Top Ten Books For People Who Like Dystopians/ Apocalyptic Books

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish. They created this feature because as I quote, "... we are particularly quite found of lists".
Everyone is welcome to join. As they write, "All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers on their blog as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers."

So once again I have done it, I have changed up this week's Top Ten Tuesday post- this week's topic is actually Top Ten Books For People Who Like X Author (pick an author and give recommendations) and I decided to change the topic to Top Ten Books For People Who Like (some genre of books) Books. I chose Dystopian/ Apocalyptic books they seem to be almost exclusively what I read nowadays (seriously, I think that over 1/2 of what I have read this year have been them, whereas in the past I used to read almost exclusively contemporary books or paranormal books).

"Shatter Me" by Tahereh Mafi: This book has the best of basically everything- a strong heroine, an entirely swoon-worthy male character, an intriguing villain who you want to know more about and who you can't help but find oddly hot, a love story like no other, a writing style quite unlike anything I have ever read before, oh, and is written by an author who has one of the coolest tumblr accounts that I have ever seen before. This is without a doubt my most favourite dystopian I have ever read before and I am super excited to learn that the second book in the series is just as good, if not better than, the original (as per Fiktshun's I'm Unraveled).

"Article 5" by Kristen Simmons: Like "Shatter Me", this has a really romantic storyline, after finding out that the girl that the boy was once in love with is being held captive by her controlling government he decides to join the government in the hopes of rescuing her. While perhaps not the most unique dystopian book, I think that the characters more than make up for it!

Ally Condie's "Matched" series: This book has one of the most successful love love triangles I have ever encountered before I always bounce back and forth between which boy I would like Cassia to end up with since I believe that both of them have such redeeming qualities and really make her a better person- and this series has perhaps one of the most rigid dystopian governments out of all of the books.

"The Pledge" by Kimberly Derting: Though a HUGE fan of her "Body Finders" series I must admit that I was a bit hesitant to read this book as I had heard such contradictory things about- people either REALLY liked it or REALLY disliked it- thankfully I was amongst those who REALLY liked it (in fact, I think that this book is one of the 5 best books  have read this year).

"Dearly, Departed" by Lia Habel: Unlike the other mentioned books I would consider this to be more so an apocalyptic read than a dystopian. When I first read the synopsis of this book and learned that it was about zombies, a revival of the Victorian era, crazy technology, and the likes of, I thought that it was going to be TOO MUCH- was I ever wrong! Again, this book is included with the top 5 best books I have read this year)- oh, and I am not ashamed to admit that while I was reading this book at school while hanging out with my friends I totally started crying at the end of it.

"Possession"/ "Surrender" by Elana Johnson: This is the epitome of one of those series that gets better and better with each passing book, while I was somewhat hesitant with "Possession", "Surrender" COMPLETELY blew me away- again I think that this is one of the best books that I have read this year. And while I haven't heard anything about a third book (please correct me if I am wrong)- I really, really, REALLY want one- pretty please?

"Monument 14" by Emmy Laybourne: Again, I would more so consider this to be an apocalyptic book, rather than a dystopian. This book has a storyline that I am sure that we have always fantasized about before- living within a mall or store when all hell is braking loose outside. Aside from it having an interesting storyline it also has a wonderful cast of characters! I highly recommend checking this one out, despite having read it a couple of months ago I can't get it out of my head!

"Divergent" by Veronica Roth: If you have yet to have read this book before I don't want to talk to you. Okay, not really! But, YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK! It took me forever to read this book (I only read it this past December) and since then I have read it at least once a month- this is, without a doubt, tied with "Shatter Me" was my most favourite book of all time! The following quote describes my feelings for this book perfectly: "Sometimes you read a book so special that you want to carry it around with you for months after you've finished just to stay near it.” -Markus Zusak

"Partials" by Dan Wells: While I was admittedly a bit disappointed by the lack of romance in this book (what can I say? I've become a HUGE romance junkie as of late, if a book doesn't have even an inkling of it I usually struggle through it), the fast paced action and adventure more than made up for it, same with cast of likeable characters- I am so looking forward to the second book in this series, "Fragments"!

