Official Hiatus Announcement

Yeah. This is pretty much me as of late (meaning these past few months). I have been eating, drinking, sleeping work. So all of my reviewing power has been transported to The Broke and the Bookish, where it is a little less demanding (meaning I don't have to post every day there). 

Will I come back to this? Maybe. Currently I am getting ready to move (!) and so I've been busy with a lot of that stuff. But I could potentially see me blogging more after I move into my house and settle in. 

So for now, if you hadn't noticed, there is a break. But if you miss my wit and amazing, please check me out at The Broke and the Bookish or on Goodreads.  

Love you guys,

Julia

Mod Post: Where have I been?

Hey ya'll. Long time no see right? So where the hell have I been? Well, outside reading to be quite honest. :)

I have been starting to put some reviews again, so there is that. BUT I have been doing some stuff over at The Broke and the Bookish so I thought I'd give y'all the rundown.

Review of Four Sisters, All Queens by Sherry Jones
Remember I did a Waiting on Wednesday on this, way back when. I finally got to read it!

I highly enjoyed this story. It is a tale of a time that I cannot really fathom living in. All that war, all that oppression. ... The plot focuses on the sisters and their lives. ... Instead of directly focusing on one of the many issues of the time, Jones allows us to view these problems through the eyes of her queens.

Top Ten Books for People Who Liked The Other Boleyn Girl

Top Ten Books for People Who Liked Author X


So there are a few posts from what has been going on... and at 12:01 tonight I will link to this week's Top Ten Tuesday which is "Top Ten Most Vivid Worlds/Settings"

Hope you are taking advantage of the nice weather, if it is in fact nice where you are...

Happy Reading!

photo by Colin_K on Flickr

Celebration: CompBiblio is turning TWO!

Wow. I can't believe that I have been missing posts on this blog for months for two years :)

But really. I am so happy to make this milestone and I am grateful for each and every one of you who comes here to read my thoughts on books. Books have always been a big part of my life. To be able to find an international community of readers to interact with, was a Godsend two years ago. I love being able to hear so many opinions.

Though certain times have been more reading less reviewing, this online community is always close to my thoughts.

So in celebration of two years of blogging and in general celebration of this online community, I want to throw a giveaway for ya'll.

The Prize:
An up to $15 book of choice from The Book Depository

The Rules:
Enter via Rafflecopter below! If you can't enter via the Rafflecopter, please email me at bambbles{at}gmail{dot}com or leave a comment and I'll enter for you!

Also check and make sure The Book Depository ships to you. If not and you still want to enter, or if you just prefer it, I can give an eBook from any vendor of your choice that allows gifting eBooks (I know BN and Amazon, but not sure about Kobo)

The contest ends at 12:01 EDT on June 30th.

So let's celebrate CompBiblio's birthday the hobbit way! Giveaway for all!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Mod Post: TTT and RAK

Hello everyone! Happy May Day to you all! It was a cloudy dreary where I am today, but the sun managed to peek out a little.

Three things:

FIRST: Today is Top Ten Tuesday and my list is the one over on The Broke and the Bookish. I feel like most of you follow both, but just in case you don't and are curious, my Top Ten Books I'd Like to See As a Movie are over there!

SECOND: For the month of May I have decided to take part in Book Soulmates Random Acts of Kindness (RAK). What this means is that I sign up on a list which includes my wishlist (now a helpful link in my menu bar). Then people somehow chose who they want to send an RAK to and contact them for their info (a little shady... but you can check out the people).

The cool part is while new books are probably the most happily accepted, people are asking for gently used already read ARCs, eBooks, etc.

Which you sign the list to receive, it is also required that you give to at least one person. It doesn't have to be a book or new, handmade things are even welcome. It's just that they want people to give to.

I am not sure what I am more excited about, the giving or the receiving.

HOW THIS AFFECTS YOU: What I've decided is that if there is a book I get that I read and don't feel the need to keep for whatever reason, I will pass it on in a giveaway (sadly most likely US only, depending on how poor I am that month).

I am really excited about this whole business!!

THIRD: I changed the name of the website so it actually match the URL. It was getting rather long and I've been abbreviating it CompBiblio for a while now. I like it :)

Bloggiesta Mini Challenge: What's a Rafflecopter?

Hello everyone! Welcome to the Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge stop here at The Competitive Bibliomaniac! The topic/theme over here is...

What's a Rafflecopter? A Guide to the giveaway site, Rafflecopter

One day you are sitting around thinking to yourself "I've just got too many books!" (Okay. I am not sure any of us ever think this...) "I need some more space in my bookshelves for some new books" (Better) "Let's host a giveaway!"

