Living the Creative Life

I know it's halfway through the month, but I thought it might be fun to give you, my loyal readers, a free desktop calendar! I will try to remember to do this every month, if you want. (And please let me know if you need a different screen resolution than the ones I've got uploaded already.) 1280x800 | 1366x768 | 1920x1080

Well, one of the six books I was attempting to read is back in the "return to the library" pile already. I definitely do NOT recommend The Chaos of Stars by Kiersten White. I could only force myself to read a chapter and a half, but I just couldn't take it anymore. This book has the most beautiful bookcover, so I was expecting a beautiful book. Instead we have a sullen, sarcastic, very-American-sounding teenager shoehorned into this beautiful Egyptian world. It just doesn't work. Every time I started to get swept away by the story, the main character rolled her eyes and got annoyed and my suspension of disbelief was shattered. Great idea. Horrible execution. I'll be adding this book to take it's place instead: Wildwood by Colin Meloy. This isn't actually a library book, but one I bought (so I better like it!!). It's supposedly a Narnia-like story set in Portland (where I used to live), and the cover is mesmerizingly beautiful, so... I had to try...

I'm going to try something nuts and actively read 6 books at once. I mean, I do normally have at least a couple going at once, and honestly I've got about 20 others started but they're now hibernating on my "Shelved but not abandoned" pile. But generally speaking I don't actively read quite this many at once. Am I crazy to attempt it? So... my current situation is that I'm in the middle of a super good book, Skybreaker, which is a library book, but I have a stack of other library books also starring at me saying, "Read me! Read me! I'm your new favorite book! Why are you ignoring me?" So I figured, "Why not? Let's aim to read at least one chapter a day in each of them. If one of them grabs me and sucks me in and forces me to read more, who am I to argue? But at least I won't be distracted by wishing I knew what the other books on my shelf are about. How 'bout you? Do you read multiple books at once? If so, why? If not, h...

Got a bunch of new Blogger templates up in the shop recently. I also took out a lot of the older ones w/ the intention of simplifying them and re-uploading them, but of course I've been to busy to actually get them back up! Oops... Available for purchase . View the demo . Available for purchase . View the demo . Available for purchase . View the demo . Available for purchase . View the demo . Available for purchase . View the demo .

I've been catching up posting book reviews of books I've read this year. In case you missed them... here's a list of them all! (PS: I'll probably be back-dating some reviews for last year soon, so I'll let you know when I've got those up as well). January 2014 On Writing by Stephen King Little Brother by Cory Doctorow Cinder by Marissa Meyer Remote: Office Not Required by Jason Fried Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins Sweet Little Lies by Lauren Conrad February 2014 Wuthering High by Cara Lockwood Timebound by Rysa Walker Never Have I Ever by Katie Heaney The Fallen by Celia Thomson March 2014 The Archived by Victoria Schwab The Awakening by L. J. Smith Thirty-Two Going on... Spinster by Becky Monson The Stolen by Celia Thomson Airborne  by Kenneth Oppel

This book is so cool. I fell in love with it from page one and can't wait to finish the series. It reminds me a lot of my favorite book when I was growing up: The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, only from a boy's perspective and in a slightly altered steam-punk-ish version of history. Matt Cruse is a 15-year-old cabin boy onboard an airship that sails over the Pacific Ocean. He teams up with a wealthy passenger, Kate de Vries, to explore a tropical island, defeat evil pirates, and save their ship from certain danger. I give this book 5 out of 5 stars.

This is book 2 of the Nine Lives of Chloe King series. Overall, I sort of like the storyline but the writing is mediocre at best. I can't say I really recommend this series, although I'm sort of curious to see what happens next, so I'll probably finish it at some point. The last half of this book was better than the first half but I still found myself struggling to finish. I give this 3 out of 5 stars.