[Random Acts of Kindness] January 2013 wrap-up

At the end of January, I was so exhausted from being pregnant and everything about it that I didn't manage to write a summary post for Random Acts of Kindness(or any post at all, for that matter), so here we go:

Bree from Coffee Bean Bookshelf sent me The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
Mariska from me and my books sent me The Book of Blood & Shadow by Robin Wasserman.
Vonnie from Vonnie's Reading Corner sent me Bunheads by Sophie Flack.

Thanks a lot for the wonderful books, ladies!

I offered Last Kiss Goodnight by Gena Showalter to Tynga of Tynga's Reviews.
I offered Maija 0.4 by Mike Lancaster.
I offered Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick to Amanda from Bombarded with Books.

[Top 10 Tuesday] You frustrate me!

Top Ten Tuesday is a bookish weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week it's all about frustrating characters! I don't have many because characters are important for me when I'm reading, so I usually quit books with frustrating characters early on.

1) Dimitri in Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy series
He just pissed me off with his behavior after he came back!

2) The narrator in The Reluctant Fundamentalist, because he kept talking and I always felt like "please STFU!".

3) Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones' Diary, the first one, because he was all about the stuck-up lawyer at first & ignored Bridget!

4) Daniel Cleaver in Bridget Jones' Diary, because he's the biggest a** I have come across - even bigger, IMHO, than George Wickham (of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice fame), whom he was modeled after.

5) Mr. Elliot in Jane Austen's Persuasion - can you say as opportunistic as it gets?

What do you think? Were you as frustrated with these as I was? Who is on your list? Please leave a comment!

[Top 10 Tuesday] More of that, please!

Top Ten Tuesday is a bookish weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week it's all about settings! Where do you want to see more books set? For me, the following settings are still a bit underrepresented - and this is very much biased, as usual!

1) Alaska
This isn't cheating even though it was mentioned in the topic description. I don't think I have more than 5 books set in Alaska on my shelves.

2) On space ships
Really, what's cooler? Nerd girl me wants more of that!

3) In foreign countries
I have plenty of books in the US, Canada or the UK, now, what about other countries? I'm sure there must be something out there!

4) In a closed setting
Remember locked room mysteries? Where the entire mystery novel was set in one estate/small town? I want more of that! In contemporary novels!

Have you read any books with settings I'm looking for? Can you recommend them? Please let me know in the comments! (And link to your list!)

[Top 10 Tuesday] 2013 Debuts

Top Ten Tuesday is a bookish weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week it's all about 2013 Debuts! Due to the previously mentioned book-buying ban, there's no way I'll come up with 10 books. I simply haven't looked into debuts for this year because it would be frustrating. Forgive me!

1) Level 2 by Lenore Appelhans
This book is out NOW, so go ahead and check it out! Buy it even!

2) The Archived by Victoria Schwab
This one had an awesome sneak peek at Netgalley.
3) Stand-In Star by Rachael Johns
Cute romance novel-must-read, my not so guilty pleasure.

4) Altered by Jennifer Rush

Have you heard of any of those books? What are the books you're waiting for? Please leave a comment!

[Bout of Books] Wrap Up #6

Sigh! Bout of Books 6.0 is officially over. It's time for a wrap up...

I have finally done some more commenting yesterday! It was part of my goals, but I failed miserably. I commented on 19 blogs on the last day, which leaves me at 20 comments for the past 7 days, which exceeds my goal of 2 per day (well, in total, at least!).

I've finished 4 books and DNF'd one:
1) Richelle Mead: Last Sacrifice (Vampire Academy 6)
2) Carolyn Keene: Nancy Drew and the Bungalow Mystery
3) Louise Rennison: Withering Tights (the DNF)
4) Anna Jarzab: The Opposite of Hallelujah
5) Martin Leicht & Isla Neal: Mothership

I guess I can say I officially got over my reading slump then! So I accomplished 3 of my goals for sure.

The one goal I didn't really accomplish was taking notes on my books. I didn't even remember this was one of my goals until yesterday. Oops! Anyway, I will try to take notes on what I remember later on Monday.

If you participated in Bout of Books 6.0, how did it go for you? Leave a link, if you want! If you didn't participate, would you participate next time?

[Bout of Books] Progress Report #5

I can't believe we only have one day left for Bout of Books 6.0! I wish it would go on another week so that I could accomplish even more, but on the other hand, I know I will be more busy next week as university starts up again on Monday after our Christmas break. So far I had a lot of fun with Bout of Books, with the chats, with meeting new people and blogs, and of course with the reading.

