book tags Archives - Brooke's Reviews and Sweeps

ABC Book Challenge – Z and Numbers

By Brookelorren on December 29, 2019December 29, 2019Leave a Comment

It’s Sunday again, and it’s time for the ABC Book Challenge! I found it over at Me, Myself, and Books, but I think it was started by The Thrifty Bibliophile. Today’s letter is Z, plus the books that don’t start with letters. To be honest, I don’t have any books in “My Books” on Goodreads that start with Z (I didn’t have any that started with X either) but I found some.

It’s hard to believe that this will be my last ABC book challenge post. Perhaps I’ll revisit this challenge in five years, or maybe I’ll do this once in a decade… but who knows what ten years will bring? I can’t imagine things would change enough to do this next year, however, especially since this is a six-month commitment. It was fun to go through my TBR and books I read to see my favorites in every letter though.

So without further ado, here are the Z and non-letter books!

I heard about Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth years ago when it initially came out. I can’t remember whether this was a controversial book or not, but from reading the reviews, I’d probably disagree with the author on some points (I am a Christian) but I’m also of the opinion that you can learn things from people that disagree with you even if you don’t necessarily agree with everything a person says. For example, I’m sure I’d find the historical context in this book interesting.

Zia stuck out to me because it’s written by the author of Island of the Blue Dolphins. It’s the story of another native girl who, this time, is at a mission. This is supposed to be the story of the niece of the girl from the Island. Karana, the lady whom the original story was written about, couldn’t communicate with her “rescuers” and only lived for seven weeks after she rejoined civilization, so this story would have no basis in fact, but it might be an interesting read.

I have an ARC for 10 Things I Hate About Pinky, which is a story with fake-dating and is in the When Dimple Met Rishi Universe, so I hope to read this early in 2020.

My mom adores Stephen King books, although I haven’t read many in recent years. 11/22/63 sounds like an interesting blend of history with a Stephen King twist. Maybe I should use one of my Audible credits on this.

I’ve been saying I wanted to read 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance for years now. I enjoyed 1421 and The Lost Empire of Atlantis, both by the same author. For some reason, I never got around to reading this book. Maybe in 2020.

1920: The Year of the Six Presidents is another book I’ve been meaning to read for a while. Perhaps 2020, the centennial of that important year, would be a good time to read this book.

The 5th Wave was one of my favorite books I read in 2016. I tore through this book, despite its monster length. Sadly, I didn’t like the other books in this trilogy as much as I loved the first book.

So that’s it! I hope you’ve found this tour through my My Books highlights on Goodreads to be semi-interesting. Thank you for reading!

Goodreads: My Year in Books 2019

By Brookelorren on December 26, 2019December 26, 201912 Comments

Hello! I hope you had a great Christmas. Even though I still plan on reading one or two more books, the Goodreads Your Year in Books has been going around for a while. Bite Into Books is hosting the Your Year in Books Book meme and I decided to participate.

I knew when this year began that it would be a good year in books, and it was!

Some Statistics…

I read 55,261 pages across 152 books (so far) this year! There’s still one more week so it’ll probably be a little more. I averaged 363 pages per book.

The shortest book I read was Life After Legend, which was a whopping 21 pages. the longest book I read (on audiobook) was Les Misérables, which is 1463 pages in print.

The most popular book I read this year was City of Bones, which was read by 1,626,682 other people. The least popular book I read was Goof-Proof, which was read by 26 other people.

My average rating was 4.5 (although I don’t always rate my lower-rated books).

My first review of the year was “The Midnight Heir,” and the last book of the year was Almost Midnight (so far).

So that was my year in books! How did you do? You can join this meme with a link-up on Bite Into Books. There you can see what other people read too!

Books I’d Like to Haul in 2020

By Brookelorren on December 24, 2019December 23, 201920 Comments

Hello! It’s Tuesday, and you know what that means: Christmas Eve! It’s also Top Ten Tuesday! Today’s topic was supposed to be Books I Hope to Find Under My Tree, but I tend to pre-order a lot of books (or buy them on sale), and I’m not sure if my parents would be able to pre-order books, so the books I really want won’t be there tomorrow. However, I do want some books coming up so I’ll list them here today!

This book is out now, so it might actually be under my tree. This sounds like a good book and I plan on reading it in 2020. I also want to write a fusion fanfic of this book, combined with A Treason of Thorns by Laura E. Weymouth. I think it might be fun.

I should get an ARC of The Kingdom of Back soon, but I’m still going to get a finished Kindle copy and hardback. Those are going to arrive on March 3rd. The hardback copy will probably be shipped via UPS (along with the next book) so it probably won’t arrive until late in the evening.

