Day Ten.

Posted on March 13, 2015 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

Hi 🙂

I am so glad it is Friday! I am looking forward to a weekend of catching up on sleep and reading. The work week went by really fast, but it was also really busy at work. I definitely got overwhelmed a lot with work this week and took it out on my books by not reading as much as I usually do. Earlier today I did my Friday Finds post and you can check it out over here in case you missed it. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a post about some of the books I added to my to be read list this week. 🙂 Onto day ten…

Day 10: Favorite childhood book.

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Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar. I loved this book as a kid. It was so fun and filled with so many amazing things! I remember one of my teachers would read a chapter to us every week from this book. It was one of the greatest parts of going to school as a kid. I still think Mrs. Gorf is scary! I sadly don’t remember exactly everything in the book, because it has been SOOOOOO long since I have read it. I am going to do a reread of it; I want to relive part of my childhood and the book is so great. I think every kid should read this book or every parent should read this book to their kids! I still have a copy of it and I have to be careful with the pages, because it’s so old. I love it though. 🙂

Last year I read the first chapter of this book to my niece and nephew, because I wanted them to experience this amazing book. I took this picture last year of my nephew Jackson. He was totally into the book and it was a proud moment for me, lol.

^^^ I am still totally excited about the book! 😉 ^^^
What is one of your favorite childhood books? Let me know in the comments! 🙂

You can also check out my day nine post about a book I didn’t think I would like, but ended up loving over here.

30 Day Book Challenge // Day Six.

Posted on March 9, 2015 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

Hi 🙂

Jumping back on the 30 day book challenge! I decided I would do the posts Monday-Friday. I know that’s not exactly 30 days straight, but oh well!

Day 06: Favorite book of your favorite series OR your favorite book of all time.

Since I have done my favorite book of all time already (check it out over here), I am going to go with my favorite book of my favorite series. The Divergent series is my favorite series, but Insurgent was my favorite book out of them all. I felt like there was so much information and action jam packed into Insurgent and it was great! So much unfolded in the book and it was the book that was the hardest for me to put down. The way that it ended made it that much harder to wait the year for Allegiant.

This is going to be a short post, because I really want to go read. I’m finally starting to get more into The Glass Arrow and wanting to find out what happens next. I’m hoping this means the end of my mini-reading slump. I’m crossing my fingers, because I got approved for some Netgalley books that I really want to read, so I am hoping to get to those soon. I also have a bunch of books I bought recently that I want to get to. I’m itching for something new, so I am getting excited about all the books I bought.

I completely forgot I ordered bookmarks on Etsy until I got them in the mail today! I was so excited about it and it was a nice surprise. Bookmarks of a fangirl.

Sherlock, Supernatural, Doctor Who

ColbyJack (my kitten) scratched up my other Doctor Who bookmark (ughhh), so I ordered a different one. Well, I am off to hangout with my younger sister for a little while and then read until the boyfriend gets home. 🙂 bye!

30 Day Book Challenge // Day Four.

Posted on March 5, 2015 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

Hi 🙂
Here to post day four of the 30 day book challenge that I am doing this month. It’s actually been kind of fun doing these posts and reliving and thinking about all these books again.

Day 04: Your favorite book or series ever.

The Divergent series. I am going with my favorite series ever since my last post I did my favorite book. It’s also day four…fits perfectly to the post. 😉 I was looking for a new series to read after I read The Hunger Games and I came across this on Amazon. Amazon decided that because I read THG, I might like Divergent. They were correct! I instantly fell in love with the book and I rushed to buy Insurgent. I finished the first two books in a matter of days! I told my boyfriend and my mom how amazing they were and I got them to love the books. Next, I told my friend Alex about it and he was hooked. I told anyone and everyone; and everyone I told I got them hooked to the books. I felt like I was so cool because I got everyone hooked on these amazing books. Basically me after reading Divergent & Insurgent…

WONDERFUL STORY

And then the waiting game. The FOREVER waiting game for Allegiant.
All the count downs, days, months, over a YEAR.
Pre-ordering and more waiting.
Staying up until after midnight waiting for it to finally download to my iPad.
Facebook messaging Alex about waiting.
Fangirling with Alex about it.
Listening to Veronica Roth read the first chapter.
Alex and I freaking out because it wasn’t downloading!
WHY WASN’T IT DOWNLOADING AT MIDNIGHT LIKE IT WAS SUPPOSED TO!?
It finally downloaded and of course Facebooking and Instagraming a picture about finally having it!
Staying up two hours later after it downloaded to read some of it even though I had to get up for work four hours later.
Getting so close to the ending and trying to stall as much as possible from reading it because I didn’t want it to end.
And then…the tears, so many tears.
Basically me after reading finishing the series….