Top Ten Books That Made Me Cry

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish. They created this feature because as I quote, "... we are particularly quite found of lists".
Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers on their blog as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

This week's topic is actually Top Ten Characters Who Remind Me Of Myself Or Someone I Know In Real Life, but again I've decided to go in a different direction (when I tried to think of characters who remind me of people I know in real life I could only come up with one character/ person... :/ ). Therefore this week I've decided to go with the topic of Top Ten Books That Made Me Cry. 

I am kinda silly when it comes to books, while I most certainly cry from sad stuff I also cry from super cute/ happy/ exciting.... So basically anything (I blame it on being a hormonal young adult ;) ). It is not uncommon when I read for my parents to look over at me and say, "Oh gosh, here she goes again!" 

"If I Stay"/ "Where She Went" by Gayle Forman: These books are the most recent books that have made me cry. And boy did they ever. I was a wreck when I read about the car accident through Mia's eyes, I was a wreck when Mia's brother's fate was revealed, I was a wreck when her grandfather had a heart-to-heart with her when she was unconscious and I was OBVIOUSLY a wreck when I read of Adam's proclamation to leave. In "Where She Went" I was more so a wreck at the rawness and realness of the book (seriously, Adam may very well be the most angsty boy I have ever read before- move aside Jace Wayland!).

"Anna and the French Kiss"/ "Lola and the Boy Next Door" by Stephanie Perkins: On the one hand I cried during "Anna" when I read about Etienne's somewhat difficult life due to a douchy dad, but on the other hand, I cried because all of the cuteness- same with "Lola and the Boy Next Door". It is by far the cutest book I have ever read (in fact, I just finished rereading it on Sunday and I am halfway through rereading it again)- Cricket is just so good.

"The Body Finder" by Kimberly Derting: Again, this book made me cry not because I found it to be sad, but because I found it to be so CUTE. Like believing Cricket to be so good, I also think that Jay is. I was looking forward to Violet and Jay getting together for SO LONG and when they finally did, I couldn't handle it. My dad and I had gone out for the day and I literally sobbed the entire way home after reading this book.

"Bloodlines" by Richelle Mead: So you might think that I cried during this book when we found out about Jill/ Adrian's fate. Ad you would be wrong. Believe it or not, but I actually cried from the last line of the book, "Dimitri Belikov had arrived." I was RIDICULOUSLY excited when I saw that Dimitri was going to play some role in "The Golden Lily", so excited that I could contain my tears (what can I say? I LOVE Dimitri, him and Rose are by far one of my most favourite fictional characters/ couples). And now that I think about it, I was also with my dad as I read this book (poor guy). I started "SQUEE-ing". Loudly. And crying, causing him to swerve into the wrong lane.

"Shiver" by Maggie Stiefvater: The first time that I finished reading this book my sister and I had just arrived at the mall for a day of shopping and I totally had to walk around the mall all red-faced/ puffy-eyed after reading this book- like "Bloodlines", it was the last line of this book that really got to me.

"If I Die" by Rachel Vincent: I think that why I cried from this book was because I admittedly didn't really have any expectations of it going into it (I wasn't the worlds biggest fan of the first two books and I was just starting to come around to it with books three and four) and it completely BLEW. ME. AWAY. The thing that I had been waiting for since the first book happened. Oh, and I suppose that I probably also shed some tears for when that other thing that involved Kaylee happened (because I, unlike many, had not expected that whatsoever).

"Hard Bitten" by Chloe Neill: I don't think it possible to not cry from the ending of this book- I mean, CHLOE NEILL RIPPED OUT OUR HEARTS AND TOTALLY STOMPED ON THEM. Seriously, with  only a few pages left to the book you think to yourself, "Oh my gosh! Everything that I hoped for is going to happen- there isn't enough time for anything bad to happen!" And you'd totally be wrong. The worst of the worst happens.

