Tag! 7 Deadly Sins of Reading!

Wow two posts, in one day this is not like me, however I found myself scouring YouTube again today and came across this tag in the book community and felt the need to do my own, so I hope you enjoy it!

Questions:

1. GREED what is your most expensive book? What is your least expensive book?

I sat here for quite a few minutes trying to think of what my most expensive book is. I found it really hard because I am a cheap skate, honest to god I will see a book I want to read, but I won’t buy it on the spot I'll do some research and find the cheapest place I can get it (I'm a student okay don't judge I'm broke!) It’s probably going to have to be the Egyptology book I got years ago that I’m pretty sure it was over at least £10 at the time.

The least expensive book does one that you get as gift count? Technically they are free. Otherwise I'm not sure books are generally around the same price of £3/4/5. Wait no I know! There was a book that I really wanted to read but you couldn't get in any form other than in an eBook It was Ceaseless by Abbi Glines I bought it for Kindle (I don't have a Kindle I downloaded the app for my laptop) and it cost just £2.53, I'm pretty positive I don't have a cheaper book than that.

2. WRATH—what author do you have a love/hate relationship with?

Maggie Stiefvater. Easy one this. I absolutely loved the Wolves of Mercy Fall's Trilogy, however I went on to read Lament and Ballad and I found them to be rather boring. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed Lament well enough I just couldn't get into Ballad. I haven't read any of her others yet, The Scorpio Races and The Raven Boys. I do plan to read them because I enjoy her style of writing, I just wasn't a fan of Lament and Ballad compared the Wolves of Mercy Falls.

3. GLUTTONY—what book have you deliciously devoured over and over with no shame whatsoever?

Hmm I think a number of books would fall in to this category, the newest of these would be Gabriel's Inferno by Sylvain Reynard. I must've read that at least four times since I got it, and that was late December, I would put Twilight on this list but I'm ashamed of the amount of times I read it so it doesn't count!

4. SLOTH—what book have you neglected reading due to laziness?

Easy one I got Bram Stokers Dracula a while back, I picked it up to read got two chapters in went to bed and then never picked it up again. I will read it one day, perhaps this year will be the year I do.

5. PRIDE—what book do you most talk about in order to sound like a very intellectual reader?

That would most definitely be Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys. Before you ask no. It has nothing to do with Fifty Shades of Grey. You can find out more about this book here, and I hope it's not too much to ask that you do because I feel that this is a book everyone should read, bearing in mind that my dad doesn't like the kind of books I read except for this one. He really enjoyed this one so if you get the chance to read it, please do.

6. LUST—what attributes do you find most attractive in male or female characters?

I like a female character to be tough and pretty kickass like Katniss from Hunger Games, Lina from Between Shades of Gray and Tris from Divergent.

It's the same with the guys really, kickass pretty tough, but with a sweet side like Four in Divergent.

But then I'm also the girl that reads the generic romance stories, with the sweet innocent girl, and closed off troubled leading man.

7. ENVY—what books would you most like to receive as a gift?

Any books. People ask me on birthdays and Christmas what do I want and it's literally, books, I just send them my Amazon wish list and tell them pick one. At this point in time there isn't one book that I absolutely want to read more than any others.

Please subscribe to my blog so you don't miss a single post! You wont regret it I promise!

x

Gabriel's Inferno by Sylvain Reynard : A Review

Hi everyone!

As promised here is the first of a few book reviews that I'm posting over the next few days/ weeks!

It is the first book in the Gabriel series by Sylvain Reynard, titled Gabriel's Inferno.

The cover, I don't like it. It's quite boring I hate the colours, used. I wish the necklace was just one string of pearls like Julia wears in the book as I'm assuming that that is who it's meant to be, but that's beside the point, I can forgive a book it's bad cover if I enjoyed the pages in between which I did.

Now with this book I'm going to have to be brutally honest, however this is not necessarily a bad thing. So I got this book from W H Smith as an afterthought, they were having a buy one get one half price sale, and I already knew one book that I wanted to buy, I just needed to find another, and I picked this one based on the blurb alone which is as follows:

"One man's Salvation,

One woman's sensual awakening . . .

Gabriel Emerson is a man tortured by his dark past. A highly respected university professor, Gabriel uses his notorious good looks and charm to lead a secret life of pleasure where nothing is out of bounds.

Sweet and innocent, Julia Mitchell enrols as Gabriel’s graduate student and his immediate attraction to her, and their powerful and strange connection, threatens to derail his career.

Wildly passionate and sinful, Gabriel's Inferno is the first book in a sensual trilogy - followed by Gabriel’s Rapture - that explores the intense power of forbidden love."

