Six Falls Trends {2016}

Get excited because fall fashion is here! Cooler weather is on the way, so it's time to think about scarves, sweaters, and new trends. I can see myself wearing all of these chic and feminine trends and I already want more florals and cardigans (as if I need more). 

ONE | DARK FLORALS

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Now this is a trend I can get behind! My love for florals runs deep, so I'm happy to see dark florals is a trend this fall. I wear florals regardless of whether it's "in," but now there are more options in store for me. The perfect trend for ladies with girly or bohemian or classic styles.

TWO | GRAY, PALE PINK & YELLOW

It seems spring is in this fall because popular colors right now are gray, pale dusty pink, and soft yellow. Mix your classic fall colors, like navy, burgundy, plum, and mustard, with these pretty and bright colors that are usually associated with fall. I'm especially in love with this pretty pale pink!

THREE | LONG CARDIGANS

Autumn means snuggly cardigans and I'm all for it. The snugglier the better! Long cardigans are big right now and they'll keep you warm all winter long. There's a long cardigan in every color that's perfect for every style, so you're sure to find one that suits you.

FOUR | BOMBER JACKETS

If cardigans aren't your thing, then check out bomber jackets. Whether you want one that's silky or quilted or patched or floral or looks like a letterman jacket, there's one for you. They'll keep you warm and make you look cool. 

FIVE | PLAID

Plaid is in style every year, but can you blame it? Plaid is a classic and everyone loves it. It also comes in many different iterations from classic plaid to big plaid to windowpane and even houndstooth. My favorite plaid scarf is just waiting to be worn!

SIX | JUMPSUITS

I wasn't in love with this trend at first, but it's definitely grown on me. These ones are super chic, feminine, and a touch professional, and I'm on the hunt for the perfect one that I can wear to work and on the weekends. 

P.S. -- Cute spring trends!

Which of these trends do you like?

Which will you pass on?

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Favorite 2016 Reads (So Far)

We're more than halfway through the year and I've managed to read both newly-published books and books I've been wanting to read for years. Since an avalanche of fantastic books have been published in 2016, I wanted to share my favorite reads of the year in case you're looking for a new book or want to get a second opinion about these fresh fiction selections. 

Below are new books (in no particular order) that I adore along with a quote from my book review:

NEW FAVORITES:

♥ Love Charms & Others Catastrophes -- "I really loved Hijiri's POV because we got to see how love charms are actually made."

♥ Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here -- "I found myself laughing out loud (literally!) on almost every single page. I like that this book is a darker, raunchier, sassier version of Fangirl."

♥ I Am Princess X -- "I got so into it that I read it in 24 hours! I literally couldn't put this book down because I had to know what would happen and whether Libby really was alive." 

♥ The Forbidden Wish -- "The Forbidden Wish took the main plotline from Aladdin and made it better. I don't want to give too much away because the joy is in seeing it unfold as you read it."

♥ A Study in Charlotte -- "This book is delightful and smart and focuses on deduction (obviously) and the growing, at times strained, and strange relationship between Charlotte Holmes and James Watson."

♥ Lois Lane Double Down -- "The story is exciting and fun and suspenseful and has a modern-meets-1940s investigative feel with a bad ass heroine!"

♥ Madly -- "It's set in the 21st century, but magic and potions and fantastical creatures (unicorns!) exist. It could be weird, but somehow it works. It didn't feel forced or strange."

♥ Jane Steele -- "Is it horrible if I like this fresh, Gothic retelling of Jane Eyre more than the original? (Probably. But I do.) Jane Steele is Eyre's story for a modern audience. It's raw, emotional, sensual, bloody, thought-provoking, and a damn good read."

♥ This Savage Song -- "This book is an absolute gem! It's dark, strange, scary, thought-provoking, and beautiful. The characters are what make this story sing (pun intended). I would follow these characters anywhere!"

♥ P.S. I Like You -- "How do I even express how much I liked this book? It's simply too cute for words!"

♥ My Lady Jane -- "My Lady Jane is a mix of tweaked history, humor, and magic--and it's so well done. It sounds like an odd combination and yet it works because the three wonderful main characters."

So far I've read a nice mix of fantasy and contemporary, and funnily enough, every book listed was written by a woman! I used to read more books by men than women, but now it's the reverse. Not that it really matters since it's the synopsis that makes me want to read a book and not the gender of an author, but it's amusing how things have changed. 

