Sometimes you just have to ignore your blog…

And last week, the blog was neglected and ignored and avoided because

I was reading these:

And writing a query letter:

And stalking researching agents here:

And here: 

When was the last time you neglected your blog?

Friday Five: Reasons to smile

1. Mark Paul Gossler has finally taken a role that could so be Zack Morris all grown up.  Zack Morris as Peter Bash.  
2. Interviews with two of my favorite authors (Veronica Roth and Lauren Oliver). 
3. This book, a parody of It’s Time to Sleep, My Love.
4. Harry Potter – er, Daniel Radcliffe – can do this:
5. Ernest Hemingway looked like this when he was younger.  Just saying.  

Tuesday was a BIG day

A few of the books released Tuesday that I can’t wait to get my hands on: 

Imaginary Girls –  

By Nova Ren Suma

Chloe's older sister, Ruby, is the girl everyone looks to and longs for, who can't be captured or caged. When a night with Ruby's friends goes horribly wrong and Chloe discovers the dead body of her classmate London Hayes left floating in the reservoir, Chloe is sent away from town and away from Ruby. 

Ruby will do anything to get her sister back, and when Chloe returns to town two years later, deadly surprises await. As Chloe flirts with the truth that Ruby has hidden deeply away, the fragile line between life and death is redrawn by the complex bonds of sisterhood.

With palpable drama and delicious craft, Nova Ren Suma bursts onto the YA scene with the story that everyone will be talking about.  (From Goodreads) 

Check out her interview with Gale Forman.

Word on the street is there’s a twist – and I’ve already been driving myself crazy trying to guess what it is! 

Hourglass – By Myra McEntire   

One hour to rewrite the past . . . 

For seventeen-year-old Emerson Cole, life is about seeing what isn’t there: swooning Southern Belles; soldiers long forgotten; a haunting jazz trio that vanishes in an instant. Plagued by phantoms since her parents’ death, she just wants the apparitions to stop so she can be normal. She’s tried everything, but the visions keep coming back.

So when her well-meaning brother brings in a consultant from a secretive organization called the Hourglass, Emerson’s willing to try one last cure. But meeting Michael Weaver may not only change her future, it may change her past.

Who is this dark, mysterious, sympathetic guy, barely older than Emerson herself, who seems to believe every crazy word she says? Why does an electric charge seem to run through the room whenever he’s around? And why is he so insistent that he needs her help to prevent a death that never should have happened?

Full of atmosphere, mystery, and romance, Hourglass merges the very best of the paranormal and science-fiction genres in a seductive, remarkable young adult debut. (From Goodreads)

Paranormal, mystery, and romance – sign me up.  

Crush Control – By Jennifer Jabaley 

Willow has spent most of her life as her mother's sidekick in a popular Las Vegas hypnotism show. So when she and her mom move back to their sleepy southern hometown to start over, she thinks she's in for a life of quiet normalcy. Except that her new life turns out to be anything but, when she kinda sorta hypnotizes Quinton, the hottest guy on the football team, to fall madly, deeply, head over heels in love with her. But what started out as an innocent way to make her best friend, Max, jealous soon gets way out of hand, and Willow begins to wonder if the mind - and more importantly, the heart - is something you can really control. (From Goodreads)

I’m a sucker for books where the protagonist tries too hard to control everything in their life (not because I’m often guilty of that...) and then learns the hard way there’s only so much you can control.   I’m sold! 

Sisterhood Everlasting – By Ann Brashares  

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ann Brashares comes the welcome return of the characters whose friendship became a touchstone for a generation. Now Tibby, Lena, Carmen, and Bridget have grown up, starting their lives on their own. And though the jeans they shared are long gone, the sisterhood is everlasting.

Despite having jobs and men that they love, each knows that something is missing: the closeness that once sustained them. Carmen is a successful actress in New York, engaged to be married, but misses her friends. Lena finds solace in her art, teaching in Rhode Island, but still thinks of Kostos and the road she didn’t take. Bridget lives with her longtime boyfriend, Eric, in San Francisco, and though a part of her wants to settle down, a bigger part can’t seem to shed her old restlessness.

Then Tibby reaches out to bridge the distance, sending the others plane tickets for a reunion that they all breathlessly await. And indeed, it will change their lives forever—but in ways that none of them could ever have expected.

