noun [kee-smash] a random string of letters and symbols typed out on a keyboard or touchscreen, used to signal intense emotion in written communication:
31 days on WordPress. 31 days of blogging. And its been amazing. I am very excited to see what September brings, and while I wait, these are the books I hope to finish.
This book started off terribly but got progressively better in the middle, and then went spiraling downhill again in the end. In fact, up until reading the very last chapters, I was ready to give this book four stars–it was even better than The Elite–and I hadn’t been expecting that–but then Kiera Cass had to ruin it with a loosely tied plot.
I have to thank shinichimegumi123 from When Curiosity Killed The Cat for encouraging me to continue with this series, because it did get better, just like she promised it would. Many of the problems I had with the first book The Selection were fixed here, and while this is still not the best book I have ever read, I definitely enjoyed reading The Elite much more than I enjoyed reading The Selection.
I have a love/hate relationship with this book and at the moment I’m leaning towards hate, because even though this book was very well written and works great as a romance novel, in the beginning it promises to be something more than a mere love story, despite what the blurb and the trailer (check it out here) says. And yet, by the time I was done, I realized it had failed to deliver.
I was nominated for the Blogger Recognition Award by the amazing shinichimegum123 from When Curiosity Killed The Cat and by susannevalenti (check out their blogs…they are awesome people!). Thank you both so much!
Below are the guidelines for this award:
1) Select 15 other blogs you want to give this award to: Don’t nominate yourself or the people who nominated you!
2)Write a post to show off your award: Tell us why you started blogging and give a piece or two of advice to new bloggers. List who nominated you in your post. Make sure to attach the award yourself.
3) Provide a link to the original post on Edge of Night.
Why I started blogging?
I am an aspiring writer with an unhealthy obsession with reading, and I have always wanted to create a blog where I could share my passion with like-minded people. Sorry if I couldn’t give a more original answer, but that’s the truth!
Advice to newbies
Well, I am a newbie myself–my blog isn’t even a month old yet–so I’m not sure if I’m qualified to give an advice, but I’ll try anyway.
Be yourself: I know that’s the biggest cliché ever but you cannot be good at something if you are not dedicated to it, and I doubt you can be dedicated unless you are being yourself and doing what you love.
Presentation: I think us newbies experience this thing called blogger envy where we stumble upon a blog and go “OMG that is so pretty!” There’s no denying how first impressions are, so before you start posting set up your blog and design it the way it would suit you and reflect you.
Be Patient: this is an advice I am taking myself and it is working. When you are blogging your opening yourself to a wide range of people who have been doing this same thing for a long time. SO have patience with yourself–it takes time to get noticed. Accept it.
Post frequently: I would recommend not to post every day–a two-three days break between each post is what I would recommend. Not only would it let you have time to get refreshed but your views and followers are likely to increase if you post frequently too.
Maintain blogger etiquette: NO SPAMMING. NO LINKING BACK TO YOUR BLOG ON THE COMMENTS UNLESS THE OTHER BLOGGER WANTS YOU TOO.
Don’t follow people so that they follow you back: personally I never follow someone who has followed me unless that person has something that I want to read, and I would appreciate it more if people followed my blog because they like the posts I spent so much time and hard work on.
That’s pretty much it and I hope I’ve been helpful. I now nominate the following people for this award:
I am a huge fan of science fiction–fringe science–in particular, which covers everything from teleportation to reanimation to mind reading to…yep, you guessed it…parallel universes. It’s a concept I am very familiar with, and I also know the main theory behind it so of course, when I heard of Anna Jarzab’s Tandem, I instantly wanted to read it.
This is certainly not an original idea, but I have been wanting to do this because well–let’s admit it, we all judge a book by its cover–even if it’s just a little bit. Because there are so many gorgeous book covers out there, this is a topic I might be posting every now and then, or at least once a month.
If you see a cover you like just click on the name to visit the book’s Goodreads page.
This week’s top 10 book covers are (in no particular order)–