Feature & Follow #37 -- Or the one where I go from "meh" to "LOVE"!!!

     So, Feature and Follow Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read.  It's where you answer the weekly question and then link yourself to the social hop!  We each go check out the other blogs, helping to support our endeavors as a community.  Also, do it just because it's fun! :D

Q: Have you ever disliked or felt “meh” about a book only to later change your mind and love it?

Prompt Submitted by: Megan @ Love Literature Art and Reason

A:  I don't usually change my mind once I've read a book, but currently I'm re-reading Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas, and I'm enjoying it way more than the first time I read it four years ago (I wouldn't call it love thought)! :D

     If you stop by and want to follow us, we prefer Facebook, Bloglovin and Twitter follows (please and thank you)! :)  Happy visiting everyone!

Feature and Follow #36 - Or the One Where We Talk Paper or Ebooks!

       So, Feature and Follow Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read.  It's where you answer the weekly question(s) and link yourself to the social hop!  We each go check out the other blogs, helping to support our endeavors as a community.  Also, do it just because it's fun! :D

Q:  Hard print (real thing) or Kindle/Nook, which is your favorite?

A:  To be honest, it's more of a 50/50 situation nowadays.  I love the fact that I have so many choices when I'm carrying my Kindle around, and I have noticed that reading is easier on my Fire than it was with my Touch.  But I do always have at least one print book in my purse at all times, and I do seem to read faster with an actual book most of the time.  What about everyone else?  What do you all prefer?  Share with me in the comments! :D

       If you stop by and want to follow us, we prefer Facebook, Bloglovin', and Twitter follows (please and thank you)! :)  Happy visiting everyone!

Feature and Follow #35 - Or the One Where I Talk About Doubles...

       So, Feature and Follow Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read.  It's where you answer the weekly question and link yourself to the social hop!  We each go check out the other blogs, helping to support our endeavors as a community.  Also, do it just because it's fun! :D

Q:  Do you own any doubles of your books?  What led you to getting a second...or third or fourth...copy?

A:  So, yeah...I'm going to admit that I'm a bit of a freak about my Anne of Green Gables series!  I have the first two books three times each!  I have a falling apart Scholastic paperback, a beautiful illustrated edition and an ebook of #1.  Of #2, I have an old (slightly falling apart) hardcover edition, a paperback version and an ebook.  The third one I have a paperback and an ebook.  The rest are just paperbacks, but I'd love hardcovers with the original artwork.  A first edition of AoGG is my dream book!  I love old books and old children's books are my personal crack (I desperately want the anniversary edition of A Wrinkle in Time too, even though I have a paperback and an ebook!).  I'm going to shut up now, and put the freak flag away!!! LOL

       If you stop by and want to follow us, we prefer Facebook, Bloglovin', and Twitter follows (please and thank you)! :)  Happy visiting everyone!

Feature and Follow #34 - Or the One Where I Share My Favorite Books of 2014!

       So, Feature and Follow Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read.  It's where you answer the weekly question and then link yourself to the social hop!  We each go check out the other blogs, helping to support our endeavors as a community.  Also, do it just because it's fun! :D

Q:  Happy New Year!!!  What was your favorite book of 2014 - or books if you can't name just one? -- via AlisonCanRead

A:  I had so many this year!  Here are some pictures linked to the Gooreads pages, of my absolute top favorites! :D

    

    

    

    

    

      If you stop by and want to follow us, we prefer Facebook, Bloglovin' and Twitter follows (please and thank you)! :)  Happy visiting everyone!

Top Ten Tuesday #22: Top Ten Sequels I Can't Wait For!

1.  The Retribution of Mara Dyer By Michelle Hodkin:  This was released a couple weeks ago, but I'm still waiting for my library hold to come in.  TWO YEARS of waiting for this one!!!  It was supposed to come out last year and I'm dying to see what happens.

2.  Mr. Kiss and Tell (Veronica Mars #2) By Rob Thomas & Jennifer Graham:  Kind of a cheat, since I already read it (I was NetGalley approved).  But I LOVED it so much and want my own copy!  Also, my e-galley was missing the last few pages.  It will torture me until January!!!

