My Monday Musts

Happy Monday, everybody!

Last week, I posted my first ever set of Monday Musts and it turned out to be a huuuge success. Yay!

Now this week, my last full week before heading back to college for my sophomore year, I have a new set of obsessions to share with you all.

And they are…..

1. “Spring Breakers” Movie

So I have been impatiently waiting to watch this movie, and I finally did! Over the weekend, my best friend and I decide to stay in and stuff our face with appetizer foods and Red Lobster biscuits, bake a cake, and watch the movie in our sweats. Now, honestly, it wasn’t what I was expecting – I mean, who would be expecting an ex- Disney Channel star and a Pretty Little Liar to be walking around shooting people with giant guns?! I’m still questioning what exactly the plot was, the accuracy of the story, and how James Franco still managed to look so attractive while looking so disgusting. However, I still managed to be obsessed with the movie and want to rewatch it over and over again. Spring break forever!

2. DSW

As I said, I move back to school next week! That means last minute shopping for clothes, dorm accessories, and of course, shoes! I really wanted a pair of black wedges to try and wear with everything for when I was going out, but since I am on a budget that meant that I couldn’t get too crazy (because I will drop a ton of money easily on a cute pair of shoes. Oops!) and be smart. That’s why I decided to go to DSW – where I could get super cute shoes for super cheap. Plus, the Shopping Gods led me right to the sale rack where I fell in love with a pair that was an extra 40% off! I managed to save over $55 on these Guess wedges – paying only $25 instead of $80. I know where I will always be going for shoes now!

3. Looking for Alaska by John Green

When I first read John Green’s novel The Fault in Our Stars when it first came out a little over a year ago, I quickly fell in love with the book, the characters, Green’s writing style, just everything about it. I kept telling myself that I had to read another John Green novel ASAP, but whenever it came time for me to download a new book on my nook – I always ended up picking a newly released novel and not just browsing for a John Green novel. This past week I finally reminded myself to download one of his books and I fell in love with this book and these characters just like I did The Fault in Our Stars. The novel follows around a wallflower, Miles, who transfers to a boarding school, Culver Creek, in order to find his “The Great Perhaps.” Culver Creek holds so much more for Miles than he could ever expect. Through every twist and turn in growing up and falling in love, Green keeps the reader so drawn in that the reader can’t help but to fall in love with the novel. It’s a must read for everybody.

This past week has been one to remember with a bunch of last minute memories to make in the summer of 2013 and was able to bring along this week’s set of Monday Musts! I wonder what the next week will have in store for me!

Have a great week, everybody! XOXO

29Jul2013

Crushed: Pretty Little Liars Series by Sara Shepard

by sparkleandshinesami

My absolute favorite downtime in my hectic life is reading. With my Nook or Nook app on my iPhone always handy, I am always finding ways possible to be reading at any given free moment. I’ll even hide my phone to pull up my Nook app at work and read in between customers, but shhhhh!, don’t tell anyone!

My absolute favorite book series is Sara Shepard’s Pretty Little Liars. When recently browsing through the Barnes and Nobles site for a new book to read, I came across Shepard’s recently released Crushed, book number 13 in the series. I immediately knew what my next purchase was going to be!

In true Shepard and Pretty Little Liars form, Crushed delivered page – turning suspense that led me wanting more. Shepard throws in enough twists and turns that the reader never knows what to expect. Then, just when the reader thinks all the pieces are coming together, an even bigger plot twist than even imaginable is thrown into play! No other book series is more of a page turner than this one. Crushed far exceeded that standard.

In the 13th novel in the series, the Pretty Little Liars – Hanna, Spencer, Emily, and Aria – have discovered that their mysterious stalker, A, is not working alone. The girls each look into one person that could be A’s potential helper.

This puts Hanna back in her pink scrubs and volunteering at the burn clinic to wait for Graham to wake up from his coma. Hanna’s hoping he will be able to reveal who he saw stalking the girls on their cruise to Jamaica and who set the bomb off that put him in that coma. When Graham does wake up, on the night of the girls’ prom, can he tell Hanna what she wants to hear that puts A to rest?

