Broken Hearts, Fences and Other Things to Mend Book Challenge!

May 30, 2014April 10, 20201 Comment

For those of you who may not know, about it I was lucky enough this year to become part of the Fierce Reads Street Team. I was SO incredibly excited about this because I adore Fierce Reads and all the amazing authors that are a part of it. I was even more excited when I was asked to help promote Katie Finn (aka Morgan Matson) and her new contemporary YA novel, Broken Hearts, Fences and Other Things to Mend.

I was sent a challenge to complete for this book, so I definitely want to do it. Check out the synopsis for the book first:

Summer, boys, and friendships gone sour. This new series has everything that perfect beach reads are made of!

Gemma just got dumped and is devastated. She finds herself back in the Hamptons for the summer—which puts her at risk of bumping into Hallie, her former best friend that she wronged five years earlier. Do people hold grudges that long?

When a small case of mistaken identity causes everyone, including Hallie and her dreamy brother Josh, to think she’s someone else, Gemma decides to go along with it.

Gemma’s plan is working (she’s finding it hard to resist Josh), but she’s finding herself in embarrassing situations (how could a bathing suit fall apart like that!?). Is it coincidence or is someone trying to expose her true identity? And how will Josh react if he finds out who she is?

Katie Finn hits all the right notes in this perfect beginning to a new summer series: A Broken Hearts & Revenge novel.

You can check out my spoiler free review here!

Now on to the challenge!

Gemma or Hallie?

As much I love both of these characters, and the sort of balancing each other out they do and the antics they get into it, I have to say Gemma. I don’t know if its because we’re in Gemma’s head, but I just adore her. I love that she’s stumbling along, trying to do the right things but not always accomplishing that. I love that she knows she makes mistakes and that she tries to fix them, but sometimes, she also messes that up. She’s a very real character and I adore her.

Favorite Character?

Oh that’s so hard! I loved so many of the characters in this book. AGH. How dare you make me pick! This is too hard. Sigh. I think I’d have to choose…Sophie. Sophie doesn’t have a ton of “screen” time because she’s back home while Gemma is in the Hamptons with her father, but when she is, she’s fantastic. She’s the kind of best friend that we would wish to have. She’s fun, and she’s ready to step into her best friend duties at any moment. When Gemma is like “I’m you and you’re me”, she just goes with it. She questions it, like a real best friend, but she gives in and helps in every where she can, and she’s just awesome. She’s so much fun. I love Sophie!

Gemma Fancast:

“We still had brown hair and freckles, but Sophie tended to cover hers with make-up, and her hair was cut in a stylish, choppy bob while mine was kind of long and shapeless.”

The first person I thought of was Sarah Hyland because, yes, she’s absolutely pretty but she’s also fun, and sort of fun looking. You look at Sarah and you think, she’s going to be so much fun to hang out with. She would be a really great fit for Gemma. The only thing she doesn’t have is the height for Gemma but she has a good look and I think she’d capture her personality so well that it wouldn’t matter :)

Favorite Quote:

This just makes me laugh, just thinking about it. It just hints at the absolutely fun hijinks that this book is.

I also like a quote from the beginning of the novel:

“I could never remember the details of the documentaries Teddy wanted to watch. All I knew was that they were never the ones I wanted to see, which were mostly about penguins.”

And I swear, it has NOTHING to do with my obsession of penguins ;)

Hallie Fancast:

“She had the same eyes, green and almond-shaped. Her hair was a slightly darker shade of the bright blond I remembered, but it was still long and curly, and it flowed over her shoulders and down her back.”

I’m not going to lie, I literally googled young blonde actresses because I didn’t quite know who to pick and Maika Monroe popped up. She has this fun, beautiful look to her and she’s how I’d imagine that Hallie looked. I think Hallie has this beauty and confidence about her, something that both intimates and attracts Gemma to her, and you can see that in just this picture alone.

Broken Hearts, Fences and Other Things to Mend Theme Songs

Here are some songs that I enjoyed listening to during the summer, and they are the ones that immediately came to my mind when reading it. I don’t know that they have anything directly to do with Broken Hearts, but they’re very summer songs, and they are what I thought of. These are two songs that I listened to when I was about Gemma’s age!

