Hiatus

I have found when I put a lot of time and attention into one thing, other things are left in the dust. Unfortunately, that has happened with this blog. I have been working on my instagram and joining the bookstagram community. I had done it before, but now I’m focusing more on interacting with others and posting more often.

If you would like to join me over there, my bookstagram is see.girl.read

I have what I’ve been reading, book and ARC reviews, and what I’m up to in daily life. I might come back to blog one day, but right now I’ll be over on instagram.

Thanks for being a reader!

The Buzzword Book for June

June’s buzzword is “Other.” Of course, I went through my GoodReads list of books to read to see what I had with that word. I couldn’t think of anything off the top of my head.

I found Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev. I actually was just looking at it the other day, but I couldn’t remember why, well now here’s a reason.

So, this is the book I’ll be reading for June and perhaps you if you’d like to join.

Media I’ve Consumed

The Mother (Netflix) – This movie felt like it started in the middle of the story. I had no idea what was going on for about the first hour. That lasted for a minute until more questions poppeed up. There were so many holes in the plot. It was definitely all about the action. There are things I still don’t understand and would be grateful if someone could comment on this, like why do they want Zoe? Why did they both wait 12 years? Why did they try to kill her before she was born? It was like the writers knew what they wanted for the end result, but didn’t know how to get there. They knew they wanted a big explosion fight scene, but they couldn’t explain why it was happening. It does have a good mother daughter dynamic though; it had potential, but fell flat.

A Tourist’s Guide to Love (Netflix) – Amanda works for a travel agency that’s thinking of buying a touring company in Vietnam, so they send Amanda there to see if it’s worth buying. Plus, she just broke up with her long time boyfriend and it’s a great way to get over him. I loved being able to see a country that before I’d never thought about visiting. I had no idea that Vietnam is a tourist attraction. I like that the plot allowed a lot of room for the audience to see Vietnam and learn about its culture.

Unstable (Netflix) – Rob Lowe plays an eccentric Elon Musk type character. It follows him, his son, and the people that work for him through different antics. It was surprisingly not bad. Rob Lowe reminds me of when he was in Parks and Rec. I watched the whole series and I liked it. If I wanted a quick half hour show, it was enjoyable.

Outerbanks (Netflix) – It’s a treasure hunt show. John B’s father went missing and he thinks he was looking for gold that had gone down with a ship. John B and his friends decide to try and find the ship while dealing with living in a place where they’re seen as from “the otherside of the tracks.” It took 4 or 5 episodes to get into and I’m still not completely interested yet, but I know it’s a popular show. It’s starting to get more mysterious like who killed who and questioning who has other motives.

The Night Agent (Netflix) – The night agent waits for a phone to ring that rarely ever rings, but when it does it’s because special agents are in trouble. Rose, a civilian, calls this number after her aunt and uncle are killed not knowing why she’s calling or that her aunt and uncle were agents. Peter picks up and plunges him and Rose into a deadly conspiracy. I’ve enjoyed it. It’s a good political thriller. But, I don’t like the parts with “the bad guys,” when it’s just them. I don’t care about them when they’re not going after the main people.

The Great (Hulu) – The main characters are Peter and Catherine the Great, taking place in 18th century Russia. It’s a crude twist on history; a satirical. I’ve only seen a couple of episodes, but I find it entertaining to hear so many F-bombs in a historical. Catherine is great (ha, see what I did there?) to watch and all of the change that she wants to bring about. If you’re not usually a fan of period dramas then try this one.

XO, Kitty (Netflix) – This is the story of Kitty, Lara Jean from All the Boys I’ve Loved Before‘s little sister. She spends the season going to school in Korea. The visuals were very cute and aesthetically pleasing. I did like Kitty’s “aggressive perkiness,” but that’s pretty much it. I got whiplash from the character’s changing their feelings for different people all the time. I think there was only one character who kept the same feelings for the same person. It did make me want to watch the original movie, which I did and I liked it way more than this series. It was much cuter and straight forward. Now I want Margot to have her own movie or series, but hopefully be better. I think it could be with her being older and in London. It could be very Emily in Paris.

