Tag: classics

The Boy Next Story Blog Tour

TheCaffeinatedReader1 Comment

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Synopsis:
The second book in a series where your favorite literary characters come to life, inspired by the timeless classic, Little Women!
There’s no one better than the boy next door. At least not according to Aurora Campbell, fourteen, who has been in love with Tobias May since their very firstsandbox kiss. The problem is, he’s in love with her older sister, Merrilee. And Merri is already dating one of his best friends.
Rory is learning all about pining as her class reads The Great Gatsby, a book she doesn’t find “great” at all. Also not great—her GPA, something she needs to fix, quickly, if she’d like to apply for the chance to spend a week studying art with her hero in New York City over winter break. But when Ms. Gregoire assigns her to read Little Women for extra credit, Rory discovers more than she expected—both about herself and Toby. Maybe she wasn’t in love with the boy next door. . . but the boy next story.
Loveis complicated, and it’s all about to get even trickier for Rory at Reginald R. Hero Prep . . . where with the help of one quirky English teacher, students’ fantasies come true, often with surprising consequences.
BOOK INFORMATION
The Boy Next Story (Bookish Boyfriends #2) by Tiffany Schmidt
Publisher: Amulet Paperbacks
Release Date: May 21st 2019
Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary
GoodReads Link

Where to Buy the Book

Amazon  Book Depository  Barnes&Noble  iTunes  Google Books

My Review

For those of you who may have peeked at my blog before, you’ll notice it’s not common for me to have contemporary books at least outside of the thriller or mystery field but when I read the blurb for this book and saw a chance to sign up for the blog tour, I knew I had to read it.

And guess what?

I’m so glad I did.

That will be my only gif use for this blog entry.

Schmidt does such a WONDERFUL job with intertwining a classic novel with a modern-day YA story, I know that 16 years old me would have somehow loved this even more than I’m not telling you my age me did.

While Aurora, or Rory as she prefers, I would say I’m half Merri half Rory of the sisters but I digress, is a freshman in high school and it’s been a while since I was, she was still so relatable! She is an introvert to a T and it was nice and she didn’t act as if she were oblivious to the fact that she was awkward but she also didn’t constantly harp on that fact. She was just a freshman switching to a new school and learning to deal with quite average teenage problems.

Another thing Schmidt does an amazing thing with is that she’s built such a fantastic cast of characters. The parents may not always understand their daughters but it’s clear they love them and are quite supportive, especially their Dad with Rory’s art. Rory’s sisters are loveable and frustrating at times and well, to be honest, they made me miss my sisters a lot haha.

If you’ve read the first book in this series, you’ll know their amazingly fabulous English teacher is the sort of person who knows just what her students need and she gives Rory Little Women and if you’ve read that book, or seen the movie or even just heard about it, you may know that it is not just a book with a love story or two, it’s a book about sisters. And sisters can be an important part of your life, especially when growing up.

Rory begins to discover what loving someone really means, it’s more than just getting what you think you want, it’s about loving them for who they truly are.

The fact that Schmidt seamlessly switches between the parallels of Rory and Amy made the story flow so well I forgot that this was intertwining two different worlds. It’s always really important for me to have something besides romance in a book, and the sisterly love and the trials of Rory’s first semester of freshman year really did the trick for me. More than that…I am a gushy fan girl about this and absolutely adored the romance aspects as well. This never happens, and I’m so excited to go back and read the first book and wait for the next.

Honestly, please go read this if you want a story about love trials, sisters, high school, and learning to let yourself be, well, yourself.

5/5 Cups of Coffee from me, but now onto the next part…

I got to make a playlist!

This is the first time I’ve done one to a book instead of my own writing so I was super hyped.

Without further ado here is my The Boy Next Story playlist!

  1. You Picked Me – A Fine Frenzy
  2.  Shake It Out – Florence + The Machine
  3.  Make Me Yours – Beth Crowley
  4.  Gimme Sympathy – Metric
  5. Sinners – Lauren Aquilina
  6. Medicine – Havelin
  7. Slow Fade – The Clicks, Cece Francis
  8.  When I was Younger – Liz Lawrence
  9.  Let My Love Be Heard – Phoenix Chamber Choir
  10.  Night Sky – Matthew Parker
  11.  Every Time We Touch – Cascada
  12.  I Choose You – Sarah Bareilles
  13.  Fidelity – Regina Spektor
  14.  Brave Enough (feat. Christina Perri) – Lindsey Stirling
  15.  Cradled in Love – Poets of the Fall

About the Author

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Tiffany Schmidt is the author of Send Me a Sign, Bright Before Sunrise, and Hold Me Like a Breath (Once Upon a Crime Family book 1). She’s found her happily ever after in Pennsylvania with her saintly husband, impish twin boys, and a pair of mischievous puggles. You can find out more about her and her books at:

Website  Goodreads  Twitter  Tumblr  Instagram  Facebook

Tour Schedule

[Please click on the picture to be redirected to the full schedule post!]

