The Bibliophagist

bibliophagist \¦bi-blē-¦ä-fə-jist\ n. one who devours books; an avid or voracious reader. I'm Sara. By day, I assign codes to medical procedures and try to explain to doctors and patients why insurance companies never want to pay for anything. At night, I read and review whatever I can get my hands on.My blog is mostly young adult and new adult, although at times you'll also find mysteries, thrillers, and more. I am an active member of Goodreads and Netgalley and welcome the opportunity to highlight both debut and established authors.

[thebibliophagist]

I’ve moved!

After five years on Tumblr, I’ve made the decision to move my blog over to Wordpress. You can find me at http://bibliophagistreviews.wordpress.com.

I hope to see you there!

[thebibliophagist]

⭐ Goodreads ⭐ Amazon ⭐

Ballerina Laura and tv producer Charlie are, on paper, the worst couple. They can’t even stand being around each other. They’re looking for different things in life and if they didn’t have mutual friends, they’d probably never spend any time together at all. But one drunken night, the two of them apparently decided it would be a good idea to get married. Now, Laura’s gunning for an annulment and Charlie wants to see if they can make this thing work.

If you’ve read Break of Day, you’ll remember tiny spitfire Carla and big, burly photojournalist Jonah. In Before Daylight, Laura is Carla’s cousin and Charlie is Jonah’s best friend. Laura and Charlie actually hook up at Carla and Jonah’s wedding. I was so happy to see Carla and Jonah living happily ever after!

I think that, as a couple, I preferred Carla and Jonah over Laura and Charlie, but that might just be because they were my first. That said, I loved Charlie. Like, if Laura can’t make up her mind over whether she wants to be with him, I would gladly swoop in and steal him away. I think that’s what frustrated me the most -- Laura couldn’t accept that Charlie was a good guy who legitimately wanted to be with her. I get that she had issues because of her parents and her childhood, but I got so fed up with the push and pull. Angsty books aren’t really my thing.

But anyway, Before Daylight is a quick, steamy read that teeters more to the erotic side of romance, but there’s also plenty of other material in there. I fell in love with Charlie and constantly rooted for him and Laura to make it. This is another solid romance from Andie J. Christopher, especially if you’re into angsty couples.

Final rating: 3.5, rounded up to ★★★★☆

I received a free advance copy of Before Daylight from the publisher (via Netgalley) in exchange for my honest review.

[thebibliophagist]

Hello and welcome to my stop for the Starry Eyes blog tour! I’m so excited to be part of this tour -- this book is one of my most anticipated releases of 2018 and I absolutely adored it.

Ever since last year’s homecoming dance, best friends-turned-best enemies Zorie and Lennon have made an art of avoiding each other. It doesn’t hurt that their families are the modern day, Californian version of the Montagues and Capulets. But when a group camping trip goes south, Zorie and Lennon find themselves stranded in the wilderness. Alone. Together. What could go wrong? With no one but each other for company, Zorie and Lennon have no choice but to hash out their issues via witty jabs and insults as they try to make their way to safety. But fighting each other while also fighting off the forces of nature makes getting out of the woods in one piece less and less likely. And as the two travel deeper into Northern California’s rugged backcountry, secrets and hidden feelings surface. But can Zorie and Lennon’s rekindled connection survive out in the real world? Or was it just a result of the fresh forest air and the magic of the twinkling stars?

Future astrophysicist Zorie is a planner. She plans to attend an upcoming star party with her friend Avani. She plans to avoid her neighbors, the Mackenzies. She plans to help out her mom and stay out of her dad’s way. When her friend Reagan invites her on a spur-of-the-moment camping trip, all of Zorie’s plans are in disarray. Even though she hates disrupting her plans, drama with her parents helps her make the decision to go. The camping trip is nothing like Zorie’d expected -- what was supposed to be a girls weekend ends up co-ed and it’s not long before Zorie finds herself stranded in the woods with Lennon Mackenzie, her former best friend turned biggest enemy.

I’ve never been a camper. I’m from Wisconsin, where camping is the thing to do and I’ve never even once slept in a tent. I can’t imagine making the decision to just rough it and hang out in the wilderness for a week, but apparently, this is a thing that people do! More power to them, but it’s not for me. Except... after reading this book, I kind of want to go camping in the middle of nowhere!

Jenn Bennett checked all of my boxes in this cute, swoony romance. We’ve got childhood friends who had a falling out. Enemies-to-lovers. Multiple friendships getting hashed out. Interesting, multilayered characters. Some family drama that is actually properly dealt with and not just swept under the rug. There’s also a healthy discussion of safe, consensual sex, which is always a plus for me (and something that I wish would have been more common when I was an actual Young Adult).

