WWW Wednesday #2

WWW Wednesdays is a weekly meme hosted by @shouldbereading. To join in all you have to do is answer the three following questions:

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish?
• What do you think you'll read next?

Since I'm reading more this seemed like a lovely meme to follow. Below are my answers. Feel free to leave comments below, or link to your own WWW Wednesday post. I'm always looking for more awesome book suggestions.

What I Recently Finished:

Image from GoodReads.com

Image from GoodReads.com

Image from GoodReads.com

I've been reading up a storm. Where to start...

First off, if I had to recommend only one, it'd be Five Flavors of Dumb hands down. A really heartwarming story with an ending that rocked - literally! I loved the characters, loved the music, I just all around enjoyed it.

Lure advertised itself as a group of bad ghost hunters doing their ghost hunting thing - which they do for maybe 10 pages out of 300, haha. I can't say I didn't enjoy it, because it was a quick read and for the most part I liked Sam and Shells. That said, this is really a book for people who just want to watch 20-somethings get drunk (all the time) and hit on cute guys and gals (all the time) and have lots of sex. Not really want I wanted.

The Perfect Husband - the next book in my quest to find a good FBI investigative series. A little better than Kava's A Perfect Evil, but ultimately I found myself queasy about the main romance. Also, I realize that the cops and detectives can't be too good or the killer won't be able to do a lot, but I found the killer's skill level to be a little too much for me - it made everyone else just seem incompetent. I hate when I feel like no one but the main characters are allowed to do things/be competent. Also, a couple of the deaths by the killer seemed really needless. It's the first in the Quincy series (Quincy is a minor character in this one), and I will be continuing. I read book 4 way back, and I remember really liking it, so I think the books will get better.

What I Think I'll Read Next:

Image from GoodReads.com

Writing Great Book for Young Adults, by Regina Brooks

I think I'll switch things up a bit and read a little non-fiction soon. Something different before jumping back into the next fiction book. Since I consider my current w.i.p a YA book, I'm hoping this will help me shake off some of the snags I've found myself tangled in. If nothing else, it can't hurt.

What I'm Reading Now:

Image from GoodReads.com

Game On, by Kyra Lennon

BLURB FROM GOODREADS:

"After swapping her small town life to work for one of the top soccer teams in the U.S, Leah Walker thought she could finally leave the ghosts of her past behind. However, when she meets serial womanizer, Radleigh McCoy, the memories of her old life come swarming back, and she is forced to ask herself whether she has really changed at all."

I'm about 1/2 way through this one.


I have to admit - I'm not digging the two main characters. I don't think you're supposed to like Radleigh, seeing as he's a very physically arrogant playboy. And Leah, though "spunky," seems to have a more shallow strength than I was expecting. Leah's past (which we learn) may be feeding this, but it really doesn't make me feel any sympathy towards her for her actions. Maybe by the end her character will grow to the point I thought she'd be at the beginning. These two send me into mini-rages, haha.


That said, I love the secondary characters! Honestly, they're what's keeping me going. I don't think Lennon's introduced a single side character I haven't smiled at. The main plot is starting to unfold and I want to see how it wraps up. The writing itself is smooth and flowing, and I like the overall soccer setting.


The ending may make up for what I've found to be a frustrating start. I also can't wait to read the section where Leah's family comes to visit! Seriously, love the secondary characters. She should give them all their own books, haha.

And that's my reading update! I'm looking forward to checking out yours!

WWW Wednesday #1

WWW Wednesdays is a weekly meme hosted by @shouldbereading. To join in all you have to do is answer the three following questions:

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish?
• What do you think you'll read next?

Since I'm reading more this seemed like a lovely meme to follow. Below are my answers. Feel free to leave comments below, or link to your own WWW Wednesday post. I'm always looking for more awesome book suggestions.

What I Recently Finished:

Photo from Amazon.

Insurgent, by Veronica Roth

(Book #2 in the Divergent trilogy)

BLURB FROM AMAZON:

"One choice can transform you—or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves—and herself—while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love."

Loved it! It was an action-packed, tense sequel to Roth's first book, Divergent. I don't want to give away too many spoilers... Tris has a lot of new problems to deal with, and some old. Her relationship issues felt very real, and unforced. And the ending leaves me agonized that I'll have to wait a year or two for Book 3.

What I'm Reading Now:

Photo from Amazon.

A Perfect Evil, by Alex Kava

(Book #1 in the Maggie O'Dell series)

BLURB FROM AMAZON:

"The brutal murders of three young boys paralyze the citizens of Platte City, Nebraska. What's worse is the grim realization that the man recently executed for the crimes was a copycat. When Sheriff Nick Morrelli is called to the scene of another grisly murder, it becomes clear that the real predator is still at large, waiting to kill again."

