Sunday, September 28, 2014

It's Monday! What Are you reading? #5




This meme is hosted by Book Journey.


My thoughts for this week:  This week I decided to relax.  Ive signed up for the dewey read-a-thon, I've signed up for a goodreads challenge, and that is all upcoming.  So I put the books down for part of the week, and engaged myself in a little bit of biker madness, with Son's of Anarchy, I've emerged myself into 5 seasons in a few days time, that consisted of a 24 hour marathon last night, ive been up for over 24 hours now.  I did participate in a little bit of the banned books week though!  My books were rereads
 

I am on #bookblogwalkers too! completed my third week, and didn't do great at all.
#BookBlogWalkers

 

 
Reviews I posted this week:
 


What I have read this past week:
 


What I am working on this week:
 




So, your turn! what are you reading? Link me up so I can go visit!


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Thursday, September 25, 2014

Go Ask Alice by Anonymous Banned Books #3

 
 
 
Book 3



 Synopsis per Goodreads:
January 24th

After you've had it, there isn't even life without drugs....

It started when she was served a soft drink laced with LSD in a dangerous party game. Within months, she was hooked, trapped in a downward spiral that took her from her comfortable home and loving family to the mean streets of an unforgiving city. It was a journey that would rob her of her innocence, her youth -- and ultimately her life.

Read her diary.

Enter her world.

You will never forget her.


For thirty-five years, the acclaimed, bestselling first-person account of a teenage girl's harrowing decent into the nightmarish world of drugs has left an indelible mark on generations of teen readers. As powerful -- and as timely -- today as ever, Go Ask Alice remains the definitive book on the horrors of addiction.
 

 Why is this book banned?
According to wickipedia:Because Go Ask Alice includes profanity as well as relatively explicit references to runaways, drugs, sex, and rape, parents and activists have sought to remove it from school libraries. Bans started in the 1970s: Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1974, Saginaw, Michigan in 1975, and Eagle Pass, Texas and Trenton, New Jersey in 1976 through removal from local libraries. Other libraries in New York (1975), Ogden, Utah (1979), and Florida (1982) required parental permission for a student to check out the book. Additional bans occurred in 1983 in Minnesota and Colorado, 1984 in Mississippi, and 1986 in Georgia and Michigan. Also, in 1993 in New Jersey and West Virginia, 1994 in Massachusetts, 1998 in Rhode Island, 2003 in Maine, and in Feb 2007 Berkeley County School District in South Carolina. The American Library Association listed Go Ask Alice as number 25 on its list of the 100 most frequently challenged books of the 1990s.[8] The book was number 8 on the most challenged list in 2001 and up to number 6 in 2003.


Why I disagree with the banning 
 
 I first read this book as a teen, I don't even remember what age or grade I was in, I think elementary school, I DO remember the book, vividly.  I think I turned out fine.  When people ask me how I got through my teen years without trying drugs, or anything like that, why I wasn't rebellious, even in my rebellious stage, I didn't do that stuff, one of the top reasons I can list, is Go Ask Alice.  This book was disturbing in the fact that it shows a perfectly normal teen in a downward spiral in drugs and sex and wild times.  I read it and was absolutely appalled.  I didn't have any teachers or parents or any grown up guiding me with this book either, I can't remember if I read it because of school, or of my own free will, those memories are vague, but the memories of the things that happened in the actul book though?  I remember those. The things she went through while high, to get high, and after her high, was just, absolutely unappealing to me.  To degrade herself to the point of a blowjob for a drug, was just..incredibly not cool in my eyes.  I vowed after reading that book never to touch the stuff.  I never did.
 
When I read this book as a younger girl, I really and honestly thought it was a real book, a real diary from a real person, which made the impact even more shocking.  Now that I'm older, it wasn't as impactful as I thought it would be, mostly because I know now that the book itself is controversial as far as if it was real or not, that the diary was taken from various diaries and could possibly be even made up.  Some of it seemed too adult, statistics and stuff like that, that most teens wouldn't know, especially if they are out of their minds with drugs.
 
So many people could learn a lesson or two from this book.  While yeah it was a harsh read, brutal, and the ending of it was like, wow.  You can still use it to teach some points about the effects of drug use.  It made an impact on me, and I thought of this book a lot throughout my life.  Some parents don't want their kids to read about sex and drugs, and that's fine, but don't ruin it for people who's lives it can impact.





