Guest post and a contest! :)

Today to continue along with the celebration of reaching 100 followers, Kari from A Good Addiction has decided to stop by!

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Howdy bloggers!


It's Kari, from A Good Addiction, taking over Sherry's blog for awhile. *insert evil and way cheesy laugh*


To help her celebrate hitting 100 followers, I'm here to talk about... me. Makes sense, right? So for those of you that follow me, you already know that I've plugged her blog out over on my own in my feature Getting To Know The Little Guys. I've been following Sherry pretty much since I started blogging back in September. She has great reviews with her honest opinion and she's a totally sweet person. What's not to love about her and her blog? Hopefully some of you found her blog by way of that feature because that's the whole point of it- spotlight the small but still awesome blogs that people just don't know about.


I started blogging as an outlet for my thoughts on books. Like most of you, I'm an avid buyer and tend to purchase way faster than I can read. I'm also an aspiring writer and read even more furiously basically as research. The more I've worked on my own writing, the more analytical I've become in my reviews of books. I loved watching how authors develop their plots and when you really think about it, so many events that happen seem so simple and obvious. Often when I'm writing, I find myself thinking that some planned 'twist' seems way too easy and simple and obvious but for the reader, it probably isn't. There is just so many possibilities that are out there with every book it's hard to predict what will come if it's written the right way. I also really look at characters more so now than I used to and I think my reviews are getting better as a result of all this. I'm working on two separate works right now, one that's YA/fantasy and another that's edgy, angsty, etc- not really sure what that genre is called but it's in line with books like Going Too Far, Leftovers, etc- the ones that deal with the issues. I've actually only been working on this one for about three weeks but I'm flying through it- I finished chapter 11 today and have a lot planned out which is great for me. I usually don't do much by way of planning and just write and hope it's good.


But that's enough about me... if you really want to know more, just check out my blog. Or my forum- I started a book club/discussion forum that Sherry here is also a member of. It just started but I am hoping it builds more. I'm working on setting up author interviews and chats/visits to my boards and it's pretty much a place to talk freely about each week's books without having to worry about spoiling anything. Okay, now I'm done talking about my blog.

As part of Sherry's 100 followers celebration, I'm here to tell you guys about my all time favorite book- Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. She is by far my favorite author and I am envious of her writing skills in so many ways. This book is heartbreaking but thrusts the subject of school bullying into such a bright light. Peter's story gets hard to read sometimes because it filled with so much pain- I ran a complete gauntlet of emotions reading this one and there were about a hundred shades of gray hit with this book. Recently, I read Catherine Ryan Hyde's Diary of a Witness which also deals with this subject but is written on more of a teen level. It is also an amazing read but 19M still stands out there for me. I had read 2 of Jodi's books prior to this one but 19M is what really made me a hardcore Jodi fan. As for YA books, I think my favorite so far is either the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Meade or the Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness. They are both brilliant and enticing and I highly recommend them.
Thanks again Sherry for letting me commandeer your blog for awhile and congrats on your followers!

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***UPDATE: This contest is officially over! Thanks to all who entered, I will post and email the winner tomorrow!***

So there you go! In honor of Kari's guest post I have decided to give away a copy of one of the following to one lucky follower! All you have to do is fill out this form to enter, extra entries are possible but not required!

The winner will get their choice of one of the first three Vampire Academy novels by Richelle Mead or the first book in Patrick Ness' Chaos series. Please leave your selection on the form!

Choices(pick only 1)
Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead
Frostbite by Richelle Mead
Shadowkiss by Richelle Mead
The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness



This is open to followers only, and anywhere in the world where the book depository ships, please check your country before entering. And you must be 13 yrs of age or older.

This contest will end 2/12/10 at midnight (est).
Ok now enter away!

EDIT:
I am so sorry, I don't want to mess the form up and I forgot the box to enter links, please, please, please enter all links neccessary and twitter name if you follow me in the last box if you can! Thank you! If not no worries, I will find it all eventually! :)

Sherry <3