Review: Marked for Life (Jana Berzelius, #1) by Emelie Schepp

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★★

MIRA | 2016

Opening Hook: A child’s jam-hand marks on a murder scene.

Main Character: A Swedish robot with advanced A.I.

Plot Twisty-Ness: A by-the-book snoozer procedural

I’ll be honest, the only reason I read this was because of the cover. It’s pretty sexy.

Unfortunately, outside of that shallow element, this book didn’t work for me at all. And go figure, basing a decision on literally nothing of depth didn’t leave me fulfilled. Shocking.

I’ll chalk up my low-rating of this Scandinavian thriller to an all-encompassing “lost in translation” excuse. But in the nature of full disclosure, the other reviews I’ve read have said even the original language version is a sleeper. Proceed to TBR at your own risk.

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Book Tag: The Entertaining Blogger Award

I’ll be accepting this award tag from Sam @ Fictionally Sam with relish. Thank you for thinking of me, Sam!

This might be my favourite “honour” so far because a large part of the joy I get from doing this blog is that I get to release the mouthy, witty bitch who is only known by those closest to me. Believe it or not, I’m actually a shy introvert who takes a very long time to open up in person.

But deep down, what you read on this blog, and the personality you hopefully pick up on in my words, is who I am.

There is something about writing that makes the truest part of me flow so easily. Getting to express that – to write and be myself at the same time – satisfies some serious self-care, self-expression that are needs essential to my mental health.

~~Hello, I am strictly here for internet validation.~~

I’m here because I love reading, I love writing, I love talking books and I love being creative. So, the fact that anyone reads what I’m doing here at all, I’m so flattered by. But that you would also think, “I like her, she’s entertaining,” is such a sweet extra, and I’m so grateful.

And now that I’ve written a bunch of shit that will make new readers think, “she’s actually not entertaining at all though?” On to the award!

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Booknerd Wednesday: My Holiday Wishlist!

I’m sure all of us booknerds are the same: We are asked for a wish list for the holidays – “What do you want for Christmas? Give me some ideas!” – and those ideas are just a long list of books.

Generally, people are too nervous to buy me books (at this point in my life, I’m fully aware people are legit scared of me but I’m really not that bad?) so, I just end up with a lot of gift cards. But that is totally fine with me! The more excuses I have to walk around a bookstore the better.

So, today I thought I’d share the books that are top of my list this holiday season.

Image result for bookworm wish list cartoon

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True Crime Tuesday: 20 Years Missing & A Christmas Suicide

It is officially December! The countdown to the holidays is on motherfuckers! I am feeling the crunch just a little bit, I can’t lie. Last weekend we busted our butts in freezing rain to get lights on the house and a tree up. But now all I have left to do is shopping.

And around here at HTFT, I carved out some time to make a new holiday-themed banner for my blog. I didn’t work on it for very long, but it is another task checked off the to-do list, and I actually kind of love it.

So, since my “raining in the basement” fiasco, I have been behind in both reading and writing, not just my holiday responsibilities. I’m also less $1k out of my holiday budget so things are tighter than I’d like them to be.

But, I’m not going to let the money or the rush or my reading backlog damper my holiday spirit.

And I hope others can find that same merry & bright attitude, even if you’re feeling like you don’t have it in you this year.

Yesterday, my sister was a “depression ball” because of a recent breakup and lack of funds for the holidays, and my mother was “bumming hard” because she had to spend her Christmas money to replace an unexpectedly broken oven and can’t get the gifts for people she wants to.

And I totally get it! Those things suck. Helloooo, part of my walls are missing in my house! But at the same time, the holidays aren’t about money spent and gifts given. This time is about family. And no one wants to be on their deathbed, wishing they had been more engaged in making memories instead of being upset about relationships they no longer think about, or ovens that are now in, hopefully, some futuristic advanced recycling system.

So, I told them both they have 22 days to buck-the-fuck-up or there will be Krampus hell to pay.

i will cut you melissa and joey GIF

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Review: The Marriage Pact by Michelle Richmond

I expected marriage to be a door that we went through. Like a new house, you step into it, expecting it to be an unchanging space to inhabit. But, of course, I was wrong. Marriage is a living, changing thing that you must tend to both alone and together. It grows in all sorts of ways, both ordinary and unexpected.

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★★

Bantam | 2017

Opening Hook: The worst marriage present of all time

Main Characters: Met on Married At First Sight, apparently.

Plot Twisty-ness: Tom Cruise jumping on a couch-like levels.

Leah Remini is a personal hero of mine.

I am endlessly fascinated with cults. And for someone to so publicly be trying to take one down despite the danger, gets all the applause from me. I love her. I think she’s amazing.

With that in mind, I wanted to read this book because it had this Scientology-cult vibe in the synopsis. A newlywed couple, Jake and Alice, receive, as a wedding gift, an invitation to join The Pact – a group whose sole focus is to help marriages last forever. Soon Jake and Alice find getting out of that contract is not as easy as you would think it would be for adults who just don’t want to do a thing anymore.

That has L. Ron Hubbard inspiration written all over it – minus the alien nonsense.

