In My Mailbox (37)

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by The Story Siren.

I'm Alison. I've been blogging for 11 months. I review mainly YA with a few MG books and a weekly manga feature.

It was a light week in book world for me. I chose to take mostly books I already had but hadn't yet read on vacation with me.

Bought

Harry Potter: Film Wizardry by Brian Sibley

Library Stash

Dark Lover by J. R. Ward

Vacation Reads

I tend to go a little crazy with books on vacation. Here are the books I took with me and finished on vacation this week:

1. Instructions for a Broken Heart by Kim Culbertson
2. Walk the Wild Road by Nigel Hinton
3. Exposure: A Novel by Therese Fowler
4. Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
5. Darkfever (Fever #1) by Karen Marie Moning
6. Dark Lover (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #1) by J.R. Ward
7. Switched (Trylle Trilogy #1) by Amanda Hocking
8. Die for Me (Revenants #1) by Amy Plum
9. Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse #1) by Charlaine Harris (I still have about 60 pages of this - I'll finish it tomorrow)

The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade

The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade
2010; Hyperion Book CH

Summary

Alona Dare–Senior in high school, co-captain of the cheerleading squad, Homecoming Queen three years in a row, voted most likely to marry a movie star… and newly dead.

I’m the girl you hated in high school. Is it my fault I was born with it all-good looks, silky blond hair, a hot bod, and a keen sense of what everyone else should not be wearing? But my life isn’t perfect, especially since I died. Run over by a bus of band geeks—is there anything more humiliating? As it turns out, yes—watching your boyfriend and friends move on with life, only days after your funeral. And you wouldn’t believe what they’re saying about me now that they think I can’t hear them. To top it off, I’m starting to disappear, flickering in and out of existence. I don’t know where I go when I’m gone, but it’s not good. Where is that freaking white light already?

Will Killian–Senior in high school, outcast, dubbed “Will Kill” by the popular crowd for the unearthly aura around him, voted most likely to rob a bank…and a ghost-talker.

I can see, hear, and touch the dead. Unfortunately, they can also see, hear and touch me. Yeah, because surviving high school isn’t hard enough already. I’ve done my best to hide my “gift.” After all, my dad, who shared my ability, killed himself because of it when I was fifteen. But lately, pretending to be normal has gotten a lot harder. A new ghost—an anonymous, seething cloud of negative energy with the capacity to throw me around—is pursuing me with a vengeance. My mom, who knows nothing about what I can do, is worrying about the increase in odd incidents, my shrink is tossing around terms like “temporary confinement for psychiatric evaluation,” and my principal, who thinks I’m a disruption and a faker, is searching for every way possible to get rid of me. How many weeks until graduation? (courtesy of Goodreads)

Review

The Ghost And The Goth was just what I expected: a fun, light paranormal romance. Alona Dare, the most popular girl in school, just died in a freak accident. Will Killian, the school loser, is just trying to hang out for a few more weeks so he can graduate high school.

The book is told from alternating points of view of Alona and Will. Alona comes back to school as a ghost - something is preventing her from moving on. Will is the only person who can see and hear her. They become an unconventional team. Will helps Alona to move on and Alona helps Will to control all the ghosts that are vying for his time.

Alona's voice is the most difficult part of this book. As a stereotypical popular, mean girl, she is selfish, conceited, and shallow. Combine those qualities with a social-climber's ambition and you have one tough girl to like. Alona seems to hide her depth even from herself. It took a long time before I began to understand or sympathize with her. But by the end of the book, I admired her spunk and bold attitude.

I liked Will right away. He is the "goth" of the title, although his clothes are the only thing "goth" about him. He appears dark and depressed only because he is trying to escape from the hundreds of ghosts who try to monopolize his time. He truly hears voices and can survive only by shutting the world out. His quiet, thoughtful personality is a refreshing break from Alona, but his sarcastic viewpoint on life and his temper make his world fun to read.

