If I Win, I'll Have a Song and Dance A La Hugh Jackman.

No big. Nominated for an award. Be jealous.

OK it's not really that big of a deal. I'm just pretending I'm accepting an Emmy or Oscar nomination.

My dear blogger buddy Jaymie at Snacks for Max  has nominated for to a Liebster Blog Award.

This is exactly what I love about blogging communities- they are really supportive of one another.

A Liebster Blog Award is given to bloggers by bloggers. It is a way to acknowledge each other and say "you're doing a great job." Is is for blogs with 200 or less followers, so it's also a great way to spread the word about smaller blogs and get them more readers and followers! When you receive the award, you post 11 random facts about yourself and answer 11 questions from the person(s) who nominated you. You pass the Award onto 11 other blogs (make sure you tell them you nominated them!) and ask them 11 questions. You're not allowed to nominate the blog(s) who nominated you!

So heeeeere we go.

11 Random Facts About Moi:

1) I have a strange obsession with the Tudors- I'll pretty much read or watch anything that has to do with Henry VIII, his wives, his kids, or his other distant relatives (in-laws, etc.)
2) I own books I've never read. I'll get to them eventually... 
3) I kind of like it that my fiance isn't a bookworm. He has his video games and other nerdy endeavors, so I read while he does that.
4) I own over 400 movies. Be jealous.
5) When I was in elementary school, I couldn't read to save my life. I had to go to extra classes and take home extra reading assignments.
6) I don't have a favorite author or even a favorite book. Granted, I have entire pages of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone memorized, but that's because it's the oldest book I own. I just like so many books, it's impossible to pick a favorite.
7) I hate when people misuse the word "literally." (link may offend.) "In 2007, Eclipse literally landed around the world and fans made the Twilight Saga a worldwide phenomenon!" <- I'm pretty sure Stephanie Meyer wrote this (which is from her website.) I'm simply picturing books flying of their own accord and then landing in bookstores. 
8) In the last episode of Dr. Who that David Tennant was in, I cried the entire time.
9) I love words. And when I'm upset, I don't yell. I use words like "indefatigable" & "androgynous."
10) I'm considering speaking with a British accent to my children for the first 7-10 years of their lives so they grow up with an adorable British accent.
11) I love scary movies. I love the terrifying ones as well as the really bad ones.

Questions from my Nominee-er 


1) How long have you been blogging? 
This is really the most consistent blog I've had, and I've had it for about 2 months. But I've had a few blogs here and there for over a year.
2) What is your goal with your blog?
I want people to send me free books to review! Okay not really. (Although I wouldn't say no...) I figured I like to tell people about books any way, so I may as well tell as many people as I can.
3) What topic has brought the most traffic to your blog?
My review/thoughts on Fifty Shades of Grey. That was also the most fun blog to write.
4) What was the best book you read last month?
Um.... I honestly can't think of exactly what I read in June.... I started a lot of books.... I'm going to say Before I Go To Sleep, even though it wasn't last month.
5) Did you have a diary/journal growing up? Where did you hide it?
Yes I did, and I still do. And I don't know where I hid it. Usually just next to my bed.
6) What's your favorite someecard?
These ones!

7) What singer would star in the soundtrack of your life?
Probably Queen. I know, it's a band. Whatever. I cheated.
8) What's your favorite reality show? Why that one?
Erm.... I dunno.... I don't really watch reality shows. I guess Say Yes to the Dress- cause I judge them. I judge all of them.
9) What's your go-to bridal shower or baby shower gift?
Honestly haven't been to too many of either. Books though. One can never have too many books.
10) What cartoon character would you be?
Disney- Belle. Cause I want her library. Not Disney- Leela (Futurama) cause I want her wrist thingy.
11) Who do you retweet the most?
I honestly don't know. Kind of whoever amuses me the most.

I'm going to be a horrible person and not nominate any blogs, because I don't really know of too many blogs with under 200 followers. And all the ones I do know have already been nominated, and they really shouldn't have to do this 30 times.


Any way, this was a ton of fun! Any excuse to talk about myself is always good.

Review: Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson

Summary


I'm going to go ahead and admit that I cannot summarize this book effectively, so here is the description of Before I Go to Sleep courtesy of our uber friend, Amazon.

Memories define us.So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep?

Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love—all forgotten overnight. And the one person you trust may be telling you only half the story.

Welcome to Christine’s life.

Everybody I've told about this book goes "Oh, so it's Fifty First Dates?" 

No.

It is not.

Let's move on.

