Guys! Guys! BOOKCON is tomorrow!!

Way, way back when in February, I mentioned that I was going to BookCon this year. Now guess what? BookCon is tomorrow!!! And I am beyond excited!!

I'll be there both days. I basically did everything the website said to do to prepare for my first BookCon expedition (actually my first adventure into any kind of con.) I've downloaded the app and synced all the things that I want to do with my phone calendar so that I get notifications half and hour beforehand so I don't miss anything. But there are so many things!! All the panels sound amazing and then there are autograph booths and awesome bookish stuff... I know that I won't get to everything on my list but, hey, a girl can try right?

I'm most excited to see Felicia Day (aka Charlie for Supernatural fans - by the way, the season finale this year killed me), Rainbow Rowell, and Marissa Meyer on Saturday and Sarah J. Maas and Kat, Christine, and Jesse from Booksplosion on Sunday. But really, if out of all the things I bookmarked for both days I only got to get an autograph from Sarah J. Maas, I'd be a happy camper. Like a really happy camper.

Lots of pictures will happen and since this week is also special employee discount days at work, a giant BookCon/Summer Reads book haul is to be expected in the near future.

So I've been a crappy blogger this month...

 aka the part of this blog where I'll talk about books in general, blogging in general or basically anything I want... in general. 

So like the title of this post says, I've been a bit of a crappy blogger this month. Last month, I marathoned through all of The Lunar Chronicles and absolutely loved every bit of it. But then, after I reviewed Scarlet, I essentially didn't stop reading until I finished Cress and Fairest. 

What has that got to do with my blogging abilities you may ask?

Apparently I stressed myself out so much about not reviewing Cress and Fairest in a timely enough manner that I worked myself into an epic reading slump. I don't even have a real reason for not writing my reviews on time aside from, I just didn't want to stop reading to write them. Then, after I finished Fairest, I was so into Levana's prequel storyline that I couldn't focus properly when I went back and tried to go back to review Cress. What bugs me is that I had so much I wanted to say about these books but every time I sat down to write about them, my mind went blank (For example: I have a funny feeling Lihn Garan is still alive somewhere. Is that just me? Because how else is Winter going to get better?) Then enough days passed where the tiny details of the books began to fade and it felt like writing reviews now would not be fair to the books. (Books have feelings too you know!) But, since I knew I wanted to write the reviews, I didn't start reading a new book because I knew that those details would fade even more if I started reading a new book and entered a new book world. Besides, I tried reading other things and just couldn't really focus on them. Not even A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas could end my reading slump and it's SARAH J. MAAS!!!

Speaking of whom, she is going to be at BookCon which is less than TEN days away! I had all these pre-BookCon plans like properly creating a schedule of what I wanted to see and who I wanted to get autographs from and reading all the books I owned from authors who were going to be there. I only partially got through creating a schedule and I failed at reading basically all month. Now I'm just all sorts of behind in all the things and because I'm all sorts of behind I don't know where to begin to catch up. I didn't even do the tags that I wanted to do because all of this would have distracted me from writing those reviews!

Seriously, guys, this is how my weirdo brain works. 

Monkey, monkey, underpants. 

Anywho, in an attempt to get myself out of this nonsense, I will not be reviewing Cress and Fairest like I planned to (just know that I have major love for the both of them and that I cannot wait for Winter) but I will be revamping the way I write my reviews to something simpler and more straight to the point. The English major in me comes out way too strongly whenever I review something which is why reviewing becomes stressful. I was the kind of English major that procrastinated as much as possible when writing essays (which I hate doing) to the point where I basically spent all of my junior and senior semesters pulling all-nighters. I highly recommend not doing this. No amount of coffee will save you. 

So I leave you with these questions and a promise that I'll be a better blogger from now on: 

Do you stress over writing reviews? 

If you do, how do you pick which of the books you read to review? 

Also (that this is entirely off topic) if you're stressing over anything or just having a bad day, watch this. I promise it will make your day and make you smile - particularly if you're a Supernatural fan.

April Wrap-Up

This April was the month that I discovered the absolute AMAZINGNESS that is Marissa Meyer. So, so far this year, I've discovered two new authors who have hit the higher end of my favorite authors of all time list. The first was the wonderful Sarah J. Maas and now, the lovely Marissa Meyer.

I literally spent all month just reading straight from Cinder all the way through to Fairest. Seriously, no fairytale retelling I've ever read has been as amazing as these four books. Marissa Meyer is a retelling queen. The way she incorporates the original story into her own story is so seamless that you almost forget you're reading a retelling and several times (particularly in Scarlet and Cress) it was so seamless that I forgot to watch out for any pieces of the original story that were moving the plot along.

In short, read the Lunar Chronicles. That's not a suggestion. You really need to. Go on now... go read them.

Books I read this month:

     

   

 Click the covers to read my reviews. I haven't reviewed Cress or Fairest yet but that's on my to do list. I won't be reviewing Amulet on here but I did a short review on Goodreads. 

Fairytale Reading Challenge 2015: I'm counting all four Lunar Chronicles books towards my goal. They were retellings of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow White. Technically, Fairest isn't a full retelling but it could count towards a retelling of the history of the Evil Queen so I'm going with that. All in all, I'm at 6 out of 16-20 books of my goal. Pretty on track in my opinion. I can't say the same thing for my yearly Goodreads Challenge though where I'm currently five books behind schedule.

In other news, BookCon has finally uploaded their event schedule. I will be there both days and I'm super excited about it. Like really, I'm way beyond a normal person's level of excitement. I might do a post of all the panels I plan on attending, maybe, but that's only if I ever make a decision as to what I actually want to go to because if I could, I would go to them all.

That's it for update-y things. Let me know if you read anything exciting in April. Or what authors have you discovered this year that have blown you away? Also, is anyone else going to BookCon? If so, I hope to see you there!