Happy Monday Bloggy Buddies

Welcome to another week, bloggy buddies! It's been kind of a hectic week, and I have to admit that I haven't done nearly as much reading as I wish that I'd done. It started out well, with finishing off Warm Bodies, and I got a good start on Beautiful Creatures, but it was kind of downhill from there.

Part of my problem, which is probably obvious to anybody who actually knows me, is that my obsession with teen fiction is only slightly less embarrassing than the fact that I'm enjoying all of this paranormal fantasy that I've been reading lately. This is not my reading style really at all, and I'm having to convince myself, going forward, that Young Adult is probably the fiction genre that I read the most, and the one that I most ought to be blogging about.

So let's face it; I guess that in a way, I'm still trying to figure out what my actual niche is here. Books is much, much too broad a topic on its own, so I need to come up with something narrower. An example would be "Young Adult Fiction." Which is what I'm currently reading.

Since it's Monday, I thought that I'd participate in It's Monday: What are You Reading? from Book Journey. I like these Memes since they give me something to blog about when I can't come up with anything better to write about. Regardless, I'll try to keep my posts substantive. 

This week I'm still reading Beautiful Creatures, which I started last week. I've had a slow start with it because there is such a huge part of my mind that resists the very notion of paranormal fantasy of any sort. And then, just when I started to really enjoy the book (which is quite good, to be honest with you), I suddenly got so busy that I couldn't find a single moment to read. Don't you hate it when people talk over your book, demanding your attention just when you're getting to the best parts? Yes, that's the story of my life, I'm afraid to say!

My plan is to finish up this book within the next week. I should be done with it about Friday, at which point I hope to pick up Divergent. I'm actually very hopeful about it because I've heard really great things, and aside from my life of Young Adult (Teen) fiction, I also love dystopian fiction, which means that I get a double-hit with books like this. I'm a little bit nervous because I'm such a huge fan of The Hunger Games, but I'm willing to give it a shot to see how this one goes. If I love it, I'll be purchasing the other books in the trilogy as well!

Have you read either of these two books? If you did, what did you think of them? What are you reading this week?

Don't forget to participate in the meme over on Book Journey!

WWW Wednesday (1)

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

 

• What are you currently reading?

• What did you recently finish reading?

• What do you think you’ll read next?

What are you currently reading? I picked up Beautiful Creatures yesterday. My best friend wants to see the movie and I have a distinct policy of finishing the book before I see the movie for these book-to-movie films. So far I'm not especially enjoying this book. The story seems fantastic, the writing mediocre. I think that more than anything it's just a letdown after my most recent finish.

What did you recently finish reading? My most recent finish (the phenomenal book mentioned above) is Warm Bodies. I haven't reviewed it yet, but to put it mildly, this is one of the best books that I've read in a very long time, and it's highly recommended. It couldn't last long enough for me! I watched the movie last night and thought that the movie was so-so by comparison. Definitely a must-read, even if you don't enjoy zombie fiction!

What do you think you’ll read next? I'm really not sure. There are several options on my shelf right now. I'm thinking about reading Catching Fire (for the third time) or The Horse Whisperer (for the second). I feel like I ought to get through Catching Fire to be honest with you, since that gives me the chance to get through reviews of all three books in the trilogy.

Teaser Tuesday (2)

I just finished reading Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion. It was an absolutely fantastic book, and I have several quotes from the book on my Tumblr blog, but none of them have page numbers associated with them and since I was reading in paperback and not on my Kindle, it's terribly difficult to dig them out of the book.

For that reason, I'm going to leave you with a quote from the book I'm currently reading, which is Beautiful Creatures, by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.

Here is my quote for this week. It's right at the beginning due to the fact that I only just started reading, and I'd hate to read ahead too far. This is from page 15.

"Because I was smart, I got good grades on my papers; because Link was stupid, he got bad ones. I guess nobody bothered to read them. Sometimes I wrote random stuff in essays, just to see if my teachers would say anything. No one ever did."

While I'm in here writing, I wanted to say that I did go to see Warm Bodies at the theater tonight. I was terribly disappointed with the telling of the story. It had all the humor but absolutely none of the poignancy that the book had. Good movie, but it has nothing on the book!

It's Monday: What Are You Reading (2)

Alrighty, so I haven't been doing as much blogging here as I should be, since I've been doing a lot of my stuff over on Tumblr. I don't do much writing there though and I feel like I ought to be putting some kind of effort into talking about the books that I read. I'm reviewing most of them on Hubpages, so before I do anything else, let me update you on my status since the last time that I posted here.

I read and reviewed Safe Haven and The Hunger Games. I've tried to review both books with a critical eye, even though I've read The Hunger Games three times now and I've loved it every single time that I've read it.

