Top Ten Tuesday {2}

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. The feature was created because they are particularly fond of lists over at The Broke and the Bookish. They'd love to share their lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week they will post a new Top Ten list that one of the bloggers here at The Broke and the Bookishwill answer. Everyone is welcome to join. All they ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

 Top Ten Books To Read During Halloween:

(in no particular order)
(also, some of these are not YA...just sayin')

1) The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde:

I do enjoy this book immensely. It's not like "AHH!" scary, but it is creepy. I don't go out of my way to read it at Halloween, it just ends up that I usually do so it has just always seemed fitting to me. 

2) Hallowland by Amanda Hocking:

"This is the way the world ends - not with a bang or a whimper, but with zombies breaking down the back door." Zombies. That's all that needs to be said.

3) The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin:

I just started reading this one a couple days ago, but it's pretty intense so I think it belongs on this list. Do feel free to correct me if I am wrong, though.

4)  Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling:

I don't think I have to do any of explaining with this one.

5) The Shining by Stephen King:

You cannot have a list like this without some Stephen King.

6) It by Stephen King:

I'm not usually scared of clowns, but holy crap...the clown was friggin' scary.

Six was all I could come up with. I haven't really read many "halloween appropriate" titles, so share you list with me so I can add even more books to my must read pile.

For The Love Of A Vampire by M. Leighton

"Like most seventeen year olds, Ridley Heller thought she had her future all planned out. What she wanted most in life was to get out of small town Harker. Her only goal was to keep her mouth shut and her grades high so she could win a cheerleading scholarship to Stanford. But that was before she met Bo. 

In Ridley's wildest dreams, she could never have planned for someone like Bo, for a love so intense it left her breathless. No human girl could.

A haunting stranger that watched her from afar, Bo stole Ridley's heart from the moment she laid eyes on him. But he has secrets. Bo's a vampire. Both his past and his present are a danger to Ridley, but the biggest threat is not her blood; it's her heart. He's feeding a thirst for revenge that will cost him his life, and it may already be too late.

The more darkness Ridley uncovers, the more she realizes that her life will never be the same-with or without Bo. Can she sacrifice her future and her heart for someone who has a death wish? "-GoodReads.

Kindle Edition

Published April 20th 2011

I thoroughly enjoyed M. Leighton's first book, The Reaping. That woman knows how to write a great romance. So I was excited when she asked me to read and review this one, as well. 
Though it did not end up being one of my favorite vampire story, it was a good read. 


I really wanted to love the love story between Ridley and Bo, and sometimes I did, but most of the time it seemed to have happened so fast that not a whole lot of anticipation was allowed to build. It's just hard to believe, in any story, that after so little time of knowing someone you would be willing to do anything for them and feel such a passionate love. It needs more time.


And I wish there hadn't been the references to popular music and movies. That always tends to date a story and it can either still work in 10 years, or it may make it unrelatable. 


The revenge aspect of the story was my favorite. It made the story intense and emotion-filled and I will be curious as to how it all plays out in the other books.


If you enjoy YA paranormal romance then you should give Blood Like Poison a shot. Especially now with Halloween right around the corner!


I received this book free of charge from the publisher or author in exchange for an honest review. This, in no way, altered my opinion of the story or my review.

Changes at the Book Loft.

If you have not noticed, I have not been posting many reviews on my blog lately. There are about 10 that I need to do but I have just been feeling so unmotivated. Hopefully that will change soon and I will be able to whip those reviews out and start posting regularly again.
But, also lately, I have been reading a bit less YA and more christian fiction and classics, which are two of my favorite genres along with YA. I don't believe that I ever claimed The Firefly Book Loft to be a strictly YA blog because I knew there were other types of books that I enjoyed and wanted to be able to post about them on here if I wanted to, though I really have yet to do so.

When I first started my blog I thought I should narrow it down to one genre so that it would feel more...organized (for lack of a better word)...and so that people would know what kind of books they were going to get when coming to my blog.
Now I have a stack of reviews I need to write that are not YA but I am dying to put on here because I loved the book. I think that has contributed to my lack of motivation for the YA titles I still need to review.

So from here on out I will not only be reviewing and talking about YA, but also christian fiction, classics...and whatever else I decide to put on here.
I am very excited about this decision and hope you understand why I made it and I also hope that you continue to read my blog!

Top Ten Tuesday {1}

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. The feature was created because they are particularly fond of lists over at The Broke and the Bookish. They'd love to share their lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week they will post a new Top Ten list that one of the bloggers here at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join. All they ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.


Top Ten Books I Wish I Could Read Again For The First Time:


(These are just some of the books I wish I could read again for the first time. The list would be mighty long if I put all of them down)

1) A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray: This is one of those books that I love re-reading. It did many things for me. Gave me back my love for reading, it helped open the doors to the wonderful YA genre, and satiated my hunger for a historical romance. The fact that I got some paranormal in there too, was quite amazing to me. I really wish I could go back to the snowy afternoon I first read this so that I could fall in love with it all over again.

2) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling: When I first got my hands on this book I wasn't even allowed to read it. I snuck it into my house and stayed up all night reading it. Now that I am older and have since swayed my mom's opinion on the world of Harry Potter I wish that I could have the chance to read it again with the rest of the series. So that I could enjoy them all for the first time together.

3) Twilight by Stephanie Meyer: Now, I know Twilight is not great literature, but I read it at a very bad time in mine and my family's life so it was kind of like comfort food for me. It was my escape. And it got me back into reading. I used to read all the time when I was a kid, but then I was loaded down with school and work and just didn't think I had time to read. And I wasn't sure what I even liked to read anymore. Then came Twilight. I read it before there were teams, before there was all this controversy, before Edward was considered a stalker pedophile. And I enjoyed it. I would love to go back to before the hype and read it again just for the sheer pleasure of it.

