Monday, December 31, 2012

2012 Slut Awards - Willow's picks.

2012 came and now it's headed out. The year is glancing back over its shoulder at us and giving a wave, and I imagine a smirk, because it didn't end the world. No zombies or angels, and not one vampire. 2012 was trying and exhausting, but like any book worthy of my shelf, it tested and its characters, who maybe had never even considered themselves all that tough, stood up as best they could and best of all? They fell into epic loves.

Here's to the year that didn't break us and to the books that are overcrowding both my here on the ground made of wood and nails shelves and the cloud ones. Because it's about to be 2013, you guys, and while we may not have those hoverboards McFly promised us yet, we do have shelves in clouds and that's pretty magical.

Here is my list of the new discoveries, the ones I finally read, the recommendations that turned into obsessions and the book that carved its' name onto my soul.

(I'll show you the scars.)

2012 Slut Awards - Pen-rye-n's Picks

2012 was a weird year, wasn't it? A lot happened. We watched a ship capsize and the Giants won the Super Bowl. We lost Whitney and Etta and Michael and Phyllis and Sherman and Andy and Nora and Donna and Dick and Davy and Ray (Oh God, will I ever recover from that one?) and Neil and a whole slew of other celebrities that broke our hearts when we heard the news. Hurricane Sandy rocked the northeastern coast and we were enraged when Trayvon Martin was shot. We mourned for people in Aurora, Colorado and Newton, CT and cheered when Sandusky was convicted. We wondered if the zombies were rising and we saw a dude jump from space and the Mayans were wrong. We proved we don't go back once we go black. We met Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss and fanfiction got a movie deal and vampires saved my grandma.It was a busy year, full of heartache and happiness, joy and sorrow, and we spent it doing things. And reading. We read a lot.

So now, as we take down the streamers and sweep up the glitter and get ready to pack 2012 away, I'm rounding up all my faves from this year for one last go around.


Thursday, December 20, 2012

Broken bones, Bad Divorces and Horny Dogs.

The Other Side of UsThe Other Side of Us by Sarah Mayberry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sarah Mayberry feels like a new discovery. A second wind that's sending me rushing through everything I love so much about a really good, solid contemporary romance. This is where character counts. Everything comes down to the two leads when you don't have car chases, epic quests or dragons. It all comes down to chemistry, growth, humor and the unfolding of a romance. It comes down to the story of two people and whether they're strong enough to carry it.

Maybe not everyone thinks of all those things when they think of romance, but a really good writer will. Sarah Mayberry is a fantastic writer that knows her characters, this genre, and the magic that can happen when you write a really good, solid story about two people falling in love.

Can you hear me sighing? It's a long, delicious one.

Oliver is the grown up guy version of a Sad But Still Mad Taylor Swift song. But in a hot, gruff Gonna Get Away For Awhile kind of way. He was in a big band several lifetimes ago, and since then has been working as a sound engineer for others, and he'll shrug his shoulders with that small smile and say he followed the predictable path of the washed up rock star. He just found out like a punch to the face that his wife of six years is having an affair.

The wife who was once the singer in his big band.


It's a nasty, awful place to be so he leaves to put to rights his dead aunt's beach house, where next door a tiny pixie of a woman is right off the bat rude to him. Unknown to him she's on the mend from a horrific car accident, and will turn the tides with her own hands if it'll only mean she can finally get back to her high stakes life of being a TV producer.

Except, they're not waiting for her, and she's riddled with scars and this close to losing it. She just wants to avoid people right now.

Too bad their dogs are trying to bang it out. 

Monday, December 10, 2012

Have Yourself a Swoony Christmas.

