I think we’ve established in previous posts that I tend to be a slow reader and compensate with audiobooks which increases what’s on my reading list. Plus I just like to read when I’m supposed to be doing something boring like housework. I also have an e-reader or two in my company at all times–ya know–for emergencies. LOL! Additionally, I’m reading a plethora of different books to my boys every night. The kids range from ages 11 to 7 and have broad interest areas increasing my habit of reading broadly. Plus I like to read them things that are outside of their box–to mix things up a little bit. Because of that we usually have anywhere from 2-4 different books going at a time. Yeah, this is how my reading list easily gets to be so long. But I’ve also discovered something else about my reading habits. I read for pleasure and I also read for purpose. Right now I’m in the exploratory, mullet-over phase of my third book and so I’m reading things that will help me connect the random and semi-random dots floating around my head. I also read because of curiosity and and the need to belong. Yeah, I’ve put a dent in 50 Shades of Grey. I’m not sure whether I wanted to read it or not, but I know I wanted to be a part of the conversation, or at least be an informed listener–not left out. I also read for craft. Lately it’s been mostly in the form the The Writer and Writer’s Digest, but I have a long list of favorite craft reads and want-to-reads and even re-reads to keep me busy for a long time. And then I critique my friends’ writing too, which I love because it makes me feel special to be on the ground level of something amazing. Phew…I’m tired just talking about it. LOL!
And then there are those folks who read one book at a time. *head thunk*
They make me feel like a reading spaz. But I try to remind myself that I’m “that girl” in other areas of my life–like when it comes to ice cream. Because I only ever order chocolate. I am not an ice cream spaz. And I’m also that girl a lot of times in a lot of different ways through out my day. I’m often tried and true, boring and horribly predictable, so it just might be healthy for me to be a bit of a spaz somewhere in my life. Or not–you never know. Okay–I’m an organizational spaz too–but that shouldn’t count because cleaning and organization is no damn fun.
How do you read your books and eat your ice cream? Are you messy like me? Inquiring minds want to know. *waggles eyebrows*
October 30th is drawing a little closer every day and I’m starting to do random authory things but I haven’t really hit my full stride yet, and probably won’t for awhile. That’s why your Monday needs a little Jackson Pearce talking about what it’s like to be an author.
What was your biggest misconception about being an author? What’s your take on job vs. career? Were you surprised by anything Jackson had to say?
I’m not going to tease you. I have a copy of Level 2 (The Memory Chronicles #1) by Lenore Appelhans up for grabs!!!! I know you want it. And if you didn’t know if you want it, I’m here to convince you that you absolutely do…
Since her untimely death the day before her eighteenth birthday, Felicia Ward has been trapped in Level 2, a stark white afterlife located between our world and the next. Along with her fellow prisoners, Felicia passes the endless hours downloading memories and mourning what she’s lost—family, friends, and the boy she loved, Neil.
Then a girl in a neighboring chamber disappears, and nobody but Felicia seems to recall she existed in the first place. Something is obviously very wrong. When Julian—a dangerously charming guy Felicia knew in life—comes to offer Felicia a way out, she learns the truth: a rebellion is brewing to overthrow the Morati, the guardians of Level 2.
Felicia is reluctant to trust Julian, but then he promises what she wants the most—to be with Neil again—if only she’ll join the rebels. Suspended between Heaven and Earth, Felicia finds herself in the center of an age-old struggle between good and evil. As memories from her life come back to haunt her, and as the Morati hunt her down, Felicia will discover it’s not just her own redemption at stake… but the salvation of all mankind
Lenore Appelhans is a fellow Apocalysie, a Simon & Schuster sibling and also a kindred soul when it comes to exploring the afterlife. We’ve been dying to read each other’s books and HA! I snagged a coveted ARC of Level 2 at BEA!!!!
