Changes

So, some changes I'm making in my blog. A couple of weeks ago, I posted about how lately I've been burnt out on blogging. I actually took a break for about two weeks where I wasn't even looking at any blogs. And I have to say, it was exactly what I needed. I was able to read for fun without the stress of writing reviews. I also had a lot of time to think about my blog, and what direction I want to take it in. I still enjoy blogging. I like being part of the book blogging community, especially when it comes to YA fiction, since I enjoy reading it and writing it. What I've realized is that though I used to participate in a couple of memes (mainly, In My Mailbox), I don't enjoy that aspect anymore. I like checking out what other people got in their mailboxes, and I like reading what other people do for memes (to an extent), but I don't enjoy participating in them myself anymore. So that's going to be the first major change: I won't be participating in memes anymore. They take up too much time, when I could be posting about other things.

So that pretty much leaves me with posting reviews. I will probably continue posting reviews, but not nearly as often. I don't like it that I was stressing about what to write in reviews, how to rate a book, etc. If I can write a review that only takes me a short amount of time to write and that doesn't make me stressed, I will. This means I will be writing less reviews, but maybe they'll be better reviews as a result.

I'm a writer. I've wanted to write ever since I was a kid. I have my BA in creative writing. I've had some poetry published, and I think I'd like to publish more of it. But I also want to publish a novel. I'm currently working on a YA novel (not my first, but the first that I think could actually be published). I've been thinking a lot lately about blogging as a writer instead of as a reader. I don't want to try to maintain two separate blogs though, because I know I'll focus more on one than the other, and I'd probably end up deleting one of them, anyway. Instead of maintaining two separate blogs, one for reading and one for writing, it's all going to be on this blog. I'm going to post more about my writing and writing in general. One reason why I read YA fiction is to help my writing get stronger. When I read something, I know why it works for me, or why it doesn't. Reading reviews on blogs helps me know what works for other people or what doesn't work for them and why. I'm still going to read for the sheer pleasure of it, but I'm also going to be reading YA fiction as a writer. I'm going to study it, much the way I had to study Denis Johnson, Sherman Alexie, various poets, Charles Baxter, and other writers in my creative writing classes. And I will posting my thoughts about certain things I read, when I feel like it.

I won't be posting as regularly, because right now, my focus is on revising my novel (I'm in the revision process, but it's more like a rewrite entirely from scratch process). But I will still be posting, and I hope that what I post is still interesting to at least some of my readers, if I'm blogging as writer and not a reader most of the time.

Discussion Post: TBR Lists

I've been thinking about TRB lists a lot lately, mostly because for a while, mine seems to have kept growing and growing, but nothing was being crossed off it. Last night, I was doing some (completely unsuccessful) online shopping at the Borders website, since many of their stores are closing, and I still have gift cards for them. I was using my TBR list as a guide to see what they had and what I wanted to buy, and in the end, I came up with nothing. I ended up taking a few books off my TBR list, because they no longer appealed to me. With the exception of one book, I'm not particularly interested in reading any of the books on my TBR list (at least, not right now; a big part of what I read depends on my mood, and apparently, I'm not in the mood for anything on my TBR list). Another reason why none of the books on my TBR list aren't appealing right now is because I just re-read Along For the Ride by Sarah Dessen, which is one of my favorite novels, and now I'm faced with the problem that it's going to be very hard to find something to read that will even come close to being as good as Along For the Ride.

So now I'm thinking, why even bother with my TBR list? In the past month, I've read two or three books that were actually on my TBR list; everything else I've read hasn't been on the list. If I keep going that way, I'll never knock off all the books on my list. I also wondered: why don't the books on my TBR list appeal to me? Is because I'm not in the mood to read them right now? Well, yes. And no. There are dozens of books on my TBR list that I put on the list months ago. At the time, they sounded really good, and I wanted to read them. Not all of them had been released yet, and the ones that had weren't necessarily at my library and I didn't want to buy them. So now, months later, when I look at those books, I think, "What was that book about?" So I look up a summary of it on Good Reads or Amazon, then think, "Hmm. Why did I think that sounded good? It doesn't sound interesting at all."

I can see the benefits of keeping a TBR list. There are have been times when I've come across a book I think I want to read, if not at the time, then later in the future, but I don't write down the name of it or the author, and I end up forgetting about it. It sucks when that happens, but I usually get over it. However, I started actually keeping a list just so I wouldn't forgot about those books. And now it doesn't matter, because I don't want to read a lot of those books anymore. I'm still keeping my TBR list around, just in case, but I'm not sure I'll ever look at it again.

What about everyone else? Do you ever find yourself wondering why you put a book on your TBR list, and crossing it off because you don't want to read it anymore? Do you even keep a TBR list? Do you read everything on your TBR list, no matter what (once a book is on it, it's on it for good until you've read it)?

Review: Along For the Ride

Along For the Ride by Sarah Dessen
Publisher: Viking
Pages: 399
Release date: June 16, 2009
Website
Summary (from Good Reads): It’s been so long since Auden slept at night. Ever since her parents’ divorce—or since the fighting started. Now she has the chance to spend a carefree summer with her dad and his new family in the charming beach town where they live. 

A job in a clothes boutique introduces Auden to the world of girls: their talk, their friendship, their crushes. She missed out on all that, too busy being the perfect daughter to her demanding mother. Then she meets Eli, an intriguing loner and a fellow insomniac who becomes her guide to the nocturnal world of the town. Together they embark on parallel quests: for Auden, to experience the carefree teenage life she’s been denied; for Eli, to come to terms with the guilt he feels for the death of a friend.

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I have to admit, I was little hesitant to re-read Along For the Ride. I first read it last year, and fell completely in love with it. I'd been wanting to re-read it for about a month, but found myself hesitating because what if I didn't love it anymore? What if I read it, and couldn't remember what it was that made me love it the first time around? I didn't want to be disappointed by a novel that I've gushed about and listed as one of my favorites.

I was worried for nothing. I loved Along For the Ride the second time around just as much as I did the first time.

I love it that Sarah Dessen decided to explore the insomnia, and the things that go on when most people are sleeping, mostly because I used to be an insomniac (actually, I still have insomnia, but it's not as bad and not as often). Unlike Auden, who goes out and does things when she can't sleep, I tend to stay in bed, waiting for sleep when my insomnia hits. I loved going into Auden's world at one, two, three in the morning. In a way, it makes me want to start staying up all night, doing things and not just waiting to fall asleep. But really, that idea is only appealing if there's an Eli to go along with it, and since I don't have an Eli in my life, and since I really like sleep now that I'm actually able to sleep more than I used to be able to (high school, college, and the first couple of years after college were ridiculous; middle school probably was, too, but I don't remember that far back), I'll pass on staying up. Anyway, I love Auden's and Eli's relationship. I love it that they can trust each other not just based on what they do and say, but also based on what they don't do and don't say (for example, the fact that Auden doesn't treat Eli differently because his best friend was killed). And let's not kid ourselves, I totally have a crush on Eli.

