teatimelit

Let’s Talk: Bookstagram Q&A + Tips & Tricks

Happy Friday, dear friends! Today, I’m super excited to bring to you some of my bookstagram tips and tricks. I’ve been meaning to do a quick little post on some of the things I’ve learned about bookstagram during my time on the platform, and finally sat down to write this post! In all honesty, this post is inspired by a conversation in one of my bookstagram group chats (hello, bookstagram eye doctors), where my dear friend Stef realized that I photoshop the covers of my books sometimes!

I’ve always found Instagram to be an interesting form of social media. I’m not particularly active on my personal Instagram anymore (there’s a longer conversation about how people use Instagram, curated feeds, what’s real vs. what’s fake) but surprisingly enough I’ve kept up with bookstagram over the last year and a half. I wrote a post last October reflecting on my one year of Bookstagram, and shared a few things I’ve learned there, but I wanted to do a longer post today! I compiled some questions through Twitter/Instagram/Discord, and then have some other tips of my own, so as always, grab a cup of tea and get cozy! 

Read more

Let’s Talk: Books by AAPI Authors I’m Looking Forward To

Happy Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month! I think that it’s always so important to celebrate our cultures and heritage, but I think after the last few years it’s extra important to celebrate and uplift the AAPI community. 

There are so many exciting new books coming out this year by AAPI authors, so I thought it would be fun to talk about some of the ones that I’m looking forward to!

Read more

Let’s Talk: May TBR

Hi, hello friends and welcome to another post! I’ve started this month on the slow side, and we’re 9 days into the month without me having picked up a book! Granted, I’ve been very busy, but still it feels almost tragic to go this long. So, I thought — why not share some of my planned TBR with you guys and keep myself accountable for what I read this month. Without further wait, let’s get into the list! 

Read more

Review: Book Lovers by Emily Henry

Nora Stephens’ life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.

Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute.

If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.

Read more

Review: Queen of the Tiles by Hanna Alkaf

They Wish They Were Us meets The Queen’s Gambit in the world of competitive Scrabble when a teen girl is forced to investigate the mysterious death of her best friend a year after the fact when her Instagram comes back to life with cryptic posts and messages.

CATALYST

13 points

noun: a person or thing that precipitates an event or change

When Najwa Bakri walks into her first Scrabble competition since her best friend’s death, it’s with the intention to heal and move on with her life. Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to choose the very same competition where said best friend, Trina Low, died. It might be even though Najwa’s trying to change, she’s not ready to give up Trina just yet.

But the same can’t be said for all the other competitors. With Trina, the Scrabble Queen herself, gone, the throne is empty, and her friends are eager to be the next reigning champion. All’s fair in love and Scrabble, but all bets are off when Trina’s formerly inactive Instagram starts posting again, with cryptic messages suggesting that maybe Trina’s death wasn’t as straightforward as everyone thought. And maybe someone at the competition had something to do with it.
As secrets are revealed and the true colors of her friends are shown, it’s up to Najwa to find out who’s behind these mysterious posts—not just to save Trina’s memory, but to save herself.

Read more

ARC Review: The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray

From New York Times bestselling author Claudia Gray—a summer house party turns into a thrilling whodunit when Mr. Wickham, one of literature’s most notorious villains, meets a sudden and suspicious end in this brilliantly imagined mystery featuring Jane Austen’s leading literary characters.

The happily married Mr. Knightley and Emma are throwing a house party, bringing together distant relatives and new acquaintances—characters beloved by Jane Austen fans. Definitely not invited is Mr. Wickham, whose latest financial scheme has netted him an even broader array of enemies. As tempers flare and secrets are revealed, it’s clear that everyone would be happier if Mr. Wickham got his comeuppance. Yet they’re all shocked when Wickham turns up murdered—except, of course, for the killer hidden in their midst.

Nearly everyone at the house party is a suspect, so it falls to the party’s two youngest guests to solve the mystery: Juliet Tilney, the smart and resourceful daughter of Catherine and Henry, eager for adventure beyond Northanger Abbey; and Jonathan Darcy, the Darcys’ eldest son, whose adherence to propriety makes his father seem almost relaxed. In a tantalizing fusion of Austen and Christie, the unlikely pair must put aside their own poor first impressions and uncover the guilty party—before an innocent person is sentenced to hang.

Read more

Wrap Up: April 2022

Hi, hello friends! We’re so excited to be sharing our April wrap up with you today, and we cannot believe how quickly the month flew by! We read some pretty good books this month, so stay tuned to see what we got to!

This month Caitlyn read 30 books, Cossette read 25 books, and Mary read 6 books. 

Read more

ARC Review: Book of Night by Holly Black

In Charlie Hall’s world, shadows can be altered, for entertainment and cosmetic preferences—but also to increase power and influence. You can alter someone’s feelings—and memories—but manipulating shadows has a cost, with the potential to take hours or days from your life. Your shadow holds all the parts of you that you want to keep hidden—a second self, standing just to your left, walking behind you into lit rooms. And sometimes, it has a life of its own.

Charlie is a low-level con artist, working as a bartender while trying to distance herself from the powerful and dangerous underground world of shadow trading. She gets by doing odd jobs for her patrons and the naive new money in her town at the edge of the Berkshires. But when a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie’s present life is thrown into chaos, and her future seems at best, unclear—and at worst, non-existent. Determined to survive, Charlie throws herself into a maelstrom of secrets and murder, setting her against a cast of doppelgangers, mercurial billionaires, shadow thieves, and her own sister—all desperate to control the magic of the shadows.

Read more

COZY CONVOS WITH CAIT & COCO: HEARTSTOPPER

With the new Netflix adaptation of Heartstopper, we thought it’d be a wonderful idea to sit down and chat about Heartstopper this week! Both of us reread Volumes 1 — 4 of Heartstopper by Alice Oseman, and just finished watching the Netflix adaptation. So make yourself a warm cup of tea, and get cozy! This does get into some spoiler-y content, so consider yourself warned 🙂 

Read more

Blog Tour + ARC Review: My Mechanical Romance by Alexene Farol Follmuth

Nerds are so hot.

Especially battle robot building nerds.

Bel would rather die than think about the future. College apps? You’re funny. Extracurriculars? Not a chance. But when she accidentally reveals a talent for engineering at school, she’s basically forced into joining the robotics club. Even worse? All the boys ignore Bel—and Neelam, the only other girl on the team, doesn’t seem to like her either.

Enter Mateo Luna, captain of the club, who recognizes Bel as a potential asset—until they start butting heads. Bel doesn’t care about Nationals, while Teo cares too much. But as the nights of after-school work grow longer and longer, Bel and Teo realize they’ve built more than just a combat-ready robot for the championship: they’ve made space for each other and themselves.

This sharply funny, academic rivals to lovers romance explores both the challenges girls of color face in STEM and the vulnerability of first love with unfailing wit and honesty. 

Read more