ShayKay's Review of Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett

Goodreads: Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett

    DON'T READ THE SYNOPSIS!

Synopsis from the Book

The one guy Bailey Rydell can't stand is actually the boy of her dreams - she just doesn't know it yet.

Classic movie fan Bailey "Mink" Rydell has spent months crushing on a witty film geek she only knows online as Alex. Two coasts separate the teens until Bailey moves in with her dad, who lives in the same California surging town as her online crush.

Faced with doubts (what if he's a creep in real life - or worse?), Bailey doesn't tell Alex she's moved to his hometown. Or that she's landed a job at the local tourist-trap museum. Or that she's been heckled daily by the irritatingly hot museum security guard, Porter Roth - a.k.a. her new archnemesis. But life is a whole lot messier than in the movies, especially when Bailey discovers those tricky fine lines dividing hate, love, and whatever it is she's starting to feel for Porter.

And as the summer months go by, Bailey must choose whether to cling to a dreamy online fantasy in Alex or take a risk on an imperfect reality with Porter. The choice is both simpler and more complicated than she realized, because Porter Roth is hiding a secret of his own: Porter is Alex.... Approximately.

Thoughts Before Reading

Well first off this is one of those synopses that I hate! Like why tell me Porter and Alex are the same person already? That is something that I should've learned as I'm reading. Maybe there is some sort of twist in the book that makes it interesting as to why the book already spoiled itself.

Anyways I picked this book up because I've been seeing it a lot online through BookTube, Facebook groups, and other places. It sounds like it is going to be a light, fun read and I'm in the mood for this stuff. I devoured Beach Read and I need to read an ARC that I have but this one was just screaming at me. Plus it is a new to me author and I got it mostly because I saw it on the clearance rack. As we all know I'm always wary of new authors and paying full price for them because I have no clue if I will like them, and I've been burned in the past for doing that (ahem Evie Drake). But it sounds so cute and my bookstore had it on sale so here we are. I've been wanting to read it for at least a year now because I know I've been seeing it around a lot and it sounds so cute! So we'll see how this goes.

As for my HouseCupAThon that I'm doing this month, I think this book might fall under the 'Burrow' challenge and it is 390 pages so it'll be 100 points altogether. A great thing about this readathon is you don't have to stick within the same challenges to get points. Just reading a book will get you points, such as this one I would've gotten 50 points regardless of reading it and I love it. I haven't posted an official TBR for this readathon because I'm a mood reader and I want to have the opportunity to just pick up a book. The only stipulation that I gave myself is that it has to come off my own shelves so I have PLENTY to work with. I try to use only books I already have for readathons because they help me work through my piled up books. I'm getting ready to do an unhaul too I think.

Halfway Through Thoughts

So I'm not hating this book, but I'm definitely annoyed with it! Since the beginning of the book, I've kept wondering when Bailey would find out Porter's background, especially since the synopsis gave everything away I usually assume when that happens we will find out really soon in the book. Well, let me tell you I've been asking myself when she realizes this since Chapter 6. The chapters aren't that short and since she has been in California interacting with Porter I've been screaming at the book it's Porter! I'm shocked that I've been reading this book so fast but since my husband and dad are currently working on the floor I have some free time and have been plowing through this book. If I wasn't determined to see if there are any big revelations throughout the book or just curious about when she will figure out this book I think I would DNF it. Like I said I don't hate it, I'm just very frustrated with it. I'm now currently in chapter 15 and Bailey still does not know who Alex is in real life, has been working with Porter every day almost, AND SEARCHING THE BOARDWALK FOR ALEX BASED OFF OF HER CLUES SHE'S ACCUMULATED. It's just so frustrating. If the book was going to take so long for her to figure out who he is then the synopsis really shouldn't have just thrown all of the secrets out there.

After Thoughts

Well, I finished the book. Overall I think the book is 2-3 stars, at best. First off no one figures out who is who until chapter 24 and even then it is because Porter is at the house for family game night and her father called her Mink and he just storms out! Okay first I thought it would be so cute/funny for him to out her secret to Porter but she never expected Porter and Alex to be the same person so I could see how funny it would be for him to be like at the museum checking up on her at her new job and calls her Mink! That would've been perfect! But then his reaction is so irritating. I don't know if I got so irritated with this book because it is a YA book or what but I just could not get over my frustration of the fact that the reader goes into this book already knowing that Porter is Alex! I think the synopsis should've have said that, heck it could've not mentioned Porter at all and the book would've already been so much better! Another thing that I found interesting was the backstory of why she's called Mink. I was expecting it to have something to do with her shyness or something but the fact that it had to deal with her wanting a fur when she's a child!? It was just so annoying.

I wanted to love this book! It had some really interesting things such as the mixed writing styles, the overall story sounded really cute, and even some of the characters were really fun to read. Now thinking back to my rating I posted on GoodReads it is definitely two stars. I've gone back to update it. I just can't give it anymore because the synopsis giving everything away, the fact that it took the whole entire book for them to figure out their online relationship, and then the cringiness! The book had really awkward sex scenes! Like why even put them in this book? I get that they had that relationship but it didn't need to be so cringy and just coming out of nowhere. I also felt like the important things were being overlooked while the book focused on the side stuff, like the whole thing with her mom! How do you go all summer without talking to someone you were just living with, and on top of it your parent? It was just like the book kept adding a lot of weird stuff trying to have a lot of things in it when the book really didn't need it. I didn't even add it to my HouseCupAThon chart. I did make an aesthetic for it though. 

