July 2015 Wrap-Up

My Life

This month has been pretty eventful, but relaxing. I went to a family reunion and it was pretty great. It has been years since I have seen everyone and it was nice to reunite again (I guess that is where the name reunion comes from). While we were there, we managed to get to a local amusement park, and even though I refused to go on any of the rollercoasters (I have a fear of heights and I HATE the feeling of my stomach rebelling whenever I try to go on any big rides.) I had an awesome time. I hung out at the water park most of the time and was able to work on my tan (which is a miracle itself considering my perpetual state of paleness). 

I also went on a couple of day trips, so my blogging time was down this month. But, I managed to review three of the seven books I read this month, so I am going to count this month's blogging as a win.

The rest of the month I spent doing general summer things-- swimming, sad excuses of suntanning, reading, and ignoring my summer schoolwork. I can still do most of that fun summer-time stuff for another month, but I really have to get cracking on that schoolwork....

Review | This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales

This Song Will Save Your Life

Author: Leila Sales
Release Date: September 17, 2013

Pages: 288
Review by: Tessa

Elise is naturally precocious. She loves to challenge herself with massive projects and she succeeded with almost all of them. But, she failed at the most important project of them all.
Elise was going to make herself popular. With a whole summer ahead of her, endless ambition and a burning desire to be anyone but herself, she launched into this project with more zeal and determination than any other. But all of her preparation was for nothing. Apparently, it is not so easy to change yourself, especially if you are loser destined to be perpetually tormented, teased, and taunted by everyone you meet. 
This loser was sick and tired of being a loser and would go to extreme measures to ensure that she would not have to endure another day being the most hated person in the world. 
Through those extreme measures, Elise finds herself outside an indie warehouse party. The music is great, the boys are cute, and no one knows her as loser Elise. Without the pressure of being herself, Elise might just find everything she was looking for.

Top Ten Tuesday | Characters Who Are Beautiful Book Nerds Like Us

This is a weekly list meme hosted by the wonderful bloggers at The Broke and the Bookish. 

Welcome to the convention of book lovers. Today we are proud to present to you some of our favorite characters who share are love of the written word (also known as bookworms). 

Discussion | Authors are People Too

You have just finished a terrible book. The characters were shallow, one-dimensional, and just plain boring. The plot put you to sleep and the world-building was nonexistent. Obviously, there is only one person to blame -- the author. It is not like that monkey with a keyboard can possibly be considered of the same intellect, or even species, as me. 

The only way to fully express my distaste for the novel and its author is to say nasty, uncalled for, and sometimes untruthful insults everywhere on the Internet.

This, my friends, is part of the poison that is corrupting readers and bloggers. 

Blogger Recognition Award

We were nominated by the wonderful Sarah @ YA Bookaholic and A Book Nerd @ Sincerely, a Book Nerd for the Blogger Recognition Award! 

We are extremely honored that we were even considered for this award. Even better, we get to return the favor to some of our favorite bloggers too!

The rules are simple and they are as follows:

1. Select 15 (or however many you can think of) other blogs you want to give the award to. Do some digging if you must! You cannot nominate yourself or the person who has nominated you.
2. Write a post to show off your award! Give a brief story of how your blog got started, and give a piece or two of advice to new bloggers. 
3. Thank whoever nominated you, and provide a link to their blog. 
4. List who you've nominated in the post. Make sure to also attach the award itself! (You can do this by right-clicking, saving, and uploading the image above).
5. Comment on each blog and let them know you've nominated them. Provide a link to the award post you created.
6. Provide a link to the original post on Edge of Night. That way, anyone can find the original guidelines and post if needed, and we can keep it from becoming confusing! 

Top Ten Tuesday | Books With Deliciously Diverse Characters

This is a weekly list meme hosted by the wonderful bloggers at The Broke and the Bookish. 

Diversity in books has been a hot topic for a while. Authors, readers, and bloggers have been advocating for a larger representation of disabled, LGBTQ+, mentally (an physically) ill, and multi-racial characters in literature. So far, the YA genre has taken huge strides in the right direction, which we are celebrating today. 

Here is my list of favorite books with diverse characters. 

Blog Tour + Review | The Beginning of Never by O. E. Boroni

The Beginning of Never

Author: O. E. Boroni
Series: The Never Trilogy
Release Date: April 26, 2015
Pages: 326

Summary from Goodreads:

Twilight meets Eleanor and Park in this contemporary romance story about a love that insists on forever.

When Lenora Baker and Nathan Roqué run into each other in their boarding school courtyard, they have no idea that they are about to begin a journey that will take them the rest of their lives to recover from. Both scarred from parents who were once in love but ended up destroying each other, they are sworn off the possibility that there can truly exist a love that will never end.

