Book Review - The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Evening all, lookee what I've got for ya! A vlog review!!!

Title: The Adoration of Jenna Fox
Author: Mary E. Pearson
Date read: 11/5/2010 (UK date)
Rating: 4 Stars out of 5 (see funky new rating system box over in the sidebar)

My thoughts in vloggy form!!







Hope you enjoyed the vlog and it wasn't too rambling for you (I know I say the word "interesting" like a bazillion times - I need a thesaurus ) I'm thinking of doing a vlog post soon about one of my favourite authors and it might become a bit of a feature for me to gush about why I think certain authors are fabulous and recommend them to people so I shall start a-planning on that and see what I come up with :)


So toodles to y'all
LadyV

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In My Mailbox #8 Haha! Tis early this week!

Heellooo there!
I thought since my Saturday night was rather devoid of activity (I am a terrible student for not going out and drinking most nights but then I've always been a tad odd :P) that I'd get my In My Mailbox post done early after my tardiness last week. Very meagre haul this week with being a hermit and hardly leaving the flat because of work but I'd thought I'd do a vlog for the heck of it. So Enjoy!

In My Mailbox is a bookish meme hosted by Kristi @The Story Siren which was inspired by a post from Alea @Pop Culture Junkie






Book acquired this week:
Feeling Sorry for Celia by Jaclyn Moriarty

Blurb from the book:
Elizabeth!!!! Look at this note!! Over here!!! On the Fridge!!!!!!!! Hope you're feeling better. If you're dead, ring me. I'm at an emergency meeting of the poetry club. I want to make you a special lemon souffle. The recipe is in the bottom draw - you're welcome to begin it anytime. (And see if you can think of a slogan for Raspberry-flavoured cat food) Love - your thoughtful and considerate Mum. PS: Have you heard anything from Celia yet?


I really love Jaclyn Moriarty's writing style so I'm really looking forward to reading this soon (I've already read a bit of it).


So What did *you* get this week?
LadyV

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Reading Habits

Ok, Ok I know I said I was going to bed but I just saw this posted on YA Addict and thought I had to do it as well cos I'm a sucker for memes :P

Do you snack while you read? If so, favourite reading snack?
Hmm I think most of the time I don't eat around my books because with my mind occupied the chances of me dropping crumbs into the pages are pretty high and it's terribly awkward to try and get the crumbs out of the binding once they've gotten stuck - believe me I've tried it.

What is your favourite drink while reading?
Tea!! I am a full-blown addict and I'm forever holding onto my book with one hand whilst sipping at my tea with the other (it is an acquired skill to turn the pages whilst holding a book with one hand). If I don't want the caffeine rush - which is the case when I'm reading in bed, which is nearly all the time- I love drinking hot fruit squash or Vimto (I have no idea what squash translates as in the US I'm afraid) it's nice and warm without it making me feel really awake.

Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?
Egads!! Writing!! In Books!! *faints* I could never bring myself to write in my fiction books, in the books I may have to study at uni I can manage so long as it's in pencil but I would actually die if someone wrote *in pen* in any book I owned. Ugh the mere thought of it fills me with dread *shudders*

How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ear? Laying the book flat open?
Up until recently I would rarely use a bookmark as I could remember what page number I was on fairly easily. But in the last year or so I've started using bookmarks more as I have some really pretty ones and I thought it a shame to just keep them in the drawer. I actually shout at people who dog ear books (seriously I scolded a friend of my sister's for doing it once) and people who lay it flat... *fingers twitch towards DoomStick* let's just say I have a less than good opinion of them as they are destroying the binding of their books by doing that.

Fiction, non-fiction or Both?
Fiction mostly, I do read the odd non-fiction book but it will normally be of a historical nature or something random that I read on a whim. Fiction and in particular *fantasy* books are perhaps the only thing keeping me on the good side of insanity (yes I do mean that - there is a bad side) and provide an escape from all the chaos that life throws at me. Some days I don't want to face responsibility so I bury myself in another world and live vicariously through amazing characters for several hours until *sigh* I must return to the real world, which in my opinion can really suck sometimes.

Are you a person who tends to read to the end of a chapter, or can you stop anywhere?
I'm an end-of-chapter gal - if I got told to put my book down mid-chapter I'd weedle and plead to be allowed to read "just to the end of this chapter, promise". Of course I'd carry on reading for another 10 chapters or even finish the book cos I'm never one for listening to folk who tell me to stop reading (Sorry Parentals )

Are you the type of person to throw a book across the room or on the floor if the author irritates you?
I may jest about tossing the book across the room if a cliffhanger particularly riles me up (I'm looking at you Rachel Caine) but I have never actually done it... yet. I have slapped a book against my legs in frustration but no book of mine has had flying lessons to date.

