15 Diverse Books Flying Under The Radar with Less Than 50 Reviews on Amazon

July 10, 2018July 10, 2018 Olivia Chanel1 Comment

Hi, galaxy travelers and book readers! I’m back with another blog post and this one is all about diverse books in need of some love from you guys. It is said to be something magical about the number 50, at least in regards to the number of book reviews a novel needs to have on Amazon in order to unlock certain marketing privileges. Because of this, I decided to mention 15 books with less than 50 reviews on Amazon that you should totally buy, read, and support by leaving a review. If you have followed my blog for a while you might recognize this concept and ask, haven’t I seen a post similar to this one before and the truth is that, yes, you have. In August 2017, I did post a blog post called Twelve Diverse Books Flying Under The Radar and the purpose of that post was the same as this one — to recommend books in need of love and book reviews because they have less than 50 reviews on Amazon. To make things easier I have made a key that you can follow when you go through the list,

★ is seen with books that have less than 100 ratings on Goodreads,
✿ is shown next to books with queer authors, and
✱ is the symbol that is shown next to the books written by authors of color.

Disclaimer: I have not read all of these books so be aware that there might be incorrect information, and that’s on me. I have taken the information on here from synopses and reviews I researched for this post.

Now go forth and support these amazing books and authors. The books are sorted in alphabetical order after their title and they truly deserve your support. I hope you’ll find your next read in one of these fifteen books. Don’t forget to write a review when you’re done, just a sentence is enough!

The Boyfriend Backtrack by Dawn Lanuza EP (A Mini Book Playlist)

June 28, 2018September 26, 2020 Olivia Chanel1 Comment

Hi there, fellow aliens and world travelers! Today’s post is all about The Boyfriend Backtrack by Dawn Lanuza and the playlist I made inspired by it – I like to call it the Regina and Chase EP. If you have been following this blog for a while, you might have seen me post playlists before (which I loved doing) but it has been ages and I’m glad to get into it again. Many thanks to my lovely friend Sue who pushed me to do this.

This playlist inspired by my one true pairing in The Boyfriend Backtrack is meant to celebrate love that runs deep, love that is all about second chances, the moments we don’t realize become the moments where we meet the one, and the journeys we go on to finally end up with our one true love. It is no secret that I love The Boyfriend Backtrack, as seen by my gushing review posted earlier this week, and the endless tweets I have dedicated to this book. For those that have read this book, I hope you like this playlist as much as I enjoyed creating it. For those that haven’t read this book yet, I hope this post will be the last push you need in order to finally buy it and read it for yourself. Buy the book on Amazon, Book Depository, Barnes & Noble, and The Ripped Bodice.

Book Review of The Boyfriend Backtrack by Dawn Lanuza

June 25, 2018September 7, 2020 Olivia Chanel2 Comments

The Boyfriend Backtrack by Dawn Lanuza

Publication Date: October 3, 2014.

Publisher: Anvil Publishing.

Genres: Romance, New Adult, Chick Lit, and Contemporary.

Rating:

Purchase here: Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice

Synopsis: If they say that life flashes right before your eyes when you die, do you also get a flashback of your exes when your perfect boyfriend is proposing to you? At least that’s the case for Regina Cortez. There’s her dramatic high school boyfriend, her first college crush, the irresistible heartbreaker, and the ever elusive one. By backtracking to her past, will Regina make it to ‘I Do’? Or will she just keep running away?

The Boyfriend Backtrack has overnight become one of my all-time favorite romance novels. The elegant and easy to get through writing and the mix of the friends to lovers and second chance romance tropes makes the book a hit. The main character of the novel is Regina, who after her boyfriend Kevin proposes, gets a flashback of all of her exes. This leads to a journey where Regina meets all of her exes again, in order to figure out what she wants and who her one true love is. Regina is an artist, a lover of France, and an amazing protagonist to follow.