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GIVEAWAY PRIZE

Win a copy of BOOKISH BOYFRIENDS: THE BOY NEXT STORY byTiffany Schmidt (US Only)

Start Date: 21stMay 2019
End Date: 4thJune 2019

Click Below for Link:

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/d9681b86368/?

For more entry opportunities check out the Instagram giveaway on my page which you can find your way to through the widget on the right side. ->

 

Charity Shop Finds!

TheCaffeinatedReader3 Comments

Hey all

It’s Sunday, I’m picking my daughter up from her Brownies trip and yesterday we had an unexpected charity shop spree. We went to one but it was just choc-full of amazing books. So.

We did it. That was our adventurous thing to do while the daughter is away, buy books.

Also, I forgot to show these off last week:

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These are actually from last Sunday, we were dropping off a stack of books, came home with four.
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These are actually from last Sunday, we were dropping off a stack of books, came home with four.

The total from last Sunday was £4.49

Finally, the ones from today

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We were able to pick up a couple of more classics that matched some we already have. Grabbed some great nonfiction reads, and well, went overboard. But we hadn’t really planned on buying books today and the shop was all the way in Edinburgh so we wouldn’t be back to that part of the city anytime soon. We live in Fife and if we go into Edinburgh it’s usually for shows or the museum.

  • The Diary of Anne Frank £2.00
  • The French Revolution, Christopher Hibbert £2.00
  • The French Revolution £4.00
  • The Russian Revolution 1917-1932 £2.00
  • Naming Jack the Ripper £4.00
  • Bletchley Circle £2.00
  • The World According to Garp £2.00
  • The Way of the Flesh £2.00
  • Usher Hall £2.00
  • Lenin £2.00
  • The Happy Prince and Other Stories £1.50
  • Count Karlstein £1.50
  • Hocus Pocus (Kurt Vonnegut) £2.00
  • The Little World of Don Camillo £2.00
  • The Wife of Bath £2.00

A total of £33.00 for today

Come about October/November I’ll probably have donated at least a 1/3 of everything I’ve been buying lately.

Anyway, that’s it, not much of a post but I’m always excited to share our finds.

Charity Shop Finds!

TheCaffeinatedReader11 Comments

It’s time for another Charity Shop Fiiiiiinds!

I know it probably seems like these are weekly, the truth of the matter is that it probably is a regular occurrence for us, but, when you have a family of three and are trying to save but still want to be able to go out and not spend a fortune, this is what ends up happening.

On the plus side, I’ve made it my goal to tackle my donate TBR after pushing through my eARCs which, I’m doing okay with my pace, so, I’m hoping this summer will be the tackling of my physical TBR! [*laughs at self, knowing I’ll keep requesting on NetGalley*]

Hubs had a day off this week and we went out to buy me a jacket, but popped into a couple of charity shops to kill time, we ended up with these finds:

  • James Stewart Biography (3.25) [He is my favorite actor. Ever.]
  • Ben-Hur .50P
  • The Lady Midnight .50P [This has some faded sprayed edges but in otherwise good condition, but I’m too lazy to put photos of these as they’ve already been put away]

Then this weekend we got:

  • The Alienist [I had borrowed it from the library when I read it, but it was part of a sale, 3 for 1.50]
  • Sparkling Cyanide 3 for 1.50
  • And Then There Were None 3 for 1.50
  • Artemis Fowl 3 for 1.50
  • Kidnapped 3 for 1.50
  • Little Women 3 for 1.50 [This one completed my daughter’s set of classics!]
  • The Bear and the Nightingale 1.00
  • Gulliver’s Travels 2.00 [We liked this copy better and will donate our other copy next weekend!]
  • Ever After High 2.00 [Daughter fled with that one so no pic of it lol]
  • The Good Women of China 1.00
  • A History of Scotland 1.00
  • Frankenstein .50P
  • 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea .50P
  • The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes .50P
  • The Secret Garden .50P

So, we spent about 12.00!

It’s going to be a long March Haul post when I get to it…

Charity Shop Finds!