2016 BOOKS I WANT TO READ: 
♥ A Court of Mist and Fury
♥ All The Feels
♥ Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
♥ Nevernight
♥ The Woman in Cabin 10
♥ The Yoga of Max's Discontent
♥ Ghostly Echoes (pub date: August 23)
♥ The Call (pub date: August 30)
♥ The Thousandth Floor (pub date: August 30)
♥ Three Dark Crowns (pub date: September 20)
♥ Vassa in the Night (pub date: September 20)
♥ Crooked Kingdom (pub date: September 27)
♥ Frost (pub date: October 11)
♥ Timekeeper (pub date: November 1)
♥ Heartless (pub date: November 8)
♥ Ever the Hunted (pub date: December 27)

My list of books that I want to read (and just the ones published this year!) could go on forever, so I tried to keep it short. You can see all of the books I want to read on my TBR Goodreads list. 

Have you read any of these?

What 2016 books are on your TBR?

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Watch | Read | Listen {June 2016}

June is my birthday month, so I'll be celebrating all month long by seeing a movie every single weekend! Well, I wish that was true! Since I also need to save money for a few books I want to get (ie. The Shadow Queen and The Queen of Hearts), I'll probably just see Me Before You and Finding Dory. 

MOVIES

Me Before You

Will Traynor (Sam Claflin) was a successful, wealthy man who enjoyed all aspects of his life until being paralyzed in an accident. Two years later, Louisa Clark (Emilia Clarke) loses her job at a local café and is offered a unique employment opportunity: help care for a disabled man. Camilla Traynor hires Louisa as caretaker for her son Will, despite her lack of experience. It starts an unlikely and beautiful friendship. {Watch the trailer} I read the book as soon as the trailer came out a few months ago. I'll definitely need to bring tissues. *cries just thinking about it* (June 3)

Now You See Me 2

The Four Horsemen, the remarkable magicians, resurface and are forcibly recruited by a tech genius to pull off their most impossible heist yet. {Watch the trailer} I loved the first movie, so I will definitely be seeing this. And Daniel Radcliffe is in it! And Lizzy Caplan! (June 10)

Finding Dory

The friendly-but-forgetful blue tang fish, Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres), suddenly recalls her childhood memories. Accompanied by Nemo and Marlin (Hayden Rolence and Albert Brooks), she sets out to find her family and everyone learns a few things about the real meaning of family along the way. {Watch the trailer} Childhood memories returning! Need to see this! (June 17)

Tickled

Journalist David Farrier stumbles upon a mysterious tickling competition online. As he delves deeper he comes up against fierce resistance, but that doesn't stop him getting to the bottom of a story stranger than fiction.{Watch the trailer} This documentary looks insane! From the trailer, it seems like something funny, but it quickly becomes something scary. I'm so curious about this. (June 17)

Independence Day: Resurgence

Twenty years later, the United Nations creates the Earth Space Defense (ESD), a united global defense program that serves as Earth's early warning system and the main defense force using technology salvaged from remains of the alien forces. However, the aliens were able to send a distress signal to their other battalions before their final defeat. The aliens in deep space received the signal and sent a larger and more powerful battle fleet, threatening the human race, this time, with an extremely powerful gravitational machine. {Watch the trailer} Wow I can't believe the first film came out in 1996 when I was 7. Not sure this movie was needed, but it looks pretty epic! (June 24)

Other movies coming out:

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (June 3)
• Urge (June 3)
• Blackway (June 10)
• Diary of a Chambermaid (June 10)
• Genius (June 10)
• The Last Heist (June 17)
• The Last King (June 17)
• No Stranger Than Love (June 17)
• The Call Up (June 24)
• Free State of Jones (June 24)
• The Neon Demon (June 24)
• Yarn (June 24)

