TBT: My Dealings with YA Authors

Graphic by myeverydaylifeblog.com

It's almost the start of summer for me!  I only have one more final left and I just can't wait!  

So, my throwback Thursday...Last summer, at the end of the summer, there was an author event nearby where I live.  I live in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois.  I was unable to attend the event, BUT, I was able to get some cool stuff from the authors featured there!

The event was 5 Good Reasons to Read YA and it took place at 

Anderson's Bookshop on August 30, 2012 in Naperville, IL.

There were 5 authors featured at this event:  

Veronica Roth, Erica O'Rourke, Dan Krokos, Susan Dennard and Leigh Bardugo!   

I was bummed that I was unable to go, but, that didn't stop me from getting exclusive material from each of the authors!  The first 240 to by two or more books by the authors from this bookshop received a special booklet full of exclusive secret content.  I ordered my books online and was able to get my two books autographed by the authors themselves!

Here's what I received:

• A First Army poster designed by Marissa Mukavetz for Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone. This posters was signed by the author and labeled as the official first print run!

• A 40 page booklet containing exclusive content from the authors!
• an alternate, never-before seen opening to Insurgent by Veronica Roth
• a scene from Something Strange & Deadly from Daniel Sheridan's point-of-view by Susan Dennard
• two secret Before and After scenes from Erica O'Rourke's Torn series
• the first five pages of the second book in the False Memory series by Dan Krokos

The two books I bought were Insurgent by Veronica Roth and Bound  by Erica O'Rourke.  I got them both autographed by the authors!

The only book I have read from these authors is Insurgent by Veronica Roth.  I have Erica O'Rourke's Torn dowloaded on my kindle, & Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo is very high on my TBR list!

                       

                                     Me holding my signed copy of
                                    Insurgent  by Veronica Roth

Me holding my signed copy  of
Bound  by Erica O'Rourke

Even though I couldn't go, I still received all of this in the mail, & it was a great gift to end my summer.  Now summer is starting up again and I'm excited to see what's in store!

Finals Week! [insert training montage]

THREE MORE DAWNS, THREE MORE DAYS, THREE DAYS MOREEEEEE!

So yes, fellow bloggers, I have finals starting tomorrow.  After this week, I am finally off for the summer.  Well, minus the ACT I also have to take for Saturday.  They always say junior year is the hardest, AND DARN RIGHT IT IS.  I've been studying nonstop trying to nail everything I learned from Spanish 3, Physics, and Trig/ Pre calc.  The thing is, I'm like Dory from Finding Nemo.  I have short term memory.  But I think I speak for a lot of us when I say that.  Basically, everything I learned went in one ear, and right out the other. So it's the relearning that I think is definitely the hardest part about finals.

So here's the breakdown:  I have my Starbucks iced coffee from Jewel, I have my 8tracks on, I am wearing comfortable clothes, and I'm ready for this allnighter.

Got any advice for me?  Please let me know.  This week will be so hard for me, but after Saturday morning, I'll be home free.  Good luck to anyone else taking finals!  May the odds be ever in your favor!

Top Ten Tuesday #1: Books Featuring Travel In Some Way

Top Ten Tuesday is an weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.  Each week participants list their Top Ten choices for a weekly theme. This week's theme is: Top Ten Books Featuring Travel in Some Way!

This is my first one and I'm excited to meet other bloggers in the book blogging world and see everyone's top 10!





1. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins.  Let's see...American school in Paris, French/ British/ American boy.  I sure as heck would travel there.  Can I be Anna?








2. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares. I mean, who doesn't love a story about 4 best friends being separated for the summer and traveling to different places? I love all the adventures they have and the letters they send. Very travelesque book.






3. 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson.  Adventure, mystery, romance, and at the same time traveling throughout Europe?  Sounds good to me!






4. Across the Universe by Beth Revis.  Traveling across space in a spaceship to a new planet.  Seems legit enough.







5. Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie.  All you need to fly is faith, trust, and pixie dust, & soon you're off to Neverland, where you'll never grow up.  I love this book with my life.  I've always wanted to go to Neverland.  Such a magical place.






