Book Haul #3

Hello Everyone! Today I am going to share with you my first book haul of 2013! I did not purchase any books last December so I was definitely ready for some new books to be added to my collection. I still have tons of books that I purchased last year that I have not read yet but it's just a great feeling to buy new books.

The books I got were:

 The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. I am excited to read this book and it's one that I have been meaning to pick up for a while now. I have never read this or seen the movie but I've herd wonderful things about both so I can't wait!

 An Abundance of Katherines and Paper Towns by John Green.  I absolutely love John Green. He is such a phenomenal writer and he has quickly became one of my favorite authors. These are the only two books I have not read by him yet. I have been wanting to order these online and I finally did and I am so happy. I have yet to be disappointed by any of his book so we shall see how these ones are. :)

Ask The Passengers by A.S King. I have not read anything by A.S King but I have herd wonderful things about this book from friends and it has a lot of great reviews. After reading the description of this book I looked up her other books as well and I definitely want to read them also.                  
 
The Lost Prince by Julie Kagawa. I am in love with The Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa. I was so sad when the series ended but I was so excited when I herd the author was writing another book set in the same world with a new main character. I herd that this book is great also and I can't wait to read it.


This is all for my book haul so you can expect some book reviews from me in the near future! I hope you all enjoyed my book haul and Happy Reading!

December Reading Wrap up + Reading Challenge

Hello Everyone and Happy New years! I am so excited for this new year to be here and to get onto reading some really great books! Last month in December, I made a reading challenge for myself and my goal was to only re read books that I have already read. I have successfully finished my challenge and did not read any new books. I have been wanting to re read a lot of my books for so long and I am happy that I finally was able to. Also since I was not reading new books last month, I did not buy any new books either! This has probably been the longest I have gone with out buying books LOL. You can probably expect a huge book haul from me in the near future :). 

Now I am going to share with you all of the books that I chose to re read and why I re read them as well.

-Harry Potter books by J.K Rowling. I re read the first three books in the Harry Potter series which are Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.I absolutely love the Harry Potter series and it will forever be a favorite series of mine. I have not read these books (especially the first few) in such a long time. It was great re reading them and I felt like I was re living my childhood a little bit! So those were 3 of the books that I re read this month.

-Looking for Alaska by John Green. This is definitely one of my all time favorite books and I could easily call this one my favorite book I've ever read (maybe). I am so glad that I chose to re read this one as part of my reading challenge. Looking for Alaska is a book that has stuck with me ever since I have read it the first time. It is a book that I couldn't stop thinking about even month after I read it. John Green is such a phenomenal writer.

-Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. This is a book I haven't read in at least 10 years or more. I kind of bought this one in a spur of the moment on my kindle to include for my reading challenge. It is a fairly short book and I read it really fast. This was my all time favorite book as a child and I have read it multiple times during my childhood as well. I can't say I enjoyed it as much as I use to reading it this time around but none the less it is still a great book.

-The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. This is another book that I have read more times that I can count when I was younger. I don't think I have read this book in at least 5 years either, but I still absolutely love this book. It was really great re reading it and I'm sure this won't be the last time I re read it.

I am currently a little over half way through reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I really wanted to include this book in my December wrap up but I haven't been able to get much reading done in the past week. So this book will be included in my January book wrap up. I am going to be doing other reading challenges in the future, with different topics but I will probably also do another re reading challenge as well. However since I have been having such a great time re reading Harry Potter I might continue to read the other books now instead of waiting for a new reading challenge.

I hope everyone enjoyed my December Wrap up and thanks so much for reading!

Best YA Books of 2012.

Today I am going to share what I thought the Top 10 best Young Adult books of 2012 were. These are all books that were published in 2012 and I thought this would make a great post since the year is near an end! I am really excited to read a lot of the upcoming books in 2013 and I posted a list of books I'm looking forward to on a previous blog post that you can view here. Now onto my favorite reads of 2012! Also- these are in no particular order of which was my favorites are such and most of them are parts of a series.

1. Tilt by Ellen Hopkins. I really enjoy reading Ellen Hopkins books and Tilt was one of my favorites. This book had a lot of great characters, and I really love reading verse novels thanks to this author!

2.  City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare. This book is the 5th book in the Mortal Instruments series, and this is one of my all time favorite series and author. I have mentioned how much I love this series before in previous posts.

3. Insurgent by Veronica Roth. This is the 2nd book in the Divergent Trilogy and though I didn't like this book as much as Divergent it was still a great and highly anticipated book this year for me!

4. Beautiful Redemption by Kami Garcia. This was the 4th and final book in the Caster Chronicle series. It was such a good read and a great finale to this series. It just made me love the series so much more.

5. Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood. This is the first book and the authors debut novel in The Cahill Witch Chronicles and I was really surprised on how much I enjoyed this book. It's a historical fiction book about witchcraft and if you have not read this I encourage you to check it out! I can't wait for the sequel to come out this upcoming June.

6.  The Golden Lily by Richelle Mead. 2nd book in the Bloodlines series. This is another book/author/series that I have talked about loads of time in previous posts. I also cannot wait for the next book in this series to come out this February.

