NetGalley October - Totals and WINNERS!

NetGalley October was full of WIN!

Before I show you how much awesome actually took place, it's time to pick some winners!

CONGRATULATIONS TO:

Julie Witt (@jwitt33)

and

Marlene (Escape Reality, Read Fiction!)

You each have won $15 worth of books from The Book Depository!

Be sure to use the US site - http://www.bookdepository.com/ - and email me your choices at WilowRaven@gmail.com

Now - on to the totals!

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NetGalley October Stats and Totals

A total of 70 people signed up to participate and in the end, 51 of the 70 checked back in with their totals + 3 others who hadn't initially signed up.

SO! The lists below represent the NetGalley October reading totals of 54 persons :)

TOP 3 MOST READ BOOKS FOR NETGALLEY OCTOBER
7 people read: Ashfall by Mike Mullin (with 1 other partial read) -- 3 people marked as their favorite read
8 people read: Eve by Anna Carey
9 people read: Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel (with 2 other partial reads) -- 5 people marked as their favorite read

The following titles were each read by 5 people:
Variant, The Iron Knight, Lord of the Abyss

The following titles were each read by 4 people:
You Are My Only, Tirs and Izzie, Touch of Power, The Butterfly Clues, Real Men Will, Lord of the Wolfyn

The following titles were each read by 3 people:
Until There Was You, The Juliet Spell,The Demon Lover, Jane Austen Made Me Do It, Fracture, Demons Like It Hot, Crave, Bad Boys Do, A Vampire for Christmas

The following titles were each read by 2 people:
A Midsummer Night's Sin, A Shot in the Dark, Avenger's Angel, Beauty and the Werewolf, Blood Rights, Brass and Bone, Cinder, Dark Eden, Darker Still, Ecstasy Untamed, Enticed by His Forgotten Lover, Franklin's Halloween, Graffiti Moon, How to Save a Life, If I Tell, In Session, Lord of the Vampires, Naomi's Gift: An Amish Christmas Story, Prized, Saving June, Seers, Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories, Tempest, The Edinburgh Dead, The Kingdom of Childhood, The Merchant's Daughter, Touch, Turnabout's Fair Play

An additional 193 books were each read by 1 person

That adds up to a grand total 342 books read!

That is awesome!

And remember, I didn't hear back from everyone who signed up so I'm sure the actual numbers are much higher.

This post is a little long, so I'm going to end it here - I have a few more stats to share but I'll leave that for another day.

I huge huge thank you to everyone who participated!

NetGalley January is a go and I'm hoping to make it the best one yet!
If you would like a reminder in December - fill out my form and I'll email you.

Thanks again guys!!

What is a 'noreply-comment' and why is it important?

**Everything below relates to Blogger blogs and profiles. Other blog platform may handle comments differently**

As most bloggers do, I adore comments on my posts. I'm proud of my blog and I work hard at it and when people comment, it makes me happy :)

I use Blogger and I have all comments emailed to me. I love this because I'm always checking my email and I know right away when someone has stopped by.

Another cool feature to having your comments emailed to you is being able to reply back via email.

What makes me sad and often a little frustrated, is when I receive a comment and I really want to respond back and maybe even a question has been asked that I would very much like to answer. So, I move my little mouse pointer up and get ready to click on that wonderful 'Reply' button and this is what I see...

What is this noreply-comment@blogger.com?

Basically, when you comment with your Blogger account - meaning you signed in via Google to make your comment - your account is now linked to your comment.

Depending on how you set up your account, when you comment on blogs, your email address either WILL or WILL NOT appear.

On my end, as a blog owner, I'll either see your email address - (WilowRaven@yahoo.com) OR I'll see Blogger's default email address (noreply-comment@blogger.com)

Your email won't appear on your comment, but it will (or will not) appear as the Sender on comment relayed emails.

SO! Why is this important?

You may, for reasons your own, wish to remain as anonymous as you possibly can in an on-line environment. You don't have a blog yourself and / or you don't want people to ever be able to contact you for any reason and your Blogger Profile only has the barest of information on it. And you know, that's fine!

BUT! Don't most of you want people to be able to contact you? 

It is my belief that a lot of people don't realize their account is set up to NOT SHOW their email address. 

Here is an easy way to find out - and change it if you wish! (please?)

1. Log into your account and view your Dashboard (here's mine with some info blanked out for privacy reasons)

*I'm using the old Blogger interface - if you updated to the new one, you can easily switch back - it's a little easier that way*

2. Click on Edit Profile

3. Click on the box next to "Show My Email Address" and set an email address - it can be any email address you want. So if you're worried about privacy - create a new email account for yourself and use that one. OR, if you're a blogger, use the one on your contact page so all bloggy related things are all in once place :)

4. Scroll down, save your settings and - DONE!

Now when you comment, blog owners will see:

And all will be right with the world!
Ok, maybe not ALL but I know, I'll be a lot happier :)

Hope this makes sense to everyone and I hope it's at least a little helpful.

Let me know if you have any questions! AND if you do have your account set to not show your email address on purpose, I'm curious to know why, so let me know :)

Thanks guys!

