Hopping Again

I'm coming off of a very busy last two weeks.  I'm also older now.  But I thought what better way to get back into the blogging universe than by doing a little blog hopping?  I had to cleanse my Google reader because I was so in the weeds, but I'm newly dedicated and I'm sure I'll find some great new blogs to follow.  I'll be updating as I go along today (I've also neglected housework so I'll have to do that later this afternoon).







Blogs I've visited and you should too:

Random Ramblings 

Afterthoughts for Adults
CMash Loves To Read 

Birthday Post!

Sorry for the absenteeism this week, but I've been busy with work and then I was out of town and although I brought my laptop with me I didn't so much as crack it open.  But I'm back now, after celebrating my 33rd year on this planet at Buffalo Wild Wings playing trivia with my brother Mike.  This post will be short and sweet because I do have to work overnight tonight and tomorrow as well.  And I have to catch up to my Google reader which insanely swelled at 600 and some odd posts.  Good golly gee, people!  You've been busy blogging!

I finished Spooky Little Girl by Laurie Notaro recently and if you're looking for a book that will make you laugh until you pee your pants, then this is it!  I'm also almost done with Meg Cabot's Insatiable and plowing through Little Bee by Chris Cleave for my book club.  I'm trying, and failing, to stay away from all the Stephanie Plum mystery books I've gotten recently- I keep telling myself I'm going to save them for my 3 week beach vacation but it doesn't help that I know that I'm lying. 

I also got a verse novel called Who Killed Mr. Chippendale? to read for the verse challenge, but I still need two more.  So if anyone has any ideas, other than Ellen Hopkins b/c I've read all of hers, then give me a shout out.  And don't forget to sign up for my give away- just click on the button on the right side of my blog! 

I tweeted about this, but I'll repeat myself here.  I just spoke to my husband and he alluded to the fact that he got a bull dog puppy.  Now I'm not sure if this is true because although I know he wants a bull dog A) we live in an apartment, B) he thinks we already have too many animals, and C) he's unable to answer any questions about the dog and just keeps saying that I'll see in the morning when I come home.  I warned him that if I come home and there's no cute little puppy running around I'm gonna be mad.  He just laughed.  Now I don't want a bull dog, but the hubs does so I'll suck it up for him since I made him get all the other animals.  But I'm gonna be shocked if he actually got a puppy because it would be completely OUT of character for him.  Ugh, have to go now, will let you know what happens.  Stay tuned for tomorrow's episode of As the Dog Barks...

Hopping thru Friday

It's time to Hop again!  Check out Crazy For Books Blog Hop to join in the fun!

I missed out the last few weeks, but I'm feeling kind of hoppy today and my Google Reader just isn't daunting enough now (<---- that's an example of sarcasm, kiddos).   It's hard for me not to want to follow every book blog I stumble, or hop, across.  Why fight it?  Thanks to Google Reader I can scroll easily enough thru posts I know I'm not interested in (perhaps because you're reviewing a book on the role cheese has played in naval history or something along those lines) and read the ones I'm curious about with ease.  So even though some days my Google Reader count makes me cry a little, it's worth it to browse through all your great blogs!  I tend to follow when I hop because I hate the thought of missing out on a good book recommendation.

So here's where I've hopped to today (will be updating all day):

Lady Scribble's Book Lounge - how could I resist the blog title?  I have a weakness for good blog names.  Lady Scribble's reviews mysteries, YA, and Classics.

Tina Says - Another fan of mysteries and YA!

A Bibliophile's Paradise -Heather's and Eric lover from the Sookie series.  I don't need any other reason that that to follow her, I'm sold!  (That's right, bloggers- love a character I love and my affections can be bought just that cheaply.  Love Odd Thomas? I'm a follower for life, have a crush on Eric Northman or Mr. Darcy?  It's just that easy!)


