Would You Rather Book Tag!

  Hi!! Sorry I didn't post last weekend!! My cousin Lainey and my grandma spent the weekend with us and posting completely slipped my mind... Plus I couldn't think of what to post, and I still couldn't think of one for this weekend, but thankfully my friend Sierra helped me out by tagging me in the Would You Rather tag on 26 Countless Possibilities!

  Read Only Trilogies or Stand-alones?  
  
  I think I would probably say trilogies.....just because I get more of the story that way!

  Read Only Male or Female Authors? 

  Um......considering most of my favorite books are written by male authors, I'm gonna go with male.....even though choosing between the two would stink!

  Shop at Barnes and Noble or Amazon?

  I haven't been happy with Amazon when I've bought books in the past, and Barnes and Noble is where I got my signed copy of Magnus Chase, so I'm gonna say Barnes and Noble! Even though I never go there......  

  All Books Become Movies or TV Shows? 

  Um.......It really depends on the accuracy.....Little House on the Prairie was made into a TV show, which wasn't too bad.....but then you have movies that are really accurate and then you have movies that are so bad you can barely watch them if you compare them to the books........I'm gonna go with movies for this one though!

  Read Five Pages a Day or Five Books a Week? 

  Five books a week!!! I would never be able to only read five pages a day! I would be so bored!!!  

  Be a Professional Reviewer or Author?

  Definitely author.....I would love to be an author.....and reviewing is fun, but writing is (usually) way more fun!

  Only Read Your Top 20 Favorite Books Over and Over Again, or Always Read New Ones You've Never Read Before?

  Um..........That's really hard..... My first thought would be to say my 20 favorite books......so we're gonna leave it at that for now!

  Be a Librarian or Book Seller? 

  LIBRARIAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I want to be a librarian so badly!!!!!!!!

  Only Read Your Favorite Genre(s), or Anything But Your Favorite? 

  Favorite genres definitely!

  Only Read Physical Books, or E-Books? 

  Physical books!!!! I prefer actual books for so many reasons!

  I Tag: Anyone who wants to do it!!!!!


This one was really fun!!!!!!!!!!

First Review of the Year!! Into the Deepwoods by Paul Stewart (The Edge Chronicles - Book 1)

Okay, so I'm not sure if I'm gonna review every single book that I read.......but I really wanted to write a review on this one!!

About the book - Young Twig lives in the Deepwoods, among the Woodtrolls, but he isn't one of them. In a brave attempt to find out where he belongs, Twig wanders into the mysterious, dangerous world beyond the Deepwoods. He meets a collection of odd companions, such as his wise guardian, the Caterbird; the slaughterers, a peaceful race who butcher animals for their livelihood; and the vicious, bile-swilling rotsucker. Always watching out for the horrible Gloamglozer, whose presence haunts the thoughts of all the inhabitants of The Edge, Twig steadfastly pursues his quest until he discovers his roots, not among the trees, but in the skies....

Pages - 278 (according to Goodreads) 

Genre(s) - Fantasy

Age range - 13+ (depending on the person reading it...)

POV - Third person - Twig - 13 - Main character

Stars - 4/5 (because of the last four chapters.....read review for explanation...) 

Review - Okay, first of all, this book is really weird........It definitely takes some getting used to.... so this book has its good sides and its bad sides. First, this book is a little violent....and there are illustrations in this book that possibly would've given me nightmares if I was younger.... I showed one of the pictures to a couple of my friends and they both agreed that it was pretty creepy. Another thing I didn't really like about the book was that as soon as Twig would get out of one dangerous situation, he'd end up right in another one. I understand that the Deepwoods are very dangerous when you stray from the path, but this continued on through most of the book and I felt that it should've been spaced out a bit more. Now there were only fourteen chapters in this book, therefore the reason I finished it in two days - that and the way it was written was pretty easy to read, but anyway, it took me ten chapters to really get into this book and want to read the second one (which I own along with this one)....the last four chapters are when the most interesting (in my opinion) characters (*cough* pirates *cough*) came in and it drew me in a lot faster than the other ten chapters did...up until chapter ten I wasn't really sure about this book.....I didn't want to give it three stars, but I wasn't sure if I liked it enough to give it four.....but the last four chapters helped me make up my mind in favor of the fourth star and also in favor of reading the second book (which is now in my book jar!) 

~Allie~

Btw - This story gave me an idea for a story, so that's another good thing! XD (Except for the fact that I have a bunch of other stories I'm supposed to be working on.....)

Books Read in December!!

  Okay, so I can't believe I'm already doing a post for the books that I read in December........It's so hard to believe that it's 2016 already!! Okay, so I read a total of nine books in December! That sounds really small, but I think it's a pretty good number for a month.....