It wasn't until last year while I went through shelves and shelves of Holiday themed romances that I actually read one. There I was, working at the library, setting up display upon display of holly jolly books, and people were coming up and asking for recommendations and I was the Scrooge that hadn't dabbled in the glitter and mistletoe.
I was a reindeer in the headlights. 
The Paperback Queen. The Book Slut. The Swooner of Rakes, Lumberjacks and Alphas alike.
And I hadn't read a holiday romance? What was wrong with me? The swoony moments are bountiful in books filled with hometown drama, depressed drinking, and forced cheer. 
So, I jumped in with spread hands and I grabbed and I took and it was magic. 

 Here wrapped in shiny bows are some of my favorite holiday romances. May they cover you in tinsel and sexual tension.

Monday, December 3, 2012

(Rêveurs) Passing Notes: The Night Circus.

Dear friend,

It is back.

It wasn't announced this time. There was no whispers from the other Rêveurs around that reside near me. Maybe it was unplanned? I don't know for certain. I only know that I went to bed two nights ago and the field was empty. When I woke up the next morning and let the dog out, the black and white striped tents loomed against the sky, as if they had always been there in my backyard and I had never noticed.

I could barely concentrate all day. 

You know, better than any other in our circle, that I do not have the privilege of following the circus around like so many of the others do. There is simply too much for me to do here at home. A family that depends on me to be here doing for them. But when it's nearby, I simply can't keep myself away. It calls to me, like I suspect it does for so many others. It makes me believe in things I haven't since I was a child, but wanted to. Oh, how I've wanted to.

I thought about taking the boys this time. After all, hadn't I just told you a few weeks ago that when it comes back, when it sets up shop in the field behind my house once again, that I would? It would delight them, I'm sure of it. They take more after me in that, than they do their father, who is a wonderful, but realistic man. I couldn't do it though. I still haven't done it. Though my oldest has asked about it every morning since it arrived.

Perhaps I will take them tonight.

It's just that it feels like it's mine, you know? That when it comes, it comes solely for me. To remind me that magic is real. It's hard to share that, even with my own flesh and blood. There's a part of me that wants it to stay mine, even from those whom I call my own. I'm terribly selfish that way.

But it has not changed, friend! True, they are offering more treats than they were the last time I was there. A sweet dough fried and topped with cinnamon and sugar. Like a donut, almost, though lighter. Airier. There were a few new tents as well. The labyrinth has become even more elaborate with new rooms and tunnels and mazes. Dreams stacked upon dreams. I could have stayed there all night. I nearly did.

 The illusionist is still missing.

I missed her performances greatly. I always stopped there, you know? To watch her. To feel the enchantment of her acts hum across my skin like electricity. In fact, where her tent once stood, always stood, no matter where they set up, what nearby city I visited them in, wasn't even there. I'm not sure what that could mean, but I suspect we've saw the last of her. I know you will feel the same amount of disappointment I do about that theory. After all, we did meet there, didn't we? Forged our friendship leaving a tent that had us closed in only moments before. I haven't written to any of the others yet, to tell them the news. I felt as though you should know first.

But everything else is still the same. And what a lovely same it is. The clock, that glorious clock, still waits to greet us. A little bit of our founder looking over us, beckoning us to the very place that brought us all together in the first place.

I have this fear, one that I've never told another, that I'm going to visit it one day, step through the gates, past that clock, and discover the last few years were nothing but a glorious dream. That the object of my obsession is nothing more than an ordinary circus that happens to keep odd hours. That there's nothing there but fabric and slight of hands and a fire that burns bright in the center, but is nothing more than a regular fire in a regular pit. I've woken up out of sound sleeps with this very fear making my heart race. It would be like losing a piece of myself, were it to happen. A piece that laid dormant until I visited the circus for the very first time and became spellbound by what I found there. You and I, we are more than simple enthusiasts, as the other Rêveurs call themselves. We are the obsessed. The believers of magic. The ones who feel what is going on behind every show, every illusion. The circus is our true home, they ones we live in every other time of the year just a resting place.

I must go for now. A few other Rêveurs were in attendance last night and I invited them over for dinner tonight. We are, of course, going back after I get the boys into bed. Unless I decide to take them after all. Share the specialness that is that place with them, watch the wonder as it fills their hearts like it does ours.

