In My Mailbox (5)

So I haven't done an "in my mailbox" for a few weeks now because I've been slacking. Yes, I know, shame on me. IMM was started by Alea of Pop Culture Junkie :)

Anyway, about 3 or so weeks ago I was at the mall with one of my close friends and we stumbled upon a Borders so I just HAD to go in. I quickly sought out the YA section and once there proceeded to drool. Well almost drool. I feel like I'm in a candy store when I'm surrounded by YA books! We spent a little over an hour there and by that time I had a whole armful of books. Since I had already spent a lot of money that day my friend helped me go through them and I ended up weeding out like three. Which saved me about 30 bucks so that's a good thing. But I still ended up getting a whopping 8 books. Crazy, no? Haha I thought so.

So these are the titles I ended up getting:
- Cracked Up To Be by Courtney Summers
- Crash Into Me by Albert Borris
- Doing It by Henry Holt
- Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev
- Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles
- Skinny by Ibi Kaslik
- The Boy Book by E. Lockhart
- Zombie Blondes by Brian James

Woo! That's a lot of books. I spent around 80 something dollars. Thankfully I had a 10 dollar giftcard so that helped a teeny tiny bit.

All of these books sounded so good. I just couldn't resist them! Some I've wanted for a while like Zombie Blondes, Skinny, and Crash Into Me. Others were just too nummy sounding to pass up. I've already read The Boy Book and loved it! I had never heard of Doing It before but when I read the back of the book it said that the tv show Life As We Know It was based on this book and I looooved that show when it was on for the very short time that it was so I figured the book would be even better! So there you have it. My IMM from like 3 weeks ago. Hehe :)

Double Life

Review of: Double Life by Dawson Vosburg
Release Date: December 2008
Pages: 173
Publisher: D Productions Publishing
Grade: B

What would happen if you could actually live in your own imagination? Well Josiah finds this out one day when he finds a random pair of sunglasses at a store that just happen to be free. When he gets home he puts them on and as soon as he does he's swept up in to an imaginary world that he believes he has created. Once there he meets two of his imaginary friends that he's had for many many years. At first this doesn't seem real to Josiah but soon he realizes that this is as real as it gets.

When he takes the sunglasses off he's back home and time hasn't even moved the whole time he was gone. A week or so later he decides to go back and this time when he does he sees a girl there that looks familiar. She looks familiar because in the real world she goes to school with him! Soon Josiah and this girl become great friends in this different world and manage to stay friends in the real world as well. Things start to get a bit scary when a sort of war starts between the two different groups in Josiah's imaginary world. The one thing he doesn't quite know for sure is...if you die in your imaginary world do you die in the real world as well?

This book was pretty good. It wasn't something that I was really excited about reading because it wasn't my type of read. But it ended up being pretty good despite all of the action. This book was written by a 15-year-old boy! Which means he wrote this when was probably at least 13 or younger. It's crazy to think about. I think he's a great writer and definitely has a future ahead of him in writing. He could definitely write a sequel to this book. I think readers would like to see Josiah go back to his imaginary world and keep fighting along his imaginary friends and the other friends that he has made there. Overall if you're a big fan of action then this is the book for you. This book is filled with action and some intrigue as well.

New Blogger, check her out!

The other morning I woke up and did my morning ritual which of course involves checking my email. I was surprised to find an email from a really sweet girl named Reggie. I could be jumping to conclusions but I do believe she's a girl, lol. Anyway she very politely asked me if I could promote her blog seeing as she is a new blogger and doesn't have very many followers yet.

Her blog is called The Undercover Book Lover. Isn't that a super cute name? I think it's great. I checked it out and I love it. She has a really awesome grading system for her reviews that really breaks the book down, her layout is adorable, and she's just over all really awesome! I think she has an excellent future in book blogging so I think all of you should check her out! :)

(I've seen a few other bloggers post about Reggie's blog already so sorry if this post seems repetitive. I wanted to be nice and promote Reggie's blog!)

Mrs. Magoo Reads

Alright, so there's this blogger out there in the blogger universe who has excellent book reviews and even more excellent contests! This blogger's title is Mrs. Magoo Reads.

I have to say that I'm a fan of hers. I love her honest reviews and whenever I see a new one up I read it when I have the chance. And what's really awesome about her blog is the fact that she always has more than one contest going on! How awesome is that? Right now she has a few going on and the biggest is that she's giving away 9 books to one person! Just one person, crazy right? You can find the post to the contest here. In the post it mentions which books that she's giving away. And let me tell you, there are some great books on that list.

If I were you I'd head over there ASAP because the contest ends on August 8th I believe. So that would be next Saturday. And if you're smart you'd become a follower so you can keep up on her awesome reviews and the new contests that she posts. Go check her out!

Contest: Geektastic!

Okay you guys, as promised I have a new contest for you! I have 3 copies of Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci courtesy of Little, Brown to give away! Aren't you excited?! I totally know I am.

I'll let this contest run for lets say 2 weeks. I think that's a fair amount of time to get all your entries in. So that would mean the end of this contest will be on August 14th. Midnight, PST.

Now on to the entries: 1 entry: comment on this post with your name and email :)
2 entries: If you were a follower before this contest. (Please specify)
1 entry: If you become a follower now.
1 entry: For everywhere you post about this contest. Like on your blog, on an update on twitter, etc. You get one entry for each time you post. Up to 3 places only.

So get to entering! You have 2 weeks...ready..set..go! :D

Winners!!!

I didn't think my contest was ever going to end but it finally did! I used a handy dandy random number generator to pick the winners. So here we go...

Grand Prize of the Book and the Harry Potter pin go to..Kathy!

The four remaining books go to..Ninja Fanpire, Liz, elusivestorm, and CrystalGB!

I will be contacting you via email in a little while. Please be sure to send me your snail mail addy within 48 hours or else I'll have to pick a new winner.

Stay tuned because later on I'll be posting a new contest for 3 copies of Geektastic! Yay!

Woah, buddy

I don't check my blog for a couple days and then when I do I see I'm up to 40 followers! Woo, go me! Someone must have posted about my contest or saw one of my comments on Lee Verday's blog. Crazy times. Anyway, I'm happy about this news.

Now for some more news for all of you. I am currently in Oregon. Gearheart, Oregon to be exact. I can see the beach through the balcony window in the hotel as I type this. It's so pretty. I love the ocean. My girls love it too! I'd post a picture but they're all on my cell and I have yet to send them to my email so I can put them on the computer. Plus I'm on my sister's laptop right now anyway so that wouldn't work too well. Oh and some other exciting news. My girls LOVE the pool! They took to it like little fish I swear! They absolutely love the water. I need to get them in a swimming class ASAP!

I've been getting some reading done while I'm here too. I finished The Boyfriend List and have moved on to The Boy Book, soon to be followed by my ARC of The Treasure Map of Boys if I end up getting that far. I love Ruby Oliver, she's the best! I can't believe I haven't started reading this series earlier. I also brought along Zombie Blondes. So if I finish with TTMOB and get really crazy on the 3 hour car ride on the way home I might start reading that too! When I get home I'll have a bunch of reviews to write. So look out for those in another week or two. Yay! I hope all of you are having a great week. And congratulations to Stephanie Kuehnert on her release of Ballads of Suburbia! I can't wait to get my hands on a copy :)