Follow Friday (18)

Follow Friday is a really fun way to network your blog and meet some other really cool bloggers in the process! This weekly event is hosted at Parajunkee's View and Alison Can Read.  The featured blogger today is Mollie @ Once Upon a Prologue!

Q: If you could change the ending of any book (or series), which would you choose, and why?

A: For a long time, I was a big House of Night fan.  I read through the sixth book and while reading the seventh, I just had to put it down and be done with it.  If it were up to me, I would have ended the series after about the fifth book, Hunted, killed the bad vampire and tied up all the loose ends right then and there.  The series just keeps going on and on and even though a little part of me still want to know what's going on, I just can't put myself through another book.  

September is for Reading Reviews

I have so many books that I need to read for review and I am ssssoooo behind!!!! I have books from Netgalley, from authors and from publishers that I said I would read and being the bad blogger that I am, I haven't read them yet.  But this September, starting with today, I will read only books I said I would review before reading anything that I've bought.  This is my commitment.  Let's see what I've committed to!

From Netgalley:

The Sleepwalkers by J. Gabriel Gates
Beyond the Grave by Mara Purnhagen
A Beautiful Dark by Jocelyn Davies
The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson
Cold Kiss by Amy Garvey
Eve by Anna Carey
The Iron Knight by Julie Kagawa
The Butterfly Clues by Kate Ellison
The Way We Fall by Megan Crew
Prized by Caragh O'Brien

From authors:

Remembrance by Michelle Madow
Lorelei and the Sirens by Aaronni Miller

From publishers:

Envy by Gregg Olsen
Harbinger by Sara Wilson Etienne

WOW! That is a lot of books! I have a busy month ahead of me and it will probably go into October. I'm so excited for fall to begin!

Want to see my R.A.K.?

Random Acts of Kindness is one of my favorite things to do every month and I love to see what bloggers sent and received over the month.

What I sent:

The Replacement to Vanessa @ Book Soulmates

Strange Angels to Amanda @ The Mortal's Library

Betrayals to Diana @ Books by their Story

What I got:

The Sky is Everywhere from Lisa
The Summer I Learned to Fly from Erika @ Readspect Reviews and Such
The Tail of Emily Windsnap from Jennifer   

A big THANK YOU to the Book Soulmates who make RAK possible and those who sent me books! You guys are amazing :)

I also thought this picture of me on the right is very appropriate.  It's my friend and I in Hollywood on the stars!

              

Waiting on Wednesday (30)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we are eagerly anticipating. This is one of my favorite memes because not only is my TBR pile so much bigger at the end of the night but also the covers are always amazing!

This week I'm eagerly anticipating Darker Still by Leanna Renee Hieber.  I love period novels, especially those set in the eighteen hundreds with gorgeous dresses.  The concept is very unique and I think it's going to be really fun to read!

Hitting the shelves: November 01, 2011

The Picture of Dorian Gray meets Pride and Prejudice, with a dash of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

New York City, 1882.  Seventeen-year-old Natalie Stewart's latest obsession is a painting of the handsome British Lord Denbury.  Something in his striking blue eyes calls to her.  As his incredibly life-like gaze seems to follow her, Natalie gets the uneasy feeling that details of the painting keep changing...

Jonathan Denbury's soul is trapped in the gilded painting by dark magic while his possessed by commits unspeakable crimes in the city slums.  He must lure Natalie into the painting, for only together can they reverse the curse and free his damaged soul.  

What are you waiting for?

Review- Abandon

Title: Abandon
Author: Meg Cabot
Publisher: Point (Scholastic)
Find it here: Amazon, Goodreads
Source: Purchased

Though she tries returning to the life she knew before the accident, Pierce can't help but feel at once a part of this world, and apart from it.  Yet she's never alone...because someone is always watching her.  Escape from the realm of the dead is impossible when someone there wants you back.

But now she's moved to a new town.  Maybe at her new school, she can start fresh.  Maybe she can stop feeling so afraid.

Only she can't.  Because even here, he finds her.  That's how desperately he wants her back.  She knows he's no guardian angel, and his dark world isn't exactly heave, yet she can't stay away...especially since he always appears when she least expects it, but exactly when she needs him most.