Book Review: Reasons to be Happy by Katrina Kittle

Reading Level: Young Adult
Publication Date: October 2011
Pages: 224
Series: no
Acquisition: received for review

Summary:

Hannah's parents are glamorous Hollywood royalty, and sometimes she feels like the ugly duckling in a family of swans. After her mother's tragic death, Hannah's grief is compounded by her desperate need to live up to her mother's image. She tries to control her weight through Bulimia, and her devastated father is too distracted to notice. The secret of her eating disorder weighs heavily on Hannah, but the new eighth grade Beverly Hills clique she's befriended only reinforces her desire to be beautiful. The only one who seems to notice, or care, that something is wrong is Jasper, the quirky mistfit. (from Goodreads)

My thoughts:
A contemporary story about a girl grieving for her mother's death and her father's indifference. She turns to food as a way to coping. She finds friends in unlikely places and after a lot of struggles, she also finds herself. A good read, but not as heartwarming as I had hoped.

Hannah's mother and father are movie stars. Their faces are all over billboards and on the sides of buses. But her mom has cancer and dies a few chapters into the book. Her father looses it and becomes a Hollywood statistic - he drinks and he looses movies deals and he winds up in jail and then rehab. At the same time, Hannah develops an eating disorder. She steals food from her elite, perfect private school - complete with kids way to rich for their own good, security to fend off the paparazzi and of course, the poor charity, scholarship kid. She eventually goes to Africa to help her aunt film another award winning documentary about starving orphans. And in the end everything falls into place.

My main issue with Reasons to be Happy was its extremely unrealistic setting. Eating disorders are very serious and Hannah's experiences are no exception. What was exceptional was her life in general. Her parents are famous, she's rich, she's never had to really worry about anything in life, she goes to Africa which helps heal her, making life long friends along the way and reconnecting with her father who also gets his life back on track and gets nominated for an Emmy. Not a whole lot there to relate to.

I did really enjoy Hannah's reasons to be happy list. She finds joy in the simplest of things. So although, I really couldn't relate to her outward life, I did fell a connection to her secret inner most thoughts, wishes, hopes and dreams.

An ok read for me. Readers who are more in tune with and bigger fans of contemporary YA would probably enjoy this one better then I did. I wouldn't hesitate to read another book by Katrina as I did really enjoy the writing and style of Reasons to be Happy. It's actually inspired me to stat my own reasons to be happy list.

Overall Rating:

3 / 5 Stars

Linkage Love:
Sourcebooks
Author's Website
Goodreads

NetGalley October - MY TOTALS :)

Almost all of you have reported back in with your NetGalley reads for October 

Woo hoo!

I'm holding out for a few more days and then I'll post the massive list of books read and I'll pick giveaway winners!

SO! If you haven't already - now's the time to check in!

In the mean time, I thought you all might want to see what I read last month.

I basically read nothing but NetGalley books for all of October and I was really able to catch up. 

I started out with my Nook but found that reading on my iPad wasn't as hard on my eyes as I thought it would be.

Ok, here we go!

The Iron Knight (Iron Fey #4) by Julie Kagawa

Flyaway by Helen Landalf

On A Dark Wing by Jordan Dane

The Butterfly Clues by Kate Ellison

The Flying Beaver Brothers and The Evil Penguin Plan by Maxwell Eaton III

The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman

Drowning Instinct by Ilsa J. Bick

May B. by Carolin Starr Rose

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

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I tried a few new things in October - most of them behind the scences but I've been getting tons of feedback about what you guys want for January!

October participants have been given the option of receiving a NETGALLEY JANUARY EMAIL REMINDER from me. If you didn't participate in October but want to in January and would like an email reminder as well then please

 FILL OUT THIS FORM!

I never share and I'll only be contacting you one time! I'll also have the sign-up sheet ready in mid December to give you time to prepare.

Check back in a few days for October's totals and winners!
Thanks guys!

Book Review: Half-Blood by Jennifer L. Armentrout

***2011 Debut Author***

Reading Level: Young Adult
Publication Date: October 2011
Pages: 281
Series: 1st in the Covenant series
Acquisition: BEA 2011

Summary:

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 totally hot pure-blood 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. (from Goodreads)

My thoughts:
Half-Blood is a book I wish I had had the time to read in one sitting. I really did not want to put it down! Drawn into the story from page 1, I soon fell in love with the characters and really just could not get enough of the world Jennifer created. I'm writing this after just turning that last page and I wish I had book 2 in my hands already.

Paranormal elements that were new and fresh and a setting that felt very much real. You might be reminded of other paranormal YA books while reading Half-Blood - the boarding school like setting, the hidden family secrets, the ridiculously hot guy(s?) that aren't as out of reach as they should be - BUT - the story itself and the characters were very unique. I never felt like I was reading the same old thing and I was never bored with the story.

I was engaged as a reader and I fell for the characters very quickly. Nerve racking at times, not sure who's side I should be on, full of mystery and hidden meanings; rules that just beg to be broken and characters that you will not be able to stop thinking about, Half-Blood is a thrill ride of a tale that fans of YA paranormal romance will absolutely love!

Overall Rating:

5 / 5 Stars

Books in the Covenant Series:
0.5 Daimon
1.0 Half-Blood
2.0 Pure (April 2012)
3.0 Deity (November 2012)
4.0 Untitled (2013)

Linkage Love:
Spencer Hill Press
Author's Website
Goodreads