I bought Chain of Gold with last year’s Christmas gift cards, so in a way, this did appear under my tree already. However, it won’t be released until March 3rd, so I’m still waiting for it.

The Vanishing Deep is another March 3rd release I want. I’m getting this one on audiobook… because as you can see, there’s already a lot of books coming out that day I want to read.

Here’s yet another book coming out on March 3rd. The Midnight Lie sounds great. I might get this from the library though, as I’m not in a huge hurry to read this.

I adored Sky Without Stars, and knew I had to read the second book as soon as I finished it (even though it didn’t have a title at the time). I’ve already pre-ordered Between Burning Worlds, although I have to wait until March 24th for it to come out. In the meantime, I’ll reread Sky Without Stars.

I just noticed that Chosen Ones, Veronica Roth’s next book, is coming out in April instead of May. So one less month before I read this book. I loved Divergent; this is her adult debut.

I already had the opportunity to read Of Curses and Kisses, but I plan on getting a finished copy. I’m looking forward to reading the next book when it comes out too!

I really liked Echoes by Alice Reeds, and am looking forward to reading Fractures, which is supposed to come out on June 2nd.

A tenth book that I’d like to haul in 2020 is Skyhunter, which doesn’t come out until October 6th, but I’ve already pre-ordered. I’d buy Marie Lu’s shopping list if she published it, so even though I don’t know much about what this book is about, I’m sure I’m going to like it.

So those are ten books that, even though I don’t expect them under my tree, I plan to get in 2020. Do you hope to get books for Christmas? What books do you hope to buy next year?

ABC Book Challenge – Y

By Brookelorren on December 22, 2019December 29, 20194 Comments

It’s the last Sunday before Christmas, and I’m posting late this week because the holidays have been busy. How has your week been? There’s only one week left for the ABC Book Challenge, which I first found over at Me, Myself, and Books, but I think was started by The Thrifty Bibliophile. There are a few books that start with Y this week.

Benjamin Franklin was a genius. When I took a class on creativity, the professor talked about some of the exercises Franklin did. Young Benjamin Franklin: The Birth of Ingenuity, talks about Benjamin Franklin’s earlier years. It seems interesting to me.

The Young Elites is one of the books I plan on rereading in 2020. I love this trilogy which has a grey protagonist and one of my favorite ships.

I really liked the book Flame in the Mist, and Yumi is a companion short story to that. It’s also still free on Amazon.com.

I thought I had more books that started with Y, but there weren’t that many. Hard to believe, but next week is the last week of the ABC reading challenge. See you then.

ABC Book Challenge – X

By Brookelorren on December 15, 2019December 15, 2019Leave a Comment

Welcome to Sunday, and another edition of the ABC book challenge! I found it over at Me, Myself, and Books, but I believe it was started by The Thrifty Bibliophile. Today’s letter is X, which I think is going to be the shortest entry of the alphabet, because I only have one book:

The only book I can think of that starts with X is Xenocide by Orson Scott Card. I normally haven’t been posting the third book in a series during this ABC book challenge, but there really aren’t that many candidates for this letter. Xenocide is the third book in the Ender’s Game Saga.

I read this book a long time ago, but I absolutely loved Ender’s Game. I don’t remember much about this particular book, other than it was part of Ender’s story.

That’s about all I can remember that start’s with this letter. Do you have any favorite books that begin with this letter? There are more books for the letter Y next week.

Netgalley Book Tag

By Brookelorren on December 14, 2019December 14, 20192 Comments

I recently found the Netgalley Book tag. Do I care that it’s from 2016? Absolutely not! Some book tags are timeless. Anyway, this was started by Kourtni Reads and I found it over at Booked J. It sounded like a lot of fun so I’m doing it!

The Rules:

Link back to the tag’s creator (Kourtni Reads)
Thank and link back to the person who tagged you
Answer the questions the best you can. If you don’t use NetGalley, you can substitute other sites or places where you get books!
Tag a few people to do this too

Auto-Approved: Who’s one author whose books you automatically want to read, regardless of what they’re about?

Marie Lu. I have literally no clue what Skyhunter is about, it doesn’t come out until October 6th, 2020, but I already pre-ordered this book over a month ago. So if I got auto-approved, I’d be really happy. I’m ecstatic that I’m getting an ARC for The Kingdom of Back.

Request: What makes you want to request a book that you see on NetGalley?

There are a lot of things that make me request a book on Netgalley. Is it by an author I love? Does the book sound amazing? Do I need a book coming out around that pub date for my blog? I have more than one place I get ARCs from now, so I have to keep all this in mind because if I request it, I make every effort to review it on time.

Feedback Ratio: Do you review every book you read? If not, how do you decide what books to review?

I review every Netgalley book I request (most of the time before the pub date). I review almost all the backlist books I read. Sometimes I make exceptions for those.

