Friday Finds - April 30th

Okay so I've come to the conclusion that MizB at Should Be Reading is awesome. Not only does she have the Teaser Tuesday meme, but she also created Friday Finds. Friday Finds is simply a chance to share books you think sound interesting that you only recently discovered. I think I will limit myself to three books a week.

Finally by Wendy Mass
“Rory Swenson has been waiting her whole life to turn twelve. And she’s got a list to prove it. Whenever Rory asks her parents for something, they always say, “When you’re twelve, when you’re twelve, when you’re twelve…” Well, in exactly 18 hours, 36 minutes, and 52 seconds, it will finally happen. Rory’s life will officially begin!
Fun, funny, and full of surprises, this is a story about wanting to grow up even when the universe seems to be telling you to wait.” (inside cover)

The Six Rules of Maybe by Deb Caletti
“Scarlet spends most of her time worrying about other people. Some are her friends, others are practically strangers, and then there are the ones no one else even notices. Trying to fix their lives comes naturally to her. And pushing her own needs to the side is part of the deal.
So when her older sister comes home unexpectedly married and pregnant, Scarlet has a new person to worry about. But all of her good intentions are shattered when the unthinkable happens: She falls for her sister’s husband. For the first time in a long time, Scarlet’s not fixing a problem, she’s at the center of one. And ignoring her feelings don’t seem to be an option…” (inside cover)

Fire Will Fall by Carol Plum-Ucci
“ShadowStrike poisoned the water of Trinity Falls two months ago. Now the Trinity Four, the teens most affected by the poison, have been isolated in a remote mansion and are under twenty-four-hour medical care while scientists on four continents rush to discover a cure.
For Scott, Cora, Owen, and Rain, life is anything but peaceful at the old Kellerton mansion. Boredom and resentment build as they struggle with annoying – and possibly fatal – symptoms, while dueling with their own personal demons.
Meanwhile, U.S. operatives scour the world for the bioterrorists responsible for this heinous crime. But the two teen virtual spies who chased the extremists across the Internet prior to the attack are convinced that ShadowStrike is closer than USIC agents think. The danger remains very real – for Shadow Strike has every reason to pursue the Trinity Four, and their evil plan will unleash a new designer virus even deadlier than the first.” (inside cover)

My Hunger Games fan-made cast list.

I dont remember what I was looking for when I came across the fact that, OH MY GOSH, they're making The Hunger Games into a movie?! Practically every Google result was a fan-made cast list, so I decided, hey, why not jump on the bandwagon? I've never been one to try to match actors to what I imagine [book characters] to be, so I sort-of had to go with a variety of selections from other lists. (*The one thing I can compltely picture is the muttations looking like those dog-type creatures from Avatar*) Honestly, I'd be perfectly fine if all the actors were no-names, just as long as the book/movie adaptation doesn't suck! (Hint: casting Megan Fox as Katniss would make it suck). If you have your own "fantasy cast list", please share!

Cato

Kellan Lutz

Gale

Taylor Lautner. Sorry to those of you disappointed with seeing Twilight actors in every movie, but this was the only actor I could actually place to a character from the book before I looked at others' lists.

Glimmer

Hayden Panettiere

Haymitch

Jack Nicholson

 Katniss

Camilla Belle

Peeta

William Moseley

Rue

Jodelle Ferland, even though she still freaks me out (Silent Hill) and has the wrong color skin, she was the only one I was able to find with "the eyes".

Thresh

Drew Roy, but they'd have to rough him up a bit.

Teaser Tuesday - The Six Rules of Maybe by Deb Caletti

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.
The "rules" are as follows:

• Grab your current read
• Let the book fall open to a random page
• Share two “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• *NO SPOILERS*
• Include the title of the book

""I suppose you don't stand much of a chance if you think that happiness is the absence of unhappines," he said. "Good luck ever being happy, then.""
~p. 120 of Deb Caletti's "The Six Rules of Maybe"

*Fair warning, I'm not promising I'll always be able to abide by the "two sentence" rule. Hope you guys don't mind!

