top 10 tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday: Most annoying characters

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Top Ten Tuesdays is hosted by the Broke and the Bookish. Today’s topic is top ten most frustrating characters ever.

1) Bella Swan. I actually like the Twilight books, I just can’t stand the main character. That’s no reflection on Stephanie Meyer, Bella’s a very realistic character. She’s so realistic in fact that she reminds me of someone I know so well that I actually googled Meyer to see if there was some crazy chance she’s been inspired by this girl. So great characterization.

I hate Bella because she has NO sense of self-preservation and she’s full of herself. She throws herself into danger over and over again and it’s not brave. No one but her budding teenage relationship was threatened until near the end of book one. You don’t date boys who tell you they want you dead. Period.

But her internal dialogue is also annoying. She is SO negative. From what I can tell the kids at Forks reached out and tried to make her feel as welcome as they could and all she does is snark about how stupid they are. She leads Jacob on to an insane degree, and she’s not always nice to Charlie who might be one of my favorite characters ever. She’s also co-dependent to a dangerous degree. I’m not at all surprised the submissive protagonist from Fifty Shades is based on her.

2) Faye Chamberlin from Secret Circle.

Spoilers

Yet another ridiculously self-centered character. Let me set the scene. Cassie’s house is actively burning down. The circle has just pulled her catatonic mother, who by the way won’t so much as speak again for a book and a half, from the flames. It’s been awhile, but I believe her grandmother died. There are injured and shaken teens everywhere. And Faye figures now is a good time to rat Cassie out to Diana for kissing Adam. Right now. As Cassie’s home burns in the distance. Priorities.

3) Shae from Uglies.

Spoilers

Okay, so your best friend steals the guy you had your eye on. That sucks. You also realize she was (obviously unwillingly) working with Dr. Cable. In revenge, you basically enslave her to you and force her to submit to a surgery that mutates her body and warps her mind. Cause that’s fair.

4) David’s mom from Uglies.

Spoilers

I understand being upset about your husband. But the degree of verbal abuse you put Tally, a terrified child who has been raised to obey Dr. Cable, a woman who is actually engineered to be psychologically terrifying, is ridiculous. Especially considering how she risked her life to save your people twice. Talk about blaming the victim. That is inexcusable behavior for an adult. Much less a doctor.

5) Sabine from the Soul Screamers series. Yet another ridiculously selfish character. It’s unbelievable the things she demands or gets upset about.

6) Nate from the Soul Screamers Series.

Spoilers

I liked him until he lent Kayleigh’s body out to a demon and not gets pissy every time it gets brought up. I wasn’t cool with the attempted mind control rape. And I REALLY wasn’t cool with the fact that he gives her attitude for framing him for murder after she was killed and explains that she had to do it or her murderer was going to kill everyone else in her house.

7) The dog in the Bite me series by Parker Blue. I thought he was hysterical in book one, but I actually could not finish book two because of him, much less start book three. The author went from having him speak in italics (makes sense he uses telepathy) in book one, to ALL CAPS FOR ALL OF BOOK TWO to absolutely no quotes or anything for book three. It’s ridiculous. I either feel like he’s yelling or am not aware a conversation is taking place at all.

8) Kitiara from the Dragonlance series. Again, another incredibly selfish character.

9) the gods, bad guys, and every adult in the Percy Jackson series. I like the series, just really really hate how the authority figures are portrayed. The book is all good and serious until an adult comes on the screen then it’s silly jokes and very immature behavior.

10) it’s been awhile, but the protagonist of The Forest of Hands and Teeth. She’s crazy passive yet she still manages to get everyone killed so she can go swimming.

Top Ten Tuesdays: Settings

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Top ten Tuesdays are posted by The Broke and the Bookish. This weeks top ten list features settings you want to see more often in fiction.

1) Athens, Georgia. I want to see how other authors treat it. Plus it would be cool to recognize places in the book.

2) Cruise ships

3) Oxford, England

4) Paris, France

5) dystopian futures. What, I really like them

6) the moon. I read a book set on the moon once. It was pretty cool

7) the international space station. I think a grown up version of Xenon would be interesting. Like not the actual show, but a society on a space station. More like Battlestar Galactica, but with less cylons.

8) Outside of time. Think Ruby Red. I like time travelers

9) Islands, cause I’m jealous

10) Atlanta, same reason as Athens just lower on the list

Top Ten Tuesday

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Top Ten Tuesdays is hosted by the Broke and the Bookish. This weeks topic is the top ten most anticipated releases of 2013. This was the easiest top ten Tuesday yet! There are so many great books coming out in 2013.

1) The Iron Queen, by me. If only because it means I finished it!

2) Aphrodite, by me. Ditto!

