Day 13 – Your favorite writer

30 Day Book Meme for December 2012

No way I could ever pick just one "Favorite Writer." I'm the kind of girl if I read one book I really love by an author, then I want to read EVERYTHING ever written by said author.

Some of my favorites include:

Stephenie Meyer

Charlaine Harris

Jennifer L. Armentrout

John Green

Maggie Stiefvater

I'm sure I've probably left out some authors I really like but there are just too great authors to name!

Day 06 – A book that makes you sad

30 Day Book Meme for December 2012

Day 6 asks about "a book that makes you sad." I guess I like sad stories, cause I've read a couple of tear jerkers this year. I don't like a just sad book though, I want the book to have something that made the sadness WORTH it. Ya know? For example, the following book did make me cry but they also made me laugh, think harder about life, and made me proud to be a READER!

I think the book that made me cry the hardest this year was The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.

Runners Up for Saddest Book Include:

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.

Day 01 – The best book you read this year

30 Day Book Meme for December 2012

I'm going to try my best to keep up with this 30 Day Book Meme for December. If you go to the host website, you'll see all the great post ideas for the month. I think it'll be a good way to recap the books I've read the books I've read this year and in the past. I hope you'll take part as well. Leave me a link to your posts in the comments, I'd love to see your bookish thoughts!

Day 1 is "the best book you read this year." Well, I've read a quite a few books this year and this was the year I began blogging so this is a great place to start this 30 day meme.

I really enjoyed: 

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

The Absolutely True Diary of Part by Sherman Alexie

and many other books I read this year...

...BUT...

I think my very favorite of the year was

The Fault in our Stars by John Green

Such an EPIC story! It's sooo good, I laughed, I cried, 

I want more out of my life because of this book.

Audiobook Review: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Cover and info from Goodreads.

Title: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Author: John Green & David Levithan

Reading Level: Older Teens, (Amazon says Grade 9 & Up)

Genre: Young Adult

Source: audible.com

Fav Quote(s): "All sorts of yayness floods my brain. Love is such a drug." by John Green. 

“Need is never a good basis for any relationship. It has to be much more than that.” by David Levithan.

Hubs and I listened to the audiobook of Will Grayson, Will Grayson on our way to YALLFest this past weekend. It was just the perfect length to get us to Charleston and back, so about 7 hours. We were excited to have Will Grayson as our book of choice because we like John Green audiobooks (a post in which I discussed our love for The Fault in Our Stars) and were en route to meet David Levithan at YALLFest. So this seemed like a good choice for us! I really didn't know anything about this book before we began listening.

At first I thought it might be kind of odd listening to a book written by two different authors. The way the book is set up it totally works. Both main characters are named Will Grayson. Authors John Green and David Levithan alternate their Will's from chapter to chapter. So the first chapter is from John's Will and the second is David's Will and so forth and so on. The narrators of the audiobook did a fantatic job. Their voices were different and really helped us understand though the names were the same the Wills were different characters.

The story was wonderful. Both Wills are teenage boys and they end up having a chance meeting at a very unlikely place. Through circumstances their lives become somewhat intertwined. Both Wills grew in the course of the book and it ended with each being a better version of themselves. Will Grayson deals a bit with cyber bullying, homophobia, and mental illness. It's got some tough issues going on. But the issues a dealt with as much humor as possible and it is beautifully done.

Clayton's (aka, hubs) thoughts, "People want to be liked and respected for who they are, not what they are. Overall, Will Grayson deals with a lot topics kids these days are having to deal with. But it's done in a humorous way."

I did think there was a bit of over usage of "adult language" for my taste. I think the story would have been just as good if not better without a lot of it. I understand Will Grayson, Will Grayson is supposed to be from teenage boys' mindsets so I get the cussing, it was just more than I, personally, like to see in a YA novel. Also, if you are sensitive to the topic of homosexuality, be advised there are a handful openly "out" characters in this novel. And this novel stresses the equal treatment of people both straight and gay. Whether you have an opinion on the topic or not, I think we can all agree that bullying anyone for any reason is not acceptable. This did not affect the story in a negative way for me just wanted to mention that in spirit of full disclosure.

I give Will Grayson, Will Grayson 4 out of 5 stars. It's a great story. I was crying at the very end. I think sometimes, we all just want to know we are loved and appreciated. 

Monday Musings

Hello good people of Alli's World! This post will probably be on the short side. I'm pretty busy out living life and gathering up experiences to blog about on a rainy day. Hubs and I celebrated our two year anniversary on May 1. Since we have both gone through really crappy marriages and subsequent divorces before we got together, we kind of make a big our anniversaries. (Funny how that works, sometimes it takes knowing just how much you can lose to appreciate what you have.) Anyhow we are kinda just taking every opportunity this month we can to just be together, doing things together we enjoy.

Clayton (aka Hubs, aka Clayfus) and Me

This past weekend we did a little impromptu road trip. We got up super early Saturday morning and went with my mom, sister and nephew to Columbia, SC to see said nephew's first Martial Arts competition (which he WON!) Of course it stressed me out to watch it--I wanted him to win, but not get hurt, and not hurt the other kid too bad!

Mama and Sister

Blurry but action shot. Waylon (nephew) is in black shirt.

Waylon the Winner

Then hubs and I continued up the road to Charlotte, NC and spent the night and the next day we saw one of my all time favorite authors, Charlaine Harris!! And we got a copy of her brand new book, Deadlocked, signed and personalized! (I'll do a whole post on that once I've read the book, promise!)

Me with my newly signed copy of Deadlocked

But one of the coolest thing I think hubs and I shared this past weeked was The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. I checked out the audio version from library and we listened to the book in its entirtity during our journey. This is not too unusal for us, we both like to keep an audio book going for our respective commutes to our places of employment. But it was probably the first book we listened to whole book start to finish together like that. I thought it was quite the bonding experience. Not only that but the book is so flipping good, I wish I could explain to you how much I really loved it. (Like 5 star love!)



The Fault in Our Stars is so beautifully written, I was completely captivated and hated when we had to stop for gas or food or the night! The story is mostly about a girl named Hazel and a boy named Gus and they are cancer kids. The book had parts that had hubs and I giggling like crazy. Parts that made me feel the incredible love the characters shared and therefore made me think of and be thankful of the man riding beside me, and parts that had me sobbing while trying drive down I-85. TFiOS is extremely thought provoking and had me thinking about how we would handle being sick or God forbid we had a sick child and how I treat "sick" people. It was such a powerful book I woke up this morning thinking about Hazel and Gus. I'm going to "read" this book again (well actually read it oppose to listen to it).  If I have more thoughts I'll be sure to share them with you.


Y'all know I love me some quotes and TFiOS was just full of quotable quotations but I'll just leave you with one. “Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.” More adventures planned for tomorrow, later peeps! (Humm...post turned out to be a bit longer than I thought... :)