The plot drags a bit in the middle. There's so much prep work to establish the world that it takes a long time for things to really get moving. This isn't as irritating as it often is. I enjoyed becoming familiar with Alona and Will's worlds, but I was definitely ready for the plot to move along.

I recommend The Ghost and the Goth to anyone looking for a funny, sarcastic twist on the typical paranormal romance. I'm looking forward to the next book (according to Stacey's website, there will be two more books).

Rating: 3.5 / 5

The Luxe by Anna Godbersen

The Luxe by Anna Godbersen
2007; HarperCollins

Summary

In the self-contained world of young Gilded Age Manhattan socialites, Elizabeth and Diana Holland reign supreme. Or so it seems. Scratch the surface, though, and you can detect festering jealousies that threaten to topple them. Elizabeth suffers a more literal fall when her carriage overturns and she is carried away by the swift East River current. (courtesy of Goodreads)

Review

The Luxe is a turn of the century Gossip Girl - turn of the 20th century, that is. Life is more formal and class-based in 1899 New York City. The old class Dutch-American aristocracy is waging a cold war with the upstart nouveau-riche Industrialists. And beneath them both, the servants who work for them are struggling to break the barriers that separate the classes. We see all of these characters in The Luxe. Elizabeth, the paragon of virtue and blue blood, has to choose between her place in society and her secret passion. Diana, her little sister, who is in her sister's shadow. Penelope, filthy rich, ambitious, wants everything Elizabeth has and will drag her down to get it. Henry, a playboy who has to choose between family obligations and fun. Lina, the maid who hates her work and her mistress.

I quite enjoyed The Luxe, but it is not without flaws. The characters and plot were rather formulaic, but no more than most chick lit. I loved the rich descriptions of Victorian fashion and architecture. But the prose felt a little overdone at times - like a bad romance novel (e.g. "Elizabeth extended her long, slender neck...). Despite living 100 years earlier, the lifestyles of these characters were not very different from the Gossip Girl set. If you want to read about the sordid lives of the young and rich, The Luxe is a more tasteful way to go than Gossip Girl. The plot is nothing special, but it's still fun to read.

The book never really sucked me in, but it did grow on me. It was hard to get into the story, but once I did, I was just interested enough to keep going. I'd characterize the book as slow and steady. Never a page turner, but there's always enough there to make you want to continue.

I realize that my review has more criticism of the book than praise, but I really do think it's worth reading. It's never going to win any awards, but it's a good book. My reservations about the book are the same issues I have with most chick lit/Gossip-Girl-ish books. But I read them anyway. I would recommend The Luxe - as long as you go into it expecting a fun, gossipy read.

Rating: 3 / 5

Blogger Advice: Gaining Followers

*Warning: Monster advice post ahead! If it was epic poetry, it would probably rival Beowulf.

Also, I’m on vacation right now, so I may not be quick to comment back.

Who wants more followers?

I do!

Sometimes, I feel like actively trying to gain followers is a blogger’s dirty little secret, carefully hidden. Perhaps the “if you build it, they will come” philosophy works for some blogs and they magically gain thousands of followers, but that’s not the case for most people, including me. In reality, gaining followers requires a lot of time and hard work. Since I’ve gained a pretty respectable amount of followers in the past year (Come on…just 21 till 1000!), I thought I would offer a little advice for those of you who are interested.

Why try to gain followers?

Those who dismiss the idea of actively working to increase a blog’s readership have valid reasons. Blogging is about the community and about quality reviews/discussion of books. If your blog only does things that are geared towards garnering followers like host giveaways or meme posts rather than substantive content, your readership will suffer. I don’t think having lots of followers is worth it if you aren’t saying anything of value.

On the other hand, do you need lots of followers? Of course not. You can have a fabulous blog with well-written, thoughtful reviews and only a small number of devoted fans. Your blog will be just as worthy as the bigger guys.