Boys of Summer – The Ataris

Yellowcard – Ocean Avenue

Josh Fancast

“He had light brown hair, cut short, and eyes that looked greenish, but that might have just been because he was wearing a pale green T-shirt. He had dark eyelashes and eyebrows and though it was hard to tell because I was sitting, but it looked like he was a few inches taller than me, which meant he was pretty tall.”

Lucas Till. I think he’s absolutely adorable, you can believe him as the brother of Maika and he would make a really great Josh. He looks like a boy who belongs on the beaches of the Hamptons. Plus I just have a massive crush on him, and its my fancast, so a girl can dream! Haha!

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I hope you enjoyed learning more about Broken Hearts and that you’ll make sure to check it out and grab yourself a copy! Katie Finn is constantly on the road, promoting her books, as either Katie or Morgan, so definitely look out for her, and this awesome book.

And watch out tomorrow for my Top Ten Reasons to Read Broken Hearts!

TMI Read-a-Thon: Favorite City of Ashes Quotes!

May 2, 2014May 2, 2014Leave a comment

Hello everyone! I am currently hosting a TMI Read-a-Thon, sales re-reading all the books of the Mortal Instruments series in anticipation of the release of City of Heavenly Fire. You can join in by clicking this link.

Every Friday, viagra dosage for the next couple weeks, treatment I’ll be posting my favorite quotes from each Mortal Instruments Book!

As this is my first week, of course, these are all my favorite quotes from City of Ashes.

Enjoy! And make sure to share yours in the comments!

Tuesday Top Ten-Favorite City of Ashes Moments!

April 30, 2014April 30, 2014Leave a comment

I realize, viagra dosage of course, this web that it is Wednesday so the whole Tuesday part of the title is a little untrue. I was cleaning my room today, web and well, I guess I got a….book lover injury. I was lifting a stack of books, I kid you not, and I hurt my back. I’ve literally been in bed the rest of the day and I haven’t been able to move all day. I’ve been so massively uncomfortable. So not only do these books hurt me, you know, emotionally and mentally, but also physically .

Only me, guys. Only I would be rendered completely useless by a stack of books haha.

But now I’ve realized that I’m not going to get any more comfortable than I already am (not) so I might as well write this post because I promised!

This is part of my TMI Read-a-Thon, which I hope that you can join in on! You can check out the post here.

Now let’s count down my favorite moments from the City of Ashes novel!

10. When We Meet Maia

I love Maia and I don’t think we get to see enough of Maia in the books and I don’t think that Maia gets enough credit. It was awesome to get another girl in this book besides just Clary and Isabelle. I love the confidence that Maia has and I love that she’s a female Downworlder. She’s tough, but emotional. I love everything about her. I love that we are in her head when we first meet, so we get her back story with her brother, Daniel, and her ex-boyfriend who turned her into a werewolf. I love that she becomes so important. I really don’t think she gets enough

“Maia never trusted beautiful boys, which was why she hated Jace Wayland the first time she ever laid eyes on him.”

9. When Jace Defies His Father

I think this is an ultimate moment and I don’t know that people really stop to appreciate how incredibly hard it is for Jace to do this. Valentine is the bad guy. Of course, he is. We, as the reader, see the absolutely horrible things that he’s done, is doing and plans to do. But for Jace…this is the man who raised him. He may have done so harshly but that doesn’t stop Jace from loving him, and from having an affection for him. For the first ten years of his life, Valentine was all he knew. He taught him, made him the person that he is, and Jace loves him, and was conditioned to obey him. To defy his father was a huge choice that he had to make even if it was the right one. I thought it was a beautiful moment in the story and a beautiful, growing moment for Jace.

“He must have been pretty pissed when you said no,” Alec observed.

Jace looked up from his bleeding wrists and stared. “What?”

“I said–“

“I know what you said. What makes you think I said no?”

“Well, you did. Didn’t you?”

8. When Imogen Herondale Dies for Jace

I think I appreciate this moment a whole lot more once we find out the real truth of Jace’s parentage. At the time, I was baffled by it. I couldn’t understand how this woman who showed so much hatred and disdain and disrespect toward Jace could suddenly jump in front of him, and get killed by a demon. It absolutely blew my mind. But when we realize that she is his biological grandmother, that the line of Herondale is not over, I think its a beautiful moment. She is the first person, besides Valentine, Hodge and Jocelyn, who figures out the truth about him and she jumps in front of him, to save the last bit of her son, Stephen, that she has left. Agh. I’m getting emotional just thinking about it .

