Daily Dose (2)

Daily Dose is a meme hosted by Good Golly Miss Holly where we share inspirational photos we've found floating around the Internet. Or maybe you shot some yourself. *shrugs* Who knows?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (2)

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly meme hosted by Book Journey where we share what books we've read, what we're currently reading, and what we're going to read. I haven't read much, but I'm hoping to get back on schedule with The Monstrumologist.

Read:

Specials by Scott Westerfeld

Reading:

The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey

To Read:

Extras by Scott Westerfeld

The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong

How I Love the Holidays

As it is after Christmas, I would like to thank all my family and friends for the great gifts! They are amazzing! And to all you lovely readers out there, here's what I got for Christmas (well, the bookish things, that is):

The first three books in The Luxe series by Anna Godbersen:

Virals by Kathy Reichs:

and Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman:

There's more to come, too, thanks to my $30 Barnes and Noble gift card! Eep!

So what did you get? Anything good?



Reading in a Winter Wonderland...

I love the Christmas season. Not only for the love that floating around and the wonderful gifts my family gives me, but also because there are such cute reads based on winter and the holiday seasons. They make hot chocolate and holiday tunes so much better. Here are some holiday reads that you may enjoy/like/love. Happy Holidays!

Let it Snow by Maureen Johnson, John Green, and Lauren Myracle

Pages: 368

Ages: Young Adult

It's Christmas Eve, and one of the biggest storms in memory has hit, isolating tiny Gracetown, Virginia. For Jubilee, Tobin, and Addie the storm will bring them together in the most unconventional of ways. Jubilee, on her way to Florida, is stranded outside of Gracetown when her train gets stuck in the snow. Rather than endure Christmas Eve night on the train with a mass of perky cheerleaders, she ventures out and head to the nearby Waffle House, where she encounters Stuart, who is still nursing a broken hand. Tobin and his friends JP and the Duke are enjoying their Christmas Eve holed up at Tobin's house and watching James Bond movie marathon when they are enticed out into the night to the local Waffle House. What should be a twenty minute drive on a clear night turns into a crazy race to gt there before the intimidating Reston twins...but when hey get there things don't go quite how they planned. For Addie, the holidays have been filled with misery since she and her boyfriend Jeb broke up. But this year she'll gain some perspective (and possibly more) during one very long and very snowy shift at Starbucks the day after Christmas.

Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Pages: 272
Ages: Young Adult

Dash and Lily, 16, find themselves on their own in Manhattan at Christmas. Dash is alone by choice--he's told each of his divorced parents that he's spending the holiday with the other, leaving them both to take vacations out of town. Lily's parents are taking the honeymoon they couldn't afford when they got married. They think that Lily is in the capable hands of her older brother, but he's less interested in her than in his new boyfriend, and then he gets sick and spends most of the holiday in bed. He does, however, start in motion the activity that is central to the story. It involves a red Moleskin notebook with a list of literary clues that Lily leaves in the stacks at the Strand bookstore. Bookish and erudite, Dash finds it and is intrigued enough to follow Lily's lead and leave some clues of his own. The dares in the book's title refer to innocent things such as going to various crowded places like Macy's and FAO Schwartz to pick up messages. As the dares go on, the teens reveal more and more about themselves in the pages of the notebook, until they finally meet under the worst possible circumstances.

The Princess Present by Meg Cabot

Pages: 96
Ages: Young Adult

Mia would give all the jewels in Genovia for the perfect present. Every year, Princess Mia spends the holidays in Genovia with Grandmére. This year, she's looking forward to the most perfect Christmas ever: her boyfriend, Michael, and her best friend, Lilly, are coming to Genovia, too. But even a princess's plans can go awry. Lilly has a lot to learn about palace protocol, and with all the state holiday functions Mia must attend, there's no time to linger under the mistletoe with Michael. Worst of all, Mia hasn't been able to find him the perfect gift. Can Mia stop her bah-hum bugging long enough to see that the perfect present has nothing to do with international express courier--and everything to do with real love? Though some shiny silver ribbon never hurts...