But when with each other they find a passion so strong that it heals as powerfully as it burns, a love that will run out is no longer an option for them. Together, they discover just how far they are willing to go to preserve what they know they will only find once in their lifetime.

This is the start of their journey, and here you will come to realize, that falling in love is only the first part of the story...

Series Review | Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

Steampunk is not normally one of my favorite genres, but the Leviathan series by Scott Westerfeld may have changed my mind. 

 In this steampuck version of the early 20th century, half of the world follows the science of genetic engineering and the other half is devoted to the creation of machines. These completely different philosophies fuel the fire of the war known as "The War to End All Wars."

At first glance, it seems like a simple war series. But underneath all of the stereotyping, Leviathan is about finding yourself, true friendship, following your passions, and the tedious balance of the world. 

*There will be spoilers for the later books in the series, so if you have not read any of the books just stick to reading the first review.*

Top Ten Tuesday | Last Ten Books that I Have Acquired

This is a weekly list meme hosted by the wonderful bloggers at The Broke and the Bookish. 

I am not much of a book collector. My bookshelves are stuffed, but not overflowing. I do not get new books every week unless I make a trip to the library. But the past couple of weeks, I have been acquiring a couple of books in various ways, like from the library and through book tours. So, I am going to share with you the latest books that have joined the ranks of my bookshelf.

Book Battle | Starcrossed and Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini

Welcome to Book Battles, a feature here at Crazy for YA where I put two books in the battle ring and have them fight it out to see which one is better.

Today's fight is between Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini and Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini.

Starcrossed is a story based on the Greek story of Helen of Troy. Helen is the main character and throughout the novel, she learns about her heritage and how much it is going to mess up her life. As it turns out, beauty is not everything, especially when an entire culture is angry at you for starting a war over your romantic issues. 

Trial by Fire follows the story of Lily, the girl who is allergic to everything. One sniff of pollen can send her into a medical meltdown. These problems have always made her weak and unstable, but in a New Salem, she is the most powerful witch in existence. She must quickly figure out who sent her to this strange, and dangerous, Salem and learn to survive in a world of magic. 

Disney Princess Tag

Hey everyone, it's Max with a very exciting post....







 









When Tessa asked me if I'd like to do this tag, I was like:

It's no secret that I am a giant Disney fan, so this is basically the perfect tag for me. I'm going to warn you now that this post is very gif-heavy! Let's get into it.

Top Ten Tuesday | Books I Have Procrastinated on too Long

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by wonderful bloggers at The Broke and the Bookish. 

In case you did not know, I have a major procrastination issue. For example, I am writing this TTT less than 8 hours before it is supposed to go live. I hardly ever schedule any posts. And worst of all, it takes me at least a couple of months to read hyped up books. 

I have talked about my book procrastination problems before, and I fully admit that the list of books I should read but haven't has gotten significantly longer. 

There is just something about hyped up books that triggers a procrastination reaction in me. Whenever I come within 5 feet of a newly popular book my body breaks out in hives and it feels like I am suffocating. I have problems, I know. 

With full disclosure, I am going to share my top ten (of many) books that I have procrastinated to read. Please do not shun me or cause me any bodily harm when you figure out the extremity of my issues (aka after you finish reading this post).

Soundtrack Saturday | Waterfall by Lisa Tawn Bergren

This is a meme hosted by Erin @ The Hardcover Lover. In this meme, I make a soundtrack of about 10 or 15 songs for a book I recently read, provide brief descriptions of the songs and what I feel they represent, and I'll have a link to the Spotify playlist.

This week's book is Waterfall by Lisa Tawn Bergren.

Mini Reviews | My thoughts on nonfiction, misfits, and summer

As a result of my first readathon, I have a pile of books to review. So, I am going to make this easier for myself and for you, my wonderful readers, and I am going to compile all of the reviews in a mini* post.

At the same time, I will be discussing my thoughts on nonfiction, misfits, and summer, which are the main topics of the books that I picked.

*By the time I was finished writing these reviews, I realized that they were not as "mini" as I hoped.

June 2015 Wrapup

My Life

Even though it is the start of summer, my life has been pretty busy. And for better or worse, it seems like it is only going to be crazier. I have been putting off my summer schoolwork for next year, so I will have to start tackling that in July. I also have been visiting the pool, playing tennis on the local courts, and putting in a lot of hours of work. Unfortunately, there has not been a lot of time to squeeze in some reading in between everything that has been going on (I feel like I am saying that a lot). 

On the bright side, we finished our first readathon last week! It was extremely fun and productive. I ended up reading 3.5 books in less than one week, which is probably some kind of personal record. Now let's just hope I can make a personal book reviewing record....

In case you have not noticed, our blog also got quite a face-lift this month. The color scheme changed and the layout was tweaked just a little bit. I wanted a more professional look that was still a little bit fun, and I think I nailed it (to put it humbly).