Unboxing: Uppercase Box August 2015

How to attach a ribbon bookmark to your book

Recently I received a custom ribbon bookmark designed to match the cover of Rebel Mechanics. I love how much it resembles its inspiration from the cover and I wished it was actually attached to the book. It got me thinking...how hard would it be to actually attach it? I discovered that it wasn't that hard at all!

Bookish Accessories: Frostbeard Studio Candles

Ask any of my friends - I have a strange obsession with smells. The moment I get a new book, I smell it. Not in a normal way...according to one of my friends it's almost obscene the way I smell books. I also have a "mild" obsession with candles. I have them all over my library. If I'm in there, there's a candle going. I've always said that somebody needs to make a candle that smells like new books (more specifically, new textbooks - best smell ever). While I still can't find a "new textbook" candle, I did come across Frostbeard Studio and their impressive catalog of other bookish smells.

Autumn Bookish Bingo

Welcome to Autumn Bookish Bingo! This card will be in play from September 1st through November 30th. If you'd like to play with us, either sign up in the comments or join our Goodreads group. The prize for this month is any September, October, or November new release.

Social Media Book Tag

Top 5 Required Reading

It's that time of the week again! Top 5 Wednesdays is the brain-child of gingerreadslainey. If you'd like to learn a bit more about Top 5 Wednesday, you can check out her Goodreads group and take a look at everybody who participates!

This week's topic is "top 5 favorite required reading". Required reading is a book that you were assigned to read while you were in school. The images I selected below are the actual editions of the books I read and not the current editions. These are the covers that I associate with these books.

BookTubeAThon Wrap Up

For as behind as I thought I was during this read-a-thon, I didn't do all that badly!

BookTubeAThon Update: Day 4

Day 4 went better than day 3! But I'm still not very good at this "read-a-thon" thing!

BookTubeAThon Update: Day 3

Well Day 3 didn't go well for me /shame.

BookTubeAThon Update: Day 2

Now that day 2 is over, my TBR is looking a bit smaller! I wonder if I'll be able to complete it!

BookTubeAThon Update: Day 1

Day 1 of BookTubeAThon is over and I feel like I got nothing accomplished!

Book Review: Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella

Goodreads  |  Amazon  |  Author's Website

Title: Finding Audrey
Author: Sophie Kinsella
Series: none
Genre: YA - Contemporary
Original Release Date: June 9, 2015
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Pages: 304
Source: Uppercase Box
Rating: ★★★☆☆

Monthly TBR: August 2015

Apparently I'm not very good at monthly TBRs. I read one book from last month's TBR list. One. It's not like I didn't read, either. I managed to read 14 books in the month of July. So this month I'm going to go about my monthly TBR a bit differently.

Monthly Wrap-Up: July 2015

July was kind of a bittersweet month. I started out really strong in the beginning of the month, but then I hit a reading slump toward the end of the month. I must have started and put down 3 different books in the last week and a half.

Book Review: Dreamland by Robert L. Anderson

Goodreads  |  Amazon  |  Author's Website

Title: Dreamland
Author: Robert L. Anderson
Series: none
Genre: YA - Paranormal, Fantasy, Horror
Original Release Date: September 22, 2015
Publisher: Harper Teen
Pages: 336
Source: ARC via the publisher
Rating: ★★★★☆

BookTubeAThon

BookTubeAThon is almost here!! The BookTubeAThon is a week long read-a-thon (August 3rd to August 9th) hosted by Ariel Bissett. It includes seven reading challenges and seven video challenges. The reading challenges have been announced, but each of the video challenges are announced on the morning of each day of the read-a-thon.

Unboxing: Owlcrate July 2015

Unboxing: Uppercase Box July 2015

Putting my books in the freezer

Book Review: The Elite by Kiera Cass

Goodreads  |  Amazon  |  Author's Website

Title: The Elite
Author: Kiera Cass
Series: The Selection #2
Genre: YA - Dystopian
Original Release Date: April 23, 2013
Publisher: Harper Teen
Pages: 336 (Hardcover)
Source: Purchased
Rating: ★★★★★

Book Review: What My Mother Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones

Goodreads  |  Amazon  |  Author's Website

Title: What My Mother Doesn't Know
Author: Sonya Sones
Series: What My Mother Doesn't Know #1
Genre: YA - Contemporary, Poetry
Original Release Date: October 1, 2001
Publisher: Turtleback; 1st Simon Pulse Ed edition (April 1, 2003)
Pages: 259 (Hardcover)
Source: Library
Rating: ★★★☆☆

Book Review: What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones

Goodreads  |  Amazon  |  Author's Website

Title: What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know
Author: Sonya Sones
Series: What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know #2
Genre: YA - Contemporary, Poetry
Original Release Date: June 5, 2007
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Pages: 304 (Hardcover)
Source: Library
Rating: ★★★★☆

Top 5 Anticipated Pre-Orders for the Rest of the Year

It's that time of the week again! Top 5 Wednesdays is the brain-child of gingerreadslainey. If you'd like to learn a bit more about Top 5 Wednesday, you can check out her Goodreads group and take a look at everybody who participates!

