Movin' Out

For anyone who might read this blog and is interested in continuing to read stuff made by me, I have moved over to a new blog.  I have decided that I need A New Start.  So if you are interested head over to A Book and Two Sugars.

Valentine Murder

In order to restore my pride, I buckled down and read a cozy mystery to make up for my January failure.    

Valentine Murder by Leslie Meier

There wasn't very much of a Valentine's Day theme to this book.  It had more to do with a library, antiquing, and construction.  It was a pretty good read however, at least it was MUCH better than the previous cozy mystery that I attempted.  It was a cute, light read and I could see myself recommending this series to someone who is looking for a quiet mystery.  It also made me want cupcakes. Pink cupcakes with conversation heart candies on top, to be specific.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

True Crime
Fantasy
Horror
Mystery - “Cozy”
Mystery - other
Romance
Science Fiction
Western
Thriller
Christian Fiction
Paranormal

Failure

I must admit to failure.  The first month of my reading challenge I dropped the torch.  I tried, I really did!  I started reading...gosh I can't even remember the name.  It was a cozy mystery with a clever, punny title about death and books.  It just wasn't for me.  It lost me when the heroine found the body and the last lines of the chapter were something like "I saw him lying on the thick purple Parisian carpet with his throat slit.  He was dead."  All I could think was (and excuse my meme-ing):

Really?  His throat is cut, and he died?  That almost never happens, except for pretty much always.

 

Moving on to February, in which I successfully read a book from my challenge!  

Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes

This book was split into two timelines.  There was the story going on in 2003-4 and followed Catherine Bailey as she met the man of her dreams, and we witness through her eyes as he you discover how crazy and violent he is.  The second storyline follows Cathy Bailey as she is dealing with OCD and PTSD as she struggles to deal with the trauma of her past.  The suspense aspect comes in when she starts to suspect that he is coming back for her.

Haynes delivered an extremely suspenseful and gripping read.  It started out slow, but it built up the small details which made the suspense even that more heart pounding.  I will admit this isn't terrible outside my normal reading, I do love suspenseful books, I just rarely pick them up.  I am very thankful to my goodreads friend who reviewed this book.  I have been telling my friends all about it in person, and I know I have at least one adding this to their goodreads now.

This fits into my "thriller/suspense" catagory.

True Crime
Fantasy
Horror
Mystery - “Cozy”
Mystery - other
Romance
Science Fiction
Western
Thriller
Christian Fiction
Paranormal

The Dreaded Cowboy

For this coming year, I have decided to challenge myself.  As a reference/fiction services worker I feel I ought to expand my knowledge base.  Every month this year I am challenging myself to read a book from a genre that I generally don't touch.  And in some cases it will be the first book of the sort I have ever read. (*cough* Westerns *cough*)  I am mostly excited, except for a couple of genre's that I am a little more hesitant towards...(*cough* Westerns *cough*).

The list, in no particular order, is as follows:

True Crime
Fantasy
Horror
Mystery - “Cozy”
Mystery - other
Romance
Science Fiction
Western
Thriller
Christian Fiction
Paranormal

The last month is reserved for a genre of my choice.  I will keep track of my progress here.  I hope this proves to be a valuable exercise and not the portrait of one girls decent into madness (*cough* Westerns *cough*).

Watch Locket Craft

I realised that I have about a million cheap old watches that have died.  And it would be cheaper to replace them with a new cheap watch, rather than buy a battery.  Plus, I never wear watches.  So I decided to recycle them into lcokets!

Ok, that is a lie.  My dad had this idea, actually, and told me I should do it.  To my credit however, I recognized the idea for the genius it was and successfully brought the project to life.

Step One:  I found a watch that I wanted to use.
 (Or in this case, several.)

 

Step Two:  Then I pried the back of with a butter knife, and took out its innerds.  I saved the clock faces for later crafting purposes.

Dismantled watch in all its glory.

Then I shrunk down a few favourite photographs in Paintshop, printed 'em out, cut them to fit and voila! Stuck them in, shut the back and now I have a bunch of beautiful lockets. Super easy.