I really and truly loved this book and was legitimately upset every time I had to put it down. Luckily, I had downloaded it to my phone so I was able to sneak in a few pages here and there! I ended up finishing in less than 24 hours, just as I did with Alex, Approximately.

Jenn Bennett is an author to watch and Starry Eyes is sure to be one of my top books of the year.

I received a free advance copy of Starry Eyes from The Fantastic Flying Book Club in exchange for my honest review and participation in this blog tour. Thank you!

Starry Eyes releases on April 3, 2018.

Amazon | iBooks | B&N | Kobo | Google Books | BAM | Indigo | Indiebound | TBD | Target

Jenn Bennett is an award-winning author of young adult contemporary romance books, including: Alex, Approximately; The Anatomical Shape of a Heart; and Starry Eyes. She also writes romance and urban fantasy for adults (the Roaring Twenties and Arcadia Bell series). Her books have earned multiple starred reviews, won the Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA® Award, garnered two Reviewers’ Choice awards and a Seal of Excellence from RT Book Reviews, and been included on Publishers Weekly Best Books annual list. She lives near Atlanta with one husband and two dogs.

Find her on: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Make sure you check out the other tour stops! You can find a full schedule here.

Enter here for a chance to win one of three copies of Starry Eyes!

[thebibliophagist]

⭐ Goodreads ⭐ Amazon ⭐

Imogen Sokoloff has disappeared.  She’s known as a flighty heiress, so nobody’s really all that surprised that she’s jetted off to some glamorous resort or tropical country. Everybody misses her, or do they? Her best friend Jule searches for her, or does she? In this twisty mystery, what’s true and what’s a lie?

Genuine Fraud was one of my most anticipated books of 2017 and I was so excited when it finally showed up in my library. I loved E. Lockhart’s books when I was in high school and when I read We Were Liars last year, I enjoyed that too. Unfortunately, this book just didn’t do it for me.

Lockhart’s writing is, as always, beautiful. I love her writing style.  Her dialogue always sounds natural. She’s also really great at building an atmosphere. The plot was... a concept, for sure, but I’m mostly just confused at what the heck I just read.

The most important thing to keep in mind about this book is that it’s told in reverse chronological order. This is fine in theory, and I love alternative formats, but the whole “five weeks before this” and “three days before that” type of chronology got to be very confusing. I wished there had been some kind of clear timeline at the back of the book so that I could’ve sorted everything out in my mind.

Now, I appreciate what Lockhart was going for. This book just wasn’t for me. I wanted to know what the motivation was. I wanted to know what happened in the end. Without those two things, I just wondered what the point was. (I know this is very vague but I don’t want to spoil the twists.) I think that maybe, in trying to be edgy, the book lost track of itself. I’ll still be happy to read Lockhart’s next book.

Final rating: ★★☆☆☆

[thebibliophagist]

⭐ Goodreads ⭐ Amazon ⭐

Evelyn and Brendan meet in the picturesque Cornish town of Clews and a tentative romance begins to bloom. Just when things are getting started, Evelyn is unsettled by an experience in the woods and the two drift apart. Ten years later, they meet up again, but can they make it work this time?

First of all, this book has one of the most gorgeous covers I’ve ever seen. That’s one of the main reasons I checked this book out from the library, but I also thought that it sounded really interesting (and I love second chance romances).  Unfortunately, the book was very disappointing.

I think the biggest problem is that the book is too short. At 82 pages, it’s a reasonably-sized novella. The thing is, it’s really only 40 or so pages because the book is half Evelyn’s version of events and half Brendan’s. And this would be fine if either side expounded any more on events, but they don’t.

I just wanted something more. The idea of the book is wonderful, but it’s not the kind of story that can be told well in 40 pages. I’d expected some sort of twist at the end, but there’s really nothing there. The book kind of just ends and when I finished, I felt that I was missing something.

Final rating: ★★☆☆☆

[thebibliophagist]

Happy Top Ten Tuesday! Today we’re talking about ten books on my spring TBR. Honestly, what’s not on my spring TBR... just look at my TBR page... but here are ten books that I’m really, really going to make an effort to read.

a bunch of books I’ve owned forever...

★ Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas ★ The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz ★ My Soul to Keep by Kennedy Ryan

★ Lost in Me by Lexi Ryan ★ Before I Knew by Jamie Beck

some ARCs...

★ Rumor Has It by Jessica Lemmon ★ Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren ★ Sky in the Deep by Adrienne Young

and, provided my holds come in...