May’s Buzzword Pick

May’s buzzword is “flavor.” I once again found a bunch of books that I was interested in with a flavor in the title and then let the wheel choose for me. My book for May is Sweet Love and Country Roads by Camilla Isley.

I’m excited about this one. I’ve read this author before and I enjoyed her books. This is an enemies-to-lovers, small town romance. Samantha is a movie producer and has to go to the country to fix things that have come up. When she gets there, she finds that one of the problems is an attractive cowboy.

Shots Shots Shots Reading Crawl

The following “reading crawl” is not my work. I have changed words and goals, but the theme, most of the descriptions, and journey are someone else’s. There is a whole list of word crawls at this link here

———

The Gatecrasher: You’ve done it again haven’t you? You’ve arrived late to the party, which is already in full swing. Alcohol is flowing freely, and it’s no place to be stone cold sober. You have quite a bit of catching up to do if you want to get on this level of intoxication, better do some quick shots by reading as many pages as you can within 5 minutes.

Awkward Small Talk: Those shots haven’t really hit you yet, and worse still you run into someone whose name you don’t quite remember. They seem to remember you pretty well though. Get out of there quickly with a sprint to the next page that ends in a zero.

Party Trick: You’re starting to feel the buzz now, and people are chanting your name. You boasted that you could balance that bottle on your nose for a whole minute, now it’s time to deliver! Impress the crowd with your party trick and read the number of pages of the page number you’re currently on. Ex. on pg. 40, read 40 pages.

On The Dance Floor: That beat is irresistible, and impossible to ignore. No really, that sort of noise has to be breaking any number of noise regulations. Find a song that goes with your current read and sprint to the end of the song.

Sucker Punch: Dancing like that has worked up quite a sweat. Take a breather and relax by the punch bowl. Sprint to the nearest hundred.

Numbers Exchange: Your dancing has attracted an admirer. Chat them up and get their number. Take the last two numbers in your phone number and read that many pages.

Bottoms Up: Jell-o shots are being passed around, and it’s time to drink up. You should probably slow down, but that’s only your common sense talking. Sprint for 15 minutes.

Blackout: You’ve given up on cups altogether and are taking swigs straight from the bottle at the encouragement of fellow party goers. You’re not drunk, they’re just blurry. Sprint for an hour.

The Morning After: You wake up on the floor on something unidentifiable and sticky. You aren’t quite sure where you put your shoes, or whose pants they are. Your head is throbbing as you try to piece your night together and sprint (or limp) to the end of the chapter.

Media I’ve Consumed

Murder Mystery 1 and 2 (Netflix) – I had only seen the first one once before, so I watched that right before the second one. Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler play a couple who go on vacation and find themselves in the middle of a murder mystery. It’s slapstick comedy and the mystery has an Agatha Christie style with a big cast. I liked the first Murder Mystery more than the second, even though this one had Mark Strong (I’ll watch anything with him in it). I thought the first was funnier and number two definitely followed the same formula as the first movie.

Ambulance – It was a car chase the entire time, so if you like those kinds of movies you’ll like it. Personally, I like them at first, but then start to get bored. A robbery goes wrong and they steal an ambulance to get away. Jake Gyllenhaal is in it, who I am realizing I do like him as an actor. Before I hadn’t seen him in very much and only thought of him as the kid in October Sky. Of course, as many action and Michael Bay films are wont to do, most of it didn’t make sense if it had happened in real life, but it was entertaining.

Your Place or Mine (Netflix) – I really liked it, it was so cute. It takes you back to the early 2000’s rom-com movies. Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher star in this as best friends. They end up switching places because Debbie (Reese) has this class that she needs to take in New York, but needs a babysitter for her son, Jack. Peter (Ashton) decides to take care of him at her home in California, while she uses his place in New York. I really liked their storylines even when they weren’t together like Peter helping Jack make friends and Debbie becoming friends with Minka. It also had Steve Zahn and a lot of humor.

