Let me tell you why I love me some YA! YAY!!

These are the reasons I love Young Adult literature in no particular order. Maybe I'm wrong on some of them but if that's the case I don't want to be right!

1. I am never, ever , never, ever gonna grow up! YUCK! (And I guess my reading preference reflects that!)

2. I firmly believe that YA authors have to work harder than adult authors to create as good of a story. An adult author can throw in a sex scene or extreme violence to amp up the excitement or use a whole bunch of cuss words throughout. A YA author doesn't have the option to deploy "cheap tricks" to get the job done. (Now I love me some adult fiction too, nothing like a good romance novel for mind candy! But some of the most thought provoking books I've ever read are YA.)

3. YA seems to be able to generate more excitement. (Such as events, release parties, blog tours, etc; it's just really cool world to be a part of!)

4. YA fans, bloggers, authors are some of the best people you can meet!

5. YA books make better movies and TV shows.

6. I read YA because I kind of want to remember my "glory days" of youth or wish I had such days.

7. Or...I want to remember why it's better not to be so young anymore.

8. The boys of YA are totally the most crush worthy. (And this is not creepy because they are FICTIONAL, after all.

9. YA is in a way more smexy than adult. The tension build-up in a good YA can not be beat.

10.  Stephenie Meyer, J.K. Rowling, John Green, Maggie Stiefvater, Jennifer L. Armentrout, Beth Revis and all the other great YA authors out there for giving me worlds I want to be a part of!

Click here for Beth Revis' contest post!

YALLFest 2012 Photo Recap #1

This past weekend hubs and I spent some time in Charleston, South Carolina for YALLFest.
Let me just tell you, we had a blast! We got to meet several authors and get lots of books signed. We took a ton of pictures per our usual so I wanted to share them with y'all but there are so many I'm breaking them up into a couple of posts. Hope you enjoy the pics as much as we enjoyed taking them! 



The YALLFest website can be found here.

~Author Panels~

The ever talented Cassandra Clare!

Kiera Cass was such a good sport, we were at the end of her signing line and she was being rushed off to her next panel. But she was keeping it positive with a super cute thumbs up!

The movie based on their book Beautiful Creatures is comes out February 13, 2013!

You Tube singing sensation Abigail Ayala entertained us! Check out one of her songs here!

Authors do improv!

Deity by Jennifer L. Armentrout

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I tried to tone it down but this 

whole post could be  

**SPOILERY**

So if you haven't read Deity yet and don't want anything spoiled, please don't read anymore.

Just know I LOVED it and thought it is possibly the best on in the Covenant Series yet.

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Seriously...don't read any further if you are 

anti-spoilers!

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You've been warned...

you could skip down and still enter the giveaways though!

Click here for Goodreads info on Deity.

My thoughts on Deity: VERY good. It is steamy and sexy. There is some hot hooking up going on. (That Alex...play on player!) Alex awakens and book ends on cliff hanger. The plot thickens between the council and Lucian. The gods are more active. More people die. 

Like I said in the very big and bold section, I really, really liked this book! JLA is just such a good story teller. I feel like there is a good balance of action and romance. I gave it 5 out of 5 stars. I recommend this book and this series. Great YA reading material!

And I love when books lend me a creative opportunity. (For another example see my Obsidian necklace here.) So when I read a certain section in the ARC, I knew I wanted something "from Aiden" in my collection!

This is what I come up with: 

This is what I started with, I couldn't find what I was 

looking for but I found this pretty rose shaped 

charm at my local craft store

and added a little glitter.

(And yes I cheated and used glitter nail polish!)

"...a dark-red crystal had been intricately designed into a rose in bloom, carved as if the petals were reaching up toward the sun."

"Lights winked and danced off the precious stone and it immediately warmed to my skin."

Not exactly what I originally had in mind and certainly not exactly how JLA described it, but I kind of like how it turned out.

I'm almost scared to ask but what do you think?

Here's a US only giveaway! a Rafflecopter giveaway And an international one! a Rafflecopter giveaway And a giveaway from the publisher Spencer Hill Press! a Rafflecopter giveaway Blog tour host, Stuck in Books is hosting a Twitter party on Friday! Click here for more info!

*I was sent a free Advanced Readers Copy of Deity from Spencer Hill Press in exchange for an honest review.