So, let's see how I fared yesterday:

I knew from the beginning that I would spend some time shopping with Mom. When I arrived at my parents on Friday, she already told me she'd like to do something because she needed to get out and find a distraction after a nerve-wrecking week at work. What neither of us expected was that we would spend a solid 5 hours out and about, having fun and finding some great stuff! (It was my Mom's first time actively looking through things at TK Maxx and she got some nice knifes and a new quality pepper mill, and she got me some measuring spoons for my American recipes and Tweezerman tweezers that were over 50% off!). I didn't get much, to be honest, because I need to save money right now for a few bigger expenses later this month and next month. I wanted to get some more socks because a few need to be thrown out soon, and I got some basics like cotton pads and tooth brushes (had no backup anymore, so I bought 2).

But I did get some reading done! I read a chapter of Martin Leicht & Isla Fischer's Mothership the night before, when I fell asleep and I read some more. I'm still only about 12% through (my first Bout of Books book on Kindle), but hey, better than nothing!

I also participated in the Bout of Books twitter chat, the second one for me, which was fun. Unfortunately, I was on my phone only, so I was always a bit behind. Nonetheless, I loved meeting even more new people and checking out their blogs afterwards was also fun.

I also read quite a few blogs yesterday and after weeding out blogs from my reader that were no longer active (or had drastically changed topics towards something I'm not as interested in), I fed my reader with some of the new book blogs I discovered. I have to write a blog post on all the new blogs I've discovered soon.

Have you ever gone through your reader to unsubscribe from blogs that were no longer active, had changed web addresses or changed topics? What is your current read?

[Bout of Books] Progress Report #4

Well,I didn't have a progress report for you yesterday, so this is #4 about Day 5 of Bout of Books 6.0! Basically, the sad truth is that I didn't get much accomplished these last 2 days. After finishing Anna Jarzab's The Opposite of Hallelujah, I kept thinking about the book and no other book appealed to me. Instead, I spent some time with the mister and on twitter.

Last night however, I may actually have started a book that will keep my attention: Martin Leicht & Isla Neal's Mothership! I only managed to read one chapter before I fell asleep at around 1am, so I won't comment any further.

[Bout of Books] Progress Report #3

And Day #3 of Bout of Books is over. It makes me sad to see the days race by so fast, to be honest! Only 4 more days until it will be all over... But that also means we're not even half-way through! So let's get to today's successes and failures:

I was reading Louise Rennison's Withering Tights earlier today, but it turned out to be a DNF for me. I could not connect to the main character at all and the minor characers just annoyed me too much. It's sad that I actually found a book by Louise Rennison that I did not like, but I guess that's life. I absolutely love her Georgia Nicolson books and I will always have those!

I then started Amber Kizer's Meridian which so far seems to be really good.

I have been gushing about Anna Jarzab's The Opposite of Hallelujah for the past two days already, and I finally sat down this evening to actually finish it. I just couldn't stand not knowing what would happen anymore and - AND - I was awake enough to make it! Anna Jarzab is possibly one of my safe authors, one of the authors I can pick up and no matter what, I will enjoy it!

I haven't been on Twitter much today other than to complain (in German) about how my order took ages to be shipped when I knew other people's orders had been shipped yesterday and they ordered at the same time I ordered (it was a mad rush yesterday because of some launches for new makeup items at a cheap-ish European brand).

I am still not very good with the commenting. With all the reading I did today, I didn't get around to comment yet and as it is already midnight and I need to be at work earlier tomorrow that I have been the past few days, I will have to go to bed now. (Yep, I'm totally scheduling this!)

Are you successful with your goals for Bout of Books 6.0? What have you been reading?

[Bout of Books] Progress report #2

Well, another day is over and it's time for a progress report for Bout of Books 6.0, I guess.

I once again managed to finish a book, albeit a short one. I read Carolyn Keene's Nancy Drew and the Bungalow Mystery. I love Nancy Drew and know my kids will grow up with her. It's sad for me that I didn't read the Nancy Drew books as a kid, but they simply weren't available here. At least I now have something fun and entertaining to read in between.

I tweeted about it earlier, but let me tell you, Anna Jarzab's The Opposite of Hallelujah really got me out of my slump! I opened the book on both the maybe 15 second long elevator ride up and down in the building I work at and on the escalators! I just couldn't stand not reading. I cannot begin to tell you how happy this makes me! I'm currently on page 113, so I'm about 25% in.