The Winter of Candy Canes by Debbie Viguié

Pages: 208

Age: Young Adult

Christmas is coming! And an elf outfit and the minty scent of what seem like a gatrillion candy canes arent' the only adjustments for Candace. Her biggest worry what to get her boyfriend for Christmas turns to a much larger project after Candace is reminded that real needs can be hiding right around the corner. Can this elf capture the true meaning of Christmas in time to make a difference?

How the Pops Stole Christmas by Nancy E. Krulik

Pages: 192

Ages: 9-12

Winter Break is approaching, and everyone at Joyce Kilmer Middle School is in the holiday spirit. Everyone except the Pops, that is! Jenny can't wait for the holidays, but her good mood quickly evaporates when she picks Dana as her "Secret Snowflake" in English class and finds out that her friend Sam is heading home to England for the holidays. Things go from bad to worse when Jenny doesn't get invited to her friend Mark's New Year's Eve party. What's going on? Is Mark angry with Jenny about something she did? Or could the Pops have something to do with it?

A Summer to Die by Lois Lowry

Synopsis: When Meg's family moves to a small house in the country, she must get used to many new things. She's annoyed about being stuck sharing a bedroom with her older sister, Molly. They have no common interests, and it's hard for Meg to hide her resentment of Molly's beauty and popularity. Just as Meg begins adjusting to her new surroundings, she feels that Molly is being a real nuisance again. But it's soon evident that Molly's constant grouchiness, changing appearance, and other complaints are not just part of a new mood. The day Molly is rushed to the hospital, Meg has to accept the fact that something is terribly wrong with her sister. On that day, Meg's world changed forever. And although she's hurting and frightened, maybe it's not too late for Meg to show Molly what she truly feels.

~~

Totally inappropriate for winter time, I know, but this was the only book on my shelf that I remembered well enough to blog about and besides, it's a good book.

This is a really quick read (only 154 pages) and I bought it, actually, for about $6.00. This isn't something I would usually read. Generally, I read dark fantasy, sci-fi, and paranormal. Not realistic fiction. But this was really good. Meg is a great character, realistic and relatable. Near to the beginning, I thought she was really annoying. She always compared herself to Molly, always telling herself how much she was unlike her sister. Molly seemed really nice before she got sick. But Lowry has her get sick really fast, not giving me, at least, much time to see the relationship between the two sisters when Molly was still healty.

The secondary characters are a big part of Meg's healing. They aren't really focused on; Lowry just shows us them from the surface, in Meg's point of veiw. You don't really see Meg's parents as much. They are very much a part of the book, and in Meg's resentment of her sister, but they're not stong secondary characters. The storngest secondary character, in my opinion, was Will, the old man who lived down the street from them in their country home.

Over all, this book was a relatable realistic fiction. Not usually my favorite genre, A Summer to Die wasn't that bad. I thought that Meg had to deal with a lot, and she dealt with it well, trying to carry on without her sister. Lowry is one of my favorite, more classic authors and I thought this book was one of her best.

The Cover: There are two covers, and of the two, I liked this one better. I love the link of the story and cover, which doesn't usually happen in books. It sets the mood for the book well, giving it a sad-summer feeling, in my perspective.

My Boyfriends' Dogs by Dandi Daley Mackall

Synopsis: If only boys were more like dogs. On a stormy night in St. Louis, Bailey Daley finds refuge in an after-hours diner. Bailey, a girl with three dogs in tow, wearing a soaking-wet prom dress, obviously has a story to tell. See, she wants what every girl want from her boyfriend: enthusiasm, loyalty, and unconditional love. And Bailey is always falling love--with boys, and with their dogs. And each of her dogs came from a relationship that didn't quite work out. But don't worry: in this fun, clean romance, true love is never far away--it just waits until you stop looking for it.

~~

Another book that I read awhile ago. My Boyfriends' Dogs was recommended to me by a friend and I picked it up at the library one day, and it has been one of the best books I have ever read in my life (and I'm not joking. Or exaggerating. It has been. Honest.)

