I could not bring myself to set up a tbr this month. I mean, I kind of have one? I have 21 books I want to read. I mean, I know I’ve been reading 12 a month, so that’s a little over half, but dang. I just can’t decide! Too many good things!
I am so excited to be on the Autumn Court! We had a twist this month – it’s actually Seelie vs Unseelie! Unseelie FTW! Now, let’s get into these books I can’t wait to read.
There you have it. My super huge tbr. What do you think? Do we share any of the same books? What is your first book for June? Let me know in the comments below! I’m starting with Seven Endless Forests!
Guys I am so proud of myself this month! For the first time ever, I finished all my arcs releasing this month! This is giving me a huge boost of motivation to keep it up!
I competed in both Words & Whimsy Reading Challenge and the Bookemon Readathon. I finished criteria in WWRC, which I’m always excited about. I ended up reading 12 books again this month! I also read a few books over 600 pages, which is kind of unheard of from me!
My favorite read this month was From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L Armentrout. I couldn’t put it down. My least favorite was probably The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea. I just had a lot of trouble with the pacing and found myself getting bored.
🌞 Goodreads Goal : 53/120. I am FOUR books AHEAD of schedule! WHAT?! 🌞 I read 12 books again, same as last month, but I read 5025 pages! Almost 1k more than last month. I had some chunkers! My average rating was also up from last month – 3.88! 🌞 Genre wise, I read six fantasies, two contemporaries, and two thrillers, and one each of scifi and anthology! 🌞 This was a very YA fantasy heavy month – 5 of them! In total I read 9 YAs, two adult and one new adult book. 🌞 And my ARCs! I am so proud to say I finished all eight May arcs! I have 10 next month. I think I can do it!
🌞 Yearly Goal Check In 🌞
🌞 Goal of 10 books a month : I passed this again with 12! I hope to keep up the momentum! 🌞 TBR Posts : I missed last Sunday! I’m still trying to figure out a system for blogging and working out and cooking all with a three year old. My husband helps, but let’s face it. My kid is a momma’s boy! I’ll get there eventually! 🌞 Words & Whimsy : I got to chat with a great MG author this month, Sarah Mlynowski! It was so much fun and she was so knowledgeable! 🌞 Words & Whimsy Reading Challenge : Team Gaia won the Broken Worlds edition! Next month is a theme everyone is sure to love – be sure to check it out! 🌞 Mithah Reads : This poor little blog. I have so much to catch up on! I’m going to make more of an effort this month, I pinky promise!
What did your May reading month look like? What was your favorite read? Let me know in the comments below!
🏊♀️ Title : Breath Like Water 🏊♀️ Author : Anna Jarzab 🏊♀️ Publisher : Inkyard Press 🏊♀️ Publish Date : May 19, 2020 🏊♀️ Genre : YA, Contemporary, Romance 🏊♀️ BookForm : E-ARC 🏊♀️ Pages : 416 🏊♀️ Dates Read : May 16 – 🏊♀️ Rating : 🏊♀️🏊♀️🏊♀️🏊♀️.5
Thank you to Inkyard Press for an invite to the blog tour and a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This beautifully lyrical contemporary novel features an elite teen swimmer with Olympic dreams, plagued by injury and startled by unexpected romance, who struggles to balance training with family and having a life. For fans of Sarah Dessen, Julie Murphy and Miranda Kenneally.
Susannah Ramos has always loved the water. A swimmer whose early talent made her a world champion, Susannah was poised for greatness in a sport that demands so much of its young. But an inexplicable slowdown has put her Olympic dream in jeopardy, and Susannah is fighting to keep her career afloat when two important people enter her life: a new coach with a revolutionary training strategy, and a charming fellow swimmer named Harry Matthews.
As Susannah begins her long and painful climb back to the top, her friendship with Harry blossoms into passionate and supportive love. But Harry is facing challenges of his own, and even as their bond draws them closer together, other forces work to tear them apart. As she struggles to balance her needs with those of the people who matter most to her, Susannah will learn the cost–and the beauty–of trying to achieve something extraordinary.
This book so was so beautiful. It was lyrical, it was descriptive, it was heartbreaking and joyous. And it was so so real.
First let me get out these trigger warnings. I don’t do them often, and nothing is super graphic, but I do want to mention the book contains struggling with mental health and self harm.
Okay, so. Susannah is a world champion swimmer. The summer after she won, she hit a growth spurt, and hasn’t been the same since. Dave has always been her coach. He’s an Olympian, so he knows what it takes to get there. This year, he hires a new coach, Beth. Susannah swears she won’t swim for her, but after finally having enough of Dave’s abusive behavior, she swims for Beth and gets better. But does she have what it takes to make the Olympics?