Hopefully, my next book is better!

ShayKay's Review of Beach Read by Emily Henry

GoodReads: Beach Read by Emily Henry

Synopsis from Book

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a Happily Ever After, he kills of his entire cast.

They're polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months they're living they're living in neighboring each houses, broke and bogged down with writer's block.

Then one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of heir creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She'll take him on field trips worth of any rom-com montage and he'll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really. 

Thoughts Before Reading

I've been thinking about reading a Book of the Month book since I'm getting a pile going and I've kept getting add-ons lately so I need to tackle this pile soon. Since everyone in the Book of the Month groups I'm in over on Facebook has been talking about how amazing Beach Read is I've decided that it's time to give it a try. It sounds so interesting and I've been wanting to read it ever since I got it and now is finally that time. I usually don't read the synopsis until I'm typing it up here and it sounds really interesting and I see why I was instantly drawn to it. I really was hoping to get to while I was at the beach and really wanted to get a picture of it on the beach but I got married instead so it was a really hectic weekend, but so fun! I've heard that it isn't really as romantic as it sounds so I'm really curious to see how it goes. I've already read the first chapter and OMG IT HAS CHAPTER TITLES! I am a sucker for chapter titles! I cannot wait to really jump into this book.

Chapter 1 of Beach Read

Thoughts Halfway Through

I am so obsessed with this book! I love the way Henry writes and I definitely need to lookup more of her books! Right now I'm currently renovating my bedroom, hallway, and living room so most of my day is spent up working on those. Right now I currently have the base color down and the flooring should start soon. But for the most part, my bedroom is getting a full remodel almost, but that carpet needed to go. Dogs plus carpet equals disaster, at least for us. I picked this book for Book of the Month without really thinking about it too much. It sounded like something that I would like and I needed a book because I got an add-on, but I currently couldn't tell you which add-on I got that month. Then I kept seeing people raving about it on my BOTM groups on Facebook and so I picked it up. But to be completely fair when a book gets a lot of hype its always 50/50 with me being on the same page. Sometimes they just don't click with me. To be honest I really wanted to start it while I was at the beach because I wanted a picture of it on the beach but I got married instead so it was a hectic weekend.

Another thing a lot of people are saying is that this book isn't really a romance novel like it is being sold as, and I can see that but at the same time there are lot of romantic moments. I just don't think it is romance-driven so I kind of agree with them. So far the romance is very slow burning and not the focus of the book, which I really like. So far the book overall is 5 stars for me, it is light and cute, and really reminds me of books like Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center and Well Met by Jen DeLuca. It has the potential to be one of my favorite 2020 Book of the Month books so let's see how this finishes out!

After Thoughts

Well, I flew through this book. I hit the halfway point yesterday (6/3) and then finished later that night. I just could not put the book down once I started it. Luckily for me, I finished most of the stuff I needed to do for my bedroom earlier in the day and my husband and dad have been working on the floor. Just as I thought this book ended on a high note with 5 stars from me. I really enjoyed all the whole book! I am a sucker for books that use different fonts throughout the book, usually when there is a text message or email, so they stand out from the rest. Then the chapter headings too! How could I not have given this book such a high rating? I really enjoyed the whole book and there was never really a dull moment for me. I actually have no notes in my annoying column for it either which is a shocker! Usually, I am really lenient with new books and new authors and on a reread I get more analytical but since I started taking notes on my phone for my blog I've stayed pretty consistent with writing everything down, most since I always have my phone or iPad so it's super easy just to notate something. 

January is probably one of my all-time favorite characters now. She was so fun to read about and follow her story because it wasn't your usual romance book. She was dealing with so much in the book and you follow her grieving, learning how to forgive someone who's dead, figure out who she is, and even find love again. The book overall came full circle and tied everything up. I saw one GoodReads how someone mentioned how this book is the perfect mix of chick-lit and romance and I totally agree because I wouldn't label this as a romance book. I just think it was a perfect summer read and I have no complaints about the book. I really want to read more Emily Henry books now to see if she has the same type of writing style. 

I had a little fun with making pictures for this book this time around I did the picture above first because the town that January and Gus live in is called North Bear Shores and I thought that would be an adorable play on the words! I don't think anyone else got it but it's my own cute little thing and it came out perfect. I had to make that first then I added it to book aesthetic this time.

Some other fun things that I did with this book took some pictures around the house with it. I don't like my Instagram to look all the same I like to see books in the wild so I've been taking pictures around the house when I feel like it or when I'm out and about. So since my wall was dry I took this cute little picture (below) of the naked book with my naked wall. You can still see the painters tape everywhere because I was still doing touch-ups and the floor hasn't started yet. I still have some more touch-ups to do. Then I while I was sitting outside I took a picture of a stack of books that I had on my table. If I was smart I would've pulled my book I was read out and let it sit in front of the stack, but for now, this is okay. 

If you guys have a better format for me adding pictures please let me know because I'm always so stumped when I place pictures throughout the blogs so sometimes they look like I just threw them in. Plus if you want me to make a different type of format. I've been thinking about adopting the rating system that Audible uses so like a rating for characters, the story overall, and maybe writing style. I don't know, just something I've been thinking about. Until next time my beautiful fellow readers! 

