Sept. Recap!

Let me know what you guys think about this slideslow type recap!!! Inspired by Krista over at thecubicleblindness.com

Chick Lit Plus Blog Tours: Review of Rock Star's Girl by: J.F. Kristin

ReadingNook Rating: 3.5 Stars out of 5 

My Review: (spoiler alert) Emily Watts is the epitome of a RockStar groupie, but not by choice, her friend, Jesse who also plays into some serious confusion on his part as to if they are just friends, or if they are more then that. She's a low-key runner of a fashion website as long as writing editorals for a magazine. But overnight, with the help of lead singer Cory Sampson. She becomes a tabloid sensation and her website and column explode with popularity. Is dating a superstar all its cracked up to be? or will the headlines ruin not only her relationships but her career as well.

I loved the synopsis of this book and knew the first time that I read this, that I needed to read this book. I've always loved music, and has a crush or two on some rockstars of my own haha. I loved the characters, and I couldn't put this book down because I kept wanting to know what would happen next in Emily's life, and like a true chick-lit book, disaster after disaster ensues in Emilys life, as bits and pieces come tumbling down all around her. 

A couple things about this book stood in the way for me to give it 5 stars, first is the cover!! while it is very beautiful it looks like she'd fall for a country star not a rockstar, and I wish it had more of a rockstar appeal. Also, why couldn't either Jesse or Cory be a good guy in the end?? I felt like the end left me sad and with so many questions. It lead you to believe that she found a new guy and that she was happy, but the whole book I was rooting for either Jesse or Cory, and was left with nothing. 

As always though this is just my opinion and none of this was a deal-breaker for me. I by no means think a 3.5 star rating is a bad thing at all, and when it comes by my star ratings that means a book I really enjoyed but had some elements that didn't do it for me. I think J.F. Kristin is a fabulous writer, and in no way think   that what was missing was good writing, because she had me captivated with her words from the first page. If you like chick-lit and rockstars definetly pick this book up!! 

My October TBR Pile!!

A Very Massive TBR pile if I could get through half of these I would be estatic, but I like to think big... lol

It's my Blogs 1st Birthday!!!! +Giveaway!!! (CLOSED)

So I started this blog a year ago today, and while I wasn't so active in the beggining I definitely grew to love posting and chatting to all my lovely followers!! So what way to celebrate them to share a giveaway for you guys, made of AWESOME!! 

Some Blog Stats from my First Year:

Followers I gained: 87

First Review Posted: Step on a Crack By: James Patterson

Keywords to find my blog: Big Book Piles, The Reading Nook

Most Traffic comes to my blog through: ChickLitPlus.com (which I do blog tours with)

I've grown a lot over this year as a blogger and in writing my reviews. As you can see my first reviews on my blog were so short, and overtime they grew and were more in depth. I'm glad i've met all you wonderful bloggers and followers and can't wait for many years to come!

Now For The Giveaway!!! 

There will be 4 winners!! The first winner will win one of these two books (just wanted to clarify that all three of these books are ARCs) below! 

The Second Winner will win whatever book is left, and the last two winners will win a swag pack of awesome!!! 

Rules:

Must be a follower (sorry but this is to celebrate my followers)

USA AND CANADA only 

Leave a comment below with what two books you would pick if you won the first prize (this is not definite unless you win first place)

Also leave your email address (so that I can contact you)

Winners will be chosen by Random.org

Contest open until October 7th 11:59 pm EST

Winners will be contacted on October 8th

In My Mailbox week ending Sept. 25th

IMM is a Meme hosted by Kristi over @TheStorySiren.com where you show the books you got over the week.

For Review:

(signed) From the Author!! Thanks Denise!!

Thanks Eric @QuirkBooks

Gifted: 

Thanks To Alexis!!!

Bought:

The Finished Copy is freakin' Awesome!! So well made!!!

What did you guys get in your mailboxes this week??! 

Chick Lit Plus Blog Tours: Review: The Last Page by: Lacy Camey

ReadingNook Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Norah feels like she's hit rock bottom after her major league baseball star boyfriend leaves her for another woman, a woman who's carrying his baby!! She puts her energy into starting anew and putting all her anger into her fashion designs but the only thing that seems to keep her happy is creating doggie couture for her love in the form of herdpg, but has she had a genius idea? 

Lacy Camey has a great voice for chick-lit, I loved her writing style, what she wrote felt relevant and current, and reading it felt like reading a story about a close friend instead of a fictional character that I couldn't relate too. This story was light and romantic and funny, exactly what I think a perfect chick-lit book is made of. I cant wait to read the rest of the series, and think Lacy has a strong voice and will be around for along time to come!!






About The Author: 

Lacy Camey is a fiction writer and lives in Houston, Texas with her musician/producer/songwriter husband, Joel, and has a cat who acts like a dog, named Blue. When she isn't writing, or collaborating with her husband, she enjoys being outside, running, working out, reading, cooking, is a huge movie buff and loves watching reality shows on Bravo, especially The Real Housewives franchise. She loves having fun, enjoying the life God has given her and loves to encourage others to follow their bliss. She secretly dreams of going on the Amazing Race with her husband on CBS but is still trying to convince him to audition. Every book written by Lacy Camey purchased by others, a portion goes to supporting an orphanage in Southern America. Lacy has plans to build an orphanage very soon with proceeds from her books. You can stay updated on the process at her blog at www.lacycameywrites.com.