   So on the 9th I finished The Isle of the Lost (Book 1 of the Descendants series)  by Melissa De La Cruz! I borrowed this book from my friend Abby who loved it so much that she wanted to restart it immediately after she finished it and I have to say that I really felt the same way!!! I was not expecting to enjoy this book as much as I did but I loved it! I almost didn't want to give it back.....XD I can't wait for the next one to come out! In case you haven't already guessed, I gave this book 5/5 stars on Goodreads :)





  On the 15th I finished The Sword of Summer (Book 1 of the Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard trilogy) by Rick Riordan! I definitely was not disappointed by Annabeth's cousin!!! And I love the characters so much already even though it's only the first book! I can't believe that I have to wait until October (at least!) for The Hammer of Thor!! I also gave this one 5/5
stars on Goodreads!

  On the 16th I finished Escape From Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein! This was an e-book from my library! Okay, so either this book was really short, or I just loved it so much that I read it in a day.....both are possible because I absolutely loved this book!!! The characters mentioned so many books that I've read and it takes place in an amazing library so of course it held my attention!! I gave this one 5/5 stars too! 

                       I actually finished three books on the 17th.......first, I finished up Cinder (Book 1 in The Lunar Chronicles) by Marissa Meyer for the second time....it had been over a year since I read it first and I wanted to reread it before I read Scarlet (book 2), which I unfortunately had to take back to the library before I could read it, but it's in my calendar as one of my 2016 reading challenge books! After Cinder, I read The Case of the Time-Capsule Bandit (Book 1 of  the Randi Rhodes, Ninja Detective series) by Octavia Spencer! This one was another e-book from the e-book library! This book was surprisingly good and I was pleasantly surprised when I realized that the author is an actress from a movie that I love! (Insurgent!) The last book I read on the 17th was The Island of Dr. Libris by Chris Grabensein. Another e-book! I was expecting to love this one as much as I loved Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library, but I actually had a hard time even giving this one the amount of stars that I did.....I had a hard time getting into this one.....I gave all three of these books 4/5 stars! 

                         

On the 18th I finished In a Blink (Book 1 in The Never Girls series) by Kiki Thorpe. I saw this one on the e-book library and thought I'd give it a try, but I was definitely disappointed.....This book was really short and it wasn't very well written at all....I gave this one 3/5 stars and it takes a lot for me to give three stars.....

On the 24th (Christmas Eve!) I finished The Arch of Avooblis (Book 1 in the Adventurers' Academy series) by Charles Streams. Once you get past the kinda weird title, this book was actually pretty good! A lot of people on Goodreads were saying that this was a lot like Harry Potter...and I definitely agree with them on some points such as there being different groups and the boys and girls being separated in towers by gender and what year they were in. However this book has characteristics that makes it differ from Harry Potter in many ways and I plan on reading the next one when I get the chance :) I gave this one 4/5 stars!  

Finally, on the 29th, I finished The Angel Experiment (Book 1 in the Maximum Ride series) by James Patterson! This book was very good and is currently being loaned to my best friend Shelby (she calls me her book dealer...XD) and I plan on reading the second one soon! I love all of the kids, each for different reasons, and I can't wait to get more of them!! 

~Allie~ 

Goodreads Tag!

  Hi again!! So my friend Sierra tagged me in this tag on her blog 26 Countless Possibilities! And this is one that I was determined to complete since I love Goodreads and use it a lot!! So here it is!!

  What is the last book you read? 

The Storybook of Legends by Shannon Hale! First book in the Ever After High: Storybook of Legends series! Way better than the show I have to say.... 

What book are you currently reading? 

Okay, so I have multiple, but I have decided to just put Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes by Rick Riordan instead of all four....XD 

What is the last book you marked as To-Be-Read? 

The Rescue by Gordon Korman! Book three in the Kidnapped series.....I have the others on my list too, but this one was the most recent! 

What book do you plan on reading next? 

Ummmm......That depends entirely upon whenever I finish the books I'm reading right now and what title I pull out of my book jar.....

Do you use the star-rating system? 

Of course!!!! I love it!!

Do you have a 2016 reading goal? 

I do!!! I'm gonna try for 100 books this year!!!! 

What book(s) do you plan on buying next? 

I'm not entirely sure.....I don't usually plan what I buy....I usually just browse and if I see a book I want and it's a good price I'll buy it! 

What's your favorite quote? 

Okay, so total nerd moment, but the only one I can think of is when Leo says "One basketball to rule them all" in The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan.....XD It's my favorite character and my favorite book series....not to mention it's a Lord of the Rings reference! 

Who are your favorite authors? 

Rick Riordan, Richard Paul Evans, J.K. Rowling, Gordon Korman, Veronica Roth, Suzanne Collins, and Erin Hunter! 

