New Year, New Resolutions

 It 2014!!!!
   And you know what that means its time for new years resolutions, that let's face it more often than not people drop it by the time summer comes around, new goals to meet, a chance to look at everything in a fresh way and give it a new start.

   This last year I made a few goals I wanted to meet. The obvious one lose weight, and I was too, I lost some weight though not as much as I hoped and gained back a little sadly right around when the dog wanted to start waking me up barking at God knows what time in the morning, I do NOT like being woke up with something annoying like this dogs barking, and it echoes!!!! So that being said I've been waking up in no mood to workout.
   I also wanted to make a change in life and that though it happened later in the year I met with starting this blog. Though starting this isn't quite the change I was thinking of it still is a change, its something that I will have to keep actively involved on and I know I started out strong and the last couple months have been dull but I'm hoping that was just a floozy, mixed with a little readers slump. I am so glad that I started this its giving me a purpose and putting my option out there, weather anyone read it is just a plus. So making a change in my life, step one met!


   Now for this years!!!

   Well the obvious one again, lose weight, lol. One of the first few things I'm going to do is cut my hair, Yikes!, just kidding about the yikes, but I am cutting my hair and I plan to cut it short, shorter than I've had it in a very, very long time, I'm not going Britney Spears, but it needs to get cut, drastically. I'm trying to get some body back in my hair, I tried a couple things even cut it, though not short, and now I think that my last thing to do is to just chop it, donate it of course something I always do when I cut off more then a few inches, find a good shampoo and hope for the best, its also a good way to start fresh with a new look, maybe it can be counted as step two to making a change in my life. New look can bring a new attitude which brings a fresh look on things.

  I have a few others but this is a BOOK blog so how bout I tell you my blog and reading goals now.

   This year I'm participating in the TBR Challenge, and looking for others to join, I'm sure there's tons out there. I'm going to start doing some blog book tours, though not too many want to start out slow and get the hang of them so be on the look for those.
   I don't want to just be reading eBooks now that I have my NEW tablet, I actually like holding a book and turning the page, so far I've only found one app that looks like I'm turning the page but I don't like other factors of it is the thing, anyway, also I have some books I've recently got and have had for a while that I should get to, soo and this may not happen that soon as I am so enjoying my NEW tablet (by the way I'm sorry for keep on calling it my New tablet I'm just so happy I have one I promise it'll stop, at some point, lol) but I'm thinking I could read a book during the day and an eBook at night, reading an eBook at night I don't need a light on and so I wont fall asleep with my it on, lol, now I know I'm not the only one out there who reads in bed and falls asleep with their lamp/flashlight/book lights/whatever on all night.

   Most everyone does a book haul of some kind, however I want to start going to the library again, actively this year. I may get a physical book or get a ebook from the library, depends on if I find the books I actually want at the library. But I'm going to start a little feature for my Library Hauls. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to go once a month or every two weeks, guess it really depends on how many books I get, I will make it a consecutive day though so its not all over the place I'm thinking Mondays its the start of the week after all. One of the first few books I want to find is The Host, the movie is on Netflix and I kinda want to see it, but I wont till I read it.

   There's one more thing that I want to do this year as I'm sure everyone knows last July there was a lot along the lines of Harry Potter! What with the new special book cover, the anniversary, and of course his birthday. I even fond out somethings I did not know. I also realized I have not read the books in ages, I mean AGES, so I kind of made myself a little vow that I would read the books. I read the first one already. However I want to make that little vow more official by proclaiming it on here. I am vowing not to watch the movies till I finish the book! This is already being hard to do as I miss the movies! But do it I shall. What would really be perfect is if I can find the audio books at the library so I could read along with that, as from what I've heard the guy who read them did an amazing job with all the voices and everything. In fact I did listen to the audio book of the first one while I read along with it and loved it! I hope I can find it for all of them. So I'm thinking this vow needs something....I know, when I'm done with the book and I watch the movie how about I make a post and tell you something I didn't know, or forgot about, and things I learned about recently, how does this all sound! I'm sure this might be a challenge somewhere, as the books being so popular and that there are so many, I'm positive I'm not the first one to make a challenge or a vow like this and I'm sure I'm not going to be the last, but I'm doing it like this, if you want to join me do feel free!! There's just one more thing I think its missing, a goal date, anyone have any clue as to when that should be........hmmmmm
   I think I know the perfect date........how does Harry's birthday sound to everyone!!!!! And when I'm done I am sooooo having a Harry Potter movie-thon, lol. This is also perfect timing because Universal is adding to the Harry Potter world!! I wish I could go when they open it I want to take a ride on the Hogwarts Express.



