Momo's 17th Birthday Bash: Day 7

Another day! Woot woot! Today I'll be answering a couple of questions!

Question from Farrah (I Eat Words):

Happy birthday!
How many states have you traveled to? :)

Answer from Momo:

Thanks Farrah! How many states? Hmm, I think in my whole lifetime, I've only been to two! And they would be Oregon (when I was young, well younger than I am now) and Nevada (you know, Lake Tahoe and such!).

Question from Akasha Hale:

Do you enjoy eating Tacos? I happen to love and desire Tacos.

Answer from Momo:

Yes, I enjoy eating Tacos very much, BUT only when I haven't had them in a long while, lol! #TacoParty2011

Thanks you two for asking the questions!

Sixteen is a magical age. At least it was for me. My whole life I was excited to be sixteen. There is even an expression about being Sweet Sixteen, like any sixteen year old girl is considered a princess. My mom raised me on musicals and one of her favorites was The Sound of Music. There was that romantic musical number by the oldest daughter singing to her boyfriend about being sixteen going on seventeen. (Incidentally, that scene also inspired my love of gazebos, one of which is placed in my favorite setting in the book.) At sixteen, I had my license and a car. My friends and I could go anywhere we wanted without our parents having to drive us (in theory at least). My parents allowed me to date when I turned sixteen. I thought I'd be dating all the time. I had visions of being all dressed up and waiting to go to school dances with the guy I had a crush on. I was sure that when I was finally of dating age he'd notice me and beg to go out with me. Life didn't really turn out that way but when I was fifteen that's how I imagined it. And even though I now know the reality of being sixteen, it's still a romantic notion in my head. It's a time in life where you are just starting to spread your wings and the world has no limitations yet. You're just starting to really figure out who you are.

In Intrinsical, sixteen-year-old Yara is just starting to develop her 'Waker' abilities, the gift that allows her to see and talk with ghosts. The women in Yara's family have this ability and it's not something she wants to deal with. She wants to think about boys and dances and just hang out with her friend Cherie, but life doesn't always work out that way and her Waker talent develops. She's trying to grapple with being a Waker while still being a normal teenager. Until Yara's first day at Pendrell she had never seen a ghost, let alone tried to communicate with one. When she does encounter one she's been thrown into the deep end of the world of disembodied spirits. Yara is learning and growing right in front of our eyes like any normal teen, while also dealing with a whole slew of supernatural challenges. Whether you see ghosts or not, sixteen can be a magical and scary age.

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OMg! I love The Sound of Music! I totally know which part you're talking about! Thanks for this incredible guest post!

Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin Movie Trailer

I ran across this movie trailer from gonewiththeword when she tweeted it earlier this morning and after I saw it, I just have to share it with the world! Makes me totally want to read the book now! :) I'll link the song also; it's soooo cute! *___*


 And here's the song! ♥
 
Soooo?! Totally cute right?! MARK YOUR CALENDARS! I'm just sayin' ;)

Momo's 17th Birthday Bash: Day 6



It's been five days since my birthday and I feel no different. Like they say, age is nothing but a number . . .  right?

Welcome Jana Oliver, author of The Demon Trapper's Daughter!

Turning seventeen is a truly a new chapter in one’s life and I think that’s why authors often choose that age for their characters. Seventeen-year-olds come with some truly great personal armor: they are sure they are immortal and that fearlessness allows a character to take on situations that would scare an older person out of their mind. There might be some personal insecurities, but those are often overcome by sheer guts. Teens have a drive, an intensity, a zest for learning how life really works and dealing with it in their own terms.

Looking back in my own life, seventeen is that that final deep breath before taking on the adult world. At that age you’re not good at reading the tea leaves. Will your future be awesome or sucky? (I’ll give you a hint: it’ll be a mixture of both. Some of it will be so amazing you can’t believe it’s your life. Other parts make you wish it was someone else’s.) Some days you think you own the world. Other days, not so much. That’s the basis for great story – a character taking on life while learning who he or she really is.

So Happy Birthday and welcome to another year in your life. May it be truly incredible!

