Recap of Week 2 Of Meg-A Readers Blog Hop! Plus Code Name Cassandra Review

Hey Everyone!!

So Week 2 has come and gone already! :)

We had some exciting posts again this week!!

We had an awesome review from Kati over at Victorian Wonderland of the Mediator series and lovely California.  And Alex over A Girl, Books, and Other Things named her five favorite Meg Cabot characters (which by the way contains some SUPER awesome characters!!).
Oh and Diana over at Little Miss Drama Queen is giving away a signed copy of Abandon!!
Recap Links:

• Alex's Top Five Favorite Meg Cabot characters
• Kati's A Trip to Ghostly California and Mediator Review
• Diana's Giveaway of Abandon 
• The Mythology Challenge!! for Meg-A Readers!
• Music Tuesday featuring Meg Cabot inspired songs

So for this week, in honor of Meg-A Readers I've also decided to do a review on Code Name Cassandra (#3 in the 1-800-Where-R-You Series):

The 1-800-Where-R-You series is literally the only series I have not read by Meg Cabot!  I've had my eyes on them for forever, but just hadn't gotten around to reading them! I read the first book in the series When Lightning Strike (review HERE!) back in February, and found myself loving yet another series by Meg Cabot! She's proven again to me, just how versatile she can be, while still holding on to that lovely charm she adds to her characters in each of her novels! I just absolutely adore it!

Code Name Cassandra includes the lovely character Jess, who in the first novel was struck by lightning and wakes up the morning after knowing exactly (address and everything!) where a kid who went missing years ago, after she saw his picture on a milk carton the night before!

After fighting off the FBI, and convincing them that her powers "have disappeared", Jess has attempted to live a normal life, and sign up to be a counselor for a music prodigy camp for the summer, instead of changing the trays on the steam table, in one of her father's Italian restaurants (and not the good one, the buffet one, which Jess just hates working at).

She hates those steam tables, and figured that working with a few smart music kids would be fun! Plus she gets to the counselor for a girl cabin, where she plans on having longs talks into the night, braiding their hair, and having fun!

...Unfortunately, her head counselor has other ideas...like reenforcing Jess to a BOY cabin, because they were a bit short of male counselors, and have gotten a new girl counselor to replace her in the girl cabin...and that girl just happens to be the annoying chick who fights for Jess's third chair in band each year, by challenging her!

Trying everything she can to stay low, she seems to fail miserably when one of the boys...the annoying one (you know, every cabin has one!), calls her out on being "Lightning Girl"; AND a father tracks her down and asks her to find his daughter whose been taken by his ex-wife and is living with her new boyfriend...who lets just say, isn't the type guy you would want to even call a friend...let alone a BOYfriend!

Jess excepts the case, especially after she sees the little girls picture...but asks the father not to tell anyone!

What happens?
Well, of course what always happens!  Hint: it has to do with the F-B-I! Yeah, the big Feds!

Along the way, Jess also continues to try to convince Rob (the guy she met in detention during the first book) that she and him are meant to be together, and that age shouldn't an issue...she will be seventeen in eight and a half months afterall! And it's not like Rob's old! He's only eighteen!  But Rob won't have any of it! But he is willing to drive 4 hours to help out Jess when she asks for it!


I thought this was a great continuation of Jess's story!  I am really looking forward to reading the third one very soon! Especially now that Meg-A Readers is in full swing! :)

The Romance Bookie :)

And don't forget to enter the Grand Prize Giveaway for Meg-A Readers!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Still on My Mind Thursday #3

Still on My Mind is a weekly meme, featured on Thursday, started by Haley over at Ya-Aholic, where you discuss a book you've either recently read, or read over the past few years, that's still on your mind.

This week I've decided to choose a book I read a few weeks ago...

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins was just one of those books I couldn't get out my head!  I just absolutely adored it!

Here's the Goodreads description:

Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris - until she meets Etienne St. Clair: perfect, Parisian (and English and American, which makes for a swoon-worthy accent), and utterly irresistible. The only problem is that he's taken, and Anna might be, too, if anything comes of her almost-relationship back home. As winter melts into spring, will a year of romantic near - misses end with the French kiss Anna - and readers - have long awaited?