Someone Great (Netflix) – It says it’s a romantic comedy, but I wouldn’t call it that. It was more about the friendship than the romance. Jenny’s longtime boyfriend breaks up with her, so her friends help her have one last fun adventure before she moves across the country. It’s not a movie that I would watch again, but I liked it while watching. They had such a great friendship and it showed different types of relationships, like moving on from one or making one more serious.

We Have a Ghost (Netflix) – A family moves into a house which they soon find is also housing a ghost. It was good, but it could have been shorter. If you’re a Stranger Things fan, Hopper is in this movie. It reminded me of E.T. but instead of an alien, it’s a ghost. I did like the twist at the end when we finally find out why how he died and why he’s still haunting the house.

My Fake Boyfriend (Amazon Prime) – It was a funny rom-com. Andrew is in a toxic relationship and after the ninth breakup with the same guy, his friends decide to create him a fake boyfriend who instantly goes viral. But, Andrew meets another guy who may be the one, too bad he already has a “boyfriend.”

Dance 100 (Netflix) – This was different from any other dance show I have seen. Instead of dancers trying to win a competition, it’s the choreographers who are and all of the dancers are professional. It was fun to watch and I really enjoy watching a group of people dance more than one or two people dancing.

The Parent Test (ABC/Hulu) – This was about finding the best parenting style. I’m not a parent and don’t plan on being one, but I found this show super interesting. The parents would have different challenges with their kids and at the end they would vote on what parenting style was the best in those situations and would help raise a well-rounded child. It kind of reminded me of the show What Would You Do? especially when they left their kids alone.

I Kind of Did a 24 hour Readathon

More like a 24 hour readathon over two days. For the first day, my goal was to finish Crave by Tracy Wolff because I was running out of time before it was due back to the library.

First things first: comfy clothes – leggings and a sweatshirt. Then I had breakfast while listening to the Crave the Book podcast. Each episode goes over a couple of chapters and they talk about their thoughts of the book. It’s entertaining. Then I had a chai latte as I read Crave in a pile of pillows. Well, a couch with lots of pillows.

I used some reading sprints on YouTube. I did a lot of highlighting and making notes. I don’t usually annotate, but I had so many thoughts and e-books make it very easy to make notes. Also, I did it for the buzzword review.

I had lunch and a TV break. I watched The Parent Test, which I didn’t think would be something I would be so into.

I almost forgot, you need some good snacks for a readathon.

Then I finished Crave while walking and doing more reading sprints! Goal completed.

I celebrated by baking a new treat. I made peanut butter truffle brownies. You make brownies as normal then add a peanut butter mixture layer, and melted chocolate chips on top of the that. I found that they’re way better cold.

I started reading Till Death by Jennifer L. Armentrout and got 80 pages in before I ended the night with a movie. I watched Your Place or Mine on Netflix and I really liked it.

Day 2 was actually a week later when I had another free day. I had finished Till Death. I was in the middle of Seducing Mrs. Robinson by Rachel Van Dyken. I started the morning off with a reading crawl. I then tried on jeans that I had ordered from Amazon. I follow luluprime on instagram and she always has deals in her stories. These jeans were normally $70 and I got them for $20. I’ll leave a link to her insta.

Of course, the comfy clothes came out, more Amazon.

I had music on while I tried stuff on and it turned into a dance party. I also keep realizing how interesting my playlists can be when it’s Maroon5 and then the next song is Breathe Carolina and then Bad Religion and then back to something pop like Bebe Rexha.

I started Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon on audio and cleaned. I kept listening as I took a walk and then painted my nails. I didn’t even realize the color matched the book until now.