Along For the Ride could have been a typical summer novel that takes place at the beach, where boy and girl fall in love, get in a fight, break up, then reconcile. But there is nothing typical about this novel. The majority of it takes place at night, and not at the beach. It's not just a novel about a boy and girl; it's also a novel about a girl and her parents and stepmother, a girl and her new friends, a girl and her baby sister, and a girl and her childhood. I've read a lot of summer novels I've loved, but Along For the Ride is easily the best. It's definitely my favorite Sarah Dessen novel, and if I'm going to be completely honest, then I have to say that as excited as I am for her newest novel, What Happened to Goodbye (out in May 2011), I'm nervous about reading it--what if I love it more than I love Along For the Ride? I suppose that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, but I don't really want it to happen, either.

Overall rating: 5/5

Cover rating: 5/5

Why I blog and a confession

Since a lot of other bloggers are posting about why they blog, I thought I'd join in with that.

I started blogging for a few reasons. First, while a lot of my friends and family read, they don't read quite as much as I do, and most of them don't read any YA fiction (my mom does, and one of my closest friends does, so that's awesome, but other than Twilight and Harry Potter, I don't know many people who read YA fiction). When I found out there was an entire blogging community that's focused specifically on YA fiction, I was excited. I thought it was awesome and that it would be a good way to connect with people who like reading the same things I do.

Second, I wanted to read more YA fiction, and I didn't really know where to start, because I have a hard time when it comes to browsing bookstores and libraries (I pretty much can't do it; I have to know what I want when I go there, otherwise I just wander around aimlessly before leaving, often without getting anything). I want to be a youth librarian, which is why I wanted to read more YA titles and whatnot, and I figured being a part of the blogging community would be a great way to do that.

Third, it's just fun. I like sharing my thoughts. I like reading what other people think of books. I like seeing what books people are excited about (especially important for someone who wants to be a librarian). I've discovered so many new books and authors that I never would have heard of or given a chance if it weren't for blogs.

I blog because I love reading and I enjoy doing it. I do it for myself. I don't care about receiving ARCs. I've received two books from a publisher and author, and it was awesome and I'm so grateful to them, but getting ARCs has never been my goal. I have so many things I want to read that are already published that if I were to get ARCs, I would be completely overwhelmed. I would gladly accept them, but really, there are bloggers who want them more than I do, and there are bloggers who should get them instead of me. Every time I think about what it would be like to get ARCs, I think about Kristi at The Story Siren, and I feel completely overwhelmed. I don't know how she does it. Her blog is amazing. She puts so much time into blogging and reading it amazes me. It's obvious that she loves doing both. But when I think about how many ARCs she gets, on top of what she buys, and forget it. I think, "Okay, so if I were Kristi, I'd be having a total meltdown right now." To me, it seems like a lot of pressure just to try to get through my reading pile, plus actually posting reviews, if I were in Kristi's position. Seriously, Kristi, you're like a blogging superhero.

So there is where my confession part comes in. I like blogging, but I'm feeling pretty burnt out. Blogging takes up more time in my day than I would like it to. I always say, "Okay, just fifteen minutes, a quick post and/or a few quick comments, and then I'm done for the day," and it never works that way. Today, I've spent several hours on here (not all at once). On weeknights, I might spend another hour blogging, on top of getting all my stuff ready for work the next day, and doing other things around the house. At this point, blogging is taking up way too much of my time. I love reading. It's my biggest passion. But it's not the only thing I love, and right now, I really feel like some of the other things I love are taking a backseat, and not to reading, but to blogging. I miss going out with my camera and working on my photography. I miss grabbing my sketchbook and working on my colored pencil drawings. I miss writing poetry and writing/revising the novel I'm currently working on. I also love working out, but I've been neglecting that because of blogging, too.

And I miss reading to just for enjoyment. Not that I don't read for enjoyment at all anymore, but I don't like reading something and thinking, "What will I say in my review? Maybe I should talk a lot about this character, or this scene, etc." while I'm reading. I miss reading and becoming completely absorbed in the book without thinking about blogging. It's hard for me to do that now, unless I'm reading something I know I'm not going to review (like a Stephen King novel or a poetry book). And since I want to review a lot of the things I read, I'm not really able to separate the two things anymore and just read a book without thinking about blogging. I also miss reading and not worrying about how soon to write the review so I don't forget anything important. Sometimes, I just want to finish a book, maybe let it sit in my mind for a day or two if it was a really good book, and then move onto the next one, no blogging involved.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I feel like blogging has taken over my life, and I don't like it. I already know that when I go to grad school in August, I won't be blogging as much, if at all. I'm not going to have the time. I don't even know if I'll have the time to read anything for fun, because I'll be so busy with work, school, and studying. I'll be going to school full-time, working as much as I possibly can (probably part-time, but since I'll need the money, I'll be working as many hours as I can), and I'll be studying a lot, since one of my major grad school goals is to graduate with a 4.0. It's also really important to me that I take care of myself and continue exercising when I'm in grad school, so I'll have to squeeze that in when I can, plus I'll be making new friends and trying to have some kind of social life, so at the end of the day, I just won't have much time for blogging. I might get to read a little here and there, and I know I'm not going to want to try to squeeze blogging in, too. Plus, when it comes to blogs, something Kristi said in a post recently has really been on my mind lately: will her history of blogging ruin her chance of becoming a published author? Now, I'm thinking about that constantly, because I do want to publish novels someday, and if blogging will ruin my chances of that, then I want to stop blogging immediately. I like blogging, but my dream of publishing novels and continuing to publish my poetry is greater than my liking to blog. Although, if I do stop this blog on the chance that it could ruin my chances of being published, I would start up a blog for my writing instead (the way writers like Sarah Dessen and Maggie Stiefvater have), because having a social presence as a writer is never a bad thing.

What this means is, there's a big part of me that's thinking about stopping my blog sooner rather than later. I'm not stopping tonight, tomorrow, or even this week, but I am going to take a break from it for a week, just to see how it goes. I think the thing I'll miss the most is reading other blogs, not keeping my own blog. Think of it as a kind of experiment, if you want. At the end of the week, I'll evaluate how things went and how I felt about things, and then go from there. I can't promise I will continue blogging on here after the week is over, but I'm not going to say I'm planning on quitting, either. Either way, I'll be back to let you know what's going on after this week.

Have a great week everyone!

Review: The Boyfriend List: 15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs, and Me, Ruby Oliver

The Boyfriend List: 15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs, and Me, Ruby Oliver by E. Lockhart
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Pages: 256
Release date: September 26, 2006
Website
Summary (from Good Reads): Ruby Oliver is fifteen and has a shrink. She knows it's unusual, but give her a break--she's had a rough 10 days. In the past 10 days she: lost her boyfriend (#13 on the list), lost her best friend (Kim), lost all her other friends (Nora, Cricket), did something suspicious with a boy (#10), did something advanced with a boy (#15), had an argument with a boy (#14), drank her first beer (someone handed it to her), got caught by her mom (ag!), had a panic attack (scary), lost a lacrosse game (she's the goalie), failed a math test (she'll make it up), hurt Meghan's feelings (even though they weren't really friends), became a social outcast (no one to sit with at lunch) and had graffiti written about her in the girls' bathroom (who knows what was written in the boys'!?!). But don't worry--Ruby lives to tell the tale. And make more lists.

