This is the day of the week where we get to know each other better by
answering a question devised by our lovely hostesses Parajunkee &
Alisoncanread. Sounds like GFC is eventually going away.. so you may
want to follow by email or bloglovin/feedly (I love both). And now for
this week's question....
Q. What book are you embarrassed to admit that you loved?
A. First off Happy Halloween!! There really isn't much I am embarrassed about reading... reading is good no matter what! So I suppose my answer is the Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum series. These books are extremely short... you can read them in 3 maybe 4 hours. Each book follows the same damn format and sometimes the same villain is in another book too. Let's be honest.. you don't have to really think when you read these books. But they are super fun... and I love them. I even liked the movie One for the Money even though it was panned. I have Takendown Twenty on hold at the library already! I am number 300... but I'll get it by Christmas!
Have you been through the list of blogs you follow lately? Yes I know.. some of you only follow like 20 blogs. I follow quit a few... and I swear lately every time I go through my list a ton of bloggers have quit blogging. Have you noticed? I don't know what it is? They don't have time and life has taken over for some bloggers. Others feel as if they just repeat themselves on their blogs. I understand running out of things to talk about... in fact this month I was in a reading rut and only read one book. I did do my Project Disneys though so I did read for those.
I am sad at some of the bloggers I have seen go. They talk about the blogging community being bad. I really don't get that. For me... who cares about all this drama. Maybe I suppose if I was a huge blog and had a big base of followers it would bother me more? I don't know? Usually I go through the list of blogs I follow around Bloggiesta time .... but now it seems I need to do that more often just because of the number of people who have discontinued blogging.
Really I don't know about you.. but it makes me follow blogs a little more carefully. Is this a blog that will last? I guess now I am just paranoid! I mean... I don't care if someone posts everyday. Everyone wants to follow blogs though that put in work and do interesting things. I suppose maybe that is why some of these bloggers quit. They feel they can't bring that to the community anymore.
I mean...sometimes I have even thought about it. What I am I bringing to the community? Fun? Information? Unique posts? Who knows! What do you think about this? Do you go through the blogs you follow and remove the ones that don't blog anymore?
Now for some NeNe!
Edit 10/31 I discovered where Let's Discuss has moved to.. so I am adding this there.. here is a link:
Do you have a discussion post that you want to share to the blogosphere? Link it up on Thursdays with Luxa so everyone can read it!
I have been kind of in a reading slump. Reading a lot of graphic novels and putting books aside. This month in my Young Adult Book Club we are reading The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey.. so I forced myself to start this book so I could participate and I wasn't disappointed. Here is the goodreads description:
After the 1st wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one.
Now, it’s the dawn of the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth’s last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie’s only hope for rescuing her brother—or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up.
Lately I haven't really read any Science Fiction so I was excited to discover this was in that genre. I was happy to read
about Aliens instead of vampires and fantasy. I like that this book had several POVS. Ever since reading Legend by Marie Lu I have been excited to read books with different POVs. I noticed a lot of reviews saying they didn't like this .. and found it hard to follow who was talking in the POV but I didn't have a problem (plus I read that in the audio book the POVs have different voices to help out with this).
I will admit there was a point there where Cassie
and Evan got a little too much screen time. There little going back
and forth back and forth was too much. I know it was for the romance int he book but come on.. too much! After this I thought the book got
back on track. The romance section in the book just made the book stop in it's tracks!!! I
will say... I am a little annoyed about the possible love triangle that
might happen. It might even be a four person love mess! Hoping that
doesn't really happen.
For those that have read it (spoilers to come) Personally I enjoyed trying to figure out
what the 5th wave would be. I wonder.. will there be more waves?
Wouldn't it be something if this was a book that actually has a sad
ending... like the human race doesn't win. I suspect though the series
will end with us both co-existing. I think the
waves are a smart way to take over the human race. The aliens are
trying to keep as much of the planet in tact and don't want us
destroying it to destroy them... so I think they are trying to invade
quietly.