Daily Dose - Weekly Inspiration

A random tidbit about me, if I haven't mentioned it before: My favorite Disney movie is Peter Pan. While Return to Neverland definitely doesn't reach the same level, I really like Jonatha Brooke's theme song (I'll Try) from the movie, especially the line "all the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust..." I was originally going to post one image of each [faith, trust, and pixie dust], but there were so many lovely/inspirational pictures for all of them, that each of them are going to get their own week! Up first, faith:

Matthew 17:20 - "I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it would move. Nothing would be impossible."

An apology to you, my wonderful readers/followers!

I've taken the past two(ish) weeks off blogging to concentrate on this last push for this semester [of school]. Finals are the beginning half of this week, and I expect to have to use the last two days to recoop so I don't burn myself out on writing before the summer semester starts, so I will probably be missing for the rest of this week, too.

The good news? We finally started our new schedule at work where I get (almost) all weekends off! I hope to be able to use these days to catch up on blogging - especially this weekend. No excuses! Wish me luck - I do have an awful lot of material ready to blog about, I just haven't been able to motivate myself and/or find time to do so.

Daily Dose - Weekly Inspiration

I've put a rather random theme to this week's Daily Dose...Anyone who knows me knows I don't dance - not that I can't dance, I basically just refuse to dance with other people present. My beautiful friend Alexis inspires me how she just lets loose and doesn't care what anyone else thinks; so, I dedicate this week's Daily Dose to her!: 

Find me a castle to dance in front of, and I'll dance, too.

Review (Audiobook) - The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I would like to do something with this post that will make it a little unconventional...I will still be featuring an audiobook and writing a [mini] review on it, but as opposed to every other book I've reviewed, I'm not going to share the summary [of the book] with you. Why? Because as I was listening to the first CD or two, I realized that I myself had begun this book without reading the back cover to find out what it was actually about. This is a rarity - I found myself enjoying the book while being surprised about what was happening; though, I will admit, by the end of the first CD I read the back cover to see if I was correct in my guessing as to what was going on. 

This audiobook is read by Carolyn McCormick. She's no Josephine Bailey, but she still has a pleasant voice to listen to. I was a little disturbed how she made a cat with worms sound cute, though. And I commend her for trying to voice a man imitating a woman.

Once you listen to (or read) enough of the story, parts of it are somewhat predictable, but there is also so much originality to the story, it didn 't matter. The book is beautifully written, yet the plot almost makes you wonder what happened to the author to give them such disturbing ideas. I almost cried once, but managed to hold myself together (yay, me!).

I was so engrossed in the book that I would spend my lunch breaks sitting out in my car so I could listen to the story (I would have picked up a hard copy to read when I couldn't be listening, but there is still a large waiting list at our library for it). This is the only book (that I can recall) that I have liked so much before I even got halfway through the first book, that I picked up a copy of the second book to have on hand to read once I finished the first.
Okay, is it really killing you to know what this book is about (if, by chance, you don't already know what it is about)? I'll give you a small hint - take The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, the movies Death Race and/or Gamer, and the reality TV show Survivor, melt them all together and stir in Suzanne Collins's unique-ness, and you have: The Hunger Games.

My Rating:

Daily Dose - Weekly Inspiration

This past week (espsecially the weekend) has been insane. Friday I played soccer and got hit by a soccer ball that was kicked by a guy who obviously didn't care that he was playing against a girl (the hexagon mark is still on my leg), Saturday I played kickball and ran into a tree, and Sunday an elevator tried to crush me! I don't think I was home more than a couple hours of waking time all weekend, so I certainly haven't spent much time on the computer. My apologies for the lack of posts. However, I did get an iPhone on Thursday! Hopefully this means I'll finally be able to write some of my posts that required I take pictures... Have a great week everyone!

Haha sorry but I had to put this one in. Saturday, Christ Fellowship had a church-wide picnic. We had a kickball tournament - I ran into a tree (unfortunately I didn't get a picture of that), but our team was victorious! I surprised everyone (including myself) with the catches and kicking I was making, and our captain (green shirt) made me VIP. He tried to make me take the trophy by myself but I said I would only help, since I didn't win the game on my own.

