This Bookish Endeavor

30 Day Challenge: Day 2

A Book You Have Read More Than 3 Times:

Wanted By J Kenner

Coming on January 7 2014!!

30 Day Challenge: Day 1

Best Book You Read Last Year:

I am a HUGE fan of the Percy Jackson series, but this first book of it's spin-off, The Heroes Of Olympus, was a disappointment.

I liked some of the new characters (Leo) more than others (Jason), and while the story felt very much in line with the PJ world, the story just felt a little flat to me. Because I wasn't a fan of the main character, it was hard to root for him the way I did with Percy and his friends. And that made a huge difference in the enjoyment factor for me.

I kept picking this book up and then walking away from it for months at a time, something else I never would have done with any of the original PJ books. I am thankful that Percy is back in book 2, and because of that, I'm hoping this series bounces back from such a ho hum start.

This was a rather blah short story.

The premise was intriguing, but the writing felt very...meh. Like the author had their thesaurus next to their computer and tried to use as many different descriptive words during the love scenes as possible. Most of which were not at all sexy.

Also, the 'taboo' aspect didn't really work for me. This was too short to have enough of a back story for me to buy the couple's relationship.

Color me disappointed in yet another attempt at erotic fiction.

It's time for Thursday Release and it's a feature many of you requested :-) Now when a given book doesn't fit any default status on your Shelf (Read, Planning to read, Currently reading) you can create your own exclusive book status.

How? You can create and organize your books with new statuses in several ways.

Go to your Shelf Page and create your new status with your name, e.g. Not finished. New status will be added and visible at once on your Shelf.

You can also create exclusive status directly in book pop up, select it and Save for a given title. The book will receive new status immediately. 

If you want to reset previously given status (Read, Planning to read, Currently reading), click on it and Save. It should go white (inactive) and notion "On Shelf" will appear instead. 

You can also create exclusive status on Table view of your shelf (the entrance is on Shelf page). It is also a place where you can re-arrange your books one by one:

or move several books at once:

You can still create thematic shelves which will be added to your Shelf on the left and organize them the same way in table view. 

Saucy!

DNF @ 45%

I have heard a lot of great things about this series, but it just didn't work for me. I didn't feel any kind of connection to the characters at all. And the story moved quite slowly for my taste.

A romance that takes place during the zombie apocalypse. What's not to love, right?

Well, there were several things that I did love about this book.

I liked that the zombie aspect wasn't watered down (yet definitely not overly gory).

I enjoyed the differing POV's. I know that multiple points of view in a story annoy some people, but I quite enjoy them when done well, as they were here. I loved how each character's storyline intersected with each other throughout the first half of the book, so when they all do finally converge at Red Hill, it made sense.

Where the story started to lose some of it's punch, was during the last third or so of the book - when the focus shifted to the rather melodramatic romances between several of the main characters.

Nathan was a great character when he was running for his life and trying to protect his daughter, Zoe. Scarlet was a badass when she was searching for her two missing daughters. But put them together? Not so much. Their relationship had this whole 'insta-love' feel to it that I just did not buy. And the love triangle that developed between 3 of the other characters also didn't really work for me as well. My problem was that I really liked all of these characters...until they started to really interact with each other.

Speaking of characters...considering this book takes place during the apocalypse, it's not exactly surprising that not everyone makes it to the end. I have to say, I was really surprised by how many characters ended up being killed off...and in some cases by some of the ones who survived.

But, there was one instance where the death of a character was not only unexpected, but also not fully explained. And this particular death was my biggest pet peeve about this book. It happens "off-screen" and comes completely out of left field. There was a brief paragraph about what happened to this character, and then they are pretty much forgotten for the rest of the book. Considering this person was a main character, it really pissed me off that the death was brushed aside so easily by both the author, and the remaining characters.

I do like the fact that (as of now) this book is a standalone. And the story did feel completed, without any lingering lose ends. But, this book was much more entertaining when it was strictly a survivalist story and didn't focus so much on the romance (and this is coming from someone who loves romance novels).

Considering I wasn't a big fan of McGuire's Beautiful Disaster, I was overall impressed by the writing in this book, and by the fact that she definitely went outside the box here.

**Note: This review is based on an Advanced Readers Copy.**

Book was kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

5++++ emotional, captivating, obsessively readable stars!!