4)Uglies by Scott Westerfeld: One of the girls that I used to work with suggested this one to me. I had a bit of a Twilight hangover and just did not think that it would be able to cure that. I've always loved dystopians but had not found one in a long time that even came close to measuring up to some of the ones that I had already read, but Uglies certainly did. And it cured my hangover. It made me realize that there were so many other books out there with romance, love triangles, adventure, and even better main girl characters. But since I was so apprehensive when starting I don't think I got as much out of the first half of the book as I could have.

5)The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: For a while I avoided this one like the plague. It was too hyped for me and I did not want to read yet another book that was placed high on a pedestal just to be disappointed when it didn't live up to all the praise. Then I went to the bookstore because I was running low on books to read (this was before my stockpile of books) and for some reason I just decided to give it a go, even though I was still nervous it would suck. Well, it didn't suck. It was far from sucking. I was totally entranced with this world and the people in it that I even ended up having dreams about it.

6) Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead: There is a lot that I would give to be introduced to Dimitri for the first time, again. I believe he will always top my literary crush list.

And it really helped that it was such a great story and world to read about.

7) Delirium by Lauren Oliver: This was the first book I was accepted to read through NetGalley. And boy, will I forever be thankful for that. The power of the words and message in this book was incredible. And the ending still makes me cry like a big baby. 

8) Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien: These books introduced me to fantasy and world building in the best of ways. J.R.R. Tolkien is one of my heroes and inspirations for my own writing. It would be absolutely incredible to experience these books again for the first time.

9) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: I believe that Mr. Darcy and Miss Elizabeth Bennett is enough of a reason for this one. 

10) Christy by Katherine Marshall: Every time I read this book it rips my heart out, puts it back in, then rips it out again. The people, the life they had to live, the children...what Christy gave up to go live with them. It's wonderful and incredible. And to have the suspense back of whether Christy was going to be with David Grantland or Neil MacNeill. That would be lovely.

Austin Teen Book Festival.

Very early Saturday morning my best friend Donna and I drove up to Austin from San Antonio for the Teen Book Festival. It was our first bookish event so we were beyond excited. In fact, I was so excited, I forgot to take some pictures of her and I together while we were there.

We got there about 30 minutes before book sales opened so we decided to walk around outside for a little bit since it was such a beautiful morning.

Then we went and got in line to buy some books.

I bought: Lola and the Boy Next Door, Wolfsbane, and It's Not Summer Without You. I really wanted to buy  We'll Always Have Summer also, but it was in hardback and I now have the first two in paperback.

Then, while I was checking out, Michael Jackson's "Thriller" started playing. It seemed really random at first, then we went into the main hall and found this:

A group of middle school students did a zombie flash mob and were dancing to "Thriller". And I have to say, they were really good.

Scott Westerfeld was the main speaker and he spoke about illustrations in books, which was pretty interesting.

Then it was time to go to the individual panels. First we went to Alternaworlds because we both wanted to hear more from Scott Westerfeld and Maureen Johnson was on that panel and you would have to be crazy to not want to listen to her.

Rosemary Clement-Moore was the moderator.

Brian Yansky and Jonathan Maberry were also on the panel.

At first, it was a bit hard to hear them talk because, behind that curtain, another panel was going on. And then to the left there was another curtain, behind which another panel was going on. So for the first half we could hear all three panels at once. It finally got a little better towards the end.

After the first round of panels were over it was lunch time, so we walked down to Whataburger, then stopped and had snowcones on the way back.

The next panel we went to was Pen Fatale: 

It was moderated by Margo Rabb who asked Alyson Noel, Mary Pearson, Jessica Brody, and Gabrielle Zevin questions about their books and writing processes.

The last panel we were going to go to was the I Heart Love Stories panel, which I was pretty much dying to get to because Stephanie Perkins was on that one...and I love her, a lot. But they canceled it because of the sound problems...so I didn't get to hear her :/ That was pretty much heartbreaking.

So we decided to go outside and enjoy the afternoon since we had an hour to kill before book signings began. We went and sat in the park which ended up being a lot of fun because we made up stories about random people that we saw.

Since I didn't get to hear Stephanie Perkins in her panel I decided she was going to be the first signing line I was getting in to so I wouldn't miss my chance to talk to her there. It was a good thing we got in that line first, too. It took us 50 minutes to get up to her table and the signings were only open for an hour. But I got her to sign my copy of Anna and the French Kiss and the copy of Lola that I bought that day. I reallllllly wanted to get a picture with her, but by the time we got up there they were trying to hurry people along so that as many people as they could could get their book signed. But she was so super sweet and kept talking to us while signing my books and I could barely speak cause I was pretty much starstruck haha.

AND! I loved her blue hair so much I think I am going to do a couple streaks in mine for Halloween...totally doesn't go with my costume...but I'll make it work :D

There was only about 5 minutes left of signing when we left Stephanie's table so I had to hurry and get in Jenny Han's so that she could sign my two Summer books. And then I practically sprinted over to Andrea Cremer's table and got to her just in the nick of time. Right after she signed my books they announced signing was over. *Phew*...it got pretty intense there at the end.

And by the way, Andrea Cremer is super sweet and has such a pretty smile. I was a bit nervous to meet these authors but they were all just so nice and really make you wanna hang out and talk with them.

Overall, it was a great day. Tons of fun. And I really hope I am in town to go next year. You should plan on going to. It was definitely worth it!