Thursday, January 31, 2013

Follow Me Friday

This is the day of the week where we get to know each other better by answering a question devised by our lovely hostesses Parajunkee & Alisoncanread. We also gain new followers by joining each other's sites via GFC, so please let me know if you're a new follower. And now for this week's question....
Q. What's the first thing you would do if you woke up in your favorite book?
A.  Well since I am doing a re-read of Harry Potter right now and all the images are vivid in my mind I would run around and see all the wonderful sights there is to see! I have been to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and yes it was AMAZING! I will share some of those pictures here:





What about you?  Don't forget to scroll down on my blog to see my cool Beautiful Creatures swag giveaway!!!   Young Adult Giveaway Hop

Monday, January 28, 2013

Young Adult Giveaway Hop!



I love young adult books... so this hop was perfect for me!
As a lot of you know I run the Young Adult Book Club on goodreads... and we are currently reading Beautiful Creatures.  The movie is also about to come out... sooooo  this giveaway is perfect timing!!

1st Place!



 2nd Place!

3rd Place!






This giveaway is US only
Giveaway ends on 2/4/2013
Good luck.. find giveaway on Rafflecopter below.




 a Rafflecopter giveaway
  This is a blog hop.. please stop by the other blogs participating:

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Facebook marks my blog as spam!

Has anyone else experienced this with facebook.. you try to post a link to your blog from blogger and you get this warning:




I have of course clicked the let us know button to let facebook know it's not spam.  But that's like talking to the wall. Anyone else experience this? 

UPDATE:  someone let me know that you can use tiny URL to allow your post to show up on facebook. Thanks for the advice!

UPDATE 2:  I tried Tiny URL and it did not work!  BOO!!

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Follow Me Friday

This is the day of the week where we get to know each other better by answering a question devised by our lovely hostesses Parajunkee & Alisoncanread. We also gain new followers by joining each other's sites via GFC, so please let me know if you're a new follower. And now for this week's question....
Q. What is the last book to kept you up late into the night to finish it?
A. The last books I read that were really really good were the Locke and Key series by Joe Hill. 
It will blow your mind how good they are!
 They are graphic novels.. so they are really short.  Takes maybe an hour to read or so.  But they are good!!!  They will blow your mind... if you are bored right now you should take the time to glance through my reviews... Locke and Key.  I have some cool pics on each review!


What book did you just love????

Beautiful Creatures Swag Giveaway


 
I am excited to be able to give away some great swag for the upcoming movie Beautiful Creatures.  This giveaway has some great items. I hosting this giveaway for Warner Brothers and the Denver UA Pavilions movie theater.  Don't forget in case you haven't seen it, I am also helping give away FREE tickets to see the movie which you can read about in my movie ticket post HERE!

In case you don't know much about Beautiful Creatures here is the trailer to the film:


There is a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners.  The first place winner will receive the following swag package, it includes a long sleeve tee-shirt, a Beautiful creatures bag, the movie's official soundtrack CD, a key chain that mimics Lean's necklace, lip gloss, tattoos, and a few other pieces of swag :


The second place winner will get the following swag package, which includes a tee-shirt, the Beautiful Creatures official soundtrack CD, lip gloss, a poster, tattoos, a key chain that mimics Lena's necklace and other swag:


And finally, third place winner will receive the following swag package which includes a tee-shirt, a poster, tattoos, lip gloss, and other swag:



Here is my review: Beautiful Creatures

To Enter the giveaway:

You must be a member of the  Young Adult Book Club on goodreads.  This is because the giveaway goes with our book of the month Beautiful Creatures.
This giveaway is US residents only.
Giveaway ends 2/1/2013
To enter use the Rafflecopter Below

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Free tickets to Beautiful Creatures movie pre-screening



Hello everyone!!  As some of you may know my Young Adult Book Club is reading Beautiful Creatures this month.  I am happy to say that I was contacted by Denver Theaters to let everyone know that you have an opportunity to score free tickets to the pre-sreening of the movie on February 6th.  The link I am providing is only for the Denver, CO showing but I encourage all of you to sign up at Gofobo and see if there is a showing in your area too.  This is a good website for being able to get a sneak peek at a movie (not just this movie).  I will be there so let me know if you plan on attending the Denver screening also.  Here is the link to Gofobo .

The Denver Theaters has also given me some loot from the movie to giveaway so watch for the giveaway post on my blog soon!!  Enjoy!!





Thursday, January 17, 2013

Follow Me Friday


This is the day of the week where we get to know each other better by answering a question devised by our lovely hostesses Parajunkee & Alisoncanread. We also gain new followers by joining each other's sites via GFC, so please let me know if you're a new follower. And now for this week's question....
 
