#ReadingMyLibrary Challenge – Wrap up!

Sadly, the #ReadingMyLibrary Challenge is over. But I had a blast this month – saving so much money through my library, seeing what you guys were reading, doing the scavenger hunt. All of it was so much fun, and I hope you all enjoyed it too! I loved (almost) all of the books and comics I read this month, and I can’t believe how much money I saved! Let’s break it down, shall we? (prices listed are MSRP)

Beautiful You by Chuck Palahniuk – $25.95
Mustache Baby Meets His Match by Bridget Heos – $16.99
Compulsion by Martina Boone – $17.99
Superman: Earth One, Volume 1 – $19.99
Trees, Volume 1 – $14.99
Deadpool: the Complete Collection – $34.99
Deadpool & Cable: Ultimate Collection, Volume 1 – $39.99
Jackaby by William Ritter (audiobook) – $29.95
The Orphan Queen by Jodi Meadows (DNF) – $17.99
None of the Above by I.W. Gregorio – $17.99
The Great Fuzz Frenzy by Janet Stevens – $17.99
The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma – $17.95
The Skunk by Mac Barnett – $17.99
Power Down, Little Robot by Anna Staniszewski – $16.99
I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson (audiobook – still listening) – $29.99
The Sin Eater’s Daughter by Melinda Salisbury (still reading) – $17.99
Watchmen by Alan Moore (still reading) – $19.99

TOTAL SAVED: $375.71

THAT IS AWESOME! That is $375 I kept in my bank account this month, money I can use in the future on gas or…okay, more books. Whatever. But since I DNF’ed one of the books, I’m actually quite happy I didn’t spend money on that one or on Beautiful You, which I didn’t really like. I will say that I will eventually buy a copy of None of the Above because it was wonderful. Comics are SUPER expensive, so I’m glad I didn’t have to buy any of those either.

Favorite book read during the challenge: None of the Above by I.W. Gregorio; I am also LOVING I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson and I will probably buy it in physical format to reread it

Least favorite book read during the challenge: Obviously this one goes to The Orphan Queen by Jodi Meadows as I DNF’ed it

I’m so glad that Amy and I organized this challenge, because I’ve loved seeing how much you guys love and appreciate your libraries. I hope you all enjoyed this challenge.

Amy and I will be announcing the giveaway winners (hopefully) today on Twitter, so make sure you keep your eye out! It could be you. 🙂

#ReadingMyLibrary Challenge | Week Four Update

This week I started the audiobook for I’ll Give You the Sun. After listening to it for about 35 minutes on my commute to work, I tweeted this:

Started the I'll Give You the Sun audiobook by @jandynelson today. WHY DID I WAIT SO LONG TO READ IT? Why didn't any of you force it on me?!

— Stefani Sloma (@StefaniSloma) April 20, 2015

It’s safe to say that I’m LOVING it. If you haven’t read it, the book is written from two perspectives – Noah at age 13 and then his twin at age 16. Noah’s narrator, Jesse Bernstein, is just incredible. He’s got me driving down the road cackling and probably looking like a complete idiot, but I don’t even care. I’m really enjoying this one, and I’m pretty sure this will be one of the books I reread again as a physical book so I can appreciate the story in more than one way.

I also read Nova Ren Suma’s The Walls Around Us this week. Magical realism is always fun, and this was just so cool. It’s trippy and strange and wonderful. I was so confused most of the time and I loved it. Usually I don’t like when I have absolutely no idea what’s happening, but I was a fan of it in this case.

This week, I saved a total of $47.94 – $29.99 (I’ll Give You the Sun Audiobook) + $17.95 (The Walls Around Us)

Overall in the challenge, I have saved a total of $242.24! Libraries are awesome!

Each week during the Challenge, we’ve chosen a topic to discuss during our weekly update. This week’s topic is:

Share how often you visit your library.