Until next time.






Dearest friend,

I'm waiting. As I have been since it last left, and as I will until it returns. That's the in between stage, isn't it? We Rêveurs, we the obsessed, we are perpetually waiting, pacing, searching. 

I kept hoping that when you next sent word you would have new stories about the Illusionist. That I'd read how you turned the corner and finally, yes, there was her tent and as you hurriedly went inside with that delicious tightness in your chest, hardly able to sit still until finally that quiet hush came over the room. The one that catches fire with barely a breath from her. But to know that she's still gone, and appears to not be returning gives me pause. It's a heavy, grief-filled one. The kind where a believer must set down their pen and look away from this for awhile. Maybe look past the hill for the tops of tents. 

I'm anxious for it to return, however it may come to me. I need to walk the ice garden, climb the clouds. I have wishes to plant. I need to disappear past the clock and lose myself in a flame while wearing cinnamon coated fingers. In my day to day life I can not match the freedom I find when I'm there. The freedom of possibility. Each turn that leads into an opening of a tent is a promise of more. One that will delight or surprise or stretch what you thought possible, but with warm, nimble hands. It's a soft, soothing touch that life outside that gate can not promise. It's that initial walk into the tent that I could happily share with others, but like you, what I find inside, what illusions it creates in my mind, nose and heart are selfishly mine. 

And so I wait. Bundled in my coat, I spend more of my waking life sitting on a bench beside a playground looking past the hill. My mind's eye draws the scene, and I find myself taking deep breaths, searching for hazelnut and chocolate. I hear children laugh and I wonder of the twins and their delightful kittens. A child stretches her legs up onto the monkey bars and it's the Contortionist mystifying me as always. I sit so still it makes me think of the statues, and I wonder of their thoughts. Especially the lovers; how slow, how torturous. A voice startles me from my thoughts and it's the joyous shriek of a little girl as she flies down the slide into her brother's arms. They race towards me and I know that next time, I, too, will share the circus with my children. I want to plant this seed of magic into fertile soil. 

I hope that my next letter to you, always to you first, will be filled with new stories. Of the morning when I'll walk into my children's bedroom and finally see something past the hill. Of taking them to the playground on yet another day, but this time knowing that beyond it mine has returned. 

Give my best to the others. May we live in this in between together. 

Yours in Waiting, 










The Night CircusThe Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Our rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Cue Swooning: OPAL BOOK TRAILER REVEAL.





No one is like Daemon Black.

When he set out to prove his feelings for me, he wasn’t fooling around. Doubting him isn’t something I’ll do again, and now that we’ve made it through the rough patches, well... There’s a lot of spontaneous combustion going on.


But even he can’t protect his family from the danger of trying to free those they love. 

After everything, I’m no longer the same Katy. I’m different... And I’m not sure what that will mean in the end. When each step we take in discovering the truth puts us in the path of the secret organization responsible for torturing and testing hybrids, the more I realize there is no end to what I’m capable of. The death of someone close still lingers, help comes from the most unlikely source, and friends will become the deadliest of enemies, but we won’t turn back. Even if the outcome will shatter our worlds forever.

Together we’re stronger... and they know it.




USA TODAY Bestselling author, Jennifer L. Armentrout, lives in Martinsburg, West Virginia. All the rumors you've heard about her state aren't true. When she’s not hard at work writing, she spends her time reading, working out, watching really bad zombie movies, pretending to write, and hanging out with her husband and her Jack Russell, Loki. Her dreams of becoming an author started in algebra class where she spent most of her time writing short stories….which explains her dismal grades in math. Jennifer writes young adult paranormal, science fiction, fantasy, and contemporary romance. She also writes adult romance under the name J. Lynn.


Find Jennifer on: Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Website | Blog

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Government Sanctioned Rape.

Ugh. The "R" word.

