Author: Maren @ MarenBoBarenReads

I love books! I spent 8 years working in a bookstore, which was great for finding new titles and getting bookish discounts. It however was not great for my wallet in the long run! Now I work at a school and read every spare moment I get!
Book Reviews

Blogmas Day 4: The Festive Christmas Book Tag

Maren @ MarenBoBarenReads

Hi Everyone! It’s the 4th day of Blogmas over here in Marenville. And what better way than to celebrate by going a tag that I spend way too much time making perfect? Right?! Anyway, I saw this tag over on Anotherbookworm’s blog and thought I’d do it too 🙂 The tag originally comes from Booktuber GirlReading. Without further ado, the Festive Christmas Book Tag!

A fictional family you would like to spend Christmas dinner with?

Depends on if you mean blood family or found family. And my two choices could not differ any more than they do. If it’s blood family I’d want to have Christmas dinner with the Bennett family from Pride and Prejudice. I feel like I would enjoy the banter so much. If it’s a found family I would totally have dinner with the Inner Circle from ACOMAF/ACOWAR/ACOSF. Not only would I get to drool over the Bat Boys, but I feel like it would be highly entertaining.

A bookish item you would like to receive as a gift

Legit pretty much anything from Storiarts. I have like 4 sets of their wrist gloves, a blanket, a couple scarves, a makeup bag. Really anything from there would make me happy. I guess currently I’d love these Sleepy Hollow gloves.

A fictional character you think would make a perfect Christmas elf

I kind of think Drew Leclair from Drew Leclair Gets a Clue would make a fantastic Christmas Elf. She both knows how to keep a secret and, with her penchant for profiling people, she would be fantastic at figuring out the literal perfect gift for those around her.

A book or series you love so much, you want everyone to find it under their Christmas tree this year so they can read it and love it too

I will literally gift anyone a Nancy Drew book. Any Nancy Drew book will do. If I can get someone, young or old, into Nancy Drew that wasn’t into the series before, I will consider my life a success. Can you tell that ND is one of my all time favorite series?

Bah Humbug. A book or fictional character you’ve been disappointed in and should be put on the naughty list.

Grace Blackthorn. In some ways girl I get what you’ve been through, but you also annoy me and a lot of your choices were your own.

Grace Blackthorn by Charlie Bowater

A book or a fictional character you think deserves more love and appreciation and deserve to be put on the nice list.

Iko from Cinder. Talk about a fierce friend, and a hilarious one to boot. I love Iko so much. I want to be her friend. I want to go on crazy adventures with her.

Red, Gold, and Green. A book cover that has a wonderfully Christmasy feel to it.

This book is on my TBR this month. And now that I’m thinking about it’s the only Chrismasy or Holiday-ey book on my TBR. I wont lie, part of the reason I was drawn to it was the cover making me happy.

Book Funsies, Face-Off Friday

Blogmas Day 3: Friday Face-Off

Maren @ MarenBoBarenReads

Discovered a new Friday theme this morning that I really am liking! The meme was originally created by Books by Proxy and is being continued by Lynn’s Books. The premise is that you choose a cover of a book you like (read or unread, doesn’t matter, it’s the cover you’re going for) based on a set theme, and then comparing all the different covers for that title, at the end choosing which one you like best.

This weeks theme was “Windswept – the classic figure, stood majestically, with wind blowing out in a fetching way.”

It took me a little while to find a book I wanted to use, all the original ones I was feeling like the hair wasn’t “windswept” enough! I think I was being far too picky to be fair, haha. But then I remembered how much I loved the cover of The Siren by Kiera Cass. Here is the original to me cover:

The Siren by Kiera Cass

I friggin love this cover. I know it’s very similar to her Selection Series covers and that might turn some people off, but I think it’s gorgeous. And who wouldn’t want those waves for a hairstyle!?

These are the alternate covers. I actually really love the sketched cover on the bottom right ( I think it’s the Indonesian cover, but please correct me if I’m wrong!). If I wasn’t so in love with the cover I knew best, I could easily choose that one as my favorite. The style is just so pretty!

Book Funsies, Tags

Blogmas Day 2: Tag Thursday – NetGalley Tag!

Maren @ MarenBoBarenReads

auto Approved
Who’s one author whose books you automatically want to read, regardless of what they’re about?

