Happy July

As it is now July 1 (and I've been slacking on blogging again, I'm sorry), I have composed a list of exciting things that happen in July:

-July 4th celebrations. Fireworks and picnics. Yay!

-The release of LINGER, the sequel to SHIVER, by Maggie Stiefvater. I had the good fortune to get an ARC and I can tell you that it is totally amazing and you should definitely get a copy ASAP.

-Harry Potter's birthday is July 31. (Relevant because of the somewhat Harry Potter-themed sleepover I'm going to tonight. (Why yes, my friends and I are nerds, why do you ask?))

-Family vacation! Not really sure where my family is going yet, but we're going somewhere and it should be fun.

-More birthdays: two of my cousins, JR and KA, as well as my dear friend RF. 

Of course, there's also the thesis monster. But that doesn't count. Because that's not a YAY thing, that's an eekscary thing.

Anyway, I must go. Happy July, internetpeople!

Love,

Bex

Radio Silence

I would like to apologize for the unexplained, unexpected, and entirely unintentional several-day lack-of-posting. I've been busy. VBS has started at my church (and it's a lot of fun - I love working with kids - but keeping up with ten hyper second- and third-graders can be rather exhausting), so Sunday and today were both spent working VBS and catching up on sleep.

And then there's thesis. Which I'm so behind on it's not funny. I've been a lot busier than I expected and stuff has just come up - and, okay, I've been reading. Which makes it my own fault that I'm not where I'd like to be on thesis.

Oh, and there's college. Still researching all sorts of different schools. Still haven't found anywhere that really screams "come here!" But I'm looking. So we'll see.

And I know this has been a very brief post after several days of posts-so-brief-they're-really-not-there-at-all, but I do not have the energy (or the concentration) to write more right now. So, more later.

Also, I just finished watching the last episode of Firefly. It's an amazing show, you guys, everyone should watch it. Not kidding. It's spectacular. You'll love it.

Love,
Bex

Technology. Sigh.

You guys all know I'm a total bookworm. Well, that extends to the internet. I blog about books all the time, probably more often than I blog about something other than books. I follow lots of authors' blogs. I have Barnes & Noble's website bookmarked, I have Amazon bookmarked, I have my library website bookmarked...

I also have Shelfari bookmarked. Shelfari is a wonderful website that lets you create a log of what books you own, what books you've read and enjoyed, your favorite books, and a book wishlist; it lets you discuss your favorite books, share book reviews, and just in general form a community of bookworms. I love Shelfari. I spend probably way too much time on the website. It's fantastic. If you enjoy reading at all, I suggest setting up an account. It's great.

Today, I discovered LibraryThing. It's a similar sort of setup: you can catalog your books, share reviews, discuss books, and it has the added bonus of having an Early Reviewers program, which means that you can get free books as long as you write reviews about them. It seemed like a very cool thing. I signed up, started cataloging my books, and signed up for the Early Reviewers program.

I was adding books alphabetically, not by title or preference (so I hadn't gotten anywhere close to Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings; I hadn't even made it to the Chronicles of Narnia) and all of a sudden a little message pops up that says "Free accounts have a maximum of 200 books. To add more, you must upgrade to a paid account."

I don't want to pay to tell the internet what books I have and what books I like. I already have a Shelfari account that lets me list all of my books, free of charge. I deleted enough books to make room for some of my favorites, left a few spaces to spare in case I get any through the ER program that I have to add and review, and quickly switched back to Shelfari. But you know, I could have saved a lot of time if LT had told me that they capped at 200 books before I started adding stuff. It would have helped.

I have heard people rant and rave about how wonderful LibraryThing is, and I do not doubt that had I not spent a lot of time adding books only to be required go back and remove them, I would enjoy it too. But really, why do I need to pay money to keep a list of books? I've been keeping lists of books for years at no cost. It just seems a little bit pointless to pay LT to do it for me, when I'd still have to go through and manually add each and every book.

So, meaning no disrespect to LibraryThing (if you like it/have a paid account/are willing to pay for an account/don't mind the 200-book limit, I really am very happy for you), here's to Shelfari.

G'night, everybody. Love,
Bex

Only the Good Spy Young

No, it's not a catchy little saying that I came up with myself. It is a catchy little saying, but I only wish I could say I came up with something that clever. No, ONLY THE GOOD SPY YOUNG is the title of the fourth and latest Gallagher Girls book. The official release date is actually next Tuesday, but as author Ally Carter explains here, some stores have copies available before that date. And I was lucky enough to get one of those early copies.

The Gallagher Girls series is a fabulous set of books about Cammie Morgan and her best friends. They go to an exclusive private school for "exceptional young women." And in their case, "exceptional young women" really means "spies." The first book, I'D TELL YOU I LOVE YOU, BUT THEN I'D HAVE TO KILL YOU, details Cammie's experiences with the first normal person and only boy she's ever really experienced. It also introduces the mystery of Cammie's father's death.

