Feature and Follow January 4, 2013

This weekly feature has 2 hosts Parakjunkee and AlisonCanRead and each blog features a different blogger to introduce us to.

This week we have:

and

Lost in Thought

This week's question is:

Q: What New Years Blogging or Writing resolution have you placed on yourself?

A: This year I need to get a posting schedule and stick to it. Before I used to just post a review whenever I was done a book, and if I had a back log I would post a bunch in one week, and then there wouldn't be any for awhile. Now my schedule will be:

Monday - Book Review

Tuesday - Top Ten Tuesday List

Wednesday - off

Thursday - Personal interest content (movie, TV, etc.)

Friday - Feature and Follow

Weekends - whatever I feel like :)

I think that this is something I can easily stick to, and not feel overwhelmed. That is my main blogging goal for 2013. As a secondary, I'm also hoping to make a few blogging friends that I chat with somewhat frequently. I can't get into Twitter or even my blogs Facebook page, but I will definitely be doing more commenting. I'm always hopping around reading, so why not let people know I was there! That's what I would want people to do for me :)

My First Time Watching Star Wars

Over our recent move, we had internet troubles, which I'm sure you are all tired of hearing about... However, I took the time to watch something that I had always been meaning to see, but never got around to it, and that is the Star Wars movies. After a through poll of my Facebook friends, I decided to watch them in the order that they were released, Episodes 4,5,6 then 1,2,3. We finished the last one on New Years Eve. This is a summary of my thoughts.

I was expecting these movies to be like THE MOST EPIC sci-fi films ever. But, in reality they were actually quite goofy. They characters were often pretty funny, which for some reason surprised me a lot. I guess I had no idea what to expect, but it wasn't that. I laughed several times throughout all 6 films.

Especially where Han Solo was involved!

I'm surprised that when people think of Princess Leia, they always seem to think of this hairstyle. This is only really in the first part of Episode 4, and then you never see it on her again. How did it become such a trademark? I know Padme wears it once as well, but I still don't know how it became so well known.

• 

I'm also surprised that there were so many things that I had heard of/could recognize from the films that really didn't get a whole lot of screen time.

Darth Maul



Ewoks!

Overall, I did really enjoy the movies, the special effects were cool, and I liked the story. I guess I just don't really know how they turned into such an earth shattering epic sensation. They were really good, and I really enjoyed them, but I still just don't fully understand the cult following they have.

Top Ten Tuesday 2013 Edition, Vol. 1

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week they will post a new fun Top Ten list topic so we can all get to know one another. I routinely participate in this, but have not for awhile. I'm hoping to be better at my participation, but I say that a lot... so we'll see! The first edition for 2013 is:

Top Ten Books I Resolve To Read In 2013

1) Life of Pi - Yann Martel

I have been saying I was going to read this book for so long. It was on one of my challenge lists for last year, and its there again this year as I still haven't read it... It WILL get read this year. And most likely very soon.

2) City of Ashes - Cassandra Clare

I have been dying to get on with this series, and I haven't bought this book yet! I got some Xmas gift certificates, and I am definitely getting this one!

3) The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer - Michelle Hodkin

I wanted to get this before it even came out, and I pre ordered it, and I still haven't touched it! Getting to this one soon I hope!

4) ...Then He Ate My Boy Entrances - Louise Rennison

I love this series, but I seriously feel like I have been trying to finish reading it forever. I think its just time to get through them and be done with it. They are starting to feel like a burden I feel so bad that its taken me so long to read them all.

5) Glory In Death - J.D. Robb

Since this series is such a behemoth, I really need to keep going, or I might as well not bother!

6) The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne

I started this book sometime this year, and I just couldn't get into it. But this year, I will try again!

7) Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

I have been meaning to read this since I wanted to see the movie (which I have also held off reading). I am going to get to it this year!

Other than that, I just really want to do a good job on the challenge lists I made. I plan to try really hard to get to all of them (although I don't even know how many I have actually listed there...) I want to do them justice since I put so much work into making them!