It's tricky business writing about rights and government control. And it can go well or it can go wrong. Like, really, really, wrong. Like, "What the hell were you thinking?!" wrong.

But, when done right, it can be an interesting premise, yeah?

So. The end of the world has come and gone. Maybe it ended with a bang. Maybe with a whimper. Or perhaps a sneeze. In fact, a sneeze is usually a good way to go, if we're going with government control of your reproduction rights, a virus seems to be the favored way to wipe out humanity. Maybe it's a virus that kills of newborns. Maybe it's one that only affects females. Whatever the virus does, it's usually present and for society to continue, the government has to step in and lay down the law.

THE LAW OF YOUR UTERUS.

And here, here is where things get tricky.


You Annoy Me < Take Your Pants Off.

Her Best Worst MistakeHer Best Worst Mistake by Sarah Mayberry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was effervescent.

It was chemistry and sparks and heat and it was everything I want in a contemporary romance, because it went that one step further and surprised me with the depth of emotion without having to lean on any dramatic miscommunication trope. This is simply the story of two people falling for each other in such a real, lovely and electric way. Two people who've been tolerating the other because of the person they have in common, but it only takes that one misstep, that one caught look, that one push to send them over the edge.

And, wow. This is how you write chemistry. This is why when two actors have it they only need the other to turn a conversation into something you can't look away from. It's not just two hot leads looking at each other and deciding to bang it out. It's the way the words turn that look into tangible sparks. That kiss into a punch to your solar plexus.
"Not so long ago you despised me," she said. "You could barely stand to look at me."
“And now I can’t keep my hands off you or get you out of my head. Which one of those reactions is the more accurate reflection of my true feelings, do you think, Violet? Let me give you a clue here, even though we’re arguing, even though I’m almost one hundred percent certain that you’re about to walk out on me, I have a hard-on with your name on it. That’s how much I can barely stand to look at you.”
It would have been SO EASY to make them one-dimensional. To make him the nerdy beta hero she wakes up and the girl he calms down. But he's someone who built himself up from the Hackney and she's been tossed aside by her family.

This isn't just Flighty Girl meets Stuffy Guy.

He's been with her best friend for years, and she's been on the wings noticing the stupid things about him, yanking his chain while he looks at her with annoyance unable to get the smell of her perfume out of his clothes even though he barely brushed past her. 
“Good afternoon, how can I—” She stopped in her tracks, words momentarily escaping her. Martin didn’t speak, either. He simply stood there watching her, his dark gaze intent and hot. She felt an answering heat spring to life inside her, even as she gathered her will to send him packing. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know.” They were both lying. She hadn’t needed to ask why he was there, and they both knew what he wanted.
“We can’t keep doing this,” she said weakly. So much for sending him packing.
“Tell me how to make it stop, then.” He took a step toward her. 
You almost need to take a breath it's such a fantastic execution of this set up. They go years not even realizing that all the animosity is because they're so hot for the other, and then he gets dumped and she tries to do something nice, but he barks and she spits and it's fireworks. They're unraveling the other, and it's lovely and hot and just so, so good and it turns into a solid romance and a relationship you can't look away from, rooting for the happily ever after with a stupid smile.




Thursday, October 18, 2012

Nerd Girl Chats: Nerd Girls & Election Years.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if two slightly inappropriate, somewhat crazy, extremely nerdy, book sluts were to step in and moderate a presidential debate? Of course you have. Who hasn't, right? 

...Oh. Most sane people, you say? Huh.

Well, in case you, like N and I, have wondered this, we're here to put that curiosity to rest. BEHOLD. A POLITICAL NERD GIRL CHAT. Featuring all the tough questions N and I would ask our current President and President Hopeful, like dragon control and marriage between a zombie and a woman.

And, really, when we say President & President Hopeful, we really just mean President Hopeful. 



 GOVERNOR ROMNEY, YOU GOT SOME 'SPLAINING TO DO!

