My East Coast Vacation Was Supposed to Start Today | 6/1/22

I’m so sad.

So I went to Las Vegas this past weekend to see the Silk Sonic show which was the best show ever. Bruno Mars, Anderson Paak and the Hooligans (Bruno’s band) are phenomenal. My friend and I ate good food, we got massages, we gambled a little and then flew back home. But on the flight home, I felt a tickle in my throat. I thought it was just my allergies because I was dealing with that all weekend in Vegas. I went from humid Hawaii air to very dry Nevada air and my body was dealing with it but way better than my friend who was congested all weekend in the dry air.

Anyway, an hour prior to landing my nose started running. Again, I thought it was just the dry airplane air. There were lots of people coughing and sneezing but I wore my mask on both flights, and in Vegas (my friend and I were the rare ones that wore masks lol) – of course we removed it to eat and that was it, covid got me! I came home Sunday night, took a test real quick and it said it was negative 15 minutes later. So I thought it was okay to hug my daughter and she wanted me to sleep next to her so I did. I woke up at 3am coughing and went to the bathroom and the test that said I was negative had a strange crooked line 2nd line. I was like oh no….so I quickly took another test and that showed up positive right away. I felt horrible for exposing my daughter.

And I feel even WORSE because it was my husband’s birthday yesterday and he had to take care of me. I can’t hug my kids and my daughter was acting up because she wanted to be next to me. And to top if off…we were supposed to fly to NYC today and drive down to Philadelphia. But I can’t fly and I’ve exposed my family. I know my hubby is upset – he was supposed to be in his friend’s wedding on Sunday, he had plans to go to a Phillies baseball game, we had so many plans. He was so looking forward to this trip, the kids too. 🥺 They haven’t been showing symptoms yet and I hope they never do. But I feel like this is all my fault. Of course we could have flown to NYC and caught covid and spent the time in Philadelphia recovering also…but still, I feel SO bad. 😭

As for me – I slept the whole day on Monday. I was exhausted from flying and my symptoms and just couldn’t do much. I had no fever, but I had chills and some body ache (I couldn’t tell because I was already achy from flying!). Tuesday my head felt clearer and now I’m just coughing up stuff but I have more energy. Many people told me their worse day was day 3 and yesterday was day 3 for me so I hope this means I’ll be good soon. 🙏🏼 I think I caught it on the plane ride from Hawaii to Vegas. Hawaii has a covid surge right now and half the people on the plane wasn’t wearing masks. My symptoms showed up 2 days later.

I think my hubby said he will be rescheduling the trip – I just don’t know when. But I wish Covid would just go away already. I managed not to catch it for 2 years. I’m glad my symptoms are mild though. So that’s my update – I’m bummed, but I had such a good time in Vegas…it was the mental break I needed!! It just came at the cost of catching covid and ruining the big family trip though. SIGH.

~ Yolanda

First Book of 2022 | Help Me Choose

Hi friends! We made it to 2022. Did you plan out what will be your first read of 2022? I don’t usually but I went to the library recently and got a bunch of books. I read one of them (which will be my first post of 2022) but I did read that one in 2021.

I also have some ebooks I bought in 2021 but never got around to reading so I need a little help from you!

Which book do you think I should read first in 2022? Take the poll below and I’ll read the book with the most votes.

I won’t get to my first book until after this weekend because it’s New Year’s and then my daughter’s birthday party and my son going back to school so hopefully by next weekend I’ll have some time to read.

Tell me in the comments below what book will be your first book of 2022.

🤗 ~ Yolanda

Reading Goals for 2022

Happy new year friends! How was your New Year’s Eve? As usual – the island of Oahu was lit up with illegal aerial fireworks, nothing stops it – even laws. 🤦🏻‍♀️ I don’t mind it because I grew up here but I just feel awful for the terrified pets and busy first responders who have to run around keeping people safe.

I think I did good in 2021 sticking to my reading goals although my main goals were just to read less and buy less books. I think I definitely accomplished the latter. As for reading less? I thought I read less but it looks like I read more!