But I guess, in order to make a cult thriller thrilling without going all David Koresh on your ass, things have to be fucking ridiculous and leave reason and logic completely behind.

So, for that alone this didn’t really work for me.

First of all, from my experience being a newlywed once upon a time, if someone had come to me and my husband and said “here’s this thing to help you be good at marriage” I would have said, BITCH WE ARE THE BEST AT MARRIAGE WE HAVE SEX FIVE TIMES A WEEK WE SHOULD BE TEACHING CLASSES ON HOW TO BE AMAZING AT MARRIED LIFE.

Because when you’re a newlywed, you’re cocky AF.

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Booknerd Wednesday: Holiday-Themed Reads!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, booknerds!

And I mean that in the most inclusive way possible. There are 11 holidays celebrated this time of year by people of all different backgrounds. And that’s just what I know of. It is completely possible that there are more celebrations that I’m ignorant to.

It doesn’t matter what you celebrate this time of year, I want your holidays to be everything that you want them to be. I want you to wish people whatever lovely greeting you choose to and I want you to be happy and loved.

For me and my little family, we are celebrating Yule/Saturnalia. And I need my Yule to include some goddamn murder!

That’s right, I said it. With the stress of shopping and wrapping and getting the house in order for family and friends, I like to wind down at the end of the day with some dead bodies and a big mystery to unravel.

Nothing says “Christmas” like blood in the snow.

will ferrall zooey deschanel GIF

So if you’re anything like me, maybe you’re looking to build your TBR in December around some winter holiday themed crime fiction. And because I love you all so much, I’ve put together a list of what I think are your best bets to add to your pile.

Here’s my fucking list of the top holiday-theme books to quench your thirst for death this season!

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Personal: Why I’ve been (kind of) MIA This Month

Don’t go assuming the worst. It’s nothing earth-shattering. I’m not dying or anything like that.

But I do want to write this, just to say I feel so bummed that I haven’t been writing as much as I want to this month. And I’m not reading as much as I want to this month.

There are two things to blame for this.

One. It was my birthday recently and my husband got me Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. Needless to say, I dove into it pretty hard with both feet and any moment I don’t have some responsibility to take care of, I’ve been playing that game instead of reading/writing.

On the bright side, I’ve been learning a lot about Greek history. And your girl is not usually the scholarly type when it comes to geography and history. Or math. Or science. Or really anything that requires too much of my left brain.

Take last night for instance. I said to my husband: “This quest says to go to Athens, but I don’t see Athens on the map. Is Athens a real place? Where is Athens? Is it a country? Or the whole continent?” And my husband nearly choked on his cookie.

dumb the simpsons GIF

I take full responsibility for this current game addiction. Okay, maybe not full. Like, if you guys want to blame my husband for like 20% of this I wouldn’t argue. He did buy me the game after all.

Anyway, speaking of responsibilities, this is where issue Number Two comes in. It rained in my basement.

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My Favourite Online Bookstore!

Y’all are either going to love me or hate me after this. I’m good with either one really because at least I’ll know you’re getting bomb-ass deals on books.

My story starts here: I re-did my basement and installed my brand new bookshelves. I finally got to pull out all my boxes of books that I’d had stored away since we moved into our new house two years ago.

yas omg GIF by O&O, Inc — Me to my books.

But, as I was looking at my beautiful new shelves and looking at all my old books, I realized I wanted to put only my most favourite, beautiful books on the shelves. I wanted to donate anything I’d already read and didn’t fall in love with. I wanted to get rid of the things I knew I’d never read because my TBR had grown so much in the last couple of years.

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A “Here’s The Fucking Twist” Giveaway!

Heads up, nerds! I’m running a giveaway through my #bookstagram account: @thefuckingtwist and I don’t want any of my lovely book friends to miss out!

You might be asking yourself why I’m doing this? What’s the occasion?

I know most accounts do giveaways to celebrate follower count, but I’m honestly not at all concerned with that number. I’m so happy with the support and readership I have, and the bookish connections I’ve made, that even if only 5 people interacted with me, I’d be thrilled and consider this a success.

It’s all about the book love, bitches!

I decided to do this giveaway because it’s my birthday on Thursday and the holiday season (whatever holiday you observe) is officially underway which always makes my Grinch-y sized heart grow 3 times it’s size. Hell, maybe my reviews will even get nicer?! Probably not. Even still, this is a holiday-themed giveaway to celebrate all those good things!

the point is its my birthday GIF by Party Legends

If you don’t follow me on Insta, first get your shit together. Second, come on by and put your name in for my giveaway.

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Book Tag: The Liebster Award, Take Three

I am only doing this again because Grey @ Use Your Words gave me a bonus nomination from my nomination of her. “You’re my boy, blue!”

How can I resist an opportunity to run my mouth, maybe talk some shit and avoid doing my actual job this morning? I can’t! I have almost zero self-control! It’s why I’ve started and stopped diets like a million times this year! ZERO SELF-CONTROL. So, let’s take advantage of this terrible personality trait!

Literally me.

Sidenote: If you’re not following Grey’s blog or Insta, you are missing out. Thoughtful reviews, personal commiserating and beautiful pictures. Get your head out of your ass and 👏check👏 her👏 out👏

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