Tag: friends

Mid-Year Freak Out Book Tag ’25

Published on by gotmeghanLeave a comment

Hello!

I know it is VERY late to be publishing this post, but I’ve been preoccupied with other things. This was supposed to go up last Wednesday, but I was really sick with a stomach bug, so I had to rearrange my schedule again and ultimately decided to wait until this week.

One thing to mention, I cut out some of the questions. I had to make it short this time around or else I wasn’t going to finish it. If you’re curious to learn more about the books I have read in the past, I will link up my previous posts of this tag. All you have to do is click on each year you’d like to check out.

2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024

Best book you’ve read in 2025 so far

Well, honestly, I didn’t have a “favorite” book picked out in the beginning of 2025. I guess it would’ve been The Princess Game by Melanie Cellier. It’s the only one I can say really surprised me the most, and I still think about it often. You’ll find out more about it in “Newest favorite character” question.

Best sequel you’ve read

The best sequel for me is, A Court of Silves Flames by Sarah J. Maas. I expected the series would be about Feyre and her POV only, so for it to change to her sister Nesta’s, was very interesting. I didn’t like her in the first book, and I like misunderstand characters, but once Cassian was in the picture, dealing with her one-on-one was everything for me. I grew to love Nesta and her journey enough to forgive and finding to love herself was inspiring! 

New release you haven’t read yet, but want to

The only one I can think of is Murder By Cheesecake by Rachel Ekstrom Courage. It is inspired by one of my favorite TV shows on the planet, The Golden Girls. It’s a murder mystery story, like the episode “The Case of the Libertine Belle” and I’m honestly so excited by this, I just hope I’m not getting all excited too early. I’ve been in line for the book on the Libby app and tried to read it in early June, but I had others to finish first.  

Biggest disappointment

Recently, I read my first Anne Rice book, and it was, “Interview with The Vampire” but I didn’t love it. This must come as a shock to people close to me, but I wasn’t a fan of the fact I had both Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt stuck in my head while listening to the audiobook. .

However, this wasn’t my only issue. There is a character who is described as young as five being turned into a vampire. Now, I knew this happens, but I personally felt really uncomfortable by the language used to paint the scene of these grown men turning this young child. The description was absolutely horrific. I remember feeling sickly, and it took me a bit longer to finish the book. I do NOT recommend this book to my fellow vampire lovers out there!  

Biggest surprise

As we go into the summer months, my need for chick lit is strong. Two years ago, I read Jenny Han’s “The Summer I Turned Pretty” series and now I’ve started a bit of an annual trend. 

So, for this year, I decided to dive into the prequel series of “Sex in the City” by Candace Bushnell. I read the two books, and I will be honest, I liked the first book quite a bit, but I have a weakness for high school romance/stories. Unfortunately, I hated the second book, I found Carrie very whiny and overdramatic. To say, I wanted to put it in the “biggest disappointment” question was very tempting, but it’s not my least favorite of the 20 books. 

Another surprise for me was I read my first Goosebumps story ever. I wasn’t into books as a child. I wasn’t into anything of the paranormal world at that time, but my sister was, and these books were popular with her. I remember once during our weekly library visits, she would point out all of the books she’d read, and she’s consumed the majority of R. L. Stine’s books. We were also into the films (or TV show for you Canadians out there!) that came out in the late 90s and oddly enough, the only one I managed to fall in love with was inspired by the first book in the series, “Welcome to Dead House”. I am very proud of myself and have considered diving into the series later on in the year. 

Favorite new author (Debut or new for you)

Thanks to the fact that I found The Four Kingdoms series by Melanie Cellier earlier in the year, I’m on a mission to finish at least this series. She wrote three separate series inspired by various fairytales and they’ve been very entertaining and well-written. I have one other book in the original series that I’ve DNF (did not finish) but I still want to read more books by Melanie. 

New fictional crush

Oooooh boy, at the moment I don’t have a fiction crush. If I had been asked this question back in April, I would be saying Rhysand and/or Cassian of the ACOTAR series. Thanks a lot Erin!

Newest favorite character

When I was a teenager, I found out that my sister’s favorite Disney princess was Belle. I found this news hard as I loved Belle, but I think it only for the massive library she gained by falling in love with Beast. So, I had to find another princess and my second choice was Aurora. 

I tell you that story to say, while I was just starting on my The Four Kingdoms spree, I fell in love with Melanie’s take on Sleeping Beauty and I found the character Celeste thrilling and quite the opposite of the Disney version. Celeste’s story is complex, and I was stunned by how the author was able to intertwine Aurora and Briar Rose. Normally, I don’t like books like that, but it came together beautifully through the audiobook and my brain thought the twists and turns were fun!  

