Teaser Tuesday: Craved

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly event, hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

Here are the rules: Grab your current read. Let the book fall open to a random page. Share with us two sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12. (You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your teaser from, that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!) Remember not to post anything that could spoil the plot of the post.

 '"This is their headquarters," a voice said from behind me. I dropped the clipboard and whirled around to face the potential threat. Hovering in the doorway was Bridget. She was more solid than I'd seen her before, the gray giving way to a more colorful hue. I could see the blonde in her hair and the purple on her shirt. Her eyes were filled with sadness and despair, a look I desperately wanted to forget.'

That was a little piece of Stephanie Nelson's Craved, I'm just about finished with that wonderful book and we'll have that review on Friday along with hopefully a little something from Stephanie herself! That portion was about 48% through the book.

What's your teaser today?

Mainstream Monday Mayhem

Today we have a review on Eve by Anna Carey brought to you by none other than our awesome, amazing M! We also have your very first, totally fun, random book fact for Monday Mayhem!

Did you know...

Wendy wasn't considered an actual name
until it was made up in Peter Pan! 

 

Also, Jenny Pox is FREE right now on the Kindle!

And S.W. Benefiel's Toilet Business (this sounds hilarious) is free on Smashwords!
Pitch Dark is also free on both Nook and Kindle.  This is a sampler of the following authors new books coming this fall: Kiersten White, Claudia Gray, Amy Garvey, Jocelyn Davies, and Anna Carey! Some of these books look fantastic.

Review: Eve by Anna Carey

“Where do you go when nowhere is safe?

Sixteen years after a deadly virus wiped out most of Earth’s population, the world is a perilous place. Eighteen-year-old Eve has never been beyond the heavily guarded perimeter of her school, where she and two hundred other orphaned girls have been promised a future as the teachers and artists of the New America. But the night before graduation, Eve learns the shocking truth about her school’s real purpose—and the horrifying fate that awaits her.

Fleeing the only home she’s ever known, Eve sets off on a long, treacherous journey, searching for a place she can survive. Along the way she encounters Arden, her former rival from school, and Caleb, a rough, rebellious boy living in the wild. Separated from men her whole life, Eve has been taught to fear them, but Caleb slowly wins her trust . . . and her heart. He promises to protect her, but when soldiers begin hunting them, Eve must choose between true love and her life.

In this epic new series, Anna Carey imagines a future that is both beautiful and terrifying. Readers will revel in Eve’s timeless story of forbidden love and extraordinary adventure.”

Eve is a new novel that came out at the beginning of this month.  What it was that caught my attention about this book is that before it was even out they had already started writing out the screenplay for an option as a new TV show. I just kept wondering why they would go about doing this without even knowing if it would be a hit with readers or not.  So naturally, I had to check it out.

Eve is in the top of her class.  She will soon be graduating and going on to learn her trade so that she can move to the City of Sand and work for the king, preferably as a painter.  But she soon finds that the future that she has worked so hard for is nonexistent.  Instead they’re using the graduates to repopulate the New America, which the majority of its population was wiped out by a plague.  Her only hope is the escape the school.  But outside of the school walls are wild animals, gangs, and worst of all men.  Men are only after one thing and they will manipulate or just flat out take it.

There were many parts in this book where I couldn’t put the book down, but also many points when It felt like it drew on forever. There were some questions I had with how the society worked.. such as, why would you give these women such high educations if all they are becoming are breeding machines? They’re taught that there is so much more to life but underneath the glamor, there appears to be a dark future ahead. Overall,  Eve is the first novel in a new, interesting trilogy about a dystopian society filled with action, love, friendship, and death.

My rating for this book:

Anna Carey grew up in New York and studied Creative Writing at NYU.  She eventually got her Master’s Degree in Fiction from Brooklyn College.   She is the author of the Sloane series and Eve trilogy.  To learn more about Anna Carey and her work visit http://www.annacareybooks.com/.

Weekend Roundup

This is what happened on The Ink Puddle this week (in case you missed anything...)

