Reading Habits Book Tag!

Yay! Another book tag! These are so fun! The Reading Habits Book Tag was created by the BookTuber TheBookJazz. Follow the link to her channel!

1. Do you have a certain place at home for reading?

When I read during the day I usually read on the couch and when I read before I go to bed I read in my bed. I would eventually like to have a reading room with a nice comfortable arms chair with a side table that can hold a lamp and coffee or tea and read surrounded by my books. Oh, the dream!

2. Bookmark or random piece of paper?

I usually use a bookmark.  I have a large shoe box full of bookmarks to choose from but I use the same bookmark until I lose it and then find another bookmark to use.  If you ever to go ALA or BEA, they are great places to get a bunch of bookmarks to use for years.

3. Can you just stop reading or do you have to stop after a chapter/ a certain amount of pages?

I always prefer to stop at the end of a chapter.  But if I'm falling asleep and I absolutely can't keep my eyes open then I'll try to stop at a natural breaking point but I'll never stop in the middle of the paragraph.

4. Do you eat or drink while reading?

Since I'm not very good at multitasking I usually don't eat while I read.  But I do like to drink hot coffee or tea.

5. Multitasking: Music or TV while reading?

Haha. Multitasking.  I definitely cannot watch watch TV while I read.  The only music I can listen to while I read is instrumental like Explosions in the Sky.  They're pretty good and I don't have to concentrate on the music which makes it really easy to listen to while I read.

6. One book at a time or several at once?

I usually have several going on at once.  I'll be reading at least one physical copy of a book and then another one on my Nook/iPhone so that I can read at work.  Then I also have a few really really long books (A Storm of Swords, Outlander) that I have off to the side that I'll pick up every now and then and read a few chapters.

7. Reading at home or everywhere?

Oh I'll read anywhere.  I always take a book with me wherever I go.  I won't buy a purse unless it's big enough to fit at least one hardcover.

8. Reading out lout or silently in your head?

I don't think I've ever read out loud.  That would definitely feel really weird.  The only time I've ever done it was when I was trying to nail down Hagrid's accent and I couldn't get it right in my head.

9. Do you read ahead or even skip pages?

I never read ahead or skip pages.  I don't want to spoil myself so I just don't do it.

10. Breaking the spine or keeping it like new?

I prefer to keep my books looking like new. Really long mass market paperbacks are really hard to read without breaking the spine so I don't worry it.

11. Do you write in your books?

I've only ever written in my textbooks.

Book Haul: Recent E-Galleys

Hey there! Welcome to this week's Stacking the Shelves! This awesome meme is hosted by Tynga's Reviews and we get to show each other the books we acquired this week whether bought, from the library or for review!

I received some pretty awesome ARC's for review over the past month and I can't wait to read them!

From NetGalley:

Pawn by Aimee Carter

Witch Finder by Ruth Warburton

Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira

From Edelweiss: 

Her Dark Curiosity by Megan Shepard

Life by Committee by Corey Ann Haydu

Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman

The Shadow Prince by Bree Despain

The Taking by Kimberly Derting

Talker 25 by Joshua McCune

Follow Friday (33)

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 and Alison Can Read.  This week's featured blogger is The Storybook Kingdom.

This week's question:

Pick a book in your favorite genre that you would recommend to a reluctant reader.

Well, lately my favorite genre has been fantasy and I just can't seem to get my hands on enough fantasy novels.  I love it so much because the worlds are so completely different than anything we live in right now. And fantasy also shows how creative and unique authors can be. I also love dystopia but there's just something special about fantasy.

I only recently read Throne of Glass like a month ago and it was just so good! There's so many different elements going on and it makes me excited that it's going to be a long series! 

Thanks for visiting my blog and for following! 

Review: Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

Title: Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
Author: Robin Sloan
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Girous
Source: Purchased
Find it Here: Goodreads, Amazon

Global conspiracy, complex code-breaking, young love, and the secret to eternal life — mostly set in a hole-in-the-wall San Francisco bookstore. The Great Recession shuffles Clay Jannon from his web-design drone job to night shift at Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. Curiously, few customers come in repeatedly and never buy. Analysis reveals astonishing secrets ...

My thoughts:

I heard about this book a little while ago and ever since I read the synopsis I knew I wanted to choose Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore for book club.  An independent bookstore that never closes, some kind of conspiracy going on with the patrons who only borrow books and never buy and a mystery that I was convinced would have me on the edge of my seat.  

