Review: "Little Women" (2018)

Little Women has long been one of my favorite stories. I don't think I've ever actually read the whole book, but I've loved several movie adaptations. When I heard about this new modern adaptation, I was intrigued but nervous ... after all, the dreadful The March Sisters at Christmas was a modernization, and after I saw it, I called it "the worst movie I've seen this [Christmas] season."

I needn't have worried—this is how you adapt a classic for a modern audience!

Top Ten Tuesday: Books Written by Favorite Authors that I Still Haven't Read

This week's Top Ten Tuesday is all about books by favorite authors that I haven't read yet. For this list, I'm not counting any yet-to-be-released books (even though I do have some advanced reading copies in my possession); these are all previously published books that I haven't gotten to yet.

I've decided to organize these by author, as several favorite authors have multiple books in their backlists that I haven't read yet. I'm sure I'm forgetting something/someone, too ... these are just the first 10 books that came to mind.

2018 Tackle Your TBR Read-a-thon: Wrap Up

Another Tackle Your TBR Read-a-thon is over! Statistically, I did better this year than last year, as I read 50% of the books on my list! I also read exactly the same number of books as I did last year ... I was just more realistic in my goals this time around!

Review: "12 Days at Bleakly Manor" by Michelle Griep

Fans of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None and the movie Clue will find much to enjoy in 12 Days at Bleakly Manor.

Review: "The Orphan's Wish" by Melanie Dickerson

Ah, Hagenheim. I absolutely love every chance I get to visit Melanie Dickerson's medieval kingdom! When I learned that her latest Fairy Tale Romance would be about Aladdin, well, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. You see, Aladdin is my favorite Disney movie, so I already knew I loved the basic story—I just didn't know how Dickerson would adapt it!

First Line Fridays: "Lies We Tell Ourselves"

It's finally Friday!!! Unfortunately, I don't have much of a weekend—I'm subbing in my school's girls dorm on Saturday, and I have to spend my afternoon on Sunday helping the student council decorate for Homecoming. (Ah, the joys of being an activity sponsor.) And I really need to mow my lawn somewhere in there ...

This week, I'm sharing the first line of the novel I just finished reading: Amy Matayo's Lies We Tell Ourselves. It's a fantastic book that I highly recommend!

Review: "Lies We Tell Ourselves" by Amy Matayo

I've been on the Amy Matayo train for a while now—Lies We Tell Ourselves is her tenth book, and I've read roughly half of them. One thing I love about her books is that you never know what you're going to get! Maybe the book will be dark and serious (The Whys Have It), maybe it will be light and funny (The Thirteenth Chance), or maybe it will fall somewhere in between (Christmas at Gate 18). What's a given, though, is that the book will be totally engaging!

Lies We Tell Ourselves is no different—it's a book that captures you from the beginning and doesn't let go until long after you've turned the final page.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (9-17-18)

Happy Monday! When I woke up this morning, my very first thought was, "What day is it? Why is my alarm going off?" It really felt like today should be Saturday or Sunday ... but certainly not Monday! That's because my weekend was unusual: my mom, sister, and I drove down to the Kansas State Fair on Saturday and drove back home yesterday.

2018 Tackle Your TBR Read-a-thon: Kick-off

It's time again for the annual Tackle Your TBR Read-a-thon! I enjoyed participating last year (even though I bit off more than I could chew), and I've been looking forward to this year's event.

Because this year's read-a-thon is just a week (instead of two), I'm scaling back my goals to something that's hopefully manageable!

Review + Giveaway: "Unbroken: Path to Redemption"

Remember the story of Louis Zamperini? If you've read the book Unbroken, you probably know the whole story. But if you've only seen the movie? Well, that ended with a large portion of Zamperini's story yet untold! Unbroken: Path to Redemption picks up where Unbroken left off, and as soon as I heard about it, I knew I wanted to know (as Paul Harvey would say) "the rest of the story."

Review: "Formula of Deception" by Carrie Stuart Parks

I used to love reading thrillers; Mary Higgins Clark was a favorite of mine as a teen, and in more recent years I've enjoyed books by Ted Dekker, Lis Wiehl, and Creston Mapes. But somewhere along the way, I got tired of thrillers. They're often dark, and I don't particularly like feeling tense while I'm reading. So I transitioned into romantic suspense—usually heavier on the romance, lighter on the suspense—with novels by Dani Pettrey, Terri Blackstock, and Lynette Eason.