Now then if I am correct then after reading that blurb you’re probably thinking exactly the same as me. This sounds like another Fifty Shades of Grey - a series which I not ashamed to admit I actually enjoyed (the third book more than the others). However this blurb is so far off the mark with what the book is actually like that it's not even funny. This is absolutely NOTHING like Fifty Shades of Grey. Now acknowledging the fact that I bought this book under the impression that it would be similar I was surprised to find that I actually liked this book a lot more (actually it wasn't that surprising, Fifty Shades of Grey isn't the best book is it).

WARNING! The following is a fan girl moment if you wish to skip this part and get to the real part of the review please scroll down past the paragraph!

Seriously how goddamn CUTE are Gabriel and Julia, I can't even, I'm totally in love with these too. Gabriel’s so sweet and I honestly did not mind the descriptions of his body if you have read the book you know what I'm talking about! I didn't like Paul from the start I was practically growling 'go away Paul!' every time he appeared. Awwh he takes her to Italy!! I want to cry it's so darn cute!!

Okay! It is now safe again; I have got it out of my system, on with the review!

I think this book is overly long; there were definitely bits that could have been cut a lot shorter than they were. I thought the writing was good, decent enough. I felt that the relationship was believable and that there motivations were well explained, the characters I thought were well fleshed out. One of my favourite aspects of this book is that it is told in third person, therefore we get to see parts of the story the point of view of both the main characters, which is different, but I actually preferred this method, I liked having both sides of the story laid out for me.

So would I recommend this book? Yes I most definitely would. Can I just say that if you have been contemplating buying it but that blurb put you off because you aren't interested in another FSOG, just ignore it, whoever wrote the blurb did not accurately capture the book, that is unless I'm reading a different book... but I doubt it.

Now I haven't bought the sequel yet, and I don't plan to for a while. Mainly because at the minute I'm happy with where this book ended, and the fact that I'm pretty sure the last book in the series isn't due out until the tail end of the year, so I'm going to wait until at least June/ July to buy the sequel. I did the same with Sylvia Day's Crossfire Series. The sequel came out in October I think, I waited until this month to buy it because the third one isn't out until May.

However as much as I did love this book there were times when Julia really infuriated me I wanted to scream at her to stand up for herself! She lets Gabriel intimidate her, she acts like a frightened dog around him at some points early on which I really didn't like Professor Emerson was a total ass and she should've told him. However what kept reading was that little secret. The secret that Gabriel and Julia had met before only somehow Gabriel had completely forgotten her. How did that happen you might ask, well I'm not going to tell you (but it does get explained), does he figure it out? I'm not telling you that either. The ending was sweet and some people have commented that it was slightly anti-climactic. I disagree I liked the ending, I liked that SPOILER!!! there wasn't a cliff hanger, yeah maybe it means that I’m not salivating desperate with need to get my hands on the sequel, but I feel I would have been annoyed with a cliff hanger it would have felt unwarranted to me.

So with that said I am reiterating that I think you should read this book, seriously go and buy it. Now. And if you don't like it my apologies, (but what’s wrong with you!) that said this is a book that girls would definitely prefer, I'm just saying.

So I liked the story, Julia annoyed me a bit; it felt over long, I liked the ending. Now I'm torn I can't decide between 3.5 stars or 4 stars. I think I'll go with 4 because I honestly did love the story, and the things I didn't like are pretty minor.

Please subscribe to my blog so you don't miss a single post! You wont regret it I promise!

x

UPDATE! & Win a 3 chapter critique courtesy of Lindsay Cummings!

Hello everyone, just a quick blog here to let you all know that I have a couple of book/ series reviews lined up to post in the next couple of days so watch this space!

On to the main part of this blog however, if you follow me on Twitter (@beka_mufc) then you will already know that I want to be an author. You may also know that I have recently just finished the second draft of my first book (quite an achievement for me, having started writing so many books in the past but never actually finishing them). Now the lovely Lindsay Cummings who I follow on Twitter has announced that she is doing a competition were 3 winners will win a 3 Chapter critique. Lindsay is a YA author, which is the genre my book would mostly likely be categorised in to. Her first book The Murder Complex (which and I'm not just saying this I cannot wait to read, have you seen the good-reads synopsis?? it sounds AMAZING!) is due for publication in 2014 through Greenwillow (a part of Harper Collins). It would be an amazing opportunity for me if I won this just to get some feedback from an author who has been through the whole crazy process that is querying agents.

Now this is open to anyone who writes anyone at all, so you lovely people who read my blog can also enter. You can find Lindsay at the following links,
Twitter: @lindsaycwrites
Facbook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lindsay-Cummings-Author/199016910129154?fref=ts
Blog: http://www.lindsaycummingsblog.blogspot.co.uk/
Good Reads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5805483.Lindsay_Cummings

And the direct link for the competition is: http://www.lindsaycummingsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/want-critique-of-your-writing.html

Basically, Lindsay is willing to read whatever chapters you have, like it states in her actual post about the competition if you have your first 3 chapters then I would use those, because agents will not ask for your complete Manuscript without reading a sample of your writing first, so if you first chapters don't grab them then your book won't get signed. Good luck to you all!