 
Q.  Who is your favorite villain from a book?  
A.  Well... I really love the Crimson King in Stephen King's Dark Tower books.  He is spooky and is amazing.  From wikipedia: 
the Crimson King is the ultimate ruler of the Red, and the archetypal embodiment of evil in Stephen King's fictional multiverse. His goal is to topple the Dark Tower which serves as the lynchpin of time and space, destroying the multitude of universes which revolve around it so that he can rule in the primordial chaos which follows.  He is totally evil!!


Who did you pick?

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia, Margaret Stohl - Review

 

Just took a break from my Harry Potter re-read to read the book club pick for my  Young Adult Book Club .  We read Beautiful Creatures which I was really excited about because the movie comes out next month.  Here is the goodreads description:

There were no surprises in Gatlin County. We were pretty much the epicenter of the middle of nowhere. At least, that's what I thought. Turns out, I couldn't have been more wrong. There was a curse. There was a girl. And in the end, there was a grave. Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever. Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them. In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.

I liked this book but didn't love it.  Since this is going to become a movie there is going to be some make-up from Ulta coming out for it: Beautiful Creatures Collection

I love when there is make-up that goes along with movies!!




 There may be some spoilers in this review so don't read forward if you were planning on reading the book!!  The small town talk over and over kinda bothered me.  I went to high school in a small town.. well not a tiny town but a town that's population was about 12000. It was about 8 miles from the city which was about 200,000. Both have grown now. I really didn't ever experience one person being excluded from everything. But I do know that in small towns the smallest things can make you popular. Sports, growing up in the town. There must've been more kids who weren't popular. This book seemed to just focus on the 5 popular kids and then Ethan and Lena. I wish we had heard about some of the other kids in town.
I thought throughout the whole book that we were going to find out something really cool about Ethan. But he was only a mortal. I kind of found it funny that I was wondering why the two didn't have sex when they got real hot and heavy. I just was expecting it... and then we come to find out had the two of them had sex he would've died. So I suppose it is a good thing they didn't because what a surprise that would've been!!!!!


I liked both their parents too. Well for Lena I liked her uncle not her mom. Though I do feel bad for Ethan and how his dad has checked out. We really didn't get to find out too much about what happens to him after all the events at the end of the book.

Sometimes Lena annoyed me about this whole wanting to lead a normal teenage life. Really what she sounded like to me is what any teenager would want. To be popular. She wanted to go to the dancing with an amazing guy. She wanted to have a huge party for her birthday and have the whole school there.. um yea most teens want that. Sit at the table with all the cool kids at lunch. So for me it didn't sound like she wanted to be a normal teenager but a popular teenager. When I was a teen in school I wanted all of that too. I had a little issue with this.. it seemed like normal feelings every teen in public school has.

I enjoyed this book but didn't love it. Some areas of the book just went on and on. I am actually kind of surprised this was made into a movie. One of the things for me is .. did it really need to be 600 pages long? Maybe that was too much.

The end of the book was amazing. I loved the last 100 pages or so. Exciting and things were finally coming together. I liked that some of the plot lines where hidden from us until the very end. Some I didn't even guess.n Larkin being Dark was a big surprise to me for example. I really loved the library in this book... though it would drive me nuts it's only open like 6 days a year!

I really loved Link as a friend. He was great and fun.

Question: was the dog killed? Boo was thrown to the side... did he ever come back? How did Ethan's mom die? (did I miss that part)? Deanna brings up a good questions that I didn't think of before that I feel should've been answer in this book. Why could Lena bring back the dead but not Genevieve? Because she was Natural and the chosen one?

I may wikipedia the rest of the series just to see what happens!

Some of the book was expected to me. Like the whole scene that was similar to Carrie when Lena and Ethan were at the dance and the bucket of wet snow landed on them. Really no teacher noticed this?

Overall I thought the book was OK... I think the movie will be much more fast paced and so therefore more enjoyable.

Would you recommend me continuing with the series???

The crystal ball says about this book:


Clouds are covering! A read that lets me down every now and then but peaks out of the clouds!







Sunday, January 6, 2013

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling-Review



Making progress in my re-read of Harry Potter!  Just finished book 4.  Here is the goodreads description of the book:

The summer holidays are dragging on and Harry Potter can't wait for the start of the school year. It is his fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and there are spells to be learnt, potions to be brewed and Divination lessons (sigh) to be attended. Harry is expecting these: however, other quite unexpected events are already on the march...

Well I am on my way...almost done with the series. I plan on reading the next three books this week! I am doing the Bout of Books read-a-thon this coming week so it is going to be perfect to finish the series.  Right now in my house we are also doing our annual Harry Potter Marathon!  We have a home theater so it is a lot of fun.  Though we did make some Over Sized Blueberry muffins from the Unoffical Harry Potter Cookbook and they turned out crazy!!  We try to make things that go along with Harry Potter during the marathon and this is what we chose this time.  Here is the recipe .  And here are some pictures:



The muffins tasted ok... but I think there were just way too many blueberries!!!

