Last Book Reviews before my Mission.

HELLO DEAR READERS!
It has been a while, now where have I been is the question. Well first of all finals week happened! Oh the joys of final week, lots of stress, more stress and even more crazy stress. However I emerged from the evils that are finals week with straight A's, well I had one A- but it is still an A! Congrats to all the rest of you in college you were able to survive finals week, for those of you who aren't in college well aren't you so lucky?
Second of all Christmas happened, it was a whirlwind of spending time with family, friends and exchanging gifts and seeing the new Star Wars movie. For those of you who say it, wasn't it amazing! (PLEASE NO SPOILERS IF YOU CHOOSE TO COMMENT ON THIS POST! I will delete them if you post them. Nothing is worse than having to wait to see a movie and then have the whole thing spoiled, please don't be that jerk. Thanks) I absolutely loved the movie and everyone should be proud of me I have only been a Star Wars fan for over two weeks now! Thought I would never see them but thanks to a friend I did.
Third of all, I went to Tennessee to visit some family. Two of my sisters live in the South while the rest of them live close to where I do so it was a blessing to be able to travel there and visit them before my mission.
Now I am back! But not for long, I leave in 36 days dear readers! 36!! In 36 days I will enter the Missionary Training Center in Provo MTC for just over 6 weeks before I enter the Rochester New York Mission. For anyone who is wondering more about a mission and my religion please click this link lds.org.
Now to the main part of this post I will be reviewing just one more series before I leave, just one more. I know I'm sad too, but I will be back in August of 2017! Anyways this series is one that I haven't really seen anywhere, which makes me sad because it is such an amazing series! This one should be talked about a lot more than it is. I don't know if I will be able to review the whole series because I have only read the first section of them and just found out about the second one. (there are now 7 books?)
I found this series in Junior High and it is amazing, the characters, the fantasy, the romance all of it is just amazing.
It is the Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa! (to see more about this series please click this link here.) The link will bring you to the authors page about the books.
This is the cover art for the first four books, the fourth one is my favorite! Read this series! Trust me you will not be disappointing, if you read just one thing this year read these!
I would put these books at a solid 3 (for those who were wondering) as there is a lot of cursing, teen romance and some intense action. 

Winter is here, plus where I have been!

Hello my dear readers! I am so sorry that I have been gone so long. School the past couple days have been absolutely insane.. Plus I've been doing a ton of shopping for my mission. About that... I'm going to the (drum roll please...) 

 I am so incredibly excited to go on a mission!!! Now to go to the main reason for this post..

Well, where I live anyways. It snowed a bit this morning. :) Now I am extremely conflicted about snow. 

On one hand I'm like: reading in a chair in front of a fire with hot chocolate. And writing/editing my novel while it snows outside. And coats and boots and hats and scarves. 

But on the other hand I'm like: cold, and snow and freezing to death and did I mention cold? 

I think I have established that I am a romantic about winter. I just wish that winter wasn't as cold! I mean I love winter in December because Christmas! In November it's really good reading and writing weather. After Christmas winter just needs to go away.. I get so done with it!

What are your thoughts on winter? 

Changing How Often I Post!

Good Day or afternoon, or whatever hour you may be looking at this dear readers! As many of you probably know from previous reviews I am working on my bachelor's degree in Crime Scene Investigation. And I am also working on putting in my papers to serve an LDS mission! The semester has been going for over a month now (it started August 31st), and with it has come the homework. Oh the homework... To keep my scholarship I have to take fifteen credit hours a semester and I am taking sixteen! Go me! I have prioritized some things in my life, and the sad truth is that college comes first, and this blog comes second. I schedule several of my posts in advance to accommodate my schedule. However I don't exactly have as much free time as I used to, so to spread out my scheduled posts I will now be posting reviews/other posts once or twice a week instead of every day. If my schedule demands that I need to change it again I will let you know as soon as possible! Thank you so much for reading, you're welcome to follow me on Twitter, and Facebook as well as follow me on this blog!
Happy Reading!
-Shelbie 

Quote of the Week

Used Book Store Haul!

Okay, this book store is bad for me. Really really bad. As in I just blew through my book budget for the next two months in one day. In my previous haul post (Used Book Store Haul) I talked about this amazing book store called the Book Garden. I went back there today and got the books that you can see in the picture. 

• The Matched Trilogy
• 4 books of the Cousins War Series 
• The Fault in our Stars 

This book store is amazing, they take complete series sets and tie ribbon around them so you can purchase an entire series on a discounted price. I spent $49.40 on books today and I say that's a pretty good deal for eight books.  I will be having reviews of these up on the blog as soon as possible however you must understand that I get books from the library as well as book stores so the library books have top priority and right now I have about five more I need to finish. See a book here that you want me to review first, just let me know and I'll make sure to have that one up on the blog as soon as possible. 

Where I've Been

I meant to be posting a lot more but the past two weeks have been crazy busy for me. I went to an Organ Workshop at BYU (as a piano player of 14 years I am attempting to learn this new instrument and it's going okay... we shall see as I practice more). Also a tragedy has befallen my little family of electronic devices, the charger cable for my laptop decided it had had enough after three months of use and has decided to only work in little spurts. So here I am writing this on another computer that I have access to. In my absence on this blog I went to the bookstore yesterday and totally blew my book budget for the next two months but I will be giving that adventure a post of it's own. I am glad to be back and plan to be posting at least once or twice a day now.
Happy Reading!
-Shelbie

Used Book Store Haul!

Today my family went through a ton of books, so instead of donating the rejects I decided to take them to a used bookstore to see what credit I could get. In Bountiful, Utah there is this store called The Book Garden. I had only heard about this place from several of my co-workers but I went there for the first time today. (Here's a link to their website:  http://bookgarden2.com/) 
This place is amazing! There are two floors full of bookshelves that are crammed with books. Plus there are boxes of books covering nearly every possible surface. It also smells amazing in that store due to the several shelves of older books that they have in stock. Today I brought home with me the following books:

• Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen 
• The entire Alex Rider series by Anthony Hororwitz 

I got 23 dollars worth of books for only 12 because of the credit I received from the books I brought in. 8 books for 12 dollars!! I call this a good day! I will be reviewing these books as I finish them. 

To Read

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. 

The man who never reads lives only once. 

-George.R.R Martin 

To read is to really see the world. In the pages of a book I can be transported to Victorian England, a new planet, a new century, or hundreds of other places. 

To read is to fall in love with characters over and over again only to watch many of them get hurt. Even though its just on paper the hurt is real, the pain is real. 

To read is to fall in love with a story, eagerly awaiting a next book and feeling lost when the series is over. 

To read is to become friends with a group of fictional characters  that you will never meet or see. 

To read is to live, to see, to experience.

To read is to go to places that I will never see in real life because many of them don't exist. 

To read is to know that I will come away from a book slightly different and see the world in a different way.

Reading can be hard, painful, an emotional roller coaster, and sometimes heartbreaking but in the end its worth it. Worth it because to read is to live.