Teaser Tuesday # 9

So, I can't count. After today, only 1 more until I leave for Book Expo America. If you are going, let me know!

I'd love to make a post after BEA with links and comments to all of the bloggers I met while there! How fun would that be?

Without further ado, welcome to TEASER TUESDAYS! 5-20-14 edition! 

Teaser Tuesday is a meme hosted by Should Be Reading, in which we post a little *non-spoiler* teaser of the book we are currently reading.

The selection for today is from Jennifer Armentrout's Don't Look Back. To be honest, Jennifer Armentrout was not on my radar. I've seen this book on shelves and knew I wanted to read it, but the name? I didn't know who she was. AND THEN I started planning for BEA. I have since then heard her name 85 gajillion times from other attendees. I knew I would have to check her out before attending. So, imagine my surprise when I opened Don't Look Back on my Kindle, and saw Jennifer's name! I didn't even notice when I purchased the book! So, I have a new goal to pay more attention to author names!

Pg: 36

"I turned away and picked up my pace. I walked away fom him, slowly at first, then ran. I glanced over my shoulder once, just to see if he was still there.

He was.

And he was close."

I can't wait to read more of this book! Have you read it? Link to me your review, if you have one!

Jenni

ARC Clean Sweep update!

So, it has been 1 week since I started the ARC Clean Sweep challenge, hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer. Anyone interested to see how I've been doing?

As a reminder, here was my goal:
1. Yours to Keep by Shannon Stacey
2. The Holloway Series by HelenKay Dimon
3. I Only Have Eyes For You by Bella Andre
4. All the Truth That's in Me by Julie Berry
5. Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols


And... I have completed:

Such a Rush: Review!

Jennifer Echols- MTV books

The details:  325 pages, 2 days to read, although I did read about 20 pages back in March. I just haven't been able to remember where I put it! (Under the bed, in case you were wondering. ;-) )

Summary: (From Goodreads)
A sexy and poignant romantic tale of a young daredevil pilot caught between two brothers.


When I was fourteen, I made a decision. If I was doomed to live in a trailer park next to an airport, I could complain about the smell of the jet fuel like my mom, I could drink myself to death over the noise like everybody else, or I could learn to fly.


Heaven Beach, South Carolina, is anything but, if you live at the low-rent end of town. All her life, Leah Jones has been the grown-up in her family, while her mother moves from boyfriend to boyfriend, letting any available money slip out of her hands. At school, they may diss Leah as trash, but she’s the one who negotiates with the landlord when the rent’s not paid. At fourteen, she’s the one who gets a job at the nearby airstrip.

But there’s one way Leah can escape reality. Saving every penny she can, she begs quiet Mr. Hall, who runs an aerial banner-advertising business at the airstrip and also offers flight lessons, to take her up just once. Leaving the trailer park far beneath her and swooping out over the sea is a rush greater than anything she’s ever experienced, and when Mr. Hall offers to give her cut-rate flight lessons, she feels ready to touch the sky.

By the time she’s a high school senior, Leah has become a good enough pilot that Mr. Hall offers her a job flying a banner plane. It seems like a dream come true . . . but turns out to be just as fleeting as any dream. Mr. Hall dies suddenly, leaving everything he owned in the hands of his teenage sons: golden boy Alec and adrenaline junkie Grayson. And they’re determined to keep the banner planes flying.

Though Leah has crushed on Grayson for years, she’s leery of getting involved in what now seems like a doomed business—until Grayson betrays her by digging up her most damning secret. Holding it over her head, he forces her to fly for secret reasons of his own, reasons involving Alec. Now Leah finds herself drawn into a battle between brothers—and the consequences could be deadly.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer: Revew

Michelle Hodkin- Simon and Schuster

The details:  452 pages, 2 days to read.
 
Summary: (From Goodreads) Mara Dyer doesn’t think life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.

It can.

She believes there must be more to the accident she can’t remember that killed her friends and left her mysteriously unharmed.

There is.

She doesn’t believe that after everything she’s been through, she can fall in love.

She’s wrong.

Review: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer has been on my TBR pile for every. I would pick it up at the book store and say ‘not today’ but it was always a ‘someday’. There were always bigger and better books, always. However when I saw one of my book club students reading this book, I told her I had been wanting to read it as well. Two days later, that book was in my book return box with the note ‘READ ME!’

Well, who am I to turn down a student’s request like that?

The book starts out strong, interesting, and moves pretty quickly. Once Mara is introduced and you start to learn of her accident, and the beginnings of her PTSD the book takes a huge jump. Suddenly we are introduced to Noah and a few other characters. It was too quick for my liking. I felt like I missed a chapter somewhere. (Later this is resolved in the book, but for me the damage had been done.) At this point, I started to ‘check out’ of the book. I disliked the character Noah. I did not enjoy reading about him, or any part that included him. Sadly, the last half of the book he is present. Ugh.

Beyond this one character, the story is interesting. Mara wakes up after an accident that left her friends dead. Soon after she starts having PTSD episodes that leave her seeing things that aren’t real. Or are they? Then things that she wishes would happen, do. This is an interesting concept, and Michelle Hodkin did a great job in getting the reader inside Mara’s head.