I think it might be hard to
cohabit with humans because the Others could never really reveal who
they are... the humans would probably get mad that they have taken over
their family members body. Evan is technically both human and the
alien... but the alien is really now speaking and making the decisions.
It would be hard for me at least to accept this.
I have no idea how I would've acted during the 12
days the alien spaceship was above the earth. That was one of my
favorite parts of the book. Reading the descriptions of the news
reports and how people were reacting. Some going on with their lives...
some going to Disney, some panicking. The wave that bothered me the
most was the one with the virus. It would be so hard seeing all the
people in the world just dying and there was nothing you could do. A
terrible painful death too.
End Spoilers
I am excited about the movie coming out... the 5th Wave Movie website is pretty cool. You should check it out if you haven't yet.
I look forward to reading the second book, The Infinite Sea. It would seem to me that either people liked this book a lot.. or didn't really like it at all. What did you think???
The crystal ball says:
Clouds are covering! A read that lets me down every now and then but peaks out of the clouds!
Growing up my family used to always listening to this great short story on an LP album we had. It was soooo much fun. Well we started talking about it today and someone loaded it up onto youtube. So now you TOO can listen to this great story! It was made in 1977 ... I used to study the cover art on the album all the time. Looking for clues to the story. The story has Michael Bell, who voiced Duke in
the original 1980s G.I. Joe series, and Peter Cullen, the
voice of Optimus Prime from Transformers.
The second side of the record was a bunch of Halloween sounds. We didn't listen to that side very often but it was still cool! I mean... look at the art on the back of the album. The backside is way scary!!
I would love to hear what you think of this short story! Let me know! Enjoy.. and Happy Halloween!
As some of you know who follow me I moderate the Young Adult Book Club
on goodreads.. I have been the moderator for about 6 years now! We are
a fun book club so if you want to discuss books stop on by and meet new
readers. It's time to vote for our book club pick so if you would like to read long stop on by.
Poll
What randomly selected book would you like to read in December?
Project Disney: The plan is to tackle all of the Disney films, re-reading the classic stories and tales that inspired many of them and to look at how the changes the filmmakers made, the new elements they introduced and the essential elements they kept. We will, of course, be talking about the films as movies as well, saying why we enjoy them and what some of our favorite moments are, but our focus will be on looking at them as adaptations. For the films that are not drawn from any one work we’ll be looking at some of the possible literary influences that we see in the stories. Project Disney is inspired by Picture Me Reading.
This week's Project Disney is The Little Mermaid! This is a great Disney movie. One I have always enjoyed. The movie is based off the story by Hans Christian Anderson. This tale of course is dark compared to the Disney novel. In the book, the Little Mermaid goes to the surface of the ocean when she turns 15. She sees a prince on a ship and loves him instantly. His ship wrecks and she takes him to land to save him. A covenant is near the location where she takes him and the women there take him in. The Little Mermaid figures out where the prince lives and eventually goes to the sea witch to help her get to the surface. The witch agrees but takes the Little Mermaid's tongue so that she can have her voice. The Little Mermaid's tail is split into legs (very painfully) and whenever she walks on those legs it feels like walking on knifes. The prince never falls in love with her and loves one of the women (a princess) who was at the covenant. The Little Mermaid goes to their wedding and then falls into the sea to become foam. Where she becomes a daughter of the air... who goes around blowing good air for people who need it.
In the movie we have fun Ariel who travels to the surface often. Collecting items from the human world she finds in ship wrecks. She is wanting to just grow up in the movie.. and thinks that her dad is too controlling. She sees a ship and goes to explore seeing fireworks and dancing. Her is the first time she sees the Prince Eric. Eric's ship is turned over by a storm and Ariel saves Eric (similar to the story by Anderson). With the help of her sidekicks Flounder and Sebastien, Ariel then tries to figure out a way to get to the surface world.
