Thursday, January 30, 2014

2014 Levithan Love-a-thon!!!

I'm so excited to announce this year's Levithan Love-a-thon!!!


For those new to the feature, here is the drill:

David Levithan is my favorite author and every February I dedicate my blog to his books.

This is my third attempt at this feature. Last year was an epic failure because I got really distracted by school and didn't keep up with it. This year I am going to keep things simple and just do what I can.

The plan is to feature three David Levithan reviews; How They Met and Other Stories (will be posted on 2.1.14), Love is the Higher Law (will be posted 2.14.14), and Two Boys Kissing (will be posted on 2.28.14)

I also have a new feature that I'm excited about. David Levithan has said that he has a love of photography. And apparently, one year he made a New Year's Resolution to take a picture every day. He enjoyed the challenge so much that he has continued doing it ever since.

Now, I don't think I could manage to take a picture every day. And I seriously doubt that I would be able to do it even longer than that. But I can do anything for a month! Especially considering the fact that February is the shortest month! So, for the month of February I will take a picture every day and I will post my pictures on the 10th, the 20th, and the 28th. I promise to make sure that not every picture is of my dog.

I'm excited about trying this activity because I'm a big believer that the observation of an action changes the action. So if you spend the whole day looking for beauty, you may just end up finding the beauty in everything around you.

Now, you may be asking yourself, how can I join in all the fun!?!?!

This year I'm going to keep the prizes simple.

Anyone who reads a David Levithan book and posts about it on their blog or twitter, or if you take photos and post about them on your blog or twitter, you can enter to win either a gift bag of goodies or a gift card from Amazon.

The number of prizes given out will depend on how many people join in. More People = More Prizes!!!

You can submit your entries any time between February 1st - midnight on February 28th. Winners will be announced on Sunday March 2nd.



I may be one of the last people still using google docs but like I said, I'm trying to keep this simple and I don't have time to learn a new thing right now. Maybe next year!

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Abducted by Lucky Harbor

Just before Christmas my friend Kim introduced me to a romance series called Lucky Harbor by Jill Shalvis. Normally it takes me about two weeks to read one book, but in just over two weeks I have read THREE of these books! And that is read read folks, not audio books! So, anyways, the series is basically centered around this town called Lucky Harbor but each book is its own relationship story. The first three are focused on the three sisters; Maddie, Tara, and Chloe. I figured since I read them each so quickly I would review them all together.

THE HEADLINE: Three sisters come together to rebuild their lives and find love in the process!

THE ABDUCTOR: In the first book, Simply Irresistible, we are abducted by Maddie and Jax. In The Sweetest thing it is Tara and Ford. And in Head Over Heels (my favorite) it is Chloe and Sawyer!

TIME IN CAPTIVITY: I loved the relationships between each of the sisters. When they first come to Lucky Harbor they hardly know each other. Their mom was a wanderer and Maddie and Tara were each raised by their dads. Chloe was the only one that was raised by their mom, but because her mom never wanted to stay in one place she was never able to have any stability and she didn't even know who her dad was.

After their mom dies she leaves them a run down inn in Lucky Harbor and the three come together to decide if they should sell or try to make a go at running the inn themselves. Maddie is recovering from a bad relationship, Tara has just ended an unhappy marriage, and Chloe, though she doesn't even realize it herself, is just looking for a family.

Each of the girls end up finding love in unexpected places, but they also come together and find themselves in the process. Yes, these are romance novels so there are some sexy sexy scenes! But they are also just gushy stories about falling in love and are fun to read!

I have a talent for falling in love with side characters when I read a book, so when I read Simply Irresistible,
even though the main guy was Jax, I was interested in one of his best friends, Sawyer. Once I realized that the third book was about him and Chloe I got really excited and rushed through the second book just to get to their story!

And that is kind of the fun thing about the Lucky Harbor series. As you are reading the books you can find all these side characters that you get to watch fall in love later. It is fun to try and spot which girls will become lucky ladies in future books, and which guys they just might get paired with.

PICK UP LINE: All of these books had great lines but I read them so fast I didn't get the chance to take notes. I remember that Simply Irresistible had a great line about over coming past failures. But at this point the only line I can really remember was when Chloe said “It is always darkest before the dawn, so if you are going to steal your neighbors newspaper that is the best time to do it!”

POINT OF ABDUCTION: I was abducted by each of these books pretty much from the word Go! But I’m trying to remember what got me in each one.