I finished Ice Planet Barbarians, which was way better than I was expecting. Then I did some reading sprints from YouTube and finished Seducing Mrs. Robinson, which I liked as well. Goodreads made me prove I wasn’t a robot because I finished 2 books in one day, but hey, I’m now on track with my goodreads goal.

I watched a movie, Someone Great, and then I started Burn for Burn by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian and I got in 130 pages before the end of the day. This was quite a success. I liked all of the books I read and I think I gave them all 4 stars. I ended up finishing Burn for Burn that weekend, so I was impressed with myself that I finished 3 books in two days.

These days were so nice and something I really needed to just chill out. If you need a day, a self-care day I would highly recommend doing something like this.

I’ll see you in the next post!

Book Club and Buzz Word Books

I’ve decided to do small separate posts to announce the next books for the YA Book Club and my Buzz Word Read-Along.

For February the Buzz Word is Verbs. I know February is almost over, but I think you’ll have some time before the post for this goes up. I have chosen a book that I just got in from the library and that is:

Crave by Tracy Wolff

The YA Book Club’s next theme is Retellings. We will be reading this from now through the end of March. We have chosen to read :

Sea Witch by Sarah Henning

Feel free to join me and then we can talk about these books in later posts!

Media I Have Recently Consumed

The Menu (HBO) – Are movies getting weirder? This was definitely weird, but will be ingrained into my brain. It’s about this chef and his restaurant that decide that they’re going to make a literal killer menu and it’s going to be the greatest dinner ever. It has a bunch of actors too, like Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Fiennes, Nicholas Hoult, and John Leguizamo. It’s a thriller/horror I guess. It pretty much had my attention the whole time, mostly because it was so odd.

Hide and Seek – I also saw this for the first time before seeing The Menu. Horror movies are just so odd to me with the types of premises that they come up with. Since I watched both so close together, they seemed very similar to me in the whole trying to get away from people that want to kill you. It’s not my favorite genre, but it wasn’t bad although the ending was a bit ridiculous. This woman marries into a family and whenever a new person joins they have to play a game and the game she chooses is hide and seek, which means that the family now has to hunt her and kill her to make sure nothing bad happens to them because of this ghost guy. It’s a good watch to see at least once.

Glass Onion (Netflix) – This is a companion movie to Knives Out and I really liked it. It follows Detective Benoit Blanc on another mystery. It has nothing to do with the cast or story from Knives Out. It’s like an Agatha Christie novel, we just follow the same detective to different cases. I thought it was funny and entertaining. I liked the cast, which had so many actors – Kate Hudson, Janelle Monae, Edward Norton, Kathryn Hahn, even Ethan Hawke shows up for a minute. I’m glad that it was different enough that it’s not under Knives Out’s shadow. I think it really holds it’s own. The setting is really cool and beautiful too. I can’t wait to see what they do for the third movie.

Something From Tiffany’s (Amazon Prime) – I thought it was cute and a fun romance movie to add to the Christmas line-up. There’s a mix-up of Tiffany’s bags, one has a necklace and the other is an engagement ring. It’s all about this guy trying to get back the engagement ring from the girl who got it by mistake and they end up growing close. It’s cozy and there is a lot of bread in it.

Shotgun Wedding (Amazon Prime) – I didn’t even know this was coming out or existed. I had no idea what it was about, but someone asked if I wanted to watch it and I said yes. I’m glad I said yes. This was so much fun. It has Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel as bride and groom. They are about to get married on an island in the Philippines when they’re wedding is crashed by pirates. It’s a romantic comedy action movie. I would say if you liked The Lost City with Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum you’ll like this one.

Wednesday (Netflix) – I had been highly anticipating this since I found out it was being made. I was really hoping it would come out in October and was shocked that they chose November. I feel like that was a mistake because I might have been more into it if the Halloween vibes were happening at the same time. It took me a few episodes to get into and the timing may have been a part of that, but I started really liking it about the 4th episode in. I liked the mystery and the random monster that kept showing up. I just got tired of Wednesday and her I have no feelings and sarcastic quips. It got old and maybe that’s because it was a series and not just an hour and a half because I liked Christina Ricci as Wednesday.