You can see my post about 2013 Challenges here

Thumped by Megan McCafferty

Goodreads Summary: It's been thirty-five weeks since twin sisters Harmony and Melody went their separate ways. Since then, their story has become irresistible to legions of girls: twins separated at birth and living different lives, each due to deliver sets of twins . . . on the same day! In a future where only teens can "bump," or give birth, babies mean money, status, and freedom.

Married to Ram and living in religious Goodside, Harmony spends her time trying to fit back into the community she once loved and believed in. But she can't seem to forget about Jondoe, the guy she fell in love with under the strangest of circumstances.

To her adoring fans, Melody has achieved everything she always wanted: a big, fat contract and a coupling with Jondoe, the hottest bump prospect around. But this image is costing her the one guy she really wants.

Cursed by their own popularity, the girls are obsessively tracked by their millions of fans, who have been eagerly counting down the days to their "Double Double Due Date." Without a doubt, they are two of the most powerful teen girls on the planet, and there's only one thing they could do that would make them more famous than they already are:

Tell the truth.
Why I Read This Book: I read the first book in this 2 book series, so of course I was going to get this one too! You can find my review for book 1, Bumped, here.

Review: I didn't like this book as much as I had liked Bumped. Bumped wasn't the best book ever or anything, but the concept of the story is really great, and I even liked that the characters in Otherside were kind of superficial and thought it was really creative that McCafferty created a language basically of future teens. What got to me was how unrealistic Harmony and Jondoe were. I found it really annoying, and even the way Melody and Harmony interacted got on my nerves. The saving grace of this book was Zen, he was definitely my favorite character.

The most redeeming quality of the book, was I know that McCafferty's description of how humans would behave if a virus like this did truly exist, seems scarily accurate. I mean, pregging from profit? I can pretty much already picture it. Terrifying.

Rating: 

2013 Challenges

Hello! Hope everyone had (or is still having!) a fabulous holiday! I know I did. I had my parents come visit for a few days, and the BF's fam was in town too! We had a lovely time, and I even got a few fantastic prezzies to show off to! Now the holidays are normally a great time to get down to reading and blogging without a pesky job getting in the way, but I didn't get any of either done! I have just been too busy! But, as I mentioned in my last post, I wanted to set up some reading challenges for myself. I'll write a post with them now, but I'm still on the look for more! If you are doing any or know of ones I haven't picked, let me know!

I will add these to my challenges tab once I know that I'm done adding them. Also, in the next few days I'm going to pre-write a ton of posts, so hopefully I will have tons of new content in January! Warning: This is a really, really, long post!

Challenge #1:  2013 TBR Pile Reading Challenge

I did the 2012 one, and even though I totally dropped the ball on it around August or September (with the monthly wrap-ups, etc.) I still thought it was awesomely fun! I will definitely be creating a new list this year, and I'm going to choose more realistic books so I might complete it! Super excited about this one! Check out the challenge hosted by some amazing bloggers here! The books I'm adding to my 'official' list (I will surely read others though) are: 1) Before I Fall - Lauren Oliver 2) The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer - Michelle Hodkin 3) Matched - Ally Condie 4) Life of Pi - Yann Martel 5) Remember Me? - Sophie Kinsella 6) Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen 7) The Constant Princess - Phillipa Gregory 8) Something Borrowed - Emily Giffin 9) Gone - Michael Grant 10) The Maze Runner - James Dashner 11) Daughter of Smoke and Bone - Laini Taylor 12) Twenties Girl - Sophie Kinsella 13) Forever - Judy Blume 14) Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk 15) Uglies - Scott Westerfeld 16) The Nanny Diaries - Emma McLaughlin 17) The Guernsey Literacy and Potato Peel Society - Annie Barrows 18) One For the Money - Janet Evanovich 19) On the Jellicoe Road - Melina Marchetta 20) Learning to Fly - Victoria Beckhan I'm only picking 20 this year for the official list, but like I said, I will have more. I'm shortening it because I know other challenges will have books that I could have put here. (Not to say you won't see the same book on more than one list, but I'm trying to avoid a lot of that happening).

