Dewey 24 Hour Readathon Opening Meme

Opening Meme:
1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
Southeast Michigan, where the sun isn't really up and it's very chilly

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
The Assasination of Margaret Thatcher by Hillary Mantel. I'm on a short story kick right now.

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
There is pumpkin spice puppy chow in my fridge. 

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
Oh I hate these! I'm 25 and recently went back to school to get my masters in Library and Information Science. 

This is me up way too early on a Saturday. Let the reading begin!

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?
This is my third time attempting a full readathon, though I've come in and out of others in the past. I guess this time I'm not putting as much pressure on myself. At the end of the day this is supposed to be enjoyable so there's no point stressing over if I can actually read every minute of the next twenty four hours.

Readathon Prep

In case you've missed it tomorrow is the biannual Dewey Readathon, or as I like to think of it, that thing I try to do at least once a year and somehow always manage to make plans/turn into a lazy sleep monster and never actually finish.

This year is different.

Okay, that's setting the bar pretty high. Let's try this. I'm going to attempt to make this year different. I'm not working. I have zero plans. I have informed my family and friends that I will be locked away with my books all day.
Now all I have to do is stay motivated. To help with that i've been cultivating my TBR pile for sevearl days.

My most successful readathons in the past were back when I was in college. Strange, right? Back then I'd mix up my reading. Screenplays, short story collections and all genres were within my grasp.

Tomorrow I'm taking a hint from past me.
I have two short story collections that I'm itching to get my hands on. I think they'll prove really helpful when I'm getting bogged down or bored by another book or just want a change of pace to maybe go with a change of location.

So wish me luck, and good luck to you if you're doing the readathon tomorrow!

Attachments - Rainbow Rowell

Attachments

Rainbow Rowell

Lincoln didn't mean to be living with his mother. He didn't intend to have to take a midnight IT job to get by and he certainly didn't picture still being single as the clock counted down to the new millennium. Unfortunately this is his life, and the only thing that could make it worse is that part of his job description is to read private emails sent over his works server. So what happens when I starts to fall in love with a girl he's never met, who frequently ignores work to chat with her friend and sends emails that end up in his flagged folder?

Attachments is very obviously a first novel. That isn't always a bad thing. There are millions of debut novels that stun. Only this one doesn't.  The story is interesting enough. Boy is heartbroken forever. Boy gets job invading peoples privacy. Boy then falls in love with one of the people who's privacy he has invaded.

The real problem is that Lincoln isn't as interesting as this premise would like. He struggles with the morality of what he's doing and feeling but that isn't enough to make him a good person. Being inside his head is like being forced to talk to go on a week long vacation with that friend you have that whines all the time.

The email conversations between Beth and Jennifer are the real highlight of Attachments. They're lively and funny and really show that Rowell will excel when embracing creative ways to tell a story. The seeing was also perfect. Like in Eleanor and Park Rowell was able to take a time frame that is both within recent memory yet completely different from today.

Overall if you're a fan of Rainbow Rowells other work than you should give Attachments a read. It's not her best work but it's far from the worst that's out there.

Ten Places Books Have Made Me Want To Visit

Top Ten places Books Have Made Me Want To Visit

1. Prague
Admittedly I've wanted to go to Prauge since before I can remember. I did recently read the Daughter of Smoke and Bones series though and it reminded me how desperately I wanted to see this city for myself. Even the Prauge of Unbearable Lightness of Being  has me itching to by a plane ticket.

2.Paris
Where to start. It's Paris! Anna and the French Kiss, Paris, My Sweet, and Just One Day are only a few of the books I've read that have left me dying to return to the city of lights.

3.Morocco
Another city you can thank the Daughter of Smoke and Bones series for. I think you could also probably include the events of Cress here. I'd always pictured their Northern Africa adventure happening in Morocco.

4.London
It's hard to pin London down to a book, or even several books. I feel like I've been reading about the city for my entire life. I've spent summers bent over books about Tudor England and long winter nights huddled up with mysteries set in London's modern streets.  It's a place that is always changing in my mind. I want to visit just so I can pin it down.

5. Hogwarts
Have you visited my blog before? Of course this is on my list. 

6.San Fransisco
Lola and the Boy Next Door reminded me that there were parts of California that weren't LA. I hadn't really thought about San Fransisco as a real place until then. Now I see SF everywhere. I want to see the bay and the streetcars. It's the only reason I want to go to the west coast.

7. New York
Like London it's near impossible for me to pick even a handful of books that have made me want to go there. It's nearly impossible to pick up a novel without New York being mentioned. So it doesn't matter to me if it's the hipsteresq vibe found in Friendship or the Love Affairs of Nathaniel P or if it's gritty like A Replacement Life New York will always be near the top of my Wanderlust list.

8.  Tokyo in 1Q84
Admittedly I've never been particularly interested in a long fight to Japan. However the way Tokyo was presented in 1Q84 piqued my interests. Okay, maybe I just want to know more about the Little People. Still, let's go to Tokyo!