The story in ONLY THE GOOD SPY YOUNG is more action-packed than ever. Cammie's in the real world now. Things with Zach have gotten even weirder, and now Cammie is facing more danger than she knew she could be in. And since she's a spy, that's saying something. There's betrayal. There are near-death-experiences. There are mysteries. There is laugh-out-loud comedy and there are moments that brutally real. Oh, and there are terrorists. Don't want to say too much more that's plot-specific because if you haven't read the first three I don't wanna throw out any spoilers, but it was excellent. Probably my favorite so far in the series, actually. Readthemreadthemreadthem!

The Gallagher Girls series is written by Ally Carter, who also wrote HEIST SOCIETY (which you can read my review of here). It's probably aimed at a slightly younger audience than HS, but hey - I've just turned 17, starting my senior year of high school, and I still love them. Cammie's voice is funny, sweet, and at times painfully honest. And the stories are fun and action-packed, and they keep you wanting more. I absolutely recommend these books. Absolutely. You can find out more at Ally Carter's website and the Gallagher Girls series website.

That's all I've got for today, folks! And now I need to go work on my thesis. *sigh* Laters!

Love,
Bex

A (Late) Two-Book Post

I know I know I know, I'm terrible at remembering to blog after taking a week off. It's after 12:30 in the morning and I'm just now getting to my blog for Tuesday. It's just taking some time to get back into things. Things meaning blogging and thesis. Oh, thesis. *melodramatic sigh* I love screenwriting. I love IF I STAY, which is the novel I'm adapting for my thesis screenplay. But I have so many ideas for other things right now...i.e. totally revamped vampire stories (yes, that bad pun was mostly intentional) and screenplays that I haven't figured out that involve nightmares and nerdy best friends and death threats and scary knives.

But anyway. I have two books to tell you about.

First of all, I finished SKINNED by Robin Wasserman. It was excellent. Very science-fiction; almost a cross between Aldous Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD and Mary Pearson's THE ADORATION OF JENNA FOX (both of which are excellent books, by the way, though very different from each other). It's set at some unspecified time in the future when technology basically rules everything.

The fact that technology rules everything means that Lia's car should never have crashed. It should have taken her safely to her destination without Lia having to do anything but curl up in the backseat and take a nap. But something goes wrong, and the car does crash, and suddenly, Lia's life as the beautiful, popular girl that everyone loves is over. Actually, her life is over, period.

Except for the advanced technology that allows the doctors to download her brain into an artificial body. Now she supposedly has the best thing anyone could ask for: she cannot age, she cannot die, she will never get sick, she's basically indestructible. The one thing she isn't is human. And the friends (and boyfriend) she had before cannot accept that the personality inside is still her. Lia is lost, looking for someone to show her how to live again. And she just might find it - but first, she's going to have to come to terms with who she is.

I realize the ending of that summary sounds incredibly corny and lame, but I promise, the book is anything but. You should definitely read it. It's the first in a trilogy, and I'm definitely going to have to get the second one soon. (I believe it's called CRASHED. Fortunately, my library has it. Yay library!) You can find out more about these at Robin Wasserman's website.

The other book that I absolutely have to tell you about because it was ohmygoodness-wonderful-and-fantastic is GLIMPSE by Carol Lynch Williams. I'm assuming it just came out, because I found it on the New Teen Books shelf at Barnes & Noble today. It's 484 pages long, but it's written in verse so in terms of word count it's probably pretty short. I read it over about an hour and a half while I was in B&N with CJ and AF. It's a quick read and an amazing book so please don't let the length scare you off.

Hope is 13. Her older sister Lizzie is 14. They have other friends, but ever since they were 3 and 4, they've been best friends and they've protected each other. So when Hope walks into their shared bedroom to find Lizzie pointing a gun at her own head and Lizzie gets shipped off to a mental hospital, Hope's world turns upside down. She doesn't understand why her sister would want to die. She doesn't understand what she's supposed to do now that she can't protect Lizzie anymore.

Hope's mother is not exactly a source of comfort; it seems like Lizzie has always been her favorite, but neither one of them was planned, and Momma hasn't really been there for the girls since their father died eight years ago. What Momma does have is a secret, and that secret may explain why Lizzie wanted so desperately "to leave/for good."

GLIMPSE was beautifully written and once you start reading it you just can't stop. Absolutely a must-read. So, so good. It was excellent.

And on that note, I really need to go to bed, 'cause it's now after 1am. Oops. Goodnight!

~Bex

Playing Catch-Up

There are lots of good things about Salkehatchie, and even about having a week unplugged in general, but one downside is that I've fallen out of the habit of blogging, and I'm behind on some things I ought to tell you about.