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Thank you Jana Oliver for that amazing post! I enjoyed it very much! :) And now for all my awesome *big smile* readers! I have another giveaway for you! A signed copy of The Demon Trapper's Daughter! SQUEE!



Click on image for goodreads link



Giveaway Guidelines:

• Must be 13 years or older to enter
• Giveaway ends at 11:59PM PST on March 31st
• Don't have to be a follower of my blog, but it would be appreciated
• US Only 
• To enter, fill out this FORM

Good luck and happy reading!

Momo's 17th Birthday Bash: Day 5

Today is day 5 of my birthday bash - it's almost like celebrating my birthday straight for two weeks! LOL! How awesome is that?! Alrighty, so today I'll be answering a couple more questions that I was asked.

Question from Aleetha:

How long does it take for you to write for one review?

Answer from Momo:

Hmm, not long. I usually hesitate when it comes to writing my reviews because I just want to gush all about the book but then I have to put all my jumble thoughts into coherent words and make sense so . . . maybe an hour at the most. If I start to get stuck then I save it and come back to it when I have my mind back in one piece! ;)

Question from Hannah:

What got you started on reading?

Answer from Momo:

Well, I've always been a reader at heart - especially in the fifth grade; I was reading books like crazy. When I reached middle school my thirst for reading went away. I was never in this kind of reading craze like how I am now until, yes, you guessed it, until I picked up Twilight :) Twilight reminded me why I love reading! The joy, the emotions, the rush, the adrenaline - gawh! Everything about reading - it's my own personal high!

Thanks Hannah and Aleetha for asking me those awesome questions! I had a lot of fun answering them! *__* (Sidenote: Do I say AWESOME too much?! Oh well, I love that word! HA!)

And now, I'd like to present to you all, Leanna Renee Hieber!

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Thinking of my sixteenth year, I’m filled with memories of both happiness and failure. Happiness because I was finally coming into my own at school, coming out of my awkward shell, I was noticed as a theatrical talent and cast in leading roles in my drama department. (At the time I was also passionately writing a novel in secret, but my love for acting was what I shared publicly). Failure because I was utterly terrified of the people at the Department of Motor Vehicles. I was a good driver on the road, but the titanic-huge beast that was the Dodge Intrepid my parents insisted I drive was difficult to pass through the cones for the maneuverability portion of my driver’s test, so I failed several times. I was an A+ student. Failing was not in my repertoire. It really shook me up and gave me a complex. I believe the fourth time I finally passed, thank God, but it was a good and humbling lesson. Of my teen years, 17 was my favorite, so look forward to it, Momo, happy birthday!!!

- Leanna Renee Hieber, author of the Historical Paranormal YA series; Magic Most Foul, releasing 11/11 from Sourcebooks Fire, and author of the award winning Strangely Beautiful series. http://leannareneehieber.com  – FB: http://tinyurl.com/lrhfbfan Twitter: @LeannaRenee

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Also, today I'd like to wish my niece, Shyla, a very, very, VEEERY HAPPY 13TH BIRTHDAY! I know, it's huge! It's kind of a big thing! :) She's a whatchamallcallit - a PREteen now - WHAT THE! SCRATCH that, she's OFFICIALLY a teen now! AAH! Go crazy! I hope you have an awesome day! Make every second last, make it all count - seriously, 13 is like another one of those birthdays - the Sweet Sixteen or the Legal Eighteen, or the B I G Two-One! Today is YOUR day, bask in it! I love ya!

Read. Chat. Love.

This Thursday (March 10th) at 7pm EST, Read Chat Love will be presenting the awesome Jennifer L. Armentrout. Jennifer is the author of the YA debut, Half-Blood.

At this chat there will be giveaways (including such items like an ARC of Half-Blood, several swag packs, and lots more of other cool stuff), trivia, and much more.

So make sure to mark your calenders and be there!

Links:

RCL Website

RCL Twitter

While you're there, why don't you give Read. Chat. Love a follow on twitter and on the blog? :) Also, there's a Spread the Word Giveaway about RCL - so tweet about it, blog about, facebook it, grab the button, SHOUT it to the world! And then go and enter HERE for your chance to win!


