2012 Debut Author Challenge

This post is to let all of you know that I'm singing up for the 2012 Debut Author Challenge hosted by Kristi @ The Story Siren. The premise is that you read at least 12 young adult (YA) or middle grade (MG) debut author books throughout the year. You can read more if you want, but 12 is the minimum. If you are not sure, debut authors are authors who are releasing their first YA or MG novel. If you want to participate as well, or just learn more, you can get more details over here.

Here is my 2012 DAC list:

1. Incarnate by Jodi Meadows*
2. Everneath by Brodi Ashton*
3. Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi*
4. Above by Leah Bobet
5. Article 5 by Kristen Simmons*
6. The Selection by Kiera Cass*
7. Of Poseidon by Anna Banks*
8. The Glimpse by Claire Merle
9. The Other Life by Susanne Winnacker*
10. Sweet Evil by Wendy Higgins*
11. Glitch by Heather Anastasiu
12. Crewel by Gennifer Albin
13. What’s Left of Me by Kat Zhang
14. Skylark by Meagan Spooner
15. MILA 2.0 by Debra Driza
16. Something Like Normal by Trish Doller*
17. Touching the Surface by Kimberly Sabatini
18. Undeadly by Michele Vail
19. Survive by Alex Morel*
20. Time Between Us by Tamara Ireland Stone
21. Forbidden by Syrie James
22. ExtraNormal by Suze Reese
23. Intangible by J. Meyers
24. Wrecked by Anna Davies*
25. Altered by Jennifer Rush
26. False Memory by Dan Krokos

*=The ones I am most looking forward to.

So my list is currently double the required amount of books, so maybe that'll help me actually complete the challenge this year! All these books are currently on my TBR list. Practically half of the 2012 books on my TBR list are written by debut authors. I honestly think 2012 is going to be an amazing year YA books, especially debuts!

Feel free to follow my progress on my Debut Author Challenge Page here.

2011 A to Z Challenge

As you may have seen in my Goals post on Tuesday, I have decided to participate in another reading challenge this year.

The A to Z Challenge is hosted by Becky at Becky’s Book Reviews. Here’s how it works:

The challenge runs from now until December 31, 2011. You can choose the option that works best for you:
Authors -- Read alphabetically by author. Commit to 26 books.
Titles -- Read alphabetically by title. Commit to 26 books.
Authors & Titles -- Commit to reading 52 books.
For more information, you can visit the challenge blog here.

My goal for this challenge is to read 26 books alphabetically by title. My understanding is that you don’t have to read them in alphabetic order, as long as you read one book for each letter of the alphabet.

Right now, I'm reading Delirium by Lauren Oliver and Happy Ever After by Nora Roberts, so when I'm done I will have completed 2 out of the 26 books I have to read, specifically D and H.

You can following along on my page for this challenge, which can be found here.

Goals for the New Year

Happy New Year to all! I hope you all passed a fun New Years Eve and are ready for the new year to kick start! I hope it brings you all very good things! Keep on reading to see what I'm hoping to achieve in the upcoming year for myself and my reading.

Right now, everyone in the blogosphere is making resolutions for themselves and their blogs. Growing up, my parents never made resolutions or had us make resolutions, so I never really got into the habit. Since I now have this blog (and a ridiculous amount of books to read), I’d like to make a few goals for myself. (Not resolutions, because that word really doesn’t mean much to me.)

One of these goals is to make a dent in my TBR pile. I highly doubt I’ll stop looking at new books and adding them to my list, which kind of means I fail at that goal already. I guess the goal is basically to read more so I can keep up with myself. Here’s hoping this semester at school allows for that. If not, there’s always the summer when I can catch up with myself!

My other goal is to join reading challenges and complete them successfully. I tried my first reading challenge in October, Fall Into Reading 2010. I joined a bit late and had a really busy school semester, so I didn’t get to complete the challenge, but it was a fun first try. For this year, I’ve already joined The Story Siren’s 2011 Debut Author Challenge. There are so many good debut authors and books coming out this year, that I think it’ll be fun and relatively easy. Check out my page here and follow along with my progress.

I’ve been floating around blogs looking for another challenge I might like to participate in. I want to do something fun that will also allow me to read the books I’ve already added to my TBR list without overwhelming me in an amount of books I can’t get through. Early this week, I found the A to Z Challenge and have decided that it will be fun to participate in. Check back on Friday for my post about that challenge and see the page I will have created to accompany it.