3.  Untitled (The Chronos Files #3)  By Rysa Walker:  There is no title or cover yet, but I can't help being excited for this one!  The way the second book left off (huge cliffhanger!), I desperately want to know what happens next.  One of the best time travel series I've ever read!

4.  The Wicked Will Rise  By Danielle Paige:  Eagerly awaited sequel to one of the more entertaining and well built novels I read this past year.  I will be interested to see what happens to Amy Gumm and the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked!  *I am somewhat torn on even reading this, due to the whole Kathleen Hale business and Paige's support of her on Twitter.  Not okay.

5.  The Winner's Crime  By Marie Rutkowski:  Arin and Kestrel's further adventures are of immediate interest to me!  The first book was so different and odd, but really well written.  I'm curious to see how Rutkowski expands on her original world/culture and what she does to her characters.  Especially Kestrel, whose life is a MESS.

6.  Untitled (Starbound #3)  By Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner:  Even though I didn't like This Shattered World as much as the first book in the series, I'm curious to see if Kaufman & Spooner choose yet another two new characters to write about, or revisit their past ones.  Either way, it'll be an intriguing read.

7.  Every Last Breath  By Jennifer L. Armentrout:  OMG!  Zayne or Roth???!!!  I don't know anymore and I will be satisfied AND crushed by the end of this trilogy, no doubt.  The power of JLA, I'm tellin' ya!

8.  Oblivion (Nevermore #3)  By Kelly Creagh:  This book was originally slated for 2013 - its current release date is July 28th, 2015!  TWO YEARS!!!  'Nuff said.

9.  Dearest  By Alethea Kontis:  I kind of loved Friday in the last two books and I'm super glad she's getting her own story.  The fact that it's a semi-retelling of the Wild Swans fairy tale is just a bonus!

10.  Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke  By Anne Blankman:  I haven't even read the first one yet.  But I have it on my Kindle and I have an overwhelming feeling I'm going to love it, the way I didn't exactly love "Code Name Verity."  I will be chomping at the bit for the second one!!! :D

Top Ten Tuesday #21: Top Ten Authors We Own the Most Books Of

     Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly event hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, which allows bloggers to share lists of some of our favorite (and not-so favorite) things.  This week we'll be highlighting the top ten authors whose books we own the most of!

     I just purged my bookshelves recently, so this list will be a little different then it would have been a mere week or two ago.  Also, I don't necessarily have an author I love enough to want to collect every single book they've ever written.  If I know I won't be re-reading something often, I'm in a place now where I don't have room to buy and keep a book simply to have it.  They have to be important to me!  So here is my attempt at finding ten decently high counts on my bookshelves.

*Quick Note:*  Disregard everything I said above!  I own 42 V.C. Andrews

Top Ten Authors Whose Books I Own the Most Of

1. V.C. Andrews - 42 Books (I own all her books from Flowers In The Attic, up through the first two in the Willow series which in my opinion is when they started to really suck.  I used to be so obsessed with her books!)
2. L.J. Smith - 16 Books (This is mainly because I own LOTS of her trilogies/series from the 90s!  I.E. Forbidden Game, Night World, the original Vampire Diaries books, etc.)
3. Meg Cabot - 16 Books (So, all the Princess Diaries books and her All-American Girl series, plus her teen historical romance...so, yeah.)
4. Charlaine Harris - 15 Books (Only explanation needed: Southern Vampire Mysteries aka Sookie Stackhouse.  I rest my case.)
5. L.M. Montgomery - 13 Books (All of her Anne of Green Gables books and her Emily of New Moon series as well.  Actually, doubles of the first two books in the Anne series.  So the basics, really!)
6. Christopher Pike - 9 Books (All of his Last Vampire series [6 books] and his Remember Me series, which is one of the best about re-incarnation I've ever read!)
7. Rick Riordan - 8 Books (I'm one short of owning all the Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus series' books.  All I need is Mark of Athena!)
8. J.K. Rowling - 7 Books (Do I even have to explain this one? :p)
9. Jane Austen - 6 Books (Everything written by the master.  Ever.)
10. William Shakespeare - 5 Books (Hamlet, Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Taming of the Shrew & Romeo + Juliet - all my favorites by him!  I'm especially a fan of TotS.)

