February Wrap Up

I really wanted to write an intro to this post that did NOT talk about how fast time has gone, but I then spent a good five minutes (it was more like half a minute, but it felt like five) thinking of what I could start this post by saying, and having not thought of anything, you get this. I successfully avoided talking about the speed of time! Kind of!

• Ophie’s Ghosts by Justina Ireland. I picked this one up on a whim, and it was a quick middle grade read. It’s interesting to read a middle grade that’s set in the earlier 1900s and I like how the author incorporated that in there. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley. This book was very good for the first 100 and last 100 pages. It kept me reading and I really enjoyed the awareness that it spread. I did feel like the middle dragged considerably, however. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Thornhill by Pam Smy. This book was half told in drawings, half in diary entries, and it was a fascinating concept, but I did not end up enjoying it much. It was a dark story, and it had an inconclusive and sad ending. ⭐⭐

• Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki. This was such a nice story, with found family and also lots of violins. I am definitely nowhere near as good at violin as two of the main characters of this story (nor do I wish to be) but it was still cool to see all the violin terms and techniques. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• White Smoke by Tiffany Jackson. Shockingly enough, this was my first book by Tiffany Jackson??? It was also horror, which I don’t read much, but I found this to be a really gripping and enjoyable book. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. This book was a memoir in graphic novel form, and it was really interesting to see Maia’s journey to figuring out eir sexuality and gender. [no rating]

• Fire Becomes Her by Rosiee Thor. FBH was my most anticipated release of 2022, and I have to say, it was not what I expected. There were a lot of politics and just talking, but I did really enjoy the worldbuilding and!!! the!!! aroace spec!!! rep!!! ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• A Season of Daring Greatly by Ellen Emerson White. Woman playing professional baseball. Do I need to say anything else? This book was great for anyone who loves baseball, it’s a fiction story about a girl who becomes the first woman in professional baseball. You do have to love baseball to read it though, because there’s a lot of baseball game scenes. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Love and Other Natural Disasters by Misa Sugiura. At the time that I read this, it was just what I needed, a nice realistic fiction that I just enjoyed all the way through. This one also has the fake dating trope which has been coming out more and more and is always so fun. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

• The Keeper of the Night by Kylie Lee Baker. This was a super unique story and was really fun to read. I loved a lot of the characters as well as the story itself, but I do think that the pacing was off at the ending and that the ending overall could have been better. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• A Darker Shade of Magic by VE Schwab. Given the popularity of this book, I cannot believe that I haven’t picked it up until now. That being said, I found it to be an awesome world and an altogether enjoyable book. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• These Feathered Flames by Alexandra Overy. Magical politics was most of this book. Still, I felt like it picked up a lot near the end and really interested me; I just wish there were more plots before then. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

• Bookish Brews interviewed Rosiee Thor (author of Fire Becomes Her) about queerplatonic relationships in books and it was so awesome to read about qprs!
• Maddie @Inking and Thinking shared some new releases by Black authors that you should look out for and it’s such an extensive list that you’re sure to find some new books to add to your TBR!
• May @Forever and Everly created the 666 Reading Challenge and I’m excited to see how she does throughout the year!
• Naemi @A Book Owl’s Corner shared what popular books would be like if she were the protagonist of them, and it was absolutely hilarious
• Rachel @A Bookworm’s Paradise gave us a look into why bookworms lead dangerous lives and it’s such a relatable post; we are in mortal danger at every moment.
• Maria @The Character Study wrote a response to my own ‘Pressure to Write Book Reviews’ post with one of her own and it was really fascinating to read someone else’s opinions on this topic!
• The Human Book Club gained a new team and I’m so excited to read more advice with these very talented bloggers!
• The Quiet Pond interviewed Lillie Lainoff in advance of her debut, One for All and it was such a great interview!

I posted four times this month and I’m very happy about this! And I mention it at least once more in this post because I’m going to keep talking about it! I have a good posting schedule! Anyways, these were all really fun posts and I hope that you enjoyed them too!

The Best Books of 2021 Tag

The Book Blogging Pressure to Review Books

The Evermore Book Tag

4 Awesome, Underhyped Authors

February Goals:

• Keep up with my posting! ✅
• Drink. Water.

I was able to keep up with my posting schedule, in which I posted once each week, every Sunday, and I’m really happy about this because I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to keep going with this due to school!

• Keep up with posting schedule (yes I will just keep writing this goal)
• Organize my goodreads shelves
• Do a little blog editing

I started to do a few things with blog editing and goodreads shelves and I hope to continue doing so when I have time!