This part of the movie has Ariel going to the sea witch Ursula. One of the best Disney villains! Ursula instead of stealing Ariel's tongue, just steals her voice. Ariel will get her voice back IF she can get Eric to love her (in the book she will die if she can't get the prince to love her). Ariel gets her legs while in the water so her little sidekicks have to help her get to the surface. I really love Ariel... I think she is a fun character. Ariel then goes to the surface where she learns to walk, and eat like a human. She must convince Eric to love her... but Ursula changes into a human and bewitches him into loving her instead.
The sea witch Ursula had Ariel's voice capture in a necklace that she drops when a scuffle breaks out on Eric's wedding day with her. This allows Ariel to talk again and Eric discovers who she is and Ursula's spell on him is broken. There is a big battle with Ursula and Ariel's dad Triton in the sea. Eventually good wins out and Ariel stays a human and marries Eric. True love!
This is one of those Disney films that I really love the music. Great great songs. To compare the movie and book there really aren't a lot of big similarities. Both mermaids have sisters, there is a witch, and a dad.... but the main story is sad and very different. I loved both.
Here are Annie Lebovich's Little Mermaid pictures:
Have you read the original story? What do you think???
Murder by the Book is a pretty neat independent book store in Houston, TX. I love to visit new cities and discover cool book locations. When you first walk in you see that it is not the huge book stores you are probably used to. It is cute and small. The bookshelves look like they are in someone's home.
I love that along the tops of the bookcases are pictures of all the authors who have ever stopped in for a book signing. You can tell some of the pictures are really old!
On all the bookcases are also a bunch of sticky notes that are all over. This sticky notes are neat .. they are the staff recommendations!
Here is one book shelf with tons of potion bottles on it! It is a little blurry.
If you are in the Houston area this is the place to stop!! My sister and I loved it sooo much!! I mean the title of the store should make you want to go there!
This is the day of the week where we get to know each other better by
answering a question devised by our lovely hostesses Parajunkee &
Alisoncanread. Sounds like GFC is eventually going away.. so you may
want to follow by email or bloglovin/feedly (I love both). And now for
this week's question....
Q. Feature your own favorite blogger, have it be a surprise.
A. I love love to feature bloggers! I think it's fun. Usually I always learn something new about them too. This Follow Me Friday I am going to feature is Brunner's Bookshelf. Chris is the mastermind behind this blog. He and I actually met through goodreads on the Stephen King's Fans group. While there...we discovered with both read graphic novels. After a few messages back and forth about whether or not Chris should start blogging he dove on in.
I asked him a few quick questions: Why do you blog? how long have you been blogging?
I have been
blogging since July of this year. I decided to start blogging because
eventually I want to be a writer. My wife and a few friends said I
should get myself out there and blogging was the way to do it.
What is your favorite genre of books?
My
Favorite genre is Mystery and Horror. Jeffery Deaver, and Stephen King
are my favorites. I also love the original Sherlock Holmes books.
Do you have blogging advice for others?
Well,
I haven't been doing this for that long but I guess I would have to say
don't stress over it. That was my biggest hurdle. I felt like I needed
to post everyday and that isn't the case.
I know you love graphic novels, like myself... what got you started reading them?
Well
when I was a kid I saw the Michael Keaton Batman. Sure I was only 6 but
I was already a huge Batman fan. I also got the movie adaptation of
Batman. I watched that movie so many times that I knew what the words
were based on the pictures from the movie. This is how I learned to
read, the Batman movie and comic book. After that I was hooked on
comics.
I am participating in Harry Potter moment of the week hosted by Uncorked Thoughts . Here is what we do:
This is a meme hosted Uncorked Thoughts. The aim of this meme is to share with fellow bloggers a
character, spell, chapter, object or quote from the books/ films/ J. K.
Rowling herself or anything Potter related! I will be picking a topic
within HP for us to focus on each week and then if anyone wants to take
part feel free! There is
now a full list of the topics to come here.
