Contemporaryathon Round 6 [TBR]

I decided to join in on the Contemporaryathon hosted by Chelsea, Julie, and Natasha. It runs February 10 to 16. It's a love letter of sorts to the contemporary genre :) More info here [Chelsea's announcement video]

There are 7 challenges and you can hit as many books as you can with a book, so I'm going to try to read maybe 2 books, if I can. I'm working on my masters degree and that means reading is not going to be my priority.

The challenges are:

1. Green on the cover
2. New to you author
3. Diverse
4. Backlist
5. Dark/Hard hitting
6. Illustrated cover
7. Beloved by a member of the book community

Books that are on my tentative TBR are:

1. Side Effects May Vary by Julie Murphy - green, backlist, dark, illustrated (4)
2. Lab Partners by Mora Montgomery - green, new author, diverse, illustrated (4)
3. Only Mostly Devastated by Sophie Gonzalez - green, new author, diverse, backlist, illustrated (5)
4. She Myself and I - Emma Young - new author, diverse, backlist, dark, illustrated (5)
5. Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews - green, new author, backlist, illustrated (4)
6. Tilt by Ellen Hopkins - green,  new author, backlist, dark (4)
7. Tyler Johnson Was Here by Jay Coles - green, new author, diverse, backlist, dark (5)

Every one of them hits at least 4 challenges. Ideally, I would like to read a Netgalley book and Tyler Johnson. I have Side Effects in hardcover, the yellow books from Netgalley, and the green books on Kindle. The only challenge that I'm not sure on is beloved by a member of the book community because I don't think I've heard any book people talk about any of these books. If you are a fan or if you know someone who is, please let me know :)

Book Review: Tweet Cute by Emma Lord

Synopsis:

Meet Pepper, swim team captain, chronic overachiever, and all-around perfectionist. Her family may be falling apart, but their massive fast-food chain is booming — mainly thanks to Pepper, who is barely managing to juggle real life while secretly running Big League Burger’s massive Twitter account. 

Enter Jack, class clown and constant thorn in Pepper’s side. When he isn’t trying to duck out of his obscenely popular twin’s shadow, he’s busy working in his family’s deli. His relationship with the business that holds his future might be love/hate, but when Big League Burger steals his grandma’s iconic grilled cheese recipe, he’ll do whatever it takes to take them down, one tweet at a time. 

All’s fair in love and cheese — that is, until Pepper and Jack’s spat turns into a viral Twitter war. Little do they know, while they’re publicly duking it out with snarky memes and retweet battles, they’re also falling for each other in real life — on an anonymous chat app Jack built. 

As their relationship deepens and their online shenanigans escalate — people on the internet are shipping them?? — their battle gets more and more personal, until even these two rivals can’t ignore they were destined for the most unexpected, awkward, all-the-feels romance that neither of them expected.

 

Review:
I was gifted an ebook via Netgalley. I voluntarily read and reviewed it. All thoughts are my own.

I read Tweet Cute back in September, but had to wait until now to gush about it. I don't know what it is lately, but I have been striking gold with YA contemporaries. Specifically, YA contemporaries with the most cinnamon roll characters ever, but my heart cannot take the adorable cinnamon rolls. Emma Lord's writing style and characters remind me a lot of Jenn Bennett, so if you are a fan of Jenn Bennett, you have to pick up Tweet Cute. This is Lord's debut and she is already going to be an instabuy for me.

It follows the tale of Pepper and Jack, two teens that go to the same school in NYC and help run the Twitter accounts for their family's restaurants. After Big League Burger, Pepper's family's business, comes out with a grilled cheese that is eerily similar to Jack's grandma's grilled cheese on the menu at their business, Girl Cheesing, the two begin a Twitter feud.

There is a ton more to the story and Pepper and Jack's lives and it is such a rich story. The characters feel so real and it was too easy to get invested in the pair of them. I think a lot of the typical tropes were done in a really wonderful way, especially miscommunication. I usually hate seeing miscommunication in YA books (and movies and tv shows, etc.) but it was so well done in Tweet Cute. Every single part of the story worked together perfectly and I really loved how it all ended.

Again, if you like cinnamon roll characters...if you like Jenn Bennett, you MUST pick up Tweet Cute. IT'S SO CUTE.

Author Bio:

Emma Lord is a digital media editor and writer living in New York City, where she spends whatever time she isn’t writing either running or belting show tunes in community theater. She graduated from the University of Virginia with a major in psychology and a minor in how to tilt your computer screen so nobody will notice you updating your fan fiction from the back row. She was raised on glitter, grilled cheese, and a whole lot of love. Her sun sign is Hufflepuff, but she is a Gryffindor rising. TWEET CUTE is her debut novel. You can find her geeking out online at @dilemmalord on Twitter.

