Thanks Stacy!

My sweet, and wonderful cousin, Stacy, was sweet enough to give me a couple of Blogger awards. I don't really know many bloggers on here (namely her, my cousin-in-law-to-be, Dave, and Cake Wrecks...) so I can't exactly pass these awards along all that well, but I wanted to say thanks. :D


For the "Beautiful Blogger" award you need to:
* Thank & link to the person that gave you the award.
* Pass this award on to 15 fantastic bloggers you’ve recently discovered.
* Contact said Blogs and let them know they’ve won.
* State 7 things about yourself.

For the "One Lovely Blog Award" you need to:
* Thank & link to the person that gave you the award.
* Pass this award on to 15 fantastic bloggers you’ve recently discovered.
* Contact said Blogs and let them know they’ve won.

And here, my 7 things...
1. I have lived in three states, but only call one home. I will always and forever be a Jersey girl, no matter what people who don't know me all that well might like to believe. I was born here, I lived here for the majority of my life, and I will continue to live here. Jersey's home, and all you haters out there can just shut it.

2. I have a great love for scrapbooking, and when you give me the time, space, and tools, I can create pretty awesome books. I'm not one for squared off photos, and tidy lines, either. I like a little mess, a lot of overlap, and enough on the page to tell the whole story.

3. I am a Disney fanatic. Anyone just finding this blog wouldn't know it, but everyone who's ever met me knows damn well. I work for the Mouse. I've been to Disneyland once, and World five times. I have hit all four parks in one day, plus Downtown Disney, and I don't recommend it. I can name most of the major players in any given Disney animated film (not counting sequels) and the ones from the 80s I can practically recite by heart. Fanatic of the highest degree.

4. I love writing. As I'm sure you can tell. I'm verbose, even when I don't want to be. It's my way. (Hey look, not so verbose on this one!)

5. I hate raw tomatoes. I've gotten over the cooked variety, but a raw tomato will make me gag as soon as it touches my tongue. Blech. Everyone makes fun of me for this.

6. I've never left this continent. And the only landmasses that aren't connected to it that I've been on are Liberty, Ellis, and Long Islands. And I'm DYING to explore elsewhere.

7. I love the spell of bookstores. Especially if they DON'T have coffee shops inside. The smell of new books, books that haven't been cracked into and absorbed, gives me a thrill, because I know that in that store, there are thousands and thousands of new adventures that I haven't explored yet, and the promise of newness and intrigue and crisp, untouched pages, brings me so much joy and comfort. Yum. I love new books.

A Charmed Death (Madelyn Alt)

Summary:
The second book in the series finds Maggie, a 30-something living in Small Town America, starting to deal with the fact that she is, in fact, an empath. She meets a young bitch-in-training who subsequently gets murdered after leaving the antiques/Magic Box-esque shop Maggie works in. The book follows Maggie as she plays super sleuth to find out just exactly what happened to "poor" Amanda. At the same time, she pines for the man she hooked up with, and then broke up with over her new-found magical abilities, while hanging out a lot with the guy that she thinks her boss/magical mentor is seeing.

Thoughts:
Another good turn for Alt. She has a way of writing that draws you in, and holds on tight, so that even though you've put the book down and walked away to do something else, it's still on your mind, and you're wondering whodunnit. The books in the series seem to be a slightly more adult version of the early seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer without the vamps, with a freak-of-the-week type mystery that needs to get sorted out with or without magic. Alt's writing style is fun. The way she paints her characters makes you want to know them. She also ends the books in a way that leaves you hungry for more. I'll definitely be keeping up with this series.

Pages: 289
Genre: Mystery/fantasy
Grade: A
Would I Read Again?: Totally.

I'm thinking I'll be changing that last question to "Would I recommend this to others?" because I'm not a re-reader by nature, because I tend to remember a lot of details once I get into re-reading something.

Also, I cracked into Murder with Peacocks by Donna Andrews, and I'm only about 40 pages in, and it's hilarious. That one will go fast, I wager, and you'll be hearing about it soon. Oh, and I'm still in the middle of Kermit's book.

9 down, 41 to go!

Murder of a Small-Town Honey (Denise Swanson)

Summary:
Skye Denison is a child psychologist that got fired and had to move back home to Scumble River, a hick town a half an hour away from Chicago. It opens with a small town fair called Chokeberry Days, where Skye happens to find the local celebrity dead. Oops. The rest of the book follows Skye as she tries to figure out who the culprit is.

Thoughts:
The book wasn't bad. It's your basic mystery story. There are a couple of twists I didn't expect. But what really kills me is that the main character hooks up with a guy who's an asshole to her. There's no real wooing involved. He is just asshole, asshole, "hey, go out with me!" and she automatically says yes. Stupid. But the story's okay. I wouldn't dissuade someone from reading it, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it either.

8 down, 42 to go!


Pages: 238
Genre: Mystery
Grade: C+
Would I Read Again?: I might keep up with the series, just to have something to read. That's about it.

Tales of the Vampire Slayer, vol. 2 (Various)

Summary:
This is a collections of short stories about slayers through the ages. It starts and ends with Buffy, and passes through Japan, in the year 980, France in 1320, the Caribbean in 1661, London in 1843, Georgia in 1864, London again, 1897 this time, New York in 1922, and Chicago in 1943. This volume, like its predecessor, is a glimpse at all those who came before the Slayers we knew, and gives a little more insight to the way things worked according to the Whedonverse.

Thoughts:
Some stories were good. Others shouldn't have even made it to print. But that's the risk you take when diving into a book of short stories, isn't it? Even when they're all based in the same subject matter, they still have varying levels of quality, and this book is, of course, no exception.

It starts with a Buffy story set in 2000. It's absolute crap, and reads like fan fiction. Most of the rest are fairly good, though some seemed to run a little too long for my taste. The 1843 London one is a rip-off of Dickens' Christmas Carol, only with a Watcher meeting Slayers of the past, present, and Buffy, from the future. There are two with Slayers masquerading as men (one as a pirate captain in the Caribbean, the other as a Lieutenant in the Union army during the Civil War), and both are very interesting stories. I'm torn over a possible favorite, though, because I liked the Caribbean one, the 1943 Chicago Slayer, and I really liked the ending Buffy story, written by one of the show's regular writers.

I think, though, if I were to choose which volume I enjoyed more, I would probably say vol. 1. This set had all happier endings, except for Buffy's second story, and a Slayer's existence is not all rainbows and puppies. Also, this seemed to focus a little too much on the Watchers' points of view, pointing out that the Watchers were there to take care of their Slayers, and were always right about one thing or another. I wasn't looking to read Tales of the Watchers. If I were, I'm fairly sure there's something like that out there. I wanted Slayers' stories.

That said, I'll probably hunt down the other two volumes, in the hopes there's more good material, and also because I'm the crazy type that loves Buffy and needs as much material about the show as possible. Sad, but true.

Still reading the Kermit book, and will probably pick something else up too.

7 down, 43 to go...

Pages: 351
Genre: Fantasy, and a little mystery?
Grade: B-/C+
Would I Read Again?: I don't regret reading it...