Even though it was good and it was fun to read, it just wasn't exactly what I thought it was going to be.  After reading the synopsis, I really thought that the patrons were going to be spies and that they were passing secret messages back and forth in the books they were borrowing.  But as it turns out, these mysterious patrons are trying to solve the secrets of the universe a.k.a. the secret to physical immortality.  These people in this cult are literally scrambling around, decoding all these books in the hopes that they will find some kind of code or recipe for a concoction that will grant them immortality.  

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore is an adventure that was pretty fun to read.  Clay, the main character, and his quirky group of misfit friends set off to help Mr. Penumbra uncover what he has been searching for for many years.  Conveniently they have unlimited resources that allow them to travel to New York City at a moments notice and also allows them to get their hands on all the technology that they need.  By the end, when he happened to have connections to a librarian that got him what he needed, I felt that he was a little too lucky.  I liked the characters but I felt their only purpose was to help out Clay and Mr. Penumbra. They didn't have any depth and they were very static throughout the whole novel.  

Overall, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore was a fun book to read and very appropriate for the book club. And hey! The cover of the paperback is pretty cool! It glows in the dark! I give Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan 3.5 stars for being entertaining and fun.

Waiting on Wednesday (101)

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 the covers are always amazing!

Title: The Inventor's Secret
Author: Andrea Cremer
Hitting the Shelves: April 22, 2014

Sixteen-year-old Charlotte and her fellow refugees have scraped out an existence on the edge of Britain’s industrial empire. Though they live by the skin of their teeth they have their health (at least when they can find enough food and avoid the Imperial Labor Gatherers) and each other. When a new exile with no memory of his escape from the coastal cities or even his own name seeks shelter in their camp he brings new dangers with him and secrets about the terrible future that awaits all those who have struggled has to live free of the bonds of the empire’s Machineworks.

The Inventor’s Secret is the first book of a YA steampunk series set in an alternate nineteenth-century North America where the Revolutionary War never took place and the British Empire has expanded into a global juggernaut propelled by marvelous and horrible machinery.

Why I want this: They just changed the cover for this and I really like the old one better. Oh well, at least they decided to change it before it came out.  The Inventor's Secret sounds awesome and it seems like an exciting series to start! 

Book Blitz: Heartbeat by Elizabeth Scott

Hi and welcome to today's stop on the Heartbeat blog tour! Today's book blitz is brought to you by Kizmet Book Touring and me, Elegantly Bound Books! This book sounds awesome and I can't wait to read it!

Emma would give anything to talk to her mother one last time. Tell her about her slipping grades, her anger with her stepfather, and the boy with the bad reputation who might be the only one Emma can be herself with.

But Emma can’t tell her mother anything. Because her mother is brain-dead and being kept alive by machines for the baby growing inside her.

Meeting bad-boy Caleb Harrison wouldn’t have interested Old Emma. But New Emma—the one who exists in a fog of grief, who no longer cares about school, whose only social outlet is her best friend Olivia—New Emma is startled by the connection she and Caleb forge. Feeling her own heart beat again wakes Emma from the grief that has grayed her existence. Is there hope for life after death—and maybe, for love? 

About Heartbeat: Goodreads, Amazon, B&N, IndieBound

Praise for Heartbeat:

“An intense examination of a family coping with grief, this absorbing character study easily keeps pages turning.”

-Kirkus on Heartbeat

About Elizabeth Scott: Website, Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr

ELIZABETH SCOTT grew up in a town so small it didn't even have a post office, though it did boast an impressive cattle population. She’s sold hardware and pantyhose and had a memorable three-day stint in the dot-com industry, where she learned that she really didn't want a career burning CDs. She lives just outside Washington, D.C., with her husband, and firmly believes you can never own too many books.

November Book Haul!

Hey there! Welcome to this week's Stacking the Shelves! This awesome meme is hosted by Tynga's Reviews and we get to show each other the books we acquired this week whether bought, from the library or for review!

I know this is really late but I wanted to get it up anyway because my December book haul is most likely going to be huge because of Christmas.  So I didn't want to have to include these too.

Books:

Wildwood by Colin Meloy

Shadowcry by Jenna Burtenshaw

Horde by Ann Aguirre

Revelations by JA Souders

Arclight by Josin L. McQuein

Slated by Teri Terry

Unbreakable by Elizabeth Norris

Slide Jilly Hathaway

Imposter by Jill Hathaway

Cross My Heart, Hope to Die by Sara Shephard

Pretty Girl-13 by Liz Coley

Karma for Beginners by Jessica Blank

Unremembered by Jessica Brody

The Blood Keeper by Tessa Gratton

Winter Wonderland Book Tag!!

