The overwhelming winner of my “pick my next read by the 1st line” poll

@speculativefemale @skeeterisme @xicanti @raelovestoread @ruthiella @lil1inblue @davegreen7777 @dabbe

Thanks for voting & well wishes!

Collection of short stories where 13 meets celebrities and historical figures. I love an Amelia Earhart story but it missed the point with being a previous iteration of the Doctor.

It‘s my wedding anniversary today! I decided to make a dent in the random books my husband has bought me 😂

Help me choose my next read by the first line!

(Also, I borrowed this idea from someone and I don‘t remember who, but thank you lol)

#5joysfriday @DebinHawaii
1. Family outing to King Richard‘s Faire was a success!!
2.bubs learned to sit with no hands!
3. Short week at work for my mother in law‘s visit
4.K-Pop Demon Hunters
5. Caught some cute birds having a bath this morning.

I was annoyed when this wasn‘t another Will Trent but I loved it! Can‘t wait to see how the series develops.

Honestly Slaughter pulled out all the stops on this one, not as intensely grisly as some of her works but it‘s still very dark. The small town with a big secret, complicated family history, the clues adding up… perfect!

I ended up really liking this. The twists, the character growth, the vibrant tropical setting, mysterious travelers was loads of fun.

#happypubday ! 🥀🧛🏻‍♀️

#5joysfriday
Woof, that long weekend felt short and the short week felt long but we made it.
1.we had family come yesterday and they gifted us veggies from a local farm
2.so we made up some corn on the cob & Marshall got to try it for the first time.
3.these pants I thrifted with sparkly …moons (?)
4.staying up “late” with husband to watch Alien Earth
5.friends who will play therapist, and also my new actual therapist 😅

This book was genuinely creepy. I enjoyed the mystery, the characters were appropriately flawed and complicated. I loved searching for the truth with Mallory as she worked to uncover the truth about Anya (as well as the truth of her own past).

Physical TBR for #hauntedshelf @PuddleJumper
I wasn‘t going to join in because my time for both reading and social media has decreased immensely but I already have a spooky TBR perfect for @TEArificbooks #witchathon & the tagged book has been haunting me for the better part of a decade 😂 so I‘ll get myself ready 🎃🍁👻

This was cute! Back to Dina & Sean & the Gertrude Hunt work through their damage from One Fell Sweep as they host space chickens for Treaty Stay.

Very streamlined as it is a novella, the space politics were neatly summarized & we got to focus on the characters a bit (including Orro) which I enjoyed.

With the romantasy genre awash with Beauty & the Beast retellings I honestly wasn‘t sure what to expect from this one, but I found it unique &fun. I like the added details of Alex & Isabelle‘s backstory. The male POV was kind of corny, & just for my preference the abundant spice seemed jarring for how wholesome it was 😅 maybe it‘s just because I audiobook‘d it.

This week‘s #5joysfriday sponsored by the unofficial end of summer. @DebinHawaii
1. The first pumpkin spice coffee of the year
2. Went to the salon for what my cousin dubbed my “Wednesday Addams nails”
3.carbs & cheese
4.hoodies on our morning walks!
&
5.the not so little guy is 7 months today!

🍁🌻

The very ending was a bit corny, but other than that this was close to perfect. This series has been amazing, I wanted a little more and a little less, I wish we stretched the connected backstory for 1 more book, maybe I just didn‘t want it to end. Creepy, atmospheric, slow burn goodness.

I had almost given up on this series but this installment was so good. Was it Maud as a character? Was it that it was more focussed in its otherworldly supernatural creatures? Was it Helen being awesome? Idk but it was fantastic

Getting good! Recurring themes of SJM‘s: our hero is facing her enemy and heading for a bigger battle but can‘t do it until she confronts herself and defeats her own bullshit. Celaena is coming back to lots of changes, but she‘s gone through a lot of change herself. More witches please!
Thanks for the readalong @StayCurious

#5joysfriday @DebinHawaii

1.beach trip with my cousin & my baby
2.he did so good but got grump on the way home so I called my husband with the SOS to be ready for us & he came running out with bub‘s Fox rattle 🥺
3.tasty boba tea
4.I won tickets to the renfaire!
5. The shining sun & crispy cool breeze this AM