★ The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory ★ What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton

What’s on your list for the spring?

[thebibliophagist]

⭐ Goodreads ⭐ Amazon ⭐

At some point in mid-December of 2017, I was sitting in a cafe with my brother-in-law when the topic of what we were currently reading came up. At the time, I’d just finished The Vegetarian by Han Kang, arguably the most literary book I read that year. He was reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ We Were Eight Years in Power and had only good things to say. I asked if he’d read Between the World and Me yet and he said no, but he’d heard it was just as good. I ended up giving it to him for Christmas and realized I should probably also read it myself.

I got the audiobook from my library, narrated by the author himself. I am a white woman who has spent her life in predominantly white neighborhoods. I can’t comment on what it’s like to grow up as a black man in America. I can’t really say anything about this book aside from how powerful it is. I was so entranced by this book that I almost chopped my finger off cleaning up from dinner. If that’s not an endorsement, I don’t even know what is.

Final rating: ★★★★★

#mm18: diversify your reading

[thebibliophagist]

It’s been almost exactly a year since I moved into my new house and I still have two huge boxes of books in my garage. I really would like to get them unpacked (I feel so guilty) but in the meantime, let’s talk about some books that I’ve already forgotten that I own! I don’t even want to know how much longer this list will get when I see what’s in those boxes.

✨ Slaughterhouse-Five is undoubtedly a modern classic. I feel bad that I haven’t read it. It sits in a secluded corner of my bookshelf and it’s so small that I never notice it. ✨ I’m sorry, Book of the Month. I’m so bad about reading you. As Bright As Heaven is from January and I keep forgetting about it. I’ll get there. Eventually. ✨ I bought The Martian for my boyfriend one Christmas and he says he enjoyed it. I’ve been meaning to read it myself, but I keep forgetting.

✨ Oh, god, I bought American Gods when I was still in high school, I think! I tried it a couple times and could never get into it so it was relegated to the corner of my shelf so it wouldn’t taunt me. That just means that I keep forgetting I own it, though. ✨ Brandon Sanderson is one of my boyfriend’s favorite authors. I’ve been planning to jump into The Way of Kings for YEARS. I think we have every one of this guy’s books on our big bookcase, but do you think I’ve read any of them? Nope. ✨ It hasn’t been that long since I got The Queen’s Rising in my Uppercase box. It sits on my nightstand with the rest of my immediate TBR, but for some reason, I always overlook it when choosing my next book. Oops.

Are there any books that you keep forgetting to read?

[thebibliophagist]

In case you missed it, here are this week’s blog posts:

Book Tag: TBR Tag

Blog Tour: Trip by T. Torrest

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Books That Surprised Me

Review: One of Us Is Lying by Karen McManus

Review: The Green Unknown by Patrick Rogers

Blog Tour: The Hook-Up Experiment by Emma Hart

Review: Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen

This week, I’ve been reading:

Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren

We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

Alphas Like Us by Krista & Becca Ritchie

Recently acquired:

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan

Starry Eyes by Jenn Bennett

Four things this week:

I never watch any of my shows live, so I always forget that I have to avoid ALL SOCIAL MEDIA until I catch up. There are Riverdale and How To Get Away With Murder spoilers everywhere, I tell you. EVERYWHERE!

Oh my dear lord, I just found out that I can request that my library add EIGHT BOOKS EACH MONTH. Why can I not think of any books I want them to add? This is the best thing ever and I cannot think of a single book that I want to read that they don’t already own. Help!

I’ve had a lot of strange conversations in the years I’ve worked at my job. It comes with the territory when you work in a medical office. But in almost six years, I’ve never had a mother stop me to discuss her son’s penis in detail (for twenty minutes!)... until this week.

Starry Eyes by Jenn Bennett is one of my MOST ANTICIPATED books this year and I can’t believe I got an ARC! I’ll be posting my review later this month as part of a blog tour. You can find the full schedule here.

Weekly playlist:

I’m all about the nostalgia wagon here at The Bibliophagist so this week, I’m taking it back to my high school years and sharing ten songs I saw live way back when.

Head on over to Spotify to enjoy!

[thebibliophagist]

⭐ Goodreads ⭐ Amazon ⭐

Sydney has always lived in the shadow of her older brother, Peyton. He was always the charming one, the daring one, the crowd-pleaser. But as they grew up, Peyton started to act out. What started with minor rule-breaking culminated in a drunk driving conviction that left a teenage boy paralyzed. Now, Peyton’s in prison and Sydney has to learn to navigate her very different world.