But how do I host it? Have people comment to enter, but then I can't do multiple entries easily. Have people use a google form? The setup for that is kind of long and the nesting just looks horrid with my new layout.

What to do, what to do?

If you have ever been in this situation, fear no more. Rafflecopter is here! Rafflecopter is a tool bloggers can use to make crazy-simple giveaways. Rafflecopter will allow you to be as specific or as broad with your entries as you wish. It also provides a cool way of tracking who entered. Let's delve in.

The first step to creating a rafflecopter giveaway is to sign up for an account. This keeps all of your giveaways, past and present, in one convienent place.

Now let's create a giveaway. These are the basic steps:

• On your home page, your'll see a happening right now section, where it will list all your current giveaways or let you create a new one. I want to create a new giveaway so I select "Plan One Now"
• First we give it a name. Mine will be called "Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge Giveaway"
• Next add a prize. When we add a prize, it gives us the option to name it and put a total of how many are being given away. The cool thing about this section is you can update this any time throughout the giveaway and it will update the widget without changing the code! Great for when you add prizes halfway through!
• Now we have a name and a prize, but how do you enter? There are multiple options of types of ways people can enter.
• Leave a Blog Post Comment - You can even tell people in the task what you want to them to answer
• Tweet About the Giveaway - This one is super easy for end users because they have a built in tweet to tweet for an entry
• Follow a twitter user - Another easy, built in button so entrants can easy follow you
• Like a facebook page - Get more facebook followers easily and fast!
• Like this post - another easy tool to spread the word about your site
• Create your own - This task is awesome because it let's you dream a dream. What task can you think of to make? The one I most commonly see is Follow on GFC.
• Now that you've chosen any where from one to a ton of tasks, you can set some options for each. Is it manditory? Does a user get one entry or five for this task? There are so many options, and with the easy user interface, setting up a giveaway becomes a snap
• Next, let's enter a date range. Mine will run for a week.
• Finally we enter our terms and conditions and hit Get the Widget

After that it's as easy as copying the code into your entry! My favorite part is only having to do this once because it updates automatically.

One big thing to remember is that not everyone can see the Rafflecopter widget, so it is always nice to give an alternative entry for those readers, either email me or post it in a comment.

Now for your challenge.

The Mini-Challenge: The Rafflecopter experience
A Creator: Go over to Rafflecopter and play around with creating a Rafflecopter giveaway. Make some tasks, find out what you can do and not. No need for it to be real. See what the options are and if it fits your needs.

A Enterer: Enter my Rafflecopter Entry below to get the user experience. There is no need to be a blogger to enter this giveaway.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

(For those who cannot see rafflecopter please email me for a list of extra ways to enter. A free entry can be gained by leaving a comment with your email)

I will be reading comments so if there are any questions ask away!

Sunday Status: 3/4/12

Books I Finished This Past Week
Boo.. the first zero of the year. This week kicked my butt.

Books I am Currently Reading
An Affair with Mr. Kennedy by Jillian Stone
Grimm's Fairytales by The Brothers Grimm

Books To Be Read Next
The Price of Innocence by Susan Sizemore
This One Time With Julia by David Lampson

Last week in reviews
The Harlot by Saskia Walker

Things to look forward to
Top Ten Tuesday this week is about Top Ten Favorite Covers.

I don't know how much fun things we have to look forward to this week. Another hell of a work week will be upon me soon. But we'll see.

Cool Posts from Other Blogs
I've just started stumbling over to Dear Author and low and behold I find a super informative post about the latest publisher verses Amazon story. IPG, aka Independent Publishers Guild, is balking at Amazon's contractual changes toward them. While I am no Amazon lover by far and avoid purchasing from them unless necessary, IPGs tactic was to tell readers to fight with their pocketbook. Jane makes her case for "Why should we? What have you done for us?" brilliantly. I am enthralled by reading about how publishers react to the digital age of reading and thus loved reading this letter and the comments that followed.

Speaking of fun Dear Author posts, this one talks about a whole bunch of new fun stuff happening with paypal and censoring reading material. Another informative read to keep one up on the book world.

Moving on, I wish I could remember how I stumbled on to this, but if you know a guy who you are trying to get turned on to reading Guys Read may be just the place to help! Noted as the "place to come if you’re looking for something to get a guy reading" this may be the perfect stop for the girlfriend/sister/mother/friend who is looking to get that man in her life into the world of books.