And now in NEWS OF THE AWESOME:

I went to take my dog for a walk despite the nasty, hot, muggy weather we're having here in Virginia today, and what was leaning up against my door ever so fetchingly?  My first ever ARC!!! And wait, there's more!  That's right, it's an ARC by an author I already absolutely love/stalk- MEG CABOT!!!  I'm still a bit giddy and light headed. I thought maybe someday I would get an honest to goodness ARC thru the mail (I recently joined Net Galley which has free online ARC's too, but this is beyond belief).  So stay tuned for a review of Meg Cabot's Insatiable .

Verse Novel Challenge

I have a horrible tendency to sign up for challenges and then not fully compete- even if I'm reading the books.  It's a bad habit, but I'm trying to break it.  Caroline of Caroline by line is hosting a Verse Novel Challenge which I signed up for because I actually like verse novels a lot, and I'm reading a lot of Ellen Hopkins these days. 

My first introduction to verse novels, and now one of my favorite books of all time, was Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow. It's an awesome story of werewolves.  I know werewolves are all the rage these days, but this book was slightly ahead of its time.  Loved it.  And then I discovered Ellen Hopkins during Banned Book Week, and it furthered my love for verse novels.  I've even started a journal in verse form, but it's a work in progress (and by progress I mean the government version of progress- there's a lot of bluster, talking, grandstanding and money spent on journal, pens, and misc, but not a whole lot of writing getting done).

So far I've only read 2 verse novels for the challenge, Burned and Impulse, both by Ellen Hopkins.  Of the two, Impulse was by far my favorite as I couldn't really identify with the character of Burned at all.  I'm not sure what verse novels 3, 4 and 5 will be, but I'm taking suggestions.  I kind of think it would be cheating to re-read Sharp Teeth, so I'm putting it out there for others to read for verse challenge- it's a great book!

Middlesex

My book club recently read Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides.  The book had been on my radar for awhile, but I normally run away from Oprah Book Club selections.  But I heard enough good buzz on the internet to give it a try, and several members of the book club wanted to read it too.

Middlesex is not at all what I expected.  I had previously read Eugenides' Virgin Suicides, but these two books don't even feel like they're written by the same author, and yet I enjoyed them both.  Reading Middlesex is like being part of a greatly entertaining history class at time, there's knowledge, humor, wit, tragedy, murder and adventure.  The main character of the story doesn't make an official entrance until late in the book but it works.  The subject matter at first glance might seem simple- a child is born a hermaphrodite, mistakenly believed to be a perfectly formed female thanks to a super old doctor, and later chooses to become male.  And yes, there's some incest in the book that leads to Callie/Cal's unique chromosomes, but it's not the Flowers in the Attic type. 

Middlesex isn't a condition, it's not even the titled house, it's a journey that takes you from the mountains of Olympus, to the burning of Smyrna, from the streets of Detroit to the suburbs of Grosse Pointe, from a New York hospital to a freak show in San Fransisco, and along the way each location becomes as brilliantly formed as any character ever written.

Is Middlesex a perfect novel?  Sadly, no.  The story begins with the grandparents who are so richly drawn and go through so much that their children seem less so when the story is theirs, and the main character is never as fleshed out as Desdemona and Lefty.  And although I loved this book, I was able to put it down at times.  The first few pages of the novel I was so confused and unsure of whether or not I liked the writing style that I wasn't sure what I had gotten myself into.  It didn't take too long to grab a hold of me, but it wasn't love at first sight.

Middlesex gets a Midnight Book Rating of 11pm because I really enjoyed it, learned without feeling like I was being schooled, and because it didn't feel like any book I've read before.  It might not be enough to keep you reading through the night, but I would recommend this book to anyone.

Fire!

I really enjoyed Graceling by Kristin Cashore, but for me Fire blew it away. 