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Oh my gosh. Why did I wait so long to read The Boyfriend List? I've known about it for a long time, but I never read it because there were so many other things I wanted to read instead. So of course when I did read it, I loved it, and now I'm kicking myself for not having read it sooner.

I love Roo. Her story was so much fun to read. I felt her happiness, her disgust, her embarrassment--everything. I liked all her quirks. She's the type of girl I would've wanted to be friends with if we had gone to high school together (well, maybe with less drama and gossip).

My high school self completely relates to Roo. Guys I liked who didn't like me, guys I didn't like who liked me, guys who didn't know I existed, guys I kissed, the ones I wanted to kiss. . . . What teenage girl (or girl looking back on her teenage years) can't relate to Roo in some way? Reading about the guys on Roo's list made me think about the guys from my high school years, and which fifteen guys I would put on my own boyfriend list, if I were to make one. It was fun reliving those things in some aspects, and strange in others (not necessarily in a bad way). There are guys I forgot about that I might not have remembered if I hadn't read this book.

I really liked the footnotes Roo added to the story. I wasn't sure I would at first, since it seemed strange to have footnotes in a piece of fiction. I don't even read the footnotes in the non-fiction stuff I read. As it turned out, I liked them a lot. They were a great way for us to find out what Roo thought of everything later on, when there was distance between her and the things that had happened. Some of the footnotes (the longer ones) might have worked better if they had been scenes in the body of the story, but the shorter footnotes were great. They added to the story in a unique way, which I liked.

I can't wait to read the rest of this series.

Overall rating: 4/5

Cover rating: 2/5 (The frog just didn't do it for me.)

In My Mailbox: 21

In My Mailbox is hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren.

As always, summaries are from Good Reads and book jackets, and links are for Borders.

This week, I got four books from the library.

Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
Release date: May 22, 2006
When you don't talk, there's a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said. Harsh words indeed, from Brian Nelson of all people. But, D.J. can't help admitting, maybe he's right. When you don't talk, there's a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said. Stuff like why her best friend, Amber, isn't so friendly anymore. Or why her little brother, Curtis, never opens his mouth. Why her mom has two jobs and a big secret. Why her college-football-star brothers won't even call home. Why her dad would go ballistic if she tried out for the high school football team herself. And why Brian is so, so out of her league. When you don't talk, there's a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said. Welcome to the summer that fifteen-year-old D.J. Schwenk of Red Bend, Wisconsin, learns to talk, and ends up having an awful lot of stuff to say.

The Boyfriend List: 15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs, and Me, Ruby Oliver by E. Lockhart
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Release date: September 26, 2006
Read my review
Ruby Oliver is fifteen and has a shrink. She knows it's unusual, but give her a break--she's had a rough 10 days. In the past 10 days she: lost her boyfriend (#13 on the list), lost her best friend (Kim), lost all her other friends (Nora, Cricket), did something suspicious with a boy (#10), did something advanced with a boy (#15), had an argument with a boy (#14), drank her first beer (someone handed it to her), got caught by her mom (ag!), had a panic attack (scary), lost a lacrosse game (she's the goalie), failed a math test (she'll make it up), hurt Meghan's feelings (even though they weren't really friends), became a social outcast (no one to sit with at lunch) and had graffiti written about her in the girls' bathroom (who knows what was written in the boys'!?!). But don't worry--Ruby lives to tell the tale. And make more lists.

My Life in France by Julia Child
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Release date: April 4, 2006
In her own words, here is the captivating story of Julia Child's years in France, where she fell in love with French food and found her "true calling." From the  moment the ship docked in Le Havre in the fall of 1948 and Julia watched the well-muscled stevedores unloading the cargo the first perfectly soigné meal that she and her husband, Paul, savored in Rouen en route to Paris, where he was to work for the USIS, Julia had an awakening that changed her life. Soon this tall, outspoken gal from Pasadena, California, who didn't speak a word of French and knew nothing about the country, was steeped in the language, chatting with purveyors in the local markets, and enrolled in the Cordon Bleu. After managing to get he degree despite the machinations of the disagreeable directrice of the school, Julia started teaching cooking classes herself, then teamed up with two fellow gourmettes, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, to help them with a book they were trying to write on French cooking for Americans. Throwing herself heart and soul into making it a unique and thorough teaching book, only to suffer several rounds of painful rejection, is part of the behind-the-scenes drama that Julia reveals with her inimitable gusto and disarming honesty. Filled with beautiful black-and-white photographs that Paul loved to take when he was not battling bureaucrats, as well as family snapshots, this memoir is laced with wonderful stories about the French character, particularly in the world of food, and the way of life that Julia embraced so wholeheartedly. Above all, she reveals the kind of spirit and determination, the sheer love of cooking, and the drive to share that with her fellow Americans that made her the extraordinary success she became.

Little Girls in Pretty Boxes by Joan Ryan
Publisher: Doubleday
Release date: August 1, 2000 (revised edition; originally published in 1995)
As a nation we often to look to sports to show us what is best in ourselves: how high we can jump, how fast we can spin, how bravely we battle, how graciously we accept defeat. With sports as our national fairy tale, we have come to worship the tiny gymnasts and sequined skaters who appear on the landscape as storybook princesses with their poise and beauty, agility and grace. But the truth behind the making of elite women athletes reveals a grim national trend far less magical than what these images project. All to often behind the pigtails and mascara is a trail of abuse from parents, coaches, and federation officials--the very people charged with protecting these young athletes. Here are the heartbreaking stories of the countless girls who have stumbled along the way, broken by pressure, humiliation and an outdated cultural ideal of femininity that has shaped both gymnastics and figure skating and driven their young athletes beyond the breaking point. Joan Ryan documents in harrowing and explicit detail the preponderance of eating disorders, weakened bones, stunted growth, debilitating injuries, and damaged psyches that are often the result of intensive training. Taking us deep inside the gyms and rinks around the country, Ryan dares to ask whether Cinderella's night at the ball comes at too high a price.

I also borrowed two books from my mom.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova
Publisher: Pocket Books
Release date: July 30, 2007
Alice Howland is proud of the life she worked so hard to build. At fifty years old, she's a cognitive psychology professor at Harvard and a world-renowned expert in linguistics with a successful husband and three grown children. When she becomes increasingly disoriented and forgetful, a tragic diagnosis changes her life--and her relationship with her family and the world--forever. At once beautiful and terrifying, Still Alice is a moving and vivid depiction of life with early-onset Alzheimer's disease that is as compelling as A Beautiful Mind and as unforgettable as Ordinary People.

