Wow It's Been a Long Time!

It's been more than six months since my last post!  I can't believe how long I have let this blog go unchecked.  Want to hear my excuses?  No?  Too bad!

School!  Seriously, I'm one semester away from graduating now (with my final degree) and school has a habit of kicking my ass.  Over the summer I had a very intense internship along with another job so that was funtastic.  My semester started up again this week and my life is in relative chaos, so I decided to try to do this again!

The good news is that in my time off I have read A LOT of books.  Finished my reading goal from last year and am well into the one for this year.  So look forward to new reviews!

I also have a lot of updating (formatting-wise) to do with this blog since most of the things on the sides are out of date now.  Never fear, I shall replace the ones I can and find new fun things for ones I can't.

The plan is to have a new review up by Saturday night.  Sound good to you people?

For now, here is a picture of adorable Avengers:

Throwback Thursday [1]

There are increasing amounts of versions of Throwback Thursday (#tbt) around the internet.  There are even a few in book blogs, but none of their rules fit for me well enough.  Thus I'm starting my own version.

Rules:

1.  Pick a book, trend, character, book related item, or so on...

2.  The thing you pick has to be at least 3 years old to you (i.e. the thing can still exist new to others, but when you discovered it, it was 3 or more years ago).

3.  Review, give a synopsis, trash it, explain to us how it made you cry and hug your dog, whatever!  Just express the old.

4.  Link back here to spread the word!

It truly is that simple.  I'm thinking it'll be once a week meme (as long as I can keep it up).  I'm going to try to set up a link-me type thing to each post, but I don't know how yet, so for now leave a comment with your blog name/link.

So here's the first one:

Goodreads

In 2010 I discovered the wonder that is Goodreads.com, and I'm not sure how I lived without it before.  It's like Netflix, but for books (and without the ability to stream books, but we're not going to split hairs).

Since the day I joined I've read roughly 260 books, and marked 551 books to-read.

The feature I love the most is the ability to scan a book's barcode from my smart phone and save it as a book I want to read in the future.  When you work at a library (like I do), you learn quickly that you can't take out every book that looks interesting every shift.  This gave me a better way than saving check-out receipts for books I never got around to reading before they had to go back.

My second favorite is the basic ability to put in what books you've read and rate.  I would say this would be convenient in the future when I won't remember what I've read, but I already have that problem!  So Goodreads to the rescue.

Are you all on Goodreads?  You can find my profile through my "Reading Challenge" link on the sidebar.

Top Ten Tuesday [11]

Top Ten Tuesday is an original meme created by The Broke and the Bookish

Top Ten Bookish Things (That Aren't Books) That I Would Like to Own

1.  Library Card Tote Bag - This would be perfect for taking my library books to and from the library.

2.  Alice in Wonderland Phone Case - I love switching phone cases at least once a week and the original Alice in Wonderland drawings are amazing.

3.  Reading This Bookmark Pad - This company and their products are so much fun, why not extend use to books?

4.  My Own Library - Don't all us book lovers want that?

5.  Book Necklace - I like how it's not metal; that it actually looks like a book.

6.  The Triangle Notebook - This concept is just awesome.

7.  Alice in Wonderland Mug - I have a thing for this quote, in all of its forms.

8.  Sherlock Holmes Book Scarf - It's Sherlock Holmes... and it's a scarf.  I rest my case.

9.  Book Lover Buttons - I collect buttons, and actually have a couple of these already.

10.  Embrace Your Narrative Key Chain - I love this because of its design and because of my life goal to publish a book of original fiction.

What do you want that will show your bookish love?

Review: Allegiant

Title:  Allegiant
Author:  Veronica Roth
Series:  Divergent [3]
Rating: 4/5

Summary:

The faction-based society that Tris Prior once believed in is shattered—fractured by violence and power struggles and scarred by loss and betrayal. So when offered a chance to explore the world past the limits she’s known, Tris is ready. Perhaps beyond the fence, she and Tobias will find a simple new life together, free from complicated lies, tangled loyalties, and painful memories. 
But Tris’s new reality is even more alarming than the one she left behind. Old discoveries are quickly rendered meaningless. Explosive new truths change the hearts of those she loves. And once again, Tris must battle to comprehend the complexities of human nature—and of herself—while facing impossible choices about courage, allegiance, sacrifice, and love. 

Review:

For those of you who remember, I had the countdown ticker for this book on this blog for at least a month before it was released, and at least a month after it released.  I bought it early and started it the day it came out, then put it down for almost 4 months.  It lost my attention and school grabbed my free time.  FINALLY though, I finished it, just a couple weeks ago.

For those who haven't read this book or haven't read either of the others (and don't want spoilers) turn back now and go read one of my other fun posts, the spoiling will begin after the picture.

^My thoughts exactly, and yes at the end I ended up almost crying in public.  This is why you don't read emotional books in public!  Except I didn't expect it to be emotional, I expected it to be predictable with a quasi-happy ending like every other book series with a "hero."

I'm not going to say I loved Tris and wish she hadn't have died, because really I liked her, and she was a good person, but she was human and definitely shouldn't have been impervious to everything, highly divergent or not.

I did like her death in a way because it made a piece of dystopian fiction more real.  The characters weren't superheros and they weren't super human.  And even though Tobias was amazing, he wasn't divergent like everyone thought, and he went through an identity crisis because of it!

Biggest problem I faced in this book was that I didn't remember who everyone was by the time I reached this book because I had read the other two back when Insurgent came out.  I could have looked up the characters, sure, but I don't do that.

I loved the paradoxes and life questions that seemed to face the reader at every turn, even if we didn't realize it.  For example:

“Knowledge is power. Power to do evil...or power to do good. Power itself is not evil. So knowledge itself is not evil.” 

It gives you life questions and a lot of their lives were about making choices where they seemingly had none.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who has felt like that.

I just... I liked this book, not as much as the first two, but I love the direction it took.  I like that I didn't predict the end, and I liked that it incorporated human nature in "our world" back into the equation.

What do you guys think?  I give it:

Comic Books [Part 2]

Comic books I read:

I'm back!  With more comic book awesomeness.  Sorry for the long wait, but life is crazy!  And not the fun kind of crazy where aliens invade and superheros come save you.

Anyway, I started reading "comic books" as Manga, and my favorite two series were/are:

                                  Godchild by Kaori Yuki             Rurouni Kenshin by Nobuhiro Watsuki

That was mainly in high school, though I still read what I have left of my collection from time to time.

Last year, again thanks to my friend Lita, I started buying American comic books.  I keep up with a number of them, including:

• Black Widow
• Empire of the Dead
• Loki, Agent of Asgard
• Ms. Marvel
• Winter Solider
• Wolverine

I also have miscellaneous volumes of Hawkeye, but I'm behind in the series and don't have the money to catch up.  Those volumes come out surprisingly fast.

I went from 100+ manga, to less than 50, but in the last 5 months I'm up to roughly 20+ comic books.  We now know where all my "fun money" goes.

Do you read any comics?