Top Ten Tuesday: Beginnings/Endings in Books

I just saw YA Sisterhood do this post and I thought I'd do it too. Here is the link to YA Sisterhood' s post:  http://ya-sisterhood.blogspot.com/2013/07/top-ten-tuesday-beginningsendings-in.html

1) Opal by Jennifer L. Armentrout.
This had probably one of the worst cliffhanger endings in the world. I love how Daemon realized what was happening, and what he said. *internally swoons*

2) The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan
I loved how, at the end, it all raps up nicely, but Rachel still says the prophecy, leaving a window open for The Lost Hero.

3) One Night With a Rock Star by Chana Keefer
I love the beginning-ish part were she meets Sky, because what happens in the beginning leads to what happens in the limo, and at her house. I love how she was not afraid to voice her opinions and voice what she stands for. And I LOVE how Sky acted towards her, and what happened on the stage both before and during the concert.

4) Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
I loved, at the end, how we are told by Akiva about what he did, and how I didn't see it coming. You may have seen it coming, but I didn't. And I loved the world building, and how we got to see her in her past life.

5) Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare
I like how at the beginning how we learn about what the Dark Sisters are doing to Tessa and how there is so much excitement in the house, and how we met Will.

6) Under The Never Sky by Veronica Rossi
I like right at the beginning, there is excitement. In some books that I've read, there is excitement from the end of the beginning of the book, if that makes sense. I like how the first chapter of Perry is spoken like he is a man, and how Veronica actually makes him sound like a protective man in a man's body, and not like a women in a man's body.

7) Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Shirtless Daemon. 'Nough said.

8) The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
I like at the end how she rebelled against the Capitol with the berries, and how knows that she is rebelling and stupid about what she is doing, like how some female leads act stupid, when I know the author can make them smarter than they act.

9) Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
OMFG, THE END! "Katniss, there is no more Distric 12." End of Book Two.
And OMFG, THE CAPITOL! POOR PEETA!!!!! Stupid Capitol!!
And and OMFG, FINNICK ODAR!!!!! Sexy, sexy Odar!! I love you, Finnick!!

10) The Iron Queen by Julie Kagawa
Poor Ash! He loves her so much, and her stupid destiny got in the way! I loved how he took the risk of letting his heart get hurt again, and gave it his best! I also loved how he was so willing to go with her into the Iron Relm, knowing the risk to himself. And, the ending was so sad, it broke my heart for both of them! She was so brave to do that for him!

New Origin Teaser from Jennifer L. Armentrout

You can view the entire blog post here:
http://www.jenniferarmentrout.com/sunday-origin-teaserupdate/

“You have no idea…” I ran out of words at that point. Her being this close after so long was the sweetest kind of torture. Each breath she took, I felt in every part of my body, in some areas more than others. Really inappropriate, but she always had a powerful hold over me. Common sense jumped out the window.”

Judging a Book By Its Cover

They say not to judge a book by it's cover, but, in my experience, judging a book by it's cover has proven to be a good thing  for me. I bought One Night With a Rock Star BECAUSE of the cover.

 I hadn't heard anything about it, and I hadn't even read the reviews about it on Goodreads. I just bought it and started reading it. And it was REALLY good.

I had heard a little bit about Daughter of Smoke and Bone, but not that much. I saw the cover and decided that I wanted to read it.

I usually decide to read a book based on their COVERS. All that stuff about judging a book by it's cover is total BS. It's the publisher's job to create the covers, and when the covers are appealing to me, I usually buy them, just to see how good the book is.

I had read ONE SHORT review of The Oppurtunist and decided to read it AFTER I saw the cover.

In my opinion, you should judge a book by it's cover, because the cover is what interests the reader first. If you're a publisher, make an interesting book cover, and it will attract more readers.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Trailer!!

http://movies.yahoo.com/video/hunger-games-catching-fire-trailer-211105191.html

OMG, THE CATCHING FIRE TRAILER IS HERE, AND HAS WAY BETTER EFFECTS THAN THE HUNGER GAMES! GO WATCH IT, OMG, IT LOOKS SO COOL!!! IT IS AWESOME!