Challenge #2: A-Z Book Challenge This challenge is fun, last year I did it with character names, but this year I found one with book titles, which I prefer because I want to make my reading list in advance! Check out the rules and sign up over here!
My list is:
A: The Adoration of Jenna Fox - Mary E. Pearson B: Blue Bloods - Melissa de la Cruz (double points!..Scattergories, anyone??) C: City of Ashes - Cassandra Clare D: The Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank E: Eragon - Christopher Paolini F: Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk G: Girls in White Dresses - Jennifer Close H: Hourglass - Myra McEntire I: I am Number Four - Pittacus Lore J: Juliet, Naked - Nick Hornby K: The Knife of Never Letting Go - Patrick Ness L: The Luxe - Anna Godberson M: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs N: The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency - Alexander McCall Smith O: Outlander - Diana Gabaldon P: The Princess Bride - William Goldman Q: Quidditch Through the Ages - J. K. Rowling R: Rise of the Evening Star (Fablehaven #2) - Brandon Mull S: Shatter Me - Tahereh Mafi T: A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini U: Under The Never Sky - Veronica Rossi V: The Virgin Sucides - Jeffrey Eugenides W: Wanderlove - Kristen Hubbard X: Elixir - Hilary Duff Y: Yearbook - Ally Condie Z: Zombie Queen of Newbury High - Amanda Ashby
This is a hefty list, but I'm feeling pretty optimistic! There is a lot here that I have really wanted to get to!

Challenge #3 - 2013 Paranormal Reading Challenge

Details here, but basically they have set out a topic for each month, and these are the books I'm going to read :)

January - Vampires - Marked by P.C. Cast 

February - Angels/Nephilim - Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare 

March - Fey - The Iron Daughter by Julie Kagawa 

April - Demons - I'm going to have to come back to this one... 

May - Aliens - I am Number Four by Pitticus Lore 

June - Zombies - Feed by Mira Grant 

July - Witches and Wizards - Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia 

August - Mermaids - Aquamarine by Alice Hoffman 

September - Dragons - Eragon Christpoher Paolini 

October - Ghosts - Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendra Blake 

November - Werewolves/Shape-shifters - Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater 

December - Time Travel - Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

I can't find a good one for Demons, so I'm going to wait and peruse other peoples lists to see if something draws me.

Challenge #4 - 2013 Sequel Challenge

This is another challenge hosted by Auntie Spinelli, with the details here. I'm only going to officially declare 10 books, but I read a lot of sequels, so I'm betting I will get more than that! The 10 are:

1) City of Ashes - Cassandra Clare

2) Clockwork Prince - Cassandra Clare

3) Shadow Kiss - Richelle Mead

4) A Clash of Kings - George R.R. Martin

5) Glory In Death - J.D. Robb

6) The Last Little Blue Envelope - Maureen Johnson

7) Shadow Souls - L.J. Smith

8) Then He Ate My Boy Entrancers - Louise Rennieson

9) Rise of the Evening Star - Brandon Mull

10) Isla and the Happily Ever After - Stephanie Perkins

Challenge #5 - 2013 Sookie Stackhouse Reading Challenge

I have been reading these books for a little while, and I have the first 3 reads. I'm going to participate in this to get a few more done. I'm declaring a Level 1, as I;m hoping to get through books 4, 5 & 6 this year.

Challenge #6 - Monthly Key Word Challenge

This sounded too fun not to try, check it out here.

My books are:

January: Shiver - Maggie Steifvater

February: PS I Love You - Cecelia Ahern

March: Be Careful What You Wish For - Alexandra Potter

April: Shadow Kiss - Richelle Mead

May: Shatter Me - Tahereh Mafi

June: Under The Never Sky - Veronica Rossi

July: Shadow Souls - L.J Smith

August: A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

September: Blue Bloods - Melissa de la Cruz

October: Glory In Death - J.D. Robb

November: Forever - Judy Blume

December: The Princess Bride - William Goldman

Challenge #7 - Goodreads

Last, but not least... I;m going to declare 75 books on my Goodreads reading challenge this year :)

Happy reading in 2013 to you all, and may you have great luck with all challenges you chose to participate in!! Happy New Year!!