What did I learn about myself and reading in 2021?
  • I’m such a mood reader. If I’m not feeling a book, I just have to put it aside for awhile and pick it up when I’m in the mood to read that genre. I bounce from fantasy to contemporary romance – it helps, but this year I think I added a bunch of thrillers which was fun!
  • I still don’t tend to read sci-fi or mysteries – also heists…it has to be carried out so well for me to enjoy a heist book.
  • I miss re-reading my favorite books – I just don’t make the time for it anymore, but I used to love it because certain books become my best friends. I haven’t had a book bestie since I started this blog! 😔
  • I actually stuck to not buying hardcover books! Yay me! I only bought ebooks that were super on sale, I’m proud of myself for my self-control lol. Now my NetGalley requests are another story but I did cut down on blog tours.
2022 Reading Goals:
  • Read LESS. Read what I want to read and make sure I have enough time to finish it especially if they are arcs. I read about 13-15 books a month and it would be nice to get it down to 8-10 at least.
  • Keep my book buying ban still because I save money when I borrow it from the library and 2022 is about controlling my finances.
  • Cut down on NetGalley requests.
  • Have the guts to DNF more books that I’m struggling through.

I think those are good and simple goals. I love reading and when I see so many amazing books out there it’s so hard to say no. I have a TBR list and never refer to it during the year, I just keep adding to it. I need to stop that and maybe try and pick a few books in a month and really relish reading them. We’ll see how I do.

What are your 2022 reading goals? Are you changing any habits and nah? Happy reading friends, let’s make it a good year!

🎆~ Yolanda

Year in Review | 2021

What a year! It was a year of being cautious as school opened back up and restrictions were lifted, reinstated, lifted and reinstated…and now lifted but cautious again as numbers of COVID surge higher again. It was better than all the major anxiety of 2020 at least and I hope next year will be better.

According to Goodreads.com:

Honestly, I don’t know how accurate this is because at times I have 3 versions of the same book as “to read” or “read”. 🤦🏻‍♀️ So I know it’s close to this number but probably less. There are books I read and didn’t review either – mainly because I forgot or I ended up not liking it and didn’t want to spend energy saying why.

Once again, I’ve rated books quite high, even though I felt like this year I got more three star and DNF’ed books.

I wrote about my favorite book of this year. Here are the books I enjoyed the most in 2021 – just click the links below:

Best Books I Read in 2021 | TTT

Favourite Books of 2021 | #SixForSunday

The lowest rated books for me are:

Most of these were mostly because I’m just not the right audience for it.

I hope all of you have an amazing New Year!! Please stay safe, stay healthy and here’s to a good 2022!

🎆 ~ Yolanda

Goodreads Choice Award Nominees That I’ve Read in 2021

It’s that time of year again where Goodreads readers vote for their favorite books of 2021. I saw a few bloggers posting about the books they’ve read on the list and so I was curious to see which books I’ve read in each category as well. Some categories I had a 0 since I stick to certain genres – so let’s see what I read in 2021:

What I’ve Read~

Fiction:

Historical Fiction:

Fantasy:

Romance:

Best Debut Novel:

Best Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction:

Best Young Adult Fiction:


I think the Romance category had the most titles that are still on my TBR list. As you can see I tend to read YA Fantasy/Fiction but I try to mix it up with Romance and Historical Fiction and it’s nice to see some of the books I’ve read make the list!

Did any books you read this year end up on the nominees list? Let me know in the comments!

~Yolanda

Black Friday | Kindle Book Deals | 2021

Who is shopping on Black Friday? I’m not…at least not physically in stores because I’m too impatient and tired for it. I used to do when I was younger and had no kids but now all my money goes to them haha. So I was minding my business and then went to Amazon just to see what kind of Black Friday deals they have on books and I found a few!

Here are a few deals if you are a Kindle reader:

$2.99 – Kindle Edition

$3.99 – Kindle Edition

$3.99 – Kindle Edition
$2.99 – Kindle Edition
$2.99 – Kindle Edition

$2.99 – Kindle Edition

$2.99 – Kindle Edition
$2.99 – Kindle Edition
$2.99 – Kindle Edition
$1.99 – Kindle Edition

Another website I like to go to for book deals (hardcover and paperback) is BookOutlet. But I haven’t bought physical books in awhile because I have no space for them! If I see something for a good price though, I can’t usually pass them out. Did you get anything on sale this week? Happy Shopping!

Thanksgiving Book Tag 2021

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Whether you celebrate this holiday or not, I am thankful for your continued support of my little book blog. 🧡🤎

I saw this perfect thanksgiving book tag on a fabulous blog called I’m All Booked Up and the original tag creator is from Anna’s Book Nook. So go ahead and check out these great blogs. Let’s get into it:

Friends and Family: A Book with Characters that Feel Like Family

I feel like Lara Jean’s family and friends are my own because this story is so familiar to me.


Fallen Leaves: A Book that Fell Flat (didn’t meet your expectations.)

It wasn’t bad, but I just was expecting more. I definitely had high expectations for this one.


Thanksgiving Dinner: A Book You Want to Read Every Year During This Season

Just beautiful writing that gives me all the feels.