Chick Lit Plus Blog Tour Review & Guest Post- Until the End of Forever by: Shannon Hart

ReadingNook Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Review:

Sarah Matthews has what most people would call a perfect life; the perfect marriage; perfect kids; a beautiful and warm home, and friends that stick by her through it all. But when Sarah starts to feel somethings missing and questions her happiness does her world really begin to turn upside down. Was she really unhappy or did she just need to take a step back and see what she's had right in front of her along? Will this quest to find happiness lead her in the right direction or will her so-called medicore life come crashing down around her, and will her "perfect" life be a thing of the past?

This story was a really fun, and entertaining story. I felt like I was flying through the pages and I loved the relationship between Sarah and Rob, I mean seriously how amazing is Rob? he's like super husband and handsome to boot!! 

The reason for the 3.5 star rating for me (and trust me that dosn't mean I thought the story was bad by any means, I really enjoyed it) was because for me, I felt like something was lacking, certain parts of how the story panned out kind-of fustrated me. I wish Sarah came home on her own accord and not because of a death of a close-family friend. I also wish she did more self-discovery in Paris, seeing that's what her whole trip was about, and my last little pet peeve was that she kept saying, "There's something wrong with me, I need to see a therapist", which towards the end of the book made me want to shake her silly and tell her TO JUST GO ALREADY!! 

Now with that being said, I did really enjoy the book I loved all the characters, although Sarah at times fustrated me. The story was fresh and something that most married couples can relate too, that even "perfect" relationships can get stale and monotonous and sometimes need some freshing up. I think the story had a few really great messages, and the Romantic Rob made me swoon more then a few times.

Overall, You guys should go check this book out, although a couple things fustrated me, nothing was a deal-breaker and I still really enjoyed the story. 

Guest Post with Author Shannon Hart:

Second Time Around There is a common assumption that when you’ve done something once, the second time is easy. For me personally, perhaps this is true, but for things like riding a bike or traveling. If you’ve been to Paris once before, you’d already know that the airport is massively large, traffic into the city in the morning on weekdays is packed, and that it costs roughly Euro 55 to 65 for a cab ride to get from the airport to somewhere like Opera or Place Vendome. But when it comes to something like writing, I can’t say I found it easy the second time around. In fact, if anything, it was more challenging than before. Why, you ask? Well, for a number of reasons actually. Like for one, it’s because I wanted to manage expectations. See, when my first manuscript was ready and before it was published, I had already shared it with a few trusted friends who I knew would be able to give it to me straight. For the ones that loved it, I felt like they had high expectations for the second one. Before I even started writing the second one, they were already asking me when they would see a second one and whether it would be as good as the last, so disappointing them was the last thing I wanted to do. In order to succeed in doing that, my go-to strategy was to make it different. If it was different than the last, how were they going to be able to compare it? So I did exactly that – my second book (yet to be published) has a younger line-up of characters, a single-but-in-a-complicated-relationship kind of storyline, and has a big focus on friendship. The other issue I had was tone and manner. I’m the type of person that you can read like an open book. I say whatever is on my mind, my facial expression gives me away all the time, and I normally write my main characters the way I speak. My challenge was, if Sarah already spoke like me in Until the End of Forever, I obviously couldn’t write my new heroine like me too, right? The key to managing this and avoiding my two characters to sound way too similar was to profile my new heroine, and set her profile next to Sarah’s. I had pictures pasted into a sketchbook that I thought looked like the Sarah I had in my head as well as my new character, along with jotted down profile notes like where they were born, where they grew up, what kind of upbringing they had, their career choice or major, how they ranked academically, and a bunch of other factors that may affect one’s personality, choice of words and choice of references. I basically created “real” people, in order to get the tones right. It was a lot of work and a lot of nitty-gritty details, but I thought it worked out well. I could name a few other issues I had that contributed to the challenge of a second novel, but I don’t want to crash Laura’s blog J. What I will add though, is that besides the challenging parts, I have to say there was one thing that made a big difference between writing the first and second manuscripts: confidence. Having already finished one book before and having more than one person actually enjoy it and say it was good helped build a confidence level that I didn’t have when I was writing the first one. Heck, when I was writing Until the End of Forever, halfway through chapter 17, I wasn’t even sure what my ending was going to be like! I had no idea what was going to happen with Rob and Sarah’s marriage, and there was a short period of time that I was worried I’d never know, and thus would never finish. I was already imagining the script just collecting viruses in my computer never having been finished. But the second time around, I knew I had the ability to finish it. Confidence worked like creative trigger for me. It was like some sort of self-motivating therapy because the more I told myself I could, I really could. The selected few who have read the finished manuscript even noticed that there was a more confident and bold feel to it – exactly what I was going for. Of course, not everyone is the same. I might have gone through things that other writers have not encountered at all – and that’s perfectly okay too. Everyone’s writing experience will be different. The important thing is that we do write. If writing is your passion, no matter what challenge or obstacle you are presented with, just never stop writing. It keeps you sharp, it keeps you creative, and it keeps your passion alive and burning, which is the way it should be. One very last thing that is similar between writing the first and second book: I always get very excited and anxious to share it with everyone! So do stay tuned!