I had the hardest time putting this book down, because it just had it all!  Friendship, love, cute boys, Paris (!!!), the Eiffel Tower, drama, sad moments, funny moment...you name it it had it (minus fantasy/paranormal stuff).  This book just felt so real!

I absolutely adored it, and it definitely became an all time favorite!

For my review go HERE! :)

So that's another Still On My Mind from me! :)

The Romance Bookie :)

Liebster Blog Love Award! :)

So I was nominated for my first ever blog award!! How cute is that??!!

Alysia over at Little Pocket Books, whom I met back in February at Passion and Prose, has nominated me for this small super cute blog award!

It's called the Liebster Blog Love Award!  Translated, being a German myself, "Liebster" means "Favorite" :).

I was super excited to have someone say they truly enjoy looking at my blog sometimes! It's one of the reasons I do this, because I want to share my love of books with you. :)

Alysia had the sweetest thing to say about my blog and me:

"I met this young blogger at the Passion and Prose Conference in February.  And she is a Meg Cabot fan.  Like soon to be President of the Meg Cabot fan club.  I love it!  I love her post about music too!"

Thanks Alysia!! I WISH I could be President of the Official Meg Cabot fan club!! ;)

Anyway, so now it's my turn to nominate my Top Five Favorite Blogs!!

Aside from author blogs (Kody Keplinger's, Meg Cabot's, and a few others) and the bigger blogs like The Story Siren and YA-Aholic I have decided to with a couple of my favorite smallerish blogs (i.e. the ones that some of you may not know about already...however, I must say the majority of them are bigger than mine :)).

So here are my Top 5 Blogs, that I read the most:

Stephanie over at Stepping Out of the Page has a super cute blog, that I enjoy reading all the time.  Her Owl design always catches my attention on my personal Facebook page, so I somehow usually end up reading at least one of her posts a week. 

Diana over at Little Miss Drama Queen

I nominate Diana, because she has a fabulous blog, where she not only talks about some awesome music but also, like me, likes to talk about her love for Meg Cabot's work!  :)

The Sagacity Quest  has a lot of great posts! She's read a lot of great books, and I believe I've even gotten a few recommendations through her reviews! :)

The Teen Book Guru's got some great stuff on her blog! Plus I love her button!! :)

 

I LOVE movies! I love going to the theaters, because I love the smell of that buttery popcorn, and I love seeing the latest Romantic Comedy!  Liz over at Yes/No Films, has a great blog, which I'm subscribed through emails.  Every Friday I have the latest movie review waiting in my inbox, and it has allowed to live precariously through Liz, because I just don't have the money to see a movie all the time.  But I truly enjoy reading about the latest movie she's seen!

So those are my nominations!

According to Alysia, what these bloggers are supposed to do now is...
1. Thank the one who nominated you by linking back.
2. Nominate five blogs with fewer than 200 followers. 
3. Let your nominees know by leaving a comment on their sites.
4. Add the award image to your site.

So I'm off to doing number 3 and 4 on the list! :)

Thanks everyone!

The Romance Bookie :)

Meg-A Readers Mythology Challenge!

Hey Everyone!!

So I almost completely forgot, THANK GOODNESS I have Diana over at Little Miss Drama Queen working with me on Meg-A Readers, because she was the one to remind me the other day! :)

As mentioned in the first official post introducing Meg-A Readers Blog Hop! we will be having a mythology challenge in honor of the release of Underworld!

The Mythology Challenge will be lasting June 16th, and afterwards we will be starting the Mystery Challenge, honoring the release of Size 12 and Ready to Rock (July 10th), on June 17th!