7. Taken at Dusk by C.C Hunter. The 3rd book in the Shadow Falls Series.

8. Whispers at Moonrise by C.C Hunter. The 4th book in the Shadow Falls series. It is definitely a plus when an author releases 2 books in the same series in the same year! I absolutely love this series and this is another one that was mentioned a lot in my blog.

9. The Haunted by J.A Templeton. This is the 2nd book in the MacKinnion Curse series. 

10. The Departed by J.A Templeton. This is the 3rd book in the MacKinnion Curse series. Again major plus when an author releases 2 books in the same year! This series was a recent discover of mine but its one that I fell in love with quickly. You can purchase these books on an e-reader really cheap (the first book is free!) You can read my review for the whole series here!

This concludes my top 10 YA books for 2012! It was definitely a great year for reading and like I said before, I am looking forward to a lot of great books for 2013! I will also have my December reading wrap up posted in a few days! I have stuck to my reading goal/challenge of only re reading books that I have already read all month long with no exceptions!

Thank you all for reading and have a great New Years!

The Reading Habits Tag!

Hey Everyone! Today I am going to do another book tag called The Reading Habits Tag, which is another one that I found on YouTube. This tag is a short one about reading habits and I thought it looked fun so I decided to join in on the tag myself! I will post the link to the original tag video from the creator of the tag here if you'd like to watch the video.

Questions:

1. Do you have a certain place at home for reading? If I am reading at home I am usually found reading while sitting on my couch. Unless I am trying to finish sometimes I will read in bed before I go to sleep but that is very rare. Sometimes I read on my Kindle while I'm in bed, but usually I don't get much reading done at home. I read 90% of the time while I am at work. 

2. Bookmark or random piece of paper? I normally just use a random piece of paper for my book marks. Occasionally I will use a book mark but somehow I lost all of my book marks that I use to have and only have 2 or so left and I think that they are stuck in books right now and I don't know where they are. LOL. 

3. Can you just stop reading or do you have to stop after a chapter/ a certain amount of pages? I just stop reading where ever. Like I said before, I do most of my reading at work so most of the time I'm not able to stop after a chapter or certain amount of pages. 

4. Do you eat or drink while reading? Not usually unless I have a coffee with me or something. 

5. Multitasking: Music or TV while reading? I prefer to just read with no tv or music but occasionally I have the tv. 

6. One book at a time or several at once? One at a time. I can't pay attention to multiple stories at once. 

7. Reading at home or everywhere? I do most of my reading at work, but if it wasn't for that I'd prefer to read at home.

8. Reading out lout or silently in your head? In my head!

9. Do you read ahead or even skip pages? Most of the time no, but sometimes I do have wandering eyes and will glance to the next page or sometimes I look at the last page while I am looking to see how long the book is. :(

10. Breaking the spine or keeping it like new? I usually like to keep my books looking like new, but breaking the spine happens lol. 

11. Do you write in your books? No, I have never written in any of my books. I recently highlighted things that I liked while reading Looking for Alaska for the second time. I never usually highlight things either, but I felt compelled to do so for some reason. I normally just bend the corner of the page if I find something that I like on it. 

This is all for the Reading Habits book tag and I hope you enjoyed it! Happy Reading!!

Upcoming Book Releases for 2013!

Today I am going to share some up coming YA book releases for 2013 that I am excited about! I found quite a few books while I was browsing Barnes and Noble's website in their coming soon section. All of these books are coming out this winter and early spring for 2013. A few of the books are parts of series that I love and have been waiting (impatiently) for the new book to come out! I hope you all enjoy reading this list of books that I am excited for!

-Splintered by A.G Howard coming out on January 1st.

This is a book retelling/based off of Alice in Wonderland. It sounds so good and this is probably one of the books that I am most excited about. This is A.G Howard's debut novel and I can't wait to read it!









-Empty by K.M Walton coming out on January 1st.
This book seems like a good, real life contemporary novel about "A girl tumbles into a downward spiral when a romantic encounter turns violent" (from barnes and noble's description).






-Teeth by Hannah Moskowitz coming out of January 1st.
This is another contemporary novel about a boy named Rudy who moves away to a remote island to help save his younger brother who is sick. He meets a girl named Teeth who has terrible and violent secrets of her own and they form a connection that he has never had with anyone before. This book sounds so good and I can't wait to read it! I'm a sucker for any contemporary novel that sounds as good as this one does!






-Crash by Lisa McMann coming out on January 8th.
I am super excited about this one because I absolutely loved Lisa McMann's Wake Trilogy and this book sounds really good! About a girl who has recurring visions that haunt her!







-The Archived By Victoria Schwab coming out on January 22nd.
This is a supernatural fantasy/thriller book that sounds super good and original. It doesn't sound like any book that I have ever read before and that is why I'm excited to read it.  "Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books.Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures that only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive."  (from barnes and noble's summary).

