Do you hoard special editions?

We live in one of the best times to get books ever.  There are millions of copies printed every day, and of course publishers have to do something to give people the incentive to buy their books. So every once in a while publishers will create a “special” or “collectors” edition of a book. Each of these editions will have extra content or a different physical appearance to the original book. This is totally just a way for the publishers to make more money off of people, but unfortunately it works way to well for my own good. They could literally take all of my paycheck every week with all the amazing editions out there. I am very guilty...

ARC Review: Furyborn by Claire Legrand

Title: Furyborn (Empirium #1) Author: Claire Legrand Publication Date: May 22, 2018 Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire Pages: 512 Add to Goodreads Follows two fiercely independent young women, centuries apart, who hold the power to save their world...or doom it. When assassins ambush her best friend, the crown prince, Rielle Dardenne risks everything to save him, exposing her ability to perform all seven kinds of elemental magic. The only people who should possess this extraordinary power are a pair of prophesied queens: a queen of light and salvation and a queen of blood and destruction. To prove she is the Sun Queen, Rielle must endure seven...

Top Ten Tuesday #189: Dystopian worlds I don't want to live in

Today's Topic:  Top Ten Dystopian Worlds  I’d Never Want to Live In This topic has made me realize how badly I need to get back into dystopian books! I have been on a fantasy kick for the last year and I miss all of these absolutely terrible worlds so much! These are the top ten dystopian worlds I would never want to live in, along with my reasons why.  Angelfall by Susan Ee // Angels are trying to murder everyone The Crossing by Mandy Hager // Crazy cult murderers Enclave by Ann Aguirre // Zombies Eve by Anna Carey // Basically The Handmaid's Tale Flashfall by Jenny Moyer // Certain death by radiation The...

Weekly Recap: 5/20 - 5/26

TRACY'S HAPPENINGS OFF THE BLOG Happy long weekend, everyone! I hope everyone who's celebrating has good people to share it with (or at least good food)! My week has been pretty busy between candle making and dog sitting, which led to a slow read around the blog. :/ My husband and I finally bought a generator in preparation for this year's hurricane season... which seems to be upon us already. Here's hoping we don't have to use it this year! I received my first ever preorder from Goldsboro Books! I have the other two in the series, but I got them both on eBay. It was much more fun getting it straight from the source! I've also been...

ARC Review: The Accidental Bad Girl by Maxine Kaplan

Title: The Accidental Bad Girl Author: Maxine Kaplan Publication Date: May 15, 2018Publisher: Amulet BooksPages: 384Add to Goodreads After getting caught hooking up with her best friend’s ex on the last day of junior year, Kendall starts senior year friendless and ostracized. She plans to keep her head down until she graduates. But after discovering her online identity has been hacked and she’s being framed for stealing from a dealer, Kendall is drawn into a tenuous partnership with the mastermind of a drug ring lurking in the shadows of her Brooklyn private school. If she wants to repair her tattered reputation and save her neck, she’ll...

ARCs and the pressure they come with

Don’t get me wrong, I love receiving books, reading them and then posting reviews, but lately I’ve been feeling the pressure. I got so many ARCs last year at BookCon and Yallfest, plus a bunch through trades and a few from publishers and authors. You can see how this kind of snowballed. I had so many ARCs to read that I was stressing myself out. I’m fact, I’m still stressing myself out a bit. It’s gotten to the point now that as I’m slowly working through them that I’m finding a lot of books I was highly anticipating fell horribly short and a lot of the already published books I wanted to read were just sitting on my shelf. Frankly, it’s...

Top Ten Tuesday #188: Weird character names

Today's Topic:  Top Ten Best Weirdest Character Names So. I can't remember character names to save my life. Literally two days after I finish a book I'll have to look it up to remember names. Let's be honest - weird sticks in the brain better than good, and that's how I ended up listing the top ten weirdest names that I could remember.  Elder - Across the Universe by Beth Revis Penryn - Angelfall by Susan Ee Neely - Between the Spark and the Burn by April Genevieve Tucholke Ignifex - Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge Deuce - Enclave by Ann Aguirre Peeta (Bread) - The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins Rafe...

