Tag Tuesday (3)

Hi Guys,
This is my third "Tag Tuesday" post. I hope you guys are enjoying these posts. It takes a lot of effort on my part to, for one, actually muster enough energy to put one together, and for two actually put it together. So, again, I hope you guys are enjoying them, and I hope you fellow bloggers will partake in this weekly post.

"Tag Tuesday" is a weekly event, hosted here, that no longer confines book tags to the booktubing community. Every Tuesday (Hopefully), I will post my response to a tag that I've seen in the booktubing community.

The third "Tag Tuesday" tag will be the "Seven Deadly Sins of Reading Book Tag", which was created by BookishlyMalyza on YouTube. This tag isn't an acronym tag like the previous two "Tag Tuesdays" were. Instead, each of the seven questions of this tag will coincide with the seven deadly sins: Greed, Wrath, Gluttony, Sloth, Pride, Lust, and Envy. So, let's get started!


                                                                                                                            
Greed: What is your most inexpensive book? Most expensive?
Most inexpensive: My original edition copy of The Vampire Diaries: The Awakening.
Most expensive: My Narnia book that has all seven of the books in one HUGE copy.


Wrath: What author do you have a love/hate relationship with?
 L.J. Smith, I love all of her books from the 90's, but when she started to continue writing her Vampire Diaries Series, it just went downhill from there.

Gluttony: What book have you deliciously devoured, over and over, with no shame whatsoever?
 Gone by Michael Grant.

Sloth: What book have you neglected reading due to laziness?
 Um... SEVERAL! Eragon, Wicked Lovely, Tim Tebow: Through my Eyes, Insurgent, Incarceron, Night World Omnibus 3, Carrier of the Mark, and Sacrifice. I call this group of books my "Debt-List", because I've started them, but I've yet to finish them.

Pride: What book do you most talk about in order to sound like a more intellectual reader?
 Probably the stories of Greek Mythology I read in Middle School. 

Lust: What attributes do you find most attractive in a male or female character?
 Um, I guess just an average girl... I mean I tend to like brown/black/red hair over blonde, and I also don't like her to be gullible, and I really like a girl who can defend herself.

Envy: What books would you most likely wand to receive as a gift?
 Hmm... The Walking Dead graphic novels, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, The Hunt, Light, A Once Crowded Sky, False Memory, I Hunt Killers, Unraveling, Zom-B, Lockdown, and Many, Many More!

                                                                                                                             


Well, that is all for my first "Tag Tuesday", and if you have your own blog, and would like to take part in this, please just leave a comment on this post, letting me know you will be doing so, and also, please post that "Tag Tuesday" was originally created by moi. Thanks again for reading this, and I hope to get to doing another "Tag Tuesday" soon.

By the way, I tag everyone who views this post, so get started on your Seven Deadly Sins of Reading Tag.

Tag Tuesday (2)

Hi Guys,
This is going to be my 2nd Tag Tuesday Post, and I hope you guys enjoy it. I'm sorry I haven't really been doing much on the blog, my semester, is CRAZY. I'm taking Honors Latin 3, AP Chemistry, Honors US History, and Marching Band. They're each stressful in their own way, and each one of them has an hour to two hours of homework for me every night. Well, anyway, back to Tag Tuesday.

"Tag Tuesday" is a weekly event, hosted here, that no longer confines book tags to the booktubing community. Every Tuesday (Hopefully), I will post my response to a tag that I've seen in the booktubing community.


The second "Tag Tuesday" tag will be the Inside and Out tag, which was created by MathomBooks on YouTube. This is another acronym tag, meaning that each letter of "Inside/Out" stand for a question I will answer. Let's get started!

                                                                                                                              
 Inside flap/Back of the book summaries: Too much info? Or not enough?
 Hmm... I think it's just the right amount of information. I only ever have trouble with too much information when I pick up the second book of a series, thinking it was the first, and read the synopsis, and get a little peek into some things I didn't want to know.

New book: What form do you want it in? Be honest: Audiobook, E-Book, Paperback, or Hardcover?
 Hardcover, I think Hardcovers are more durable, and in addition to that, they look really nice on my shelf.

Scribble while you read? Do you like to write in your books, taking notes, making comments, or do you keep your books clean clean clean?
 Definitely Clean, Clean, Clean. I don't like to right in my books, but if I need to annotate for a class, I'll keep a sheet of paper, and a pencil present, to write the page number down, and what I thought of a certain part.

 In your best voice, read for us your favorite 1st sentence from a book.
 This one is a little impossible to do through a blog, but instead of "reading" it to you, I'll, uh... write it for you. I can't really think of a specific line, and I'm not really close to my books right now, so I'll do mine on one that I've read recently. The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater.

"Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she'd been told that she would kill her true love."