In Simply Irresistible it was after Jax kissed Maddie by his truck. Maddie was abused by her last boyfriend and would sometimes flinch involuntarily when Jax would reach for her. Realizing this, when Jax was kissing her by the truck he very softly warned her before he put his hand up to her face and it was really sexy!

The beginning of the Sweetest Thing did feel kind of shaky to me but I think the turning point was when Ford had a drinking competition with Tara’s ex, Logan. He ends up drunk dialing Tara and admitting to his insecurities and it is really sweet.

In Head Over Heels I was so excited to finally read about Chloe and Sawyer that I really was abducted from the very beginning! But my favorite part was when Sawyer had a really bad day at work and Chloe went to comfort him. It was sweet to see Chloe putting Sawyer first and being aware of his feelings.

ABDUCTION RATING: My abduction ratings shouldn't come as that big of a surprise but they are…



Simply Irresistible

I loved this book because it was the first book so it is when we are introduced to everyone, to the town to the locals, to the men! I was frustrated that people kept telling Maddie she wasn't ready for a relationship with Jax and I didn't like that he expected her to get over her issues from her last relationship so quickly. But watching Jax and Maddie fall in love was fun and watching the sisters come together was great!


The Sweetest Thing

I felt like the beginning was a little shaky but the book eventually evened out. There was a great story about Tara forgiving herself for a past mistake and facing her past. I kept getting a little bit frustrated that Tara and Ford found it so hard to talk to each other. But when you are dealing with those kinds of levels of shame and regret I can see where it is hard to face those you fear you hurt. 


Head Over Heels

WHOO HOO Chloe and Sawyer!!! What else can I say! I waited through two other books to get these two together and when it finally happened I was not disappointed! My heart really went out to Sawyer for all the insecurities that he was dealing from his past. And not only did this book have the love story, but it also had a great resolution to the sister story and a very mild crime drama thrown in! 

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Out with the Old in with the New

I am very excited about this new year! I have very high expectations and I think 2014 is going to be awesome!

I've seen a lot of posts going around with survey questions and resolution questions, but I've kind of decided to pull my favorite questions and make my own kind of summary!


BLOGGER RESOLUTIONS: 

blog more!

BOOKS OF 2013 I'M SAD I MISSED: 

All my David Levithan books because I didn't read them the way I should have last February.

11/22/63 by Stephen King. This book is really long so I doubt I'll ever read it, but if I ever was going to, it would have been awesome to read it this year since it was the 50th anniversary (of the date not the book).

The Dinner by Hermon Koch. I read a review for this one back in January and I've desperately wanted to read it ever since! Lucky for me my amazing sister and brother in-law gave it to me for my birthday so now I will definitely be able to read it this year! And I'm going to pick it for my September book club and force my friends to read it too!

BOOKS I WILL MAKE SURE NOT TO MISS IN 2014:

Armada by Ernest Cline and Landlines by Rainbow Rowell

WORST BOOK OF 2013: 

I really can't decide between these three: Carry the One by Carol Anshaw, Fallen by Lauren Kate, and Maybe a Miracle by Brian Strause.

BEST BOOK OF 2013:

Please do not make me choose between Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell! I could give you an answer but I would hate myself afterwards!

MY FAVORITE BOOK BLOGGING MOMENT OF 2013:

Any moment I spent reading DailyLifeWithButtons! Daily Life With Buttons is a blog that was started by my
little sister Lindsey! She moved to Texas a few years back and so I don't get to talk to her too much, at least not as much as when we were kids and shared a room and I kept her up late into the night talking her ear off! Anyway she started her own blog this year, and even though it isn't a "book" blog, I still swell with pride whenever I read it! I'm so proud of her for stepping outside her comfort zone and sharing her life through her writing! I hope all my friends will hop on over and give her some encouragement (hint hint hint!!!)

HOW MANY BOOKS ON YOUR TBR SHELF:

Well as of midnight on New Year's Eve it was 121, it has now already shrunk to 119 and I am desperate to get it down to 75 this year!

BOOK MOST RECOMMENDED:

Probably Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Only because it crosses so many genre borders. If you love the 80's, if you love sci-fi, if you love dystopians, if you love adventure stories, if you love boy meets girl stories, if you love friendship stories you will LOVE this book!

BEST NEW SERIES:

the Lucky Harbor series by Jill Shalvis! Can't thank Kim enough for that one! And I'm sure my future husband thanks you too

FAVORITE NEW AUTHOR:

I'm going to go with Rainbow Rowell! I feel like she is inside my head! And as much as I loved being introduced to Ernest Cline I've only read the one novel of his so far, where as Rainbow already has other novels out there for me!