Wish for It: What’s one book that you are absolutely dying to read?

There are several books I’m dying to read, and most of them I’ve either pre-ordered or am planning on pre-ordering. Chain of Gold is one of the books I’m dying to read that I’m sure I won’t be able to read before its release date. But… since I’m reading The Kingdom of Back early and I’m reading The Vanishing Deep on audiobook (all three are March 3rd releases) I’ll start this on its release date!

NetGalley Challenge: What was the last book that you received as an ARC that you reviewed? If you’ve never received an ARC, what’s the last book you reviewed?

I reviewed Of Curses and Kisses on Goodreads, but the author requested I wait until release week to review it on my blog. I reviewed Every Other Weekend on Netgalley, but I’ve been busy working on book edits and haven’t reviewed it here yet. The last book I reviewed on my blog was Reverie? NaNoWriMo happened, which is why I haven’t done many reviews lately. And now I’m trying to get THE BRIGHTNESS OF SHADOW ready for beta readers so I can have it polished for Author Mentor Match…

So that’s the Netgalley Book Tag! Do you want to do it? Tag, you’re it! If you do the tag, I’d love to see what you’re answers are.

ABC Book Challenge – W

By Brookelorren on December 8, 2019December 8, 2019Leave a Comment

Hello! Once again, it’s time for the ABC book challenge! This is where I go through the books on My Books on Goodreads and I pick out the books I really liked or really want to read. Today we’re on the letter W. I first found this over at Me, Myself, and Books, although I believe it was created by The Thrifty Bibliophile.

I loved Warcross, and it was my favorite book that I read in 2017. I read it on the last day of the year. I love the character of Emika, and I loved the whole hacking/gaming aspect of the book. My major was in computer science, so when I first heard about it I was excited about it.

Sandhya Menon was the speaker at the Colorado Teen Literature Conference this year, and since I was going to meet her, I figured I might as well read her books. So I read When Dimple Met Rishi, and I loved it.

When Money Dies is a nonfiction book that deals with the hyperinflation that occurred during the Weimar Republic. I’ve always thought it was fascinating how people dealt with the times when it took a wheelbarrowload full of money to buy a loaf of bread. Along similar lines, a really good book that gives a first-person account of how a teenager lived through this time was Defying Hitler by Sebastian Haffner (although that’s only a small part of that book).

Wicked Fox had me at the cover. Plus it’s a book set in modern-day Korea.

I read the Wrath & Righteousness series several years ago and really liked it. It’s one of those apocalyptic kinds of books. I’ll probably reread it again sometime, because when I first read it, I read each episode as they came out. There’s ten small books in the entire series.

So that’s the letter W! Can you believe I only have one book for the letter X next week? I might come up with one more between now and then, but I doubt it. Z is my most difficult letter, but I’m combining that week with letters that start with numbers or letters that are not normally in the US alphabet.

Christmas Songs Book Tag

By Brookelorren on December 7, 2019December 7, 20194 Comments

Hello! I hope you’re having a great week! I saw the Christmas Songs Book Tag over at That Artsy Reader Girl and it sounded like a lot of fun! So before we get too involved in the holiday season, I’d like to post my list for you.

1. “All I Want for Christmas Is You”: Favorite bookish couple.

Anne at Head Full of Books posted a bunch of Jane Austen couples, so is it okay for me to post a couple ships by one author? I’ll do it anyway. I adore Day and June from Legend as well as Adelina and Magiano from The Young Elites. Both books by Marie Lu.

2. “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”: Name a book where a character is away from home (school, vacation, etc.).

I’m reading Of Curses and Kisses by Sandhya Menon right now! It takes place at a boarding school!

3. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”: Name your favorite “little” book (children’s book, short story, novella, etc.).

There are a few of them that I really love, but I’m posting one for the holiday: “Midnights” by Rainbow Rowell. I just borrowed the little book Almost Midnight by her from the library today and I can’t wait to read that story again.

4. “Santa Claus is Coming to Town“: What book(s) do you hope Santa brings you this year?

I pre-order most of my books, and my mom doesn’t really like to pre-order books, so I asked her for books that are already out. My husband is going to give me an Amazon gift card so I can pre-order more books. But since Santa knows how to pre-order books, I’d like for him to get me Liberté by Gita Trelease. I haven’t pre-ordered that one yet, but I plan to.

Oh, and if Santa can do the impossible, I’d love for him to find me a copy of Life After Legend, the pre-order gift that came with Warcross. I periodically look on eBay for someone willing to sell one, but it’s never for sale.

5. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”: Which book turned your nose red (made you cry)?

When I think of books and ugly-crying, the first book that comes to mind is Clockwork Princess. I’m rereading it right now, and I haven’t gotten to the epilogue yet, but I just know I’m going to bawl my eyes out again.