Summary: “You’re the more real to me than any man I’ve ever known … ” To book blogger Eden, Adam is the embodiment of every literary fantasy she’s ever had. Intelligent, wickedly funny, sexy, and attentive – he and his fascinating life seem right out of a novel. Their whirlwind relationship is so intense and all consuming that soon she can’t imagine being with anyone else. But there’s one little thing that’s keeping Adam and Eden from their happily ever after. They’ve never met. She doesn’t even know what he looks like. Despite how hard she’s fallen for him and how he makes her feel, Eden’s doubts begin to threaten their passionate love affair. Why is he so mysterious? Why does he seem reluctant to meet her? What is Adam hiding? Afraid that she’s being made a fool of, Eden is forced to choose between her heart and her head. Is Adam too good to be true, as her common sense is telling her, or is the truth more startling than fiction?

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It's not often that I come across a book that so completely consumes my life. This book had me from the first paragraph, and completely captivated me.

"The best things in life are worth waiting for. When it's right," he said in a voice that was unshakably certain, "Name the place. Name the date. Name the hour. And I will fly anywhere in the world to meet you."

Going into this story, I wasn't sure what to expect really. Honestly, I was kind of looking forward to reading a story that might, in some way, mirror an episode of my favorite guilty pleasure TV show.

~For those of you unaware of the term "Catfishing" - it describes a person who deceives someone they are in an online relationship with by lying about their appearance, age, location etc~

Such a silly, silly girl I am. While the summary of the book was definitely intriguing, it in no way prepared me for the true emotional rollercoaster that Dear Adam turned out to be.

"How I wish I could explore the labyrinth of your strange mind..."

Eden is a 34 year old book blogger (you go girl!!), raising her teenage son. One day, she ends up having a conversation via Twitter with a man who complimented her on one of her reviews. What starts out as a seemingly random encounter with a fellow bibliophile, turns into an intense friendship between two seemingly lost and broken souls desperate for a connection.

"I don't want to interfere with your life. I want to be your life."

Adam tells Eden that he is an Englishman living in Sicily. He owns several properties, is extremely vague about his profession, but that he plans on retiring in 2 years when he's 30.

Naturally, Eden is skeptical of what Adam tells her. But, as he begins to open up about himself, his past and his life...she completely falls under his spell and wants so desperately to believe that what he's telling her is true... so she is willing to go along with him on faith. The two have conversations via Skype almost every night, but Adam stubbornly refuses to allow Eden to see his face. He has a seemingly viable if far-fetched reason for this, but Eden tries to overcome her doubts.

If you think you know how this story plays out after reading this far into my review...you'd be wrong. Like I was. Even though I was totally hooked on this story, I had it set in my brain that I knew exactly what was going to happen and how. I was wrong. Almost at every turn.

There was a point, at about the half-way mark...when the story takes a decidedly unexpected turn. It wasn't a complete shift in the overall plot, just an added element to the story that I never saw coming. And it added a whole new dimension to this already intense story, and I loved it.

It was like a magician had peered into my soul, divined it's secrets, then conjured you - a mysterious, masked man from a distant land drawn to me by my writing. He had picked her from a dusty bookshelf and read her as easily as an open book.

This book held my attention in a steel vice from the moment I started reading. I dreamt about the story. I thought about it while working. It just completely overwhelmed my senses in the best possible way. Ava Zova is such a talented author. She managed to weave so much intensity, and emotion into a book that never stopped surprising me. There are so many things I want to talk about regarding this book. But honestly, I refuse to allow myself to spoil the story for anyone. No matter how many times my emotions got twisted, no matter how many times I wanted to yell at both Eden and Adam about various things they were both holding back from each other...I never, for one second stopped caring. And that speaks volumes. And while finding a happy ever after is next to impossible in the Catfish world, sometimes miracles happen.

But, as with every other element of this book...the ending wasn't at all traditional. Ava decided to included an additional chapter...an epilogue...that proceeds to turn the entire story upside down. Again. And...it...was...fucking...brilliant. It has been a long time since I have been this excited to get people to read a book as I am about Dear Adam. I consider it my mission to get as many people as possible to give this author, and this book a shot. It will be a ride you will never forget.

You were all the books I had ever read, all the fairy tales I wished were true, everything I had ever wanted. Someone strong, principled, honorable, intelligent, soulful, funny, poetic... If you are a fictional character, then I am spellbound by a lie.

**This book was given to me by the author in exchange for an honest review**

ETA 9/11/13: Just finished this book for the second time, and I loved it just as much the second time around.

Starting my ARC tonight!!

I have been DYING to read this book since I first heard the concept. A love story set during a zombie apocalypse? Sign me up!!!

Hopefully this will be the book to get me out of my reading slump.