BOOKS & MUSIC

• All The Feels by Danika Stone and Karin Goble -- College freshman Liv is more than just a fangirl: The Starveil movies are her life...and her last tangible connection to her deceased father. Thus, when her favorite character, Captain Matt Spartan, is killed off at the end of the last movie, Liv Just. Can't. Deal. Tired of sitting in her room sobbing, Liv decides to launch an online campaign to bring her beloved hero back to life. (June 7)
• End of Watch by Stephen King -- In Room 217 of the Lakes Region Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic, something has awakened. Something evil. Brady Hartsfield, perpetrator of the Mercedes Massacre, where eight people were killed, has been in the clinic for five years, in a vegetative state. Behind the drool and stare, Brady is awake, and in possession of deadly new powers that allow him to wreak unimaginable havoc without ever leaving his hospital room. (June 7)
• You Know Me Well by David Levithan and Nina LaCour -- Mark and Kate have sat next to each other for an entire year, but have never spoken. For whatever reason, their paths outside of class have never crossed. That is until Kate spots Mark miles away from home, out in the city for a wild, unexpected night. Kate is lost, having just run away from a chance to finally meet the girl she has been in love with from afar. Mark, meanwhile, is in love with his best friend Ryan, who may or may not feel the same way. (June 7)
• The Last Star (The 5th Wave #3) by Rick Yancey -- The enemy is Other. The enemy is us. They’re down here, they’re up there, they’re nowhere. They want the Earth, they want us to have it. They came to wipe us out, they came to save us. But beneath these riddles lies one truth: Cassie has been betrayed. So has Ringer. Zombie. Nugget. And all 7.5 billion people who used to live on our planet. Betrayed first by the Others, and now by ourselves. (June 8)
• Steeplejack by A.J. Hartley -- Seventeen-year-old Anglet Sutonga lives repairing the chimneys, towers, and spires of the city of Bar-Selehm. Dramatically different communities live and work alongside each other. The white Feldish command the nation’s higher echelons of society. The native Mahweni are divided between city life and the savannah. And then there’s Ang, part of the Lani community who immigrated over generations ago as servants and now mostly live in poverty on Bar-Selehm’s edges. When Ang is supposed to meet her new apprentice Berrit, she instead finds him dead. That same night, the Beacon, an invaluable historical icon, is stolen. (June 14)
• Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler -- Kate Battista feels stuck. How did she end up running house and home for her eccentric scientist father and uppity, pretty younger sister Bunny? Dr. Battista is on the verge of a breakthrough, but there’s only one problem: his brilliant young lab assistant, Pyotr, is about to be deported. When Dr. Battista cooks up an outrageous plan that will enable Pyotr to stay in the country, he’s relying – as usual – on Kate to help him. (June 21)
• First Comes Love by Emily Giffin -- Growing up, Josie and Meredith Garland shared a loving, if sometimes contentious, relationship. Josie was impulsive, spirited, and outgoing, Meredith hardworking, thoughtful, and reserved. When tragedy strikes, their delicate bond splinters. (June 28)

Nick Jones' Last Year Was Complicated (June 10) 

Happy Memorial Day!

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My Spring Reading List

And the pile of books I want to read grows bigger and bigger! In the publishing world, new books come out every Tuesday (why is it Tuesday and not Monday or Friday or even Wednesday?), so a few Tuesdays a month my unread pile grows a little bit longer. There are so many fantastic books that have come out this year or are coming out in the next few months that I desperately want to read. 

I created a winter reading list in January, but in the two months since then I've only managed to read three of the twelve, but those books are still high on my TBR. 

2016 Reading Goal: 60 books

Currently Read: 24 books

♥ A Study in Charlotte
♥ A Gathering of Shadows
♥ The Darkest Part of the Forest
♥ Da Vinci's Tiger
♥ The Winner's Kiss (out March 29)
♥ The Impostor Queen
♥ Railhead (out April 1)
♥ If You Find This Letter
♥ The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo #1) (out May 3)
♥ The Unbound
♥ The Forbidden Wish
♥ The Onyx Vial

Have any good book recommendations?

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Five Spring Fashion Trends {2016}

It's hard to look forward to spring when this winter has barely even felt like winter, but of course I'm still looking forward to wearing fewer layers, eating outdoors, and seeing pretty flowers everywhere. 

The fashion trends this spring are super feminine and pretty and I want to wear all of them! I've already moved my striped shirts to the top of my blouse drawer and I'm itching to get some cute lace tops and lace-up flats. 

ONE | Stripes

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Every girl should have a striped top or two! I still prefer polka dots and florals, but stripes are a classic that everyone should have because they go with everything. It would be fun to mix a striped top with jeans and bright sneakers for a casual look or a lace top with a striped skirt and heels for a romantic night. 

TWO | Lace & Lingerie-Inspired

Warmer weather means you can wear lace without freezing your limbs off, so show off your sexy side with lingerie-inspired clothing. Lace is the perfect mix of old-fashioned and modern. For date night, wear a lace dress with lace-up heels. For the office or the weekend, throw on a lace top, jeans, and flats. 