What immediately captured my attention was Appelhans strong writing. She’s a pro. Period. The story creatively jumps between lots of different perspectives in the past and the present and I never once was lost. Her storytelling and transitions were seamless. I was also fascinated by how Appelhans explored many of the same concepts that I was fascinated with in Touching the Surface, but she did this in such a different and unique way. I’ve never seen the afterlife explored in a dystopian manner before and it was really fascinating. I particularly liked the stark white of the world and the use of the bee hive throughout the story.
I don’t want to give out any spoilers, but I love a book that doesn’t let me settle into a firm opinion too early. I adore rounding the corner and finding that what I though I knew, might not be true. Level 2 gave me the perfect amount of “shake-up” in anticipation for the next book BUT considering that Level 2 won’t hit the bookshelves until early 2013 I’m stomping my foot like a toddler. I can’t believe how long I’m going to have to wait to see what happens next. *groan*
And BTW…the cover is perfect and in case you’re wondering…TEAM JULIAN!!!!
Lenore Appelhans
My debut YA novel Level 2 will be published by Simon & Schuster BFYR on Jan 15, 2013.
My debut picture book CHICK-O-SAURUS REX (w/ Daniel Jennewein) will follow from S&S in 2013. I’ve been blogging about books (Presenting Lenore) since April 2008.
Thanks to my father’s job in the US military, I became addicted to travel early. To date, I’ve visited nearly 60 countries and have stepped on every contintent except Antartica. My travels inspire my writing – in fact, the original spark of the idea for LEVEL 2 grew out of an argument with my grandmother about whether it was better to spend my money on Precious Moments figurines (her view) or plane tickets (my view).
I currently live in Frankfurt, Germany and the last foreign country I visited was Kuwait (March 2012).
Fun facts:
I’ve lived in 7 US states (North Dakota, Colorado, Utah, California, Ohio, Kansas, Oklahoma) and 5 foreign countries (Greece, Ecuador, Spain, Japan, Germany)
I have 3 fancy Sacred Birman cats. You can see pictures of them in cute and crazy poses on my blog.
I wrote my first book, Timothy the Bug, in the car on a family vacation when I was in the 5th grade. In 8th grade, I made it to the state semi-finals in Ohio’s Power of the Pen competition (I placed 5th at the regional level).
I’ve swam with sea lions in the Galapagos Islands, walked with lions in Zimbabwe, fed anteaters in Tikal, Guatemala, braved fire ants in Australia, chased a puffin across a black sand beach in Iceland and narrowly avoided stepping on a snake in Burma.
You can find out more about Lenore Appelhans and Level 2 here…
So, that’s it. JUST TEASING! You want to know what you have to do to win the ARC of Level 2, right? It’s easy-peasy. Just let me know if you believe in the afterlife or not. If you don’t–that’s cool and I’d love to hear why. But if you do..how do you picture it? What’s your vision of what comes next? Any “I saw the light” accounts out there? Bring it on. And don’t forget to leave your contact information. You can’t win if I can’t reach you.
According to the Audio Publishers Association JUNE IS AUDIOBOOK MONTH!!! You probably know that I’m a HUGE audiobook fan, or as my son just yelled out…NERD! But he is too–so I thought I would have him be a guest blogger today to talk about the supreme awesomeness of audiobooks!
Jamison is 11 years old and he’s dyslexic, making audiobooks, not only a pleasure, but an integral part of his ability to enjoy reading. Since he’s bugging the crap out of me right now–“I thought I was going to get to say something”– I think it’s time to turn over this post to him…
Curled up in bed and listening.
“I think audiobooks are cool because I am dyslexic and it is hard for me to read, so when I read audiobooks it helps me to understand the words. Sometimes I listen and read the books at the same time which helps. I also think it’s interesting to hear the character’s voices in an audiobook. I may make mistakes when I read or not pronounce the words right, so I really like hearing how they are suppose to sound.”