Summer by the Sea by Susan Wiggs
Publisher: Mira
Release date: July 1, 2004
With a little determination and a lot of charm, Rosa Capoletti took a run-down pizza joint and turned it into an award-winning restaurant that has been voted "best place to propose" three years in a row. For Rosa, though, there has been no real romance since her love affair with Alexander Montgomery ended without explanation a decade ago. But guess who's just come back to town? Reunited at the beach house where they first fell in love, Rosa and Alexander discover that the secrets of the past are not what they seem. Now, with all that she wants right in front of her, Rosa searches for happiness with the man who once broke her heart--and learns that in love, as in life, there are second chances.

What did you get this week? Happy reading!

Review: Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty

Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty by Jody Gehrman
Publisher: Dial Books
Pages: 255
Release date: April 17, 2008
Website
Summary (from book jacket): Geena wants to hang out with her best girl pals this summer, but when her cousin Hero and her best friend Amber meet, it's hate at first sight. The worst part is that all three have to work together at the Triple Shot Betty coffee shack. Geena's dreams of a girl-bonding summer are driven away completely when a few cute (okay, drop-dead gorgeous) guys come along to woo the Bettys. But all is not what is seems, and in a story of mistaken identities and romantic summer high jinks, Geena and her friends discover that when Bettys unite, they can take on the most powerful force in their world: a hot guy.

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Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty is a cute, fun read. I have to admit, it wasn't quite what I was expecting in terms of the conflict. Based on the summary, I thought a big part of the conflict would be between Geena's cousin and best friend. It was there in the beginning. But then they stopped hating each other and started loving each other instead. Then they hated each other again, then they loved each other again. The second time they went to hating each other was believable, and it was believable when they became friends again. But Geena's cousin and best friend becoming friends in the first place didn't quite work for me. The story explains why it happens, but I didn't think it was terribly believable. I needed a little more.

Then there was the conflict with Geena and her dad, who left her mom for someone else . . . . A someone else Geena (maybe predictably) doesn't like. This part of the story could have been interesting, but it was barely there. It came up a few times, and the conflict between Geena and her dad was clearly very significant to her, but it was there so few times that I really didn't care. It wasn't the conflict I was interested in, and I didn't think it was necessary or significant to the main story.

The main conflict, which is supposed to be between Geena, her cousin and her best friend and one of the most popular guys in their school, was what was most interesting. Unfortunately, this conflict didn't really come up until late in the novel, and by then, it was almost too late. It was quickly resolved as a result. Again, I needed more. I wanted more. I'm disappointed it wasn't there.

I didn't connect with the characters as well as I would have liked, though I did like them. There were times when they did make me laugh a little, and their adventures were fun to read. I liked this book, but I didn't love it. And little did I know when I checked it out that there's a sequel, and luckily, my library has it (that doesn't always happen; sometimes they have the first book and not the sequel, and it drives me nuts). I'm interested in seeing what happens for the characters next.

Rating: 3/5

Cover rating: 3/5

Stylish Blogger Award!

Confessions of a Readaholic awarded me the Stylish Blogger Award! Thank you!!!!!! This is my second blog award, and I appreciate it more than you know. Now it's my turn to pass it on to fifteen other blogs. So, here are the blogs I've picked:

1. Anna Reads
2. Bookaholic Does Blogging
3. Feeling a Little Bookish
4. Locket Stories
5. Loving Books
6. Magical Books
7. Planet Print
8. New, Borrowed, Used
9. Ruby's Reads
10. Stalking the Bookshelves
11. Starry Sky Books
12. Sweets and Scribbles
13. The Bursting Bookshelf
14. The Cover
15. The Small Town Book Blog

Congratulations! Here's what you do after you win:

• Thank the awesome person who gave you the award
• Post 7 random things about yourself
• Give the award to 15 other blogs
• Contact the blogger and let them know they have won!

And finally, here are seven random things about me (I'll try to make them different than the things I posted on my recent 25 Things About Me post).

1. I love horses, and when I become a rich YA author, I'm going to buy one. :)
2. My favorite big city to visit: Vegas! So many great things to do there.
3. Top three celebrity crushes: George Eads (from CSI), Nick Carter, Pao Gasol.
4. My favorite books as a kid were the Baby Sitters Club.
5. I don't have a favorite dessert because I like too many of them. Ice cream is near the top of my list, though.
6. I really like trains. Especially steam engines.
7. Unicorns are my favorite mythical animals.

Congrats again to everyone who's won this award (not just the people I picked, but everyone)!

Bookshelf Tour!

If you've ever wondered what my bookshelves look like, I'm about to show you. I have three very small bookcases, but considering I don't own a ton of books (well, not including all my children's books that are currently in the attic), it works, for now. Eventually, I want to get bigger shelves, but I am very indecisive, so before we get to the tour, I want to know: What kind of bookcases do you like? What kind do you recommend? One of my major concerns is that some of my hardcovers are huge, so I need something sturdy that won't bend, buckle, collapse, whatever, under their weight. I've thought about getting metal bookcases, but they aren't as pleasing to the eye. So, what do you recommend?

And now, on to the tour.

 

As you can see, my bookcases are small. (I have no idea what happened with the lighting in the picture on the right). I organize my books by fiction and non-fiction. The fiction titles are organized by hardcover, mass market paperback, and trade paperback, and each category is alphabetized by author's last name, then by title. I keep all my non-fiction together (not separated into hardcover, trade paperback and mass market paperbacks), also alphabetized by author's last name then title. The only non-fiction titles I separated out are my cookbooks, and I don't have them alphabetized, since I don't have very many of them. Also on one of the bookcases: work out DVDs, my set of CSI DVDs, and my Backstreet Boys CDs (and the solo CDs of the members who have actually done them). That's actually it for my bookcases, so I thought I'd share some of my favorite books I own/ones that mean a lot to me.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie. A couple years ago, he came to my college to do a reading of this novel. It was fantastic. He doesn't actually read from the novel; it's more like stand-up comedy. If I can find a video of it on YouTube, I'll post it, because he's hilarious. When I went to the reading, I didn't think to bring my copy of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (one of my favorite books of short stories) for him to sign. Instead, I ended up purchasing The Absolutely True Diary at the reading, and I had him sign it. He's so nice!

Oh, The Outsiders. My all-time favorite book. The copy without a cover is my original copy, which I got when I was nine. It took me a really long time to get a copy of it that isn't falling apart, because I wanted to get one that had the same cover as my original copy, and they're no longer printing that copy. I never checked the internet for it (if I had, I probably would've found it on Amazon), but then I got lucky. I used to work at a bookstore that will buy used books. That store doesn't buy back mass market paperbacks, though. One day, as I was looking through a customer's books that she wanted to sell back, checking to see if they were in good condition, I came across a copy of The Outsiders. And not just any copy of The Outsiders. It was the one with the same cover as my original copy. Long story short, I said we couldn't buy it back because it was a mass market paperback, and then I started talking about how much I love this book, and after getting approval from my manager, the customer gave me her copy of it.

Old Friend From Far Away and Writing Down the Bones . . . . The two books that have helped me the most with writing. They have the most incredible writing exercises. Not to mention, Natalie Goldberg is just plain awesome.

