My Accomplishments In 2010

Today is the 5th day of the New Year 2011. This looks like an amazing year for books with releases like...

Unearthly by Cynthia Hand (which you can see by the review below that I adored it)

Steel By Carrie Vaughn comes out March 15.

Across The Universe by Beth Revis comes out January 11.

Darkest Mercy by Melissa Marr comes out February 22.

All of these books above look amazing and I can't wait to read them but first I want to look back on my year in 2010.

On April 11, 2010 I created With A Book! This is probably the most exciting thing to happen last year. I'm so glad that I made this and that I'm apart of this amazing book blog community.

On April 16 2010 I posted my first post, a review of City Of Glass by Cassandra Clare. This review went through so many revisions. I was so nervous that I think I changed it at least 10 times.

On April 20th 2010 I posted the layout that I have for my blog now. I still have the same one partly because I don't know how to change it and partly because I like it.

On April 27 2010 I posted my first In My Mailbox and it was also the week that I received my first ARC from Razorbill. I know I was very lucky to get ARC's so early in my blogging. I had been writing reviews on amazon, bn.com, and goodreads for at least 2 years prior to my blog so I think that might have help.

On March 15, 2010 I posted my first Journey To The Past. This is a meme I created and loved doing, my first one was on Old Magic one of my favorite books. For some reason I don't do JTTP every week like I use to. I'm going to try and pick that up again.

On May 19, 2010 I held my first giveaway for the book The Summer Of Skinny Dipping by Amanda Howells. It was one of my favorite books on 2010, but that's for my next post. I was so excited to be able to host a giveaway and for a book that I loved so much.

On May 22, 2010 I participated in my first blog hop. This is one of the best things that I could have done. I met so many amazing people through the blog hop and found some of my favorite blogs.

On the week of July 11, 2010 I participated in my first read-a-thon

On July 22, 2010 I hosted my 100 followers giveaway. I was so shocked to have 100 followers. Now that I'm a few away from 200 followers I still can't believe it. I never expected this, but I love you all.

On July 25, 2010 I posted my first In My mailbox Vlog. This was very scary for me, but I've been doing them more now since the first time. (Sadly that video was lost...)

On August 29, 2010 I posted my 16th IMM and this happened to be my 100th post. It wasn't really anything special but it was an important achievement for me.

On October 11, 2010 was my 6 month blog anniversary. I was surprised that my blog had come so far in 6 months. I can't wait to see where I'm at in April.

On December 18, 2010 I posted a giveaway for CSN stores (it's still going on now). I am so excited to be able to host a giveaway from them. I looooove their bookshelves.

On December 25, 2010 I received my Nook for Christmas, which I absolutely love. (Not to related to blogging, but I wanted to add this)

In 2010 I posted 162 different things on my blog, wrote 59 reviews and gained 195 followers.

Things that I wished I did differently in 2010,
1) I wish I wrote more reviews, I had read a ton more books then I reviewed.
2) I wish I wrote my posts in advanced and spread them out so I wouldn't have a week of just one post and one with 8.
3) I wish I didn't make my blog layout crooked. (most people can't see it, but I know it's there)
These are just a few that I can think of on the top of my head, I bet there was many more. I'm hoping to fix these problems in 2011.

I want to thank everyone for has read my blog from my first follower to my newest or just the people that happen to come across my blog. It's because of all my readers that I keep blogging. I know I will always read books, it's just great to have people to talk about them with. It also great to now people want to read my opinion and random posts. You are all amazing.

Now I have a question for you,

Do you like my blog layout, or should I change it and start with something new for 2011?

--Danielle

Read Chapter One of Unearthly.

This is my third post in ONE DAY. This has to be a new record for me. It's probably because I'm procrastinating writing a paper for history...but I had to tell you about this as soon as Harperteen emailed me.

You can read the first chapter of Unearthly HERE. (http://ow.ly/3ydaz)

If I haven't convinced you to read this book, and I've been trying to since I first received it a few months ago from HarperTeen. I even posted my review today, which you can find a couple of posts down. This should convince you that Unearthly is one of the best books EVER. I'm going to stop this post here so you can go start reading the first chapter of Unearthly now.

--Danielle

Why are you still reading this?! You should be reading Unearthly!

Well I'm off to actually write my history paper...

Teaser Tuesday: The Water Wars

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

•Grab your current read
•Open to a random page
•Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
•BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!


I'm currently reading: The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher

"First of all, the Water Authority is not a person," he explained. "If they made anyone sick, there would be reports about it - news texts, public hearings. People would notice."

"Will notiticed," I pointed out.

"Second," said our father, ignoring me. "the Water Authority takes care of us. They don't make us sick."

"Maybe it was an accident"

page 18 in hardcover copy.


--Danielle

Unearthy: Review

Unearthly

By: Cynthia Hand

Publisher: HarperTeen

Release Date: January 4, 2011 (Today!!)

When I first picked up Unearthly I didn’t know much about it. I was expecting it to be something like the angel books, Fallen and Hush, Hush. Both were very good but took a darker side to the angel stories. To my surprise Unearthly was nothing like them. The main character Clara is actually an angel herself, well part angel.

In the world Unearthly is set in and angel gets a vision of their purpose on earth in bits and pieces. When Clara starts getting her visions, about a boy in a fire that she thinks is her purpose to save. Her whole family (Clara, her mom and brother) moves to Wyoming, where the fire takes place.

There she meets Christian, the boy she’s supposed to save from the fire and starts to slowly fall for him. Then there is also Tuck (of course isn’t there always a love triangle in YA) he is Clara’s best friend’s twin. One of the great things about Unearthly was how the love triangle kept me on my toes and flipping the pages. I even flipped flopped which guy I liked better a few times (and I almost never do that). In the long run this love triangle becomes one of the biggest decisions Clara has to make, and it's not about who she's in love with.

From the very first chapter of Unearthly I was hooked. In the beginning Clara’s visions that sprung up spontaneously throughout the novel kept me guessing and reading but then I got attached to the story and characters. The plot will always have you guessing, just when you think you figures something out Cynthia Hand would throw something unexpected at you.

This is a great start for 2011 that looks like a great year for YA novels. You definitely don’t want to miss this one. Then when you’re finished you can pine for the sequel, because the ending will leave you begging for more.

--Danielle

Look at the beautiful cover!!!!!!!! I love love love love love love it.

In My Mailbox (30)

I didn't have time to do this yesterday, so I thought I should do this today. IMM is a meme created by the Story Siren (http://www.thestorysiren.com/).

This Week I Bought (for my nook):

I love this series and I own all the books, besides the first one which someone stole. Rachel Caine created this world that I can never get tired of. The covers and summaries don't do any justice to the stories you find inside.

I've been wanting to read this one for a while, I'm excited to finally be able to. I've heard many great things about Everlasting.

For Review:

That's all I got this week. I hope everyone had a great New Year's day. I'm sad to see winter break leave and going back to school. Hopefully I'll be able to make a post or video about the past year and what I'm looking forward to in 2011.

--Danielle