Sarah Dessen was one of my favorite authors when I was in high school. Just Listen, The Truth About Forever, This Lullaby, Someone Like You... they were all at the top of my list. It feels like I was always checking out one of her books from the library or walking to the Bookworld on Main Street to buy one if I had some spare cash. At some point -- 2006, it seems -- I stopped reading her books. I’m not really sure why, but I’m glad that I got this book for Christmas one year and I’m even happier that I picked it up now.

This book is classic Sarah Dessen. The emotions, the character-driven stories, it’s all there. All of the characters are so well-developed that I feel like I could drive up to a local high school and find them eating lunch together. This is an emotional book focusing on family connections and the deep friendships that form out of nowhere. It’s a book that starts off slowly and then hooks you to the point where you can hardly put it down.

Highly recommended.

Final rating: ★★★★★

#killingthetbr: 15 months on shelf

[thebibliophagist]

I’m so excited to be a part of the blog tour for Emma Hart’s The Hook-Up Experiment! I absolutely devoured this book and I’m sure that you’ll love it, too. Without further ado, here’s what you need to know.

1. Hate-screw my high school nemesis. 2. Remember to hate him. 3. Prove my brother wrong.

It should be easy. It isn’t.

As the owner of Pick-A-D*ck, New Orleans’ premier hook-up website, my job is simple. Connect two people for a no-strings, no-expectations hook-up. The plus for my clients is that I’m the one who gets to sift through the d*ck pics—except this time, they're required.

My problem? My brother, co-owner of Pick-A-D*ck’s sister dating site, doesn’t believe it’s possible to hook up with someone three times and not fall in love. I disagree. I know it’s possible.

And my disagreement is exactly how I end up reconnected with my high school nemesis, Elliott Sloane. The guy who asked me to junior prom and then stood me up. Who egged my car when I rejected him, and convinced my senior homecoming date to ghost me. 

It should be easy to hate-screw him. If only he was still that person, instead of a hot-as-hell single dad, working as a builder to make ends’ meet, fighting for custody of his daughter. 

Three hook-ups. One outcome. Right?

“Is she okay with that juice?” Peyton watched her go.

I selected the Blu-ray from the cupboard and shot a smirk her way. “Sorry to break it to you, but you’re getting a juice box.”

“I can live with that.”

I turned away and hit the eject button on the player. “You didn’t have to say yes to her, you know.”

“Of course, I had to. Have you seen those eyes? How do you say no to her, ever?”

“I think of all the times she screams and swings her arms like a tiny terrorist, and it’s pretty easy.” I put the disk in and turned around.

Peyton had one eyebrow raised. “See, now, I’d think that’s reason to say no.”

“It depends on the day. Sometimes it results in her being put to bed to calm down, which means she ends up taking a rare afternoon nap, and I get some peace and quiet.”

“That’s a thing around her? She was talking to me for thirty minutes flat about what I did and didn’t like.”

“Only thirty minutes? Lucky you. She has about three hours of material of that.” I took a seat on the sofa, making sure to leave space between us for Bri. “Did she get started on hedgehogs yet?”

Peyton looked a little confused. “Hedgehogs?”

“YouTube is the devil.”

“That…was quite the jump in subject.”

I laughed as the main menu music hit on the TV. “I’m going to preface this by saying kids are weird.”

“Some get that from their parents.”

I blinked at her for a second. She wasn’t wrong if half these people who had a mini-career opening fucking toys on YouTube were parents.

“There are a bunch of stupid videos on YouTube, and apparently, watching people open toys is thrilling.”

Now, she looked really confused.

“And on one of those she watched, the person had a pet hedgehog who wasn’t having the nonsense of her opening a Hatchimal on camera, so it stole the egg.”

She blinked several times in quick succession. “I have no idea what you just said, and if I’m honest… Please don’t explain it.”

I laughed and hit play on the TV.

“Here’s your dooce-box,” Briony said, handing Peyton two. “And das mine. I can’t do the straws.”

“Oh. Right. Okay.” Peyton looked at the two juices that had been thrust at her.

Smiling, I took one from her. I pulled the straw off the back, out of the tiny plastic slip, and poked it through the foiled hole in the top. “There you go,” I said to Briony. “What do you want for dinner?”

She put the straw in her mouth and pursed her lips as she sucked the juice up. Peyton watched her, lips twitching, as she put her straw in place.

“Pizza!” Briony announced.

Oh no. I’d eaten too much pizza lately.

Was there such a thing as too much pizza?

Maybe if the toppings were changed up…

“Peydon, do you want pizza?” Bri asked, leaning right into her.

