Goodreads Challenge 2014

Goodreads is probably my all time favorite website. I spend more time on it than on Facebook and twitter combined. I love taking quizzes and playing the never ending trivia game, writing and reading reviews, entering contests for free books, making friends and keep track of what I read and what I want to read in the future. My favorite feature of the website however, is their Reading Challenge.

Since joining Goodreads back in 2011 I have joined to book challenge. What is nice is that every individual sets their own goals, either by page number of book number. The previous two years I have set a goal of 100 books in a year. In 2012 I got close, only reading 98 (had I not gone out with my best friend for new years eve I would have for sure finished number 99 and possibly 100 if I didn’t do anything all day but read).

I ended 2013 by reading 107 books. Yes, I beat my goal! It wasn’t easy, I took a spring course in Scotland and I work two jobs (sometimes three when the photography season gets busy). So it can be difficult to read so much, but I prioritize reading about watching TV and sleeping.

Now that it is 2014, the time has come to see a new goal for books I plan on reading. Again, I plan on reading 100 books, but I know how crazy that might be. Working 17 + hour days has become semi normal for me, but books are important and I commit to reading nearly two books a week.

My Feelings On Ender's Game (non-summary)

Ender's Game is my all time favorite book. I have read it over 20 times cover to cover, plus own in on CD and I just recently purchased it on audible.com so I can listen to it in preparation for the movie coming out in less than a month. It would be difficult, very difficult to write a review without becoming emotional, in fact I don't think that I can. Ender's Game makes me smile, and at times cry hysterically no matter how many times I have read it.
The first time I read Ender's Game was New Years Eve in 2008. I had just gone to the Miley Cyrus MTV party and was at my best friends house waiting for midnight when I started reading it. I missed midnight, I missed the party, midnight kiss, ball dropping, everything. I was so engrossed in the story that I couldn't see or care about anything else. The next few weeks I spent reading the entire series, at least everything that was published at the time. I loved the series, but as someone who rereads books all the time I wasn't in a position to say it was my favorite book.
Ender's Game becoming by favorite book happened almost by accident. The next few years, it was always a book I recommended or gave as gifts to friends and family. When my brother was driving his car to college, a two day journey, I bought him the book on tape. Yes, I reread it a few times, and bought all the books in the series that had been published, but it wasn't until I was having a horrible christmas break in 2011 that I realized Ender's Game had gone from one of the best novels I had ever read, but it had become the best book I had ever read. I reread it two and a half times in less than a week, and whenever I was out of the house I put on my headphones and listened to the CD. Ender's Game had become my escape from being sad, and more than that I still wanted to read it when I was happy. It made bad days better, and when I was happy I want to read it to stay happy.
I think that Ender's Game is the most beautifully written novel in history, and I encourage everyone to read it. I will write an actual review on the book, shortly before the movie and then a comparison of the two as well.

Killing Rachel (Murder Notebooks #2)

Anything entitled The Murder Notebooks should be fascinating right? Not so, I should have looked more into the plot and reviews before I purchased the novel. The Murder Notebooks: Killing Rachel by Anne Cassidy takes play in London, following the investigation of teenager Rose looking for her missing parents. This is the second book in the series, but I never read the first one. To be honest, I didn’t know that Killing Rachel was the second, but it really didn’t matter. The novel gives enough backstory to get by.

The main thread that goes through this series is that five years ago, Rose’s parents disappeared. Rose believes them to be dead, but her brother Josh hasn’t given up. He believes that there is a conspiracy, and that because of their parent’s work in Cold Cases the Russian Mob took them. This novel has the two looking through old letters and cases from their parents, and investigating places and people mentioned. Josh takes them to an abandoned cabin, a place he vaguely remembers, hoping that their parents might be hiding out there. Unfortunately, a group of Russian gangsters kidnap and torture Josh, hoping that he will lead them to the information they want.

