Book Blogger Hop and Follow Friday (11)

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! The featured bloggers is Backseat Reader!

Q: What are you doing to prepare for an upcoming zombie apocalypse and/or the return of Mel Gibson to the silver screen (both of which could be terrifying)?

A: I haven't done anything to prepare for a zombie apocalypse. Besides knowing where all the guns are kept in the house and the baseball bats by the front door. We could all start clipping coupons like those people from that show Extreme Couponing where they practically get all their groceries for free and collect food like it's going out of style. As for Mel Gibson, he is returning to the silver screen with Jodi Foster but the movie doesn't even seem worth watching.

The Book Blogger Hop is a place just for book bloggers and readers to connect and share our love for the written word. This incredibly awesome weekly event is hosted by Jennifer at Crazy for Books!

Q: Share your favorite post from the last month and tell us why it's close to your heart.

A: My favorite post from May was my review of Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead. Although I read the whole series up until the last one, I listened to Last Sacrifice with my roommate at the time (I miss you Stacia!!!). We drove up to her house in PA for Easter weekend and listened to it the whole way there, in the car while we were driving around PA and the whole way back to VA. It was one of the best weekends of the semester!

Waiting on Wednesday (19)

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 because the covers are always amazing!

So I'm back from my vacation and I'm super excited to show you guys what I did and the amazing sights that I saw! I've missed blogging so much and I'm ready to dive back in.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs Release Date: June 7, 2011

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. And a strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Whales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores it's abandon bedrooms and hallways, is becomes clear that the children who once lived here-were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a desolate island for good reason. And somehow-impossible though it seems-they may still be alive.

What are you waiting for?

Waiting on Wednesday (18)

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 because the covers are always amazing!

I feel like I've been waiting for The Unbecoming of Myra Dyer by Michelle Hodkin for like ever now! Just come out already! I read the first chapter online and I can hardly wait to get my hands on a copy. But it won't be released until September 27, 2011! Birthday present? Why, of course, I would love a copy for my birthday since it's only the day before the release date! And how seriously creepy is this synopsis!

Myra Dyer doesn't think life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.

It can.

She believes there must be more to the accident she can't remember that killed her best friends and left her mysteriously unharmed.

There is.

She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love.

She's wrong.

What are you waiting for?

Review- The Poisoned House

Title: The Poisoned House

Author: Michael Ford

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Rating: 3/5

Find it here: Amazon, Goodreads

Source: ARC via Netgalley

The year is 1856, and orphan Abigail Tamper lives below the stairs in Greave Hall, a crumbling manor house in London. Lord Greave is plagued by madness, and with his son Samuel away fighting in the Crimea, the running of Greave Hall is left to Mrs. Cotton, the tyrannical housekeeper. The only solace for the beleaguered staff is to frighten Mrs. Cotton is by pretending the house is haunted.

So when a real ghost makes an appearance-that of her beloved mother-no one is more surprised than Abi. But the spirit has a revelation that threatens to destroy Abi's already fragile existence: she was murdered, and by someone under their very own roof. With Samuel returned to England badly wounded, it's up to Abi to nurse his back to health, while trying to discover the identity of the killer in their midst. As the chilling truth dawns, Abi's world is turned upside down.

My thoughts:

When it comes to writing historical fiction, I believe it takes a different kind of writing style. An author, often times, needs to have done an extensive amount of research on the time period they're writing about and has to get the language of the time right as well. Micheal Ford satisfied both of those attributes and he did it well. But the story was not what I had excepted at all.

To start off, it was very slow in the beginning and I was having a hard time getting through the first few chapters. Even though it was a good story, I thought it was just boring. I had a hard time connecting with the characters and, honestly, it would not have mattered to me how it ended. Which brings me to my next point: I did not expect the ending at all. I'm not going to say that I was surprised nor did I fall out of my seat with shock, cause I didn't. When it ended, I thought, "hhmm, that was interesting." No more, no less.

