Tag: Kiersten White

Book Review: My True Love Gave to Me by Stephanie Perkins, Rainbow Rowell and More!

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20309175Genre: 

Young Adult, help  Romance

Pages: 

321

Part of a Series?:

Standalone Novel

Release Date: 

October 14th, cialis 40mg 2014

You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Book Depository

Author’s Website

GoodReads Summary: 

If you love holiday stories, holiday movies, made-for-TV-holiday specials, holiday episodes of your favorite sitcoms and, especially, if you love holiday anthologies, you’re going to fall in love with My True Love Gave To Me: Twelve Holiday Stories by twelve bestselling young adult writers, edited by international bestselling author Stephanie Perkins. Whether you enjoy celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah, Winter Solstice or New Year’s there’s something here for everyone. So curl up by the fireplace and get cozy. You have twelve reasons this season to stay indoors and fall in love.

My Review:

When I met Stephanie Perkins back in September for the second time, she briefly mentioned this collection of stories and so I knew I would have to read it. Its chock full of stories by incredible YA authors and its all about romance and Christmas. Well, when Christmas came, it was too hard for me to read it. Christmas was rough for me. But I just got in the mood to read it about a week ago and I thought, well, let’s extend Christmas a little longer ;)

I really liked it! There were some stories that I loved more than others but in general, I thought it was cute. Its a great holiday read. I know Rainbow’s story was SUPER cute, and it made me want a full novel with those characters. One of them was kind of supernatural and was little weird, I can’t remember who wrote it, but that one was weird. But for the most part, I thought they were all kind of cute, and fluffy and it was the kind of book you read when you want to curl up by the fire (people do that right? Not in California haha) and drink tea and enjoy something that’ll just make you happy. And its probably a really great book to read during the holidays.

The only real problem I had with it was…it took me longer to read it than I would have expected, mostly because it didn’t have that…how do I describe it? It didn’t have that hook that kept you glued to the pages until the end, because you’re dying to find out what happened next. As soon as I felt like I was getting involved in the story, or attached to the characters, or that sort of thing, it ended! And then I had to read a new story. I liked the idea, and I liked the collection but I don’t think that short story books are really for me. I need a hook that keeps me frantically turning the pages until the end and this book just didn’t have that.

In general I really did like it though. I especially liked Rainbow’s story, and Jenny’s, Stephanie’s, Gayle’s, and David’s. Those in particular stories really sounded like the authors that wrote them so it was awesome to read these short stories from authors that I love so much. Some of those stories were just SO good that I wanted more!

Rating: 

3.5 out of 5 stars

Meeting Josie Angelini, Stephanie Perkins, Natalie Whipple, Kiersten White, Sarah J Maas, Gretchen McNeil and Anna Carey!

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Also, prostate an appropriate title for this blog post would be “I’ve Neglected my Blog and I’ve Done a TON of Author Events in the Past Week…”

September has been quite a busy month for me, cost personal stuff aside. It feels like EVERYONE has released a book this month and decided to come to California. Which I’m not complaining about at all. I love when authors come here, patient especially ones that I’ve seen before, like a lot of the ones you see in the title above. Authors make me happy!

First, last week, I met Josie Angelini again. She’s SUCH a sweetheart and she totally remembered me from ALA and Fierce Reads in Vegas back in July. Her newest release, Trial By Fire, is out now and its absolutely incredible. It blew me away and I loved being able to finally tell her that! When I saw her at ALA, I had just started it so I didn’t have much to say. She brought us cupcakes (OMG Sprinkles…) and signed our books and looked so absolutely adorable with her preggers belly.

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Josie Angelini!

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Mini cupcakes from Sprinkles!

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SO fun.

Then a few days later, I headed down with my friends Alex and Cassie to Oceanside, about an hour drive away, to see Kiersten White at her book launch for Illusions of Fate with special guests, Stephanie Perkins and Natalie Whipple. We headed down early, grabbed some lunch and spent WAY too much money on books.

