Lost in My Library

At the beginning of May, I made a post about my blogging goals. I originally gave myself until the end of June to make a good start on them, with the promise th at I'd make an update post . And then the end of June happened...and then summer happened...and here we are. Let's see how I've done on my blogging goals! 1 . Always have at least one scheduled post. As of right now, this is more of an almost always , but here's one huge bit of progress - I'm always writing posts in adva nce! That never used to happen at all. And I even have a schedule: new posts Tuesdays and Fridays, with a little b it of flexibility because come on, I haven't made that much progress. 2. Write reviews qui ckly after reading the book. Definitely improved on t his one! I found that i f I know I'm going to be d oing a full revi ew of a book, it really helps if I jot down a few quick notes while I'm reading. It usually adds up to about a page of bullet points, and it mak...

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature at The Broke and the Bookish . This week's theme: Top Ten All-Time Favorite Books of X Genre. It's no secret that my favorite genre is historical fiction. I love it to pieces, especially books set in America. As an aspiring American Studies major, it's basically my job. And I 'll admit, I get a little disappointed that it seems to be a genre without a big following in the YA community, at least that I've seen . Sure, people read historical fiction books and like them, but I never see people shouting th eir love for historical fiction from the rooftops like they do for fantasy or contemporaries. But I digres s. I'm always trying to get people to rea d my favo rite historical fiction books, I was surprised by how difficult it w as to create thi s list - it was very easy for me to come up with not ten, but TWENTY amazing historical fiction titles, and I've somehow (after much agonizing) managed to get it down to thes...

Title: Iron Cast Author: Destiny Soria Series: N/A Length: 384 pages Published by: Amulet Books Publication date: October 11, 2016 Diversity: biracial protagonist (one of two; half black, half white), black major character, two major gay characters, black minor character Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Source: eARC from NetGalley Do you ever have that moment where a book is so good that you want to keep talking about it for days, but somehow you have no words to describe how amazing it is? That's me right now. So I'm going to try to write an entire review convincing you to go and read this book while my mind is still a wordless mess of emotions. If you' ve been following my blog for any length of time, you probably know that two things I love are historical fiction and diversity. So, understandably, diverse historical fiction pretty much always catches my eye. And the vagueness of this premis e intrigued me: Bost on, 1919, and a gang of people creating illusions through...

Title: Labyrinth Lost Author: Zoraida Córdova Series: Brooklyn Brujas #1 Length: 336 pages Published by: Sourcebooks Fire Publication date: September 6, 2016 Diversity: Most characters are Latina/Afro-Latina; Hindu character; two queer characters (no labels used) Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ Source: eARC from NetGalley This book was so unique. There were certain parts that reminded me of other books that I've read, or parts of the plot that were definitely tropes, but everything was executed so wonderfully that I didn't even care. (Much. Basically just enough to notice.) I didn't quite judge this book by its cover, although it is a wonderful cover. I did judge it from the first few pages. It starts with a beautiful map of Los Lagos, and I'm a firm believer that a map makes any fantasy book better. And then, we get to the first sentence: "The second time I saw my dead Aunt Rosaria, she was dancing." If that doesn't get your attention, I don't know...

It's official - I'm a college student! As you're reading this, I'm going through orientation , which means that this post (and probably most future ones for the time being) have been written well in advance and I'm probably going to be even slower than usual at responding to comments and visiting other people's blogs. But I'll still be hesre! (Sometimes.) There's a lot of preparation that goes into moving 3,000 miles away for college, and for a bookworm, one of the most important parts of planning is deciding which books to take with you. Unfortunately, my dorm room isn't quite big enough to hold all my books. At least not if I want to have anything else with me. I managed to get my list of books down to a total of 29, plus two pre-orders that are going to be here in a few days but that I'm technically not taking with me. So here's what I'm going to have physical copies of for the foreseeable future! FAVORITES   ...