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Smoking Cigarettes & Sex in Trucks: Why I Love Southern Romances.

There's just something about the south. Being that both of us are southern girls we understand the bonafide difference of life below the Mason Dixon line. Whether it's the Tennessee mountains, Florida swamps, Louisiana bayous or South Carolina low country, there's just a different heat to a good romance story that gets its bones and pace from this sticky humidity. It's a dirty blues riff in a smoky honky tonk. It's a glass of sweet tea sweating on a front porch. It's a fan moving too slow, while hands go a little faster.

You see what I'm saying, right?

I cut my teeth on the trashy paperback romance. Not the bodice ripper historical, but The Sandra Brown. Where take no shit women come up against fiery dudes from Texas. Where we're hunting for oil and people are getting murdered and dumped in swamps and women are letting their hair loose and the curses fly and someone's got a rifle in their truck because shit is about to go down. It's good and it always builds to one hell of a climax.

So which books make you want to turn up The Black Keys, put your boots up on the dash and fall hard for the kind of man who wears jeans the way the good lord meant him to?





Here are some of my favorite cowboys:

Saturday, October 13, 2012

I fell in love with a Cajun.

Poison Princess by Kresley Cole
Rating: 4 of 5 stars.






Right now, Nina and I are reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, something we've talked about doing since before we even started Paper Boyfriends. In fact, The Night Circus was going to be our first collaborated review, most likely on our personal blogs and Goodreads and then Paper Boyfriends was born and now we're finally getting around to the book that sparked it all. In an effort to not get too far ahead of Nina while we read, I stopped myself halfway through and decided to start reading another book on my to-read list while I waited for her to catch up. (I'm a ridiculously fast reader who survives on little sleep. We joke that Nina is the old woman in this relationship, who goes to bed at 9pm and is up with the chickens, while I'm the frat boy, up all night partying and still awake the next morning. I digress.)

ENTER: POISON PRINCESS.




Have I ever talked about my deep and burning love for Post-Apocalyptic novels? Because it's there and it's A Thing. I love watching the world fall apart. I love when things get a little Lord of the Flies and when unlikely couples, people who would have never looked twice at each other before, end up together. I like seeing communities form and bands of people coming together to fight or to live or just to have human companionship. I love learning to navigate broken worlds and establishing new normals and I love watching characters rise up to become survivors.

I love guys like Jackson Deveaux. 

Monday, October 1, 2012

Nerd Girl Chats: Angelfall Edition.

Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days, #1)


Have you heard of Angelfall by Susan Ee?
Please. Stop everything.
Hold the phone and pump the brakes, because everything everyone is saying about this book IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE AND REAL AND MY EMOTIONS ARE EVERYWHERE RIGHT NOW.

So. Talking it out between Pen-rye-n & me was obviously necessary. We go through the whole book, with appropriate fangirling and end of the world worrying over body hair, so be warned of spoilers for those of you who don't know the pure AWESOME happening here, and if you do? Jump in, get your downy wings dirty because the world has ended and things are gonna get bananas BUT THERE IS A QUEST.

And smokin' hot shirtless angels. And girls who pack knives in their boots. And moms who are off the rails.
Yeah, I know. It's sooo good.

Willow: Also, ANGELFALL. How is this happening?
Pen-rye-nRIGHT. OMG. How bloody amazing was it? Scale of 1 to ALL THE FANGIRLING?
WillowALL OF THE FANGIRLING. PUT THEM IN A JAR, SHAKE THEM, THEN SPREAD THEM OVER MY BODY.
  ....okay, wait.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

YA saves.

Over here at Paper Boyfriends, we talk books. Either in the form of reviews or essays or nerd chats or articles, the topic is always going to center around books. Because that's what we do. Nina and I wear many hats in our lives, but at the heart of us, at the core, we are readers.

And today, the day I turned 27, being the reader that I am paid off in a big way.

