Weekly Wrap-Up + Stacking the Shelves (4)

I was gone this week while I did tons of errands, went to jury duty, saw Demi Lovato in concert, and was generally responsible. (FYI? Totally overrated.) Hope everyone had a wonderful week, and it'll be back to normal around here now :)

First, the winner of my FATED giveaway was...
Inky from Book Haven Extraordinaire!
Congrats Inky! Your book is on the way :)

Blog Tour of The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D by Nichole Bernier

A touching, powerful novel, though I wasn't quite the target audience. 3.5 Stars

PLUS, you can win a finished copy! Just click the link. US/Canada only.

Fierce Reads Tour Recap post!

I don't think I've ever met a funnier group of ladies.

Coming up next week...

A review of Something Like Normal by Trish Doller (spoiler: BRILLIANT), and tons of excitement in preparation for ALA!

Also, I'll be participating in the Midsummer's Eve Giveaway Hop that starts on June 20, so make sure to come back Wednesday!

And onto my shelves!

Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews.

Library

GREAT week in contemporaries!

7 Clues to Winning You by Kristin Walker

Breaking Beautiful by Jennifer Shaw Wolf
Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway

Being Friends With Boys by Tera Elan McVoy

From What I Remember by Stacey Kramer and Valerie Thomas

Won

The List by Siobhan Vivian

via Figment Fiction's Twitter List competition. Thank you, Figment!

Monument 14 ARC by Emmy Laybourne + fun bookmarks!

via Tera Lynn Childs and her #gimmeTLC twitter contest. Thank you so much, Tera!

NetGalley

I can't even tell you guys how excited I am by these titles.

Thank you so much Random House and NetGalley!

 

Every Day by David Levithan
Meant To Be by Lauren Morrill

Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo

What's on your shelves?

Leave your link and I'll hop by!

Fierce Reads Tour Recap!

Sooo I suck and forgot to take pictures when I was there - I know, I'm sorry! I was disappointed too. But I forgot because I was laughing too hard!

The Fierce Reads tour stop came to San Diego on June 6. We were lucky to not only have Anna Banks, Leigh Bardugo, Jennifer Bosworth and Emmy Laybourne present, but also Jessica Brody and Marissa Meyer! I'd only read Struck and Cinder before the tour, but all the books have been getting rave reviews and it was exciting to hear them speak about each one.

I won Struck from another blogger, but it hasn't come in yet :(

They showed the Tour Trailer and the book trailers (their names above link to each trailer!), with each author introducing and giving the inspiration behind their book after the trailer. They then opened up for questions and finished with a massive signing and swag spree.

The usual bullet point recap! (It's long this time since there were six authors to cover! You should see my notes, super scribbled and I had to make symbols for each author for shorthand.)

• Emmy says Monument 14, even though it is violent, has a lot of heart.
• Leigh had the idea for her book when she was staying at a friend's house and in the middle of the night was in the dark and scrabbling around for a light.
• Leigh started to think what if darkness were a place you couldn't leave and had to cross.
• Jessica considers herself "decisionally challenged" (her own term!), similar to her character in My Life Undecided.
• Her idea came while she was watching The Hills. She thought to herself, "I could make better decisions!"
• Marissa saw a contest on a website that gave a list of things that had to be included in a story; she wrote a "Sci-Fi Puss in Boots" story. She didn't win, but ran with the general idea.
• Marissa had a dream vision of Cinderella losing a foot rather than her shoe.
• Anna thinks the model in her trailer has sexy feet.
• Anna felt everything else was taken and taken well, so she chose to write about mermaids. She calls Of Poseidon a "cousin" of Little Mermaid.
• Marissa says Anna has great comic delivery. (and I have to agree!)
• Jennifer had to take Benedryl right before the event and was awesomely loopy/spacey.
• Struck came together really well and shortly after Hurricane Katrina.
• Jennifer says Mia (main character in Struck) is a piece of her, and figured if she put her character into an extreme situation, maybe she would get answers and find out something about herself.
• Leigh envisioned Shadow and Bone as a trilogy. Since it is a High Fantasy, there are a lot of places it can go.
• Emmy likes writing series because it allows her to create a continuous connection with readers.
• Jennifer says she wanted Struck to be a trilogy, though it is currently a stand-alone. At the time it was sold, trilogies were not popular.
• Jennifer has a title for Book 2 if it were to exist: Aftershock. (As someone who lives in Earthquake country, I heartily endorse that title!)
• Anna made several references to a Sasquatch novel. (For the record, I am totally for that!)
• Jennifer wrote 3 stories before getting published.
• Cinder is Marissa's first finished story - she's had 7 or 8 other attempts.
• Emmy has written 5 screenplays, but Monument 14 is her first story.
• Emmy was a comedian and actress - if you've seen Superstar (with Molly Shannon), she played the best friend.
• Of Poseidon is Anna's second novel, but her first one will be coming out later in the year - which she can't tell us about. (Such a tease!)
• Jennifer wanted to be Stephen King when she was younger.
• Leigh is a make-up and special effects artist, and has also worked as a journalist and copywriter.
• Emmy used to be a ghost writer for RL Stine - she wrote several of the "give yourself goosebumps" (choose your own adventure) books!