Anyway, from now until June 16th, the Mythology Challenge is open to EVERYONE! :)

I personally haven't that many mythology books, the only ones I can think are Abandon and Underworld, and the first two Percy Jackson books.  However, I have always been fascinated by mythology, so I'm hopefully planning on reading on or two books! :)

Here are the Challenge Levels:
                           1 book Mortal
                           2-4 books Demigod
                           Over 6 God(dess)


Here are some recommendations, if you're having trouble on deciding what you want you would like to read during the Challenge, of course suggestions are always open! :)

Of course we can't forget:

Abandon by Meg Cabot

&

Underworld by Meg Cabot

And other choices:

Oh.My. Gods. (Oh. My. Gods, #1) by Tera Lynn Childs

The Goddess Test (Goddess Test, #1) by Aimee Carter

Goddess Interrupted by Aimee Carter

Betrayal (The Descendants #1) by Mayandree Michel 

Sacrifice  by Mayandree Michel

Starcrossed (Starcrossed, #1) by Josephine Angelini

 

Dreamless by Josephine Angelini

Destined by Jessie Harrell

Everneath (Everneath #1) by Brodi Ashton

Troy High by Shana Norris

The Lighting Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians #1) by Rick Riordan
2. The Sea of Monsters
3. The Titan's Curse
4. The Battle of the Labyrinth 
5. The Last Olympian

The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan

The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan

Sweet Venom by Tera Lynn Childs

So those are some suggestions, but of course I know there are tons more out there, so if you can think of any others just mention them in the comments section! :)

I hope everyone joins in! And when you do your reviews just link up your reviews in the comments! :)

The Romance Bookie :)

Music Tuesday #20/21

Hey Everyone! So I pretty much forgot Music Tuesday last week, and also didn't really want it to interfere with the kick-off of Meg-A Readers, so this week I will be featuring two songs!!

:)

In honor of Meg-A Readers, I've got two Meg Cabot related songs...

The first is completely in honor of Meg Cabot.  I was extremely lucky enough to be able to get an interview with Meg (!!!), and in it she tells me her guilty pleasure when it comes to music while writing...

I don't know if you guys will believe when I say this, but here is one of his songs...

Yup! PITBULL!!!!! How awesome is that??!!

And now to the second song!

This one was featured on the Princess Diaries Soundtrack...

That is such a cute song! :)

Happy Tuesday everyone!

The Romance Bookie :)

Amy & Roger's Epic Detour is a journey to Remember!

I LOVED Amy & Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson!!

Amy lost her father three months ago, and after her twin brother gets sent to rehab and her mother moves to Connecticut, leaving Amy alone for a month and having to deal with everything by herself.  She has no one to talk to, all she wants to do is talk to her mom or brother, but instead she's stuck alone, and now has found out that she has to get her mother's car to Connecticut, while driving with someone who she apparently played "Spuds" with, but she can't remember him at all.

What Amy didn't expect was how cute Roger would be.  However, that doesn't change matters.  Amy has changed and all she can think about is what happened, and she can't help but thinking about the old Amy, or "Amy!" as she thinks of her.

Amy's dealing with some serious pain, including holding in a secret about the accident that only her mother and brother know about.
And along the way, she finds out Roger got a few things to deal with on his own (which I am going to honest here, are nothing compared to Amy's though).

Amy's mom had the entire trip planned out...rest stops, hotel reservations, etc. all planned.

But everything changes when Roger gets into the driver's side of the car...hence the "Epic Detour".

I absolutely ADORED this book!! OMG, this is a favorite! I want this to be made into a movie! Morgan Maton's writing style and story line reminded me of Sarah Dessen's style, one of my favorite authors.  It's got that realistic feel that Sarah is famous for, something I truly enjoy reading. :)
In fact, I actually loved EVERYTHING about this book! Not just the story line and characters! But I also loved the design of the book.  The whole thing is written in a way where it's almost like a diary, and in between you've got pictures that appear to be like a scrapbook.

PLUS Roger likes making music playlists, so in between we get to read the awesome music choices!  Plus, Amy loves Musicals! Something I absolutely LOVE too!! :)

This book is just one of those books I think I will remember for quite some time!  I think I may even end buying this one, one day.  (I borrowed it out of the library this time).

So honestly, if you get the chance to get your hands on this book...READ IT!!! :)

The Romance Bookie :)