Top Ten Tuesday: Childhood Favorites We'd Love to Revisit

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the awesome ladies at The Broke and the Bookish. Apparently, they are overly fond of list-making and love to share their bookish lists with the rest of us book nerds.  =) We're game.

This week's topic is the Top 10 Books From My Childhood (Or Teen Years) That I Would Love To Revisit:

April's Picks:

I was pretty limited on what I could read growing up. The shelves at home were full of adult novels, and that's what stemmed my obsession with VC Andrews books. I read them all. At least the ones before she died, none of the garbage that came out after. The Sweet Valley Twins and Baby Sitters Club, I remember making my gram take me to the library every weekend so I could take some of them out. :) A Wrinkle in Time was one of my favorite "have to read for class" books. They told us to read the first 2 chapters and I finished it that night. Woops. And The Eye of the World. I started reading that fantasy series back in HS. A boy I liked had a bunch in his locker and he lent them to me. I read up to number 10. I'd love to get back to them, but it's been so long, I'll have to re read them all, and those books are huge!


Jen's Picks:

I remember checking out and re-checking out Chicken Soup with Rice by Maurice Sendak for weeks on end from the library until my mom forced me to pick something new. And so then I read Bunnicula and Snot Stew a few times each. As my love of reading progressed, I added all of the Little House, Anne of Green Gables and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books to my reading list. I was such a reader, even at an early age, that it was hard to narrow my list of favorites from that era down to just ten. I mean, I didn't even have room for The Babysitters Club or the Sweet Valley High books! :P


Which beloved favorites from childhood would you love to re-read? Be sure to share a link to your TTT post so we can visit!

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Labels: childhood favorites, re-reads, top ten tuesday

Review: Last Year's Mistake by Gina Ciocca

Title: Last Year's Mistake
Author: Gina Ciocca
Series: n/a
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication Date: June 9, 2015
Source: received from publisher via Edelweiss
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Before:
Kelsey and David became best friends the summer before freshman year and were inseparable ever after. Until the night a misunderstanding turned Kelsey into the school joke, and everything around her crumbled—including her friendship with David. So when Kelsey's parents decided to move away, she couldn't wait to start over and leave the past behind. Except, David wasn't ready to let her go...

After:
Now it's senior year and Kelsey has a new group of friends, genuine popularity, and a hot boyfriend. Her life is perfect. That is, until David's family moves to town and he shakes up everything. Soon old feelings bubble to the surface and threaten to destroy Kelsey's second chance at happiness. The more time she spends with David, the more she realizes she never truly let him go. And maybe she never wants to.

Told in alternating sections, LAST YEAR'S MISTAKE is a charming and romantic debut about loving, leaving, and letting go.

I was really looking forward to this novel when I first discovered it on Goodreads months ago. I kind of adore best friends romances, and the fact that the main characters fell out of favor with each other and had to work their way back to that point intrigued me immensely. Even with the possibility of a love triangle on the horizon.

Okay, so I know this novel isn't aimed at my age group. So I can look past the immature dialogue. Honestly, that aspect felt just like reading my journal from high school. So, as juvenile as some of it seemed, it was actually pretty genuine. Realistic, even. Not that that endears it to me any but I feel like points are earned for authenticity. Even if authenticity means self-absorbed teenagers making stupid decision after stupid decision.

I tend to appreciate a novel that starts in the present and sends us back in time to try to piece together what happened. Mostly because that makes it more difficult to guess what led to the divide in the first place. Last Year's Mistake is no different, except that due to all of the suspense-building, I fully expected some massive reveal. Instead, I was left disappointed by the big "misunderstanding" that led to Kelsey and David parting ways.

The issues in their relationship could have been resolved with a simple conversation, but instead, they let their imaginations run free, resulting in a lot of unnecessary drama. And they hurt other people in the process. Still, there were moments where the feels got to me, and in those moments, it was the story I was hoping for: one of friendship, loss, and second chances.

Last Year's Mistake is equal turns frustrating and adorable, and I'm still kind of on the fence about it. I liked it, but it failed to impress me as I had hoped. I think the summary set me up for failure, though, as I don't think it's the best way to portray this story. But I'm sure it's easier to sell that to readers than "angsty teenage melodrama". For what it was, though, I found myself pretty entertained.

GIF it to me straight:

I mean, it didn't wow me, but I kinda liked it anyway.

About the author:

Gina Ciocca graduated from the University of Connecticut with a degree in English. She lives in Georgia with her family. Gina is a member of the writing and blogging group YA Misfits. Last Year’s Mistake is her first novel.

Find Gina:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Instagram

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Labels: contemporary, gina ciocca, last year's mistake, reviews, simon schuster

Stacking the Shelves # 59

Stacking The Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews and is a way to share with everyone all the goodies you've received through out the week. 

Just click the covers to be taken to their goodreads pages. 

Purchased

 As of today... 10:03 pm Eastern Time, 03/21/2015, this book is on sale for kindle. $1.99. I cannot resist a deal! So I grabbed it. :)


That is it for this week.

I hope everyone had a great first day of Spring!

This is how ours looked... a full out snow storm.