If I’m being honest, nothing much really happened in February. We had a week long break from school, and my family went on a vacation to a farm, where we got to meet some animals, which was a very nice break from school.
Valentine’s Day also happens in February, and there’s a bunch of ways to sort of show your appreciation for your friends (and I suppose romantic partners if you have them) at my school on Valentine’s Day. The biggest way is that there’s a way to send carnations to people, so I ended up with a bunch of carnations, and it’s really just a fun day to see all the carnations and trade treats with people and just have fun!
The other thing that happens in February is aromantic awareness week! Aro awareness week starts the Sunday after Valentine’s Day (I think) and I’m a little sad that I didn’t get any posts out about aro rep or anything of the sort during this week, but I did just want to let everyone know about this! If you’ve seen any great posts about aro rep or anything of the sort, please let me know in the comments because I would love to read them, and you can also look back at my own post that I published last pride month about why aroace spec rep is so important in books!
Oh yeah the other thing that happened this month was that I DNFed a book haha. Not a super huge achievement, but I find it very hard to leave books half read, even if I’m not enjoying them, so the fact that I was able to step away from this book that was boring me was good for me. Now I will just live with the knowledge that I am probably missing an extremely interesting plot in the last half of the book.

What did you read this month? Were there any posts that you enjoyed? What are some of your goals for March?

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Evermore Book Tag

We’re at that time of year where I try to do all the tags that I’m way behind on. I promised I’d get to this one, so here I am, completing this tag over a year after I was tagged for it. Thank you so much to Ahaana @Windows to Worlds and Karla @Another Bookworm for tagging me to do this!

The first thing I do want to confess is that I don’t listen to a lot of music, and therefore do not listen to a lot of Taylor Swift. I have listened to Evermore once or twice but I’m not a huge fan of Taylor Swift or anything. Because I don’t listen to much music, NOT because I actively don’t like her music. Still, I wanted to do this tag because the prompts sound really cool!

Rules

• Link back to the original creator’s post: Ahaana’s at Windows to Worlds
• Tag at least 5 people
• Thank the person who tagged you and link back to their post!!

Willow: A book with a character you can’t help but fall in love with

A Snake Falls to Earth is a very recent read (at the time that I’m writing this post) but honestly I loved both Nina and Oli. Nina was really smart and I don’t know what it was about her that I loved, but I did. And Oli was just a total ‘bean’ character who I just wanted to protect with my whole heart.

Champagne Problems: A book with a broken relationship

In Girl Made of Stars, the relationship between Mara and her twin brother Owen breaks once Mara’s friend accuses Owen of rape. The twins were super close before this happens, so it was definitely a big break, but Mara chose to support and believe her friend, despite Owen’s denials and her parents’ insistence that the family stand beside Owen.

Gold Rush: A book you love with all your heart

This one is easily Felix Ever After, I just LOVED so many things about this book, and it just stuck with me long after I finished it. Definitely one of my favorite books, if not my favorite over all.

Tis the Damn Season: A book in which a character reconnects with their family/hometown

Darius the Great is Not Okay is a good one for this one. Darius lives in the USA, but travels to Iran, where his Mom is from, to be with and meet for the first time his grandparents. So he’s connecting with his family for the first time, and though Iran isn’t his hometown, it is where his Mom is from and he learns a lot about Persian culture while he’s there.

Tolerate it: A book with a suffering relationship

I feel like the relationships among the members of the band in Daisy Jones and the Six are suffering a lot of the time, as they work through everything that they talk about in this book. Like, there may have been one point when there was a good relationship between all of them, but a lot of the time, at least some of them were fighting.

No body, no crime: A book about murder

A pretty popular one in the murder mystery department, but Truly Devious is definitely a book about murder, albeit one that happened a long time ago that the main character is now trying to solve. A lot of people love this book, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I expected to, unfortunately.

Happiness: A book that’s an old favorite, but you just can’t relate to it anymore

Ah…I’m going with Harry Potter for this one. I mean, I really did love Harry Potter when I was younger, but turns out when the author ends up being a transphobe that really changes opinions.

Dorothea: A book featuring old (or strong) friendships

I really cannot go a tag post without mentioning Loveless (and Felix Ever After in that case). But the friendships in Loveless really are sooo good. Rooney’s whole friendship dialogue at the end is just *amazing*

Coney Island: A book that made you cry/completely destroyed you

We all know that I don’t cry when reading very often. I’m going with Mockingjay for this one, because the first time that I read it, back in like fifth grade or something, I did cry. Mainly because of Prim (that’s her name, right? Is that Katniss’s sister’s name?). But also because I didn’t really want Katniss to end up with Peeta (to be fair, I didn’t want her to end up with Gale either. I just don’t think that either of them was a good fit for her).

Ivy: A book that was an unexpected favorite

I hate repeats in tags, but I really did not expect to enjoy A Snake Falls to Earth as much as I did. I enjoyed the author’s first book, Elatsoe, but it wasn’t my favorite and it read a little young. And I definitely was looking forward to reading ASFTE, but it absolutely surpassed all my expectations.

Cowboy like me: A book about thieves or criminals

I want to say Six of Crows, but in an effort to use some less popular books in this tag, I’m going with Into the Crooked Place. Which, in my opinion, was kind of a less-well-written version of Six of Crows. Given that one of the main characters is a gangster, and two of the other main characters work for him, I’d say that this one is about thieves and criminals, though I’m not gonna lie, I can’t remember a particular time when they thieved or criminal-ed.

Long Story Short: A book that made up your childhood

Didn’t the Percy Jackson books make up most people’s childhood? (and I just mentioned how I wanted to use less popular books, whoops) I started reading these in third grade and I really think that Percy Jackson is when my reading really started to take off.

