BOOKS and other fun literary things!

One fun goal I made for myself this summer was to read at least 10 books.  I am happy to say that I accomplished that, plus some!!!  I LOVE TO READ!

Here is the list of books I had the pleasure of getting to know:

1, 2, and 3 Delirium, Pandemonium and Requiem - A really great series, dystopian teen novel (love those!) set in Portland, Maine.  Great reads!

4 Happier at Home - Gretchen Rubin, a great book on cultivating happiness in your life!  Love it!

5 The Fault in our Stars - Book about a teen with cancer.  As you can imagine, it's a tear jerker, but it was a great book!

6 Crown of Embers - 2nd book in the Girl of Fire and Thorns series.  Awesome books!

7 Fablehaven - Way cute book about a brother and sister (kids) that go to visit their grandparents on an Enchanted Farm.  There are a ton of books in this series.

8 Everyday in Tuscany - Another Frances Mayes hit, love all her books!

9 Death comes to Pemberly - A crazy but entertaining book about life after Darcy and Lizzie Bennet get married

10 American Heiress - Think "Cora" from Downton Abbey, this book has sort of a similar story to Cora's with a lot more drama

11 Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey - The real story of Highclere Castle,  so cool!

12, 13, 14,15 and 16 Shadow Falls series - These 5 books are about a girl who learns that the supernatural are real, and she is one of them - she goes off to a camp to find that everyone there is part of this new one.  I enjoyed reading them, could have done without the language in them though!

17 Shadow Cats - A Short novel out of the Girl of Fire and Thorns series about the heroines sister, easy read

18 Prodigy - The 2nd book in the LEGEND series - another dystopian teen novel set - loved both books!

19 Reached - 3rd book in Matched series.  I enjoyed Matched and Crossed and then sort of fell out of interest in Reached.  I'll have to try again, but I've read better!

I want to say that was it??  I tried to keep a list of them all, but I may have forgotten one or two.  When you read as much as I do...the books almost run together or some pop right out of your head until you hear about it again and are like "OH YEAH, I read that!!!"  So, yeah...19 books is not too bad for one summer consisting of 65 or so days!  Some books I read in a day, I zipped right through them.  Others I read slowly and like a normal person.

I recently joined Goodreads to rate the books I've read and to find new books to read.  I also started a Bel Air Book Worm Club too.  Feel free to join!!  We decided that in October we are going to read Allegiant, the 3rd book in the Divergent series.  I am going to spend the first weeks of the month rereading Divergent and Insurgent:)

Through Goodreads I met an author friend!  Her name is Christine and she lives in my town AND she has self-published a YA lit book.  I just finished reading it, it's called Deviation.  It was really good!  It's about a girl in the dystopian US who is part of a government program that turn kids into child prodigies that can do all sorts of really cool things.  The main character, Cleo, is on her way to being a computer/book nerd in the system, she is very smart and studies hard.  She is not too happy when she realizes that she can blow things up when her anger gets out of hand.  After the first incident, she is sent from her University to a military academy, where she learns so much about the program and the plans that the government has for her and some of the others.  I loved that it was set in and around the Baltimore and Harford County area!!  The characters are entertaining and lovable.  This book is part of a series too.  You should totally read it!

Talking with Christine has helped me understand the publishing world a little more.  As I've talked about before, I am writing my own YA lit book!!  Over the summer I did some brainstorming and story boarding and I even drew myself a map of my books "world" or one of the worlds at least.  I'm on Chapter 2 right now, so I'm not too far into it.  But I've decided to carve out a writing schedule over the next few months to see if that helps with my fears of actually putting this idea into print.  Christine has helped me get over the nerves of getting my book out there, once it's done, which is part of the reason I have been scared to write it in the first place.  I know it's such a long and tedious process...but that can't stop me from getting my story out:)  I'm excited to write it and share it with you!!

My plan is to write 5 pages a day.  I figure if I am good about doing that on most days, I'll have a 300 page book in approximately 2 months - give or take a few days.  We'll see how that goes;)

I'm off to review some books on Goodreads - hope to see you over there!  Happy Sunday!