Kawaii Monday: Giraffe Erasers

This weeks Kawaii Monday features super cute giraffe erasers!

I'm such a sucker for giraffes (hence the giant giraffe stuffed animal I have in my room....) so I LOVE these erasers! I know its a little strange for the giraffes to be multi-colored but I think it adds to their charm. Although the purple one in the middle does sort of look like a dog..... While I do think the multi-colored factor is fun I still think my favorite of these erasers is the orange and brown one which looks the most like a normal giraffe. A cool thing about these guys is that they are puzzle erasers so they can be taken apart and put back together again! I have a few puzzle erasers and I think they are pretty neat.

If you're interested in buying these erasers you can find them on eBay here.

Julia :)

In My Mailbox Vlog [12]

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted over at the lovely blog The Story Siren. The point is to blog about books that you have somehow procured during the week!

I seriously think that it is YouTubes lot in life to pick THE WORST thumbnail picture for my videos. Normally I just pick an alternate one and it turns out looking fine. But this time there weren't even any good alternate ones. These were my options:

1. Its like a sad/confused/ehhh face??? I don't know. Not attractive at all. XD

2. Looks like I'm about to spit on the camera. Oh yeah!

3. No idea what this face even is??? I think I'll pick it. Its the lesser of  three evils.... :P

Anyways enjoy the vlog!




Library
Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan
13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson
The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May and June by Robin Benway
Drought by Pam Bachorz
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

NetGalley
Bumped by Megan McCafferty
The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson


Won
Hunger Games bow and arrow necklace
Delirium by Lauren Oliver (SIGNED!!!!)
Awesome book thong! (bookmark)

That's what I got "in my mailbox" this week! What did you guys get?

Julia :)

Things I've learned from Dystopian books

So I don't know if you've noticed (note the sarcasm) but for the past 2-3 years YA lit has been taken over by paranormal romance. You can't walk into a bookstore without being bombarded with Twilight and about 10 other vampire/angel/werewolf romance novels. I'm not a big fan of paranormal romance (in fact I don't think I've ever even read one) so this age of YA has been particularly arduous for me. :P But I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel because a new "It" genre of YA is starting to emerge! And that genre is dystopian books. Books about a future that seems to be a utopia but is really overwrought with social dysfunction. Books with societies that need shaking up. And most importantly books with heroes and heroines that aren't afraid to rebel and stand up for what they believe in. Personally I LOVE dystopians and I love that its coming to the forefront of YA literature. What I like most about dystopian stories is that they always have a message. They ask you to question your society and what you believe in. Here are some of the lessons that I've learned from some of my favorite dystopian books. (links at the top will take you to my review)

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

War is brutal. War is ugly. But sometimes wars have to be fought because some things are worth fighting for.

Matched by Ally Condie

You don't have to let others control your life. Its YOUR life. Don't be afraid to make your own choices and be your own person.

The Uglies Trilogy by Scott Westerfeld

Being pretty isn't all its cracked up to be.

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Love is beautiful in every way, shape, and form. If we lose it, we lose the very essence that makes us human. Never be afraid to be love.

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Living a life fueled by lies always leads to destruction.

 The Unidentified by Rae Mariz

Don't become so obsessed with how others see you, that you lose sight of who you really are.

Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Never lose hope, even in the bleakest of circumstances.

I'm glad that dystopian novels are really popular right now, but there is one thing that I'm worried about: quantity over quality. This is what happened to paranormal books. They blew up and suddenly everyone was writing them but 75% of the books were not really worth reading. I don't want that to happen to dystopian fiction. I don't want people to merely crank the books out like an assembly line and put them into little cookie cutter molds of rebellion and love triangles and then expect success. So I want to know how do you guys feel about dystopian books becoming so popular? Are you afraid that the genre is going to go the route of paranormal and possibly get tarnished? And most importantly what kinds of things have you guys learned from reading dystopian novels?

Julia :)

Book Review: Cryer's Cross

The small town of Cryer's Cross is rocked by tragedy when an unassuming freshman disappears without a trace. Kendall Fletcher wasn't that friendly with the missing girl but the angst wreaks havoc on her OCD-addled brain. When a second student goes missing - someone close to Kendall's heart - the community is in an uproar. Caught in a downward spiral of fear and anxiety Kendall's not sure she can hold it together. When she starts hearing the voices of the missing calling out to her and pleading for help, she fears she's losing her grip on reality. But when she finds messages scratched in a desk at school - messages that could only be from the missing student who used to sit there - Kendall decides that crazy or not, she'd never forgive herself if she didn't act on her suspicions. Something's not right in Cryer's Cross - and Kendall's about to find out just how far the townspeople will go to keep their secrets buried.