ShayKay's Review of Hideaway by Nora Roberts

Goodreads: Hideaway by Nora Roberts

Synopsis From Book

A family ranch in Big Sur country and a legacy of Hollywood royalty set the stage for Nora Roberts's emotional new suspense novel.

Caitlyn Sullivan came from a long line of Hollywood royalty, stretching back to her Irish immigrant great-grandfather. At nine, she was already a star - yet still, an innocent child who loved to play hide-and-seek with her cousins at the family home in Big Sur. It was during one of those games that she disappeared.

Some may have considered her a pampered princess, but Cate was in fact a smart, scrappy fighter, and she managed to escape her abductors. Callan Cooper was shocked to find the bloodied, exhausted girl huddled in his house - but when the teenager and his family heard her story, they provided refuge, reuniting her with her loved ones. 

Cate's ordeal, though, was far from over. First came the discovery of a shocking betrayal that would send someone she'd trusted to prison. Then there were years spent away in western Ireland, peaceful and protected but with restlessness growing in her soul.

Finally, she would return to Los Angeles, gathering the courage to act again and get past the trauma that had derailed her life. What she didn't yet know was that two seeds had been planted that long-ago right - one of a great love, and one of terrible vengeance.

My Book Aesthetic for Hideaway by Nora Roberts, I'll explain each picture at the end of the post along with a spoiler tag so if you don't want to know why some these things are on here you don't have too.

Thoughts Before Reading

I cannot wait to jump into this book. Roberts/Robb has become one of my all-time favorite authors and I have been dying to go to one of her book signings at Turn the Page Bookstore in Boonsboro, Maryland but the last few times I've tried to go something comes up causing me not able to go or I just don't have the money. It's only a four-hour drive from where I live and eventually, I'll make it there for a book signing in person but for now, I was able to preorder my book and when you preorder a book from Roberts on Turn the Page's website you can get her autograph! I'm in love with my book. I actually just got back from the beach and I was hoping that I would've had the book to take with me to the beach but it got here the day after I left. But it's okay it was a bonus for when I got to the house!  Here is a picture of what the signature looks like! I'm in love with it I cannot wait to jump into the book! I plan on it being my next read and even though it is a chunker I usually fly through her books. This one sounds like an amazing read! I'm going to try to do a book aesthetic for it. I'm trying to get a little more in my Instagram posts instead of just my BOTM reading challenges. I should be able to do the middle of the booked check-in too along with final thoughts! So let's see what happens! As always I'll try to stay spoiler-free and I'll make sure to post spoiler alerts if anything comes up that I can't avoid talking about.

 Halfway Through Thoughts

I'm obsessed with this book! I love the characters and the suspense that keeps getting thrown at me! It reminds me of a lot of Shelter in Place, which is my all-time favorite Nora Roberts book! Keep in mind I said Nora Roberts because Naked in Death is my all-time favorite JD Robb book and if the two were in a competing ring against each other I'd have to go with Naked in Death since it started my obsession for Robb/Roberts and this series is tied with Harry Potter in my book as all-time favorite series. Anyways I tend to really love celebrity books like Hideaway because they just open up a world that I personally find so fascinating and this book is no different. I kind of think it takes a new look at this aspect because we are looking at a celebrity dynasty and you aren't watching Cate get famous if anything we are watching her learn how to be just Cate and its refreshing take on the whole celebrity trope. The Sullivans and the Coopers are amazing! It's like they are their own two stories and I love how they merge together so seamlessly. I feel like every time I think the book is going to do one thing it does the completely opposite thing. I'm so curious to know what happens with Dillon Cooper because I was so freaking sure that they were going to end up together but how are they going to do that now!? 

Cate has been a character that I have found really interesting, she's not the hard to love character. She's so far been really interesting and hard to NOT love. She's so likable and you really are rooting for her the whole entire time so far. So far whenever she tries to settle down and live her life that is when everything goes bonkers and poor Cate is just always stuck in the middle of it all. As of right now, I don't know how this book wouldn't be a 5-star read! I mean I just said that I think this is going to beat Shelter in Place which is my favorite Roberts book! I just have to wait and see what happens! I should be done soon because I CANNOT PUT THIS THING DOWN!