This group of authors is probably the funniest I've ever seen, because they each have their own little brand of dry, sarcastic humor - and it's very unassuming! They're all really well spoken (seriously - my note on Emmy Laybourne was 'strong, confident voice') and clear, it was awesome to hear them. They've all got their own version of humor.

Also, anyone else agree this is possibly the most attractive tour group ever?! Because damn, yo.

And of course, they are awesome and signed everything that was asked of them. I'm constantly grateful and amazed at authors for the patience and smiles they have for us readers.

I saw after the event I forgot to have Marissa sign it :(

Since I didn't have any of Jessica's books or Of Poseidon yet, they signed a bookmark/book sampler. 

And the swag! I know it's a ton, but I grabbed two extras of most because of a future giveaway - two lucky people will get these plus more!

This was also an AWESOME event for me as a blogger because I finally got to see and meet other bloggers!
 > Sierra from Yearning To Read.
> Natasha.
> Jamie from The Lost Lola - awesome to meet her, but so short :( It's ok, next time we shall chat! (Also, you should check out her awesome post of fashion from Masque of the Red Death. So cool!)
> Lisa Cannon, from YA Know and I'm certain a future author!
> Andrea, Debra and Nikki, who I met at the YA or Bust signing a few months ago - I was a little nervous they wouldn't remember me, but it was a useless worry because they were just as friendly and fantastic as I remember.
> Jon Yang (maybe you've read his book Exclusively Chloe?), who is actually an author/blogger I've "e-known" for years - before I even had a book blog! It's rare for me to meet anyone who knows about my personal blog, so I was nervous - but all was fine, Jon is awesome and I'm glad we finally got to meet!

So, another successful author tour - and so much fun! Every author was wonderful, I loved all the people I finally got to meet/see again, and now I have a freakin' sweet stack of books to get crackin' on! I'm thinking I may have to go for Shadow and Bone first, because the cover art, map and reviews are too positive to ignore.

How COOL is that map?!

The remaining Fierce Reads tour dates/locations are below - and I highly recommend going if you can!

June 14: Naperville, Illinois | June 15: Lansing, Michigan | June 16: Pensacola, Florida

June 17: Rhinebeck, New York | June 18: New York, New York

[Blog Tour] Review + GIVEAWAY: The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D by Nichole Bernier

The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D by Nichole Bernier
Crown Publishing Group, 309 Pages
US Release Date: June 5, 2012
Format: Finished Copy
Source: Publisher, via TLC Book Tours (thank you Crown & TLC!)
Purchase: Amazon | The Book Depository | Barnes & Noble

Before there were blogs, there were journals. And in them we’d write as we really were, not as we wanted to appear. But there comes a day when journals outlive us. And with them, our secrets.

Summer vacation on Great Rock Island was supposed to be a restorative time for Kate, who’d lost her close friend Elizabeth in a sudden accident. But when she inherits a trunk of Elizabeth's journals, they reveal a woman far different than the cheerful wife and mother Kate thought she knew.

The complicated portrait of Elizabeth—her troubled upbringing, and her route to marriage and motherhood—makes Kate question not just their friendship, but her own deepest beliefs about loyalty and honesty at a period of uncertainty in her own marriage. 

The more Kate reads, the more she learns the complicated truth of who Elizabeth really was, and rethinks her own choices as a wife, mother, and professional, and the legacy she herself would want to leave behind. When an unfamiliar man’s name appears in the pages, Kate realizes the extent of what she didn’t know about her friend, including where she was really going on the day she died. 

