Books for Book Club 2023-2024!

As you know by now, every year we vote on a pile of books that the book club wants to read and then come up with a schedule for a whole year ahead of time. (Our book club year goes from June- May, and we vote every year in March. How this happened, I don't really know, but it works for us!)

And this past week, we finalized that list yet again! 

Are you curious about what we'll be reading? Here's the list!

June:  Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

July: Memoir Month

August: My Contrary Mary by Brodie Ashton, Cynthia Hand and Jodi Meadows

September: Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher

October: Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister

November: Spare by Prince Harry

December: The Christmas Murder Game by Alexandra Benedict

January: Remarkedly Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

February: Book Lovers by Emily Henry

March: Beartown by Fredrik Backman

April: Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

May: A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer

And then we'll be having a bonus meeting to discuss Trish Milburn's Sing Me a Love Song, the first book in her kpop romance series. 

I'm excited about them all! And I want to read all the ones that didn't make it too!

If you are interested, I talked about all the books on our list and these ones that won over on the Booktube channel:

Kdrama Review: A Love So Beautiful

Drama: A Love So Beautiful (on Netflix)

Genre: romcom

Starring:  Kim Yohan, So Jooyeon, Yeo Hoehyun, Jo Hyejoo, Jeong Jinhwan

Rating:  ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤

I didn't really know what to expect when I started this drama, but this, I'm pretty sure, has ended up being the cutest, sweetest, most fluffiest drama I've ever watched. Yep, I KNOW!

It follows the stories of five friends, giving a lot of time to when they were in high school (maybe half of the drama), but then moving through college, and then their careers. 

Our main girl has crushed on our main boy for years.. .and for a long time he resists her. But then when a new kid comes a long and shows interest, he realizes he has probably liked her all this time after all. And now he has to fight for her, and he really doesn't have that sort of personality! 

So it's the fun love story between a girl who is sweet and bubbly and very open and our boy who is quiet, stand-offish and somewhat ornery at times! It's great to see him shake off that tendency in order to fight for this girl. LOL!

But yeah, it is truly sappy sweet, and very very cheesy, but in the best way. I loved it. It makes my heart warm. 

I was drawn to this one because it stars an idol dude, of course. Yohan was first place in the idol competition show ProduceX, and then went on to be in the group WEi. He's adorable and an all rounder. It was fun to see his acting in this cute thing, and then I loved the bloopers at the end of the show which shows us that is personality is truly completely opposite of the character he plays. Like he is FULL OF SMILES! Just... SO CUTE!

Anyway, here's the trailer:

And here's the very addictive song that is highlighted constantly throughout the show:

And in one episode the boys' characters do a dance to this song, and it was the best moment of all! Like how can you not smile at this???

Kdrama Review: Love in Contract

Drama: Love in Contract

Genre: romcom

Starring: Park Min Young, Kim Jae Young, Go Kyung Pyo

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤

Another drama that took me months to watch. Not sure if this is a function of the drama, or my mood and life. But anyway, I finally finished it!

This one is about a girl who marries for her job. She has been married like 13 or times or something. She does it for when a guy needs a wife for some event or something. Or to show off to his family, or, as is the case with the guy in the drama... just someone to eat dinner with. When the job is over, she gets divorced and moves on. 

Well, with our guy she has been eating dinner with him for like five years, and finally, as the drama opens, she decides she is sick of this job and she is going to retire and move on to something else. So she has to tell him that they are over. But then she realizes, she is sad to tell him and that she wants to keep eating dinner with him, as they have been all these years. 

So, what to do?

In the meantime, we learn her back story and what brought to do such a job. And a new dude moves into the apartment where her "husband" lives and he ends up truly liking her and talks her into not retiring and being HIS wife too. 

And then things get really messy. 

It was cute and fun in parts, but very long and boring in other parts. The last few episodes were really really draggy... ugh. Usually the last episodes of a drama are so fast paced and crazy that you can't stop and you end up watching them all at once. But these last ones took me a month to get to. Sadness. 

The dude who played the second male lead was someone I hadn't seen in anything before and I really enjoyed his acting. Hopefully I will find him in something else again some day. 

New dude: Kim Jaeyoung

Anyway, so yeah. I mostly enjoyed it and it was a fun premise, but really lagged around way too much.

Here's a trailer:

And a song:

The Bookworm Tag

 

I was tagged by Kami at Kami's Library Thoughts for this fun Bookworm Tag! Be sure to go check out her answers to the questions she had. 

But here are my questions:

1.  What was the last book your read?

The Silence of Bones by June Hur

2.  Did you like it?

It was not really what I was hoping. So while it was okay, it also wasn't my favorite.

