New Follower Giveaway!!

Welcome new followers from the A to Z Blogging Challenge!

I'd love to give away some books to anyone who follows the blog. One of the great aspects of attending a writing conference is the free books! I'll need to invest in a full wall of IKEA Billy shelving if I hang on to all of these, so I'd love to give these brand new books a good home.

To Enter: Comment below with a way to contact you and which book set most interests you. Then, tell me about a recent book you've enjoyed. I'll choose two random winners!

Set #1 Historical Romance:

Set #2: Contemporary Romance

 

Book Review: Rules of Attraction by Simone Elkeles

Rules of Attraction
Simone Elkeles
Young Adult - Contemporary
Published: 2011

Rules of Attraction is considered book #2 in the Perfect Chemistry series, but it's really more of a companion novel. Perfect Chemistry features gang-banger Alex Fuentes and his love/hate relationship with Brittany, a girl from a well-to-do family. Rules of Attraction involves Alex's younger brother Carlos who has his own story that reflects similar themes from the first book.

Carlos Fuentes is another great character who works best when he's devilishly smart-mouthed. I love reading his Spanglish wisecracks. Carlos' mother forces him to finish school in Colorado where Alex moved for college in order to keep him safe from gang activity in Mexico. He fights the change wishing he could stay in Mexico or move back to Chicago (where Perfect Chemistry takes place). Arrangements are made for Carlos to stay with the family of a professor Alex knows through his job fixing cars. This professor just happens to have a teenage daughter the same age as Carlos...

Like Perfect Chemistry, each chapter alternates point-of-view between the male and female leads. Kiara is a naive tomboy with a stutter that rears its ugly head when she's nervous. When Carlos enters her life, her stutter returns and they butt heads in pretty much every way possible. You can probably guess what happens from here.   

When his former gang connections seek him out, Carlos is wrongly pegged for drug possession as a set-up. Because of this, he must enroll in an after school program for delinquent kids and figure out how to reject the gang's threats. Kiara struggles with her feelings for Carlos and tries to understand why he resists getting close to anyone. This is an enjoyable read if you liked Perfect Chemistry, the story is pretty similar. The author is at her best writing the Fuentes brothers who are the highlight of both books.

 

Reflecting on the A to Z Blogging Challenge

If you followed my blog in April, I posted about a TV show for every letter of the alphabet for the A to Z Blogging Challenge, a annual blogfest. Many of you found me from the challenge: welcome!

What made the challenge easy was choosing a theme, writing my posts ahead of time and scheduling them to post on the right days. This advice came from many of the bloggers who posted on the A to Z site prior to the challenge. Before I read that I thought, how hard can it be to blog every day about whatever? But it really helped! I chose TV shows as a theme because I write about TV for a site called slackerheroes with feature articles on TV, movies, comics and books. I figured TV shows was a general enough topic to gain interest from browsing readers while specific enough to share about the shows I like.

I bookmarked the A to Z Challenge sign up list - boy is that a long list! I made effort every few days to go through as may blogs as I could. After awhile I noticed trends. There are a lot of blogs with names like "Sue's Random Musings" and "Another One of those Writing Blogs." Some of the best blogs I found simply featured a person's name, which often seemed to point to professionals who used their blog for specific networking purposes and less for the "random thoughts." I also picked quirky titled blogs and those with a writing angle since that's why I blog.

I found some great ones, with a few surprises:

• http://annbestblog.wordpress.com/ This blog is written by a 71-year-old author reflecting back on the movies she loved from the 1940s-early 1960s. Every reflection is infused with her personal stories and commentary on the era. I couldn't stop reading!
• http://sommerleigh.com/ had a great comic book theme with lots of thoughtful and colorful posts on the comics world. A very well organized blog with a lot of personality.

The blogging community is large, but I also found overlaps. Some blogs new to me I saw comments by bloggers I was already familiar with. I suppose when you narrow niches to writers of YA or book bloggers you see some crossover.

If you didn't participate this year, I highly recommend it. I'm already thinking of themes for next year -- either books or movies, I think. If you did participate, I'd love to hear about your experience!