Again, I feel like I’m cheating a little. I work in a library so I technically “visit” it every day Monday-Friday. HOWEVER, let’s talk about how often I check stuff out from the library, shall we? We get our “runs” every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at the library. Since  my library is part of a 20 branch system, we can request books/movies/audiobooks/etc. from any of the other 20 branches for our patrons and they’ll be delivered to our branch (it usually takes a couple of days, unless it’s currently checked out). I pretty much get something in our run each time we get one. That’s how often I check out something from my library system. Almost three times a week. Yeah, you could say I love my library.

Also, while we’re here, I wanted to share some exciting news! I currently work part-time (well, this month, I’m full time since our Children’s Librarian left), so I work Wednesday – Friday. Starting May 1 (NEXT FRIDAY), I’ll be the FULL TIME Youth Services Assistant at a library that is roughly four times the size of my current branch. The children’s section at the new library is just about the size of the entire library where I currently work. So yeah, the new library is HUGE. It’s also about 15-20 minutes closer than my current branch. I’m really sad about leaving my current branch as I absolutely love working there; my boss is awesome, and I’ll miss working with him every day. I’ll also miss the wonderful patrons I’ve gotten to know over the last 10 months. (Of course, there are a few things I won’t miss, but we don’t have to go into that here). I’ve felt guilty and sad and elated and excited and stressed and a whole bunch of other things for the past several weeks since I found out, but I think I’ve finally settled on excited. I’m ready for a new adventure, a new library, and full-time pay.

So how often do you visit your library? Do you check out items with as much frequency as I do?

LINK YOUR WEEK THREE UPDATE BELOW!

And don’t forget to enter the #ReadingMyLibrary Challenge giveaway and participate in the Scavenger Hunt for another chance to win $15 to TBD and discover some new stuff about your library!

Book Review: Compulsion by Martina Boone

Author:  Martina Boone

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Publication Date: October 28, 2014

433 pages, hardcover

Check out the full synopsis on Goodreads.

I’ve been excited about this book for months, but I just never got my hands on a copy. So when my #ReadingMyLibrary Challenge rolled around, I couldn’t wait for Compulsion to come in so I could check it out!

Let’s do a things I liked and things I didn’t like list. I’m in the mood for a list today.

Things I liked:

– Watson’s Landing. I’m a sucker for an amazing setting, especially if it actually affects the events within the story, coming alive almost as if it were its own character. Watson’s Landing is like that. A meandering river, surrounding forest, old plantation home that’s falling apart and being put back together. *sigh* I loved it. Boone did an incredible job of bring the place to life.

– The names. Maybe this is a silly thing to point out, but I loved the names. Barrie’s name is actually Lombard, “that served as a reminder of Lula’s bitterness. Lombard, after San Francisco’s crooked street, and in memory of Wade Colesworth, Barrie’s crooked father (page 53).” Yessss. Also, the other family that Barrie’s family was close to are all named the same, so instead of being called their name, they’re called “Seven” and “Eight”. I LOVE this.

– The mythology. I can safely say that I was not going into this book expecting Native American mythology, but there it was. From the Fire Carrier who unspools fire like yarn to the yunwi, little ghosts who behave like children, running around Barrie’s feet and wreaking havoc across all of Watson’s Landing. Very, very cool and super interesting.

– The supporting characters. From flamboyant and fabulous Mark, to solitary and sad Aunt Pru, to falsely sweet cousin Cassie, Boone’s cast of supporting characters are interesting, developed, and far from perfect, which I liked.

Things I didn’t like:

– The book was a little long, coming in at over 400 pages. There were times when I felt the book was dragging a little bit, and it took me like 3 days to read the first 100 pages. But then I did race through the next 200 pages of the book at work, so I’m not really complaining that hard, am I?.

– Barrie’s whole backstory is a little convoluted. Her mother just died and revealed that she has this whole family she never knew, including her aunt who never knew she existed either because Barrie’s mother was thought to have died in a fire 18 years ago during which her father actually did die. And that’s not even half of it. It takes a while to get it all.

