Incarnate - Read-A-Thon

Guys!!! 

I've always wanted to read this book. I swear. From the day Incarnate came out I WANTED it. 

But never got to it. 

So now I - and you - and everyone on the internet (!!) gets the opportunity to read the Incarnate series back to back with a ton of other people!!! And I'm feeling it's gonna be the best time!! 

I don't know about you, but I'm totally joining! 

And yes, that's the end of this post. 

Because...I don't have anything else to say. Other than: I am super excited to finally start reading this series!

Join if you can! 

Have you read Incarnate and Asunder? Are you excited for the trilogy ending next month???

An Abundance of Poetry

Hello lovelies!! 

For those of you who don't know what Bout of Books is - I got some questions in the comments: it is a one-week-Read-a-Thon to be found here.

Usually, there are two challenges a day to participate in and in my goal post I said I wanted to do them all - which I have accomplished until today! 

Today's challenges both focus around fun "poetry" projects, so I thought I'd post them on the blog for you  and not leave my entries in the comments like I normally do. I hope you enjoy! 

The firsts challenge is hosted by TheBookSpines:

For this challenge,  use books you currently have available, and arrange the spines to make a poem. Then take a picture, and share it with the web! For example, here is a simple poem that I used last year when I participated in this challenge. While I'm awful at poetry, I tried to make everything revolve around criminals and punishment! 

(sorry about the blurry picture. I tried 32 times. No really, there are now 32 pictures of this stack on my phone. And I'm giving up)

Basically the poem goes like this: 

Last Sacrifice 

Just One Day

Before I fall

The Diviners 

Star Cursed

An Abundance of Katherines 

The second challenge is hosted by Never Too Fond of Books

The rules are simple:

Open your current book to the last page you read.

Using the last word of every line, create a poem or story. You must use every word (but they do not have to be in order), and you may add punctuation as necessary. If a word is split between the end of the line and the beginning of the next one, you may choose whether or not to use it.

Create a post (or tweet or video) that showcases your masterpiece. If you don’t have anywhere else to post it, you can add it as a comment here and use the comment link as your entry.

Add it to the linky on this post.

The book I chose was Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys: 

the, was, adjust, a, restaurant, jukebox, bar, bartender, eyes, back, the, view, as, i, right, side, arms, an, willie, proud, vending, it, hole, out, napkin, the, counting 

Haha, great selection of words, eh? That's what you get when you read a book set in the 1950s! 

Back in the days, Daily Joe's was my restaurant. 

I loved the bar and knowing every shady creature entering on silent soles, hiding behind their hoods. 

Knowing what their faces look like when no one else does. 

The jukebox is playing, old songs, so often and so long until I can sing along and

turn from hating to loving them. 

You adjust to the music and the music adjusts to you. 

Sometimes I stare longingly at the vending machine. 

Hoping that it works. 

Knowing that it never has. And never will. 

And when the view out the windows has nothing more

to offer

than the blackness of the night. 

And when there is a hole in my stomach 

and everything in me yearns to leave this place behind. 

A pair of eyes is glued on my shoulders, 

as I turn around 

the bartender (Willie) takes my arm

 and I walk right by his side, 

out the door,

 the musty Daily Joe's 

And we walk and we walk and he walks me home. 

And as we walk, we are counting the stars. 

Okay, that's it for today! I hope you all have a faboulous weekend!! 

Have you ever done book spine poetry? Do you like it? 

I personally LOVE having random words and making a random story out of them!!! 

Review: Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

What if you only had one day to live? What would you do? Who would you kiss? And how far would you go to save your own life?

Samantha Kingston has it all: looks, popularity, the perfect boyfriend. Friday, February 12, should be just another day in her charmed life. Instead, it turns out to be her last.

The catch: Samantha still wakes up the next morning. Living the last day of her life seven times during one miraculous week, she will untangle the mystery surrounding her death—and discover the true value of everything she is in danger of losing

Frankly, Before I Fall felt like a waste of time for me. It was long, it was boring, it was repetitive and I did not get the meaning at all. 

Oliver usually saves the day with her beautiful, poetic writing style - but there was no one moment I stumbled upon that in Before I Fall. I found the writing rather plain without much character or personal touch - other than in Delirium.  

That, however, is a big problem in Before I Fall, because literally everything else fell flat for me, too. 

The characters were your general, stereotypical highschool girls, the Queen Bees in a small town, focused only on parties and boys and alcohol. 

The development of main character, Samantha, was visible, but not enough -absolutely not enough - to make me like her or keep me entertained by the story. 

The plot made this book a fail for me. 

I understand why some people would like it and that is why I want to stress that this is a very personal opinion - and maybe one bookbloggers will share more than occasional readers. 

In the book, we follow Samantha reliving the same day over and over again. This is something you will either love or hate. I think if there had been only three or four repititions and the book had been shorter then yes, maybe, I would have liked it more. 

But we relived the same day about 7 or 8 times and it just got on my nerves. I get that each time was entirely different, but the fact that no event or action would ever have consequences in the next chapter just made me...furious! 