 

December Book Haul

I did pretty well with hauling this month because I wasn't sure what I would get for Christmas. I'm not sure what's going on but I need to emphasize that I want books. I need books. LOL. My husband got me the literal tome that is the 4th compendium of Walking Dead comics. I received Love Her or Lose Her from Netgalley. I got two books from Amazon when they were free and one I paid for. The other 5 were library books.

Bout of Books 26 [Days 5-7 Progress + Finish Line]

To sign up for Bout of Books, go here. It's a low pressure readathon and I love participating. I'm an expert once again, so I will be encouraging as many readers as I can :) To see my TBR and goals for BOB, see my TBR and Goals post.

[DAY 5 PROGRESS]
Love Her or Lose Her by Tessa Bailey - started at 12%, ended at 13% (3 pages)

DAILY TOTAL: 3 pages //  0 books finished
READATHON TOTAL: 496 pages + 11 hr 4 min // 3 books finished
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[DAY 6 PROGRESS]
Love Her or Lose Her by Tessa Bailey - started at 13%, ended at 100% (306 pages)
Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake - started at 0%, ended at 13% (54 pages)

DAILY TOTAL: 360 pages // 1 book finished
READATHON TOTAL: 856 pages + 11 hr 4 min // 4 books finished

READING UPDATE: 10AM I decided to stay up late last night and watch tv with my big kids because they asked me to and you don't get that much in this preteen stage. When I tried to read in bed, I kinda just crashed. This week is my first week in many where my husband is in army training (hopefully the last one for a while!), so it's just me handling all the things going on - the 3 kids, 4 animals, school stuff, speech and ot appointments, chores, errands, etc. Yesterday was pretty packed. I had an electrician come by, my intake call for the masters program I start in a few weeks, and a basketball tournament game at dinnertime. I didn't get really any substantial reading done. But I'm definitely hoping to get some done today because there is another tournament game tonight. I would love to finish Love Her or Lose Her this week. 10PM I did it! I finished Love Her or Lose Her. And I decided to pick up Three Dark Crowns because it was either that or The Darkest Minds and I had Three Dark Crowns more easily accessible. I really need to pick up Ace of Shades because it's the other book on my January TBR. :)

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[DAY 7 PROGRESS]
Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake - started at 13%, ended at 14% (4 pages)

DAILY TOTAL: 4 pages //  0 books finished
READATHON TOTAL:  860 pages + 11 hr 4 min //  4 books finished

READING UPDATE: 10AM I'm expecting to not read too too much today because we just got home from grocery shopping and we have to leave in about an hour for basketball games. Last night, Cami's game got cancelled because of the severe weather going on. So instead of 2, her first game is at 1:30 and she has to be there early, so we have to hit the ground running after lunch. If she wins the first game, she plays again at 4. If she wins that game, she plays again at 6:45. So we could potentially be out for most of the day.
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[FINISH LINE]

TOTAL: 860 pages + 11 hr 4 min //  4 books finished

FINAL THOUGHTS: First readathon done for the year. I think it was a great burst of reading to start me off right - I'm already at 5 books read for 2020 and 4 of those were done this week. Looking back at my Goals and TBR post (linked at the top of this post), I accomplished all my goals - I read a little each day, participated in at least one chat (I did both this time!), and cheerled/cheerleaded my fellow readathoners. I am hoping to stop by some finish line posts today to see how everyone did. I'm very proud of my week. I think that ever since I made my expectations low and stopped going "I want to finish x books", it seems like my readathons have been going way smoother and I feel so accomplished at the end. Anyways, I read 4 really great books and started a 5th that I'm enjoying. I had a busy, but really fun week. See y'all in May!!

Top Ten Most Anticipated Book Releases for the First Half of 2020

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. More information here.

I always start the year with a pretty small number of books on my anticipated list and then by the end of the year there are just as many as the previous years. For example, for 2020, I have 34 books on my 2020 releases shelf. 2019 was very similar but is now sitting at 208 books - and that's not including the 2019 books I read during the year. So I know that (have no fear) I will end up with an insane amount of books added to my TBR that I definitely don't have time to read. But here we go!

Bout of Books 27 [Days 1-4 Progress]

To sign up for Bout of Books, go here. It's a low pressure readathon and I love participating. I'm an expert once again, so I will be encouraging as many readers as I can :) To see my TBR and goals for BOB, see my TBR and Goals post.