Emo Love Poetry

Today marked the first rehersal for Shakspeare in the Park year 4! This year is Romeo and Juliet, and I was lucky enough to snag Juliet. And my Romeo is one of my good friends, who I have already acted "the lover" with so its not so terrifying as it might be. Also the first full day being home from school and it was great to see all my friends.

I wish I had a better point to this post, other than to gush about how great rehersal has been.

We only have about 8 weeks untill performance which is only scary if you think about it. So I won't. All better :)

But no matter HOW rushed we are we will definitly be better than this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr1gk9nwTYY

(pssst... follow the link... I dont know how to embed videos. dont worry no nudity, strong language or other offensive articles)

Also a great moment between my and friend, also daddy capulet...

Daddy Capulet- "Your only 14! You don't know what love is! Paris is love!"
Juliet- "No, its Emo Poetry, and thats what me and Romeo have!"

Well. It was funny at the time.

So, yeah.

Here's the thing.
There is this really really good book called Wither by Lauren DeStefano. And the auther is having a contest where you can win a personalized copy of Wither AND the yet-to-be-released ARC of its sequal, Fever. In order to enter the contest, you post a link back to the contest and then post a comment on the blog with a link to where you posted it.
So thats all this blog post is really about. No big insights, or words of wisdom, or hilarious stories from my life.
No no.
It's better. Its a chance to go enter yourself in this contest yourself! or at least a nudge to go pick up Wither. Cus its super good.

Here is the link! Click away!

Favourite 10 Books of '10

So I have decided to share my favourite books from 2010. They were not all published in 2010 because I tend to buy books and read them a while later, or wait till the paperback comes out. And some are oldies that I have only finally gotten to.

1. Guernsey Literary and Potatoe Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows
I got this one for christmas and read it in about one sitting.

2. Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
This is one where I waited for the paperback. And now I am eagerly waiting for the sequal to come out in paperback!

3. Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe
Another wait for paperback book. Magical and suspenseful and just lovely.

4. Linger by Maggie Steifvater (2010)
This one I didn't wait for paperback! Loved the first one and couldn't wait to get my hands on the sequal. It lived up to the first one for sure, and I am now on pins and needles waiting for the third.

5. Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Yep. Didn't read this one till this year. Fairly recently in fact. I heard alot of good things about it and decided to buy it when in came out in paperback. Two excuciatling long years later it was finally published and I found I regreted waiting so long.

6. Pretty Little Liars(series) by Sara Shepard
I read this whole series on the kobo application on my blackberry. Definitly made my long bus rides worthwhile! Very good series, full of mystery and suspense and brand names. I am very happy to hear the author is adding four more books to the series.

7. Jane by April Lindner (2010)
This was a buy-it-the-very-day-it-came-out kind of book. Come on, modern retelling of Jane Eyre?! Got to have it! And I loved it!

8. The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams
Had me sweating and breathing hard and clutching the book in panic at the end. Suprisingly very suspenseful. Got me into reading a bunch of other polgymist novels as well. Its a interesting subject to say the least!

9. The Shadow Rising (Book 4 of the Wheel of Time Series) by Robert Jordan
Been working on this series since about this time last year so I feel it must be mentioned as it is as a series VERY good! I chose this book to represent it as it was in this one that it first really grabbed me and realise how amazing a Weaver of Story and Awesomeness Robert Jordan is. Aiel history FTW.

10. Will Grayson, Will Grayson (2010) by John Green
Shiny. So shiny. And Made of Awesome.

So there you have it. This list is kinda like, 1/6th if my entire years reading. Those darn blasted Wheel of Time books sure take a toll on my overall book number. Though if I took to counting pages instead I am sure my stats would be double just because of those monsters. Well instead of moping because of my book count, I think I shall go work on adding another to my list.

Currently reading : Heat Wave by Richard Castle and Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife by Linda Berdoll.

