Popsugar Challenge 2015 Wrap-up

This was a great challenge for me and I’m excited to try it again next year. It made me read some things that I wouldn’t have otherwise and I appreciate some motivation to broaden my reading. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to complete this challenge, but I definitely plan on making it more of a priority next year!

Links are to my reviews. The red, italicized titles are what I had planned to read, but didn’t get to.

A  book with more than 500 pages – Gone by Michael Grant
A classic romance – Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
A book that became a movie – Austenland by Shannon Hale
A book published this year – A Cold Legacy by Megan Shepherd
A book with a number in the title – Top Ten Clues You’re Clueless by Liz Czukas
A book written by someone under 30 – I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
A book with nonhuman characters – Prudence by Gail Carriger
A funny book – Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
A book by a female author – Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige
A mystery or thriller – The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
A book with a one-word title – Firefight by Brandon Sanderson
A book of short stories – My True Love Gave to Me edited by Stephanie Perkins
A book set in a different country – Born of Deception by Teri Brown
A nonfiction book – The Monuments Men by Robert M Edsel
A popular author’s first book – The Comeback Season by Jennifer E Smith
A book from an author you love that you haven’t read yet – Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen
A book a friend recommended – On the Fence by Kasie West
A Pulitzer Prize-winning book – All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
A book based on a true story – The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate
A book at the bottom of your to-read list – Edenbrooke by Julianne Donaldson
A book your mom loves – Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink
A book that scares you – Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
A book more than 100 years old – The Book of Mormon
A book based entirely on its cover – I Crawl Through It by A.S. King
A book you were supposed to read in school but didn’t – 1984 by George Orwell
A memoir – Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen
A book you can finish in a day – Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
A book with antonyms in the title – Fire & Flood by Victoria Scott
A book set somewhere you’ve always wanted to visit – Instructions for a Broken Heart by Kim Culbertson
A book that came out the year you were born – The Giver by Lois Lowry
A book with bad reviews – Red Girl, Blue Boy by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
A trilogy – The Summer I Turned Pretty trilogy by Jenny Han
A book from your childhood – This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen
A book with a love triangle – A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray
A book set in the future – Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
A book set in high school – To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
A book with a color in the title – Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
A book that made you cry – Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson
A book with magic – Illusions of Fate by Kiersten White
A graphic novel – In Real Life by Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang
A book by an author you’ve never read before – The Cure for Dreaming by Cat Winters
A book you own but have never read – Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour by Morgan Matson
A book that takes place in your hometown – Honey, Baby, Sweetheart by Deb Caletti
A book that was originally written in a different language – Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier
A book set during Christmas – Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
A book written by an author with your same initials – The Shadow Thieves by Anne Ursu
A play – The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
A banned book – The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
A book based on or turned into a TV show – The 100 by Kass Morgan
A book you started but never finished – MILA 2.0 by Debra Driza

Completed: 46/50

#ReadingMyLibrary Challenge Wrap-up

This month I’ve been participating in the #ReadingMyLibrary Challenge. It’s been a lot of fun and I’ve really appreciated the nudge to get back out to my library! 

This month I didn’t read as many library books as I usually do since I started to read some ARCs. But I did get in five–two physical and three ebooks. But here’s how much money I saved from checking out books instead of buying them! (Prices according to Amazon.)

Ready Player One – $7.58
Born of Deception – $14.21
Ruin and Rising – $12.25
A Cold Legacy – $13.59
Dangerous – $9.99

Total Savings: $57.62

I feel pretty good about that! I encourage everyone to use local libraries! They’re such a great resource. They have all kinds of events and such happening all the time and, of course, a ton of books and movies for people to check out.

#ReadingMyLibrary Challenge: Week Four Update

I know I’m late, okay??? Like I said in my last post, I’ve been so unbelievably busy. Seriously. It’s been crazy. This is the second to last update in this challenge and I must say that I’ve really enjoyed it!

I finished reading the ebook that I checked out, Dangerous by Shannon Hale, and hope to post a review soon. I started reading Born of Deception by Teri Brown which I physically checked out from the Orem Public Library. I’m probably around 2/3 of the way through it and I’ll be reviewing that when I’m done too. I’ve got a bunch of other books checked out waiting for me on my Kindle, but I’m just not sure that I’ll get to them before they’re due (dang ARCs getting in the way!)

This week we’ve been asked to share how often you visit the library.

My answer: Not often enough. I get on Overdrive fairly often (the electronic platform that my libraries use for ebooks) but I don’t get around to going to the real library as often as I’d like to. However, I do see that changing (especially this summer) since I re-realized how many books libraries have just chilling on their shelves that I want to read but aren’t available through Overdrive. Hopefully this can be a once-a-week thing.

Happy reading!

#ReadingMyLibrary Challenge: Week Three Update (plus, Scavenger Hunt!)

This week I finished one electronic library book (Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo, see my review for The Grisha Trilogy HERE). I’m also about a third of the way through another electronic library book, Dangerous by Shannon Hale

So…that’s not great but it’s better than nothing.

The prompt for this week is to talk about why you love libraries or why you love being a librarian.

I wish I were a librarian. I love libraries because they’ve always felt like a safe place to me. You walk in and it’s quiet and there are just books EVERYWHERE. There’s really nothing like it. The fact that libraries continue to be free boggles my mind. For the last couple of years, I’ve been almost exclusively getting my books from Overdrive (an online library connected to your local library). When I went to the Provo Library today for the scavenger hunt, I realized how many books were just sitting on the shelves that are also sitting on my Amazon wishlist because Overdrive didn’t have it. I need to get back to using the physical library. Seriously. SO MANY BOOKS.

