November 30, 2018

Random Friday: Most Anticipated 2019 Debuts


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There's gonna be so many great books in 2019, I just know it! So today I'm going to list several of the debut novels I'm eager to read. (And hopefully they're all still gonna release in 2019 lol.)




2. Gravemaidens by Kelly Coon


3. Dangerous Alliance by Jennieke Cohen


4. House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig


5. Midsummer's Mayhem by Rajani LaRocca
Listen, I saw this title in Pitch Wars last fall, and I knew then that I wanted to read it.


6. Girl Undefined by Jacqueline Firkins

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7. Just For Clicks by Kara McDowell

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8. The Dead Queens Club by Hannah Capin

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9. Enchantée by Gita Trelease

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10. The Art of Losing by Lizzy Mason
I'm pretty sure I'd be hype for this book even if I didn't know Lizzy personally.

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11. If You're Out There by Katy Loutzenhiser

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12. We Rule the Night by Claire Eliza Bartlett

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13. You'd Be Mine by Erin Hahn

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14. In the Neighborhood of True by Susan Kaplan Carlton

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15. The Tiger at Midnight by Swati Teerdhala


16. Blood Heir by Amélie Wen Zhao

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17. The Last Word by Samantha Hastings


What 2019 debuts are you anticipating most?



November 28, 2018

New York Adventures, Month Six

Six months???? Has has it been SIX MONTHS since I got here?! November was super quiet, so there's not much to highlight but I still wanted to list a few things. :)

Food

1. More Spot Dessert Bar because I am, apparently, addicted. They had the fall desserts when Sarah and I went at the end of October, so we tried the pumpkin cake and the monkey bread and both were EXCELLENT.



2. Sarabeth's Upper East Side - So cute and home-y feeling. Sarah and I definitely should've split something, though, haha. We got full so fast.

Events

1. I saw Come From Away on Halloween. I enjoyed the narrative and the pacing.
2. Sarah and I went to a mixer thing that Bumble threw in partnership with The Moxy. Jaime King was there, which was probably the highlight.

Explorations

1. It's getting too cold to do anything, and I'm sad. What are your best NYC indoor activity suggestions?
2. The Met...for the fifth time. But I saw the three new exhibitions (Dutch Masters, Delacroix, and one about jewelry).


Any Christmas in New York recs? I don't want to do anything too touristy though.

November 26, 2018

The Success of My Yearly Most Anticipated Lists

Since 2014, I've been doing post series about my most-anticipated releases of the next year. I've steadily seen a decline in how much I've loved the books, though, so I decided to do a round-up post to chart this and talk about each year's picks.

2015

This was the only year I did one of my posts based on awesome covers, which I should know by now is a terrible indicator of a book's quality. I actually left these out of my average rating just because I didn't think they should count. Well, now I'm going to include them.

Out of the forty-five books featured, I removed six from my TBR list. That's less than 15%, so I'd say that isn't too bad.

Rating-wise...I had an average of 3.5. Before I included the books I picked just for their covers, my average rating was 3.7, so yeah, choosing books based on covers is a terrible idea, haha. Still, I found some of my favorite books in 2015, like...

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Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone

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Written in the Stars by Aisha Saeed


2016

Lolololol, I did four posts this year, so get ready for a heck ton of books.

I removed eight from my TBR list this time, out of sixty-four books, which is about the same ratio from 2015. 

However, my average rating was MUCH lower - only 3.1 stars, which is mostly due to how much more willing I was to DNF books (seven just from my Sixteen 2016 Reads, if you're wondering).

I didn't hate everything I read, though. My favorites included:

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The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson

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Outrun the Moon by Stacey Lee

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The Rose & the Dagger by Renee Ahdieh

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I still love all of those books dearly, but 2016 was a sad year for books, in my opinion.


2017

I removed a grand total of ten titles from my TBR list from my fifty-one Seventeen 2017 Reads picks, and DNFed four. (I've gotten more comfortable with removing books from my list altogether if I don't like the first couple of chapters.)

My average rating held at 3.2 stars.

Another thing I noticed was that a bunch of my picks got pushed back to 2018 release dates, which is one of the perils of doing these lists so early in the year. Goodreads may say one thing, but publishers say another. I wish there were people at different houses who could at least make sure the pub years are kept accurate. I don't mind if we can't know the exact month and date for a while, but years are key.

Anyways, highlights of 2017 include...

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Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie McLemore

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The Names They Gave Us by Emery Lord

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Tash Hearts Tolstoy by Kathryn Ormsbee

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Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson

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Even the Darkest Stars by Heather Fawcett


2018

This year isn't quite over, but I've read most of my Eighteen 2018 Reads. Once again, though, a BUNCH got pushed back to 2019 pub dates, which was very frustrating.

