Fresh New Voice of YA- Excerpt Vlogs!

Here are the excerpt vlogs for this month's Fresh New Voice of YA! First up is Breathing by Cheryl Renee Herbsman, in which I attempt a Southern accent! The second video is of me reading from Bad Girls Don't Die by Katie Alender.



and




And be sure to check out Katie Alender's interview over on my myspace blog here!

Also, Bad Girls Don't Die is out in bookstores today! And Breathing came out last week, so be sure to go get your copies of these great books!

In My Mailbox- Week of April 13

Here's my vlog for this past week. Will add links and such later to the books I mention. But right now, been up since 7:!5am Saturday morning and it's almost 4am now on Sunday. Must go to bed.



Night all- see you in the afternoon!

Calling All Authors + Where are all the reviews? Also, funny tidbits!

First off, just a quick proposition to authors. If you have any sort of swag like bookmarks, postcards, magnets, etc. and you want to get them out there in the world, feel free to send them my way. In my opinion, a prize package is never complete until I put in some swag! I make it a point to do it every time I send a prize out and I feel bad if I'm not able to. So help me have a full stock of swag to give out to people! Email me at bookchicclub-at-gmail-dot-com for my address.

Secondly, on Lenore's blog, she did a fabulous post about authors contacting reviewers (btw, would love to see an author's take on the reversal- reviewers contacting authors!) and since I love reading discussions, I made it so that I could recieve in my inbox all followup comments after I'd posted my own comment. Well, one of the comments involved this little sentence from an anonymous author: "There is one blogger who gleefully lists all the book they get in the mail in a weekly video blog post, but never reviews ANYTHING." Now, I may be narcissistic and paranoid, but I feel like this author is talking about me. In the comments, I gave a rebuttal to that (and so did Lenore- thanks again for that, btw!).

I do review books and interview authors and feature them on my blog. Just not THIS one. I created this blog back in December or so to do bookish things, like In My Mailbox, Waiting on Wednesday, etc.- stuff that just wouldn't fit in with all the stuff I do on my myspace review blog. Plus, Blogger is better about posting pictures and such. My review blog can be found here on myspace- feel free to friend me! :)

So just to clarify, this is not my review blog!! It's just a side blog for bookish-related things and to talk a bit about my personal life. I am planning on including my review blog link on my profile page here and in other places. I foolishly thought that the Introduction post to the blog found here would be enough. Apparently not.


Now the funny tidbits! I was driving back to my apartment from my parent's place since I visited them for Easter and two funny things happened on the way back:

1) I passed by a road that was called "Pinch Em Slyly Place". Yes, that was the actual name! Wouldn't that be an awesome street to live on?!

2) I saw a restaurant (two different places though- it must be a local chain or something) that was called Carlos O'Kelly's Mexican Cafe. The sign was a mixture of Spanish and Irish themes and it made me giggle.

In My Mailbox- Week of April 5

Hey everyone! Here's my post for In My Mailbox this week!



Hope you like it! And also be sure to check out my previous two posts that have updates from my participation in BEDA!

Here's my BEDA post from Saturday:

So I have to get up way early tomorrow (6:40am) to go to Easter mass with my mom. But at least she's making waffles for breakfast afterward, so that's a plus.

Anyway, I'm just gonna do a quick post. I was listening to the audio book of 3 Willows by Ann Brashares on my way back home today (it's a 4 hour drive, made an hour longer due to traffic on 95N) and, while I haven't finished it (I'm not even close- I ended up putting some music on midway through the second disc), I have some thoughts on the story so far.

It's a good book. I love Ann's writing because it flows so well and it's so calm and everything. BUT what's bugging me is the constant references back to the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Now, I like it when authors who set a book in the same place as their previous novels make little references to other characters from those other novels (like Sarah Dessen does) but she's taking it a bit too far. Any time, and I do mean ANY time, a Sisterhood member is mentioned, there's a whole paragraph about that girl was part of the legendary Sisterhood. And I'm only on the second disc, so like 5 chapters in, and there's been about as many references, if not a few more, already. It detracts from the story and pulls me out from the novel, jarring my listening. I mean, I think perhaps one reference to the Sisterhood would be enough toward the beginning and then any time a member is referenced, it should be a subtle reference, hidden in the story for fans of Ann's previous books to find and enjoy, not boldly put out there which becomes annoying after a while.

So that's my take on it. Anybody else want to chime in?

Time for sleep now. See you all tomorrow!

Friday Five- Slightly Extended Edition (i.e. More Photos!)

1) Finally finished Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson. Such an intense book- highly recommended. Simply a fantastic read! Am now going on to Freaked by J.T. Dutton and Just One Wish by Janette Rallison. I also started The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose, which brings me to...

2) I got back from the signing a little over an hour ago and it was really fun. They did the signing part first- tons of people showed up and then his Talk/QnA. But since it took so long for that part to start (the event started at 7, the Talk started at 8:15), my friend Liz and I didn't stay too long. But he's doing another event here tomorrow so I may stop by for a bit and listen to him speak for a bit longer before heading home. I did get a couple pictures from the event. Here they are:



This is a picture of me burping with a murderous look in my eyes while we waited in line. I was not expecting this photo to be taken, though I had given my friend Liz free reign to take some practice shots. She also attempted to take one of just my eye, but it didn't turn out well so we deleted it.



This is a shot of Kevin Roose (the author) before we got up to his table. I think we were just a few people away from meeting him and my friend took a photo of him, lol. And now, we have...



the picture of me with Kevin Roose! This is one of my better pictures with an author, given that I don't look too horrible, but my one problem with that is that I'm not smiling enough and look like I don't want to be there. But of course maybe I was just too worried about keeping myself from falling over since I was squatting next to Kevin so I couldn't focus too much on the picture being taken.

Ah well.

I handled myself pretty well. I said some funny things, which is a step up from being mute like I was at the Ann Brashares signing. He asked us if we were Liberty students and we explained that we weren't, by which I mean I said we were Lynchburg College students. I didn't explain that I'd graduated and all that. Too complicated. He has a long line and like 1 minute with us- there's no need for all that.

3) As I said above, I'm going home tomorrow. I'm heading home for Easter. Will be leaving late tomorrow morning and then coming back Monday morning- should be a fun time. I got the 3 Willows by Ann Brashares audio book from the library so that'll be fun to listen to on the way there and the way back. I'll probably bring a music CD or two to break up the book a bit.

4) I got a call about this job here in Lynchburg from Spherion- they're a temp agency of sorts though they mainly try and get you in a career rather than a string of temp jobs. It's a clerk position for some company (I don't think the lady I chatted with ever told me who specifically I'd be working for) here in Lynchburg and it pays $10/hr. I had to do a couple online tests, which I did well on according to the lady from Spherion I talked to. Now it's just waiting to hear what the company says. I really hope I get an interview or, hey, even the job itself without an interview, though that's not as likely. Wish me luck!

5) I went to the LC Career Center this past Tuesday for an appointment I had. I met with Beverly Reid and she went over my resume, which looks better than it did when I went to her around this time last year. She said I should make a few slight changes that should help and she also showed me a couple sites to look at. She also told me that they could stage a mock interview for whenever I had an interview set up for somewhere, so that I could be prepared for it. It was a nice meeting. I then walked Becca to class, and hung out with Liz and Keavonnda for a bit. It was a fun day. :)

That's all for this week!