2012 Challenges Wrap-Up

Hello there everyone! I know I said that I was going to get back at the blog once we got the internetzz, but I have still been totally MIA. Sorry about that. I have been crazy busy working extra shifts at my part time job, and trying to get the house ready for my parents who are staying with us over Christmas, and I have been crafting like a lunatic! Not much time for reading, and even less for blogging!

My mom and dad just got in last night, and they are here until December 30th so I feel like I won't be posting at all for the rest of 2012! So, I'm going to wrap up the three challenges I participated in this year today. Only one of which I actually finished... (shame shame on me!) But, this was the first year I tried to do any, and I think I'm going to sign up for even more this year, because as much as I strayed from them, I do sort of like having the organization and the goals to work towards, even if I may not complete them.

The first, and only challenge I finished, is the one from Goodreads! I signed up to read 50 books this year, and I am currently at 58! So, obviously I'm going to up the anti for 2013 and try and hit 75!

2012 GOODREADS READING CHALLENGE

2012 Reading Challenge

Jessica has completed her goal of reading 50 books in 2012!

58 of 50 (115%)

view books

The second challenge I signed up for, and I hope someone does this one again for 2013 is the '2012 TBR Pile Reading Challenge' I had wrote an initial challenge list when I signed up (it's below) with 40 books on it. Throughout the challenge, I deviated from this list A LOT and ended up having blogged about 43 books that fell into this challenge, which is great! But, from this list I only managed to read 17/40.. which is pretty terrible. It's extra terrible because a lot of these books I REALLY Want to read! Some I ended up skipping with good reason - such as number 3, I didn't know this was sort of a second series to Vampire Academy, so I did read the first 2 VA books instead, and am not going to start Bloodlines until I'm done those. If this challenge gets done again, you will definitely see some of these turn up on my list for next year!



You can get all the reading challenge details here:
My (un-official) Challenge List
1) Love The One You're With - Emily Giffin 2) The Truth About Forever - Sarah Dessen (I started this a few days ago, but I'm only about 25 pages in) 3) Bloodline - Richelle Mead 4) Marked - P.C. Cast 5) The Struggle - L.J. Smith 6) Divergent - Veronica Roth 7) Under the Dome - Stephen King (I will be done this book before the end of December, so I'm counting it. I'm on page 900 of 1062). 8) Lola and the Boy Next Door - Stephanie Perkins 9) The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner - Stephenie Meyer 10) Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer 11) Matched - Ally Condie 12) Bumped - Megan McCafferty 13) Chasing Harry Winston - Lauren Weisburger 14) Shiver - Maggie Stiefvater 15) Bitter is the New Black - Jen Lancaster 16) A Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin 17) Club Dead - Charlaine Harris 18) The Book Thief - Markus Zusak 19) Slash - Slash 20) The Carrie Diaries - Candace Bushnell 21) Twenties Girl - Sophie Kinsella 22) Beauty Queens - Libba Bray 23) Uglies - Scott Westerfeld 24) Forever - Judy Blume 25) Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk 26) Something Borrowed - Emily Giffin 27) Bad Taste in Boys - Carrie Harris 28) The Nannie Diaries - Emma McLaughlin 29) The Debutante Divorcee - Plum Sykes 30) Running with Scissors - Augusten Burroughs 31) The Life of Pi - Yann Martel 32) A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini 33) The Guernsey Literacy and Potato Peel Society - Annie Barrows 34) The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls 35) The Color Purple - Alice Walker 36) The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd 37) Let The Great World Spin - Colum McCann 38) Water For Elephants - Sara Gruen 39) Bossypants - Tina Fey 40) Then He Ate My Boy Enhancers - Louise Rennison
The final challenge I was participating in I don't really know where it came from, but I saw it on someone elses blog and made a list too :) It was based on the characters in books and the alphabet. I missed 8 letters: I, K, N, O, Q, U, X, and Y. I had made a list with books with these characters, but I never got around to them :( But I had fun with this challenge, and hope to find something similar next year :) 

2012 A-Z Character Challenge

Duration: January 1, 2012 – December 31, 2012

Read 26 different books having the main character begin with a letter of the alphabet. (if the story goes around more than one character you can pick only one of them for the challenge)

You can sign up anytime, and you can backdate books if you know when you finished them, as long as it was done in the year 2012.