Then I started hearing about Carrie Stuart Parks. Formula of Deception didn't sound like romantic suspense to me, but it did sound interesting, so I decided to give it a shot. I'm very glad I did!

Top Ten Tuesday: Hidden Gems on My Bookshelf

Happy Tuesday! If you read my It's Monday! post yesterday, you know that I wasn't sure if Monday would truly be happy ... from a baseball point of view. And it wasn't. The Cubs and Brewers are at it again tonight, and I'm hoping for a much better outcome!

Today's Top Ten Tuesday topic is "Hidden Gems," and I'm taking this topic and making it my own. So today I'm highlighting ten books I pulled from my bookshelf that should be really good, but I haven't read them yet! But I'll tell you why I think I'd like them 😃. All the books are several years old, and I only remember one of them being heavily promoted when it released (which is why I bought it), but I haven't heard anything about it in a long time.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (9-10-18)

Happy Monday! Well, it may be a happy Monday ... we'll know in about an hour. September baseball is not for the feint of heart, that's for sure! The Cubs bullpen is a hot mess right now, and I cringe every time certain pitchers take the mound. (Perhaps this is early panicking on my part—after all the Cubs still hold the best record in the National League. But those pesky Brewers are right on their tails ...) Anyway, on to the books, shall we?

What's Val Reading? (August 2018)

Happy September! It's beginning to feel like fall, and I am here. for. it.

Let the record show that Val sent this to me on August 31...so that fact that it's being published on September 9 is no one's fault but my own! Here's what she read last month.

Review: "A Daring Venture" by Elizabeth Camden

I absolutely loved A Dangerous Legacy, the first book in Elizabeth Camden's Empire State series, when I read it last year. So of course I jumped at the chance to read the sequel, A Daring Venture!

Review: "Hidden Among the Stars" by Melanie Dobson

In the last several years, split time (time-slip, dual timeline) novels have become quite popular. When done well, the combination of contemporary fiction with historical feels like it's the best of both worlds! One author who writes excellent split time fiction is Melanie Dobson, so I was quite eager to get my hands on her new book, Hidden Among the Stars.

First Line Fridays: "Hidden Among the Stars"

Happy Friday! Why do holiday weeks feel so much longer than other weeks? I didn't have to work on Monday ... and Tuesday through Thursday felt interminably long. So I'm thrilled to be approaching the weekend!

This week, I'm spotlighting my current read, Melanie Dobson's Hidden Among the Stars. This is a split-time novel set in Nazi-occupied Austria and present day America.

Review: "Dark Matter" by Blake Crouch

I remember hearing about Dark Matter when it released ... at the time, I'd just started watching a TV show called Dark Matter (see my thoughts on the show here), and I made the (erroneous) assumption that the two were connected. Well, they're both sci-fi ... and that's where the similarities end!

About a month ago, Dark Matter was deeply discounted on Kindle. After asking my sister if I'd like it (she said yes), I pulled the trigger. Flash forward to my trip to San Francisco last month. On my first flight, I was looking for something to read, and, shock of all shocks, I wasn't feeling YA or inspy romance. So I started Dark Matter and got swept into a really intriguing story.

Top Ten Tuesday: TV Shows I've Binge Watched

Oh, how I love when a Top Ten Tuesday post is about television! I'm a bit of a TV junkie ... my earliest memory of being addicted to a TV show was when I was about five years old, and I would rush home from supper to turn on The Cosby Show. (My parents were dorm parents at a boarding school, so we ate in the cafeteria.) This topic, Bingeworthy TV shows, makes me very happy!

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (9-3-18)

Happy Monday! And, for those of you in the United States, Happy Labor Day! Labor Day has always been one of my favorite holidays, not for the meaning behind it (I'll be honest: I don't know the history behind Labor Day) but for the day off it represents. When I was younger, my family always went camping with a couple other families over Labor Day Weekend, and it was such fun! Now, I just love that it's an extra day off after the first few weeks of school 😊.