I’m trying (rightly or wrongly) to be one of the big guys – to have quality content and lots of followers. Partly because being larger garners more attention from authors and publishers, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like review copies. But mostly because it enables me to be a bigger part of the blogging community. I love that my reviews now regularly get 10+ comments. I love that a lot of bloggers know me and I know them. I feel like part of something. And feeling like you belong is just about the best feeling in the world.

Here are a few ideas I think will help to increase the number of followers for your blog:

1) Blog Hops: I participate in Parajunkee and Crazy for Books’ Hops every week. This is where I’ve found most of my followers (along with In My Mailbox). On weekends when I don’t have much to do (which is most of the time), I allocate several hours to commenting on almost all of the people in the hops. This is a great way to say hi to old friends and to find tons of new blogs. I don’t just copy and paste a generic comment on each blog – I read every single post and try to create a unique response. It’s a lot of work, but I appreciate people who take the time to thoughtfully respond to my hop posts and I assume other bloggers do as well. I have a system down where I can do all this pretty efficiently. I can’t recommend enough the value of the Blog Hops for exposing your blog to the wider community.

2) Memes: This is a huge category. There are so many memes out there that you could do multiple ones every day and your blog could consist of nothing but. Memes are one of the best ways to get your blog out there. I recommend picking a few that you like, but not so many that they dominate your blog. Try to visit as many other blogs participating in the same meme as you can and comment on their posts. Also, don’t just do a meme because everyone else does or because you think it’s necessary to gain followers. I recently dropped Waiting on Wednesday from my blog. It had become a chore that I only did, because it was “expected” of book bloggers. On the other hand, I love In My Mailbox and the Hops and look forward to reading people’s posts all week.

3) Comments: Another big one. The more you comment, the more people will return your visit. And I mean a substantive comment. Not just “Hi, my blog is…” or “Great review.” Something that shows you read the post. Honestly, commenting is something I still need to work on. I try to return comments and to comment on a variety of blogs, but I still don’t get to nearly enough. That’s due to both lack of time and laziness. Another note, some people really dislike it when bloggers leave a link to their blog in a comment – it’s viewed as spam. The blog hops and meme posts are an exception to this. I actually would prefer that you leave a link to your blog in a comment – as long as you aren’t only advertising your blog. It’s a lot easier for me to get to your blog quickly that way.

4) Content: If you want devoted followers, the content has to be there. Memes are fine, but the majority of your blog should be devoted to reviews and discussion posts. The reviews should be thorough and well-written. As you can tell from this post, I have a tendency to be overly wordy. My reviews might be too long sometimes, but I try give a lot of information to my readers.

5) Unique Voice: I’m plus/minus about this. Having a unique blogging approach can either really attract people or really turn them off. I think blogs that are extremely well-written or are extremely funny without being insulting are special and highly attractive. But I don’t think that’s necessary to have a large readership. In fact, some of the biggest blogs have (in my opinion) very ordinary writing styles. The only must-haves for me are correct grammar and spelling (for the most post) and reviews that are thorough enough to tell me whether I should read the book.

6) Consistency: This is somewhat subjective, but you should have enough posts that people remember you. I post 5-6 times per week. I think 3 would suffice. You can do whatever works for you of course, but to have a major blog, I think you should have at least 3 posts per week. If you’re busy, you can schedule posts. I’m actually on vacation right now, but I have posts scheduled all week.

7) Blog Design Make sure your blog is legible! Use a standard font. A light background and dark text is easier to read than the opposite. I don’t think a professionally designed blog is necessary, but it helps. My blog got more attention and was more memorable when I had it re-designed. On another note, please put the GFC Follower widget at the top of your page – right or left side. Don’t make me have to work to follow you. Also, please, please no music! I love reading people’s playlists, but I don’t want to be forced to listen to them or flip through the entire blog to turn off the sound on the widget. I’d prefer that people didn’t put up book widgets with sound either (I’m so glad the Crescendo widget is finally gone). Just a pet-peeve of mine.