A New Challenge

So I started off this month in an attempt at NaNoWriMo. I love books and the idea of writing a book. But although I will probably continue to dabble in writing down scraps of ideas here and there, I have accepted the idea that I am a Reader, not a Writer.

I have devised a new challenge for myself.

501 Must Read Books.

I am going to read everybook listed in this book. I am giving myself no time limit. Well, before I die preferably. I am quite against zombies and refuse to become one.

Besides doing this for the fun of reading, I also figure this will be good for me in my chosen profession. When I work in a library it will be good to have a general knowledge of various book. This challenge will help me read outside my comfort level. (Travel book, Blech)

I will be posting my thoughts on each book on this blog as I finish them.

So wish me luck!

EDIT:

I added a sidebar which contains a list of the 501 Must Read Books. I have bolded the books I have already read and that number comes to 27, yay! Many of them I read along time ago, so dont ask me to give you a detailed summery or anything but they still count!

I would also like to point out, if you havn't noticed, blog redesign! Yay!

I am super excited for the release of Maggie Stiefvater's newest book and sequal to Shiver, Linger. Here is a really amazing trailer she made for the release of her book.



You can head over to her blog to read about and participate in the contest she is having where she is giving away some really cool stuff including an advanced copy of Linger.

Things and Stuff and Books

For the last four months I have been recieving a free ARC in the mail to read and reveiw courtesy of Library Thing Early Reveiwers. I am really enjoying reading and reviewing books (which is something I do anyways) and getting more books for free. It's a truly lovely system! So far I have read and reveiwed Shades of Gray by Jasper Fforde (who is one of my favourite authors, so reveiwing an early copy of his book was absolutly AMAZING), Impatient With Desire by Gabrielle Burton (which I think is unfortunatly titled, because it is NOT a trashy harlequin), and The Little Known (which was actually an e-book that I was able to read on my blackberry ^_^ ) by Janice Daugharty. You can see my reveiws for these books on my librarything profile. I just recieved Heartless by Ann Elisabeth Stengl and am looking forward to reading it.

Something else new is that I have made a change in my schooling. I have decided university is not for me, and I am taking a more direct route towards working in a library. So I am very excitied! Even if I can't get into my school for two more years...

I am going to participate in Script Frenzy during April. It is like a sister to Nanowrimo, except with scripts instead of novels. So I shall be trying my hand at writing a stage play. I have an idea and I am very curious to see if I can make it work!

In Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver, Grace and Sam found each other. Now, in Linger, they must fight to be together. For Grace, this means defying her parents and keeping a very dangerous secret about her own well-being. For Sam, this means grappling with his werewolf past . . . and figuring out a way to survive into the future. Add into the mix a new wolf named Cole, whose own past has the potential to destroy the whole pack. And Isabelle, who already lost her brother to the wolves . . . and is nonetheless drawn to Cole.

At turns harrowing and euphoric, Linger is a spellbinding love story that explores both sides of love -- the light and the dark, the warm and the cold -- in a way you will never forget.

Comes out in stores everywhere July 20th. Pre-order here.

Enter to win an advanced review copies of LINGER, Sisters Red, The Dead-Tossed Waves, and The Replacement on Maggie's blog.


EDIT: After I posted this I realized my last blog post from the summer had been a reveiw of the book that came before this one, Shiver. In no way was that planned, its just a funny coincidance. :)

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Shiver was an AMAZING book! It was absolutly beautiful, inside and out! Firstly, the cover is absolutly lovely! It captured the feeling of the book perfectly, and its just so beautiful. I want to hang it on my wall. The dull, light blue, against the white, with the bright splash of red in the center is so eye catching and captures the books...starkness? Contrast? Rawness? I can't find the right word, I don't think either of those are quite right.