What books do you need to read by the end of the year

As of the 6th of August, I’m sitting in the early thirties on my yearly goal–originally the number was 72 books, but I took it down a bit as I wasn’t doing well at finishing a large stack at the end of month. I’m sticking with 40 books for now, but if I pass it with enough time left in the year (especially, now that I’m blogging as much anymore.) I will increase it.

These posts usually ask for people to tag other bloggers or YouTubers so it can inspire others, but I don’t really care about all of that. I only ask that you send me a link to your post or video so I can check out your answers.

What have you been reading lately? Tell me you Top 20 books of 2025 in the comments!

snowflake

Book Review: “Writers and their Cats” by Alison Nastasi

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Hello!

Welcome back to Got Meghan’s blog.

It’s a new year and I’m ending the first month of 2024 with an interesting book I got for Christmas. As I’ve mentioned in my Blogmas content every year, I make an assortment of ornaments and send them out to family and close friends. It’s my way of sending a card during the holidays, but I don’t normally receive anything back, and I prefer to go about it this way. However, I got sent a gift back from a fellow blogger/writer and lover of cats, Rebekah, and she sent me this cute little book called “Writers and their Cats” by Alison Nastasi.

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Every great writer needs a mews: Mark Twain, Alice Walker, Haruki Murakami, Ursula K. Le Guin—this volume celebrates many famous authors who have shared their homes and hearts with furry feline friends. From the six-toed kitties who still inhabit the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Florida to the mewling muses of mystery writer Lilian Jackson Braun, cats are clearly, in the words of Gloria Steinem, “a writer’s most logical and agreeable companion.”

• Features photographs and stories from 45 famous authors that capture the special bond between wordsmith and mouser
• Sorted by alphabetical order, you’ll see photographs from some of the most well-known authors including Beverly Cleary, Mark Twain, Stephen King, Sylvia Plath, and many more
• Alison Nastasi is a journalist and the author of Artists and Their Cats, also from Chronicle Books. She lives in Los Angeles, California

“Full of charming anecdotes and feline whimsy, this collection is catnip for lit nerds.” — Shelf Awareness

• Makes a charming and thoughtful gift for any fan of great literature and cats
• An excellent addition to your coffee table books for guests to enjoy browsing

taken from Amazon.

This was probably the cutest book I’ve seen in a long time!

As much as I love cats, I don’t really read books with them being part of the main character/story. I think this stems from the number of animal-related picture books I used to “read” as a child. When I was a younger, books represented something to fear at school and home. It wasn’t fun and I desperately hated reading out loud in front of my family, friends, teachers, etc. It wasn’t until I was in high school, and I was shone how to read to myself that I started to enjoy, and I just broke apart from animal stories to human’s histories.

“Writers and their Cats” was a good medium between my old self interested in animals and knowing their owners (or the authors themselves). You get a large mix of writers who have owned a few felines here and there, and then you get people who have a large community of cats.

What is interesting is that after an author has died, the cats continued to stay in and around the writer’s home. I’ve always known about Ernest Hemingway’s home in Key West, Florida, he had a special love for cats named Snow White and it’s her descendants that still live on the property, but my heart loved the fact they are all born with an extra toe on their paws. This is called polydactyl. We used to have a cat who had 23 toes, one of his legs had the standard five toes. We liked to call him Bear-Bear. Sadly, before fall came around, we think he may have died.

There was one person in the entire book that really got me, and Charles Bukowski. He wrote about a one-eared cat named Butch van Gogh Arnaud in his poem “The History of One Tough Motherfucker” and it seriously made me laugh out loud. I thought I was going to fall off my bed as I was reading his section in the book. It made think of our cats because they’re all feral, but they love attention from us. I just kept thinking about Bukowski’s cat and thinking “yeah, I bet that cat was a tough motherfucker at one point in time!”

I thoroughly enjoyed this little book, and getting to know how people, writers like Rebekah and I, enjoy the shit of our cats. We give them cute and funny names. They have odd quirks about them. They are like us as they can be extremely out there and sometimes, they enjoy slow living indoors on a soft bed. And when it’s their time to pass away, we mourn deeply as they were a close family member. So, if you enjoy cats or not, this is a funny short read that can capture the hearts of anyone. You might find yourselves looking up various work on the authors included as well.

