Reading Writing Wormer

The multu-talented Maggie Stiefvater has created yet another amazing trailer for her new novel, SCORPIO RACES, out on October 18th 2011 *which happens to be on my birthday :D*
http://m-stiefvater.livejournal.com/212310.html

http://stiryourtea.blogspot.com/2011/08/win-lola-boy-next-door-crossed-shatter.html

CONTEST for SHATTER ME and OTHER ARCs!!

THATS RIGHT! now it's only ONE WEEK until the NEAR WITCH is out in bookstores and there is the FINAL GIVEAWAY!

 go here to see how to enter:
http://veschwab.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/1wtnw-or-the-final-epic-giveaway-of-epicness/

second to last giveaway for the countdown of the NEAR WITCH by Victoria Schwab! See how to enter here! http://veschwab.wordpress.com/2011/07/18/2wtnw-%E2%80%93-the-ya-rebels-giveaway/

Three weeks until the wonderful NEAR WITCH by Victoria Schwab comes out! August 2nd! SO she has yet another giveaway. EXCITING!

http://t.co/d4T5HeG

Authors are doing a tour in the south US!
http://ash2nash.blogspot.com/

also an amazing giveaway!

A few things!

1. I apologize i haven't updated much recently besides giveaways. I've had so much to do...

2. To go along with #1, i am trying to finish the first draft of my WIP done by school, which starts on August 11th. This may not happen with all the books i need to read.

3. BOOKS! Upcoming ones...
-book reviews i need to catch up on.... includes GONE GONE GONE, NIGHTSHADE, WOLFSBANE, SHIVER, LINGER, etc.
-FOREVER by Maggie Stiefvater [I won an ARC a few weeks ago for my entry into her art contest with this http://neonorange009.deviantart.com/art/Apple-Cover-Art-213050377! I am reading it now and will have it done by the time it comes out which is TUESDAY.]
-WILDEFIRE by Karsten Knight [im close to finishing it, but i had to put it down for the Wolves of Mercy Falls series. will finish ASAP.]
-THE NEAR WITCH by Victoria Schwab [one of the books i most look forward to, and i successfully got a few ARCs for my YALSA group, so i have that and am planning to start it as soon as i finish reading Forever.
-INVINCIBLE SUMMER by Hannah Moskowitz [i've heard great things about it and i have it from YALSA]
-ZOMBIES VS. UNICORNS by (anthology) [its definitely slow reading...]
-THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS by Lewis Carroll [almost done]
-A TOUCH MORTAL by Leah Clifford [i talk to her a lot so i have a sort of obligation to read her book, hah]

4. I'm going to Idaho on Monday for a week and five days, and my dad has promised me a LORD OF THE RINGS book marathon. So the last four books on the list may be a little delayed.

5. If you recommend books, they will be moved up on my list of things to read. you can see my entire to-reads shelves here on my goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/5169115?shelf=to-read
only the first page is in order.

Hourglass was a wonderful book. Myra took the old concept of time travel and worked it into the book where it was not cliche or stereotypical in a novel. The balance of romance to the fantasy part of it was perfect. Characters were really perfect for the story and had such a personality they could be real. Emerson, especially, was my favourite.

And One Other Random Reason Why HOURGLASS Was Awesome:

Sometimes i come across books that have very similar covers and i find it interesting. These are...

NEED by Carrie Jones                              LIPS TOUCH: THREE TIMES by Laini Taylor

The wonderful author of WITHER, Lauren DeStefano, is doing a drawing for a signed bookplate!

She has great suggestions on what to use it for...
1.) Stick it in your book
2.) Use its adhesive to repair a carburetor
3.) Rub your face against it like a cat
4.) Plant it to grow a bacon tree (disclaimer: this bookplate will not grow bacon)
5.) Fasten two chipmunks together and enter them in a three-legged race
6.) Dress it like Clark Gable to keep grandma company

go here to enter! it ends july 18th.

http://www.laurendestefano.com/blog/

http://wovenstrands.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/social-network-contest/ I also can't wait for this one! in celebration of "4 Hundred Days" by L Carroll!

THE NEAR WITCH by Victoria Schwab will be in bookstores in FIVE WEEKS! In celebration, Victoria is doing another giveaway! go here to enter!

http://veschwab.wordpress.com/2011/06/27/5wtnw-%E2%80%93-the-beautiful-and-haunting-giveaway/

ANOTHER BOOK TO LOOK FORWARD TO! Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi ARC is up for giveaway, with TWO winners! Go here to see rules and enter!:

http://stiryourtea.blogspot.com/2011/06/shatter-me-arc-contest-20.html

THE NEAR WITCH by Victoria Schwab is out in six weeks! Are you excited or what?? :D

 GO HERE TO ENTER!
http://veschwab.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/6wtnw-%E2%80%93-the-blurbers-giveaway/

Victoria Schwab is doing a giveaway from HOURGLASS by Myra McEntire to celebrate 7WTNW!

http://veschwab.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/7wtnw-7-the-crit-partner-giveaway/

So, as i have mentioned in my previous review, i loved Lauren DeStefano's book Wither. And NOW guess WHAT!

Me—and you—have a chance to not ONLY win a personalized ARC of Wither, but, as soon as it's printed, an ARC of the SECOND BOOK IN THE TRILOGY, Fever!

