First blog post

I need an IV stat. A YA IV full of adventure, bad romances, unusual story lines, and (most of the time) good feelings. YA books are some of my favorites. They always have the best covers. There are those special occasions where the world building is phenomenal. All you want to do is yell at the characters or quietly whisper “no, no, no!” when they do stupid things thinking they’ve made the wisest decisions.

I’ve always wanted to start a blog. I may never be a successful blogger but I don’t care. I want to express my thoughts and feelings about some of my favorite books. Actually, some of the books I might blog about might not be my favorites. I can do whatever I want with this and don’t care who might be reading.

Here we go!

Goals:

1. Start small with one book review a month. Grow to one review a week.
2. Research upcoming books.
3. Go ga-ga over book covers (LOVE YA BOOK COVERS).
4. Try making a “thoughts while reading” list.
5. Comparing what I think and what my co-workers think about the same books.

I’m sure I’ll think of more goals and just do what I want but I think it’s a good idea to at least have a starting point for future endeavors. Cheers!

Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones

Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones is my September pick.

Yes, it’s officially October but I needed to wait and post this now rather than last week.

Banned Books Week was last week and I entered an Edible Book Contest. What is an Edible Book Contest? Well, you basically take a book and create an edible masterpiece. Actually it doesn’t even have to be a masterpiece. It just has to be edible and about a book.

I chose Wintersong because just look at that cover. I immediately thought of the snow globe cakes and wanted to create a snow globe music box. The idea went further went I started experimenting with fondant and thought “how cool would it be if I wrote out the sheet music on fondant for Winter Wonderland and wrapped it around the bottom?!” So I did. Here’s a picture:

I didn’t win (here are pictures of all the entries) but I had lots of fun designing and creating what I consider to be an edible masterpiece.

So back to the book discussion (the reason we are all really here). I enjoyed reading Wintersong. It had everything I really love when it comes to YA: a female main character, less than perfect families, misunderstandings, trouble, adventure (sorta), romance, and an ending that leaves you wanting more. Thankfully this book will have a sequel in a few months! WOO!

To tell you the truth, I was on the fence about this book when it came out earlier this year. My friend was excited about Wintersong because people were commenting that it was to be a Goblin King retelling. For those of you unfamiliar with the Goblin King, just watch the 1986 movie Labyrinth. From what I can tell, when people think of the Goblin King, they picture David Bowie.

One thing that drives me crazy about Wintersong is the fact that we don’t know the Goblin King’s name. The main character refers to him as the Goblin King, Der Erlkonig, or Mein Herr. Hopefully we will find out his name in January 2018!

There was also a lot of musical references. I’m a musician at heart and go gaga about a book that includes good musically references. The book was laid out like a piece of music. The main character put so much emphasis on how she thought music WAS her life.

One additional thing I enjoyed about this book was how the main character felt like she didn’t fit into the world above. It was only when she was practically a prisoner underground with the Goblin King did she gain an epiphany that she should be herself and not worry about what others thought. Obviously there is a lot of emphasis in our world today about being yourself. There are a lot of books that shove this idea into our faces but not as eloquently as Wintersong.

I should have made some notes while reading Wintersong but this is a learning experience. I will know for this month: take notes and finish the book before the end of the month so I can post by the end of the month.

Thanks for reading!