Final Thoughts 

*****SPOILERS BELOW*****

Umm, so it got rough! I hate looking back at how I felt in the middle of the book and now looking at it I can't understand what went wrong. I was so in love with this book and could not put it down because it was so intense and such a good read but then it just blew up! So let's start with what has been annoying me with this book since our last check-in. First, the bad guys are so aggravating in this book. They are definitely characters that were written to hate them, which works out perfectly since they are the bad guys. But I mean they got to the point where they were out for revenge and was blaming Cate for doing everything that they chose to do to her. Since finishing this book I've come to realize that they weren't blaming Cate, he was actually trying to get revenge on the mother and that makes more sense but it was so hard to get through everything that they were doing to Cate because they were either power-hungry or fame-hungry. Now that could just annoy me but it is an annoyance that I could live with, it didn't even bother me until it got so repetitious and I just started seeing it coming instead of being shocking and suspenseful. Another thing that started to get really annoying for me is that the point of view started getting really hard to tell apart. Now, this is something that is very typical of Roberts writing and the POVs change rapidly all the time. It's just how she writes, at least these books. I've always had issues figuring out which POV I'm in but it usually gets really easy to tell who is who apart as the book goes along and it becomes not an issue. But this book wasn't the case. Instead, it just got really hard to tell who was whose point of view. But again it's an annoyance that I could've lived with because I was really enjoying the book regardless of whose point of view I was in and eventually I always figured it out. But it also became really prevalent towards the end of the book and at this point, I was just really annoyed with the book in general, and that is when everything that wouldn't normally bother me started bothering me. The biggest thing that really got to me is the fact that the book felt like it was trying to fit so much in and it tried rushing to get it all in but at the same time I was missing things that I would've loved to read about. For example, Cate was in New York and she had a serious boyfriend and when that relationship ends we did a time jump to her living in Big Sur now which is fine. But while reading it felt like she came to that conclusion pretty fast after the breakup and they even had a little moment of closure where they were able to run into each other and talk about everything that happened. But in reality, it turned out that Cate even dated another guy after that break up who was abusive plus dated another actor! But we only learn about it when she was talking to Dillon about their past dating history. I get that we wouldn't have seen Dillon's past since he wasn't the main character and that's fine. But the fact that Cate was the main character and we didn't get to see key moments in her life and just told about it after the fact got really annoying and this happened a lot towards the end. These time jumps just got too overwhelming in the end! I personally got so aggravated with it. Then the cherry on top I hated the ending of the book. I felt like we built up so much of Cate's life just for the ending to be thrown together in the last 10 pages. I felt like Cate deserved more of an ending than what she got and I really wanted more of Catelyn and Dillon's lives. I wanted to see how their lives ended. I know that they get married but give me a piece of it. Then all the suspense for that ending, I just felt let down some.

Anyways this last half of the book was probably three stars, and that's really pushing it. I just really struggled at the end but I needed to know how it ended and I finished it and I was just so disappointed. I just wanted more of Cate and Dillon or even be more suspenseful because I don't feel like the book's suspense ended the way it could have. It just really felt rush in the end. Before this book, I always found half stars annoying because I didn't get the point of them. I would always either round up or down depending on the book but this book I figured out the need for a half star. I gave this book a 4-stars on GoodReads, it really wasn't horrible like the paragraph makes it sound, but in reality, I think it really is a 3.5-star book. I LOVED the first half of this book. It was amazing and I was hooked onto every single word of it. But the second half of the book was rough.

Book Aesthetic Explanation

Starting at the top row on the right (All pictures including the background came from Pinterest)

• Cows in Big Sur by the Ocean (Pg. 33) - The cows are what Cate first sees when she is running up to the house and it is mentioned a couple times how the cows have some of the best views on the ranch.
• Gambit and Jubilee (Pg. 117) - Both of these characters come from X-Men and they are the names of the dogs that Hugh gets for Dillon after the Coopers help Catelyn after she escapes from her captors. I knew I needed a picture of these two because I'm obsessed with X-Men and whenever a book has any X-Men characters I will include them in the book aesthetic. Plus this was the cutest picture ever!
• Statue of Liberty (Pg. 4) - The statue is the first thing immigrants to the United States used to see, she welcomed people to the states and this is what Liam Sullivan first sees when he arrived here from Ireland.
• A Border Collie (Pg. 117) - technically this should've been a border collie like a dog because Dillon's dogs were only half border collie and they had brown on them, but I just went ahead and added a border collie.
• Ireland (All throughout the book) - I had to add something that represented Ireland since it had so much significance in the book. First off Liam immigrated to the States from Ireland, he started the whole Sullivan legacy. Then Rosemary and Aidan took Cate back to Ireland after she was kidnapped to keep her away from the public's eye.
• Hollywoodland Sign (Pg. 5) - First we never think of Hollywoodland since the sign today only says Hollywood, but I knew as soon as I read about Liam seeing it as soon as he got to LA I needed to see if I could find that sign to add. It's an amazing start to the Sullivan legacy.
• Pile of Playbills (Move to NYC) - I needed something to represent Cate and Lilly's move to NYC since it played such a big role in Cate's life and Lilly moved because she was starring in a play so I thought a pile of playbill would be perfect for it.
• Cop Lights (UMM THE WHOLE BOOK) - This is a suspense book and there were so many times all throughout the book that the cops were involved but I mean the book starts off with a kidnapping so you know the cops are going to be involved.
• Two People and Dogs Walking on the Beach (Cate and Dillon's Walk) - Even though it is a suspenseful book there are was a lot of romance in it too. The house on Big Sur had its own beach and Dillon and Cate would walk on it with the dogs and this picture represents them so perfectly.
• Marvel Logo (Pg. 249) - I couldn't add pictures of all of the animal's that Dillon had or the character that they were named after so I thought it would be perfect to throw Marvel's logo out there since his two dogs after Gambit and Jubilee were named Natasha and Stark and there were other animals with Marvel names too.
• Prison Cells (Catelyn's Mom and Her Captures) - There were 3 characters in the book that went to prison and two of them never left their cells.
• 'Silence, Recording in Progress' Sign (Cate's Job) - Although acting is in Cate's blood she ends up doing voiceover work for a living and stops being in front of the camera. But she always used her acting skills, even to save her life in the end.
• Both the Pictures of the Horse and the Comet are because of Dillon's horse that he helped become born when he was a child, he named him Comet. 
• Surfboard (Red's Surfboard) - Red was the Sheriff when Cate was kidnapped and he was an avid surfer
• Big Sur is where Cate ends up living, where she was kidnapped, the Coopers' ranch is there, and the Sullivan's house is there
• Coca Cola Cap all throughout the book the characters are drinking Coke!
• Lilly, there needed to be a picture that represents Cate's family and her G-Lil was named Lilly, she was Hugh's second wife and very prominent in Cate's life.
• Dark Woods because Cate ran through the woods during the dark after she escaped from the house she was being held captive in. 