Speaking of getting people into the magical world of books, Gone Reading is this awesome new start-up that sells a variety of things tailored to the book-lover. The best part about Gone Reading is that "100% of after-tax profits to provide new funding for libraries". I LOVE libraries and I LOVE reading. This is the perfect site for supporting both. They have some pretty cool merch, I am eyeing the penguin T-shirt (yay! pun AND penguins) and the monkey charm bookmark. So check it out. If you find something that suits your fancy remember it is going to a good cause.

Finally, despite being solidly out of the country for the weekend it falls on, I've decided to participate in the Bloggiesta the last weekend in March. I am most interested in the community aspect of the day which again will be challenging as I will be 9 hrs ahead of the US. And potentially riding a camel.

Still, I am going to make a to-do list and I even signed up to host a mini-challenge. Sounds like a lot for the first timer, eh? But whatever. I shall prevail! And hopefully not fall off that camel...

Also, I may be splitting up this status post and moving the Cool posts and giveaways into its own feature. I'm thinking on it :)

Giveaways from around the net
Winners from my 100 Follower Giveaway will be announced soon!

Giveaway hops going on that I have stumbled into:
Leap Into Books Giveaway Hop runs until March 5
Lunar Love Giveaway Hop runs from March 8 to 13th


Let me know any feedback. Also if you have some cool links, comment with them! Until next Sunday, have a great week!

Sunday Status: 2/26/2012

Books I Finished This Past Week
The Way We Fall by Megan Crewe

Books I am Currently Reading
An Affair with Mr. Kennedy by Jillian Stone
Grimm's Fairytales by The Brothers Grimm

Books To Be Read Next
How To Dance with a Duke by Manda Collins
The Price of Innocence by Susan Sizemore
This One Time With Julia by David Lampson
Firelight by Kristen Callihan

Last week in reviews
Scandalous Desires by Elizabeth Hoyt
Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood

At The Broke and the Bookish
I wrote a lovely discussion post about love triangles and YA Lit.

Things to look forward to
Top Ten Tuesday this week is about Top Ten Books I'd Give A Theme Song To.

CompBilbio is hosting a giveaway! The 100 Follower Giveaway runs until end of night Saturday, March 3rd EST. Enter now for a chance to win your choice of any book reviewed on this blog!

So far on GFC we went from 100 to 151 (+51) and on Feedburner we went from 101 to 128 (+27) for a total of +78. We are 22 followers away from an additional prize and only half the contest time is over.

Cool Posts from Other Blogs
I actually have tons of cool posts I found from a variety of ways this past week. First, over at BookRiot I was stumbling around, and they pointed me toward these cool sites, each a new way of finding the next book that you can read. One is Whichbook.net and the other Yournextread.com. I haven't had time to play around with them yet, but they seemed like cool ideas!

The Smart Bitches linked me to a few things this week. One was The 20 Most Beautiful Bookstores in the World. Seriously, that first one there would be so awesome! My other favorite was the 1920s theater!

Another was a post about the current "trend" I guess you could say about plagiarism in some self-published novels. Apparently it has been happening (and being outed) quite a bit in 2012 and the discussion around it at this post and at others linked to it, is quite fascinating! How anyone could ever think about doing this to some else just baffles me, and even leaving the moral piece aside, thinking they would get away with it? In the internet age?! I don't even have words...

The Goodreads Blog has a really cool post about how people find books using Goodreads as well as other methods. I am actually surprised at some of the findings considering my own bookish habits (they don't match the data too much!). Check it out! It's super insightful.

And finally, in completely not related to books except tangentially through movies, Feminst Frequency has a really cool video post about the 2012 Oscars Movies and the Bechdel Test. To summarize, it takes the 10 movies nominated for Best Picture and scores them against this simple test: 1)Does the movie have at least two, named women 2)who talk to each other 3)about something other than a man. You would be surprised (and saddened) how many actually fail.

Giveaways from around the net

That Facebook giveaway I keep talking about for a bunch of author's backlists is still going on. Hurry though! It ends this Wednesday!

Giveaway hops going on that I have stumbled into:
Young Adult Paranormal Activity Giveaway Hop - Ends Tuesday the 28th
February New Releases Giveaway Hop - Ends Wednesday the 29th


Let me know any feedback. Also if you have some cool links, comment with them! Until next Sunday, have a great week!