The bottom line: I’m looking forward to the next book. I’m ready to learn more about this deep-rooted family feud, these lonely ghosts, the intriguing mythology, and Barrie, a girl who’s just now figured out who she is.

Rating: 7 – pretty good

#ReadingMyLibrary Challenge | Week Three Update

Before I start, don’t forget that our Twitter chat is TODAY, April 18 at 2 p.m. CST!! I’ll be hosting and we’ll be using the #ReadingMyLibrary hashtag!

This was National Library Week! We did book dominoes at my library which was so much fun! I’ll be posting a video of it later. As for reading, I finished the Jackaby audiobook yesterday, and I really liked it. I’m looking forward to the next book in the series. I’ll probably review the book soon. I also read some comics!

I’m still currently reading Deadpool & Cable, and I also started Watchmen – though that seems to be one you take a while to read. I don’t think it’s one to read in one day. I also decided to DNF The Orphan Queen. I feel like I’ve already read it even though I haven’t. It’s too similar to a lot of other books I’ve read and I’m just not in the mood for it right now. I might try again at a future date.

This week, I saved a total of $142.91 – $22.95 (Jackaby Audiobook), $34.99 (Deadpool: The Complete Collection – Vol. 1), $14.99 (Tress Vol. 1), $39.99 (Deadpool & Cable Ultimate Collection – Book 1), $29.99 (Superman: Earth One). Comics are expensive, dude.

Overall in the challenge, I have saved a total of $194.30! (Still counting The Orphan Queen even though I DNF’ed).

Each week during the Challenge, we’ve chosen a topic to discuss during our weekly update. This week’s topic is:

Why you love libraries or why you love being a librarian.

I love libraries because there are whole worlds contained in them. They can inspire, teach, console, and relate. They’ll make you laugh, cry, and realize you aren’t alone. You can visit places all over the world or places not of this world. You can meet someone who understands you completely or learn about someone who is completely different from you. I love libraries because they are full of friendly, helpful, interesting people (I’m not just tooting my own horn here, promise) who will introduce you to your next favorite read. I love libraries because you can apply for jobs, apply for a passport, send in your taxes, make copies of your research, print out you application to college, and more.

I love being a librarian because I can inspire, teach, relate, and recommend. I can help you apply to college or find your next favorite read. I love being a librarian because of the look on my patrons’ faces when they return a book they loved that I recommended. I get to help with homework or job applications. I get to order books I know my patrons will love (or that I’ll be able to passionately recommend). I get to discover new worlds, new characters, new books and comics and movies. Being a librarian is basically having a book blog in real life.

Why do you love libraries?

LINK YOUR WEEK THREE UPDATE BELOW!

And don’t forget to enter the #ReadingMyLibrary Challenge giveaway!

#ReadingMyLibrary Challenge Scavenger Hunt!

Are you ready for the #ReadingMyLibrary Challenge Scavenger Hunt?! We thought this would be a fun way to explore your library and have a blast! If you are not participating in the giveaway, you are free to find as many (or as few) of the following things. If you are participating in the giveaway, please find at least TEN (10) of the following things in your library If you are unable to find ten of these things, leave a note in your post explaining that.

Make a post on your blog (or Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc) with pictures of the following things:

• Your library
• Library Card
• Old School Card Catalog (we know that not all libraries have one of these, so take a picture of the catalog on a computer instead!)
• Your Librarian / Circulation Clerk (ask nicely and I’m sure they’ll let you!)
• Date Stamper
• Bookmark
• An audio book
• A DVD
• Withdrawn or discarded book (can be controversial, but a part of a book’s life at a library.  Most end up for sale)
• Fun library furniture
• Your favorite library book (could be broken down into F, NF, YA, JF/MG, E, etc)
• A large print book
• Your library’s event calendar
• Flyer for an upcoming event
• A fun display
• A book from the 800 non-fiction section (a book categorized in the 800s of the Dewey Decimal System)
• A set of encyclopedias
• Newspaper/Magazine
• A graphic novel
• Fun round (take a picture with all these books together – make sure you take the stack up to the circ desk when you’re done so they can in-house the books!):
• Find a book with a girl in a dress on the cover
• Find a book that’s green
• Find a book with an author who has the same initials as you
• Find a book with a number in the title
• Find a cookbook
• Find a picture book
• Find a book with a picture of someplace you would like to visit
• Find a book with more than eight (8) words in the title
• Find a book with a one (1) word title
• Find a book about libraries or with the word library in the title
• Find a book with a duck on the cover

To give you some examples, you can find my pictures of the above things in the gallery below!