I think this line just opens up a world of doors, and I'm happy to see that this first line was a main part of the plot for the novel.

Does it matter to you whether the author is male of female when you're deciding on a book? What if you're unsure of the author's gender?
 It doesn't really make a difference to me, but I like to know what the author's gender is anyway, because... for some reason, it helps me connect to the story a little better, I think. Although, sometimes I've thought an author was a boy/girl, and I've been shocked to find out it was the other way around.

Ever read ahead? or have you ever read the last page way before you got there? (Do confess thy sins, foul demon!)
 I've definitely thought about it, but I don't really think I've gotten past the idea of it. I'll flip ahead to see how many pages I  have until the next chapter, but that's about it.
                                                                                                     
Organized bookshelves, or Outrageous bookshelves? 
 ORGANIZED!

Under oath: have you ever bought a book based on the cover alone? 
 Yes... unfortunately I have, and every time I do it, I never end up liking the book, so I make sure to read the synopsis now.

Take it outside to read, or stay in? 
 Stay in, I like the air conditioning/warmth of the fireplace, while I'm reading, and I also like being comfortable while reading. Although, sometimes I do read outside, when it is a comfortable day outside, but it gets kind of uncomfortable on my porch swing after reading for a while.

                                                                                                                              

Well, that is all for my first "Tag Tuesday", and if you have your own blog, and would like to take part in this, please just leave a comment on this post, letting me know you will be doing so, and also, please post that "Tag Tuesday" was originally created by moi. Thanks again for reading this, and I hope to get to doing another "Tag Tuesday" soon.

By the way, I tag everyone who views this post, so get started on your Inside and Out tag.

The Raven Boys (ARC) Book Review

Hi Guys,
This week I'm going to review The Raven Boys, the first book in the Raven Cycle series, by Maggie Stiefvater. I received this books a few weeks ago in the mail as you guys know, because of my "In My Mailbox" post. You guys also know I've wanted to read this book for a while due to my "Waiting on Wednesday" post. I was very excited to be able to read the ARC of this book. This is the second ARC I've finished, and I loved it just as much as I loved the first. This book was very original, and so... *I don't have any words to express what else this book was... it was just... ugh! I LOVED IT! Here is the synopsis from the front flap of the book:

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”
It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.
Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.
His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.
But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.
For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

 My first expression was obviously good, you can check out my Waiting on Wednesday post for evidence of that. The cover is amazing, I don't like birds, but this bird looks Gothic enough that I looked past what it actually was. I was drawn to the three "feathered" strokes behind "The Raven Boys", and, thankfully, they explain what they mean in the book. I've never read a book like this, I was wrapped up into the world and the characters within the first couple chapters. I loved the plot, the setting, and most of all the characters of this novel. Each of these characters had their own personality, that complemented the other characters perfectly. I was very passionate about the characters I either LOVED them or HATED them... there was no in-between, and I loved that.  My favorite character is definitely Gansey, which is strange, because I really wanted to hate him, but I just couldn't. I really wanted to like Adam, but something about him threw me off. Ronan was a great character, he's one of those characters that seems unimportant, but without him, the book would've been pretty boring. Noah was a great character as well, at first he was my least favorite character, but when I found out his "situation" I started to like him more. Blue was a great heroine, she knew what she was getting herself into, but she couldn't keep away from the "Raven Boys". I liked the psychics of this book as well, (with the exception of Neeve) Maura, Persephone, and Calla were great characters, and I feel that they almost reflected the personalities of the "Raven Boys". You can see why I enjoyed the characters so much, there were so many of them, and they are all so different, it's hard not to be drawn to each of them. The five main characters (Blue, Gansey, Adam, Ronan, and Noah) reminded me of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys at times, which is a good thing. The magic of this book reminded me of the Caster Chronicles combined with Lord of the Rings. The action, however, was like nothing I've ever expected while reading a book, and I loved it, I can't explain what makes it different, but it just is. I loved the roller-coaster ride that this book was, and I also really enjoyed the ending. (WHY DIDN'T YOU LET THEM KNOW SOONER RONAN? I NEED TO KNOW MORE!) I give this book 5/5 stars, I can't think of anything I disliked about this book. One bonus thing about this book, for me at least, is that the book had a TON of Ancient Latin in it, and I was very excited, because it was one time I could use my knowledge of Latin from school to decode the phrases that were in Latin in the book. Finally something in my everyday life that I can use my skills of Latin in *SCORE*! I'm in my 3rd year of Latin now, and I look forward to taking a fourth and fifth. I loved this book, and I look forward to reading the sequel. This book was totally different than Shiver, thankfully. I hope you guys enjoy the picture of Gansey and Blue at the bottom of this post, I know I do! Definitely check out this book when it is released September 18. COME ON BOOK 2!