Happy New Year and Challenges too!

Review: Reboot by Amy Tintera

Title: Reboot

Author: Amy Tintera

Series: Reboot #1

Publisher: Harper Teen

Publication Date: May 7 2013

Format: borrowed library e-book

Pages: 365

Five years ago, Wren Connolly was shot three times in the chest. After 178 minutes she came back as a Reboot: stronger, faster, able to heal, and less emotional. The longer Reboots are dead, the less human they are when they return. Wren 178 is the deadliest Reboot in the Republic of Texas. Now seventeen years old, she serves as a soldier for HARC (Human Advancement and Repopulation Corporation).

Wren’s favorite part of the job is training new Reboots, but her latest newbie is the worst she’s ever seen. As a 22, Callum Reyes is practically human. His reflexes are too slow, he’s always asking questions, and his ever-present smile is freaking her out. Yet there’s something about him she can’t ignore. When Callum refuses to follow an order, Wren is given one last chance to get him in line—or she’ll have to eliminate him. Wren has never disobeyed before and knows if she does, she’ll be eliminated, too. But she has also never felt as alive as she does around Callum.

The perfect soldier is done taking orders.

DNF Dreaming Anastasia by Joy Preble

Title: Dreaming Anastasia

Author: Joy Preble

Series: Dreaming Anastasia

Publisher: Sourcebooks

Publication date: September 1^st 2009

Format: borrowed library e-book

Pages:   321

Anastasia Romanov thought she would never feel more alone than when the gunfire started and her family began to fall around her. Surely the bullets would come for her next. But they didn't. Instead, two gnarled old hands reached for her. When she wakes up she discovers that she is in the ancient hut of the witch Baba Yaga, and that some things are worse than being dead.

In modern-day Chicago, Anne doesn't know much about Russian history. She is more concerned about getting into a good college—until the dreams start. She is somewhere else. She is someone else. And she is sharing a small room with a very old woman. The vivid dreams startle her, but not until a handsome stranger offers to explain them does she realize her life is going to change forever. She is the only one who can save Anastasia. But, Anastasia is having her own dreams…

Review: Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

 

Title: Shatter Me

Author: Tahereh Mafi

Series: Shatter Me #1

Publisher: Harper

Publication date: November 11, 2011

Format: Hardcover purchased

Pages: 338

Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war – and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior

Top Ten New to Me Authors 2013

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. 

So this year was a big discovery year for me. I have always read a lot but this year I have been able to read much more and go to bookish events. So I discovered some amazing authors that many of you have probably been following for a while now. I'm just happy to have found them and to enjoy their writings!

Sunday Post #6

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week on your blog, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme.

So sorry you guys didn't hear from me last week. I ran out of my ADD meds and kept forgetting to pick them up from the pharmacy. It has been an interesting week. I have only been on this medication for less than a year and this is the first time I have been off of since then. This was proof that it is working. 

Review: The Distance Between Us by Kasie West

Title: The Distance Between Us

Author: Kasie West

Publisher: HarperTeen

Publication Date: July 2^nd 3013

Format: e-book (borrowed)

Pages: 320

Seventeen-year-old Caymen Meyers studies the rich like her own personal science experiment, and after years of observation she’s pretty sure they’re only good for one thing—spending money on useless stuff, like the porcelain dolls in her mother’s shop.

So when Xander Spence walks into the store to pick up a doll for his grandmother, it only takes one glance for Caymen to figure out he’s oozing rich. Despite his charming ways and that he’s one of the first people who actually gets her, she’s smart enough to know his interest won’t last. Because if there’s one thing she’s learned from her mother’s warnings, it’s that the rich have a short attention span. But Xander keeps coming around, despite her best efforts to scare him off. And much to her dismay, she's beginning to enjoy his company.

She knows her mom can’t find out—she wouldn’t approve. She’d much rather Caymen hang out with the local rocker who hasn’t been raised by money. But just when Xander’s attention and loyalty are about to convince Caymen that being rich isn’t a character flaw, she finds out that money is a much bigger part of their relationship than she’d ever realized. And that Xander’s not the only one she should’ve been worried about.