Meg Cabot

I will legit buy and read anything Meg Cabot writes. They are all insta buys for me the day they come out. I’ve been reading her since early Princess Diaries days, and love both her YA and Adult works. If she’s written it, I’ve read it. I also have multiple copies of a good number of her books because my sister and I will both buy them, lose one, and buy a replacement. Leaving us with 2 or 3 copies. We definitely have 3 copies of the first Mediator book…

Other authors I would insta buy/request:

  • Sarah J Maas
  • Cassandra Clare
  • Mary Pearson
  • Ashley Poston
  • Maria V Snyder
  • Rachel Hawkins
  • Marissa Meyer
  • ….ok I should stop now…this is why I have so many books

Request
What makes you want to request a book that you see on NetGalley?

It can depend on a few things. First, if it’s an author I’ve read and enjoyed I’ll typically request it without even needing to give the synopsis a once over. If the title or cover grabs me then I’ll read the synopsis to see if it’s something I’ll like. The other thing that will push a book over the edge is if it’s a debut author. Thanks to my sister being an author, I understand how much early reviews and feedback is for a debut author, so I like to grab those when I can.

Feedback Ratio
Do you review every book you read? If not, how do you decide what books to review?

I know I should, but I don’t. My ratio percentage was a respectable 91% recently, but I just was approved for a wave of books so I’m down to 57%. Sometimes if a book really doesn’t gel with me story wise I won’t review it because that’s not really the fault of the author. I don’t really give negative reviews unless the writing or editing was particularly bad. But if I don’t vibe with a storyline, I won’t review a book usually. At least on NetGalley. Sometimes I’ll still do reviews on goodreads.

Badges
If you could create your own badge to display on your blog, what would it be for?

I wish I could have a badge that says how many pages I have read in my history of NetGalley and/or Goodreads. That would make me feel far more powerful than I normally would (or need to).

Wish for It
What’s one book that you are absolutely dying to read?

Can I only choose one? Because, like, there’s a lot of books I’m insanely looking forward to. As of right now, it’s probably Chain of Thorns by Cassandra Clare. Might seem like an easy answer, but man, that cliffhanger killed me. The other one that I have been waiting to get approved for is the next Tirzah Price book Sense and Second Degree Murder. Tirzah, if you’re reading this, tell your publisher to let me in!

NetGalley Challenge
What was the last book that you received as an ARC that you reviewed? If you’ve never received an ARC, what’s the last book you reviewed?

When You Get The Chance by Emma Lord. I loved her book. Her review is up on my blog from earlier this week I think. She is another author that is, at this point an insta buy.

Book Funsies, TBR

Blogmas Day 1: December TBR

Maren @ MarenBoBarenReads

Ok December. I need to finish 13 books in you. Do you hear me? If I read 13 books this month I’ll hit my goal of 48 books this year. I had such a strong start to the year, and then between August and November I read like 1 book. That really set me back. Like most months, I plan on predominantly reading YA Fantasy, but there might be a contemporary book or two in there!

I tried to somewhat order them in the order I plan to read them, but it get’s a little muddy at the end. I want to finish out the Falling Kingdoms series for sure. But we’ll see where I go after that. I just got Perfect on Paper in in my bookmail so that’s high up there, but I also just excitedly got approved for ARCs of both A Forgery of Roses and In Every Generation (and as Buffy is my literal favorite TV show, you can see why this would be high on my list!).

And for a better rundown (with links to their goodreads pages):

What are all of you reading/planning/hoping to read in December?

Book Funsies, Wrap-Up

November Wrap-Up

Maren @ MarenBoBarenReads

Hey ya’ll!!! November was a pretty good reading month for me. I was on bedrest with a torn MCL for 2+ weeks, so you would think I would have read way more, but did I? Nope. Instead I binged watched the entire Attack on Titan series (Sasha is best girl and nobody can do anything to sway me from that opinion), did a lot of art tutorials on my iPad, and worked from home as much as possible so I didn’t have to burn through my precious PTO(the perks of working in IT).

Still, I read 4 books, so that’s pretty good considering I had to keep up with my night classes too! I really enjoyed all of them too! One was a re-read, The Princess Diaries. One was a MUCH anticipated trilogy ender, Aurora’s End, my boy Fin looking so handsome on the cover! Then was the first book in a series I have owned for ages, but never got around to reading, Falling Kingdoms, this was prolly my least favorite of the 4, but I still enjoyed it enough that I’m in the middle of Rebel Spring right now and really enjoying it! And last up was the ARC of Emma Lord’s newest upcoming book, When You Get the Chance, which I absolutely ADORED. The review for that one is up on my blog now, so you can see more info there.

In order to keep my original Goodreads goal of 48 books this year, I need to read 13 in December. Not sure I’ll make it, haha, but a girl can dream! Seriously, I’ll never know how I did it the one year I read 317 books….