I honestly think this book was supposed to tell me something, it did contain a message, I'm sure. It's just that I never got it and I got annoyed and I didn't like the book. There were some emotional moments, some interesting scenes, but overall I just didn't get the book at all and thought it was a waste of time. 

Heartbeat by Elizabeth Scott

Hardcover, 304 pages

Expected publication: January 28th 2014 by Harlequin Teen

Life. Death. And...Love?

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?

Other books by the author:

Long Story Short:

Having read a couple of other novels Elizabeth Scott has written - and remembering them as boring as bland - I was really skeptical of Heartbeat - but shouldn't have been. The novel tackled a very important and difficult topic in a way that was neither judgemental nor superficial. It gave the reader not only a choice to peek into a life situation so extraordinary and scary - while at the same time allowing to make up one's mind. 

Review: 

Let me start off by saying I did not expect this book to be only half as good as it was. My requesting it on Netgalley was a mistake that I thought I would regret and drag along for the first half of the year, at least. 

Oh well, not so! 

Heartbeat was amazing from the first page to the last. I got into the novel after reading the first couple of sentences, they set the pace and the mood for the rest of the novel and got me directly into the vibe of it!

Admittedly, I didn't think about the writing and the pace so much as I was reading, but I noticed by the way I was just turning the pages, flying through the book like it was nothing. I read Heartbeat in a day, not only because it was so grapping, so thrilling and so new! 

The story idea, I think, has not come up in YA a lot. Basically, it is about the MC's mother who died - and who is now being kept alive by machines, so that the baby she was pregnant with could survive. At first, I didn't think the book would touch me that much because I have never been even close to a situation like that - but it did. Oh, how it did! The issues Emma was faced with, the thoughts going through her head and the decisions she had to make really got me thinking - about the topic itself, sure, but also about my immense dislike of stories I supposedly "cannot identify with". 

I had read somewhere that especially the relationship between Emma and her best friend was remarkable and I can only agree. Olivia was the best friend ever!!! Admittedly, I did think her appearences were never really natural and felt forced at times - as though she only appeared on the pages when the author needed some dialogue in the story. Also, Olivia's rejection of everything technological was...interesting, but not really nessecary. Generally, if a side character has a special feature like that, it should either be explored fully (i.e. I want it to have some meaning to the book) or it should be left out. But that was really minor and didn't make me enjoy the story any less. 

On to the other characters in this book...

Thinking about it in retrospect, I think quite a few of them could have dine well with a bit more development. Dan was good enough and worked for the story - but I would have liked to see him develop and really understand towards the end. But then again, that might have contributed to the story in a way, too. 

The boys: one I fell passionately in love with; the other one I hated with a passion :) 

The ending fell a tiny bit flat for me, but it was realistic and I think, in a novel like Heartbeat, you just have to accept an ending like that. 

Overall, Heartbeat was a short, but very important, interesting, grapping novel that I would recommend to everyone. It moved me. 

Bout of Books 9.0 - The Updates

After looking at that enormous post yesterday, I eventually decided to do ONE update post for all of the days...so that the non-book-tube-a-thoners don't get dizzy from the workload of Updates!

Monday

Number of Books Read Today: 1
Total Books Read: 1
Total Pages Read: 288
Books: Enders by Lissa Price, (and finished listening to The Beautiful and the Cursed, but had only 1,5 hours left)
Notes: Good day! Managed to finish my first book, visited way more than 10 new blogs, participated in the Twitter Chat and had the reading-time of my life :)

Tuesday

Number of Books Read Today: 91& of one
Total Books Read: 1 and 91% of one
Total Pages Read:uh...about 341?
Books: Wild Cards by Simone Elkeless
Notes: I had to stop before the ending because it was getting too late and I was seriously sleep deprived that day, BUT I finished the last 30 pages this morning ;)

Wednesday

Number of Books Read Today: 90% of one
Total Books Read: 2 and 90% of one
Total Pages Read:
Books: And We Stay by Jenny Hubbard
Notes: This seems to be a theme here. I read until it is so late I can't keep my eyes open, then finish the book first thing the next morning! Also: And We Stay was not on my original goal post...but I'm not so sure about that one anymore anyway...I might depart from those books again...
I again participated in both challenges and visited even more than the 10 blogs I set out to visit! I did not join the Twitter Chat, because that would've been 2AM for me and that was just not going to happen.


Thursday

Number of Books Read Today: 0
Total Books Read: 3
Total Pages Read:
Books: An Abundance of Katherines by John Green, Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys
Notes: I was 30 pages into An Abundance of Katherines when I decided I wouldn't continue that day. I will finish the book, but right now, I just.cannot. handle it. I like John Green's humour, but just not - right now. Out of the Easy, however, lurred me in slowly, but entirely. I am IN LOVE! I didn't finish it yesterday, but that's okay. I'm still pretty good ahead of my goal :)

Friday

Number of Books Read Today: 1
Total Books Read:4
Total Pages Read:
Books: Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys
Notes: I read the majority of this while at the gym and then finished it at home. I do see myself starting to slack, though. As my winter break comes to an end, it gets harder and harder not to sacrifice reading time for homework...