<center><a href="http://readchatlove.blogspot.com"><img src="http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll255/mollymxiong/Icons/RCL.jpg"/></a></center><br />

Here's a little bit of about Half-Blood!

The Hematoi descend from the unions of gods and mortals, and the children of two Hematoi—pure-bloods—have godlike powers. Children of Hematoi and mortals—well, not so much. Half-bloods only have two options: become trained Sentinels who hunt and kill daimons or become servants in the homes of the pures.

Seventeen-year-old Alexandria would rather risk her life fighting than waste it scrubbing toilets, but she may end up slumming it anyway. There are several rules that students at the Covenant must follow. Alex has problems with them all, but especially rule #1:

Relationships between pures and halfs are forbidden.

Unfortunately, she’s crushing hard on the pure-blooded Aiden. But falling for Aiden isn’t her biggest problem--staying alive long enough to graduate the Covenant and become a Sentinel is. If she fails in her duty, she faces a future worse than death or slavery: being turned into a daimon, and being hunted by Aiden. And that would kind of suck

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*Jaw-drops* Right?! I know! So, you better get to spreadin' the word! You don't want to miss out on this one! ;)

You can locate Jennifer L. Armentrout at these following places:

|Author Website| |Author Twitter| |Author Blog|

See YOU there!

Momo's 17th Birthday Bash: Day 4

First of all, isn't this ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ image super cute? I love the colors and it just . . . brightens up my day! LOL :)

Today I want to ask you all one question before we continue on with another author guest post!

Question: In 17 words or less, describe what reading means to you! *__*

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I Still Suck at Journaling

Last year, after five years of living in a apartment with sunflower walls and a series of rotating roommates, I decided to move.  This entailed me packing up a drawer of things that I hadn’t even looked at since I first moved to New York with dreams of hanging out on fire escapes (scary!) and finding a job in publishing (also scary, but with free books!) What I found was a mishmash of forgotten memorabilia from high school, some welcome—a script of Anything Goes with my old part of Evangeline Harcourt highlighted—and some hideously embarrassing, like a stash of Lisa Frank rainbow leopard stickers that I had decided to keep for reasons that can only be linked to latent insanity.

And then there were the journals. Oh, the journals.

I always had dreams of being a writer, even when I had dreams of being a marine biologist and/or a forensic anthropologist who somehow didn’t actually have to mess around with skeletons. (“Hey! There are bones over there!” I would say, and let my hardy crew handle the rest). Because I wanted to be fully informed about the process of writing before I dove right in, I inhaled writing guides. One of my favorites was Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, which stressed the need for daily journal writing. In fact, all of the writing guides stressed the need for daily journal writing.

So I bought a journal, a purple psychedelic looking ringed number that I was sure would be the beginning of an illustrious writing career. There was only one problem: I had about a day’s worth of journaling in me before I ran out of things to write about, and would then bore myself trying to write multiple paragraphs about various things in my room. A part of me thinks this is because I had too many ideas about being a “serious writer”, so I would try to force myself to write about subjects I thought were poetic and literarily minded. What I should have done is let myself write about what my sixteen-year-old self really wanted to write about, which in many cases was trouble with friends, feelings of insecurity, and yeah okay, the occasional boy who was wonderful but also sight deficient, because he wasn’t in love with me or my non-starting journaling habit.

Every time I would fail to keep up with one journal, I would wait a few months and then buy a new one. I bought a shimmery gold one. I bought one entirely covered in fake leopard fur. I bought a more “mature” blue one with nice white flowers, but the result was always the same. Still, I kept them just in case, resulting in a sunny afternoon where I put all the boxes aside and spent some time catching up with sixteen-year-old me, overeager to be a “real writer” and skipping around all the things she really wanted to say.

It kills me a little now to think that if I had trusted her a little, I might have a memory teenage me rather than five labored paragraphs about the ivy that was growing on my bedroom window.  But it did give me a very valuable reminder that it’s always better to write what you want to write rather than what you think you should be writing. And that has to be worth something, even if it’s just a Lisa Frank rainbow leopard sticker that I held onto. You know, just in case.