I have a confession to make.  I've been totally obsessed with Booktube lately and I have to say that I really like it. It's refreshing to be able to see the enthusiasm on their faces and see them jumping up and down for joy when they really love a book!! So anyway, they create these things called book tags that are themed with a bunch of questions.  And then at the end they are supposed to tag three of their friends to the tag continually gets spread throughout Booktube.  So I want to do one of the tags even though I only have a blog.  Since it has been really cold here in Southern California I decided to take a swing at the Winter Wonderland Book Tag. This book tag was created by JackEatsBooks!

1. What book is so happy and sweet that it warms your heart?

I don't read very many happy and sweet book so I'm going to cheat a little on this one and say the Summer Series by Jenny Han which consists of The Summer I Turned Pretty, It's Not Summer Without You and We'll Always Have Summer. Even though this series has a lot of sadness in it, the ending of the series was so happy and it really warmed me heart!

2. What is your favorite book with a white cover?

I don't even need to think about this. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell. It's just so good and one of the best contemporaries I've read.

3. You're sitting in a nice comfy chair, wearing a onesie, with a lovely warm hot chocolate but what MONSTER read are you reading?

This sounds like my perfect day off work! I actually have a onesie (not currently wearing it) and I am currently reading a monster of a book! It's Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. It's about a time traveler and I am just loving it. Oh and it's around 900 pages long!

4. It started snowing so you decided to have a snowball fight! What fictional character would you love to have the snowball fight with?

I don't know who I would want to have a snowball fight against, but I would definitely want Rose Hathaway from Vampire Academy on my team.  She seems competitive enough to want to win but also knows how to have a good time and make it fun.

5. Sadly, your fire is beginning to go out. So what book would you tear the last few chapters out to throw into the fire?

When it comes to the endings of books I'm usually pretty satisfied with what the author writes. But there are plenty of books that I just did not like at all that I would throw in the fire.  The Iron Thorn by Caitlin Kittredge and Harbinger by Sara Wilson Etienne. They were both awful!

6. What book is so close to your heart that you would gift to someone this Christmas who hasn't read before but wants to get into reading?

It's no surprise here that I'm going to say Harry Potter.  It not only got me into reading way back in the day but it also got a lot of other people into reading.  Such a great story and an easy read!

And I'm going to tag: Thuy @ Nite Lite Reviews, Nicole @ The Reader's Antidote and Kimberly @ The Windy Pages! Have afu

Waiting on Wednesday (100)

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 the covers are always amazing!

Title: Silver Shadows
Author: Richelle Mead
Series: Bloodlines #5
Hitting the Shelves: July 29, 2014

Sydney Sage is an Alchemist, one of a group of humans who dabble in magic and serve to bridge the worlds of humans and vampires. They protect vampire secrets—and human lives.

In The Fiery Heart, Sydney risked everything to follow her gut, walking a dangerous line to keep her feelings hidden from the Alchemists.

Now in the aftermath of an event that ripped their world apart, Sydney and Adrian struggle to pick up the pieces and find their way back to each other. But first, they have to survive.

For Sydney, trapped and surrounded by adversaries, life becomes a daily struggle to hold on to her identity and the memories of those she loves. Meanwhile, Adrian clings to hope in the face of those who tell him Sydney is a lost cause, but the battle proves daunting as old demons and new temptations begin to seize hold of him. . . .

Their worst fears now a chilling reality, Sydney and Adrian face their darkest hour in this heart-pounding fifth installment in the New York Times bestselling Bloodlines series, where all bets are off.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten on my Winter TBR

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and it's a meme of lists.

This winter I'm going to try to read the books that I already own and mostly books that I've owned for a while now.  And finish off a couple of the series that I've started.

10. Horde by Ann Aguirre

9. Allegiant by Veronica Roth

8. The Bitter Kingdom by Rae Carson

7. The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

6. Slated by Teri Terry

5. Unraveling by Elizabeth Norris

4. Fire with Fire by Jenny Han

3. Unremembered by Jessica Brody

2. Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

1. Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas

Bonus: The ARC I'm most excited to read this winter is!!!!:

The Taking by Kimberly Derting

Catching Fire and VA Trailer!

So I went to the midnight showing of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire on Thursday night and it was absolutely fantastic! I enjoyed it much better than the first one. Not only was I on the edge of my seat the whole time but I also cried on about three separate occasions.  I just had all the feelings during the movie! Standout side character? Johanna Mason. I don't remember her being such a spitfire in the books! I just loved the movie so much and I can't wait to see it again! 

