Finally Friday!

Well, guys...it's been forever since I last posted! It's summer, of course, so I've been crazy busy with vacations, family visits, and other fun things that consume my time. Unfortunately, these things have not only consumed my time to blog, they've also consumed my time to read. The number of books I've been reading has severely decreased. It bothers me that I don't have time for them since reading and blogging are my two favorite things to do! :)

Sadly, I have to say that the problems that arose made it pretty much impossible to continue participating in the August 2010 Debut Author Challenge. Hopefully I can try it again in the upcoming months, but I'm afraid I have to pretty much drop out this month.

But it IS Friday. And I need some sort of post to be able to get myself back on track here. So although I haven't done anything this week, here's some sort of weekend wrap-up.

I'm currently reading the book The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson. I would give you a summary myself, but this one does it better than I ever could!

Seventeen-year-old Lennie Walker, bookworm and band geek, plays second clarinet and spends her time tucked safely and happily in the shadow of her fiery older sister, Bailey. But when Bailey
dies abruptly, Lennie is catapulted to center stage of her own life—and, despite her nonexistent history with boys, suddenly finds herself struggling to balance two. Toby was Bailey’s boyfriend; his grief mirrors Lennie’s own. Joe is the new boy in town, a transplant from Paris whose nearly magical grin is matched only by his musical talent. 

For Lennie, they’re the sun and the moon; one boy takes her out of her sorrow, the other comforts her in it. But just like their celestial counterparts, they can’t collide without the whole wide world exploding.

So far it's been a touching a remarkable debut by Jandy Nelson. Like the rest of the summary goes on to say, it's a great book for fans of Deb Caletti and Sarah Dessen. I'm fans of both and I have to agree. Jandy Nelson fits right in and I can see her becoming just as popular. I'm loving this one so far and I can't wait to see what she pops out next!


Since I haven't reviewed anything in weeks, we'll head right to the New Blogger Feature!

This week I'll be featuring a sweet lady named Danielle who runs the blog Every Last Page. I am so very grateful to her. I've been putting off her feature for weeks because I've never had the time to sit down to the computer and put it all together. So I apologize to her, and I thank her so so much for all her cooperation. And finally, here it is! (I'm sorry I can't make her image bigger. Any bigger and it starts to look pixelated.)

Meet Danielle, of Every Last Page! Here's what Danielle had to say:

I had been toying with the idea of starting a book review blog for a long time, and finally this summer I just decided to do it! I was afraid it would take up too much time (and it is) but I am having so much fun! I love reading, but what I love the most about it is sharing my thoughts about books with others. I hope to get my bachelors in Business Management (so I can open a bookstore) or go for my English/Creative Writing degree. I am still debating which route to take, since I sort of have a love/hate relationship with writing.

I have been married for almost two years now, and we are content for now in our apartment with two kitties, Alice and Rosalie. He is very supportive of my book buying/reading habit, even if my bookshelves are slowly taking up our living space! My favorite genres are historical fiction and YA. My favorite posts I've done so far are "My top ten favorite characters" (http://everylastpage.blogspot.com/2010/08/top-ten-tuesday-favorite-characters.html) and "Baby names from Literature" (http://everylastpage.blogspot.com/2010/07/baby-names-from-literature.html).

I love meeting new bloggers so feel free to leave me a comment and I will check it out! Have a great day :)

She has a great blog and she's one of the friendliest people I've talked to. She has some really creative ideas for posts, as you can see from her two favorite posts above. And I love what she named her kitties :)

Everybody head on over to Every Last Page and follow right away. You won't be sorry. Best of luck to you, Danielle, in all your future blog endeavors :)

Friday Book Blogger Hop and Weekend Wrap-up August 6th

Friday finally came! And we ALL know that Friday brings us the lovely...

The Hop is a great way to gain some followers for all you book bloggers out there. Just head on over to Crazy For Books and put your name up on the list of links. It runs every Friday until Monday.

Each week, if you sign up for the Hop, there's a question to be answered. And this weeks question is...

