Obsessed...who me??!

After this week I think that I need to do a post about obsession.  If you have been reading my blog for very long or you know me, either personally or online you know that I tend to get obsessed about things, people, etc...!!  So, I am going to give you a little picture of the things that I am obsessed with lately!

Let me preface this section by saying that I have tended toward Paranormal/Romance books for about 5 years now, maybe longer.  Ever since I discovered Twilight, which was the spring that they first started working on the first movie.  Before that I read primarily Historical Romance.  I will also tell you that I am a bit of a follower, so if a bunch of my friends are reading something, I want to read it too.  They may not be personal friends either, in fact it wasn't until I had read the Twilight series several times that I was able to convince some of my friends to read it.  Most of my recommendations come from Facebook Friends.  So that's how I got into this whole genre.  I have strayed from it here and there to read some contemporary romance, murder mystery, things like that, then came the Fifty Shades series...  I devoured those books in less than 4 days, and for about a week I had a really hard time finding something that I could get into at all.  It was literally a fluke that I found South of Bixby Bridge by Ryan Winfield.  You can read my review of the book on my other website.  It was one of those facebook ads that says "if you like Fifty Shades of Grey, you will like this book", so of course I had to check it out!  I read some reviews, checked it out on Goodreads and saw this picture on Ryan's Author Profile page and I thought to myself, "if that is the author in the picture, I will read anything he writes".  You all know how shallow I am about things like that!!  So I bought the book on Amazon, read it in a matter of days, it would have been way less time if it hadn't been over the weekend, because I didn't want to put it down.  Long story short...you can read my review if you want to know what I thought of the book beyond that I enjoyed it very much!

The obsession comes in here...I posted my review on Goodreads and within a few hours I got a message, through Goodreads, from Ryan Winfield!  To say that made my day was an understatement...it made my whole week.  He was so sweet, he even tweeted the review from my blog and I have gotten more hits on that post than all the others combined.  I feel like I am cyber-stalking him, but it's not at all creepy, I promise!!  I just think that it's super awesome that he takes the time out to interact with his fans.  Not a lot of authors will do that and I know that he is just kind of starting out, but it's a really good way to build a fan base.  I know that I am anxiously waiting for his next book!

I have been obsessed with these two albums this week...listening to them over and over on my phone!

I am obsessed with these shows and I am sad that the seasons are over...

There are so many more things I am obsessed with but I am going to have to save those for another time!!

Me...a book reviewer?

Maybe...I don't know.  I want to do something new and I read a lot, I mean A LOT of books!  I want to start a new blog that is dedicated to reviewing the books I read and maybe do a movie/TV show review weekly feature.  On average I read about 4 books a week, sometimes more, sometimes less, but that is about average.  

I will start out just reviewing the books I have now, some that I have already read to fill in while I am reading something new.  Hopefully if I can get the word out there I can start getting ARC's from authors for review.  That's not why I am doing it though, really.  I have been struggling to find something to do and I want to write, so why not write about something that I love?!

Along the way, the past few years I have found other women my age who like to read the same kinds of books that I do and it's so fun to talk about what we are reading.  Maybe I can even convince them to guest blog their own reviews!

So now I am going to take a little time to brainstorm a good blog name and get something set up here on Blogger.  I will post a link when I get it done!

I don't want to leave you without a picture so here you go...I read today that Ian says that he would like to throw in his hat to play Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades series, in the even that it makes it to the screen in the future.  All I have to say is, YES PLEASE!!

Has it really been a week?

I see that it has!  Last week I had my interview, got hired and woke up sick the next day!  I plowed through it and tried to work some while I waited for fabric last week.  Then BAM I get 2 big fabric orders in one day and I pre-washed fabric all day Thursday.  I was still not feeling well on Friday, but I got up ran to the fabric store to get ribbon for 2 of the next bags I needed to get done.  Fast forward a little, I iron my fabric, get a bag almost cut out and I literally cut the tip/corner of my index finger on my right hand off.  Apparently those Olfa rotary blades are quite sharp!!  So, it's now been 4 days on not getting anything done while I have this huge bandaged finger.  I am down to a regular bandaid today, and it seems to be healing up.  I just hope that my fingernail will look normal once it grows all the way back...yes, I cut completely through the nail too!

