2015 Books!

As the year is coming to a close, I realize that I have been awful at writing reviews. So I am going to post a list of the books I read and how many starts (one to five) I would give them and later I will post the reviews for yall. 🙂

I am a little sad because my goal for the year was 100 books, but I will only get to about half of that.

1. King Dork– 2 stars
2. My True Love Gave To Me-4 stars
3. We Were Liars-5 stars
4. Shadowfell-3 stars
5. The Selection-5 stars
6. The Elite-5 stars
7. The One-5 stars
8. The Queen (Novella)-4 stars
9. The Girl and the Machine-2 stars
10. Eye Candy-2 stars
11. Red Queen-4 stars
12. Will Grayson, Will Grayson-4 stars
13. Hardwired-3 stars
14. We All Looked Up-5 stars
15. The Fire Sermons: Omega-5 stars
16. To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before-2 stars
17. The Heir (The Selection)-5 stars
18. The Diviners-5 stars
19. Grey-2 stars
20. The Martian-5 stars
21. Isle of the Lost-1 star
22. Paper Towns-1 star
23. Hardpressed-2 stars
24. The Prince (The Selection Novella)-5 stars
25. I am Malala-5 stars
26. The Strange Case of Origami Yoda-4 stars
27. Darth Paper Strikes Back!-4 stars
28. The Secret of the Fortune Wookie-4 stars
29. Ask the Dark-5 stars
30. A Court of Thorns and Roses-4 stars
31. FanGirl-5 stars
32. The Scorch Trials-5 stars
33. The Death Cure-5 stars
34. Lair of Dreams-5 stars
35. Yes, Please (audiobook)-4 stars
36. Going Bovine-4 stars
37. Prince Lestat-5 stars
38. Slasher Boys and Monster Girls-4 stars
39. Carry On-5 stars
40. Binge (audiobook)- 4 stars
41. Princess Labelmaker to the Rescue!-4 stars
42. The Rest of Us Just Live Here-5 stars
43. Six of Crows-5 stars

Internship Week 2!

This week my supervising librarian was collecting books from the students and preparing to take inventory next week. (Don’t judge me; I’m super excited for this!)

I learned the differences in book bindings.

Book Binding (in order of preference for use in a school library.)

1. Library Reinforced-vendors take the copy of the book and reinforce the cover and put the jacket cover on a cover that will not come off of the book. They also reinforce the binding with either glue or sew it. Book is also printed on acid-free paper to eliminate page yellowing.

2.  Vendor bound-one step below library reinforced, but books are bound by the vendor, not originally, may not always be printed on acid-free paper.

3. Trade hardcover-Quality hardcover book that you would buy in a bookstore. After a couple uses, the binding begins to loosen and if the book jacket has not been taped, will get lost.

4. Trade paperback-buy only when necessary. For example, when a book is being made into a movie and you need extra copies in the library. A quick fix.

I also learned that shelf reading is when you walk through the shelves and make sure that books are in their proper places.

Nerdy Book Club!

Hey guys, so I promise I’ve been reading, I’ve just been slacking on my reviews. But, I read the entire Selection series and am HOOKED! I am currently reading the 4th one that was just released on Tuesday. I was super excited to be chosen to write for the Nerdy Book Club and have been featured to write a review on the Selection! It will be up there tomorrow! Check back for the link!

The Selection by Kiera Cass – Review by Stephanie Michelle

Internship Week 1!

So this week I started my library internship in my secondary placement at my current school’s library. My primary placement is a high school library, but won’t begin until summer school starts in June, so I am currently interning in a middle school library. So far, I have learned that I feel WAY underprepared to be a librarian on my own, but my supervisor has been awesome and teaching me along the way. First few days I learned about things you should do when you get into a library for the first time:

• Take pictures! You can show progress on how you change the space over the amount of time that you are in there.
• Dust! Dust the walls, dust the shelves, dust EVERYTHING! (I’m sneezing just thinking about it.)
• Vacuum!
• Decide what you are going to teach over the year and create  schedule, be sure to leave at least one day a week free in case of reschedules or if your principal needs you to do something for him/her, then you can give him that day.
• Find out your district’s weeding schedule.