Sunday Status: 2/19/2012

Books I Finished This Past Week
Unveiled by Courtney Milan
Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood
Review Coming Soon

Books I Abandoned
The Devil in Disguise by Stefanie Sloane

Books I am Currently Reading
An Affair with Mr. Kennedy by Jillian Stone
Grimm's Fairytales by The Brothers Grimm

Books To Be Read Next
An Affair with Mr. Kennedy by Jillian Stone
How To Dance with a Duke by Manda Collins
The Way We Fall by Megan Crewe
The Price of Innocence by Susan Sizemore

Last week in reviews
Unveiled by Courtney Milan
Everneath by Brodi Ashton

Things to look forward to
Top Ten Tuesday this week is about Top Ten Books I'd Quickly Save If My House Was Going To Be Abducted By Aliens (or other natural or unnatural disaster).

Last week, my last contest for a copy of When Beauty Tamed the Beast by Eloisa James for the Romancing the Valentine Giveaway Hop was Deanna! Congratulations, Deanna and thank you to all who entered.

CompBilbio is already hosting another giveaway! The 100 Follower Giveaway! It runs until end of night March 3rd EST. Enter now for a chance to win your choice of any book reviewed on this blog! Thank you to all of my followers :)

Cool Posts from Other Blogs
Me, My Shelf, and I (wow do I absolutely adore that name!) took some time to write about book stores and ARCs. She has run into a sad site where Half-Price Books was selling some ARCs. A very interesting read, especially if you don't know much about ARCs.

In a previous Sunday Status, Jamie at The Perpetual Page Turner had a cool blog post on lessons her mom taught me applied to book blogging. She put up part two and it is just as interesting as the first.

Giveaways from around the net
The Broke and the Bookish, the other haunt on the net where you will see my reviews, has TWO giveaways going on right now! One is for a copy of NAME and the other is for a $100 gift card to Barnes and Noble sponsored by CouponCabin.com! You can check out links to both of them on the giveaway page! They end the 22nd and the 25th respectively. Good luck!

Awesome Facebook giveaway!!
Here is author Shana Galen and what she has to say about the contest:

I’m so excited because I am part of the Best Contest Ever! Elise Rome, Lila DiPasqua - Author, Heather Snow, Vanessa Kelly, and I are giving away the COMPLETE signed backlists of our favorite authors. As you know, I’m giving away Julia Quinn's complete signed backlist. To enter, just click on the Indulge in Our Favorite Authors tab on my Facebook author page and answer the question. Then pop over to the other authors and answer their questions as well. The contest ends February 29, so someone is going to win all these Julia Quinn books very soon!

The link in that quote is to Heather Snow's link, but after you Like it and enter, it gives you the links to the other 5 authors. What an AWESOME contest! Still 10 days to enter!

Giveaway hops going on that I have stumbled into:
Valentine's Day Books With Love Blog Hop - Ends Today!
The I Heart YA Giveaway Hop - Ends Monday the 20th.
The Literary Giveaway Blog Hop - Ends Wednesday the 22nd
February New Releases Giveaway Hop - Ends Wednesday the 29th
Young Adult Paranormal Activity Giveaway Hop - starts the 24th through the 28th

Let me know any feedback. Also if you have some cool links, comment with them! Until next Sunday, have a great week!

Giveaway: 100 Followers Giveaway!

About a week ago, I hosted my first giveaway here at CompBiblio. I didn't realize how much fun it would be! Because of the fun, I knew that one I reached 100 followers, I would have to have an awesome giveaway!

THAT TIME IS NOW!


The Prize:
Since this is a celebration of 100 people (well 102 exactly) want to follow me, the prize is your choice of any of the books I have reviewed on this site! Conveniently, here is a list!. The book must be less than $15.

One winner will be chosen!

If for some reason I reach 200 followers (I will be counting through Feedburner, which counts GFC as well as the other followers), I will add another book. The same for every 100 followers.

ETA on 3/1 I guess I dont really know how to count these things, but when I started feedburner was 101, now it 141 is and GFC was 102 and now it is 160. So somewhere in there is +100. That means two prizes will now be given away!!

I normally don't like making the Raffelcopter's too complicated, because to be quite honest, they are a pain to enter. But this time, I kind of want to promote my blog. So there is one mandatory entry and 4 additional entries. Remember, it only takes one entry to win :)

Note: If I review books between now and the end of the giveaway (if they are confines the rules below), those also count toward books you can choose. I will try to keep the list updated as much as possible.