My thoughts:

I have been a long time fan of Meg Cabot's work.  From the Boy Next Door to her Queen of Babel series, she has always drawn me in hook, line and sinker.  Abandon was pretty good but there are noticeable differences between her young adult novels to her adult novels.

Greek mythology is really hot in the young adult world right now and I enjoy the different spins the authors put on the stories.  Abandon and The Goddess Test are both based on the same Greek myth (Hades and Persephone) but are completely different.  I like Meg Cabot's version better because the story is a lot darker than Aimee Carter's The Goddess Test.  When I think of Hades, who is the ruler of the underworld and seems to have a lot of bad luck, I think of someone dark and brooding, the way that Meg Cabot writes Hades.

I also liked the effect that Hades has on Pierce.  Even though she was not the perfect teenager with a clean while slate, she starts to become a different person after she is trapped by Hades.  It's almost like he's grooming her to be the person he needs her to be.  She becomes a lot more reckless and becomes a darker character than before she died.

I'm really looking forward to the next one and having read many of Meg's books, I know that there's a lot coming that we just have to wait for.  There was a lot of set up in Abandon so I'm excited to see where the story goes from here!

Review- The Beginning of After

Title: The Beginning of After
Author: Jennifer Castle
Publisher: HarperTeen
Find it here: Amazon, Goodreads
Source: ARC via Netgalley/HarperTeen
Hitting the Shelves: September 6, 2011

Anyone who's had something truly crappy happen to them will tell you: It's all about Before and After.  When I'm talking about here is the ka-pow, shake-you-to-your-core-and-turn-your-bones-to-plastic kind of crappy.

Sixteen-year-old Laurel's world changes instantly when her parents and brother are killed in a terrible car accident.  Behind the wheel is the father of her bad-boy neighbor, David Kaufman, whose mother is also killed.  In the aftermath of the tragedy, Laurel navigates a new reality in which she and her best friend grow apart, boys may or many not be approaching her out of pity, overpowering memories lurk everywhere, and Mr. Kaufman is comatose but still very much alive.  Through it all there is David, who swoops in and out of Laurel's life and to whom she finds herself attracted against her better judgment.  She will forever be connected to him by their mutual loss-a connection that will change them both in unexpected ways.

My thoughts:

I had a really hard time getting though this book.  It was kind of too long for a story that did not have much depth and I kept thinking to myself, "just end already."  I'm not trying to say that it was a terrible book, but it was just slow and the same thing would happen again and again.  Let me explain.  Laurel's parents and brother die in a car accident along with her neighbor's mother and leaves his father in a coma.  David, the neighbor, disappears right after the accident but he would come back to town, he would flirt with her and use her, making her think that he likes her and then he would leave.  But it happened multiple times and it really bothered me.  I just don't have patience for people like that.

I liked the concept of the Before and After and that when people go through a traumatic event, the divide their life into before it happened and then after it happened.  I understand that she had to create a new reality for herself and deal with a terrible loss, but honestly, I was bored.  Real life just bores me sometimes which is probably why I like paranormal and supernatural books better than contemporary fiction.  It was just too sad and somber for me.  I've read other reviews that were just raving and glowing, saying that it really struck a chord in them.  But not me, not my type of book.

I do like the way the book dealt with grief.  Usually, it's not something that you can go through alone and a counselor is always a good idea to help you get through anything difficult.  I don't want to tell you how it ends so you're going to have to read the book to find out if she has a happily ever after.

In My Mailbox! (23)

In My Mailbox is an awesome way to connect with our blogger and reader friends and share which amazing books we received, bought or borrowed during the week! This weekly meme is hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren.

I had a pretty good week because I got a lot of review books and I didn't buy any!  I'm super excited to read all of them and most of them look pretty creepy which makes me even more excited! Hope you enjoy! And don't forget to leave me a link so I can check out your mailboxes :)

For Review:

Envy by Gregg Olsen

Harbinger by Sara Wilson Etienne

The Way We Fall by Megan Crewe 

The Butterfly Clues by Kate Ellison

Won:

Tempest by Holly Hook (from Ashley @ What's Your Story? Thanks so much!)