During the last creative writing poetry class I took in college, my professor asked Natalie Goldberg to guest teach a class. It was AMAZING. And Natalie was gracious enough to sign copies of her books for us after class.

On the left: Flying at Night by Ted Kooser. My favorite poetry book by my favorite poet. See the pink things on the side? Those are sticky notes where I marked my favorite poems. There are more, you just can't see them. On the right: Echolocations by Diane Thiel. She's another amazing poet. I took a creative writing poetry class with her in college, and it was by far the best poetry class I've taken. She made me a much better poet. One of my published poems is one I wrote for her class. It started out just as a writing class, then turned into a full poem.

And of course, Harry Potter awesomeness. This is the deluxe edition of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The book comes in a semi-hard case (kind of like a box set). The picture on the left is of the back of the box. The pictures on the box are the same as the cover of the normal editions. The picture on the right is of the book jacket. I wish the picture were bigger, but there you have it. It's gorgeous.

More Harry Potter goodness: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince deluxe edition. It also has the hard box. On the left: the book jacket, which is just as gorgeous as the book jacket for the Order of the Phoenix deluxe edition. On the right: an illustration in the front of the book. There are also illustrations in the back of the book, one for each chapter, but for obvious reasons, I couldn't include them here (even though I wanted to!).

The last of the Harry Potter goodness. These are from the anniversary edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The picture on the left is a picture J.K. Rowling drew of Snape. The picture on the right is another gorgeous illustration at the front of the book.

So that's it for my bookshelf tour. I hope you enjoyed it, because I had doing it! (Wish I could've done it as a vlog, though.) 

25 Things About Me

I recently read an awesome discussion and responses on The Slowest Bookworm's blog. The discussion was about the connection between people being bookworms and being shy, and one thing I noticed a lot of people saying in their responses is that they like it when bloggers share personal things about themselves and their lives. I don't do that as much as I would like to, so, here are 25 random facts about me.

1. I love great white sharks. I fell in love with them when I first saw Jaws: The Revenge at a really young age (I think I was maybe four or five?). One of my biggest dreams is to go cage diving with great whites.

2. I am addicted to CSI: Vegas. It's my favorite show. I've talked about it on my blog before. I'll probably talk about it more eventually.

3. Similarly, the Backstreet Boys are my all-time favorite group. I've been a fan for 13 years. I love them. Love, love, love them. I also talk about them a lot on my blog.

4. I love photography. I'm kind of an amateur photographer. I've had a couple photographs published in college lit mags. It's a hobby; I'm perfectly happy taking photographs only for myself and friends and family, and not trying to make into a second career.

5. I love running. Actually, I love working out in general, but right now, I especially love running. And why I feel this necessary to share, I don't know, but when I work out, I work out HARD.

6. Sports are another one of my favorite things. I like almost all of them; I'm particularly fond of gymnastics, soccer, basketball, tennis, rodeo, baseball and football. I'm a Colts girl and a Lakers girl.

7. My favorite colors are blue and yellow.

8. Autumn is my favorite season.

9. My favorite food is New Mexican. No, it is not quite the same as Mexican. And to be honest, it cracks me up when people who don't live in New Mexico say Mexican food is their favorite, because let's face it: if you don't live in New Mexico (or Mexico), then you don't really know what Mexican food is.

10. I've lived in New Mexico my entire life, and I can't wait to get out. The city I live in is too big for me. I'd love to live in a small town and work in a small library.

11. My favorite flowers are tulips and lilies.

12. I might have an addiction to lip gloss. And nail polish.

13. I don't like chocolate cake. I also don't like Coke (but I love Dr. Pepper!).

14. My dream car is a 2004 yellow Mustang.

15. I'm a writer. I write fiction, and I'd love to publish a YA novel someday. But primarily, I am a poet, and have had a few poems published in college literary magazines.

16. I'm the youngest child.

17. If I didn't want to be a writer and librarian, I think I would be a personal trainer. Or a forensic scientist. Or a marine biologist. Or a photographer. I wouldn't be able to decide among them, so it's a good thing I want to be a librarian and writer.

18. I love music. It's another passion of mine. I think my completely non-realistic dream job would be to be a country singer. Also, I used to sing in a Christian worship band, but since it was for a college organization, I'm no longer a part of it. I'm also not really a Christian anymore. Long story.

19. I minored in psychology. It fascinates me.

20. Unlike a lot of people, I don't have a great desire to travel outside the United States. I want to see all the states, since there are so many  places to see and things to do here. The only places I would like to go outside of the U.S. are France, Italy, and Greece.

21. I daydream more than I probably should.

22. I live in flip flops. I would wear them everywhere and in every kind of weather if I could.

23. I like things that sparkle.

24. I think the original My Little Pony is kind of really awesome. It's cool they brought it back, but I wish kids knew the awesomeness that was the original MLP.

25. My favorite place to read is curled up in my bed, sometimes with a cup of hot chocolate or tea, but usually with a glass of water. So unusual, right?

Review: Fixing Delilah

Fixing Delilah by Sarah Ockler
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Pages: 308
Release date: December 1, 2010
Website
Summary (from Good Reads): Things in Delilah Hannaford's life have a tendency to fall apart. She used to be a good student, but she can't seem to keep it together anymore. Her "boyfriend" isn't much of a boyfriend. And her mother refuses to discuss the fight that divided their family eight years ago. Falling apart, it seems, is a Hannaford tradition. Over a summer of new friendships, unexpected romance, and moments that test the complex bonds between mothers and daughters, Delilah must face her family's painful past. Can even her most shattered relationships be pieced together again?

-----

After reading and falling in love with Twenty Boy Summer, I had high expectations for Fixing Delilah, and I wasn't disappointed. Fixing Delilah is a beautiful story of family, loss, and friendship.

The writing was beautiful. The one passage that stood out to me more than any other was, "I try to think of him as Little Ricky with braces and freckles, but that only strengthens the invisible pull I feel toward him, the sense of entitlement rising in me as though knowing his past gives me some claim to his future. . . ." (page 107). The idea that knowing someone's past gives us a claim to their future really resonated with me. It's not an idea that would have ever occurred to me, but now that it has, I realize that it's probably not uncommon for people to feel that way about others in their life.

I think the best thing about this novel was the sense of friendship. I love it that Delilah realizes who truly cares about her and how friendship is really defined. I love it that her ideas of what friendship is are completely changed during the summer she spends in Vermont. The friendship is really amazing in this novel, as the characters love and support each other during good times and bad, while knowing each other's flaws and loving each other in spite of those flaws. I liked it that friendship came easily in some ways to Delilah, but not easily in other ways, because it's realistic. She reunited with some old friends and she made a new friend, and that part might have been easy, but maintaining those friendships and learning how to be the kind of friend to them that they were to Delilah was not easy. I loved the characters just as much as they loved each other, so for me, there was a lot at stake. I sympathized with each character and I wanted certain things for them. When they were happy, I was happy. When they were sad, I was sad. They were the type of people I would want to be friends with, and in a sense, I felt like they were my friends, at least for a time.