As a mom of a child with dyslexia, I’m thrilled to have audiobooks to share with him because his vocabulary, comprehension and areas of interest are in a completely different place than his independent reading level. Audiobooks give him access when I’m not around to read to him–or if he wants to read the ERAGON SERIES for the umpteenth time. *head thunk* Audiobooks have enabled a child who has an extremely difficult time reading in a traditional manner– to consider himself an avid reader–a book lover. In my opinion that makes audiobooks priceless.
Well, you heard it from two audiobook nerds–it’s time to get your ears on and listen to a great book!!!!
In honor of Audiobook Month…What’s you’re favorite audiobook? What’s the weirdest thing you’ve done while listening to an audiobook? If you’ve never tried it–why?
Just like my Freaky Friday Interviews of aspiring authors, I’ve discovered that there’s a whole world of YA bloggers just starting out. I thought it would be fun to highlight some of these newbie bloggers because-lets face it-bloggers are freaky book lovers too and we should all work together in our quest to take over the world one YA book at a time. Today’s newbie blogger is Jessica Baker of Just a Booklover. Jessica and I are both native New York Staters so we absolutely hit it off as soon as we started talking, but let me share with you a million other reasons why you should get to know her too…
Could you tell me a little about you and how you came to be a blogger?
Well, I’m Jessica. I love to read (not surprising) and when I’m not reading, I like to write in my free time. It amuses me. You know, writing the story I would most like to read and all. I have three brothers and three nephews. I grew up in Buffalo, New York and lived there a majority of my life. Now I live in Texas where I read books, do schoolwork, and blog my booty off.
I became a blogger because I wanted to tell people what I thought of books. In school and at home, I’d always look around on B&N’s website and see the reviews posted and thought that I wanted to do that too–write things about a book for everyone to see and listen to when they are deciding whether or not to read or buy a book. But I was too lazy then and kept putting off actually making a blog, telling myself I’d do it later. But then one day one Twitter, Sarah Rees Brennan (author of The Demon’s Lexicon trilogy) posted a link to someone who gave The Demon’s Lexicon a bad review. (She liked the title of the post, so she decided to post the link.) I read the review and disagreed one million and twelve percent. I had LOVED The Demon’s Lexicon and had just finished the other two books in the trilgy, too. Again, they were amazing. Plus, the person that wrote the bad review hadn’t even finished the book and that kind of made me mad because how can you judge a whole book of you had only read a part of it? But that’s not the point. The point is that I started my blog so I could post a review of The Demon’s Lexicon trilogy that I believed was much more appropriate. It was the first review I’d ever written, and I kept at it on my new pretty blog ever since. (Well, the blog hasn’t always been pretty, but still. Improvements have been made, thank goodness.)
I love how you got started with a fiery passion! Who has had an influence on you in the blogging community. What have they taught you? Who do you look up to?
I HAVE to start this by mentioning Anna. Anna is my blogging idol. She has her own blog (obviously) called Literary Exploration and I look up to her the most out of any other bloggers. If I ever got to choose anyone to be my blogging big sister, Anna would be my pick without a question. She actually helped me with what to ask on my first author interview (being posted on June 8) and has given me a helpful blogging tip or two :). After Anna, I’d probably say there’s Jana. She has a blog called The Book Goddess and she’s the wonderful person who designed my blog badge. It is so gorgeous and perfect and I’ll love her forver for it! Plus, we’re on a DeamonInvasion team together, and she is always helpful with things when I ask her for help. Next we have Kreag who is super nice, and has a blog called I Devour Books. He helped me decide on whether or not to review a book one time and we’ve been friends ever since. Now we have Monica from Cover Analysis 🙂 She is one of my very best blogger friends. She’s let me borrow a book, I’ve sent her extra swaggish-things, and I made a button for her meme “What I Got.” We are also working on a challenge together. I’m not going to bore y’all with the details, but . . . yeah.