Have you read Writers and their Cats by Alison Nastasi before? Do you yourself own a cat? What is their name(s) and favorite part about them? Let me know in the comments below.

snowflake

Book Review: “The Summer I Turned Pretty” by Jenny Han

Published on by gotmeghan1 Comment

Hello!

In 2020, I made a “small” challenge for myself. First, I wanted to complete 20 books and would like to attempt to finish an actual series. Well, long story short, I went past my initial goal and ended up with 25, but I also accomplished my first ever trilogy, which was Jenny Han’s To All The Book I’ve Loved Before. Here’s the thing through. I never thought about reading anything else by her. I certainly loved her style of writing; I just didn’t think to put it on my mental To-Do list for the future.

And then July came around the corner and I found The Summer I Turned Pretty on Kindle Unlimited and I shrugged my shoulders and thought, why not?

Now an Original Series on Prime Video!

Belly has an unforgettable summer in this stunning start to the Summer I Turned Pretty series from the New York Times bestselling author of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Jenny Han.

Some summers are just destined to be pretty.

Belly measures her life in summers. Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and most importantly, away from Jeremiah and Conrad. They are the boys that Belly has known since her very first summer—they have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. But one summer, one wonderful and terrible summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along.

taken from Amazon.

This is technically, my first non-historical fiction of 2023. I was prepared to stay in that genre for as long as I wanted, so picking this one up really surprised me. And I wasn’t looking for that ideal summer-y book either; of course, now that I’ve started this, I want more stories in this season. I am currently into Carley Fortune’s “Every Summer After” and I think “Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens afterwards.

I had one summer love in high school, and I remember everything about it and the poor soul had my heart under lock and key, and this is what gets me. Every time I read something by Jenny Han, my memories come rushing back, and even though it’s a been a long time since then, I was able to connect with our main character Belly a little bit more. I understood her wanting to be part of the group, hang with the boys, even if one of them is her older brother Steven, plus the Fisher brothers Conrad and Jeremiah, she still yearned for that acceptance. And I felt every ounce of it while I was reading the first book.

“My whole life was measured in summers. Like I don’t really begin living until June, until I’m at that beach, in that house.“

My favorite thing about this, were the chapters where we are transported back to Belly’s preteen years, basically from 10 to 14 years old. She talks about how time is quickly changing and how important this trip is to her, but also everyone else. You are given more information about how the boys treat her when they’re at the beach house. Conrad and Jeremiah are older than her, so to them, she has always been a little sister, and as they get older, feelings are bound to change for the better.

The only issues I had were a couple of points in the story felt very cliche. The thing about Belly bringing her best friend Taylor and what happened with you-know-who, was cheesy as hell. I was really let down. And of course, you have the bigger reveal and even though I called it fairly early on, I still bawled my eyes, mostly because of the boys though. I’ve never been able to see a group of guys breaking down; I don’t see anything wrong with it. I believe everyone should be able to cry without being told because of their sex they have to keep it in. I can’t read a book without crying sometimes and I do get laughed at, (hell most of the time I laugh at myself!) or told “why would you do that to yourself over a book?” that’s the newest statement lately.

Overall, the story was really good. If it makes me cry, I automatically give it five stars. I might be easy to crack emotionally, but I really felt for these characters and the story behind them.

Have you read the “Summer” series by Jenny Han before? If you have, what were your thoughts on the first book?

snowflake

How to Create Aesthetic Playlists for Books.

Published on by gotmeghanLeave a comment

Hello!

This post will be a little different compared to my book reviews and the monthly playlists, as I am taking my process to create aesthetically pleasing playlists for your current or favorite book(s).

I have been making mixes of music for YEARS! It started while I was in middle school, I would create CDs of my favorite songs of that time and/or mood. I had party, sad, happy, etc CDs in my collection, literally I have more burn CDs than actual artist/band albums. Back then, it was fun to arrange these two-to-three-minute songs in a way that would mimic a soundtrack.

When I was ending my last semester of freshman year, my English teacher made up a hefty final for us. He told us that we were to pick out a book, read it and do at least projects that would feature certain things that take place within the book. We were given a list of different projects we were allowed to do and I was pulled into creating a playlist of songs that I thought would fit the book itself. However, I did one better, I was using a CD-Rom that was called, “Jam Trax” and it was a kid version of what actual music producers use Pro Tools. This was made for children, so it provided you with an array of beats and instruments, but you were allowed to add your own sounds and vocals too. I didn’t just create a soundtrack, I made a score based on the events happening in the book, which was “Sister Spy (Alias #4)” by Laura Peyton Roberts.