Turkey: A Book With a Bird in It

One of the books I wanted to read this year but never got to it. 🙁


Ham: A Book that Made Your Eyes Glaze Over (Boring.)

I expected a little more from this one and for some reason came away bored with the story. It has such a good premise though – not sure if I was just not in the mood for it. Wait when that happens!


Dinner Rolls: A Book that Melted Your Heart and Made You Feel Warm

Emilia and Wrath together are fire. lol…so they melted me and kept me warm.


Mashed Potatoes: A Book With a White Cover


Gravy: A Book You’re not Totally Sure Why You Love, but You Do

I do know why I love it but when you think of the premise of a young woman and her aunts trying to hide a dead body for a whole day and at a wedding of all places, even if it’s an accidental death…lol…it’s pretty ridiculous! It’s definitely not what would happen in real life…I HOPE. LOL…😅


Pumpkin Pie: A Dessert Book That You Love

The thing I remember about this book is the desserts! 🧁


Bonus: Black Friday: The Top 5 Books on Your TBR

I have such high hopes of trying to read these before 2021 is through but…knowing me I won’t get to it haha, and it’ll be pushed to 2022. Oh well – it is what it is!

Thanks for reading! ~ Yolanda 🦃🍁

Happy Halloween! 2021

My kids are so excited to go trick or treating tonight – hopefully we can nap this afternoon beforehand because I’ve been up since 6am because they woke up excited! 😅 We bagged up candy to pass out tonight (I have 120+ bags right now…might make more), we decorated some pumpkins – no carving this year because the pumpkins at the grocery store are HUGE and expensive and we didn’t go to the pumpkin patch this year.

Can I say…going to the pumpkin patch in Hawaii where it’s like 86 degrees out is not fun? It’s always a sweat and dust fest – I’m sure it’s different now with the pandemic, less people? But…maybe next year. One year my son went with his class on a field trip to the pumpkin patch and got to bring home a pumpkin. It was infested with worms…😭 it was terrifying for me since I was the one who cut the top open. GAH!!! Talk about getting spooked on Halloween right? Since then he is wary about carving pumpkins LOL. But yes, our carved pumpkins rot so fast in this heat…

This year I said here ya go, draw some faces on this mini ones:

My sister, nephews and mom will be coming over and we will be trick or treating around the neighborhood. Then we will come home to pass out candy. We usually leave the bowl out for people take to candy while we are gone. My daughter is going as an axolotl, my son as an Among Us character, I think I’ll just throw on a beanie my mom crocheted for the kids which is supposed to be a Pikmin character or…we shall see, I can always wear the witch hat that is in the costume bin lol.

If you celebrate, I hope all of you have a safe and happy halloween!! If not, I hope you have a lovely day/evening as well. 🙂

🎃 ~ Yolanda

Mood Reader Problems | Books That I’m Reading (But Struggling To Finish) | 9/27/21

Hi Everyone! I always have a few books on my list to I started reading but then I put aside because I’m such a mood reader and if I’m not in the mood – there is no use with me trying to force it. Except, I do force it if I have an arc that I needed to finish by a certain date! I try not DNF books but sometimes I do have to put them aside and eventually I pick them back up to read. Or not…but mostly likely, I do!

Here is what I started and didn’t finish…YET. lol…

That’s a lot, I know and a bunch of these I have to re-borrow on the Overdrive online library! 🤦🏻‍♀️ I hope the next time I have it in my possession is when I am in the mood to finish it.

Sometimes I just have too many books I want to read but with it being fall and spooky season, I’m in the mood for darker reads and fantasy. There are so many books I want to read ahead of these.

What are some books that you are reading that you’ve put aside because you aren’t in the mood for it?

#TBR List Cleanup | Saying Goodbye to 5 Books | June 2021

I’ve seen these done a lot on other book blogs and I realized it’s time I do it too because that TBR list – the one I keep on Goodreads, is oh so cluttered. Realistically…am I really going to read some of these books? The mental TBR list I have in my mind, well, that’s a problem too haha, but if I don’t remember to jot it down somewhere, I’ll forget about it anyway. I like to think deleting these from the list just means I have more room to add new ones, and that’s a good thing. It’s been years in coming so let’s get to it.

Here are the 5 books I’m deleting off my TBR list this month:


These Royals will ruin you.

Ever since Hartley Wright met Easton Royal, her life hasn’t been the same. There are enemies behind every corner and dangers beyond each door. When tragedy strikes and steals her memories, she can’t trust anyone, not even the blue-eyed boy who promises her that everything will be all right.