Fall Into Reading 2010 Wrap-Up

My first reading challenge ended in a fail, but I’m not too surprised. My list changed a couple times (which you can see by looking through my Past Posts) and in the end it was too long for me to complete. Not only that, but being a university student made it really hard for me because this past semester was pretty hard. I’m hoping that next semester I’ll have better luck finding time to read, rather than constantly doing schoolwork. I know it’s important, but sometimes I need a break!!

This is what my list looks like now, at the end of FIR 2010:

• Dimestore Magic - Kelley Armstrong
• Kiss Me Deadly - ed. Trisha Telep
• Torment - Lauren Kate (currently reading)
• Beautiful Darkness - Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
• Crescendo - Becca Fitzpatrick
• Happy Ever After - Nora Roberts
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
• The Little Prince Graphic Novel - Joann Sfar
• Once in a Full Moon - Ellen Schreiber
• Unearthly - Cynthia Hand
• The Trouble with Chickens - Doreen Cronin
• Delirium - Lauren Oliver (currently reading)

Along with these books, I also ended up reading Fractured by Joanna Karaplis because I won it and it was short, so I wanted to get it read and reviewed quickly. I’m actually pretty happy with what I accomplished on this reading challenge! Eight out of thirteen is not too bad for my first reading challenge! If you want to check out my reviews for any of the books I’ve read, check out my sidebar for a full list.

2011 Debut Author Challenge

I've decided to give another reading challenge a go. I can tell you now that Fall Into Reading 2010 didn't go entirely as planned for me. The challenge isn't officially over until December 20, but I know I won't have it complete. I will be writing a post after that time (I might not get to it until after Christmas) as my wrap-up FIR2010 post. So keep your eyes on my blog for it, or watch my twitter feed!

This post is to let all of you know that I'm singing up for the 2011 Debut Author Challenge hosted by The Story Siren. The premise is that you read at least 12 young adult (YA) or middle grade (MG) debut author books throughout the year. You can read more if you want, but 12 is the minimum. If you are not sure, debut authors are authors who are releasing their first YA or MG novel. If you want to participate as well, or just learn more, you can get more details over here.

Here is my 2011 DAC list:
1. Haven by Kristi Cook
2. Bad Taste in Boys By Carrie Harris
3. Blood Magic by Tessa Gratton
4. Falling Under by Gwen Hayes
5. Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton
6. Die for Me by Amy Plum
7. Rival by Sara Bennett-Wealer
8. Entwined by Heather Dixon
9. Half-Blood by Jennifer L. Armentrout
10. Timeless by Alexandra Monir
11. Wildefire by Karsten Knight
12. Awaken by Katie Kacvinsky
13. Wither by Lauren DeStefano
14. Lost Voices by Sarah Porter

I've decided to go for 13 only because once I'd added my 12th, I started hearing a lot about Wither by Lauren DeStefano and decided I had to add it to my list. I may be adding books as the year goes on, but this is a pretty good start for me. A lot of these books look really good and I'm excited to read them. Make sure you click on the links above to go to their individual Goodreads pages to see what each of them is about.

***************

2011 has come and gone! Here is how I fared in the challenge:

1. Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton (review)
2. Haven by Kristi Cook (review)
3. Wither by Lauren DeStefano (review)
4. Die For Me by Amy Plum (review)
5. Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini (review)
6. Wildefire by Karsten Knight (review)
7. Half-Blood by Jennifer L. Armentrout (review)
8. True Intentions by Lisa Kuehne (review)
9. Winterborne by Augusta Blythe (review)
10. Six Moon Summer by S.M. Reine (review)
11.
12.

I didn't complete it, but I had fun reading debut YA novels!

Fall Into Reading 2010 Update #2

Another update on Fall Into Reading 2010, the read-a-thon that I decided to try out! Since it's my first ever read-a-thon, I don't feel so bad tweaking it all the time.

In my last FIR2010 post I added a whole bunch of books that I had received as digital ARCs from NetGalley. I realize now, that just because I have them doesn't mean I have to read them all before December 20. This realization has made me re-think the list I posted last time. So, there will be one more, final change.



My current and final list is being modified to include:

1. My original list,
2. A few NetGalley titles (I typically will read a digital ARC while reading a separate hard copy book)
3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (I have a tradition of re-reading the novel before the corresponding movie comes out, and I don't plan on breaking it)

This is my new and final Fall Into Reading 2010 list. The titles that have been stroked out have been read.