The Spring Book of the Month Reading Challenge Tally

Here are my results from the 2020 spring book of the month reading challenge. It's not perfect, but it's not bad either. I just wanted to do more than what I had. I planned on finishing my Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone reread by now and it was going to go in the 'Children's Chapter Book' tile. I had a couple books that could've fit in 'Most Anticipated,' 'Book Cover with Your Favorite Color,' and 'Book within your Favorite Time Period.' But I just never got to them or kept trying to fill up other tiles first. I love bright colors in general so these ones on here could've fit there. Lately, every time I looked at this chart I kept thinking I had more or some on top of other tiles like I swear I had one on '400+ pages' and the 'NY Times' one, but I'm not seeing it on here. I thought about rereading Hunger Games for the Totalitarianism one but I just wasn't feeling like rereading it. I rearranged the books a couple times but this is the ultimate lineup. The only thing I can see happening to this chart now is if I finish the Wayward Children series between now and Sunday because I could see them fitting on 'Fairytale Retelling,' 'Favorite Colors,' and 'Classic Retelling.' If I do get to them the chart will resemble that, I wrote this up on 5/27 so we'll see what happens. I'm really wanting to read Hideaway by Nora Roberts right now! 

As for my favorite books on this chart, I think its a tie between The One by John Mars, Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston, and The Happily Ever Playlist by Abby Jimenez. My least favorite is probably After We Collided by Anna Todd, the middle books in the After series were so rough to get through. There's only one reread on here, Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan. I could also see me maybe finishing my Nora Roberts book that I got and if I do that then I will add it to the '400+' or 'Most Anticipated' tile. We will just have to wait and see. I do have a pretty busy next few days coming up. 

Just updated the final tally and I did manage to complete Hideaway by Nora Roberts! My review post will be up in a few days!

HouseCupAThon June 2020

I have been wanting to do some sort of readathon/bookathon for awhile now. The only one I have ever done before is the Buzzword Readathon that BooksandLaLa does but I haven't really done any of the backup stuff for it before, such as a blog post or even Instagrammed it a lot so this time I thought we would put the real effort into it and see how it goes. I don't really count the Book of the Month Spring Reading Challenge that I just finished because again I didn't really document it on here, there wasn't much participation in it other than on Facebook but I loved it and for the last few book reviews or pictures on my Instagram showcased the charts I made for the books. Since I loved it so much it really inspired me to look for a new reading challenge. During this search, I found a blog that has a list of readathons! It was so freaking helpful because when you type readathons in on Google you get really overwhelmed with the results and, to be honest, I started following a lot of twitter accounts throughout this search without really looking into the readathons themselves. I'm not a big twitter person so when the readathons are based on Twitter I really fall behind. Anyways this amazing blog that has a freaking calendar for the readathons is called Little Book Owl, the link will take you straight to the calendar. From here it was so easy to look through all of the readathons that are going on this month and it is really organized. I really love this. I believe she is actually a YouTuber that I follow. 

There were a lot of different readathons that I really wanted to jump into this month but since this is the first one that I'm really going to put a lot of effort into I'm going to do just one for now and I've chosen to do the HouseCupAThon's June Readathon! I chose this one because one they do have an Instagram for their readathon, but they are based mostly on discord, which I have both of those and prefer using them both so that ticks off a really important box for me. They do have a twitter account too, and the Instagram is new so it is just getting off its feet while the twitter account has a lot of content on it already. I'm going to try to be more active on Twitter, but where it's my personal account and I don't even use that I just don't use it. I've thought about deleting everything on it and making one for my book or sims but I haven't made that leap yet and I don't think I will. The second thing that I saw that really gave this potential for me personally right off the bat is that it is a Harry Potter readathon! You all know I'm a Harry Potter nerd and completely obsessed with it! You aren't required to read the whole Harry Potter series within the month but they do want you to read one of them, and the buddy read is the second Harry Potter book for the month, which I do need to finish Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for my other projects anyways and can easily jump into the buddy read. But what really sold me on this was the fact that I had the opportunity to take their reading prompts and throw them into a chart. We learned recently that I'm in love with taking charts like this making them funky and fun and slapping book covers on them! So that's what I did with their prompts. Now it was a little confusing getting into the discord but I'm still a discord newbie and this is all new to me but if I can navigate it and figure out the basics than it isn't too bad. The challenge is a point-based and you work with your house to fight for the house cup. I'm in love with the concept and cannot wait to jump in. 

Since it is a house challenge I took the prompts and then made all four houses their own chart to give it a little personality for each house. Here are all of the ones that I made for the HouseCupAThon, now I am Gryffindor house, but I might look into one that has all of the house colors because I really love colorful things and Hogwarts one should be more colorful, but as for now I'm going to be using the Gryffindor one. As usual, I got the background off of Pinterest and then made the graph on a Word document, and then added some emojis and the rest of the stuff in Pic Collage. All of the prompts are the same on each picture, the only thing different is the houses aesthetics. 