I can't wait to find out what Sarah Ockler has in store for us next.

Rating: 5/5

Cover: 4/5

2011 Non-Fiction Challenge

Broke and Bookish is hosting an awesome reading challenge, the 2011 Non-Fiction challenge. I already read a lot of non-fiction, and I read a pretty wide variety of non-fiction, so I am stoked for this challenge. Despite how much non-fiction I read and the variety of it that I read, there are plenty of non-fiction categories I haven't delved into that I can't wait to try.

I plan on reading 7 to 9 books from different categories--shouldn't be too hard. I don't have a set list, though, since the non-fiction titles I read really depend on my mood and what I'm interested in, so what I want to read is constantly changing.

I'm curious, though--there are a few non-fiction categories that aren't represented, like inspirational (not necessarily the same as Christian) and true crime. Would those fall under memoir/biography, or perhaps historical (for true crime, anyway)? I need to know, since I plan on reading a true crime book!

Review: The Forest of Hands and Teeth

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Pages: 310
Release date: March 10, 2009 
Website
Summary (from Good Reads): In Mary's world there are simple truths. The Sisterhood always knows best. The Guardians will protect and serve. The Unconsecrated will never relent. And you must always mind the fence that surrounds the village; the fence that protects the village from the Forest of Hands and Teeth. But, slowly, Mary's truths are failing her. She's learning things she never wanted to know about the Sisterhood and its secrets, ad the Guardians and their power, and about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness. When the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, she must choose between her village and her future--between the one she loves and the one who loves her. And she must face the truth about the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Could there be life outside a world surrounded in so much death?

-----

M. Night Shyamalan's The Village meets 28 Days Later . . . sort of.

I had a hard time sleeping last night, not because I was wondering what I would do in the event of a zombie apocalypse, but because I was trying to decide how to write my review for The Forest of Hands and Teeth. I was really looking forward to this novel. I kept hearing great things about it, I liked the title, I liked the cover, and when I heard it compared to The Village, I knew I had to read it, since The Village is one of my favorite movies.

But I had no idea this novel was about zombies. And let me tell you, with the exception of the movie 28 Days Later, which is brilliant, I don't do zombies. I don't understand everyone's obsession/fascination with them. Zombies aren't terribly interesting. They don't exist. People don't prepare for a vampire apocalypse, or a werewolf or pixie apocalypse, so why the hype about zombies? Why prepare for a zombie apocalypse? I just don't get it. And the truth is, if I had known The Forest of Hands and Teeth is about zombies, I probably never would have read it.

I feel like all of that was a buildup for me to say how much I loved this book. But, I didn't love it at all. I couldn't connect with any of the characters. Cass, Travis, Harry and Jed all fell flat for me. They were completely one-dimension and not that interesting. Mary could have been interesting, except she was kind of one-dimensional, too, and she was so freaking selfish. Her opinions always swinging back and forth (I love him, he's amazing, the best thing ever, but he's not enough, but I love him, but he's not enough) were annoying. She never really tried to see anything from anyone else's perspective. It was all about what she wanted, when she wanted it. And really, that just made me want to punch her in the face, so I guess you could argue that in a way, I connected with her . . . . But it didn't mean anything to me. I don't want to read a novel where the only character I connect with is someone I don't like and wouldn't mind punching in the face. I know that some novels have unlikeable characters, and I won't always like every character in a novel, but it would be nice if I liked at least one, especially when it's the narrator. But that just didn't happen.

Aside from the characters, I was just bored. Like I said, zombies aren't interesting. Especially the slow ones, and especially when there's a fence between you and them so you don't really interact with them very much anyway. I like the zombies in 28 Days Later. They're not slow. In fact, they're the opposite. And they are vicious. Maybe if more zombies were like them, I would like zombies more. Gabrielle was kind of like them, but even though Mary thought about Gabrielle a lot, we didn't see her as much as we saw the boring, slow zombies. There wasn't a lot of action in this book. Mary snuck around the Cathedral, trying to find answers to her questions, Mary thought a lot, Mary daydreamed, Mary and the others walked on a path where the zombies couldn't get them. They walked a lot. There were a few scenes that had action, where they actually had to confront the zombies. But honestly, even those scenes, while slightly more interesting, weren't engaging enough for me. Probably because again, the zombies were slow. Yeah, there were a lot of them, but how hard is it really to kill a zombie that's barely coming at you?

What might have made the story a little bit better for me (aside from having faster, more vicious zombies) would have been knowing how the apocalypse happened. In 28 Days Later, we know how people became infected. I recently read an interview where Carrie Ryan said that knowing how it started isn't important to the story, and that the events in The Forest of Hands and Teeth happen so long after the initial event that how it all started doesn't matter anymore. She said she wanted to show how things like history and knowledge can drastically erode over time. This, I understand. And I appreciate it. I think it's a very interesting idea to explore. But for me, it just didn't work, because all it did was make Mary ask question after question that she got no answer to, and sneak around the Cathedral, and I just didn't care. Maybe knowledge and history does change drastically over time, and maybe the characters who might have had the answers only had incomplete answers. Maybe all they could've said to Mary was, "No one really knows what the cause was, but we think it was this." They could've given her something, even if it was only speculation. And I don't mean something like, "It was God's way of punishing us for what we did," which is how I interpreted the novel. Having people dedicate their lives to God as a result of the apocalypse is fine with me. Having those people insist the apocalypse happened because God was punishing them? Not so much. I'm not a fan of that sort of religious thing.

I'm not sure yet if I want to read the rest of the trilogy. I have The Dead Tossed Waves sitting on my shelf, but I'm not convinced I'll like it any more than I liked The Forest of Hands and Teeth. I really wanted to like this book. I thought I was going to. But as it turns out, it just wasn't for me.

Rating: 1/5

Cover: 3/5

In My Mailbox: 20

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren. For details, head over to her blog.

Before we get to what I got this week, don't forget to check out my giveaway for Sybil Nelson's Priscilla the Great. The deadline is February 13, so make sure you enter it!

As always, I'm all about library loot this week. I am dying to use my Borders gift cards. But I'm waiting for Sarah Dessen's new book, and needless to say, it's going to be a loooong wait.

Links are for Borders. Summaries are from Good Reads.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Release date: March 10, 2009
Read my review

In Mary's world there are simple truths. The Sisterhood always knows best. The Guardians will protect and serve. The Unconsecrated will never relent. And you must always mind the fence that surrounds the village; the fence that protects the village from the Forest of Hands and Teeth. But, slowly, Mary's truths are failing her. She's learning things she never wanted to know about the Sisterhood and its secrets, ad the Guardians and their power, and about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness. When the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, she must choose between her village and her future--between the one she loves and the one who loves her. And she must face the truth about the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Could there be life outside a world surrounded in so much death?