Because while Hartley’s memory is full of gaps, her instincts tell her Easton is dangerous. She doesn’t know if he’s the snake in the garden or her chance at salvation. The chaos he brings wherever he goes is too much to handle, the intense feelings he evokes are too confusing to unravel.

Easton wants her to remember. Hartley thinks it’s better to forget.

She might be right.

Tragedy. Treachery. Trust. Hartley has to face the facts—in this world, you can’t escape the Royals.

Either you live by their rules or you die by them.

*****

I read most of this series and it was my introduction to bully romance! It was so addictive but after awhile, I wanted to punch these guys in the face 😅 so I didn’t read Easton’s story.


Into every generation a Slayer is born…

Nina and her twin sister, Artemis, are far from normal. It’s hard to be when you grow up at the Watcher’s Academy, which is a bit different from your average boarding school. Here teens are trained as guides for Slayers—girls gifted with supernatural strength to fight the forces of darkness. But while Nina’s mother is a prominent member of the Watcher’s Council, Nina has never embraced the violent Watcher lifestyle. Instead she follows her instincts to heal, carving out a place for herself as the school medic.

Until the day Nina’s life changes forever.

Thanks to Buffy, the famous (and infamous) Slayer that Nina’s father died protecting, Nina is not only the newest Chosen One—she’s the last Slayer, ever. Period.

As Nina hones her skills with her Watcher-in-training, Leo, there’s plenty to keep her occupied: a monster fighting ring, a demon who eats happiness, a shadowy figure that keeps popping up in Nina’s dreams…

But it’s not until bodies start turning up that Nina’s new powers will truly be tested—because someone she loves might be next.

One thing is clear: Being Chosen is easy. Making choices is hard.

*****

I think I added this to my TBR because it’s written by Kiersten White but I’m not in the mood to read about Buffy.


Seventeen-year-old Ana is a scoundrel by nurture and an outlaw by nature. Found as a child drifting through space with a sentient android called D09, Ana was saved by a fearsome space captain and the grizzled crew she now calls family. But D09—one of the last remaining illegal Metals—has been glitching, and Ana will stop at nothing to find a way to fix him.

Ana’s desperate effort to save D09 leads her on a quest to steal the coordinates to a lost ship that could offer all the answers. But at the last moment, a spoiled Ironblood boy beats Ana to her prize. He has his own reasons for taking the coordinates, and he doesn’t care what he’ll sacrifice to keep them.

When everything goes wrong, she and the Ironblood end up as fugitives on the run. Now their entire kingdom is after them—and the coordinates—and not everyone wants them captured alive.

What they find in a lost corner of the universe will change all their lives—and unearth dangerous secrets. But when a darkness from Ana’s past returns, she must face an impossible choice: does she protect a kingdom that wants her dead or save the Metal boy she loves?

*****

I was in a space mood when I added this one and was reading a bunch of space opera books. What happened to them?


Queen Katharine has waited her entire life to wear the crown. But now that she finally has it, the murmurs of dissent grow louder by the day. There’s also the alarming issue of whether or not her sisters are actually dead—or if they’re waiting in the wings to usurp the throne.

Mirabella and Arsinoe are alive, but in hiding on the mainland and dealing with a nightmare of their own: being visited repeatedly by a specter they think might be the fabled Blue Queen. Though she says nothing, her rotting, bony finger pointing out to sea is clear enough: return to Fennbirn. 

Jules, too, is in a strange place—in disguise. And her only confidants, a war-gifted girl named Emilia and her oracle friend Mathilde, are urging her to take on a role she can’t imagine filling: a legion-cursed queen who will lead a rebel army to Katharine’s doorstep.

This is an uprising that the mysterious Blue Queen may have more to do with than anyone could have guessed—or expected.

*****

I read the first two books but after awhile I got tired of sisters being pitted against each other – or it was too dark and I wanted something not so dark. I forget. Did you finish this series?


Final Book in “The Arcana Chronicles” – that’s all the Goodreads description gives me! Haha….

Is this book out? Will it ever be published? I think I’ve outgrown this series. I did like the whole arcana, tarot card concept – that’s why I enjoyed the series. Have you read this series?

And those books are gone from my TBR list – wooosahhh! 🧘🏽 Thank you, next!

And FYI—it seems I don’t look at my Goodreads “Want to Read” list at all because it’s seriously messed up. There are a lot of books on that list that I HAVE read and never reviewed! Before I became a book blogger, I would just do a star rating and leave it at that. But there are tons of books I never rated and now I’m wondering if I should go back and read them to give them a true rating? Or rate them from what I remember feeling about the book? That might be the fastest way to get my list down.

How often do you clean out your TBR list?

📚 ~ Yolanda