Tag: books

In which I once again return from the dead…

theetherealjourneyLeave a comment

Hello! I would like to formally reintroduce myself…My name is Jacqueline, but most of my friends just call me Jackie. I am 30 years old, and I still live with my parents (have you seen our economy lately?!) I am an only child, so I do spend exuberant amounts of time alone and mostly tend to prefer it that way. Work tends to use up most, if not all, of my social battery. I work for a major airline as a gate agent. I find this to be a soul-sucking existence, but my coworkers make it worthwhile, and I am forever in supply of a great dinner party story. I spend most of my free time reading, doomscrolling till I have an anxiety attack or fall asleep, whichever happens first, depending on the news cycle that day. To be very, VERY crystal clear here: I did not, nor have I EVER voted for the Orange Mussolini that is currently in office. To me, Black Lives Matter; Love is Love, no matter who or how you love; Women’s Rights are Human Rights; Science is Real; Free Palestine; ACAB; and really just do what you want with your life as long as it hurts no one, including yourself. Now that that is out of the way, other things I enjoy doing are cross-stitch, I am a huge TV and movie junky (some of my comfort shows and movies are Gilmore Girls, The Nanny, Criminal Minds, The Librarians Franchise, and The Princess Bride), and I love to journal and write. I have a 15-year-old rescue dog named Charlie, and she is the love of my life. Unfortunately, our days are sadly numbered due to her age and failing mobility, but I am going to love her with everything I have, even after she crosses the rainbow bridge*. I run an online book club called Books & Babes that is for women by women, and it is my pride and joy.

So I think that is enough of a reintroduction to a little old me. Now that I have risen from the proverbial grave a year later (let’s be real, more like 5 years, as I made 4 posts in 2024). What can you expect from me and this blog? Great question, glad you asked!! This post will serve as my 2026 roadmap and document my subsequent descent into madness, cause 2026 me is feeling VERY ambitious this year, but first, let’s do a quick rundown of 2025: I read 126 books this year, which is the most amount of books I have ever read in a year….ever. I joined 3 book clubs this year, in addition to the one I run. I had about 20ish failed talking stages, went on 10ish dates, give or take, and had 0 relationships. I saw Alex Warren, Kesha, Bowling for Soup, 3OH3!, LOLO, Simple Plan, Jimmy Eat World, and The Offspring live in concert. At the Simple Plan concert, I was three feet away from Pierre at one point, and I swear I died a little of joy. I made a whole bunch of new friends. I turned 30 and celebrated with amazing people and an amazing cake. The Big Sad got me on more than one occasion. I spent on average 3-6 hours on social media A DAY (I was there. I was the one who did it. Yet that is actual insanity to me.) I did not accomplish most of the goals I had at the beginning of 2025, so much so that I don’t remember what they were, other than my reading goal, which I crushed. So, in short, while 2025 had some very good things happen, it mostly majorly sucked ass; I am determined to not to have 2026 suffer the same fate.

My 2026 goal is simple, really, and yet there are a lot of moving parts to it: End the year as a better version of myself and be as happy as I can be. I have lots of projects and stuff I want to do this year, and with any luck, we will have a better year. We’ll start off with the stuff in my personal life:

Personal:

  1. Journal every day
    • I am doing Morning Pages basically right when I get up in the morning, after my morning routine in the bathroom, getting dressed for the day, and making my bed, but before going downstairs and having breakfast.
    • I am also doing three guided journals in the morning: Better Every Day and Dig Deeper, both by Inside Then Out, and Back to Me from Full Bloom Inspo. Dig Deeper and Back to Me are both at your own pace and aren’t dated, while Better Every Day is dated. I have gotten a new Better Every Day journal every year for the last 3 or 4 years, and I have been using the Same Dig Deeper and Back to Me journals for the last couple of years cause I have been so inconsistent with this practice. This year, I want to change that.
    • I do my 15 minuet creative writing sprints with my Morning Journal. Basically, I pick a random writing prompt from Pinterest that speaks to me, and I write for 15 minutes. These short stories are hardly ever finished, though if a prompt really speaks to me, I will continue writing it till it doesn’t anymore. This exercise is just for me and for fun; no one will ever read them.
    • This technically falls under Spirituality, but I do this in the morning with my Morning Journal stuff, so Imma put it here. I do my morning tarot pull and journal about it in my Tarot Planner from Writual Planners.
    • As for my Night Journal routine, I update my daily planner from Archer & Olive, update my reading bullet journal, my period journal from Cycles Journal, and update my reading planner from Always Fully Booked. I also use the It’s All Good mental health mood journal from Messy Nessy Designs, and I pull a card from the Conversations With Your Inner Self deck from Zenfulnote and journal on that.
  2. 26 Things in 2026. These are just 26 things I want to accomplish or do before the year’s end in 2026. And they are as follows:
    • Go to the Ballet
    • Go to the Opera
    • See a Comedy Show
    • See a Play/Musical
    • Have a Museum Day
    • Take a Day Trip
    • See a Concert
    • Go to the Zoo
    • See the Zoo Lights (my local zoo puts on a Christmas Lights display I have always wanted to see)
    • Take a Vacation
    • Get a Facial
    • Get a Massage
    • See the Symphony
    • Got to a Hockey Game
    • Got to a Renaissance Fair
    • Have a “Taste of (insert my city here)” Day (basically this is where I pretend to be a tourist in my own city)
    • Take a Ghost Tour
    • Go to the Beach
    • Go to the Aquarium
    • Go on a Weekend Trip
    • Go to an Amusement Park
    • Go to a Famous Landmark in my city that I have never been to before
    • Go to a Museum in my city, which I have never been to before
    • Do an Indie Bookstore Crawl
    • Go on a Girls’ Trip
    • Visit another Country
  3. My 2026 Vibes playlist. This one isn’t really a to-do, but I did want to share. I make one of these playlists every year; it has the same number of songs as the year (i.e., 2025 had 25 songs, 2026 has 26 songs, etc.). I make this playlist by putting my Liked Songs on Spotify on shuffle, and I take the first 26 songs that come up. I use my Liked Songs playlist as a folder to come back to new music when I come across it, so I don’t forget, so it’s a mixed bag of new to me and well-loved songs.
    • Screaming Underwater by Alex Warren
    • Love Gets Me Every Time by Shania Twain
    • Hotel Ceiling by Rixton
    • Corneliea Street by Taylor Swift
    • Let it Roll by Superchick
    • Everything I Do is For You by Amira Elfeky
    • Labour by Paris Paloma
    • Hoist the Colors by Malinda
    • You are In Love by Taylor Swift
    • Suffocate by Kayzo ft. Bad Omens
    • Man by JoJo
    • Forget You by Tadhg Daly
    • Dirty Thoughts by Chole Adams
    • Feed the Machine by Poor Man’s Poison
    • Brittle by Icon for Hire
    • Real Groove by Kylie Minogue
    • Exile by Taylor Swift ft Bon Iver
    • ABCDEFU (Angrier) By GAYLE
    • Rain by Sleep Token
    • Be My Escape by Relient K
    • Waka Waka (Esto es Africa) by Shakira ft Freshlyground
    • Hold Them Down by The Cast of Epic: The Musical
    • Exterminate, Regenerate by Chameleon Circuit
    • Regenerate Me by Chameleon Circuit
    • Take Me to Church by Hozier
  4. Have a better sleep schedule
    • This is just me and my Hatch against the world. I received my Hatch as a Christmas gift two years ago, and I really do love it. I am hoping to be much more consistent about going to bed and getting up at the same time every day. The goal is to be asleep between 2:00 and 2:30AM every day and wake up between 10:00 and 11:00AM. So far, we are inconsistent with this, but it’s a work in progress.
  5. Disconnect from my phone and break up with social media
    • I have a CRIPPLING addiction to TikTok and Instagram, mostly TikTok, and it’s high key ruining my life. I didn’t really track my screen time consistently last year, but between December 14th and 31st, I spent 59 hours 25 minutes on TikTok, 1 hour and 47 minutes on Facebook, and 4 hours 11 minutes on Instagram. That’s 65 hours and 23 minutes on social media for two weeks. That is not good, nor is it good for my mental and physical well-being. So the game plan is as follows:
      1. Use the Forest app’s newest feature, Time Guard, to lock down TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram from 11AM to 10:30PM every day. (I have been using Forest for YEARS its what got me through college, and is a great app to help you lock down your phone and focus on what you need to do)
      2. Use the downtime feature on my iPhone to lock down pretty much everything else from 12:00AM to 8:59AM so I can actually get some sleep.
      3. Charge my phone on the other side of the room so I can doomscroll in bed. Eventually, I want to get a Bluetooth landline phone in my bedroom so that I’m available if there is an emergency in the middle of the night, but I can charge my phone in a different room.
    • So far, this plan has been really helping and despite a tiny setback, has been going strong, but we are looking for consistancy not perfection here.