Are you part of any Goodreads groups? 

I'm part of a couple, but I don't get on them at all.....I should look at some of the others though....

What could Goodreads do better? 

I wish it was easier to keep track of how many times you've read a book....I have to be on my laptop to view the extra details to put in how many times I've read the book and I use my phone more than my laptop when it comes to Goodreads.....That's all I can think of right now....

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Okay, that's all!! This is the part where I'm supposed to tag someone, but I don't know anyone else who has a blog that I can tag...... Therefore, anyone is completely free to do this, and if you want to, consider yourself tagged!!! If you do end up doing it, I would love to check out your blog and your answers so please comment with a link! 

~Allie~ 

Happy New Year!!!!!!

  Okay, so new year, new attitude towards blogging on time! XD I'm going to change my attempt from posting every day to just posting on the weekends if I can....Because I am determined to stay caught up in my schoolwork this semester and I'll never end up posting on the weekdays anyway unless I'm wide awake and really bored with nothing else to do and have the want to write....XD So, I meant to write a post with all of the books I read in November, and I started it, but I never finished it and it's too late now....so I'm gonna post a December Read post this weekend! My friend Sierra from 26 Countless Possibilities  tagged me in a Goodreads Tag so I'll post that one tomorrow! :D

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  I just realized that I need to show off my beautiful books that I got for Christmas!! 

 

The one in the center is Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes by Rick Riordan! I obviously love everything Percy Jackson, so I have pretty high expectations for this book! The one above Greek Heroes is Disney Lands by Ridley Pearson! It's the first book in the series Kingdom Keepers: The Return which is a sequel series to the Kingdom Keepers! The book on the left is Storm of Lightning by Richard Paul Evans!! It's the fifth book in the Michael Vey series and I can't wait to read it!!!!!!! I'm soooo excited for it!!!!! Finally, the book on the right is Path of Stars by Erin Hunter! It's the last book in the Warriors: Dawn of the Clans series and I'm really curious to see how they end it! (I'm also really excited about the new Warriors series that will be coming out this year!!) 

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   Since I have this post already open, I'll add which books I'm currently reading! I'm currently in the middle of four cause that's apparently just how I roll.....XD

  The first book I'm reading is Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes by Rick Riordan! This one is about the Greek Heroes like Perseus, Jason, and Atalanta and so far it's really good! I love Percy's comments! I'm currently on page 92 out of 412!

  The second book I'm reading is City of Bones by Cassandra Clare! City of Bones is the first book in The Mortal Instruments series! I actually got the first four books in this series for Christmas too, but I don't currently have a pic which really stinks because the covers are amazing!! I'll have to add a pic on another post one day! I'm currently only on page 60 out of 485.......but I plan on reading more of it soon!!!

  The third book I'm reading is The Menagerie by Tui T. Sutherland and Kari Sutherland! This one is the first book in the Menagerie series! The Menagerie is a book that I got from my library's e-book library! I'm a huge fan of the e-book library since we don't go to the library as much since my dad doesn't get off from work until it's too late to make it to the library most days and I haven't gotten my permit yet! (I'm working on it though!!) I actually don't know how far in page-wise or percentage-wise I am in this book since the e-book version doesn't tell me, which is my only complaint about the e-book library so far.... But I do know that I'm on chapter 10 out of 34!

  The last book that I'm currently reading is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen! I was supposed to read this one for school but I didn't get the chance to finish it before I had to take it back to the library... And I really enjoyed what I had read so I decided to get it on my Kindle to finish it! I love that the Kindle store gives you the classics for free!! I don't know what it is about this book that makes me enjoy it so much considering there are some words that I have to look up because I'm not sure what they mean.... I think it's the way it's worded.....Now that I'm older I actually appreciate (it took me a minute to think of that word......this is what I get for writing a blog post at two in the morning....) the older style of writing more.....It's part of what made me fall in love with Anne of Green Gables when I read it a second time a few months ago!

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  Okay, lastly before I finish this blog post.....I'm going to attempt to do a 2016 reading challenge that I found on Facebook! It's a checklist with twelve prompts for books (one for each month) and I already have the books I want to read put into the calendar on my phone! This month's book prompt is "A Book I Should've Read For School" which is going to be Pride and Prejudice since I've started it and I was supposed to read it last year! Okay! That's it for now! I'll try and post more this weekend!!

~Allie~ 

BTW - I tried out a thing to divide my post into different parts with the little star things (whose name escapes me...) and I really like how it looks, so I think I'll use it from now on when I have multiple different things to say! 

BTW #2 - If you got any books or book related things for Christmas, I would love to hear about it if you want to comment and tell me!