Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Waiting on Wednesday
Welcome to my WOW, or HOW as I like to call it where I feature an upcoming release that I'm hyperventilating for! It's totally fun to geek out about upcoming releases! This event is hosted by the lovely Jill @ Breaking The Spine. Today's awesome-sauce pick is....

In The After
by Demitria Lunetta
TBP: 6.25.13 by HarperTeen
Goodreads
Attack. Not isolated. Fate of Americans unknown.Amy is watching TV when it happens, when the world is attacked by Them. These vile creatures are rapidly devouring mankind. Most of the population is overtaken, but Amy manages to survive—and even rescue “Baby,” a toddler she finds in an abandoned supermarket. Marooned in Amy’s house, the girls do everything they can to survive—and avoid Them at all costs. After years of hiding, they are miraculously rescued and taken to New Hope, a colony of survivors living in a former government research compound. While at first the colony seems like a dream with plenty of food, safety, and shelter, New Hope slowly reveals that it is far from ideal. And Amy soon realizes that unless things change, she’ll lose Baby—and much more

Why I'm Hyperventilating:
In honor of Halloween today I've decided to hyperventilate on an upcoming creepy read. And as such I have chosen...In The After.The cover and synopsis were revealed yesterday! Woot! Okay so take a good cover scan and synopsis read. I dare you not to tell me that you don't think this book will be CREEPY.

Um it is. I think via the season lately I've been in a creepy phase, and this book would totally fit the bill for me! It's apocalyptic with mysterious THEM. What is THEM? Zombies? Vampires? Zompires? Oooh. So scary! I'm kinda excited to find out! And the cover is just...I will not say gorg.....just thrilling. There I didn't say it. It totally fits and the cracks and vines give a whole new dimension to it. Meep! I totally can't wait to get my hands on this book.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! What are you waiting/hyperventilating on today?
Leave a Link!
{This Girl Reads}
Welcome to the bookish cemetery  :D Today I'm going to share with you a few epitaphs from books. Aka-the last line. So here are 5 awesome last lines from books.



Grave Mercy
"For while I am Death's daughter and walk in His dark shadow, surely the darkness can give way to light sometimes."



Shadow and Bone
"They are orphans again, with no true home but each other and whatever life they can make together on the other side of the sea."




Origin
"Because sooner or later, we must all face eternity."



What's Left of Me
"But I--I was Eva, Eva, Eva, all the way through."




Dearly Departed
"Like him-with him- I had to keep going." 






 Those are the fabulous endings to these fabulous books! Do any of them make you more excited to read them? Have you read any of them? What are some of your favorite last lines? I'd love to hear! Tune in tomorrow for the last day of Haunted Week and for a couple reviews for some creepy books! XOXO,
Monday, October 29, 2012
Hi guys. I had a nutty weekend and I wasn't able to get my posts up so here are the posts for today along with Sat and Sun!!! Enjoy.

{This Girl Reads}
Ooooh. Zombies. Eeek. Today I'm featuring 5 favorite books from the grave my childhood....

The Nancy Drew Books by Carolyn Keene
They. Are. Genius. So much fun. Mystery, humor, easy reading. I remember getting so hooked after my swim-teacher got me "Password to Larkspur Lane" for my birthday. Crazy awesome reads. So classic. You MUST read them. Or just one. It's terribly shameful if you haven't even cracked one open.



Fablehaven Series by Brandon Mull
This series has got to be one of my favorite fantasies. It's clever, snarky, fun, hilarious and all the books just leave you happy. I totally dig these books and would recommend them to anyone. I loved these books as a kid. :D


Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
If you have never ever read this book and loved it as a kid, you aren't too late to start. This book is genius, classic and one of the first fariy-tale retellings I ever read. I LOVE IT. So clever and funny. The movie has nothing on the book.




Princess Academy by Shannon Hale
Beautiful. Clever. Magical. Super Sweet. That's how I describe PA. I loved it as a pre-teen and I still love it! There's not much I can really say beyond that.


Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan
This was totally adorable. It was a really neat story, with great messages and fun parallels to food. I remember re-reading this book when I was a kid. It was adorbs and I still have my copy. XD



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{This Girl Reads}
 So the real feature for today is all about spiders. Arachnophobia anyone? I'm going to share 5 blogs I love and recently found. PROBLEM. I don't keep track of finding new blogs. So this was really hard.But I do have 2 to show you. Onward with the arachnoblogia....

 ::Nuttier Reads::
I came across this adorably cute blog a couple weeks ago and love it! The style is pretty classy and Tillie, the nut behind the blog is lotsa fun! Wootness Extraordinaire.

Hobbitsies

Hobbitsies
How I have never seen this blog before I do NOT know. I mean the name just screams Lord of the Rings! And if you know anything about me it's that LORD OF THE RINGS is my all-time favorite book....and movie! Eep! This blog is adorbs and the reivews are smash-bang! Totally check this one out.

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{This Girl Reads}
This theme is a fun one, and not just because it's mascot is PUMPKINS. We get to talk about Candy! Eep! Book Candy! Be it good or bad, it's still Candy. So here are 5 books for me that were either a Treat-Pleasant Surprsie- or a Trick - nasty surprise!

Defiance = TREAT
Okay so going into this book I knew it was gonna be great. It looked and sounded amazing and I really excited about it. I just didn't know HOW awesome it was going to be. I ended up giving this book the Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Award, something new on my blog. It was amazing and totally Out of this world Treat!


Freshman Year and Other Unnatural Disaster = TRICK
Darn books that don't live up to your expectations. This book looked SO cute and funny. But some things in it just...didn't work for me. If you want to know deets you can find my mini-review HERE.



Divergent = TREAT
So. Right after this book came out my friend on Goodreads started FREAKING out about it. But I wasn't like that sure about it. I hardly knew anything about the book so I took the safe route and got it from the library. And then I learned the truth. This. Book. Will. Rock. Your. Socks. Off. It was amazing! So much more that I ever could have expected!!!!! Meep! This was totally a treat, and if you still haven't tried it......go trick or treating.


Tiger Lily = TRICK
Okay so this has already showed up a few times during this week. You know why. BORING. Tinker Bell was like a grandpa from the early 1900's and blah blah blah. Eeew yuck. So I for sure didn't get the reaction I wanted out of this book. Total trick.


Mistborn = TREAT!!!
Holy smacerol. So my friends were literally raving about this book. And I don't like to be left out of a hyperventilating book party so I started this book. I almost died of it's awesomeness. I can not recommend this book enough! I loved it and the two sequels. This was one of the best treats I've ever had in book form!!!



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There you have it! Favorite blogs, books from my childhood and some really great book surprises and disapointments. What about you? Found any fun blogs lately? Share them! I'd love to check them out. Any childhood faves? If so, what? Any nasty/pleasant surprises? What? I'd love to heard anything even if you aren't participating!! XOXO,
Sunday, October 28, 2012

Hey Guys! Sorry this is quite delayed in coming. I've been really busy this weekend with Halloween parties and whatnot. Plus....GO GIANTS! Woot! Anyway, here is my long-coming Book Haul with some fantastical books!



So it's too late for links, but thanks to RANDOM HOUSE, Marybeth @ Manhatten Reader, Giselle @ Xpresso Reads, Kristi @ The Story Siren, Diane Estrella, and Michelle@ Pink Polka Dot Book Blog for the books!!! And to my awesometastic library. lol.

**Update: If you want to see a full body shot of my in my costume I have one up from a previous dance on my About Me Page**

Did you have as good a haul? Better? Any awesome books? I'd love to see! Link me up!


Friday, October 26, 2012
{This Girl Reads}
BOO! Hey! Sup? It's yet another day of this fun week of Halloween and books. Today Skeletons rule the day and in honor of them I'm going to share 5 books that I own that I still haven't read yet... Yikes.


