The idea is pretty simple, every week you dedicate a post to the three W’s:
What are you currently reading?
What have you just finished reading?
What are you going to read next?
We are in MID-SEPTEMBER. Ugh…I am tired, but we are near Fall break so that’s something to look forward to and it’s not like we are going on vacation but sleeping in is like a vacation. 🤔 lol…so as if I’m not tired enough I was looking for something creative to do – I haven’t done resin art in awhile and my Etsy shop is pretty slow and something I might close since I haven’t posted new things there and I randomly came across reading journal videos on youtube. And so yeah…I found an extra composition notebook in my kids school supplies box and started one even though it’s almost the end of 2024 🤷🏻♀️. I’ll do a separate post about it and add pics.
What are you currently reading?
Stranger Skies by. Pascale LaCelle – 1% – still no progress because I’m reading other things but I will be getting to this one very soon!
I’m tired. It’s 6 weeks into the school session and my kiddos just started Sunday school so that’s added to their schedule also which means a lot of driving and that exhausts me. 😅 It doesn’t help that the weather is hot also. 🥵 We are counting down the days until Fall Break.
I did manage to get some self-care and got a 30 minute massage, where the therapist worked on my neck and back. It was much needed but a painful recovery because it was a deep massage, so I wasn’t feeling so hot the next day and to that my daughter has another cold but it came with pink-eye. Both she and I are much better now but like a said, a break would be so nice.
Emily in Paris Season 4 Part 2 (netflix) – I love when Emily travels and honestly I was rooting for her to be with Alfie (such a cutie) and that looks like a dead end. I don’t want her to go back to Gabriel, it was just so messy with Cami and everything. And I’m actually loving her in Rome with Marcello (another cutie!!! Emily really has had her fun in Europe!) . But what I really love about this series is Mindy and Emily’s friendship – they make me laugh all the time. And Sylvie is AMAZING – I wish I could be like her. I feel like Season 5 (if they have one because you never know with Netflix 🙄) will be the last one and I just don’t want her back with Gabriel. I like them as friends but we’ll see. I’m sure she will but I won’t love it.
How was your week? Did you get a lot done? Watch anything good? Read any amazing books or books you didn’t finish? What are you reading?…Leave me a comment below!
First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?
Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Finally… reveal the book!
“Six years ago, almost to the day, Truly first spotted Justin Gallagher in all his dreamy, sun-kissed, green-eyed glory and thought, I’m gonna marry that guy.”
Title: Nothing Like the Movies (Better Than the Movies, #2)
Author: Lynn Painter
Format: eBook (NetGalley)
Pages: 448
Publication Date: 9/24/24
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Categories: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary, Sequel
Disclaimer: **I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**
Thank you to Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers for giving me a chance to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review!
In this highly anticipated sequel to the New York Times bestselling Better than the Movies, Wes and Liz struggle to balance their feelings for each other with the growing pains of being a college student.
For a few beautiful months, Wes had his dream girl: strong-willed girl-next-door Liz. But right as the two were about to set off to UCLA to start their freshman year together, tragedy struck. Wes was left dealing with the fallout, which ultimately meant losing Liz in the process.
Flash forward months and months later and Wes and Liz find themselves in college, together. In a healthier place now, Wes knows he broke Liz’s heart when he ended things, but he is determined to make her fall back in love with him.
Wes knows Liz better than anyone, and he has a foolproof plan to win her back with the rom-com worthy big gestures she loves. Only…Liz will have none of it. Wes has to scheme like a rom-com hero to figure out how to see her. Even worse, Liz has a new friend…a guy friend.
Still, Wes won’t give up, adapting his clever plans and going hard to get Liz’s attention and win back her affection. But after his best efforts get him nowhere, Wes is left wondering if their relationship is really over for good.
Content Warning: death of parent, grief
I loved Better Than the Movies so when I saw that this was a sequel to it I was hesitant to read it because I loved the first one so much! Also it was so good I didn’t think it needed a sequel.
Wes and Liz left me so happy in the first book, but in this one it’s about them growing, struggling, being broken up, and trying to get back to what they were but with so many changes that have happened in to them – it’s kind of impossible to get that magic back.
I thought it was interesting to see how both Wes and Liz navigate college in a different state. Liz is doing really good for herself and embracing everything in college. But wow, I really felt for Wes. He went through so much and he did the hard work to try and get his life back on track. And it really made me sad that they weren’t together, after everything that happened in BTTM. It was too much reality for me! As for the second chance romance? I get the yearning for one another, of what it used to be, but I just wasn’t feeling it. Which makes me wish I didn’t pick up this sequel so I can keep the Wes and Liz from BTTM in my mind. I mean it’s evident Wes is always going to love Liz. But this is one where Liz has to take her time with finding her way back to him.
There is a lot of pop culture reference in this one, which I thought was fine in the previous book because it was movies. But this one used music to tie Wes and Liz together and I think it’s fun but at times maybe a little too much?
My Thoughts:
I think this one will be one of those books you either love or don’t think was necessary and I’m in definitely in the team that found this sequel unnecessary. Overall, it was interesting to see the characters grow and deal with life, but it was also sad, especially for Wes! I just miss the magic, fun and giddiness that the first book made me feel.
The idea is pretty simple, every week you dedicate a post to the three W’s:
What are you currently reading?
What have you just finished reading?
What are you going to read next?