“I like pizza,” she replied, smiling sweetly down at her. “What’s your favorite?”

“I like spots and cheese.”

“Spots?”

I coughed on my water. “Pepperoni,” I explained. “They look like spots on the pizza.”

Peyton’s eyes met mine for a minute. Silent laughter shone back at me. That really was toddler logic at its finest.

“You know,” she said, looking down at Peyton. “Spots are my favorite, too!”

Once again, Briony gasped. “Reawy?”

“Really, really. I love spots.”

Oh, Jesus.

It might have been a mistake introducing these two. Not only was my daughter becoming increasingly obsessed with someone who seemed to be a brunette, adult version of her…

No, that was the problem. Peyton was the brunette, adult version of Briony, attitude and all—and if there was anything my daughter didn’t need, it was someone who could teach her a thing or ten about sarcasm.

“I’ll order pizza,” I said, going to stand.

“Oh, you got it last time. I’ll go call them.” Peyton put her juice on the side table and tried to move, but Briony stopped her.

“No. Mimi told me that only gentlemen buy dinner. Princesses sit and look priddy.”

Peyton looked down at her. “Sit and look pretty? I like to buy my own pizza sometimes, and that’s okay.”

Without missing a beat, Briony said, “Princesses sit and look priddy so the mens buying dinner don’t know dat we can kick dere butts.”

FIND OUT MORE: http://www.pick-a-dick.net

When Peyton lectures her brother on the mechanics of a proper friends-with-benefits situation, he bets her that she can’t sleep with the same guy three times without falling in love. Peyton’s not looking for love, she doesn’t have time for love, and she’s nothing if not competitive, so she takes the bet, allowing her two best friends to set her up on a blind date. She never expected that they’d choose the guy that broke her heart in high school.

There’s absolutely zero chance of Peyton falling for Elliott. High school may have ended a decade ago, but seeing Elliott again takes her right back to the tears and the anger. To top it all off, he’s even more attractive now as a fully-grown man. Maybe the two of them can burn off some steam between the sheets, but that’s as far as this will go… right?

Holy tropes! This book includes some of my absolute favorites:

✓ It’s enemies-to-lovers ✓ It’s (sort of) a second chance romance ✓ Peyton’s got some meddling friends ✓ And Elliott seems like a jerk but is really a big softy

I loved how Peyton and Elliott actually communicated, even when it was hard or awkward or uncomfortable. I loved how Elliott owned what he did and explained himself, but never tried to excuse what happened. I loved how Peyton softened so much around Elliott’s daughter and that the two of them spent so much time with her throughout the book.

This was my first book by Emma Hart and I was so pleasantly surprised! I need Chloe’s romance next! I have to know what happens!

Final rating: ★★★★★

I received a complimentary advance copy of The Hook-Up Experiment from Inkslinger PR in exchange for my honest review. Thank you!

✨ Amazon:  US | UK | CA | AU ✨ iBooks  ✨ B&N ✨ Kobo

By day, New York Times and USA Today bestselling New Adult author Emma Hart dons a cape and calls herself Super Mum to two beautiful little monsters. By night, she drops the cape, pours a glass of whatever she fancies—usually wine—and writes books. Emma is working on Top Secret projects she will share with her followers and fans at every available opportunity. Naturally, all Top Secret projects involve a dashingly hot guy who likes to forget to wear a shirt, a sprinkling (or several) of hold-onto-your-panties hot scenes, and a whole lotta love. She likes to be busy—unless busy involves doing the dishes, but that seems to be when all the ideas come to life.

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[thebibliophagist]

⭐ Goodreads ⭐ Amazon ⭐

Here’s a fact about me that you probably don’t know: I have zero sense of direction. Like, I need to use my GPS to be able to find the correct major highways to get to my friend’s house... even though I’ve been there several times. I once got lost in the woods behind my house and made a seven-mile circle as I looked for the correct trail. Right after I got my driver’s license, I tried to visit my grandma who lived about 120 miles northwest. I somehow ended up 70 miles northeast, bawling on the side of the road with no cell phone service. Like I said, zero sense of direction.

So when I read a book like this, where the author willingly dumps himself in the middle of nowhere, a remote region of the world where he barely speaks the language, actually gets where he’s trying to go using hand-drawn maps (that are actually wrong!), puts himself fully at the mercy of the locals, and finds amazing things along the way, I’m a little impressed.

Also, I don’t think I’ve mentioned it in quite a while, but I have a degree in linguistics and the idea that these villages can be so close together and yet have such wildly different languages is just so interesting! I would love to know how that happened and if I were still a linguistics student, it would make a great research project. Unfortunately, I am Officially Old and have to focus my daily life on my real job.