Books vs. their TV counterparts...

I LOVE books, but I also love TV and Movies.  I also like TV Shows and Movies that are made from books, but I can say that in almost 100% of cases (that I have seen and read), the books are much better than the TV/Movie versions.  I am sitting here thinking about it and the one case where I like the TV version better is The Vampire Diaries.  Don't get me wrong, I liked the books but I really like where the series has gone.  Pretty much the only thing that is similar to the books is that Stefan and Damon are brothers, they are Vampires and they both have a thing for Elena.  Even in the beginning that is the only thing that was similar other than the name of the town and the names of her friends.  Pretty much everything else is different.  Elena did live with her aunt, but she had a little sister not a teenage brother.  Alaric and her aunt were NOT an item.  NONE of her friends became vampire and Tyler was a class A jerk, but not a werewolf...there were NO werewolves in the books.  Now it seems like if you have vampires then it only stands to reason that you need werewolves too!  In the books I was on Team Stefan from the beginning...in the TV series I am very Team Damon, and because of that I am SO looking forward to Season 3! 

We have been watching Game of Thrones on HBO and I am reading the book at the same time.  This is probably one of the best adaptations from book to screen that I have seen so far.  Some of the conversations are almost word for word and they are sticking very closely to the plot lines and even some of the minor stuff that is in the book.  Now, that said, last nights episode had a scene in it that was VERY much not in the book and it was very annoying.  So far the book has not been graphic as far as love scenes go, the TV show has added some to those scenes, but it is HBO and we know they are going to do that.  What I don't like is that they added a same sex couple to the story and wrote a whole scene into the story that just isn't there in the book.  The scene itself wasn't really graphic, just implied, but the fact that they added it at all makes me angry!  Loras is called the Knight of Flowers, but that has nothing to do with his orientation and in the book he is not gay and Lord Renly is not implied to be gay either, in fact, neither of them get much mention in the book at all really.  WHY did they need to add this to the story?  When they do this then it's something that they have to keep following through and it distorts the real story as they go down the line.

Point in case....Lafayette, in True Blood.  I am not pointing out that he is gay, and this has nothing to do with that fact.  Lafayette, was in fact, gay in the book.  Notice I said book and not books though!  Lafayette was killed in the final scene of the 1st book and his death sets up the story for the 2nd book.  Alan Ball decided NOT to follow this part of the book and now 3 seasons later we have a full running storyline for a character that is not part of any of the following books.  Now, we know that Alan has take many liberties with these stories and that's a whole other post!  My point is, that when you add in your own story or change something seemingly minor, it's something you have to follow through and when you do follow through it impacts the story that is true.

I am almost done with the 1st Game of Thrones book and I have to say that things are happening that will change this story in a BIG way.  I just hope that HBO and the people running the show see it through and stick to the story otherwise they will have a mess on their hands, at least as far as the readers are concerned.  George R.R. Martin doesn't care who you connect with as a reader and that's how it should be to make a good story, I think.  If you care about someone and they are killed you want to keep reading to make sure that they are avenged, etc...I will just say this because I don't want to spoil it for the watchers, I have connected with a handful of characters as I have read through this book and I am at the 92% mark of the book and 2 of those characters have been killed.  I don't like to see them gone, but it progresses the story and that's how it has to be. From what I hear, from another reader, George isn't done with the killing so I know there is more in store!  I just hope that the show stays true to the book, so far so good really.  I am anxious to see how they are going to fit it all in 10 episodes, I am not sure why they aren't doing 12, but oh well...

I have to say that although True Blood has strayed from the books quite a lot, it's still one of my favorite shows.  Book 4 was my favorite of all the books and so I hope that Season 4 does it justice.  It looks like he is sticking with the plot of Eric losing his memory so that's a step in the right direction.  We'll just have to see if he follows through!