6. Paper Towns by John Green.  This book was so amazing and mystery filled...I felt as lost as Q when he was looking for Margo!  ROAD TRIP!!





7. The Angel Experiment by James Patterson.  The whole book is the flock traveling and fighting the bad guys.  Pretty much.  But I loved the action in here! 







8. The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perlious Journey by Trenton Lee Stewart.  I love all the traveling and mystery in the second book in the Mysterious Benedict Society series.  All the places they went were so interesting and really made the story flow!






9. Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys.  Such a beautifully written book with a deep meaning to it.  Shows the hardships of people living during that era in Europe, and how strong they are in the long journey they took.  Really thought provoking.






10. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gillbert.  "pleasure in Italy, devotion in India, and on the Indonesian island of Bali, a balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence."  This book was so descriptive (considering it's a memoir) that I could picture where she was in my head. 














What about you?  What's your top ten?

Book Review: Before I Fall

Title/ Author:  Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
Publisher/ Year:  Harper, 2010
How I read it:  Hardcover library book
Why I read it:  I joined a book club on goodreads and this was one of the "currently reading" books for the month.
Rating:  3 stars out of 5

This is a stand alone novel written by the author of the Delirium series.  I read this a while ago right after I finished Beautiful Creatures. Want to know what's funny?  In the book, February 12 is a very very very significant date.  And the day I started the book was indeed February 12.  Coincidence?  Haha first it was Beautiful Creatures, then Before I Fall.  I was convinced that it was a sign from the book gods.  This is one of the coolest book things that has ever happened to me while reading books.

Summary from Goodreads:  What is 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.

Quick Review for those who have not read it yet:
Overall, I thought it was a pretty good read. It was okay for me.  The idea of the book was the main thing that intrigued me.  It took me a while to get into it and sometimes I felt like the plot was all over the place and I wasn't sure where it was going exactly because it was pretty much the same ting but different events and it didn't really flow until it got near the end where things started getting really good.  I recommend this for people looking for just a good read when there's nothing else.  If anything, this book was very thought provoking and gave an important message:  live each day as if it were your last.

The Review:
First of all, the obvious, Samantha Kingston.  I love Lauren Oliver's choice to make her protagonist someone everyone absolutely hates.  In other books, it's always the shy one, the one everyone loves, the outcast.  But, Sam was a popular, mean girl with zero concern for anyone besides her 3 best friends and her boyfriend.  If I met Sam in real life, I would be the kind of person that stays away from her, cause I'm not a fan of that kind of crowd.

What I love about Sam the most is her character development throughout the story.  OH MY GOSH.  HER CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.  This is my favorite part of the book.  I loved her character development throughout the story, even if it was extremely all over the place at times.  At first, she thought, "Hey look, maybe I didn't die!  I'm supposed to live!  So let's avoid getting killed!"  Then it all started to make sense when Juliet Sykes committed suicide.  And that's when Sam began noticing and observing more to figure out what she was doing wrong as a person (rethinking her morals) and trying to save Juliet, a girl she and her friends had tortured for no reason.  Her progression was amazing and I was happy yet sad at the way she saved her life.  She realized she needed to die rather than an innocent person.  But I love how she changed perspectives but kept the same ones as well.  she still respected Lindsay, Ally and Elody even if they weren't perfect and were mean for no reason.  But she discovered the backstory and understood, but didn't at the same time.  She dumped Rob.  Amen.  And she learned how to appreciate things in life, no matter how little. Like Izzy, her little sister.  The way she spent the day with her just to be with her, then gave her precious necklace to her.

I think my favorite character (and in second place for favorite part of the book) is Kent McFuller.  He may have been on the outs with Sam, but he was ALWAYS there for her, even if they drifted.  I love how they grew close at the end and how he always loved her.  He saw her for who she truly was.  He knew that deep down, she was still the same Sam from when they were younger. That Sam... he was looking for her.  Then, she began to fall for him.  I think I completely lost it though when Kent told her, "I vowed after that day that I would be your hero too, no matter how long it took."  I think that's really something.  They were best friends.    They drifted.  Sam became popular and wanted nothing to do with Kent.  I feel like this is one of those Snily moments.  "After all this time?" "Always." (SNILY FEELS I AM SORRY).