Traveling stresses me the heck out, but this book makes me want to drop everything and head to a different country and just hope for the best.

Final rating: ★★★★☆

I received a free copy of The Green Unknown from the author in exchange for my honest review. Thank you!

#readtherainbow: green #mm18: travel the world

[thebibliophagist]

⭐ Goodreads ⭐ Amazon ⭐

Accused of the cardinal sin of bringing their cell phones to class, five high school students end up in afternoon detention. There’s Bronwyn, the brain, Nate, the criminal, Addy, the princess, Cooper, the jock, and Simon, the... gossip. When Simon goes into anaphylactic shock and dies in the middle of detention, the other four students become prime suspects in what’s now considered a murder. After all, everyone had something to hide, and Simon’s notorious gossip app surely would have made all their secrets public.

I’ve been eagerly anticipating this book for months and I finally got the chance to read it. I’d only seen glowing reviews, so my hopes were pretty high that I’d love it. The book was entertaining enough, but I just kind of liked it. (I definitely didn’t love it.) This was, I think, partially a case of my expectations being too high and partially due to some problems I had with the book itself. It’s going to be hard to keep this spoiler-free, so apologies in advance for how vague this review is going to be.

Let me start with the good:

The book is easy to read.  It flows nicely with even pacing.  I was interested from the first page to the last.  

I’d never read a murder mystery quite like this one, so bonus points for that.  

It relies pretty heavily on the tropes of The Breakfast Club, which is one of my favorite 80s movies, so it got some nostalgia points as well.

Addy, the princess, starts out as your stereotypical pretty, popular girl. Her character development was by far the best of the bunch and she finishes the book as much more than a cliche.

Nate, the criminal, was the one character whose life felt absolutely real, and my heart broke for him. He’s been dealt some terrible cards in life and I loved how he was given a backstory that doesn’t necessarily excuse his actions but does at least explain them.

Now for the bad:

I figured out the murderer literally as the murder was happening. I don’t even read that many mysteries and thrillers, so I was kind of disappointed when I ended up being right. There are a number of red herrings as the book goes on, so I did question myself a little bit, but honestly, my assumption was the only one that made sense.

One of the big twists involves a character’s sexual orientation and I felt it was handled poorly. I can’t really get into this without getting into spoilers, but the reveal was very sensationalized and it took up more of the plot than the actual murderer reveal.

Again, it’s hard to keep this spoiler-free, but it seemed that every girl who was shown to be sexually active was vilified for it. Either she cheated or she was too promiscuous or something. Meanwhile, we have a prominent male character who carried on a long-term affair and it’s only mentioned in passing.

The mental health representation left a lot to be desired.

All in all, One of Us is Lying is an entertaining book with some pitfalls to keep in mind. I’d recommend it as long as you’re okay with the caveats above.

Final rating: ★★★☆☆

[thebibliophagist]

Happy Top Ten Tuesday! Today’s topic is ten books that surprised me (in a good or bad way) and I love this topic! Here’s a list of ten books that, for better or worse, were different than I was expecting.

✴ Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli: I usually don’t re-read books, but I was surprised when this one not only retained all of its original magic, but I also loved it even more the second time around. ✴ The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas: I mean, when have I ever expected a book to be this good?! ✴ The Upside of Falling Down by Rebekah Crane: I didn’t expect this book to get into the psychological aftermath of surviving a plane crash!

✴ Kissing Max Holden by Katy Upperman: I thought it would be about more than a boy cheating on his girlfriend. (I was wrong.) ✴ You’re Welcome, Universe by Whitney Gardner: I was surprised to find the least sympathetic heroine of 2017. ✴ A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan: I was surprised that this book won a Pulitzer because it’s really not very good. ✴ All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven: To be perfectly honest, I was surprised that a book that actively blames the main character for her love interest’s suicide has been so revered by the bookish community.

✴ Fraternize by Rachel Van Dyken: I was surprised at who the heroine ends up with. ✴I Hate Everyone But You by Gaby Dunn & Allison Raskin: I honestly expected it to be better! ✴ Carry Me Home by Jessica Therrien: I didn’t expect this book to be so dark.  (Not that it was a bad thing.)

What have been some of your recent surprising reads?