As moving and life-changing as an encounter with long-lost best friends, Sisterhood Everlasting is a powerful story about growing up, losing your way, and finding the courage to create a new one.  (From Goodreads)

Okay – confession:  I’ve never read any of the Sisterhood books...but I’ve seen the movies (does that count? Probably not).   As someone who is still extremely close with several of the people I grew up with, I love any story about friendship that never fades.  (Hello – Now and Then).  I won’t be missing out on this one.  

Graduation Baby

I went to a graduation, two graduation parties, and a baby shower this past weekend.  And all my best friends from high school were in town for the festivities, so my stomach still hurts from laughing.  

  

My favorite things though, were that I heard more than one person say, in reference to the robes and hoods the PHD and Graduate Students were wearing, “It reminds me of Harry Potter.”

Also, even though it’s been months since I’ve seen most of my high school BFF’s, it’s like nothing has changed – we still find the most obnoxious topics to talk about until we’re blue in the face.  This weekend the hot topics were serial killers and poverty.  Good times.

 

I had a moment of nostalgia with one of my friends who I’ve known since middle school when we hid from the most beautiful man we’d ever seen in real life who was in attendance at the grad party with his equally as beautiful boyfriend.  At one point she even said, “We should stand in his path, so he’s forced to talk to us.”  Ah, just like middle school – making up shenanigans to interact with hot guys we have no chance with.  :)

And – this is the best – after the baby shower we spent an hour watching Full House reruns and the baby kicked when Uncle Jesse spoke.  It’s a girl baby, in case that wasn’t obvious.  Good taste early on. 

How was your weekend / beginning of the week?  

Conversations with the cousin: More about the boy with bread

Cousin: I didn’t understand your text.

Me:  Oh, good.  So I’m not the only one who didn’t make the connection.

Cousin:  What connection?

Me:   Between Peeta and bread.  Pita bread.

Cousin:  Oooooh, yeah…I never made that connection either.

Me:  So we’re both slow.

Cousin:  Peeta.  Bread.  My respect for the author just increased for sneaking that in.

Please tell me, are there any other cute sneak-ins like this in other books, that have probably gone right over my head?  

Friday Five: When I was a teenager

Jeanmarie Anaya's post about her favorite YA novels when she was a teen got me all nostalgic. 

When I was a teenager…

1.       My favorite books:

2.      This was my favorite scene from My So Called Life:

3.      My favorite food:

4.      My future husband:

5.      I wrote stories about people being chased by dinosaurs and people falling in love during World War II.

So, when you were a teenager…?

Season Finales and Pregnancy

If you haven’t watched the season finales of the following shows and you plan to, then stop reading as this post will spoil them for you. 

•         Cougar Town
•         90210
•          Gossip Girl
•         Parenthood
•         Brothers & Sisters

It seems a bit odd to me that I can spoil the series finales of five TV shows with just three little words:  Somebody Is Pregnant. 

Disclaimer: technically in Cougar Town, no one gets pregnant, but in the last five minutes of the season finale somebody agrees to try.  So it still counts. 

I get the drama behind a surprise pregnancy, really I do.  I just found it odd that ALL of these shows happened to take the same course this season.  Are babies really in this year (or expected to be next year), or did the writers of these shows just get lazy and think, throw in an unplanned pregnancy, that will jazz it up a bit. 

In these cases, for me at least, taking the pregnancy route completely backfired.  Because I don’t want Jules to get pregnant.  All her ‘big Carl’ jokes would be useless.  And does anyone want to watch a pregnant Naomi?  Isn’t this going to be a little bit like déjà from when her sister was pregnant last season? As far as Blare Waldorf is concerned, I feel less like watching her lose her Prince because of a lovechild and more like lecturing her for not using protection when sleeping with solidified playboy Chuck Bass.  While I adore the show Parenthood, I found it ridiculously unoriginal and irritating that they pulled the whole you-thought-your-teenage-daughter-was-pregnant-but-it’s-actually-your-wife stunt.  Kitty’s pregnancy is moot because Brothers and Sisters was canceled, but I must say I’m a little relieved that we don’t have to watch Kitty have a storyline that screamed Steel Magnolias.

The only show that had a completely original season finale was The Vampire Diaries, and that’s because Vampires can’t impregnate people.  (“Though we love to try” – Damon Salvatore).

Unplanned pregnancy – season finale laziness or a great cliffhanger?