For me, the point system on Instagram makes the most sense when I was trying to figure out how it goes. They are probably posted on discord and twitter too but like I've previously mentioned I just don't know or use them much yet. I'll probably still need someone to help me put points in when I'm done reading a book but that's future Shay problems. Here are the points:

• 5 Points - if you have to DNF (do not finish) a book. But in order to get the 5 points, you have to have at least 25% completed
• 10 Points - if the book you've read is less than 100 pages
• 30 Points - if the book you've read is between 101-200 pages
• 50 Points - if the book you've read is between 201-400 pages
• 50 Points - for completing a reading challenge (a tile on the pictures above)
• 70 Points - if the book you've read is between 401-500 pages
• 100 Points - if the book you've read is over 501 pages
• 100 Points - for completing the required reading (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets)

You can double up on reading challenges however each challenge can only be used once. So out if you complete all of the challenges you can win your house 750 points!

All of the points get added up in the discord chat and goes towards your house the one with the most points wins the house cup! I love this concept and I love this readathon so I cannot wait to jump in on it. Since the challenges are named Lockhart, Dobby, and Tom Riddle's Journal I made sure to add the requirements for each tile this time around. The requirements stayed in Time Roman while I got to have fun with the challenge name's fonts. 

Normally I like to save posting my challenges I do until the end of the year or the end of the challenge to post but this time around I think I'm going to post this now so you all can see why every book I have in the month of June will be credited towards this readathon and you'll always have one of the collages above listed out. I think on my Instagram I might only use Gryffindor since that is what house I'm in on Discord but over here I think we will show all of the houses love. I don't know I might do that on Instagram too since right now I'm getting really tired of seeing all of the same pictures on my feed because I kept reposting my BOTM challenge every time I completed a book. I also really like how I formatted my last book with a book aesthetic, book rating, and then the challenge. I think this works out perfect for me. If you don't like it let me know and we can work on other ideas for me to do.

Since we are posting this now with updates as we go I'm going to put the date at the bottom of each update so you can see what I did and when.

(June 1, 2020)

So I finished my first book for June 2020 and here is my updated reading chart! Since I made a post about Beach Read by Emily Henry I'm just going to a short little rating for it. I loved this book and it was such a great way to kick off HouseCupAThon! I love using books I already own during readathons to help clean up my shelves and this month is perfect for that because I'm getting ready to redo my shelves and do an unhaul soon. Anyways the book was something that I've had for a couple months and I don't know why I was sitting on it. I need to go through and really read all of my backstock of Book of the Month books! I don't have an official TBR for this either because I'm a mood reader and I love having the freedom to bounce around to whatever book I feel like reading and usually gave multiple books going at one time. But with Beach Read, it sucked all my attention in and I couldn't put it down. To be honest, if I wasn't remodeling my house I would've been done with this a lot faster! I hope my next book goes the same way! 

(June 3, 2020)

May 2020 Wrap Up

Since it has been a little hard getting content up I'm going to start doing a little wrap-up post at the end of the month because I don't always talk about all of the books that I've read throughout the month, especially my audiobooks. This is something that I've probably should've been doing all along but oh-well let's jumps into it! 

In the month of May, I've read 9 books! I've been in a big reading mood plus I went on vacation this month. I went to a local beach for a weekend to get married so it wasn't a huge vacation, it was a nice small getaway. Out of all of the books I read this month, there were 3 comics, 1 audiobook, 3 ebooks, and 2 physical books. As for star ratings, there were 1 3-star, 2 4-star, and the rest were 5-stars! Here I think we only talked about one of the books so there were a lot of miss opportunities for me to post about but I couldn't help it. I'm a mood reader and none of these were the books that I planned on reading for the month. For the month I planned on at least finishing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone because I had a lot of fun things planned for it but I haven't finished it yet, hopefully, June will be the month for that. 

Let's break these down into star ratings this month!

3-Star Read

My only 3-star read for the month was a book that I had to read for school. I had to do a book report and in complete honesty, the book wasn't bad. I really loved the historical spots of the book, and this book is How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. The book talks about different ways that democracies can be torn apart throughout the world and it was really interesting. This first part of the book was definitely 5 stars for me, it was hard to put the book down. But at the same time, this first part was very historical based. The last half of the book was rough getting through it. I've honestly just tired of hearing and reading about Trump I have no opinion of him as president and I'm just really over politics in the United States right now and would rather focus on news that's not about celebrities or politics. This was an e-book the physical book that I got for this assignment I felt like it didn't fit well so I switched to this book instead of finishing the other one. So I guess we technically have a DNF for the month, I'll post it at the end of the month.

