In My Mailbox (31)

It's been a few weeks since I've done an IMM, sorry about that! Here's what I got this week.

IMM is created and hosted by The Story Siren (www.thestorysiren.com)

From the Library: (I went because a snow storm was coming and I wanted some books to read)

I just finished this one and it was so good!  It was very different and  not what I was expecting but I loved it. Does anyone know if there's going to be a sequel?

This is the third and final book in this series. I've been following it since the first and I love them. It's a gossip girl, and a-list kind of novel but it's about Cloe who starts at the bottom and works her way up the Hollywood food chain. I loved the first two and can't wait to start this one. 

Thats all I got this week, watch out for my review of Across the Universe it should be up sometime this week. 

--Danielle

Review: Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Delirium

By Lauren Oliver

Release Date: February 1, 2011

Publisher HarperTeen

“It has been sixty-four years since the president and the Consortium identified love as a disease, and forty-three since the scientists perfected a cure.”

This is the first line of Delirium. It sets you up for the interesting world you find throughout the novel. A world where no one truly loves you, poetry doesn't exist and flirting is a dirty word. While reading I couldn't help but think about how much the story reminded me of Matched and Uglies. Yet it was also very original, I feel that fans of both books will fall in love with Delirium.

In the world of Delirium you have a surgery to be cured of deliria after you turn eighteen. (This is where it reminded me of Uglies) and you pick the guy your going to marry from the select few the government offers to you. (Sounds a bit like Matched right?) The main character Lena is petrified of getting the disease and has followed every rule set by the government. She has never even said more then three words to a boy outside of her family. Until she meets Alex (swoon), then she questions everything she knows.

        
I find that dystopian novels are always addicting. You have a whole new world to learn about. So far I've enjoyed every one that I’ve read, but that’s not many. (Matched, Hunger Games, Uglies are the only ones that come to mind). Delierium was no exception. It was one of, if not the best that I have read so far.

         
I should have expected the perfectly beautiful writing from Lauren Oliver after reading her debut novel, but I just wasn’t prepared for the breath-taking story. I was up till three in the morning because of Delirium. Only till two reading, I couldn’t fall asleep for another hour because I could not stop thinking about it. This is just one of those novels that sticks with you. I’ll probably still be thinking about it till 2012 when the sequel comes out.

            
This is a book you do not want to miss, it comes out on February second and everyone should pick a copy up. Before you do I have to warn you there will be tears while reading and you are left with a HUGE cliffhanger. (and I mean HUGE, another resemblance to the Uglies series) One the back cover it does say “ A world as terrifying as the Hunger Games and a romance as true as Romeo and Juliet” You have been warned, now go and read!


--Danielle


I'm really sorry that I was MIA all week. I had finals this week and on Monday I start a whole new set of classes. The good news is we usually don't do much the first few weeks of class, mostly reviewing. That means I should have a lot of time to read and write. Yay!

CSN Contest Reminder!

Hey everyone! I just wanted to remind you about the CSN giveaway that I'm hosting. It ends next week on January 31st.

Here's the post in case you missed it...

Recently CSN stores contacted me to host a giveaway. How could I say no? I’ve heard great things about their products from other bloggers. I’ve very excited to be working with them for this giveaway.

For the people that haven’t heard of CSN they are an online that sells everything from bookshelves to Modern Décor! Here are a few examples…

Lava Splash Feather Filled Pillow

4D Concepts Hanging Corner Storage

This giveaway is for a $30 gift card to spend on any of the CSN stores. To enter all you have to do is fill out this form below. You don’t have to be a follower to enter BUT you do have to live in the US or Canada since CSN only ships to those locations.


*The contest will close on January 30th!

Good luck everyone!
--Danielle



I also wanted to let you know that this week I am taking finals so you might not see to much of me. That's also why I wasn't able to do any posts this weekend. I do have a few reviews written down on paper and if I have time I will type up and post. I'm also going to try and do a quick video review of my nook when I get a chance, so probably now till finally are over.

Hope everyone had a great weekend! Try and stay warm too, it was 3 degree's here in NJ this morning. I envy everyone living in topical areas.

Review: Ghost Town

Ghost Town

By Rachel Caine

Number 9 In The Morganville Vampire Series

Amazon/Goodreads

            The Morganville Vampire Series just keeps getting better and better with each book. Don’t let the covers and summaries on each book fool you. They are all filled with adventure, romance, mystery and lots of humor.  The series follows Claire, a seventeen-year-old girl (sixteen when the series started), in Collage. Since her parents wanted her to stay close home she ends of in Morganville. Soon she finds out that it isn’t a normal town.  Sure every town has something a little on the odd side, but Morganville has vampires. Actually they rule the town to try and keep the humans and vampires living in harmony. The longer Claire is in Morganville the more she seems to get sucked in.        