Top Ten Picks: Books You Have To Read At Least Once

I found this meme over at Random Ramblings. Jillian offers a weekly thought-provoking question that requires listing our top ten picks of "x" (whatever that week's topic is). This week's topic is Books You Have to Read at Least Once. After a great deal of thought that required me to eliminate some of my personal favorites, I have come up with my Top Ten Picks: Books You Have To Read At Least Once:

1. The Bible

Whether you choose to believe in its contents or not, the Bible is one of, if not the oldest book full of history, adventure, death and life, happiness and sadness, encouragement, letters, prohpecies, poetry, romance (including the ultimate love sacrifice of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins), and more. I have yet to finish reading the Bible in its entirety, but I still am in awe when I think of how many different stories and genres the one book itself contains. *I highly recommend picking up a translation that you feel most comfortable reading, so as not to put you off the idea of reading it altogether.

 2. The Robert Langdon Series

I haven't finished The Lost Symbol yet, but if it is anywhere near as good as Angels & Demons and The DaVinci Code, it won't disappoint. That's right, I've just made the leap from the Bible to one of the biggest controversies in the church. I don't understand why Christians made such a huge cacophony over these books. Maybe it's just because I've grown up in the library, but people need to realize these books are just fiction, and to my knowledge, Dan Brown has never tried to pass them off as anything else. So, don't read these books if you can't discern between fact and fiction, and don't read these books if you are doubting your faith. But if you can handle a fictitious Indiana Jones-type adventure story based aroud components of the church and/or Bible, humor yourselves with these books. Any adult book that I was able to get through before I hit my teenage years I consider an impressive feat.

3. The Shack

Yep, I'm back to that whole "Christian-thing" again. Yet, this book also has stirred controversy in the church because, again, as a work of fiction, the author has changed some things to a sort of his type of view on how things may or may not be. If you ask me, I'm all for reading an amazingly written story about my heavenly Father. Even better if a non-Christian can pick up the book and enjoy it because it is slightly less traditional than the Bible. If the reader relates to the main character enough, it might even lead them to a church to find out more about the Trinity *gasp* but we can't have any of that because it didn't come directly out of the Bible? I don't think so. If you're looking for an amazingly inspirational story of healing, hope, love, and peace (but don't mind shedding a few tears), PLEASE pick up and read this book. 

4. Harry Potter

Ah, yes, again the leap from religion to "evil". Again, Harry Potter is a work of fiction. If you feel you might be compelled to turn Wiccan if you read this book, please don't read it. However, I would recommend this book if you'd simply like to relate to a child who was able to escape his "normal" life [by being sent off to a magical school]. Side note: If your child doesn't enjoy this book, please don't force them to read it. I tried reading it when I was about 11 and I couldn't get into it enough to make it through the first couple chapters. However, a year or so later, I tried again and liked the first three books so much that I read them each seven times. Not everyone will be in the right "mood" to read the same book at the same time. In my opinion, it doesn't really matter, as long as they're reading something. You could always try showing them the movie, and if they think the movie was awesome they are more likely to pick up the book.

5. The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Another religious and controversial book on my list - get over it. Many people, Christians or otherwise, are afraid of death and/or dying. You won't find mansions and streets of gold in The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Instead, this book explores the idea of what if you could design your own Heaven? I believe what the Bible says about Heaven over this book any day, but the concept does kind of make sense - if you get the choice of spending eternity somewhere (mine would be Disney - oh I hope there is a Disney in Heaven), not everyone would choose the same place. Regardless, it makes for a wonderful story (I read almost the entire book over my mom's shoulder on an airplane ride to Cincinnati). *Have tissues on hand.

6. The Hobbit

Okay. Done with the controversy. That is, if you don't account for the fact that apparently J.K. Rowling's wizardry writing comes from the devil but J.R.R. Tolkein's is of divine inspiration... Anyway, on to the literature! I recommend The Hobbit because it is just as good and adventurous of a story as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, in way fewer pages. Even if you haven't been able to make it through the LOTR trilogy (I haven't been able to make it through The Two Towers), at least give The Hobbit a chance. Random tidbit: I don't think I've ever known a book to have so many different covers!