Up Next?
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
 






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Wednesday, September 24, 2014

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls Banned Books #2

 
 
 
Book 2
 
 
 
 
Synopsis per Goodreads:
The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family.

The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered.

The Glass Castle is truly astonishing--a memoir permeated by the intense love of a peculiar but loyal family


Why is this book banned?
 
 Several years it was on the banned challenged list, a few times it was challenged in various high schools/  The Glass Castle was banned due to offensive language and it being sexually explicit. This book is a memoir, it is full of growing up in poverty, struggling, some cuss words, and some references to molestation.
 
 
 
Why I disagree with the banning?
 
Basically this book is real, it's not a made up book, the author wrote this book based on her own memories.  She grew up in poverty, with a father who chased dreams more than reality.  He is filled with paranoia, and the family frequently moves.  He's an alcoholic as well.  His mother it was hinted abused her father, and her brother as well, when they moved there briefly.  Yeah, there were a lot of cuss words too.  So while yes, there was allegations of molestation, poverty, child neglect, and things like that.  While some of it struck me as WAAAY out there, like a 3 year old having memories of the nurses in a burn unit after she burns herself cooking her own hot dogs.  This book is a memoirs, meaning its REAL.  This is real life.  Lessons can be learned here, lessons on hope, and rising above the ashes of the things that are awful and drag you down.  Despite bad things or rough starts, despite molestation or poverty, you can make something of yourself, because the author is succesful right now.  As for the cuss words?  puhlease, I've heard worse when I was in high school


 
 
 
up next?  Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous



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Author Interview- Homeowner With A Gun by Samuel Hawley


 
**I received this book from the author in exchange for my honest review*
4/5 Stars
 
Synopsis per Goodreads:
It's the middle of the night. You’re awakened by a noise. Someone is in your house. What do you do?

When it happens at 148 Maple Drive, homeowner Jeff Shaw gets his gun and goes downstairs to investigate while his wife calls 9-1-1. It’s their home, after all. Jeff has to protect it. He finds two men in the kitchen and shoots them both. Dead.

The incident puts great strain on Jeff and his family. He wants to believe they just need to get on with their lives and everything will return to normal. But it’s not that easy. The dead intruders belonged to a gang, ANG, “Ain’t No Game,” that now wants revenge. And one of the gang, an ex-con who goes by the name I-Man, knows more about the break-in than he’s letting on.

It starts with a threatening phone call. Then it gets worse. The police, unable to protect the Shaws, suggest they move away for a while. But Jeff isn't going to be intimidated from his house. Homeowner With a Gun takes the reader on a suspense-filled thrill ride as this everyman fights to save himself and his family, while something a detective said plays in the back of his mind: Maybe the intruders broke into the wrong house. Happens all the time. You wouldn’t believe how often...




 My thoughts on this book:
This book, was beautifully written, good visuals, character buildups.  A little bit stereotypical as far as the African American community goes, but it works.  I can't see that I think the main character is the smartest tool in the box for the choices that he has made, but at the same time, if something like that happened while my son is in my house, I might have done SOME of the things.  One of the guy who is on the other side of the fence, ex-con you find yourself rooting for him to do the right thing.
 
A lot of things in this book resonates because I live in Florida, home of the infamous stand your ground killing of a black teenage boy, and George Zimmerman.  The back and forth about the pros and cons of Stand your Ground.  I read an article a few months ago that said 28 children were killed using the Stand your Ground law in Florida, where the shooters were let free because of the law.  I am on the fence, because while most of the cases are just absurd, caused by trigger happy people, and they should get punished somehow, I also am a mom, if someone breaks into my house you can bet I'm gunna be shooting the crap out of them, only I don't own a gun.  This book puts you in the mindframe of a homeowner that shoots and kills intruders, how it can happen in seconds, and you're defending what is yours.
 
The only thing I was conflicted about, was that 911 placed the main character on hold.. twice.  I've called 911 several times, never ever ever have I been placed on hold unless I was transferred between sheriffs and local cops or something like that, jurisdiction transfers but even then it was like two seconds.  It makes a person angry that somewhere in this world, something like that happens..in Canada? 

Aside from the 911 I enjoyed this book, it was a quick, easy read, but a thrilling read as well

 
 
The author was kind enough to answer some questions for us, so sit back and check it out.



You got the idea for Homeowner With a Gun from a news article. How long after reading the article did you decide to write this book?
 
