Thursday, January 31, 2013

Printed Books Giveaway Hop

Printed Books Giveaway Hop
February 1st to 7th
 
THREE BOOKS - ONE WINNER!
I have another blog in this hop.  Visit New Adult Addiction for your chance to win FOUR fabulous printed books by young and new adult authors! 

 

THE HOP
Printed Books Giveaway Hop is hosted by Kathy at I Am A Reader Not A Writer  and it goes a little something like this: A bunch of blogs sign up to host a giveaway and then we link up together (using the Linky list below) which enables everyone who's participating in the hop, as well as all of our collective followers, to visit each giveaway blog.  This allows blogs to get new followers and followers to find new blogs!  Everyone wins!  Printed Books Giveaway Hop is scheduled from February 4th at 12:00 AM to February 7th at 11:59 PM.

THE PRIZE
ONE lucky follower will win the complete Kane Chronicles series by Rick Riordan.  All books are hardcover and have never been read. US SHIPPING ONLY.

THE RULES
This prize will be delivered by email, typically within 24 hours of responding to my notification e-mail. Everyone who enters must be legally able to do so, typically this means 13 years and up, but please check with your local regulations.  Please follow all the rules for hop entries.  I do check them, so don't cheat.  The winner will have 48 hours to respond after I send out the notification e-mail, if I do not hear from you, I'll choose an alternate winner. US SHIPPING ONLY

 

Don't forget to hop on down the line and enter ALL the Giveaways! 

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

REVIEW: This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers


TITLE: This is Not a Test
AUTHOR: Courtney Summers
GENRE: Young Adult Zombie/Dystopian

It’s the end of the world. Six students have taken cover in Cortege High but shelter is little comfort when the dead outside won’t stop pounding on the doors. One bite is all it takes to kill a person and bring them back as a monstrous version of their former self.

To Sloane Price, that doesn’t sound so bad.

Six months ago, her world collapsed and since then, she’s failed to find a reason to keep going. Now seems like the perfect time to give up. As Sloane eagerly waits for the barricades to fall, she’s forced to witness the apocalypse through the eyes of five people who actually want to live.

But as the days crawl by, the motivations for survival change in startling ways and soon the group’s fate is determined less and less by what’s happening outside and more and more by the unpredictable and violent bids for life—and death—inside. When everything is gone, what do you hold on to?



THE GOOD

There’s lots of good stuff in this book.  Number one – emotion, or as my son would say (he actually picked this up off my desk to read it) DRAMA.  I did warn him this was what I would consider to be a girl book.  But it did not deter him.  Regardless, he said he could’ve gotten by without the DRAMA in the beginning.

I kinda liked the drama in the beginning, to be honest.  So, forget him.

Some of the characters in this book were well developed.  By which I mean, they were unique and created with care.  I liked Sloan the best and Trace and Grace second.  They both get second since they are twins.  Funny – the main love interest, Rhys, did nothing for me.  Harrison was annoying, but that was his purpose, and Cary had a lot of potential, but never lived up to it in my opinion.

I enjoyed the story and the writing style.  It was an easy book to read – and that’s not saying it was simple.  I’m saying it flowed, so it was easy to read.  I’m reading another book right now that does not flow at all, and it makes reading it difficult.  Sometimes I think authors want to write difficult books on purpose.  And it’s not about plot either, it’s about complicated, profusely gushing sentences that you have to read so slow to get all the vowels in, you forget why you should care.

This is Not a Test did not have that to muck it up and I liked it.  Which is probably why my son devoured this book, regardless of the DRAMA.

 
NEEDS IMPROVEMENT
Really, besides what I mentioned about the characters above, the only thing that was disappointing was the ending.  But this is a big deal.  Endings make the book.  I’m not sure if there’s a sequel planned, I could not find mention of it on Goodreads, so I’m assuming not.  The ending was unsatisfying.

My son excused this with the hope that there would be a sequel, he said he felt like there should be one, so he’s basing his opinions of the end on that assumption.  Otherwise, I think he’d feel the same way I do.

 
RATING
All in all, This is Not a Test is a good four star book that could’ve been a lifetime favorite, but just missed the mark for me.  If there is a sequel I will definitely read it and maybe I’ll change my rating.  It’s pretty clean, a bit of swearing and some teenage groping and assumptions - as well as talk and or implications of other characters having sex.  But Sloan is a virgin and her purity stays intact.  There is some drinking, smoking, and mention of pot, but it's the end of the world, so...  For mature teens only for these reasons, as well as the violence of zombies, which can hardly be avoided.