Right now, my little family and I are visiting my mom, stepdad, sister and grandma in Tennessee. The husband had to visit the VA here and so my boys and I decided to tag along and spend mine & my mama's birthdays together. This morning started off like any other. I got up. Ate cake for breakfast, because if you can't eat cake for breakfast on your 27th birthday, when can you? Afterwards, I wandered outside to smoke my morning cigarette and crack open the latest book I'm reading. I was lost in the world Julia Hoban created when I heard my mom scream out my name. My full name. And I knew as I was dropping my half smoked cigarette and running for the door it had to be serious, because I've always been and always will be her baby name for me unless something is desperately wrong.

And it was. Oh, God, it was.

Monday, September 24, 2012

A town bursting with vamps: Morganville 1-12

Morganville Vampire Series (1-12) by Rachel Caine.
Rating: 4 of 5 stars.




Oh, Morganville, I shouldn't love you like I do.


Here's the thing, The Morganville Vampires series aren't particularly good books. I can think of at least one major continuity problem. Apparently getting shot in Morganville translates to a stab wound? Pretty major screw up. They're rollarcoasty and often end with a cliffhanger and in books 10 & 11, we get treated to alternating POV's, often a shift from third person limited to first person then back to third. Claire Danvers is a strong character, with no real physical attributes given to her. In 11 books, all I can tell you about Claire is that she's on the small side and has short hair, which is probably brown but also maybe red. Basically, she could be anybody anywhere, and maybe it's so we can slip her on like a pair of jeans. I don't know. Aside from Monica and her pack dogs, everyone mostly loves her unless it's crucial to the plot that they don't. She's insanely smart, pretty talented, and despite going on and on about how she's the biggest geek ever, she ends up with one of the hottest boys in town who is insanely in love with her. She's a little Mary Sue, is what I'm saying here. Not the Maryest Sue that ever did Sue, she's no Bella Swan, but she is on the scale. And maybe a 5.

But, God, all that said, I could not stop reading. It's like the best crackfic ever. Things are always happening in Morganville and Claire and the Glass House gang are always smack dab in the middle, getting the hell beat out of them. This we can get to Caine hands down. She has no qualms about putting her characters through the ringer. Even if their wounds change over the course of the books.

The Curious Case of Mr. Darcy.



"But I can assure you," she added, "that Lizzy does not lose much by not suiting his fancy; for he is a most disagreeable, horrid man, not at all worth pleasing. So high and so conceited that there was no enduring him! He walked here, and he walked there, fancying himself so very great! Not handsome enough to dance with! I wish you had been there, my dear, to have given him one of your set-downs. I quite detest the man."
(Mrs. Bennet to Mr. Bennet about Mr. Darcy)

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Always had a Thing for Artsy Boys.

EasyEasy by Tammara Webber
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've been circling this one for a couple months. Dipping my toes into the New Adult waters, I've been seduced by the sexy, gritty angst. The choices and decisions someone makes when they're on their own for the first time. The boys that show up and the nights that don't end. And Easy was touted amongst them, but I kept side-stepping it.

I can be completely vain and tell you it was because of the cover.

God, I'm a horrible person, but the guy looked like a Richie Sambora kind of rocker and my brain kept thinking cheesy rocker fan-fiction and I kept turning the other way. Then my soul sister read it and I knew it was okay now. Time to do this.

I absolutely adored this book. I swooned, clutched it to my chest, and found myself a new boyfriend. And he looks nothing like Richie Sambora.

More like Trent from Daria.


Photobucket

Hullo, Lucas.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Sex with a Vulcan.

Slave to Sensation (Psy-Changeling #1)Slave to Sensation by Nalini Singh
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I've been attempting to start Singh's other series Guild Hunters for awhile now and I can not get past the first twenty pages to save my life. I've heard such great things, and yet I keep getting hung up on the writing style and how it's keeping me outside of the story. So I figured I'd take a stab at this whole Psy-Changeling thing since this is the other series everyone is all hot and bothered over.