Marjorie: A book with a moving message

I really wanted to go with A Snake Falls to Earth again, but instead I’m going with The Edge of Anything, which is not a book that I talk about a whole lot on here. This book deals with mental health issues and overall it is a bit of a heavier book, but there are just so few books out there that discuss so in depth about mental health that I thought this would be a good fit because it’s very educational.

Closure: A series in which you NEED the next book

I actually don’t read very many serieses (that is a word. I’m calling it a word. Deal with it.) anymore, so I’m not sure what to put, but I’ll go with Little Thieves, since I loved the world and the characters, and even though the first book didn’t end in a cliffhanger and wrapped up pretty well, I’d love to see the characters and world again since I enjoyed it so much!

Evermore: The perfect conclusion to an extremely long (but worth it) series

When I do book tags, I really try to find a book for every single tag question, even if I have to stretch it, but here, the honest truth is that I just don’t read a lot of very long book serieses. After a while, I find that they get rather repetitive and I just lose interest in what’s going on. Either that, or my terrible memory forgets what happens in all the other books, and I don’t want to reread all of them just to read one that’s just been published, so I just sort of…stop reading the series. What I’m basically trying to say is that there are not really any long serieses that I am invested in.

I was tagged for this one a very long time ago, and I don’t really see it around anymore, but nevertheless, I’m going to tag several people. I tag:

• Rachel @A Bookworm’s Paradise
• Susana @Susana Loves Books
• Rania @Rania’s Rambling Reads
• Saniya @Sunnyside Reviews

What do you think about Evermore? Do you agree/disagree with any of my answers to this tag? What would you say for any of these answers?

Welcome 2022: Reading Plans for the Year

It’s now been 2022 for a few days now, and I wanted to do a post on a few books I wanted to read, goals I have, and more for 2022! This post is basically just miscellaneous beginning-of-year things, but I figured I may as well write it. Let’s get into it!

The Goodreads Reading Challenge

I started doing the Goodreads reading challenge in 2020 for the first time, when I actually started using Goodreads more. Personally, I don’t actually pay much attention to this throughout the year; it’s just something for me to keep in the corner of my brain. I have, for the past two years, set my goal to 100 books, and though I surpassed that goal easily both times, I’m going to keep it at 100 this year, too. First of all 100 is just a nice round number and I like it, but second of all because we were in a pandemic and in quarantine for the last two years, and though the quarantine was not fun, it did allow me a lot more time for reading. Since in person school has started this year, I’ve had much less time for reading, so I actually think that 100 books is a very reasonable goal for me right now.

Books I want to read in 2022

Last year, I published a post where I named 21 books that I wanted to read in 2021. It was a pretty interesting post, with a lot of great books on there, but I’ve decided not to do that again for two reasons. First of all, I only actually ended up reading 10 of the books on that list. I am absolutely terrible at sticking to TBRs, and the fact that I had an entire 365 days to read 21 books (especially given that in all, I read 157 books in 2021) really proves that. The other reason that I didn’t want to do this list again is because I think that it mostly ended up being a lot of books that are popular and/or very hyped, and so it was more books that I felt like I SHOULD read, but not books that I necessarily wanted to read. Obviously, there are a lot of books that I do want to read, out there, but I’m just awful at thinking of them off the top of my head, and more often than not, the books that I want to read are ones that I see somewhere and then immediately go off to request from the library.
So, instead of writing an entire post about the books I want to read, I just thought I’d share a few books that I’m really excited to pick up. Not any fixed number, just however many books there ends up being.

• What We Devour by Linsey Miller. This one, I honestly just want to read because of the ace rep, which I’m super excited for! Unfortunately, I’ve seen some less than glowing reviews about this book, so we’ll see what I think.
• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab. This is a book that it seems like everyone knows about by now, because it was all the hype last year. I finally got this one for Christmas this year, so I’m excited to read it!
• Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo. Another one that people seem to love! And I’m really interested in this; I don’t read much historical fiction, but I find that I really enjoy it, so I hope this one’s great, too!
• Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley. Honestly, that goodreads summary covers so much, I don’t really know where to start. But I’m excited for the indigenous rep, and it sounds like a great mystery as well!
• Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao. I’ve seen this one EVERYWHERE, and I’m super excited for it, I can’t wait to pick it up!

Anticipated Releases

I do not pay as close attention to upcoming releases as a lot of other people do, so this is going to be another pretty short list, but there are several upcoming releases that I’m very excited for, so I thought I’d share them here, as well!
(By the way, I’d highly suggest you go check out the post that May @Forever and Everly did on upcoming releases, it’s a much more comprehensive list than mine!)