As for the book within the covers, once I got used to the pace and the POV switches I couldn't put it down. The writing, plot, characters, and mood were wonderful and I am running out of adjectives to describe it. The book make my smile, and cry, and being a hopeless romantic completley tugged at my heart strings. I didn't find it to be just a simple romance either, there was more to it than that. I am terrible at reveiwing books I like - I end up gushing. So I shant call this a review. This is me, gushing. I loved this book. I loved the cover, the blue ink, the fact that I felt chilly throughout, and how it made me feel after I was done reading. It was quite the read. :)

I also have to comment on the playlist the author posted on her blog that she used to right the book, I think the music fits it perfectly. I am going to be downloading these songs. :)

"I have operations which be humours of revenge!" *

I just finished reading The Count of Monte Cristo. It was my summer reading project and I am so glad it did not take me all summer! It was a very good book, although very different from the movie. At first I thought it was a bad thing, because it made it longer, more complicated and drawn out, but once I reached the exciting revengy ending all the suspense and slow build up was worth it. It made the revelations and revenges so much more meaningful and earned. I really felt for the characters, and the end was really very engaging which made up for the slowish middle. I have to say I loved this book. I don't think I shall be reading it again, just because of how long it is, but I think it shall remain a favourite.

Now on to the other books in my TBR pile who have been waiting patiently. I hear them calling...Adieu!**

Edit: Ahhh, I completly forgot to mention the quote I wanted to share. I even sticky note tabbed it for easy reference! Well I shall share it now.

Thus at length, by one of those unexpected strokes of fortune which sometimes
occur to those on whom an evil destiny has for a long time vented its spleen...
(190, Ch 3)

OR in other words..."Thus at length, by one of those unexpected strokes of fortune which sometime happens to those who have been often been farted upon by evil..."

Ahhaha....it made me laugh out loud :)

Interesting to note is that when I tried to find that quote at online-literature.com it was DIFFERENT :O and much less humourus.

Thus, at length, by one of the unexpected strokes of fortunewhich sometimes
befall those who have for a long time beenthe victims of an evil destiny...

Thats not very funny.

---

* from Merry Wives of Windor, spoken by the character Pistol in act 1 scene 3 i think?

** Influence from the Merry Wives of Windsor actually, and not Count of Monte Cristo. Tho the phrase "ma foi" is stuck in my head due to both MWW and Count of Monte Cristo as at least one character in both use that phrase and I was/am imersed in both at the same time and yeah.

And Done!

I finished the 48 Hour Book Challenge this morning at 11 o'clock. Sadly I did not finish the book I was reading, though I was very close. I was reading Dragonhaven by Robin Mckinley, a book I had been looking forward to reading ever since I heard it was coming out because I am a big Robin Mckinley fan. I was waiting to buy the paperback but this weekend I broke down and just took it out from the library. I figured it was a much cheaper option considering how much of my nearly non-existent money I had spent on books lately. So far however it is really good and it is just too tempting to add it to my Mckinley collection so when I find it in paperback I may just buy it anyways.

Since I havn't finished the book I cannot give a very good reveiw, but so far I think it is living up to her previous books that I have adored. The way its written and how the story is told as if the main character was writing it down after everything had happened is very effective. I can't wait to finish it!

Hours: 10 Hrs, 10 Mins + 7 Hrs = 17 Hrs, 10 Mins

Total Books Read = 3 (and 3/4)

Total Pages Read=327(WS) + 325(L) + 376(RN) + 256(D) = 1284

Funny how the least amount of pages read took the most time. I guess the pages were a little bigger, but I was also probably getting a little tired.

All in all I really enjoyed taking (most) of this weekend off to read, and I would love to do it again next year, but hopefully with my full health and less busy weekend. :D

48 Hour Book Challange - The Red Necklace

I never thought I would make it through the three books I most wanted to read this weekend, but I have!

The Red Necklace - Sally Gardner

A historical work of fiction set during the French revolution. With a little twist on reality, many of the charcters in the novel can work magic, read minds, tell the future, or move objects with their minds. Not in a huge obvious Harry Potter kind of way but a quite secret way that makes you believe as if that kind of magic is possible. The main focus of the book is not however the magic - it is the characters and their struggle to survive during the revolution. My university mind clicked in and began noticing a theme, that of the "sheep". Many times through out the novel people are described as sheep, blindly following the herd even though the herd is headed towards slaughter. I thought this was a very well written book, one that I believe could be studied in school to educational benifit and to the students enjoyment.

