Blog Hop- Movie and Book Tie-Ins

Book Blogger Hop

This blog hop is hosted by Coffee Addicted Writer.

This weeks question:

Do you read tie-in novels to movies or television series? If so which ones?

My Answer:
I've watched some of the movies for books that I've read. If i watch the movie first I don't normally read the books. 

If we're talking about when books are written based off a movie or TV show, (such as the Buffy and Angel books our host mentioned) not really? I mean... does FanFiction count? If it does, I read a TON of Harry Potter FanFic, and I wish there was better X-Men Evolution FanFic, and more Darkest Powers FanFic. 

Reading back over this, I sounds like the worlds biggest nerd. 

Sorry not sorry!!!

Read more »

Review: Because You'll Never Meet Me by Leah Thomas

Publisher: Bloomsbury Children Books
Publication date: July 2, 2015
Rating: 4 stars

Ollie and Moritz are best friends, but they can never meet. Ollie is allergic to electricity. Contact with it causes debilitating seizures. Moritz’s weak heart is kept pumping by an electronic pacemaker. If they ever did meet, Ollie would seize. But Moritz would die without his pacemaker. Both hermits from society, the boys develop a fierce bond through letters that become a lifeline during dark times—as Ollie loses his only friend, Liz, to the normalcy of high school and Moritz deals with a bully set on destroying him.A story of impossible friendship and hope under strange circumstances, this debut is powerful, dark and humorous in equal measure. These extraordinary voices bring readers into the hearts and minds of two special boys who, like many teens, are just waiting for their moment to shine.(Goodreads)

Another review from my old blog that's why the format is different. As a blog that celebrates books with diverse characters... this book doesn't seem like it fits at first, but it kind of does... a little. I also freaking love it!

I really liked this book. It took me a while to get into the book because from the start I was not feeling Moritz, he was cranky and drove me nuts. As the boys began to tell each other their stories it was a fascinating shift. At the beginning of the book Ollie read like he had a serious case of ADD, he was all over the place in a sometimes laugh out loud kind of way. We get the impression that he's like that because he so isolated and happy to finally have someone to talk to, but as his story unfolds, we learn there's a little more to it than that.

Moritz, on the other hand reminds me of a crotchety old grandpa. However the longer he talks to Ollie, and the more encouragement that Ollie gives him, although he still remains kind of crotchety, he branches out, makes friends, and even slowly steps into a relationship. (Snaps for that by the way).

The only problem that I really had with the book was how long they drew out the mystery of what happened between Ollie and Liz. Every time it was brought up and Ollie said some version of "I'll hold that story off for another day" I was super annoyed. I felt like the author wanted to keep us hooked to the story in a pandering kind of way. Also, I didn't like Liz. I understood, but didn't understand her all at the same time. I just didn't like her.

So, that being said, this is a great book, and appropriate for all age groups. Hats off!

Read more »

Blog Hop: Books that Messed You Up.

Book Blogger Hop

 This blog hop is hosted by Coffee Addicted Writer.

Have you ever read a book or books you would consider toxic because of the effect it (they) had on you. If so which one. 

I was scrolling through my Goodreads to see if I had ever read a book that I would consider toxic and I found one. Kill Me Softly is the biggest mess of a book that I have ever seen. At one point there's a teen girl and man in his 20's in bed together a few days after they had met, the tension was enough to make me feel SUPER uncomfortable and I read a lot of raunchy stuff. The whole book was a mess, and all it takes is for one sad impressionable girl to read this book and make some serious mistakes. It's so sad because the book had great potential.

Read more »

Review: Keep Me In Mind by Jaime Reed

Publisher: Point
Publication Date: April 26, 2016
Rating: 4 stars

Ellia Dawson doesn't recognize the handsome boy who sits in tears by her hospital bed. He claims he's her boyfriend, Liam. But to Ellia, he's a stranger. She remembers her name. Her parents. Her best friend, Stacey. But Liam is a total blank in her life.
Liam McPherson is devastated. His girlfriend, Ellia, suffered a terrible accident--maybe because of him--and now she's lost her memory. But the harder Liam tries to reach Ellia, and remind her of what they had, the more she pulls away. As Ellia begins on the slow road to recovery, Liam begins work on a secret project that he hopes will bring back the girl he loved.
But can there ever be a future when the past is in pieces?

This is a review from my old blog Newbie Librarians. The format is different from the way I organize things now, but there were a few great books, that I NEEDED to share. 

I think I saw this book in the back of another book, and as someone who's always looking for books featuring African American females in non urban settings (basically people I can pretend to be) the cover of this book is what did it for me. Ellia had an accident while running with her boyfriend and can't remember the last two years of her life. If that's not bad enough, during those two years, Ellia did a lot of changing. It was during those two years that she met and began dating her boyfriend Liam, it was when she decided she wanted to make and design clothes as opposed to being an engineer like her dad wanted her to, she had also began to sneak around going bananas. What's interesting about this book is that, as Ellia begins to learn more about who she became over the two years that she didn't remember, she doesn't like the "old Ellia" and isn't sure how to handle it.