"Shatter Me" by Tahereh Mafi: I think that it was the crossed out words in this book that really got to me. Juliette was just so real, raw and genuine, that you couldn't help but feel for her for the shoddy hand she had been dealt. And then when everything surrounding Adam was revealed? I. Was. A. Puddle. It was hands down one of the most romantic things I have ever read before.

Top Ten Books On My Summer TBR List

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish. They created this feature because as I quote, "... we are particularly quite found of lists". 

Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers on their blog as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

So... Some of the books included on this list are books that are being released sometime this summer that I CANNOT wait to read, others are books that I have had on my TBR pile FOREVER that I am hoping to FINALLY getting around to reading.

"Before I Wake" by Rachel Vincent: "If I Die" was hands-down the best book that I read in 2011 and therefore I CANNOT wait to get my hands on this book (only a few more short days)! Seriously though, I am so looking forward to seeing how Tod, Kaylee and the gang (actually, who cares about the gang? If I could just read about Kaylee and Tod I would be happy as a clam) react to the huge revelations/ craziness that ensued at the end of "IID".

Endlessly" by  Kiersten White: I am really looking forward to seeing how Kiersten wraps up her debut series with this book. Like "If I Die" there were a TON of revelations brought to light in the earlier book, "Supernaturally", and therefore I am beyond excited to see how Evie responds to them. Plus, I feel that it has been far too long since I last read about Lend.

"Biting Cold" by Chloe Neill: I am really looking forward to this book because, believe it or not, it's my first roadtrip book! I mean, Merit and Ethan on the road together with all of that sexual tension contained within one teeny tiny car? Can you think of anything better?

"Defiance" by C.J. Redwine: So I have actually had an ARC of this for a few months ago, but I still have yet to read it *hides in shame*. I've held off on reading it for so long because I want to do so closer to the release date. And guess what?!? The release date is soon. Or soon-ish. August 28th!

"Onyx" by Jennifer L. Armentrout: So I've actually already read this, over a month ago but I included it on here because A) I want to reread it sometime this summer because it was *that* amazing and B) I can't wait for its release to see what y'all think of it. Blogs, Twitter feeds, and the likes of are going to BLOW UP when this book is finally released and it is totally going to put JLA more on the map than she already is!

"Shine" by Jeri Smith-Ready: The last month or so I have been reading almost strictly books for review. Every three or four books from publishers/ authors that I read I reward myself with a "me" book, well, the time has almost come around for me to read a "me" book (after finishing "The Unnaturalists" by Tiffany Trent and "Wake" by Amanda Hocking) and this is going to be that book! I've heard such great things about it, especially from Ashley over at Book Labyrinth.

"The Demon Trapper's Daughter" series by Jana Oliver: I first read "The Demon Trappers Daughter" last year and promptly went out and bought the sequel "Soul Thief" but I never got around to reading it. Well, almost a year has past and the third book in the series, "Forgiven", has now been released and I think that it is about time that I get around to reading it (seriously, I don't know I have survived almost a year without knowing whether Beck and Riley FINALLY get together).

"The Game of Thrones" series by G. R. R. Martin: After watching the first season of "TGoT" I made a vow that I wouldn't watch the second season until I had read the books (yep, I am kinda kicking myself for having made that vow now- have you seen the size of these books?!?). Hopefully I can get through the first two books and then indulge myself in some Joffrey (JK! Could you imagine?) Jon Snow!

"Pandemonium" by Lauren Oliver: This is another book that I seem to have had forever but have yet to have gotten around to reading (and like with the Beck/ Riley thing I am super surprised that I have been able to survive the past year and a half without knowing whether Alex survives or not!).

"If I Stay" by Gayle Forman: I seriously feel like the last person on earth to has yet to have read this book- therefore I am going to rectify the situation! I ordered it the other day and hopefully it will come today!

"The Scorpio Races" by Maggie Stiefvater: Yep, I have no excuse for having not read this like the other books... ;)

Top Ten Characters That I'd Name My Children After

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish. They created this feature because as I quote, "... we are particularly quite found of lists". 

Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers on their blog as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

This week's Top Ten Tuesday is Top Ten Tuesday Rewind, where you can choose any past topic, therefore I have decided to go with Top Ten Characters That I'd Name My Children After. Believe it or not, but this is something that I have given a lot of thought to- whenever I come across names that I really like I make note of them just in case I ever decide to have kids/ not spend all my days as a crazy cat lady.

I am all about crazy/ unique names- growing up I was the only Avery that I knew (but now it seems that there are a bajillion little Avery's/ Ava's running around). I think that having a different name really helped to define me and make me who I am today. Therefore I seem to always go the nontraditional route when it comes to baby names. 

Cricket from "Lola and the Boy Next Door" by Stephanie Perkins: While reading this book I told my family that if I were to ever have a boy that they can expect me to name him Cricket- thankfully they are totally supportive/ open-minded to the idea. I just love this name SO much- I think that it's adorable and unique (unique in a not-crazy way). Plus, if he were to turn out like Cricket from this book, I would be one proud momma.

Merit from Chloe Neill's "Chicagoland Vampires" series: I mean, with a name like Merit (defined as: "The quality of being particularly good or worthy, esp. so as to deserve praise or reward") how can you not be a stand up person with a good head on your shoulders? I think that it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy- name a kid this and they will be great (But... Then again, they might feel all this pressure to live up to their name and go in the complete opposite direction I think I'm over-analyzing things). Basically, I want a kick-ass kid and seeing as Merit is pretty kick-ass herself, I figure that a kid named this would be too.

Dru from Lili St. Crow's "Strange Angels" series: Like Merit, Dru is totally kick-ass, and someone who I would love for a kid to turn out like (except for the being indecisive when it comes to boys thing... Seriously, who did she end up picking at the end of the series? ;) ).

Samm from Dan Wells "Partials": I know, I know, Samm didn't realize until afterwards that his name wasn't Samm, but Sam M., the second M. representing his middle name (or was it last?), regardless, I just like the additional "M" being thrown in there, I think that it makes it a bit more unique.

Jace from Cassandra Clare's "Mortal Instruments" series: Need I say more? In reality though, when "City of Bones" comes out and EXPLODES, making the world realize of its genius there are going to be A TON of little Jace's and Clary's and Simon's running around (and maybe a handful of Magnus's)- it will totally break baby name records not unlike "Twilight" did with Edward, Bella, Jacob, and Cullen (admittedly I thought that Cullen would be a cool baby name years ago when I first read "Twilight", but since the phenomenon I am totally over it).

Daemon from Jennifer L. Armentrout's "Luxe" series: Okay, so I basically chose this name not because I think that it would make a good baby name (wasn't there a movie in the 1980's or something and there was an evil child named Daemon? I dunno, it was before my time...), but because I feel the need to include him in every list because he is totally swoon-worthy. This is one of those instances where I wouldn't want the name to be a self-fulfilling prophecy for a child because you would be basically guaranteed a douchebag (but a gorgeous douchebag at that).

Riley from Jana Oliver's "The Demon Trapper's Daughter" series: I really like the use of traditionally boys names as girls (Riley, Ryan, Jamie, etc.), therefore I love Riley's name- like Merit and Dru I believe Riley to be totally kick-ass. 

Ari from Samantha Young's "Fire Spirits" novels: While I chose many of the other names because I believe the characters to be totally kick-ass, I chose this name simply because I think that it's really cute- it's less hard and perhaps edgy than the other names.

Griffin from Darby Karchut's "Griffin Rising": Griffin has been on my baby name list the longest- I love that it incorporates my love of fantasy without being TOO much.

Top Ten Books That Have Been On My Shelf For The Longest But I've Never Read

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish. They created this feature because as I quote, "... we are particularly quite found of lists". 

Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers on their blog as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

So this week's TTT topic is actually Ten Authors I'd Like To See On A Reality Show (and which reality show :P) OR Top Ten Authors Who Deserve Their Own TV Show, however, I don't think that I know enough about my favourite authors to assign them to various reality shows (plus, I don't know all of that many reality shows- "Survivor", "Big Brother", "The Bachelor/ Bachelor"? Yep, that's about it). Therefore I decided to heed their advice and do a different topic.