The Rules:

1. Because this is a follower giveaway, this is one of the few times that I require the entrants to follow my blog. I have GFC and Feedburner for RFS or Emails. Chose one :)
2. The contest is international. If The Book Depository ships to you, you are golden. Here is the list of countries they ship too.
3. The maximum amount of each prize/book must be less than $15.
4. The contest will run for two weeks, until midnight EST the night of March 3rd.
5. Winners must respond to notification email within 48 hours of it being sent or new winners will be chosen.
6. Enter using the raffelcopter below. If there are any questions or concerns, please email me or leave a comment below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


ETA
If you have issues with Raffelcopter. Here are the options, just comment or email me which ones you did and leave an email address and I'll add it to the Raffelcopter for you. :)

- be a follower. Through GFC or Feedburner rss or email. This one is required so tell me how you follow.
- follow me on twitter @bambbles (tell me your twitter handle)
- tweet about the giveaway (leave a link to the tweet )
- leave a comment on of the book reviews on the website
- leave a comment on the giveaway entry telling me what book you may want. Not a binding choice. :)

Sunday Status: 2/12/12

Books I Finished This Past Week
The Harlot by Saskia Walker
Everneath by Brodi Ashton
Reviews Coming Soon

Books I Abandoned
Raziel by Kristina Douglass

Books I am Currently Reading
Unveiled by Courtney Milan
Grimm's Fairytales by The Brothers Grimm

Books To Be Read Next
The Devil in Disguise by Stefanie Sloane
An Affair with Mr. Kennedy by Jillian Stone
Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood

Last week in reviews
The Perils of Pleasure by Julie Anne Long
A Hint of Wicked by Jennifer Heymore

At The Broke and the Bookish
Everything I Know about Love I Learned from Romance Novels by Sarah Wendell

Things to look forward to
Top Ten Tuesday this week is about Top Ten Books That Broke My Heart A Little. This one is my week, though I have a twist for this blog here.

The Romancing the Valentine Giveaway Hop hosted by Reading-Romances is going on RIGHT NOW. Better act fast though, it only runs until Monday at Midnight!

Jeez, I sound like a infomercial... for just four payments of $19.95

Cool Posts from Other Blogs
At the GenreReviews Livejournal, they featured a post where the writer and her husband try to replicate romance novel covers. They not only replicated them, but switched the roles and talked about why they were demeaning to both genders and which ones worked well. It was a really interesting and fun read that I found through Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Speaking of Smart Bitches, last Sunday, The Broke and the Bookish posted my review of Everything I Know about Love. I tweeted the review, as I usually do, and since it was great I tweeted at the author.

There was this line at the end of the reivew that apparently sparked many peoples love (which is kind of funny because I had no idea how to end the review, so I wrote this:

Never feel guilty for reading something. A book can mean anything to anyone.

Well this line led to retweets by SB Sarah and a ton more people, causing me much elation.

BUT WAIT! There's more! (ha. infomercial me!)

Bumming around the other day, I realized The Broke and the Bookish had a TON of traffic coming from Smart Bitches. So my utter elation was complete because SB Sarah LINKED to my review in a very interesting post about the degradation of fantasy, scifi, and especially romance as a genre in the eyes of everyone else. It is a really interesting post about Reader Shaming. But I was too happy to get too mad about the articles linked within it, because yes! A link to review from my romance novel favorite site!

Giveaways from around the net
Awesome Facebook giveaway!!
Here is author Shana Galen and what she has to say about the contest:

I’m so excited because I am part of the Best Contest Ever! Elise Rome, Lila DiPasqua - Author, Heather Snow, Vanessa Kelly, and I are giving away the COMPLETE signed backlists of our favorite authors. As you know, I’m giving away Julia Quinn's complete signed backlist. To enter, just click on the Indulge in Our Favorite Authors tab on my Facebook author page and answer the question. Then pop over to the other authors and answer their questions as well. The contest ends February 29, so someone is going to win all these Julia Quinn books very soon!

The link in that quote is to Heather Snow's link, but after you Like it and enter, it gives you the links to the other 5 authors. What an AWESOME contest! It doesn't have an end date, and I just checked. It's still going!

Giveaway hops going on that I have stumbled into:

• Romancing the Book runs until Feb. 14
• Love Is In The Air Blog Hop runs until Feb. 14
• The Follower Love Giveaway Hop also runs until Feb. 14

Let me know any feedback. Also if you have some cool links, comment with them! Until next Sunday, have a great week! Oh, and Happy Valentine's Day!