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I loved everything about this series. The story was perfect and the characters were so great! I’m actually kind of sad that I don’t know the hard copies of these books yet. Most of the books I own are on Kindle (110 books on Kindle), but I plan on buying the complete series soon. No bookcase is complete without these books. I’m sure a lot of people have read the books and if you haven’t, you really should! The Divergent series was everything. Definitely my number one favorite series. Well done, so well done.

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In case you missed it, you can check out my day three post about my favorite book that I read in the last 12 months over here. 🙂 Off to work for me.

Have you read the Divergent series? If so, what did you think about it? What’s your favorite series?

30 Day Book Challenge // Day Three.

Posted on March 4, 2015 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

Hi 🙂

I figured I would do my day three before I have to leave for work. I am so tired this morning. My furbabies woke me up really early and I didn’t go to sleep last night until really late. My dog went back to sleep (lucky him) and my kitten is non-stop crying because he broke his toy. Anyway…

Day 03: The best book you’ve read in the last 12 months.

Psycho by Robert Bloch. I briefly mentioned this book in my last post for my Top Ten Tuesday about my all-time favorite books. I had never read the book or seen the movie before, but last March I was watching the show Bates Motel on Netflix and I fell in love with the show after the first episode. I decided not to continue to watch the show until I read the book. The show is like a contemporary prequel for Psycho the movie, which is based off the book. Last October I found the movie for $5 and bought it. I still haven’t fully watched the movie yet though. I watched about half and then got busy and forgot to watch the other half.

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It’s a short read that’s a little over 200 pages, but it is SO GOOD. I read the book in a day and it instantly became my number one favorite book. I am really into serial killers, murders, and court type stuff. I used to only watch the Investigation Discovery channel on TV. I also had this crazy obsession with Charles Manson. I guess it’s interesting because stuff like that can really happen, it has happened and probably will continue to happen. So it’s scary, because it could be real life and you know, real life can be scary sometimes.

This was a book that I couldn’t put down and the ending is an OH MY GOD type ending. Psycho is a great read and I would most likely reread it a million times and never get bored of it. If you want a book that you can’t put down and that keeps you interested the entire way through, read Psycho. You lose track of time and I love when a book can do that to you.

I’m going to post Goodreads’ description of the book and Amazon’s description. I like both descriptions, but I felt like Goodreads didn’t give enough.

Goodreads: “It was a dark and stormy night when Mary Crane glimpsed the unlit neon sign announcing the vacancy at the Bates motel. Exhausted, lost, and at the end of her rope, she was eager for a hot shower and a bed for the night. Her room was musty but clean and the plumbing worked. Norman Bates, the manager, seemed nice, if a little odd.”

Amazon: “Norman Bates loves his Mother. She has been dead for the past twenty years, or so people think. Norman knows better though. He has lived with Mother ever since leaving the hospital in the old house up on the hill above the Bates motel. One night Norman spies on a beautiful woman that checks into the hotel as she undresses. Norman can’t help but spy on her. Mother is there though. She is there to protect Norman from his filthy thoughts. She is there to protect him with her butcher knife.”

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I should finish getting ready for work now. It’s only Wednesday, blehh. I love my job though, but lately I have been getting maybe five hours of sleep a night, so I am really tired lately. You can see my day two post over here about a series I wish more people were reading/talking about. I hope everyone has a great day!

Have you read Psycho? If so, what did you think about it? Have you seen the movie? What’s your favorite book?

Top Ten Tuesday: All Time Favorite Books.

Posted on March 3, 2015 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Top Ten Books You Would Classify As ALL TIME FAVORITE BOOKS from the past 3 years (you can extend it to 5 if you need to).

So this was really hard to do! It was hard to choose my all time favorite books I’ve read over the last three years. I loved so many of the books I read. I almost didn’t want to do this TTT this week, because I just couldn’t decide! I do want to say though that I read all of the Percy Jackson books (The Heroes of Olympus and Percy Jackson & the Olympians series) and I would have included them, but then my TTT list would have been only those, because I loved them all so much!

I was also a little confused by the topic; so I decided to go with books I’ve read over the last three years (not necessarily ones that were released within that time frame). Anyway! There might be some repeats from my post from January when I did my top five non-series books. I didn’t want to use all of the same ones from that post, but I did use a few. These aren’t in any order. Goodreads links in the covers.

Insurgent by Veronica Roth
Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
The Maze Runner by James Dashner
Psycho by Robert Bloch
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom
Take Me With You by Catherine Ryan Hyde
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

I won’t talk about all of the books, but I’ll talk about a few; especially if they weren’t on my January post. I linked it at the beginning of this post if you want to check it out. I’ll link you to my post about Take Me With You too.