[thebibliophagist]

Welcome to my tour stop for Trip by T. Torrest! I’m so excited to be part of this tour and to share this excerpt and my review with you. And don’t forget to enter the 🚨 RAFFLECOPTER GIVEAWAY! 🚨

Calling all 80s girls! Layla Warren first introduced us to Trip Wilmington in REMEMBER WHEN... Now read his side of the story! Trip Wiley wasn't always a Hollywood movie star. In fact, he wasn't always Trip Wiley. Back in 1990, he was better known as Trip Wilmington, the new kid in town. New place, new school... same old story. No big deal. It’s not like this is the first time he’s been forced to start over. But seventeen years of city living hasn’t prepared him for life in the suburbs... or for Layla Warren. Layla is smart, funny, beautiful... the kind of girl every guy dreams about. Trip should know.  He’s been falling for her since the first minute he saw her. And his life hasn’t been the same since.

Prepare to travel back to your teen years... That time in your life before the real world kicked in, that limbo between adolescence and adulthood, that trial of hanging onto the past while figuring out where the future will lie. With heart-shredding romance, steamy love scenes, and hilarious 80s references, readers of all ages will find themselves falling in love with TRIP all over again. 

The excerpts start here!

  Heidi caught my eye and took that as her cue to come talk to me. “Trip,” she slithered, stepping a little too close. “I can’t believe you’re really moving! This city won’t be the same without you.”

  “Yeah,” I shot back. “Thanks, but I think Indy will be exactly the same as it ever was, whether I’m here or not.”

  “I hope you’ll still remember me after you leave.”

  My lips curled into a lethal grin. “Now how could I ever forget the one and only Heidi Brennerman?”

  “I’m Greta.”

  Shit. “That’s what I meant.” She stood there scolding me with her eyes, so I quickly added, “I was only trying to say that I’ll remember your sister and you. Especially you, Greta.”

  Greta didn’t seem too insulted by my screwup, however, judging by the way she leaned in and danced her fingertips along my neck. Her graduation presents pressed against my arm as she stood on her tiptoes and whispered in my ear, “Well, at the very least, my mouth would like the chance to make sure of it.”

  Nice. I could get down with a little blow-and-go.

  “Well, if you insist,” I teased, before leading her out the back door.

  Five minutes later, I’d find myself lain out on the couch in the poolhouse, getting a going away blowjob.

  Five hours after that, I’d be sitting behind the wheel of my black Ford Bronco setting out for Norman, New Jersey.

  My new home.

You can find the next excerpt at New Chicks on the Blog!

It’s 1990 in Norman, New Jersey, and Trip Wilmington has just moved to town. He doesn’t expect that this move will be different than his many others, but when he walks into his first English class at St. Nicetius, he also doesn’t expect to meet Layla Warren. First, he’s struck by how beautiful she is. Then, once he gets to know her, he falls in love with her wit, her intelligence, and her personality. But Layla's been dating someone on and off for years, and anyway, she thinks of him as just a friend, right?

Remember When (Goodreads // my review) was one of the best books that I read in 2014. I actually planned a re-read last summer, but life got in the way. Remember When is Layla’s side of the story, and it’s cute and funny and sexy and all the things that New Adult should be. Trip flips around the story of Remember When, showing us what exactly was happening in Trip’s head -- and his home life -- while everything went down with Layla.

I liked Trip in Remember When, but he’s something else here. Once I got into his head and started to understand him better, I just fell in love! Oh, take me back to first loves and high school crushes. It all seems so painful when it’s happening but it’s so cute to read about. Now that these characters are in my head, I want to know everything about them. Like I always say, my TBR is ten miles long, but I’m going to add the rest of this series because I need to know what happens next.

I received a free advance copy of Trip from the author in exchange for my honest review. Thank you!

✨ Amazon: Trip releases on March 15, 2018.

T. Torrest is a romance and chick-lit author from the U.S.; her alter ego writes eroticomedy under the name T. Torrid. Her stories are geared toward readers of any age that know how to enjoy a good laugh and a dreamy romance. 

Ms. Torrest was a child of the eighties, but has since traded in her Rubik's cube for a laptop and her Catholic school uniform for a comfy pair of yoga pants. She's a pop-culture junkie, a movie aficionado, and an enthusiast of talking about herself in the third person. A lifelong Jersey girl, she currently resides there with her husband and two sons.

She also really digs it when she hears from readers, and is known to use words like "dig" in a non-sarcastic way. You can find out more about her books at her website.

She also LOVES to get friend requests on goodreads and facebook and personal messages from readers via email [email protected]. 

[thebibliophagist]

Thanks to PeruseProject for sharing this book tag! I was hopping around on Twitter and saw her video pop up and just had to do it... but not on video because I’m awkward enough as it is. 

So, this is a pretty quick book tag about the books that just hang out on your TBR forever. I’m only including books I actually own in this. (Except for the one about books you’ve yet to read because they just came out.)