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I’m missing: My library (I’ll add this in later!), Date Stamper (we can’t seem to find our old one!), Withdrawn or discarded books (I just forgot!), Fun library furniture (our furniture is old and boring), but I hope this helps! The main thing is to HAVE FUN! Ask your librarians for help or tell them about the challenge! Wish them a happy National Library Week.

After you’ve done your post (on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), link up below!

And then enter the giveaway for a chance to win your choice of book up to $15 from TBD (meaning the giveaway is international as long as TBD delivers to you).

#ReadingMyLibrary Challenge | Week Two Update

Week two of the #ReadingMyLibrary Challenge was…not great. I’ve been under a lot of stress recently and I don’t know if it’s that or what I was reading, but I didn’t make much headway this week. As you might remember from last week’s update, I had started The Orphan Queen by Jodi Meadows. I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to DNF it. I read a little over a hundred pages, and I just felt like I had read it before, like it was similar to A LOT of other books I’ve read. So I took a break and picked up Compulsion by Martina Boone, which I really like, but it’s taking me SO long to read it. I also took a break from my Jackaby audiobook. Do you ever just have days (or weeks) where you really enjoy what you’re reading but you don’t really feel like reading? Does that even make sense?

BUT Thursday I raced through more than TWO HUNDRED PAGES in Compulsion and finished it up on Friday, so I think I’m doing better. Fingers crossed I’m not falling into a slump.

Each week during the Challenge, we’ve chosen a topic to discuss during our weekly update. This week’s topic is:

Books you would like to suggest to your library.

Well, I feel a little bit like a cheater because I usually get to order a lot of the books that I want to read each month. I do all of the YA ordering at my library (as well as suggesting several adult titles per month), so, of course, my list is pretty much all books I either want to read or have found through other book bloggers as ones they’d recommend. Because of this, I’m going to share the list of YA and MG books I ordered in April. Because we’re a small library, we have a relatively small budget each month, but I think I did a pretty good job of getting a wide range of books. This list does not include the easy reader/picture books we ordered or the few non-fiction books. [All titles linked to Goodreads, of course!]

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh
The Queen of Bright and Shiny Things by Ann Aguirre
Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen
Pip Bartlett’s Guide to Magical Creatures by Maggie Stiefvater and Jackson Pearce
Mosquitoland by David Arnold
Made You Up by Francesca Zappia
I Am Princess X by Cherie Priest
Denton Little’s Deathdate by Lance Rubin
Anything Could Happen by Will Walton
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste
Lois Lane: Fallout by Gwenda Bond

What books would you suggest to your library? Let me know so I can expand my collection!

LINK YOUR WEEK TWO UPDATE BELOW!

And don’t forget to enter the #ReadingMyLibrary Challenge giveaway!

Book Review: Beautiful You by Chuck Palahniuk

“A billion husbands are about to be replaced.”

This was my first read for the #ReadingMyLibrary Challenge. 

Author:  Chuck Palahniuk

Genre: Contemporary? Humor? Sci-fi?

Publisher: Doubleday

Publication Date: 10/21/2014

225 pages, hardcover

Check out the full synopsis on Goodreads.

Okay. I’ve been trying to put my thoughts together on this one for about a week. I’m still not really sure how I feel but here we go.

