Nerding Out With Nicky

Spoiler Free! Faves (so far) in 2021 #booktube #bookblog #bookcommunity

Hi friends! It’s been a good while since I filmed a #booktube video, so I thought I’d throw this one together yesterday. I hope you enjoy my spoiler-free thoughts on my favorite books to read (so far) in 2021. Let me know what your favorites have been so far in the comments! Books Mentioned (not in order)

Books I'm Excited About in May 2021 #bookcommunity #bookblog #currentread

Dear Book Diary, May is happening now, which means summer is right around the corner. And isn’t summer the best time ever for new books and reading lists? It’s like all these fantastic new books are coming out that I just can’t wait to get my hands on. They’re just begging to be read outside on the hammock or by the beach. My favorite kind of lazy afternoon or evening wind-down after work. For…

Win My Favorite Books (April 2021) #bookprizes #bookgiveaway #bookcommunity #booklover #winbooks

I’m hosting a giveaway! 4 winners will each win a physical copy of a book of their choice from a list of some of my favorites. Books you could win: -28 Summers by Elin Hilderbrand-The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North-The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré-Heartless by Marissa Meyer Enter Here: a Rafflecopter giveaway NO PURCHASE OR PAYMENT OF ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO…

Books I'm Excited About In April 2021 #amreading #bookblog #tbr #readinglist #bookcommunity

Dear book diary, Things seem to be getting busier, and I’ve spent less time reading this past month than I’d have liked. I’m 9 – count it – nine books behind on my GoodReads goal for the year, which was set at 50 books fewer than the number I hit last year. If you want to make God laugh, as they say, right? I’m still looking forward to a handful of books for April, though. I’ve been on a…

#BookReview: Of Blood and Bone by Nora Roberts | #amreading #amreadingfantasy #ofbloodandbone #bookblog #fivestarreview

Of Blood and Bone: Chronicles of The One Book 2 by Nora Roberts Genre: Fantasy (Adult)Publisher: St. Martin’s PressBook Release Date: December 4, 2018My Review: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I loved this book. Second in series, I read the first book a few months ago and devoured it, and this one was just as good as the last.  It has the same format of following multiple different characters and locales, but the main…

#BookReview: Vicious by V.E. Schwab | #amreading #amreadingfantasy #darkfantasy #superhero #fivestarreview

Vicious by V.E. Schwab Genre:  Fantasy (Adult)Publisher: MacmillanBook Release Date: September 24, 2013My Review: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ It took a lot to make 463 hardened criminals look the part of prey. –Vicious, Chapter XXV, V.E. Schwab What a dark, intense, and twisted story. I started out listening to the audio book, but I ended up having to switch to the ebook to keep track of the jumping timeline. I…

Books I'm Excited About in March 2021 #booktalk #bookcommunity #BookTwitter

It’s been a couple months since I talked about books I’m excited about. December was crazy… I put my house on the market (and sold it), signed a contract on a new house, came down with Covid through Christmas and got over that just in time to move into the new home over New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day. January and February were spent unpacking, arranging, decorating, getting services set up and…

The Four Winds #BookReview

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah My rating: 5 of 5 stars Here’s the thing. I can tell a lot of research went into this book. I live in West Texas and remember experiencing my first dust storm. Everyone around me was so calm and indifferent like it was normal. I, on the other hand, thought the world was ending. In 21 years, that is something I still can’t get used to, the way the dirt blows here,…

The Wife Upstairs #BookReview

The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins My rating: 3 of 5 stars 3.5 starsNot a whole lot to say about this one. I feel like I was into the story as I was reading it. It was good, but the end was a bit underwhelming and anticlimactic for me. There were pieces of the puzzle still missing, especially about Jane’s own past.The main character, “Jane,” has a past she’s running from. Maybe she gets a little…

The Book of Two Ways #BookReview

The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult My rating: 5 of 5 stars Amazing. Lots to unpack on this one. Ancient Egypt. Death. Physics. Past, present, future. Impossible choices. Multi universes. Choices.Picoult writes in this book that we do not make our choices; our choices make us. How do you know you’ve made the right ones? How do you weigh one against the other, like weighing your soul against a…

The Push by Ashley Audrain My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book was dark and mesmerizing. Whatever questions I had were answered in the final sentence. As someone with two psychology degrees, I kept thinking a lot of the way through this book about self-fulfilling prophecy. Post-partum depression, attachment styles and how they develop. But in this particular story, which really came first, the…

The Awakening by Nora Roberts My rating: 5 of 5 stars There’s something I just love about these fantasy novels by Nora Roberts. They’re so good. This one is set in Ireland, involves Fey and witches and gods and epic battles and hidden pasts. And it wouldn’t be a Nora Roberts book if there wasn’t a hunky Hero, and this one just happens to be extra hunky. And broody. The setting in Ireland is so…

The Midnight Library #BookReview

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig My rating: 4 of 5 stars This was a book I thought I would like, that turned out to be probably not at all what I was expecting, but I ended up liking it even more. This book is one that has this alternate reality/Schroedinger’s cat/multi-verse theme, but with a twist. It’s maybe a little dark in a not-too-too-heavy kind of way, and content warning for attempted…

A Borrowed Life by Kerry Anne King My rating: 4 of 5 stars Boy, talk about a sad state of affairs. I can see this book being a little controversial because our main character is a pious, submissive, and dutiful preacher’s wife, and when her oppressive husband and his strict and old-fashioned views of marriage and “wifely duties” suddenly and unexpectedly dies one day, Liz finds herself free from…

The Summer House by James Patterson My rating: 5 of 5 stars I couldn’t put this one down. This military crime fiction was brutal and graphic. The stakes were high and the depths of some of the characters were low, and the good guys were met with barriers at every turn. Excellent story, excellent writing, and excellent audiobook narration as well. Give me more like this any day! View all my…

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman My rating: 5 of 5 stars Fredrik Backman has done it again. You know that saying about being kind because everyone is fighting an invisible battle we know nothing about? It’s like this book took that phrase and turned it into a really awesome, really detailed and in depth story.This book made me feel so much compassion and sympathy for each character. There were…

The Wives by Tarryn Fisher My rating: 4 of 5 stars Interesting book. I’ve seen so many mixed reviews on this one, and I can see why, but I did actually enjoy the story. It wouldn’t have been a psychological thriller without the twists and turns the story took. As it was, there are a couple of kind of switches where the story takes on a different direction that keeps things guessing. If you were…