THREE | Off-The-Shoulder Tops

I'm not sure if this style is really for me and my manly shoulders, but I do think the style is really fun and feminine. I love the mint dress! If you have a bohemian style, the white embroidered top with jeans or a flowy skirt and sandals would be cute. Or mix trends by wearing a striped off-the-shoulder top and black pants. 

FOUR | Sportswear

Now being a sweaty mess after going to the gym is in style! Or you can pretend that you went to gym without all of that gross sweatiness! Mix a casual striped top with gray joggers and sneakers. Or have fun with it by wearing an off-the-shoulder black top with marble leggings and flats. 

FIVE | Lace-Up Shoes

How pretty are these shoes?! I'm so in love with those brown lace-up heels, but sadly the heel looks too high for me. These are the kind of shoes that do all of the work for you of making you look like you care when really you just threw on whatever and ran out the door. And there are so many styles out there, so win-win!

P.S. -- Mix these trends with the cute fall trends!

What trends do you like?

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My Winter Reading List + 2016 Book Goal

What a great reading year 2015 was! According to Goodreads, I read 82 books and 23,089 pages. The longest book I read was Winter at 824 pages, the shortest was Zombillenium: Gretchen at 48, and the most popular book I read was Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief. 

Of all the books I read, these eight were my favorite! As you can see, most are YA fantasy (my favorite genre), but I did branch out quite a bit last year into contemporary, literary fiction, graphic novels, and even some non-fiction. These aren't in any particular order, though my two absolute favorite novels of the year were Winter and Lois Lane: Fallout. 

♥ Winter

♥ Lois Lane: Fallout

♥ Ms. Marvel, Volume 1

♥ Station Eleven

♥ A Darker Shade of Magic

♥ A Court of Thorns and Roses

♥ A Little Something Different

♥ The Winner's Curse

As you read this, physical copies of these books sit on a shelf, unopened, heartbroken that I haven't read them yet. I can hear them weeping. Some are yelling at me. It's rather disturbing. So this year, one of my reading goals is to read all of the unread books. Let's be real, there's more than just these 12 sitting on my shelf, but these are the one I really, really want to get to. 

♥ The Archived
♥ The Girl at Midnight
♥ Everything Everything
♥ Just Ella
♥ Illuminae
♥ Alias Hook
♥ Of Metal and Wishes
♥ Six of Crows
♥ Black Widow: Forever Red
♥ Undressing Mr. Darcy
♥ Magonia
♥ The Invention of Hugo Cabret

But my main reading goal of the year: READ 60 BOOKS!  

What's your reading goal for the year?

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My 2016 Resolutions

Like everyone else in the world, I'm amazed that it's already 2016! Why does the fall season go by so much faster than the others? It's my favorite and it's the prettiest in my opinion, so of course that means it flies by in a blur. And now it's a whole new year! I feel like I need something to look forward to, so I'm hoping to plan a trip somewhere (Boston maybe?) this year. 

It seems my resolutions get shorter and shorter. In 2015, I had three resolutions and now this year I only have two. 

2015 Resolutions

Exercise more

Finish my novel

Make more friends & hang out with people more

2015 was a fantastic year! Because of NaNoWriMo, I wrote the first draft of a new novel. It wasn't the story I had in my when I wrote my resolutions, but I'm just happy I finally finished the first draft of something. Hooray! 

I exercised a good amount during the first half of the year, but the free membership to a gym via work expired in July. But I did get a Fitbit in October and I try to hit my 6k step goal every day. So progress! I like to think I reached out to people more because I got to meet some really wonderful people in 2015 (hey Kristin, Jess, Kristin, and Marissa!) and hung out with my besties a ton. 

2016 Resolutions

Finish the two novels I'm working on

A writer's work is never done! I want to edit the first draft of my NaNoWriMo novel, which means adding new scenes, introducing new characters, and including a subplot. I'm also currently writing a fairytale retelling, which I'm in love with and I really want to finish the first draft by March. Then onto editing that too. #writerslife

Find an exercise I enjoy

Every year I say I want to lose weight and I still do, but I think I've always gone about it the wrong way. I jump right back into jogging on the treadmill and lifting weights and expect to see results when I always find it boring. This year, I want to experiment more with exercise. I want to try new things and genuinely find an exercise I like. I'm really hoping to find a good kickboxing class near me! 

Do you create a word for the year? My 2016 word is CREATE! 

In 2016, I want to write write write as much as possible! 

Do you have any goals for 2016? Do you have a word for the year?

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