Health (Mental, Emotional & Physical) & Wealth

  1. Meal Prepping
    • This is mostly to make eating at home easier to accomplish. One of my main pinch points is not having enough energy to make dinner or lunch every day, and also not having enough money to eat out every meal. While I do want to eat healthier, I also want it to be easy to do. So I am meal prepping twice a month for two weeks at a time, so that all I have to do is pull a meal out of the freezer and call it a day. Basically, I am making my own frozen dinners.
  2. Moving More
    • I want to move my body more by going on walks and stretching more. I have noticed in the last few years that my hips are incredibly tight and my ankles sometimes feel very weak. I also have been having circulation issues that I am working with my PCP on. If I lose weight doing this, then great, but that is not the goal here. The goal is to build muscle in my lower body, work on lung capacity, flexability and mobility. I have set up a treadmill on our screened-in patio to help with this. Honestly, I haven’t used it yet, but I have been dealing with some stuff that has really pulled my motivation, but I do feel it coming back.
  3. Practice Mindfulness
    • This is another way I am going to be working on lung capacity and lowering heart rate, by making sure I practice breath work and meditate every day. I used to be very anti-meditation, as I am very much not a sit and be still person, but I have learned to really love a guided meditation. I have two apps for this Celtic Whispers, which is a meditation app that focuses solely on Celtic traditions and mythology, and Balance, which is more in line with traditional meditation apps. I use Balance’s morning and night meditations that are super quick, and I use Celtic Whisper for my longer meditation, which I like to do after I do my morning journal with an ice eye mask on.
  4. Daily Brain Exercises
    • I have this deeply rooted fear that my mind is just going as I get older. I am determined to be the lady in the nursing home who is as sharp at 98 as she was at 18. To do this, I have a daily routine of Brain Games. The first app I use is Impulse, which gives you a daily workout, but also has IQ and personality tests, as well as other games. I particularly like the candy sort game when I am bored. Impulse is a lot more math heavy then the other app I use, Elevate. Elevate also gives you a daily workout to do, but it leans more towards writing and speaking. Elevate also has a daily Crossword, Wordbend, and Colorlink game you can play. I do all three daily. I also play the NYT Mini Crossword and Wordle (I even make my own Wordle that is bookish themed for my Discord book club), and lastly, I use an app called Spark, that is made by the same company as Elevate, and it has three daily games to play This or That, where you sort cards based on theme, Chrono, where you sort events on a time line, and Links, where you sort cards based on how they are linked together.
  5. Operation Fix my Finances so I can maybe one day actually retire. I really don’t want to get into financial specifics on the internet, but I am definitely a shopaholic. That scene in Confessions of a Shopaholic where she is chipping the credit card out of an ice block is pretty close to how I operate my current financial situation. I don’t really live above my means on paper, but I am such an impulse spender that it really adds up, and I basically live paycheck to paycheck. So my goals here are pretty simple:
    • Save money
    • Follow my spreadsheet budget
    • Use cash as much as possible
    • Write down every purchase in my notebook
    • Financially educate yourself
    • Curb impulse spending