7. Make Lemonade

I've known the phrase "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade" for as long as I can remember, but I don't think I ever expected this story to be quite as...difficult/harsh as it was. This is a coming-of-age story of sorts. The main character is a girl who lives in the slums, but boys can just as easily relate to her challenges of dealing with school and trying to find a way to make money. Similar to A Child Called "It", this book will (more likely than not) make you thankful for everything you have, even if "everything" isn't that much, but with less violence.

8. Amelia Bedelia

I had to add Amelia Bedelia to my list of books to read because it's the only book/series I can think of that span just about every age gap. Children love Amelia Bedelia to laugh at her goofy-ness clearly visibly in the pictures, even if they don't understand the puns, adults understand the puns, and grandparents...well, grandparents should just love reading with their grandchildren! 

9. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

This is a great coming-of-age series for girls, each book told from a different "member" of the "sisterhood"'s point of view. These books could be totally unrelated to pants and still be just as amazing. When you get down to it, this is simply a great story about adventure, friendship, and love.

10. Trixie Koontz 

If you're looking for heartwarming, inspirational, and/or uplifting words (in dog language, though, of course), read anything by Trixie Koontz. Complete with adorable pictures and a strong dislike towards cats, Trixie's words can delight all ages. Psst, honestly I like Trixie even more than Marley!

Resource (Website) - Kevin and Amanda's Fonts

I know a lot of bloggers are already familiar with Kevin and Amanda's fonts, but just in case you aren't, I wanted to list them as a resource (I also wanted to be able to delete the link from my favotrites while still having a way to find the website again).

Kevin and Amanda's fonts aren't just for bloggers (in fact, I'm too lazy to try to follow the complex directions to use the fonts on my blog), they are great for scrapbooking, or just to have a new font to use in MS Word. 

I don't really understand why the fonts are separated between handwriting fonts and scrapbooking fonts - the scrapbooking fonts had to have come from someone's hand, didn't they? But they're all free, and they're really cute! If you don't find any handwriting fonts that you feel accurately reflect your own handwriting, as of April 5th, Amanda is still accepting YOUR handwriting samples to turn into fonts!

No matter what you decide to do with the fonts, I highly recommend checking out Kevin and Amanda's fonts! If you really enjoy their stuff, they also have links to their main blog, recipes, photos, and scrapbooking.

Daily Dose - Weekly Inspiration

Yesterday was Easter! I am recovering from the busy weekend spent at work and church. I would like to dedicate this week's Daily Dose to Resurrection Day! My Savior died and rose again. Did yours?

And then there's the cute Hallmark-aspect of Easter:

Book Blogger Hop - April 2nd

I would like to extend a big thanks to Jennifer at Crazy for Books. I participate in the Friday Follow, but she has created a Book Blogger Hop. Hopefully this will be a great way to network with other book-related bloggers.

Jennifer's "About the Hop:" description -


"This is a weekly event where book bloggers and readers can connect to find new blogs to read. It's a great way to network with other bloggers and make new friends! Every day I seem to find another book blog that I start following. In the spirit of the Friday Follow, I thought it would be cool to do a Book Blogger Hop to give us all bookies a chance to connect and find new blogs that we may be missing out on! It will also give blog readers a chance to find other book blogs that they may not know existed!"

A "twist" she has added to the hop is to add to your post any interesting blogs you come across during the hop. I have found several new blogs to follow as a result of the Hop, but there were some *extra* special ones. I present to you -

Royal Reviews - Ironically, I did not find this blog as a result of a link on the blog hop, but rather it was a link I found on one of the McLinky blogs. From what I've seen in a very short time, it looks really neat. The theme is similar to my blog (as you can tell from the title), only many bloggers contribute to Royal Reviews. I really like their header, and I love how each of the contributors have their own avatar and nickname to sign their posts with.