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is such an amazing trailer! I thought that they were gonna screw up, and make the special effects look fake (like in The Hunger Games), but the effects are way better! It looks so cool! If I hadn't read the book, and hadn't planned on seeing it anyway, after seeing the trailer, I would have planned on seeing it, it's that good! Of course, I planned on seeing it, anyway. It comes out two days before my birthday, which is pretty much an early birthday present from the creators of the movie, to me! It looks so cool, you should go watch it, and plan on seeing it! It looks fantastic, and OMG THE WEDDING DRESS! IT WAS SUCH A COOL TRANSFORMATION, AND IT LOOKED REAL! GO WATCH THE TRAILER!

Playlist: One Night With a Rock Star by Chana Keefer

This is the playlist I created/thought up for One Night With a Rock Star by Chana Keefer. Hope you enjoy!

Songs:
Red by Taylor Swift
Skyscraper by Demi Lovato
Timeless by The Airborne Toxic Event
State of Grace (acoustic) by Taylor Swift
Bleeding Out by Imagine Dragons
Demons by Imagine Dragons
Poison and Wine by The Civil Wars
Sad Beautiful Tragic by Taylor Swift
Hall of Fame by The Script ft. will.i.am
The Lucky One by Taylor Swift
She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5
Fix You by Coldplay
I feel like Radioactive by Imagine Dragons is a song that Sky would sing. I don't know why. But. . . . I do

Do you have any suggestions for this song list? Let me know if you do! Hope you enjoy this list!

Playlist: The Lux Series by Jennifer L Armentrout

This is the playlist that I have created/thought up for Jennifer L Armentrout's book series The Lux Series. Hope you enjoy!

Songs:
Treacherous by Taylor Swift
Digital Rot by Tan Vampires
E.T. by Katy Perry
Skyscraper by Demi Lovato
Halo by Beyonce
Hot N Cold by Katy Perry
Lightning by The Wanted
One More Night by Maroon 5
Hello by Evanescence
Suit & Tie by Justin Timberlake
Just Give Me a Reason by P!nk ft. Nate Ruess
Shake Me Down by Cage The Elephant
Timeless by The Airborne Toxic Event
State of Grace (acoustic) by Taylor Swift
All To Well by Taylor Swift
Safe and Sound by Taylor Swift ft. The Civil Wars

Do you have any suggestions for this song list? Let me know if you do! Hope you enjoyed!

Friday Favorites: July 13-July 19, 2013

My favorite things from the third week of July, 2013.

Music:
Timeless- The Airborne Toxic Event
Changing- The Airborne Toxic Event
Digital Rot- Tan Vampires
State of Grace- Taylor Swift
State of Grace(acoustic) - Taylor Swift
Bleeding Out - Imagine Dragons
Get Your Guns - Jamie Campbell Bower
Waiting - Jamie Campbell Bower

Food:
Nectarines
Homemade Potato Salad
Waffles
Homemade Apple Pie
Cookies-N-Creame Ice Cream
Dutch Bros. White Chocolate Creame to Mint Freeze

Book
One Night With a Rock Rock by Chana Keefer

Netflix:
The Lorax
Bones
Fringe
Supernatural

Items:
The music on my phone
The airport
My couch
My bed (I'm a lazy person)
Talking to my youth leaders
Reading comments about books I've read
Sleeping (again with the lazy)

People:
Jamie Campbell Bower
Agent Booth
My Youth Leaders Matt and Julie
My Mom
Sky from One Night With a Rock Star
Chana Keefer


Those are my favorites from this week!

Origin Teasers from Jennifer L. Armentrout

These are all the Orgin teasers released from Jennifer L. Armentrout's fourth book in the Lux Series.

The shadow pulled away, moving forward quickly. My first instinct screamed Arum and to push away from it. I reached blindly for the obsidian necklace, realizing too late I didn’t have it anymore.

“You’re still having nightmares,” the shadow said.

At the sound of the familiar voice, fear gave way to rage so potent that it tasted like a battery acid. I was on my feet before I knew it.

“Blake,” I spat.

There probably will be one or two more teasers for Origin, but these are all the ones that are released as of July 18, 2013.

Review: One Night With a Rock Star by Chana Keefer

One Night With a Rock Star by Chana Keefer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

OMG, THE FEELS! I DON'T THINK THAT I CAN WAIT TILL 2015! I NEED MORE SSSSSSSKKKKKKKYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, now that I mostly got that out, damn it all to heck! Why, Sky, oh why would you do that?!


This is pretty much my reaction to the book. All. Throughout. The. Book.


I AM GOING TO GO CRAZY!

