State of the ARC #53

 

State of the ARC is a monthly feature hosted by Evelina at Avalinah's Books - and now me, too! I took over temporary hosting duties back in early 2020. A couple months ago Evelina asked if I would like to co-host and of course I said yes! If you are new to the meme, you can check out the guidelines HERE.

Links go to my review. The majority of the ARCs I receive are through NetGalley. I sometimes find a book or two via Edelweiss or BookSirens. Others have come from authors, publicists, or were offered to me from a publisher who specifically approved me for it on NetGalley; I will always note in the review how I acquired the ARC.

Currently Reading

Gun Barons - May, 2022 (NetGalley)

Skirts - Sept, 2022 (NetGalley)

The Women of Rothschild - Oct, 2022 (NetGalley)

Egypt's Golden Couple - Nov, 2022 (Publicist via NetGalley)

The Tudors in Love - Dec, 2022 (NetGalley)

The Blackhouse - Jan, 2023 (NetGalley)

A Few Days Full of Trouble - Jan, 2023 (Publicist via NetGalley)

Glow in the Fucking Dark - Feb, 2023 (Publicist via NetGalley)

The Girls of Summer - June, 2023 (Publicist via NetGalley)

Finished, Review to Come

Sweating in the Land of Smiles - July 2021 (Author Gift)

Spare Parts - May, 2022 (NetGalley)

Womb Raiders - Sept, 2022 (BookSirens)

American Demon - Sept, 2022 (NetGalley)

Nothing but the Night - Sept, 2022 (NetGalley)

Pretty Dead Queens - Oct, 2022 (NetGalley)

Review or Feedback Sent

When I first started blogging my monthly State of the ARC I felt like I was drowning in ARCs. My main goal was to get my NetGalley feedback ratio above 80% and thanks to SOTA, I slowly but surely clawed my way up. At my highest I was at 97%. I am currently at 92%.

How are you doing with your ARC goals? Let's talk ARCs!

Happy Reading
Sarah

Book Review | There's Someone Inside Your House

Rating ⭐

Okay...but, why?

As in, why was this book even written?

We find out who the killer is halfway through and that's it. He's running around, leaving town, coming back, attacking people. Then Makani and Ollie only care about having sex all the time, despite classmates dropping like flies, and nothing makes any kind of sense.

I was expecting a thriller, some twists and turns, because what is a YA thriller without thrills? A boring ass book, that's what.

I was expecting Ollie's brother to somehow be in on it, with her staying there and him being a police officer. Maybe it was too obvious a choice, but at least SOMETHING interesting would have hapened.

There was suspense when we didn't know who the killer was, but when he's revealed, you're left thinking, "Who the fuck is that guy, again?" and flipping back to see where you last read about him. He was bland and completely unmemorable. Not to mention, so were all the victims, except Makani. And she's not even that interesting, she's just memorable because she is the main character. Her whole backstory was so dumb I am not even going to bother rifling through it to explain what the hell she was doing living with her grandma in the first place.

The author gave some characters the last names of cities/counties in Nebraska. Rainbow Rowell does that same shit and I fucking hate it. It's stupid. With Rowell it is constant, since she's from here, but my God PLEASE STOP. The name of the town it all takes place in is called Osborne, which is obviously a nod to TO, Tom Osborne, one of the greatest college football coaches of all time. Unfortunately with such a terrible story, that's not exactly something to be proud of being associated with. Hopefully TO will never know that this exists.

On the subject of towns and cities, if you are going to try to make your book realistic, you should know things like the fact that:

A) Boys Town is not a town or city or anything. It is basically its own tiny village sitting on about 600 acres in West Omaha. It is a place for children and teens with pretty severe behavioral needs, who also tend to have emotional and academic needs as well. Families do live there, because they take care of kids who live on-campus. Other kids who attend school there live at their own homes. It just depends on what the individual needs of each child are.

B) It's IN Omaha, as stated above. Definitely not located near some random truck stop on the interstate or whatever she was going for. It's not even on the outskirts of Omaha, but smack-dab in West O.

I hate when easily verifible things are fucked up like this.

Everyone is boring. Even the killer. Especially the killer. I wish everyone would have died. Except the main girl's grandma. She was cool.

Tackling the TBR Week 12 | Mar 22 - Mar 31, 2023

Here we go!

This is year FIVE of Tackling the TBR and I finally have things sort-of under control. My ultimate goal is to get under 500 books, but I also have to be realistic - just think of all the books not even written yet that I will want to read. When I started this mess  I was at well over 5,000 books on the TBR, so to be where I am now is pretty incredible.

I will post on the 7th, 14th, 21st, and last day of the month.

Prevous Week's TBR Total: 2,299

Currently Reading

Books Read

Books DNFed: 

Books Added to TBR: 0

Books Removed from TBR: 0

Duplicates Removed: 0

New TBR Total: 2,299

Happy Reading!
Sarah

Stacking the Shelves #238

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly feature hosted by Reading Reality. It is a chance to showcase all the goodies you've collected throughout the week, whether they're bought on-line or in-store, an ARC or a final copy, borrowed from a friend or the library, physical or digital, etc.

Library Treasures

Gift from Author/Pubisher

Happy Reading

Sarah