3.  Who is your favorite Author?

It's still Markus Zusak as it has been for years now.

4.  What book do you wish had a sequel?

Ugh, I can't think of something! Everything already has a sequel!

5.  What is your favorite movie adaptation?

I really loved the Holes adaptation. Have you seen it? It's awesome.

6.  What is your favorite place to read?

Just on the couch in my living room. Or in bed.

7.  What book do you wish was required reading in school?

Well, now that I'm thinking about it... how about The Book Thief? I'm wondering if some teachers are already requiring it. 

8.  What is your quirkiest reading habit?

I can't really think of one... hmmm...do I have a quirky reading habit? I'll have to ponder...

9.  What do you use as a bookmark?

A bookmark, often a souvenir one that I've acquired at some fun place. One that I'm currently using I bought from the Mayan people selling them at Chichén Itzá.

10.  Besides reading, what other hobby/hobbies do you have?

Editing videos, quilting, kpop, concerts, writing 

Hey if you want to do this, consider yourself tagged! Take some of the questions I answered and some that Kami answered, and make your own personal list!

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Bookish People I'd Like to Meet

 

Oh this is a fun one today! (Be sure to check out everyone else's posts here!) Who do I want to meet? Real or fictional? Or both?  Hmmm......

I'm so sad he never managed to come to the library like he was supposed to do. Now I don't know if I'll ever get the chance! AH! But I guess you never know. Maybe some day!

I would really love to someday meet my author friends Terri Osburn and Trish Milburn! We talk about it all the time, but not sure how or when it will ever happen!

Since I'm reading Oathbringer right now and am back into that crazy world, I think I'd like to meet Kaladin perhaps. Although it would be so very scary!

I would love to meet Nichola Yoon and her husband David Yoon, both who write awesome books.

Okay, I wouldn't mind meeting Mr. Darcy. 

I think it would be very interesting to meet J. R.R. Tolkien (can I list dead authors?) and all his main characters but especially Samwise. 

And finally I just want to meet all the bloggers I've interacted with over the years, and now my new Booktuber friends too! 

Who do you want to meet??? 

Books I Read in February 2023

 I read four books this past month, same as I did in January! Maybe this is my magic number? Whatever it is I feel like it should be more!

Here's what I read in February:

The Improbable Theory of Ana and Zak by Brian Katcher: a fun cute YA romcom that has us going on an adventure with Ana and Zak when they spend the night at a comic con trying to track down Ana's brother. They've all just done the quiz team competition and are at the hotel when Ana's brother decides to take of on his own. Zak is dying to be at the convention too, so he jumps at the chance to help Ana find him. And then all the crazy stuff that happens that night... LOL! It's... yeah... crazy! This was a fun and easy book to read, and I really enjoyed it. I'm giving it  ★ ★ ★ on Goodreads.

How to Be Interesting: An Instruction Manual by Jessica Hagy: This was a quick for fun non-fiction that fulfilled a couple of my challenge prompts. It had fun illustrations and lots of awesome ideas on how to not only BE interesting, but to make life itself interesting. I had fun going through it and hopefully some of the stuff will stick and I'll remember it for future use. Ha! I'm also giving this one ★ ★ ★ on Goodreads.

The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty: This was book club's read this month. It's told in several points of view from many different characters, all of them have something to do with two sisters, who 70 years prior to the events of the book, found an abandoned baby. They kept the baby and raised her (the characters are mostly her family) but never figured out the mystery of her parents disappearance. The whole thing has become a bit of a tourist attraction that all the family is involved in. The even celebrate the event every year, but it seems this year might be the last anniversary. I enjoyed this one too, but felt angry at some of the characters and their situations, uncomfortably so I would say. The rating for this one will be  ★ ★ ★ on Goodreads.

A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir: After reading the first one in this series last month, I had to go straight away to this second book. It follows our characters Laia and Elias on their to break Laia's brother out of prison. And they are being hunted by Helene, who was... is?... Elias' best friend. Things are complicated to say the least. Lots of magic and fighting and torture and all the things! I'm totally invested, but it's so intense I need to give it a little break before moving on! This one gets  ★ ★ ★ ★ on Goodreads!

I also started Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson this month, but expect it to be a year-long read! So stay tuned for updates on that! Other goals for March:

• read The Silence of Bones for book club
• finish the Leo Tolstoy short story project
• read something (or two) from the shelves

My goals are pretty slim this month. We'll see how it goes I guess!

I did a video on the booktube channel about all this too if you want to watch/listen to me talk about these books instead!