Totally Outrageous Springbreak Goal!

Amelia's Get 'Em Read Real Fast! week is about to begin! From Friday, March 12th - Sunday, March 21, I will try to speed-read through 4 novels and hopefully get crackin on my research papers (#1 - the impact of siege warfare in the Crusades, and #2 - education in the Third Reich)... Now, this goal sounds pretty ludicrous even to me, but I'm shooting for the stars anyway :)

• Sapphique, Catherine Fisher
• Troll Fell, Katherine Langrish
• Troll Mill, Katherine Langrish
• Troll Blood, Katherine Langrish

I definitely want to get through Sapphique, and I'll see how far I get with the Troll Trilogy :)

How about you guys--anybody approaching Spring Break? Do you have reading goals, too, and if so, how do you set them?

Oh, and I forgot: I have to read To Kill a Mockingbird again for school :) Oh well, at least it's one of my faves! Dill cracks me up!!

Have a great Friday, everybody!!

Cover Wars! [6]

Cover Wars is a weekly meme (I run mine on Wednesday, but it can be any day) where you pick your current read - or any other fun book - and try and find as many different cover editions as you can!

Continuing from last week... now it's time for The Sea of Monsters!

Here's the American cover:

UK Covers - Older & Newer

Indonesian Cover

German Cover

French Cover


Chinese Cover

Those are the only ones I could find ;)

And real quick - here's a mini-Cover War with The Maze Runner!

New UK cover (I got this from James Dashner's site!)

vs the American cover

I cannot wait to read THE MAZE RUNNER, especially since I saw a [maybe] cover design for The Scorch Trials!

I had some issues with the Mr. Linky from last week, so if you want to participate in Cover Wars, just drop your link and I'll check it out! :)

Scorch Trials...maybe?

Hey Maze Runner fans!



I saw this on German Amazon (amazon.de) while doing "research" for Cover Wars! There's still no cover design listed for The Scorch Trials on US Amazon...so I'm not sure how authenitic this is--but it still looks cool, none the less!


From what I hear, plan on The Scorch Trials hitting bookstores 12 October 2010.

Contest Update!!

Hey everybody--quick newsflash!

I have gone from 75 followers to 131 followers in just over a week, which is incredible! I'm so grateful to have a chance to meet so many new awesome bloggers! So here's an update: If I get 175 (which is 100 more than the original number) followers by 3/15 (day before the contest closes) I will have *2* winners!!!

That's right--TWO! :D

CLICK HERE TO ENTER

Teaser Tuesday!

As always, Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB @ Should be Reading.Here's how it works: Grab the current book you're reading- Open up to a random page- share a little "teaser" from somewhere on that page.

***Make sure your section is spoiler free!!

Here's my teaser, from Catherine Fisher's Incarceron

"Finn tried to lift the Key, but it was so heavy he needed both hands and even then it shook in his grasp. 'Help me,' he gasped. But the hole was closing, swiftly, and by the time he got the Key steady there was nothing left but a pinhole of darkness. 'So many have tried,' Sapphique whispered in his ear. 'Have died trying.'

- Incarceron, 101

Seriously, this book is pretty darn good! It's confusing as all get-out, and sometimes Catherine's leave-you-in-the-dark style gets on my nerves, but her story is so engrossing!!! DEFINITELY RECOMMENDED.

In My Mailbox [4]

Hey--I wanted to wait to do IMM until my packages came - and they're here today!!

Well, some of them, at least :)

In the mail: Troll Mill by Katherine Langrish

Bought: Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

I had originally planned to wait to read Shiver until closer to July, when Linger's going to be published...but I saw it staring at me at the bookstore, and I just can't say 'no' to books!

As soon as I'm done with Sapphique, which I plan to read over the weekend, I'll start the Troll Trilogy! And then...I'll probably have to work on my research paper (ewwww) so I don't know what I'll read after that... any suggestions?!

some (more) ponderings...

Hey everybody--hope your week's off to a good start! Once again, I'm going to use my blog as a sort of cyber diary and throw out some reading-related questions that have been going through my head recently...

I’m not trying to tattle about stuff from goodreads, or in my personal life, or whatever…but it does make me think. Have you ever felt like your opinions were placed on the defense? Or have you ever had reservations about speaking your mind because you were afraid of the potential backlash? I’m thinking about book reviews and such, but I guess I could be talking about any aspect of life. I don’t know, I’m just babbling. It’s either type away on here or pay attention to the lecture that’s going on a few feet from my table…

That’s not to say that I don’t like arguing—I was on debate team and I started out as pre-law…but I guess somewhere along the way I’ve just grown tired (or lazy) of always being on the defense. It was fun and noble when I was younger—now it’s just a pain in the butt. And my reading tastes have changed, I think. Now, for some reason I like books that people have never heard of, or books that are old (my favorite series, The Chronicles of Prydain, was popular in the 60s when my parents were little kids). And I seem to foam-at-the-mouth over books that everybody enjoys. There are exceptions, though. I love Harry Potter and as of yet, I’ve never heard any bad comments about Percy Jackson… And I do occasionally like to “stick up for the little guy” (aka Twilight…off topic real quick: what is up with all the Twi-hating? Come on, everybody!) But yeah, pretty much all the books in my “pile o’ crap” shelf on Goodreads are must-loves elsewhere. And I like being different, I guess…but I don’t really understand all the hostility. Is it really so extraordinary to have different opinions? If someone likes a book that I don’t like, I don’t feel the need to go, “OMG what is wrong with you?!” I really don’t understand the reasoning behind hostile comments…it’s one thing to say, “oh wow, I didn’t really see things that way,” but let’s not play cross-examination here!

- I mean, if I don't like a book, I'm going to say "I don't like this book!" Now my pledge to you - those lovelies who read my reviews: if I say "I don't like this book!" or rate a book down, I promise to explain why. Otherwise it may just look like I'm being PMSy or something. I have reasons---and to be quite honest, if I rate a book 3 or lower, I feel like there is a good reason. Truthfully, I try to look for the good in a book, if for no other reason than to feel like my reading time wasn't wasted. But if I rate a book down (2.5 or lower) there's usually something wrong with it, and not just "ohhh, the writing stank!" or "cardboard characters!" or whatever. It's something serious that I found extremely detrimental or just had a major problem with. And if you agree or disagree, cool! That's totally fine, but I do feel like I should be honest.

** I can't express enough how appreciative I am of honest reviews. That doesn't mean I take pleasure out of books/authors being turned into punching bags, but I really like honesty. If you have something to say, please share it! I know I will :P

Maybe I’m just getting lazy… but I wanted to pose the questions. Have you ever felt like you’ve had to get on the defense over a review, or an opinion you have expressed? Have you ever had reservations about speaking your mind because you were afraid of the potential backlash?