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Saturday, July 31, 2010

In My Mailbox (36)


In My Mailbox was created by The Story Siren. Click here to learn more about it.



Overall!



For Review:

The Girl Made of Cool by Alan Fox

Passing Strange (Generation Dead Serires #3) by Daniel Waters






Bought (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/):

Dracula by Bram Stoker (School)

The Choice by Nicholas Sparks

Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy (Gallagher Girls Series #2)

Dreamland by Sarah Dessen

Just Listen by Sarah Dessen




Bought (Walmart):

Under the Dome by Stephen King

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium Trilogy Series #1)




Library:

Generation Dead (Generation Dead Series #1) by Daniel Waters




Good Reads Swap:

13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson



Book I'm Currently Reading...

Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult







What a long IMM post right?! I took that picture on the 4th of July ;) Pretty cool huh? Anyways, leave your link below so I can check out your IMM post too! :)


Business Vs. Pleasure Books Poll

Hello my lovely readers! :) So this upcoming Fall... I'll be reading some awesome books for school, at least I hope they're awesome! These books include Dracula, I am Legend, World War Z, and even The Holy Bible: King James Version. So I'm going to make a poll that I'd really appreciate you to participate in. I won't be getting tons of YA reading done, so I was wondering if you'd like me to post reviews of the books I'll be reading in school, mainly novels and sometimes poetry. I'll give you the list below of the books I'll be reading and I'll put the poll in the right sidebar. So please, please participate! I would love your opinion on this.


Intro to Literature:


The Holy Bible: King James Version

Paradise Lost by John Milton

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley


Monster Literature:

Beowulf by Seamus Heaney (Translator)

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (again)

Dracula by Bram Stoker

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

World War Z by Max Brooks



Friday, July 30, 2010

Layout Change!

Hey everyone! If you haven't noticed... the blog has been under quite a bit of construction over the past few days. I just wanted to give a big jumbo credit to the lovely girls that did it for me! Cara from Chasing Words!!! As you can tell, she did an amazing, fabulous, incredible job! I love how the layout looks, very neat and clean. If there was ever any tweaking that I needed, she did it happily. I adore this girl for making my blog look professional and amazing... for FREE.

& second, the lovely girl who did my beautiful header is Katie from Sophistikatied Reviews. She made 3 absolutely incredible headers and I chose the one above. What do you guys think? I love it and will probably keep it forever!


Besides their sweet talent for HTML... they both have great book blogs that I love reading! Check them both out! :D


Thursday, July 29, 2010

Book Blogger Hop! (1)



Hey y'all! Happy Friday :) This is my first week participating in the Book Blogger Hop hosted by Jen over at Crazy for Books ! Thanks for coming to visit our blog and I hope you enjoy it and maybe even decide to follow! Let me know you've been here so I can check your blog out too... since I don't have the time to check out hundreds of blogs... I can only get to 50, maybe 75. :)


Question: Who is your favorite new-to-you author this year?


Briana: Most definitely Stefne Miller! I read her book Salvaged and fell in love with it! The characters were amazing. I have a giveaway going on here at the blog so if you'd like to check it out, go ahead and click here. There's a link to my review on the giveaway post if you'd like to check that out too!


Thanks for visiting everyone! :) Have a wonderful weekend!



Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Giveaway!: Salvaged by Stefne Miller

Yay!!! Finally the giveaway for Stefne Miller's book, Salvaged! Sorry it took so long to get this giveaway arranged... I was at the beach!


So here's the deal, I reviewed Salvaged a week ago Stefne has been generous enough to provide a copy for a contest! I thought the book was fantastic and I think you guys will agree so go ahead and enter! :)




Contest Deetz (or commonly known as details...):
  • The contest ends at 11:59 PM, August 7th
  • This contest is open to residents of US only! Sorry :(


To read my review of Salvaged just click here and to enter the giveaway click HERE!!!



Saturday, July 24, 2010

Under Construction!