The Dead Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Release date: March 9, 2010

Gabry lives a quiet life. As safe a life as is possible in a town trapped between a forest and the oceanm, in a word teeming with the dead, who constantly hunger for those still living. She's content on her side of the Barrier, happy to let her friends dream of the Dark City up the coast while she watches from the top of her lighthouse. But there are threats the Barrier cannot hold back. Threats like the secrets Gabry's mother thought she left behind when she escaped from the Sisterhood and the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Like the cult of religious zealots who worship the dead. Like the stranger from the forest who seems to know Gabry. And suddenly, everything is changing. One reckless moment, and half of Gabry's generation is dead, the other half imprisoned. Now Gabry only knows one thing: she must face the forest of her mother's past in order to save herself and the one she loves.

Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz
Publisher: Hyperion
Release date: May 1, 2006

When the Mayflower set sail in 1620, it carried on board the men and women who would shape America: Miles Standish; John Alden; Constance Hopkins. But some among the Pilgrims were not pure of heart; they were not escaping religious persecution. Indeed, they were not even human. They were vampires. The vampires assimilated quickly into the New World. rising to levels of enormous power, wealth, and influence, they were the celebrated Blue Bloods of American society.

The Blue Bloods vowed that their immortal status would remain a closely guarded secret. And they kept that secret for centuries. But now, in New York City, the secret is seeping out. Schuyler Van Alen is a sophomore at a prestigious private school. She prefers baggy, vintage clothes instead of the Prada and pearls worn by her classmates, and she lives with her reclusive grandmother in a dilapated mansion. Schuyler is a longer...and happy that way. Suddenly, when she turns fifteen, there is a visible mosaic of blue veins on her arms. She starts to crave raw food  and she is having flashbacks to ancient times. Then a popular girl from her school is found dead...drained of all her blood. Schuyler doesn't know what to think, but she wants to find out the secrets the Blue Bloods are keeping. But is she in danger herself?

Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton
Publisher: W.W. Norton
Release date: November 10, 2008

The art market has been booming. Museum attendance is surging. More people than ever call themselves artists. Contemporary art has become a mass entertainment, a luxury good, a job description, and for some, a king of alternative religion. In a series of beautifully paced narratives, Sarah Thornton investigates the drama of a Christie's auction, the workings in Takashi Murakami's studios, the elite at the Basel Art Fair, the eccentricities of Artforum magazine, the competition behind and important art prize, life in a notorious art-school seminar, and the wonderland of the Venice Biennale. She reveals the new dynamics of creativity, taste, status, money, and the search for meaning in life. A judicious and juicy account of the institutions that have the power to shape art history, based on hundreds of interviews with high-profile players, Thornton's entertaining ethnography will change the way you look at contemporary culture.

So, I got Seven Days in the Art World before I learned about non-fiction challenge a blogger is hosting (don't ask me who; it's late and I can't remember right now). I'm thinking about signing up for the non-fiction challenge, so I'm glad I got this book.

That's all for me this week. What did you get?

Responsible Reading Meets Responsible Blogging

It seems like there's a lot going on the in the blogging world right now. April at Good Books and Good Wine posted an interesting discussion about bloggers and blogging. Chachic and Chachic's Book Nook posted a discussion on being a responsible reader. After reading both posts, I knew I wanted to talk about them, but I didn't really want to post two different discussions on them, so this is my attempt to combine the two into one discussion. I think being a responsible reader (whatever your definition of that may be) ties together with being a responsible blogger.

So. Responsible blogging. Negative reviews. April mentioned that's heard some people think posting negative reviews is unprofessional. She says in her post that "perhaps people who aspire to be authors ought not to write negative reviews" but that it's okay for people who are strictly readers to post negative reviews. She also mentions the fact that professional reviews write negative reviews for the following: New York Times, Kirkus, and Publisher's Weekly.

Here are my thoughts on negative reviews. Have I written them? Yes. Do I like writing them? Not necessarily. But it's important to write them, as long as it's done in a professional way. You can write a negative review that provides constructive criticism without bashing the book. And negative reviews need to be written. If no one ever wrote a negative review about a book, how would the author of that book learn and further develop her writing? If all that author ever heard was how amazing her book is, her writing would never get better. And that would be extremely unfortunate, because every writer, no matter how well they write, can always improve. As a writer, I'd like to know that negative reviews are being written about my work, because I wouldn't want to think that my writing is so amazing that I don't need to improve it, or work at it anymore. I'm all for writing positive reviews, as long as they're sincere. As a writer and a reader, I wouldn't want to read a glowing review full in insincerities (whether it was of my book or someone else's), because then I wouldn't trust that person as a reviewer. As reviewers, it's not our job to make authors feel good. It's not our job to make them feel bad, either, which is why we need to be careful when we post negative reviews. It might feel awesome when you truly love a book, post a positive review of it, and have the author tell you how much they appreciated your review. But at the end of the day, it's not our job as bloggers to make writers feel good about themselves, to boost their self-esteem. We might have a lot of power in how we communicate and who listens to our opinions, but we don't, and shouldn't, have the power to determine a writer's happiness.

As for people who are authors not writing negative reviews--I think that's a load of crap. Why can't an aspiring author say she doesn't like a certain book and why? Again, it goes back to how she says it. If she says it in a constructive way, it shouldn't be an issue. I majored in creative writing. In all the writing workshops we did, we provided each other with feedback, both positive and negative, all in constructive ways. Writers can learn a lot from readers. They can also learn a lot from other writers, not just by reading books, but by reading other writers' constructive criticism. I can think of one major author who shares his opinion about other authors and their books: Stephen King. Google "Stephen King Twilight," and you'll find plenty of posts about what he thinks of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight (as well as Harry Potter and a few other authors). Is there a reason why writers (I don't want to say aspiring, because let's face it: if you write novels, or poetry, or non-fiction, you're a writer, even if it hasn't been published; just like if you play soccer in high school, you're a soccer player, even if you're not playing in the MLS) apparently aren't allowed to have opinions about books? Most writers will tell you you can't be a writer if you don't read. Does that mean every writer loves everything she reads? Of course not. But apparently, we can't admit that we don't like something. Why? Because we might hurt a fellow writer's feelings? Well, that's just tough. If I post a constructive, negative review, where I don't bash the book in any way, but just explain why it wasn't for me, and the author of that book gets offended or has her feelings hurt, that is not my problem. I am not responsible for everyone else's feelings; I am responsible only for my own. To say that aspiring authors possibly shouldn't post negative reviews upsets me a little, just because to me, it's a completely ludicrous idea. As April points out, books are products, and people who purchase those products have every right to express their opinions on them. Writers are not exempt from that. We also purchase books and consume them, and therefore have every right to express our opinion, whether positive or negative.

Forgive me for my rant. I like April, and her post was great, but her idea that maybe authors shouldn't post negative reviews got to me, since I am an avid reader as well as a writer.

For now, let's go back to this idea of responsible blogging and constructive reviews. I actually haven't come across any bloggers who bash books in their reviews. I've read negative reviews, but none that I would consider book bashing. I'm glad I haven't, because that says to me that book bloggers know what they're doing. They know what they like or don't like and why, and they're able to communicate that with everyone else in a constructive way. Meaning: They can say, "I didn't like this book because I didn't connect with any of the characters/it wasn't believable to me/it didn't hold my interest because it's not a subject I care about/etc." That is not the same as saying, "This book is horrible/it never should have been written/the author sucks/she can't do anything right/why would anyone want to read this/I can't believe this was even published."