Also, in other fantastic news! There was a brand new full length trailer of Vampire Academy and I got to see it on the big screen! I love this new movie poster! The lime green with the large neon pick words is perfect! I love the whole sarcastic, Mean Girls feel they've added to the movie. I think it's going to rock! So for your viewing pleasure:

Review: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Title: Throne of Glass
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Series: Throne of Glass #1
Publisher: Bloomsbury Children's USA
Source: ARC via ALA
Find it Here:  Goodreads, Amazon

In a land without magic, where the king rules with an iron hand, an assassin is summoned to the castle. She comes not to kill the king, but to win her freedom. If she defeats twenty-three killers, thieves, and warriors in a competition, she is released from prison to serve as the king's champion. Her name is Celaena Sardothien.

The Crown Prince will provoke her. The Captain of the Guard will protect her. But something evil dwells in the castle of glass--and it's there to kill. When her competitors start dying one by one, Celaena's fight for freedom becomes a fight for survival, and a desperate quest to root out the evil before it destroys her world.

My thoughts:

Whoa, whoa, WHOA!!!! Now I understand what all the hype is about and why everyone is loving this series sssssoooo much!! And why is it that Throne of Glass has been sitting on my shelves for almost a year and a half? I picked this book up at ALA 2012 having no idea what it was. There was just this pile of books sitting on a table and the publicists told me to take one! So I did and a year and half later….whoa!!!!

The story of Celaena is as fascinating as the world she lives in. We meet her at a death camp where has been sentenced for being a world famous assassin. She works in the salt mines and has surprisingly survived this place for a year when the Prince of Adarlan has an offer she just can’t refuse. She goes to the castle to compete in a five month competition in the hopes of becoming the King’s champion which means she would still be an assassin just killing the people that the King wants her to kill. And then there’s the mystery of where all the magic went when the King banned magic and why it all disappeared so quickly! This world is going to be quite fascinating when we get more into the history of it because apparently there are also magical beings that most people believe don’t exist anymore! We’ll see about that.

I am not usually a big fan of love triangles especially when they just pop up out of nowhere. But the love triangle in Throne of Glass is a pretty good one. Both Prince Dorian and Chaol (the captain of the guards) keep their distance from Celaena because they know that she is dangerous and possibly going to try to escape. But as they both spend more time with her they both get to know her better and see the person she really is and they both start to fall in love with her!! Yes, it’s good and it happens slowly and I am literally torn between the two of them. They both have their strengths and weaknesses but yet both of them can be really good for her. I’m definitely interested to see where the love part of the story goes in Crown of Midnight!

Celaena is such a great heroine!! She’s likable, funny, strong, sensitive, kind and an animal lover! She’s funny at all the right moments and serious when she needs to be. She’s not one of those annoying sarcastic characters that I've been seeing a lot of in YA recently. You know the character: something as serious as life and death is happening but the main character always makes some stupid, witty comment in her mind like, “I’m about to fight the lord of the giants. No big deal. It can’t be much harder than climbing the rope in P.E.” I hate shit like that. I want to punch characters like that. And Celaena is NOT like that at all!

I loved Throne of Glass so much! It’s an instant favorite series for me! And from what I've heard Crown of Midnight is just as good and as exciting! It’s a really quick read and for those who love fantasy out there, it is now part of the top five that I would recommend in fantasy!

Waiting on Wednesday (99)

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 the covers are always amazing!

Title: The Taking
Author: Kimberly Derting
Series: The Taking #1
Hitting the Shelves: April 29, 2014

A flash of white light . . . and then . . . nothing.

When sixteen-year-old Kyra Agnew wakes up behind a Dumpster at the Gas ’n’ Sip, she has no memory of how she got there. With a terrible headache and a major case of déjà vu, she heads home only to discover that five years have passed . . . yet she hasn’t aged a day.

Everything else about Kyra’s old life is different. Her parents are divorced, her boyfriend, Austin, is in college and dating her best friend, and her dad has changed from an uptight neat-freak to a drunken conspiracy theorist who blames her five-year disappearance on little green men.

Confused and lost, Kyra isn’t sure how to move forward unless she uncovers the truth. With Austin gone, she turns to Tyler, Austin’s annoying kid brother, who is now seventeen and who she has a sudden undeniable attraction to. As Tyler and Kyra retrace her steps from the fateful night of her disappearance, they discover strange phenomena that no one can explain, and they begin to wonder if Kyra’s father is not as crazy as he seems. There are others like her who have been taken . . . and returned. Kyra races to find an explanation and reclaim the life she once had, but what if the life she wants back is not her own?

Why I want this: Kimberly Derting is one of my favorite authors and The Body Finder series is also one of my favorite! Although I wasn't that big a fan of The Pledge, I'm willing to read her new series and The Taking sounds awesome!

