My name is Jessica. I love to read Young Adult and classic literature. I’ve been a book blogger for six years and I haven’t gotten tired of it yet. I’m a very curious reader. Writing about all the questions and thoughts I had while reading a book is the best hobby ever.
I’m a piano teacher and mom. I love to travel. I’m married to my best friend and fellow traveler who loves adventure as much as I do. I try to go somewhere new at least once a year. Some of my favorite places that I’ve been: Paris, London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Bruges, Bath, Moab, Los Angeles, Boston, Vermont, San Antonio, The Grand Canyon and lots of other places in between.
My Favorite Classic
My Favorite Young Adult
Email Me
booksatruestory@gmail.com
If you want to contact me about reviewing your book, please read my review policy
Social Media
Here are the social media sites that I’m a part of.
- rss
- twitter: @booksatruestory
- facebook: booksatruestory
- goodreads
- instagram: @booksatruestory
- youtube
- bloglovin
- email newsletter
- amazon
- tumblr
- pottermore: SeerCentaur37
About the Blog
I started this blog on June 16, 2011. Since I love writing in my journal (and I’ve done it my whole life in novel-like detail) it was a huge inspiration for my blog title “Books: A true story.” This is my online journal about my thoughts on the books I read.
I write book reviews of mostly Young Adult books and a few classics here and there. Book reviews are the main thing that I post. I’ve added post-it note reviews at the end of my reviews from my Instagram account. If you want to see more than book reviews, follow me on Instagram! I post book hauls, monthly TBRs and recaps, new releases, and of course my post-it note reviews. If you’re not on Instagram, my photos are also posted on Twitter and Facebook.
Besides book reviews, I love to write my Google Diaries posts. When I read a book, I ask a LOT of questions and sometimes I will search a ton of stuff on Google. If I found some cool stuff, I write a post about it. I look up places, locations, art, books mentioned, pop cultural references, or even actor photos if the characters remind me of someone. Check out my Google Diaries.
Blog Mission Statement
Why I blog: I blog for fun! I thought that after a year of blogging, I would run out of things to say about books and that hasn’t been true! This blog will always be a personal place for me to share my love of books and interact with the other bloggers and readers in this great community.
I get asked all the time if I make money book blogging. HAHAHAHA!!!! No. I don’t. The google ads barely cover my web hosting costs. Money is not the reason I book blog (There’s seriously no money in it). I know it sounds cliche, but I run this blog because I genuinely love reading and sharing that love here.
This blog’s purpose: I write the kind of reviews that I would want to read. I like short reviews and clean formatting that is easy to read. The main purpose of my reviews is to share what I thought about the book to help you find great books to read.
My values: I will always be as honest and polite as I can in all the posts I write here. If I had to pick between the two, honesty will always win. I pledge to not plagiarize and steal other’s work. I try to only promote books that I’ve personally read and enjoyed through giveaways, blog tours, author interviews etc.
My Writing
The other goal of my blog was to put some of my writing here. Most of my writing will be about my life. That’s why I picked the title “Books: A True Story.” It highlights my book reviews and my writing all in one title. Plus, it leaves me room to write about other random things that I feel like.
I have tried blogging before and I didn’t like it. I’m also not a fan of personal blogs mostly because I’m a private person but also because I like to be honest in my journal and I’d like to keep my honesty to myself, at least concerning my current life events. My sister, Andrea, loves blogging and she tried to convince me to write one. I told her the only things that interest me are books…and I’ve been wanting to write these stories from my past. That’s it! I’ll write a book blog! I’m loving it so far.
See an archive of all my writing.
Flashback Fridays
First of all, I’d like to thank my sister, Andrea, for the awesome name. I’ve always wanted to write down my memories as I remembered them. Looking back on my life makes me realize how funny it was. Painful at the time, but hilariously funny now. As an adult looking back, I realize now that some of the things I remember are not factual. So when I call these “true stories,” I mean it in the sense that they are true to the way I saw, felt and experienced them at the time and children don’t always get the facts straight. I think imposing my adult paradigm on my childhood takes the truth out of them. So what I tell you is true…from a certain point of view. And a wise man once said, “You’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.”
Some of you may notice that a lot of my Flashback Friday posts have a lot to do with digestive distress. The reason for this is I was recently diagnosed with IBS and I felt this light bulb go off in my head – oh, that’s why all those things happened to me! Suddenly, all of these memories that I thought were random started connecting with an undiagnosed problem that I had my whole life. These memories kept bouncing around in my head and wouldn’t give me any rest until I wrote them down. I actually wrote the Civil War in 3rd Period English piece months before I ever started this blog. Many of these stories I kept secret because I was ashamed of them, but I realize that they are part of who I am and finding the humor in my trials and then telling them publicly is so liberating to me. It frees me from the shame that I’ve felt for a long time.
Updated June 29, 2017
Your site looks great, Jessica. I look forward to reading more in the future!