Because I only recently started to partake in this meme I have missed out on a bunch of great topics and therefore this week I decided to do one of said missed topics, Top Ten Books That Have Been On My Shelf For The Longest But I've Never Read. Each of the listed books I have had on my shelves FOR A LONG TIME (upwards of a year). I feel terrible for having not read them yet- *fingers crossed I can get to them sometime in the near future*!

"Wolfsbane" by Andrea Cremer: I think that why I have been so hesitant to read this book is because I was pretty on the fence about "Nightshade"- which sounds funny since I did rate it 9/10 (I think that I gave it a fairly high rating because at the time I was a newer blogger and was admittedly hesitant to truly share my feelings about a book that everyone seemed to really enjoy). So my hope is to reread "Nightshade" and rereview it and then read this- oh, and the last book in the trilogy, "Bloodrose"- hopefully I will enjoy the series more the second time around.

"Wildefire" by Karsten Knight: I feel terrible, I bought this book last summer based solely upon Rachel over at Fiktshun's raving review of it and I STILL HAVE YET TO READ IT. And worst of all? I have no excuse as to why not. And oh gosh, I just skimmed reviews of it on Goodreads and it seems that I am really missing out... Eek!

 "Shattered Souls" by Mary Lindsey: I think that I have been so slow to read this book because there wasn't much hype surrounding it (or from what I can recall there wasn't). I do enjoy hype to an extent, it gets my blood pumping and my heart racing as I see the countdown til a books release grow smaller and smaller and unfortunately I didn't encounter that with this book.

"Afterlife" by Claudia Gray: Yep, no excuse one again. I have been a HUGE fan of the "Evernight" series since it was first released, so you think that I would have read this book, the final installment of the series, by now. But not so. I've had this sitting on my shelf since March of last year. I think that why now I am slow to read it is because I know that I have to read the first three books in the series to recap myself and as of right now I don't really have the time to do so. So until then, this book is going to continue sitting on my shelf gathering dust...

"Soul Thief" by Jana Oliver: This is the same sort of dealio with "Afterlife", I don't feel comfortable reading this book without having reread the earlier book in the series, "The Demon Trapper's Daughter". Because I have yet to read this book I am further behind since the third book in the series, "Forgiven", had recently been released and I believe that Jana recently posted on Twitter that she is well under way with the fourth book in the series.

"Silence" by Becca Fitzpatrick: While I did enjoy "Hush, Hush", the first book in Becca Fitzpatrick's series, I was not a fan of the second book in the series, "Crescendo", therefore I was quite hesitant to read this book. However, since then I have heard that this book is much better than "Crescendo", which gives me hope/ encourages me to read this ASAP, especially with the release of the final book in the series being released this fall!

"Pandemonium" by Lauren Oliver: This is hands-down the book that I am the most ashamed to have not read yet. I've been so hesitant to do so because I know that like many of the other books mentioned here I NEED to reread the earlier books to refresh my memory of everything that went down.

"Savage Grace" by Bree Despain: (Need I say it again?) I feel the need to reread the earlier books in this series, while, more so "The Lost Saint" than "The Dark Divine" since SO MUCH stuff went down in "The Lost Saint" (seriously, Grace being bad-ass, Daniel being a jerk, the third component of a love triangle, a curse, a big white wolf, I can't wrap my head around it all!). 

"Wings of the Wicked" by Courtney Allison Moulton: I feel like such a booger, but I can't remember who Cadan is from the first book. Therefore knowing that he plays quite a large role in this book I feel like I should reread "Angelfire" before I read this.

"The Scorpio Races" by Maggie Stiefvater: I think that as soon as I catch up in my reviews this will be the first "me" book that I will read. I like the fact that it is a standalone and therefore I won't need to read any other book to understand this (which as we can see, is something that I could really use)... ;)

Top Ten Favorite Quotes From Books

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish. They created this feature because as I quote, "... we are particularly quite found of lists". 

Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers on their blog as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

So I have an INSANE number of favorite quotes (whenever I read a book I bookmark all of my favoruite quotes/ passages/ the likes of and usually by the end of the book there are a ton of little white pieces of paper sticking out from the top of it). So, this was REALLY hard for me to narrow down- I chose some of these quotes because they made me swoon, others because they made me laugh out loud for hours after reading them, or just because they made my heart happy.

“Why are you touching me?
Because I can.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you.”
― John Green, The Fault In Our Stars  

“So that's how you're going to fix the family problem. Little Dragomirs. Good idea.”
― Richelle Mead, Last Sacrifice

“If I were another man, a normal man, I might have hopes; presumptions even; I might-”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

“We could take her out to a field and chase her around in our cars.”
― Jennifer L. Armentrout, Obsidian 

“Dimitri Belikov had arrived.”
― Richelle Mead, Bloodlines

“I realized I'd rather die with you than live with someone else.”
― Rachel Vincent, Blood Bound

“You think we'll die if we stay together, but I've been dying slowly for the last six years.”
― Rachel Vincent, Blood Bound

“Apparently this unicorn hadn't gotten the memo. It was ugly. Like, seriously ugly. Coat a mottled brown and gray, horn a dingy, stubby thing; hair a matted mess. It looked more like a goat than anything else, with a small, filthy beard and square pupils.”
― Kiersten White, Supernaturally

“Voicemail #1: Hi, Isabel Culpeper. I am lying in my bed, looking at the ceiling. I am mostly naked. I am thinking of... your mother. Call me.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Forever 

Top Ten Tips For New Book Bloggers

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish. They created this feature because as I quote, "... we are particularly quite found of lists". 

Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers on their blog as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

I'm not even going to pretend to be an expert with this week's topic, I mean, after close to two years of blogging I am still learning new things each and every day! I'm just going to provide some advice about things that I wish I had known when I first started blogging, starting with a topic that most new book bloggers want to know more about- ARCs. 

ARCs are not the end of the world. I know, I know, this is REALLY hard to swallow when you see someone with an ARC of a book that you are. Legitimately. Dying. To. Read. But look at it this way, from my experience, ARCs only come out a few months before a book is released (I think I have maybe gotten one 6 months in advance?)- so that means that you don't have to wait all that long for that highly coveted book! Remember guys, ARCs are a privilege and not a right- if you are blogging solely to get ARCS you might want to reconsider whether you are blogging for the rights reasons (ie. you are blogging to share your love of books).

But... How do you get ARCs? Don't. Email. The. Author (I mean, there are a few authors out there that are okay with this because they will just forward the email to their agent, publicist, or publisher, but I think that the vast majority aren't, so it's just better not to and plus, SKIP THE MIDDLEMAN! It will probably save you a lot more time in the long run, plus your favourite author will have more time on his or her hands to write)- authors don't get tons and tons of ARCs of their books to distribute to bloggers and reviewers, they only get a handful, AND they have to use their hand earned money to ship them to you. 

The best way to get an ARC is to directly contact the publisher- look on their website, the vast majority of them have a specific email address to contact for review copies. Join an ARC tour- there are plenty of them out there like Around the World ARC Tours. Join NetGalley. Enter Goodreads giveaways (seriously, they have these going on ALL THE TIME and in some instances 100 copies of a single book might be distributed!). And if all else fails and you can buy a copy of the book from somewhere like The Book Depository which has some of the cheapest prices around WITH FREE worldwide shipping and/or you could always check out the book from your local library. 

Blog consistently and blog quality stuff. That thing I said about ARCs? Some publishers will actually only distribute ARCs to bloggers who post up to 5-6 times a week. And posts which are exclusively book related posts (For instance on NetGalley Entangled Publishing states, "We are looking for reviewers who.. Update their blogs daily or almost daily... Blog about books!", as does Knopf Doubleday when they state, "Blog should be updated daily or almost daily... Blog content must be relevant to the book being requested...). Also, when readers stop by your blog every couple of days for three weeks straight hoping that you will have an updated post and you don't, well, they will be less inclined to stop by for the 850283058th time.