BAM Book Reviews is going under construction so please just bear with us! :)

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Salvaged


Stefne Miller

352 Pages

Published May, 2010

Rating: A+

'My body was being torn apart, and my stomach felt as if it exploded. The pain was excruciating, and I was aware that I was dying... 'Mom?' My vision was murky, but I could see her face. It was bloody, and her eyes were large and full of fear. Her voice calmed. 'Get out of the car, Attie.' Her words sounded crisp and clear. I looked into the backseat in search of Melody and found her lying covered in blood in a twisted heap on the floor. I turned my attention back to my mother and out of the corner of my eye saw fire. 'Get out, Attie!' 'Mom?' Everything went dark.'

Attie Reed should have died in the wreck that stole the lives of her mother and best friend. But her life was spared. Why? When Attie moves to Oklahoma to stay with the Bennetts for the summer, she hopes she has left her nightmares behind. But her battle is far from over, and Riley Bennett steps forward to help her fight the nighttime monsters. As the battle wears on, Riley begins fighting monsters of his own: his feelings for Attie. And Attie realizes she must begin to face the monsters of the night herself if she wants to conquer them for good. Can Attie's life be Salvaged?

I always get a little nervous when I write my reviews. Why? Well, I've never been the best writer and I really want to get my points and feelings across as clear as possible. Sometimes, I manage to do that, sometimes I don't. Whether I give a book an A+ or a D-, I always try to let the readers know exactly why I did or didn't enjoy the book (without spoilers [unless noted], of course). My absolute biggest worry about writing this review is that I won't be able to express how much I really adored it and why... but I'll give it a shot.

When I was about to start Salvaged, I was pretty excited. I cherish a good love story and I was in dire need of one. The cover was cute too, which never hurts! Little did I know what I would be getting myself into...

This book made me laugh, cry, smile, pout, and even make the little "awwww" noise out loud! Riley and Attie got to know each other really well through out the book, and I got to know them really well too. I did get frustrated with Attie at times mostly because of her insecurity issues, but then I always remembered what she went through and why she must be feeling this or that way about herself. Riley on the other hand is a dream and a half. Edward Cullen/Jacob Black/Noah Calhoun/Romeo... who?

I knew that the book was Christian once I started it but I didn't expect Jesus to be a main character. It took me by surprise and I loved reading the parts of the book where he made his appearances. He had the type of personality anyone could love, just like most of the other characters in the book. There also wasn't any sex or racy behavior, which is really quite refreshing!!!

Just a warning though: This book kept me up until 4:30 in the morning. This book will grab you and not let you go. You might feel like you regret it the next morning, especially if you have to get up at 7:30 for a doctor's appointment like I did... but in the end it was worth it!

This may sound a little bizarre but I almost feel like the book respected my wishes and took the exact turns I hoped for. Needless to say, I loved every single part of this book and I may just have to read it again someday (and I rarely if ever re-read a book).

Oh, Stefne also told me about a great price on her website for her book! Bookstores and Amazon are selling it for $24.99 but you can get it $10 cheaper and SIGNED!!!


Also, look out for a giveaway here on the blog! Stefne was generous enough to provide a copy of Salvaged for one of you lucky readers!!!

Birthday Contest Winners!

Thank you to all who entered the Birthday Contest!

There were very few who entered, but that means a better chance of winning for those who did enter!!

I decided a few weeks ago to do things a little differently since the whole Sarah Dessen books didnt come in the mail when expected so I decided to change it up a bit. Both winners will receive THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins because that book is one of my favorites! And they will also receive some other goodies that will be a surprise, ha. Because I love surprises!

And the winners are...


and


So congrats girls!

I have sent you both an email, so please send me your address so I can get these presents out as soon as possible! Probably out by next week!

-Arielle :)

Saturday, July 17, 2010

The Secret Diary of Ashley Juergens




Ashley Juergens


240 Pages



Published June, 2010



Rating: C+







I got called into Principal Miller's office again. She handed me a notebook. This notebook. She told me keeping a journal is an excellent way to express oneself. So I have to write in this stupid thing and turn it in at the end of each month.