       

     Ghost Town is number nine in the Morganville Series and just like every book before it I was blown away. With every book it seems to become more and more intense. I don’t know how Rachel Caine keeps coming up with these insane but perfect plot lines that surprise me every time. From mad scientist vampires to crazy vampire hunter dads the Morganville series has it all. I know this will be a series that I will read to the very end, even though I hope it never stops.

      

      The main reason I like these books so much is the characters. Each one has their own personality, their own fears, and differences. Through out the series there are four main characters Claire, Shane, Eve and Michael. As you read through all nine books you learn so much about them. They are so close and it’s like they are their own little family.

       

     There’s not much more I can write without giving away any spoilers. This just shows that if the ninth book in a series is still amazing then the rest of it must be as well. If you have yet to pick up Glass House (Morganville Vampires #1) I strongly suggest you do. 

--Danielle

Alex Pettyfer for Jace or No Movie?

Did you happen to here some squealing today while you were at work, school, or maybe just grocery shopping? Well that was the sound of girls (and maybe a few guys) when they found out the news about Alex Pettyfer as Jace.

Before you get your hopes up, no he hasn't accepted the part yet. They have only offered the part to Alex Pettyfer. AGAIN don't get to excited yet, like I did. When I went on mortal instruments.net and saw there post I danced around my basement. Then when I finally sat down to read the whole thing I realized that if there's no Alex there might not be any movie AT ALL. As much as I LOVE Alex Pettyfer I'd rather have a movie without him then no movie.

If he does accept I can't say I won't be happy. I have loved Alex Pettyfer since I watched the movie Alex Rider. This was before I ever thought about him playing Jace.

Also just in case you haven't heard yet they have also casted Clary. This one is a positive conformed casting, so no finger crossing needed. Lily Collins has been casted as Clary and I couldn't be happier about it. She's small and petite like Clary and when they dye her hair red I think she will be perfect.

Now I think we shouldn't be to concerned about who they cast and how much they look like the characters, because in the end does that really matter? I don't think so. I think it just matters that they are even making a movie. Movie and books are two completely things, they need different things to be good. I just want them to stay as true as possible to the book.

The characters should have the same traits, like Jace can't be shy and geeky. He needs to be confident but still have his hidden insecurities. As long as they get stuff like that right why should their hair color matter? That's just my opinion.

What do you think about all this City of Bones movie madness going on?

Waiting on Wednesday: He's So Not Worth It

 

 I was suppose to upload a review of Anna and the French Kiss yesterday, my my computer decided to eat it. I'm serious I think my computer got hungry and ate my review of Anna. I can't find it anywhere! They do talk about some really yummy French food in the book so I guess I can't be to mad at my computer. Anyway I'm going to rewrite it and hopefully have it up soon. 

In the mean time here's my WoW.

I loved loved loved the first book in this series, She's So Dead To Us. If you haven't read it yet  you really should. Actually anything by Kieran Scott is amazing, under any of her pen names. 

With the new book the old one is also getting a make over to match it (for the paper back). I have to say I like the original 10 millions times more. To me it looks more real then the new one. Most of there heads are cut off in the new one.... odd, but I do like the font on the paperback cover.

He's So Not Worth is comes out in June 2011. you can find more information about the series HERE. I didn't want to add the summery for the sequel just in case you haven't read the first one.

--If you in any area that snow, go enjoy the snow! I'm suppose to get more here Thursday night. If you don't like the snow read a book by a fireplace, thats one of my favorite things.

Danielle

Bookshelf Tour!

I did one of these awhile ago BUT I thought I should do one again.



Those signed books that I have? I received them when I came in second for a book trailer contest, this was my trailer...




Well thats it for today. Tomorrow I'll be posting my review of Anna and the French Kiss which I LOVED.

Fragment Friday

I was going to upload this last week but it just never worked and it took me forever to upload this today, BUT it finally worked.

Fragment Friday is hosted by James at http://bookchicclub.blogspot.com/




Happy Friday Everyone!

Darkest Mercy

Today is Wednesday and instead of doing a Waiting on Wednesday I thought I would show you some youtube clips about a book that I can't wait for instead. That book is Darkest Mercy by Melissa Marr. It's the last book in her Wicked Lovely series and comes out on February 2. I'm sad to see this series end but I can't wait to read it.

