Our Favorite Swoon-Worthy Books

Happy Valentines day! Today we have a post about our favorite books with a swoon-worthy romance or books that simply make our hearts melt into puddles. We hope everyone is getting to spend their day cuddled up with their significant other or a good books and tons of chocolate! 

An open message to our book boyfriends: Will you be our valentine? 

                        

   

Those are just a few of our favorite swoon-worthy reads...what are yours? Comment down below to let us know! Happy Valentine's Day!

Tag-Team Q&A with Sadie From S.B. Book Blog!

Hi everyone! Today on the blog, we have something a little different -- a tag-team Q&A with our friend Sadie from S.B. Book Blog! We sent Sadie a list of ten questions to answer, which she replied to below, and she also sent us ten totally DIFFERENT questions to answer, which you can read on her page! So without further ado, let's get into Sadie's answers!

What book are you currently reading right now? What do you think of it?
I’m currently reading THE GILDED WOLVES by Roshani Chokshi. I think it’s one of the best books I’ve read in a while, and it’s all I can do not to finish it in one sitting! Plus, the cover is simply beautiful. 

What's your favorite ice cream flavor?
My favorite ice cream flavor would either be mint chocolate chip or cookie dough! 

What's your dream bookish job?
Well, my dream bookish job would be a published author. That’s been my life dream since I was little, and I plan to do everything possible to accomplish that goal (and maybe soon)! If author wasn’t possible, I would love to work as an editor for a publishing house or as an agent!

What's one band or artist you've been really interested in lately?
Well, my WIP is a YA futuristic fantasy, and I always listen to music when I type. I think New Rock really fits with the vibe that my book gives. Lately, I’ve been listening to Imagine Dragons, Twenty One Pilots, Panic At The Disco, Fall Out Boy, and other New Rock bands! I think my WIP could be set to an Imagine Dragons soundtrack, though. 😂

Who is a new-to-you author that you discovered recently and loved?
I just discovered Tracy Banghart (GRACE AND FURY), and I really love her! I also like Makiia Lucier (ISLE OF BLOOD AND STONE) and Claire LeGrand (FURYBORN). I can’t just pick one! 😂 But, these are all authors I’ve discovered in the past few months. 

Are you more of a planner, or more of a "winging it" type of person?
Oh, I plan *everything.* Except for blog posts, it seems. 😂 I can never seem to get a proper schedule for any posts expect my book reviews. Honestly, I just write one whenever I get a good feeling about an idea!

A bit basic of a question, but what is the best book you've ever read? 
Well, I think the *best* book I ever read is different from my favorite book. For best book, I’d have to choose THE GOBLET OF FIRE by J. K. Rowling. It’s my favorite Harry Potter book, and I’ve read it so many times I can’t count! I would consider it the best book because it’s the book that we start to see Harry transition from immature child to mature teenager, so the writing style of the book seems more fit to match Harry’s age. Plus, Dobby’s in it, so he always makes a book better! 😂

What are some non-bookish hobbies that you enjoy?
I really love classic and vintage cars of all kinds, and I go to car shows often! I also run a photography business that solely focuses on car photography, so I get to do what I love *while* looking at cars! 😄 I also enjoy playing video games when I have spare time, hiking, visiting historical sites, and playing *a lot* of instruments. 

What's one genre that you don't read much of that you want to get more into?
I used to like to read historical fiction, and I haven’t read much of it lately. I’d love to start reading that again! Any recommendations? 

What's one TV show or movie that you watched recently and would recommend?
Hands down, Seinfeld. I love that TV show, and it’s hilarious! For a movie (even though it depresses me), Avengers: End Game. That movie is really well-done, and the cast is *spot-on.*

We hope you all enjoyed reading Sadie's answers to our questions! If you have anything else that you'd like Sadie to answer (or anything that you want us to answer!), comment down below! And of course, check out our answers to Sadie's completely different questions on her blog!