Continuing Education & Hobbies

  1. Personal Curriculum. If you haunt the same spaces on TikTok as I do, you have heard the words personal curriculum a lot in recent months. I was deeply intrigued by this. So I decided to make my own. I decided to just screenshot my spreadsheet for this cause; typing it once was enough.
  1. Reading. When it comes to my reading, I have a lot of very ambitious goals I want to accomplish. As previously stated, I read 126 books last year, which is the most books I have ever read in one year. This broke down to 22,523 pages, 616 hours, 25 minutes listened across 60 audiobooks, 41 Ebooks, 16 paperbacks, and 9 hardcovers. I completed 44% if the PopSugar Reading Challenge and 47% of the Build Your Library Reading Challenge. I feel really good about this, but I feel like I can do much better so this years reading goals are:
    • Read 150 books
    • Read 30,000 pages
    • Listen to 650 hours
    • Complete the PopSugar Reading Challenge (https://www.popsugar.com/books/popsugar-reading-challenge-2026-49464689)
    • Complete the Build Your Library Challenge (https://buildyourlibrary.com/2026-build-your-library-reading-challenge/)
    • Read My 26 Books for 2026 list. These are all books that I have either been highly anticipating and haven’t read yet, or books I have been procrastinating on reading.
      • The Happy Ever After Playlist
      • Say You’ll Remember Me
      • Great Big Beautiful Life
      • Accomplice to the Villian
      • Brigands & Breadknives
      • For Whom the Belle Tolls
      • Project Hail Mary
      • Dungeon Carwler Carl
      • Love Song
      • The Night We Met
      • The Velvet Knife
      • Under the Oak Tree Vol. 1
      • Adversary to the Villian
      • Gods & Monsters
      • The Priory of the Orange Tree
      • Mate
      • Hot for Slayer
      • Bound
      • First
      • Caught Up
      • The Song of Achellies
      • Divine Rivals
      • Heavenly Bodies
      • The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
      • Sinner
      • Empire of Shadows
    • Complete a 75 Booked Challenge
    • Read 30% or more in the Read Across America Challenge
    • Finish out at least 12 series that are currently in progress (I currently have 76 in progress series I need to finish. SEVENTY SIX YALL!)
    • No buying books for 324 days. If I do buy a book, I have to walk a mile for each book bought.
    • Blood and Ash/Flesh and Fire Reading Challenge. This is one of the most likely to kill me. I started the Blood and Ash series when it first came out, and now that it is FINALLY drawing to a close (just 3 more books to publish, I believe) I am going to read the whole mutiverse and get it over with.
    • 2010s Angels. I have this deep-seated suspicion that Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick, Fallen by Lauren Kate, and Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton are actually the same series. So I want to reread them all and compare and contrast.
    • Read 100 books by August 31st
    • Complete all the reading challenges in Always Fully Booked and the monthly challenges from Sweet Bean Plans (which is where I get my monthly stickers for my reading bullet journal.
  2. TV and Movies. I am a huge TV and Movie junkie and they are some of my favorite ways to intake a story.
    • Watch 104 movies
    • Finish 5 TV shows. I have so many TV shows in progress that I can’t ever tell you how many there are, but according to the app I use to track my shows, I will catch up on all my episodes on September 30th…..of 2109. So 84 YEARS from now. So I really need to pick up the pace here and start clearing out the backlog.
    • Start Project Star Trek. This is where I watch all of Star Trek in release order. That’s over 1000 episods accross 14 shows and 13 movies. This will take me years, but I want to start it this year and see how far I get.
      • Star Trek: The Orginal Series
      • Star Trek: The Animated Series
      • The first 6 Star Trek films
        • Star Trek: The Motion Picture
        • Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
        • Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
        • Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
        • Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
        • Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
      • Star Trek: Next Generation
      • Star Trek: Generations
      • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
      • Star Trek: Voyager
      • Films 8-10
        • Star Trek: First Contact
        • Star Trek: Insurrection
        • Star Trek: Nemesis
      • Star Trek: Enterprise
      • Star Trek (2009), Star Trek: Into Darkness, Star Trek: Beyond
      • Star Trek: Discovery
      • Star Trek: Short Treks
      • Star Trek: Picard
      • Star Trek: Lower Decks
      • Star Trek: Prodigy
      • Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
      • Star Trek: Section 31
      • Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (NGL watching this one as it premieres, will watch when I get down here again tho)
  3. Finish 2 Cross-stitch projects

Spirituality

  1. This one only had one goal. Buckle down and really start to dive into my spirituality and craft. I have DOZENS of books to read and take notes on. I would like to read one a month, so hopefully I’ll finish 12 this year.