It’s a book about a guy who develops a line of sex toys so powerful that they make women all around the world completely addicted to them, hence the quote at the start of my review. It focuses on Penny, the girl who gets coffee at her law firm. She’s invited to dinner by C. Linus Maxwell (aka “Climax-Well) and eventually becomes Maxwell’s final test subject for the line of sex toys.

For Chuck Palahniuk, that sounds all fine and dandy. A little weird, a lot sexual, and totally something I can handle. But then it just gets…uncomfortable. I’ve read at least 5 Chuck P books, and while they usually make me feel weird, it’s in a way that I like books to make me feel, if that makes sense. They push me out of my comfort zone in really interesting ways. This one though? I’m not sure what the point was. It very obviously makes fun of the state of literature and erotic fiction but it’s just gross, unnecessarily so. Maybe I should’ve expected that, but it went so much further than any Palahniuk book has gone (and I’ve even read that Guts short story). It was just…uncomfortable a lot of the time. It felt wrong. Beautiful You was offensive for the sake of being offensive.

Parts of the book were interesting and entertaining, I’ll give it that, but more parts were gross. Chuck P’s books are supposed to make you feel uncomfortable, but this was so much more than that. He seems to have gotten so wrapped up in how gross sex can be. After a while it actually started to bore me. I want to give you two examples to wrap up the review since I haven’t really explained why it felt weird. These are potential spoilers, I suppose, so be warned. Also be warned that it’s somewhat graphic.

“He slipped a third and fourth finger inside. ‘Good girl, you vagina is ‘ballooning.’’ During arousal, he explained, the inner vagina expands, lengthening to create a dead end beyond the cervix. Now his entire hand was inside. [my emphasis]

Penny looked down to see only his smooth, pale wrist disappearing into her. At the sight of it, she moaned” (53-54).

Alrighty, there’s one. Another example:

“This,” the sex witch said, plucking something from her wet depths, “this is all I have remaining from my mother.” The object she held was brownish, like polished wood, like an unvarnished pencil, and she withdrew it slowly. The extraction made a faint slurping sound. “It was her longest finger,” the Baba explained in a hushed voice. “I cut it from her even while the wild animals devoured the rest” (Page 166)

Gross.

The bottom line: Chuck Palahniuk’s books are kind of like a car crash, in that even though you want to, you can’t look away.

Rating: I don’t even know… 5? Take it or leave it? 4? Eh. This is bad? 6? I don’t know. You make your own judgment.

#ReadingMyLibrary Challenge: Week One Update

This was a short first week for the #ReadingMyLibrary Challenge – only four days! BUT I was able to read all of Beautiful You by Chuck Palahniuk and about 100 pages of The Orphan Queen by Jodi Meadows. Beautiful You made me feel really weird and uncomfortable and I’m not sure what I thought of it overall. Still processing. Orphan Queen is pretty cool so far. It took me a little bit to actually start it though; I read the first three pages several times before I processed what was happening. I think it was a side-effect of finishing Beautiful You. I’m also listening to Jackaby as an audiobook and I really like it. Nicola Barber is the narrator and she’s amazing with voices.

According to Amazon, I saved $33.40 by checking these books out from the library instead of purchasing them. Woo!

Each week during the Challenge, we’ve chosen a topic to discuss during our weekly update. This week’s topic is:

Tell us a little about your library (include a picture if you can!).

I work at a small library in a small town near central Mississippi. The population of the town is a little under 3,500 though not nearly that many people are registered at the library. We are part of the Central Mississippi Regional Library System, which comprises 20 branches in four counties. We’re pretty small, but we have a lot of amazing patrons, from kids to adults. We’ve got all your basic services, like faxing/copying/scanning, inter-library loan (though I’ve been here for 10 months and haven’t done one yet), computers, free wi-fi, newspapers/magazines, movies, and, of course, books. Some pictures? Like I said earlier, we are pretty small, so most of my pictures are from the same place because you can see almost everything from there.

This is from the circ desk looking out at the library.

We have two stuffed animals in the library, each done by the circulation person before me who recently retired.

You can see pretty much the whole library from here, except the computer area behind me to the right.