TheCaffeinatedReader7 Comments

I swear this will not be every Sunday, in fact, we’re swearing off the High Street until next pay period and even then we’re not going crazy again.  [Or so we say pahaha]

So what did we grab this past Saturday??

 

Mini-Spawn also got two books of her own, a mini guide to Venice [My Mother is Venetian and she is a very proud Nonna at the moment lol] and her free book for World Book Day which I’ll be talking about more this week.

So instead of having full sized pics like the other times, I thought this might be a bit less scrolling for you all! So! We did not spend more than 1.50 for any of the books you see here! Overall we spent about 12 pounds.

Mary Stewart writes the Merlin series I’m tackling this year (Arthurian Saga technically) but she also wrote mysteries and I really wanted to check them out. Probably about 2-4 of these will go back to donation!.

The ones where there’s no title that you can see are: The one with the geometric cover is The LIght and the Dark, the one next to it is War and Peace, we own this but the cover’s too pretty to pass up lol, and the faded blue one is part of a favorite saga of mine, The Forsyte Saga; In Chancery. There we have it! Books, books everywhere! I have no idea where I am supposed to put them all??? Not to mention I have my books from Amazon coming [This is not the usual, I haven’t bought new books in like years on my own lol].

Anyone read any of these or score any deals of your own you wanna share??

**Also, when is a good time to do a first giveaway, should it be here or on Instagram, should it be after a certain number of followers? I’m asking because I’m most likely about to have two copies of Priory of the Orange Tree and if that happens I might save it for a giveaway.**

Love and Reading

TheCaffeinatedReader15 Comments

I realized something the other night, I was talking books with a friend and it just hit me.

I’m so lucky.

Incredibly lucky.

Because my husband and I share a very deep love of reading. [And many other things of course!]

In my previous relationship, and don’t worry I’m not here to give you all my sob story, nor lament about the past, but, we didn’t really share that sort of hobby.

When my husband and I first started dating we shared a love of Mass Effect [We fought over Garrus, but I won.


And it wasn’t until a couple months in that we started talking books. I lent him my Ender’s Game and I borrowed his God Knows. [I loved Joseph Heller’s voice in this, and it’s not really a religious book, it’s more a satire of sorts, however, it was way too repetitive so I didn’t get to finish it, but I’m giving it another go]

Eventually, I finished my grad course at Uni and had to go back to Texas, and we’d decided to continue our relationship. When we parted out the airport it was a bit emotional but he sent me with his favorite book Catcher in the Rye, which though I’d already read, he wanted me to have because he left a note in it saying, ‘Now I have a reason to come visit, to get it back.’

This didn’t stop there, he sent me a beautiful copy of one of my favorite Dickens books I didn’t know, Great Expectations and said that the quote on the cover was how he felt about me. [“You have been in every line I’ve ever read.”] He also sent me The Halloween Tree after he learned how much I wanted to read it, and I got him a kindle, and the Black Friday we did was Half Price Books and Barnes and Noble. Now the purpose of this isn’t to rattle off everything we ever bought each other that was bookish, that would be a bit obnoxious and annoying, to be frank, lol. The point of this is, I have a partner who supports my reading, he supports my music and everything I do but with books, we get to share it. We read For Whom the Bell Tolls together when we were apart just so we could share in the book together as we couldn’t be there with one another.

We both love classics and looking for old editions of them to add to our collection. He will sit and listen to me talk about all sorts of books, in fact, I was talking about Twilight (don’t ask haha) and he gave me his full attention, and he didn’t have to. He’ll ask me where’s his artsy book pic when he’s at work because he knows I’ll try to take one for my bookstagram, and there’s nothing more fun than when we talk Hemingway together. [Though thankfully he shares none of Hemingway’s relationship habits, the tool of a genius]

Today we took mini-me to Waterstones for her free book for World Book Day and then the three of us looked around books in the charity shops and it was a perfect day. ❤

He is my other half, and my god if I don’t want to kick his ass sometimes, we’re not perfect, and trust me he is within his rights to want to kick my butt too lol. But to have a relationship where there is such a mutual love of books and literature is something that I never thought could happen for me. It was a rough ride to get to him but completely worth it in the end.

February Wrap-Up

TheCaffeinatedReader24 Comments

Ugh, February is only a few days shorter than the other months but it feels like it just sped by in two weeks, amiright?

So I’ll put what books I read, include the links to their Goodreads if you’re interested, that way that saves this post from being HUGE. Anything with () Means I don’t have a blog review/it isn’t up yet, but the rest do and you’re welcome to click on my reviews page to go scope them out!