Breath hissed through the Inquisitor’s teeth. “It can’t be,” she murmured. “You can’t be–“

7. When Simon Becomes a Vampire

I know that some people probably don’t like that part, and that they would have rather had Simon live as a mundane or die, period but I think that him becoming a vampire was almost necessary. Simon, to me, was just never going to be able to keep up with the Shadow world. He was a mundane, no matter how much I really liked him, and a mundane just didn’t fit into that world. I think that by becoming a vampire, he was better fit into the world, even as a Downworlder. I also think that it weirdly gave him confidence and it helped for him to gain the respect of Jace and Alec and others. I liked when Simon became a vampire. I really felt like he belonged in the story from that moment on.

“Now what?” said Isabelle, with a hard edge to her voice. “Now he’ll die?”

“And rise again. Now he will be a vampire.”

6. When Jace Jumps out of the Malachi Configuration

Seriously there’s not much to say about this part except it makes Jace a total badass. And it hints at what the Seelie Queen said about him and Clary being Valentine’s little experiments. Jace is capable of so much, if only he gives himself the chance to believe in himself. So yeah. Jace is just a badass in this scene.

“I am Valentine’s arrow,” Jace whispered. “Whether he knows it or not.” And he jumped.

5. When Maryse Asks the Inquisitor to Release her Son

I wish Jace had been there at that moment to see this. Because Maryse is seen as hard, and unyielding, as the leader of the Lightwood family and the one that got them involved with Valentine and the Circle in the first place but I always believed that there was so much more to her. She had three children and she took in Jace, and I believed she loved each and every single one of them. Even when she was telling Jace to leave, all I could think of was that she loved him so much that she couldn’t bear to think of him as Valentine’s child. So the moment that she stands up to Imogen and tells her to release her son, I felt like cheering. This is a huge part of the reason why I call him Jace Lightwood and not Jace Herondale. His family is the Lightwoods, and Maryse proves that here.

“And the first thing you’re going to do is free my son from that accursed Malachi Configuration.”

4. When Jace Lets Simon Drink His Blood

Can we just address the fact that these two barely tolerate each other, if like each other, and they’re in constant competition over Clary. I keep thinking, they’d like each other more if they weren’t both fighting for the love in Clary’s heart. So when Jace discovers that Simon is not dead, and he immediately cuts into his skin to save him…I was just blown away. I mean, I didn’t think that Jace would leave him for dead, but the fact that he immediately saved him, without any thought or pause, I was just like, jesus, Jace. He spends the entire series doing the right thing, even through his flaws and mistakes, and he doesn’t even realize it. The relationship between Jace and Simon definitely changes here.

He leaned down, pressed his bleeding wrist against Simon’s mouth. “Drink my blood, idiot,” he whispered. “Drink it.”

3. When Clary Creates the Fearless Rune

Of course, this scene is incredibly important to me. I have the fearless rune permanently tattooed on my shoulder. This scene, the creation of this rune, is near and dear to my heart. But there’s more to that, of course. I love that we are beginning to see the abilities that Clary has. I love that Jace is thinking of the Fear demon, and what he’ll need to get past it. I love that when Alec gets the Rune put on him, he immediately becomes fearless. But I love the best that they don’t need the rune to be fearless, that they learn to accept their fears and to get past it. I think that’s why the fearless rune means so much to me. You can’t be fearless; there’s no way. But you can accept and conquer them and deal with them, and I think everyone does that.

The pencil moved. She was almost sure that she hadn’t moved it, but it slid across the paper, describing a single line. She felt her heart skip. She thought of her mother, sitting dreamily before her canvas, creating her own vision of the world in ink and oil paint. She thought, Who I am? I am Jocelyn Fray’s daughter. The pencil moved again, and this time her breath caught; she found she was whispering the word, under her breath, “Fearless. Fearless.” The pencil looped back up, and now she was guiding it rather than being guided by it. When she was done, she set the pencil down and gazed for a moment, wonderingly, at the result.