Akenna was so impulsive and immature I forgot I wasn‘t reading YA until they started screwing. She continued on with her antics to everyone‘s detriment & was some how seen as a great leader almost simultaneously. That lowers my rating, that action was amazing & worldbuilding was elaborate. But the MC was infuriating

A masterpiece. Iconic Stephen King novel. And one where he actually sticks the ending. #losersclub @BarkingMadRead

#5joysfriday
@DebinHawaii
1.husband being a great dad & “flying baby” giggles
2.husband also snagged a Happy Meal so I could have a Hello Kitty x Ninja Turtles toy
3.this weeks new books
4.dug out my aunt‘s community cookbook from the campground I used to stay at every summer and indulged my nostalgia with some pizza bread
5.fun (and more pizza) at the farmer‘s market

I borrowed this after @TheBookHippie ‘s post about the author, while I don‘t have a new fave; I would try her again. (I just spent a bit too much time trying to figure out if I was supposed to have empathy for the main character Traci or if I was supposed to love to hate her… spoilers: empathy lol)

So excited for new book day! #happypubday !

@BarkingMadRead #losersclub
The opening is so good.

I kept trying to get into this because Caitlyn‘s storyline seemed interesting (albeit depressing) but 100 pages in unlikable characters are still being added, we‘ve gotten nowhere and the detectives‘ banter is SO stilted… on top of that it‘s part of a series I can‘t see myself continuing. Goodbye.

#5joysfriday @DebinHawaii
1.Thrifted bubba and I some clothes (his was new with tags!)
2.took him with me and my cousin for brunch (featuring a blueberry lavender mimosa)
3.a mani pedi for the 1st time in a WHILE
4.chicken thighs that came out like the photo https://www.primaverakitchen.com/chicken-thighs-with-potatoes/hickleberrypunchfi...
5.went into the office and was greeted by beautiful flowers from my coworkers garden!

I liked the art, the island & even the characters for the most part. But most of it ends up being quite obvious and the pace was absolutely glacial.

I still feel that the absurdness of the worldbuilding takes away from the character interactions, but I liked this one better than the last, the battle/fight scenes were riveting.

1. Went shopping and ran errands + starbies with a friend
2.Bubbaroni turned 6 months!
3.Book buying ban officially ended
4.My husband got me some cheerful flowers for my desk
5.my labubu and lafufu came in
#5joysfriday @DebinHawaii

Results of my “blind date with a book” Sooo… I don‘t know about these… 🤣 not what I was expecting or hoping for but people on here whose opinions I trust have liked Extra Witchy so who knows maybe a new fave

I really enjoyed this. I loved Lauren & Junior‘s pursuit of her. But I understand why it‘s in Light‘s Out‘s shadow. It isn‘t as funny, and Junior‘s family drama gets resolved SO quickly and I wish that was more of the plot was real planning and scheming. It‘s so much more focussed on the romance/relationship, but it worked for what it was

I haven‘t opened my blind date books YET -any guesses?

-Witchy vibes
-Part of a series or can be read as a stand-alone
-Career vs Marriage: will she ever find love?

I haven‘t opened my blind date books YET -any guesses?

-A professor makes a horrifying discovery
-A threat to Humanity
-Classic novel every horror fanatic must read.

I like the MC, & the idea of the corrupt underbelly of so-called Mayberry-by-the-sea.

BUT- this is the 3rd I have read from this author & she always seems to start with a stylized tone -in this case neo-noir & then it drops off along the way.

As the culprit was doing a bond villain style monologue detailing their reasoning, I took stock of all the plot threads left hanging (so many)

I liked this a lot. Humorous, spooky, adventurous. I love the interactions between Laszlo, Maggie & Lump. I saw where this was headed, but as the ending neared I really wondered how it would come together -a bunch of extra stuff seemed thrown in at the end… but on the whole it was good and I was quite entertained.

1.Went to The Bully Bookshop‘s pop up at brunch & scored a couple “blind dates” (I‘m on a buying ban but I told myself it didn‘t count if I don‘t open them yet 😂)
2.cut my bangs (myself, 5 minutes before a zoom meeting) always a risk but they came out cute 🙌
3.Ghosts (US)
4. Early morning coffee
5. With the worlds cutest alarm clock

#5joysfriday @DebinHawaii

🔥👑
It‘s fun reading the less popular Maas series because I haven‘t been constantly inundated with spoilers 😂 really increases the intrigue. For all Chaol‘s screw ups, I‘m still not sold on Dorian, he‘s kind of a dork. Thanks for hosting us @StayCurious

Loved it. I like that he always ends on kind of an optimistic note, even if the before is bloody & heartwrenching.

