The Monday Mix (11)

While I did enjoy doing A Sunday Retrospective, I've made the decision to stop posting on the weekends. I rarely open up my laptop during that time, and I'd prefer to keep it that way. The only thing that made me really sad was the fact that I would no longer have an outlet to share my favorite links from the past week. I mourned that for all of ten seconds before realizing that I could just start a new feature - and so, The Monday Mix was born.

The Monday Mix basically gives me the opportunity to share with all of you the links I loved online from last week, everything from reviews to articles about writing and perhaps other things too. I've always valued the opportunity to share the great things I've read or seen, and this is my way to share the love.

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Thanks to the 4th of July, I enjoyed a four day weekend last week! It was great to get a break from real life, catch up on wedding preparations (well, really, just have my little sister - who's the maid of honor - and my mom update me over the phone) and just relax a little. My latest obsessions are ice cream (!), ice chai tea lattes (!!) and Nancy Drew computer games (!!!). You'll probably hear more about the 4th of July in a separate post :)

1. It's quite a treat to be able to get writing advice from Susan Dennard. In this post for Publishing Crawl, she shares a little bit about how to write and trouble a deep point of view and voice. This is actually something I'm working on personally so I found it quite helpful!

2. My friend Gillian (who is a PierceFest co-host!) perfectly explains how I feel about last books in series. I've read and loved many, many series, and it always breaks my heart to read a "last" book for the first time since it only happens once. However, I'm the type to re-read my favorite series over and over again, so I suppose that helps!

3. How gorgeous are these prints? I fell in love with them and would just like to have them all for my walls now. (Thanks to Shanella for sharing this link on Twitter!)

4. I'm seriously obsessed with this playlist for The Bone Season, as posted by Samantha Shannon 50 days before her pub date. It's giving me a good idea of the book's tone! Plus, I discovered my new favorite artist Raised by Swans, who are fantastic.

5. In case you missed it, I had the honor of being interviewed by Sarah J. Maas for Publishing Crawl along with my friend Elena. It was seriously such an amazing thing to be asked to do the interview, and I'm happy to have been able to share a bit about the blogging world. There's also a giveaway!

6. My friend Rachel celebrated her birthday last week! She's an amazing person, inside and out, and I'm truly blessed to have her in my life. She's set up this amazing giveaway, which you should probably go and enter right now... just saying!

7. Amanda suggests some pretty great summer reads! I think plenty of these titles would go well with a trip to the beach, lake or even the park. I can't wait till August when I'll have more time to indulge in stuff like that!

8. I love that Gillian was able to share some of the awesome tweets that popped up with the hashtags #RBWL and #YABooksWithALetterMissing. Seriously, there are some great suggestions for writers and some really funny tweets in this one!

9. Brittany has voiced exactly how I'm feeling about my commitments in terms of the blog. I've been slowly accomplishing all of the commitments I've made before this month, but have been toning down the future ones (including requesting ARCs and e-galleys). Hopefully, by the end of August, I'll be fully caught up on everything!

10. I love when Elena comes up with fun posts! The latest one on her blog is a celebration of National Ice Cream Month, featuring various desserts from books. (Warning: you will crave sweets after checking it out.

11. Shopping is one of my favorite things to do, but I've been on a ban lately. Still, it's hard to resist buying pretty new clothes! This is especially true when people (a.k.a. Estelle) create really awesome, creative posts like this one.

12. Basically, Elena is awesome at coming up with these creative posts! I love this one where she pairs three different movies with Gayle Forman's book Just One Day.

13. Disney + literary techniques? That equals PERFECTION in my eyes. Thanks for sharing Jen! Also, she shared this awesome Disney Dudez video with me that I'm VERY obsessed with.

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Also, in case you missed out on last week's posts, here they are for easy reference. I hope you check them out, if you haven't already!

PierceFest: July Kick-Off (+ Giveaway)

Brooklyn Girls - Gemma Burgess

Arrow of the Mist - Christina Mercer

A Midsummer Night's Scream - R.L. Stine

Cry Blue Murder - Kim Kane & Marion Roberts

This Strange & Familiar Place - Rachel Carter (Excerpt + Giveaway)

I hope you enjoy reading these posts as much as I did! Now it's YOUR turn - are there any posts (on your blog or other blogs) from last week that I missed out on? Please feel free to share links in the comments and I'll try to check them out.