4-Star Read

I believe this next book I've talked about on the blog already but here is my only 4-star read during the month of May, Incomparable by Brie and Nikki Bella. I love the Bella twins and to be completely honest Total Bellas, along with Total Divas, is what pulled me into the WWE world. The twins are amazing and this book was something I didn't even know about until watching Total Bellas and an ad popped up for it so of course, I had to go look at it. I had to get it and I was going to get the physical book but I was in the mood to read it, I had the money so I bought it on my kindle and tore through this thing. I never read nonfiction books, the last one I optionally chose to read was Tia Torres book about her dogs. Anyways the Bellas' book was really interesting and would take turns between Nikki and Brie's perspectives. Much like the last book my biggest complaint about this book is that I really enjoyed like 3/4 of the books, it was definitely a 5-star read. But the last 1/4 of the book just dragged for me. I loved learning about their lives and their companies that they were able to forge together but the end took a turn towards sexuality which I'm not a prude or anything, I don't care about reading about it either. But I feel like it just didn't fit into the book I guess. The whole book talked about their past and what they went through either together or on their own but then the last chapter or two just stopped and they started talking about feminism and stuff. I'm all for feminism but it just didn't fit with the rest of the book and I just got so bored reading the last couple of chapters. That's why it ended with 4-stars. I find it really hard to rate books based on people's lives too so it was just rough figuring out who to rate it. So I went with 4-stars because like I said the first 3/4 of the book was really interesting to read about but then the last 1/4 I just dragged trying to read it all. 

I really struggled with where to put this book because I had no clue how to rate this thing! I finished it earlier today (5/31) but then I sat on my rating all day trying to contemplate what it's rating is. The first part of this book I was for sure going to give this book a 5-stars and I thought it was for sure going to be my new favorite from this author! But it took a wrong turn somewhere and it just felt like the book was cramming in so much stuff that it just couldn't deliver everything. Ultimately I was left wanting more of something and less of others. I ended up giving the book 4 stars overall, but in my head, I think it is more of a 3.5-stars. I try to keep the books in order according to its GoodReads review and on there I put 4 stars because you can't do half stars, and for everyone who knows me knows I hate half stars. I prefer to always have whole stars and round up or down whenever I end up in this predicament. Especially if I loved half of the book and the second half fell flat I just meet i the middle. But with this book, I finally found a reason for a half star! I really wanted to love this book and I had so much hope for it! We even got off on the right foot but then we fell hard! By the way, the book I'm talking about is Hideaway by Nora Roberts.

5-Star Reads

Most of my books for May were 5-star reads so let's jump into the first one that I read this month. Since I've been home I've been looking into my library's ebooks and the first one I got was Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. This is a book that I know I've talked about already on here so I'll keep this short and sweet. I've been wanting to read this series for a long time but I've been wanting the physical books because they are so cute, but they are so expensive so I've just not got around to getting them. But let me tell you I loved this first book! It was so good and had so much fun reading it. Like I said in the post all about this book it is really hard to explain this book because one is so small but then two it's hard to explain because it is so different than anything else I've ever read. This book was really good I plan on finishing the series, the ones that are already out. But I have no clue when I'll get the physical books. 

My next 3 books are comics so I'm going to count them all right here. I never get to talk about my comics on here! I'm a huge comic fan I love the pictures, how fast they are to read, and I just love them. But I hate the price of comics. Since they are so short it's always a hard buy for me because I can't justify spending the money on them, most of the time they are about $15 here in West Virginia, plus tax. So when I splurge on comics I've usually gone on a Thriftbooks splurge. I love buying my comics from Thriftbooks because I feel like I'm getting a good deal for them. But this time I did buy it from the bookstore because I've been dying to read another book in this series. The series is called Saga! Saga is a comic that I found over on BookTube, I'm not sure which YouTuber I saw talking about it because it been a couple years since I got my first one. Saga is a series that follows this family that basically shouldn't exist. The mom and dad are two different species and their races have been at war for forever, so they are kind of living out their Romeo and Juliet love story just by being together. So far I'm only 3 books in and it's because I can't always justify spending the money on them. I kind of want to buy a bulk order of the 4 or 5 of them soon. I'm obsessed and I always go back and reread them whenever I get a new one, and so far they have all been 5-stars. The story is amazing and the illustration is beautiful so it's hard to not love these books. Now I will say that these are graphic comics, they are not for kids so if you are looking for comics for your kid these aren't those. 

  

My next read I just finished and it was an audiobook. It's pretty funny how I fell into this book because I bought Aby Jimenez's newest book first, which is The Happily Ever After Playlist and I started reading it immediately and I was in love with it! I bought it at the beach and was binge reading it out on the deck all day, but the next day we were driving back home so instead of getting the same book as an audiobook I got her first on, The Friend Zone, on audiobook. I've never read anything by this author and to be completely fair I did read the synopsis of the Happily Ever After book because I was determined to buy something from this bookstore I found and was really having a hard time finding something, so since I was enjoying it so much I didn't read the synopsis to the Friend Zone. It turns out the books follow the same characters! Now you don't have to read them in order, but I will say that if you don't read them in the order you will learn things that happens in the first book, so I suggest reading them in order. I loved the Friend Zone! I had to give it 5-stars. It is definitely a romance book and it is fun to read. 

Even though I started reading The Happy Ever After Playlist first, I ended up finishing it after I finished the Friend Zone. The Friend Zone was an audiobook and the Ever After was a physical book. I loved every second of this book, and it is honestly my favorite book in this duology. I think I just connected with Sloan a little more plus the dog played a bigger role in this book and I'm a huge dog lover. But it was a 5-star read too. This book and the Friend Zone I haven't talked about on my blog so far because it was a spur of the moment read and they actually are what pushed me to post this because this is something that you don't get to see since I don't make a post about them. They are also a prime example that sometimes my 5-star reads don't end up on here. I'm just a mood reader and I try really hard to maintain the layout of my posts on here so if I don't get a 'before reading' or  'halfway check-in,' it can be hard to make the posts. So I think this helps to look back in the month just to see what I read when I read it and a little insight into why I liked it. But both of these books are something fun to read and just easy. I have noticed that I've really started loving romance books more and more now.