Set in the anxious summer after the September 11th attacks, this story of two women—their friendship, their marriages, private ambitions and fears—considers the aspects of ourselves we show and those we conceal, and the repercussions of our choices.
--------------------------------Goodreads summary

Notable Quote

The single greatest point of interest about a woman's thirty-eight years was not what she had done, but what she hadn't told anyone she'd done.

As the daughter of a military man, I'll readily admit that sometimes my world view can be narrow despite a long list of world I've seen. My life revolved around my father's job and the military and the role they play, so it's natural for me to consider a Post-9/11 world in those terms. I think of war, lost sons and daughters, fighting, deployment, security codes and colours. But The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D opened up an entirely new world in the Post-9/11 word to me: the one of a person not directly involved, but still wholly affected. A world filled with scary news, horrifying tactics, the constant reminder of vulnerability and the question of protection, not prevention.

I'm going to be upfront about this: I'm not the target audience for this book. I'm not a mother, a wife, an East Coast suburban woman. I don't have a sister, I don't know the struggles of family, marriage, juggling a career with kids. And for that purpose, I had a hard time getting into the book. I'm at a completely different point in my life and have no experience with most of the situations in the book, which made it difficult for me to relate. What little parts I could were difficult because I felt my personality was so different from Kate. She's measured, a bit brash and a lot quiet. The way she approaches relationships, partnerships and her life is completely different from the way I do. It was frustrating for a lot of the book, because I would have handled so many things differently than she does. I also felt like Kate was quite cynical and negative, which was bothersome.

Despite my lack of connection to Kate and our differences, I can still recognize the value of the story. This one is strong. It's sad, and raw, and I applaud Nichole Bernier for confronting those feelings we're not only afraid to admit to, but feel guilty to have. There were times my heart went out for her, like a friend going through a hard time that I wanted to hug; and there were times I could feel her fear. A lot of the time I hated how much she let the news affect her, but I can see that a lot of people will share her feelings.

I did enjoy the slow reveal about Elizabeth and getting to see her real life unfold within the context of how Kate knew her. It really makes you think about how much and how closely you can possibly know a person, since what you're seeing is what has been given to you. We take for granted that what we see is what we get, even though most of us know how untrue that is. Just consider yourself - how many people see every facet of you? What do you hide from someone, and why? They're difficult questions to confront, and I think Nichole Bernier did it wonderfully.

If you're looking for a strong novel about friendship, family and relationships, The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D is for you. It'll make you feel and cry; it'll make you cherish what you have; it may make you see the world a bit differently. Most of all, you'll find the courage to examine what's presented and hidden, what's been offered and concealed for what reasons, and most of all, the 'why.'

 3.5 Stars / 5

And thanks to Crown Publishing, you can win a copy! 

US/Canada only, no PO Boxes allowed (sorry, publisher rules!)

Enter through the rafflecopter below, and all my giveaway policy rules apply. Good luck!

Ends 6/30

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Nichole Bernier is author of the novel THE UNFINISHED WORK OF ELIZABETH D, and has written for magazines including Elle, Self, Health, and Men's Journal. A 14-year contributing editor for Conde Nast Traveler, she was previously on staff as the magazine's golf and ski editor, columnist, and television spokesperson. She received her master's degree from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, and is one of the founders of the literary blog Beyond the Margins. Nichole lives outside Boston with her husband and five children.

Twitter | Facebook | Website | Beyond the Margins

(Bio via Amazon)

The Weekly Wrap-Up + Stacking the Shelves (3)

**Reminder: Sunday is the last day to enter my giveaway for an ARC of Fated by Alyson Noel!

This week was a bit different, because I participated in Armchair BEA!

Introduction post

Favourite Books of 2012: So Far and Yet To Come!

Networking In Real Life

Bookish Things Beyond the Blog (with some fun facts about me!)

Waiting on Wednesday: Speechless by Hannah Harrington

The cover played hide-and-seek with us.

Next week is going to be slow around here: no memes, but a fun blog tour (with giveaway!), my extremely late Fierce Reads Tour recap, and perhaps finally getting my 6-month blogoversary giveaway up! I've got a really busy week coming up (and absolutely none of it has to do with books - how sad is that!?) with a concert, tons of timely errands, and jury duty (boo!), so I won't be posting. But I'll still be around, still be reading, and I'll be back on the 18th!