Here's my criticism:  the only thing is, I wish Kent somewhat remembered the "previous" nights when Sam was crying, then sleeping in his bed, etc., because then...we wouldn't have the insta-love factor.  On the 7th day, sure she was a changed person and she loved Kent, but I think Kent was just as confused as I was.  On the last day, it just happened.  I mean sure, with the plot and everything, it shouldn't be considered insta-love...but imagine if you were Kent, you had no clue that Sam had been reliving the same day for 7 days, and  all of a sudden she's in love with you out of the blue?  It's just...eh.  But of course she only had one day to make it right, so it's understandable.

I did enjoy this book.  Kent is a very sweet character.  Sam had amazing character development.  And Juliet, and to anyone who feels like they relate to her...it's never too late.  If I learned anything from this book, it's live each day as if it were your last.

What are your thoughts on the book?

Book Review: Beautiful Creatures

Title/ Author:  Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Publisher/ Year: Little Brown and Co., 2009
How I read it:  Kindle
Why I read it:  My favorite booktuber highly recommended it, and the movie was coming out.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5

This is the first out of 4 books in the Caster Chronicles series.  I read this a long time ago back in February, but I wrote a review for it back then as well.  I wanted to read it before the movie came out, which I did!  The funny thing,I finished this book on Lena's birthday, which just so happens to be super significant in the book.  So I was pretty excited.

Summary from Goodreads:  Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small town of Gatlin has ever seen and she's struggling to conceal her power, and a curse that has haunted her family for generations.  But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.  Ethan Wate, who has been counting down the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met.  When Lena moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.  In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.

Quick Review for those who have not read it yet:
This book was full of mystery and adventure and romance and it was just a hit out of the park.  Overall, I LOVED this book.  The setting was perfect, the characters were awesome, and the plot was absolutely amazing.  Honestly, this is such an original and unique plot than other things I've read before.  My only criticism is that some of it kind of dragged, and I felt that some parts were unnecessary...but otherwise, if you're looking for a good read, I recommend this book.

The Review:
There were many things I enjoyed about this book.  First of all, the setting.  I love that the setting is crucial and important for the whole book.  It's not like you could take the characters and the plot and put it somewhere else.  This setting was brilliant:  small town in the South obsessed with the Civil War, Greenbrier, Ravenwood Manor, everything.  A lot of the events that happened in the book were awesome.

I'm such a sucker for fictional characters that read books.  I mean there's Will Herondale (The Infernal Devices series), Ky Markham (Matched trilogy...even though it was poems but), Dash (Dash and Lily's Book of Dares), and now we welcome Ethan Lawson Wate.  His character was awesome and I loved him as the narrator.  I didn't expect it, but I was happily surprised.  I love how he chooses to be with Lena, even if it's impossible for them to be together.  He shows her love before the storm happens (like A Walk to Remember).  He is such a GREAT protagonist.  Lena was awesome as well.  She didn't want to get herself involved, but then she met Ethan.  She's such a strong female character and I wish there were more characters like in in YA.  I thought the idea of her being a Caster was pretty awesome.

The thing I loved most about Ethan and Lena was the connection they had:  the dreams, the speaking in each other's minds, and especially the flashbacks with the locket.  It was almost like the past was repeating itself near the end.  Like with the locket, you see how the Duchannes get cursed.  Why on the 16th birthday of female Caster (hey there Lena), she gets claimed by either the Dark or the Light.  But at the end, the reality basically was the past (almost) repeating itself.  Except, Ethan didn't die (PHEW!) and I guess Lena is part dark/ part light?  Cause at the end, it says one eye is green and the other is gold?  I'm still a bit confused to be honest, but I guess I'll have to read the other 3 books to get that question answered!

