the prom that we all worked so hard for happened. Cool. There was so much money left over that there will be another one next year. Nice. I’m gonna graduate now.
I still enjoyed the book and was very happy to win it through the First Reads program, but I only gave it four stars because of that.
Hi, everyone! What are you reading? I’m currently reading Rebels Like Us by Liz Reinhardt (I won it off of Goodreads. Yay!) and Shut Up and Give Me the Mic by Dee Snider (I found that one at the Dollar Tree.)
I’m currently 6 books behind on my 50 book challenge, but hopefully I’ll get caught up soon. I need to stick to reading 30 minutes a day. That never used to be an issue for me, but lately I’ve been so consumed with work, eBay and health issues that I’ve slacked. I’ve been neglecting my Kindle for my Kindle Fire, which only has about 12 books on it too. Fail! Does anyone else ever get into a reading slump? What do you do to get out of it?
Tanie's Reviews 