Sunday Status: 2/5/2012

Books I Finished This Past Week
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Perils of Pleasure by Julie Anne Long 

Books I am Currently Reading
Raziel by Kristina Douglass
Grimm's Fairytales by The Brothers Grimm

Books To Be Read Next
Unveiled by Courtney Milan
The Harlot by Saskia Walker
The Devil in Disguise by Stefanie Sloane
Everneath by Brodi Ashton
An Affair with Mr. Kennedy by Jillian Stone

Last week in reviews
Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Things to look forward to
Top Ten Tuesday this week is about Top Ten Books You'd Hand To Someone Who Says They Don't Like To Read. I'm not sure I will do this one. I am actually really bad at recommending books to people, especially if they don't like reading. It will be an interesting one to read the picks though.

I've also decided that I will be participating in the Romancing the Valentine Giveaway Hop hosted by Reading-Romances. Look for that giveaway to be posted on Monday! I am super excited for this!

Cool Posts from Other Blogs
Reading Romances posted their February Challenge for their Reading Romances Challenge. I think I may do two from this month, even though it is a shorter month. One is going to be the "embracing cover" and two may be the historical fiction/romance set in a significant setting. We'll see.

Parajunkies, I discovered, does a really cool feature called Book Blogging 101 and this weeks topic was Book Blogging and Social Etiquette. It was a really interesting read, and a really interesting feature.

Speaking of interesting features, Jamie at The Perpetual Page Turner did this pretty awesome post 3 Lessons My Mom Taught Me That I Apply To Book Blogging. I think this is going to be a new feature for her, and this weeks was really interesting and full of more insightful comments.

Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl opened my eyes to something I didn't even know was out there, Active Fiction. In her post she talks about the sales Amazon has going on their Active Fiction titles as well as briefly talking about what it is. I also found this article from the Vancouver Sun that talks about Active Fiction and what it may mean for the future of reading. I don't think that the traditional book will ever disappear, but this Choose-your-own-adventure type of novel updated for the interactive age sounds pretty cool.

That said, Goodreads finished their complete disconnect from Amazon last week. If your shelves look a little messed up, that is because they are still trying to get things fixed. I know I applied to be a librarian just so I can fix the original publication dates on all of the books on my shelf. If you need something fixed that you know is wrong, just head over to the Librarians Group and someone there will fix it up for you.

Giveaways from around the net
Awesome Facebook giveaway!!
Here is author Shana Galen and what she has to say about the contest:

I’m so excited because I am part of the Best Contest Ever! Elise Rome, Lila DiPasqua - Author, Heather Snow, Vanessa Kelly, and I are giving away the COMPLETE signed backlists of our favorite authors. As you know, I’m giving away Julia Quinn's complete signed backlist. To enter, just click on the Indulge in Our Favorite Authors tab on my Facebook author page and answer the question. Then pop over to the other authors and answer their questions as well. The contest ends February 29, so someone is going to win all these Julia Quinn books very soon!

The link in that quote is to Heather Snow's link, but after you Like it and enter, it gives you the links to the other 5 authors. What an AWESOME contest!

Let me know any feedback. Also if you have some cool links, comment with them! Until next Sunday, have a great week!

Sunday Status: 1/29/12

Sitting around today, I decided I wanted to start doing some sort of status post to let ya'll know what is going on with me. Since I just started it, there may be some format differences as I go along, but for right now I am pretty excited to start.

Lots of book movement this week since I flew 4 hours on an airplane twice. Not much else to do but read and sleep. I like doing both. :)


Books I Finished This Past Week
Trouble at the Wedding by Laura Lee Guhrke
Look for a review of this in the coming weeks!
Winning the Wallflower by Eloisa James
A cute little novella that introduces Olivia from James's recent novel. I actually wish this was full length, because I really liked the characters and it could have done well with more time.
Heiress Without A Cause by Sara Ramsey Ramsey's debut novel which I reviewed for my January entry into the 2012 Reading Romance Challenge.

Books I am Currently Reading
Raziel by Kristina Douglass
To be honest, I don't know if I am going to continue this one. The alternating first person POV is hindering the progress of the story and so far after 50 pages I have almost no connection to the characters. We'll see.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
I am actually really enjoying this book so far. I am about 1/3 done and so far, so good. I am thinking this book will be a Book vs Movie post.
Grimm's Fairytales by The Brothers Grimm
Because I had my Nook handy, I started reading these again. I read through The Three Snake Leaves, a story that left me completely puzzled as to its moral, and Rapunzel, which I should delve into more in a full post.

Books To Be Read Next
Everneath by Brodi Ashton
I've been waiting for this one to come in a the library for a while! So glad that it is here!
The Perils of Pleasure by Julie Ann Long
This is part of the my 2012 TBR Pile Challenge. I have been meaning to read this series for most of forever. I have this as an ePUB for this weeks flight.