Liam... that poor kid. I'm honestly not sure what to say about him. So let me sum it all up. This is a great book. Ellia and Liam are incredibly realistic characters. I like that their racial differences were acknowledged, but didn't take over the book (FINALLY!). Learning about Liam and Ellia's relationship from the book that Liam was writing was a nice twist although I wish we could have seen more though. SPOILER. We learned that at one point Ellia and a friend ran off to a frat party and had to call Liam to pick them up and I guess there were covered in feathers. And Ellia and Liam drove around with a homeless man in the trunk. Where were those stories!!!

Anyway. This is a good book. Everyone should read it. While the ending squished my heart a bit, I thought it was 100% appropriate, realistic, and very mature. This book is appropriate for younger teens. I would have no problems giving this book to a 6th grader.

Read more »

Blog Hop- What reading means.

Book Blogger Hop

 This blog hop is hosted by Coffee Addicted Writer.

This weeks question is:  
In one sentence, describe your passion for reading. 



Answer:
Reading is Life!!!!!

Read more »

Review: The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli

Rating: 3.75 stars

Seventeen-year-old Molly Peskin-Suso knows all about unrequited love. No matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her to woman up, Molly can’t stomach the idea of rejection. So she’s careful. Fat girls always have to be careful.
Then a cute new girl enters Cassie’s orbit, and for the first time ever, Molly’s cynical twin is a lovesick mess. Meanwhile, Molly's totally not dying of loneliness—except for the part where she is. Luckily, Cassie's new girlfriend comes with a cute hipster-boy sidekick. If Molly can win him over, she'll get her first kiss and she'll get her twin back.
There's only one problem: Molly's coworker, Reid. He's a chubby Tolkien superfan with a season pass to the Ren Faire, and there's absolutely no way Molly could fall for him.

Right?

Ultimately this is a sweet book, although I do have some thoughts to sort out so lets go.

LIKED:

• Seeing as this is a Diversity blog I liked all of the diversity. The main character had two moms (woot), one mom was white and one was black (double woot), and the main characters sister was also gay (triple woot). 
• Molly was a pretty realistic character, she had realistic flaws, goals and aspirations, and lots of questions that she didn't how know to ask. 
• Molly had so many questions about sex and kissing. I had all of these questions too. I didn't kiss anyone until college, and I didn't date anyone or have my own sexual experience until after college, so I get it. I can relate.
• I'll never be able to draw from a normal sister/sister relationship. My sister and I are 12 years apart. It'll just never happen. But I liked that there were elements of family relationships in this story and that Molly's moms were very present. 
• Molly seemed to like herself for who she was, or at least she didn't try to actively change herself which was beautiful to see.
• I liked that by the end of the book (SMALL SPOILERS?? But I don't really think so) Molly realized that her relationship with her sister might change as they get older but that's okay.

NOT A FAN:

• I thought Molly was a little too much. It's hard to explain, but she has too many... things. She was plus size (cool), she had a super outgoing sister and felt a little overshadowed (cool), she had a best friend who was drop dead gorgeous (okay), she had a cousin who was drop dead gorgeous (also cool), she was almost absolutely incapable of talking to boys she had a crush on (sure why not), she has anxiety that required medication (yup coookay). On their own, or even in groups of two or three, I'm fine with these character traits, but this was too much. I felt like the author kept piling (for lack of a better term) "issues" on this character. I'm not denying that one person can't have this many "issues" (ugh I hate that term but it's all I've got), but it just felt like a lot. 
• So, while this is clearly suppose to be a book about Molly's relationship with her sister and herslef, it felt like it leaned just a smidge too much toward "everyone else has a boyfriend except for me so I'm sad, but now I have a boyfriend and I understand all of the things." I don't think I was suppose to feel that way, in fact, I think I was suppose to feel the exact opposite. It could be my fault. I was feeling a lot of personal feelings the week I read that book and didn't really have a lot of sympathy for anyone. Sorry.

IN CONCLUSION:
I promise, I really did like this book. It was cute and sweet, as a super late bloomer I understood how it felt to watch everyone around you create these relationships and not understand why no one wanted them from you. I felt all of Molly's pain.

Because this is a diversity blog, let me also say, that growing up in a majority white town, I wondered if my dark skin and hair that didn't blow in the wind had something to do with it my lack of romantic relationships, in college actually, someone told me that was exactly why they didn't want to date me, so in defense of this book, I think some of those issues bled into how I was feeling while reading it. (THIS IS PROBABLY ANOTHER SMALL SPOILER) I think I would have liked this book better if Molly hadn't ended up with a boyfriend and was okay with it. The fact that Molly only learns to speak up for herself and fix her relationship with her sister, and comes to these revelations about life after she and the boy become an item... while it's probably a true representation, I wasn't a huge fan.

Read more »