Versatile Blogger Award

Thanks so much to Book Sake for gracing me with the Versatile Blogger Award. A la Pride and Prejudice, they "could not have bestowed [their] kindness on a more grateful object."

Here's how this award works:
1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you this award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 15 bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic for whatever reason! (In no particular order...)
4. Contact the bloggers you've picked and let them know about the award

7 Things

1. The love of my life (other than my husband) is my basset-hound/labrador mix named Snowbird.

2. I thought the movie version of Anne of Avonlea was better than the book (or really combination of books) from which it was based.

3. I am a lawyer.

4. I love traveling. My favorite city in the world in London. My favorite country that I've been to is Japan.

5. In Taiwan, I toured a Buddhist Temple that had an exhibit I call Disneyland Hell. Each of the 18 different levels of hell were depicted in great detail with animatronics and sound effects.

6. I haven't seen Avatar and really have no desire to do so.

7. Running is one of my biggest passions but I was the worst person on my high school cross country team.

15 Bloggers


These are some really cool blogs that I've recently come across. I'm excited to see what great books I can discover through them.

Rebecca's Book Award 

The Book Bluff

Simply Grace

Misadventures of a Teenage Bookworm

Erika Breathes Books

An Avid Reader's Musings

Bloggin Bout Books

Book Lovers Delight

Escapism Through Books

Library Lounge Lizard

From The Shadows

Moonlight Book Reviews

Niki's Book Reviews

Reverie Book Reviews

Bookshelf Sophisticate

Mostly Reading YA

In My Mailbox (1)

My first In My Mailbox! How exciting! In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by The Story Siren.

Library:

As often happens, I went to the library (two different libraries and two different trips) and got a little overenthusiastic. I checked out more books than I'll probably be able to read, but the idea of leaving the library without them is just too much for this little bookworm's heart to bear. So here's my stash:

Spirit Bound - Richelle Mead (already finished it)

Runaway - Meg Cabot (already finished it)

White Cat - Holly Black

Dream Girl - Lauren Mechling

Dream Life - Lauren Mechling

Will Grayson, Will Grayson - John Green & David Levithan

The Cupcake Queen - Heather Hepler

The Thrive Diet - Brendan Brazier

The Daughters - Joanna Philbin (Regis's daughter)

Intertwined - Gena Showalter

Fruits Basket vol. 6-9 - Natsuki Takaya

Kitchen Princess vol. 3-6 - Natsumi Ando & Miyuki Kobayashi

Bought:

I rarely buy books but I bought (and read) the new Twilight novella and the Ecplise movie tie-in mass market paperback. I buy each of the Twilight books in mass market for the movie tie-in. I think the trade paperback covers are usually better, but I'm going for cheap since I already have the books in hardcover.

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner - Stephenie Meyer

Eclipse - Stephenie Meyer

Runaway - Meg Cabot

Summary

Where can you hide when everyone knows your name? The third and final book the NYT bestselling trilogy. Emerson Watts is on the run: from school, from work, from her family, from her friends, from herself. With everyone she loves furious with her for something she can't explain, and nothing but the live Stark Angel fashion show on New Year's Eve to look forward to, Em's reached the end of her rope. . .what's the point of even going on? But when she discovers the truth about Nikki's secret, she knows there's only one person she can turn to. Will Christopher be able to put aside his personal feelings and help her expose her employer to the world? Is it even fair to get Christopher involved--since if he agrees, there's every chance that Stark Enterprises will try to have them both killed--this time, permanently? Maybe it would be better for Em to just keep on running.

Review


I'm so glad I kept reading this series. Em's personality drove me crazy in the first book, Airhead, but I sensed potential in her and loved the plot.

Runaway begins right where Being Nikki left off. Brandon Stark has forced Em, the real Nikki, Steven, and Nikki's mom to hide out at his beach house in the Carolinas until Nikki confesses how she blackmailed Robert Stark. Em has to pretend to the world, including her family and Christopher that she's in love with Brandon. Luckily, Christopher, Frida, and Lulu see through that pretty quickly and come to save her. That's where the book really gets going. The plot unfolds rapidly as Em gets closer to discovering why she had a brain transplant with Nikki Howard. Not only does she have to find out why this happened, but also figure out how to stop Stark Enterprises from profiting off their clearly evil intentions.

