Aw yessss, my graphics are top quality. I have been dying to make this review since Perpetual Page-Turner posted it at the beginning of December. Obviously this is my first year doing a blog, so even though it's the 4th Annual Review, it's my personal 1st, but will eventually be an annual event! Perpetual Page-Turner mentions that she does it at the beginning of the year because she doesn't get a lot of reading done in December. I had to wait until December was officially over because I squeaked in several last minute reads. So without further ado... 1. Best book you read in 2013? Hands down, Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell . I recommend this to everyone. 2. Book you were excited about & thought you were going to love more but didn't? I was really excited about The Maze Runner by James Dashner , and it ultimately just disappointed me. 3. Most surprising (in a good way!) book of 2013? This is hard because I didn't really read an...
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Happy New Year's Eve Lovelies!! I hope you are all out having a terrific night and that you won't see this until 2014 has officially rung in. Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the wonderful people over at The Broke & the Bookish --check out their post or their list of other awesome blogs who have participated! 1. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell: Once I put up my year in review survey, no one will be surprised by this, but this book is definitely my favorite of the year. It is the most amazing book I've read in a long while. 2. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell: Oh Fangirl, I just barely squeezed you in to 2013, but I managed it. Mostly because once I picked it up I didn't put it back down. I couldn't. It was sort of like reading a pseudo-AU of my life. 3. American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang: This was a wonderful book that showed the commonalities and differences of people of all ages across cultures. I loved it. 4. Hyperbole an...
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell was SPECTACULAR. I stayed up until 1 am on a work night to finish it. Admittedly, I've been a devoted Rowell fan since I read Eleanor & Park this summer, but while I still think I loved Eleanor & Park more, Fangirl spoke to me on a fundamental level. Mild spoilers ahead. I wish I'd had this book when I was a college Freshman. I was Cather. Except I was Cather rooming with my Wren (not a twin sister, but a best friend from high school). I didn't go to many parties, I spent a lot of time in my room on my computer, I spent a lot of time doubting my life and my choices. She makes a comment about not feeling like a real adult but a pre-adult, and I still feel that way. I loved that Simon Snow is basically Harry Potter (except Rowell throws in a few HP references to make it seem like it isn't HP, but it so totally is). Harry Potter is still the biggest fandom I've ever been a part of. I started reading fanfiction in 8th...
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum is the classic tale of Dorothy and Toto's adventure to Oz. There are 14 Oz tales in all, but the first book reflects what we know and love as The Wizard of Oz film. I had never read the book(s), and it's been a few ages since I've seen the movie, so it was exciting to look at the story from a new, fascinating angle. Of course, the tale is so ingrained in my brain from my childhood that it all came back to me as I was reading. I've also seen Oz the Great and Powerful fairly recently (which was a misogynistic piece of crap in my opinion, but the tale does incorporate some of the traditional Oz elements) so that assisted my memories quite a bit. My favorite part of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is that besides Dorothy who is actually far from home, the others already have the qualities they're going to the Wizard to get. On their journey, the scarecrow demonstrates over and over again how intelligent he is. Th...
Hello Lovelies!! Tis another Sunday night here in Montana, and I feel like I've had a very busy week. This week, I... worked two of the busiest retail days for our store so far. wandered around half our town looking for cool Christmas lights on Christmas Eve--but did not succeed in finding them. opened many Christmas presents from my wonderful friends and family. had two days off in a row!! went shopping on Thursday which was a crazy busy day, but I found some awesome shoes on sale. went to a friend's house to watch Star Wars IV. went to a friend's house to have a delicious and wonderful family dinner. went to Oula!! watched I'll be Home for Christmas, Halloween, The Celebration, and It's a Wonderful Life. watched some Teen Wolf and some American Horror Story: Asylum. This week, I read... The Wonderful Wizard of Oz which has a review coming shortly. Fangirl (!!!!!!!!) which I just started tonight but I'm already halfway through, ...
Hello lovelies!! It's almost a new year but I've got some ideas on where I want this blog to go in 2014. So I made a list of ten goals which I'm going to share with you!! 1. Get commenting!!! Something that I see a lot of in this blogging world is community. And I really want to be a part of it. I think the best way to do so, on my end, is to comment on other people's posts. So I'm going to work really hard at commenting on other's posts in 2014. 2. Get better at design. I have virtually no skills at design right now. I'm always jealous when I look at other people's blogs and posts and they're always so beautiful and so well done. 3. Blog at least 3x a week This isn't really a hard one. I just tend to lose focus of projects if I don't set specific goals. So I'm planning on posting on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Plus reviews whenever I get to them. 4. Finish 3 series. This is really a simple g...