**I'm also going to spend the week responding to all the comments from the past week - I did my best to visit each commenters' posts/blogs when they came in, and now I'll finally respond to each one here :)

Onto my shelves!

Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews

Purchased

[For the Fierce Reads tour]

Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

NetGalley

Butter by Erin Jade Lange
I'm on a NG ban until I can catch up, but I just had to get this when I saw it - dying to read!
Thanks Bloomsbury and NetGalley!

Won/Gifted

[won] The Mapmaker and the Ghost ARC by Sarvenaz Tash + bookmark (signed!)

from the amazing Christina at A Reader of Fictions

Thanks so much, Christina!

[won] Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi + bookmark (both signed!)

from the awesome Shanon at Escaping With Fiction

Under the Never Sky is one of my favourite books (read my review here!), but I read it from the library - so happy to finally own a copy now!

Thanks so much, Shanon!

[gifted] For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund bookmark

from Natasha! I wish you could see how beautiful it is in real life.

Thanks so much, Natasha!

[gifted] Such A Rush by Jennifer Echols bookmarks

Two future winners will win some of these, too!

Thanks so much Jennifer!

Swag

And all the swag acquired from the Fierce Reads tour!

I know it's a lot, but it's because I grabbed extra for an upcoming giveaway! (Stay tuned for that...and for my Fierce Reads recap post...)

What's on your shelves?
Leave your link and I'll hop by!

Armchair BEA: Bookish Things Beyond the Blog + Fun Facts

Today's topic is Beyond the Blog: has your book blog opened up any opportunities to you beyond your blog? Maybe writing for real publications? How about monetizing off your blog? Or pushed you further somehow in writing or pursuing what you love to do? Share some tips or your story about extending your blog and bookish life past it! And if this DOESN'T apply to you, it's a free topic: share an aspect of your life that's completely separate from books/blogging!

I'm going to cheat and do both, since I don't have much to say for the first one. I haven't monetized off the blog; maybe one day I'll set up an Affiliate program through Amazon or TBD, but right now I don't have any intention of doing so. And I don't expect to try and monetize with ads or going "professional." While it'd be nice for a publication to pay me and print a review, it would change the way I write; I'm a trained journalist, but I keep a lot of that learned craft out of blog reviews. It's purposeful to keep reviews very casual, with a lot of personal thoughts mixed in (and yes, I do curse on my blog - I do in real life, so I choose to put it on the blog*) because that's how I approach books and reading: with very personal views and connections. But I have done reviews for publications in my pre-blogging days, and it's entirely different in voice and technique. For now, I'm happy doing what I do the way I'm doing.

The one way blogging has influenced my bookish life though is that it got me back into writing. I've always been a writer, since before I could properly pick up a pencil. For varying reasons, some very personal and others just trivial, I stopped in the last few years. I still kind of kept it up, did NaNo every year, but never took it seriously or really figured out a plot/outline. But that changed when I read Nina LaCour's The Disenchantments (review here!) - her writing style and subtle meaning reminded me exactly what I love about writing and reignited that passion. Shortly after, one of those lingering plot lines that'd been swimming around my head came back and practically shouted a direction at me. I'm quite happy to say that I'm back to writing, with an idea that I quite like :)

So, my blog doesn't extend much past itself - but I like it that way! I do look forward to reading others' posts about it though, maybe there are other aspects I had no idea about!

And since that wasn't much, I thought I'd tack on some random facts about me completely unrelated to books! It was surprisingly tough - pretty much everything I do leads back to books somehow - but I managed to scrape up some Fun Ashley Facts :)

• I am an awesome person to know for 6 degrees of separation. Somehow it always works out that I know someone who knows someone and can lead you to who you want to get to. And yes, I can get you to Kevin Bacon. In 4 degrees.
• I speak English, French and Italian. I can understand Spanish.
• I'm a nail polish-aholic. I own 120+ bottles, a whole rainbow of colours, and insist on changing my nail colour at least 3 times a week. I love how it's such a small part of you that can speak loudly.
• I bake. A lot. I started in college because it relaxed me, and I've loved it ever since. I make a mean peanut butter cookie.
• Related: I don't like peanut butter! Hate it. Can't stand the smell, taste, texture, all of it. So I've never actually tasted my own peanut butter cookies! People just request them all the time.
• I love the NFL. Give me a good football game any night and I'm a happy girl.
• Music is big in my life. I sang in every school choir, my family and I play several instruments, and I'm usually listening to something at any time of the day. Not a moment goes by without some sort of tune in my head.