-The Indigo Spell by Richelle Mead coming out on February 12th. 
This is the 3rd book in the Bloodlines series which is the spin off series to the author's Vampire Academy series. I can't wait for this book to come out! The ending to the Golden Lily was so amazing and I wish I could have read this book right when I was finished! 

-Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare coming out on March 19th.
This is the third book in the Infernal Devices series which is the prequel series to The Mortal Instruments series. I absolutely love this series and the whole world that Cassandra Clare has created and I can't wait to read this one! The cover to this book is just so beautiful as well!










-Chosen at Nightfall by C.C. Hunter coming out on April 30th.
This is the 5th and final book in the Shadow Falls series. This is a series that I really enjoy reading and each book in the series keeps getting better and better. I can't wait to find out what happens, but I'm sad that this will be the last book in the series! 






I hope you all enjoyed this post and happy reading! 

Books vs Kindle

Hello everyone! Today my blog post is going to be on reading books vs reading on a Kindle, or an e reader. I will always be partial to reading from books but I do enjoy reading on my kindle as well. I debated for about 2 years on weather I wanted to get a kindle or not because I love books so much that I wasn't sure I would like an e reader or not. I am over all happy that I have one and I hope my list of pros and cons helps anyone else make their decision on weather or not to get one. Books don't have many cons to them but I am going to post the pros and cons of each a book and an e reader. These are all just my personal opinions, and this is what I like and dislike about them.

Books- Pros:
-I really love the feel of a book in my hand. It's comforting to me.
-I love to turn the pages in a book.
-I love to see how many pages are in a book, and also when I'm reading I always like to see how many pages I have left before I finish.
-You could definitely say that I am a book hoarder. I always like to own books rather than borrow them or get them from the library. I love to collect books and I take pride in my collection.
-I love to smell my books, particularly old books.
-If there is a series of books that I'm reading, I like to display the series all together on my book self.

Books- Cons:
-Books can tend to be a little bit bulky. I'm always carrying a book (or 2) with me in my purse. They tend to get heavy.
-Even though I love my collection, Books take up a lot of space.
-Unless you have a book light, books can't be read unless you have light (obviously lol). Even with a book light, I find it kind of difficult or uncomfortable to read in the dark.


Kindle- Pros:
-As I said before, books get heavy and bulky. A Kindle or an e reader is very light weight and it is easy to bring with you on the go or when you are traveling.
-If you are somewhere with a wi-fi connection or have an internet source, then you can purchase books right on your kindle and have them instantly. This has come in handy for me plenty of times.
-Since I have the Kindle Fire, you can definitely read in the dark since the screen is always lit up. This is probably my favorite thing about the kindle. It's easy for me to read in before before I go to sleep.
-The kindle can hold tons of books, though I'm not sure exactly how many, it makes for easy book storage.
-It is fairly easy to read on, and it is easy to get use to reading on it.  It doesn't bother my eyes, or give me a head ache like other electronics tend to do. (computer, t.v, video games etc)
-If you have the Kindle fire or Nook tablet/color, you can do a lot of other things on it other than reading. (even though 99% of the time I only use it for reading LOL)
-You can change the font size, color, and color of the page on the kindle.
-You can easily highlight something in the kindle so you can find it later.
-If you tap on a word while reading, the kindle will give you the definition of the word.
-A lot of book are cheaper when purchased in an e book rather than a regular book (but not all books are cheaper) and there is a lot of free books also!
-The Battery Life of a kindle last a pretty long time. I have never had it die on me.
-If you have a smart phone and can get the kindle app, or have internet access, you can purchase a book from there and it will go right on your kindle as well.
-There is a book mark so you don't lose your place.

Kindle- Cons:
-If you are reading in bright light, there is a slight glare on the kindle screen. It's not too bad and I think I have gotten use to it.
-Like I said before, I like to own my books and keep them on display in my book shelf, and with the kindle you can't do that.
-I also like to share my books and loan them out to people, and with a kindle you can't do that either unless you don't mind lending your kindle to someone.
-There is no page number on an ebook, there is a location number and it shows you the percentage of how much you have read in the book. This just isn't the same as seeing the page number in a book.
-Even though you get the cover picture in the ebook, its just not the same as seeing the actual cover of a book.

This is all for my list of pros and cons for kindles and books. Even though I have a lot of pros for a kindle (more then books) I will never like an e reader as much as I love books. There is just something wonderful about books that is just simply unexplainable and an e reader won't compare to that. There definitely is a lot of pros that I have found in my kindle though and I enjoy reading on it as well. I have read some great books on my kindle, but if I find a book I really want to read, I am more likely to buy the actual book rather than purchasing it on my kindle.

I hope everyone enjoyed this post and thank you so much for reading!!

City of Bones Movie TRAILER!

Hey Everyone! I just wanted to share the movie trailer for City of Bones here on my blog. City of Bones is the first book in the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare and it is also one of my favorite book series of all time! I love this series so much and the whole world that Cassandra Clare has created. I am really excited about this movie and I can't wait for it to come out in August 2013. I hope you all enjoy watching the trailer and feel free to leave your thoughts about it in a comment below! :)