Forever Young - I had to add this blog to my list simply because of the feature Saturday Link Party. I don't know if Jessica created this weekly meme but I know she did an amazing job of "rounding up" links! I actually had to read almost every one of the links she had - they were just that interesting.

Review (Audiobook) - The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray

"It has been a year of change since Gemma Doyle arrived at the foreboding Spence Academy. Her mother murdered, her father a laudanum addict, Gemma has relied on an unsuspected strength to turn catty schoolgirls into loyal friends, and has discovered an ability to travel to an enchanted world called the realms, where dark magic runs wild.

Despite certain peril, Gemma has bound the magic to herself and forged unlikely new alliances with headstrong Felicity and timid Ann; with Kartik, an exotic young Indian man whose companionship is forbidden; and with the fearsome creatures of the realms. Now, as Gemma approaches her London debut, the time has come to test these bonds. The Order, the mysterious group Gemma's mother was once part of, is grappling for control of the realms, as are the Rakshana. It is there that the girls meet their adored friend Pippa, who is not the same...or is she? The power to change everything - both in and out of the realms - rests in Gemma's hands." (back cover)

A sad thought occured to me at the very beginning of this story as I was getting back into the series: This is a wonderful series, but let's face it, most girls these days don't want to read about corsets and women empowerment, they'd rather be reading about...well, sex and how few clothes they can wear while still being allowed out of the house.


Still, Josephine Bailey does not cease to amaze me. After reading the majority of the series with some sort of European accent, her American accent for Lucy Fairchild made me wonder if she was really English at all (though if you read the back cover it does say she's from London). The beginning of the book did not have quite as lengthy of an "introduction" of sorts (which is surprising considering this is the longest book) that gave a recap of the happenings in the previous two books, but it was still a worthy effort and better than nothing.

This was the first and only book in the series that made me cry, which is surprising because I freely admit I'm a wuss. Two quotes really stuck out as relevant to the point I was at in my life: "There is never any turning back; you must go forward." and "Before we can see properly we must first shed our tears to clear the way."

I only have one real criticism about this book. When the Gorgon informs Gemma and her party that the forest is burning, all of a sudden in pretty much the next sentence, the girls are just there. It was such a choppy transition that it was one of the very few times I actually rewound the CD to make sure I hadn't just zoned out and missed something. I know they're in the realms, but I don't recall ever hearing they could randomly teleport places. With the length of the book, I think Bray could have spared a couple seconds to explain how the group got to the forest.

Obviously I'm not going to tell you how the book ended, but I will say that I liked The Sweet Far Thing's ending much better than Rebel Angels'. There is actually closure with this ending and it doesn't seem such a sudden "oh the problem is solved, we can end the book now"-type ending. Several chapters were dedicated to the ending rather than several sentences.

Amazon recommends this book for Young Adults. As with the rest of the series, however, I would recommend you listen to/read it first before recommending it to younger teens due to sensuality and sexuality.

My Rating:

Anyone else who has read this book, please feel free to leave comments either with your opinions or links to your blog review. I also think this could be a great series for which to write a "fanfic" fourth book.

$30 Barnes & Noble Online Gift Certificate Giveaway Result!

I would first like to thank you all for entering my first contest! I never thought it would draw as many people as it did, which actually made it more difficult to deal with my 50-follower giveaway. Now I know to make sure to always hold giveaways on time, instead of late. haha

So, there were a total of 149 entrants and with the extra entries there were a total of 282 entries! Random.org randomly selected the winner today and the winner drawn was throuthehaze! She has been contacted to verify the e-mail address (since the gift certificate has to be sent to an e-mail address) and will have until Saturday (April 3rd) to contact me back to confirm the e-mail. In case she doesn't check her e-mail or anything else like that goes wrong, I have also used Random.org to select two alternate winners. I will keep them written down rather than posting them so I don't falsely get anyone's hopes up.

Again, congratulations to throuthehaze! To everyone else, there are still 8 spots I need filled before I can draw a winner for my 50-follower giveaway, so why don't you head over there to enter?!

*To those of you waiting on an actual review, I super apologize! I have two of them almost finished and ready to post! At least one of the two should be up tomorrow!