8) Blog Name: This isn’t a big deal, but it’s something to think of. I’m a moderator at the Book Blogger Directory. I’ve entered dozens of blog names onto the list. There are so many blogs that start with “Books” or “Read(ing)” for pretty obvious reasons. Nothing wrong with that, but they do start to bleed together after awhile. I even found two blog using the same name. My blog name is nothing special (and it does contain the word “read”), but it has the advantage of starting with an “A,” putting it at the top of an alphabetical list. I’d recommend a blog name that stands out, although nothing so weird that it sounds ridiculous.

9) Giveaways: Everyone loves free stuff. As fun as giveaways are, I would not rely on them to increase my follower count. I’ve never gotten more than a handful of new followers from a giveaway. Perhaps it would be different if I gave away really high-demand books though. I would do giveaways if you want to do them, but don’t rely on them as your ticket toward blog growth.

10) Author Interviews/Tours: These are loads of fun. They’re a great way to get your name out there and have people visit your blog who normally wouldn’t. That being said, I’ve never gained more than a few followers from an author feature. Like giveaways, it’s worth doing, but not for the purpose of gaining followers.

11) Reciprocity: I follow you, you follow me. Some people carefully select the blogs they follow. I follow pretty much everyone. Then I choose more carefully with of those blogs I regularly read. No right or wrong – just a personal choice.

12) Time: This one is fairly obvious. You’re not going to become a large blog overnight. Most publishers and tours won’t take you seriously until 6 months, regardless of follower count. There are very few blogs that can hit 1000+ followers in less than a year. It happens, but I can only think of one offhand. I’ll probably be right around the 12 month mark when I hit 1000.

13) Work: Gaining followers is a lot of work. I spent a lot of time – hours and hours – every week commenting and networking. Plus writing reviews and blog posts. It takes up the majority of my free time, actually. Unless you’re really well-organized or lucky, it’s going to take many hours of labor to become a larger blog. It’s worth it to me and I have the time, but a lot of people just don’t have a huge amount of time to dedicate to blogging.

14) Have Fun!: Ultimately, you should blog your way. Definitely try to have a large readership if you want to, but don’t make it the be all-end all. No one makes much money from book blogging, so you should focus on the fun aspect rather than the marketing aspect. If the effort to gain followers has you changing your blog in ways you don’t like or spending too much time blogging, then don’t do it. If there’s something on your blog that you love that isn’t very popular, keep doing it. For example, my Manga Mondays has much lower traffic and comments than other posts, but I love doing it and will take a few less readers on Mondays. Also, I definitely spend a huge amount of time blogging, but I have a great time. When that changes, the blog will either disappear or change.

What are your thoughts? What have you done to increase your blog’s readership? Is it important to you?

The Espressologist by Kristina Springer

The Espressologist by Kristina Springer
2009; Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

Summary

What’s your drink of choice? Is it a small pumpkin spice latte? Then you’re lots of fun and a bit sassy. Or a medium americano? You prefer simplicity in life. Or perhaps it’s a small decaf soy sugar-free hazelnut caffe latte? Some might call you a yuppie. Seventeen-year-old barista Jane Turner has this theory that you can tell a lot about a person by their regular coffee drink. She scribbles it all down in a notebook and calls it Espressology. So it’s not a totally crazy idea when Jane starts hooking up some of her friends based on their coffee orders. Like her best friend, Em, a medium hot chocolate, and Cam, a toffee nut latte. But when her boss, Derek, gets wind of Jane’s Espressology, he makes it an in-store holiday promotion, promising customers their perfect matches for the price of their favorite coffee. Things are going better than Derek could ever have hoped, so why is Jane so freaked out? Does it have anything to do with Em dating Cam? She’s the one who set them up! She should be happy for them, right?