Loved getting to know the families and their secrets and seeing a familiar FBI agent.

This may just be a DNFFN -it seems a bit needlessly complicated, but it might be good. there‘s footnotes each page, weird POV changes (POVs given by a dragon that ate the person?) I‘m just not mentally prepared for something this complicated

1.I took my baby to the ocean for the first time & we had just the best little day
2.I‘ve been obsessed with the “buy nothing” group in my town, I‘ve unloaded unneeded stuff & scored a bouncer and a booster seat this week. Glad to save money & save stuff from landfills
3.Prowrestling.
4.I went back to work this week & while that‘s not joyful in itself, my coworkers have been so welcoming &
5.Fridays have meaning again. Happy Friyay! #5joysfriday

If you asked me why I, who doesn‘t even like contemporary romance or sports; read a sports romance, I would have to tell you it‘s because the author got bullied off social media for having an apparently unpopular opinion about the Hunger Games. An inane decision but it worked out. this book was really good actually. Maybe a little too long? Did I need to know THAT much about diving? I was unsurprised by the source of conflict. But it was worth it

Book 2 was quite good. It has dual POVs which there was 1 part which would have seemed like a big twist but instead we knew it was just miscommunication but it was very action packed and had another solid twist to set up Book 3.

#5joysfriday @DebinHawaii

1)we finally got Marshall‘s nursery set up (he‘s 5.5 months 😂, he doesn‘t sleep in his crib yet but it‘s there now)
2)which means I moved all my books out and reorganized a cozy book nook
3) I visited some friends who gifted me a big bag of kids books for my son, I got to see what the fuss was about with “llama llama”
4)The Monterey Bay Aquarium videos on Youtube
5) Chai spiced mead from the farmer‘s market.

I think this book has somewhat of an identity crisis. it takes a while to get any backstory on the gods or significance of war houses, it seemed like it was supposed to be gritty, brutal & political, but then there was a lot of time spent on her friends & a romance side plot (but not enough to veer into romantasy). Ikenna didn‘t grow much as a character, but the ending was intriguing enough that I‘ll finish the duology

I liked it, but not as much as the 1st 2, so that‘s kind of a bummer for me since it was the conclusion (?) but it was still good & I liked seeing how everything tied together.

#happypubday to this Beauty 😍under the slip cover is gorgeous and the back is a map, and those end papers 😍😍😍

Full transparency- I read the first 200 pages and the last 20 but I have seen enough. I saw the way this was going and frankly it was repetitive & disgusting. I read the end to see if it would compel me to know what happened where I left off, but it didn‘t and there is no way this needed to be 500+ pages. I don‘t know who this book is for but it‘s not me.

At 25% I‘m not seeing any redeeming attributes. I‘m not morally opposed to spicy dystopian but The FMC is a bore, I don‘t know who the love interest is supposed to be because she thinks everyone is hot, she has no common sense, the dialog is terrible, the setting is info dumped, half the time I think things don‘t make sense & THE NAMES -so terrible. moving pretty slow for something compared to Fourth Wing and The Hunger Games.

Loved it. So good. I do feel like a reveal from the end of book 1 kind of got glossed over, Bri suddenly didn‘t care as much about it, maybe she didn‘t really make it make sense but the rest was good. It wasn‘t shocking, did not reinvent the genre, but it was lots of fun. More adventure/politics focussed than ACOTAR, more romance focussed than The Cruel Prince & a solid read if you like either of those.

#5JoysFriday @DebinHawaii
Joining in bc most of the time I‘m just trying to survive all the days that end with y & I should really take stock

1.Marshall turned 5 months
2.he learned how to roll onto his belly
3.caffeine. Ghost Warhead Watermelon let‘s goooo
4. @StayCurious & #littenslovesjm for this throne of glass read along
5. My husband did most of the cooking this week and made an amazing beef and broccoli (not pictured)

This far in and… bitch what the eff am I reading 😅