What are your tips to go beyond the blog?

Leave your link in my comments!

(and if you're not doing Armchair BEA, tell me a random non-bookish fact about you!)

*Gayle Forman's awesome response/opinion on cussing in YA.

Armchair BEA: Real Life Bookish Experiences

Today's prompt is "to share a positive "real life" experience with books! Either by way of your own partnerships in your community, a book signing you went to or possibly even a get together with fellow book bloggers. Tell us all about it!"

*If you visited between midnight and 4am PST, read again! This is an entirely new post! I didn't think my original post fit the prompt that well, so I scrapped it and wrote a whole new one :) Thanks!

Truthfully, I don't have much experience networking outside of my blog - I'm still relatively new, and I've been hesitant to really embrace the title of Book Blogger, for some reason. I've been fortunate enough to go to a ton of author events (all shared here!), but I haven't really ever put myself out there as a Book Blogger and specifically met up with people as a direct result.

I can tell you that one of the most fun things I've done that was a result of being a Book Blogger was Rock the Drop (read my recap here!). For those that don't know what it is, it's a specific day hosted by Readergirlz that's meant to promote teenage reading. Basically, you donate books by leaving them around your community to take - for FREE! You can't guarantee a teen will take it, but I tried to choose specific places I knew they hung around: my old high school, the local Boys & Girls Club, the library during after school hours. It's oddly thrilling to be leaving a gift of a book for someone. I revisited most of my drop sites an hour or two after I dropped them, and they were all taken! It was fun to meet up on Twitter with others who were participating, and I think I've actually gotten 2 buddies for next year to go around my city and Rock the Drop with me. The only reason i knew about it was through some book blogger friends participating, and then I decided to get involved. So, not quite Networking Offline…yet!

Screencapped from their Facebook page.

I actually think most of my Networking has yet to come - but I know it's coming! Tonight is the Fierce Reads tour stop in San Diego, and this is my first author event I'm attending where I specifically know 3 (maybe 4! Please go Jon!) bloggers who will also be there, and we're intending to say hi and meet for the first time. Which will be a lot of fun, I'm so excited to meet them!

The next thing that I know is coming is ALA Annual! This will be the first year I'm attending, and I'm SO excited. I'm practically giddy at the thought of chatting with real people in the publishing industry and meeting up with industry professionals, book bloggers, and other authors. My dream is to surround myself with books, and this is pretty close to it, don't you think? I'm going to be going to The Great YA Blogger Meet Up hosted by YA Highway and Stacked Books, and I'm really looking forward to meeting and mingling there. (If you're going to the conference and/or Meet Up, tell me! I'd love to meet you!)

Which, attending ALA is a weirdly indirect result of being a Book Blogger and sort of an Offline Networking thing. To make an incredibly long story short (you can read the whole exciting story here!), I went to an author event that was moderated by Kirsten Hubbard, the author of Wanderlove. As mentioned yesterday, Wanderlove is my top 2012 read -- and when I was reading the ARC, I was seriously HARASSING poor Kirsten on Twitter because I couldn't stop tweeting her about how amazing the book was. Usually I don't do that, but I just could not help myself with her book - it was that good. Kirsten recognized me from Twitter and we started chatting before and after the event. Cutting out several details and moments of happenstance, I ended up hanging out with her and a few of her friends for the rest of the night - which was AMAZING and I'm still in awe that it happened. BUT anyhow, how this relates specifically: I had entirely separate conversations each with Kirsten, Cindy Pon, Debra Driza*, and Shannon Messenger and they were each very adamant that going to conferences were the best places to really meet people in the book industry. They all recommended BEA and ALA, as well as SCBWI (if you're a writer as well), Comic-con, and other smaller conferences. I'd always considered going to ALA, but hearing the insistence from them was definitely a driving force as to me pushing to go.

Basically, I have a really exciting June lined up because of my blog and the want to Network. I don't quite have real stories to tell yet, but I have the prospect of them - and that in itself is something quite exciting!

What's your real life experience?

Leave your link in the comments!

(and if you're not doing Armchair BEA, tell me one event you would DIE to attend!)

*I would post Debra Driza's Mila 2.0 cover, but it technically hasn't been officially released. Don't want to perpetuate the leak!