As Aria is now dealing with hidden skeletons in her closet after a recent trip to Iceland, she must know investigate her boyfriend, typical Rosewood boy, Noel. As Aria now starts finding out more and more about Noel, their relationship begins to become very strained. Is Noel really who Aria thinks he is?

Emily, the most fearful liar, ends up somewhere she was never hoping to return – the metal hospital where Ali, and her sister Courtney, both stayed, The Preserve. Here, Emily must talk to Ali’s old roommate, Iris, who hasn’t been released in four years. Iris sees this an opportunity to better herself. Is Iris really going to be able to help the girls or is naive Emily letting A’s helper roam freely around around Rosewood and the King James Mall?

Lastly, Spencer decides to take on the biggest challenge of them all. Instead of investigating more of A’s helper, she plans on investigating more of Ali as A. This leads Spencer into digging up more dirt on a Rosewood conspiracy theory blog. Once Spencer meets the creator of the blog, Chase, she ends up digging him! Is Chase really going to be able to help unlock clues in the mystery of Ali as A, or is he helping Ali get more information on the Pretty Little Liars?

For the girls, and the reader, the pieces seemed to be coming together revealing who A’s helper is…

But have the girls really solved the mystery as to who A’s helper is, or is A always calling the shots? Find out now in Crushed, a must read for any Pretty Little Liars fan!

24Jul2013

Campus Book Rentals: A Cheaper Alternative to Buying Textbooks at the Bookstore

by sparkleandshinesami

This is a sponsored post, however, all opinions are my own.

As an only child, I didn’t know about all the little hints and tips around college life when I first started prepping for my freshman year at Quinnipiac last summer. So that meant when I had to buy my textbooks, I purchased them from the school bookstore. I remember how excited I was when I first went to go to buy my textbooks (yes, I drove 2 hours to Quinnipiac just to buy my textbooks in the beginning of July instead of ordering them online like the rest of my peers). Except my excitement had quickly come to an end when the bill for my text books came to be over $600! I was used to getting free textbooks in high school, and now, I was paying hundreds of dollars for books that I will only be using for a couple of months.

After throwing away so much of my hard earned money (that’s about 10 shifts at my job!), I knew that I had to find an alternative to buying books at the bookstore. I was very skeptical about purchasing books through older students or off of generic ordering websites, like Amazon, because I was unsure of the condition of the textbook I was going to be receiving or how reliable of a service it would truly be.

After three semesters of searching (I already bought my books from my school’s bookstore for my first semester of sophomore year), I finally found a site in which I can trust to order my textbooks: Campus Book Rentals.

After doing research on Campus Book Rentals, I found out that there were a bunch of perks by using this website to rent my textbooks. The biggest perk out of all was that I would be saving 40% – 90% off of the bookstore price! College is such an expensive time, so any extra money that I can save is huge bonus. Another way that the site helps me save money is that it offers shipping is free both ways.

I can also highlight and annotate in the textbooks without being charged extra. I love getting clean, new books and then highlighting and annotating in them to keep track of my notes so I know what is important for me to know. It’s a big study tool to help me be successful in college, so I am extremely grateful that Campus Book Rentals lets me do this. The site also offers flexible renting periods, which means I can select how long I want to rent my textbook for.

Another perk of the site is that with every textbook rented, part of the money goes to Operation Sunshine, an international organization that provides surgeries for children with cleft lips, cleft palates, and other facial deformities. Not only are you benefiting by getting your text books cheaper, but you are benefiting a child who can’t necessarily help themselves. How great of a feeling is that?!

As I’m sitting here with textbooks that the bookstore wouldn’t buy back (of course, I tried to sell my books back and only got back one fourth, if that, of what I paid for them), Campus Book Rentals offers an awesome program called RentBack.

Rentback allows students to rent out the textbooks that they already own to other students, which means that the student renting out their books can make 2x – 4x as much money as they would make compared to selling back their books! This is a program no college student should miss!

To learn even more about all that Campus Book Rentals has to offer, check out this video.

Don’t waste all your hard earned money by wasting hundreds at the bookstore to purchase your textbooks, visit Campus Book Rentals today!