All of the authors were incredible. I haven’t read anything by Kiersten or Natalie but they just blew me away. They had great advice and they talked a lot about writing. I had actually just gotten a rejection from one of the agents I had queried and was feeling kind of crappy. But they talked so much about writing, the struggle, the up and down emotions that come with it, and all of that. It meant a lot to hear all of that.

I got my books signed, chatted up the authors, talked about writing and books and we headed home. I fangirled just a *little* bit when Stephanie asked about my book and what it was about. Maybe, just maybe, one day she’ll read it!

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Stephanie Perkins

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Natalie Whipple

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Kiersten White

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Oh yeah, and I got carried away and bought two other books. Not that I needed them but pssh, I’ve been dying to buy lots of books lately. Book shopping is fantastic therapy. I’m just saying.

Then this past Saturday, I met Sarah J Maas for the third or fourth time. I’ve honestly forgotten how many times I’ve met her. Probably because we always laugh and joke about our names because they’re the same except for one small letter. She was doing a signing at a Costco nearby and also at the Barnes and Noble, the Americana. I’ve been avoiding the Americana since the Gayle Forman event, because they’re just so massively unorganized so I decided getting my Heir of Fire signed at Costco was the best way to go.

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Probably laughing at how much crap we give each other for our names haha. I love this picture so much.

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Then last night, I headed down to the Last Bookstore in Los Angeles for a launch party. If you’ve never been to the Last Bookstore, its a must when you hit LA. Its such an incredible indie bookstore and its just straight up beautiful. I love it. Gretchen McNeil and Anna Carey were having a launch party for their new releases, Get Even and Blackbird, respectively.

There were free drinks, cupcakes, and laughs to be had. I chatted with lots of authors that I know and love like Jessica Brody, Leigh Bardugo, Morgan Matson, Jennifer Bosworth, Ann Stampler and more. I adore them all. I love how many author friends I’ve made and I love that I see them so often, supporting each other.

I’ve already read Gretchen’s new book and I grabbed a couple books by Anna, including her new release, because I’ve heard she’s great.

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Anna Carey and Gretchen McNeil :D

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Me and Anna Carey

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Me and the absolutely adorable, wonderful and unforgettable Gretchen McNeil :)

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My books PLUS a sneak peek of Get Dirty, the sequel to Get Even. After stalking Gretchen at WonderCon to get my hands on an ARC of Get Even, I am anxiously awaiting the sequel with much impatience.

So that was the craziness of my last week and a half! LOTS of authors and it only gets more exciting in the next couple weeks, including RJ Palacio, Kami Garcia, and more. Check back soon for more and thanks, as always, for reading, and supporting me!

Hope to see some of you at some events soon!

******

L.A. Times Festival of Books 2014: Day One and Day Two Recap Vlogs!

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Guys, doctor I just had SUCH an amazing weekend. This weekend was the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at U.S.C., where the entire weekend is dedicated to the amazing culture of reading. It’s one of my favorite weekends of this year, and this year was no disappointment.

There was a team of five us: me, Sylvia from Fangirl Feeels, our friends Cassandra and Alexandra and my sister, Jessica. We had our game plans, and despite minor hiccups along the way, we managed to do everything that we wanted to do.

I met (and met again, for some) amazing authors this weekend: John Green (OHMYGOD), Rainbow Rowell, Lauren Oliver, Marissa Meyer, Sarah J Maas, Robin Benway, Veronica Roth, Lauren Myracle, Leigh Bardugo, Deb Caletti, Kiersten White, Andrew Smith and Stephanie Perkins.

But I won’t keep you from seeing my awesome vlogs. I vlogged while at the Fest so you get some pretty awkward and hilarious moments from me, a short video of my conversation with John Green and…lots of awkwardness haha.

Check it out!

Day One!

Day Two!

Yay! I hope you enjoyed seeing the awesomeness that was my weekend!

I managed to grab extra copies of Cinder, Anna and the French Kiss and Fangirl for a giveaway. There will NOT be a giveaway for the month of April (as of now), but there is a HUGE giveaway coming for my Blog Birthday in May so keep an eye out to see how you can get your hands on these books!

Oh! And don’t forget you can check out ALL the pictures on the What A Nerd Girl Says Facebook page here!

Happy Reading Everyone!

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