   Oh guess what else, something I think is a great way that'll kick start the year and get my TBR Challenge to a good start.....It's the Bout of Books R.A.T 9.0!!!!!!! I participated in the last one they had and had so much fun, sooo I am signing up for this one now the first one of they year!! They have little mini challenges that you can do and a grand prize if you want to participate.  It starts on the 6th look for my goals post in the next few days! Hope to see you there!

Here is their little blurb about it:

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 6th and runs through Sunday, January 12th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 9.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

What are your resolutions for this year? Making any reading goals? Are you going to be joining any challenges or read-a-thons I would love to hear about them!~

Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

 

Just want to make a quick post. Hope everyone stays safe and enjoys their family.

 

I've got my tablet ♥

   Hey readers, sorry for such an empty November and December guys, been dealing with Thanksgiving and now Christmas and my cat was acting off recently, and got a little worried about her, she got better though, and sorry you guys my baby comes first. I hope that with the challenge I joined and others I hope to find and with features I want to start doing also I'm going to join a book tour site as I mentioned before still waiting for some votes on that you can see the choices here, that I'll keep better track and have something new for you all the time.

   Well as I'm sure you can tell by title I gave this post I finally got a tablet! And let me tell you I am LOVING IT!!! Though the app for blogger I do not like, I tried using it twice now and both times it didn't work out me, lol. I got a couple games, one of which I was addicted to for like 3 days straight before I got bored of it. I have also gotten a bunch of free ebooks, which I will list them at the end, and read a couple already, I already posted a review for one, I still need to write the review for the other. I'm having a hard time finding a carry case for it that I like, everywhere has cases yes but not one that you can carry it around in you know with a strap, after so long of looking at the different ones they all started looking the same. Which one did I get you ask? I spent a little more than I intended to but that little bit more got me a 16 GB instead of only 8 so I have plenty of room for TONS of books, haha. I got  the Dell Venue 8, little bit bigger than I was thinking of getting but a bigger screen is a bigger screen also as I said it has 16 GB.

   I already have a couple ereader apps I'm liking one called Aldiko, but those of you who have tablet/ereaders what's a good app to get, there's so many?
Now that I have a tablet I'm going to sign up for netgalley and get some arc books, however there's another one that I remember looking at a while a go but cant remember what its called. So if any of you know another let me know, thanks.

So list of books I got, these are all free. Pretty sure I've seen a weekly feature that lists free books of which I'll start doing, and I'll make a page that has them listed which I'll update frequently.
Sadly I've noticed that most the free ones are the first one in a series but doesn't offer the next one for free which is a little bit of a bummer but hey you win some you lose some.

You can find all of them on my goodreads shelf under free ebook.

Twisting of Grimm Tales

   Free eBook Unenchanted: An Unfortunate Fairy Tale by Chanda Hana is the first in the series. This is the only in the series that is free and unless the second one becomes free I don't plan on getting it.

