Happy Valentines Day!

I hope everyone is having a lovely Valentines day, in honor of the holiday, here are some of my favorite love stories:

The Gargoyle - Andrew Davidson
Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
Ruby - Francesca Lia Block & Carmen Staton 
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger 
The Tea Rose - Jennifer Donnelly


I just finished reading Delirium by Lauren Oliver today and it was also a really excellent book/romance-y story.  I will try to do a book thoughts about it later this week.

Some small things

We've been getting a lot of snow here in good 'ole Michigan. I had three snow days at work last week so you would think that I would have posted more, but that just didn't happen. There are a few small things I wanted to update about so here they are.

Ronnie and I made a snow bear the other day.  It was supposed to be a snow Mickey, but the ears got smashed down a little too much and we were too wore out to fix it.  Making a snow man is a lot harder than I remember!


I loved this blog post by the New York Public Library.  Do you judge a book by it's cover?  I'm admittedly very bad about this so I think this is a fun activity.

I finished the Jessica Darling series this month.  I think the last book was even better than the first.  If you have a Kindle, you can get all 5 books for $9.99 here.  It's still 56 bucks for the Nook.  :(

Where are all the pictures of my piggies?  I moved them to tumblr so that you guys won't have to scroll through them all the time.  I can't promise I won't still talk about them, but you won't have to be assaulted by their cute faces all the time.  You can see their pictures here at ziggiepiggies.

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Amazon Description: Ethan Wate is struggling to hide his apathy for his high school "in" crowd in small town Gatlin, South Carolina, until he meets the determinedly "out" Lena Duchannes, the girl of his dreams (literally--she has been in his nightmares for months). What follows is a smart, modern fantasy--a tale of star-crossed lovers and a dark, dangerous secret. Beautiful Creatures is a delicious southern Gothic that charms you from the first page, drawing you into a dark world of magic and mystery until you emerge gasping and blinking, wondering what happened to the last few hours (and how many more you're willing to give up). To tell too much of the plot would spoil the thrill of discovery, and believe me, you will want to uncover the secrets of this richly imagined dark fantasy on your own. --Daphne Durham

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Book Thoughts:  There may be some light spoilers down here so if you're considering reading this book, you may not want to read my thoughts.



I was planning on taking a self imposed break from paranormal romance after I finished Dead Beautiful.  I wanted to take a break from them because I was feeling like every one of these books has the same kind of plot and it was getting a little dull for me.  I picked up this book because I thought it might be a little different.  First of all, it has a male protagonist.  Secondly the book is more of a supernatural book which I thought I might enjoy more than vampires or werewolves.  Sadly, this book just didn't do it for me.  Even though the book is told from Ethan's point of view, I felt like I really didn't get to know him very well.  Most of his thoughts seemed like they were centered on Lena and how perfect she is.  I also didn't really connect with Link which I surprised about because a lot of people really loved him.  The story line had potential with witches and voodoo, but the story really dragged for me.

I listened to this book up on audio, and one that that I really enjoyed was that this audio book had sound effects.  The 16 moons song that is mentioned throughout the book is sang as an actual song, and when Lena gets upset and the weather changes around her, you can hear thunder and rain. 

I don't think I will be picking up the next book in this series, my to read pile is so huge that I want to focus on some of the books that I'm really looking forward to.

So in love with this

"I want to be a guinea pig too." via 0xo

Monthly Reading Roundup January 2011

 

Paranormalcy by Kiersten White (Finished January 5th)

 

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld (Finished January 10th)

 

Dead Beautiful by Yvonne Woon (Finished January 19th)

Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty (Finished January 18th )

Second Helpings by Megan McCafferty (Finished January 21st)

Charmed Thirds by Megan McCafferty (Finished January 28th )

Books Finished: 6
2011 book total: 6
Favorite This Month: Prep was a favorite of mine that I re-read this year, however if I had to pick a newly read favorite I would pick Sloppy Firsts.  I did a review of it here.  I'm now tearing through the rest of the series.  I'll be really sad when I'm through with it.  I have to say that Paranormalcy was surprisingly good too.  I kind of rolled my eyes reading the description for it but it turned out to be a lot better than I thought it would be.
Least Favorite This Month: Dead Beautiful.  I wanted to do a review for this book, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.  It really dragged for me and I felt like nothing significant was happening until the end of the book.
Other: My to be read pile is gigantic for next month so I'm going to try to read as much as I can before my classes start back on the 17th.  I feel like January was kind of a slow month for me reading wise because I had so much school work.  I'd also like to do a few more reviews in February but we will see how that works out.