6 Audible Books I Plan on Listening to in 2019!

At some point in 2018 I tried the free trial of audible (you can sign up here!) and forgot to cancel it. So, each month they were charging my card and I was accumulating credits for audio books. Audible only lets you have a maximum of 6 credits before you loose them. I've never really listening to audio books before, but I wasn't going to waste those credits so I picked out 6 audio books and swore that I am going to listen to all of them in 2019! 

***Click on the covers to be redirected to their Audible page!***

1. They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera 

Listen Time: 8 Hours 30 Minutes

Narrated by: Micheal Crouch, Robbie Daymon & Bahni Turpin 

2. Red Rising (Red Rising #1) by Pierce Brown

Listen Time: 16 Hours 12 Minutes

Narrated by: Tim Gerard Reynolds

3. A Reaper at the Gates by Sabaa Tahir 

Listen Time: 15 Hours 29 Minutes 

Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham, Katherine McEwan, Maxwell Caulfield & Steve West

4. Akata Witch by NNedi Okorafor

Listen Time: 8 Hours 49 Minutes

Narrated by: Yetide Badaki

5. Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

Listen Time: 18 Hours 20 Minutes

Narrated by: Steve West

6. Onyx & Ivory by Mindee Arnett 

Listen Time: 14 Hours 56 Minutes

Narrated by: Khristine Hvam

With all the listen times combined there is almost 90 hours of audio books to listen too. When I go into my job in the mornings I typically listen to music for the three hours before we open, instead I am going to start listening to audio books. 90 hours is a lot but I am determined to do it! 

Do you listen to audio books? If so what are some of your favorites? 

2019 Blogging Resolutions!

It's officially 2019, which means it's a clean slate in terms of resolutions. So that's what we're doing here on the blog today -- first, we're going to be analyzing our 2018 resolutions to see which of those we've achieved, and then we'll talk about our goals for 2019! So without further ado, let's get into it.

2018 RESOLUTION ANALYSIS

1. Get better at commenting back on blog posts. We're *still* guilty of forgetting to this a lot of the time, so that's definitely something to keep working on in 2019.

2. Read/review more debut authors. This is something we've definitely started to pick up on doing toward the end of this year, so it's safe to say we can check this one off!

3. Attend BEA. Check! We did that this year, and it was AMAZING.

4. Get back on a regular posting schedule. Another one that we achieved! We've been posting daily for the last few months, and it's been great to get back into that swing of things.


5. Make some new blogger friends. Absolutely a check mark on this one, too! This year, we made so many new friends that we want to give you all tons of squeezes because we love you so much.

OUR 2019 BLOGGING RESOLUTIONS!

1. Comment back on other blogs more often. We are SO guilty of this! We read everyone's cool new posts but then we rarely remember to comment, and that's something we really want to change in 2019.

2. Limit our requests of digital ARCs a little bit. Have you ever heard of the phrase "having eyes bigger than your stomach"? That's definitely some of us (*ahem* Amber *ahem*), and we end up requesting so many digital ARCs that we never get to them all. So that's something we want to cut down on this year.

3. Keep up with writing reviews. Sometimes, things pop up and we don't end of writing reviews for books that we end of DNFing or that we read really quickly and forget about. But more importantly, sometimes we wait months before we write a review for a book, so it ends up going up pretty late after we actually read the book. We want to make a conscious effort to review everything that we read this year! 

4. Read more books -- duh! Surpassing our previous Goodreads Reading Challenges are always a must.

5. Review more of the books that we read. Sort of like #3, sometimes we forget to review some of the things that we read, so we want to make an effort to stay on top of that.

6. Bookstagram more often. We've been steadily picking up speed with that, but we want to keep going!

7. Attend BookExpo again. Another amazing year with great authors, books, and friends? Count us in!

8. Make even MORE blogging friends! Because you can never have too many friends.

9. Stay active on our other social media platforms more. This kind of ties into #6, but yeah. We spend a lot of our time on the blog itself, or on Twitter, but as a result, some of our other social media platforms (such as our Facebook, Instagram, and our Pinterest) have started to suffer. So that's definitely something to fix in 2019.