If you can enjoy a story with crappy characters (Noah is controlling, and Mara isn’t much better) then give this book a go. If you can’t get behind a book with such crappy characters, then steer away.

 Review: The characters are the sole reason this book is at 3.5 stars. This book had potential, but didn’t deliver.

School Library updates!

I don't know how many of you are interested in the life of a school librarian, but I thought I would update none-the-less.

The school I work for has 2 big changes happening this summer. First, we were awarded a grant in which we will be able to go 1:1 with technology. This means that in September, every kid in our middle school will be given an Ipad. Secondly, we are remodeling/restructing parts of the school.

With the first, that means I will need to make changes in the middle school. We will need to get an e-book service, and start getting ebooks rolled out for the students. I already have audiobooks, and I plan on having a computer station in which the kids can 'burn' the audio cd to their ipads. So when they check-out an audio book, they can put it right on their computer then and there. However, it will need to be deleted the following week. This will be done through me. I'm still working out the kinks on this process, but we're still in planning mode. If YOU can think of any good ways to incorporate technology in the library, please share!

The most exciting but stressful part of all of this is the restructuring. The main reason for this is we want to move our school's office to the front doors. With school shootings and the like, we want to make it where the only way to get in to the school after the main doors are locked is to go through the office. As it is now, the doors are right in between the entrance to the gym, and my library. Our lobby is a giant square, and the office is on the opposite side of the lobby as the main entrance. You can see why this is a problem.

You can probably see where this affects me, too. The spot where they are putting the new office, is right smack-dab in my library. Thankfully, our contracts for everything came in under budget, so they are now making it up to me by expanding my library. I will be moving, and expanding! I will be gaining the computer lab, however. Right now our Computer lab is connected to the library by a door. It is it's own room. Next year, the lab will be inside my library, which will be an 'L' shape.

This means that I need to completely inventory the library, and box up every book and every bookmark, and all my rolls of tape so that we are ready. Right now, construction crews are already prepping the ground for foundation work. I have 3 weeks to finish everything! With over 12,000 books, you can imagine this takes FOREVER to do.

We are at 80% inventoried, and about 1/3rd packed.

My library, is a MESS!

BUUUT, I can't wait to see the end result in a few months! It's going to be AMAZING!

-Jenni

Teaser Tuesday (#8!)

Only 3 more of these until I hop on a plane for BEA! If you are interested in meeting up, exchanging buisness cards, or just saying 'Hi!' to my adorable 1 year old, leave me a message!

I'd love to make a post after BEA with links and comments to all of the bloggers I met while there! How fun would that be?

Without further ado, welcome to TEASER TUESDAYS! 5-13-14 edition! 

Teaser Tuesday is a meme hosted by Should Be Reading, in which we post a little *non-spoiler* teaser of the book we are currently reading.

 

Today's selection is from The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer. I am late to this book. It came out in 2011. However, a student was reading it, and told me I NEED to read it. So, here I am. I am only on chapter 5, but I am enjoying it so far!

Pg: 36

 

"I turned away and picked up my pace. I walked away fom him, slowly at first, then ran. I glanced over my shoulder once, just to see if he was still there.

He was.

And he was close."

 

 

I can't wait to read more of this book! Have you read it? Link to me your review, if you have one!

 

Jenni

 

Clean Sweep ARC Challenge!

As most book-industry workers will attest too: it's easy for ARCs to pile up. For most people, a TBR list is always longer than what they will read in any given time. For us, it's ten times worse.

I still have a pile of ARCS from ALA 2013. I know, I failed at that. ALA '14 is in two months, and I'm attending BEA in TWO WEEKS! (Ish.)

Without anymore stalling, I am participating in Caffeinated Book Reviewer's Clean Sweep ARC Challenge!

I am late. This started May 1st, and ends at the end of the month. :(

Better late the never, right?!?!

I literally am typing this as soon as I saw the post, so I didn't even scour through my many piles of books to pick out what ARCS I want to read. I literally just picked up a pile in my library, and went:

So, here they are, in no specific order:

1. Yours to Keep by Shannon Stacey
2. The Holloway Series by HelenKay Dimon
3. I Only Have Eyes For You by Bella Andre
4. All the Truth That's in Me by Julie Berry
5. Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols


EXCITING! Anyone else interested in joining me?

Attachments: Review!

Review: Attachments

Rainbow Rowell- Dutton Adult

The details:  336 pages, 1 week to read.

Summary: (From Goodreads) "Hi, I'm the guy who reads your e-mail, and also, I love you . . . "

Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder know that somebody is monitoring their work e-mail. (Everybody in the newsroom knows. It's company policy.) But they can't quite bring themselves to take it seriously. They go on sending each other endless and endlessly hilarious e-mails, discussing every aspect of their personal lives.

Meanwhile, Lincoln O'Neill can't believe this is his job now- reading other people's e-mail. When he applied to be "internet security officer," he pictured himself building firewalls and crushing hackers- not writing up a report every time a sports reporter forwards a dirty joke.