• Fire Becomes Her by Rosiee Thor. Rosiee Thor is an author that I’ve followed for a while now, and I’ve talked to her a bit as well, and I am SO excited for her second book! I mean, people say it has a 1920’s vibe, plus there’s magic (that you drink, if I remember correctly?) and overtaking the rich, so…what more could you need? (oh plus it’s queer, very very queer)
• Ophelia After All by Racquel Marie. I’ve heard about this book so much that I’m honestly surprised it’s not already published? It’s a debut book about a girl who starts to question her sexuality and I’ve read many reviews already that say it’s wonderful, so I really cannot wait for this one.
• Loveless by Alice Oseman. Technically Loveless is already published in some places, but it comes out in the US on March 1 (though the release date has been pushed back several times so who knows if this is true). And I am SO EXCITED to finally hold this wonderful book in my hands!!! (by the way – thoughts on the US cover? I’m really not sure what to think).
• Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves, by Meg Long. I actually don’t know very much about this book, but it sounds really interesting and unique. Plus, dogsledding! We don’t see that in books very often!
• Icebreaker by AL Graziadei. Queer sports will ALWAYS be something for me to be excited for, and I’m especially excited for this one because it’s about professional sports, and there are very few out people in professional sports (in men’s professional sports)
• Aces Wild by Amanda DeWitt (no cover yet). This book has an entire cast of asexual characters. Plus, it’s a heist book, and the main character is described as ‘modern asexual Kaz Brekker.’ What more could I need?
• Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix by Anna-Marie McLemore (no cover yet). I am SO excited about this book, because I read Gatsby earlier this (school) year and have been trying to get my hands on Gatsby retellings now (of which there are very few). And this one has transgender Nick AND transgender Gatsby.

What’s your goodreads reading challenge goal? Have you read any of the books I want to read this year? What are some releases that you’re looking forwards to?

October Wrap Up

I feel like the months are finally slowing down.
I mean, it’s still totally crazy that it’s already the end of October. November is upon us, there are only two more months of 2021. But it feels like school has finally slowed things down, so now I’m at a…normal pace, for how fast the months are going. Not whatever the rest of the year has felt like.

Well, I’m not back to my normal level of reading, which I’m not sure I will be given school just gets harder and harder, but I have managed to read several books this month which I’m super happy about! Here’s what I read.

• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Shocking no one, I read this for school. And like yeah, it was a school book, so not super interesting. But honestly, as far as school books go? Not totally bad (I know, I’m filled with high praise). Amazingly enough, I feel like the analysis etc that we did (we spent like 1.5 months on this thing) actually made me like the book MORE. Who woulda guessed? ⭐⭐⭐
• Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune. My mom won this in a goodreads giveaway because apparently she’s really good at doing that, and this was an overall enjoyable book! It felt like a more comforting vibe, just a very soft book which is really nice sometimes! ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I…think the hype might have been a little too high on this one. I definitely enjoyed the overall story, but just the way its told, it gets a little boring. Also, how do the characters remember exactly what happened like 40 years ago? Like, I don’t remember the main plot of a book I read last week, how do you remember what restaurant you went to for lunch that one time way back when? ⭐⭐⭐

• The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo. I read this because I read The Great Gatsby and it was pretty good! I enjoyed the new perspective from Jordan’s point of view, and though it did follow the original story almost exactly, it was still cool to see the small sort of embellishments and such. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Darius the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram. This is one of those books that you see everywhere. Like they’ve kinda just become mainstream YA or whatever. So I finally decided to read it, and it was very enjoyable! I love these contemporaries that are pretty easy to get through and are also so entertaining! ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• The River Has Teeth by Erica Waters. Wow! This one was definitely different than basically any other book I have read before and I loved it! It was written so well, it totally kept my attention, and it was just so fascinating! Would definitely recommend to anyone looking for a sort of spookier book. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

• Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko. This is one that has been everywhere and I just haven’t gotten around to reading it! But dang, this one was definitely something that held my attention through the entire book and it just felt like a new, fresh breath of air! I immediately got the sequel and can’t wait to start reading! ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Much Ado About Baseball by Rajani LaRocca. I was pretty excited about this one because baseball and magic, but overall…it wasn’t super great for me. There were some aspects that were cool like the baseball stuff and even the math, but overall the magical element made things really iffy for me, because despite what the characters might have claimed, they were indeed cheating using magic. And I don’t like that at all. ⭐⭐
• Not Your Villain by CB Lee. It is about time I pick this one up. I read book one back in January or February and kept meaning to get around to this one and kept not getting around to it until now. This one was also fun, but overall just didn’t really feel as good or the same. The first 100 pages of the book were kind of a fast recap of the last book but from Bells’s point of view, and it was kind of a weird way to start the book (though I needed the recap). SUPER excited for Emma’s book and some hopefully super new fresh aroace spec rep!!! ⭐⭐⭐

• Maria @The Character Study shared a post with tips to get out of a reading slump which we all need at times!
• Riddhi @Whispering Stories announced a new project that she’s doing which sounds excellent and is going great so far!
• May @Forever and Everly shared 10 books she wants to read by the end of the year
• The Quiet Pond interviewed Xiran Jay Zhao, the author of Iron Widow and I was already super excited for this book; this interview just made it something to look even more forwards to!
• Cherelle @A Bolt Out of the Book celebrated her one year blogiversary and she and her blog deserve all the love!
• Katie @Whispering Pages IS BACK. Katie is one of my favoritest bloggers, and actually the person who got me into blogging. I love her content so much, but she took a break from blogging for several months this summer! She posted her first post a few weeks ago AND IM SO HAPPY HI KATIE.
• April @Booked Till Midnight wrote her second post about books as things she’s been told in the drivethrough and it’s just as hilarious and odd as the first!