That concludes my 2026 roadmap to a better, definitely more mad ðŸĪŠ, me! I will hopefully be doing check-ins on my progress on my various projects, book reviews, and general life updates as the year progresses.**

*As I was working on this post (it took me a while to actually sit down and finish it and polish it off), we did have to make the decision to put my sweet angel girl, Charlie, to rest. Her quality of life had rapidly declined, and she was at least very uncomfortable and at worst in a lot of pain, due to the arthritis in her hips spreading to her forelegs. She could barely walk, let alone get up, and was rapidly losing interest in food. It was the hardest decision I have ever had to make, but it was the right one for her.

**On a much less sad note, I mention A LOT of apps I use, and I just want to say that not one of them was sponsored in any way. This is a subatomic blog. It’s not even big enough to be a microblog. I just really like data, and I use a lot of apps to keep my self oraganized and in motion. The apps mentioned I pay for with my own money and are probably only half of what I use on a day to day.

The Vampire Kisses Series by Ellen Schreiber

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The book review is going to be different in the fact that I am going to do one giant post about that review of all 9 books in the series instead of doing a short review of every book individually. The series itself is a bit dated, with the first one published in 2003 and the last in 2012. I read the first three(ish) when I was in middle school and then completely forgot about them until recently when I was browsing one of my favorite online stores, thriftbooks.com, so of course, I bought them all. I will keep this as spoiler-free as possible, but there is a chance for them.

Vampire Kisses (Vampire Kisses #1)

Raven is a Gothic Queen who lives among the boring residents of her small town that she affectionately calls Dullsville. She much prefers to stand out and is constantly going toe-to-toe with the school’s most popular guy, Trevor Mitchell. Between putting Trevor in his place and having Monster movie marathons with her best friend, Becky, she is completely obsessed with the idea of becoming a vampire herself. That’s when a mysterious new family moves into the old and crumbling mansion at the top of the hill, the only place in Dullsville that Raven finds beautiful. Rumors begin to fly about the new additions to the town; one in particular is that they are vampires. Raven is immediately intrigued by the Sterling family, especially their son Alexander, who is the Gothic Prince she always dreamed of, but he may also be her ticket to achieving her dream of becoming a vampire.

Raven is everything I wanted to be when I was in middle school. She wears all black all the time and sports black lipstick proudly (something that, as an adult, I do proudly whenever I get the chance, and my mom is constantly lamenting my nearly all black wardrobe). She is also very outspoken and comfortable in who she is. She doesn’t let anybody tell her what she should wear and how she should act. On the other hand, her best friend, Becky, was everything I was in middle school: shy, soft-spoken, and scared of her shadow. While Becky, like Raven, is a social outcast, she tends to blend in more with the residents of Dullsville and is mostly a social outcast due to her socioeconomic status, causing her to be an easy target for bullies like Trevor.  Trevor is Raven’s foil in every way possible. He is the stereotypical preppy handsome soccer jock that is just a gigantic douchebag. He even comes complete with his ever-present sidekick, Matt (who, in all fairness, isn’t as bad as he seems). On the other hand, Alexander was (and very well still may be) my dream guy. He was my first fictional crush, handsome, dark, mysterious, and romantic.

Everything about this novel is like reading a romantic comedy, from Goth Girl meeting Goth Guy to her messing it up to the makeup. It’s cute and sweet and basically like catnip to me right now. The ending does lead to the reader wanting more and with several questions. All in all, it is a strong start to the series as a whole.

Kissing Coffins (Vampire Kisses #2)

In true vampire fashion, Alexander has diapered into the night without so much as a goodbye, leaving our Gothic heroine heartbroken and on a mission. Raven starts her search in the town of Hipsterville, an outcast mecca full of Gothic haunts, vegetarian bites, and hippie delights, by visiting her eccentric Aunt Libby. Hipsterville is everything that Dullsville isn’t, and it’s the perfect place for a vampire to blend in. First on the list of places to look for her Gothic Prince is the Coffin Club, a safe haven for vampires and vampire wannabes alike. The Coffin Club is everything Raven has ever wanted, a place to fit in, but this particular club holds more than she bargained for when she meets Jagger, a “friend” from Alexander’s past and the reason he went to hiding.