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Ah! I keep a journal too! I just got one for my 17th birthday! This is my third journal, btw! My goal for this one is to write in it for the next 365 days of my life as a seventeen year old whether the entries are short, pointless, or whatever - I'm going to try and accomplish that! Anyway, awesome post A. M. Robinson!

Momo's 17th Birthday Bash: Day 3



Today I want to ask my readers some questions to get to know them a little better!

1. If you could go anywhere in the world before you die, where would you go and why? Also, did something/someone trigger that? (i.g. Did you see a movie take place in a certain location that made you want to visit that place?)
2. Are you picky about buying books? For example, when you go to the book store and you're picking a book off a shelf - do you check the binding, the front and back cover, the pages, etc. to make sure it's not messed up?
3. How much do you really want a book to be adapted into a movie - after you finish an awesome, one of a kind book, do you think, "WOW! This would be amazing as a movie!" But then after some thought, you go, "Noo! I'd rather keep this all in my imagination!" Because you don't want to ruin the awesomeness of the book?

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Today's author guest post is brought to you by the amazing Emma Michaels, author of The Thirteenth Chime! (Wow, did I just sound like a commercial right now? Also, have I ever mentioned that for the longest time, I thought Emma's book was called The Thirteenth CRIME?! When I discovered that it was CHIME rather than CRIME, I felt horrible, dumb, AAH! #MomoFail)

Happy Birthday Momo!

I can remember leaving sixteen behind and finally turning seventeen, so instead of going on about what happened when I was sixteen I will tell you how my life changed when I was seventeen. I know that every year a person turns another year older. It can be bittersweet because we are reminded that we only have so much time and we want to make the most of it. But we should never forget that every year we turn another year older we are on our way to amazing and life-altering beautiful things.

I didn’t have the best teenage years. My life was a bit of a struggle, but so many amazing things happened that year. I finally started to be proud of myself and look at my writing a different way. I had a visit to Washington State that inspired me to start writing full novels, saw the most amazing and breathtaking view from an island in the middle of nowhere, I finally met the man that I love in person (who I am now engaged to!) and I learned a LOT about myself on the way.

Seventeen is a huge turning point and one full of endless possibilities. I hope your upcoming year as a seventeen year old is as life changing as mine was (in a positive way) and brings you inspiration, love, adventure and many wonderful books to read or even write! Now I am living on the island I saw that amazing view from. You never know what the future might hold but Momo, I hope it is an amazing year filled with happiness.

Momo's 17th Birthday Bash: Day 2

I'm officially 17 now.

First of all, today I will be answering a couple of questions that I was asked as a way to get to know myself a little better.

Questions from Cialina:

1. Do you wish on your candles before you blow them out?
2. What's one wish you've made before?
3. What's your favorite flavor of birthday cake?

Answers from Momo:

1. Do I wish on my candles? I . . . don't, actually. Well, I used to, kind of. But I started to think that it was pointless and I hate it when I'm leaning in to blow out the candles and everyone has their cameras in my face waiting to get that snap shot, so I just close my eyes, let the moment pass, and blow.
2. Oooh, you don't want to hear the kind of wishes that I used to make when I used to wish upon my candles! LOL ;)
3. I actually know now that I do have a favorite flavor of birthday cake and it's not really a flavor to get all excited about. I really do just enjoy plain ole' vanilla/white cake! I can eat white cake for days. Okay, maybe not days but you get what I mean!

Thanks Cialina for asking the questions! I had a blast answering them! *__*

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Now onto another awesome author guest post! And for this one you might want to stick around until you get to the end of this post, I'm just sayin'! Today, I have Jennifer McBay Barry here with us today!

On my sixteenth birthday, I got the gift that all sixteen year olds dream of: keys to a new car.  It wasn’t anything fancy, but it had belonged to my grandmother for years.  There was some serious sentimental value involved when my parents handed over that car, but I was sixteen and just cared that it would get me wherever I wanted to go without my parents tagging along.  For a teenager, that’s really the dream, isn’t it?