Are you excited? I'm pretty excited. So go HERE to find the rules!:

http://www.laurendestefano.com/blog/

[MINOR SPOILER ALERT (in the paragraph about the characters)]

Across the Universe was an amazing sci-fi book. Now, I've never read any sci-fi books besides Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams and Foundation by Isaac Asimov in a Sci-Fi Lit class two years ago. But AtU was very good. I loved it. It was sci-fi, romance, and mystery, but, there was absolutely no way that anyone could predict who-dun-it.

I admit, it took some time to get into it. It wasn't that it was bad, but for some reason it didn't pull me in enough. It might've been because at the time I was unfocused, but I'm not sure. Though after about half of the 400 pages, it was addicting and I couldn't put it down!

My favourite character was definitely Harley. I don't know why. So so so so sad. He was a very sweet character.
My least favourite character turned out to be Orion. I seem to hate the guy-with-good-intentions-but-fails-with-evil worse than the guy-who-was-always-evil-through-and-through, though I don't know why. I guess, the evil guys are expected to have evil ways of getting their evil things done. But the other guys have good goals, but then they think up stupid, evil ideas to make the goals work. So they're, like, good-posers.
But all the characters were very well-written and real.

The ending was ridiculously unpredictable. Not the conclusion of the who-dun-it, but when Elder shared his dark secret kept throughout the book. I found it really really shocking that a secret like what he had could be hidden from the reader when half the time he's the narrator.

I was very impressed with the POV changing through the book. For some reason, when I've seen this done in other stories (mostly read online), I think it seems a bit tacky when the author jumps from character to character. But the characters in AtU were so different and weren't together, so not only was it interesting to hear things from each characters' "voice", but it made a lot of sense. And, the fact that it was so consistent added a lot more elegance to the book.

All-in-all, it was a wonderful book. I'm going to try to read more YA sci-fi. And now let's hope all those books live up to the high expectation that has been set by Across the Universe by Beth Revis!

Wither was a wonderful book with a strange concept and wonderful story plot. It's set in the near future. Female humans only live until they're 20 years old, and males only live until they're 25. To keep the population going, house Governors have girls kidnapped and brought to them. The governor chooses which ones they like best, and force them to marry him, and then they impregnate the girls so they have kids early. This is all while they're still teenagers.

So the concept is a little... sickening. But not because Lauren DesStafano wrote it in a bad fashion. On the contrary, it was very very good. The style in which she wrote the book was perfect for this dystopian novel.

I loved all the characters the most, out of any element of the book. Rhine, the MC, was a very real person with her mixed emotions. Even Linden, as clueless about everything as he was, was the perfect character for his role. He wasn't evil as every reader probably assumed he would be at first and almost became a truly lovable character. The events made the reader hate the right character throughout the book, and then easily made me, at least, swear at Cecily at the end. DeStefano got reaction.

The book was beautifully written and very very interesting. I can't wait until the next of the Chemical Gardens Trilogy comes out called Fever. You should definitely read this.

Ahhh yes! The huge (as in very very popular) SHIVER series comes to a close with FOREVER, by Maggie Stiefvater!

http://www.fountainbookstore.com/autograph-maggie

FOREVER is out July 2011!

Entice is the third in the Need series. It's a wonderful book about pixies...

If you haven't already read my review on Need and Captivate, the previous two books, then do! If you haven't read Captivate DO NOT CONTINUE IF YOU WANT TO AVOID SPOILERS.

The whole plot of this third book is Zara and her friends (Issie, Devyn, Astley, etc.), work to find a way to get to Valhalla, the place where her boyfriend, Nick, a werewolf, was taken when he was on the brink of death. It is a place where warriors injured beyond repair are taken to be magically healed to fight for the god Odin.

There, of course, was a confusing love triangle where Zara didn't really know her true feelings for Astley, her pixie king.

Besides trying to figure out how to get Nick back, Zara's main problem is having all her family and friends to accept and trust her, now that she is a pixie. It was a little depressing to hear how Betty secretly cried the night after she found out Zara turned. Devyn took a while convincing that she was still herself, too. But her mother was the worst. She was absolutely terrible and I would have never forgiven her if I was Zara.

I did not like the ending as much, though. I thought it started to seem a little cheesy when Zara climbed the rainbow. And I think it would have been better if Zara had beaten Frank in the fight without violence somehow, to show she keeps to her morals and she's still the old Zara underneath the blue skin.

As you can imagine if you know about me and my cover selection... I didn't like this cover very much. They seem to have gone downhill. I don't like models or people in general on covers because it forces me to use my imagination for the character's physical looks and since the author has little-to-no say in cover art, it's not always the way the author wanted it to be perceived. I like covers that are more symbolic of the theme of the book.
That said, you can probably see where I stand on the entire Need series covers. The first I liked because the lips symbolized (to me, anyway) the pixie's kiss. The second (Captivate) I didn't like as much because there was no symbolism in it, though it matched the whole dust-covered theme it wasn't too bad. But the third I didn't see as anything at all in it...
1. It had the full face of "Zara", which didn't look like how I imagined Zara at all.
2. She was really really pale and looked like she had dark, sunken-in eyes which looks like she's sick or dying.
3. There is dust on her lips like on the Need cover, but none on her eyelids like in Captivate.
4. There is no symbolism in her blowing/breathing pixie dust like she is on the cover.

But of course, enough rant about the cover. It did not impact how I read the book and overall, I think it was very well-written.