3) Ever After, by Kim Harrison. Love her series, can’t wait to see where it goes

4) With All My Soul, by Rachel Vincent. I LOVE this series and this book will conclude it. Each book gets better and better.

5) Clockwork Princess, by Cassandra Clare, I think I like this series better than the Immortal Instruments

7) The Rising, by Kelley Armstrong, excited to see where this series is going

8) Omens, by Kelley Armstrong. I’m excited to see what this ones about.

9) The House of Hades, by Rick Riordan. This series just gets better and better as the kids in it grow up.

10) The Doors of Stone, by Patrick Rothfus. I’m nervous about this book. It’s going to have to be pretty awesome to wrap up right.

Top Ten Tuesday

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the Broke and the Bookish. Today’s top ten topics are top ten bookish goals for 2013.

Reading:

1) Keep up with readings for school. I’m finishing up my last semester of my masters degree and this semester it’s full time student teaching plus a class, so I’ll have academic readings for school and I’ll need to re-read what the kids are reading, plus I’ll need to read what the kids are writing!

2) Read a fun book every other week. Whether it’s young adult, fantasy or any other genre, I just don’t want to stop reading for fun. Sometimes the school reading kind of swallows my love for reading and I don’t want that to happen.

3) Read a classic on the alternate weeks. This will cross over with book one quite a bit. I read a lot of classics last year while prepping for the GRE Lit test, and while I still don’t love reading them as much as I love reading regular books, I appreciate the regular books more now. I make connections in books and movies that I didn’t before, even though as an English major, I’d read most of those books before. The classics are classic for a reason and I want to keep that knowledge fresh.

4) Read to my daughter every day. I was pretty good about this up until really recently. I should read to her daily.

5) Family reading. Again, this is something we did a lot for most of the year that we’ve fallen away from as our schedule picks up. I read books out loud to my husband and daughter every night before bed. It was fun, and now my husband knows what I’m talking about when I start chatting about my favorite books.

Writing:

6) Work in the Persephone universe every day. I’ve got a ton more books to write there and I need to get to work!

7) Work on something else a little every day. Doesn’t matter what.

8) Try to write a short story every month. I’d really like to get into a few anthologies.

9) Keep up with this blog.

10) Keep up with my school writing. I have a big portfolio due at the end of the semester…

Theres my ten purely bookish goals for 2013. Let’s see how I do.

Top Ten Tuesday: Resolutions!

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Instead of doing the top ten books to read in 2013, I’m doing my New Years resolutions 🙂

1) Spend more time with Bella. It’s been a busy year in grad school and I just haven’t been making her as big of a priority as I should. She’s only going to be this little once and I don’t want to waste it.

2) Be a better wife. On the same token, it’s been a really busy year and home wise I haven’t been very present. Brandon’s done most of the cooking, cleaning, and parenting while holding down two jobs. I owe him, major.

3) Finish my masters. One more semester! Just got to make it through.

4) Lose some weight. Yeah, always

5) Finish book 3 and 4

6) make good financial decisions.

7) take better care of myself all round.

8) be a better teacher.

9) do nice things daily

10) Be present. A lot of times even when I’m home and not writing, I’m staring at the screen of my phone, zoned out, or watching tv, or reading a book. I need to be here when I’m home.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 ways to spend the holiday

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Here are my top holiday traditions 🙂

1) presents. I love getting present but having a little one makes opening presents extra fun! She just get so happy!

2) hot chocolate, a fire, and a good family friendly movie. I love spending time with my little family

3) the elf on the shelf. We’ve had so much fun hunting for “Tinsel” every morning.

4) Christmas lights. I’ve always loved Christmas lights but my daughter is fascinated. We have this house in our neighborhood that went all out. She gets so excited every time we drive by

5) Good food. I love Christmas Eve dinner, cinnamon rolls for breakfast and leftover day on Christmas. The food is just SO good.

6) Christmas crafts. It’s fun to make presents from Bella.

7) Caroling. It’s like glee come to life 🙂

8) Playing in the snow. It snowed on Christmas last year. Can’t promise it’ll be a tradition here in Georgia, but it set the bar high.

9) Christmas specials. Every show does one and all the old classics come on too, it’s very nostalgic

10) visiting Santa. Bella just takes the cutest pictures with Santa Clause.

Those are my favorite Christmas traditions. What are yours?

Top Ten Tuesdays: Favorite books of 2012

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Top ten Tuesday is hosted by the Broke and the Bookish. Today’s list is favorite books of 2012. This shouldn’t be hard. I spend every free moment until mid October reading classics for the GRE Literature test, then I got so wrapped up in student teaching that I sometimes forgot to breathe, so most of what I read was within the last month or two.

1) The Calling, by Kelley Armstrong. I love Kelly Armstrong! I am really enjoying her YA books, it’s everything I like about her grown up books, without the sex scenes. I’m just not a sex scene person. There are things I like to read, and that just isn’t a reading thing.