FAVORITE BOOK OUT SIDE OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE:

I would say Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys. Historical Fiction isn't completely foreign to me but I really don't read that much of it at all. But this book was really good!

MOST SURPRISING BOOK: 

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I knew I would like it but I wasn't expecting to LOVE it!!!

MOST MEMORABLE CHARACTERS: 

Eleanor or Park...I really miss those two!

2013 RESOLUTIONS SUMMARY:

Well, my 2013 resolution was to not buy any books this year.
And I ended up buying......24!

BUT when you subtract the books I bought for book club (even though I could have gotten them from the library) and the books I bought to add to my C.S. Lewis collection, and the book Slam by Nick Hornby (that I already had listened to the audio book for and ended up finding for only a $1), and books I bought on my Kindle (because I got them all cheap and they didn't take up actual space on my physical tbr shelf)

THEN you are left with...2. I totally broke my resolution to by my own copy of Eleanor & Park back in September. And then I bought Attachments, that is also by Rainbow Rowell, in December.

I should also add that I was given 10 books from my friends and family. I created a list of all the books I would have bought if I could have through out the year and they totally came through for me on my birthday!

2014 RESOLUTION: 

I am again resolving to not buy any new books this year and I'm hoping I'll do a better job.

The only exceptions will be: books by C.S. Lewis, books bought at book signings and books bought on my Kindle.


Sunday, November 3, 2013

Sundays in Bed With...Nano

Today was Daylight Savings Time and I spent my extra hour: SLEEPING!!! and it was glorious!

In other news I have started my 2013 NaNoWriMo! I had a great start on Day 1 but yesterday I had to work and ended up babysitting my niece Isabelle and was way too tired to do anything after that. So now I am about 1000 words behind.

I know I have all day to write today but I also have to study study study for my Spanish test on Tuesday! I got a B last time and now I desperately want an A!

Back to my NaNo project...

My biggest challenge so far has been naming my main character. I usually love boy names for girls so I will give names like Dylan or Jordan to my main protagonists. However this year, I'm totally stumped!

Here is the dilemma:

My main protagonists needs to be an every day girl-next-door kind of character. And I want a name that is very unassuming.

I don't want too strong a name, but I don't want a weak name.

I don't want a common name, but I don't want a name that is too unusual.

And I don't want a name that everyone will have some preconceived idea of who that person is.

For example: I could easily assume that a girl named Dylan listens to classic rock music. Emma and Beth listen to pop and mainstream music. And a character named Kate would obviously listen to thrasher heavy metal!

What is funny is the only name I can think of that sounds perfect is...Courtney.

I mean think of it! Courtney is a name that everybody knows but it isn't too common. I looked on quite a few different Top Baby Names lists and Courtney wasn't on a single one!

And it is not a name that when you hear you automatically assume anything about it.

So what's the problem???

Oh, yeah, it's my name! No wonder I love it so much!

My other challenge this year is that for the first time I am taking part in NaNo as a pantser! For those who don't know "pantser" is the term for people who are flying by the seat of their pants instead of planning out what they are going to write. This is very tricky for me because I am normally a planner when it comes to EVERYTHING!!!

I've written a couple of scenes so far and one of the tricks I'm doing is that any time I write something that is specific to my characters I write it on a postcard and tape it to my closet door. So far I've given each of the main characters a specific color and then anything written in black is just basic plot points and then I'm just kind of going from there.

Right now this is what my door looks like but I'm hoping that by the time the month is over it will be far more colorful!

Anyway, if you are taking part in NaNo this year I hope all is going well and I can't wait to hear about how your progress is going! And for everyone else I hope you have a great Sunday!

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Dewey's Read-a-thon Hours 16-20 & Final Post


Total consumption today:

1 bowl of frosted mini wheats
2 cups of earl gray tea
2 cans of Dr Pepper
5 slices of Papa Johns garden fresh pizza
1 hour long nap
3 episodes of Angel 
1 melted fudge brownie cake!!!
1/2 of ice cold milk (to go with the cake)

TBR List:

Odd Is On Our Side - Koontz
House of Odd - Koontz
A Wrinkle In Time - L'Engle - was only able to read about 20 pages
Maybe a Miracle - Strause - I'm about 6 hours in which is just shy of half way!
The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight - Smith
Misery - King
Heroes - ? 

