What Even Is A Blog?

Hi!

So yah, this is my first post on my new blog! I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed, I have no idea what I'm doing. I suppose it's a learn as you go type of thing. I guess blogs are like the new age Xanga (tell me you remember those! If not, I probably just showed my ripe ol' age of 25).

Anyways, creating this blog is something I have been thinking about for a while and I'm super excited to start sharing with whomever is willing to read. Make sure you check out

My goal here is not only to share real life experiences, stories and insight into my daily life but also to connect with people in the online community who can relate. My posts may be a bit random but I promise they'll be interesting.

Thanks for reading!

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Book Review: Poison Study (Study, #1) by Maria V. Snyder

Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Avg rating: 4.18

Goodreads Summary:
Choose: A quick death…Or slow poison...

About to be executed for murder, Yelena is offered an extraordinary reprieve. She'll eat the best meals, have rooms in the palace—and risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia.

And so Yelena chooses to become a food taster. But the chief of security, leaving nothing to chance, deliberately feeds her Butterfly's Dust—and only by appearing for her daily antidote will she delay an agonizing death from the poison.

As Yelena tries to escape her new dilemma, disasters keep mounting. Rebels plot to seize Ixia and Yelena develops magical powers she can't control. Her life is threatened again and choices must be made. But this time the outcomes aren't so clear...

My Rating: 3.7

This book started slow and ended fast. It took me a while to get into it and then finally when it started to get good it ended.
I never really connected to the characters and I thought it was a bit predictable who would end up with who. I think the concept is interesting and Yelena's rise from death sentence to hero makes for a good story. However, I felt the characters were lacking.

I wanted the love story to happen so much sooner than it did and when it finally happened it ended. I also felt like the last chapter was a total set up for a second book. Like, you could tell she was drawing it out longer in order to make it into a series. Hate that!

Anyways... it was similar to except WAY less entertaining and heart wrenching.

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Book Review: Extras (Uglies, #4) by Scott Westerfeld

Extras by Scott Westerfeld
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Avg rating: 3.58

Goodreads Summary: 
Fame

It's a few years after rebel Tally Youngblood took down the uglies/pretties/specials regime. Without those strict roles and rules, the world is in a complete cultural renaissance. "Tech-heads" flaunt their latest gadgets, "kickers" spread gossip and trends, and "surge monkeys" are hooked on extreme plastic surgery. And it's all monitored on a bazillion different cameras. The world is like a gigantic game of "American Idol." Whoever is getting the most buzz gets the most votes. Popularity rules.

As if being fifteen doesn't suck enough, Aya Fuse's rank of 451,369 is so low, she's a total nobody. An extra. But Aya doesn't care; she just wants to lie low with her drone, Moggle. And maybe kick a good story for herself.

Then Aya meets a clique of girls who pull crazy tricks, yet are deeply secretive of it. Aya wants desperately to kick their story, to show everyone how intensely cool the Sly Girls are. But doing so would propel her out of extra-land and into the world of fame, celebrity...and extreme danger. A world she's not prepared for. 

Actual Rating: 1.7

BOO. BOO. BOO.

I've heard nothing but bad things about this book so I put it off for a long time. I finally got around to it and I, like everyone else, hated it.

I felt this story was completely pointless and the characters were lame. Aya is didn't grow or change at all from start to finish she stayed the same; shallow, ignorant, and immature. (I know she's only 15 so maybe I should give her a little more credit but I don't feel like it). I didn't buy the relationship between her and Frizz at all and I thought he was rather annoying.

The whole thing with the "extras" was very anticlimactic and again, pointless.

The only good thing about this book was the memories it brought back of the original series.. I appreciated the appearance of the old characters but I still felt their roles were pointless. All in all the whole thing felt very forced. Like the author was just trying to make a little more off a series that should have ended. Thumbs down.

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Book Review: Crash into You (Crash into You, #3) by Katie McGarry

Crash into You by Katie McGarry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Avg rating: 4.30

Goodreads Summary:
From acclaimed author Katie McGarry comes an explosive new tale of a romance forged in the fast lane 

The girl with straight A's and the perfect life—that's who people expect Rachel Young to be. So the private school junior keeps secrets from her wealthy family…and she's just added two more to the list. One involves racing strangers down dark country roads in her Mustang GT. The other? Seventeen-year-old Isaiah Walker—a guy she has no business even talking to. But after the foster kid with the tattoos and intense gray eyes comes to her rescue, she can't get him out of her mind. 

The last thing Isaiah needs is to get tangled up with a rich girl who wants to slum it on the south side for kicks. But when their shared love of street racing puts their lives in jeopardy, Isaiah and Rachel will have six weeks to come up with a way out. Six weeks to discover just how far they'll go to save each other.

Actual Rating: 4.0

For a while I thought I was going to hate this book. I typically hate girls that are into cars and I DESPISE drag racing. It's just so unsafe and stupid! I don't get it, I've never understood the whole rush of adrenaline from going fast aka putting your life in danger.

But of course, Katie McGarry knows how to make two opposite characters fall in love in a beautiful yet expected way.

I came to love Rachel and Isaiah and the way they became each other rocks. They both were in messed up parental situations and I loved watching them find each other and figure out how to better them selves from it.

This wasn't my favorite of the series because I found it a bit predictable. I was just waiting and waiting for some big inevitable car crash knowing it had to come. I also hate how they spent the whole book trying to pay off this thug Eric instead of just going to the police.

