The Sunday Post: May 26th

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer ~ It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead.

Hi all! So this is going to be a bit of a two week wrap-up. Woot!

In the past two weeks: 

I participated in the Bout of Books read-a-thon. Unfortunately my performance was much less than I would have liked it to be, but sometimes my reading just isn’t what it could be. I’m sure most readers have times like that though. I think in the end I finished up with 2 books read, 1 novella read, and 2 other books started. I read a total of somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 pages during that week.

I also posted three book reviews this week…

• Silver by Rhiannon Held
• Beautiful Bastard by Christina Lauren
• One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer by Nathaniel Fick

Silver and One Bullet Away were major wins while Beautiful Bastard was in that not bad, but not great category.

Recent reads:

I’ve been really touch and go with reading in the last week. Unfortunately work has been kicking my ass so I’ve pretty much been coming home and doing nothing… except buying books… lots of books. As for what I’ve been reading, I’ve been tackling Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs and Bloodlines by Richelle Mead. Both books are good thus far.

Coming up:

I’m really hoping to improve my reading this week. I have two whole days off this week right next to each other! It’s almost like an actual weekend! That should be good recuperation and reading time right there. I’d like to finish Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and Bloodlines and dig into some of these new books I’ve gotten. So much awesomeness waiting to be had!

The book haul:

My favorite part! I love book hauls. Even though my reading may have recently suffered, my book buying certainly hasn’t! Shocker, I know. So in the past two weeks I’ve bought (and I apologize ahead of time for bad pictures)…

-Sucker’s Portfolio by Kurt Vonnegut
- Junior by Macaulay Culkin: I had no clue Macaulay Culkin wrote a book. None. When I saw it, I had to have it. Say what you want about him, but the 90s kid in me will never hate him. =]
- This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin: OMFG – so psyched for this. I can’t wait!
- The Mongoliad: Book One by Various Authors: This is  trilogy that’s a compilation from like seven or eight different Sci-fi/fantasy authors. It looks really interesting and for just a few bucks I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give it a go.
- Ettiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger: Pretty sure this requires no words.
- Picking Cotton by Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton: We discussed this book in one of my classes this semester and I kept thinking about it so I bought it.
- The Law of Nines by Terry Goodkind: I’ve seen Goodkind’s name a lot, but never checked out his work. I got this hardback for two bucks, so why not give it a whirl?

- How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran: I’ve heard lots of great things about this book so it was past time for me to get a copy.
- Man in the Empty Suit by Sean Ferrell: The premise of this book sounds frickin’ awesomesauce! Simple as that.
- Numbers by Rachel Ward: I actually got a free copy of the second book in this series from Scholastic completely by surprise (thanks Scholastic!) so I finally got the first book so I can read them.
- Distant Waves by Suzanne Weyn
- Unholy Night by Seth Grahame-Smith: I went on a Seth Grahame-Smith binge this week. No lie.
- Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith: Forgot to include this one in the picture… lols.
- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith: Told you so. So yes, I already have this book, but this new one? It’s a gorgeous hardback edition with new paintings in it and stuffs… and I paid less than two bucks for it… so yeah.
- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls: I haven’t read this one yet, so that was another one that I figured it was past time.
- The Fire Rose by Mercedes Lackey
- Immanuel’s Veins by Ted Dekker
- The Book of Madness and Cures by Regina O’Melveny: I read most of this but had to return it to the library, but I loved what I read so much that I willingly forked over the dough for a new hardback copy. Oh yeah.
- Unwind by Neal Schusterman: This book sounds so good. I don’t even care that it’s not my usual genre.
- And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini: I fangirled so hard. So. hard. When I found out he had a new book coming out. Sadly I didn’t get to go meet him this past week when he was in my state, but I did get a pre-ordered signed copy so I’ll content myself with that. So psyched for this book! Bring on the feels.

That’s everything so, Happy Reading!