• Dimestore Magic - Kelley Armstrong
• Kiss Me Deadly - ed. Trisha Telep
• Torment - Lauren Kate
• Beautiful Darkness - Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
• Crescendo - Becca Fitzpatrick (currently reading)
• Happy Ever After - Nora Roberts
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
• The Little Prince Graphic Novel - Joann Sfar
• Once in a Full Moon - Ellen Schreiber
• Unearthly - Cynthia Hand
• The Trouble with Chickens - Doreen Cronin
• Delirium - Lauren Oliver (currently reading)

I doubt I'll be able to get them all done, but I will update as I make my way through them. If you check back to this post, I will be crossing titles off my list as I complete them.

Fall Into Reading 2010 Update

You may recall back on October 12, I stated how I was participating in Fall Into Reading 2010 hosted by Callapidder Days.

For my first reading challenge/read-a-thon, I'm mostly working on finding a decent amount of time to actually read. There have been a few hurdles since starting, and I'm not has far into my list than I wish I were. You see, since October 12, I've discovered NetGalley, a website where you can request digital ARCs from publishers. Well, you can bet that I signed up and did just that, and then had 6 new books in my possession to read.

This is a list of the digital ARCs I received from Net Galley:

From HarperCollins

Delirium - Lauren Oliver

Unearthly - Cynthia Hand

Once in a Full Moon - Ellen Schreiber

From Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The Little Prince Graphic Novel - Joann Sfar

The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group - Catherine Jinks

The Trouble with Chickens - Doreen Cronin

If you've noticed I've already read a couple of them. You can see the reviews for Once in a Full Moon here, and for The Little Prince here.

My Fall Into Reading list has to be altered a little since I now have those digital ARCs that I can read on the bus and at school between classes. So here is an updated list including what I've already read and am currently reading.

Read

Dimestore Magic - Kelley Armstrong (review)

The Little Prince Graphic Novel - Joann Sfar

Once in a Full Moon - Ellen Schreiber

Currently Reading

Kiss Me Deadly - edited by Trisha Telep

Unearthly - Cynthia Hand

To Read (by December 20, 2010)

Torment - Lauren Kate

Beautiful Darkness - Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Crescendo - Becca Fitzpatrick

Delirium - Lauren Oliver

The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group - Catherine Jinks

The Trouble with Chickens - Doreen Cronin

Happy Ever After - Nora Roberts (out on Tuesday)

Wow, that list is so much more intimidating than when I first made it two and a half weeks ago! On that note, I should be off to do some homework so that I have time to do some reading before heading out for some Halloween festivities!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Come back tomorrow for my first ever In My Mailbox!

Fall Into Reading 2010

Here is a post I made a few days ago in my livejournal that I wanted to cross-post over here. Check it out:

I just found out through Page Turners Blog, that there's this thing called "Fall Into Reading 2010" where people make lists of books they want to read between September 22, 2010 and December 20, 2010. And then do it.

This event is hosted by Callapidder Days and you can check out more info about it here.

I've never participated in any kind of Read-A-Thon, so I just decided "Hey, why not?" Chances are I won't be able to get through any of them because of school (currently in my thesis year in Psychology = hard core thesis paper to write). However, I want to.

My goal for Fall Into Reading 2010 is just to remember to take time for myself and read a book that I want to read, rather than textbooks all the time. So far I've been achieving this by reading for 15-20 mins every night before bed. Unfortunately for my sleep patterns, 15 mins soon turns into 30 mins, then 45 mins, then it's 1 o'clock which is later than I like to stay up during the week. So basically, it's going well.

I don't want to be too ambitious and make my list impossible to finish, but at the same time I think that'll be impossible in itself because there's lots of sequels coming out that I need to read ASAP.

These are the books that I want to get read before the end of Fall Into Reading 2010.

• Dimestore Magic - Kelley Armstrong (currently reading)
• Kiss Me Deadly - edited by Trisha Telep
• Torment - Lauren Kate
• Beautiful Darkness - Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl (out Oct. 12, 2010)
• Crescendo - Becca Fitzpatrick (out Oct. 19, 2010)
• Happy Ever After - Nora Roberts (out Nov. 2, 2010)

Six. Six is good. Six is potentially manageable. Wish me luck! And make sure to run over to Callapidder Days and see what they're all about!