Saturday

Number of Books Read Today: 0
Total Books Read: 4
Total Pages Read: 120
Books: Paper Towns by John Green
Notes: Missed the Twitter Chat and got only a really small amount of reading done. I should be sad. I'm not. I really had to work for Uni today and I will have to tomorrow. So if I finish Paper Towns - the fifth book! - and reach my goal (!!!) of five books, that would make me very happy and be more than enough for now!

Sunday

Number of Books Read Today:
Total Books Read:
Total Pages Read:
Books:
Notes:

Top Ten Goals/Resolutions For 2014

1) Read more books I want to read. (NOT jump on every hyped up bankwagon!)

2) Make time for reading (like...every day)

3) Read more adult books.

4) Finish the series and trilogies I started.

5) Write reviews as right away as possible.

6) Keep the blog up to date and make time for writing unique and good quality posts.

7) Leave more comments on other blogs.

8) Go on Twitter more. 

9) Go on Goodreads more (seriously, I'm missing out on all the boooks!!!)

10) Talk about my love of books more. 

This last one is the only one I want/ need to explain a bit: ever since reading Fangirl, I realized I can be a VERY bland companion, because I won't ever talk about myself. I will talk about Uni, sports, celebrities etc. but when someone asks me something about myself I will ALWAYS give the shortest answer possible. So, or the new year, I hope that I can share of my real, personal interests with others more instead of always feeling stupid for loving books (okay, obsessing about books...)

What are your goals for 2014? And which lessons have you learned from 2013???

Bout of Books 9.0 - Day One

Here we go! It is 8:30 where I live now, so Monday is slowly drawing to a close. I have - just like I planned - read for 2 hours this morning and will now (okay soon-ish) cuddle up under the blanket and read for another two hours and then hopefully finish Enders (which is, so far, really awesome!)

Here are the challenges for today!


Shopping Spree Challenge hosted by Bookish Comforts:

Imagine if you will: you’ve just received some FANTASTIC news! You have won a $100 book buying spree! Now comes the hard part though: what books will you buy?! For this challenge, you’ll be creating your book buying spree wishlist, and sharing it in the comments.



Unspoken and Untold by Sarah Rees Brennan (8.09$ and 8.99$)



My Life Next Door by Huntley Fitzpatrick (9.99$)
Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins (8.99$)





The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black (9.00$)
Pivot Point by Kasie West (8.99$)

Crewel and Altered by Gennifer Albin (8.80$ and 8.99$)

Girl of Fire and Thorns, The Crown of Embers and The Bitter Kingdom by Rae Carson (8.99$, 8.80$ and 8.99)

Wow, apparently you can get quite a few books for 100$. These books are really just those kinds of books that you see everywhere and always want to buy and read - but never actually get to it!!!

Mad Libs Challenge  hosted by Cheap Thrill Reads

I give a list of words I need from you: noun, verb, adjective, etc.

You pick words from book titles. (Share title and author so we can learn about new books!)

Use those words to complete a short story.

That’s it!

The fun of Mad Libs is not knowing how your words are going to be used, so please fill out your list before reading ahead to see the story.

character name – Maura (The Cahill Witches Trilogy by Jessica Spotswood)

adjective1 – easy (Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys)

adjective2 – Tiny (Ten Tiny Breaths by K.A Tucker)

item – Paper (Paper Towns by John Green)

occupation – British Prime Minister (British Prime Ministers from Balfour to Brown by Robert Pearce and Graham Goodlad)

act of violence –  Star Cursed (Star Cursed by Jessica Spotswood)

adjective3 – splintered (Splintered by A.G Howard)

noun1 – Fragments (Fragments by Dan Wells)

noun2 – Sacrífice (Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead)

It was not her best day to begin with, having sat on a stupid paper until a time of night where most people usually got up again. And starting your day without sleep is a bad idea, because that means it is technically stil Monday evening and you are technically still as exhausted as you were Monday evening. So, to be accurate, you are actually even more exhausted, because you feel like Monday evening just...on  Tuesday morning. 

This Tuesday morning, then, only got worse because a)the printer is a bitch b)it's even more a bitch when it steals your precious coffee time and c) the British Prime Minister destroys your paper. 

Because that is what he did. The Prime Minister. Something about how it was unacceptable to hand in a shitty paper on the one and only and not even having it double spaced!!! 

So that jerk just climbed out of the (apparently) too tiny spaces between the lines, grew out to his full length (not that impressive...in person) and easily star cursed not only Maura herself, but also the paper, which thereafter splintered into a million little fragments and was, therefore, not to be handed in anymore. 

With a satisfied expression on his face, the Prime Minister stalked out of the room and left Maura behind. 

Ahhh, and now I don't know how to work the sacrifice in!!! Maaaan, it's like when you can't think of a number 10 for Top Ten Tuesday!!!