DNF

I have one book that ended up being a DNF, did not finish. This book I picked up for school and it was pretty interesting but I put it down because the book wasn't really fitting the criteria I needed for the book report and I just stopped reading it to pick up the book I ended up reading. It was an accidental DNF, but at the same time, I don't see myself going back to it. This book is In the Shadows by Mitch Landrieu. I didn't get that far into the book.

May 2020 Book Haul

I know we haven't seen much of my book hauls lately so there may be some books that I've gotten in past months but to be completely honest I haven't been buying books, or really leaving the house much. Usually, the only books that I have been getting are Book of the Month so let's see what I've gotten, I'll try to keep in them in order as to when I got them, and some of them I've already read, which is a super rare thing!

Since we missed a lot of my BOTM book hauls I'm just going to put the last 2-3 months of books here, all of them I've been really curious about but I haven't read any of them. I already failed one of my reading goals which are to read one BOTM book a month, but to be fair school takes up a lot of my time and it eats up my reading time so I'm blaming the school for it. This list won't completely be in order of when I got them, but I'll really try to keep them in order. I've been dying to read The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver ever since I read Once Upon a December. I have a lot of books that I can't wait to jump into. The Boyfriend Project by Farrah Rochon sounds amazing it takes a spin on the cheating boyfriend troupe by looking into the girls becoming friends and taking a boyfriend cleanse and I'm so interested in this book! Out all of these books, I can't wait to read all of them but I'm super excited for The Two Lives, Beach Read by Emily Henry, and The Boyfriend Project. 

    

Another really fun thing that I got recently is an ARC of The Safe Place by Anna Downes. The book comes out on July 14, and I plan on reading it after I finish the book I'm currently working on. This book sounds so interesting and I love getting ARCs because I never really get them and I don't know they make me feel like I'm doing something right. But in reality, this was one of the books that I signed up for when they were giving out ARCs. I only sign up for the ones that I'm really interested in and I can't wait to jump into this one! 

I just got Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett, The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams, Saga Vol. 3, and Deja Dead by Kathy Reichs right before I went to the beach for the weekend/wedding and I cannot wait to jump into these books! Alex, Approximately is a book that I've had on my want to read list for a while but I just haven't picked it up. I had a gift card that I wanted to spend before we went on vacation, plus I just wanted to get out of the house for a little bit. Same with the Bromance Book Club, I've been wanting to read it since it came out but adult books are so expensive and I just haven't had the money or wanted something else more than that book, but I finally gave in and got it. Plus now it has a sequel so if I love the book I can jump into the new book. Both of these two books are new to me authors so I'm really curious about them. I actually took it with me to read but my weekend was so busy! But we were so busy between the wedding, planning it out, and cleaning up that I didn't have enough time to really read. I've actually already read Saga, this is probably my all-time favorite comic book series and every time I have extra money I always buy another one. Comics are just so expensive and I usually choose to buy them on Thriftbooks but I needed the third book pronto! As for Deja Dead, this is a series that I've been wanting to pick up for a while now but I just haven't gotten around to it. I ended up getting a mass-market copy and it's thick, but I'm really interested in it. The series follows Temperance Brennan, which the series Bones follows them so I'm curious. I've read a book by Reichs years ago and I remember enjoying the book but I just never continued on with that series so I'm really curious about this book.

    

While we were at the beach I needed to get a book, it's just a thing I do where I get a book wherever we go and write where the book comes from. It's fun and more useful than postcards and so on, sometimes we get a postcard to tape inside the book. Anyways this time I picked The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez, I mean it starts with a dog jumping into a lady's car! How could I not pick this book? I was lucky to have some downtime and immediately started reading the book. Guys! I fell hard for this book and could not put it down! The funniest thing that happened was on the way home I went to see what else this author had because I wanted to get another one of her books to listen to while I drove home and it turns out she wrote the Friend Zone and the same characters were involved in the first book so while we listened to it on the way home I kind of spoiled a few things for myself, such as who she marries. But I still loved both of these books so much and I cannot wait for the third book to come out. The third book follows Adrian Copeland, who shows up at the end of the Playlist book. I'm sure there are a lot of romance books like this that follow characters like these ones do but this is new to me and I'm loving it. I'm just curious how Sloan and Kristine are going to show up in it, I can see how Kristine does but I'm not too sure about Sloan. I just need this book now!

 

Finally, the last book that I got in May is Hideaway by Nora Roberts! I waited until the last possible second to leave on Friday in hopes it would get here before I left, but it didn't arrive until Saturday and I was devastated. However, this was still before it was published. This is the second preorder that I've done with Nora Roberts and I'm in love with it. The first preorder was for the 50th book in the In Death series, Golden in Death, and that was so I could get Eve's necklace. Then this book I preordered so I could have her signature! I've tried to go see her at one of the book signings that she does at Turn the Page Bookstore in Boonsboro, Maryland but so far I haven't made it out there yet. But to be completely fair if I had this book I wouldn't have gotten to read Jimenez's books so it worked out. I can't wait to jump into this book, it's actually what I'm reading right now!