Books I Read in Gran Canaria (ft. #romanceclass titles and an anticipated poetry read)

June 20, 2018July 6, 2018 Olivia Chanel2 Comments

Welcome galaxy travelers! I’m back with a new blog post, one where we get to catch up and I get to share some fun news. I know I have been away for quite some time, only blogging sporadically, but summertime is upon us and that means more time for reading and blogging. Between June 4 and June 11 I was on vacation in Gran Canaria (one of the Canary Islands which are a part of Spain) and during that time I got a lot of reading done. I thought I’d share the books I read with you. I read six books during my vacation and all of them were great reads. The following are the books I read, in chronological order, each with an individual rating.

Two Year Blog Anniversary for Olivia Chanel’s Galaxy of Books!

April 6, 2018April 6, 2018 Olivia ChanelLeave a comment

Hi there, galaxy travelers! I hope you’re all doing okay. As the title of the post suggests, today is the two year anniversary of my book blog, Olivia Chanel’s Galaxy of Books. I can barely believe it’s been two years already, it has been a blast. The posts I’ve written, the books I’ve read, and the authors I’ve interviewed and met, it has been an amazing experience. Also, did you guys notice my new layout on the blog? Tell me what you think? I felt that after two years I really needed something new and I want to hear your thoughts on it.

Moreover, I know I have been a bit MIA lately, mostly because of University and the massive workload that comes with it. However, I am still at it and am working on blog posts and book news I hope you’ll all enjoy. If you’re waiting on something from me, you hopefully won’t have to wait for too long.

For this blog post, I want to do a couple of things. I want to share a few of my favorite blog posts I’ve made over the years, tell you a few of my goals and ideas I have for the blog, and let you know about all the cool things I’ve experienced since the start of my blog two years ago.

My Book Haul from Sweden’s Annual Book Sale

April 2, 2018June 24, 2018 Olivia ChanelLeave a comment

Hey there aliens! I’m with you here today to talk about something super exciting, my book haul from Sweden’s annual book sale. This book sale occurs every year at the end of February and every store that stocks books decide to put out a number of books for discounted prices. Usually, since I only read English and book prices are a lot higher here, I don’t tend to buy books in Swedish bookstores but this year I really managed to grab some amazing books for a great price. I can’t wait to share my finds with you. I hope you’ll find it as exciting as I do.

My Moonlit Discussions: Unhauling Books – The Why and The How

February 27, 2018May 25, 2018 Olivia ChanelLeave a comment

Hi, readers and welcome to my first Moonlit Discussions. I really love other book blogger’s discussion posts and thought I should start my own series of discussion posts as well, especially since it’s a new year and everything (this is technically my first blog post of 2018 yay). There is so much to discuss in regards to books and the book community and I really want to share my opinion on these topics. Today I want to talk about unhauling books. I own a lot of books but I have recently realized that some of them I’ll probably never read and some I already have read but know I will never read again. That is why I wanted to get rid of them so that I’ll have more space for books I do want and actually will read. I have decided to split up my post into three parts: reasons to unhaul a book, what to do with the books you want to unhaul, and books I have or will unhaul.

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Reasons To Unhaul a Book

The book is problematic in some way. Either you read the book and was hurt by it or you read online from other reviewers (after you bought it) that the book has been offensive or otherwise hurtful.
Your taste in books has changed. E.g. when you bought the book you were totally into adult science fiction but now you’ve realized you don’t actually enjoy that genre anymore and don’t want to read the book.
You’ve read the book and know you’ll never read it again. If you know it’s a book you don’t want to reread and it’s not a book you want to keep for aesthetic or sentimental reasons then sometimes the answer is to just unhaul it.
The book is an odd one. This is similar to number three, meaning you’ve read the book (unless you’ve accidentally acquired a sequel to a book without reading the first book). If you only own one book in a series, especially a sequel of the end of a series, it might feel useless to keep the book if you don’t plan on buying the rest of the series.

My Seven Favorite Books of 2017 (Out of 55 Read)

December 29, 2017May 28, 2018 Olivia ChanelLeave a comment

top7booksof2017

Hi there people in the galaxy! Another year has gone by, and though my reading has been rather slow the second half of the year because of University, I’m still very proud of myself for the 55 books I’ve read this year. A couple of years ago that number would have seemed impossible to achieve. There have been so many great gems this year and I have decided to list my seven favorite books of the year. These really deserve all of the love in the world and if you haven’t read any of them yet, I hope you’ll add them to your 2018 TBR.