As for quality stuff? Memes are nice and all, admittedly I do participate in upwards of three a week, but anymore than three or four I'd say is too many. Also, I personally dislike it when a blog posts more than one meme a day. Yawn.

*That isn't to say that memes are bad, they are a great way to get a blog rolling and a great way to meet new people, but you don't want your audience to feel like they are drowning in them.

Don't allow yourself to get burned out. If you are starting to feel burned out, take a step away from blogging. I have done it on numerous occasions myself, typically around December and April when I can't successfully juggle blogging and my final exams in school. Remember, for many of us blogging is a hobby, we aren't being paid to do it, so it's okay to take a break every now and again. Just explain the situation to your followers and all will be fine and dandy. 

Make yourself accessible in the world of social media. I cannot tell you how much my blog has grown from being an active Tweeter- seriously, Twitter has opened up so many doors for me, from making contacts that I might not have otherwise, receiving ARCs and books (seriously, do you know HOW many authors and publishers have Twitter giveaways that very few people partake in? A lot!), and the likes of. Ditto with Facebook. A lot of people don't have blogger accounts and therefore only follow their favourite bloggers via Facebook, Twitter, and the likes of, so if you aren't participating in these forums, then you are missing out on a lot of potential readers. 

But don't allow yourself to become too dependent on/ obsessed with social media. Because before you know it, you will be cruising Twitter for hours when all you had intended to do was "check in" (I admit that I am terrible at this. If I am working on school stuff on my computer, which can be upwards of eight to ten hours, I will have Twitter up the entire time)- use that time that you would have otherwise spent on Twitter doing something productive- like writing reviews, scheduling posts, or better yet, reading.

Make an identity for yourself. I recently read that there is something like 5 million blogs in the world. That is A LOT of blogs. Obviously those aren't all book blogs, but there are still quite a number of those too. Because there are so many blogs out there (I mean, there are probably 60+ active YA-focused blogs run by my fellow Canadians that I could find in a snap, so just think of how many American YA-focused blogs there are, when y'all have ten times the population that we do) you want to set yourself a part from the rest of them. Admittedly, this is something that I have struggled with A LOT. I think that now, almost 2 years into blogging I am starting to finally find my identity in the world of YA blogs (I think that the creation of my avatar has given me a much needed boost of confidence since she is a logo of sorts that I can carry beyond my blog header, on bookmarks, business cards, etc).

What are you good at? Or what are your interests? Use those to help you establish yourself. Take Jenny over at Supernatural Snark for instance, she is arguably known for her snarky, yet extremely eloquent reviews or Melissa over at Books and Things for her reviews of a mish-mash of genres, her habit of starting in the middle of a series, and her love of animals.

Don't start drama, better yet, don't get involved in any sort of drama. So many reputations have been destroyed in the book bloggy world because of drama and it is a damn shame. I mean, you work years to establish yourself and then it can all be lost in an instant with an inappropriate or offensive tweet, email, remark, or anything along those lines.

In my opinion, the only time I think that you should start "drama" (and by drama I mean, "A low key and nicely worded email to the person in question"- take the high road peeps!) is when you find out that someone has lifted something of yours, whether it be a meme that you created, a review or something along those lines. Otherwise, just leave it be.

*However, that's not to say that I don't read blogger-related drama. Because I do. What can I say? It's my guilty pleasure, it can bring me hours of entertainment. But I think that it is also a good learning experience, IE. THIS IS HOW YOU SHOULD NEVER BEHAVE. SO YEAH, DON'T BEHAVE LIKE (INSERT PERSON'S NAME HERE), also it provides you with different perspectives and ways of thinking that you might not encounter otherwise.

Get rid of Captcha. Seriously, Captcha is perchance the most annoying thing I have EVER encountered in my time as a blogger/ a reader of blogs. Don't know what Captcha is or how to uninstall it? Rachel over at Parajunkie wrote a fantabulous post about it/ made a video on how to GET RID OF IT.