Jagger is an intoxicating Goth who makes Raven’s heart race with fear. He is everything that is terrifying about the dark underbelly of the Goth world, and he’s out for revenge. Jagger is the only new character added to the series in book two (besides Luna, his twin sister, who gets introduced near the end). He isn’t very fleshed out as a protagonist, especially when compared to Trevor. Trevor’s motivations for tormenting Raven are based solely on the fact that he is obviously in love with her but can’t reconcile that with the life he is expected to have. Jagger, on the other hand, is motivated by revenge on Alexander, but his way of achieving that is a bit muddled and not very planned out, yet he has character traits that indicate that he is very calculating. I didn’t find myself doing the “no no no” bit in my head at the climax of the novel that I did with the first. On the other hand, Luna seems to be an interesting addition to the story, although the reader doesn’t know much about her since she is introduced so late. I am interested in seeing how she does and what she is like.

The second novel is, in my opinion, weaker than the first, but it still makes me want to continue with the story. I live for the small moments between Alexander and Raven. Although I will say that I wish that the relationship between Becky and Raven had been written better, I feel like female friendships in novels that focus on romance are never written very well. Raven tends to leave Becky in the dust in favor of spending time with Alexander, which, to be fair, is par for the course for not only romance novels in general but for real-life high school entanglements.

Vampireville (Vampire Kisses #3)

Alexander is back, baby! Raven’s Gothic Mate is back in the Mansion, and they are hot on the trail of Dullsville’s newest undead residents, twins Jagger and Luna. Both of them are out for revenge against Alexander for his wrongdoings against the Maxwell family. Jagger and Luna have set their sights on Trevor for different reasons. Jagger envies Trevor, his ability to play soccer, and the fact that he is the most popular guy in school. With her brother’s guidance, Luna is looking for an eternal love match and has settled on Trevor. As much as Raven detests her nemesis, she’s not about to let him turn into a late-night vampire snack, or even worse, turn into the undead before she herself receives a true love bite from Alexander, but the more Raven tries to convince Trevor to stay away, the deeper he gets. Of course, Trevor is reveling in the fact that he seems to be king of the in-crowd and the outcasts.

As predicted, I liked Luna as a character. She brought Pastel Goth to the scene, and I was here for it. Raven and Luna are very similar to each other; they are both outsiders who want to be insiders of the vampire world. Although Luna has accomplished this. There was a nice scene with Luna and Raven where it highlights that both girls just want a friend that fully understands them, and there is a possibility that they could be that for each other. We also see a bit more development from Jagger. All he ever wanted was to be like Trevor; all he ever got was darkness and being an outsider. I loved that there were more Becky and Raven moments, too! Although the friendship between them still isn’t as strong as I personally would like a female friendship to be portrayed, it is getting better.

All in all, I like the third installment in the series. It’s a bit stronger than the second, as Jagger and Luna make a better villainous duo than Jagger does on his own. We also see more of Raven second-guessing herself when it comes to actually becoming part of the undead. I feel like there is a nice flow to the books that I am enjoying.

Dance with a Vampire (Vampire Kisses #4)

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the cemetery… BAM preteen Vampire! Raven and Alexander thought they had finally rid themselves and Dullsville of the Maxwell children when Billy Boy, Raven’s tween brother, made friends with the ghostly-looking new kid in town. Alexander and Raven quickly realize that the miniature Jagger walking around is, in fact, Valentine, Jagger and Luna’s little brother, and he has set his sights on Billy. Our Gothic Heroine has a lot on her plate, from trying to spend time with her Vampire Prince to keeping her brother from being a late-night snack and prom. She is a pretty busy girl.