Allegiant is the concluding novel in the Divergent triology. Therefore, there will be some spoilers in my review. Actually, there will be a lot of spoilers in this review. Because I have a lot of feelings and a lot of things to say. So skip to the end if you don't want any spoilers. I'm actually not entirely sure how I felt about Allegiant. Like Roth threw a major curveball in this novel, and it's been almost 24 hours since I finished it, and I'm still not sure how I felt about it. So in Allegiant, we find out that this entire world we've grown to love in Divergent and Insurgent is a total lie. It's a genetic purity experiment. And I guess part of my problem with this curveball is that I don't think that's how it would go. On one hand, it reminded me of Haddix's Running Out of Time where the main character also finds out her world's a lie (which I LOVE. That book is one of my favorites from my youth). On the other hand though, I just don...
Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish Top Ten Tuesdays give me a chance to order some lists out of the chaos of my head. Yay for book lists!! This week is Books that Santa should Leave Beneath my Tree Attachments by Rainbow Rowell : It would have been Fangirl, but I opened a present from a friend a few days ago, and she had gotten me Fangirl (woohoo!!!) so I changed to Attachments because I also really want to read that. The Selection by Kiera Cass : I don't know how this managed to slide by my notice earlier this year, but I happened to have a customer ask about it the other day, and I've been a little obsessed with it since. It looks so delightfully good and girly. Death, Dickinson, and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia by Jenny Torres Sanchez : I can't remember exactly how I stumbled onto this title, but it sounds so good. I'm really excited. The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen : This is another one that I had a customer ask me ab...
Hello Lovelies!! As I mentioned last time, I got this fantastic week in review idea from Anna who is flawless and you should definitely check out her blog. Anyway...this week I-- Went to a delightful group dinner at The Silk Road (one of the nicest places in town!). It's a tapas restaurant so all the dishes are very small, but if you go with a big group, it's fun to take a bite of each dish. We enjoyed some sangrias and got one of each dessert on the menu! There were only 5, but it was a fun thing to do. Learned how to knit! Check it out--I'm working on a scarf, I hope. Watched It's a Wonderful Life for the first time this year. What a perfect Christmas movie. Started watching season two of American Horror Story. Went to see The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug. I put down a book with no intention of picking it back up for the first time in a long time. I started reading Allegiant! I read this delightful blogpost at Hopeless Romantics about rati...
Ah!!! My first did not finish post! I feel so ashamed. It's pretty rare for me to not want to finish a book but I've decided to give up on A Lady Most Lovely by Jennifer Delamere. Honestly, the cover is what drew me into this book in the first place. It's a delightful cover, and it looked like the perfect wintry read. I got 123 pages into it before deciding to call it quits which is about a third of the way through with the novel being 383 pages long. Here's my problem: I thought it was a historical romance. I've read plenty of those before, and I know what to expect to a certain degree. What I wasn't expecting is that this is a Christian historical romance. I'm not really big into reading Christian literature. I just get annoyed by the constant, useless inserts of "God" all the time. And I'm putting "God" into quotation marks because I mean, the word and speaking of the wisdom of "God" not actual acts of God...
Hello lovelies! As usual Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish . This week's topic is Favorite New Authors of 2013. I'm taking that to mean author's I've read this year which I'd never read before, so most of these people have been around for a while, I just hadn't really gotten to them before this year. Sara Shepard : She's been around for a few years now, but I just started reading her Pretty Little Liars series this year. They're so good! I just want to sit and read through all of them at once, but I'm trying to intensify the mystery by not allowing myself to do that. It's really really hard though. I'm on the 3rd one Perfect and I can't wait to see what happens next! Rainbow Rowell : Anyone who can do this list and not put Rainbow down either read Attachments when it came out last year or has yet to read anything by her. She is a phenomenal writer, and I'm so excited to keep working my way th...
Summary: This prequel to the Maze Runner starts in a world already destroyed by Sun Flares. Mark and Trina are two teenagers who have survived the unthinkable: the destruction of Earth as we know it. However, just when societies are beginning to reform and people are starting to live again, their camp is attacked by a ship. They shoot darts at their community and leave. But Mark and his mentor, Alec, aren't quite so ready to let the attack go. They need to find out what's happening and why. My Review: I liked The Kill Order better than the last two books of the Maze Runner series, but I don't think that I actually liked it over all. I ended up having to sticky note problem spots in the book for me because I was getting so annoyed. The middle section of the book is covered in orange sticky notes. The beginning wasn't terrible. I mean, Dashner has a fixation on making boy/girl couples as the main focus of his novel and ignoring most other relationships, but I was wi...
Hello lovelies! I meant to write this post yesterday, but then I went to my work's Christmas party and my night went delightfully downhill from there. Anyway! I love reading Anna Reads' week in review posts, so I thought other people might like to read mine--guess we'll see! This week I did some Christmas shopping! Just have a few people left to gather gifts for. I also wrapped most of the gifts I had lying about my house which was nice -- made me feel like I had my life in some semblance of order. I've watched a wonderful amount of Christmas movies: The Holiday, Elf, The Holiday again, A Muppet's Christmas Carol and A Christmas Story! I love Christmas movies so much! I had a little too much fun at my work's Christmas party, but I have almost recovered 24 hours later. I finished The Kill Order by James Dashner with a review coming soon! I got my ARC of Unhinged (The sequel to Splintered which I will be reading soon!) by A. G. Howard. It...