One Bullet Away by Nathaniel Fick

Nathaniel Fick decided while he was in college that he was going to join the Marines. He served as an Infantry Officer and later as a Recon Marine. During that time, he saw a good chunk of what the world had to offer, both good and bad. One Bullet Away is Fick’s account of the things he faced during those years.

I first became aware of Nathaniel Fick’s story when I read Generation Kill by Evan Wright a few years back. While I enjoyed Wright’s book, I have a different appreciation for One Bullet Away because of the different perspective. To read the account of someone who actually trained and served and couldn’t just go home after spending a while in a war zone is rather humbling.

One of the major pluses for One Bullet Away is the amount of ground that Fick covers. By that I mean that it’s not just a story about the gruesome aspects of war. Fick talks a lot about how he made the decision to join the Marines, what he went through in order to join, and the training he had to go through once he did get in and how that helped him to become the person he is. In addition, he mentions coming home from war and what it’s like adapting to civilian life again. He also discusses his decision to leave the Corps – how he went from believing the Corps would be his career to realizing that he needed to get out. He talks about all of this, and war, in such an honest and personal manner that it’s hard not to be captivated by his story.

In One Bullet Away Fick isn’t afraid to be candid about all things. He talks about himself, his feelings, his feelings about others and how things were done in a very straightforward manner. One Bullet Away is well written and easy to read. I didn’t want to put it down when I read it because I was so hooked by his story.

Bottom line, I honestly don’t have a bad thing to say about this book. People who serve in the armed forces endure a lot of things and that holds true for Nathaniel Fick and the men and women he served with. Definitely a great read.

Silver by Rhiannon Held

Andrew Dare, werewolf and enforcer, has an important job. Eliminate any and all threats to the Roanoke pack. So when he gets the call that there’s a lone wolf roaming his territory that smells like silver, he’s got to investigate. Silver doesn’t remember anything about her life before the fire running through her veins and the loss of her wild self, she’s simply trying to survive with death as her only companion. She’s just not sure how long she can keep running.

Silver, Rhiannon Held’s debut novel, was an interesting read to say the least. While werewolves and the concept of silver being lethal to werewolves isn’t new, she did play with certain other aspects of the werewolves back story and lives that kept me reading. Held built up a new mythology for werewolves and played with bits of history in an interesting way. While Silver is primarily about trying to figure out what happened to this lone wolf, it also delves into pack politics and life, both the good and the bad.

The characters in the book were all very interesting. Especially Dare and Silver. Dare because of the type of person he is, the attitudes he has towards certain things, and the mystery surrounding his time in Spain. Silver because she obviously survived something horrible and she’s trying to understand all of these new things about herself. It was also really interesting having Death as an actual character. To be honest, I almost felt bad for him at times throughout the story.

The only thing about this book that I wish was different was to get more background on Dare’s history in Spain and the situation with his daughter and his wife’s family. We get some of the story in Silver, but it would awesome to get more about that, in my own opinion.

Overall, I have to say I really enjoyed Silver. There were so many different pieces that kept me wanting to read. I’ll definitely be looking out for more from Rhiannon Held.

Beautiful Bastard by Christina Lauren

Meet Chloe Mills, your average hard-working MBA student who’s doing her internship with a big-wig media agency. She’s determined to get what she wants in life and she’s not going to let anyone stand in her way. Then there’s Bennett Ryan, your average corporate workaholic who gets what he wants. Always. When Bennett moves back home to take a position with his family’s company the two of them get thrown together in what can only be called a whirlwind affair.

Beautiful Bastard was originally a fan-fiction story, but was edited and published by duo Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings after becoming massively popular. As far as the fan-fiction goes, it is far superior to other fan-fiction I’ve read (I’m looking at you 50 Shades of Grey), but would I pay 15 bucks for this again, probably not.

