Books I Didn’t Finish
Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini
I just couldn’t get into this book. I stopped reading at 24%. I wasn’t hating it, but I could tell that I wasn’t into it at all. It wasn’t exciting me and I was never looking forward to picking it back up… so I didn’t.
Other than the love interest (I assume that’s what he’ll become) who was kind of a dick, I can’t even tell you what I explicitly didn’t like about Trial by Fire. I just couldn’t click with it, you know?
Stolen Songbird by Danielle L. Jensen
I’m still not sure if I’m really done with this book.. maybe I’ll give it another try. I stopped reading at 8% for two main reasons. First, I thought the prince sounded SO pretentious. He sounded so like… old English. You know, in that weird, ‘old’, almost Shakespearean way of speaking. I thought it was kind of lame.
But also, I kept thinking that Cécile was never upset enough! She was basically sold into human trafficking. This guy found her, kidnapped her, sold her to the trolls, all so they could marry her off and make her have sex with their prince. Whaaaaaa?
I mean, she wasn’t exactly thrilled about it, but I also didn’t feel like she was anywhere near scared/pissed off enough.
What do you guys think? Should I keep reading or just let it go?
Even in Paradise by Chelsey Philpot
I’m only 7% through, but I’m done. Even in Paradise isn’t exactly a bad book, I can just tell straight away that it’s not the book for me. On page one, this teenage girl is throwing up outside a window because she’s so drunk. Then the next morning/afternoon she starts drinking AGAIN. From my first impression, I can tell this book is going to be filled with underage drinking, partying, drama, and mean girls. That may sound fabulous to some people, but that’s sooo not what I’m looking for. Bummer.
Has anyone read this? Am I totally misinterpreting it?
New Designs
Bad Bird Reads (client work)
Jennifer and I had a lot of fun with this design! We definitely spent the most time on the header. We went for kind of a dark look, using flat shades of grey with red accents.
Other Things
- My husband and I have been watching Fargo. It’s really good but often had a hard time seeing where the series was going. We finished season one though and it was pretty awesome! We’re looking forward to seeing season two.
- “They” (The Man, the city council, whatever) are removing the crosswalk outside our apartment building. First of all, WHO decided this was necessary? Who woke up one day and thought, “This crosswalk really needs to go.” I’d like to speak to them. Second, people (myself and husband included) are still crossing the street there, just less safely. Thanks for jeopardizing my safety, city of Cambridge.
- My husband and I went on a double date with our friends to see The Inbetweeners 2. It was just as awesome and hilarious as we expected. I love that series and the movies so much!
- Some dickface keeps trying to use my site to DDOS other sites. He’s been spamming my site with multiple requests per second for hours (the XML-RPC file, which is known to be used to DDOS other sites). So if you experienced any slowness on Nose Graze or my other sites this past week, that would be why. I blocked the person’s IP address from my server and limited the amount of requests allowed to that file before you get blocked. But ugh. So annoying.
Too bad those books didn’t work out for you! I love the design, like I told Jennifer, it really fits her! 😀
Thanks! 😀
Bad Bird Reads is such a badass design! Especially the header! 😀
I’m glad you like it! 😀
I loved Stolen Songbird, so I would say give it a chance 🙂
Thanks Mel! I have been hearing from tons of people that it’s an amazing book. Maybe I just need to read a bit more.
I agree with Mel haha =)
Hard to say anything without spoiling but I wouldn’t judge the prince just yet. Some people have ulterior motives for acting a certain way. I’m not exactly sure what part of the book you’re in but Cécile definitely doesn’t want to be there in the beginning. She might just be clever and waiting for the right opportunity =)
Yeah, bitches, that’s my blog!!!! And I mean bitches in the nicest way possible. 😀
Stolen Songbird was an odd one. I enjoyed it in the end but very little is resolved. You may kind of like it if you continue it but I don’t think you will ever love it.
LOOKIN’ GOOD, CUPCAKE!! (I’ve been playing WildStar and they call everyone ‘Cupcake’. It’s lulz.)
Hmm bummer about Stolen Songbird. A lot of people have been loving it. Siiiigh.
Love the new design-heading over to check out her blog 🙂
Woohoo!!
Ashley you do nice work indeed. I always like your designs. I’m not liking Josephine Angellini’s Trial by Fire either, so don’t feel bad about DNFing it.
Thank you! 😀
Bummer about Trial by Fire… it sounded pretty cool, too. 🙁
Aw man, I’m sad to hear about Even In Paradise. I don’t tend to like books with all of the drinking either. Especially when the author has to go in detail about the throwing up after the drinking. Ew, and unnecessary in my opinion.
Yeah, literally the first page was a detailed description of someone vomiting outside a window D:
Love love love what you did with Jennifer’s site. It’s really awesome and I love the dark mysterious theme to it but yet it’s bright so you can read it easily. The new name is great too.
Hopefully you won’t have to deal with dickhead anymore on your site. I will never get why people are so malicious and sneaky.
Thanks! 😀 I think it suits her perfectly.
And yeah, it’s absurd. Basically he’s using MY site to try to take down another site. So the end result is that he’s flooding the other poor guy’s site with requests and probably making it go offline, but since he’s also spamming MY site with requests he’s also slowing my site down (and sometimes even totally killing it).
So he’s hurting two of us at once. >_< Seriously, get a life.
Too bad about DNFs, but hey it happens. I have been doing “paused” books recently– I want to read ’em just now in the mood I am in.
Love that new creative, very original and intense looking.
The problem you had, my son had back a few months ago. My husband is semi-tech knowledgeable and fixed it, but what a PITA.
I just got Stolen Songbird… so I’m a bit disappointed to hear you weren’t that into it. I might give it a try, anyway.
Tons of people have ADORED that book, so there’s definitely a chance you’ll like it! I might even give it another try. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood for it, you know?
OMG I love the design for Bad Bird Reads – it’s so dark! Sorry you had a bad reading week 🙁 Hope next week is much better!
I’m laughing because who gets rid of crosswalks? And how do they make that decision? Really? Not cool!
I know!! Even if they don’t put it back in, I just want to know their reasoning. Who woke up one morning and decided, “This crosswalk is a HUGE inconvenience!! It HAS to go!”
I loved Stolen Songbird! Tristan actually changes quite a bit by the end of the book. He’s not the stuck up guy that he pretends to be.
I hope you give it another chance 🙂
Thanks so much for letting me know! I should give it another try. 🙂
Love that design! I’ll have to go check out their site!
Thanks!! 😀
aww 🙁 Sorry to hear you couldn’t get into Trial by Fire. I was super excited for that one! Still going to read it, but definitely lowering my expectations.
Hopefully you’ll enjoy it more than I did. 🙂
It sucks that you had do dnf those books, I still have Trial of Fire on a hold list at the library and I still want to give it a try, but thanks for letting me know 🙂 I also LOVE the blog design you did, so pretty!
You might still enjoy it! I know a few people who have given it 5 stars, so there’s hope!!
Stolen Songbird was an iffy book for me. Even though I rated in four stars, I kept contemplating whether to lower it to a three. While the concept of the book was unique, I don’t think that the execution was amazing. Plus, the romance was pretty lame to me.
I’ve heard good things about Fargo but wondering if it’s gorey. What did you think?
Oh gosh it’s now been a while since I watched season 1 so I’m not sure I can answer that question. I don’t have strong memories of it being gorey but if it was, it would only be one short scene in a few episodes. It’s not like a constant thing throughout the whole series, if that makes sense.