One Night With a Rock Star is an epic tale of meeting someone who you have dreamt about for a while, then falling in love with them, then having them ripped away for you. But, as you try to move on, you keep seeing them in everything that you do. It is a truly, truly wonderful book! It is wonderfully written, and even though this probably won't happen in real life, you can find that you relate to the main character, because her feelings for Sky are real feelings that normal people have and it just makes you want to root for them to be together. In the end everything is explained about why he did what he did and I think that that is a good things for novels to have. I am going to go cry now, because after you finish the book on Kindle, there is a glimpse into the second book, and now I am terrified of what is going to happen, and I feel so bad for both Esther and Sky, and I'm just caught in a wave full of FEELS! OH. MY. GOD. I AM GOING TO DIE. Someday, I will be found dead in my bedroom, and the cause of my death will be too much stress on my heart from it always skipping a beat when something exciting happens in books. WAY TO GO AUTHORS FOR KILLING ME!! If you have not read it, I am tell you to stop what you are doing, go to Amazon.com and buy One Night With a Rock Star. And, it's free. Go do it. You WILL NOT regret it!

BOOKTUBE-A-THON 2013

BOOKTUBE-A-THON starts today and these are the categories for BOOKTUBE-A-THON:

1) Read a classic
          I'm going to read The Giver
2)Finish a Series
     I'm going to try to finish the Iron Fey series. I've read every one except The Iron Knight
3)Read a book with over 500 pages
     I'm going to read Insurgent
4)Read a book that has been on your shelf the longest
      I'm going to read The 5th Wave
5)Read 300 pages a day
6) Listen to an Audio-book
     I don't listen to audio books, so I'll just count this as a loss.
7)Re-read a book
     I have already read the Giver and Insurgent, so I'm counting this one for number sixes loss.

BOOKTUBE-A-THON starts today, July 15th and ends July 21st, 2013

These are my books for BOOKTUBE-A-THON! Are you participating, and if so what are you going to read?

Vote for Daemon

http://ya-sisterhood.blogspot.com/2013/07/match-25-daemon-1-vs-dimitri-4.html?showComment=1373877058845#c4208607516166805892


GO VOTE FOR DAEMON BLACK SO THAT WE CAN GET A TEASER OF ORIGIN!!!!!!!
If Daemon wins the entire crush tourney, then we get the last few scenes of Opal in Daemon's POV!! HE NEEDS TO WIN THIS!!

Review: Graceling by Kristin Cashore

CONTAINS SPOILERS

Goodreads Preview:

His eyes, Katsa had never seen such eyes. One was silver, and the other, gold. They glowed in his sun-darkened face, uneven, and strange. She was surprised that they hadn't shone in the darkness of their first meeting. They didn't seem human....

Then he raised his eyebrows a hair, and his mouth shifted into the hint of a smirk. He nodded at her, just barely, and it released her from her spell.

Cocky, she thought. Cocky and arrogant, this one, and that was all there was to make of him. Whatever game he was playing, if he expected her to join him he would be disappointed.

In a world where people born with an extreme skill—called a Grace—are feared and exploited, Katsa carries the burden of the skill even she despises: the Grace of killing. She lives under the command of her uncle Randa, King of the Middluns, and is expected to execute his dirty work, punishing and torturing anyone who displeases him.

When she first meets Prince Po, who is Graced with combat skills, Katsa has no hint of how her life is about to change.

She never expects to become Po's friend.

She never expects to learn a new truth about her own Grace—or about a terrible secret that lies hidden far away...a secret that could destroy all seven kingdoms with words alone.

My Reaction:

AAAAAHHHHHH! Katsa and Po . . . . Then he's bloody . . . . Then he . . . . I'M SO SAD!!!!! Po is pretty much number two on my book boyfriends list right now, and I'm so sad and, like, in a book slump now because I can't start another book, because then I would feel like I'm cheating on that book or something. I always feel like that after I finish a book that I really like. Po is freaking amazing, and I feel so bad for Katsa because Po is so selfless when it comes to her and Bitterblue! He is . . . So perfect. . . and good looking. That never hurts. I can't believe that he ended up blind because of his fall! I didn't see that coming. Like, at ALL! I wasn't really surprised that he could read minds if the person was thinking about him. Kristin left a lot of hints about what his real Grace was, but I think she did that on purpose. Kristin knows what she is doing! This is the perfect debut novel, and I can't wait to read more of her books, and, though I consider it to be a standalone, I wouldn't mind reading Fire and Bitterblue. Such an amazing debut!! And the idea is totally original, which I admire a lot! I like how at the beginning, Katsa seems totally not human and doesn't really show any feeling other than irritation, but then as we read more, Katsa starts to feel more human. I also liked how the beginning of the book entertaining, because the beginning of the book always has to be strong and fun for me to read if I'm gonna read the rest of the books. It was an amazing story, and it was an amazing debut! Well done, Kristin Cashore!

