This Great Perhapless

Hey everyone! Today I have the wonderful privalge of hosting one of today's stops of the Geek Girl blog tour! I would also lik...

Hey everyone! Today I have the wonderful privalge of hosting one of today's stops of the Geek Girl blog tour! I would also like to welcome and thank Cindy Bennett for her wonderful book and awesome guest post too!

Guest Post: Trends by Cindy C. Bennett

As a kid, I remember our first house had a green kitchen. Not just any green—avocado green. As if that weren’t nauseating enough, add to it the orange and brown accents. Sometimes I wonder how much being exposed to that plethora of color affected my life. I hate avocados, I only wear orange shirts if they have a Harley symbol on them, and . . . well, I suppose I can’t really say too much against the brown. It is the color of dark chocolate, after all.

Trends come and go, some more memorable than others.

Remember beehive hairdos? As a young girl I would sit and watch my 4’11” mother rat her hair for hours on end to raise the illusion of her height. It was only washed once a week, and wrapped in a scarf at night for sleeping. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst was the little wiglet she used to crown the ‘do. Have you ever seen one of those things? It looked like a large, hairy spider. Hmm, suddenly my terror of spiders makes sense.

I was a teen in the 80’s, with big, flammable hair (due to the gallon of hairspray required to hold it in place), purple eyeshadow, wearing net shirts (thanks a lot, Madonna), leg warmers (Let’s Get Physical), and clogs (tall, clunky, inflexible, uncomfortable shoes). I honestly believed that when I had children, they would look at those pictures of me and see how stylish I was. I would never look as ridiculous as my parents looked in their 50’s photos. Imagine my amazement when eventually I laughed alongside my kids at my pictures.

Even foods go through trends. Bagels, doughnuts, cupcakes . . . why is it always junk food? I haven’t yet seen a trend of veggie stands on every corner, though I suppose the fast food places went through a brief period of offering healthy alternatives to fries—alternatives that are no longer offered.

Books reflect trends as well. Some books will be trendy (vampires and werewolves, anyone?). But good books, though filled with trends, will survive the test of time. A book filled with trends can become an entertaining time capsule, even if just to show what popular thinking or ideas were at the time. Or they can affect the future of books. Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) comes to mind. Big Brother in some variation or another has made it into countless dystopian novels since it was first published in 1949.

So though we will continue to see trends in any given time period, I say keep them coming. After all, how else will my children, and my children’s children, be able to blame something as simple as the current trend of sewing feathers into their hair for their future repulsion of anything fowl.

Review:

"Think I can turn that boy bad?" 17-year-old Jen turns her life upside down when, out of boredom, she makes a bet that she can turn school geek Trevor into someone like her. Instead, the goth girl finds herself sucked into his world of sci-fi movies, charity work, and even-ugh!-bowling. To truly belong with him-and with her new foster family-she must first come to terms with her violent past.

Authors note: Geek Girl has been optioned by Cedar Fort Publishing, and is therefore currently unavailable. It will become available again in December, 2011. Thanks to everyone who has asked about it, and want to know when it will be available!

Geek Girl reminded me so much of high school and was really great aside from the predictable bet plot that we have all seen before, but it didn't matter. I was so sucked up in the story I didn't care.

Jen is a foster care kid so her dark exterior is expected from all the bouncing house to house experiences.

Trevor was completely adorkable that of course it was inevitable that Jen fell for him.

I highly reccommend this book to everyone if you like a really good feel good book to snuggle up with.

Review: Two Moons of Sera by Pavarti K. Tyler

By Unknown 12:00 AM Pavarti K. Tyler, Review, Two Moons of Sera

Teaser Tuesday (4)

By Unknown 10:05 PM Dearly Devoted Dexter, Jeff Lindsey, Teaser Tuesday

IT'S HEREEEE!!! (The Hunger Games Trailer)

By Unknown 8:15 AM The Hunger Games, Trailer

Review: The Pledge by Kimberly Derting

By Unknown 5:23 PM Kimberly Derting, Review, The Pledge

The Pledge by Kimberly Derting Format: Hardcover and eBook Release Date: 11/15/11 Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry: An impri...

The Pledge

by Kimberly Derting

Format: Hardcover and eBook

Release Date: 11/15/11

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry: An imprint of Simon & Schuster

Synopsis:

In the violent country of Ludania, the classes are strictly divided by the language they speak. The smallest transgression, like looking a member of a higher class in the eye while they are speaking their native tongue, results in immediate execution. Seventeen-year-old Charlaina has always been able to understand the languages of all classes, and she's spent her life trying to hide her secret. The only place she can really be free is the drug-fueled underground clubs where people go to shake off the oppressive rules of the world they live in. It's there that she meets a beautiful and mysterious boy named Max who speaks a language she's never heard before . . . and her secret is almost exposed.

Charlie is intensely attracted to Max, even though she can't be sure where his real loyalties lie. As the emergency drills give way to real crisis and the violence escalates, it becomes clear that Charlie is the key to something much bigger: her country's only chance for freedom from the terrible power of a deadly regime.

(via website)

This is my first encounter with Derting and I have to say I am smitten by her style of writing and her unique way of creating this blend of old and new, fantasy/dystopian world.

The characters are ones that get under your skin with Charile's willingness to protect her family and her gift from the Queen, who is like a modern day female Dorian Grey, with her abilty to go on while her body doesn't! It's also filled with action, which I am a sucker for in my YA novels and its the well written scenes that keep you turning the page until you get to the end and realize the ride is over.

Thank goodness there are two more books to come!

Definitely put this book on