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7 Years of Reading, Writing, and Me Anniversary Ramble

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This anniversary always creeps up on me, but Google Domains was kind enough to remind me that today was the day in 2017 that I purchased the domain name to make my blog official. I'm pretty sure I started with a .blogspot URL that I kept for a few days before making the switch, but, in my head, March 18th is the day this blog was born. While my parents thought it was great that I was entertained over spring break week and that it might look good on a college application down the line (I was an 8th grader at the time), no one expected me to stick with it much past the original break. I'm a quitter. I fully acknowledge that. I'll stand behind the merits of trying and quitting until the day I die, but Reading, Writing, and Me is something I've never quit and honestly can't imagine giving up. Sure, we've had our extended breaks, but I've never retired it for good or even come close. And I'm so glad I still have it today. In three years, I'll be celebrati

The Girls by Emma Cline: book review

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The Girls  by Emma Cline Overview: Evie was a part of a cult that ultimately committed murder. Except she wasn't present the night it all went wrong in 1969. Instead of prison with the rest of them, she lives a quiet life with an intimate knowledge of the group from The Ranch who committed the brutal killings and why they did it. With intersecting timelines between middle age and her time as a fourteen-year-old running away from home to spend time at the Ranch, her experience with this band of people comes to life showing how dangerously close she got to having her life forever altered. Overall: 3.5 Characters: 3 I found all of the characters in this book flat and hard to relate to. Evie in middle age was perhaps the most relatable. Her ability to reflectively look back and her nurturing feelings towards her friend's son's much younger girlfriend humanize her. But Evie as a teen feels removed. Her main defining trait is trying to desperately be older than she is. She's

My Spring Break 2024 TBR

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This whole blog started with a trip to my local library to get a pile of books to fill time over spring break. That was my first trip to the YA section of the library, and it changed my life when the first book I read on that vacation inspired me to start the blog. This time, the library trip was less life changing but fun nonetheless. My mom had picked up a few books I'd put on hold ahead of time, but on the day we got into town, she dropped me by the library to check out the new releases shelf. My hometown library gets all the brand new books people are buzzing about, and there's never a wait (perks of a small town?), so I always take advantage of trying to read books that have months long waits on Libby when I'm home. I didn't want to leave her waiting too long, so I felt a bit like a contestant on a cooking show gathering ingredients from the pantry while the timer ticked down. I was overwhelmed by all the books I wanted to read. So, here's what I managed to gat

Victim by Andrew Boryga: ARC review

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Victim  by Andrew Boryga  Thank you to Doubleday for sending me this ARC for review purposes. All thoughts are my own. Overview: Javier always wanted to be a writer without having much direction with it. He liked the easy praise in school but shied away from leaning into the critical comments that would help him level up on college assignments. More than writing, he seemed to just want to be famous. From a first encounter with a college councilor to the people he meets at college to an early success at the college newspaper, Javier starts to realize that there's a niche for him to leverage his background growing up in the Bronx into writing opportunities where his work was indisputable. To keep earning praise, Javier stretches the truth like taffy until it inevitably snaps. This book is the slow chug up the rollercoaster before the bottom drops out from under him and a reflection on his rise and fall. Overall: 4 Characters: 4 Javier is so interesting because I feel like so many of

Kindle Reading Habit Confessions : the Instagram Kindle Challenge

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I've been an avid Kindle user for almost as long as I can remember since it was my mom's solution to my voracious reading habit. It's been my constant companion since elementary school – though I've owned a few Kindles over this time. If you're a Kindle user and are curious about someone else's reading habits or still unsure about the e-reader world but want to learn more, here's a glimpse at my Kindle habits. This is a tag I found on Instagram from @heavenlybibliophile , so go check out that post too!  Kindle Type:  I have a 2018 Kindle Paperwhite. Even though I've been a Kindle user since my mom gave me her OG Kindle that didn't even have a touch screen when I was in maybe 3rd or 4th grade, I haven't owned this Paperwhite since 2018. When my Paperwhite I bought in 2017 finally seemed like it might give out on me in October of 2022, I purchased a refurbished Paperwhite during a Prime Day sale. Funnily enough, I am apparently really bad with deta

Piglet by Lottie Hazell: book review

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Piglet  by Lottie Hazell Overview: Piglet likes to lose herself in food. She works at a cookbook publisher, her love language is making elaborate dinners for groups of friends or family, and eating itself also numbs her pain and worries. Food is her compass. Set to be married in only a few weeks, Piglet is navigating the stress of her strained family relationships, her pretentious in-laws, and her best friend and maid of honor potentially going into labor at her wedding. When, two weeks out, Piglet's fiancé reveals that their relationships rests on a lie, Piglet has to weigh maintaining the perfectly composed life she's built against destroying it all in the name of honoring herself. Overall: 4 Characters: 4 Piglet is deeply caring and hardworking. She's an immediately likable character, and we want to see her find genuine happiness. Unfortunately, her upcoming wedding does not seem likely to deliver that. When her fiancé reveals a devastating secret in the immediate lead-u

February 2024 Reading Wrap Up

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Last month, I was stuck in a bit of a The Nix  rut trying to finish one super long book all month. I also struggled to find audiobooks I connected with, which didn't help the reading slump situation. I spent a lot of my reading time doing research for my final capstone project as well. February, however, I fell back in the swing of the reading thing. After the binge reading of winter break, I've finally recalibrated and I'm able to fully appreciate books again. This means that February gets a much more traditional wrap up post. I'm going to structure these almost as mini versions of my year end posts and give insight into what I read this month (so you can hear a bit about the nonfiction I don't post about and get a preview of fiction reviews coming your way), chat a bit about what I'm hoping to read next month, and then have a quick space for non-bookish stories grabbing my attention.  If February is the month of love, then my great love of the month was fallin