With overtones of Jane Austen’s Emma and brimming with humor and heart, this sweet, frothy debut will be savored by readers. (courtesy of Goodreads)

Review

One sentence summary: Teenage Bridget Jones Diary in a Coffeeshop.

The Espressologist is nothing like Bridget Jones Diary in plot, but I saw a connection between Jane Turner and Bridget Jones's personalities. This is not such a good thing for me since I didn't like Bridget Jones Diary. Likewise, Jane drove me crazy throughout much of the book. She comes off as condescending and arrogant. Most of her personality summaries derived from a person's favorite drink are tinged with meanness (e.g. "Cocky sex-deprived butthead guy drink. Expect only the most stupidity to come out of his mouth.") I also thought it was weird that this senior in high school is smart enough to be taking college courses but keeps skipping school because it's irrelevant to her dreams to attend a fashion institute.

Jane's personality aside, The Espressologist is a fun read. Jane's little hobby of creating personality descriptions based on drink choices threatens to get her in trouble at work. But it turns out that her jerky boss sees a business opportunity in Jane's talent. The coffee shop starts a weekly espressology night where Jane makes matches for anyone who comes in. The matchmaking is a much greater success than anyone could imagine. People flock to Jane for predictions and loads of happy couples result.

But Jane's success with everyone else comes at the expense of her own life. She matches her best friend Em with Cam, a cute, college classmate. But as time goes by, she realizes that she's fallen for Cam. What should she do? Can she find a way to make herself happy without making everyone else miserable? The Espressologist gets better as it goes on. By the end, I was smiling at the sweet, fun, fluffy read.

Rating: 3 / 5

Manga Mondays (48): Vampire Knight vol. 6 - Matsuri Hino

Vampire Knight vol. 6 - Matsuri Hino



Summary

Yuki helps the little boy, and he leads her to an abandoned building. She sees that he has different colored eyes, one blue eye and one red eye, and he drains her energy. The Night Class discovers her unconscious, and takes her to safety. Ichijo explains that the abandoned building was being used for Vampire Banquet, hosted by Aido's father. Curious, she sneaks out, and sees all of the vampire parents introducing their daughters to Kaname. A female vampire, one of the last Purebloods named Sara Shirabuki, tells them to leave Kaname alone, and she and Kaname talk. Yuki gets jealous and runs back into the room, where she starts to cry. Kaname comes in and asks her if she wants to become a vampire, and she says yes. But he claims that he didn't mean it, and takes her back home. (courtesy of Goodreads)

Review


*Warning: Potential spoilers. My manga reviews tend to be more of a summary than a review. I find it hard to review manga in the same way I do regular books.

This volume starts out with a vampire party. Yuki happens upon a great vampire ball. The party itself isn't all that interesting. What is interesting is what happens between Yuki and Kaname when they meet. Kaname and Yuki lie together. Kaname's tongue laps at Yuki's neck and his fangs descend, almost but not quite taking her blood. It sounds weird but the art the essence of heart-stopping sensuality. Kaname asks Yuki to become a vampire - to spend eternity with him - and she agrees. You can imagine that Zero doesn't like that. He threatens to do anything he can to keep Yuki from being a vampire, including killing her if necessary.

Yuki has always been haunted by her past, or lack thereof, but it's now at the forefront of her mind. She needs to know. During school vacation, she looks at old vampire records in the library. When she's looking at a book about the Kuran family line (Kaname's family), the book burns up while she's reading it! Something or someone doesn't want her to learn about her past.

The last half of the volume features secondary characters, Aido and Shiki. We learn how Aido and Kaname became friends. He started out hating Kaname, mostly out of jealousy. That jealousy soon turned to love and admiration. He vowed to protect and serve Kaname forever.

Shiki learns that his father who he thought was dead is not entirely dead. He's in a half state, waiting to be resurrected. Poor Shiki is stuck sacrificing his body to his father. Now Rido can attend the Academy in the body of Shiki to do his evil deeds.