First I wanted to show you this incredible book trailer I found on YouTube. I saw this because I go back and look at this user every so often to see if they made any new book trailers.  They made one for Jekel Loves Hyde, which was in a contest that I also participated in and thats how I found them. Anyway here's the trailer,



For everyone who has yet to read the Wicked Lovely series, here is the author Melissa Marr explaining it.




Now if your a fan of the series you probably know that Wicked Lovely is in the early productions of becoming a movie. (YAY!)  It won't be out for awhile but it gives everyone that hasn't read it yet time to read it. Here's a fanmade trailer I also found on YouTube.






--Danielle

2011 Debut Author Challenge!

I wanted to sign up for last years but I didn't start blogging till April so I thought I would just do 2011. I'm really excited to get to do this challenge. I love reading books by new authors, you can find so many new and great books. For example if I never picked up City of Bones the first time I saw it just because I didn't know who Cassandra Clare was, I wouldn't have been able to read one of my all time favorite series.

This Challenge is hosted by The Story Siren, but I bet you already knew that. Just in-case you didn't you can find the sign ups at www.thestorysiren.com. It's on the top of the right sidebar.

Here are a few of the books that I'm hoping to read. If you have any suggestions at all leave them in the comments!

1) Across the Universe by Beth Revis
2) The Iron Witch by Karen Mahoney
3) Illegal by Bettina Restrepo *
4)Rival by Ara Bennett Wealer *
5) Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton *
6) Entwined by Heather Dixon
7) Wither by Lauren DeStefano *
8) Ten Miles Past Normal by Frances O'Roark Dowell *
9) The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher * 
10) The False Princess by Elis O'Neal
11) Vesper by Jeff Sampsen *




*Books I have in ARC's (or e-galley's)


I'm hoping to read even more then whats on the list these are just a few that I saw that look interesting. Are you participating in this challenge?


--Danielle

My Accomplishments In 2010

Today is the 5th day of the New Year 2011. This looks like an amazing year for books with releases like...

Unearthly by Cynthia Hand (which you can see by the review below that I adored it)

Steel By Carrie Vaughn comes out March 15.

Across The Universe by Beth Revis comes out January 11.

Darkest Mercy by Melissa Marr comes out February 22.

All of these books above look amazing and I can't wait to read them but first I want to look back on my year in 2010.

On April 11, 2010 I created With A Book! This is probably the most exciting thing to happen last year. I'm so glad that I made this and that I'm apart of this amazing book blog community.

On April 16 2010 I posted my first post, a review of City Of Glass by Cassandra Clare. This review went through so many revisions. I was so nervous that I think I changed it at least 10 times.

On April 20th 2010 I posted the layout that I have for my blog now. I still have the same one partly because I don't know how to change it and partly because I like it.

On April 27 2010 I posted my first In My Mailbox and it was also the week that I received my first ARC from Razorbill. I know I was very lucky to get ARC's so early in my blogging. I had been writing reviews on amazon, bn.com, and goodreads for at least 2 years prior to my blog so I think that might have help.

On March 15, 2010 I posted my first Journey To The Past. This is a meme I created and loved doing, my first one was on Old Magic one of my favorite books. For some reason I don't do JTTP every week like I use to. I'm going to try and pick that up again.

On May 19, 2010 I held my first giveaway for the book The Summer Of Skinny Dipping by Amanda Howells. It was one of my favorite books on 2010, but that's for my next post. I was so excited to be able to host a giveaway and for a book that I loved so much.

On May 22, 2010 I participated in my first blog hop. This is one of the best things that I could have done. I met so many amazing people through the blog hop and found some of my favorite blogs.

On the week of July 11, 2010 I participated in my first read-a-thon

On July 22, 2010 I hosted my 100 followers giveaway. I was so shocked to have 100 followers. Now that I'm a few away from 200 followers I still can't believe it. I never expected this, but I love you all.

On July 25, 2010 I posted my first In My mailbox Vlog. This was very scary for me, but I've been doing them more now since the first time. (Sadly that video was lost...)

On August 29, 2010 I posted my 16th IMM and this happened to be my 100th post. It wasn't really anything special but it was an important achievement for me.

On October 11, 2010 was my 6 month blog anniversary. I was surprised that my blog had come so far in 6 months. I can't wait to see where I'm at in April.

On December 18, 2010 I posted a giveaway for CSN stores (it's still going on now). I am so excited to be able to host a giveaway from them. I looooove their bookshelves.