I wrote one measly post this month but its a good one in my opinion! In honor of my one year blogiversary (which actually happened at the end of September) I wrote a post of five reasons why I’m so grateful for blogging!

5 Reasons I’m So Grateful For Blogging

October Goals:

• Stay on top of school ✅
• Try to write something you want to write. Don’t think of everything else. Just what you would find enjoyable to write. ❌
• Don’t make your entire life revolve around baseball ❌
• Please try to do some exercises if you actually want to go anywhere in softball.❌
• In your free time, just do what you feel like (with some boundaries obviously; just don’t force yourself to do anything).✅

I think I did a really good job of staying on top of school! Things are definitely picking up, we’ve had a lot of projects, a lot of quizzes and tests and stuff but I think I’m doing a good job!
With writing, honestly my problem is just that I didn’t have time to write, and I also have really big writers’ block right now. However, I did come up with a story that I’m actually excited to write, once I get the motivation back!
Baseball is my life and we will all just have to accept it.
But I think that I did a pretty good job of just doing what I feel like! Like, even if I didn’t do a lot of writing, I was definitely able to read and just…it was nice. In my free time I did what I wanted.

November Goals:

• Stay on top of school!
• STUDY FOR QUIZZES AND TESTS
• Enjoy your weekends and off days. (don’t just think about school!)
• Talk/hang out with your friends more

• School exists so my entire life is just school. I kid, but I don’t kid. I definitely do have my weekends a little bit free, but there’s still plenty of homework and on the weeks I really don’t do anything but go to school and do homework.
• We had several more fall ball games and then the season ended! Overall, we only played five games, and we won 3, lost 2, but no matter our record it was really fun to be playing! In my last game, I played against a few people who go to my school which was actually pretty fun, even if we don’t really know each other and also one of them caught me stealing second and also we lost.
• The baseball season ended! In truth, it ended in early November, but it basically ended in October. October is postseason baseball. The postseason is like a bracket tournament, with 10 teams playing at the beginning and finishing with the final two teams playing in the world series. This year, the world series was between the Atlanta Braves and the Houston Astros, and the Braves ended up winning for the first time in I think 26 years. I’m not gonna lie, I don’t care for either team, but congrats to the Braves!
• Halloween! I didn’t actually do anything for Halloweeen (I didn’t even dress up) but it’s still a fun holiday with candy haha

I…guess that’s it? There’s not really much else to do with school taking over everything, I suppose.

Well, not the most interesting of wrap ups but it’s here nontheless! How was your October? Do you have any plans for November? How are you doing?
That’s all for today! As always, stay safe and keep on reading!

Julie and the Phantoms book tag

Honestly, I’m amazed that I’ve kept the fact that I’m doing this tag a secret.
Okay, maybe that’s not as amazing as I made it sound. But I have been doing a LOT of JATP-talking recently and not once have I mentioned this lovely thing.
I…don’t know what I was thinking with this intro. MOVING ON.
Here we go, because everyone who knows me knows that of course I had to do this tag.
If you’ve followed my blog for just about any amount of time, you know how obsessed I am with this show (Answer: Really really really obsessed). So yeah, of COURSE I had to do this post! Honestly, you guys are probably tired of me rambling on and on about this show but….uuuuh oops?
I first saw this Julie and the Phantoms book tag over at Books and Mate way back in December when I’d only watched four episodes of the show. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to do it!

Rules

🎤 Link back to the original post (and also Sarah’s booktube account)!!
🎸 Thank whoever tagged you!!
🎸 Answer the prompts!!
🥁 Tag some friends to share the awesomeness!!
🎹 Go watch Julie and the Phantoms on Netflix (and sing every song like it’s your last performance on stage)!!

I was planning to give you a quick summary of the show but then I realized that if you’ve followed my blog for any period of time that you’ve heard me talk about this too much already (And if you’re new, check out my January and February wrap ups to see anything about me being obsessed with it).
…
But you know, a quick summary never hurt anyone (I promise I will make it very quick)

When Julie’s Mom died a year ago, Julie lost her passion for music. But when cleaning out her mom’s studio, she plays a CD and three ghosts appear in the room! At first hesitant about their appearance, Julie soon realizes that the three of them can help her get music back into her life–and maybe they can become friends in the process.

Okay so admittedly that summary was very bad and very cheesy (and I made it up myself) but I seem to recall some summary somewhere on Netflix describing the boys as ‘three ghostly guys’ so I’m not feeling so bad about this.
Now, let’s get into this tag!

Now or Never: A book at the top of your tbr

Hmm…this is sort of tough! Since I’m a bit of a mood reader, I don’t really choose what books to read next, I pick out what I want to read as I go. But I’ll go with King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo–I read the entire Shadow and Bone series just so I could read this and with book 2 coming out this month, I think it’s time I finally started this one.