2) Thirteen, by Kelley Armstrong. This book finishes up the Women of the Otherworld series. I’ll admit to not loving it as much as I thought I would, but the end of series are hard. They really can’t live up to every expectation because no matter how good the book is, you’re still sad it’s over at the end.

3) Amityville Horrible, by Kelley Armstrong. Last Kelley Armstrong one, I promise. This novella was awesome. Loved it.

4) Lamb by Christopher Moore. I think this may be my new favorite book. It was so funny, and so well done. He walked a very tight line writing this book and he didn’t seem to falter once.

5) Pale Demon, by Kim Harrison. Possibly the best book in the Hollows Series. I really regret waiting so long to read it.

6) A Perfect Blood, by Kim Harrison. Not as good as Pale Demon, but still much much better than most of what I’ve read this year. It’s not that I don’t like the classics, but reading them is work. I read for fun.

7) Everything I read by Cassandra Clare. I can’t rank these and they’d take up the rest of my list. But I really like the new Infernal Devices series, and City of Lost Souls was good too.

8) Normalish, by Margaret Lesh. Really compelling and good book.

9) The Maze Runner Series, by James Dashner. It was fast, it was fun.

10) The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern. This is an amazing book. Love it.

Top Ten Tuesdays: New to me authors

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Top Ten Tuesdays is hosted by http://brokeandbookish.blogspot.com/p/top-ten-tuesday-other-features.html?m=1. This weeks top ten are my favorite authors I discovered in 2012.

1) Christopher Moore. He’s hysterical. I seriously love everything he’s ever written. He wrote Fool and Lamb. I think I’d read him in 2011, but I didn’t buy anything by him until 2012, so I can’t be sure.

2) James Dashenr of the Maze Runner Series

3) S.G Rogers. She wrote Tournament of Chance, which I really enjoyed.

4) Margaret Lesh who wrote Normalish

5) Linda Benson who wrote Six Degrees of Lost and Walking the Dog

6) Dusty Crabtree of Shadow Eyes fame

7) Stephen Chobsky of The Perks of Being a Wallflower

8) Melissa Groeling of Traffic Jam

9) I spent every waking minute until October reading classics to study for the GRE lit test, so while this last writer isn’t new to me, I discovered her in a new way. Charlotte Bronte. I love Wuthering Heights. Love, love love it. Also love the mini series from BBC

10) and not a book but TV shows have plots, Battlestar Galactica. Great show. Strange ending

Top Ten Tuesdays: Santa please

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My wish list for Santa Clause

1) Daughter of the earth and sky by me. I’m working with the cover artist now and waiting on copy edits. I’m so excited 🙂 just hoping it all goes off without a hitch 🙂

2) The Death Cure by James Dashner

3 Ever After by Kim Harrison

4) Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare

5) running out of books to wish for! So moving on to shows and movies: hey, they have plot lines, character development and stuff. Shows are good.

The walking dead season 3 season pass. I don’t have cable. Instead I pay $7 bucks a month for Hulu and $7 for netflicks and keep my student amazon prime up and running. So I watch lots of TV but a few shows don’t make it to those sources. So we have iTunes. I have a whole list of season passes I want

6) Doctor Who season 7 part 2

7) Dexter season 7

8) Brave. I want my daughter to have all the Disney princess movies but Disney has a limited iTunes collection

9) Finding nemo.

10) a babysitter and tickets to Breaking Dawn. Lol. I haven’t seen it yet but I’d really like to

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated Books coming in 2013

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Here’s a list of books I can’t wait for in 2013! Top ten Tuesdays is as always, hosted by the Broke and the Bookish.

1) The Iron Queen, by me. I’M really excited to see how this book will turn out. It comes out in May, wish me luck on making my deadline. I’m one chapter away from finishing my third draft and then the fun part begins.

2) The Rising by Kelley Armstrong. I love Kelley Armstrong, and while Chloe’s pov is still my favorite, Maya kicks some serious but.

3) Omens by Kelley Armstrong. I look forward to the first of her new young adult trilogy. Yeah, I’m obsessed, I know

4) Ever After by Kim Harrison. I haven’t read A Perfect Blood yet, but I imagine it’ll be good.

5) Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare. No, I haven’t read the first one yet, but I will 🙂 And I’m sure it’ll be good.

6) With all my soul by Rachel Vincent

7) Loki’s Wolves by Kelley Armstrong and Melissa Marr (OMG!!! Both of them!)

8) The House of Hades by Rick Riordan. I LOVE his series

9) Shards and Ashes, it’s an anthology with pretty much everyone I like in it

10) My Name is Rapunzel by K.C Hilton, don’t know a lot about this one, but it looks good.