Do you listen to music when you read? If so, what are your favorite reading tunes?

Ok, generally, I hate to listen to music while I read. It distracts me from being totally focused and in order to totally immerse myself in the story, which is my favorite part of reading, I need to be focused. But, if I had to choose, I'd say any pretty song that has no words! Honestly, though, I enjoy silence so the rare times I do get it, I like to take advantage of it :)

If you're visiting from the Hop, comment below to let me know where you're comin' from, and then follow!

Well, it's been another relaxed week here at FMNS. But here's what I DID do. 

I reviewed the book The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors by Michele Young-Stone. This one was the opposite of what often happens. I had low expectations for the book, and it totally blew me away. Michele Young-Stone is an author who defies the word "talented", and the novel left me wishing it didn't have to be over yet. The book left me breathless.

You can read that review by clicking here.

Also reviewed this week (actually just today) was the book The Red Umbrella by Christina Gonzalez. It was an easy read, but it touched me deeply and left an imprint on my heart. I personally fell in love with everything about the book. The title has such a powerful connection to the plot that it left me with tears in my eyes.

You can read that review by following this link.

Currently I'm reading the book The Secret Year by Jennifer Hubbard. I'm reading it for the August 2010 Debut Author Challenge (as were the last two books mentioned--that thing is taking over my life! More accurately, my TBR list). I'm practically finished it, actually, and it's been very good. Not beyond spectacular, but I have a feeling we'll get into that when I write the review for it! But it IS a very good, very compelling novel and I highly recommend it. It's a fabulous debut novel for Jennifer Hubbard.

And that's the week! Unfortunately, I was unable to find anyone to feature this week! If you are a new book blogger (about 2 months or less), please email me at frommynightstand(at)gmail(dot)com. Also, PLEASE email me if you KNOW of someone who could be featured; I'm always on the lookout for promising new blogs. Thanks for reading this week! Au revoir!

Friday Book Blogger Hop and Weekend Wrap-up

Well it's finally here! Today is Friday! And you know what that means...

For the second week in a row, I entered my name in the list on crazy-for-books.com. If you have your own book blog and have not yet done so, I highly recommend doing it. It's a great way to get people to come visit your blog and gain some followers!

Each week, there's a question that has to be answered. This week's question is...

Who is your favorite new-to-you author so far this year?

Ok...this one takes some careful consideration. I've read tons of new authors in this year so far. But...I'd have to say I have to go with Deb Caletti. I read her book, The Nature of Jade and absolutely fell in love with her and her work. That book got a rave review from me and you can check it out here.

So! That's that for the Hop. If you are coming from the Hop, do these two things for me!

1) Comment below and lemme know that you found me on the Hop.

2) Follow, follow, follow!

So. If you're already a follower, you probably know that this a new kind of post I like to do on Fridays (this is my second time doing the post) called the Weekend Wrap-up. The first time I tried this, the two posts ended up being separate. Then someone pointed out to me that by condensing them into one post, the brand new readers from the Hop can see kinda what I do around here. So that's what I'm gonna try this week!

This week has been a rather calm week in the world of FMNS. I did two reviews this week. And here they are...

I reviewed the book To Be Mona by Kelly Easton. I had high expectations for this book, but unfortunately....the novel didn't live up to them. The story had a great set-up and fabulous potential...but it missed the mark a little. My review was not too great, and the book recieved the grade "D".

You can read that review here if you'd like.

Also reviewed this week was the book A Kiss In Time by Alex Flinn. This one also looked fabulous--funny, entertaining, witty, and creative. And it certainly was all of these things! But in terms of characters development and the overall spark of the book...it just didn't beg to be read. That was a tough review to write, but it recieved the grade "C".

Check that out using this link.

I am currently reading a book called Candy by Kevin Brooks. When I started the book, I thought it was totally weird, and I was worried I'd have to read yet another book that disappointed me. But suddenly it picked right up! And now it's this extra intense book that I can't put down! I'm about 20 pages from the end and it's just...so good!