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I love freaky stories. Creepy stories. Stories that scare the crap out of me and cause me to need the light on at all times for like a month afterwards. I read a lot of reviews saying that Cryer's Cross was that kind of book. That it would elicit a "Oh my gosh I'm so freaked out" kind of reaction. And I have to say that I was a bit disappointed. While this book was creepy, it just wasn't as creepy as I was expecting it to be. Maybe its because I was reading it during the middle of the day, or maybe its because I have an unusually high level of creep tolerance? I have no idea. For me it just lacked that truly scary/mysterious factor that I love about thrillers. Now don't get me wrong I still really enjoyed this book! It just wasn't quite what I was expecting.

I LOVED that Lisa McMann wrote in the third person for this book. Normally I'm not a big fan of the third person narration but it totally worked for Cryer's Cross. It added this whole eerie detached feeling to the story that was perfect. I also liked that she had these mysterious segments written from the "bad guys" perspective. I don't know if I would really call it the "bad guy" but I'm trying not to reveal too much! Lets just say that it was a great way to pull in the reader and get a nice scary vibe going in the story. Kind of like how Kimberly Derting writes parts from the killers perspective in The Body Finder! Its was perfect and it totally kept me guessing about what exactly was going on.

The overall plot of the story took awhile to really pick up for me. For the first 2/3's of the story I was just waiting for something to happen. I kept reading and reading and thinking when is this gonna get exciting? Well it wasn't until the very end that things really got going but it was totally worth the wait because at the end I could not put the book down! The last 50 pages when everything was revealed were CRAZY FREAKY. The ending was pretty unexpected and it actually turned out to be quite sad. And then the very last part of the book? TALK ABOUT CREEPTASTIC! Its worth reading this book just to read the last page. Seriously the freakiest part of the whole book.

All the characters in Cryer's Cross were a bit one dimensional which I guess makes sense because this book was really plot driven. I liked Kendall and her OCD tendencies even though they were a bit strange. And I really liked Marlena even though she isn't a very prominent character in the story. She was kind of the wingman for Kendall and Jacian (still having trouble with his name pronounciation :P) which I thought was pretty hilarious. The romance between them in this story was totally unexpected. It seemed a bit out of place among the creepy paranormal happenings but I guess it worked. One thing I found funny was that Jacian was so annoyed that he had to move away from Arizona to live in Cryer's Cross. Being an Arizonan I have to say that I would be ECSTATIC if I got to move. Its just so hot here! But then again if I moved to a town that had some creepy goings ons I guess I wouldn't be too excited either. XD

Cryer's Cross is a creepy atmospheric read. It takes awhile to really get into the story but its such a short book that it doesn't really matter. And the ending is totally worth it! I give it 4 out of 5 ice cream cones.

If you like mystery thrillers with a bit of paranormal and a bit of romance then Cryer's Cross is definitely for you!

5 Words to Describe This Book
Creepy and mysterious paranormal happenings.

Julia :)

Waiting on Wednesday [3]

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted over at Breaking The Spine. The purpose is to spotlight upcoming releases that we are eagerly anticipating!

I am waiting on Where She Went by Gayle Foreman!

It's been three years since the devastating accident ... three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life forever. Now living on opposite coasts, Mia is Julliard's rising star and Adam is LA tabloid fodder, thanks to his new rock star status and celebrity girlfriend. When Adam gets stuck in New York by himself, chance brings the couple together again, for one last night. As they explore the city that has become Mia's home, Adam and Mia revisit the past and open their hearts to the future - and each other. Told from Adam's point of view in the spare, lyrical prose that defined If I Stay, Where She Went explores the devastation of grief, the promise of new hope, and the flame of rekindled romance.

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I LOVED If I Stay so when I found out there was going to be a sequel from Adam's point of view I immediately flipped out and then got all sad because the book doesn't come out till April. Such a long wait! Okay not really but you know what I mean. 2 months in real time is like 2 years in book time! Haha. Anyway Adam was such an amazing character in If I Stay so the fact that Where She Went is told from his perspective just makes me want to read it even more! And I want to know why they aren't together anymore. I mean WHAT HAPPENED?!?! I guess I won't know till the book comes out. Gah. April 5th needs to come sooner! :P

If you want to read my review of If I Stay you can check it out here.

Julia :)