Old police friends are telling Rose and Josh different things, which means that some of their parent’s friends have to be working with the Russians and are lying about what has really happened.

That is only part of this novel though. Rachel was an old friend of Rose’s while at boarding school, and she has been found dead, drowned in the lake by school. Despite a falling out months earlier, Rose goes back to school to offer her condolences and talk to the police. While their, Rose begins looking into Rachel’s life and death. A death that wasn’t a suicide like everyone is saying, but murder. Was it an ex-boyfriend, the brother of a suicidal friend, hurt and disgruntled classmate; Rose has taken it upon herself to find out.

Book was rather boring, mainly because the main character has no friends. There is so little interaction and personality that it is hard to get behind her as a character or lose yourself in her story. I would recommend this book to people who enjoy novels like Killing Mr. Griffin, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and other conspiracy and murder young adult books.

Audible Badges

There is nothing better than sitting down with a book. Whether it is before going to bed, on a lunch break, or on a Friday night because sometimes a good sci-fi novel is better than listening to the same repetitive beats at a club. I’d rather read than just about anything, but sometimes it isn’t physically possible. I spend a lot of time in my car, for work and driving to visit family and I often used to feel like that was hours of time wasted. Music is great, but on drives that are hours or sometimes days in length it gets a little old. When I was little on road trips, my mom used to get us books on tape, mainly so that she wouldn’t have to listen to me and my brother bicker. Now, I use audible. It is one of my absolute favorite apps. One of the features of the app are Badges. Now, they don’t actually get you anything, but it is always fun to get milestones and see what kind of listener you are. Here are, to my knowledge, a list of what each badge is for and how to get it. Keep in mind though, if you switch phones it will reset all your data, and you with restart with no badges.

Stenographer: If you are a person who likes to jot down thought while reading or listening this isn’t to hard. Usually I just bookmark a section every so often with what just happened. You need to have the comment, not just the bookmark.

Silver: 10 Bookmarks w/ comment

Gold: 40 Bookmarks w/ comment

Diamond: 125 Bookmarks w/ comment

Social Butterfly: Sharing your achievements, bookmarks, thoughts, reviews etc on social media sites through the app

Silver: shared 5x

Gold: shared 25x

Diamond: shared 100x

Audible Obsessed: Listening daily

Silver: Listening every day for 7 days

Gold: Listening every day for 30 days

Diamond: Listening every day for 90 days

Weekend Warrior: Listening to books on the weekends seems to not be the norm, but to get this badge you’ll have to

Silver: 5 hours in one weekend

Gold: 10 hours in one weekend

Diamond: 24 hours in one weekend

Repeat Listener: Listening to the same book over and over isn’t a problem if it’s a good book with a great reading voice.

Silver: same audio book 3x

Gold: same audio book 10x

Diamond: same audio book 20x

All Nighter: Late night TV isn’t good anyways, so might as well listen to a good book.

Silver: listen to 4 hrs at night

Gold: listen to 6 hrs at night

Diamond: listen to 8 hrs at night

Marathoner: Perfect for long car trips, although honestly I have never made it to Diamond, that is crazy!!

Silver: listening 16 hours straight

Gold: listening 18 hours straight

Diamond: listening 24 hours straight

Undecided: This is starting and stopping three books, not finishing them.

Silver: listening to parts of 3 different titles in one day

Gold: listening to parts of 15 different titles in one day

Diamond: listening to parts of 40 different titles in one day

Flash 80: We are all a little obsessed with ourselves, so look at your stats often.

Silver: look at your stats 50x

Gold: look at your stats 200x

Diamond: look at your stats 500x

High Noon: I believe that it goes from 11am-130pm, at least that is what I noticed.

Silver: 2 hrs during lunchtime

Gold: 3 hrs during lunchtime

Diamond: 4 hrs during lunchtime

Binge Listener: HINT, I always end my book when it finishes, so about 30 seconds early because of the audible disclaimers and such.