Anyone else starting their internship? How is it going? Have you learned anything??

Eye Candy

Book number 4 for this year!

Honestly, I picked up this book because I am obsessed with the show, and came to find that the book is completely different than the show. I could not put it down. Lindy is a young, beautiful, blonde who tries to meet men on the internet, calling herself Eye Candy. She meets three men through the dating site,and one more accidentally. She is just about to start weeding out when she begins receiving threats to killer if she stops seeing one of them. Her only option is to keep seeing all of them until she figures it out. The story will hold your attention, and you’ll never guess who the real killer is!

This book is very different from my usual read, but I enjoyed every moment of it. It has some moments where the reader may get confused as to who is speaking or where exactly things are happening, but they are easy to catch back on to.

Overall, a quick, captivating read for anyone who wants an adventure!

My True Love Gave to Me

This book is a collection of winter/holiday themed short stories (generally about 30 pages each) by different young adult authors. I really enjoyed the stories, and whether you like all of them or not, you will definitely find at least one that you will enjoy.

Many of the stories are love stories, but a few are about family, friendship and other heartwarming themes. I enjoyed reading from different authors so that I could get to know other authors and decide if I want to read more for them.

We Were Liars

Omg, this book was both heartbreaking and beautiful. And I feel honored for having my heart broken by it.
Basically, Cadence Sinclair suffers from migraines and memory loss about something that happened on her family’s island when she was 15. She spends the majority of the book trying to understand what causes her migraines and what happened to her that she can’t remember. With the help of her cousins, whom she affectionately refers to as “The Liars,” she comes to discover what happened to her and to her family.

I finished this book in 2 evenings, I could not put it down. I read some reviews before reading it that criticized it for randomly switching to prose, but I thought that the sudden changes were helpful to understand the depth of Cadence’s feelings as well as slow the reader down to get a better understanding of what is happening in the story. I probably would not recommend it to those younger than 8th to 9th grade simply because of its use of language and traumatic events.

Overall, We Were Liars is a beautifully written book that will grab your attention and not let go.

My rating: 5/5 stars

The Sham

The Sham is about a young British girl, Emily, who befriends a boy, Jack, who is brand new to the town and “feels everyone elses feelings.” From the same day that Jack arrives in The Sham until the end of their school year, a group of four girls is slowly disappearing and Jack is accused of being behind it. Emily develops feelings for Jack and tries to prove his innocence as well as her own for the remainder of the book.

Alongside trying to prove Jack’s innocence, Emily must also try to deal with Jack’s constant paranoia and being followed by people who think he is a boy who has been institutionalized.

This book was very well developed and thought out, but it was not for me. There were many uses of British slang that I had to look up while reading, as well as many instances where the author loses time. I felt like everything in the story happened in a matter of days, possibly even weeks, but actually is over a span of six months. For a shorter story, this is fitting, I was just lost at the points where time is discussed. Personally, the aspect of the story concerning Jack’s mistake identity annoyed me. I understand that it makes Jack more likely to be the murderer and how it aids to the story, but I thought that it added a little too much to follow. The story is already difficult to follow with the time chunks missing and how quickly the story develops, but the added identity mystery doesn’t do much to help, although it did hold my attention a little longer.

If you like mystery and plot twists, this book is for you. I can usually figure out plots in stories such as this one, but this one had me actually thrown. Overall, it was a quick, good read.

I’m so doing this. Who’s with me?!

Found on http://annaceski.booklikes.com/post/1056573/post.

Anyone got any ideas for what can fit into each category?

Christmas Ideas.

I’m one of those people that don’t like to be asked “What do you want for Christmas?” I mean come on, I’m a book nerd. Obvi, I’m going to want BOOKS!

GIMME ALL THE BOOKS!!

And if you don’t know where to start: I don’t have any of the Bluebonnet books for this year. 😉

Just Saying.

What books are ya’ll asking for this Christmas?