Well, there's my week! Now...for the part I just love. One of the parts (my favorite part) of the Weekend Wrap-up post is to feature a new book blog I discovered during the week and loved.

This week, I found a blog that's about a month old. Her blog has a cute background and plenty of promising posts. Looking around the site, this blog has potential and I can't wait to see what she does in the future. So far, in the course of about a month, she's gathered about 30 followers (which I'd say is pretty good!). I'd like you guys to go ahead and check out...

You can find her on the web at emiliebookworld.blogspot.com. I invite you to check her out and follow her to keep updated on all the new things she's cranking out. Plus, she's reading Shiver, which is like at the top of my TBR list, sooo... :)  Hahaa, well, Emilie, good luck in the blogosphere! Keep up the great work, girl!

Well, that's a wrap! There's our week here at From My Nightstand. For all you new folks, we hope you can keep on coming back. And if you are a new blogger with your blog less than a month old, send me an email at frommynightstand@gmail.com. I'll check out your blog and hopefully you'll be featured in the next few weeks! Thanks for reading, guys. Adios!

New! - Weekend Wrap-up

Hey there, all my fabulous awesome wonderful readers...Today I'm going to try something totally brand new! I've never seen it anywhere else, so maybe I can get to start my very own personal weekly meme! So here's how this one works. It's called Weekend Wrap-up, and basically what you do is bring the past week to a close by summarizing primarily what you blogged about (the reviews you did, mostly), what you're currently reading and what you think of it so far, and also whatever it is you want to talk about. Then, you tell your readers about a blog you recently discovered that you'd like to share with everyone else. Feel free to participate if you would like to.

Well, here's my week. This week began on Sunday the 18th. And on the 20th, Tuesday, I celebrated my one-week blogoversary!! Wooo!! This calls for some celebratory balloons:

Just like those :)

Ok, well, so for that special occasion I did a little list of the things I've learned about blogging, which you can check out here. That just has a bunch of fun stuff on it that I felt necessary to tell ya'll. Including the fact that I can't spell "nightstand" right, and that when I really love a book, my review of it makes no sense. So that's a fun post which you cn go ahead and check out if you want a break from my boring-ness.

Also this week I did two reviews of some awesome books.

I reviewed a fabulous book called A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. It's a fantasy book that takes place in a boarding school in Victorian England in the 1800's. That one got great reviews from me and recieved a grade "A".

You can check out that review here.

I also reviewed a book I truly am in love with called Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson. That was kind of a spur-of-the-moment review since I first read the book a little while ago. But I recently purchased it, so I figured it was necessary to crack it open again and do a review of it. In my opinion, it's a highly overlooked book by Laurie Halse Anderson because Speak and Wintergirls and other more popular books overshadow it.

You can read more of that at this link.

Currently, I am finally reading the book I featured in my "In My Mailbox" post, A Kiss In Time by Alex Flinn. So far so good. I'm not real far into it (maybe 3 chapters or something). But so far, it's been a decent re-write of the classic Sleeping Beauty story. I mean, it's not been terribly fascinating, but I have a feeling the book's not going to hit the "funny part" the back of the book reveals until we meet the male main character (whom we haven't yet been introduced to). So, I'm certainly holding out a lot of hope for this one. A review will be up when it's finished.

And that's about it for my weekly summary. Now for the fun part :) 

This past week, I discovered a new blog via a website with tips for book bloggers. She posted on there and I got curious and visited her blog. Well, turns out the blog's less than a month old. I wandered around and read some posts there. The blog is adorable and it looks incredibly promising. So far she's built up her followers well; at the time of this post she had 34 (but I'm thinking she may gain a few now). So I'd like to introduce you all to...

Her blog address is elenasbookcafe.blogspot.com. So far, content is great and the layout, I must say, is adorable. I'm glad to have found her and begun following her, and I hope you guys all will agree with me. Elena, congratulations and welcome to the blogosphere :)  We wish you best of luck.

Well that's about it! I definitely enjoyed doing that today! I can totally say we're gonna be doing that eeeveeryy Friday from now on. I hope some of you guys will hop on the train! :)

Love you guys :)