Silver: 1 complete book start to finish

Gold: 5 complete books start to finish

Diamond: 10 books start to finish

7 day stretch: 3x speed? Lots of short stories and books? I don’t know how else to achieve the Diamond

Silver: Completed 7 books in a single week

Gold: Completed 15 books in a single week

Diamond: Completed 50 books in a single week

Procrastinator: Buying a bunch of books, and not reading them.

Silver: 10 unfinished books in your library

Gold: 20 unfinished books in your library

Diamond: 75 unfinished books in your library

The Stack: This only counts as audible books, unfortunately if you have gotten something on iTunes it doesn’t help with badges.

Silver: having 50 books in your library

Gold: having 200 books in your library

Diamond: having 500 books in your library

Mount Everest: Long books… I don’t even know of one that is 78 hours long, if you do let me know.

Silver: completing a title that is 30 hours long

Gold: completing a title that is 60 hours long

Diamond: completing a title that is 78 hours long

River's Edge (Book One) REVIEW

This has been one of the worst books I have read, ever. So many things were wrong with it, where should I start? Whoever her editor and fact checkers are needs to be fired and blacklisted for ever having let this book get through. References are made to how hot Josh Hartnet is, I am so sorry but he is not relevant at this point in time. The main character still has a flip phone, and her plan only allows free minutes on Sunday. I don’t think I have heard anyone mention being worried about minutes in over three years. For a book that was published in Spring 2013, it reads almost like one that was written in 2002 for parts of it.

The main character jumps to a million conclusions and is completely hypocritical most of the time. She not only makes bad choices, but stupid ones and then blames everyone else for her problems.

The plot: After her mother abandons her on her 18^th birthday, Kasia gets a job working as a biologist’s assistant in Iowa. While studying turtle’s, she falls into the River, only to find that she can see, breath and glow. The book followers her as she learns to accept the fact that she is part demon, and what side of the demonic River power struggle she wants to be on. There is a love interests as well.

I will NOT be reading any future books in the series. It was horrible and I give it 1 out of five stars. 

Trainspotting (Book) REVIEW

Trainspotting, by Irvine Welsh, tells the story of a group of Scottish youths involved in an endless cycle

or drugs, sex, HIV, death and sobriety. The book moves in a somewhat linear, chronological order, however each section is told from a different persons point of view, giving different understanding to actions, repercussions and inner-turmoil each person feels. The groups main choice of drug, albeit the only one they really have an addiction is Heroin, ergo the title Trainspotting, a Scottish saying for trying to identify and locate a drug dealer or connection. The main characters of the book are Renton, Daniel, Simon, Franco Begbie, Tommy, Rab and Davie (although each has a nickname that they refer to each other as). Each of the characters goes through a personal struggle in the book because of their problems with drugs and alcohol.

• ·      Davie contracts HIV
• ·      Tommy starts off the novel avoiding heroin, but ODs on it when his girlfriend dumps him
• ·      Renton (the main character if one has to be picked) blames himself for Tommy’s death and tries to sober up
• ·      Simon’s daughter dies while he is on an intense heroin binge

    At the end of the book, Tommy has died and the gang heads to London for a heroin deal, unfortunately for the rest of the gang, Renton steals all of the money and flees with it to Amsterdam, leaving the rest behind.

   This book helps to demonstrates a lot of Scottish culture in the 1980s apart from the drug side of life in the UK. It often mentions the rain, and even when the sun is out their clothes are always wet and their trousers and jeans never seem to be dry. There is a lot of racism within the Scottish community depending on what accents people have, the city they reside in, and where their parents are from. There is a lot of distaste for Northern Ireland talked about, and a few times when the characters are on a really big bender or coming down from a high their internal monologue dissects racist remarks that they make about themselves and others (like being lazy, hard working, or how terms that used to be used for blacks are thrown around for Scotsmen now).