Anyways, on to the next. I hope it's about Abbey.

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Book Review: Demonglass (Hex Hall, #2) by Rachel Hawkins

Demonglass by Rachel Hawkins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Avg rating: 4.16

Goodreads Summary:
Sophie Mercer thought she was a witch. That was the whole reason she was sent to Hex Hall, a reform school for delinquent Prodigium (a.k.a. witches, shape-shifters, and faeries). But then she discovered the family secret, and the fact that her hot crush, Archer Cross, is an agent for The Eye, a group bent on wiping Prodigium off the face of the earth.

Turns out, Sophie's a demon, one of only two in the world-the other being her father. What's worse, she has powers that threaten the lives of everyone she loves. Which is precisely why Sophie decides she must go to London for the Removal, a dangerous procedure that will either destroy her powers for good-or kill her. 

But once Sophie arrives, she makes a shocking discovery. Her new housemates? They're demons too. Meaning, someone is raising demons in secret, with creepy plans to use their powers, and probably not for good. Meanwhile, The Eye is set on hunting Sophie down, and they're using Archer to do it. But it's not like she has feelings for him anymore. Does she?

Actual Rating: 4.0

What a cliff hanger! When the book ended I was like what? Really? So much for the epic battle scene I was expecting.

This book was good although not as good as the first one. There was a bit of a love triangle which was interesting and I liked Cal but it was always clear that she'd stay with Archer.

I thought she was being dumb for a while, clearly Archer is "one of the bad guys". I guess this book was supposed to lay out what was going on behind the scenes during the first book and set it up for the next one. Unfortunately it felt like just that.. A bridge between the beginning and end.

Overall I enjoyed the book and I will read the next one but maybe I won't be in as big of a hurry to get to it then I was to get to this one.

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Book Review: Dare You To (Pushing the Limits, #2) by Katie McGarry

Dare You To by Katie McGarry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Avg rating: 4.19

Goodreads Summary:
If anyone knew the truth about Beth Risk's home life, they'd send her mother to jail and seventeen-year-old Beth who knows where. So she protects her mom at all costs. Until the day her uncle swoops in and forces Beth to choose between her mom's freedom and her own happiness. That's how Beth finds herself living with an aunt who doesn't want her and going to a school that doesn't understand her. At all. Except for the one guy who shouldn't get her, but does....

Ryan Stone is the town golden boy, a popular baseball star jock-with secrets he can't tell anyone. Not even the friends he shares everything with, including the constant dares to do crazy things. The craziest? Asking out the Skater girl who couldn't be less interested in him.

But what begins as a dare becomes an intense attraction neither Ryan nor Beth expected. Suddenly, the boy with the flawless image risks his dreams-and his life-for the girl he loves, and the girl who won't let anyone get too close is daring herself to want it all....

Actual Rating: 4.0

Warning: I waited a day to write my review so I've basically forgotten everything I wanted to say.

Beth & Ryan were a pretty unconventional couple. Beth with her skater girl clothes and foul mouth and Ryan the immature jock just looking for an easy score. Through meeting each other and falling in love each of them grew up a lot and became a better person because of it. Beth was exactly what Ryan never knew he needed and vise versa.

Beth grew up in a really crappy situation, with a junkie mom who constantly made her feel like everything bad in their lives was her fault. All the drama from her past conditioned her into this hard stone wall of a person. It forced her to grow up and be the adult in a situation that she really couldn't control.

Ryan was Mr. Perfect. Jock, straight A's, handsome; but what people fail to see is who he is BEYOND the perfect. The perfect mold his parents have forced him into all his life.

There were definitely times where I thought the relationship shifted from hate to love too quickly but then there were conversations that had me believing it. I was definitely rooting for Beth & Ryan regardless of all the drama that happened in between them deciding to be together and the finale at the end. I like how it ended and I'm excited to read the next one!

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Book Review: Hopeless (Hopeless, #1) by Colleen Hoover

Hopeless by Colleen Hoover
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Avg rating: 4.42

Goodreads Summary:
Sometimes discovering the truth can leave you more hopeless than believing the lies…

That’s what seventeen-year-old Sky realizes after she meets Dean Holder. A guy with a reputation that rivals her own and an uncanny ability to invoke feelings in her she’s never had before. He terrifies her and captivates her all in the span of just one encounter, and something about the way he makes her feel sparks buried memories from a past that she wishes could just stay buried.

Sky struggles to keep him at a distance knowing he’s nothing but trouble, but Holder insists on learning everything about her. After finally caving to his unwavering pursuit, Sky soon finds that Holder isn’t at all who he’s been claiming to be. When the secrets he’s been keeping are finally revealed, every single facet of Sky’s life will change forever.

Actual Rating: 3.9

Dean Holder is everything.

Colleen Hoover does it again... total swoon worthy main character. Troubled soul, bad ass, passionate as hell. Sky was an interesting character.. She had a lot of quirks that made her her and reasons for all those quirks came out in the end.

The structure of the chapters was interesting.. I feel like putting that chapter from the middle of the book in the very beginning was necessary. Otherwise it just would have been a "way too good to be true love story." Instead it was like a slow torturous climb as the story escalated towards this chapter you read in the beginning. And you're trying to piece these little clues together and figure it out but BAM you're still wrong in the end.

The way everything wrapped up was perfect. I was surprised about a couple of the revelations but other then that it was all pretty believable.

This wasn't one of my favorite Colleen Hoover book but it was enjoyable none the less.
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