Last week in reviews
Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
"The story was good, the characters were good, the setting was good; I am not sure if there is much more to say."
Heiress Without A Cause by Sara Ramsey
"I didn't love either of [the leads], but I didn't hate them either, and I particularly enjoyed certain aspects of each. That is probably one of the more vauge statements that I have written."
The Stud Club Trilogy by Tessa Dare
"Ah, romance! I love a series that ties together but is still loose enough to read on its own"

Things to look forward to
As always, new reviews will (hopefully) continue to pop up every week. Top Ten Tuesday this week is about Top Ten Books I would Recommend to Book Clubs.

I've also decided this week that I will be participating in the Romancing the Valentine Giveaway Hop hosted by Reading-Romances. Look for that giveaway to be posted on Feb. 6th.

Cool Posts from Other Blogs
Over at BlogHer, I stumbled into an article on Pinterest and Book Blogging. They talk about using it to your best advantage as a book blogging site. Apparently the author gets more hits from Pinterest than from Twitter, even though she has way less followers on Pinterest. Pinterest and Blogging was also a cool eye opener for the general blogger.

I mean this totally makes sense to me considering I have found at least two websites that I really liked through Pinterest. Sounds like something worth investigating.

Related, Well Read Wife has a master list of book bloggers on Pinterest.

Speaking of Pinterest, if anyone wants an invite let me know in the comments. If you want to check out my boards (there is a LOT of cool recipes!) here I am on Pinterest.

Moving on, Literary Exploration has a super interesting post called There is no such thing as free books. It talks about her philosophy regarding ARCs and requesting review books. If you are new to blogging or just interested in a different perspective, check it out.

Giveaways from around the net
The biggest giveaway that I could find EVER going around right now is the Young Adult Giveaway Hop hosted by I am a reader, not a writer. There are 226 sites participating and some pretty cool prizes, so I would head over to the list and check it out.

My fellow Broke and Bookish blogger, Jana aka That Artsy Reader Girl, is hosting a 100 followers giveaway to celebrate that milestone! Act quickly though, the giveaway ends at midnight tonight! Even if you missed it, Jana's blog is awesome, so you should check the site out anyway!

Speaking of giveaways, isn't Rafflecopter awesome?!


So I think that is enough for now. I just decided to do this today on a whim, so hopefully next week I will gather cool links and giveaways as the week goes on, and not just have massive amount of info from today.

Let me know any feedback. Also if you have some cool links, comment with them! Until next Sunday, have a great week!

Reading Romances Challenge 2012

It looks like I have found another challenge that I think will be really fun. I already read so many romance novels as it is, so this will give me some guidance to the mess that is my "to-read-rom-nov" shelf on Goodreads.

Reading Romances is hosting this with a new challenge every month. I can't wait to get started!

I think with this challenge for my romance novels, the TBR Pile Challenge to expand my comfort zone, and the Goodreads challenge ticker looming at me in the corner, I have a good balance. This is doable!

Reviews Galore! Just not here...

I had a couple of reviews at other sites this past week. I meant to link them here on the day they posted but alas lots of things happened this week that kept me away from the computer.

Better late than never.

On Wednesday over at Seductive Musings I reviewed Laura Lee Guhrke's Wedding of the Season. This is the first of her Abandoned at the Alter series.

On Thursday over at The Broke and the Bookish I reviewed Final Jeopardy: Man vs. Machine and the Quest to know everything which is a book about the computer IBM has created to play Jeopardy!

Check them out if you are so inclined.

Book Blogger Hop January 14 - 17

Now that I am actively blogging again, I decided to participate again in this.

"Why do you read the genre that you do? What draws you to it?"

I read romance novels for the happy feeling it gives me. I like getting lost in a world where I believe things like this happened (hence why I stick with historical or something that has some kind of fantastical element). I like to be entertained when I read, for the most part. Since I started a job that uses a logic side of my brain quite a bit, coming home and trying to slog through something that doesn't relax me at the same time isn't going to cut it.

But I have noticed lately that I am reading a wider variety (of fiction), and I am glad the trend is moving that way for me. Sadly it is still at the point where I tell people I read and get the question "What kind of books?" the answer almost immediately has them dismiss me and not being a true reader, or some such nonsense. But that really is a post for another time.

Here are some of the romances that keep me coming back:

What A Gentleman Wants - Caroline Linden
Wicked Intetions - Elizabeth Hoyt
The Parasol Protectorate Series - Gail Carriager (huh apparently I haven't reviewed the third... I must get on that!)

So hope you enjoy your stay! Thanks for stopping by!