6. “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year”: Your favorite book/kind of book to read during the holidays.

This one’s tough. I loved The Immortal Nicholas, but I also loved My True Love Gave to Me. I typically read only one Christmas book each Christmas season and I don’t plan on rereading either this year, but I really love those.

7. “We Three Kings”: Your favorite trilogy.

I had to check Goodreads to ensure Divergent is considered a trilogy, because there are some short stories written in addition to the main three books. Now that Legend is a tetralogy, it’s up there at the top.

8. “Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow”: A character you would love to be snowed in with.

This one is tough, because when I read a book, I always picture myself becoming the character in the book. Me, myself, wouldn’t really want to be snowed in with a book character because I have an amazing husband. But if I could become a Tessa Gray and become any character to be snowed in with any other character… tough one. Any of the ships listed above? I also wouldn’t mind becoming Clary and being snowed in with Jace either.

9. “Last Christmas”: A book that seriously let you down.

I really wanted to like Children of Blood and Bone. There’s nothing wrong with this book… I could tell as an objective reader that it was well-written and had all the elements of a good book. It just didn’t resonate with me, and I think it was because I’m not familiar enough with the culture it derived from.

10. “White Christmas”: An upcoming release you’re dreaming about.

I dream a lot about my books, LOL. But those are way off into the future.

But as for books that are coming out next year, I suppose there are three I’m looking forward to more than anything: The Kingdom of Back by Marie Lu (I can’t believe I’m getting an ARC!), Chain of Gold by Cassandra Clare, and Skyhunter by Marie Lu (the only thing I know about the last one is that it comes out on October 6th and I saw a picture of one of the MCs). I’ve pre-ordered all three of these.

That’s the tag! There’s a linky over at That Arsy Reader Girl if you decide to do this one. If you want to leave me a link too, I’d appreciate it.

ABC Book Challenge – V

By Brookelorren on December 1, 2019November 30, 20192 Comments

Welcome to December, and the last month of the ABC book challenge. Today’s letter is V. I first saw this challenge over at Me, Myself, and Books, but it was started by The Thrifty Bibliophile. Here we go over the books I really liked and the books I really want to read.

I loved Astrid Scholte’s debut Four Dead Queens, and am looking forward to her next book, which comes out on March 3rd. It happens to be the same date that Chain of Gold and The Kingdom of Back comes out. I’m getting an ARC for The Kingdom of Back from Bookish First (although I’m also getting finished copies) and may get an ARC of this book; if not, I’ll be getting this on audiobook.

I got the Target edition of A Very Large Expanse of Sea because it had a bonus chapter in it. It was a good book that takes place after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

I finally read a book by V.E. Schwab last month, after talking about reading her books for about a year. I read This Savage Song, but I haven’t read Vicious yet. It’s in the Winter 2019 TBR lottery, but so are 59 other books, and I think I’m randomly picking 5.

Well, those are books that start with the letter V that I’m either interested in reading or really liked. What books did you like that start with the letter V? See you next week for the letter W!

ABC Book Challenge – U

By Brookelorren on November 24, 2019November 22, 2019Leave a Comment

Hello! It’s hard to believe we’re almost at the end of November, and we’re already on the letter U in the ABC Book Challenge. Since July, I’ve been going through My Books on Goodreads and have been going over books I really like or really want to read. I first found it at Me, Myself, and Books, but I think it was started by The Thrifty Bibliophile.

Unbroken is the true story of Louis Zamporini, who was shipwrecked for a long time in the middle of the Pacific Ocean during World War II, then he was taken prisoner by the Japanese. He was an Olympic hopeful until the World War crushed those dreams. It is a beautiful story about forgiveness. I highly recommend this one.

The Unhoneymooners is on my Winter TBR lottery this year. It’s an enemies to lovers story, and it sounds like such a fun book! I’m tracking the price of this one on EreaderIQ, and am hoping this might go on sale over Black Friday? If not, there’s the library.

Untitled is one of the most common titles in My Books on Goodreads. I have so many on the list! There’s Untitled by Sabaa Tahir, Untitled by Gita Trelease, the three Untitled books in The Wicked Powers series by Cassandra Clare, Untitled Skyhunter 2 by Marie Lu, Untitled by Kat Cho, Untitled by Swati Teerdhala. So many books to look forward to!

Up From Slavery is one of those books that I always say I want to read someday, but I haven’t yet. I finally got around to reading Les Misérables, so maybe I’ll get around to this one too.

The final book that I really would like to read is Uprooted. It looks so pretty! Plus I’ve heard good things about it.

So those are the letter U books! Are there any letter U books you really want to read (or really liked)?