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop and look it up right away?
To the best of my knowledge I haven't specifically looked up a word as a result of seeing it in a book I've read. I may see strange words and ponder their meaning but I wouldn't want to purposefully put down the book to hunt up a dictionary for one word.

What are you currently reading?
Alas I am between books at the moment although I do have several books which I have started and put aside for a while so I some point I may get back to those.

What is the last book you bought?
Erm I think that will be Julius by Daphne du Maurier last week. I haven't bought any books this week which is shocking so I may change that tomorrow when I'm out in town as a treat to myself for finishing my essay and my speaking exams :P

Are you the type of person that reads one book at a time, or can you read more than one?
I *can* read more than one book at a time but they may have to be different genres as I would probably get confused if I was switching between two fantasy books or whatever. But on the whole I prefer to read one at a time and considering how quickly I read I move on from one book to another in a short space of time.

Do you have a favourite time/place to read?
I do indeed, while I'm at university I tend to do my reading in bed before I go to sleep, which does often result in serious disruption to my sleeping pattern when a book is so engrossing that I stay up until 4/5am to finish it in one sitting (Yes I am utterly mad). When I'm at home I'll either read in bed or on the floor with my back against the radiator which is lovely in the winter as I stay all toasty and warm. I also like reading in the car (when I'm not driving obv) as I'm one of those lucky people who rarely gets carsick so it's a fab way to spend long and boring car journeys.

Do you prefer series books or stand-alones?
Gah well as much as I love following a set of characters over a series I do like not having to be obliged to buy a ruck of books potentially over many years to get my next-book-in-series fix which is what you get with Stand-alones. I do have a *lot* more series books than I do stand-alones so I think I probably prefer the series as I am just too addicted to certain characters to ever let them go.

Is there a specific book or author  you find yourself  recommending over and over?
Hmm I don't often find myself in a position in real life where I'm recommending books to people unless it's to my sister. To her I've pimped out Nicholas Sparks and Sarah Dessen with a fair degree of success one day I hope to shove The Hunger Games trilogy onto her. To my best friend *waves at Jess* I ordered her to read Tamora Pierce books as I absolutely *adore* that woman and the sheer number of fantasy books she's written mean that you can follow some of the most amazing characters ever IMO over years and years! Alas I don't have many real life friends who read anywhere near as much as I do (my flatmate thinks I'm completely barking with how much I manage to read) so I rarely get chance to rave about the awesome books I've read recently - that's what the internet is for!!! :D

How do you organise your books? (by genre, title, author's last name etc)
Well since I'm away from home I have two libraries of sorts, my Uni collection (which incidentally I vlogged about here if you want to see) is organised by height for the most part although there are several stacks on top cos my shelf isn't big enough for all my books. Any books I've read get put in a box under my bed until I get chance to go home. At home it's a totally different system. In my book cupboard there are two shelves dedicated to Fantasy books which is organised by author's last name, a shelf of Vampire books (I have that many they have their own shelf although it's being encroached upon by the normal Fantasy stuff), a shelf of non-fiction which are not really organised in any particular way, a shelf of teen fiction with a good dollop of Famous Five books and Anthony Horowitz, and a shelf with general fiction, classics and historical non-fiction. I also have separate set of shelves which I'm currently using to house my TBR books although I've had to double stack my Gossip Girl/It Girl books in front as they've been ousted from the Teen Shelf due to spatial issues *CoughIHaveTooManyBooksCough* Most of the shelves are full so heaven only knows where I'm going to put the 80+ books I have with me at university....

There, that's me as a reader summarised rather neatly methinks.
If you do this meme yourself do leave a link in the comments I'm always nosy to read other people's responses ;-)
Now I really am going to bed
LadyV

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Book Review - Looking for Alaska

Egads a Book review!! I know some folk may have fell out their chairs since I'm notoriously bad at posting reviews (it's because I really suck at writing them) but since I spent aaaages doing my quasi-reviews for my LibraryThing thread I thought I'd go nuts and post one of them up on here!