When Lincoln comes across Beth's and Jennifer's messages, he knows he should turn them in. But he can't help being entertained-and captivated-by their stories.

By the time Lincoln realizes he's falling for Beth, it's way too late to introduce himself.

What would he say . . . ?

Review: As you can probably tell from my last post, I really enjoy Rainbow Rowell's books. As an author, Rainbow does an excellent job at showing dept within her characters. They are not mary-sue types, and they tend to grow and mature throughout her books. Attachments is not her best work, but I do feel it is still a book worth mentioning. 

  Attachments caught my attention (other than because of the author) due to the fact it is set around y2k. Sadly, many readers of this book probably do not remember the y2k 'fear' that went around. Personally, my father worked for a large electronic company, so he would only shake his head when y2k was mentioned. He knew it was phooey, but others would not and could not be told otherwise. This seems to be the mindset of our male lead, who is hired to be the company 'snoop' in their new e-mail system.

Ok, can I just say it is creepy thinking about someone READING your e-mails? I work for a school, and while I know certain things are blocked and our internet use IS tracked, the idea of someone physically reading everything just seems creepy. In this book, that leads to our hunk, Lincoln, falling in love with one the e-mail writers.

In this day and age, MANY people say they would love for a man to fall in love blindly. Only knowing what is your truest and deepest 'self.' However, if that were to happen in real life, I don't think many would last beyond the 'get away, stalker!' factor.

With that personal ancedote aside, it's nice to imagine a place where this love story COULD happen. Perhaps there is a cute man who is just beyond your sight, who is deeply and madly in love with you. Not to mention our man Lincoln realizes he is a geeky mama's boy. He himself starts to take care of himself, and grow up. I hate to say it, but I really disliked Lincoln in the beginning of the book. In fact, I didn't start to really enjoy this book until I was 80% done with it!

If you have started this book and never finished, I urge you to give it a try. I also would urge you to pick up Eleanor and Park, no matter how you felt about this book. It should not disappoint you.

*Small spoiler ahead!* *Trigger Warning!*

The biggest problem I had with this book was the fact that one character miscarries her child. I normally steer clear of books with this in it, and I would have liked some warning. I know it's not always feasible to have warnings on books, so I am warning YOU if you need trigger warnings. This one needs one. 

 Rating: 4. (E & P is my favorite Rainbow Rowell, then Fangirl, and lastly this one.)

Rainbow Rowell- My thoughts

I have now read three novels by Rainbow Rowell: Eleanor and Park, Fangirl, and Attachments, and in that order. I believe that I like them, in that order the best.

Eleanor and Park was a tragically beautiful story, written with such heart that I believed these characters were real. I wished they were real. I wanted to cuddle up in their story for ever, and say "See? This is what things should be like!" Two people who are still teens, who learn to value each other for the real them, and in time. However, I digress from the point of this post.

Fangirl and Attachments were o.k. I didn't LOVE the stories, but I loved the writing. Rainbow has a talent of making characters seem 'true' and 'real'. She does not write Mary-sues. She does not write wimpy characters. She writes flawed characters- and DOESN'T APOLOGIZE FOR IT.

Have you by chance peeked at Rainbow's blog? If you haven't, I urge you to read this post specifically: Is Eleanor Fat? As you can tell, this is hot topic for her book. She alludes to the fact that Eleanor is not just 'big' but she is in fact fat. And you know what? It's NOT THAT BIG OF A DEAL. This isn't about a girl who diets to get a boy to like her. This is a flawed character, who happens to be fat.

I urge you to look back into your memory, and find a book (bonus points if it has a romance theme!) where the main character just happens to be fat. Not fat and dieting, or just 'curvy'. Someone who is actually fat and given a chance?

We say TV and magazines are bad for girls self esteem, but why is it no one mentions books? Normally the "not hot" girls are still defined as 'cute'. They remind me of those 80's movies where the 'ugly' girls get a make-over by letting their hair down and getting contacts.

Whoop-de-doop.

Rainbow Rowell can do no wrong. She is wise, funny, and hopefully starting a trend that continues. Thank you, R. R. If I ever meet you, expect a massive hug from me. <3

Hello out there!

The blog recently had a set back, called life.

Toddlers are NO JOKE!

However, we are back to posting, and with GREAT NEWS!

Jenni will be attending BEA!

<Insert frantic fangirling GIF here!!!!>

This past summer, I attended ALA for the first time and have been trying to scheme a way into attending it again this summer. However it is in Las Vegas, and that is just too long by car, and I'm too cheap to fly AND ship home a bunch of books.

Then a good friend of mine told me about an opportunity to attend BEA this summer. I will be driving, a lot, as my 'hotel' is my mother-in-law who lives 2 hours away. However, I am cheap. ;-)

If you are attending BEA, and would like to meet me and my adorable 1 year old... just contact me!

I will be posting more about BEA in the following two weeks, so make sure to follow the blog to catch all of it!

I might even host an ARC giveaway... who knows? ;-)

Keep calm, UNTIL BEA!

Jenni