Anyways... back to book 4 right?  This is my most favorite movie and book.  I just love the new schools and the dance.  I love it all.  I find that this is the last book where the Potter crew are just kids. After this book I feel like their childhood is just gone.  I also really love the house elves in this one too!!

I just also bought the books in paperback AND in ebooks.  My husband and I have always read our hardbacks and they are just falling apart.  The ebooks were actaully quite cheap too!! About $55.. finally an ebook that isn't screwing us over in price!



Here are my reviews on the other books,
Harry Potter and the Deathly HallowsHarry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Socerer's Stone


The crystal ball says:

Sun is shinning!!!  Great day to go outside and read this book.


Saturday, January 5, 2013

Bout of Books 6.0 Goals and Updates

Bout of Books Read-a-Thon

I am going to participate again in this read-a-thon!  I really need to get caught up on some books and when I saw others participating in it I knew it was perfect for me. I almost missed out on it this time around.  I decided to go ahead and check the bout of books website to see when the next one is and walla!! It starts on the 7th!

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 7th and runs through Sunday, January 13th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 6.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. -From the Bout of Books 6.0 team


Don't forget to use the #boutofbooks hashtag when updating on Twitter and follow boutofbooks.
I will be updating my progress here and on my my twitter page.  

Time Devoted to Reading
I will be reading 4 hours a day/during the week/ not exactly sure how much reading I will get in on the weekend.  On Saturday I will be busy so not really sure about that day.

My Goals:
I would like to read 4 books.  I am in the middle of a Harry Potter re-read and really would like to get it done this week.  I am also reading Beautiful Creatures for my book club. I would like to participate in a twitter chat.  I participated in one last time around and it was a lot of fun and a GREAT place to get advice from other people.   
Just figured out the pages... so these 4 books total 2844 pages.  So I will have to read about 400 pages a day!!

Books to Read







Updates

Monday
Number of books I've read today: 0
Name of book: Beautiful Creatures
Total number of books I've read:0
Number of hours read:3 hours
What else I did: Not much else as far as my blog today.  Just got some good reading!!

Tuesday

Number of books I've read today:0
Total number of books I've read:0
Number of Hours I've read: 2
What else I did:  Dang this book is long!!  I need to put more hours in!


Wednesday

Number of books I've read today:0
Total number of books I've read:0
Books:
Number of Hours I've Read: 2
What else I did:  2 hours seems to be all I can get in each day since at night we are doing a Harry Potter marathon for the movies. 

Thursday

Number of books I've read today:0
Total number of books I've read:0
Books:
Number of Hours I've Read: 2
What else I did:  Man reading 400 pages is a day is impossible!  Totally not as easy as I thought it would be!

Friday

Number of books I've read today:
Total number of books I've read:
Books:
Number of Hours I've Read: 
What else I did:

Saturday

Number of books I've read today:
Total number of books I've read:
Books:
Number of Hours I Read: 
What else I did:

Sunday

Number of books I've read today:
Total number of books I've read:
Books:
Number of hours I read: 
What else I did:



Schedule

Bout of Books 6.0

Challenges/Giveaways

Monday1/7
Scientific Discovery - The Book Barbies

Tuesday 1/8
Guess the Cover - Never Too Fond of Books
Favorite/Funniest Cover - Ms. Buff's Blog

Wednesday 1/9
Page 48 Challenge - Booking In Heels

Thursday 1/10
Book Spine Poetry - Escape Through the Pages
Vampires in Popular Fiction - The One with Rachel's Book

Friday 1/11
Rewrite the Synopsis - A Daydreamer's Thoughts

Saturday 1/12
Name Your Book Crack - Bookgoonie
Bookish Dress Up - Nyx Book Reviews

Sunday 1/13
The New Year Resolution Challenge - Ex Libris


Twitter Chats
(chats last approximately one hour)
TZC = Time Zone Conversion

Monday: 1pm CST (TZC)
Wednesday: 8pm CST (TZC)
Saturday: 10am CST (TZC)

Bout of Books 6.0

Whoa I am almost missed this... and I need to catch up on reading sooo bad!!  Will post my goals soon!



Bout of Books Read-a-Thon
The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 7th and runs through Sunday, January 13th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 6.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. -From the Bout of Books 6.0 team

Thursday, January 3, 2013

World Book Night.. are you trying out?

Hello all.... it's the time to register for World Book Night again!  I learned about it last year.  I did register and wasn't chosen.  To be honest, I was a little surprised I wasn't chosen.  Were any of you chosen before?  If you were, why do you think you were chosen?  I don't know if I should sign up again and attempt it again or not?  

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Happy 2013!

Hello all!!  I am finally home after helping my dad get better from his motorcycle accident... I should be getting a lot more reading done now so expect to see more book reviews coming!!!