May 2015: Recap & Wrap-Up!

Once again, the month flew by. With BEA (and friend-visit) preparations, I totally forgot that May was actually ending… oops. So my May recap is here but a bit late! I’ve mostly just been trying to catch up on some reading here  and there with no huge goals in sight. The TBR pile is, of course, never-ending so I’ve been aiming at making a dent in a few ARCs and so far, it’s gone well!

• Number of Books Read: 9 — a pretty good month for making it through books!
• Popular Search Terms:  “books like divergent” and “books like if I stay” // “lunar chronicles character quiz” // “books about best friends falling in love” // “anna and the french kiss”
• More Amusing Search Terms: “i loved this book. what is like it?” (I’m confused?)  // “young adult books inspired by disney movies” (Yes!) // “today is the day your sister is coming and your’e over much excited” (I don’t even know what this means!)
• Most Referrals (non-social media): Perpetual Page Turner, Rather Be Reading, Oh, the Books!
• Where My Blog Most Often Leads You (non-internal/social media): Books Take You Places, Andi’s ABCs, Tripping Over Books

• The most popular post this month was my reading recommendation list for those who liked Divergent!
• As usual, my guide to crossover books and Best-Friend-Turned-Boyfriend Romance posts are still in the tops!

Other Reviews Posted

• I really enjoyed Trish Doller’s latest book, THE DEVIL YOU KNOW. It hit my mystery/thriller sweet spot!
• LAST YEAR’S MISTAKE by Gina Ciocca sounded like a total “me” book… But I didn’t QUITE connect with it.
• I just fell head over heels for THE NAME OF THE WIND by Patrick Rothfuss. I’ve already started the second book and I’m so in love!
• I read the second book in Lynne Matson’s Nil series and NIL UNLOCKED was just so much fun!
• Sadly, I had a few DNFs this month (some months in the making) and I added one mini-review to the mix in a quick wrap-up of mini-reviews/reports!
• Sometimes I have a hard time with full reviews so I came up with a new review style for some mini reviews called “10 Things I Felt About…” The first one was for PETER AND THE STARCATCHERS!

Goodreads Reading Progress

Featured on Book and a Beverage

• 5/7/15: Michelle from Unraveling Books
• 5/14/15: Cassi from My Thoughts Literally
• 5/21/15: Emz from Paging Serenity
• 5/28/15: Author Dahlia Adler

Other Features & Discussions

• I had a blast coming up with Princess Bride reaction gifs to pair with emotions when your favorite author writes a new book!
• I had a new “guide” up all about YA duologies/duets/two-book series!
• I got to be on the blog tour for NIL UNLOCKED with a guest post from author Lynne Matson!
• Think Muggles aren’t as important in Harry Potter? Think again! I shared 5 Muggle character who I thought were underrated
• Top Ten Tuesday on 5/19 was a freebie so I chose the books I read in one day!
• With BEA coming up, I took the time to talk about Personalization Guilt and how hard it is for me to ask an author NOT to personalize my books.
• Asheley from Into the Hall of Books did a guest post for this month’s Pub Date!
• How many of these can you say yes to? I had a blast coming up with 51 Statements a Bookworm Can Agree With

Events

• I went to BEA again this year! You can catch my full recap here: BEA 2015 Recap!

May’s Top Instagrams