ARC Review of 27 Hours by Tristina Wright

November 28, 2017September 7, 2020 Olivia ChanelLeave a comment

27 Hours by Tristina Wright

Publication Date: October 3, 2017.

Publisher: Entangled Teen.

Genres: Young Adult and Science Fiction.

Rating:

Purchase here: Amazon | Book Depository

Synopsis: Rumor Mora fears two things: hellhounds too strong for him to kill, and failure. Jude Welton has two dreams: for humans to stop killing monsters, and for his strange abilities to vanish. But in no reality should a boy raised to love monsters fall for a boy raised to kill them.

Nyx Llorca keeps two secrets: the moon speaks to her, and she’s in love with Dahlia, her best friend. Braeden Tennant wants two things: to get out from his mother’s shadow, and to unlearn Epsilon’s darkest secret. They’ll both have to commit treason to find the truth.

During one twenty-seven-hour night, if they can’t stop the war between the colonies and the monsters from becoming a war of extinction, the things they wish for will never come true, and the things they fear will be all that’s left.

27 Hours is a sweeping, thrilling story featuring a stellar cast of queer teenagers battling to save their homes and possibly every human on Sahara as the clock ticks down to zero.

Thank you, Macmillan and Entangled Teen, for my ARC of 27 Hours. I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review; this does not affect my opinion. Any quotes mentioned below are taken from the ARC and are subject to change upon publication.

Before I read this book I was so intrigued by the world Tristina Wright has created in 27 Hours and I have now truly fallen in love with it. 27 Hours is an action-packed character driven story which will have you rooting for the main characters while you at the same time get to know this new world far away in outer space. There’s romance, friendship, family and so much more which are all explored through the four POVs of Rumor Mora, Jude Welton, Nyx Llorca, and Braeden Tennant. Through these four different teenagers, we are taken on a journey where everything they’ve ever believed will be challenged and thus they must fight for their survival and for what’s right.

ARC Review of Not Now, Not Ever by Lily Anderson

November 22, 2017September 7, 2020 Olivia ChanelLeave a comment

Not Now, Not Ever by Lily Anderson

Publication Date: November 21, 2017.

Publisher: Wednesday Books.

Genres: Young Adult and Contemporary.

Rating:

Purchase here: Amazon | Book Depository

Synopsis: Elliot Gabaroche is very clear on what she isn’t going to do this summer.

1. She isn’t going to stay home in Sacramento, where she’d have to sit through her stepmother’s sixth community theater production of The Importance of Being Earnest.
2. She isn’t going to mock trial camp at UCLA.
3. And she certainly isn’t going to the Air Force summer program on her mother’s base in Colorado Springs. As cool as it would be to live-action-role-play Ender’s Game, Ellie’s seen three generations of her family go through USAF boot camp up close, and she knows that it’s much less Luke/Yoda/”feel the force,” and much more one hundred push-ups on three days of no sleep. And that just isn’t appealing, no matter how many Xenomorphs from Alien she’d be able to defeat afterwards.

What she is going to do is pack up her attitude, her favorite Octavia Butler novels, and her Jordans, and go to summer camp. Specifically, a cutthroat academic-decathlon-like competition for a full scholarship to Rayevich College, the only college with a Science Fiction Literature program. And she’s going to start over as Ever Lawrence, on her own terms, without the shadow of all her family’s expectations. Because why do what’s expected of you when you can fight other genius nerds to the death for a shot at the dream you’re sure your family will consider a complete waste of time?

This summer’s going to be great.

Thank you, St. Martin’s Press, for my ARC of Not Now, Not Ever. I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review; this does not affect my opinion. Any quotes mentioned below are taken from the ARC and are subject to change upon publication.

I have fallen in love with Not Now, Not Ever by Lily Anderson. This book is funny, adorable, and perfect for anyone interested in a nerdy romantic comedy. This diverse contemporary young adult story is about Ever and her summer at a competitive camp for geniuses where she has the chance to win a scholarship to her dream school. The only catch is that everyone in her family thinks she is somewhere else and no one at camp knows her real identity.