When I read the synopsis of the book, I expected it to be some kind of ghost story in a haunted house so I thought it was going to be a horror story and that I would be scared while reading. I mean, even the cover is somewhat horrifying! But I wasn't at all. There was one ghost who made about one appearance. I wanted to be scared out of my pants!

Because it wasn't at all as I expected, I was constantly guessing around every corner, which I really liked. I love being caught off guard and when the author drops bombs that I don't see coming. It puts twits and turns in the story and The Poisoned House is full of them.

Review- Heist Society

Title: Heist Society

Author: Ally Carter

Publisher: Hyperion Books

Rating: 5/5

Find it here: Amazon, Goodreads

Blurb:

When Katerina Bishop was three, her parents took her to the Louvre...to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katerina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria...to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own-scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately leaving "the life" for a normal life proves harder than she expected.

Soon, Kat's friend and former co-conspirator, Hale, appears out of nowhere to bring her back into the world she tried so hard to escape. But he has good reason: a powerful mobster's art collection has been stolen, and he wants it returned. Only a master thief could have pulled this job and Kat's father isn't just on the suspect list, he is the list. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly enemy, Kat's dad needs her help.

For Kat there is only one solution: track down the paintings and steal them back. So what if it's a spectacularly impossible job? She's got two weeks, a teenage crew, and hopefully just enough talent to pull off the biggest heist in her family's (very crooked) history-and, with any luck, steal her life back along the way.

My thoughts:

I loved this book! I was literally sitting on the edge of my seat wondering how they were going to pull this off! There was so much adventure, planning and scheming. I definitely want this to be a movie so that I can see all the behind the scene on goings because when it comes to books like this, there is only so much that you can accurately imagine in your mind.

I loved the chemistry between Hale and Kat! Although they are flirty and often times trying to out do each other, they understand one another better than mere friends can. They work so well together and are able to anticipate the other while on the job.

Heist Society reminded me a lot of The Italian Job and the Oceans 11 movies. It really made me want to be part of the team, learning about security systems, hacking into networks and crawling through air ducts. It was so exciting. What I really enjoyed most about this book is that it is completely different from most young adult novels out there. It was super fun to read and full of so much adventure! There was always something new around the corner.

In My Mailbox (15)

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.

Damn you Amazon and all your wonderful bargain book prices. I always spend more money than I should. But hey, I love books so I don't feel all that bad. So here we go!

Bought:

Divergent by Veronica Roth

The Iron Daughter by Julie Kagawa

Paranormalcy by Kristen White

Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles

Possessions by Nancy Holder

Free for my Nook:

Zombies Don't Kiss and Tell

Audio book:

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

Book Blogger Hop and Follow Friday (10)

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! The featured bloggers is Ninja Girl from Ninja Girl Reads!

Q: Can you tell us FIVE quirky habits or things about you? We all have them...

A: I know I have quirky habits but when it comes down to pinpointing them or naming them, it's really hard to think what they are exactly. I'll try my best:

1. I brush my teeth in the shower. I know it's weird and some people think it's gross but I keep my toothbrush up pretty high, suction cupped to the shower wall so that it doesn't fall into the tub. But if I does fall in the tub, I buy another one. I also keep another toothbrush and tube of toothpaste at the sink to brush my teeth at night.

2. I only use headphones with the soft ear covers. I can't stand the iPod ear buds because they hurt my ears.

3. If I have to put a book down, I have to end it on a chapter. I can't put a book down in the middle of a page.

4. I love wearing crazy socks but they have to match.

5. I never hang my shirts up inside out. I hate it when my friend or my sister go in my close and try on my shirts, take them off and hang them up inside out. It drives me nuts!

The Book Blogger Hop is a place just for book bloggers and readers to connect and share our love for the written word. This incredibly awesome weekly event is hosted by Jennifer at Crazy for Books!

Q: If you were give the chance to spend one day in a fictional world (from a book), which book would it be from and what would that place be?

A: As much as I love dystopian novels and the idea of a dystopian world, they can be pretty dangerous and I would want to go somewhere fun. So I think I choose the Nevernever in the Iron Fey series; more specifically the Summer Court. I would want to be a summer faery for a day.