The first day I got to drive my car, I invited my three closest friends to go out after the football game.  Two of us cheered, and another was a football player so by the time we actually got to head out, it was already quite late.  The rain that had been threatening all day was starting to fall, and the roads were getting a little dangerous.  I wasn’t about to give up my first night of freedom with my new (to me) car.  We all loaded up and headed out.  Within fifteen minutes, I was involved in the first car accident of my life. 

I could tell you about the loose gravel on the road, or the sheets of rain pummeling the car; I could try to defend myself and claim that anyone would have wrecked in that spot on that night.  The truth was that I was young and stupid, and I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life.  Not only did I put myself in danger, I also hurt my three closest friends.  My parents were understanding and thrilled that we were all alive and relatively unscathed.  I could see the disappointment in their eyes, though.  As they walked around the totaled mess that had once been my beloved grandmother’s car, shaking their heads and holding back tears, I felt the first pangs of shame. 

I wish I had learned my lesson that day--that the shame had awakened me to the responsibility of driving a car.  Before I even turned seventeen, I had managed to drive another car into a ditch.  There were no injuries that time, but I have to say that I’m surprised my best friend even wanted to get near me when I was holding a set of keys. The truth is that I didn’t actually get a clue until I was twenty-four.

I know now.  I really do.  The lesson I missed on my sixteenth birthday is all too apparent now.  The keys were not to a car but to adulthood.  At sixteen, we are given the freedom to drive a car--or, in my case, to hurl a ton of metal around mountain roads at a ridiculous speed--but we’re still kids inside.  It’s a test, and too many fail--miserably.  Some catch on before seventeen arrives, and some take a full eight years to realize life is passing them by.  Actually, some never catch on at all.  For that precious year, sixteen years old, you are poised at the threshold of the rest of your life, and you have 365 days to make the most of the delicate balance between childhood and responsibility.  When seventeen arrives, you could do like I did and run your car into a few more walls, or you can grab onto that small piece of maturity and allow it to grow.

When you’re right there living it, sixteen and seventeen don’t seem like any big deal at all.  In fact, you just can’t wait to reach eighteen and finally call yourself an adult.  Fortunately, you can relive those years again and again through the words of authors.  Those tender years are the focus of so many books because, once the time is gone, the importance becomes all too clear.  This is the last time you can be a child and get away with it.  These are the years of football games and pep rallies, of giggly sleepovers and late-night phone calls.  If you’re still sixteen, take advantage of that thin line between adolescence and adulthood, and then you won’t need the books to remind you of what you missed.  You’ll still read them anyway, but with a sense of nostalgia that makes the memories even sweeter.

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Now onto an awesome giveaway of a copy of The Kingdom by the one and only, Jennifer McBay Barry!



Click on image for goodreads link!

Giveaway Guidelines:

• Must be 13 years or older to enter
• Giveaway ends at 11:59PM PST on March 31st
• Don't have to be a follower of my blog, but it would be appreciated
• US Only 
• To enter, fill out this FORM

Good luck and happy reading!

Momo's 17th Birthday Bash: Day 1



Wow! First of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! :) I don't remember the exact time that I was born but I know that it was in the AM and it was sometime around 7! LOL - I just had to mention the time because I think timing and everything is important! Anyway . . .

Today is the first day of my 17th Birthday Bash! Woot woot! I'm so excited for these two weeks of pure awesomeness - or so I think it will be! ;) I have quite a few author guest posts so for the next couple of days that's what I have planned. I have a few giveaways but you'll have to keep an eye out for those! *__* Today, I have debut author, Jennifer L. Armentrout here with us today as she blogs about the significance of becoming sixteen. If you're wondering why she's talking about turning sixteen, rather than seventeen, tune into this post!

I’m glad I’m not turning sixteen now. Because really, if that Sweet Sixteen show was on air when I was turning sixteen, I would have pitched a fit. Where was my BMW with the red bow? Where was my famous band singing happy birthday to me? Where was P Diddy? I didn’t get any of that.

Parent fail.