Title: Looking for Alaska
Author: John Green
Date Read: 2/5/2010 (5/2/2010 for the US folk)
Description (Goodreads): Sixteen-year-old Miles Halter's adolescence has been one long nonevent - no challenge, no girls, no mischief, and no real friends. Seeking what Rabelais called the "Great Perhaps," he leaves Florida for a boarding school in Birmingham, AL. His roommate, Chip, is a dirt-poor genius scholarship student with a Napoleon complex who lives to one-up the school's rich preppies. Chip's best friend is Alaska Young, with whom Miles and every other male in her orbit falls instantly in love. She is literate, articulate, and beautiful, and she exhibits a reckless combination of adventurous and self-destructive behavior. She and Chip teach Miles to drink, smoke, and plot elaborate pranks. Alaska's story unfolds in all-night bull sessions, and the depth of her unhappiness becomes obvious.


My Review: Although I had heard of John Green before I wasn't all that fussed about having a look at his books that is until I discovered the Youtube channel that he and his brother Hank have called The Vlogbrothers which is not only rather informative but crazy funny and nerdy (seriously check it out).
So after wasting a large chunk of time watching loads of their videos I was suddenly struck with the urge to get hold of one of John's books and have a read - luckily while I was in Oxford at the end of April I found a copy in the Oxfam bookshop *all hail the awesome*. I read it all on the train back to Aber and I was like WOW!
It's basically a coming-of-age story which is jam-packed with humour, quirkiness and all the obsessive energy that accompanies first love. Miles has transferred to the boarding school his father went to for his high school years. He's never really had proper friends, preferring to find comfort in the last words of famous people so when he arrives at Culver Creek he's very much surprised to find people who befriend him and completely change his perspective on life. The most vibrant impact on his life is Alaska Young, the zany outrageous girl who quickly steals Miles' heart even though she already has a boyfriend.
There's also a raw shock of emotion in the middle of the story which is ominously hinted at in the chapter headers but still completely unexpected and the rest of the story is spent recovering from what happens and working out *why* it happened.
Considering that the book is only 260 pages long it packs quite a punch and can really make you think about what affects people's choices and why we do certain things. Miles, the Colonel and Alaska are all wonderfully vivid characters and totally original and you can really feel for all of them as they go through their individual struggles.
This book was a joy to read and I'll definitely be buying copies of his other books in the near future.

My Rating: 4.5 Stars out of 5!

So there you have it folks, if you think my reviews are as suckish as I think they are then do tell me and I shall try my darnedest to write them better.

If you want to read a really *awesome* review of Looking for Alaska then I direct you to Adele of Persnickety Snark who said it better than I could ever hope to *wistful sigh*

Anyhow I need to get me some sleep as I have exams and an essay to finish tomorrow *le gasp* so Toodles!

LadyV

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In My Mailbox #7 Late but not *too* Late

I know it's Monday but I had a cricket game yesterday and so wasn't able to get my IMM post up and that's why I'm doing it now!

In My Mailbox is a meme hosted by Kristi @The Story Siren which was inspired by a post by Alea @Pop Culture Junkie

There's no vlog this week cos every bleeding time I try and record it my webcam has a special moment and the sound ends up out of sync with the video and it looks ridiculous So I'll just try and get a photo of last week's books.

Books in Photo:
Julius - Daphne du Maurier
The Reckoning - Kelley Armstrong
The Adoration of Jenna Fox - Mary E. Pearson
Kiss of Death - Rachel Caine
Fade Out - Rachel Caine
Carpe Corpus - Rachel Caine
Lord of Misrule - Rachel Caine
Classical Mythology

Quite a light week really, the Morganville books were ordered off Waterstones as they were having an online deal where all Morganville books were £3.50 each! The Reckoning and The Adoration of Jenna Fox were ordered off Amazon... because I felt like it and I wanted to read the third Darkest Powers books as I really like that series (I finished it this morning and really enjoyed it). Julius and the book on Classical mythology were bought from the Oxfam bookshop as they looked intriguing and were both really cheap - under £5 for the two!! Julius adds to my collection of du Maurier books which has grown nicely over the past few months.

I'm not expecting to get many or any books this weeks as the exams are creeping ever closer and my stress levels are high so that is why I'm not posting all that frequently. I also realise that I'm *very* lax with book reviews which I apologise for but I'm pretty terrible at writing helpful reviews and there are lots of bloggers who can explain what was awesome about a book *much* better than I can, so unless people demand a review of a particular book (I'm going to try and sort out a tabbed page showing my reading list for the year so far) I shall probably not post many reviews although I know that is basically the point of a book blog. In the meantime for anyone who's interested in my garbled ramblings about the books I read This link and this link go to the two threads on LibraryThing's 75 Book Challenge where I record my reading. I haven't updated the reviews for the books I've read so far in May but I'm hoping to do it soonish.