This week's topic is "top 5 anticipated pre-orders for the rest of the year". This is probably one of the easiest top 5 topics I could have asked for thanks to my unrealistically extensive Amazon wish list.

Book Review: The Selection by Kiera Cass

Goodreads  |  Amazon  |  Author's Website

Title: The Selection
Author: Kiera Cass
Series: The Selection #1
Genre: YA - Dystopian
Original Release Date: April 24, 2012
Publisher: Harper Teen
Pages: 336 (Hardcover)
Source: Purchased
Rating: ★★★★★

Book Review: Down The Rabbit Hole by Holly Madison

Goodreads  |  Amazon  |  Author's Website

Title: Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of  Former Playboy Bunny
Author: Holly Madison
Series: None
Genre: Biography & Memoir
Original Release Date: June 23, 2015
Publisher: Dey Street Books, 1st Edition
Pages: 352 (Hardcover)
Source: Purchased
Rating: ★★★★★

#CRAMATHON

The adorable Whitney over at WhittyNovels is hosting a midyear cram-a-thon to help boost the numbers on our reading goals. This year it runs from midnight on the morning of July 10th and runs until 11:59 pm on July 13th. She normally hosts this read-a-thon at the end of the year so we can cram in those small books before everybody's yearly challenge ends, but she decided that hosting one in the middle of the summer seemed like a lot of fun. I never participated in this read-a-thon before so I think it's a great idea!!

Book Review: Cress by Marissa Meyer

Goodreads  |  Amazon  |  Author's Website

Title: Cress
Author: Marissa Meyer
Series: The Lunar Chronicles, #3
Genre: YA - Science Fiction, Retelling
Original Release Date: February 4, 2014
Publisher: Square Fish, 2nd Edition
Pages: 592 (Paperback)
Source: Purchased
Rating: ★★★★☆

Top 5 Things on my Bookshelf that Aren't Books

It's that time of the week again! Top 5 Wednesdays is the brain-child of gingerreadslainey. If you'd like to learn a bit more about Top 5 Wednesday, you can check out her Goodreads group and take a look at everybody who participates!

This week's topic is Top 5 Things on your Bookshelf that Aren't Books. I don't know about you, but I enjoy displaying little things on my bookshelf in between stacks of books. I like the way it breaks up my bookshelf a bit and I also love to see some of my favorite things without my space looking overly cluttered.

TBR Challenge Jar

Book Review: More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

Goodreads  |  Amazon  |  Author's Website

Title: More Happy Than Not
Author: Adam Silvera
Series: Stand alone
Genre: YA - Contemporary, LGBTQ
Original Release Date: June 2, 2015
Publisher: Soho Teen
Pages: 304 (Hardcover)
Source: Owlcrate
Rating: ★★★★☆

Monthly Wrap-Up: June 2015

June was a really good reading month for me. I read a total of 9 books! This is significantly more books than I ever expected to read in one month.

Monthly TBR: July 2015

So last month I attempted to put together a TBR at the beginning of the month, then proceeded to ignore it all month. I'm a mood reader, so I'm not very good at planning my reading. Most of the time if I feel like I have to do something, I won't want to do it.

Instead of trying to plan my entire month of reading, I'm just going to plan a few books and do my best to commit to them.

Book Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Goodreads |  Amazon  |  Author's Website

Title: Cinder
Author: Marissa Meyer
Series: The Lunar Chronicles, #1
Genre: YA - Science Fiction, Retelling
Original Release Date: January 3, 2012
Publisher: Square Fish, 2nd Edition
How I Got the Book: Purchased
Format: Paperback

Summer Bookish Bingo

I discovered Bookish Bingo through Bekka's post over on Pretty Deadly. Unfortunately, I found it a bit too late and I missed sign ups for her summer bingo. It looks like so much fun, so my bestie and I are going to be playing along anyway.