However, my shiny new ride made it all better. Will share better pics next week when it's not covered in snow, salt and sludge. :)  

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Labels: stacking the shelves

The Weekend Update - 3.21.15

So, since my end-of-the-week post isn't just about what I got in my mailbox or on my Kindle each week -- though that is a big part of it, I won't lie -- I decided to change up the title and intro a bit.  I might tweak the format a bit over the next few weeks, but for the most part, it'll contain the same stuff: stuff I got, stuff I did, and stuff that's coming up on the blog.  Plus, I get to use the awesome GIF you see here and blow kisses to all the people who sent me lovely books and bookish things.  Oh, and I've started linking up to Stacking the Shelves hosted by Tynga's Reviews since I'm not using a specific meme title anymore.  April's also doing her own Stacking the Shelves posts on Sundays.  Stop by and say hi!  =)

I'm baaaaaaack! :)

Vacation was awesome...just what I needed. I wish we'd had more time but that's how it goes. I'm sure we'll be able to fit in a short trip this summer. At any rate, I didn't get much reading done at ALL while I was away, but I'm ready to get back on that horse again. I think my slump is officially over. :D

Anyway, here's what I scored this week, and keep in mind that it's two weeks worth of books since I wasn't here last Saturday to post my usual update:

For Review:



Daughter of Dusk by Livia Blackburne



The Devil You Know by Trish Doller - Lovelovelove this author!!!

Illusionarium by Heather Dixon - Entwined is still one of my favorite fairy tale retellings...can't wait to read more from this author!

The Fill-in Boyfriend by Kasie West - Kasie could write the nutrition facts on the cereal box and I'd still want to read them. :)



End of Days by Susan Ee - Omigod!!! The epicness knows no bounds. Time for a re-listen…I think it's only been a couple of months since my last listen, but you can never have too much Penryn-Raffe banter. =)

Gifted/Traded:

Nothing this week...

Library:



The Orphan Queen by Jodi Meadows - This sounds phenomenal but I'm seriously anxious about that cliffhanger I've heard a bunch of squawking about. *bites nails*

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven - I wasn't going to read or listen to this, but the audio was available and I kept hearing about this Finch character. It was worth it, even if it made me ugly cry. :( [review]

Purchased:



I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson - This was an Audible Daily Deal while I was out, but I just happened to check my email at the right time. I loved this in print, and I'm sure it's amazing on audio.

Under Different Stars by Amy A. Bartol - I've heard so many bloggers talking about this one...I finally had to check it out myself. And it was awesome. Can't wait for the sequel at the end of this month!

Flat-Out Celeste by Jessica Park - Loved Flat-Out Love and adored Celeste as a minor character in that story. I probably actually have the ebook for this, but I saw it on Audible for $2 and couldn't pass it up.

So, that's my haul. :) How about you? What did you get this week?

The Week in Review:

Reviews:

• Jackaby - Jen (audio)
• Shadow Scale - Jen

Current Giveaways:


Win a copy of SHADOW SCALE!


Win a mystery box of books!

Promotional/Discussion Posts:  

• The #TopTen books on our Spring TBR lists
• #WoW - this week, we're waiting on Winter & The Immortal Heights
• Blog Tour for Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman - review and giveaway
• The Happiest Place on Earth, wherein I discuss my recent travels to Florida for our family vacation

Jen's Currently Reading/Listening To:

Needed something cute and quirky after listening to All the Bright Places. Probably not the best idea to read a book that begins with the anniversary of a death, but it doesn't seem all that sad so far. And I loved Open Road Summer by this author.

This is my 4th listen of this audiobook. That should tell you how much I enjoy it. And Valek. ;0) The author is releasing another three books in this series now, so I thought it time to refresh my memory once again. =)

Upcoming Reviews:

Like honest reviews & giveaways?  Be sure to follow us on Bloglovin' so you never miss out!

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Labels: in my mailbox (imm), stacking the shelves, the weekend update

The Happiest Place on Earth

…is maybe not the happiest place on Earth, at least not for my particular family. But I'll get to that. ;0)

This is my first week back after vacation, and it's been rough, man. I need a vacation to recover from my vacation! But I wanted to share a little of what we did before I start forgetting the details. I'm including some pictures, too, which you may have already seen if you follow me on Instagram, but I haven't had a chance to upload the pictures from my good camera yet so I couldn't share any of those. :(

When my older sister Kat found out we were going to Universal Studios, she wanted in. She figured this was going to be her only chance to see The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, as she has no kids of her own and no Potterheads as friends. (I know!) So, while we drove the 16+ hour drive to Florida, she met us there after a quick plane trip.

Since we were driving, we took it easy on the way down (over?) to Florida, and made a few stops along the way before stopping for a couple nights in Pensacola. I'd read somewhere that Pensacola Beach is rumored to have the whitest sand in the world, and my goodness, it was definitely pretty. Much more picturesque than my last visit to a beach, that's for sure.