Review

Before I Go to Sleep is without a doubt amazing. I was only ten pages into it when I decided this. S.J. Watson sucks you in and it is impossible to get out. Not that you want to get out.

The book begins with Christine waking up, assuming she is in her twenties and accidentally slept with a married man. She goes to the bathroom to wash up and is scared terrified to find that she has somehow aged 20+ years overnight. (Wouldn't that make an awesome sci-fi book?) Pictures around the mirror clearly show her with the man she woke up next to, but she is younger in the images. The man she woke up next to explains that he is her husband and that she was in a car accident and the brain trauma causes her to lose her memory every night when she goes to sleep. (Oh now I get the title!)

(Just kidding.) 

The best part about this book is that it is told from first-person perspective. Christine writes in a journal every day, and that's how the story progresses. You are Christine. This is sometimes terrifying. Now it may have been because I had an ear infection and spent the entire day really dizzy, but this almost made me paranoid. I sat around, my head spinning (partially because of the book,) thinking holy crap, what did I do yesterday? Am I remembering a memory or did Jeff tell me about that yesterday? Oh dear Lord I'm unhealthy. I have a tumor. I had an accident. I'm never leaving my couch. 

With every new revelation Christine made, my mouth would drop open. The book is so full of M. Night Shyamalan moments  twists, you are kept on the edge of your seat the entire length of the book.

Before I Go to Sleep was incredibly well-written. I was surprised to discover that S.J. Watson was a man- because the novel was told from a woman's point of view, I expected a woman to have written it. Watson is able to accurately portray Christine's emotions very well, from fear to love to excitement. 

The ending of the book was great. It left you thinking well after finishing the book. I enjoyed it particularly because I'm a fan of Christopher Nolan movie endings. I'll leave it at that, though. 

Verdict

Check this book out. I'm happy I have it on my Nook- it's mine forever. 

Although I'm probably not going to read it when I feel sick again. 

The Issue with Authors

OK, so maybe it's not the author's fault I'm an obsessive reader. How was he to know that I would fall completely in love with his book? Could he have possibly predicted that the manner in which I devoured page after page was akin to a man dying of thirst in the dessert and finding the sweet relief of an oasis? Was it his duty to make sure I read the book slowly, savoring it?

The true problem here is me. I love books. And when I love a book, I stay awake until the wee hours of the night/morning, reading as much as my dry and sore eyes will allow. And when I finish one book, I find other books by the author, and devour those in much the same manner.

Me, except with books instead of booze. 

Occasionally I will try to force myself to slow down. If I know the book is the last or second-to-last in a series, I try not to read the whole thing in a day. Sometimes I miserably fail. For example: When I was in 9th-ish grade, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince came out. I was enthralled. I remember getting the book- I demanded my mom take me to Barnes and Noble, where I had pre-ordered it as soon as humanly possible. I got it at around 11 in the morning, and as soon as we got in the car, I opened the book.

I read the entire book in a single day. That's 652 pages.

I think I ate dinner.

At one point near the end of the book, I was seriously confused about what was happening. Characters were talking about scenes I had no clue happened. So I flipped back through the book, and realized, to my horror, that I had somehow skipped an entire chapter.

It was at that moment my older brother told me I should slow down.

But I didn't. I simple read that chapter, and finished the book.

(Side note: I feel no shame in remembering every last detail of that day. I loved that book.)

So the problem today? I made the mistake of reading The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I sobbed like a toddler who had just been told Mickey Mouse was no longer going to be on TV. I absolutely loved the book, and as soon as I finished it, I read it again. Then I moved on to A Thousand Splendid Suns. And I loved that one just as much.

And now, there are no more books. I have checked up on Khaled Hosseini multiple times, and I've never found anything about books he's working on or any that will be published soon. And it kind of breaks my heart.

Two books is not nearly enough to satisfy me. I need more of his writing.

So to deal, I read A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Kite Runner multiple times a year. My copies of both are kind of beat up, and I'll probably have to replace them in a few years.

But really, it's all Khaled Hosseini's fault.

Him and his amazing books.

Review: Arise, O Pheonix by Lisa K. Drucker

Summary
Arise, O Phoenix depicts the tragic romance between journalist Josselyn Jeffrey and G.I./Military man Cameron Burke. The story begins on the morning of September 11, 2001- Josselyn is near the Twin Towers while Burke is running late for a meeting at the Pentagon. After the attacks, Josselyn and Burke are both reeling, re-evaluating their lives and choices to be without their true loves.