Fated 
I got this one back from a giveaway, and I was excited because I haven't read any of Alyson's books and it had an interesting premiseand gorgeous cover. But then it just sat there and sat there as more books filled up around it. I still want to read this, but I will admit it's being pushed farther down my priorities list.




A Breath of Eyre
I bought this because I was absolutely enchanted with the idea behind this book. And the cover. It was gorg and totally just sucked me right in! But then I put it on hold so I could finish reading Jane Eyre, and I've put Jane Eyre on hold till I get a more modern Teen edition. :D So....I'm going to read, just not yet. At least that's the plan.



Inside Out
I loved Maria's book Touch of Power, and I've wanted to read this one for a while, so I snagged it up in Omnibus form with the sequel. My friend has already read my copy and liked it so I've been meaning to get on it, but so far it hasn't happened yet. I'm still really excited, though the guilt is starting to get to me. But I've promised myself the money will not be a waste. lol.


The Girl of Fire and Thorns
I bought this book after feeling so eager to this one. I mean it literally felt like the book was staring at me the whole time I was in the store. :D It was creepy. So I cracked and bought it, really excited to read. My friend has been raving and amazing reviews are everywhere, I just havn't found the time to read it. That sounds so ironic.... Anyway, it's in my future. Soon I hope. 


Tiger's Curse
This is the worst of them all. There are SO many good reviews out there for this book I felt SO behind having not read the series. But every time I went to the bookstore I could never find the first book. It was weird. Finally the first one showed up and in excitement I snatched it for my possession. It's still sitting on my shelf collecting dust. This one I'm really motivated for though so probably next road-trip or break in library books I will read this. I just feel so guilty every time I see someone rave or review it. :P


So, these are the poor, unfortunate souls, I mean Skeletons sitting on my shelf. Hopefully I'll get to them soon so that they may Rest In Peace, and I will too.... What Skeletons do you have? Participating? Link me up? Not? I'd still love to hear! XOXOOOOOOO,
Thursday, October 25, 2012
{This Girl Reads}
Heloooooooooooooooooooooooo!It's another day of Haunted Week, and awesome smash-up of Halloween and Books! Today's topic is brought to you by Bats and the lovely Cheyenne @ {This Girls Reads}. I'm going to share a few things that annoy me when I read, and this will play off of yesterdays, featuring books I couldn't finish. So, what Bats me out?

Insta-Love
I. Hate. Insta-love. It's idiotic and unrealistic. There's no way to connect with the feelings and emotions of the romance it's you look at a guy and love him. Plus it's not even LOVE! It's basically an I-See-A-Hot-Guy---OOOH! Look at those muscles---I-can't-breath-I-think-I'm-in-love--Oh-Romeo-I-love-you-I-need-you-I-can't-live-without-you situation. Ick. It's not love, it's lust.

Too-Much Description
If the book is huge from the story and lots of action filled pages, that's one thing. But if it's thick because every other word is an adjective, then it's a problem. I don't need statistics of the weather from twenty years ago, and how that affects yesterday's weather. I don't need to know how many cubits make up the magical table they are hiding under! I like to read description that advances the story in ways important, but if there are whole paragraphs of useless gunk that doesn't even add to the story, I get pretty ticked off. 

No Plot
I HATE, absolutely HATE, synopsis's that lead you on about books full of action and suspense. Then you read the book and NOTHING happens till 20 pages from the end. What is this? That's not action filled. Or when nothing in general happens. The plot is focused on Romance drama and it ends with a cliff-hanger so that the real story can start in book 2. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. 

Contradicting Actions
So you love to read about kick-butt characters and you hear about this great book that has a kick-butt hero/ine. YAY! Then you get the book............whole different ball game. I really hate this kind of thing.  When you play up an aspect of the book or some character characteristic and then something completely different happens? For example, Born Wicked. The main character is described as independent. I had trouble with this. She takes a while stressing over the situation and knowing she needs to do something, but NEVER going anything. And then she doesn't stand up for herself at the end. Also, going back to yesterday's, in Crescendo, I thought Nora was being an idiot. I thought she was smarter! They talk about how she knows what's right but she does the opposite anyway. Shut. Up. Be true to what you say. Or don't exaggerate your book. 