Q.Favorite Place in the Series
A. For me that is totally the Department of Mysteries! I love that place. I just want to explore the whole thing. It really reminds me of an RPG game, where you go into several rooms and just see what's in them. The department is totally secret.. no one knows what happens there but a select few people. Various mysteries of the world are studied there: these include love, space, thought, time, death, and others. Those wizards who work in the Department of Mysteries are known as Unspeakables because of the confidential nature of their work. So cool!
Project Disney: The plan is to tackle all of the Disney films, re-reading the classic stories and tales that inspired many of them and to look at how the changes the filmmakers made, the new elements they introduced and the essential elements they kept. We will, of course, be talking about the films as movies as well, saying why we enjoy them and what some of our favorite moments are, but our focus will be on looking at them as adaptations. For the films that are not drawn from any one work we’ll be looking at some of the possible literary influences that we see in the stories. Project Disney is inspired by Picture Me Reading.
This week's Project Disney is Mulan based off of a Legend from medieval China. It is actually hard to find the original story. People think the original story was a poem about a girl who was tired of weaving so she went to war instead of her father, they won so she came home. The next best book to compare to the movie to is actually a play called The Female Mulan Joins the Army in Place of her Father, by Xu Wei. The message behind the play is that men and women are equals.
I love love this movie. So to discover that the story has such rich roots really surprised me!! I was only able to find a couple of books based off the legend and they are actually children's books. I read Legend of Mu Lan by Jiang Wei which was really similar to the Disney version. I also read Fa Mulan by Robert San Souci, which has amazing art. That one is based off the play by Xu Wei.
Mulan is a wonderful character in the Disney version. I just love when she goes to town to meet the matchmaker! I just love the song "You'll Bring Honor to Us All". In the Wei version Mulan already knows karate and sword fighting where in the movie she goes off with the boys and learns how to be a solider. It would seem in the film that Mulan is a failure before she sets off and in the story she is already a strong woman. She surprises her family in the Disney film by leaving and joining in the army. In the legend her father knows what she is planning to do. One of the best songs in the film happen while Mulan is training..
Disney's version has the evil Shan Yu as the bad guy. He comes from outside China and wants to rule.. while in Xu Wei's version the invading army comes from inside China in a rebellion form. There are some great side kicks in this film!! I just love them... there is Musha. A Chinese dragon that is Mulan's ancestor who comes back to protect her. There is also a little cricket that is just soooooo cute!
Now in the movie we have huge battles. Mulan must show that she is a real solider. She ends up covering up the Hu army with a huge avalanche. Thus proving who she is (since Disney can't really show battles). I love the hunk guy Captain Li Shang .. he walks around a lot of the time in the film with no shirt. Yeah I said it. And of course she has some great side kicks...Ling, Yao, and Po!
Eventually in the movie Mulan gets hurt and is found out to be a female. In the Legend she isn't found out until the war is over and she goes home to her family where she changes cloths and the soldiers who helped her get home see her. Mulan faces off with Shan Yu in the film and eventually with the help of all her sidekicks defeats him. China's emperor congratulates her and she goes home to her family. The hot guy.. oh I mean Captain Li followers her there and lets her know he likes her!!!
This is one of my ALL TIME favorite Disney movies. I think the story is great, the music is great, the humor is fun. I laugh out loud every time I watch. Sometimes I even quote the movie in conversation. Just perfect. I even sought out Mulan when I went to Disney World a few years ago and took a picture with her.
Edit: I have also decided to go through and watch all the sequels to the Disney movies. Mulan II is awful. You can tell all the voice actors have changed. This one is about... Mulan and Captain Li going to escort the Captain's sisters to get married. They are also getting married in this film. The whole gang is back. Mushu wants to stop them from getting married because if they do get married he will be fired. Honestly this is only OK... it's no wonder I haven't seen it before.