I watched the first episode of the TV show Bates Motel last March and absolutely loved the show, so I stopped watching after the first episode to read the book Psycho (which I read in a day) and I loved the book so much. It’s now labeled as my favorite book EVER. I could not put it down. I am excited that next Monday season three of Bates Motel starts. 🙂

Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children was such a great book (and of course Hollow City was too!). I got my older sister to love them just as much as I did. I love all the pictures that were included in the book and a lot of the pictures were kind of scary and creepy. I jumped a few times reading the book, because I heard a noise outside during certain parts of the book, lol.

I love the Divergent series and The Hunger Games series so much, but the second book of each series (Insurgent & Catching Fire) were my absolute favorites. The Maze Runner (I love the entire series, but I really loved the first book). I read each book in a day. I also really loved The Kill Order; it was nice being able to see what happened before the maze.The Book Thief was definitely a top favorite book of mine. I also really enjoyed the movie too. I think it came out pretty good.

This post turned out so much longer than I thought it would. SO sorry! Have a cute picture to make up for it! The kitten and the pup. ColbyJack was trying so hard to cuddle with Dax. 😉

Today is my birthday and my kitten is eating the tissue paper from the gift my older sister got me, so I need to go take that away from him. I also need to get to work! I’ll have my 30 day book challenge day two up later today. You can check out day one over here in case you missed it. 🙂

What are some of your all time favorite books? Or link me to your post!

A favorite series.

Posted on January 28, 2015 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

It is so hard to pick a favorite series. I loved so many that I have read so far. I’ve mentioned it before that I usually always find myself reading series books. Here is a series that I loved so much and plan to read again.

Book 1: The Giver
Book 2: Gathering Blue
Book 3: Messenger
Book 4: Son

These books were so great for being so short! I read them all except Son in a day (a day each book). I loved the entire story and how they came together in the end. Honestly, after I read The Giver and started the next one, I was so confused. It didn’t start off where The Giver left off. It was a new set of characters and a new story. I went into the series without reading the descriptions (besides the first book), so I honestly had no idea.

I’m glad I continued reading the books though, because every story plays a part in the bigger picture and it was fantastic! (as the ninth doctor would say) 😉 It comes together nicely and I love the way that it turns out in the end. I was a little disappointed with the very ending of Son; I wanted more!

Messenger tore me apart though! My older sister and I both. I think I cried as much as I cried after I read Allegiant. You just get so attached to the characters and they become a part of you. I thought about this book days and days after I read it. Here is the picture I took after I read Messenger. lol.

My Instagram caption said how it made me a wreck and how I didn’t think another book could do that to me after Allegiant. lol. Anyway! The Giver Quartet by Lois Lowry was so great and I loved every single book! Read them, you’ll love them! – at least I really hope you love them. ❤

What is one of your favorite series?

Top 5 non-series books.

Posted on January 18, 2015 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

I love a good series. I always find myself wanting to read series books. I’ve been looking more into single books and trying to read more of those. These are not in any order; below are my top five favorites. Eightysixed: Life Lessons Learned. I learned of this book because the author Emily Belden commented on one of my pictures on Instagram suggesting that I should check it out. I went on Goodreads and read what it was about and I instantly decided to buy it! It had me laughing out loud and tearing up. I would have never read this on my own had she not suggested it, to be honest. I’m glad she did; it was a great read. We Have Always Lived in the Castle. I was scrolling through Pinterest, like I do every day (addicted, remember?) and I came across this book. I was drawn to it by the cover of the book. It looked like it would be interesting, so I bought it. It was such a strange book, but in the best possible way. I highly recommend this book to everyone. The Time Keeper. Mitch Albom is one of my favorite authors, so it was no question that I was going to read this book. I counted down the days and the wait was well worth it. It really made me question things in life and it had me thinking about it days after I’ve read it and I still do. I absolutely loved this book and read it in a day. The Book of Lost Things. I randomly found this book on Pinterest and added it to my “to be read” list. It sat on that list for awhile. I finally decided to get to it and I am so glad that I did. This is one of my all time favorite books I’ve ever read! That’s huge to say, but it totally is! The storyline is great and I love the twists of different fairy tales that are put into it. It’s so amazing and it’s a book that I would read a million times over and over. The Witch’s Daughter. I wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to feel about this when I came across it. When I read the description it did sound interesting. I decided to give it a chance after it was on my “to be read” list for awhile and I decided that I would go through my list and read the books that have been on there the longest. I ended up loving the book so much. It switches back and forth between 1628 (when being a witch was against the law and they were trying to find and kill witches) and present day. It was definitely a great read.