Okay. Maybe they didn’t fail at the whole parenting thing. They did let me write poems on my walls in permanent marker.  And that’s pretty epic. Those poems sucked. And I haven’t ended up in jail yet.

But I digress. Thinking back—way back—to my days as an almost-sixteen-year-old, I was a weird kid. I was grunge—before it was cool. My hair had every color of the rainbow in it. My pants were a mandatory three sizes too big. I used a men’s tie to hold them up.  And to top that off, I used baby powder to make my face as pale as possible. I tried to do dreads once. It didn’t work. My poor mother would actually buy me short skirts to just get me out of the baggy clothes.

She would say to me, “Jennifer, how can you ever expect a boy to like you when you look like that? I can’t even tell you’re a girl.”

And I would respond with (and yes, I was a snarky kid), “But mom, if a boy likes me this way, then at least I know they aren’t after me for my body.”

No parent can argue with that kind of reasoning.

So I was like a goth-grunge hippie or something. I wore T shirts that said things like “Screw the Establishment” or something ridiculously rebellious.  And looking back, more than my fashion sense is kind of disappointing. Why? Because I was too cool to get caught up on the whole turning sixteen thing. *Rolls eyes. Gah. I was an annoying kid.

When I turned sixteen, I couldn’t wait till I turned eighteen. When I turned eighteen, I couldn’t wait till I turned twenty-one. When I turned twenty-one, I couldn’t wait till I turned twenty-five. When I turned twenty-five, I wished I was turning sixteen again. 

Wait. What?

Yes, you read that right. When we’re younger, we spend so much time wanting to be older and when we’re older, we spend an indecent amount of time wanting to be a teenager again. And one of the things I wished I did? Slowed down, slowed down and allowed myself to enjoy the greatness that turning sixteen is.  It’s a huge turning point in your life. You’re not a tween anymore. You’re two years off from graduating high school. You can drive now. You can get a job without violating child labor laws. You should have a party. (Disclaimer: a totally responsible party. Of course.)  Make the day memorable. Make it so that your fifteenth birthday was so last year. Eat cake. Lots of cake. You won’t have that metabolism for much longer. USE IT BEFORE YOU LOSE IT.  If you’re a girl, wear a crown. If you are a boy, wear a crown, too. It’s your sixteenth birthday for crying out loud. Have fun. Most of all make it a day you remember.

Because I can’t even tell you what I did on my sixteenth birthday and that makes me a little sad. Probably listened to a mash-up of The Cure and Marilyn Manson while bemoaning the horrors of life or something.

So when you turn sixteen? Have fun. This is a cliché saying, but a true one: You only turn sixteen once.

Oh. Yeah. And a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Momo!

Descent of the Angels Reading Challenge: February Winner!

Happy Wednesday everyone! It's a little, okay it's way late for this, I apologize - but I've been busy what with life and school, lol! Anyway, I have some winners to post! I'll be posting the winner for the Descent of the Angels Reading Challenge AND the 13 to Life swag winner! :)

The winner of February's angel reviews is:

Wulfluva

CONGRATS!

Now, the winner for the 13 to Life swag is:

Justine Pinkerton

CONGRATS!

Winners have 48 hours to respond or else new winners will be picked!

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Descent of the Angels Reading Challenge UPDATE: This month Lady and the Books will be hosting the giveaways! Her post for the mister linky can be found HERE! You don't want to miss out on this month's awesome prizes! So, get to reading and reviewing!

If you want to join in on all this awesome reading craze you can find the original post HERE!

Good luck with the challenge and always, happy reading! *__*

Daily Dose (10)

This weekly meme is hosted by Good Golly Miss Holly :)

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The idea of making a playlist of the music I've been listening to a lot lately was from Alice over at The Reader Room! I think this idea is awesome because our blogs don't have to be just about books, lol!

Snow Patrol - Run (Live)

 If you follow me on twitter, you have probably seen all my crazy tweets about this video! This is my happy place at the moment! I can watch this video over and over and OVER again! It just makes me so happy and giddy inside! :) Happy Monday and happy reading!