Okay, so the scavenger hunt…I’m just going to have links to my Instagram instead of actually posting the pictures. Sorry, too lazy to double post. My husband and I stopped by the wonderful Provo Library to take some pictures for the scavenger hunt…and to pay my 20 cent fine…whoops!

1) Library card
2) An audio book (shout out to my husband the hand model)
3) A DVD
4) A large print book (bonus points if you can tell what the book is)
5) Event calendar
6) Flyer for an upcoming event
7) A fun display “Grab & Go Spring Break Bundles”
8) 800 Non-Fiction
9) A set of encyclopedias
10) Magazine(s)
11) A graphic novel

And then for the fun round we decided to limit ourselves to just the Young Adult/Teen section so that’s why we didn’t get some pretty easy ones on the list. Here’s the picture.

What we did get:
Girl in a dress on the cover – The Elite by Kiera Cass
Green – Following Christopher Creed by Carol Plum-Ucci
Number in the title – 1001 Cranes by Naomi Hirahara
Picture of someplace you’d like to visit – Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins (My husband chose this one.)
More than eight words in the title – How Zoe Made Her Dreams (Mostly) Come True by Sarah Strohmeyer (It had exactly eight, but I counted it. Also, I love this book.)
One word title – Nothing by Janne Teller (My husband picked this one too. He liked that the title for the one word book was “Nothing”. I have to admit, pretty clever.)
About libraries or the word library in the title – The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen (She works at a library for part of the book so I counted it).

For the record, the library had TWO authors with last names starting with “U” in the YA section which makes it virtually impossible to find a book written by an author with my same initials (AU). I was not pleased by their selection.

Anyway, I will leave you all with a nice quote to warm your bellies.

Following this train of thought, I would just add that libraries act as portals to anywhere you’d like to go.

#ReadingMyLibrary Challenge: Week Two Update

Quick update on books, I’ve read one physical book that I checked out from the library (Ready Player One) and am in the process of reading a digital book that I checked out (Ruin and Rising). As I said in my April TBR Checkpoint, things are a little slow as I’m trying to get through some ARCs as well (and I’m moving this weekend) but I’m anticipating a good reading week next week.

This week’s challenge topic is:

Books you would like to suggest to your library.

I’m not completely sure how to answer this one…I think libraries in general tend to be stocked pretty well. The only issue I have, I guess, is with the digital library (Overdrive). I have accounts with three different libraries on Overdrive: KCLS, Provo Library, and BYU. Provo and BYU both have a pretty pitiful showing online, but KCLS (King County Library System) rocks. They’re pretty good at getting the newer, popular books on there and the hold times aren’t usually too bad. I guess if I were to suggest some books to my library it would be all the books on my TBR that aren’t already online–but nothing specific.

#ReadingMyLibrary Challenge: Week One Update

I haven’t gotten very far in the books that I checked out…shame shame, I know. But I’ll get to them! I just have to get through an ARC first and then I’m good to go.

This week’s challenge topic is:

Tell us a little about your library (include a picture if you can!).

In my sign-up post I already showed pictures of my current local libraries, so I thought I’d talk about the library that really started it all for me: The Kenmore, WA library.

Now, at the end of my senior year of high school they finished constructing the shiny, NEW Kenmore Library, but the one that I grew up going to was anything but glamorous. It was a portable. Literally. You know those portable classrooms that they stick in high school parking lots to make room for more classes? That’s exactly what the library was! It smelled the same and it was very small, but it was one of my favorite places to go as a kid. I can still recall the smell…not anything bad, but kind of musty and old. It just smells like my library. Here’s a picture of the building from Google Maps taken August 2011 (just two months after the new library was completed). It’s hard to see with all the trees, but I think you can kind of get the idea of what it was. The black garbage sack in front is actually covering the old King County Library System sign.

Man, I loved that library. The librarians knew me and my siblings by name and they always asked for our library card number when we were checking out because they knew we had it memorized. If I went in alone they always asked how my family was doing. I dreamed of working there in high school, but because it was such a small library, there were never any openings. This is where I fell in love with reading, books, and libraries.

I think I’ve only been to the new library two or three times (I left soon after it was completed for college), but it’s beautiful. There are a ton of windows and the whole space is open and bright. There’s a parking garage now to accommodate more patrons. It looks modern and new and is easily five times the size of the old library.

 

Libraries have always been and always will be safe places for me. I cannot imagine living somewhere without a local library. Unfortunately, I think a lot of local libraries are suffering from a lack of funding. Now, I’m definitely not asking anyone to go out and donate money, but what I am asking is for people to find your local library. Get yourself a library card. Get your kids library cards. Check out some books, or movies, or CDs. ANYTHING. Just use your local library.

(Pictures of the new library were all taken by Lara Swimmer and can be found here)

#ReadingMyLibrary Challenge!

Stefani @Caught Read Handed and Amy @Read What I Like have issued us book bloggers a challenge to stop buying books (for the month at least) and use our local libraries instead! I actually sat in a meeting today at work where we talked about how our library on campus is not being used the way that it used to be. In order to get more people into our library, our campus has invested in at least one 3-D printer (which I hear is WAY cool) and will soon be offering computer classes. I love libraries, so it’s sad to think that a lot of people don’t know all of the cool resources that a library can provide other than books. I bet if you look up your local library right now, you’ll be surprised what cool events and programs are going on!

The rules of the challenge are pretty straightforward and you only have to read one book from your library to participate (luckily I’ve already checked out two). So get out there, book bloggers, and promote your local libraries!

Shout out to my local libraries…

Orem Public Library

Harold B Lee Library (BYU Campus)

and last but not least, Provo Library at Academy Square