Monday: Making Notes on Your E-reader
Tuesday: 3 Month Update/ Memes
Wednesday: Review- Divergent by Veronica Roth
Thursday: How Blogging Changed My Life

I apologize for not making a post for Friday, I barely made it home from school on Thursday because I was so sick. I've been stuck in bed with a bottle of Nyquil, cuddling with my kitty cat. I'm slowly feeling better.

We got a new look for the blog this week. I got a little bit of feedback on what you guys thought. Everyone liking it alright?

Giveaway Info: Don't forget our Halloween Giveaway is going on! Our goal is to reach 50 followers so we need 18 more by October 31st. To get full details, click here.

I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!
-J

How Blogging Changed My Life

Not too long ago, Rachel from Parajunkie, one of my favorite book blogs out there- and super helpful for fellow book bloggers, did a post about how blogging changed her life. Today I want to share how it has changed mine as well.

1) Blogging gave me something for myself.
One of the major reasons I established The Ink Puddle was because Cory, our editor and my boyfriend, was moving to second shift with his job/ promotion. I needed something to fill my time, a hobby. And little did I know when I started this that it would become so much more than that.

2) Connecting.
Another one of my favorite things about blogging is the opportunity you get to communicate with the authors and people behind the stories. I get the chance to e-mail these people and interview, ask them to do guest blogs and even sometimes become friends. I get to watch indie authors grow from their first self-published book to hopefully someday being published. And I get to celebrate their achievements with them every step of the way.

3) A way to share my exciting book finds with people who read similiar things.
Many friends of mine don't necessarily read the same books as me. So blogging gave me a community of people who I can ramble on and on about how awesome the book I'm reading is and they totally get it, because they read it or they're reading it as well.

4) Accomplishment.
It's so exciting to know that I'm writing something that people want to read and that really helps them out. So much so that I've even changed what I'm going to college for to a double major: Elementary Education and English with a focus in writing.

5.) By decreasing my fear of failure. Expanding my comfort zone and pushing me.
Let's face it, when you start a blog, you don't know if it's actually going to go anywhere. All you can do is try and network and post everyday and keep your fingers crossed that you come in contact with other people as passionate as your topic as you are. You learn when something works and something doesn't, and when something doesn't work, you change things up a bit.

These are the ways that blogging has changed my life (in no particular order).
What has blogging done for you?

Bam! A whole new look!

What do you guys think of The Ink Puddle's makeover?

Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

“In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself...."

I have had a sample of Divergent on my nook all summer long.  It a list of books I found on the internet that I had planned to read.  But as usual I was my difficult self, not wanting to read something new simply because I’m positive it won’t be good.  And as usual, though I’m pleased, I was wrong.  

Beatrice Prior has always known that she doesn’t quite fit in with her faction, Abnegation, in fact sometimes she guiltily catches herself being flat out selfish.  When she takes the aptitude test they day before the choosing ceremony, her thoughts are more than confirmed.  Because she showed qualities of multiple factions her aptitude test came back with a shocking and deadly answer, Divergent.  Luckily, it’s against the law to discuss your results with anyone.  Beatrice doesn’t choose her faction until she’s called during the ceremony.  During initiation she changes her name to Tris and makes friends, something that she’s never had before and begins to consider where she is to be home.  That is until she discovers that things aren’t as perfect as they seem.

Divergent is a book that challenges society as a whole to to accept that you can have more than one great quality. Just as Beatrice struggles with her emotions from being insensitive to at one point risking her life for another. Although the summary is a bit twisted and confused, this is a book you just have to read and be thrown into a brand new world to accept. Divergent is a dystopian full of excitement, secrets, friendship, and the ongoing struggle between what’s right and what’s wrong or maybe just what’s right for a single person. Read this and you'll be itching for the sequel coming in 2012.

My Rating for this Book:

 

Veronica Roth graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in creative writing.  Divergent was her first novel, and a pretty amazing way to start a career might I add.  The sequel to Divergent will be released sometime around May 2012.  To learn more about Veronica visit www.veronicarothbooks.com or follow her on twitter @VeronicaRoth.

You guys going to check this one out?  Do it.  You won’t regret.