Weekly Recap: 5/13 - 5/19

TRACY'S HAPPENINGS OFF THE BLOG Hi everyone! This week has been extremely... rainy. We've had flood warnings, it looks like the Magic Kingdom keeps getting partially flooded, and it just won't stop! The forecast shows another solid ten days of rain, so hopefully we don't go under! Other than that, things have been uneventful. I've been working on candles, of course, and finishing up Supernatural season 13. I did actually get some reading in, but switching back and forth between books means I didn't actually finish much! XD NEW BOOKS THIS WEEK No new books this week! THIS WEEK I READ CHELCIE'S HAPPENINGS...

Saturday Screen Time #18: Mutants save the day!

Another slow movie week, especially considering I didn't even watch the second half of the first one. I actually spent most of the week finishing up Supernatural season 12, in anticipation of season 13 coming to Netflix very soon! But we're here to talk movies, so without further ado... THIS WEEK IN SCREEN TIME The Florida Project - You guys. I tried. So hard. I couldn't do it. Going in, I knew the basic premise of this movie, but I kind of expected, you know, a movie? Instead, I watched 45 minutes of some kids running around different motels and playing. There were some shots of one of the hotel managers talking to people, wrapping...

Audiobook Review: Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray

Title: Lair of Dreams (The Diviners #2) Author: Libba Bray Publication Date: August 25, 2015Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young ReadersPages: 613Add to Goodreads The longing of dreams draws the dead, and this city holds many dreams. After a supernatural showdown with a serial killer, Evie O’Neill has outed herself as a Diviner. With her uncanny ability to read people’s secrets, she’s become a media darling, earning the title “America’s Sweetheart Seer.” Everyone’s in love with the city’s newest It Girl…everyone except the other Diviners. Piano-playing Henry DuBois and Chinatown resident Ling Chan are two Diviners struggling to...

Anti-haul #2: Winter & Spring 2018

I did my first anti-haul post for Fall 2017 and kind of forgot about them after that... whoops! Today I'm catching up. The idea is to share the books that I will NOT be purchasing instead of the books I'm excited to read. Here's my anti-haul for Winter 2017/2018 and Spring 2018! ACE OF SHADES Last year I tried. I tried SO HARD to read Daughter of the Burning City! And I was so, so bored. At first, I thought maybe Ace of Shades would be the book that redeemed Amanda Foody for me, but I've not heard great things. In fact, every friend I've talked to who has read it actually kind of hated it. I just don't think she's the author for me.  BATMAN:...

ARC Review: Legendary by Stephanie Garber

Title: Legendary (Caraval #1) Author: Stephanie Garber Publication Date: May 29, 2018Publisher: Flatiron BooksPages: 416Add to Goodreads Review for book 1 A heart to protect. A debt to repay. A game to win. After being swept up in the magical world of Caraval, Donatella Dragna has finally escaped her father and saved her sister Scarlett from a disastrous arranged marriage. The girls should be celebrating, but Tella isn’t yet free. She made a desperate bargain with a mysterious criminal, and what Tella owes him no one has ever been able to deliver: Caraval Master Legend’s true name. The only chance of uncovering Legend’s identity is to win...

Top Ten Tuesday #187: Books I loved ranting about

Today's Topic:  Top Ten Books I Hated but Am Really Glad I Read (Because They Gave Me a Chance to Rant) You guys. Little known fact: I love to rant. Of course, I hate reading books that suck, but the one good thing that comes out of them is that they give me the opportunity to rant about how bad they are. These are my top ten books that I've hated but loved writing rants about! (Today's titles link directly to the aforementioned rants.) Across the Universe by Beth Revis The Cage by Megan Shepherd The Crown by Kiera Cass Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard The Glittering Court by Richelle Mead The Goddess Test by...

Weekly Recap: 5/6 - 5/12

TRACY'S HAPPENINGS OFF THE BLOG Hi everyone! I actually read some books this week! Shocking, I know. On Tuesday I picked my husband up from a business trip, so we've been hopping around to all our favorite spots so he can catch up on some things he's missed... like Infinity War! Spoilers: it's just as good the second time! We also have tickets for Deadpool 2 this week and I can't wait! We spent yesterday visiting a semi-local German bakery and a winery with friends. Overall, not a week I can complain much about. Things did have to get serious, though, when we took our youngest dog to the vet to talk about medication. As it turns out,...