A successful week in which I won my first Giveaway, completed my Bout of Books goal, and got more comments.

This past week I linked up both of my reviews & my discussion with SFF Fridays (hosted by Anya @ on Starships & Dragonwings) and won the giveaway. You can link up scifi or fantasy reviews & giveaway and bookish discussions. Each week she gives away a $5 Amazon Gift Card, or your choice of Arcs from her shelf.

I managed to read all 5 of the books I was behind on promised reviews for, which means I met my Bout of Books goal.

One of the posts I read this week I was "What I Love to See in Book Blogs" by Elizabeth @ Book YAbber and it made me feel pretty good about my recent upgrades. As I said in the comments, I am still looking for that elusive Originality though.

And a great big thank you to everyone who commented on one of my posts, I love you all. I try to always comment back (although the Booklikes notification system has been wonky lately) and if you let me know where to find you online, I'll come visit.

I'm going to have family in town next week, and haven't got a stockpile of posts yet, so I will be doing just the basics.

Last Week on GMB

• SUN: Highs & Lows While Blogging | Sunday Summary #1
• MON: Dipping My Toes in the Water | Bout of Books 16
• TUE: Darlings, Daemons, & Dinosaurs | New Audiobook Releases
• WED: Character Trumps Politics: The Goblin Emperor | Review + Narrator Interview - ★★★★½ YA Steampunk Fantasy
• THU: Yes/No? Blocking gifs on Goodreads | My Musings + Tutorial
• SAT: BFF of the year in Henchgirl | Review + Author Interview - ★★★★ YA Paranormal Romance

Next Week on GMB

• TUE: New Audiobook Releases
• WED: Campbell Nails YA: The Dragons of Dorcastle | Review + Author Interview
• SAT: Fade Into Me | Review + Author Interview
• SUN: Sunday Summary #3

Exploring Cyberspace

From my Feed (recent articles/posts) - both of these came from Book Riot this week:

• "My Favorite Books Make Me Feel Things" guest post by Jen Sherman
  

"And yet, my favourite books are the ones that don’t necessarily force me to think about big abstract concepts, or are full of depth and complexity and beautifully poetic sentences. Instead, these are the ones that suck me into the story, make me care about the characters, feel things in a raw and open way, and give me a need to keep turning pages."

Note: Jen appears to be a very cool person and recently got married in a library.

• "How To Up Your Book Browsing Game in 5 Easy Steps" guest post by Tirzah Price

"True book browsing is about discovery. It’s physical. At its best, book browsing is like the inevitable twist in a good book–surprising yet exactly what you wanted. While there’s nothing wrong with knowing what genres you like and what you want to read next, I believe that taking the time to browse and explore is pure fun and can be extremely rewarding. Here are five tips to up your book browsing game for your next trip to the bookstore or library:"

Oldies But Goodies:

• 11 Reasons Why Young Adult Fiction Is Even Better When You Read It As An Adult by Emma Lord @ Bustle

"You Stay In Touch With Your Younger Self"

 

If you're ever looking for some record-breaking nostalgia, re-read a young adult novel that you read when you were younger. It is amazing just how much your perspective will change on the characters and their situations even in a few years. Re-reading The Outsiders as an adult nearly broke my heart, because this time I was reading it with an empathy for the older characters that I was just too young to have at 14. I'm sure if I read it again in a few more years my perspective will be entirely different then, too. That is what is so beautiful about young adult novels: they don't just grow on you, but grow with you."

Note: I included this one a bit ironically, since it is full of animated gifs (which I ranted against in a post earlier this week). But she DOES make some good points.

Reading Update

This week I "read" the following books:

My favorite of these was: Henchgirl

Up Next

The only remaining Review Copy on my plate is the new 48 hour Full Cast audio version of Battlefield Earth. I got it 3 weeks later than planned, so I won't be able to get the review up before the release on June 6th but I will be starting it next week. But, since I will have family in town, I probably won't get very far. This one is going to take awhile.

From the Library

(Hover over cover to read description)

Other Acquisitions

Audiobook from this summer's Sync program. (If you are reading this before 7am, Eastern US time, on 5/19/16 this audiobook is still FREE here)

All the Kindle books I acquired that have Audible versions available.

Some of the other Kindle books I acquired.

Talk to Me (pretty please)

• Do you organize or track the posts you leave comments on in any way?
• What do you "Love to See in Book Blogs" (feel free to add the URL if you've written a post about this)?
• What new books did you get this week? What did you read?

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• If you are a first time visitor, how did you discover my blog?
• I recently debuted my redesigned blog. What do you think?

This post will also be linked up with the following (hover for descriptions):