So here’s the thing about Beautiful Bastard. It’s surprisingly well written. The story, what there is of it, is kinda catchy. Even so, its just so typical and cliche of a lot of the erotic romance going around right now. It felt a lot like someone wanted to write lots of different sex scenes and put them all in one book. I mean by chapter four there had already been angsty sex, hate sex, no self-control sex, office sex, conference room sex, public sex, and elevator almost-sex. They’re apparently doing something right though because there’s plans for at least a four book series with a few novella’s thrown in there as well as a movie being made for this book.

Bottom line, it wasn’t bad. It was just a stereotypical man with all the power, woman who struggles, they fall in love, the shit hits the fan, then everything works out in the end story with lots and lots of sex. To be honest, I wouldn’t recommend this if you’re not one for quick erotic romance reads.

Beautiful Series Order (Not sure that that’s the official name, but I’m going with it):

1. Beautiful Bastard
2. Beautiful Stranger (To be released May 28, 2013)
3. Beautiful Player (To be released October 2013)

Bout of Books Read-a-thon: Day 4

Day four of the Bout of Books read-a-thon came to an end about an hour and a half ago, so while I’m still somewhat functioning, here’s my progress for the day.

On day four I spent nearly exactly five hours reading and read 301 pages if I’m not mistaken. It was a weird day for me… I had an awful 6am to 3pm shift at work so when I got home I ended up taking a much needed nap instead of reading straight through the night.

I finished Silver by Rhiannon Held which is the third (or, second and a half, what do novellas count as anyways?) book I’ve completed during the read-a-thon.

I also started Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs which I am very much enjoying thus far.

My totals for the read-a-thon so far are:

Hours read: 12
Pages read: 810

How’s your ‘thonning going? Do tell. Happy Reading!

Bout of Books: Day 3 Progress

With Day 3 of Bout of Books come and gone it’s time to talk about reading progress! Which sadly isn’t much.

I ended up reading for maybe 2 hours yesterday and if I’m not mistaken only read a few pages of Silver by Rhiannon Held. All that time I had yesterday afternoon/evening was spent doing laundry and cleaning and browsing the interwebs. So yeah. Fail there.

Today has been a better day, regardless of my crappy shift at work so off I go to get in a few more hours of reading today!

Totals for day 3:

Hours reading: 7
Pages read: 509

Happy Reading!

Bout of Books Read-a-thon: Goals and Progress So Far

So, I know this post is going up extremely late, but well, what can you do? The read-a-thon is officially here, and I’m sad to say that I didn’t get off to as great a start as I had hoped to. I do have some goals which I’ll share first, then I’ll quickly talk about my progress for the first two days.

My Goals:

As far as time is concerned, I’d like to read about 5 hours a day. I know that some days I won’t read that long and others I’ll probably read a lot more, but the least I can do is give it a shot.

As far as what I want to read… so much. So friggin’ much. I forced myself to pick enough choices that I would be able to switch it up if I needed to. Also, one of my goals is to read at least one non-fiction book during the read-a-thon. Here’s the list I came up with, the last three books on the list are the non-fiction.

- Walking Disaster by Jamie McGuire
- Bloodlines by Richelle Mead
- American Gods by Neil Gaiman
- King of the Class by Gila Green
- Silver by Rhiannon Held
- Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
- The Awakening by Kate Chopin
- Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
- Triangles by Ellen Hopkins
- Shades of Gray by Jasper Fforde
- Sex with Kings by Eleanor Herman
- Death at the Priory by James Ruddick
- House to House by David Bellavia

So those are the books I’m planning to read from for the remainder of the read-a-thon.

Day 1:

On Monday I read for about four hours on my nook. I read and finished one book and one novella.
- Because of You by Jessica Scott
- Anything for You by Jessica Scott

Day 2:

Yesterday was far less impressive as far as reading goes. I only read for about an hour and a half in the early morning. Unfortunately, when I got home from work I had a massive headache so I went right to sleep.
I read 104 pages of Silver by Rhiannon Held.

I’m planning to spend the rest of today reading for the most part since I slept in this morning, so here’s hoping to some better numbers by the end of the day.

How’s your read-a-thonning going, or your reading in general? Do share.