   I felt this book had a lot of potential it put a new twist on the Grimm Tales by making them a curse for the Grimm family descendants to have to complete the tales. And so when the curse, 'THE STORY', finds Mina Grime, seemingly ordinary high school girl, however unpopular, unnoticed, and has one friend, and has a crush, of course, on the cutest guy at school. Mina finds out she's not so ordinary after all, she is in fact a descendant of non other than the Grimm brothers themselves.
   However I was disappointed with it, it lacked the since of realism and adventure for me. There were several things that bugged me about it, like for one Brody Carmichael, Mina's crush, is apparently from old money, his family is the richest in the state, now let me ask you why if this family is so rich, and get in the press often, would they have their son in a 'Public School'? Don't richer than rich people put their kids in a private or boarding school, that's where every know rich family I've ever heard of did, I couldn't quite get pasted that. I would of just had him be the son of some business owner or something, have money yes, but to be the richest in the state no. It was constantly said how broke Mina's family was that her mom cant even get her a cell, yet it was said that anytime something strange would happen, i.e. the story finding Mina, that she packed up and left, I get saving money for a rainy day, hack I do that, but if you know that there is this curse and its looking for your daughter wouldn't you want her to have a cell in case ohh I don't know say the big bad wolf were to attack her. So that's two things I couldn't quite get past.

   As I said I really enjoyed the concept. You can't look at the cover and not tell there's some kind of red riding hood thing that's going to go on but at the beginning it seemed to lead to Cinderella, I'll give you one guess why, so I thought ohh it put both of them together somehow and I was excited to see how that was going to work out. Even after her mom tells her about the curse and she tells her mom that she wants to face it and stop running, for the sake of her brother, Mina still thinks that if she tells her mom anything that she'll pack up everything and go, when I felt that she should talk to her because she was married to her dad, who died on one of the tales, and so knows some things. I get some of the reason why she doesn't want to tell her mom everything its because she already went through 'The Story' in a way and to have to go through it again, but that's not the main reason she doesn't tell her anything.
   In light of making it seem like this book wasn't to my liking, and though I knew that one day I  would eventually write a review for a book I didn't care for, I hate the idea of saying a book was bad, in fact I would never say that simply because the author had the imagination and took the time to write-and complete-a story which takes dedication, I cant say I didn't completely disliked it when the fact is I did like some things. Her friend Nan is so funny, there are a lot of times where I laughed. There's some action throughout the book but the best or it is at the end.

Not every tale has a happy ending. In fact, many of them are grim.

   If there was any reason to read it, it would be for the end there are a few twists I can honestly say I didn't see coming, and thought it was great how we got the save 'grandma' part of red riding hood, and finally, Finally, Mina stop questioning everything, steps up and goes with her gut to do what she knows she has to do and how to do it. I know I didn't give a whole lot away and I said I wouldn't continue with the series unless the other books become free as well but I think Brody will have more parts of 'The Story' than what he played in this book.

Whats in a Blog Tour

   Hey readers, so I do believe I've mentioned it before, that I want to join one of the blog tour sites. I only want to start out with ONE for now I don't want to get overwhelmed with saying I'll do so many. So I think that starting with one and seeing how I like doing them for a while is a great start. I think it will also be a great way to start the new year.

   I know a lot of blogs do a lot of different ones and in fact going to the blogs I follow even some that I don't I've seen soo many different ones, I've noticed some are more popular. In my search I've also noticed that some do more of one genre and limited of others. I would rather not just do one genre as I don't just read one genre and I'm sure you don't read just one genre either. So how about I make this into a vote. As you my readers will be the one who will read the post you tell me which tour site you want me to join, I know I don't have a lot of followers yet and I'm probably going to get different answers so give me your top 2 choices if you only see 1 that's fine (I'm just trying to insure that there will be a majority of one of them) and the one that I see the most votes is the one I'll be a tour host for. You can message from my contact page or leave a comment. I'll tell you which one it is in my New Year post. How does that sound? Also if you know how any of these run let me know what you think about it.

   So the tour site I've fond, and I found a lot, so I have limited them down.

 

  This one looks like it does different genres in ya.

This looks to do a lot of romance with few of other genres.

 

 

This one looks like it has the most verity of genres and cover revels, tours and blitz.

 

This looks to have mainly New Adult books but it does have other genres as well.

 So I thought I knew of more now I cant think of them or find them but you know what I guess 4 choices is enough.