halfdraft
17 | she | aspiring author, journalist, and voracious reader | either writing, reading, running, or caring too much about everything | find my reviews at halfdraft.substack.com :)
2026 points
halfdraft TBR'd a book
Half His Age
Jennette McCurdy
0halfdraft commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum
How are the books in your reading queue sorted? It isn't by how u added them, and not by the one you read latest- so what is it? 😭 (or is mine misbehaving)
13halfdraft wrote a review...
Full review coming later, but all I have to say right now is this book was incredibly, incredibly overhyped.
0halfdraft commented on Mimzi's review of Book Lovers
I did not like this book :)
It's a fine enough read for many, but not for me. The first few chapters were good. The book started well, but then it could not keep my attention.
I like literature, I like depth, I like complicated characters, I like a good bleepin plot. This was none of those, but it was a Hallmark movie-esque book full of sisterly love, two hot dudes, and a happily ever after. So if you like that, you'll like this and you should not give any importance to my words because what we like is different and that's okay.
My Notes from My Read-Through Summarized Below*
On to why I did not like this book. This book tried so hard to be "The Book of Tropes," but if failed miserably. It was a half-assed attempt. Bro, either go all in like Monsta X or stay at home and don't even do it! T^T
The FMC is insufferable and I hated her and not for the reasons you would think. The book opens up with "You know how in every romcom the MC goes to small town and falls in love with small-town-person and leaves the cold-hearted ex in Big City? Yep. That's me. The cold-hearted big city ex." Alright, so Nora's supposed to be the cut-throat bitch right? Nope. There is no time wasted in saying, "no, but like backstory, backstory, sad, sad, womp, womp." We didn't even spend any time on creating this woman to be anything but the poor mc you gotta immediately feel for. You do not have to make your main characters likable, bro. You can make them shit and give them some development or keep them shit, but saying the bitch is one thing and completely negating it in the next sentence? What was the reason, Felicia?
Sure, this book is in first-person POV thus we see the way she thinks. All this dialogue is happening in her head. Fine, I'll accept that. Then your FMC is a 1 dimensional, whiny, woe-is-me, immature flop and entirely unlikable. I don't understand why authors are so scared to make their characters complicated. Why do they have to be 3 adjectives and then those same descriptors are repeated to death in the book?
Nora's whole shtick is being a literary agent. The MMC is an editor. Where the hell were the editors for this book? Y'all couldn't offer the author any real feedback? Bro gtfoh. IN MY OPINION, this book was not well written. They sit there and have this conversation about "mom was this. you were that. it shouldn't have been like that. this is that." Right, wonderful, just tell it to me. Not a single bit of this has been expressed in any way throughout this book. It reads like a story-board and not a full-fledged book.
Bro, I'm sorry. I just don't like this book. It's another mediocre romcom in a sea of the same shit that's been in existence for some time now.
1halfdraft commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum
Hey all, did you see this news? It looks like just a trial so far, but thoughts on how we can push back and get them to rehire their human translators?
https://goodereader.com/blog/digital-publishing/harpercollins-is-using-ai-for-book-translations
22halfdraft commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum
i'm curious if this is just me, but i was scrolling through old presentations the other day and found my sophomore year presentation for The Potrait of a Lady by Henry James (a book i chose to read for our quarterly reading assignment) and don't remember anything about reading the book, where i got the book from, or giving the presentation. this also happened to me with Shadow and Bone- i found a stack of old library receipts, and that book was on there and i was like... i READ THAT? (turns out yes. yes i did.)
this is so odd to me because i can remember random details from a book i read years ago but can't remember entire books i've read. so i'm genuinely curious: has anyone else experienced book amnesia?
16Post from the Pagebound Club forum
i'm curious if this is just me, but i was scrolling through old presentations the other day and found my sophomore year presentation for The Potrait of a Lady by Henry James (a book i chose to read for our quarterly reading assignment) and don't remember anything about reading the book, where i got the book from, or giving the presentation. this also happened to me with Shadow and Bone- i found a stack of old library receipts, and that book was on there and i was like... i READ THAT? (turns out yes. yes i did.)
this is so odd to me because i can remember random details from a book i read years ago but can't remember entire books i've read. so i'm genuinely curious: has anyone else experienced book amnesia?
16halfdraft commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum
Hey everyone! I’m just starting to really get into Pagebound and all the awesome features it has and the first thing I wanted to do was organize my TBR (I love a good organization system and list). I’m just curious how everyone else uses their tags like TBR, interested, paused, etc. Reading and DNF are pretty self explanatory I think but the others I think offer some variety like for example I’m using TBR for my physical TBR, interested for books I want to read but don’t own, and paused for books that I’m soft DNFing. How about everyone else?
Also, the bookshelves? Do you use them? How do you use them? I have mine divided by owned and not owned and then by genre.
5halfdraft commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum
After I finish bobh and the last unicorn I want to get into two fantasy series that my sister adores, but I am not sure with which to go through first: grishaverse or folk of the air?
What would you all suggest? : o
8halfdraft commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum
i was wondering how do you guys feel about the condition of library books and the idea of dog-earing them? i have checked out tons of books from the library that have previously dog-eared pages (although it is not usually that visible unless you're looking for it) and since i hate figuring out where to put my bookmarks while reading books i usually dog-ear my own books. i think that i find it to be a grey area because you're technically not ruining the book or putting permanent damage on them, just like you would by writing in them of tearing the pages. when i was a child i would dog-ear page regularly, with making sure i straightened them out the best i could after i moved on to another page. thoughts?
48halfdraft finished a book
Book Lovers
Emily Henry
0halfdraft commented on exploringthestacks's update
exploringthestacks started reading...
People We Meet on Vacation
Emily Henry
3halfdraft commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum
Seeking advice about applying for publisher influencer programs!
A little background: I don't normally have much luck on Netgalley for ARCs because I don't have a booktok or bookstagram, which I know doesn't make me a super attractive candidate to publishers as a reviewer. I mainly post my book reviews to the usual sites and make longer posts on Reddit, which get a pretty good amount of engagement (I have a separate Reddit profile specifically for book things). I generally apply for ARCs directly from authors when they post their own applications on Instagram, and I have a pretty high success rate with those—usually the author applications give you space to explain your audience, where you post, and why you want the book rather than just focusing on things like follower counts. (Side note: I know it's possible to get good ARCs from Netgalley without having an audience on IG/TT, but so many publishers now are only interested in people on those platforms!)
The sitch: I recently saw a post from a new romance imprint (Scarlett Press US) looking for influencers. The books they're publishing this spring are right up my alley and things I've either read before or have on my TBR. I've been working hard to curate more of a presence in bookish spaces online (like on Reddit) so I can level up my ARC game, and I really would like to apply for this influencer program. The only problem is they specifically say they are looking for people active on IG/TT.
The question: How do you convince publishers of the value of non-booktok/bookstagram reviewers? Those of you who are fellow ARC reviewers not on IG/TT, how do you pitch yourself and quantify your audience? Post impressions? Do you name books you've ARC read (especially if they weren't on Netgalley, and therefore aren't automatically visible to other publishers)? Right now I think my strategy for this influencer application consists of trying to sell them on the value of having platform diversity—you want to reach readers who exist in online spaces other than IG/TT.
Any advice or thoughts would be much appreciated!! I just know my former social media marketing professors would be doing whatever the alive version of rolling in your grave is if they could see me now, LOL. And if you read to the end of this post, I'm giving you a forehead kiss!
6halfdraft commented on halfdraft's update