2. When Clary Uses the “Open” Rune

Clary literally destroys an entire ship! AN ENTIRE FREAKIN SHIP! With one massively powerful rune. She is the one that saves the day, the untrained mundane-Shadowhunter girl. The one that people tend to overlook over and over and over again. The only people that always believe in her are Jace and Simon and they both believe in her at that moment and she explodes. She annihilates. She’s beautiful and powerful and incredible and she saves the lives of so many people. And its only book two. Its like, what on earth is this girl capable of? what is she going to do next?

Clary staggered to her feet. “That’s not what it says,” she whispered. “It says open.”

1. The Seelie Court Scene

I mean, duh. I love incest as much the next person ;) Seriously, I fell massively in love with Jace in the first book and I was like, chanting, “Clace, Clace, Clace” the entire first book. When you find out they are brother and sister, it felt like the sickest, cruelest joke ever. So when this moment happens in the Seelie Court, where they are forced to kiss and forced to confront their feelings for each other, head on, I was ecstatic. I thought…they’re going to try and make this work. Despite the craziness of it, they’re going to try and be together because they totally belong together. They make each other better. That scene was sexy and desperate and you felt every emotion along with him. It’s also my favorite scene because of the Jace POV of the scene. They are both feeling so similar to each other, so desperate and hopeless and in love, and you feel every tiny bit of it.

“While this is all very amusing,” said the Queen coolly, leaning forward, “the kiss that will free the girl is the kiss that she most desires.” The cruel delight in her face and voice had sharpened, and her words seemed to stab into Clary’s ears like needles. “Only that and nothing more.”

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Those are some of MY favorite City of Ashes moments! What are some of yours? Don’t forget to share in the comments!

TMI Read-A-Thon: Favorite City of Bones Quotes!

April 25, 2014April 24, 2014Leave a comment

Hello everyone! I am currently hosting a TMI Read-a-Thon, cure re-reading all the books of the Mortal Instruments series in anticipation of the release of City of Heavenly Fire. You can join in by clicking this link.

Every Friday, try for the next couple weeks, I’ll be posting my favorite quotes from each Mortal Instruments Book!

As this is my first week, of course, these are all my favorite quotes from City of Bones.

Enjoy! And make sure to share yours in the comments!

Tuesday Top Ten-Favorite City of Bones Moments!

April 22, 20141 Comment

Welcome to the first official post of the What A Nerd Girl Says Mortal Instruments Read-a-Thon! Yay!

I felt kind of like Kermit the Frog writing that. I hope you felt that when you read it. I want that sort of enthusiasm to permeate off the webpage you’re reading.

For those of you who don’t know, buy information pills I’m re-reading the five books of the Mortal Instruments series (for the millionth time) in order to prepare myself for the sixth and final book, sickness City of Heavenly Fire, which releases on May 27th.

I decided that the Mortal Instruments would be taking over my blog, and I am doing that as best I can. For the next five weeks, I’m all TMI. So I hope you all can sit back, relax and enjoy all things Shadowhunter.

Every Tuesday for the next five weeks, I’ll be counting down my favorite moments in each Mortal Instruments book. As this is the first week of the Read-a-Thon, that means today is my top ten favorite moments of City of Bones.

10. Church

Jace was glaring at the cat. “I told you to bring me to Alec! Backstabing Judas.”

Church rolled onto his back, purring contentedly.”

Its simple: everything Church does is absolute magic. This is the book where we meet him, where we learn that he’s a smart, silly, and loving cat that you can’t help but love and the moment that you realize that you start to ship Church with Chairman Meow. In all seriousness though, I have a weird addicting to this cat and I love the connection between the Infernal Devices when Church is first rescued, to him being part of the Lightwood family at the New York Institute.

9. When Clary Discovers Her Powers

“When she was done, it was as exact as she could make it. Driven by some instinct she didn’t quite understand, she reached for the cup and set it down on top of the paper. Then, very carefully, she began to sketch the runes beside it.”