Notice how the first review has the potential to be helpful. If you can articulate why you couldn't connect with the characters, the author can read that and say, "What can I do differently to create a character my readers will connect with?" But in the second review, an author can look at it and pretty much only say, "Well, that doesn't help me at all. Now I know I apparently suck, but what do I do to get better?" I'm all for bloggers posting negative reviews. We shouldn't have to censor ourselves just to make sure we don't offend someone or hurt someone's feelings. But this is where responsible blogging comes in. Be professional and provide constructive criticism. Don't sugarcoat things, but don't rip them apart, either. I don't even think you always have to find one positive thing about a book. If it's there, great. If it's not, that's okay. You're not going to like everything you read. You won't even always like anything about something you read. There's nothing wrong with that. As bloggers, it is our responsibility to be professional and honest. Otherwise, we lose our integrity. I used to not like posting negative reviews, and I tried avoiding it as much as possible. But I've found that I can no longer do that. Sometimes, I just don't like a book, but I still want to review it. There has to be some kind of balance; if you only post negative reviews, authors might not want you to review their book. But if you only post positive reviews, you risk losing your integrity, because you might come across as a people-pleaser, writing what you think everyone wants to hear instead of what you really want to say. It's a hard balance to find, but every blog I've read has found it. I hope mine has, as well. And I absolutely, 100 percent believe that it's important to remember that what I don't enjoy, someone else will. I hope that the people who read my blog realize that even when I post a negative review, I am fully aware that someone else might enjoy the novel more than I did, and that I'm not trying to turn anyone off to anything I've read; I'm only giving my honest opinion. It's also important for bloggers to remember that not everyone will be swayed by your review. I've read plenty of negative reviews of books and still decided to read them, and the same will happen with people who read your reviews.

Now, on to responsible reading. Turns out I might not have quite as much to say about this as I thought. Mostly what I think is that as responsible readers, we need to recognize why we like things and why we don't.
Chachic talks about how liking a book isn't just up to the author; it's up the reader as well. I agree with this. When I decide to read a certain book, what I've heard about it definitely affects my mindset when I start reading. If I've heard great things about it, I expect to love it. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't. If I hear a lot of negative things about a book, chances are, I won't even bother with it (but that often depends on the sources of the reviews). Sometimes I do pick up books that I've only heard negative things about, and I end up loving it. So yes, I expect authors to tell engaging stories that completely pull me in. But an author can tell the most engaging, interesting story in the world, and if I'm not in the mood for it, well, then I'm just not in the mood for it. That part of the responsibility falls on me. In that regard, it is a 50-50 relationship; 50 percent of the responsibility belongs to the author, and the other 50 percent belongs to me.

Chachic also poses some questions at the end of her post that I wanted to respond to:

1 & 2. Do you agree with the line "A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it" and why or why not? Do you feel responsible for your reactions to books or do you think that how good or bad a book is entirely up to the author?

I suppose I do. Once a book is published, how people interpret and respond to it is out of the writer's control. J.K. Rowling, Stephanie Perkins, Stephen King, Becca Fitzpatrick, Sarah Dessen, Jodi Picoult--they have no control over how I react to their novels. That control lies completely within myself. Sometimes, my responses are nearly untouched--I read something I've never heard of, I've never read reviews of, whose author I have no knowledge of. The only thing that could possibly affect my reaction is the reason I decided to read it in the first place: the subject interested me. It might be a book about forensic science, and most of what I know about forensic science comes from CSI, my favorite TV show. So that obviously affects my reaction to the book. Or maybe I picked up a contemporary romance, because I've liked other contemporary romances, though I've never heard of the book or author. The past contemporary romances I've read affect how I will respond to this one. But my responses are unaffected by reviews or knowledge of the authors. In other words, my responses are unaffected by anyone else's opinion.

Other things that may or may not affect how I respond to a book, in addition to reviews and previous knowledge of an author (or if I've read anything by that author) include: my mood at the time, my past experiences, my current life situation, personal preferences and prejudices, and what I need and want from a book at the time. In the end though, it doesn't matter what is or isn't affecting what I'm reading: how I respond to the book is entirely up to me.

Well, in most cases. There are a handful of authors whose work I consistently love (with perhaps a few exceptions; for example, Stephen King is one of my favorite authors, and while I love the majority of his novels, he's written a few that I hate, one being The Stand). On the other hand, there are a few authors whose work I consistently hate (I won't name names here). I read those authors, always hoping the next novel will be better than the last, and it never is. To me, that says more about the author and her responsibility for how a good a book is than it does about my responsibility as a reader.

3. Have you experienced changing what you think of a book after a reread?

Absolutely. S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders is my all-time favorite book. I've read it at least a dozen times, and I plan on re-reading it every year. My initial impressions of the novel remain with me, and I still experience the raw emotions I felt the first time I read it. But the first time I read it, I was nine years old, and now, as a 25-year-old, I absolutely have a different perspective on it--not necessarily a better perspective or a worse perspective, just a different one. I still love every word of that novel. I love every character. The things that resonated with me the first time I read it resonate with me know. But my life experiences have given me a different, and in some ways, greater appreciation for The Outsiders. One of the things I love the most is how every time I read it, no matter what I'm going through, what I've been through, how old I am, or how many times I've read it, I always get something new out of it.

There are other books I've read that have a similar affect on me. The first time I read Stephen King's Christine, I enjoyed it. It's always been one of my favorite Stephen King novels. When I re-read it about year ago, I was several years older, and thus able to appreciate it in a completely different way. The first time I read Christine, it creeped me out. And that's all it was: an interesting, creepy story that kept me turning pages late into the night. The second time I read it, I didn't think of it as a scary novel at all. Instead, I read it as one of the most depressing, and in a completely different way, terrifying, novel. It was depressing because of all that was lost throughout the course of the novel. It was terrifying for the same reason. Now, I can say with complete certainty that Christine is my all-time favorite Stephen King novel.

But, it works the other way, too. When I read Catcher in the Rye as a sophomore in high school, I loved it. When I tried re-reading it several years later, I didn't even make it past the first chapter. I hated it. I will never try to re-read it again. I can't even remember what it was that I loved about Catcher in the Rye to begin with.

4. Are there books you can reread multiple times and still love?

Yes. Obviously, after the last question, The Outsiders is one. The Little House on the Prairie series is another. The thing is, as I've gotten older, I've learned that my time is precious, and I choose more carefully how I spend it now. I don't want to spend time re-reading books that I didn't love, that didn't completely resonate within me, in the first place. The ones that do completely resonate within me, for whatever reason, are the ones that I can reread multiple times and still love. As for the rest? I pass them along to others, knowing that they might completely resonate with someone else, even if they didn't for me.

So, that's my two cents on everything. I apologize if anything I've send seems rambling and disconnected. I tried to make it flow as best I could, but it doesn't always work.