Video: 2012 challenge
Review: Stealing Heaven by Elizabeth Scott
“My name is Danielle. I’m eighteen. I’ve been stealing things for as long as I can remember.” And thus ends the first chapter of Elizabeth Scott’s novel, Stealing Heaven. Danielle, or Dani, has been moving around a lot for most of her life. She and her mother remain in a town only long enough to case out the expensive houses and then rob them. After that, they move on to the next town. Dani hasn’t remained in any one town long enough to attend school or make friends. And for the most part, Dani hasn’t thought that her life could really be any different. That is, until she and her mother reach the small town of Heaven. Heaven is the sort of town where rich people have summer homes. It’s here that Dani starts to wonder if she really wants to be a thief for the rest of her life. Can she really just give that up and throw down some roots? I’ve been dying to read more books by Elizabeth Scott ever since I read Living Dead Girl. And it probably goes without saying that Stealing Heaven is very different from Living Dead Girl. But that’s not necessarily a Continue reading →
Quality or Quantity?
A little while ago, the following appeared on my twitter feed: I can’t imagine reading 2011 books in a single year. Part of it is because I have other things going on. But let’s say I didn’t have other obligations and could just sit around reading books all day, every day for a year. I still don’t think I’d be able to read 2011 books, unless we’re talking about picture books (and it looks like the person mentioned in this tweet did just that). And really, would I even want to read that many books in a year? No way. Yes, there are tons of amazing books out there and yes; I’ll probably die without having read most of them. Yes, I find that fact depressing. But you know what? I don’t think the solution is to give myself this kind of challenge. No matter what arbitrary number of books I challenge myself to read each year, whether it’s 100 or 2000, I’m going to miss out on something. Even if I manage to meet the same challenge every year for the rest of my life. I’m never going to be able to read all of the amazing books out Continue reading →
Notes From the Bibliosphere: Douch-y things Amazon did, gender as a genre, and Youtube
Review: But I Love Him by Amanda Grace (Mandy Hubbard)
Amanda Grace’s But I Love Him is the story of Ann’s abusive relationship with Conner. Told in reverse order, we meet Ann broken and alone after the worst beating she has endured at the beginning of the book. Throughout the rest of But I Love Him, the reader learns how Ann and Conner’s relationship got to that point. Ann went from being a good student and athlete with a bunch of friends to someone who placed Conner at the center of her world. Over the course of their yearlong relationship, Ann pushes the people in her life away – her friends, her mother – so that she’s totally reliant on Conner for attention and affection. Apparently, Amanda Grace is a pen name for Mandy Hubbard. Mandy Hubbard has written other young adult titles – presumably under her real name but I’m not really familiar with her other work. I’m not entirely clear on why she chose to use a pen name for But I Love Him. My edition of the book includes a brief interview with Amanda Grace/Mandy Hubbard. I don’t know if it’s included in every edition, but I enjoyed reading it. In explaining why she wrote the book Continue reading →
Goals for 2012
Since 2011 is quickly coming to a close, I wanted to address some plans I have for Bibliogrrrl in 2012. Goals are always good things, right? And it might be good for me to tell you about them. I mean if I post them here, I can’t pretend they didn’t exist later, right? So here we go. In list form, because I like lists: Read at least fifty books. Yes, I realize there are plenty of people out there, book bloggers and non book bloggers alike, who read many more than that. Fifty books in a year means roughly one book a week. For me, I feel like this will provide me with enough of a challenge so that I have to push myself to read without getting distracted by other things while simultaneously allow me enough time with each book to truly enjoy it. Read books that fit into a monthly theme. More about what I’m talking about can be found here. Post on Bibliogrrrl at least twice a week with some sort of regular posting schedule. Ideally, one post should be a review and the other should be some other bookish related post. Better define what Notes From Continue reading →
Review: Health At Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight by Linda Bacon
Review: Wake by Lisa McMann
I picked up Lisa McMann’s book, Wake, because the premise sounded interesting. Now that I’ve read it, I’m struggling to describe the plot without giving too much away and articulate what I thought of it. The short synopsis is girl unwillingly gets sucked into people’s dreams, she meets a boy who figures out her secret, and mystery ensues. It seems pretty common for the main character in YA novels to be an outcast for one reason or another, and Wake’s Janie is no different. Not only does Janie have to worry about keeping her “talent” secret (because who would believe that you can get sucked into someone else’s dreams?), but she’s ridiculed by some of her classmates because she’s living in poverty. Her father is absent and her mother displays some of the stereotypes of a welfare queen. Janie really wants to attend college and has been working in order to save money. Really, Janie wants to find a way of avoiding being sucked into people’s dreams but doesn’t know how to control it. When she gets sucked into Cabel’s recurring nightmares, Cable manages to figure out what’s going on. Together, they try to figure out how to deal with Continue reading →
When You Cheat On Your Books, and other Reading Habits
Have I mentioned here in the past that I cheat on my books? I’m sure I must have. But to recap: I usually have more than one book going on at once. I’ve heard people say that they can’t read multiple books at ones because they don’t think they can keep the contents of the books straight. I would hazard a guess that people who feel this way only really read one type of book. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Hell, I’m sure that if I only ever read a certain kind of book I wouldn’t be able to keep them straight either. But since I’m someone who enjoys both fiction and non-fiction, I don’t think reading multiple books is that confusing when I’m reading say, a novel and a biography. It’s not unusual for me to have two or more books going on at once and it’s usually a mix of fiction and non-fiction. I’ll even take this a step further and say that I’m pretty place bound in where I read which books. When I say “place bound” here, what I mean is that I only read specific books in specific rooms of my Continue reading →