There was no difficulty in getting into this one for me. None. For the first half of the book I didn't want to put it down. It was such an interesting and sexy introduction into this world of Psys and Changelings. Basically the Psys are Vulcans and the Changelings are hot blooded animal shifters and they live in a world where the Psy are the emotionally void politicians and the Changelings own businesses and have different Packs with different Alphas, but there are uneasy truces going on. That is until the cat Pack have one of their own murdered and they smell Psy at the scene. They've figured out that there have been several well-calculated murders that stink of Psy, the race that isn't supposed to feel anything and has no recorded instance of violence.

Super interesting set up that spoke to the geek girl in me that digs world building and the romance fan that likes to see two people face crazy, tension-filled odds in their I Just Gotta Have You transformation. 

Roads made of blood and lands of dust.

Blood Red Road by Moira Young
Rating: 4.5 of 5 stars.





I am a total dystopian, post-apocalyptic, apocalyptic, everything going to shit, junkie. I don't know what it is about this genre that I'm so crazy about, but it's there and it's a thing and I'm damn near obsessed with it.

Blood Red Road is getting a ton of crazy good reviews and, from what I understand, it's already been picked up by Ridley Scott to be made into a movie. And you know what? I completely understand why



Friday, September 21, 2012

Oh, Augustus. I do too.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.
Rating: 5 of 5 stars.


"Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you."
DISCLAIMER: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS AFTER THE CUT.

It's been months now since I finished this book and I am still absolutely gutted every time I think about it. My thoughts are stars I still can't fathom into constellations. (DID U C WUT I DID THAR...AGAIN?)  GREEN, YOU MADE ME FEEL SO MANY FEELINGS.  

And I guess you could argue this is an annoying way to review, but dammit, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it because visuals are so very needed. Yes. This is going down in .gif form.


Brace yourselves: OPAL COVER REVEAL.


No one is like Daemon Black.


When he set out to prove his feelings for me, he wasn’t fooling around. Doubting him isn’t something I’ll do again, and now that we’ve made it through the rough patches, well... There’s a lot of spontaneous combustion going on.


But even he can’t protect his family from the danger of trying to free those they love. 


After everything, I’m no longer the same Katy. I’m different... And I’m not sure what that will mean in the end. When each step we take in discovering the truth puts us in the path of the secret organization responsible for torturing and testing hybrids, the more I realize there is no end to what I’m capable of. The death of someone close still lingers, help comes from the most unlikely source, and friends will become the deadliest of enemies, but we won’t turn back. Even if the outcome will shatter our worlds forever.


Together we’re stronger... and they know it.





Follow this link to an ~~~ EPIC CONTEST ~~~ Announcement. You will want to bookmark this page!






USA TODAY Bestselling author, Jennifer L. Armentrout, lives in Martinsburg, West Virginia. All the rumors you’ve heard about her state aren’t true. When she’s not hard at work writing, she spends her time reading, working out, watching really bad zombie movies, pretending to write, and hanging out with her husband and her Jack Russell, Loki. Her dreams of becoming an author started in algebra class where she spent most of her time writing short stories….which explains her dismal grades in math. Jennifer writes young adult paranormal, science fiction, fantasy, and contemporary romance. She also writes adult romance under the name J. Lynn.



Find Jennifer on: Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Website | Blog

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Nerd Girl Chats: ER. MAH. GERD.


I will not say what exactly happened last night, but I will say, that something happened, something that will be revealed tomorrow, and, well, Willow and I kinda lost our shit for a minute.

Observe:

W: OH MY GOD.
W: OH MY GOD.
W: Wait. I was texting you. Hold on.


Exactly one second later:



Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Nerd Girl Chats: Lux Edition.

"Wait! We weren't done yet. Hey Pepe, can you say glow stick?"