It was a busy weekend, and the week continues on – when is Fall break?? I need it, lol. But I did get some reading done surprisingly! Also I did my first beta-read for a book called A Desert of Bleeding Sands by. Lucia Damisa and it’s so good.
What are you currently reading?
Stranger Skies by. Pascale LaCelle – 1% – still no progress because I’m reading other things but I will be getting to this one very soon!
My son had his birthday lunch at his grandparents’ house last Sunday, and my daughter has been fighting a cold but she’s much, much better now. My son though had a few days this week he was nauseous, had a migraine and I don’t know if it’s just the heat we’ve been experiencing this week or a combination of that and the school work load he has now as a middle schooler. It’s so much more than elementary school and I think he’s starting to see how much more. At least my kids are 5 weeks away from Fall Break already! They are counting down to that.
Other than that it was a fairly mild week and now with their Sunday school back in session today we don’t really get a break. 😓 So here’s to Fall break lol…we are so looking forward to it!
Football is back! I caught the Chiefs/Ravens and the Eagles/Packers game.
The Breakfast Club (netflix) – it was on Netflix so I decided to reminisce!
How was your week? Did you get a lot done? Watch anything good? Read any amazing books or books you didn’t finish? What are you reading?…Leave me a comment below!
First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?
Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Finally… reveal the book!
“There once was a town. It was a quaint little town, in a quiet valley, where life moved at the pace of snails and the only road in was the only way out, too.”
Sometimes, love finds you when you least expect it…
Having worked for Southern Service Paws for a few years now, I like to think I’m prepared for just about any client meeting under the sun. I am dead wrong.
The day I meet with single dad, Jacob Broaden, about potentially matching his daughter with one of our service dogs, I learn a few valuable lessons.
1) Always set my alarm clock. 2) Single dads are way hotter than I previously thought. 3) It is possible to go from fantasizing about kissing someone to wishing they would be run over by a truck in a matter of two minutes.
Unfortunately, I don’t hold that opinion of him for very long. Not when he shows me a different side of himself—one that’s sweet as maple syrup and hot as apple pie fresh out of the oven. And after a few days of working closely with him and his daughter, he starts looking at me with fire in his eyes, making me dream of something I probably shouldn’t… A family.
The Match is a feel-good, closed-door romantic comedy! Perfect for readers who enjoy sweet, sizzling chemistry with passionate kissing only.
Content Warning:
I thought this was a cute read and the narrators did a really good job with voicing the audiobook.
Evie has epilepsy, grew up rich, but is striking out on her own with her disability and service dog, Charlie. I admired her strength and bravery and her personality is very full of sunshine. She meets Jake because of his daughter Sam who has the same condition and wants a service dog. I liked the disability rep and the moments with the service dog.
Jacob is a great single dad, but he is seven years older than Evie so at times I felt like Evie was falling too fast for him even though he had some baggage to deal with. Overall though it’s a really cute, sweet romance.
My Final Thoughts:
This one has service dogs, a disability rep and a super cute romance!
The idea is pretty simple, every week you dedicate a post to the three W’s:
What are you currently reading?
What have you just finished reading?
What are you going to read next?
I feel like now that we are in September I have more motivation to finish all these fantasy reads I have in my NetGalley library! I’m such a mood reader. I also can’t believe we are in September and I have to be thinking about Halloween soon or do Christmas shopping or something! lol…I want to be prepared because I hardly am when the holidays hit. Anyway, what are you reading right now?
Happy September everyone! Here we are in the start of the “Ber” months and it’s kind of exciting and kind of overwhelming thinking of the holidays coming up.
This week we had some tropical storms pass us by – so it was rainy, windy and humid (yuck). My son also turned 12 on Tuesday so we are going over to his grandparents house today to have a birthday lunch with family. He is in a Kirby (Nintendo game) era so all his gifts from me was Kirby themed like a keyboard, a Nintendo Switch case, a shirt, etc…
His school had an Open House on Friday so we went to check it out and I had fun meeting his teachers and seeing their classrooms. He has an elective class which is a Drones class and I was so impressed with their equipment in there and to learn how kids are learning how to build drones and code. The advanced drone team even competes nationally with high schoolers even though they are a middle school and then even won first place last year! I was like wow…my elective back in the 90’s that I picked was Calligraphy 😆. It was that or like sewing or something – I mean we also had home-ec in 8th where we learned to sew and cook but yeah…DRONES is his elective. He gets Woodshop (this seems to be a classic elective lol – I had woodshop), Video Production and some Nature elective in the next quarters.
Tomorrow is Labor Day here in the USA so it’ll be nice to sleep in!
The Songbird & the Heart of Stone by. Carissa Broadbent
Truly, Madly, Deeply by. Alexandria Bellefleur
Currently Reading:
Fledgling by. S.K. Ali
Heir by. Sabaa Tahir
The Match by. Sarah Adams (audiobook)
Shows/Movies/Music I Watched/Listened To:
Sailor Moon Cosmos (Netflix) – my kids and I watched this one and it’s so wild lol…my favorite is one of the Three Lights Guardians and her saying “Gentle Uterus!” as her power 😂 It’s so ridiculous but we have so much fun watching Sailor Moon and I loved Chibi Chibi. Anyway, I WISH my uterus was gentle smh…😆
Die with a Smile – Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars – on repeat – it’s so good!🥰
How was your week? Did you get a lot done? Watch anything good? Read any amazing books or books you didn’t finish? What are you reading?…Leave me a comment below!
Past Midnight Book Reviews & More 