Random Discoveries

I've been reading a bit lately and then falling asleep soon after that, so review progress has been slow going (hence me starting at 9:15 tonight). But I have a book gathering story to tell.

I recently, after a bit of a drought, made a run on the library. Most of the books in the run were romance novels I've been wanting to read. I felt that while I was there I might as well pick up the next two in Caroline Linden's series. It wasn't till I was home that I discovered the covers shocking similarities.



THERE THE SAME PEOPLE! WEARING THE SAME CLOTHES! She even has the necklace on in both!!

Mind. Blown.

Pimpin' The Broke and the Bookish

So over at The Broke and the Bookish I reviewed Outlander. "But wait," you begin. "You've already done that!"

Yes it is true, but I updated the review (that I previously updated from 2009) and added a bit of discussion about longer books. The comments actually got pretty active, so if you have some opinions on the matter, or even if you don't, join in!!

Book vs Movie: Perfume

To welcome in the new year, I decided to do a little redesign. I like it, and I hope you do, too! How about a special book to movie comparison post.

For New Years Eve, I opted out of accompanying my family to see a comedian downtown and instead watched the movie that I have been holding hostage from Netflix for about a month now. It was "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer." I read the book last summer and wanted to follow up with the movie.

Here is what I had to say after reading the book by Patrick Süskind:

I sort of stumbled into this book. I don't normally read whatever genre you would call this, so I went in with a little trepidation. I like plot driven novels more than character driven, and unfortunately this falls mostly in the latter. There were times when Grenouille was doing something that I was completely engaged, turning pages to see what would happen next. And others, especially during chapters told from people I just met, where I wanted to get back to the point.

It was an interesting novel though, and at some points I was really thrown. I did not expect the ending at all but it was fitting for this story.

The idea of scent as the main focus is intriguing to me. I always found it one of the harder senses to capture in media. But Süskind (or his translator I guess) does a good job of helping me smell what Grenouille did through vivid vocabulary. The evolution from form to perfume also really interested me.

So I give it three stars. It's a good book, just not the kind that I fall in love with.

So a full 6months later, I watch the movie. I didn't remember much too much of the book, but things started to come back as the movie progressed. The movie was very faithful to the book. The directors translated it very well, kept the pace moving and did a great job of capturing scent on film.

Though it was a bit weird to see close-ups of Ben Whishaw's nose. (It is a nice nose, though). He did a remarkably good job of portraying Grenouille. Like I said in the book review, it is a character study and not having a good main character, who is an abnormal human being to begin with, would have just made the movie horrid. Other awesome cast members include Alan Rickman and Dustin Hoffman.

In general, it was an enjoyable movie, though not one with mass appeal. This is more of an artistic movie that has some unique undertones, just like the book. And also just like the book, the ending was strange. I think it was a bit stranger on screen because in the book you had the consistent whimsy of the writing. In the movie, well it could almost pass as normal for most of it, so the ending was extra jarring and wtfery.

2011 Reading Challenges Ahoy!

With my new job pretty much consuming my life much the way college did, I've had to work reading into my life again. And thus, this working into my life has pushed the challenges to the side.

One thing I want to do in 2011 is to get back on my competitive bandwagon! I signed up on Goodreads for the A-Z Challenges (Book, Author, Male Lead, Female Lead) and they will be crossing over. But even getting the range will make it interesting as time goes on.

Another reading challenge is going to be for me to actually review things over here. I've been doing reviews sporadically over at The Broke and the Bookish, but this is my blog. I want to bring it back to life. More goals for the future! Yay!

The Great Harry Potter Reread

It's been quite some time since I posted anything. My complete apologies (especially since I just finished 4 books). So while I type up those four reviews, I thought I would take the time to tell you about my next personal challenge, the Great Harry Potter reread. I am sure many others are undertaking this feat before the release of part one of the seventh movie this November, and I was inspired to start mine now, at the end of summer.

Before Harry Potter finished, every summer I would reread the whole series. When it was only 4 books this wasn't a big deal (I distinctly remember one summer reading 1 - 4 then 4 - 1 a few weeks later) but as more started to pile on (and the page count increased), I stopped doing it. I have only read books 6 and 7 one time each.

In any case, the great Harry Potter reread is inspired by Mark Reads Harry Potter. The emotions he is conveying through his first go round are ones that strike cords of nostalgia. His reviews are awesome and poignant and I recommend if you have time, checking him out.

So onward in my quest! I am stoked to relive the magic of growing up with Harry. :)

Fun Fact: I made that icon somewhere back in 2005 (at the earliest).