Along with swimming, this book mainly features Susannah’s relationship with Harry, another boy on the swim team. It is her first love. I love books about first love. The feelings are all new and exciting, and you’re just fumbling around, and it’s just great. Their relationship turned out to be so much deeper than I expected. It’s nice to see a deep, meaningful relationship between high schoolers.
Breath Like Water also showed some strong family bonds. The relationship with Susannah’s parents and sister was a huge part of the book and I loved it. I feel like I don’t get a lot of that in ya contemporaries, so it’s always a nice surprise when I do.
If you love ya contemporaries, with strong familial bonds and a backdrop of sports, this book is for you!
Anna Jarzab is a Midwesterner turned New Yorker. She lives and works in New York City and is the author of such books as Red Dirt, All Unquiet Things, The Opposite of Hallelujah, and the Many-Worlds series. Visit her online at annajarzab.com and on Twitter, @ajarzab.
Are you planning on reading Breath Like Water? Have you already read it? Let me know in the comments below!
Sheesh I don’t know what happened this week. I’ve joined a workout/nutrition accountability group and it’s been hard to work that into my routine along with everything else! It also didn’t help I was going to sleep before 8pm every night. ONE DAY I will figure out how to stay up like an adult. One day.
So I chose the vampire emoji today because 8/15 books we are looking at today are vampire books! I loved Crave recently, so maybe I’ll find another series to keep!
We are starting at 1790 books. Let’s see where we end!
Well we are ending at 1782! Slowly but surely making it through the pile. I’m excited for the new vampire series I found. I hope it lives up to my expectations! I will say they are high after reading Crave!
What did you think of my choices? Would you have done anything different? Let me know in the comments below!
Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms out there! I am so excited to spend the day with my son. He will be three on Tuesday and I just can’t believe how fast time is flying!
Today we’re starting the TBR at 1800. I keep adding more books! I can’t help it, they all sound so good! Hopefully we can weed some out today!
We got down to 1792! It helps that I read a series I still had listed as ‘Want to Read’. We still have a long way to go but I’m so excited to weed out all these books I won’t read!
What did you think of my choices? Let me know in the comments below!
💕 Title : What I Like About You 💕 Author : Marisa Kanter 💕 Publisher : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers 💕 Publish Date : April 7, 2020 💕 Genre : Contemporary, Romance, YA 💕 Book Form : E-ARC 💕 Pages : 416 💕 Dates Read : Apr 26 – Apr 27 💕 Rating : 💕💕💕💕
💕 Thank you to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. 💕
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.
There are a million things that Halle Levitt likes about her online best friend, Nash.
He’s an incredibly talented graphic novelist. He loves books almost as much as she does. And she never has to deal with the awkwardness of seeing him in real life. They can talk about anything…
Except who she really is.
Because online, Halle isn’t Halle—she’s Kels, the enigmatically cool creator of One True Pastry, a YA book blog that pairs epic custom cupcakes with covers and reviews. Kels has everything Halle doesn’t: friends, a growing platform, tons of confidence, and Nash.
That is, until Halle arrives to spend senior year in Gramps’s small town and finds herself face-to-face with real, human, not-behind-a-screen Nash. Nash, who is somehow everywhere she goes—in her classes, at the bakery, even at synagogue.
Nash who has no idea she’s actually Kels.
If Halle tells him who she is, it will ruin the non-awkward magic of their digital friendship. Not telling him though, means it can never be anything more. Because while she starts to fall for Nash as Halle…he’s in love with Kels.
– Goodreads
Oh, I love books that mesh online worlds and the real world. Halle has an altar ego – Kels. Kels is super cool on twitter and the blogging world. She has a great YA blog that pairs books with cupcakes. She’s quick, witty, and sure of herself.
Her best friend online is Nash. He is an artist. They share each other’s stuff, comment on everything, and talk in DMs. So what happens when Kels moves to middle of nowhere Connecticut and meets Nash? Please read the book and find out!
This was such a cute ya contemporary. I loved the fact that it was about a YA blogger. I also used to bake cupcakes obsessively and it really made me want to start back.
I had such a love/hate relationship with Halle. At times I just wanted to scream at her but at times I related to her so much.
The love between Halle and Nash was PERFECT. It reminded me of being young and in love. They had great times, and they fought. It seemed so real!
Another positive aspect of this book is Jewish rep! I have never read another YA with Jewish rep. I loved learning about Jewish church services and other holidays they celebrate!