Wake Up: A book you were hesitant to read

I’ll say The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow for this one. The catch line and the synopsis for Sound of Stars sounds really weird (can their love of books and pop music save the world?) and I’m all in all not a super big sci fi fan but I did end up liking Sound of Stars more than I was expecting given the sort of far-out premise (also can we take a moment to admire that cover? I feel like I say this every single time but it’s so beautiful!)

This band is back: A sequel you waited a long time for

Can I say Julie and the Phantoms for this one??? Haha I guess it hasn’t been thaaaaat long since I started watching JATP (3 months now) but still. We have to wait until Septemberrrrrrr.
Anyways, onto books. I’ll say a sequel that hasn’t actually been published–book 3 of the Legends of Orisha, by Tomi Adeyemi. The second book came out….sometime in late 2019 and we still don’t have a title, cover or release date for book 3.
(Also, if we’re talking shows that we’re waiting for, I think the real answer here is The Dragon Prince–for anyone who’s followed TDP since near the beginning–season four is slated to come out in December, and at that point it will have been over two years since season 3 came out aaaaaah.)

Bright: A book that took you by surprise

Eh, why not put a murder mystery for a book that took me by surprise? I think that Hand on the Wall by Maureen Johnson really took me by surprise because books one and two, while they were good, I didn’t enjoy them as much as I was expecting. And Hand on the Wall was just a LOT better. Plus, that murderer reveal…WHAT.
(Commentary on the series–I’m not all that psyched that there’s going to be yet another book because Hand on the Wall was a nice conclusion and I really dislike series that could have ended but the author draws it out even when there’s no reason to. The murder has been solved. End of discussion. You don’t need to start another book in the same series about something completely different.)

Wow: An action packed book

Yeah, I’ll go with Legendborn for this one. A LOT happened in Legendborn and while I wasn’t a fan of the info-dumpy world building, it was DEFINITELY a book full of action and was a lot of fun to read.
Also, I honestly feel bad for comparing Legendborn to Wow because Carrie’s a jerk buuuuuut it fits the prompt. Don’t take it personally, Bree.

(Okay, but since we’re on Wow I have to ask this question–opinions on Dirty Candy? Personally, I’m actually a fan of their songs even if they are extremely self centered, I like the actual music).

Flying Solo: A book with incredible friendships

Well, apparently Alice Oseman is amazing at writing friendships. Vic @Books and Mate said Radio Silence for this one, and I’m going to go with Loveless. I loved loved LOVED the friendships in that book. I actually have a friend who described this as a platonic love story which I think is a perfect explanation. I especially loved Rooney’s monologue to Georgia near the end, it was so so sweet.
(Also, Flying Solo is definitely one of the best songs in JATP, it is extremely sweet and I love it)

I Got the Music: A book that got you out of a reading slump

I guess I’ll go with Moxie for this one. My last slump, in early December, was pretty bad, I couldn’t read anything I wanted, I DNFed a book for the first time in I don’t know how long, and then I picked up Moxie. I don’t usually read realistic fiction but I decided to try it and I was able to mostly get out of my slump! (it took a few more realistic fiction books to get me allll the way out).

The Other Side of Hollywood: A book with a great ensemble of characters

Ummmm yeah right know I can only think of Six of Crows, which was Meeghan @Meeghan Reads (the creator of this tag)’s answer. Honestly, it’s totally true, though, the Crows are awesome! (Thank you, me, for my daily reminder to actually start reading King of Scars)

All Eyes on Me: The prettiest book in your collection

Okay, I think that all of us book lovers can agree: that phrase ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’? Yeahhhh…we all forget that once in a while.
I’ll say This Tender Land by William Kent Kreuger here. I honestly love books with sunset covers so much.
(Another one I would say would be Sound of Stars but I already used that for another prompt so I decided to change it up a bit).

Finally Free: A series you wish would never end

Honestly, I don’t know if there’s a series I wish would never end. Sure, there’s lots of series’ that I want more once I’m done with them, but I don’t want the author to keep pushing content out in books that are unnecessary (‘books that are unnecessary’ is clearly an oxymoron but just for now I’ll let it slide on this most). I find that a lot of series’ decline once that happens, so I don’t really want to say anything for this.

Perfect Harmony: Your favorite OTP

I do not know. I guess I’d have to say…
Uuuuuh….
You know how your mind always blanks when you try to think of something? Yeah, that’s happening.
Well, I’ll come back to this later which probably means that I’ll never come back to this but okay then.
How is THIS the question I’m having trouble with, like 70% of books ever have a fairly large romantic plot in them.

Edge of Great: A book that is (almost) perfect

I don’t…I don’t know…how do I not know? Sure, I read lots of good books. Lots of GREAT books (no pun intended) and I have favorite books but I don’t know about a book that is perfect or even almost perfect. How do I choose and is this a thing? A perfect book?
Well, this is not an answer but I was looking through my goodreads books and sort of laughed because if you’re taking this prompt literally, you could put KOTLC since literally it seems that the elves are perfect and such…but I’m not putting KOTLC for a book that’s perfect (no POC main characters until book 4 with a cast that big??? No LGBTQ+ characters so far 8 books into the series???)
Aaaaah I literally do not know what to answer, all books have their flaws!