Another element to the final was we were also allowed to grade ourselves and I remember giving myself a B-, I didn’t want to be cocky and give myself an A but I also didn’t want to barely pass either, so that’s why I went with a B- because it felt like a fair grade to me. What surprised me was the note I got on the whole thing, “You should have had an A.”

Last year, I just had the need to go back to when I created that final project. I was busy reading Melanie Karsak’s first Viking series, “The Road to Valhalla” and I was thinking of various songs that would be aesthetically pleasing; my intention was to do something simple because I was weary whether or not I would continue reading the series, but when I finished the first book, I had a whole playlist that reminded me of certain characters and scenes. I was curious to see what this would be like with the rest of the books and I can tell you, I have 114 songs on it based on all six books.

Here are some advice in creating your own aesthetic playlist based on your current read or maybe a favorite series in the past.

Find the main character’s theme first.

In “The Road to Valhalla” series, we follow Hervor’s quest into finding who her father was and discover the secrets hidden among her family.

One of the things that is important to Hervor is for her love of Odin, who is the main deity, he is like father to all of the Vikings as he represents knowledge and power. He is the Allfather of the Norse mythology.

While I was in the throes of the book, I couldn’t exactly pinpoint the right song that felt Hervor’s theme. It wasn’t until I found like five Vikings playlists on Spotify that I decided to listen to these Old Norse styled songs, and there was one that finally spoke to me. It was Foresaga’s “Allfather” and this has a hauntingly calm about it. I felt a sense of self the first time I listened to it, and I knew this was the way I wanted to start Hervor’s playlist.

I ended up finding a theme for the majority of the characters in the first book. Hervor’s mother Svafa is dealing with what we would call amnesia and I gave her “Imaginary” by Evanescence. For Hervor’s best friend and thrall to the family Eydis, I found “Volva” by Vinnie Camaileri. It is an instrumental of a bunch of shamanism vibes and it fits well with her. Eydis is a devotee of the trickster God Loki, and been known to receive visions from the Gods, and the Vikings word for these types of people are called Volvas.

Focus on key words to help inspire you.

We live in a world where we hashtag a lot of random words, sometimes we include them in ways that will create traffic on that post. Let’s say you are advertising a book you really enjoyed, and oddly enough it’s about the Vikings and their culture and beliefs. You want it to be accessible to certain demographic groups, not just your audience, You need to think about the words to include in the actual post. Here are some easy key words to keep in mind.

  • Historical fiction – it is important to include the words “historical fiction” as that category is a very popular type of fiction. You need to remember the terminology as well, because that will definitely help you out too!
    • Vikings
    • Norse Mythology
    • Old Norse
    • Gods & Goddesses: Odin, Freyja, Freyr, Loki, Thor, etc.
    • Scandinavia – Denmark, Greenland, Norway, Iceland and Sweden. They all have their own Viking stories, but it is easier to say “Scandinavia” to keep it simple for you and others.
  • Warrior terms – Within the Viking world, you hear a lot about them raiding various cities around the world. They will include both male and female along for the ride. The women that were apart of the scrimmage were called “shield maidens” and they will train their children very early on, They use a mix of different weapons, some are lengendary and others are ordinary to everyday life.
    • Tyrfing – it was a cursed dwarven sword and used amongst Hervor and her father, uncles and grandfather.
    • Steel swords
    • Decoerated shields
    • Bow & arrows
    • Fiire – you have to remember they did have guns, but they knew fire was a handy element, and something else they used was whale oil. They would hunt whales to collect various bones, blubber, and oil for everyday usage.

When it comes to create an aesthetic playlist, it might also be helpful to search for fantasy and medieval playlists on Spotify. This is definitely an easier resource in case you don’t have enough material to work with in the beginning. People have also created their own bookish playlists so don’t deny yourself to have a look on their stuff too. It might also draw out the genre of music you want to use for the entire thing. For the first series, I went with a mixture of cinematic pop artists like Ruelle, FJØRA, Hidden Citizens, but I also included a lot of hard rock bands too, such as Within Temptation, Papa Roach, and Halestorm. However, for the second series “The Shadows of Valhalla” has more artists like Gealdyr, Danheim, Peyton Parrish as they make music in the same way as Foresaga.

Okay, I think I am officially done with this post. I know I gave more than enough of ideas to stir around in your head to probably give you a major headache but go slowly with it. Once you start though, it can be difficult to stop, so that’s my final piece of advice there. If you’d like to check out both of my aesthetic playlists here are the links. The Road to Valhalla and The Shadows of Valhalla. I hope everyone enjoyed learning a bit more about the Viking world past and present.