Hours: 5 hrs, 30 Mins + 4 Hrs, 40 Mins = 10 Hrs, 10 Mins

Edit: I forgot to add; so far all three of my books have mentioned Shakespeare. Wondrous Strange used Midsummer Nights Dream heavily in its plot, A Midsummer Nights Dream was briefly mentioned in Lament, and in The Red Necklace an acter quoted Shakespeare. It is tempting to continue the Shakespeare trend but the only other Shakespeare related book in my TBR pile is "Othello" and I don't feel quite like tackeling that at the moment...

48 Hour Challange - Lament

My second read of the 48 Hour book challenge (first whole book) was Maggie Stiefvater's "Lament". This has been on my TBR pile for some time, and half of me is kicking myself for waiting so long to read it, the other half is quite happy that I do not have to wait as long for the sequal. It's release date is still to far away (a WHOLE summer!!) but it will be worth it.

I really enjoyed this book. I thought I might be faeried out after Wondrous Strange, but this book did a original take on fearies I thought. They were still faeries, but it felt different somehow. Ms. Stiefvater's writing style was very fun to read, the voice of Deirdre felt real and unique. And Luke. Such a cutie. It was a suspensful and entertaining read and I would recommend it to fans of faeries or romance, or just YA.

Hours: 1 Hr, 50 Min + 3 Hrs, 40 Min = 5 Hr, 30 Min

48 Hour Challange - Wondrous Strange

I started this book before the challange, but did not get a chance to finish it before and I couldn't just abandon it sooo my first book completed is really only half a book.

Wondrous Strange - Lesley Livington

I have wanted to read this one since it first came out in hardcover, but I waited to buy it untill it came out cheaper in paperback. Wasn't happy to learn the paperback was 20 dollars anyways, but I still went ahead and bought it. What drew me to it was its beautiful cover and the use of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream (a play that holds a special place in my heart). The fact that the main character was an actress was also very cool.

The story itself was pretty good, but besides the Shakespeare element it didn't strike me as too memoriable. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in faeries, or in Shakespeare's plays (At least MSND)

Total hours so far: 1 Hr, 50 Min

And... Go!

This morning decided to bless me with the beginings of a cold. Joy. But this shall not stop me from attempting MotherReaders Fourth Annual 48 Hour Book Challange. I believe it may actually be an asset... for instance

Mother: Come do the dishes!
Me: Can't *coughcough* I'm sick! *continues to read*

All though I was not able to completly clear my schedual (work, a play to attend, staff party... come to think of it this is one of my more social weekends... >.>) I shall do my best! If any thing this will give me a good excuse to maybe finish even one or two books from my TBR pile.

Edit:

I guess I should state what my 48 hours will be. I started at 11:00 Friday morning and will finish 11:00 Sunday.

City of Glass - Cassandra Clare

Today after work I decided I was going to sit down and finish reading City of Glass (not to say that I had to force myself to read this one - quite the opposite). I took my book outside, enjoyed the sunshine, and enjoyed the last quater of this very good book.

It begins days after the the last one ended, and shoots you right back into the plot of the series, with the usual bits of narative to remind you of things, but done in a way that didn't feel like it was being shoved down your throat for the third time.

It had action, suspense, mystery, angst, death, love, and a happy ending. **Spoiler** The first time I read books one and two I was not happy with the idea of Jace and Clary. I wanted Clary and Simon together, period. Second time reading it, I knew what to expect and that made me more open to the Jace/Clary pairing. So I am actually very glad that Clary and Jace weren't siblings afterall. **End Spoiler**

This book was better than the second, and on par with the first. Overall it is a very good series for anyone who likes action/supernatural type stories with plently of drama and magic.

I think I just may have falling back into my reading niche. Yay for City of Glass for pushing me back in! To Be Read pile here I come!