 
Actually, I wrote a movie screenplay first, maybe a year after reading the article. It only took about four weeks to write. Nearly a year after that, I decided to develop the screenplay into a book—which turned out to be more work than I initially thought. With a screenplay, the story is conveyed visually or in dialog, whereas in a book you go inside the characters’ minds. The approach is so different that you really can’t just “adapt” a screenplay into a novel. You have to start from scratch, with the screenplay serving only as a starting point for a new outline.   
 
If you were in Jeff’s shoes, would you have taken the same steps as him?
 
 
Almost certainly not! In chapter two, I probably would have stayed in the bedroom and waited for the police to arrive. Of course, with Jeff, everything he’s worked for, he’s struggled for, is in that house. It represents so much to him. Whereas with me, I’m more nomadic (four different addresses in the past seven years alone) and my house doesn’t mean so much to me. Also, I don’t have kids to protect.

 
Do you have an opinion on gun ownership or standing your ground?

 
 
I’m all for gun ownership—although I don’t actually own a gun.
 
In Homeowner With a Gun, the applicable law is commonly referred to as the Castle Doctrine, i.e. a man’s home is his castle and he has the right to defend it. Most states in the US have this. We have something similar in Canada, but courts here, I believe, put more onus on the homeowner to use only “necessary” or “reasonable” force, and to retreat in the face of a threat if at all possible. (In the States you generally don’t have to retreat.) If you shoot and kill an intruder up here, like Jeff does in the book, there’s a good chance this would be deemed excessive force and you’d be in serious trouble. I disagree with this. The American model is better. If someone breaks into your house, you should be able to do what you think necessary to defend yourself and your dwelling. End of story.
 
There was kind of a related case in Toronto not too long ago that caused a big outcry, where this guy kept going into a store in Chinatown and stealing stuff. The store owner finally collared the guy and locked him in a storeroom until the police arrived. The result:  the police freed the thief and charged the store owner with unlawful confinement. This is totally wrong, yet another instance of justice being turned upside down.

 
How did the cover come about?

 
 
When I was writing the screenplay, I visualized the movie title, “Homeowner With a Gun,” superimposed on the Shaw family’s front door in the opening sequence, like a warning sign. When I started writing the book, I kept this idea for the cover, then strayed from it and went with an image of a house in moonlight with the title hovering over it in the dark sky behind. I worked with this house concept for quite a while, then discarded it and went back to the door idea and hit on something I really liked.
 
I wrote a post over at TheBookDesigner.com about the design process I went through. Here’s the link: "The Cover that Wasn't and the Cover that Was"

 
According to the “also by” you’ve written quite a few nonfictions and another fiction novel, do you have a preference for the genre that you prefer to write?

 
 
No preference, really. I enjoy them both. With nonfiction, I like the research. It’s like a treasure hunt, looking for nuggets of information that will go into crafting your story. With fiction, I like the freedom to be more creative. My previous book, for example, Bad Elephant Far Stream, started out as a nonfiction story about the life of the circus elephant Topsy, electrocuted on Coney Island in 1903 (the original title was simply Bad Elephant). In order to make it really personal, however, and tell the story from Topsy’s own perspective, I ended up getting so “creative” that in the end it just became a novel. I guess I always wanted to write a novel, but needed to make this roundabout approach in order to do it.

 
What are some of the challenges you faced in writing this book as opposed to nonfiction books?

 
 
The biggest challenge is the freedom that fiction affords the author. With nonfiction, the story, i.e. the plot, is already laid down. The author’s job, through research, is to find out what it is and then to craft his or her research into a story. With fiction, what I find most challenging is the total freedom you have with the plot. I mean, there’s nothing there, no roadmap, no signposts, to guide you. You have to make everything up. This makes the process a lot harder, I find. With all my nonfiction books, the first draft required only some polishing before being published. I knew what the story was and I simply had to tell it. With my two works of fiction, on the other hand, there’s been a lot of additional work after finishing the first draft. The story was just so much more fluid and required lots of reworking (a second draft, a third draft, etc.) before I got it right.
 
Tell us about yourself. How long have you been writing, what made you decide to write, have you always wanted to be a writer?
 
 
I started out doing freelance writing for magazines and newspapers back in 1992, when I lived in Japan. But I’d always wanted to write books. A magazine or newspaper goes into the garbage tomorrow, but a book—a book is permanent, it sticks around. It’s almost a kind of immortality.
 