So, Willow and I found ourselves on gchat the other night and we were discussing random things, birthday parties and crybaby husbands with the sniffles when suddenly:

P:
 UM I DON'T KNOW IF YOU'LL EVEN GET THIS OR IF YOU'RE CURRENTLY PARTYING HARD BUT HOLY FUCK DID YOU SEE THIS: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13362536-opal AND THE SYNOPSIS IS BACK UP AND I'M KINDA DOING SOME CRYBABY BIEBER TEARS OVER HERE.
Beiber? Bieber? Whatever.
W:...a lot of spontaneous combustion? Give me a minute.
P: I was looking through our Lux reviews earlier, trying to figure out how to combine them and I found all these Daemon extras Armentrout posted on her site and I AM DISTURBED BY HOW BADLY THIS SERIES HAS MADE ME LOSE MY SHIT.
P: But seriously? Those extras? Good shit, dude. I'm not saying I threw my panties at the computer, but I'm not saying I didn't either.
W: Wait....wait. There are extras. Extras with Daemon?
P: YOU DIDN'T KNOW?!
W: Uh, no, dude. I didn't know this. I'm getting squeaky right now
P: OH GIRLFRIEND. LET ME SEDUCE YOU.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Passing Notes: Perfect Chemistry.


Dear Willow,

I have a bone to pick with you. We need to clear the air. We need to address the elephant in the room. I need to get this off my chest so that we, as partners and twins and reading soul sisters, can move on to bigger and better things.

Yes, I'm talking about Perfect Chemistry.

Crazy feminists & the boys who love them.

Graceling by Kristin Cashore
Rating: 4.5 of 5 stars.




I liked Graceling. Let's get that out of the way right now, before I start talking ethics and agendas and propaganda. I liked Graceling and I think Cashore is a pretty awesome writer and I plan on continuing with this series because it's original and exciting and things happen and I like when things happen. Katsa is the kinda heroine I adore, a girl who isn't motivated by a man or her love for that man and is not a damsel in distress, but instead will take a bitch out by herself. There's quests. I love quests. The only thing that would have made this story more epically amazing is if Katsa found a dragon and trained it and together, she and her dragon steed, flew around the kingdoms, striking wrong-doers down and chomping them. Perhaps breathing a little fire for kicks. Po was just there, and I liked that he was just there, that this male character was suddenly the Love Interest that is just hanging around and does some things, sure, but not like The Hero. I liked seeing those roles reversed. 

And I liked that Katsa was anti-marriage, anti-baby and pro-sex. Okay, perhaps pro-sex isn't the best word, but, she had a sexual relationship with Po, with no plans for marriage. You know what they say, "it's not premarital sex if you have no plans on getting married." Or maybe that was just me who said that. To my dad. Who is a preacher.  ....awkward.

ANYWAY!

Oh, Tina T, you're breaking my heart.

This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers
Rating: 5 of 5 stars.


There's some zombie books where things constantly happen. There's constant fights and narrow escapes and the entire story, you're on the edge of your seat, waiting for the next thing to happen.

This is Not a Test isn't that book.

Monday, September 17, 2012

My soul for a dragon.

Defiance by C.J. Redwine
Rating: 4 of 5 stars.



Wait. Stop right there. Stop giving me the side eye for my 4 stars. Let me explain.

There are dragons.

Okay. They're kinda like dragons. Like, practically dragons, but they don't fly so they're basically dragon mutants or something but they have scales and wicked tails and they breathe fire. DRAGONS, OKAY. NOT-DRAGONS. KINDA-DRAGONS. DRAGONS ARE AWESOME.

There was some crazy stuff going on in the Defiance world. There was tyrannical leaders, and oppression and widely accepted misogynistic attitudes and highway robbers and fucking Tree People and sweet bread baking old men and secrets and spies and sword fights and crazy tech inventions and DEFIANCE (I C WUT U DID THAR) and it was a lot of awesomeness topped with a lukewarm romance. If you ignore the romance aspect of it (and good Lord, that was hard, especially towards the end,) it was glorious.