9. Penumbra's Bookstore
I read Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore at a time when my life was a mess. It reminded me what I love about books, and more importantly, how much I love strange books. I'd love to visit this fictional bookstore if just for the opportunity to thank someone for setting me back on track.

10. Pemberley
A girl can dream, right?

September in Review

Hi! Remember me? I haven't been swallowed by a blogging blackhole, I swear. Setepember was just crazy busy for me.

As I mentioned in my August post I just went back to school, and things really did pick up come Labor Day. On top of that I somehow managed to do homework, go to Washington DC, Chicago and Milwaukee and also still do my day job. As you may expect that left little time for books or blogging.

My life is going to settle down soon, I swear.  Or at least I'm going to be staying in one place for the foreseeable future. With that I hope to get in some more reviews and bookish posts. I miss writing here and reading all of you guys lovely posts.

With all of that said my September in Review numbers shouldn't be a surprise.

Books Read:
41. The Vacationers - Straub

42.  Cress - Meyer

American Authors: 2
European:0
African: 0
South American: 0
Asian: 

Male:0  Female:2

New Releases:1


Like I said, given how busy my life was these numbers aren't exactly surprising. I'm happy I got to my goal of 35 books  for 2014 early in the year so I don't have to stress about slacking on personal goals as well as everything else.
I guess the only good thing is that It's barely the second week in October (PS: Sorry I'm posting this in the second week of October) and I've read just as many books as I had in all of September.


Woooo.


Alright, back to school and work and being way busier than I signed up for!

August in Review

I'm going to ask you guys a favor. Can we pretend that it hasn't been a full week since August ended? September has been CRAZY so far. I knew you all would understand.

But this blog is about books, and how I spent the last month of summer reading so much it's a wonder I didn't strain my eyes.

As a month I've never been a fan of August. Here in Michigan it's hot and humid. Everyone tries to fit in every single summer activity possible in those last 31 days. However this year the weather was mild. I read outside a ton because it was rarely above 80. Of course I did other things too. There were family get togethers and friends birthdays.


Oh, and for the first time since I was back in middle school I started classes in August. That's right, I started my masters in Library Science this month! That's kind of why September has been so crazy. I'm balancing work and school and trying to still find time to read and occasionally write.

So if blog posts are few and far between in the next couple of months don't fret, I'm still around, just trying to find the right balance between book blogger and library student.

Books Read:
34. Cat's Cradle - Vonnegut
35. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Rowling
36. Because (b/c) - Riippi
37. Friendship - Gould
38.Isla and the Happily Ever After - Perkins
39. Cinder - Meyer
40. Scarlet - Meyer

American Authors: 5
European:1
African: 0
South American: 0
Asian: 

Male:2  Female:4

New Releases:1

Jar Books: 0  (I need a better system for picking TBR Jar books. I've been in the middle of a Diaz book for two months.)

Seven books in a month isn't too shabby, especially since I basically read Isla twice because I loved it so much and couldn't get it out of my head. August was a great month for reading, though. I absolutely loved ISla and the Happily Ever After and despite some mixed feelings on Cinder, i tore through Scarlet right after and am working my way through Cress now.

I'm still reading a ton of female authors but another month has pasted without me reading anything outside of my national comfort zone. That is something I really should work on with the rest of this year.

So goodbye summer, hello sweaters and pumpkins and cider!

Anna and the French Kiss

Anna and the French Kiss

Stephenie Perkins

Things were going great for Anna Oliphant. She has her best friend, a job and a crush that very well may turn into something more. Then her parents decide to ship her off to the School of America in Paris for her senior year and her whole life is sent into chaos. Now she has to find a way to survive in her own personal city of stress, but when she finds a group of friends, complete with the strangely perfect Etienne St. Clair, things might finally start looking up.

Reading Anna and the French Kiss is like biting into a fresh macaroon on a perfect spring day. Everything about it is sweet, emotional and full of life. It's like eating ice cream in bet while watching an old Audrey Hepburn movie (I'm thinking Sabrina.) It's easily the sweetest thing I've read all year.

I loved the world Perkins created. It was boarding school for the teens of the twenty teens. Anna's feelings and actions are believable and relateable. She's a girl on the verge of adulthood who is ripped away from everything she knows. The way she flounders around Paris is charming.  Most importantly, though, is that Anna isn't perfect. neither is Etienne, who so many girls have since swooned over.  In a book that is so perfectly fluffy it would be easy to write cardboard cut out characters with superficial feelings and unmotivated actions. I'm grateful that that we're given two fleshed out who feel like they could be real.

Honestly I have nothing bad to say about Anna and the French Kiss. I picked it up when I was in a reading slump and managed to get a serious sunburn because I forgot what it was like to be that engrossed by a story (and I wasn't wearing sun screen.) There are still a few weeks of summer. Go read this book, and then pick up Lola and the Boy Next Door and Isla and the Happily Ever After (which comes out today!)
You won't regret it.