If you've been following, I hated Save Haven. You can see my review on Hubpages by clicking the link above and seeing what I think.

So anyway, all of that being said, I finished reading Warm Bodies, by Isaac Marion. I haven't had a chance to review it yet (I'm actually quite sick and am having a hard time just putting my fingers to the keyboard to write this blog post) but I wanted to leave you with my favorite quote from the book.

“I want to change my punctuation. I long for exclamation marks, but I’m drowning in ellipses."

I rate it five stars and highly recommend this book. I'll have more to say about it when I've had a chance to rest up and feel better.

Onward! I'm reading Beautiful Creatures next!

Teaser Tuesday: Safe Haven Page 50

Still working my way through Safe Haven. I keep wondering what it's like to be able to read through one of these in a day or two the way that reviews seem to promise should be the case with Nicholas Sparks books, but I'm going to finish it because, honestly, I want to see the movie, and I hate to watch a movie when I haven't finished reading the book first. 

A little hard to do this on a Kindle, but I managed! My quote for this week is from Safe Haven, by Nicholas Sparks. You can purchase Safe Haven on Amazon.

- "Katie reached for it, brightening as she examined the picture. Alex noted how -- at least for an instant -- everything else in the world seemed to be forgotten."

I actually feel like this quote illustrates everything that is wrong with this book, from the all-too-commonplace names to the fact that this is on page 50 and the romantic vein seems to be moving a bit too quickly for the novel. It feels like Sparks is in a rush and not really thinking through his characters or the story that he's trying to tell and it's very frustrating to feel left behind as the story progresses. 

But it's getting better. And I still think that I want to see more of Nicholas Sparks. I just hope that the next book I read gets to be horror of some sort or another. I'm just itching for horror or suspense!

It's Monday! I'm Reading Safe Haven, by Nicholas Sparks

It's a Monday, and this week, that means a few things for me. My husband is currently unemployed, and since my primary income comes from writing (mostly online), I've spent quite a bit of my time for this week working on writing projects that are currently underway. Trust me when I tell you that it's a lot less exciting than what it sounds like, considering that most of my writing is what I would consider "web writing." It's not the great American novel that's coming out of my computer, but just a few articles here and there, some book, video game and product reviews, and a few pennies in return. Nothing even remotely excited. 

I am getting excited about the new Switched at Birth episode that's on tonight on ABC Family. This is one of the bright spots in my week, when every new Monday also counts down another week that there's no income coming into the house. It's pretty scary stuff, but I enjoy sitting down with the show, then curling up with my Kindle and a good book.

Lately I haven't been reading as much as I should, which is rather disappointing. I've spent so much time writing that it's hard to squeeze in a moment or two to read a good book, and it doesn't help that the majority of the books I've been picking up lately just aren't all that good. I wish that I could just find one book that captivated me enough to draw me back into reading as a habit, without having to re-read another novel for the third time (can anybody say "Hunger Games?"). Reading should be relaxing and enjoyable, a break from writing, but instead lately I'm finding it quite a chore.

It's possible that I'm looking at it wrong. I mean, for heaven's sake, it's hard to read when you're a writer trying to dissect what works and what doesn't. Given that I write romance and smut, most of what I read is romance and smut. The smut's terrible, with very little variation. There's not much out there that I enjoy enough to keep reading and I'm quite certain of my ability to do better than the books that I'm reading. The romance is another story. Most of it's pretty good, but I can't connect with the characters and the stories are repetitive.

For years I've been avoiding Nicholas Sparks because he was over-rated. I've said that about a lot of really terrific authors whose work I enjoy (such as Ian McEwan, Nora Roberts, Stephen King, and others) and I figured that it was time for me to take the plunge. I meant to purchase Dear John but somehow made a mistake and wound up with Safe Haven instead. I knew the general storyline due to the fact that I've seen the trailers for the movie, and while it's not particularly my cup of tea story-wise, I figured that it would be an interesting introduction to Nicholas Sparks.

Ugh. That's about all I have to say about this book. It's getting better as I get through the first fifth of the book or so, but I'm utterly disappointed with what I'm reading. The characters all run into one another, and I don't find any of them sufficiently unique to keep me interested in what I'm reading. The story is, so far, rather bland, and I'm really working hard on making myself like this book.

But I'm going to finish it, because I'm reading it. Let's challenge me to be finished by Friday, shall we? I think I need book goals to get me reading again, right? Right. Support is encouraged, of course.

In the meantime, I'd love to know what you think of Nicholas Sparks. If you could speak in general terms so as not to spoil Safe Haven or any other books of his that I might pick up, that would be pretty great. I'm really curious. I don't particularly like what I'm reading but he's ridiculously popular. Why?