Bout of Books 10 | Day 2 Update

Books I am currently reading:

• Rebel Heart by Moira Young

Books I completed reading:

• Blood Red Road by Moira Young 

Total # of pages read today: 255 pages

Total # of pages read overall: 459 pages

So I finally finished Blood Red road yesterday and I really enjoyed it overall. It was a bit difficult in the beginning to get into the language, but overall, it really picked up the pace for me once I got used to it. I really enjoyed reading Saba's story and Emmi's story. I am currently onto reading the next one, so I am hoping to see more of Lugh's perspective and Jack's. 

I will be attempting to go to a movie set today, so a lot of the day will be spent waiting, so hopefully I get a lot of reading done. I hope you are all doing well with your reading! :D

Bout of Books 10 | Bookish Battle Royal Challenge

Here is my challenge entry for the Bookish Battle Royal Challenge which is hosted over at My Life in Books! The rules and details are located here :) I am going to post one entry here, but I am coming up with a bunch, so I may post some more over on twitter using the hashtag, so be sure to follow me over there @fleurdylys ;)

So for my Bookish Battle Royal, I decided to pick female characters from YA novels. Here are my picks!

The Combatants 

Tris Prior 

Divergent series by Veronica Roth

Strengths	Weaknesses
Resourceful	Tobias "Four" Eaton
Trained at Dauntless	Forgiving
Strong	Independent

Clary Fray 

The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare

Strengths	Weaknesses
Shadowhunter	Careless
Create new runes	Indecisive
Brave	Jace Lightwood

Rose Hathaway

Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead

Strengths	Weaknesses
Dhampir Guardian	A bit reckless
Strong	Indecisive
Unpredictable	Loyal

The Victor

Why Did Rose Hathaway win the Battle? 

First of all, in the gif above, she flips Dimitri with one hand out of commission. She has been trained since birth for battle and she is a dhampir which makes her part human and part vampire. She basically has the strength and agility of a vampire but does not suffer the weaknesses a regular vampire would suffer from. She is loyal to the bone to her best friend Lissa Dragomir and has protected her at every time. She is a bit reckless and unpredictable, refusing to conform to authorities at time. She also has that tricky love interest of hers Dimitri Belikov who can sometimes complicate things. Ultimately, she is one bad ass character and sadly, Tris and Clary would not stand a chance with her strength and wit. 

That is it for my challenge entry. I hope you all enjoyed it! Let me know in the comments what you thought of this battle. Do you agree or disagree? 

Bout of Books 10 | Books You're Looking Forward to Challenge

So for one of today's challenges, it is Books You've Been Looking Forward To hosted over at River City Reading and you can read all the details for it here! :) It is simply make a list of whatever books you are looking forward to reading and you can include a theme.. so I am going to come talk about books that are not yet released and that I am looking forward to reading (and buying!) Here is my list:

10 UPCOMING YA RELEASES I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO READING:

1. Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour

Release Date: May 20, 2014

2. Mortal Heart by Robin LaFevers

Release Date: November 4, 2014

3. The Retribution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Release Date: November 20, 2014

4. Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins

Release Date: August 19, 2014

5. City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare 

Release Date: May 27, 2014

6. The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith 

(I know this is technically considered adult, but I really wanted to include it!)

Release Date: June 19, 2014

7. Silver Shadows by Richelle Mead

Release Date: July 29, 2014

8. Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo

Release Date: June 17, 2014

9. The Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan

Release Date: October 7, 2014

10. P.S I Still Love You by Jenny Han

Release Date: Expected Publication 2015

Well that is it for my list. What upcoming YA releases are you looking forward to? Are there any books here that I didn't include and you think I should be keeping a look out for? Let me know in the comments below! 

Bout of Books 10 | Day 1 Update

Hi everyone, I hope that you are all doing well. Right now marks the end of the first day of the read-a-thon. I was finishing up the #AYearAThon stuff last night so I did not read a whole lot right at midnight and today was a busy day where I met up with friends for a book signing, so I did not read a whole lot today, but I am proud of the progress I made thus far and cannot wait to continue reading tomorrow. 

Number of books I am currently reading: 1

Books:

• Blood Red Road by Moira Young

Total # of pages read today: 204 pages

I am really enjoying Blood Red Road at the moment. It took me a little while to get into it because of the language, but once I got used to it, it really started picking up for me. I am really enjoying the characters and the overall plot of the story and I can't wait to see where the rest of the story is headed. I hope to finish this by tomorrow and start (and maybe even finish? hopefully! we shall see) the next book in the series. I picked up the final book today (so pretty btw) so that I might continue on and finish the series or pick something else up from my tbr, I really haven't decided yet. 

How did you make out for the first day? Let me know in the comments below!

Moira Young Signing | May 12th 2014

Today, I went to the Moira Young Signing at Chapters Brampton. I have been so busy with school recently that I just did not have the time to read all the books prior to the signing. I started Blood Red Road yesterday and I was really enjoying it and then I picked up the final book today before the signing. I ended up going with my two bestfriends Nikki and Michelle, and I also saw a bunch of familiar faces from previous signings! 

Moira came on stage and immediately began telling us the story of how the first novel was conceived and went through telling us the trials and errors which she experienced while writing it. She told us how her inspiration sprung from seeing great epic films with her father growing up and spoke about the western elements in the book and what inspired them. She then went on to explain the process of the other two books and how she planned and organized the narratives for the three novels.

The Q&A session was particularly my favorite where she went into great detail about the actual writing process and how it is significant to have a problem big enough for it to matter to the protagonist and that would serve as the driving force for them throughout the novel. I know it is pretty obvious that point, but really, it is overlooked and she honestly inspired me to want to write! 

We were there pretty early so I was literally the third person in line. Moira spoke to me a bit about how the character Emmi is inspired by her sister and then went on to talk about how her publisher brought in a bird and the significance of the animals in her book. She was incredibly lovely and even asked how far I came to come to the signing. She took the time to speak to all of us for a bit and came around the table and took a picture which was so awesome. It was seriously a wonderful experience meeting her and it really made me appreciate her books on a whole different level. I was enjoying them already but hearing about how it all came together and just seeing HER as a person, well that was something else. She is simply awesome.

I can't wait to continue reading the rest of the books in the Dust Lands series! Have you read them? Let me know in the comments below! 

Jenny Han Signing | April 23rd 2014

After the previous book signing, there was another book signing immediately the day after at Chapters Brampton and it was for Jenny Han. She wrote the Summer I turned pretty series and she came to sign her newest release To All The boys I've loved before! I went with my bestie Michelle and we got to meet the lovely Ariel Bissett and NicolePJ there, fellow book bloggers/vloggers. It was such a busy event but we got all of our books signed (I brought a lot!). 

Jenny Han was so nice and remembered me from twitter so that was cool! She read a few passages from the book which was really interesting and enjoyable and even did a giveaway for some tshirts which was awesome! She was honestly the sweetest and she took the time to talk to everyone for a little bit during the signing. 

Overall, I had a blast at the signing, got to meet an author I really admire, hung out with my bestie and some new bookish friends and of course, got a bunch of my books personalized and signed! Win! 

Laini Taylor Book Signing | April 22nd 2014

Hi everyone, so I went to a lot of book signings recently.. and I am going to be posting a few individual posts about them within the next hour. I was finishing up the end of the semester so that is why I did not post about them sooner. Anyways, first up.. I went to Chapters Queensway and I got to meet Laini Taylor on April 22nd, 2014. I had only finished Daughter of Smoke and Bone then and I absolutely loved it, so I was super excited to meet her and get my books signed. 

Laini was BEYOND lovely. Her speech and Q&A session was amazing. She spoke about her writing process which was really interesting and also remained spoiler free! It was pretty busy there, but Laini took the time to speak to everyone a little bit before hand, and she signed all of my books which was amazing and signed books for my bestfriends too, who couldn't come and she was sweet enough to personalize them. 

'

I had such a lovely time, and I also got to meet other book bloggers so that was super exciting. :) Overall, it was a great event and I am so grateful I got to meet Laini! :)