This is a bit of a cheat, since I actually finished this last night. But I haven't started anything new yet. I enjoyed the book, but I sometimes felt the level of description was overused. It also jumps between many POVs - but they all say (more-or-less) the same things about one another. The plot was engaging, especially further in when more starts happening. I'm in no rush to read the sequel.

What I Think I'll Read Next:

Photo from Amazon.

Five Flavors of Dumb, by Antony John

BLURB FROM AMAZON:

"Piper is a seventeen-year-old high school senior, and she's just been challenged to get her school's super-popular rock band, Dumb, a paying gig. The catch? Piper is deaf. Can she manage a band with five wildly different musicians, nurture a budding romance, and discover her own inner rock star, though she can't hear Dumb's music?"

I'm on a contemporary kick. I'll probably be jumping back and forth between FBI thriller types, and YA types. I've heard great things about the book, and the blurb really has me hooked. It helps that I've got a character in my WiP who's in a band, so this will also be good research. ^_^

And that's my reading update! I'm looking forward to checking out yours!

Planning and The Weather

I would first like to share a letter to The Weather.

Ahem.

Dear Weather,
     Seriously? 80 degrees in March?
     You've probably made a lot of people happy this past week. And according to my widget, this is going to last for a few more days.
    But, being a person that enjoys 'late winter/early spring' & autumn weather best, please, remember it's not quite time for summer. Not yet.

Sincerely,
    K.S.

So, after the laziest weekend ever, which is odd since last weekend was fairly productive, I'm starting off the week with a little more oomph. I've got plans for a novella of sorts that I'll probably be posting about soon, and I'm reading through The Jester's Apprentice, a medieval mystery I picked up during Read an eBook Week. I've been craving a mystery novel lately. So far it's been a lot of fun, though I keep forgetting it's medieval. So when they do very medieval-y things I'm always surprised, haha.

And I'm happily chugging my way through my A to Z Challenge planning. With my spotty memory, a day's worth of anti-shyness rallying before posting anything on the internet, I figured it was best to prepare my posts before April. And, since I did sort of find out about this a little close to deadline, haha, I'm keeping things simple by centering them all around my current W.i.P, The Wandering Shadow.

But how is any of this writing news more important than this: Minecraft works on my computer! Granted, it only works for about twenty minutes, and has a high rate of causing my computer to overheat and crash, but it works!

I like Minecraft, even if I think it's one of the scariest things I've ever seen. And I like scary. But I like reading scary. And watching scary. Playing scary? Not so much. I'm a total coward! And Minecraft does such an amazing job of creating a creepy vibe even when you're in a perfectly safe part of the game.

No, I mean it. Need inspiration for a tense or horrifying scene? Look no further than creepers, zombies, haunting music, and the dreaded Endermen!

Apparently these guys are not
that threatening or scary.

But I turned around in the game
and this guy was just standing and
staring at me and I totally yelped.

That's right - yelped.

It's like when I stumbled upon the Something Awful creation - The Slender Man. Talk about creepy!

Now that I've made myself paranoid for the rest of the day, I'm going to go write. And... not play Minecraft.

2012 Reading Goals

So, I've joined GoodReads 2012 Reading Goal Challenge.

My mission: 65 books in 2012.

I know what you're thinking... 'Kim, you just read three book in a week, isn't 65 sort of a small number at that pace?'

Honestly, I doubt I'm going to keep this completely insane pace up. First, I'm about to jump into formatting my novel, The Eternal Queen, for eBook release. That's right, I'm going to explore the world of self-publishing while I edit up Knight for summer or fall querying. I'd like to see both sides of the publishing world, self and traditional, and I feel like the two books match the two types.

Secondly, I'm getting more hours for my job, so that keeps me busy as well.

Thirdly, I'm going to be editing Knight soon, and then mapping out my next book idea - The Wandering Shadow. Both are going to be quite time-consuming.

Basically, at some point I'm sure I'll start struggling just to meet my initial goal of a book a week. I'm just getting a bit of a head start now.

If you've got a 2012 Reading Goal, let me know. ^_^

Time Flies...

Oh my, so what have I been up to for so long that I haven't updated my blog in a month?

Well, for one, my boy and I flew back to Jersey to see the families over the holiday. That automatically guarantees my schedule gets completely turned on its head and that I turn into a useless and get nothing done person.

Then I got sick.

I feel like I don't get sick that often, so when I do, it sticks with me, and drags on for what feels like forever. This one lasted two weeks. There were a few days my voice was basically gone. And I was crashing on a couch in my sister's basement for three and half weeks. It wasn't an uncomfortable couch, but it was still a couch. And my sister has a two year old - good kid, good crier, good at running around at 6 in the morning. Which would not have been so bad if I wasn't constantly waking up in the middle of the night needing more tissues, or just getting used to the fact I was in a basement on a couch and not in my bed in my apartment. Needless to say, I was a little sleep deprived on top of being sick.