I think it’s awesome that they have taken you under their wing. Everyone has to start somewhere and I’m really impressed with their mentoring. Two thumbs up! What advice would you give new book bloggers? Is there any big mistakes you’ve made that they should avoid?
Don’t be shy about asking other bloggers for help if you’re confused about something. From what I’ve seen so far, most bloggers are super nice, and though they have AMAZING BLOGS, they aren’t as intimidating to talk to as you think they’ll be. They’re normal people, just like you and me, who love books. Another thing, don’t get to down about your number of followers. Gaining them seriously takes time, and at the moment, I still don’t have that many. You should always post as if a whole bunch of people are looking at what you write because who knows? Maybe someone will drop by, like what they see, and follow your blog. You wouldn’t want to dissuade them with poor writing. Last, don’t be afraid to experiment with your design. It took me somewhere around a month to find a blog design I liked and then even more time to decide on organization and I’m STILL moving things around.
I think you are adorable and I LOVE your positive attitude! What do you want to see from author/blogger relationships and interactions, considering they are always growing and changing?I just really like to see bloggers and authors friendly with each other and helping each other out. Like this interview–you help out newbie bloggers like little ole me. And you do this for other bloggers, too. And bloggers tell people about authors’ books. I like when authors are nice and acknowledge bloggers for what they do–even if it’s in a small way, like retweeting a tweet about a review of their book. It seems small, but to me that kind of thing means a lot. I LOVE when authors go one step further and actually read my reviews. That’s not really necessary, though. The RTing thing was good enough for me. I’m not picky about that kind of thing.
(((hugs))) I think we are all at our best when we’re helping each other out. Now I need to know your top 5 most loved books that have had an impact on you and why.
This question kills me! I’m just going to do top 5 most loved books AT THIS EXACT MOMENT, because my intense feelings for particular books change over time. As I read more things, one book could get bumped out by another book or something.
5. The Selection by Keira Cass. I just finished reading this book a couple days ago and this book made me so happy. I have to say the impact it has on me was just amazing-ness. Like, so good I was sad it was over. (My teams are important – Team Maxon.)
4. The Strange Angels series by Lili St. Crow, or if I have to pick just one of them, I’ll go with Jealousy. Or maybe Defiance. I adored this series. Dru is a stunning protaganist and Christophe is one of my favorite attractive male characters. This series is over, but I really wish it wasn’t. I was elated when I got the last book this past Christmas, though. A happy day, right there. (Team Christophe, obiviously.)
3. The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins. Do you even have to ask what it is about this book? Well, there’s . . . urm . . . Peeta. And a lot of fun killing things. And epic archery. And Peeta. And Cinna. And Haymitch. And parts that make me laugh. And Peeta. And parts that make me cry. And Peeta. And parts that make me want to slap somebody. And did I mention Peeta? Hehe. (Team Peeta, CLEARLY.)
2. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi. This book was glued to my fingers from the moment I began reading it to the moment I finished. And all the while, I was crying inside because I kept getting nearer to the end. When a book has that kind of power over me, it gets on lists like these 😉 (I’m not too sure what team I’m on yet.)
1. Under the Never Sky by Veonica Rossi. This book surprised me because I didn’t think it would be anywhere near as epic as it was. But then I read it, and . . . well it’s number one on my list. And I’ve read a few books since then. I think that should speak for itself. Oh, and Perry. And Roar. Just saying. (There’s only really one team to pick here. . . PERRY.)
Quick statement: Divergent by Veronica Roth was almost on this list, but got bumped out a couple days ago by The Selection. But I love Divergent, too. Erudite all the way!
Thank you so much for asking me to do this interview!
♥Jessica(:
Yay!!! Happy to see some Apocalypsies on you list!!! I know what you mean about favorites always changing…there are just so many good books out there. And Jessica–thank you for taking the time to hang out on my blog. It has been lovely getting to know you better. Make sure you stop by Jessica’s blog Just A Booklover. You can also find her on Twitter as @makesmeworse12.