It wasn't very warm yet in Pensacola, only in the mid-60s, so it was a little too chilly to play in the ocean for long. And even though the hotel had a heated pool, the heater wasn't working while we were there, so that wasn't gonna happen. But that's okay because Katie had a blast playing in the sand and splashing around in the Gulf for a bit. We spent some time building sand castles and Katie buried herself in the sand and made volcanoes in the sand. We've only been to the ocean once before, when Katie was four, but I think she was even more fascinated by it this time around. She just stood there as the waves crashed to shore and stared out at it, entranced. I'm sure I got a shot of that on my other camera. :)

We left Pensacola on Monday morning and had to pick up Auntie Kat from the airport as soon as we got into Orlando, so we didn't have much time to explore when we got there. But we were less than two miles form Universal Studios, so we could see it from our hotel room, which was kind of awesome. I'm not going to lie…the biggest draw for us at this amusement park was definitely the Harry Potter-related attractions. We could not wait to get there and get our wands and drink our first butter beer.

We spent our first day at Universal mostly exploring The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, visiting Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade and casting spells using our interactive wands. Katie got totally outfitted as Hermione, complete with her wand, and we rode the Hogwart's Express between the two parks, which was fun but a tad disappointing. For some reason, I had it in my head that I'd see majestic hills and travel over bridges like they do in the movies. It was entertaining, though, especially considering my unreal expectations. :P

Katie and Kat both also really enjoyed Seuss Landing, too, both being fans of the silly books. Fun Fact: Kat's birthday was actually on March 2nd, which also happens to be Dr. Seuss's birthday. :) Jerrod's favorite part of the park was probably Superhero World or whatever it was called. He doesn't really like rides, but he enjoyed the Transformers and Spiderman 4D rides quite a bit.

Which was another reason I was glad Kat was on the trip with us…she likes roller coasters as much as I do. We rode the Dragon Challenge twice in a row because we lucked out and there was, like, ZERO line either time. Plus, the fact that you get to pick either a Chinese Fireball dragon or a Hungarian Horntail meant we had to try out both. I think the Fireball was better, but that might be because I rode it first and in the very front. Kat said she thought they were the same. *shrugs*

Our second day at Universal was pretty much dedicated to rides. We rode every ride we could fit in plus some that just had really short lines and ended up being pretty fun anyway. Kat and I also rode The Hulk, which was even more intense than the hanging Dragon Challenge. Kat and I both agreed there was no way we were riding that one twice in a row, lol. No clank-clank-clank up to the top for that ride…it just shoots you outta there! So freaking exhilarating!

When we asked Katie which park she wanted to go to first, she picked "Harry Potter", and so that's what we did since this was technically her birthday trip. (It was sooo nice how everyone -- and I mean everyone -- told her happy birthday when they saw her pin. :D) Which meant that left Disney World's Magic Kingdom for our last full day in Orlando.

Here's the thing. We didn't hate it. It's just…when you come from the awesome that was Universal Studios and go to Disney, where people were less courteous, much pushier, less friendly and there were generally just more people, it's a bit of a disappointment. The wait times for rides there were double or triple what they were at Universal. And the big kicker: they don't serve alcoholic beverages in Magic Kingdom. I don't know why we were so surprised at that, but since Universal did, I guess we kind of just expected that Disney would. Not that we have to have beer to have a good time, but we were on vacation and we were cabbing it all the way.

Once we got past our initial disappointment, though, we had a good time. We rode the rides we could tolerate to wait for. No Seven Dwarves Runaway Mine Train, though…that line never got down to less than an hour-and-a-half wait. We kept forgetting to set up our Express Pass rides, and by the time we remembered, that one was full-up. :(

Disney is mostly about the kiddos, though, so we let Katie navigate for the most part. She wanted to ride the teacups every time we passed them. We flew around in Dumbo. We saw Ariel under the sea. And I had to basically tell Kat the story because she's never seen The Little Mermaid.

We had time to relax when we got back to the hotel after Disney, so we had some pool time and played some board games, but we had to get Kat to the airport early the next day and head back to Texas ourselves, so we called it an earlier night than we had the rest of the week. :) We were going to stop and grab a hotel in whatever city we were in when we got too tired to go any further on our way back, but we got a fire lit under our asses to get back to our own beds, so we ended up driving straight home.

We didn't get here until 4am, at which point we immediately crashed. But it was worth it. The hotel beds weren't bad, but they didn't compare to that expensive ass bed we bought at the fair last year. :P And we made it without incident, so there's that. :)

I feel like there was so much more I wanted to tell you about our trip, but as I said, I'm still recuperating from our travels. I may do a second part to this post with more details and more pictures after I get them all uploaded to my computer. Just depends. ;0)

If you've never been to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, I suggest you add it to your Bucket List if you've enjoyed any part of the franchise. It's such an immersive experience, like you're truly walking the streets of Diagon Alley. I can't wait to go back, and I hope they just keep adding to the attraction so I can experience more of Harry's world.

April's taking the same trip in May, and I can't wait to compare stories and pictures with her. I really wish we could've worked it out so we'd be there at the same time. :( Regardless, we had a great time and I'm sure April and her family will love the new additions since they were last there. :)

Happy reading & safe travels! :D

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Labels: disney world, happy birthday, harry potter, katiebug, resolutions, road trip, spring break, universal studios, Vacation