First off, GRACELING. I read this back before I left for Salkehatchie and I meant to tell you about it then, but I didn't get there. GRACELING is a novel by Kristin Cashore, and while it took me a little while to get into it and I solved the "mystery" way before Katsa and Po did, I still really really enjoyed it.

In the fictional realm where GRACELING is set, some children are born with eyes that are two different colors. These children are "Graced" with some sort of gift, from painting to fighting, even to killing. This is the Grace with which Katsa has been gifted, and she hates it. Her uncle, a king, uses her as his personal thug. Katsa hates the crimes she is forced to commit. To make matters worse, Gracelings are considered unnatural, and as such, Katsa has never really had any friends.

In a sort of retaliation effort, she has formed the Council, a group that has spread through all seven kingdoms in an effort to protect the people from the acts of the kings. One of Katsa's missions with the Council is to rescue the grandfather of the Lienid princes. Along the way, she meets Prince Po, who has set out to find his grandfather and determine why he has been captured. Po is also Graced - with fighting. He and Katsa, two outcasts, two incredible fighters, set out to determine who captured Po's grandfather and for what reason. And the stakes may be a lot higher than either of them realized.

Reminiscent of Tamora Pierce's Lioness quartet, GRACELING was an excellent story with a well-thought out plot (even though I predicted some of it, there were definitely twists that I didn't see coming) and characters that you can't help but love. Definitely read it if you get the chance.

Also, during the week while I was at Salkehatchie, I read GLASS HOUSES by Rachel Caine, the first book in the Morganville Vampires series. The premise of the story was interesting - college town secretly ruled by vampires; actually, it was way more complicated than that, but I'm being pressured by my little brother to leave my computer and go watch Firefly - but I felt like the execution wasn't spectacular. Don't get me wrong, it was an amusing (although possibly unintentionally so) and quick read and I will probably end up reading the second one, but it felt like the drama was way over the top. Yes, it helped that Shane understood being on Monica's bad side, but the fact that she burned down his house and killed his sister was pushing it a little. Or a lot.

Finally, I've just started SKINNED by Robin Wasserman, which I will tell you all about when I finish it.

And now I need to go watch Firefly, because 1) it's awesome and 2) I think Little Brother 2 might kill me if I'm not out there in the next thirty seconds or so. Catch you later,
Bex

Salkehatchie

Helloooo everybody! I'm home! Salkehatchie was a wonderful experience, as usual. I gotta say, things at the JET (Johnston-Edgefield-Trenton) camp were very different from the Columbia camp. I also gotta say, I don't think I could survive living in the middle of nowhere for very long. I need civilization.

But that's not to say that this week was bad. It definitely wasn't. I made friends with several people who I probably would not have talked to much, if at all, had I met them somewhere other than Salkehatchie, which is always nice. And I think I learned a lot about appreciating people who are not the same as you.

There were some truly hilarious moments. Somnambulatory cows, flaming o's, unicorns in space, Monty Python and string theory, vampire babies, coming up with nicknames such as "Cat-Woman" and "the Rev Lupster" (I guess that's how we'd spell it), teaching HB and EN to play hearts, defining "lightsaber," unintentional dirty jokes, very intentional fake-secret jokes, and Spiderman Jason, just to name a few. (For the sake of saving time and not boring you, I'm not gonna explain all those stories here, but I definitely can if you want to know.)

There were some "wow" moments too. Looking at the finished kitchen, marveling over the air conditioner that EN and I had so painstakingly straightened out, being able to pick up one of the kittens, seeing how happy Mrs. Ora May and Mr. Bean (because calling him Mr. Joe is just odd) were when they saw the work we had done and the smiles on their faces when they greeted all of us from their new porch. God really can do amazing things.

What did I do this week, you ask? Well, I helped tear down a porch, and I fixed an air conditioner, and I cleaned everything out of a bunch of kitchen cabinets, and I painted, and painted, and painted, and painted, and painted, and washed dishes, and painted, and washed some more dishes, and painted, and washed more dishes, and painted, and put knobs on cabinets and cleaned out a bedroom and tore out a carpet and put down Peel-and-Press linoleum, and I even got to be a kitchen wizard and put the kitchen back together. It was a busy week, and I got really sick of painting, but in the words of my dear friend HB, "None of us are too good for painting." My frustration with the work was so worth it to make Mr. and Mrs. Bean so happy.

I feel like there should be some moral here about what God can do through all kinds of different people, but I'm too tired and too desperately in need of a real shower and a good night's sleep in a real bed to phrase it coherently right now, so for now just know that God is great and people are crazy and everyone should have a Salkehatchie experience at some point.

Love,
Bex

P.S. Yes, "God is great and people are crazy" does sort of reference a country song. Yes, I left out the line about "beer is good" on purpose. No, I have never tried beer. Yes, I do think it's disgusting. No, I am not a fan of country music. Yes, I do like Taylor Swift anyway.