As soon as I learned what a Shadowhunter was, and that Alec, Jace and Isabelle were Shadowhunters, I wanted to be one. And I wanted Clary to be one. When I learned that Clary was a Shadowhunter, I was squealing with excitement. I was like, she’s going to get Marks and learn to use a stele and a seraph blade and its going to be absolutely awesome. I was so into that, and I knew it was only going to make her journey in the books that much better. When Clary is drawing and discovers her ability to make the image on the page become real, I was dying of happiness. I was blown away when she pulled that coffee cup out of the pages. Not only was she a Shadowhunter, but she was special and how completely cliche that is, I don’t even care because it was beautiful.

8. When Simon and Jace First Meet

“Yeah, well, you clearly also couldn’t be bothered to call me and tell me you were shacking up with some dyed-blond wanna-be goth you probably met at Pandemonium. After I spent the past three days wondering if you were dead.”

“I was not shacking up,” Clary said, glad of the darkness as the blood rushed to her face.

“And my hair is naturally blond,” said Jace. “Just for the record.”

This is such an awesome moment, especially now that I’ve read the rest of the series. The moment when Simon and Jace meet each other officially for the first time is beautiful because they’re both so different and so hostile toward the other, that you can’t help but hope that they become best friends. They continue to have an uneasy friendship as time goes on but the moment they meet is so great. Its kind of when you think, this book series could be all about a love triangle and oh god, these boys are just going to fight the entire series. And that does happen to a point but it all comes down to the fact that they’re so different and they see each other as competition instead of allies and its just too funny to watch. They are both so obviously trying to be cool and awesome in front of Clary at this moment and they both fail at it.

7. Discover Luke is a Werewolf

“He looked at her, not saying anything, and she remembered suddenly the wolf in the alley, all black except for that one gray streak down its side, and she remembered the disc hitting it, and she realized it.

‘You’re a werewolf.'”

Everything about Luke suddenly made so much more sense when we discover that he is a werewolf and he tells the story of his growing up, becoming Valentine’s parabatai, and becoming a werewolf and living his life as a mundane as Jocelyn’s best friend. I was so angry at Luke and the way he treated Clary but he came and saved her life from Hodge (ew) and made me absolutely happy. I love that everyone has their foot in this world somehow. We have the vampires (more on that in City of Ashes) and a warlock in Magnus and a werewolf in Luke. I loved that it just seemed so natural for him to be so and that it fit the history that we had learned from Hodge of the Circle and all that. I love also that it gave Clary the equal opportunity to try and get Jace back from Valentine.

6. When Magnus and Alec First Meet

“What welcome?” Magnus asked. “I’d say is was a pleasure to meet you, but it wasn’t. Not that you aren’t all fairly charming, and as for you-” He dropped a glittery wink at Alec, who looked astounded. “Call me?”

I ship Malec so hard and not just because I actually like them together, but because I love all the boundaries that Cassandra Clare pushes in their relationship. Besides the obvious boundary being pushed with Malec being a gay couple, I think its because it pushes both characters. Alec is gay but can’t admit it, and Magnus is in love with Alec, a Shadowhunter, something that he doesn’t really want to do. And I love the moment that they meet. Alec thinks he’s so good at hiding how he feels and that no one in the world knows he’s gay but Magnus notices so fast, and is immediately attracted to him. I love that it completely throws Alec off his game, and that it intrigues him. Its a beautiful moment.

5. When Jace Turns Against his Father

“Turning in astonishment, she saw Jace by the door, his arm still raised, and realized he must have flung the dagger with enough force to knock the black sword out of his father’s hand.”

Finding out that Valentine Morgenstern is both Clary and Jace’s father was a huge thing that I had never seen coming when reading the book for the first time. I think I legitimately felt sick to my stomach. No, no way. There was no way that Clace was a pair of brother and sister. They were meant to be! Clary was going to break down the hard walls of Jace’s personality and make him fall madly in love with her and they were going to live happily ever after…and then suddenly they were brother and sister, and Jace is ready to do whatever his father needs him to do, and I felt like Jace was all lost. The moment that he stops his father, and disobeys him for the first time in his entire life, gave me hope that Jace was exactly the kind of character that I had hoped he was, and that I wasn’t stupid for fictionally falling in love with him.

4. When Simon Saves Everyone’s Life

“He was holding Alec’s bow, she realized, and the quiver was strapped across his back. He drew an arrow from it, fitted it to the string, and lifted the bow expertly, as if he’d done the same thing a hundred times before.”

I think this is the moment that the reader, even myself, realizes that there is so much more to Simon than just being a mundane. I wanted Clary with Jace from the moment she met him (see later), and I was annoyed with Simon for so long. I thought he was holding her back, to be honest, until this moment. When he comes in with the bow and arrow and shoots out the skylight and saves them from the Greater Demon, I think I gained a lot more respect for him. He’s not gifted with the blood of the angel and he isn’t a Shadowhunter, but he’s incredibly smart and incredibly brave and willing, especially when it comes to the loyalty he has to Clary. I think that’s when I vowed to give Simon a better chance than I had before. Now that we’ve reached five, nearly six books, Simon is one of my favorites and I’m happy to remember the moment that he really proved himself to me.

3. When Clary Slaps Jace

“There must have been something in her voice, because he turned to look at her. Her hand cracked across his face, a slap that rocked him back on his heels. He put a hand to his cheek, more in surprise than pain. “What the hell was that for?”

The other ten percent,” she said, and they rode the rest of the way down to the street in silence.”

Why do I like the moment that Clary slaps Jace? Because she’s not completely in awe of who he is. I feel like there are so many YA novels out there where the girl meets the guy and he’s so special and different that she is literally in awe of him. It doesn’t feel like love or friendship or companionship to me, it feels like worship and that sort of thing does NOT lead to an actual good, healthy relationship. Just my opinion. Seeing the way Clary obviously is attracted to Jace but isn’t willing to let him push her around was always fantastic and why I loved the both of them. Jace is so cocky and he was willing to take Clary’s life in his hands at a hunch that she was a Shadowhunter and not a normal mundane and he was really lucky that he was right. Clary recognizes this and slaps him for basically being an assuming asshole. I totally cheered at that moment, and knew that Clary was the kind of girl that I could really love as a character.

2. The First Scene in Pandemonium

“What’s this?” he demanded, looking from Clary to his companions, as if they might know what she was doing there.

“It’s a girl,” Jace said,recovering his composure. “Surely you’ve seen girls before, Alec. Your sister Isabelle is one.”

Sometimes it takes more than just the first chapter for me to fall in love with a book. I have to give it at least page 50 until I’m like, okay, this book has me hooked, let’s keep this going. With City of Bones, though, that was so different. I was in a rough place when I read the book, so there is that, but I was hooked from the moment that Clary stepped through the closet at Pandemonium and witnessed the showdown between Jace, Isabelle and Alec and the demon. I was massively in love with Jace from the moment they said his name, mostly because I love that name, and have for quite a many years but also because I just knew he was going to be “IT” in the books, if you know what I mean. I knew immediately that I wanted to find out the rest.

1. The Greenhouse Scene

“There is a hollow in the pit of his stomach, a nervous edginess. He wants to pull her back to himself, to pour into her everything he is feeling: his admiration, his new-born knowledge, his devotion, his need. “I’ve never been more awake.”

I mean, duh. I think I would have a cold, cold heart if I didn’t absolutely love this scene. I LOVE this scene. Its beautiful in so many ways. I love that Jace takes the time to do something for Clary’s birthday, which is so out of character for him, because he doesn’t DO those kinds of things for people, especially those he has just met. I love that he opens himself up to her in ways that he never really has before, and I just love it all. Its the calm before the storm that is Simon or Valentine or Hodge or the Mortal Cup. Just for that moment, they’re together and they’re experiencing those fragile steps into first love and it makes me so happy every time I read it. The first time that I read Jace’s POV (which is where the quote comes from), I loved it even more. For that one moment, you think everything is going to be okay between them, right before the news that they are brother and sister, or that there’s the complication of Simon, all of that. I think that’s why I love this scene so much. Its what I had been waiting for, and it gave me hope for the rest of the series because I knew how they felt for each other.

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I hope you enjoyed Stop 1 on the What A Nerd Girl Says Read-a-Thon, and that you’ll be with me the rest of the way! You can check out the rest of the “tour” schedule by clicking this link!

And don’t forget to share your own favorite scenes from City of Bones in the comments!

What A Nerd Girl Says

Nerd Life is Just So Much Better Than Regular Life

Tag: Quotes