Royal Reads Reviews

In honor of the Royal Wedding, I'm posting a few brief reviews of books about the British monarchy that I've read in the past few months. I am fascinated by the royals and want to read more and more about them.

-BTW...I thought Kate Middleton's dress was one of the prettiest I've ever seen what did you think?

William and Harry by Katie Nicholl

Published just before William and Kate announced their engagement, this book chronicles the lives of the two princes. It details their childhood with stories such as Harry's practical jokes at Eton and their relationship with their parents. Lots of time is spent on their love lives - William and Kate and Chelsey and Harry. Plus, their respective exes. The writing's not the best - the author had an irritating habit of inserting herself into the story. Of the two biographies however, I preferred this one. It had a positive tenor. With both books I was left with the impression that William and Harry were very privileged young men who had lived hard lives in many ways. After reading this book, I felt that despite their royal statuses, their penchant for partying hard, and occasionally doing stupid things, they were fairly normal guys who I might like to spend time with (William at least).

William and Kate by Christopher Andersen

A thorough biography of William and Kate and their relationship. I read this after reading William and Harry. There wasn't a huge amount about William in there I didn't already know (except that he's a smoker!), but I loved the information about Kate. I'd also read a lot of it before, but there was more detail. It was an easy, page-turning read. I have two problems with it. First, it contains a lot of quotes that I assume Andersen creatively added (an annoying tendency of biographers). I highly doubt Andersen knew exactly what Kate said to her mom while they were watching Princess Diana's funeral. Secondly, it left a bad taste in my mouth. Much time was spent on Kate's mom's ambition to raise her family's status, as well as how Kate calculated to keep William. I'm sure the was some truth to this, but I don't think it was so simple or that her mom was so one-dimensional. There was also lots of focus on William's partying and his habit to paw random girls when he's stressed and really drunk. While I'm sure there's also truth to this and Andersen also points out lots of good points about William, I thought it was unbalanced toward salacious gossip. Overall, this is a fascinating read with a trove of information. Just take it with a grain of salt.

Lillibet: An Intimate Portrait of Elizabeth II by Carolly Erickson

Even though she's been queen for my entire life (and my mother's entire life), I know very little about Queen Elizabeth. Lillibet was a great read about a complicated person. The Queen had a charmed but very sheltered childhood with doting parents. Her adult life was much more difficult. Not only did she lose her father at a young age and become queen, but she also married her childhood crush, Prince Philip, who seems like a huge jerk. It was interesting how everyone in the Royal Family was against the marriage and young Elizabeth was the only one who didn't see his clear faults. I also was dismayed but not surprised to see how she ignored her children despite having very loving parents in King George and Queen Elizabeth. The book is quite soap-operish and gossipy, but that certainly keeps it interesting. On the whole, this is a very positive portrayal of the Queen. It doesn't ignore her mistakes and fault, but you can tell the author likes her. The Queen seems like a fun person to be around if you can ever get past her shell (and that's pretty hard to do).

The King's Speech by Mark Logue and Peter Conradi

A companion book to one of the best movies I've seen in years. It is co-written by Lionel Logue's grandson and relies on a large stack of Lionel's journals and personal letters. The movie is definitely more for entertainment than reality, but the spirit of the friendship and devotion between the King and his speech therapist rings true in both works. We learn a great deal about the lives of both King George and Lionel Logue. Their relationship was much longer than indicated in the film. They began working together in 1926 in preparation for a big tour of Australis and the Duke saw results so quickly that he actually stopped treatment becaude he could do things on his own (instead of stopping treatment because of an argument as in the film). I was a little disappointed that their relationship was not as informal as in the film - I highly doubt Lionel ever called the King Bertie - but that did seem unrealistic. Regardless, their friendship was true. I developed a love for both men throughout the book and actually got teary when they passed away (within months of each other). Highly recommended.