I removed twelve of the fifty-four titles from my to-read list, which is consistent with last year at least.

So far, I've DNFed only one of the books, which is probably due to my willingness to remove them from my TBR instead.

A grand total of ten got pushed back to (at least) 2019, as opposed to eight of 2017's picks. I'm definitely terrified at this point what happens to my Nineteen 2019 Reads. With my luck, half of them will be published in 2020 instead.

My favorites, as of writing this post, have been...

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The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevado

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The Length of a String by Elissa Brent Weissman

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Love, Hate & Other Filters by Samira Ahmed

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The Light Between Worlds by Laura E. Weymouth

But interestingly, most of my actual favorites of 2018 haven't been my Eighteen 2018 Reads. Definitely surprising, since one of the main points of this post series is to identify the books I think will be my favorites.

I won't be giving an average rating for 2018, just because I still have some titles left to read, and I'd like it to be as accurate as possible.


I love doing most-anticipated lists, but they seem to be biting me in the butt most of the time. I can only do so many round-ups of my favorites, though, and talking about books I haven't read yet diversifies things. 
Do you have any tips for how I might make better choices for my lists? Should I maybe only do one post a year? I'm officially down to two a year (starting with my Nineteen 2019 Reads) since the individual posts are getting so long, but I feel like it's still hurting me. :/

November 25, 2018

Gilmore Girls Book Tag

Y'all should know by now just how much I enjoy Gilmore Girls, so it's fitting that I'm about to do a book tag themed around the characters.


Image result for gilmore girls


Lorelai - A character with a witty or sarcastic sense of humor

I ran through a couple different characters before settling on...
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Rory - Your favorite classic book.

I'd have to go with Jane Austen's Emma.
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Luke - A book you secret love but are afraid to admit.

I don't really have any of these tbh (I already mentioned this during the Reputation book tag), but I guess this time I could list a book I love but no one else seems to be as passionate about.

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Wish You Were Italian by Kristin Rae


Lane - A musical character.

Let me present The Names They Gave Us by Emery Lord with lovely, trumpet-playing Henry Jones.
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Sookie - A book you devoured.


I unfortunately don't have the time to sit and read a book in one sitting anymore, but one in semi-recent memory is Jennifer Lynn Barnes's All In.
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I got my preorder right before I went to my desk job, and I read almost all of it that afternoon/evening, then finished it after dinner.


Dean - Your first book love.


One of the first series I remember loving is Little House on the Prairie as well as the follow-up Rose, Caroline, Charlotte, and Martha books.
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Jess - A book you love that gets the most hate. 


One book I absolutely adore that has a fairly low Goodreads rating is Cinders & Sapphires by Leila Rasheed.
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It's a YA Downton Abbey, so I don't know why more people don't love it.


Miss Patty - A book that was ruined by the hype.


I swear, every blogger I know LOVES Furyborn. And I hated it. RIP.
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Emily - An expensive book.


I answered a similar question when I did the my shelves book tag, but I guess I'll answer it again.
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French Heist Society, y'all. The moon is glittery.


Paris - An uptight character.


I had to think long and hard about this one, but the perfect answer was Matthias Helvar from Six of Crows.
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Exhibit A: “My ghost won’t associate with your ghost,” Matthias said primly, and then wondered if the sea air was rotting his brain. 


Kirk - A book that surprised you.


I'm adding a couple categories to this tag since I don't think all the most important characters were included originally. This category fits for Kirk because that boy is so unpredictable. For this one, I'd pick...

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From Twinkle, With Love by Sandhya Menon
Its plot summary sounded like something I'd like, but I was tentative because I didn't love When Dimple Met Rishi like everyone else, and I tend to not get along with epistolary novels. I ended up LOVING this book, though, so it was a pleasant surprise.


Christopher - A book you wished would go away.


Christopher always shows up at the worst moments and causes so much trouble. This new category is for that book you're tired of hearing about or that book you had to read but wished you didn't have to.
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I had to read that title for History of the American South through 1865, and I hated every minute of it. It's outdated and racist and pissed off pretty much every one in my class. We had to write academic book reviews of it, and our prof said we were all too "morally outraged" in them. *eye-roll*


Logan - A book you can't let go, even if you don't love it anymore.


In honor of Rory and Logan's on-again-off-again vibe that continues through A Year in the Life...
Is there a book you have nostalgic feelings for, even if you don't like it all that much upon rereading it? Or maybe you got a book personalized before reading it and now you feel awkward trying to trade it or sell it...
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Snow Like Ashes is like that for me, oops.


Your turn! If you want to do the Gilmore Girls tag, with or without my additions, go for it!