(btw: this is not the cover version of the book that I read, but I love this one a million red m&m's so that's why I'm posting it)

Fire, the titled character, is a Monster.  A human of such incredible beauty that people are drawn to her like moths to a flame, her unnatural beauty also gives her the ability to enter most peoples minds and change what she likes (think of the dad in Firestarter with his ability to "push" and then times it by about a billion).  Fire's dad had been a terrible Monster, using his powers to hurt, kill and wreak havoc. Fire is the opposite, she only uses her powers to protect herself from death, and oh, yeah, a LOT of people want to kill her.  There's the Monster equivalent of every beast and insect and they all like to snack on Fire, lots of people who hated her father want her dead, and some of those drawn to her beauty would hurt her if given the chance.  Even her closest friend Archer, who loves and understands her completely, is possessive of her beauty.  They are kind of friends with benefits, which struck me as pretty shocking for a teen book, but then I remembered that I'd read the Gossip Girl series, and Fire reads a hell of more like Little House on the Prairie than a GG book.

So of course, Fire's just living her life, dodging arrows (sometimes unsuccessfully) from mysteriously foggy minded archers, when the imminent war in her country is brought to her doorstep.  There's the young, hot King Nash and his broody dark (and hot) brother, Prince Brigan.  There's also a horribly evil Graceling (which is how the two books kind of tie together).

Why did I love Fire better than Graceling?  I read someone's review where they described the book Fire as almost an epic and I agree.  I went through a lot with the characters of Fire, it's just one of those books I really connected to.  You don't need to have read Graceling to enjoy Fire, it's a novel that can stand on it's own two, brilliantly beautiful, feet. 

Fire gets a Midnight Book Rating of Midnight.  Loved it, want to have a million of it's babies.

Book Association Game

Okay, we've all heard about word association, but I thought it might be fun to make a meme on books we associate with certain words or phrases.  For instance if I say Star Crossed Lovers, you might say Romeo and Juliet.

Happily Ever After....  Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (Hey! It could have a happy ending!)

Tormented Love...  Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Sad... The Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott

Over-rated... Everything by Nicholas Sparks

Page Turner... Fire by Kristen Cashore

Made For Each Other... Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Nightmares... The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen

Comfort Read... The India Fan by Victoria Holt


Liked the Movie More than the Book... Lord of the Rings trilogy by J R R Tolkien (somewhere in the blogoshphere I am now on some fanboy's death list)

Did Not See That Coming... Outlander by Diana Gabladon

Best Character Ever... Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

Must Read... Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins


How would you finish these book associations?  What associations would you add?

My Month Of May Give-Away!

The month of May holds many wonderful things, the biggest being my birthday, on May 22nd.  I've been blogging less than a year, but I thought it would be fun to host my very first give away during my birthday month!  What?  You don't celebrate your birthday all month long?  That's weird!

Moving on, even better than my birthday is the fact that author Laurie Notaro answered my email and agreed to do a blog interview.  This went much better than planned because I feared once she had my full name the only response from her would be in restraining order form.  Sometimes the power of the birthday month is stronger than anti-stalking laws! 

So how can you qualify and what can you win?  Well, it's pretty easy.  First of all, you simply must live somewhere on this planet.  I cannot afford inter-galactic postage rates at this time, but it's okay if you live outside of the USA.

Secondly you have to follow my blog, don't worry, I'm lazy with my posts so I won't fill up your google reader until the next Read-a-thon rolls around.  Simply comment and let me know that you're following me (this applies to my new and old followers- you guys are like silver and gold, but this month I promise to treat you all like platinum!)

For simply being a follower you'll get a chance to win.  But wait!  Just like an infomercial, there's more!  You can earn 2 extra chances if you blog about this give away (simply comment again with the link), and 1 extra chance if you Tweet this give away, 1 extra chance if you follow me on Twitter (if you already are just let me know!) or add the link on your blog (again, just comment with the link).  So that's a total of 6 chances per person if you follow, blog, tweet and link! 

Now you probably want to know what you can win, right?  Well here it is:

One lucky follower will get a copy of :

Laurie Notaro's Idiot Girls' Action Adventure Club and 

the reading journal Smart Women Read Between the Lines










and

Two lucky followers will get $15 Amazon Gift Cards (will most likely be emailed to you).

The contests goes on for the entire month of May, and I'll announce the winners on June 2nd.

Here's a smaller pic of my give away graphic if you want to use it to link: