Bookshelf Tour + New Blog Theme

Hey, guys!  So this week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme was really interesting and is what inspired me to make this obvious change to my blog: the theme change.  I was becoming really unhappy with the way my old theme looked and decided it was time to make a change.  Anywho, I hope you guys like it, because I really like it 😀

With changing the theme I guess came changing the way it looks when I’m typing my post: the font looks different, and is slightly bigger, which I really like.  It’s also a cool grayish color.  I’m liking this change!

Aside from this, I’ve noticed some bloggy people doing bookshelf tours, which I really enjoy.  The first ones I noticed were ones on YouTube, but I’m going to go ahead and attempt to jump on the bookshelf tour train—blog style.  Let’s go!

Thanks to a fellow blogger over at Falling Down The Book Hole, for introducing me to a website that enabled me to create this graphic ^.^  I’m really happy with the result!

You’ve met my bookshelf before.  And if you’re a newcomer to my little corner of the Internet, then, hey!  Meet my bookshelf!  I did a little quicky “tour” thing when I first assembled the lovely carrier of my precious belongings we call books, but I don’t think I was that detailed… and if I was… oh, well.  This is a slightly updated bookshelf tour.  So, yeah.

It’s time for you to meet the first shelf.  The shelf of books that are some of the most precious books I own:

I took this photo at an unfortunate angle, as I am not as tall as my shelf… oh well.

Anyway, the books on this top shelf are books that I hope to own forever.  Starting on the left, I have two Divergent magazines from when the movie came out, my Divergent* trilogy, all mismatched with the first book being a paperback and the last two being hardcover 😛 That still bugs me.  IT WILL ALWAYS BUG ME.  And for some reason, that seems to be the case with every series I own.  You’ll see…

(Fun fact: The Divergent trilogy is one of the only series that I own all the books to… this also bugs me.)

Moving on, I have some Rick Riordan books (oh, that evil man), Cassandra Clare books, and my beloved J.K. Rowling books, the Harry Potter* series.

Meet my second shelf, the shelf with books I liked/loved/haven’t read:

Over here I have my unfinished Hunger Games series and my mockingjay pin, which I bought at Hot Topic, like, right after seeing Catching Fire.  I also have some random classics stacked on top of some books on this shelf.  I own my unfinished Twilight Saga, which is nice… I guess?

I’ve also got some Jennifer L. Armentrout*, Richelle Mead, Rainbow Rowell, and, of course, John Green.  I’m going to have to reread TFIOS, because now that I think back on it, I realize that there were quite a few qualities in it that I usually don’t like in a book :O Maybe I’ll reread this to get me out of my slump…

I also have The Darkest Minds, Legend, and a few other random books (two of which are signed!!!).  Also, on the right of this shelf, I have a poster signed by four authors, which I got at a book signing that I, uh, totally forgot to blog about… it was a while back… oops?

Now meet shelf #3, the shelf of fantasy and realistic fiction that I adore and will always turn to (I’m actually rereading Thirteen by Lauren Myracle right now, and it’s bringing back so many memories from when I read it before 😀 My copy is so battered…):

On this shelf, the one book I really want to address is Gideon the Cutpurse, which actually had a title and cover change (which is probably why it took me forever to find the last two books in the trilogy >.<).  It’s now called The Time Travelers by Linda Buckley-Archer, and this book is AMAZING.  I think the original cover is just so beautiful and it would have been awesome if they could have kept that whole cover theme going.  But, alas, they did not.

Anyway, this book is about time travel, and it’s middle grade and it’s just a bundle of perfection!  I highly recommend it!  I read it almost two years ago (at the same time I was reading The Kane Chronicles), and I still remember loving this book.  Excellent!

And as you can see, on the side I have random trinkets.  Like my wineglass TBR cup.  And a Rubik’s cube.  And a CD case thingy that has all my CDs in it.  And a deck of, um, Pokemon cards.  Being the cool person I am XD I used to love Pokemon, and I just unearthed my collection.  Le sigh.  Memories.

Time for shelf #4, the shelf of random books that I had a hard time placing/books I’m super lazy to read:

I’ve got a bunch of books I bought from library book sales, and a few other books that I bought from the discount bookstore I love ❤ And that rolled up thing is three posters from the Cornelia Funke signing I went to last year.

And last but not least, meet my fifth shelf, the shelf of paperbacks, some of which I’ve owned the longest of all the books I own!

Ta-da!  These are the books I read as a kid 😀  And on the far left side, you can see the last VHS tape I own, Finding Nemo.  Oh, yes.  This movie was a favorite when I was younger.

You probably noticed some asterisks thrown in this post.  They signify the only series that I actually own all of the books to.  Woooow.  That’s sad.  Only about four series make the cut

That’s all for my bookshelf tour!  I have somewhere between 131-141 books.  It’s one of those numbers.  I lost my place when I was counting xD

I really hope you enjoyed this little tour of my shelves!  Do you have bookshelves?  Have you done a bookshelf tour?  Link it down below in the comments if you have!

-littleonion

Book Review: OCD, The Dude, and Me by Lauren Roedy Vaughn

Title: OCD, The Dude, and Me

Author: Lauren Roedy Vaughn

Summary: With frizzy orange hair, a plus-sized body, sarcastic demeanor, and “unique learning profile,” Danielle Levine doesn’t fit in even at her alternative high school. While navigating her doomed social life, she writes scathing, self-aware, and sometimes downright raunchy essays for English class. As a result of her unfiltered writing style, she is forced to see the school psychologist and enroll in a “social skills” class. But when she meets Daniel, another social misfit who is obsessed with the cult classic film The Big Lebowski, Danielle’s resolve to keep everyone at arm’s length starts to crumble. -Goodreads

Review:

I discovered OCD, The Dude, and Me at the bookstore when I bought The Life of Ty (a review for that will be coming soon).  It sounded funny, but before I bought it, I wanted to make sure the library didn’t have it.

The library did have it, so I ordered it and was ready to go!

OCD, The Dude, and Me was very amusing!  It was like reading someone’s journal/diary type thing, and I love books that are written in that format.  I haven’t read many, but I’ve read a bit of Lauren Myracle’s TTFN, which is written in IM format and Ann M. Martin’s P.S. Longer Letter Later, which is written in the format of two girls writing letters to each other back and forth.

This book is definitely one I’d turn to if I was in great need of a laugh… or a hundred. 😀

I think my two favorite characters were Daniel and Aunt Joyce.  Daniel was really awesome and he really spoke his feelings (and there was an unexpected twist about him revealed…).  And Joyce was like, the cool aunt, haha!  She and Danielle seemed to have a really close relationship.

I would’ve been happy to own this book, but I don’t think I’m heartbroken that I don’t.

The ending was so epic.  The eJam session and the very end.  It was the perfect ending to an awesome book!

5/5.  I can’t wait to see what else Lauren Roedy Vaughn has written!

Book Review: My Fair Godmother (My Fair Godmother, #1) by Janette Rallison

Title: My Fair Godmother

Author: Janette Rallison

Summary: Finding your one true love can be a Grimm experience!

After her boyfriend dumps her for her older sister, sophomore Savannah Delano wishes she could find a true prince to take her to the prom. Enter Chrissy (Chrysanthemum) Everstar: Savannah’s gum-chewing, cell phone–carrying, high heel-wearing Fair Godmother. Showing why she’s only Fair—because she’s not a very good fairy student—Chrissy mistakenly sends Savannah back in time to the Middle Ages, first as Cinderella, then as Snow White. Finally she sends Tristan, a boy in Savannah’s class, back instead to turn him into her prom-worthy prince. When Savannah returns to the Middle Ages to save Tristan, they must team up to defeat a troll, a dragon, and the mysterious and undeniably sexy Black Knight. Laughs abound in this clever fairy tale twist from a master of romantic comedy. -Goodreads

 

Review:

One day, I was looking at books on Goodreads, and I saw this book, My Fair Godmother.  What made me order it was that it had a pretty similar cover to another book I read, The Secret Keeper.  Well, at least, aside from the shades, the pink (awesome) hair, the title, the big pink X across the word ‘fairy,’ and the word ‘fair’ scrawled in above it, it would have had the same cover as The Secret Keeper 😀

I hadn’t been too sure about this book because of the summary.  I mean, Cinderella?  Snow White?!  I was never into those Disney princess things–ew!  But, this was a great book!  Excellent, excellent, excellent!  It was funny, romantic… and, well, just PERFECT!

I’ve read one of Rallison’s books, All’s Fair in Love, War, and High School, and that one was great too, from what I remember, so I began to get more and more excited about My Fair Godmother.

I was immediately drawn into the book.  It just sucked me in and then spit me out at the end, haha!!!

My thoughts on Savannah in the beginning were that she was a spoiled brat who deserved to go back to the Middle Ages and see how people there lived.  They didn’t have luxuries like shampoo and flashlights.  She needed to know that she couldn’t take anyone or anything for granted.  By the end of the book, I’d say she definitely learned that lesson.

In my eyes, I think this book had a great moral.  Don’t take anything/anyone for granted.

The relationship between the two sisters reminded me of something–maybe another book?  I don’t know.  I can’t quite put my finger on it.  Maybe the relationship between Savannah and Jane reminded me of that between Claudia and Janine from Ann M. Martin’s The Baby-Sitters Club.  Both older sisters were smarter than the younger sisters, both younger sisters didn’t pay attention in school because whatever they were passionate about (Savannah: beauty, Claudia: art), they didn’t think they needed the education that school offered.

Anyway, I felt that Savannah was too quick to accept the whole “fair godmother” thing.  She barely questioned it.

Well, like I said above, this book was amazing, and I never once felt like closing it.  5/5 stars!!!  I can’t wait for the sequel, which is hilariously titled, My Unfair Godmother… BWHAHAHA!!!

There are a few things I’d like to complain about, though… these complaints don’t really affect my rating…