Top Ten Tuesday #20 - My Top 10 Reads So Far This Year

     Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly event hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, which allows bloggers to share lists of some of our favorite (and not-so-favorite) things.  This week we'll be highlighting the top ten books we've read so far this year!

     I had read about twice as many books this time last year as I have now.  I have a much smaller pool of reads to choose from, so I will try to make it to ten but I don't know for sure if I will.  I'm going to link the pictures back to my own reviews of the books, so that you can read in my own words what I enjoyed/loved about these books! :)

Top Ten Books I've Read So Far This Year (2014)

Top Ten Tuesday #19 - Beach Bag Reads!

     Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly event hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, which allows bloggers to share lists of some of our favorite (and not-so-favorite) things.  This week we'll be highlighting the top ten books that will be in our beach bags this summer!

     

     I am ashamed to admit that this is my first TTT since February!  But I will say that my personal life has been kind of crazy.  My Mom was in the hosptial for the entire month of February, and I was basically running the household with my Dad during that time.  Then she spent most of March recovering, and in April and May I was working 70-80 hour work weeks at two different jobs, one of them very physically demanding.  I am still kind of exhausted and mentally drained, but I am making a comeback! :D  So, here are the ten books that I want in my beach bag this summer!

Top Ten Books In Anna's Beach (and Park) Bag this Summer

One Good Knight (The 500 Kingdoms #2) by Mercedes Lackey:  This is the last book in the series that I haven't read yet!  Desperately want to finish it, and it's light (and humorous) enough for a beach read.

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart:  I keep hearing everyone talk about how great this book is!  Is it good enough to be my intro to E. Lockhart?  It's definitely small enough to take to the beach.

My Faire Lady by Laura Wettersten:  This sounds so cute, and like the perfect summer book!  The main character works at a Ren Faire!  What's more summery than that? :)

The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place by Julie Berry:   It sounds like a historical kid's book version of Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead - it's bound to be hilarious and kick-ass in other words!

Nantucket Red (Nantucket #2) by Leila Howland:  Nantucket Blue, the first in the series, was one of my favorite reads last summer.  I'm excited to read what happens next with Cricket!

Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt:  I read this book every summer, because it's a classic that I love.  It's about life, death and the consequences of both.

Making Money (Discworld #36) by Terry Pratchett:  I need to get on this already!  I loved Going Postal, so I don't know why I haven't read this one yet.  And I think there's a third one coming out with Moist, Adora, et all coming out soon.  I'm behind!

*Edit: It's called Raising Steam and has been out since November 2013!  I am officially pathetic!

Fortunately, The Milk by Neil Gaiman:  Because I need more Neil Gaiman in my life, and I seem to gravitate more to his kid's books (they are wonderful).  This sounds like fun!

Landline by Rainbow Rowell:  If you have not read anything by this lady, do yourself a favor and pick up her stuff!  If you have, you get why I'm dying for July to get here already!

Llanview in the Afternoon: An Oral History of One Life To Live by Jeff Giles:  What's more perfect to read about at the beach than the history of a soap opera?  I watched this on and off from 1998-ish till it went off network TV in 2012.  I would love to get my hands on a copy of this book!

That's my list for the week, I hope you find something interesting on it!  I can't wait to see everyone else's beach read hopefuls, and I would love to have a conversation in the comments.  I'll see you all again next week! :D

Top Ten Tuesday #18 - Books That Make Me Cry

     Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly event hosted by The Broke and The Bookish, which allows bloggers to share lists of some of our favorite (and not-so favorite) things.  This week we’ll be highlighting the top ten books that made us cry!  I am not usually a crier, and it takes something really emotional to jerk my heartstrings into phoning it in to my tear ducts!  I think this list was difficult for me, because I have so few books that really affect me that way.  But the ones that have are beautiful and definitely need to be shared with more people.  Some of them are pretty famous though (which is for good reason).  I hope you guys check them out and love them just as much as I do!