Unsaid Emily: A book that made you cry

Those of you who know me know that I don’t cry due to books or movies or whatever. In fact, I have never cried during Unsaid Emily in my three times watching it and multiple times listening to it. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve cried due to a book and less than one finger on the times that I’ve cried during a TV show or movie (that is to say, none). So I’m citing a book that I read several years ago here, but I will recommend this book and continue to do so, because it’s EXTREMELY GOOD and, as you can probably tell, EXTREMELY SAD. It’s also middle grade but DON’T LET THAT MAKE YOU HESITANT. This is a book that I literally remember what happens several years after I read it, which is saying something since I rarely remember what happened in a book I read a month ago. SO GO READ THE BOOK!!!!
(how did I go through this entire part without saying the name of the book? It’s the Bridge Home, in case you couldn’t tell from the image).

You Got Nothing to Lose: A villain you love to hate

I…honestly don’t usually pay much attention to villains. Like, I know there’s a lot of villains that people like because they’re evil or whatever (Darkling…) but I really just…that’s not me. So I really do not have anything to say for this.

Stand Tall: A book that gave you the feels

…Am I just a heartless person?
Like, am I an emotionless book reader? Because I seriously don’t know what to answer for this. All I can answer is Stand Tall (NOT A BOOK, PHOENIX, NOT A BOOK). Or just JATP in general (STILL NOT A BOOK!!!). I seriously do not know how to answer this.

Okay! That’s it for this tag! I’m going to be tagging the people who I KNOW have watched JATP and love it. If you’ve watched JATP and haven’t interacted with me about it at all (and you love it), first of all–talk to me about it, I will literally talk to a rock about this show, and second of all, consider yourself tagged! If you HAVEN’T watched it, WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE??? GO OUT AND WATCH IT!!! The only excuse I will accept is if you do not have netflix. (I’m pretty sure there’s a part, perhaps right before Bright, when Reggie says something like ‘what are you waiting for? Now’s your chance?’ and I have just that line stuck in my head right now, but it pretty much fits what I’m thinking!
Anyways, I tag:

• Ritz @Living, Loving and Reading
• Rania @Rania’s Rambling Reads
• Karla @Another Bookworm

What did you think of this tag? Have you watched Julie and the Phantoms? Do you want to watch Julie and the Phantoms? Have you read any of the books that I’ve mentioned? Talk to me in the comments! I’d love to hear your thoughts!
As always, thank you all so much for checking this post out even if you aren’t a ridiculously obsessed fantom like I am. Stay safe and keep on reading!

Baby it’s Cold Outside Book Tag

Thank you so much to Cherelle @A Bolt Out of the Book, Madeline @The Bookish Mutant and Cherry @Cherry Blossom Books for tagging me to do this! (wow, when did I become so immersed in the blogging community that I get tagged 3 times for something!) I am so so so sorry it took me so long to get this out…I know that it may be a little past the time when this tag is appropriate to do but I’m going to go ahead and do it anyways since the questions aren’t thaaaaat related to the holidays (if they are, well, just let me do my tag in peace).

~Rules~

• Thank the person who tagged you and link to their post.
• Display the banner (copy and paste).
• Link to the original creator: erin @ Reading On A Star !
• Answer the questions!
• Tag however many people as you want!

~Questions~

Snow Day: What’s your comfort book?

Aaah, well it turns out I actually don’t reread many books over and over again. If I had to choose one I would probably say the Percy Jackson books (the original ones) or the Harry Potter books because when I was younger I used to just read these books over and over and over, whenever I didn’t have a book from the library or something I’d just pick these up. I can’t count how many times I’ve read the Harry Potter series. (And ever since certain comments from the author have been revealed I have yet to pick it up again. *sigh*)

Snow Angels – What’s a book that you love so much you would want to be buried with it (a little morid, but…)?

I have to choose one book to take with me to the afterlife? To read over and over again for all of eternity? Ha ha just kidding. Okay…a book that I want to be buried with. Hmm, this one’s hard. You know, in about April when I actually read this book, it was my favorite book, I absolutely loved it, it was awesome…and then I read a lot of other books, got more immersed in the reading (and blogging) community and it sort of got pushed to the background. But I think for this one, I will say All the Stars and Teeth by Adalyn Grace. It’s adventure fantasy so it’s just really fun to read and…well there are parts of it that are a little cliche, it’s soooort of just another adventure fantasy but I really really enjoyed it.

Warm Socks – What’s a book that makes you feel warm inside? (The fluffiest, cutest romance you’ve ever read?)