Bailey is an adorable character with a lot of problems. She has insecurity issues, which affects her look on the romance part of her life. She's really confident, though, in her own way and she's so funny. Her stories are adorable and had me laughing out loud along with gasping out loud. Her romance vision is clouded with her undying love for her three boyfriends throughout the book. I thought she was a really sweet narrator, and Mackall wrote her so well. I found myself relating to her (even though I have never dating anyone, broke up with them, and taken their dog).

Mackall also writes the side characters in this book well. Bailey's mother is hilarious, and their mother-daughter relationship was obvious. Bailey's best friend Amber was also sweet, but a little more realistic in her own love life. Bailey really used her mom and Amber as her crutches in the entirety of the book when the going got rough.

Over all, I thought My Boyfriends' Dogs was a hilarious, sweet read that had me crying tears of joy and sorrow. Mackall is an excellent author and I loved how she wrote the parts in St. Louis from each persons perspective. Bailey was just a confused and hopeful teenage girl who wished for love, but also had some of the strangest predicaments. I loved this book and would read it again (if I could. Which I can't. Because I have 66 books to read [not including sequels and series]).

The Cover: This cover looks plain, and it is, somewhat, but I like the dog collars (if you didn't notice, the tags state each dogs name on them). But when I got the book, the back was in yellow with the dogs on it so the cover is plain, but the back is better.

Paper Towns by John Green

Synopsis: Who is the real Margo? Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs into his life--dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge--he follows. After their all-nighter ends, and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues--and they're for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew....

~~

I read this book awhile ago, like, last year awhile ago. And I just pulled it off my shelf and thought, "Huh. This would be fun to blog about" because a) this is an amazing book and b) I'm currently reading a 454 page book that's going to take me awhile to finish, so...I don't have many books to blog about.

John Green is going down as one of my all-time favorite authors. His writing is funny, realistic, and it goes deeper than just the story. For instance, not only does he promote Margo's theory of "paper towns" with Margo herself, but he also ponders the question, "Is your town made of paper? Are you a paper person?" And even though this book was funny and awesome, it did have some more serious undertones.

Quentin is so funny. He's your average, teenage guy with average, teenage guy problems (although, I really wouldn't know, considering I am not a guy). His parents are pretty laid back and I thought that Green really focused on Q's problems with friends and Margo much more than his family problems. Quentin takes us back to when he was younger and growing up with Margo and how it all changed. He tells stories about Margo in childhood and how his admiration of her slowly grew throughout the years. I thought Quentin was a really well-written character because Green did look into his past and made him seem real, but didn't get too heavy on the details of his life. Like his parents; didn't really go there. His friends are oh-so-funny too, and I have to say, Ben and Radar (his friends) had a tie for one of my favorite side characters in this book.

Green doesn't really totally touch down on Margo, but he does have little sweeps. The first part of the book is the only really connection with Margo until the end, when she comes up again. Margo is a really static character throughout the book and I really didn't like the way Green ended this one. I loved her clues, thought, and it was really interesting to see where Margo led Q, Ben, and Radar and meeting all the people she knew along the way. The beginning was interesting, especially the all-nighter with Q. But in the middle, when she disappears, it got less interesting. Then it picked up again towards the end on their road trip (hint hint).

Over all, I thought this was really sweet book. I loved Q's perspective of the whole thing, starting with Margo and ending with his own life. Ben was hilarious and Radar was equally awesome. Margo wasn't all that cool to me. I thought she was somewhat selfish in the way she didn't really care about the people she left behind. I did not like the ending at all. I thought it left too much open for a single novel. I must caution, though, that they do swear a lot in this book, although it wasn't drowning in it. Mostly the swearing came from Ben.

The Cover: Goodness this has to be one of my most favorite covers. I love the push pin and how it stuck to a map, which really is in the book. It's simple but it also give you this "paper towns" feel, using the map and all. Over all, very nice. Simplistic and to the point.