Maybe it’s his age (11), but Valentine has a certain innocence that both Jagger and Luna lack. There is just something about him that makes you want to take care of him. I mean, he’s only a kid, and it’s obvious that his motives for being in Dullsville are very different from those of his older siblings. He is just trying to find his siblings and reunite his family, something he blames Raven and Alexander for. Valentine has the ability to read people and know their own innermost thoughts, something he uses to try and figure out where Jagger and Luna are. In order to get close to Raven, he makes friends with Billy Boy and his Nerd Mate, Henry. I love that Billy plays a bigger role in this book. It’s obvious that he looks up to Raven and wants to be close to her even though they have drastically different personalities. Seeing the brother-sister bond was super nice! Another thing that I love seeing is the relationship between Raven and Trevor. As much as I LOVE Raven and Alexander, I’m not going to lie; I am low-key rooting for Raven and Trevor! They have a nice Yin and Yang thing going on, and I’m here for it. It’s probably the Enemies to Lovers in me.

So far, I think the 4th book is my favorite. You get to see Raven interact more with the “supporting” characters, which is really nice, and you also get to see more of Raven’s internal conflict when it comes to actually becoming a vampire. This book is a good midpoint to the series, and I look forward to what happens next.

The Coffin Club (Vampire Kisses #5)

And Alexander is gone again… at least this time, we know where he went. It’s finally summer break for Raven, and the only thing she has on her mind is spending her nights with her sexy vampire boyfriend; the only problem is that her sexy vampire boyfriend went to Hipsterville to return Valentine to his siblings. So Raven does what any normal Gothic teenager in love would: visit her Aunt Libby in Hipsterville and surprise her boyfriend. Her summer of dancing the night away at The Coffin Club with Alexander is turned upside down when she stumbles upon a secret club underneath The Coffin Club.

First of all, I want an Aunt Libby. I have some seriously cool aunts, but having a hippy one would be cool. Aunt Libby is a completely free spirit, and while she was introduced in Kissing Coffins, we get to explore her character a bit more in-depth.  I feel a kinship to Aunt Libby mostly cause I wanted to be Raven in middle school, and in adulthood (or as adult as you can get at 23), I am becoming Libby. She is unabashedly herself, except when she is at work, but who is themselves at work; she is also perpetually single, so we are basically the same. We also get introduced to three more vampire friends: Scarlet, Onyx, and Phoenix. Scarlet and Onyx are pretty cool; they immediately accept Raven as their own. On the other hand, Phoenix is a cool purple-haired motorcycle-riding badass that Raven is very drawn to.

So, this was probably my least favorite in the series for a couple of reasons. One because it had so much potential to be so good. We get introduced to a conflict in the underworld that could definitely change things for vampire-kind, but it never goes too deep into the conflict, and there never seems to be tension. Which, as a reader, is kind of a letdown. Another reason I didn’t like it as much was because there was no Trevor, whom I adore. The way Trevor and Raven jive together just gets me. I love their banter. Also, another reason was that *SPOILER ALERT* Phoenix and Alexander are one and the same (which, to be honest, you could see from a mile away. Like it’s hella obvious), but Raven doesn’t know this till the end, and during that time she definitely did not tell Alexander that she had been going to The Coffin Club by herself even when he asked her not to because it was dangerous (which it was) and she definitely did not tell him about the Dungeon. If my boyfriend (if I had one, to begin with) caught me in a lie, you best believe we would have it out. Raven and Alexander not so much, which bothers me. It’s just another long list showing that their relationship is pretty superficial. They don’t really talk, nor do they argue. It’s kind of the pre-Edward and Bella, but not nearly as creepy and stalkery.

Vampire Kisses #6-9

Well, hello there…. long time no write. I will get around to posting a life update soon, but I wanted to finish off this post that I have had in my drafts since 2018. I finished the last book in the series, Immortal Herts, in July of 2021. That being said, I pretty much remember nothing. I gave the last 4 books in this series 3 stars each, by the end of the series it was all just so repatative and dull. Spoiler Alert: at the ripe old age of 17/18, Raven makes the choice to become a vampire and spend the rest of eternity with Alexander. If I had finished this series when I was in high school, I probably would have agreed with this statement, but 26-year-old me absolutely did not. There is no chance in hell that they last for an eternity. This series is a good trip back in time to the height of the early 2000s vampire obsession, but if you expect excellent writing and character development, you will not find it here.