Please subscribe to my blog so you don't miss a single post! You wont regret it I promise!

x

How I Became A Book Lover!

Hello everyone, (I say everyone I don't really know how many of you lovely people are regular readers or one off visitors, regardless thank you for stopping by.)

For today's post I thought I would share how I became the book loving nerd that I am today, because everyone has to start somewhere don't they!

Okay first of you need to know that I'm a dreamer, I was that little girl who could sit by herself for hours and entertain herself with her Barbie’s and her imagination alone (sometimes I didn't even need the Barbie’s I would just talk to myself). I would create names and stories for my toys. I loved the escapism. However as a child I never really read per-say but I loved having books read to me. Lazy I know!

Of course pretty much every child has seen or read the hungry caterpillar at some point in their life and who doesn't love it, I was extremely jealous of my cousin who got a copy so big that it came with a little toy caterpillar that you could put through the holes in the book as though it was actually eating it! (I'm easily entertained)

Everyone has a different story of how they became a book lover. Mine started in 2004 at the age of 10. I had just been to see the film A Series of Unfortunate Events, and I absolutely loved it. Not long after that my dad came home from work one day with the first four books in the series for me to read. Now up until this point I'd never really been a big reader, I read occasionally but nothing on the scale that I do now (where I live on amazon or in Waterstones and W H Smiths searching for new books to read). The first book titled The Bad Beginning is rather short, my copy coming in at just 162 pages. Needless to say as a still fairly young child my attention span wasn't the best and I think the fact that this book was so short helped me in the way that it didn't take me too long to read it and once I had read it I wanted to read the second one and so on.

I don't know how many people have read all the books in the series but I followed them through right until the end I was the avid reader counting down the days until I could get my hands on the next Series of Unfortunate Events book. Obviously I got into the series quite late in their publication being that the first book was released in 1999, so I think in the end I only hand to wait for two or three to be released, but my memories recall waiting for a few of the others perhaps it was my parents making me wait to read the next ones I'm not sure, either way I was completely hooked.

I was drawn into the series from the very start I mean who isn't intrigued by a book were the author continuously tells you not to read it, or I warned you this isn't a positive tale, or if you like happy endings then this book is not for you. Now I don't know about you but that got me intrigued, I mean how bad could the story be?

Here is an opening quote from book 1: The Bad Beginning:

"If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle. This is because not very many happy things happened in the lives of the three Baudelaire youngsters. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire were intelligent children, and they were charming, and resourceful, and had pleasant facial features, but they were extremely unlucky, and most everything that happened to them was rife with misfortune, misery and despair. I'm sorry to tell you this, but that is how the story goes."

How can you read that and not be intrigued to read further. I wanted to know what happened, why were they so unfortunate, how unlucky were they? Maybe I'm just nosey. The point is that this series worked for me, it was the series that started it all.

If you're a parent who is trying to encourage their child into reading might I suggest trying them with this book, you never know it just might work, I would recommend it to anyone old or young, I just know that it was a good starting point for me. I loved these books so much that they now sit pride of place on my book shelves.

The strangest thing is that many people credit the Harry Potter books for getting them into reading and may I express my opinion (the rather most unpopular opinion when it comes to Harry Potter) that these books didn't work for me, I read the first, three I enjoyed them well enough but then it got to the Goblet of Fire and I just couldn’t get into it, I prefer my books to get on with the story, you know for things to start happening fairly early my limit, is pretty much 100 pages, if nothing exciting has happened by then, then I feel the author is just unnecessarily padding the book out. So I read the first, 3 and the last Harry Potter books, I've never gone back and read the rest mainly because even parts of the last book bored me I felt the whole bit in the woods was to long winded (don't hate me please, it's my opinion and I'm entitled to it you are free to disagree with me should you choose to.)

My addiction to books has just gotten worse and worse over the years for Christmas about three years ago I think it was I got around 25 books, and pretty much nothing else. There isn't enough room on my bookshelves for the ones I have and I still keep buying more. There was one time when my parents actually told me off for spending too much time reading, that’s right. I was told off for reading too much how often does that happen? I have an aversion to the kindle, like it’s the plague or something I like having the book in my hand, displaying the beautiful covers, it takes the magic away a little bit for me having a book on some rectangular, plastic electronic device, I find I can't lose myself in the books for hours the way that I want to when I need a distraction.

So it is with thanks to my dad, and to Lemony Snicket, that I fell in love with books. Thank You!

Anyway this has been my tale of how I got into reading albeit slightly long winded I hope it wasn't too boring for you all to read, and I shall see you again soon.

Please subscribe to my blog so you don't miss a single post! You won’t regret it I promise!

x

NOTE: No copyright infringement intended all quotes belong to Lemony Snicket.