Tag: Books

Book Review: Fame, Fate, and The First Kiss by Kasie West

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It’s now officially fall! Fall means many things for many people, but on many of the book social media sites I used to follow, it means they will post content relating to books in the horror genre. (Probably because they want to talk, and even promote, books that are good for the Halloween season of fall.)

I, on the other hand, never really liked horror movies, books, or anything relating to it. Gothic novels? Yes, I’ll read those. Suspense novels? Sure! Thrillers? I’ll read them. But horror? Nope. No way. And the same thing goes for anything macabre and contains a lot of gore. It doesn’t matter if the books are in the horror genre. I won’t read them.

This is why I tend to favor books that tell stores with horror elements in them in a different way. Or it isn’t the most important part of the story. This is the case for the young adult romance Fame, Fate, and The First Kiss by Kasie West.

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Skylar Salt Air Fragrance Review (With The Summer I Turned Pretty Limited Edition Packaging)

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It’s July and that means it’s time to review another fragrance from Skylar. I love Skylar’s fragrances and how they are hypoallergenic. For summer 2025, I decided to review the three fragrances that were part of a collaboration for season 2 of The Summer I Turned Pretty.

Like with the previous fragrance I reviewed, Capri Summer, this fragrance is exactly the same as the non limited edition version. The packaging, on the other hand, is part of Skylar’s collaboration with The Summer I Turned Pretty. I decided to use it for reference photos. Also, just for reference, the third and final season of The Summer I Turned Pretty will premiere next week.

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Reading Books, Reading Books Via Audio Books, and My Desire for More Transparency for Online Reviews

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For a few years, I struggled with comparing my reading habits to people I see online. Comparing my reading habits goes back to when I was in elementary school when others read less than I did, but I did have problems reading and writing caused me to test poorly in reading speed tests. Today, I enjoy reading and I can speed read pretty well, but I’m still pretty sensitive about it and I can’t speed read as fast as someone that doesn’t have my problems. Because of this, I don’t like to call myself a bookworm and I like to read a book at least once before I review it online.

This sensitivity began to rear it’s head when I started to watch videos reviewing books I was interested in. Although I didn’t have an issue with people who read faster than me, (Obviously they don’t struggle with reading like I do) I began have problems with people with reading disabilities reading more than I do. One person in particular began to review multiple books, some of them over 400 pages long, every month. I couldn’t fathom how this was possible. I can read a 400 page long book in a small amount of time, but I can’t read many of them over the course of the month.

Many theories began to form in my head, including they may have way more time on their hands than I do. (They are full time social media influencers after all.) Late last year, while watching one of this person’s videos, I found out my answer: They listen to audio books.

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Lucy Score’s Kockemout Series Collector’s Edition Book Feature

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For as long as I can remember, I enjoyed collecting books. Sometimes I collected books because I loved reading the books and enjoyed owning them with different covers. Other times I collected books due to their rarity. Still, I enjoyed collecting books. Seeing them on bookshelves makes me happy. Getting the chance to read them makes me even more happy!

For a few years, book publishers have released very popular books in limited edition covers. Usually these books are popular on #BookTok. In my case, I liked looking at these collectable books, but I don’t necessarily like reading them. In these cases, I don’t normally buy these books, even though they are “collectable”.

Recently, I discovered the Collector’s Edition of Lucy Score’s Knockemout series at my local Walmart. I saw them online prior to this and I thought they looked really nice. Yet, I didn’t actually like reading the series. So, I passed on them. When I saw the books in person at Walmart, I was shocked by how pretty the looked! After walking away from the books and continuing with my shopping, I finally broke down and decided to go back to the book section to pick up all the copies in the series.

Even though I am not a fan of the series, I absolutely love the way the books look like! Since I was on the fence about how the books looked online than in person, I decided to write a post all about the Collector’s Edition series. This post is not about what I feel about the books after reading them. Just what the Collector’s Edition looks like and my opinions about them.

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Books I Read in January 2025

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It is a new year and so far it has been a busy one! Along with my normal job, I’ve been busy with things that happened in the latter half of 2024. One of those things was my mixer broke. From December 23 through the first weekend of January, I had plans to bake and freeze food (Such as cookies and muffins) to eat in the first half of 2025, but I couldn’t because I was without a mixer. Even though I ordered a new mixer, it didn’t show up until mid January. Since I allocated a lot of time to bake, I spent this time reading.

I do not consider myself a fast reader, yet, in January, I was able to read three books the whole way through. Some of the books I’m really enjoying while others I am not. Still, I wanted to talk about them in a post, just in case I don’t remember to talk about them on this blog again!

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Book Review: Maybe This Time by Kasie West

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Even though it is January, I am really enjoying taking the time to read summer young adult romance novels. I have quite a few that need to be read, but so far I’m really enjoying reading one of my favorite genres of books.

While trying to decide on a book to write a review of, one of these romance novels stood out above the others. It is Maybe This Time by Kasie West. Even though the book is one I consider a “summertime” young adult romance, it starts in January and takes place throughout the whole year. Since I’m in the middle of reading books out of season, including other Kasie West novels, I decided to write a review Maybe This Time.

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Book Review: Santa Stops at Disneyland- A Little Golden Book

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Ever since I was a girl, I enjoyed reading Christmas books. Even if it wasn’t Christmas time, I still would like to read them! As an adult, I still enjoy reading Christmas themed children’s books. Even though my collection is not very large, I still enjoy reading them!

For this year’s Blogmas, I decided to write some more reviews on some of my Christmas children’s books. I decided to start with one of my newest additions to my book collection: Santa Stops at Disneyland!

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Book Review: Audrey Hepburn: The Illustrated World of a Fashion Icon by Megan Hess

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Earlier this year, I wrote a review of Megan Hess’ Grace Kelly: The Illustrated Wold of a Fashion Icon. You can read that post here. In that post, I mentioned I planned on writing a review about Megan Hess’ book about Audrey Hepburn. I planned to write and publish the post during the summer, but I never got around to it!

Since the Emmys will be this weekend, and Audrey was an Emmy winner, I decided to save the book review post until now!

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Book Review: Murder She Wrote- Debonair in Death by Jessica Fletcher & Terrie Farley Moran

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When Murder, She Wrote ended airing on TV in 1996, many fans missed the series. Since the series was so popular, a book series inspired by the show was published. In 2024, the series is still in print and new title are still being published to this day!

When I found out there was a book series in 1990’s, I was really excited. I was a fan of the series growing up and I missed Jessica Fletcher’s adventures. It was then when I decided when I get older, I would start to read the series. Fast forward to today and I have achieved my goal of reading books from the series!

One of the books in the series I recently read is Murder, She Wrote: Debonair in Death. This book initially grabbed my attention because it includes a character I liked from the TV shows in the book.

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Books I Read in July 2024

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Last month, I decided to set a very high reading goal for me. My goal was to read ten books before the end of the month. I decided to do this in order to push myself to read more and get faster at reading. I used to be a fast reader, but I needed to slow down during school. Since then I haven’t been able to pick up my reading speed. This year, I made a goal to start practice reading faster.

I didn’t make my goal, but I did read and finish more than five. Some of the books are manga, which means I read them faster than novels. Still, I am still really happy I was able to read and finish more than five books in a month.

Since the end of July, I have thought about the books I read. Some of them I like while others I’m not sure about. Instead of dedicating posts to every book I read, I decided to compile my thoughts into one posts. I still plan on writing review posts about certain books, specifically novels, in the future, but that is for the future.

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