So those are our blogging goals for 2019! What are yours? Comment down below and let us know! Here's to a great start to an amazing 2019.

2018 Blogging Recap!

Happy New Year's Eve! It's officially the last day of 2018, which means it's time to recap all of the awesome things we did this year, from new features, to bookish events, to friends we made, to milestones we've hit and more! So without further ado, let's get into our highlights from 2018!

JANUARY 2018

• We started launching our guest review feature, where we featured three bloggers/readers on The Book Bratz every month, giving them a chance to share their love for one of their favorite books. It's been so much fun reading other people's thoughts on some of the stories that we know and love!

• We looked back on the evolution of our blog headers to see how things have changed and how we've continued to grow and improve through the years!

FEBRUARY 2018

• We gushed over some of our favorite love stories in honor of Valentine's Day!

MARCH 2018

• We met Tahereh Mafi at the launch for her latest book in the Shatter Me series, RESTORE ME. We did a recap post and had so much fun!

• We saw Love, Simon together and it was so freaking adorable! We even did a Book vs. Movie Analysis to celebrate.

• We also celebrated 2/3 of our birthdays (Amber & Jessica), finally turning 20!

APRIL 2018

• We got our first bookish subscription box (Scribbler, a box curated for writers!) and we did our first ever unboxing post, which was tons of fun!

MAY 2018

• We went to BEA/BookExpo for the very first time! We've gone to BookCon in the past multiple times, but this was the first time that we were ever accepted and granted media passes for BookExpo. It was an absolutely huge milestone for us that we still can hardly believe, and none of it would have been possible without all of you!

• We also celebrated our 6th birthday here on the blog! How does time fly so quickly?

JUNE 2018

• We went to BookCon 2018 and met so many amazing bloggers, readers, authors, and fans! We truly had such a wonderful time.

• Perhaps one of the most special parts of this month (and this year!) was the fact that we met a group of blogger friends who were all super sweet and we spent time together the entire day, surviving the Penguin 2019 ARC Drop Line of Death, and continued to talk to each other every day, both about bookish and non-bookish things, and we formed a bunch of friendships that we are extremely grateful for.

• We unveiled our new blog design! Amber worked super hard on it, so it was really exciting to finally be able to show you all of her effort and the shiny new blog design that we are absolutely in love with.

JULY 2018

• We officially launched our Blogging 101 feature, in which we talk about some different topics having to do with starting and running a successful book blog. While we are by no means the cookie-cutter method for being successful (nor would we even really consider ourselves *that* successful!), we still loved sharing some of the tips and tricks that we have learned along the way.

• We read and reviewed our first-ever graphic novel here on the blog! It was a hilarious love story about a girl who falls in love with a bear, which you can read by clicking here.

• We also launched our 2018 Summer Blogger Promo Tour, back after a few years of a hiatus due to the stress of #college.

AUGUST 2018

• We celebrated Emily's 20th birthday!

• We also reached 350,000 pageviews here on the blog -- a personal milestone for us that blew us out of the water! We still can't believe that so many of you care about the silly things we say. Thank you for supporting us all of this time!

SEPTEMBER 2018

• We started our junior year of college!

• We also highlighted some of our favorite banned books as a way to celebrate Banned Books Week 2018.

• We hit 5,000 Twitter followers. That number still blows us away. Thank you all for making that possible!

OCTOBER 2018

• We launched our 2019 Debut Author event signups! You can still register by clicking here.

• We also highlighted some of our favorite spooky reads for Halloween!

NOVEMBER 2018

• We began hosting a lot more author interviews, and it's been so much fun getting to know all of the incredible writers behind some of our favorite stories!

DECEMBER 2018

• We ended another great year with so many readers, followers, writers, and friends. We love doing these posts at the end of the year and being able to see how much we've grown together!