Monday, January 28, 2013

Young Adult Giveaway Hop

Young Adult Giveaway Hop
January 29th - February 4th
Co-hosted by BookLove101

I have another blog with a $10 gift card in this hop:

Stop by I Am Just Julie to enter to win an additional $10 book of choice

YOU MAY CHOOSE ANY BOOK AND ARE NOT LIMITED TO THE ONES HERE

THE HOP

Young Adult Giveaway Hop is hosted by Kathy at I Am A Reader Not A Writer and is Co-hosted by BookLove101, and it goes a little something like this: A bunch of blogs sign up to host a giveaway and then we link up together (using the Linky list below) which enables everyone who's participating in the hop, as well as all of our collective followers, to visit each giveaway blog.  This allows blogs to get new followers and followers to find new blogs!  Everyone wins!  Young Adult Giveaway Hop is scheduled from January 29nd at 12:00 AM to February 4th at 11:59 PM.

THE PRIZES

ONE lucky follower will win a $10 Book of Choice from Amazon (US) or The Book Depository (INT)

THE RULES

This prize will be delivered by email, typically within 24 hours of responding to my notification e-mail. Everyone who enters must be legally able to do so, typically this means 13 years and up, but please check with your local regulations.  Please follow all the rules for hop entries.  I do check them, so don't cheat.  The winner will have 48 hours to respond after I send out the notification e-mail, if I do not hear from you, I'll choose an alternate winner.

Don't forget to hop on down the line and enter ALL the Giveaways!

Thursday, January 24, 2013

REVIEW: The Seed of Mankind by Sabrina James Riley

TITLE: The Seed of Mankind
AUTHOR:  Sabrina James Riley
GENRE: Ancient Historical Fiction

There are the people, and then there are the gods. At least that is what our written history would have us believe. But what if the story we were told was written by the wrong person?

4000 years into our past, a wrongfully exiled man named Zenuah starts on a journey that begins when he learns the truth about the gods his people worship.

The lies of the past threaten to destroy their world, and it falls to Zenuah and Aiya, the powerful woman he's falling for, to build their own truth and use it to save the seed of mankind.




REVIEW: 
 

This book caught my attention for several reasons but the most important one was that it was about the Ancient Sumerian myths, some of which were to do with the Creation, but most prominently, this was a new take on the Flood Story.  Not the flood of the Old Testament – there was another flood…did you know that?  Or maybe it’s the same flood, but the dates don’t quite match up.  This is part of what intrigues me about Ancient Sumeria and Babylon.  Some of what they tell is very VERY similar to the Old Testament, yet it’s never really talked about.

The Seed of Mankind tells the story of the Eridu Genesis, a flood story that ends up wiping out most of the people on the Earth except for a select few who were privileged to insider information about the coming flood, and then the seeds of mankind were planted afterward.

Sumerian mythology is convoluted because it morphs into other mythologies as time progresses – Inanna becomes Ishtar, becomes Isis  becomes Aphrodite.  Nimrod becomes Marduk, becomes Ashur, becomes, Poseidon and so forth until new religions move in and take over the old gods and goddesses.

The Eridu Genesis is your basic Noah’s Ark story and The Seed of Mankind takes this story and puts a new twist on it – gives it life through two young adults named Zenuah and Aiya and the whole tale is told through the eyes of these two points of view – Zenuah – as one of the slave people who are destined to die in the flood; and Aiya – one of the “gods” destined to be saved.




I enjoyed the story of Zenuah and Aiya – the descriptions were very visual and could easily imagine the setting of ancient Mesopotamia.  I especially enjoyed that Aiya had a magpie as her “pet” and I enjoyed her spirit.  Zenuah was industrious and hard-working and together I think they make a great pair.

I would definitely recommend this book to teens studying the myths and history of ancient Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian cultures and if you or your teen has never read through the Epic of Gilgamesh, I also highly recommend that.  It’s a fascinating tale – much like other Hero's Quest myths (Hercules, for example) and is filled with some pretty cool stuff.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

I've been writing stories for as long as I can remember; I still have a few stories I wrote in crayon on construction paper that I had stapled together to make a book that my mother saved for me.

Luckily, I've come a long way from crayons and construction paper, and have been able to type up stories almost as fast as my mind can create them.

I'm also an insanely avid reader, and along with all the award winning literature and classics on my shelf, I also have a penchant for the stories of other Indie authors...some of my all-time favorite books were self-published, and I believe that the ability to self-publish is one of the best things to happen to the world.

Can you imagine all the great stories we'd probably not have access to?

I live in Florida with my family, which includes but is not limited to: a pre-teen girl, a feisty just-on-the-brink-of-walking baby, and a 14 year old cattle dog who still thinks she is a puppy.
AUTHOR LINKS