Em really comes full circle in Runaway. She started the series as arrogant and self-involved as the Walking Dead popular girls she hated. Her world was black and white; feminism was the only proper mindset. By Runaway, she's learned that there actually is more to being a woman than being strong and smart. Em learned to be open-minded. She appreciates and loves people she would have hated before. For example, Lulu...she's boy-crazy, ditzy, really rich, and not particularly bright. But the mature Em loves Lulu for what's important: she's kind, loyal, generous, fun, and smart in many ways. Through Christopher, Em learns that she doesn't have to carry the entire world on her shoulders. A strong, capable woman can and does accept help when needed. Em also learns that "pretty and smart" isn't an oxymoron. Being fashionable, pretty, and girlish isn't a weakness. Becoming the physical Nikki Howard has created a mature Emerson Watts. She's now a person I'd like to know. Smart, pretty, open-minded, and kind.

I highly recommend Runaway. It has all the fun elements of the previous two books - Cosabella, Frida, whiny Nikki, pop-star Gabriel Luna, freaky genius Felix, and more. It's definitely the most suspenseful of the three. You'll spend the last 1/3 of the book turning every page as fast as you can. I think I missed half the words because I just couldn't wait to see what was going to happen next. The plot is over-the-top, unrealistic, and crazy, but I loved it. Super-fun. Really Mag Cabot at her best.


Rating: 4 / 5

Being Nikki - Meg Cabot

Summary

In Airhead (Scholastic, 2008), Nikki Howard has the life most girls only dream of—she is a drop-dead gorgeous supermodel living it up in one of Manhattan's most luxurious buildings while partying with the super-famous, the beautiful, and the mega-rich. However, it isn't actually Nikki Howard who's enjoying it all. Emerson Watts's brain is in her body due to an accident that left the real Nikki brain dead and Em suffering a fatal accident at the Stark Megastore for which Nikki is the advertising face. Stark employs surgeons to perform a risky and expensive brain transplant on Em, and she must continue working for Stark Enterprises or her family will lose everything. Worst of all, she can't even tell her best friend and longtime crush Christopher who she really is. In this book, Nikki's brother turns up asking for his sister's help in finding their mysteriously missing mother, and Em realizes that there is a very dangerous side to Stark Enterprises. Em's narrative emphasizes the contrast between an ordinary teen and the high-stakes life of fame; she must reconcile a genuine longing for her best friend with the exuberance of over-the-top romantic gestures. Teens will relate to her down-to-earth self-deprecating humor and look forward to the next installment in Em/Nikki's life. (summary courtesy of Amazon.com)


Review


I was right to think that Airhead, a clunky, somewhat irritating book, started off the series with enough promise that future books would be good. Being Nikki was a significant improvement over Airhead. The chief improvement was Emerson - I actually like her now. In Airhead, she was immature and selfish. Physically being Nikki Howard has been a true growing experience. Things are no longer black and white. She enjoys spending time with Lulu, an empty-headed but big-hearted girl, whereas before she would have completely dismissed her. She still hates on the Walking Dead mean girls at her school (some girls really have no good sides) but she sticks up for her sister's interesting in cheerleading. I also like that she spends more time worrying and considering her family. She's really trying to protect them. It's not always Em, Em, Em.

The plot is more interesting and more outlandish in the middle-book of the trilogy. Stark is unveiled as an evil bigger evil empire than we thought. There's truly nothing it won't do to stay ahead. Stark is portrayed as a ginormous company - something like Walmart on steroids. They've flooded the market with cheap, low-quality products. Emerson already knows that they're spying on her - through cameras in her apartment, through her computer, through her cellphone... She wants to get to the bottom of it. Luckily, Christopher comes to the rescue. He's a new boy - edgy, bitter, uncaring - full of rage at Stark over Emerson's "death." Together, Christopher and Emerson start to discover exactly how evil Stark is. I love the addition of Christopher's genius teenage hacker cousin Felix. The book ends with a fabulous climax. Will Nikki and her posse of friends & enemies be able to discover exactly what Stark is up to? More importantly, can they stop it or fix it?