Again apologies for the lateness and general lack of book reviews on the blog I'm still rather shaky at this and I'm working on it - bring on the summer when I have bucket-loads of free time!!
LadyV

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Books, Books and more Books!! Random Vlog!!

Evening all, this is a somewhat random post (which was planned) to show the vlog I recorded last night which is me doing a very rapid look through all the non-academic books I have on my shelf at University. There are a *lot* so apologies for the general blurriness of any covers but my webcam isn't exactly high spec so focussing is not it's strong point.
Most of the books I have here are unread (since I take home the read ones in the holidays and bring back more! Or as often happens, I *buy* more books :P) and with only a month of the term left to go it's unlikely that I'll get many of these books read - that's going to be my summer challenge to read as many of the classic books I've bought recently as I can.

So without further ado here is the vlog!!




List of Books with me at University
Castle of Llyr - Lloyd Alexander
Taran Wanderer - Lloyd Alexander
The High King - Lloyd Alexander
The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
The Selected Letters- Jane Austen
The Complete Novels - Jane Austen
Villette - Charlotte Bronte
Shirley - Charlotte Bronte
The Selected Works of the Bronte Sisters - Charlotte, Emily & Anne Bronte
A lost Lady - Willa Cather
The Falcons of Montabard - Elizabeth Chadwick
Shields of Pride - Elizabeth Chadwick
The Greatest Knight - Elizabeth Chadwick
Shadows and Strongholds - Elizabeth Chadwick
The Time of Singing - Elizabeth Chadwick
The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie
Taken at the Flood - Agatha Christie
The Splendour Falls - Rosemary Clement-Moore
The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins
The Shadows of Sherlock Holmes - David Stuart Davies
The Lost World & other stories - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Memories and Adventures - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Valley of Fear - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
His Last Bow - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
Le Pion blanc de Presages (Belgariad) - David Eddings
Silas Marner - George Eliot
Mill on the Floss - George Eliot
The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Elizabeth Gaskell
Ruth - Elizabeth Gaskell
Wives and Daughters - Elizabeth Gaskell
Cranford - Elizabeth Gaskell
Looking for Alaska - John Green
Alex Rider; Stormbreaker - Anthony Horowitz
Ash - Malinda Lo
The Owl Killers - Karen Maitland
Company of Liars - Karen Maitland
The Collected Stories - Katherine Mansfield
A Clash of Kings - George R.R. Martin
The Flight of the Falcon - Daphne du Maurier
The Parasites - Daphne du Maurier
The Birds & other stories - Daphne du Maurier
Frenchman's Creek - Daphne du Maurier
Spindle's End - Robin Mckinley
The Taste of Sorrow - Jude Morgan
Becoming Bindy Mackenzie - Jaclyn Moriarty
Dreaming of Amelia - Jaclyn Moriarty
The Knife of Never Letting go - Patrick Ness
Eragon - Christopher Paolini
Les Royaumes du Nord - Philip Pullman
Harry Potter et l'ecole des sorciers - J.K. Rowling
Dissolution - C.J. Sanson
All the Things we didn't say - Sara Shepard
The Return: Shadow Souls - L.J. Smith
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - R.L. Stevenson
Dracula - Bram Stoker
Vanity Fair - William Thackeray
The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters
Brethren - Robyn Young
The Angel's Game - Carlos Ruiz Zafon




*takes deep breath* And.... that's the lot! Sheesh it's insane, there's no way in hell that I'm listing all of the books when I come to showing all the books I have at home nosiree!
Any Questions or suggestions of what I should maybe read next please leave me a comment :D


Cheers
LadyV

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In My Mailbox #6 Looking for a Vlog

Howdy there! This is my rather slapdash In My Mailbox post for the week as I've just got back after a five hours train journey and I'm tired. But I've done another vlog (although Youtube hates me and the sound is not in sync with the video so I look even dafter than normal) and here it is!

In My Mailbox is a bookish meme hosted by Kristi @The Story Siren inspired by a post from Alea @Pop Culture Junkie






Books mentioned in this Vlog:
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Becoming Bindy Mackenzie by Jaclyn Moriarty
The Owl Killers by Karen Maitland
The Vampire Diaries The Return: Shadow Souls by L.J. Smith
The Taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan


C'est tout pour cette semaine!
So I'll be seeing you soon!
LadyV


P.S. I'm going to be doing a vlog soon (like right after this) showing my book collection that I have with me at University so stay tuned for that!

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