A small study area.

The children’s section.

Half of my YA shelves. Told you we were small.

I should’ve taken some more pictures of the computer areas and such, but I forgot. Ooops. But as you can see, the library is rather tiny. But I like it. 🙂 It’s a wonderful place to work and I have an awesome branch manager.

Alright, so there’s my week one update for the #ReadingMyLibrary Challenge. Now it’s your turn! What did you read this week? Link up below!

THE #READINGMYLIBRARY CHALLENGE HAS STARTED!

Hello, everyone! Today is April 1, which means the #ReadingMyLibrary Challenge has begun! And no, this isn’t an April Fool’s joke! No worries if you haven’t signed up yet; sign ups are open until Wednesday, April 15, so you still have a whole TWO weeks to sign up. Also, don’t forget that you only have to read ONE library book to participate, and why wouldn’t you? If you’re already going to be reading books from the library, just sign up and enter for a chance to win our giveaway!

Here’s the beginning of my #ReadingMyLibrary Challenge! I started the audiobook of Jackaby yesterday (oops), and today I can’t decide if I want to read Beautiful You by Chuck Palahniuk or The Sin Eater’s Daughter by Melinda Salisbury. You don’t need to remind me how ridiculously different those two are. I know. I just can’t decide which I want to start with. I’ll probably just pick right before I head to work – whichever one catches my eye first.

What are you going to read first?

A little more info on the weekly updates since we’ve had some questions. These updates do not need to be super detailed or anything. They’re not even required, but more of a fun way to see what everyone is reading! My posts will discuss (and probably contain pictures of) what I’ve read that week. I’ll answer the weekly questions and talk a little about the challenge. I will probably include how much money I’ve saved that week by checking out the books from the library instead of buying them. That’s it! If you want to just tell us what you’ve read and nothing else, that’s cool too! Up to you. Just have fun! Each week, I will include the linky in my own weekly update post, but it’ll also go HERE on the Weekly Updates page.

Once you create your sign up post, don’t forget to enter the #ReadingMyLibrary Challenge giveaway for your choice of book up to $15 from The Book Depository!

#ReadingMyLibrary Challenge – My Sign Up Post

Hello, lovelies! As you may know, I am co-hosting the #ReadingMyLibrary Challenge with Amy at Read What I Like next month! You might also know that I am the Circulation Clerk and YA Librarian at a small library in Mississippi. Each month I order between 10-20 new YA and Middle Grade books for my library, though I’m only able to read a very small number of these (because of time, ARCs, life), so Amy and I started the #ReadingMyLibrary Challenge to fix that. We want to read ONLY library books for the month of April (though if you participate, you are only required to read ONE library book). I hope to get caught up on the books I’ve ordered but haven’t read – partly so I can be even better at recommending titles to my patrons and partly because I ordered those books for a reason! 🙂

So here is my (tentative) TBR for the #ReadingMyLibrary Challenge (definitely subject to change based on my mood, and also in no particular order whatsoever). Also, a few books/audiobooks are not pictured but linked below. I’ve only chosen books that I have ordered for my library since I started working. Yes, the TBR is a little overambitious, but if you recall, I’m a mood reader, so I need options!

The Sin Eater’s Daughter / Made for You / Shutter / Vivian Apple at the End of the World / The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley / Red Queen / I’ll Meet You There / Beautiful You / Atlantia (on CD)

NOT PICTURED (aka waiting on holds/hoping the new books come in soon!)

I’ll Give You the Sun (on CD) / Jackaby (on CD) / We All Looked Up

My TBR is obviously VERY ambitious, and I’ll be lucky to get to even half of these, BUT I’m excited for all of them, so I just went ahead and checked them out. It gives me options!

I would LOVE it if you would join us next month. As I said earlier in the post, you only have to read ONE book to participate in the challenge (did I mention there were TWO giveaways?!), and I hope it’ll be a lot of fun to show your support of your library. So if you do want to participate, head over to my sign up post to learn more and enter your link!