Have you made an aesthetic playlist before? If so, what was it inspired by and what kind of music did you use for it?

snowflake

The Goodreads Challenge | What I’m Doing For 2023

Published on by gotmeghanLeave a comment

Hello my friends!

It is time for a brand-new Goodreads Reading Challenge post. Want to learn what I wanted to accomplish with my reading plans for each year? Here are my 2020, 2021, and 2022 posts.

This is my fourth year giving you an insight of what I would like to accomplish for 2023. I actually enjoy doing these types of posts, as it gives all of us (you and me) a chance to write out my intentions for the next 356 days, but let’s get real. there’s no way I will be reading everyday this year. It’s cool for when it happens in a whole month, but after a while it kind of loses its luster.

What is my annual goal?

Just before Christmas, I had a family friend ask me about what my goal would be, and I’m sure everyone wants to know as well. I’ve kept a fairly hush-hush about it; last year I wasn’t totally 100% certain I would actually make it to 40 books, mainly because I tend to forget to factor in the holiday festivities in November and December. They tend to take a lot of my energy and the last thing I usually want to do is read a whole book.

However, I made it well passed 40, I ended up with 54 books. I find it a good thing to not only show myself that I can get it done, but I can surpass the initial goal too. You always hope it can happen, but life can throw you a curveball here and there and everything can take a backseat.

So, for 2023, I am hoping to get through 50 books, but also not discriminating towards its size. I think that’s another thing to keep in mind, the term “book” doesn’t mean you have to read something that’s over 300+ pages. I count any format, whether it’s a novel, short story or audiobook.

What about other certain challenges?

In a way to see if I could handle some pressure in 2022, I decided I wanted to do two challenges. My overall goal was to hit 40 books, mainly having two equal sides of twenty books; I had 20 books of normal titles and 20 more that were focused on classics or had become a film or TV adaption. For the most part, being able to do this was easy, my only real issue was time. I flew passed the first 20 books, but I only managed to reach 19 books on the other list.

For my first time doing something like this, I am very pleased with myself. I figured I would only get to five books, so this was really cool to see at the end of the year. It was fun and interesting to see how much I would enjoy out of these classics, because I tried to stay in and around classics like Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. I wasn’t a bookworm as a child, reading wasn’t fun for me in school so to be able to rediscover some of these books really opened my eyes on certain parts of literature.

And with that being said, I will continue with this challenge, and I will definitely put each book into my blue journal where I have the others listed with their mini reviews. This time though, I’m not giving myself a limit on a number, I just want to focus on children’s books, middle grade and other classics for that specific goal.

What do I hope to discover this year?

I want to read more or less the same of the books I’ve been into lately, but I would like to include more of children’s books, mainly fairy tales. I’ve already crossed off three of them; two were written by Hans Christian Anderson, The Snow Queen and Thumbelina and my first story by one of the Grimm brothers: Cinderella by Wilhelm Grimm.

I would love to get out of the historical fiction books sometime, although I’m in no rush to make this happen. I’ve just completed my first of the year, which the review will hopefully come out on Friday, and I’d finish my second if I knew it wouldn’t possibly ruin what could be featured in Melanie Karsak’s final book in The Shadows of Valhalla series. I recently just found a sleuth of Viking Sagas on Kindle Unlimited, and it’s been interesting to see the “origins” of both Hervor of The Road to Valhalla series and Ervie’s section. So, at the moment, I am holding off on it until I can get my toes on the Gambit of Swords this spring.

Speaking of Melanie’s books, I think this might be the year I decide to dive into William Speakeare’s Macbeth as it was part of the original story behind her Celtic Blood series. I know it may not exactly discuss Lady Macbeth as much as Highland Vengeance and Highland Queen, but I might understand the character Macbeth a bit more, at least that is my hope for it. I am prepared for the poetry part of the story, the Viking Sagas are mostly written in verse anyways, so I should be fine on that end, but I am thinking of listening to the audiobook instead of actually reading it.

For Christmas, I did get a large clutch of books – ones bought by family and others I got myself, so I am really going to try to dive into those books, especially the physical as I tend to ignore those unless I am at my mom’s work apparently…

Other than that, I am pretty much open to everything else. If you want to keep up with my overall goal or the books I read this year, you can find me on Goodreads, click here.

What about you, what kind of books do you hope to get into for 2023? And of course, what is your ultimate goal for the new year?

snowflake