#100happydays | Day 20 - June 2nd 2014

I got a new daily planner and it is so lovely! I am so incredibly happy with it and I can't wait to start using it :)

Ten Books That Will Be In My Beach Bag This Summer | Top Ten Tuesday

Hi everyone! I decided to add another segment to my blog and I found this one over at The Broke and The Bookish and it is called Top Ten Tuesdays, where like Top Five Wednesdays, you list your top ten of "_____" whatever that week's theme is. :) I love doing these because the themes are so much fun and you can in a way see what kind of books I enjoy reading, what I have read, what I hope to read, etc etc. Anyways.. here is the first one! 

June 3rd Theme: Ten Books That Will Be In My Beach Bag This Summer

1. The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han

2. Amy and Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson

3. Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins

4. The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

5. This is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith

6. The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith

7. Winger by Andrew Smith

8. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

9. Landline by Rainbow Rowell

10. Just One Day by Gayle Forman

Some of these have been out for a while, but I just haven't gotten around to reading them yet, so they will definitely be in my beach bag this summer to read and some of these are new releases which I am so excited to get my hands on. I much prefer contemporary reads in the summer, since I think it goes hand in hand with the nice weather. It is so enjoyable, reading about a certain setting, when you are in that setting. Also, I just want something nice and something that won't break my heart while sitting on the beach :P 

How about you? What Top Ten Books will be in your beach bag this summer? Let me know in the comments below! :) 

#AYearAThon June - Rick Riordan | Update Day 1

Currently Reading:

• The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan

Total Pages Read: 100 pages

I was reading CoHF yesterday and since that took up most of the day, I did not start the read-a-thon until late in the evening. I was in a bit of a book hangover after that book, so I did not read a whole lot of The Lost Hero, but it is nice to be reunited with members of Camp Half Blood so far.. and I can't wait to learn more about the new characters. I have work today and school work to do today, but I am hoping to read more of it today! 

How much progress have you made so far? 

Review: Since You've Been Gone by Morgan Matson

The Premise: The story follows the protagonist Emily who is quite introverted and has a best friend named Sloane. Sloane is the one who kind of pulled Emily out of her introverted self and encouraged her to be more engaging in certain aspects. Sloane and Emily are a type of package deal and when summer approaches, they have all these amazing plans to hang out, but then one day Sloane disappears without a trace. No reason. No goodbye. Nothing. Emily is quite at a lost and misses Sloane incredibly and one day, she finds a letter written to her from Sloane and it is a list of things to do. Sloane has often written Emily letters with a bunch of things to do, and usually at the end, it says "Come and find me when you finish all of it." So Emily decides to do everything on the list, hoping that it is a way that will bring Sloane back. The list isn't just easy and simple things, they are things that make Emily go beyond her comfort zone and conquer her fears. For example some of the items include: Kiss a Strange, Go Skinny-Dipping, Break Something, Steal Something, Sleep under the stars.. etc etc. So the entire book is Emily trying to complete the tasks hoping to get Sloane back and during all of this, she encounters people that will have a big impact on her. It is a story of friendship, Emily and Sloane's friendship, Emily's new friends while trying to complete the list, Emily's relationship with her brother and her parents, and most of all, Emily learning to be comfortable with herself.

My overall thoughts and review: I LOVED this book so much. It was so intriguing right from the beginning and I literally devoured it in one sitting. It was so fascinating to read a book where the main focus was friendship and it actually stuck to that throughout the entire book. It was so lovely to read Emily's journey from the beginning, where she was honestly scared and lost without Sloane and seeing how much she shined towards the end of the novel. It was such a beautiful story about friendship, growing up, accepting one self, just simply a beautiful coming of age story. The writing is delightful and Matson just created such well-rounded characters that you just instantly fell in love with. I loved Emily, Frank, Collins, Dawn, Beckett and even Sloane. I could have easily read a hundred more pages about these characters and I did not want the story to end. I loved how the list items really pushed Emily to conquer her fears and I loved how it wasn't easy little tasks that could be completed all in one day. It took place over the entire summer and it was just so nice to read the lead up to the task, the accomplishment and of course, how Emily grew as a person from each task on the list. Music also had a big part in the novel which was enjoyable! I even added a few Porter recommended songs to my iPod ;) Overall, I really enjoyed this. It was a beautiful story about friendship, family and love and it is seriously one of the best contemporary YA books I have read in a while. I highly recommend it. (Also, the cover is stunning and the dust jacket on the inside is SO pretty!)

Rating of the book: 5/5 stars.

#100happydays | Day 19 - June 1st 2014

Yesterday was the boy and mine's four years and a half anniversary so pretty big milestone. When we first started dating I used to blast the La Roux soundtrack in the car almost everyday on the way to school.. until the point that we got pretty sick of it, haha! Anyways, La Roux is making her comeback, and she has been around essentially as long as the boy and I have been dating, so I thought it was fitting to get tickets to her show. It was an awesome concert and she played every song from before (my favorites especially) and she debuted some new songs which sounded amazing. I had a lovely evening in the Danforth area with the boy and overall, it was a pretty awesome anniversary.

#100happydays | Day 18 - May 31st 2014

New shiny business cards! huzzah! I thought these would be useful to pass around at book signings to network with other book bloggers, booktubers and others. I love them so much. They are mini and so cute!

#100happydays | Day 17 - May 30th 2014

I had a lovely day with the boy and my aunt and we went to go see Maleficent. I really enjoyed it, I thought it was visually stunning and such a cool twist on the original story. I highly recommend it!