Boring Characters
The characters, mainly the narrator are the LIFE of the story. If we hate them, your book goes out the window.  I really hate when they aren't developed and they are just telling the story. You see the plot more than the character. You don't get in their head, to their thoughts. I want to feel the story from their head. Not just see the actions through their eyes. There's a difference. And then there is the fact that they need a unique, interesting VOICE. What makes them different from the book next door? Why should I care? I think we can all agree on this one. 

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So. Those are the bats that like to haunt me, or at least the ones that get to me the most. What bats are in your pages? If you're participating in HW, link me to your post! If not, I'd still LOVE to hear about things that irritate you. Rant. I don't care! Happy Thursday! XOXO,



Wednesday, October 24, 2012
{This Girl Reads}
It is now, officially, HAUNTED WEEK. Rock on. :D I'm going to scare the book out of you this week with Ghosts, Bats and Skeletons all the way up to Halloween I review a very scary, yet awesome read! Yeah! Today's theme is.....
{This Girl Reads}
Oooooh! I come in a sheet with eye-holes to tell you about 5 books I never finished, that kind-of but don't really haunt me.................

THE GHOSTS..........
#1 A Temptation Of Angels by Michelle Zink
Why? Cliche. Descriptiveness  Bland Narrative voice. Cliche. Better books too read. No will-power to return to it. A shame with that interesting premise. Never mind.


#2 Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Why? BORING. Tinker Bell the narrator was an *cough*idiot*cough*. She didn't sparkle! She's Tink for goodness sakes. There was no Pixie Dust in this book. No reason to care for any of the characters except Peter.

#3 Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick
I liked HH, but in Crescendo it was all Nora's fault. She was so stupid it drove me insane. She directly disobeyed her promises, and what she knew she shouldn't do. And it was just...not so appealing. Oh well. I was probably only reading because of Patch.



#4 Unwind by Neil Shusterman
Huh. It was a great premise with lots of great blurb that that narration. So distracting and annoying that I couldn't focus on the story of the characters. It was like Omniscent+2nd+3rd POV all in one. Ugh. Never again. Alas alck, it sounded good.

#5 Legacy by Cayla Kluver
I like princesses. And hot princes. But I drowned in description before I even got to the hot boys. And because I was trying to save myself so I didn't turn into a ghost, I wasn't able to see the goodness in the MC. I couldn't connect. It was like I was in a Drowning-Sim Tank. :(

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So those are the scary little ghost that I never finished. They're very sad, but luckily they have enough fans and love their movies so they don't have to hate me. Yay! :D And that's day one of Haunted Week!  Yay! Check back tomorrow for some Bats in the Book Pages. *mysterious eye-wiggle*

What books have you never finished for any reason? If you're participating in HW, leave me a link to yours! If not, I'd still love to hear! XOXO,



Waiting on Wednesday
Welcome to my WOW, or HOW as I like to call it where I feature an upcoming release that I'm hyperventilating for! It's totally fun to geek out about upcoming releases! This event is hosted by the lovely Jill @ Breaking The Spine. Today's awesome-sauce pick is....

Strands of Bronze and Gold 
by Jane Nickerson
TBP: 3.12.13 by Random House
Goodreads / Purchase
The Bluebeard fairy tale retold. . . . When seventeen-year-old Sophia Petheram’s beloved father dies, she receives an unexpected letter. An invitation—on fine ivory paper, in bold black handwriting—from the mysterious Monsieur Bernard de Cressac, her godfather. With no money and fewer options, Sophie accepts, leaving her humble childhood home for the astonishingly lavish Wyndriven Abbey, in the heart of Mississippi.