[DAY 1 PROGRESS]
The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams - started at 15%, ended at 100% (299 pages)
This Adventure Ends by Emma Mills - started at 52%, ended at 60% (25 pages)

DAILY TOTAL:  324 pages // 1 book finished
READATHON TOTAL:  324 pages // 1 book finished

READING UPDATE: 10AM I'm so ready to start, but I've had a busy morning so far. Gotta do one more errand and then I'll be good to go to just read. I'm really excited about reading The Bromance Book Club. The first little bit I've read last night was hilarious.  9PM I have finished one book and I'm currently chatting on Twitter - I seriously love the Twitter chats.
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[DAY 2 PROGRESS]
This Adventure Ends by Emma Mills - started at 60%, ended at 88% (89 pages)
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan - started at 13:53:22, ended at 6:59:14 (6 hr 54 min)


DAILY TOTAL:  89 pages + 6 hr 54 min //  0 books finished
READATHON TOTAL:  413 pages + 6 hr 54 min //  1 book finished

READING UPDATE: 8AM I'm starting Crazy Rich Asians while I do my morning computer browsing. Then I may read some more of This Adventure Ends.
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[DAY 3 PROGRESS]
This Adventure Ends by Emma Mills - started at 88%, ended at 100% (38 pages)
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan - started at 6:59:14, ended at 3:49:00 (3 hr 10 min)
Love Her or Lose Her by Tessa Bailey - started at 0%, ended at 4% (14 pages)


DAILY TOTAL:  52 pages + 3 hr 10 min // 1 book finished
READATHON TOTAL:  465 pages + 11 hr 4 min //  2 books finished

READING UPDATE: 8AM I tried so hard to finish This Adventure Ends last night but could not stay awake for the life of me. I should be able to finish it within 15 minutes this morning. There's a plumber coming out today, so I'm not sure how much reading will be done while he's here.
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[DAY 4 PROGRESS]
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan - started at 3:49:00, ended at 0:00:00 (3 hr 49 min)
Love Her or Lose Her by Tessa Bailey - started at 4%, ended at 12% (28 pages)


DAILY TOTAL: 28 pages + 3 hr 49 min // 1 book finished
READATHON TOTAL: 493 pages + 11 hr 4 min // 3 books finished

READING UPDATE:  8AM Yesterday was a little bit rough with the plumber being at my house from 10am to 5:30pm, so I didn't listen to as much of the audiobook as I wanted. I also tried to read my Kindle in bed but could not stay awake and ended up giving up on that. Today I would love to finish Crazy Rich Asians, but I'm not going to force myself or anything.

Books I Read in December

I read 9 books in December.

• Check, Please! Book 1: # Hockey by Ngozi Ukazu (Kindle, 288 pages, 2018, NA Contemporary, Library) - 2 stars | My Review - Counted towards Goodreads challenge
• Nevernight by Jay Kristoff (Hardcover, 429 pages, 2016, Adult Fantasy, Purchased) - 5 stars | My Review - Counted towards Goodreads challenge, series challenge 
• Bound by Birthright by Janeal Falor (Kindle, 242 pages, 2016, YA Fantasy, Netgalley/Purchased) - 2 stars | My Review - Counted towards Goodreads challenge, Netgalley challenge
• Of Curses and Kisses by Sandhya Menon (Kindle, 384 pages, 2020, YA Contemporary, Netgalley) - 3.5 stars | Review to Come - Counted towards Goodreads challenge, Netgalley challenge, Popsugar challenge 
• Meet Cute by Helena Hunting (Kindle, 384 pages, 2019, Adult Contemporary, Library) - 5 stars | My Review - Counted towards Goodreads challenge
• Jane Anonymous by Laurie Faria Stolarz (Kindle, 310 pages, 2020, YA Thriller, Netgalley) - 2 stars | My Review - Counted towards Goodreads challenge, Netgalley challenge 
• The Girl Who Wasn't Dead by Samantha Boyette (Kindle, 219 pages, 2017, YA Thriller, Netgalley) - 1 star | My Review - Counted towards Goodreads challenge, Netgalley challenge, Own Voices 
• Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson (Audio, 14 hr 20 min, 2019, YA Fantasy, Library) - 5 stars | My Review - Counted towards Goodreads challenge, Owlcrate challenge 
• Twisted Twenty-Six by Janet Evanovich (Audio, 6 hr 43 min, 2019, Adult Mystery, Library) - 4 stars | My Review - Counted towards Goodreads challenge, series challenge

Pages read: 2256 + 21 hr 3 min
Pages DNF: 0