1. Talk about a book you’ve been unable to finish.

As a rule, I really don’t DNF a lot of books. That said, I tried for months to read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods and I don’t think I ever made it past the 100-page mark. Maybe even the 50-park mark. I really wanted to love it but just couldn’t get into it. Someday I’ll try again.

2. What book are you yet to read because you haven’t had the time?

A Court of Thorns and Roses, for sure. I have nothing against the book or its length, but I’m worried that once I start, I won’t be able to stop, and I do not have time to fall into an entire series rabbit hole right now.

3. What book are you yet to read because it’s a sequel?

So many, honestly. The first one that comes to mind is Pierce Brown’s Morning Star. Now, don’t get me wrong. I loooved Red Rising and Golden Son. I marathoned both. But it was ages ago and I cannot remember anything more than the bare bones of the plot.

Next up would be Before the Devil Breaks You by Libba Bray. Same reason. I read The Diviners back in 2013 and Lair of Dreams in 2015 and do you think I remember what happened? Aside from some general spookiness in 1920′s New York City, nope.

Then we have The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz. Lagercrantz picked up Steig Larsson’s Millennium series after his untimely death, but by the time this book came out, it had already been five years since I read the last book and I could probably jump back in, but I’m going to have to spend some time convincing myself.

4. What book are you yet to read because it’s brand new?

I guess Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson? I just haven’t gotten to a bookstore to buy it yet.

5. What book are you yet to read because you’ve read another book by that author and haven’t enjoyed it?

I have two for this one.

First, Legal Affairs by Sawyer Bennett. It has really great reviews, but I didn’t love Lucas and I’m a little nervous to read it. Second, Very Bad Things by Ilsa Madden-Mills, which also has pretty good reviews. I just didn’t love Dirty English when I read it a while back and I’m hesitant to try another one of her books.

6. What book are you yet to read because it’s humongous?

Definitely The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. I have it, it’s taunting me from my TBR, I know everybody loves it, and it’s over a thousand pages so I just need to find some time that I can dedicate to reading it.

7. What book are you yet to read because you just haven’t been in the mood?

As Bright As Heaven by Susan Meissner. It was my choice for January’s Book of the Month and while it sounds good, I haven’t been feeling like historical fiction recently.

8. What book are you yet to read because it was a cover buy that turned out to have bad reviews?

The Mutual Admiration Society by Lesley Kagen. I didn’t actually buy it, but it was an impulse pick from Kindle First one month. It looked so cute but it’s barely holding a three-star average, so yikes.

9. What’s the most intimidating book on your TBR?

Probably the debuts! I always want to like the books that I read, but I feel extra pressure to enjoy it when it’s a debut author. I want to give these authors good reviews to start them off on the right foot, but I always worry that I’m not going to enjoy their books.

[thebibliophagist]

In case you missed it, here are this week’s blog posts:

Monthly Favorites: February 2018

Review: Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Book Quotes

Review: Frat Girl by Kiley Roache

Discussion Post: Hiding in My Kindle

Review: Fly by Molly McLain

I’ve been reading:

Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen

The Green Unknown by Patrick Rogers

Undeniable by Bill Nye

Trip by T. Torrest

The Hook-Up Experiment by Emma Hart

Recently acquired:

Feast by Hannah Howard

Night After Night by Lauren Blakely

NSFW by Piper Lawson

Introductions by C.L. Stone

Three things this week:

I officially got rid of Verizon! I’m now a happy Google Fi customer. Check back with me in a few weeks to see if I still like it. Hopefully, I do.

On Tuesday, several of my coworkers told me that I looked nice. (I didn’t do anything except put on a little bit of makeup, which makes me wonder how bad I look on a normal day.) Coincidentally, the Cute Rep came in. I was on a neverending phone call with an insurance company because OF COURSE I WAS. Someday, I will say hello to this kid and not make a fool of myself.

We canceled work on Wednesday because of the huge east coast blizzard, so I got to stay home and relax (and catch up on that pile of books that I decided I needed). I thought we weren’t going to get any snow, but then it started thundering and the next thing I knew, there was like six inches of snow on the ground. By the time I went to bed, it was up to my knees. Getting to work Thursday morning was an experience. Good thing I learned how to drive in the winter in Wisconsin!

Weekly playlist:

This week I’m taking it back with some top alternative hits from the past couple years!

“Good Grief” by Bastille

“Fire Escape” by Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness

“Bored to Death” by Blink-182

“Don’t Take the Money” by Bleachers

“Genghis Khan” by Miike Snow