Book Club September Picks

Looking for someone to discuss a book with? Some of you may know I run two book clubs on Goodreads.  One is the Young Adult Book Club and the other is the Stephen King Fans group.  Both groups are open to everyone.. so be sure to stop by and join us.  We have just started our September discussions so it is the perfect time for you to stop by.

This month for the Young Adult Book Club group we are We Were Liars by e. lockhart.  Have you been dying to talk about the spoilers in this book???  Well stop by the book club, there will be a spoiler thread to talk about that ending.

Sunday Post

Let's chat about what's going on this week... on my blog.. on other blogs... on the internet... and just everywhere!    I link up my post to Sunday Post hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Reader and Stacking the Shelves.

It's been another busy week with family.  My dad came to see me and then I came back to Utah with him to visit my parents.  It's been a great trip.  My mom took the week off so we have been doing some tourist type adventures.  We did get to tour one of the LDS Temple's in Ogden UT.  That might not sound like a big deal but in UT it is.  I am not LDS so I would never be allowed in a Temple normally.  There is a new one being built so it hasn't been blessed yet so the public is allowed to take tours. The building was beautiful and I loved seeing inside.  I just love to see new things.

Utah Book Month- Jenni Elyse

I can't believe Utah Book Month is over... seems like the month flew by.  I get to interview Jenni Elyse who has a wonderful book blog! I really enjoy her blog, especially her Twitter Journal where she reads a book and shares her feelings on twitter as she reads along. She will then do a blog post covering her journey with the book and twitter! 

Comic Adventures Issue #18

I read a lot of comics and rarely review them here on the blog. That's because I really don't have a lot to say for an entire post.  So I thought I would review several comics on one post.  I will still review graphic novels on their own now and then, but this is where I will talk about super-hero type comics (DC/Marvel) or sequels to some that I have already reviewed.

This issue covers Catwoman Vol 4 Gotham Underground, The Flash Vol 4 Reverse, Saga Vol 2, and DC Forever Evil.

MWF seeking BFF by Rachel Bertsche-Review

Title: MWF seeking BFF
Author: Rachel Bertsche
Pages: 349
Publication Date: December 20th 2011 by Ballantine Books
Source: Library,
Link: Goodreads, Offical Website

When Rachel Bertsche first moves to Chicago, she’s thrilled to finally share a zip code with her boyfriend. But shortly after getting married, she realizes that her new life is missing one thing: friends. Sure, she has plenty of BFFs—in New York and San Francisco and Boston and Washington, D.C. Still, in her adopted hometown, there’s no one to call at the last minute for girl talk over brunch or a reality-TV marathon over a bottle of wine. Taking matters into her own hands, Bertsche develops a plan: Meeting people everywhere from improv class to friend rental websites, she'll go on fifty-two friend-dates, one per week for a year, in hopes of meeting her new Best Friend Forever

Let's be honest, the title of this book sucked me in. I too am a MWF seeking BFF.  I checked out this book from the library and hadn't read until one day I wanted something different to read and started reading it, and couldn't put it down. I feel this woman's pain.  Rachel relocates to Chicago as a newly wed.  She gets a job and is happily married but missing one thing in her new town.  Friends.  How many times have I gone through this in my adult life moving and trying to make friends again.  The sad thing is.. the older you get, the harder it is to make friends.  Believe me I have tried.

Utah Book Month- Author Natalie Whipple

Hello all!  Hope you are having fun checking out the Utah Book Month!  If you are wondering what it's all about you can read about it at the Utah Book Month website where you can see all the posts and the scheduled.  Today I am doing an author spotlight on a Utah author, Natalie Whipple.  She can be found on Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Facebook.

 Many of you probably know her books.. I have seen a lot of you reviewing them on your blog.

Project Disney- Make Mine Music

 

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. I am participating in Project Disney inspired by Picture Me Reading!

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray Review

TITLE: Beauty Queens
AUTHOR: Libba Bray
PAGES: 396
PUBLICATION DATE: May 24th 2011 by Scholastic Press
SOURCE: Library, ebook and audio book
LINK: Goodreads Beauty Queens, Libba Bray offical site

The fifty contestants in the Miss Teen Dream pageant thought this was going to be a fun trip to the beach, where they could parade in their state-appropriate costumes and compete in front of the cameras. But sadly, their airplane had another idea, crashing on a desert island and leaving the survivors stranded with little food, little water, and practically no eyeliner. What's a beauty queen to do? Continue to practice for the talent portion of the program - or wrestle snakes to the ground? Get a perfect tan - or learn to run wild? And what should happen when the sexy pirates show up? Welcome to the heart of non-exfoliated darkness. Your tour guide? None other than Libba Bray, the hilarious, sensational, Printz Award-winning author of A Great and Terrible Beauty and Going Bovine. The result is a novel that will make you laugh, make you think, and make you never see beauty the same way again.