I have not been commenting a lot on blogs, which was one of the things I wanted to do, so I really need to step up in the coming days. The problem so far was that I was working long hours and never really got around to be awake enough for actual comments. Today, I wrote at least one comment so far. It's something to build on, I guess.

How was your second day of Bout of Books? Do you have any recommendations on how to comment on other blogs? How do you do it?

[Bout of Books] Progress Report #1

So, the first day of Bout of Books is over. For me, I have to say the first days was pretty successful. Here's what I accomplished:

I finished my audio book, Richelle Mead's Last Sacrifice. Thus I have now completed the Vampire Academy series. This was one of my goals and I didn't expect to complete this goal that fast! It was awesome, just like the rest of the series, and you can expect a review to show up soon.

I read 62 pages of Anna Jarzab's The Opposite of Hallelujah and may have found the book to pick up again and again until I'm done. No more reading slump so far!

I took part in the first Bout of Books Tweetchat and had lots of fun! If you want to see what we all talked about, search for the #boutofbooks on Twitter (or click the link up front). I don't know if I will be able to make the others as the times are inconvenient for me (one is in the middle of the night, the other is in the late afternoon & I might still be out and about).

I met many new awesome bookish people, also through the Tweetchat. It was great!

What did you do for your first day of Bout of Books?

[Top 10 Tuesday] 2013 Bookish Goals

Top Ten Tuesday is a bookish weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week it's all about Top 10 bookish goals for 2013! As I have a habit of breaking goals when I have too many, I'm sticking to the 4 that came to my mind right away.

1) Read off of Mt TBR instead of buying new books!

2) Successfully complete at least the majority of challenges I signed up for!
Usually, I'm not good with that, but I need to wing the TBR challenge for the most part of the year and the other challenges will help me with that!

3) Review more!

4) Despite being busy, read more instead of watching TV!
2013 will be a busy year for me with all that is in the making, so I want to cut down on TV time and read more. I'm tempted to include Youtube videos in that resolution, just because I watch too many that are just meh.

What are your bookish goals for 2013? If you participated in this week's Meme, feel free to leave me a link in the comments!

[Review] Bonnie Vanak: The Covert Wolf

Bonnie Vanak: The Covert Wolf
[paranormal romance]
Harlequin
ISBN: 978-0373885510
288 pages

You can buy it here:
The Covert Wolf (Amazon mass market paperback)
The Covert Wolf (Amazon eBook)

Summary: (from the publisher)
Pheonix Force: Elite navy SEALS with paranormal abilities

Loyalties collide, passions ignite and a high-stakes adventure ensues in Bonnie Vanak’s sensual new military series…

When a mission gone wrong kills his best friend, navy SEAL Matthew Parker will stop at nothing to destroy the demons who threaten his team. To do so, Matt must locate a mysterious orb before the demons use it to destroy the world. But the only woman who can help him—Sienna McClare—has her own agenda…and every reason for hating his kind.

A half blood, Sienna hopes returning the orb to her people will gain her acceptance back into the only family she’s known. But working with a Draicon werewolf like Matt comes with a high price—one that could cost Sienna her dreams.

A natural-born leader, her werewolf lover must now teach Sienna to listen to her heart—and go where their allconsuming passion leads them…

My thoughts:
So you know I'm a sucker for good romance novels, and if they have some paranormal aspects, it's all the better! With The Covert Wolf we get paranormal romance with a possible world-ending mystery to solve. This just made me want to sqeal with joy. Throughout the book, you could see how the MC, Matthew Parker was still dealing with the loss of his best friend and the guilt he felt because he couldn't save him. Our heroine Sienna, on the other hand, had to deal with being rejected by her family for her entire life because she was different. These two characters both had their issues, which incidentally overlapped and made them opposing characters to a certain degree, but really, I do not want to spoiler you here! The book is well worth you time, so I recommend you pick it up if you can deal with the minor problems I had (see below).

The plot just keeps you going and makes you wonder where it will all end and how. Will there be a happy end? Will they be able to save the world? Who exactly is behind all the bad things happening? And will Sienna and Matthew be able to solve their issues? All this kept me going and made me hate having to take a break for my classes at university (I read this on a school day).

Now, my only two issues with the book: To me it seemed rather convenient to have Matthew reveal his telepathic abilities at the time he did. In the middle of all the trouble, he can help Sienna out with that on a rather big aspect? I would have prefered to hear about possible telepathy earlier on. And then, we know from the summary that Matthew is a werewolf, so here we go with the transforming: When he transforms there are sparks! And he's shimmering in crimson! Am I the only one who thinks of Twilight Edward when she reads shimmering and sparks? It just distracted me a little bit.