Hm... I need to stop moaning and groaning now.

Nothing I had on my schedule got completed, even when I had factored in the fact I get less done on my family visits. So I'm scrambling to catch up to the schedule I wanted to have.

One thing I wanted to do was hammer out a better schedule for the blog, haha. And to hammer out a better writing and reading schedule.

Basically, I want to start writing 500 words a day, guaranteed. That I've still failed at, but since I've been doing a lot of editing on The Eternal Queen, so I haven't felt too guilty.

Another thing I wanted to do was read a book a week. This, at least, I have accomplished! In fact, I'm ahead of schedule. I sat down over the last few days and have read two books that have been on my list:

1. Anna Dressed in Blood, by Kendare Blake
2. The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, by Michelle Hodkin
(I probably should be linking to their author sites, but I was already on Amazon while writing this.)

I really enjoyed both books. Loved the characters, the writing, and the settings. I loved the way they both described the tense scenes. In Blake's Anna, I thoroughly enjoyed the world she developed and the way any interactions with ghosts felt unsettling and creepy. I loved the way the magic of the world was revealed.

In Unbecoming it was much the same. I loved the wonderfully chilling mental undoing of Mara, where you're never quite sure {just like Mara} what's real and not real. How much is inside this crumbling, strained mind of this young girl? Just what dark memory is waiting to show itself in fractured dreams and hallucinations?

Now, I'm an avid ghost fan. The book/movie/tv show can be terrible, but if it has ghosts in it, I'll probably enjoy it anyway. I know this about myself, so I knew that Anna Dress In Blood was going to be right up my alley. One of my favorite books is Laura Whitcomb's A Certain Slant of Light, a ghost love story. And another thing I really like is weird and dark stories. So a teenage girl struggling with hallucinations and PTSD concerning a dark, forgotten night of terror that killed three of her friends? Yeah, I had some pretty excited expectations about The Unbecoming as well.

And I have to say, I enjoyed both books and would recommend them. I know I'm doing them terrible justice right now, this isn't the most thought out blog post. It's more like, a stream-of-conscious-excuse-to-procrastinate-on-editing post. Shh... don't judge.

However, I will admit, the ending to The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer was rather a... disappointment. It was... it just wasn't what I was anticipating as I read the book. It was like the book and I were playing chess and then suddenly I realized the game was actually checkers. Yeah, that was a weird comparison... *cough* That being said, I think her subtle build-up to the ending was still amazing, even if it disappointed me. I loved all the subtle building in the book. All the little twists and unraveling plot lines that were actually connecting in ways that hadn't yet been revealed. But yeah... it was... well... it bumped the book down a bit for me.

But I think that's for every reader to decide themselves, and the only way you can decide, is to read it yourself. So go do that, like, right now! Then come back and tell to me your thoughts. I like to hear peoples thoughts, even if sometimes I'm a tad slow at responding.

As for Anna Dressed In Blood, well, it totally met my expectations. It was what I thought it would be. I wasn't really completely convinced by the main romantic plot, but, eh, that's another thing each reader will decide for themselves. I loved the secondary characters, probably more than the main character. That's not too strange, since a) first person puts me on edge, and no I don't know why, and no, I don't immediately dislike a book if it's in first person - I just prefer third person books most of the time; and b) there's a lot more pressure on the main character with first person (in my opinion), because you are literally in that person's head the whole time, so little things I would normally dismiss if they didn't really click with me become almost impossible to ignore.

There wasn't even anything really big with Cas, the main character. I think it was mostly the love plot being, in my opinion, a little rushed.

I guess this is the time to mention that I seriously, seriously prefer love plots to be side plots and not main plots (and yes, I know I just said one of my favorite books is a ghost-love story, shh...). So I knew going in that the love plot was a main thing, from reading the back of the book, and the summary on Amazon, so, like, I had already prepared myself to jump into a "love" story. I mean, I guess the love plot wasn't really the main point of the book, but yeah, it kind of was.

But man, Blake's supernatural elements were so much fun. Anna was a great ghost. And only one of many great ghosts in the book. Blake gives us quite a few to enjoy.

Anyway, yeah, go read those books if you haven't! They're both great fun, and dark, and creepy, and just darn good stories, even with the stuff I didn't dig as much.

As mentioned, I'm still catching up with myself so the blogging might still be slow. But I'm not disappearing, so no worries on that front!

Hope you had a great holiday and that the new year is treating you well!

*I'm sorry if my constant tweaking makes this appear multiple times in RSS update feeds*