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray is a book I read for my Young Adult Book Club this month. This is a great book for a book club.  It really does give a lot of topics to discuss. It is a book full of satire.  A lot of people love it.. well I really disliked it.

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame- Review

Title: The Wind in the Willows
Author:  Kenneth Grahame
Pages:256
Publication Date: 1908
Source: Library, Ownded
Link: Wind in the Willows Goodreads, Free ebook,

Meet little Mole, willful Ratty, Badger the perennial bachelor, and petulant Toad. In the almost one hundred years since their first appearance in 1908, they've become emblematic archetypes of eccentricity, folly, and friendship. And their misadventures-in gypsy caravans, stolen sports cars, and their Wild Wood-continue to capture readers' imaginations and warm their hearts long after they grow up. Begun as a series of letters from Kenneth Grahame to his son, The Wind in the Willows is a timeless tale of animal cunning and human camaraderie. This Penguin Classics edition features an appendix of the letters in which Grahame first related the exploits of Toad.

I have been wanting to read The Wind in the Willows for a long time and am glad that I finally had the opportunity. I recently did my Project Disney on the Adventures of Ichabod and Toad which is a lesser known Disney movie. This movie uses The Wind in the Willow as a source for the story about Toad so of course I got to pick this book up and read it.  It is a beautiful fun story.

Utah Book Month-author spotlight Kristen Chandler

Hello all!  Hope you are having fun checking out the Utah Book Month!  If you are wondering what it's all about click here to go to the website and see the schedule.  Today I am doing an author spotlight on a Utah author, Kristen Chandler.

Sunday Post

Let's chat about what's going on this week... on my blog.. on other blogs... on the internet... and just everywhere!    I link up my post to Sunday Post hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Reader and Stacking the Shelves.

Hello!  This is a good week as far as blogging.  I have had time to get on here write posts and visit blogs.  I have noticed when I comment on blogs with captcha that now there are ads.  So if you use it.. just be aware that this is what your followers are seeing when they comment and they might just skip commenting:

The Wolf Among Us- Video Game Review

The Wolf Among Us

I love the Wolf Among Us.  For those of you who may not be aware this is a video game based off the fabulous comic Fables by Bill Willingham.  Fables (and this game) is really a retelling of Fairytale characters who live among us normal people.  So this game follows one of the main characters, Bigby Wolf (the Big Bad Wolf).  It is more of prequel to the comics but trust me, you don't have to have read the comics to know what's going on.  You may recognize the maker of this video game.. TellTale? They also make the popular Walking Dead games.

Comic Adventures Issue #17

I read a lot of comics and rarely review them here on the blog. That's because I really don't have a lot to say for an entire post.  So I thought I would review several comics on one post.  I will still review graphic novels on their own now and then, but this is where I will talk about super-hero type comics (DC/Marvel) or sequels to some that I have already reviewed.

This week's issue includes:  Superman Volume 4 Psi War,  Suicide Sqard Volume 3 Death is For Suckers,  
Jack of Fables Vol 7 The Adventures of Jack and Jack, and Fables Vol 16 Super Team.

Teenage Muntant Ninja Turtles (2014)- Movie Review

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2014

I am a child of the 80s... so of course I love the turtles.  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles began as a comic book.. and the morphed into a huge pop culture icon. They were toys.. and then finally a cartoon series.  I love the very first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle(TMNT) movie that came out in 1990.  This included  animatronic suits created by Jim Henson's Creature Shop.  So of course when this Michael Bay film was made I was quite curious.. and went to see it... waste of money.

Waiting on Wendesday - Stephen King Revival

I am so excited for the next Stephen King book!  I love love this artwork on this cover too.  Though it is the UK cover and not the US cover. Here is the book description for Revival:

From master storyteller Stephen King comes a spectacularly dark and riveting novel about addiction, religion, fanaticism, and what might exist on the other side of life.

In a small New England town more than half a century ago, a boy is playing with his new toy soldiers in the dirt in front of his house when a shadow falls over him. He looks up to see a striking man, the new minister, Jamie learns later, who with his beautiful wife will transform the church and the town. The men and boys are a bit in love with Mrs. Jacobs; the women and girls, with the Reverend Jacobs — including Jamie's sisters and mother. Then tragedy strikes, and this charismatic preacher curses God and is banished from the shocked town.

Jamie has demons of his own. Wed to his guitar from age 13, he plays in bands across the country, running from his own family tragedies, losing one job after another when his addictions get the better of him. Decades later, sober and living a decent life, he and Reverend Charles Jacobs meet again in a pact beyond even the Devil's devising, and the many terrifying meanings of Revival are revealed.