The action was so amazing.  It wasn't just some romance novel.  It was an action novel.  The fight between Dark and Light, all the villains. YES.  I loved the villains in the book.  They're such good villains and their characters were awesome.  Ridley.  She's so bad a!  She's what I imagine Lena would be if she turned dark.  And her role in the plot made her a really interesting character.  I honestly kept telling her to go away, because she kept on showing up at the most opportune times. Haha.  Then there's Sarafine.  FREAKING SARAFINE.  I thought the idea of Lena's mother being the darkest Caster that ever lived (I think...right?) and being her number 1 enemy was a great idea.  And the plot twist with Link's mother being Sarafine for like all those months?  Wow. Just wow.  I really didn't expect that.  She's so good at being evil.

My only criticism is that some of it kind of dragged, and I felt that some parts were unnecessary.  Like I felt like the plot could have still progressed and have been the same if some parts were taken out, but either way, I love Ethan and Lena and the book overall.

Kami and Margaret, this story was brilliant and different than most books I have read.  I loved Amma's character and Macon's character and the part they played in the story.  That goes the same for Marian and Boo Radley.  I think my favorite scene is when she breaks the windows.  Before the movie came out, I was most anticipating that scene.

Well, I can't wait to read the next book!  What do you guys think?

Maximum Ride: I miss the flock!

Technically this is like a TBT but it isn't.

Tonight, on tumblr, one of my favorite bloggers started posting a bunch of edits and text posts about the Maximum Ride series and I was reminded about how much I love that series and hated the way it ended.  I'm sure I'm not the only one.  But anyway, it was crazy, and we all got excited, then the "maximum ride" tag was overflowing because we found the lost fandom!  We decided to call ourselves "The Flock".  It was a pretty awesome night!  Although I guess I should have been studying for finals.  Whoops.  I have that next week...so, I'll make this one quick!

After seeing all those text posts, it made me realize how much I miss the flock and the series.  I remember how I felt after I finished Nevermore.  After ranting about the ending, I took time to think about the flock now and how much their characters have developed since The Angel Experiment.  I have to admit, thinking about that makes me all teary eyed.  I love the flock minus Dylan, I actually really could not stand him.  No matter what happened in the last book, Maximum Ride will always be a part of me & will always be one of my favorite series.

I'll always miss Angel (in the first 3 books) and her childish nature.  I'll always miss Gazzy and love for making things explode.  I'll always miss Nudge and her crazy hair problems.  I'll always miss Iggy and his blindness but awesomeness.  I'll always miss Fang and his complex but caring nature.  I'll always miss Max and her strength and love for her flock.  I will probably never miss Dylan and his singing and robotic nature and obsession with Max.

This series just flowed, and I got excited every time I read the next one after the other.  I wish that I could remember how it feels to read one of your favorite book series for the first time.  I remember finishing Fang and I threw my book against the wall and yelled, "no" for about 30 minutes.  To be honest, I didn't expect that at all.  Pretty much everything that happened from Max all the way to Nevermore had stuff in it that made me ask, "WHY JAMES PATTERSON?" I think we all asked that at one point.  But man, I miss the flock.  I definitely want to reread the series soon and fall in love with the flock again.

Excuse me while I continue to suffer from withdrawals.  Goodnight!

I'm on Bloglovin'!

If you haven't noticed already, I just started my blog, Bubbly and Bookish, yesterday.  Summer is coming up for me and I have about one more week of school before I'm free for the summer!  Because I'll be free for the summer, I'll be able to read more books, post some reviews, and chat with other bloggers about everything and anything concerning books.

I talked to a blogger yesterday about one of their posts and she mentioned in her reply to me about a website called bloglovin.com.  I decided to use this website when I follow you guys.  You guys should follow me on this website too.  I like how it keeps things organized and neat, and tells me which are the newest blog
posts.  I get the feeling that I'm going to be using that A LOT this summer.

So hello, everyone, my name is Sarah, I'm 17, and welcome to my (still developing) book blog where I will post reviews, discussions, basically anything about books.  Stay tuned, because Bubbly and Bookish is a full storm ahead!


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