The story turns back in time to when Josselyn, a young war correspondent looking for her first big story, is in Vietnam to interview a soldier for her story, The Life of a G.I. Burke and Josselyn meet for the first time, and their lives are changed irrevocably. For the limited amount of time they are together in Vietnam, Josselyn and Burke are passionately in love. But the lives of a journalist and a G.I. in Vietnam are never predictable. Before they know it, Josselyn and Burke must leave one another. Amid promises of never-ending love, Josselyn must head home to attend to her dying mother, while Burke is sent on more missions.

As years pass, Josselyn and Burke are kept apart. First by distance, then by more wars, marriage, children, and obligations. Never forgetting their passion for one another, both Josselyn and Burke try to continue leading their lives as if they had not met. However, a love like their's was never capable of fading.

Review
Arise, O Phoenix started out with instant action. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 made many Americans realize just how fragile life is, and Josselyn and Burke were no exceptions. These attacks made both Josselyn and Burke re-evaluate life and love. I enjoyed the way the love story was told, from beginning to end. While Drucker could have had the characters reminiscing about their loves from a present-day perspective, it was much easier and more pleasant to follow as they fell in love with one another.

Drucker is a very good writer. Although the characters aged about 40 years within the book, she never once had them acting or speaking out of their age ranges. A pet peeve of mine is when writers would rather tell you what happened, as opposed to show you what happened. Drucker did a fabulous job of keeping the reader in the story, walking through the jungles of Vietnam and sitting down to coffee in New York.

One complaint about Arise, O Phoenix was the sheer amount of love in the book, which almost completely sucked the realism out of it. While I can deal with the main characters deciding they were passionately in love after literally a minute of knowing each other (Josselyn immediately started referring to Burke as darling, which is also my least favorite term of endearment,) I cannot buy it happening more than once in the book. Perhaps the issue was that time was never marked in the book. When Burke met his wife Patricia, she declared she loved him seemingly within days. Then he proposed seemingly a few days later. If a mention of a few months had been thrown in there, I wouldn't have been so irritated.

My second qualm about falling in love so quickly was that years later, when Burke saw Josselyn again, he mentioned that he knew she was a bad liar. This would indicate that he knew her fairly well, therefore for a fairly longer amount of time than one week. I just couldn't get over someone deciding they were so intensely in love after just a few minutes of meeting. It took the realism out of it. Also, I think part of the fun of reading a romance novel is falling in love with the characters.

Oh well.

Verdict
Overall, I would say this was a decent read. Drucker is a very talented writer, and in a few years after honing her skills, I can see her writing a book I can't put down. I would recommend this book to anybody who loves being in love, and doesn't mind some tragedy along the way. For those who love tragic romances.

An Intelligent Obsession- I'm Getting a New Book

As you may remember from my past posts, I love anything and everything related to King Henry VIII & the Tudors. I justify my obsession by reminding others that it is an intelligent obsession- I enjoy thinking about the history and the true stories, as opposed to being obsessed with.... I dunno.... ceramic cats.

So to feed my obsession, I've liked a lot of Facebook pages about the Tudors. I know the Tudor story- They met, they married, they divorced, they met, they married, one was beheaded.... It's always going to be that story. But what I truly love are the people. Henry and Katherine and Anne and Jane and Anne and Katherine and Katherine (he clearly had a thing for Katherines.) I love getting different perspectives on the personalities and truths behind the people. And these Facebook pages provide so many different perspectives.

The page The Tudor Enthusiast recently held a competition- tell the page why you love the Tudors, and you can win a copy of Sister Queens. Of course I enthused about the family I love the most, and I ended up winning!

The Sister Queens is about Katherine of Aragon and her sister, Juana of Castile. I'm really excited because so many of the books I've read are about the marriages after Katherine. But Katherine was an amazing woman. While Henry was fighting the French, Katherine took an army to the England border and defeated the Scots. Of course, she's remembered as the jilted woman, the pious woman, the noble woman. And she was. But she was so much more than that. So many of her amazing feats are completely forgotten because of Anne (don't get me wrong, I love Anne) and Henry. I am so excited to learn more about Katherine.

Juana of Castile is remembered as the "Mad Queen." I don't know much about her, besides that she had her throne taken from her twice- once by her husband, then by her son (the future Holy Roman Emperor Charles.) Keep in mind that she was the blood daughter of Isabella of Castile, and she should have remained queen because of her direct relation.

Almost proud that I knew all of that ^ without looking at Wikipedia.

Needless to say, I am really excited to read this book. Once I finish it, I will have a review up. In the meantime, I'm reading Pleasure Palace. That one will be up shortly as well.

I bid you adieu.