My first book, published in 1997, was an employment guide entitled Help Wanted: Korea. Nothing special. And the publisher promptly went out of business and the whole print run got remaindered. Then, in 1999, I started on something big, a 700-page history entitled The Imjin War: Japan’s Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China. It took four years to research and write and another two to get published (in 2005). A new edition was just released earlier this month and is selling very well. Here’s the link: "The Imjin War" on Amazon.com
 
Once I got The Imjin War completed, the creative juices were really flowing and I’ve been writing books ever since. I wrote two more books on East Asian history after that, then switched to popular nonfiction with a book on Canadian sprinter Percy Williams entitled I Just Ran, and then an account of the land speed record in the 1960s, Speed Duel. I also wrote a screenplay last year based on Speed Duel, and was out to LA earlier this year to meet with some people about it. No big break yet, but I’m hoping!

 
What book are you reading right now?

 
J.G. Ballard’s Empire of the Sun; before that, Ty Seng’s The Years of Zero, about the author’s childhood in Cambodia’s killing fields.
 
Do you have any authors or mentors that you attribute to being your biggest influences when it comes to what you write?
 
I can’t really say which writers may have influenced me. In my earlier years I read a lot of Charles Dickens and Anthony Trollope, but I don’t write anything like them today! In terms of writers I admire this days, I’d cite Paul Theroux, V.S. Naipaul, and the historical novelist Patrick O’Brian. With all three of them you come on a sentence, a single sentence that conveys so much, and you think: Wow...that is a jewel. That is perfection.

 
What’s next? Do you have any future projects?

 
The next book I have planned is a novel set in Japan in the closing days of World War 2. The title is One Hundred Million Eat Stones. I’ve written three books on East Asian history (and I lived in Japan for six years), so this sort of plays to my strength. It’s a story I’ve had in mind for many years, and I finally feel ready to write it.

 
What is one thing you could tell your fans, future and present, a teensy bit of advice, a favorite quote, anything, something to pass on, or words of inspiration?

 
“We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.” (from one of the many rejection letters Stephen King received for his first novel, Carrie)
 
 

 
Here are some relevant links regarding this book:
 
 
 








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Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Waiting on Wednesday #4







"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating!


So, for today I am going to pick this book here:



Expected publication: November 11th 2014 by Hodder & Stoughton
 
Synopsis per Goodreads:
In a small New England town, in the early 60s, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to see a striking man, the new minister. Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church. The men and boys are all a bit in love with Mrs Jacobs; the women and girls - including Jamie's mother and beloved sister - feel the same about Reverend Jacobs. With Jamie, the Reverend shares a deeper bond, based on their fascination with simple experiments in electricity.

Then tragedy strikes the Jacobs family, the preacher curses God, mocking all religious belief, and is banished from the shocked town.

Jamie has demons of his own. In his mid-thirties, he is living a nomadic lifestyle of bar-band rock and roll. Addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate, he sees Jacobs again - a showman on stage, creating dazzling 'portraits in lightning' - and their meeting has profound consequences for both men. Their bond becomes a pact beyond even the Devil's devising, and Jamie discovers that revival has many meanings. Because for every cure there is a price . . .

This rich and disturbing novel spans five decades on its way to the most terrifying conclusion Stephen King has ever written. It's a masterpiece from King, in the great American tradition of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe.
 
 
Why I want to read this:

Because, it's Stephen King, duh.  Omg though, this seems to step away from the whole Mr.Mercedes weirdness of books that he's got going on lately.  He's gone back to New England, with some spookydookyfreakydeaky stuff going on.  I can't wait to read this book, I really hope it won't disappoint me, I keep saying I wish he'd go back on drugs so we can get books like he used to write LOL







Link me up with your WWW so I can go check it out and add to my TBR pile!




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Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe- Banned Book 1




Book 1



Synopsis per Goodreads:
Selling more than 300,000 copies the first year it was published, Stowe's powerful abolitionist novel fueled the fire of the human rights debate in 1852. Denouncing the institution of slavery in dramatic terms, the incendiary novel quickly draws the reader into the world of slaves and their masters.
Stowe's characters are powerfully and humanly realized in Uncle Tom, a majestic and heroic slave whose faith and dignity are never corrupted; Eliza and her husband, George, who elude slave catchers and eventually flee a country that condones slavery; Simon Legree, a brutal plantation owner; Little Eva, who suffers emotionally and physically from the suffering of slaves; and fun-loving Topsy, Eva's slave playmate.
Critics, scholars, and students are today revisiting this monumental work with a new objectivity, focusing on Stowe's compelling portrayal of women and the novel's theological underpinnings.

Why is this book banned?
Harriet Beecher Stowe, an American author and abolitionist, wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin to depict the heartbreaking realities of slavery. The book was an instant bestseller and sparked heated debates over slavery in the United States. According to some accounts, this contributed to the divide between the North and South that led to the Civil War. When meeting Stowe, Abraham Lincoln supposedly remarked, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war."
Banned in some parts of the South, Stowe's book provoked a variety of responses from supporters and detractors. Other books were published to counter her descriptions of slave life, such as Life at the South, or, Uncle Tom's Cabin as It Is. In the twentieth century, the novel has been challenged and banned in a number of libraries and schools because of its stereotypical depictions of African Americans and use of language now considered racist.


 Why I disagree with its banning:
It was banned years ago when slavery was an issue, and a controversial matter.  It's not the case now.  It's still being challenged and banned because of the "N" word, and stereotyping.  I think that's a load of bullhonkey.  This book is part of a history that, in this day and age we find it hard to fathom what was going on through our ancestors minds.  A historical book that was written in the times of slavery, in order to create the atmosphere of racism and ownership, you simply HAVE to have the "N" word.  To have an accurate account of the past, you have to have words that were used in the past.  I personally abhor the N word, but I realize that while reading and listening to this book I am going to see it and hear it because that is simply how it was back then.  I think this book should continue getting read, if only for the fact to keep people grounded and remember that people can't be owned, it's an abomination.  Slavery and everything it stood for, and I believe that Harriet set out to accomplish opening the eyes of the people around her, splitting up slaves and their families, while boasting that you are a Christian? She accomplished that, and this book has gone down in history as one of the reasons the Civil War and emancipation even came about.  Don't smother history and hide it because of a few accurate words and descriptions of the things that occurred in the past.

 The book itself is a hard read, emotional wise.  I can't even imagine being a slave, or being sold or having my son being sold.  It's hard.  Some of the writing was a bit awful but I believe it was popular writing style for the time it was written, and it's one of my top favorite banned books, I've read it several times, and each time, it gets better. 



Up Next..
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls




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Banned Books Week!


 
 
Happy Banned Book Week! Every year I hear about banned book week but this year is when I will actively read and post about it.  I do have a few books that I need to get read for reviews and such, but for the most part I am really really hoping to read banned books this week.  A lot of them I have already read, mostly through school, many many of them have been imprinted in my mind as books that I absolutely LOVED (I know why the caged bird sings, Uncle Toms cabin, roll of thunder hear my cry, even the giving tree!)  I haven't found a really great list of one completely banned books list, mostly because there are a lot more challenged books versus banned books.

 
 
Banned books!? WHAT!?? What am I talking about you are asking?

September 21−27, 2014

Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Typically held during the last week of September, it highlights the value of free and open access to information. Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community –- librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types –- in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.

So basically if someone is upset about a book, they can challenge the book and attempt to get it banned from libraries, and schools and things like that.  And this week raises awareness on the books getting challenged, so that we may be able to stop them from being BANNED!

According to the ALA (American library association) A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others. As such, they are a threat to freedom of speech and choice.

Take a look yourself.. Frequently Challenged Books,  also Here, Here and Here and even Children's Books.  Incredible right?  Can you imagine a worked without Harry Potter?  Judy Blume? Charlottes Web? or even Wizard of Oz?  Even the classics that were forced down my throat as a high schooler.  I admit that I loved reading most of them.  I still have fond memories of Lord of the Flies, 1984, and Their Eyes Were Watching God.




I'm reading them! 
 
Some of them I'm having a hard time getting my hands on, the truly banned ones.  So I'm not sure what I will read, and when..I do know this..
My first banned book read of the week?  Uncle Toms Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
 
 





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Monday, September 22, 2014

Teaser Tuesdays/Top Off Tuesdays Double Feature #4

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)


  • Here is my Teaser:

    Synopsis per Goodreads:
    It's the middle of the night. You’re awakened by a noise. Someone is in your house. What do you do?

    When it happens at 148 Maple Drive, homeowner Jeff Shaw gets his gun and goes downstairs to investigate while his wife calls 9-1-1. It’s their home, after all. Jeff has to protect it. He finds two men in the kitchen and shoots them both. Dead.

    The incident puts great strain on Jeff and his family. He wants to believe they just need to get on with their lives and everything will return to normal. But it’s not that easy. The dead intruders belonged to a gang, ANG, “Ain’t No Game,” that now wants revenge. And one of the gang, an ex-con who goes by the name I-Man, knows more about the break-in than he’s letting on.

    It starts with a threatening phone call. Then it gets worse. The police, unable to protect the Shaws, suggest they move away for a while. But Jeff isn't going to be intimidated from his house. Homeowner With a Gun takes the reader on a suspense-filled thrill ride as this everyman fights to save himself and his family, while something a detective said plays in the back of his mind: Maybe the intruders broke into the wrong house. Happens all the time. You wouldn’t believe how often...
     
     
     
    Teaser Time:
    *I haven't started this yet, so im randomly picking a page*
    pg. 133
    He was feeling it now.  It had taken a couple hours but he was really feeling it now.  Not just saying it, but really feeling it, deep down, his face contorted with anger, his hands bunched into fists.
     
    No more fooling around.  His blood was pumping. It was up. He was ready to smash somebody.  He was ready to walk up and smash somebody right in the face and take whatever he wanted, just like he used to do when he was seventeen.  He'd been mean then.  Well, he was mean now.  It had come back to him, just like riding a bike.

     
    Ooo that's intriguing.  I need to go start this book now!


    share with me your teaser links so I can stop by and check it out :)





    and because I can't make up my mind which one I like the most, I'm participating in Top off Tuesdays too! LOL I know I know, but HEY! Eye CANDY!

    Top off Tuesday is hosted by Felicia from The
    Geeky Book Blogger's Book Blog
    , Amanda from On a Book Bender,
    and Christi from
    Smitten with Reading.
    "Every once in a while there are covers that just make you say Oh My!  Sometimes it is good, sometimes it is bad, and sometimes it is head scratching. The point of Top Off Tuesday is to show you the ones with their Tops Off!  Seriously y’all hunting out Top Off Tuesday covers is one of my favorite pastimes and you should join the fun!"~Felecia





     Synopsis per GoodReads:
    Deputy United States Marshal Mitch Knox apprehends fugitives for a living. His calm, cool, collected attitude and devastatingly handsome good looks earn him a well-deserved bad boy reputation, both in the field and out. While away on an assignment, he blows off some steam at a notorious Dallas nightclub. Solving the case that has plagued him for months takes a sudden backseat to finding out all there is to know about the gorgeous, shy blond sitting alone at the bar.

    Texas State Trooper Cody Turner is moving up the ranks, well on his way to his dream of being a Texas Ranger. While on a two-week mandatory vacation, he plans to relax and help out on his family’s farm. Mitch is the last distraction Cody needs, but the tatted up temptation that walks into the bar and steals his baseball cap is too hard to ignore.

    As Mitch’s case gains nationwide attention, how will he convince the sexy state trooper that giving him a chance won’t jeopardize his life’s plan...especially when the evil he’s tracking brings the hate directly to his doorstep, threatening more than just their careers
     
     
    Looks like it's a M/M novel! I don't care, I just want it for the cover.  I just was scrolling through my facebook and saw this cover posted, I think its on sale or something somewhere, or a giveaway, I don't know, I immediately wanted to get on and start typing my top off Tuesday after seeing that.  I'm a sucker for tats, so..yeah, I like this one.
     
     
    Link me up with your Top off Tuesday so I can go oogle!:)




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    It's Monday, What are you reading? #4





    This meme is hosted by Book Journey.


    My thoughts for this week:  This week saw me not reading as much as I wanted to, I finished up on my TBR read-a-thon Saturday.  Then on Sunday I had a spurt of reading time, I managed to finish up on some books, I pretty much have my NetGalley books cleared up, ready to request some more soon.  I'd also like to read some banned books, in honor of banned book week
    go HERE to see what I mean, so I'm hoping that next week's IMWAYR has some of that up. 
    So! Onward to my week in review...

     

    I am on #bookblogwalkers too! completed my third week, and didn't do great at all.
    #BookBlogWalkers

    Here is the Wrap-Up post for my read-a-thon that finished Saturday.

     
     
    Reviews I posted this week:
     
     
     
    Books I completed since last Monday:
     
    Audiobooks:
      
     
     
     
    Here is what I am working on now:
     
    Because of the banned book week I'm hoping to get into I hope these change.  Just have to go to the library to find some of the banned books, or figure out how to get my hands on some:)
     

    for audiobook:

     
    



    So, What books have you read this past week?  link me up and I'll be by to see what your week was like!





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