The only issue I had with this book is that Halle made some comments about adults reading YA novels that were not positive. I am an adult – I’m 30. There’s no more denying. The majority of what I read is ya, so the comments honestly made me very sad.
Even with those comments, I would still recommend this book! It was so cute and fun and the romance was great!
Have you read What I Like About You? What were your thoughts? Let me know in the comments below!
🏈 Title : Jane’s Team 🏈 Author : Janie Marie 🏈 Publisher : Kindle 🏈 Publish Date : April 2, 2020 🏈 Genre : YA, Romance, Sports 🏈 Book Form : E-ARC 🏈 Pages : 375 pages 🏈 Dates Read : Apr 25 – Apr 28 🏈 Rating : 🏈.5
🏈 Thank you to Netgalley for a free copyof this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and feelings are my own. 🏈
When you’re in love with your best friend, life is complicated. When he’s also your stepbrother, it’s a nightmare.
Jane’s apparently a magnet for chaos. Because now she’s agreed to tutor her stepbrother’s enemy, and that sexy bad boy might have a thing for her. She might also love that a tingle surrounds her soul whenever he’s close. Throw his two brothers into the mix, dangerous rivals looking to destroy every one of them, and parents controlling her love life. It’s safe to say she’s wandered into the apocalypse.
At least being torn between four hot guys isn’t the end of the world. Just kidding. It totally is. But they’ll all realize something.
Jane’s the ruler of her life. No one else. Long live the queen . . . and her kings.
– Goodreads
Okay, look. I can get down with some freaky, forbidden romances. Don’t bother me one little bit. However, there were some glowering issues with this book. The more I thought about it, the more mad I got. That’s why you see the rating changed from 3 stars on my April wrap up to 1.5 stars now.
This story follows Jane who has been in love with her step-brother, David, since before they were step siblings. She also has a crush on the jerk next door, Ryder. Jane is forced to tutor Ryder, star of the football team, and learns maybe he isn’t such a jerk after all. Then somehow his two brothers Luc and Tercero are factored in and she just.can’t.choose. Four super hot guys fawning over this girl who’s never even been kissed.
It starts with Ryder and David, and they decide to share and let her explore and make up her mind. Then comes the other two brothers, and they decide to be one big happy family.
All that? Good. Doesn’t bother me one bit. You know what DOES bother me? THE MEN IN THIS BOOK!
I felt every man was so misogynist and just, ugh. They didn’t treat Jane with respect at all. They all try to boss her around. It was the things that were said to her that really pissed me off. Jane, of course, was very insecure in their arrangement. She wanted all the guys, yes, but she was scared of how they would be perceived. Constantly wondered why she couldn’t just choose one. She would say things like, “I’m so dumb” or “I’m such a how” and the boys would smirk their sexy smirk, say “I know.” or “A little” and start kissing her. WHAT?! I thought about this for days after and just kept getting more and more angry. Who says that to someone they ‘love’?! It didn’t seem to be in a joking manner, either. They just.. almost seemed like they were saying it to shut her up? I don’t know. I’m getting angry thinking about it again.
The romance scenes weren’t bad. They were spicy and well done. Like I said, that wasn’t the issue.
This is also an alternate universe for the author’s Gods and Monsters series. You don’t have to read that to understand this book. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be picking it up.
Have you read Jane’s Team or Gods and Monsters? What did you think? Let me know in the comments!
So excited to take part in another week of #5OnMyTBR! Here’s how it works:
#5OnMyTBR is a bookish meme hosted by E. @Local Bee Hunter’s Nook and you can learn more about it here or in the post announcing it. It occurs every Monday when we post about 5 books on our TBR.
This week is one of my favorite genres – contemporary!
This is on my TBR this month and I’m so excited to get to it! This follows a couple on the same day over 4 years time. I can’t wait to see how they grow together during their highschool years!
Another week to clear this forever long TBR! I did go an make sure a lot of my arcs were on my TBR, so we’re starting at 1794, which is more than last week. Let’s get right into it!
I’m kind of a sucker for stories set in New Orleans. Plus this is a woman who is falling in love and trying to prove her innocence but has secrets she has sworn to take to the grave!
May has some GREAT releases, guys! Even though a lot of books are getting pushed back, I still had to narrow down to the top 5 I am looking forward to. Let’s jump right in!
The Betrothed by Kiera Cass
Release Date: May 5, 2020
I LOVED the Selection series. I can’t wait to read her next romance!
I can’t wait for this. I think I may do a Hunger Games reread next month with this at the end. I don’t know why I didn’t fit it in my TBR this month. Just too much to read!
What are your most anticipated releases this month? Let me know in the comments below!
Mithah Reads 