Non Read-a-thon Activities: 

English assignment which consisted of reading 12 poems and responding to them! That counts as reading right? 
clean apartment
set up antenna
get hair cut
laundry



There is no way I'm going to make it past hour 20! I'm not even going to make it all the way to hour 20! As I am writing this it is about 2:30 a.m. which is half way through hour 19 and I can not keep my eyes open anymore. I was trying to make a small dent in A Wrinkle in Time but the dent I made turned out to be very Very VERY small...because it was only 20 pages! Just in those 20 pages my eyes started watering like you would not believe!!!

And since I have a full day with friends planned for tomorrow I must get some sleep now and I wont be able to get up in 4 hours to write the last post for the readathon questionnaire. 


So here is my final summary: 

On one hand I feel that this is my best Read-a-thon ever!!! I finished all three of the graphic novels I had on my TBR list for forever and I finished the last half of The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight which was really good!

I also started Maybe a Miracle and I got almost half way through that one which is exciting! 

And like I said, I was able to read 20 pages of A Wrinkle in Time but I didn't even touch Misery.

I did get all of my non-read-a-thon activities done and ate some really good food. 

On the other hand I felt like this read-a-thon kind of sucked because I didn't give enough time to reading other blogs or participating in activities. There comes a point in ever read-a-thon where you have to make a choice between how much reading you get done and how many activities you get done. This year I was very much "quantity" focused, just trying to get as much read as I could. Who knows what my focus will be in the spring.

I hope everyone else had a great readathon!!! And enjoy the rest of your weekend in recovery!!!

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Dewey's Read-a-thon Hours 11-15


Total consumption today:

1 bowl of frosted mini wheats
2 cups of earl gray tea
2 cans of Dr Pepper
5 slices of Papa Johns garden fresh pizza
1 hour long nap
2 episodes of Angel 

TBR List:

Odd Is On Our Side - Koontz
House of Odd - Koontz
A Wrinkle In Time - L'Engle
Maybe a Miracle - Strause - I'm about 3 hours in and I'm really enjoying it!
The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight - Smith
Misery - King
Heroes - ? - I'm really excited because I started reading this one an hour ago and I'm over half way through! I should totally be able to finish it before I pass out tonight!!!

Non Read-a-thon Activities: 

English assignment which consisted of reading 12 poems and responding to them! That counts as reading right? 
clean apartment
set up antenna
get hair cut

I feel that I have had a very productive day! I'm excited about all that I have been able to read and the other items I've been able to get done today! Now I'm getting ready to go into hours 16-20. I probably wont be able to make it the whole way. I'm going to try to make it to at least hour 19 but we shall see.

My plans for the next section of the Read-a-thon are to finish Heroes and read 75 pages of A Wrinkle In Time and maybe some more of Maybe a Miracle. I am also going to make some brownies and do some laundry. I need to take my dog for a walk so hopefully all of that stuff will keep me up and alert enough to get my reading done.

Did I mention that I am also watching the 1st game of the Red Sox vs. Detroit for the second round of the pennant race for the World Series and that as of this moment we are going into the 8th inning with the Red Sox loosing by 1 run!!! Things are very tense in my apartment right now!


Dewey's Read-a-thon hours 6-10


The last five hours of the Read-a-thon have been pretty fun. I'm starting to feel a little tired though, mainly because I didn't get much sleep last night.

(1 hour later)
So I started to write this post a while ago to get it ready to be posted at the 10 hour mark. And right after I finished putting in the basics (the lists that follow) I laid down to listen to my audio book of Maybe a Miracle and totally fell asleep! At one moment I'm looking at the clock thinking it is 20 minutes until 4pm (CST) and the next thing I know it is 40 minutes after!

I've decided I need to move around a bit more in order to get my second wind. So I'm going to post this, and then I'm going to watch an episode of Angel whilst I do my English assignment (it has to be submitted by midnight tonight so I must get it done) and then I'll go get my hair cut and make it back in time for I think hour 12.

Total consumption today:

1 bowl of frosted mini wheats
2 cups of earl gray tea
2 cans of Dr Pepper
3 slices of Papa Johns garden fresh pizza

TBR List:

Odd Is On Our Side - Koontz

House of Odd - Koontz - I started this one and I have about 100 pages left
A Wrinkle In Time - L'Engle
Maybe a Miracle - Strause - I'm about 3 hours in and I'm really enjoying it!
The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight - Smith
Misery - King
Heroes - ?

Non Read-a-thon Activities: 

English assignment
clean apartment
set up antenna
get hair cut
 
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