That 90’s Show (Netflix) – I haven’t finished the first season yet, but I’ve liked it so far. I love that the cast from That 70’s Show have all made an appearance and have their same personalities. In this one, Eric and Donna’s daughter stay’s at her grandparents’ (Red and Kitty) house for the summer. She meets a group of kids that are very similar to the group in the original and they hang out in the same basement doing the same things.

Superstore (Hulu) – This sitcom follows coworkers who work in a store similar to Walmart and their day-to-day antics. It was on TV for a while, but I just started it a month ago and I’m already over halfway through the series. It’s hilarious and the episodes are short, so you can get through it pretty quickly.

Sam and Colby – These two friends go to haunted places and hunt ghosts. Some of these videos are so good that I could see them getting their own show on TV or a streaming service. They have great personalities and make jokes. It’s fun to watch and their videos are super long. Watch it on your TV or a bigger screen than your phone and it’s like watching a movie.

Daisy Sue – One night I couldn’t sleep and stayed up just watching her videos. She mostly does food videos like mukbangs and trying new food items. What I like is that she mostly does fast food places, so most places can be found in almost every state and it’s something that most people can afford, instead of a fancy restaurant. She does the ordering what people in front of her ordered trend a lot and having others (instagram, employees, her shoe collection) decide what she eats. Yes, I do take notes of what she gets in case I find myself at one of these places.

Holiday Books

Photo by Bianca Debisko on Pexels.com

Somehow, even though Christmas and the lead up to the holiday is my favorite, I always have more ideas for Fall books and media. I think because I always reread and rewatch my favorites during Christmas. Like the movie trifecta for me is Elf, Christmas with the Kranks, and The Polar Express.

Might as well make a mini list of my favorites beside those three: Noelle, Home Alone, The Santa Clause, The Holiday, While You Were Sleeping, A Cinderella Story: Christmas Wish, Holiday in the Wild…

So, here’s a list of mostly Christmas books:

10 Blind Dates by Ashley Elston – This is my favorite! Sophie is set up on a blind date for each day through the holidays by different family members.

The Twelve Dates of Christmas by Jenny Bayliss – Kate also goes on dates leading up to the holiday with many disasters.

Any Boy But You by Julie Hammerle – A teen You’ve Got Mail.

All I Want for Christmas is You by Lisa Mondello – Honestly, I don’t remember this one, but I gave it 4 stars, so….

In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren – It’s like Groundhog’s Day, where she keeps living the day over, but it does end quickly. So, if you’re not a fan of reliving the day, I think you’ll still like it because it’s not the whole book.

The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding by Agatha Christie – Need a Christmas mystery? This is good one where Poirot spends Christmas in a country house with a dead body.

One by One by Ruth Ware – This is a thriller where the characters are snowed in while a killer is running around.

The Christmas Swap by Melody Carlson – Back to the romances. It’s like the movie The Holiday where people swap houses for Christmas except that one person ends up staying at their house when they see their new houseguests instead of leaving.

A Holly Jolly Diwali by Sonya Lalli – Niki, last minute, decides to go to her friend’s wedding where she meets Sam who helps her become more free-spirited.

Nick and Noel’s Christmas Playlist by Codi Hall – Friends to lovers, need I say more? They’re both really into music and are always making playlists for each other. There is a playlist to listen to as you read. There is fake dating, since both Nick and Noel were just dumped.

There’s Something About Merry by Codi Hall – I haven’t finished it yet, but I really like it so far. This is the sequel to Nick and Noel’s Christmas Playlist starring Nick’s younger sister, Merry. There’s another You’ve Got Mail situation happening.

The Holidate Season – This is an anthology with six short stories taking place during Christmas. Two of them are about couples that are already together, but the rest are them deciding to be together.