What was your favorite thing that we did on the blog this month? What are your recommendations for future posts/reviews? Comment down below and let us know! :-)

It's been such an amazing year with so many new friends, milestones, and achievements here on the blog, and we're so grateful that we got to spend another year with all of you wonderful followers and readers. Here's to a prosperous 2019, and a great year full of amazing achievements for all!

Our Awards for the Best Books of 2018!

Happy New Year's Eve! If you're unfamiliar with our Best Book Awards, it's a tradition in which we showcase some of our favorite books from the year. It's lots of fun and we want YOU to get involved too -- by commenting down below and telling us what YOU would choose as the winners for certain categories, and what you thought of our choices! There was no voting process on these books and there aren't actually any official awards -- this is just a fun way of celebrating all the books we loved this year! Without further ado, here are our favorite books of 2018! 

**Please note that not all of these books were necessarily published in 2018. Some were books we've had on our TBR for awhile, or 2019 ARCs that we read this year and really stood out to us!**

And the Winners Are...

Our Favorite Fantasy:

    

Jessica: The Girl and the Grove by Eric Smith 
Amber: Damsel by Elana K. Arnold
Emily: War Storm by Victoria Aveyard 

Our Favorite Sci-Fi:

    

Jessica: The Similars Rebecca Hanover 
Amber: Contagion by Erin Bowman
Emily: The Darkest Star by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Our Favorite Contemporary:

  

Jessica: The Art of Losing by Lizzy Mason
Amber: In a Jam by Cindy Dorminy
Emily: The Art of Losing by Lizzy Mason

Our Favorite Graphic Novel:

Jessica: My Boyfriend Is a Bear by Pamela Ribon, Illustrated by Cat Farris

Our Favorite Romance:

    

Jessica: Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett
Amber: Restore Me by Tahereh Mafi
Emily: All Your Perfects by Colleen Hoover

Sexiest Books We Loved:

  

Jessica: All Your Perfects by Colleen Hoover

Amber: Restore Me by Tahereh Mafi (*Can we not forget that ONE scene please!*)

Emily: Umm, both of these thank you very much!

Series We Loved:

      

Jessica: Paper Princess (The Royals, #1) by Erin Watt

Amber: An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes #1) by Sabaa Tahir 

Emily: Warcross by Marie Lu

Best Stand-Alone Novels We Loved:

   

Jessica: This is Not a Love Letter by Kim Purcell
Amber: Four Dead Queens by Astrid Scholte
Emily: The Art of Losing by Lizzy Mason

Our Favorite Love Triangles:

 

Jessica: Broken Beautiful Hearts by Kami Garcia
Amber: Hidden Deep by Amy Patrick
Emily: Broken Beautiful Hearts by Kami Garcia

Our Favorite Poetry:

 

Jessica: No Matter the Wreckage by Sarah Kay
Amber: Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

Our Favorite Thrillers:

   

Jessica: Sadie by Courtney Summers
Amber: Echoes by Alice Reeds

Best World-Building:

   

Jessica: Restore Me by Tahereh Mafi
Amber: Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan
Emily: War Storm by Victoria Aveyard

Our Favorite Covers:

   

Jessica: The Exact Opposite of Okay by Laura Steven 
Amber: Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful by Arwen Elys Dayton
Emily: Restore Me by Tahereh Mafi 

Our Favorite Main Characters:

   

Jessica: The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory
Amber: Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas
Emily: All Your Perfects by Colleen Hoover

Our Favorite Mysteries:

     

Jessica: Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson
Amber: Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier
Emily: The Leading Edge of Now by Marci Lyn Curtis

Our Favorite LGBTQIAP+ Stories:

    

Jessica: What if it's Us by Adam Silvera & Becky Albertalli 
Amber: Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan
Emily: Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli 

Our Favorite 2019 ARC:

    

Jessica: Just For Clicks by Kara McDowell 
Amber: Bloodleaf by Crystal Smith
Emily: The Quiet You Carry by Nikki Barthelmess

We hope you all enjoyed this year's showcase - now comment down below and let us know what books YOU would choose to win each of these categories! Go forth and enjoy celebrating the coming 2019!