Rating: 3.5 / 5

Book Blogger Hop

I was really excited to find out about the weekly Book Blogger Hop hosted by Crazy For Books. I always love finding new blogs and hope some people can find mine as well. The blogger community is the best part about doing a blog. Check it out!

Airhead - Meg Cabot

Airhead - Meg Cabot

Summary

Em is considerably more interested in playing computer games with her friend Christopher than in befriending the A-list girls who rule her high school. A freak accident mortally injures Em and leaves superstar model Nikki brain dead. After a transplant operation, Em wakes up in Nikki’s body and learns that she must keep her identity a secret and live her life as Nikki. Readers who are willing to swallow the brain transplant idea will find that the rest of the story goes down easily enough; there’s plenty to entertain readers with stars in their eyes as well as those who disdain the pop-culture glamour of Nikki’s life. Besides the juxtaposition of Em’s world with Nikki’s, there are elements of humor and glimmers of compassion for the rich and famous in this first-person story. Toward the novel’s end, “Nikki” enrolls in Em’s old school. Can the girl inside that too-perfect body reconnect with the boy she secretly loves? Stay tuned. (summary from Amazon).

Review 

I put off reading this book for a long time since I assumed that it would be stupid. But I heard lots of great reviews and succumbed to my curiosity. I wouldn't say I loved the book, but it was interesting enough that I want to read the rest of the books. The book is basically a series of pro's and con's for me:

Pro:

The plot is definitely unique - the idea of someone swapping out the brain of a regular girl into the body of a supermodel is super-weird. But Meg Cabot handles weirdness well. I was never distracted by how out-there the books' premise was. Instead, I was fascinated by the basic plot and the cast of characters. Lulu, Nikki's best friend, was hilariously flighty and Cosabella was an adorable dog. Gabriel Luna was a great character - handsome both inside and out. I didn't feel like Em's parents were well-developed. I know that they were both professors and that her mother was a die-hard feminist, but otherwise, they were just kind of there. Frida, Em's little sister, was an interesting girl - striving to be popular.

The book introduces us to the main antagonist, Stark Enterprises, but doesn't get into too much detail. That's clearly left for future books. We learn just enough to keep us interested.

Con:

My chief problem with this book was Emerson. I didn't like her. I thought she was shallow, self-absorbed, and arrogant. Everything revolved around her. She didn't like anyone at school except for Christopher, and even he was flawed because he didn't return her love. After she had her brain transplant, she displayed a real lack of concern about her family's feelings - it was all Em this and Em that. Granted, she was motivated to keep quiet by Stark's threat to her family, but I still didn't get many caring vibes from her. Her black and white view of the world was really annoying - it's feminism or bust. Popular girls are evil. Cheerleaders are evil. Models and celebrities are evil.

In some ways, being turned into Nikki Howard may be the best thing that could have happened to Emerson. Toward the end of the book, we see a few shards of empathy break through her conceited shell. Popular kids may have some depth after all. And even if some people, like Lulu, have no depth at all, they may still be fun to hang out with and have a heart of gold. I see potential for growth in Emerson and look forward to seeing her develop in future books.

Rating: 3.5 / 5

Waiting On Wednesday (1)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill of Breaking The Spine spotlighting upcoming releases. I'm excited to participate.


I love the Gallagher Girls series and I can't wait for the next book to come out!


Only The Good Spy Young - Ally Carter
June 29, 2010

When Cammie Morgan enrolled at the Gallagher Academy, she knew she was preparing for the dangerous life of a spy. What she didn’t know was that the serious, real-life danger would start during her junior year of high school. But that’s exactly what happened two months ago when Cammie faced off against an ancient terrorist organization dead set on kidnapping her.

Now the danger follows her everywhere, and even Cammie “The Chameleon” can’t hide.  When a terrifying encounter in London reveals that one of her most-trusted allies is actually a rogue double-agent, Cammie no longer knows if she can trust her classmates, her teachers—or even her own heart.

In this fourth installment of the New York Times best-selling series, the Gallagher Girls must hack, spy, steal, and lie their way to the truth.as they go searching for answers, recognizing that the key to Cammie’s future may lie deep in the past.