     

     As always, happy Tuesday and have fun everyone!  Also, MAKE SURE TO LEAVE A LINK TO YOUR POSTS SO I CAN VISIT YOU GUYS TOO!!!  Without further adieu, the books (it's always all about the books)!  :)  All of the books are linked to their Goodreads pages. 

Top Ten Books That Made Me Cry

1. A Walk To Remember by Nicholas Sparks:  Back when he'd only written a couple of books and this was such a thing among all the girls in my middle school!  Oh God, did I ever bawl like a baby at the ending! 
2. Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick:  This was a very personal read for me and I can't exactly divulge why (as it's a really big spoiler), but I was bawling my eyes out by the time the book ended.  It seriously wrecked me for days.
3. Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery:  Seriously, when Gilbert is ill and Anne is regretting their estrangement I was choking back sobs (all the times I've read it; which is many!).  Poor Anne and Gil, almost losing their chance at true happiness!
4. Christy by Catherine Marshall:  Ohmigod!  Fairlight! And anything Miss Alice ever says, along with all those poor and proud kids.  I absolutely adore this book, but it always mists me over.
5. The Probability of Miracles by Wendy Wunder:  This book is to me what The Fault In Our Stars seems to be to everyone else in the book world, on the internet and in the YA circles in general.  It's a cancer story, but it's so much more than that.

     6.  Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell:  This made me cry as much for Eleanor and Park's ill-fated, 

          beautiful first love as it did for Eleanor's life in general.  By the ending I was in love with both of them.

     7.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:  The others got to me, sure, but even when the big WTF 

          happened at the end of HBP, I didn't cry.  This one though, was nonstop!  Hedwig, George's ear, 

          Remus, Tonks, Fred, and also the Ron reunuion, etc.  SO MANY FEELS (which the epilogue 

          promptly RUINED)!

     8.  Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares:  Maybe because it was the last one in the series.  Or 

          maybe because there was a character death that was strategically planned to make the tears gush.  

          Also, Bee goes through the most it seems like, and she's my absolute favorite of them all.  Insta-tears.

     9.  Ordinary People by Judith Guest:  It's about the distinegration of a family after the death of their               oldest son.  It's a sad and depressing book to begin with, but when Conrad finally lets loose in his                 shrink's office my floodgates open.

   10.  Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt:  Considering the whole theme is choosing between living 

           forever or just one lifetime, tears aren't surprising.  But at the end, when we find out Winnie's choice, 

           I always feel weepy.

Honorable Mentions

1. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
2. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
3. The Cider House Rules by John Irving

Book Blogger New Year's Challenge - Day 6

     So...yeah.  I have already gushed about this one in numerous memes (TTT and FF most notably) and absolutely adore it to pieces!  I don't know why it all comes down to this book, when I read so many in 2013 that I loved!  But there was just something about this one that meant so much more to me.  Read my review here.

Book Blogger New Year's Challenge - Day 5

     So, usually when I'm hating a book I decide to DNF it - mostly to preserve my own sanity.  But I also have struggled with a massive guilt complex about not finishing what I've started.  So I tend to let myself get suckered in by books that start out not so bad, but tailspin into nightmare train-wrecks!  I don't know about worst, but the most memorably bad book I read in 2013 was Towering by Alex Flinn.  A seriously big mess of a book, but when there was a plot twist involving an LSD drug leaf being grown by enslaved people underground...yeah, just NO!!!  My review here.  Read at your own risk!!!!!

Book Blogger New Year's Challenge - Day 4

The Books I Won't Miss In 2014

There are SO MANY books I could include in this!  But I'm just going to list the ones that I absolutely have a biological, moral and every other kind of imperative to read! :D