Reading, Writing, and Me

I'm not sure if book hauls on blogs is a thing or ever was a thing, but I've actually bought and was gifted books for the first time in a very very long time, and I'm excited to share, so you're getting a book haul. I thought this might be an interesting update on how my reading tastes have started to evolve since I first started college. My tastes have started shifting around in ways that feel sudden and confusing. I've been reading a lot more literary fiction lately and less YA. There are certainly tons of YA books that I'm excited for, but since the genre doesn't have much about kids in college, I've found myself starting to pull away from it a bit more. It's honestly confusing and disconcerting and deserves its own essay. But I've also had a ton of fun exploring a new category. If you'd like to explore these books and authors more, click on the author's name to visit their website.  Aside from actual book purchases I've made latel

  Yesterday, I took myself on a bit of an adventure. I took myself on a date, per se. From the second I set foot in LA, my life has been pure chaos. From trying to settle my first apartment to adjusting to long days spent walking around campus to the actual workload that comes with university, I realized two things. 1) I was exhausted, constantly anxious, and feeling extremely stuck, and 2) I'd hardly seen any of the city that I'd recently moved to. This weekend, I decided to remedy both issues by imposing a single day ban on all school related thoughts and heading to one of the places on the top of my To See list in LA- Skylight Books .  While I was much more familiar with the other prominent LA bookstore (which I will visit at some point!), The Ripped Bodice , because of the YA world's close proximity to romance, I was immediately intrigued by the tree growing up in the middle of Skylight. I'd first seen it featured in Claudia Sulewski's  vlogs . Located on a st

  Everything I Never Told You  by Celeste Ng (Just a warning, this review will have some degree of spoilers cause I don't know how to write a full review without them) Overview: Lydia is dead. Just turned 16 and already gone. With no close friends to point to a possible explanation and no leads, her family is left confused, forced to confront a world without their favorite daughter. Instead of a murder mystery, what unfolds is a heartbreaking story of a family in 1970s Ohio forced to confront every tiny, fractured web that led up to Lydia death. Bouncing around with no bounds for time, space, or narrator, we hear stories from Nath, Lydia, and Hannah's childhoods, Marilyn's young adulthood, and Jame's struggles to rise through the ranks as a Chinese American professor in small town Ohio. What it leaves is a heartbreaking portrait of how little we might truly know about the people we sleep in the same house with every single night. Overall: 4 Characters: 4 This is a hard

I am incredibly excited for today's blog posts because I'm working with Literati to share my experience with their Luminary Book Club. If you've been keeping up with my posts, I recently talked about how book clubs are an amazing way to fend off a reading slump, especially when life gets super hectic, and even with a super long TBR, I've still felt lost when I go to pick out my next read. I'm so grateful to Literati for sending me a book box and sponsoring this post!  On top of feeling stuck with choosing what to read, I've also been trying to explore more genres and the world outside of YA. YA has been my home base for so long that I always get overwhelmed trying to figure out what I want to read in other genres. Luckily, Literati had just what I needed. I got the chance to choose from 13 different book clubs all curated by Luminaries who are amazing, award winning writers, thought leaders, and artists you most definitely know like Malala and her Fearless cl

  Fresh  by Margot Wood Get a Copy (this is an affiliate link. purchasing through this bookshop link helps support indie bookstores and this blog at no cost to you) Overview: Elliot isn't really sure why she's going to college. It's the next step that people take in life, I guess. She also isn't sure why she's at Emerson. It sounded better than Ohio State. She has no plan, no clue and how to approach college life. Quickly, Elliot gets sucked into a whirlwind of all the worst college tropes- the endless cereal bar, hooking up with everyone in the Little Building, not paying attention in any of her that classes she doesn't really want to be in anyway... the list goes on. She quickly forms a tight group of friends on her floor, but even those connections get tested as the year progresses. Eventually, Elliot is forced to realize that she needs to care about the academic side of college, and she craves closer connections than a trail of hook ups. Elliot, like most co

Back to school season. New pens and markers, backpacks, and routines all come with less time to read. Maybe you spent all summer devouring books but have hardly read a page since school started. Or maybe you're like me and were in a slump before the semester even began. Regardless, we're all looking to get back into reading for fun, even with less time on our hands. Over the years, I've found tons of convenient ways to sneak more time into the day for finishing books and keeping non-required reading a part of your weekly schedule. Not all of these tips will work for everyone, so definitely scroll through the list and take what might work for you and leave what doesn't. Or, you could try a new tip each week and see which ones stick.  1. Read on Your Commute  Everyone's  commute looks different, so this tip won't universally apply, but it's a great way to take advantage of under-utilized time. If you walk or drive yourself to school, audiobooks are a great wa

September is always a magical, busy time in bookland because there are always a million books releasing to get ready for the holiday rush. That's how this list wound up featuring 7 books. There are a couple like Never Saw You Coming  and As If On Cue  that I've had my eyes on for almost a year, and then there are some new discoveries that I'm super super excited about. From heartfelt contemporaries to K-Pop to a musical anthology and a summer camp of animators, there's something for everyone on this list. I haven't been this excited about a TBR of books in a while, and I'm sad that with starting school, it'll probably take me a while to get through them, but I'm hoping my local library will pick up copies soon. Speaking of which, I have tons of new libraries to explore around campus! As always, I want to make it as easy as possible to preorder these books and connect with the authors who wrote them! If you click the link in the title of each book, it wil

The Brightsiders  by Jen Wilde  Overview: Being in one of the world's biggest bands at 17 is a lot to handle. With the paparazzi watching every single move, Emmy doesn't have any space to be a teen and make mistakes. After being in the car when her girlfriend gets a DUI, Emmy kicks of 6 weeks of trying to avoid scandals while falling for a fellow band member and fighting to keep her place in the band. Overall: 3.5  Characters: 3 Emmy is the drummer in the band, and she's the target of the media's attention. Even though Ry parties just as much as she does, she takes all the heat for it. With parents who seem to actively resent her, a girlfriend who's constantly demeaning, and a PR team more concerned with image than health and safety, Emmy doesn't have much of a support system. When she comes out as bi, it's seen as a PR stunt, and basically everything she does gets belittled. When she gets hurt in an accident caused by her drunk girlfriend choosing to drive,

  You'd Be Home By Now  by Kathleen Glasgow  I'm very thankful to the publisher for providing me with this ARC to share my honest thoughts on this book with all of you. Overview: Emory has always been the good one. The nice one. The easy one. The invisible one. Her older sister, Maddie, is gorgeous and talented. Her older brother, Joey, is struggling with addiction issues, and her parents saddle Emory with the responsibility of being his forever babysitter. No one thinks about Emory- ever. Which leads her to pick up a habit of stealing and collecting small things and hooking up with the high school baseball star next door to feel seen and important. While Joey is stuck on the rollercoaster of his addiction, his family is right there behind him, and as Emory struggles to keep Joey stable, she's also left to contend with her own precariously okay life. Overall: 5+ Characters: 5 Emory is maybe the most universally relatable teen character in YA. She feels unheard and unseen by