I personally haven't had Captcha on my blog for over a year now and haven't had any problems with spam or anything along those lines (*knock on wood*). I think that if you *do* have Captcha on your blog that you are missing out on A LOT of comments because A) a lot of people won't even bother commenting on a blog with Captcha installed and B) *if* someone does leave a comment on your blog and they incorrectly type in the wrong words in the Captcha box they will be less likely to give it another try. So save yourself (and your followers) a lot of headaches and just uninstall it.

But most of all, have fun! There are few things I can think of that are more fun than talking books with people from all over the world who share similar interests to you.

Top Ten Deceiving Book Covers

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish. 

"Evernight" series by Claudia Gray: Okay, so admittedly the last two covers aren't too, too bad. But the first two? When I first saw these books I had two thoughts: A) What in the world is supposed to be depicted on these covers and B) How the heck does that pertain to the story contained within. The answer? It doesn't. There is nothing about the covers that says, "Hey! This is a really kick-ass vampire/ wraith story!"

"Vampire Academy" series by Richelle Mead: I can't pinpoint exactly what I dislike about these covers because I essentially dislike everything about them- well, the gate is kinda cool I guess. I hate that they didn't use the same model on all 6 covers- I mean, the first girl kinda looks like a younger version of Angelina Jolie, no? Dimitri looks super creepy looking over Rose's shoulder in the second (or is it Christian and Lissa? Regardless, it's creepy). And yeah. There is just no consistency with the covers, which is a shame.

"Deity" by Jennifer L. Armentrout: It took me a really long time to figure out what was on the cover of this book. Like a REALLY long time. Once I figured it out (it's a neck), well, I was even more so confused. I just don't understand this series covers whatsoever, I don't think that they pertain to the story whatsoever (though I will admit that it has been a while since I last read the books and may have forgotten things)- but this cover? Yeah, it takes the cake as the worst of the series covers (sorry Jennifer!).

"Shift" by Jeri Smith Ready: So, I don't like the original covers of this series or the newly updated covers. I've heard that they updated the covers so that it pertained more to the story, but I don't think that it does in the slightest. I mean, how do these covers look like any other book cover in the world of YA right now? They don't. These covers don't give you any indication that this is a ghost story, If I had to choose, I'd say I prefer the original over the updated.

"After Obsession" by Carrie Jones: This cover looks like something I could make on Paint or a similar program- which is terrible since I am basically the most technologically challenged person EVER and possess no basic graphic design skills.

"Tris and Izzie" by Mette Ivie Harrison: When I first saw this cover my jaw-dropped, I was utterly and irrevocably in love and HAD to read this book. But this book? Yeah, one of the most disappointing books I have EVER read- in fact, it might just be the worst. Thankfully I received a copy of this book for review, had I bought it myself at the bookstore based upon the cover (which I am know to do), I would have been extremely disappointed and probably would have taken it back.

"Possess" by Gretchen McNeil: This cover is creepy, which I suppose is good because it matches the book in that fact (seriously, the room of dolls? *Shudders*), but I don't think that this cover , like many others I have mentioned, gives you any indication of what this book is about. In my opinion it kinda looks like she has tree branches or roots on her face, which would lead me to believe that she maybe possess the ability to manipulate said plants, or something along those lines- I would never, in a million years, guess that this book was about demons.

"Wolfsbane" by Andrea Cremer: If I were to see this cover without knowing what it was about, I would assume that it was an adult PNR or UF- and I would be WRONG. This is a YA werewolf story. I feel like this cover is so stereotypical and doesn't jump off of the shelf whatsoever (versus the original covers which are my most favourite book covers of all time- *Shakes first at those people who thought it would be a good idea to change the covers*).

"Blood Magic" by Tessa Gratton: It took me almost a year to read this book because in no way, shape, or form, was I inclined to based upon the cover. I understand what the designer was trying to do with this cover, but I just don't think that it met the mark.

"Halo" by Alex Adornetto: Like with "Tris and Izzie" when I first saw this cover my jaw dropped. I rushed out and bought the book and the book? Ugh. It was also one of the most disappointing books I have ever read before.