Episodes in Non-Fiction: Holiday and Reading

It’s that wonderful time of year, when real life is constantly intruding on reading time! I mean what do all these people want with me?! And why can’t I say no to all these social things, as I have been doing for the rest of year!

National Novel Writing Month Wrap Up

National Novel Writers Month Has come to an end. I know that I did not post anything about it along the way. I was trying to not to get stuck on how much I was or wasn’t writing because, for me, that just makes it harder to just sit down any write.

I didn’t “win” the challenge. I honestly haven’t even typed most of what I wrote; I just found it much easier to write with pen and paper than to try to type and think at the same time.

Top Ten Tuesday : 2014 Releases I'm Dying to Read

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This is a meme where bloggers share their top ten of that weeks topic!

1. The One (Selection Series #3) - Kiera Cass
2. Into the Still Blue (Under the Never Sky #3) - Veronica Rossi 
3. Independent Study (The Testing #2) - Joelle Chardonneau
4. Panic - Lauren Oliver
5. Ignite Me (Shatter Me #2)-  Taherah Mafi 

6. City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments #6) - Cassandra Clare
7. Ruin & Rising (The Grisha #3) - Leigh Bardugo 
8. Burn (Pure #3) - Julianna Baggot
9. Mortal Heart (His Fair Assassin #3) - R.L. LaFevers (n0 cover)
10. Redeemed (House of Night #12) - P.C. Cast

And I could keep going lol! It's gonna be a good year :) 

Clean Out Your E-reader Challenge Wrap Up

The #COYER Challenge is over as of November 30th. I didn't read even close to what I wanted to read AND I missed the Twitter party because I was doing family stuff. It was a rough month with sickness making it's rounds, new puppies, birthdays/anniversaries and a holiday. Next year I will know better than to try to do so much in November (hehe). 

So here are the three whole books I was able to finish:

Divine Beginnings

All is Bright

Anathema (I'm sliding this one in because I finished it over the weekend)

They have already posted the winners of the swags packs and other goodies and we should be hearing about the next challenge round this weekend. I will do much better next time I just know it!! 

CONGRATS! To all those who won!! And to all those who reached their reading goals for the challenge! Woot!!

Review Anathema by K.A. Tucker

Title: Anathema

Series: Casual Enchantment #1

Author: K.A. Tucker

Publisher: Smashwords

Publication date: May 25^th 2011

Pages: 661

Format: e-book (nook)

Evangeline has spent her teenage years in obscurity. Her foster parents have the emotional aptitude of robots and her classmates barely acknowledge her existence. About to turn eighteen and feeling like a social pariah, she is desperate to connect with someone. Anyone.
When Evangeline meets Sophie after literally stumbling upon her café, she believes she’s found that connection. Willing to do anything to keep it, she accepts a job as Sofie’s assistant and drops everything to fly to Manhattan, where she is thrust into a luxurious world of Prada, diamonds, and limitless cash. 
With such generosity and kindness, it’s easy for Evangeline to dismiss certain oddities... like Sofie’s erratic and sometimes violent behavior, and the monstrous guard dogs. She’s even willing to dismiss her vivid dreams of mob-style murders, beautiful homeless people living in caves, and white-eyed demons that haunt her each night as figments of her imagination—especially when one of those figments is the gorgeous Caden. When she wakes up with bite marks on her neck, the fairy tale quickly turns into a nightmare. She slowly unravels the mystery surrounding Sofie and friends, and the reality of the bites and the “dreams.” What she discovers is far more mysterious and terrible than anything she could have imagined. 

Life of a Blogger: Pets

A fellow blogger does a weekly meme called Life of a Blogger, it's pretty much what it sounds like. Each week she has a topic for bloggers to talk about themselves. I just discovered it yesterday so I am late with my post but since the topic is pets I HAD to participate!!! 

Click her button to check out here meme page and, while you are there, check out some of her reviews!