Sophie has always longed for a comfortable life, and she finds herself both attracted to and shocked by the charm and easy manners of her overgenerous guardian. But as she begins to piece together the mystery of his past, it’s as if, thread by thread, a silken net is tightening around her. And as she gathers stories and catches whispers of his former wives—all with hair as red as her own—in the forgotten corners of the abbey, Sophie knows she’s trapped in the passion and danger of de Cressac’s intoxicating world.

Why I'm Hyperventilating:
So during last week's WOW session I heard about this from a blogger friend @ Debz Bookshelf who was waiting on this one. I FREAKED OUT. Literally on her blog. So now I'm going to hyperventilate on my blog. See, I kinda have this thing for the absurd, unknown fairy-tales out there, and Bluebeard is one of them. The only reason I know about it is from a BIG HUGE book we had when I was really little with lots of fairy-tales including lots of uncommon ones.

The story of Bluebeard has like ALWAYS fascinated me. Ever since that kids book. It's TOTALLY creepy, and So strange and weird, but awesome at the same time? It's funny how it works that way. lol. So that fact that this author decided to retell it is.....UH-MAZE-ING! People, if you haave NEVER-EVER heard of this book, you must read the read the gist on WIKIPEDIA. If you like creepy stories or uncommon fairy-tales then you will probably freak out like me. 

So I'm TOTALLY totally looking forward to this book! It sounds like it will be just as creepy as the original, and with that gorgeous cover, it's bound to be delicious to me. And the rest of the bookiverse. Meeeeeeeeep!!!! Yay!

So whatcha hyperventilating/wishing/waiting for this week? 
Leave a link peeps!


Tuesday, October 23, 2012
EmTalBookBlast
Welcome to the EMERALD TALISMAN Book Blast at Book Haven! 
Lots of great stuff here today so don't miss out!
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The Emerald Talisman (Audio Book) by Brenda Pandos  
Read by Mary Morgan
You can run from your destiny, but you can't hide. If for no other reason than to help endure the hormonal rush of high school, sixteen-year-old Julia Parker would trade her ability to feel her fellow students' emotions in a heartbeat, especially half the boys in class. When the beguiling Nicholas uses his superhuman strength to rescue Julia from the edge of a cliff before she's devoured by a bloodthirsty stalker, Julia is suddenly thrust into an underground world where people and animals are often one and the same. Fellow high school students disappear and only Julia and Nicholas know the truth. While Nicholas, a vampire hunter, is out stopping the ever-growing coven, an old friend entices Julia to join him on the dark side and a psychic tells Julia she alone is the key to stopping the madness, problem is it'll require Nicholas' life. 

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Meet Author Brenda Pandos:  

Brenda Pandos lives in California with her husband and two boys. She attempts to balance her busy life filled with writing, being a mother and wife, and spending time with friends and family. Working formerly as an I.T. Administrator, she never believed her imagination would be put to good use. After her son was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder her life completely changed. Writing paranormal romance became something she could do at home while tending to the new needs of her family, household, and herself.

Three years later, Brenda now has five books published, The Talisman Trilogy: The Emerald Talisman, The Sapphire Talisman, and The Onyx Talisman, and Mer Tales: Everblue and Evergreen. She is currently working on the third book of Mer Tales, Everlost, coming February 2013.

Website * Blog * Goodreads *Twitter * Facebook 

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Audio Book Tour !!!
Readers are invited to participate in The Emerald Talisman blog tour from 10/26-11/23 hosted by Confessions of a Bookaholic. There will be giveaways, interviews and a scavenger hunt! 

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Book Blast Giveaway Details:
$100 Amazon Gift Card or $100 PayPal Cash from Author Brenda Pandos
Ends 10/30/12
*You need not enter your twitter name for each entry.  Simply enter it when you follow Brenda and leave the others blank.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Open to anyone who can legally enter, receive and use an Amazon.com Gift Code or Paypal Cash. Winning Entry will be verified prior to prize being awarded. No purchase necessary. You must be 18 or older to enter or have your parent's permission. The winner will be chosen by rafflecopter and announced here as well as emailed and will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. This giveaway is in no way associated with Facebook, Twitter, Rafflecopter or any other entity unless otherwise specified. The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW.