King imbues this spectacularly rich and dark novel with everything he knows about music, addiction, and religious fanaticism and every nightmare we ever had about death. This is a masterpiece from King in the great American tradition of Frank Norris, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe.

Bout of Books 11 Goals and Updates

I am going to participate again in this read-a-thon! It is my 3rd time.  I really need to get caught up on some books and when I saw others participating in it I knew it was perfect for me.  It starts on the 19th!

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, August 18th and runs through Sunday, August 24th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 8.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog.

Don't forget to use the #boutofbooks hashtag when updating on Twitter and follow boutofbooks.
I will be updating my progress here on my webpage and on my my twitter page. 
I will be doing a master post as the read-a-thon gets closer with all the books I plan to read and with all the challenges I do!  Can't wait to get started!

Project Disney- The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

 

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. I am participating in Project Disney inspired by Picture Me Reading!

Project Disney this time around is the movie The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. This movie is based off the two stories The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving.The movie is actually two separate stories but into one film but is still part of the Disney Canon. I am sure if you grew up with Disney you have seen the Sleepy Hollow part of the film, especially since it was shown every year with A Disney Halloween (which I love and you can read all about my review on it here).  But the Adventures of Mr. Toad is a lesser known film. Each segment has a narrator who tells the story to us.

Utah Book Month

I am so excited that it is Utah Book Month!  No I don't live in Utah anymore.. but I still love the state and visit it a few times a year.  Plus they have a really great blogging community.  This is my second year participating in this event.  Be sure to stop by their site to check out all that is going on for Utah Book Month.  Learn more about the state and all the bookish things there.  Last year I featured the Salt Lake City Library which is an AMAZING library with architecture that blew my mind.

Sunday Post

Let's chat about what's going on this week... on my blog.. on other blogs... on the internet... and just everywhere!    I link up my post to Sunday Post hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Reader and Stacking the Shelves.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black Review

Title:The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
Author: Holly Black
Pages: 419
Publication Date:September 3rd 2013 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Source: Library, ebook, Also won an ARC from Armchair BEA
Link: Official Site, Goodreads

Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. The only problem is, once you pass through Coldtown’s gates, you can never leave. One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them the only way she knows how: by going straight to the wicked, opulent heart of Coldtown itself. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a wholly original story of rage and revenge, of guilt and horror, and of love and loathing from bestselling and acclaimed author Holly Black.

I recently read The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black for my Young Adult Book Club's July book of the month discussions. I was pleasantly surprised by this book.  I am so used to what seems to be the same old same old vampire books so the fact that this one is a new a different take on vampires was fun. I was drawn to this book because of the cover art.. and the fact that it is a stand alone novel.  Yeah for not being a trilogy. 

Guardians of the Galaxy- Movie Review

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Guardians of the Galaxy

This is the movie I had been waiting for all year!  I didn't really think there were any huge hits this summer, other then Captain America. So I had really been anticipating this film.  I even ran out and read the Guardians of the Galaxy comics real quick before the film was released. The movie did NOT let me down.

Harry Potter UK Covers

OK.. I am sure most of you have seen these by now.  But I have been busy and haven't been able to post up the blog posts I have been wanting to chat about. So here it is.  In these covers I think Harry looks 11 in each cover.. he should be way older for book 7. There should've been more again. Also.. the covers seem to give away a lot of plot points.. maybe even spoilers??  For example, cover for book two shows the basilisk as the monster attacking the students.  What if you were a brand new reader to the series and never knew that.  Of course.. I hope I didn't spoil that for anyone reading this post. This is "Harry Potter and the Spoiler Alert" of covers... hahah!  I do love any Harry Potter art though and seeing new covers is fun. My favorite cover is book 4's cover.  I love the dragon.  I actually also do love the way Harry looks.  Kind of anime, kind of girly. Just a really different take on what we've seen before.  What do you think of these covers??

Book Club August Picks

Looking for someone to discuss a book with? Some of you may know I run two book clubs on Goodreads.  One is the Young Adult Book Club and the other is the Stephen King Fans group.  Both groups are open to everyone.. so be sure to stop by and join us.  We have just started our August discussions so it is the perfect time for you to stop by.

Sunday Post

Let's chat about what's going on this week... on my blog.. on other blogs... on the internet... and just everywhere!    I link up my post to Sunday Post hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Reader and Stacking the Shelves.

I finally getting around to commenting on all the comments on my blog from the last week. I was on vacation in San Diego,CA.  If you commented on anything be sure to check out my responses.  Especially the ones on Gone Girl.  There is some great conversations going on there! I am getting caught up on visiting blogs too. I have been busy again with family visiting me this weekend but it's always nice to see family. I need to type up a few blogs posts that I am behind on.. one being the movie Guardians of the Galaxy so be on the look out for that tomorrow.