Nonetheless, these few issues did not really diminish the fun I had reading The Covert Wolf. As it is still available, I can only recommend you get your hands on a copy if you like werewolves, paranormal romance and the possible end of the world.

Rating:
3.5/5

FTC: eGalley received from publisher through Netgalley

[Random Acts of Kindness] January Sign-up

For the first time, I will participate in the Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) hosted by the Book Soulmates. There, you can find the rules (basically, have a wishlist or create one, sign up and send off books - and get some in return).

My wish list:

Ally Carter: Out of Sight, Out of Time
Betty Webb: The Llama of Death
Stephen Chbosky: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Sarah Beth Durst: Vessel
Lauren Morrill: Meant to Be
Robin Wasserman: The Book of Blood and Shadow
Kiersten White: Mind Games
Sophie Flack: Bunheads
Geoff Herbach: Stupid Fast
Angie Smibert: Memento Nora
Nova Ren Suma: Imaginary Girls
Francisco X. Stork: Marcelo in the Real World
Richelle Mead: Bloodlines
Amanda Bonilla: Shaedes of Gray
A.D. Baker: The Wide-Awake Princess
Gabrielle Zevin: All These Things I've Done
Gretchen McNeil: Ten

If you wish to offer me one of these books, simply send me an e-mail at kathrin.p AT gmail DOT com and I will send you my mailing address.

[Bout of Books] Goals

So, I signed up for Bout of Books 6.0 before I decided that for New Year's I want to return to blogging. Now I'm here actually trying to figure out what goals I want to have!

In case you haven't heard of Bout of Books yet, here's a short summary from the hosts themselves:

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 7th and runs through Sunday, January 13th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 6.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. -From the Bout of Books 6.0 team

Now, at the beginning of the year, I'm usually in a slump, which doesn't make sense if you ask me, but here we go, in 2013 as well. For this simple reason, I'll make my goals easy and manageable.

1) Finish my current audio book, the last Vampire Academy book. (I shamelessly "stole" the idea to put that on my list from Bree @ Coffee Bean Bookshelf)
2) Get over my reading slump! (Thus no specific book-ish goal for me. Not even a book list!)
3) Visit 2 blogs per day and comment (something useful, of course). I'm usually too tired to do much after work, but I believe I've been slacking in the commenting department so much, I really want to work on it.
4) Take notes right after reading the book if I can't do it while reading so that I can sit down to review the book the week after.

Will you be participating in Bout of Books? Please leave a comment (& a link to your post, I'd like to check by)!

[Top 10 Tuesday] Must Read Books for 2013

Top Ten Tuesday is a bookish weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week it's all about the Top 10 books I definitely want to finally read in 2013!

1) Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
It is Jane Austen, so I feel it does not require any further explanation.

2) Death Blows by DD Barant
I couldn't read this book when it came out because a "friend" wanted to read it as well and since I didn't have time right away, I gave her my unread copy. Needless to say, I never got the book back and she's moved to another country now, so I had to get another copy late last year. I had a lot of fun with the first installment of the Bloodhound Files (a paranormal mystery series), so I can't wait for this one!

3) Crewel by Gennifer Albin
It just sounds amazing!

4) The Particular Sadness of Lemon Pie by Aimee Bender
How awesome is the premise of this book? A girl can taste feelings based on what people cook/bake?!

5) Ice Cold by Tess Gerritsen
It's Tess Gerritsen, and my Mom has read it so long ago already! (It's the one series I read with my Mom.)

6) Across the Universe by Beth Revis
I must be the last person to read this!

7) Away by Teri Hall
I loved the first book and cannot wait to see what awaits Rachel.

8) The Bungalow Mystery by Carolyn Keene
It's Nancy Drew! And I grew up without her *sigh*

9) Beowulf on the Beach by Jack Murnighan
This has been on my shelves for at least 2 years and I want to read it. Judging by a short peek I already took, it's hilarious.

10) Level 2 by Lenore Appelhans
For this book, I will break my book-buying ban for 2013. It will be the one book I will definitely get, no questions asked! I may lose a point for this month (it's a challenge where you get points - or actually raffle tickets - for each month you successfully stay away from buying books and work on your Mt. TBR), but I don't care, I want to read it!

Have you read any of those books? What did you think of them?