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Thanks to Kathy the amazing blogger who does everything for putting this together and to YOU for stopping by today! Have fun with the Blast! I'm excited to read this book (It's FREE on Amazon Kindle!) and it looks fabulous. XOXO,





Sunday, October 21, 2012
HELLO!!!! Guys I'm so excited about today's awesome tour stop that I have for you. I get to review and then share a giveaway for Gravity by Melissa West. Thanks to Shane @ Itching For Books for setting up this  tour.

~~~~Review~~~~

Gravity by Melissa West
TBP: 10.30.12 by Entangled Teen
Pages: 199
Goodreads / Purchase
Don’t. Ever. Peek. Seventeen-year-old Ari Alexander just broke that rule and saw the last person she expected hovering above her bed — arrogant Jackson Locke, the most popular boy in her school. She expects instant execution or some kind of freak alien punishment, but instead, Jackson issues a challenge: help him, or everyone on Earth will die. Ari knows she should report him, but everything about Jackson makes her question what she’s been taught about his kind. And against her instincts, she’s falling for him. But Ari isn’t just any girl, and Jackson wants more than her attention. She’s a military legacy who’s been trained by her father and exposed to war strategies and societal information no one can know — especially an alien spy, like Jackson. Giving Jackson the information he needs will betray her father and her country, but keeping silent will start a war.

Inky's Blurbings
So I"m on the blog tour and I kinda feel that due to that fact,I'm supposed to have a good review. But maybe for the sake of the tour, it'll be good to have another opinion in there. Eh? I'm not impying I didn't like this book. Just that I didn't give me the right first impression and from there....well....here is my review, in impressions

My first impression: Oooh-Space? Intrigue, Romance! YES!

After the first two pages: What the heck is going on here?

Further in: So she didn't hardly notice you but as soon as she disobeys her societies one rule she's attracted to you. JINX,

A few chapters in: Thank you for avoiding the definition of this term. Oh and might I remind you that I'm not good at reading between the lines? Please tell me what this is!

1/4 way through: Interesting plot. I'm grasping at strings. This could get good.... Where is this insta-love coming from?

1/2 way through: Insta-love. Ick. You hardly know each other and then bing-bang-boom it turns into lets make-out. Oh and we have a plot going on what I half understand. But yay for your writing. You're really doing good at this. Minus the description point.

................
Okay enough. It sounds like I didn't like it doesn't it. Darn. It's one of those wierd situations where you feel like it's a good read, but there are all these problems and you don't know how to bring out the good in the book. *sigh* I did enjoy reading this. I did. But......

Honestly, there are lots of great reviews out for this book. So don't believe everything I say. I can be charmingly misleading. Trust your heart. Use the force...whatever. I hope you like this book. I really do.........

Content: Mild
(A couple instance mild language and innuendo)
2 Stars


About Melissa...
Melissa lives in a tiny suburb of Atlanta, GA with her husband and daughter. She pretends to like yoga, actually likes shoes, and could not live without coffee. Her writing heroes include greats like Jane Austen and Madeleine L'Engle. She holds a B.A. in Communication Studies and an M.S. in Graphic Communication, both from Clemson Universtity. Yeah, her blood runs orange.


~~~~~Giveaway!!!~~~~~
So, for all of you awesome peeps who ARE going to read the book-Yay You!- this is a fabulous opportunity to win a SIGNED(double awesome) copy of this book. Go enter, you know you want too!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Soo thanks for coming by the tour here at Book Haven, and surviving my review. ;P I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you're on the tour link me to your post/review. I'd love to read what you liked about the book. Are you Super-Super-Psyched for this book?! Tell me why! I want to hear! Have a fabulous day! XOXO,

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