the.book.chat: Characters

One of my goals for this month was linking up more with sweet green tangerine and her weekly link up, the.book.chat.

The topic for this week is one that I’m having a hard time relating to (ha!).  It’s about characters that you relate well to.  I was hoping something would come to me quickly and that instantly I would know the most recent character I read that I really related to, but nothing came to mind.  I do remember many characters I don’t relate to: Amy from Gone Girl, Tris from Divergent, Bella from Twilight, Katniss from the Hunger Games, Annajane from Spring Fever, just to name a few. 

So then I started thinking that maybe I seek out books where I don’t relate to the character.  Aren’t books suppose to give you an escape? Take you to others worlds?  Maybe that’s more just my taste.  I don’t think I’d want to read about book about something similar to my life, and I think that translates to not wanting to  read about characters that are similar to me or that I can relate to.  One other thought I had was that I actually find ways in my mind to not relate myself to characters.  Whatever it is, I can think of a character in recent memory that I really relate to and I don't see that as being a bad thing!

Audio book review - Queen of Babble by Meg Cabot

Why did I read this book?
I picked up the audio book at the library to help along my 45 minute commute while I was still in Kentucky.  Meg Cabot is usually associated with young adult books (she wrote the Princess Diaries!) so to see one by her in the "grown-up" section caught my attention, and the cover was cute so I grabbed it!

First Lines:
"I can't believe this. I can't believe I don't remember what he looks like!" (Cabot 2)

What is it about?
Lizzie is heading off to England to meet with her long distance boyfriend.  As soon as she shows up everything starts going wrong.  Her boyfriend lives with his parents, he isn't as cute as she remembers, and he's in some money trouble.  Realizing she's made a huge mistake traveling all the way to England and not wanting to spend the money to go home early she boards a train to France to meet up with a friends who is working at a french chateau for the summer.  But trouble seems to follow her there and she keeps opening her mouth at the wrong time.

Why you should read it!
This is serious chick-lit, and I loved every minute of it.  I listened to it on audio and the reader was great!  As a person, Lizzie got on my nerves but her adventurous spirit was very fun.  One thing I didn't expect from this book were the vivid settings.  When she gets to the french chateau and vineyard I really felt like I wanted to be there too!  It made for a nice change in your usual setting for a chick-lit novel.  This book was an easy listen and I would recommend it to anyone who likes this genre or just wants a fun summer read!

Reviews from around the blogosphere:

The Book Lady's Blog
The Book Scoop
Quinn's Book Nook

Did you read this book and review it on your blog? Let me know in the comments and I'll add your link!

When did June get here?

So I tried to do the blog everyday in May challenge and I think I blogged exactly two days...oops.  Well moving forward let's hope June will be better!  I have some good blog and personal goals for this month and I figure if I lay them out here maybe I can hold myself accountable for them.

Let's start with blog goals.  As of today I have 12 books that I've read that are yet to be reviewed, to deal with this back log all I need to do is three a week, I hope I can do that! I'm reviewing over at Jagged Edge again (and they are still looking for other reviewers if any book lovers aout there are interested in helping), so if I can get at least half of those over to them that would help out over there.  I would also like to do at least one link-up with the book chat (she does one a week, so I should be able to catch onto one of those).  Also, I have a couple personal posts I'd like to get up before June is over.  At least one on local wine and at least two on our road trip across the country.

This is what our apartment is looking like these days...

As for some personal goals, I want to be totally moved into our new apartment by the end of June.  I would like to start practicing my flute more (in hopes of a fall audition), I'll start with a goal of 2 times a week and move to 3 times a week halfway through the month.  Last personal goal is to be ready fo a 5k in July, so that means running more, ugh.  I have a 5k training plan (that I adapted to my schedule from Hal Higdon's) and realistically hope to stick to 5 out of the 7 days each week.

With all these goals I hope to do a weekly wrap up on the blog (and maybe take some other ideas from these sunday currently posts on siddathorton) to keep myself on track!