So…I do not like romance much. Like, at all. I really really don’t enjoy reading books that are just straight up romance, as in that’s a main part of the book.
However. I suppose for this question I will say…well this is a bit of a weird one, since they’re not really a main couple in the book but then again they might be in book 3…anyways, I’m going to say Sev and Kane from Crown of Feathers. Yeah, not a romance AT ALL but…I dunno. And, disclaimer, I read this book a while ago so I might not be remembering Kane’s name right…my brain is swiss cheese. I apologize.
I don’t know what it was about them that made me like them…I mean it was a biiiit of an enemies to lovers romance but they weren’t enemies, they just disliked each other…anyways, whatever it was, I shipped them from the moment Kane appeared in the book (yes, when the two still disliked each other)

Hot Cocoa – What winter-themed novels have you previously read?

Yeah, I really don’t read many seasonal novels. I’m not even sure what winter-themed means….I mean, I suppose, like, it’s winter out? Cold and snow? Which, you know, is a liiiittle odd since there’s plenty of places that never even get snow but okay I’ll go with it. For some reason the book that first comes to my mind is Absolutely Truly, by Heather Vogel Fredricks. This is a middle grade novel that I read several years ago and if I recall correctly it’s based mainly, if not completely, in a small town in…New Hampshire? Vermont? In the winter.

Sledding – What’s a book with the best plot twists? Who’s an author that always keeps you on your toes?

I’ll have you know that it took considerable self restraint NOT to put Four Dead Queens here (and if you want to see the numerous posts where I talk about the crazy plot twist in this book, see my yearly wrap up, my liebster award post, and my original tag, the 2020 book tag). Instead, I chose Eight Will Fall by Sarah Harian. This is possibly the only spooky (I guess horror?) YA book that I’ve ever read but I REALLY loved it. There were definitely a lot of twists that I never really expected.

Ugly Sweaters – What’s a book with the ugliest cover?

So, I’m going to have to agree with Cherelle on this one that A Court of Silver Flames has a REALLY ugly cover. But I’ll also say a book that I’ve actually read because I’ve never read any ACOTAR books and will probably never read them. So I’ll go with Lupe Wong Won’t Dance. This is a middle grade novel so maybe it’s a little unfair of me since I understand that even the covers of middle grade novels are a little different than YA novels but I feel like in this cover there’s way too much going on in this cover. The main premise of Lupe Wong Won’t Dance is this girl who’s a huge Mariners fan and a huge baseball player as well–she plans to be a pitcher in the major leagues. Her uncle works for the Mariners and promises Lupe that he’ll introduce her to her favorite baseball player if she gets all A’s in school. But then, in gym which she loves, it’s the square dancing unit and Lupe does NOT want to square dance.
I didn’t like this cover for a few reasons. There’s a lot going on in this cover–we have her school’s mascot behind her on what I assume is the gym floor? And then around Lupe there’s people dancing–square dancing, I assume. The title is also super colorful and just all those different colors and things happening, it’s a lot for eyes to take in? But also, there’s a lot of words on the cover. Of course we have the title, in large letters at the bottom, and then the author, but also Lupe’s jersey that she’s wearing has the words ‘Mexinese’ on it–Lupe is mexinese and that’s definitely touched on in the book–as well as her school mascot behind her has words around that. I feel like on a cover, really the only words should be the title, the author and maybe a short phrase or something.
Lastly, the jersey she’s wearing isn’t the same colors as a Mariners jersey and I know it’s not a Mariner’s jersey but I feel like since that’s her favorite team it should be at least the same colors. These are the colors of a Mets jersey.
(please excuse the formatting for this answer. Thank you)

Movie Marathon – What’s the last book you binge read?

I’ve actually been reading a lot of books really quickly, lately…I’ve spent a lot of time, just, reading which is pretty nice. So, there’s been several books that I read in under 24 hours but I think I’ll say that the last book I actually binge read was probably Ice Dogs by Terry Lynn Johnson. I read this in one sitting, in a little under 2 hours I think. Someone I know had been RAVING about this book so I picked it up one day and just gave it a go. It was…pretty interesting? A really cool adventure, and crazy that it was realistic fiction. I learned some survival skills and it was cool that it was about dog sledding since you don’t see many books about that.

Letter to Santa – What’s a book that’s on your wishlist this year?

Well, here’s the one question that is a biiiit out of season. But fortunately, there’s birthdays! Eventually! I’m not actually gonna tell you when my birthday is (sorry guys) but I WILL tell you it’s in less than a year. I know, that really narrowed it down.
Aaanyways, either my birthday or Christmas will come first or maybe someone will just give me a book randomly (every reader’s dream). But the book that I probably want most for a holiday would be…A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. I’ve heard a lot about this book and it’s a mystery and I’ve recently been reading more mysteries and they’re super interesting and yeah I just want to read this now!

~Tags~

Well it’s a little late in the season to tag anyone, However, there’s been several new bloggers in the goodreads YA book blogs group (check it out if you haven’t already!) and I thought I’d tag them! So I’ll tag:

• Ollie @Ollie’s Corner
• Trisha @Books, Reviews and Procrastination
• Rania @Rania’s Rambling Reads
• Maple @Books By Moonlight

Well, friends, that’s this week’s post! Have you read any of these books! And be sure to check out the four blogs I tagged–they’re new bloggers and would love your support! As always, thank you so much for popping by and checking my post out! It means the world. Stay safe and keep on reading!