time to shop!

because I read so much
and so often
I am always buying books 
(unfortunately I haven't made friends with publishers for ARCs and I don't enter giveaways - mostly because they're US only)

but budget wise, I prioritize my books .. well, after the bills are paid #adulting.

Now, I get my books from numerous sources. 

this past weekend I had 4 sources and got about 40 books. 

I am a major supporter of shopping local and supporting the independent stores
but the town i live in only has 1 - which i got to often (they also take books if i ever get doubles or feel the need to give up on a book) 
and where my parents live/where i grew up no longer has any indy stores which makes me sad. As a teen I used to go to them every weekend. *sobs* 

There is a second hand clothing store that has a book section that I check out a lot
and that was one of my sources this past weekend that i got about 20 books from. 

I mainly resort to Bookoutlet's website (though I have been to their store. It's 5 hours away so it doesn't happen often) 

Occasionally I will make a great find at Wal-mart. I'm not a huge fan of buying books from them, but sometimes there are cover buys that are awesome from there. I've found Jamie Maguire's Beautiful Disaster, A.G. Howard's Splintered (but only the first one. then i bought the others at Chapters), and Emily Foster's how not to fall.  Which all 3 are 10/10!

The Canadian equivalent to Barnes and Noble is called Indigo (Chapters/coles/indigo spirit are sub stores by all the same company) and they are my other go-to when it doesn't make sense to place an order from BO.  Rarely are the books on sale but i tend to just pay it and deal with it. They have a point system that's good, and bounce-back coupons now and then so it's all good. Plus, yay canada. 

Every once in a while I find some new releases at costco too. we don't shop there often though. (it's a bulk store and i think it's canadian..?) 

Now my final place I get books is the bookish community. There are other bloggers, such as Booksmacked on facebook, who posts free/on sale books on amazon.  Mostly they are romance/erotica which is fine by me. Sometimes we get some fantasy stuff (but still the sexy stuff). 

I also review for 2 different groups where authors send in their books and I can choose which ones I want. I find this is the easiest way to find new authors and meet other bloggers. 

Plus, i've met some of my best friends by doing this :)  


Do you know of any other sources? let me know in the comments! 
  

Review: Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

 The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer
 Michelle Hodkin


So apparently there are a lot of people who hate this book but HOW is that possible? Teen angst, murder everywhere, hot boys with accents, and snobby rich kids. What's not to love?

When Mara wakes up from a coma, she finds out she is the only survivor of a deadly accident that has left her friendless. and single.

To help deal with her PTSD, her family moves to a different state where she starts at a new school.

In walks Noah Shaw.
this boy is basically sex on a stick
with an accent.
yum.

Now, the two start dating much to the disbelief of the only friend Mara has made, Jamie, but he ends up being kicked out of the book mid way through which was just rude. He added to the sarcasm and the fun, but all of the sudden he was just gone. He didn't even find an owl to send her a message - what is going on here, folks?

When Mara begins to piece together what happened to her that infamous night, with Noah's help, the two realize that they are more connected than they realize

but it all comes crashing down in front of them very quickly and we are left with a HUGE cliffhanger which has us all rushing to grab book two.

For a series that has a split review average, I found I liked it. It has a creep factor but since all 3 books (and now that Noah has his own series) are out, I am not too worried about cliffhangers and the "what-if" because everything is a bookshelf away.

5/5 for this one; can't wait to see what happens next

(kind of annoyed I waited so long to read this. It was given as a wedding gift from my boss - darn TBR kept pushing it down and down)

and extra points for these gorgeous covers *swoon*

2017 was a whirl wind

Welp. 
this was a year for the books. 
ha, get it? 

my goal for the year was 200 and my actual was *drumroll* 201! 


so let's start with my december review; 


I read 17 books which included 

- when dimple met rishi 
- party games 
- language of stars 
- all the crooked saints 
- Orange is the new black (the last half) 
- the rest of us just live here 
- love garage by L. crowe
- King by t.m frazier 
- Landon by S.M Shade 
- if you were mine by M. Harlow
- after we fall by M. Harlow 
- alex, approximately 
- autoboyography 
- cruel beauty 
- Kade - j. anthony 
- tiger lily by J.L Anderson
- charmed by the bartender  by Piper Rayne 

which was a great month if i do say so myself. 
so yay for making my goal !!


Work was busy and we got hit with lots of snow so I was grumpy. 

Christmas was lousy like usual. I don't like IRL people and when my mother tries to get me to hang with her fam, it just doesn't go over well. It was nice just to hang for a few days and be lazy in front of the fireplace though. 





So! 2017 was an insane year for books: 

here's the full list in a photo 

i know its hard to see because it's in pencil 
i'm super behind in my reviews... but i will get to them! 
because I like to write down each book I read (except I just keep a tally of the ones I read for my sister site vs the titles since some of those ones are awful) and goodreads doesn't sync with my brain this seems to be the best system for me. 

I have another goal of 200 for 2018 though I'm going to try and beat it and do 210! Hubby said my goal should be 365 but I told him if he got a job where I didn't have to work, I'd make that goal. He had no come back, the dork. 

but my TBR is such a huge list this year and my bookshelves are insanely full. Why can I not read 67 books all at the same time? Seriously, where is the osmosis for this. 

I ordered 29 books from BookOutlet on boxing day. and then went to chapters and bought 4 more. 
and then again and got another 2. 
i have no control. 
i also got 11 books in the month of December before boxing day. I'm trying to smuggle a bookshelf out of the basement and into my library but I can't lift it up 2 flights of my stairs by myself and the doggy is no help with furniture moving. 


ALSO 

there are so many anticipated reads coming out this year! (though i'm still behind on 2017's list) 

- Immortal Reign by Morgan Rhodes (FINAL for falling kingdoms) 
- From Twinkle with Love 
- Emergency Contact 
- You'll miss me when i'm gone 
- Queen of Air and Darkness (though I still haven't got around to LM/LOS. ugh but HAVE YOU SEEN THAT COVER!? swooooon) 
- Legendary 
- Wires and Nerves Vol 2
- A girl like that 
- Starry eyes
- Finding yvonne 

and the paperback version of The Raven King comes out in a couple of weeks so i can FINALLY finish this series because the spoilers are getting hard to avoid. 

This semester will be busier than last and while yay for work, boo for no free time 
so I will have to be better with my time management.
this is why i give myself monthly TBRs. Aiming for 20 in January since I have 2 weeks off essentially ... that college-staff strike we had back in the fall is nobody's friend. 


I also need to get back to my writing because editing. 
and i have 2 other stories in my head 
that I have yet to get on to paper  

I could wait for NaNo again because the only way to get me to do things sometimes is to give me a due date ... 
but that's a whole year away and i'm impatient. 



Hope everyone's 2017 was fantastic and 2018 is even more so - no matter what your goals are, go make the most of them. 

Happy reading everyone :)