I’ll also talk about my February book haul and my March aspirations, I’m finishing a book tonight so I’ll reserve the review for that until March 1!

What Did I Read This Month:

Stalking Jack the Ripper


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Boneseeker: Here Walk the Dead


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Hashtag Authentic


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Betty Church and the Suffolk Vampire


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Eden Chip


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The Spitfire Girls


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The Hound of Death


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In Search of a Witch’s Soul


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Bloom: A Monster Love Novella


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Dead Man’s Blues


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The Parlor Girl’s Guide (To Hell, apparently)


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Serving the Servant: Remembering Kurt Cobain


(Review to come in mid to late March)
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Infinite Dark Volume 1


(No Review, thriller comic, good, but not much to it)
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Seraphin


(Very whimsical children’s story/Children’s Picture Book, apparently someone else thought this had some Pedophile message…I didn’t really get that, but like they were just friends?? And also they never say that anyone is a kid?? Idk, maybe I’m misreading! It was just a man and his friend who built his house and a musical instrument and had tea together by the fire…..so…maybe I’m missing subtext, idk again. )
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Star Collector Volume 1


(Western Manga, love manga but this one was missing some depth to the characters)
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Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage


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Storm Front


(Review to come tomorrow!)
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February Book Haul

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Again, 2 for 99P!!
Carrie Fisher!
So these were originally .50P each but the shop does a deal, 2 for .99P
Look at these covers!

 

Favorite Read this Month?

A tie between La Belle Sauvage and Serving the Servant!

Also, The Priory of the Orange Tree showed up as I was belatedly writing this!

Highlights:

-I did my first Bookstagram Challenge! Posting my final picture after this! [#Februarylibrary19]
– I’ve hit nearly 150 followers on my blog!
– This is my 50th Post
– I’ve signed up for my first Blogtour(s) (Coming to you April-May)
– I found out I’ll be receiving my first physical review copy all thanks to Kal @ Reader Voracious spreading the word about an amazing book, Anna Undreaming!
– I got my first blog tag(s)! THANK YOU GUYS!
– I’ve started my spreadsheets and a new notebook to keep things tidier this week (you’ll notice Kal’s blog is linked right to those amazing spreadsheets as she is spreadsheet Queen)
– This month was a nice easy ride compared to next month!

Charity Shop Finds!

TheCaffeinatedReader17 Comments

I know this seems like it just happened last week, and that’s because it did!

But this time we were down our own high street and decided to mosey along in to see if they had anything new as we hadn’t been in a month.

And holy cow we struck gold!

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So these were originally .50P each but the shop does a deal, 2 for .99P

The Tom Sawyer edition is from 1958/1959 and was a school prize to someone back in the day, the award plate was still in it! We had just recently bought Far From the Maddening Crowd but couldn’t decide if this cover was nicer so we picked it up to compare, we’re keeping both lol.

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Carrie Fisher!

I have never read a book by Carrie Fisher and I picked this one up as my husband spotted it, I can’t wait to get to it! [You know, eventually]

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Again, 2 for 99P!!

Every time we go down the High Street we all like to wander around Waterstones, and while walking around I had paused to look at the copy of Ulysses, it was 10 quid and we just didn’t want to spend that on it, at least not at the moment so we passed it by. Then, we went to the charity shop next to it, and lo and behold, this was 50P on its own but since we bought so many we scored it for 49.5P lol. The book next to it is called Wellington: The Years of the Sword.

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I’ve been eying this Mandela biography for a while now, we saw it at a charity shop last week and I had spied it at the library but I’m holding off on more nonfiction from the library until I return my Romanovs survey. So! This was meant to be!

 

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Look at these covers!

I own Maze Runner and I found it enjoyable and though I have the others on my Kindle I couldn’t help myself. I would have bought Maze Runner again if they had it and it matched and donated my other copy, but, they didn’t. These things are basically brand new and they have such nice covers! The copy I bought was out my library store back in Texas and is lovely but just has some notes scribbled in, and some highlights, I don’t mind though, it’s fun to read what they thought lol. Okay getting off track, anyway look at these pretty books!!! LOOK AT THEM ALL!

 

In the end, we got 9 books for £4.46, four on the 2 for .99P deal and one ‘full’ price at .50P

There we have it! The post is late today because honestly I was super busy and mini-me had a birthday party. I’m off to watch more of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

[I’ll have a review tomorrow]