Origin Teaser from Jennifer L. Armentrout!!!!!!

Because Daemon won two of his YA Crush tourney matches between him and Patch and him and Noah Shaw, Jennifer L. Armentrout released these teasers:

I'm so excited for the book! I can't wait till August! I need it, NOW!!!!!!!! If we all vote for Daemon, and he wins the entire crush tourney, Jen will write either the last chapter of Opal in Daemons POV, or the entire book of Opal in Daemons POV. He needs to win!

The Mortal Instruments Runes

I was drawing runes on my sister, and I wanted to draw real ones, which I didn't, but I thought I'd look them up. Here they are

ALL CREDITS TO WHOM THEY BELONG

Friday Favorites: June 30-July 6

These are my favorite things for the first week of July 2013.

Music

(album) A Book Like This - Angus and Julia Stone
National Anthem - Lana Del Rey
Diet Mtn Dew - Lana Del Rey
(album) Every Kingdom - Ben Howard
The One That Got Away - Katy Perry
(album) Some Nights* - fun.
                  *especially One Foot and Some Nights (both the intro and song)
Taylor - Jack Johnson

Food/Drink
French Onion Sun Chips
Peach Tea Snapple
Pineapple
Strawberries
Diet Mtn Dew
Salt and Vinager Chips
Grapes
Lemonade mixed with Sprite

Places
Foster Lake
My Aunt and Uncle's House
Youth Group

Objects
Red Nail Polish
Crackle Nail Polish
Netflix
The Mortal Instruments Runes
Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare
My Kindle
Tumblr
The Mortal Instruments German Trailer
Mike and Ike's
My bed
Swimming
Fourth of July fireworks
The sound of fireworks
Rue 21 perfume
The Sunshine (we don't get a lot of sun during the other seasons in Oregon)
polandbananaBOOKS (Xtine May) YouTube channel

Things I Like About Book Reviews

    One thing that I like to read when I read about book reviews, is that I like to see why the person likes or dislikes the book, like if the reviewer TELLS me what they liked and disliked about that book. Example with Onyx by Jennifer L. Armentrout: d the entire book, except for the character Blake and all his faulty actions. If they give an example like I just did (and that was legit), then they make me want to know what those actions are. Another thing that I like about book reviews is if the reviewer uses pictures or gifs to add emphasis on what they are trying to get across to you. Another thing with the gifs is that if they are of something that I know of, like a Supernatural gif, with Sam and Dean. It just makes more sense to me, because I know what was going on at the time of that episode, or what was happening in that moment. The minor things that I look for in a review is if they gives examples of w they can relate to the story. I know that sometimes I do that, and, to me, it shows that the story was relatable, rather than just saying that it. I know that sometimes it's hard to relate to characters that are, say, aliens, but if they act like they are humans, like Daemon and Dee Black do, it easy to relate to their emotions. Those are some of the things that I look for in a book review.

Picture of CassJayTuck

Top 5 Favorite Covers of Books I've Read

Insurgent

                                                          Daughter of Smoke & Bone

                                                               Clockwork Angel

                                                                    The Opportunist

                                                                     The Iron King

Review: The Elite by Kiera Cass

Let me just start off saying that I started reading this on the way to school on the bus, and when I got home I read it until 8:00 and finished it. That's how good it was. It kept me on the edge of my bed and I had to stay up till 10 doing my homework because I had put it off. I didn't like Maxon at some parts *cough* Celeste *cough* I thought that at some parts of the book after something happened to Marlee, America was really careless and reckless but I am just happy that she didn't get caught in the act of something stupid. As always, I hated Aspen, but that is a thing that I think all the reads of the book go through. I was really surprised at how it turned out in the end, with the amazing cliff hanger ending, and I love all the maids and how they stood up for all the things that America has done. Celeste was my least favorite part of the book, just because she is Celeste, and a mean person. I mean really, how mean can she get?! All in all, I thought that it was eloquently written and an amazing second book.