Divergent Full Trailer

Oh the full trailer!! Oh it's so good! I am seriously so excited for this movie! I've heard a lot of criticism  about the actor who plays Four saying that he looks too old but I think he looks perfect for the role.  He has to look old enough to have a sense of authority over the initiates but still young enough that being with Tris isn't weird.  I'm pretty happy with the cast on the whole!

 

Feature and Follow Friday

The Feature & Follow is hosted by TWO hosts, Parajunkee of Parajunkee’s View and Alison of Alison Can Read. This week's features are Bibliotaph's Reviews and Rainy Dayz Reviewz!

This week's question is: Are there any book to movie adaptations where you think the movie is better than the book?

Answer: This is a really hard question but I think I'm going to have to go with two answers. 1. Beautiful Creatures.  I read the book not too long before the movie was released and I thought the book was awful! But the movie was pretty enjoyable.  2. City of Bones.  I listened to City of Bones on audio book and it was dreadful.  The reader made Clarey seem even more whiny than she already was and the book on the whole just completely annoyed me.  But the movie was quite enjoyable.  It was very entertaining.  Random note: Twilight: Breaking Dawn, the fake end of the movie was how I wished the book actually ended, with a big fight scene and a bunch of people dying.

Thanks for visiting, commenting on this post and following my blog! Leave me a link and I will definitely follow you back :) Happy reading!

Review: Game by Barry Lyga

Title: Game
Author: Barry Lyga
Series: Jasper Dent #2
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Source: Purchased
Find it Here: Goodreads, Amazon

Billy grinned. “Oh, New York,” he whispered. “We’re gonna have so much fun.”

I Hunt Killers introduced the world to Jazz, the son of history’s most infamous serial killer, Billy Dent.
In an effort to prove murder didn't run in the family, Jazz teamed with the police in the small town of Lobo’s Nod to solve a deadly case. And now, when a determined New York City detective comes knocking on Jazz’s door asking for help, he can’t say no. The Hat-Dog Killer has the Big Apple–and its police force–running scared. So Jazz and his girlfriend, Connie, hop on a plane to the big city and get swept up in a killer’s murderous game.

My thoughts:

Game is the second book in the Jasper Dent series and sequel to I Hunt Killers. I’m going to try my hardest to make this review as spoiler free as possible! Okay, so that’s not going to happen and there are going to be a few spoilers from the first book.

Game takes off relatively close to where I Hunt Killers ends and just dives right back into Jasper Dent’s crazy life. Because of all the help that Jazz was able to give to his local police department, a detective from New York would like his help catching a serial killer that has been roaming the streets of New York City. The detective believes that there’s nothing really special about this killer but Jazz might think that his father is really the one behind all these murders. Of course, in typical Jazz style, he goes off on his own mission and ends up in quite the predicament which make the ending such a crazy cliffhanger and so OMG!!!

Game has all the same main characters as I Hunt Killers which is awesome because Howie is just so funny! But we don’t get very much of Howie because he doesn't accompany Jazz to New York City. Connie is an okay character and I don’t think she really adds a lot to the story. I would have to say that some of my favorite parts were the short chapters from the point of view of the anonymous killer. Those parts were just very gruesome, disturbing and very creepy.

Even though I did feel like some parts of the book were a little slow, I enjoyed the story very much. The last few chapters just had me on the edge of my seat and I can’t wait to find out what happens to Jazz in the next book!

Waiting on Wednesday (98)

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 the covers are always amazing!

Title: Dorothy Must Die
Author: Danielle Paige
Hitting the Shelves: April 01, 2014

I didn't ask for any of this. I didn't ask to be some kind of hero.

But when your whole life gets swept up by a tornado—taking you with it—you have no choice but to go along, you know?

Sure, I've read the books. I've seen the movies. I know the song about the rainbow and the happy little blue birds. But I never expected Oz to look like this. To be a place where Good Witches can't be trusted, Wicked Witches may just be the good guys, and winged monkeys can be executed for acts of rebellion. There's still the yellow brick road, though—but even that's crumbling.

What happened?
Dorothy. They say she found a way to come back to Oz. They say she seized power and the power went to her head. And now no one is safe.

My name is Amy Gumm—and I'm the other girl from Kansas.
I've been recruited by the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked.
I've been trained to fight.
And I have a mission:
Remove the Tin Woodman's heart.
Steal the Scarecrow's brain.
Take the Lion's courage.
Then and only then—Dorothy must die!

Why I want this: I love the synopsis! I love that she has a mission to complete before she can take down Dorothy and I just love that cover! The blood red words are awesome!