On December 25, 2010 I received my Nook for Christmas, which I absolutely love. (Not to related to blogging, but I wanted to add this)

In 2010 I posted 162 different things on my blog, wrote 59 reviews and gained 195 followers.

Things that I wished I did differently in 2010,
1) I wish I wrote more reviews, I had read a ton more books then I reviewed.
2) I wish I wrote my posts in advanced and spread them out so I wouldn't have a week of just one post and one with 8.
3) I wish I didn't make my blog layout crooked. (most people can't see it, but I know it's there)
These are just a few that I can think of on the top of my head, I bet there was many more. I'm hoping to fix these problems in 2011.

I want to thank everyone for has read my blog from my first follower to my newest or just the people that happen to come across my blog. It's because of all my readers that I keep blogging. I know I will always read books, it's just great to have people to talk about them with. It also great to now people want to read my opinion and random posts. You are all amazing.

Now I have a question for you,

Do you like my blog layout, or should I change it and start with something new for 2011?

--Danielle

Read Chapter One of Unearthly.

This is my third post in ONE DAY. This has to be a new record for me. It's probably because I'm procrastinating writing a paper for history...but I had to tell you about this as soon as Harperteen emailed me.

You can read the first chapter of Unearthly HERE. (http://ow.ly/3ydaz)

If I haven't convinced you to read this book, and I've been trying to since I first received it a few months ago from HarperTeen. I even posted my review today, which you can find a couple of posts down. This should convince you that Unearthly is one of the best books EVER. I'm going to stop this post here so you can go start reading the first chapter of Unearthly now.

--Danielle

Why are you still reading this?! You should be reading Unearthly!

Well I'm off to actually write my history paper...

Teaser Tuesday: The Water Wars

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

•Grab your current read
•Open to a random page
•Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
•BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!


I'm currently reading: The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher

"First of all, the Water Authority is not a person," he explained. "If they made anyone sick, there would be reports about it - news texts, public hearings. People would notice."

"Will notiticed," I pointed out.

"Second," said our father, ignoring me. "the Water Authority takes care of us. They don't make us sick."

"Maybe it was an accident"

page 18 in hardcover copy.


--Danielle

Unearthy: Review

Unearthly

By: Cynthia Hand

Publisher: HarperTeen

Release Date: January 4, 2011 (Today!!)

When I first picked up Unearthly I didn’t know much about it. I was expecting it to be something like the angel books, Fallen and Hush, Hush. Both were very good but took a darker side to the angel stories. To my surprise Unearthly was nothing like them. The main character Clara is actually an angel herself, well part angel.

In the world Unearthly is set in and angel gets a vision of their purpose on earth in bits and pieces. When Clara starts getting her visions, about a boy in a fire that she thinks is her purpose to save. Her whole family (Clara, her mom and brother) moves to Wyoming, where the fire takes place.

There she meets Christian, the boy she’s supposed to save from the fire and starts to slowly fall for him. Then there is also Tuck (of course isn’t there always a love triangle in YA) he is Clara’s best friend’s twin. One of the great things about Unearthly was how the love triangle kept me on my toes and flipping the pages. I even flipped flopped which guy I liked better a few times (and I almost never do that). In the long run this love triangle becomes one of the biggest decisions Clara has to make, and it's not about who she's in love with.

From the very first chapter of Unearthly I was hooked. In the beginning Clara’s visions that sprung up spontaneously throughout the novel kept me guessing and reading but then I got attached to the story and characters. The plot will always have you guessing, just when you think you figures something out Cynthia Hand would throw something unexpected at you.

This is a great start for 2011 that looks like a great year for YA novels. You definitely don’t want to miss this one. Then when you’re finished you can pine for the sequel, because the ending will leave you begging for more.

--Danielle

Look at the beautiful cover!!!!!!!! I love love love love love love it.

In My Mailbox (30)

I didn't have time to do this yesterday, so I thought I should do this today. IMM is a meme created by the Story Siren (http://www.thestorysiren.com/).

This Week I Bought (for my nook):

I love this series and I own all the books, besides the first one which someone stole. Rachel Caine created this world that I can never get tired of. The covers and summaries don't do any justice to the stories you find inside.

I've been wanting to read this one for a while, I'm excited to finally be able to. I've heard many great things about Everlasting.

For Review:

That's all I got this week. I hope everyone had a great New Year's day. I'm sad to see winter break leave and going back to school. Hopefully I'll be able to make a post or video about the past year and what I'm looking forward to in 2011.

--Danielle