Little does she know what she's in for. With everything that's been going on—Amy's band camp pregnancy, my parents' divorce, a secret wedding—it's practically one- stop shopping for all your Grant High gossip needs.

Property of Ashley Juergens. Read at your own risk (especially you, Amy).



Let me start off by saying I love The Secret Life of an American Teenager, the TV show. Since I love the show, I figured I would love the book too. I liked the book, but to be honest it felt like I was watching a re-run of the show and I'm not a huge fan of re-runs... I don't even re-read books (not even the ones I LOVE) ! When I know what's going to happen and there aren't any kind of surprises in it for me, I get bored and tend to stop reading... which is kind of what I did with this book. I read a little more than halfway into the book and stopped.



I really loved Ashley's attitude through out the book though! It was almost more entertaining than the plot sometimes. The plot was entertaining; But, I read something about the book having exciting new moments from episodes (to be aired) so needless to say, I was a little disapointed. One of the main reasons I read the book was to read a few sneak peeks of new episodes. I guess that was old news though... because the whole book had nothing to do with episodes even close to airing now. And even though I didn't read the whole book, I looked ahead... to the last few pages... and everything was still a little too familiar (old) to me.



I really wish there was some dialogue. I never thought dialogue was so important until I read this book. I think I NEED dialogue in order to get through a book now, which may be a reason why I didn't get all the way through this one. I didn't want to give this book that bad of a rating because I think someone that hasn't seen the TV show yet, might really enjoy them; Or someone that LOVES the TV show more than anything will really like them!

PS: Keep an eye out for a giveaway because I think one of you will like this book a lot more than I did!


Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Two Questions: (Nora Roberts & Blog Layouts)

Hello my lovely readers! I could really use your suggestions, help, and advice on two things I've been thinking about for quite a while.

So first...

Nora Roberts. I hear she is quite an amazing writer. I would love to try out one of her books and see how I like it. There's a teeny, weeny little problem though. She has written well over what, 150 books? Is there ANY suggestions to what books of hers I should read? What's one of YOUR favorites so far?

& Second!

I've been looking for a new layout for the blog and I really don't want to spend $100 dollars on one, even though they're absolutely fabulous. So my question is, is there anyone out there that can suggest a cheap/free layout site? Or even better, is there anyone out there that's good with HTML and would be a doll and help me make one?

I would really appreciate your feedback guys! :)


Thursday, July 8, 2010

Girl Parts




John M. Cusick

240 pages

Published August 10th, 2010

Rating: B-


David and Charlie are opposites. David has a million friends, online and off. Charlie is a soulful outsider, off the grid completely. But neither feels close to anybody. When David’s parents present him with a hot Companion bot designed to encourage healthy bonds and treat “dissociative disorder,” he can’t get enough of luscious, redheaded Rose  — and he can’t get it soon. Companions come with strict intimacy protocols, and whenever he tries anything, David gets an electric shock. Severed from the boy she was built to love, Rose turns to Charlie, who finds he can open up to her, knowing that she isn’t real. With Charlie’s help, the ideal “companion” is about to become her own best friend.

It was such a relief to be connected to a simple, 200 pager instead of big, chunky 400 pager. Don't get me wrong I love to read, but unless it's one of my favorite books, I can only take so much of it. Girl Parts was the perfect length, not too short and not too long.

The characters were really fun to read about, especially Rose. Don't get me wrong, I loved Charlie and David was fun too, but Rose was just wonderful. I loved her curious attitude and also how pure she was!

Girl Parts was a pretty quick read; there wasn't a lot of boring parts, but not a lot of exciting ones either. I felt like the story kept building up, only to realize that there wasn't much it was building up to. The story was good, I guess I just wish there was more (depth) to it.

The whole idea behind Girl Parts was so interesting! I've never read a book about robots and now that I know what I've been missing, I'll have to check some more out.