The Running Bibliophile

When Influenster.com contacted me to let me know I was receiving a voxbox with a product in it for me to review, I was ecstatic. I was even happier when I realized it was an under eye concealer because I always have dark circles due to extremely bad allergies. I'm just about allergic to everything outside!
Since I work from home, I don't always wear makeup like I use to when I had to go into an office, so one of the first chances I had to test out the Boi-ing Cakeless Concealer by Benefit Cosmetics of San Francisco was when I went to see the Broadway show Cats when it was in Atlanta. It was the perfect time to try it out because I had bronchitis, and the circles under my eyes were exceptionally dark.
The Boi-ing Cakeless Concealer went on smoothly and was cakeless as promised by Benefit Cosmetics of San Francisco. It blended well into my foundation and the concealer actually matched my skin tones extremely well. Most makeup tends to be too dark for me, even the lightest of th…

Whenever I shop by BJ's Wholesale Club, I always make sure to stop by their book section as I can usually find a book I want to read at a huge discount compared to other stores. I was disappointed to find that they had a much smaller selection than they normally do . . . they went from two tables to one table. However, I did have a moment of nostalgia when I saw a book by Mary Downing Hahn on the table with a title of The Girl in the Locked Room:  A Ghost Story. I discovered this particular author when I was in middle school and fell in love with her storytelling. So, when I saw this book at BJ's, I had to have it.
Since I wasn't the the target audience of the book, I'd give it four out of five stars because I knew what the outcome would be pretty much from the get go. The Girl in the Locked Room:  A Ghost Story was a bit reminiscent of The Doll in the Garden:  A Ghost Story, but it didn't quite have the same creepiness and suspense as the latter.  Even with that …

Most high schools in the United States of America have required reading lists for ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade. As I've found from being in various book clubs, not all high schools have the same required reading and was super surprised that my peers hadn't read several of these books, especially since quite a few of them went to school in the same state as I did. You'd think that school systems within each state would have very similar required reading! However, they are taking the time to read them as adults, which I find impressive.
My high school had the following English and Literature classes:  Ninth Grade English, Tenth Grade English, American Literature, British Literature, and World Literature. At my high school, if you were in honors English, you either skipped over Ninth Grade English or Tenth Grade English and were required to take American, British, and World Literature. If you were not in Honors English, you were allowed to choose between British…

Have you ever had a book from your childhood that has stuck with you over the years? Winter Dreams Christmas Love by Mary Francis Shura is one of those books for me. I remember when I bought the book . . . it was a Friday night when I was thirteen or fourteen years old. I climbed into bed and began reading the book around eight or nine o'clock at night and finished it within a couple of hours. I loved it so much that I immediately began reading it again that night. I must have reread it four or five times that weekend. I guess you can say that I was obsessed! However, I really related to the book when I was in high school. Rereading it as an adult brought back those angsty feelings I had as a teenager. I mean who didn't wish that their crush felt the same way towards them?!?! But, as an adult, I know things don't always wrap up in a neat little bow.
Winter Dreams Christmas Love was a very well written young adult novel that spans three years of Ellen Marlowe's high sch…

When I saw that a television movie for V.C. Andrews' book Heaven (Casteel, #1) was going to be shown on the Lifetime Channel, I decided I needed to reread the book before watching the movie as it had been several years since I read it. All I really remembered was that it was one of my least favorite of her series, and I'd have to say it is still one of my least favorite. It's not that it is poorly written because it is actually written really well. The series just wasn't my cup of tea compared to some of the other series.
Things I loved about the book were the family dynamics because there are people who have multiple generations living under one roof. So many families are dysfunctional as well, so this book really brought this issue to life. It also showed how people can be really poor and barely eeking out an existence. What I hope people learned from Heaven (Casteel, #1) is that there are people who have it worse than you do and don't be so quick to judge peopl…

With the movie Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark coming to movie theaters in August 2019, I had to reread the book of the same name. I loved the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark trilogy when I was in middle school and remember them being very creepy. Although I don't think I ever got rid of my copies from my childhood, I didn't know where they are, so I ordered the entire trilogy with the original artwork from Amazon.com.
When the books were delivered to my house yesterday, I was excited to dive right in to the first book because the sight of the books brought back all the feels from my childhood. However, in the hour it took me to read the first book, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, I was very disappointed because it wasn't nearly as good as I remembered it to be. Although, the pictures were just as wonderful as they always were . . . and super creepy.
The stories that were still creepy that I enjoyed were Room For One More, The Hook, The Babysitter, and High Beams.…