A- Adina

B- Bree

C- Carrie

D- Damon

E- Eve

F- Four

G- Ginny

H- Hana

I-

J- Jessica

K-

L- Lola

M- Magdelena (Lena)

N-

O-

P- Puck

Q-

R- Rose

S- Stefan

T- Tessa

U-

V- Vasilisa

W- Wanderer

X-

Y-

Z- Zen

Anyway, That's my challenges in a wrap for the year! I;m on the hunt for some new ones to sign up for for 2013 that I can pick away at for the year! So, if you knwo of any, leave me a comment!

I hope that everyone has a fantastic holiday season, and I will get back to you in the New Year!!

Connected!!

Hallelujah! I'm told we are now a connected household!!! I'm currently away for work, so I don't get to enjoy it, but I have internet at the hotel :) I have to grip a bit about what went down with the internet providers though, so bear with me!

So, we moved into our house on November 9th, and we had a service appointment with Bell that same day! (What luck!) So the guy shows up to connect it, and he isn't able to because the building hasn't been connected yet. Why would Bell send a technician, shouldn't they know they haven't set the building up yet?! But, OK, fine. When ARE you going to connect the building? The tech guy didn't know, and told me I would have to give Bell a call. Mildly irritating, but fine. So the next day I called Bell and they said the building was ready to be serviced, and did I want to make an appointment? I was like- Lady, are you listening to me at all?? Someone was here yesterday and couldn't. She didn't seem to comprehend this, but said she would get an answer and call me back. Two days go by, and nothing. BF calls Bell again, and at least gets someone who can tell our building isn't hooked up. He asks her how long, she was like "I don't know, could be a week, could be a month". WTF kind of answer is that. So, we played the waiting game for awhile. We had tons of painting, unpacking, organizing, and everything else to do anyway, so we didn't mind much. After another 9 days of hearing nothing, we started to get concerned. Neighbours were starting to get Rogers service, but Bell wasn't yet available. On November 23rd (2 weeks after we moved in) we decided to switch to Rogers. We wanted to keep our same phone number, and Rogers said that wouldn't be a problem. So, we had a service appointment set up, and we just had to call and get Bell to transfer our phone number to Rogers. When BF called to do that, Bell told us that it would cost $50.00 to reconnect the number. We were like, Why did you disconnect it?? You were supposed to hook it back up!! Argh!! But whatever, not that many people use our home number, its not that much trouble to get a new one. So BF calls Rogers back and gets a new number for us. They are coming the following Wednesday, Nov. 27! Yay! So at this point, we love Rogers and hate Bell. SO, Wednesday comes, and BF is home waiting for the guy to come... and he never shows up! WTFFFFF dude! So BF calls Rogers and is like... um, where were you today? And they were like, what are you talking about? I guess what happened was because the girl he set the appointment up with reopened it to add in a new phone number, something went wrong, and the service appointment never got saved. So, we got some sort of credit for the inconvenience and rebooked for the next Wednesday, December 5th. And begins another week without TV/phone/internet. December 5th comes, and the guy shows up (victory!!) now we are relieved that everything is OK. But, guess what! Something else is wrong. So dude gets up on the pole to feed some wire in, and the tech that was there before him left the cap off some pipe, and water got in it, and froze. He can't feed the wire into it, and he leaves... So, no hookup for us.

Finally, today, one month and two days after we moved into the house, we have internet. I hope this means its a Merry Christmas to come!

While we had no connections, we started watching Star Wars (both of our first times), so we have two more episodes to go, and you can be sure there will be a post about that coming soon. Also, in all my downtime, I didn't do too much reading, but I have a few new reviews to write, so I will get to those soon. As well, I will be back to participating in the weekly FF and TTT starting Friday!

It's good to be back!!