Teen Troves

My Friend Amy is sponsoring a Book Blogger Appreciation Week. Check out all the deets below!

Book Bloggers: You work hard. You read books, you write reviews, you maintain relationships with your readers, publicists, and authors. You are constantly running to the post office to mail your giveaways and participating in carnivals to help boost traffic. You sometimes want to faint when you see the size of your TBR pile, but faithfully you read. And you do it because you love it. Book blogging is for most a hobby. But it’s a hobby that takes a lot of work and time. It’s a labor of love.

I’ve been blogging for three years but only really got into book blogging in the last year. I have found, without a doubt, that book bloggers are the kindest, most open minded, and supportive group of bloggers on the internet. With book blogging, it’s about community and a love for the written word.

The Readers: We love you! You don’t have a blog, but you read our reviews and share your thoughts with us. You enter our giveaways and click on our Amazon associates link. We do this for you and appreciate your readership. We hope you’ll join in the fun and festivities of BBAW! (we’ll have a special contest just for you!)

Book Blogger Appreciation Week: Acknowledging the hard work of book bloggers and their growing impact on book marketing and their essential contribution to book buzz in general, I am excited to announce the first Book Blogger Appreciation Week. Think of it as a retreat for book bloggers and a chance for us to totally nerd out over books together. And of course, shower each other with love and appreciation.

Register: In order to experience the maximum impact of the week, I invite you to register your participation (just like a retreat)!

To register, just send an email to bookbloggerappreciationweekATgmailDOTcom with your blog url and what you consider your niche…i.e, general book blog, classics blog, personal blog with a healthy dose of books, YA books blog, etc. Then, add one of the two buttons at the bottom of this post to your sidebar. If you are a reader (no blog) just send an email announcing your plans to follow along.

Why bother? If you register, you will be added to a book blog directory which will exist long after this week is over. Additionally, you will receive one raffle entry into the daily giveaways during BBAW here at My Friend Amy.

Awards: Oh yes, there will be awards. The Oscars of Book Blogging. Nominations start next week.

Spread the Word: If you are excited about this idea like I am and the other book bloggers who are helping, please consider writing a post on your blog announcing this event and inviting other book bloggers and readers to join.

Help Wanted: If you have a talent for designing buttons (like those below) and would like to donate some of your time and skill to me, please email me personally at mypalamyATgmailDOTcom.

You can use these nifty little buttons to promote the cause as well:

Check this crap out! They’re pushing the release of the 6th Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, by SEVEN months!!!! WTF? Instead of having to wait till November, we have to wait until July 2009. What a bunch of crap!

Although now we get Twilight moved up to November 21st from December 12th, but DAMN.

Not cool Warner Bros., not effing cool.

by Elizabeth Scott

The thing is, you can get used to anything. You think you can’t, you want to die, but you don’t. You won’t. You just are.

Five years ago, when she was ten years old, “Alice” was abducted and since that time she has been living a nightmare. Her captor, Ray, has violated Alice in every way possible, leaving nothing but a shell of the girl she once was.

This book can be summed up in one word: heartbreaking. Heartbreakingly honest. Heartbreakingly sad. Heartbreakingly hopeful. Heartbreaking because we see these stories every single day, knowing too that many other horrific stories have yet to be told.

Scott highlights our human nature to not rock the boat; like the characters in the book we often turn a blind eye to the suffering of others because it’s just to messy to address. We know something is “not quite right,” but we’re all too often of the mindset that someone else will take care of it.

But what if they don’t? Are we any less responsible, for example, than the villain of Living Dead Girl, Ray? While we may not be evil to the extent that he is; we are doing nothing, turning our backs on a situation we know to be wrong. A quote from one of my favorite movies, The Boondock Saints, addresses this sin of omission: “We all must fear evil, but the evil we must fear the most is the indifference of good men.”

I also found myself, perhaps to others dismay, feeling sorry for Ray. It’s clear that he too experienced abuse and it warped his mind, creating a monster. It’s heartbreaking the ripple effect that abuse can create.

It’s no secret that I’m an Elizabeth Scott fangirl and there’s no doubt about it, Living Dead Girl is her best work yet. It’s compelling in its simplicity and heartbreaking in its honesty. Don’t miss it!

Other reviews:

Reader Rabbit

Check it out.

Thoughts? Reactions?

The I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone Contest has been extended to August 22nd. We’re reposting the official rules below:

I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone Contest *DEADLINE EXTENDED*

One of the summer release we’re excited about here at Teen Troves is Stephanie Kuehnert’s I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, which hits stores on July 8th! You all know we love teen books and music. So a teen book containing lots o’ music? We’re so there!

To celebrate the release of I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, we’ve paired up with Lauren from Shooting Stars Mag and a number of other bloggers to offer an AWESOME contest where the winner will receive a plethora of gift cards from a variety of stores!

What do you have to do to enter this contest?

It’s pretty simple: BUY THE BOOK! Then, either scan/copy the receipt OR take a picture of yourself with the book and send the scan/picture to Lauren at: Lauren51990@aol.com.

Deadline:
This contest will end on August 22nd.

The Grand Prize:

$10 Dollar gift cards from the following bloggers:

• And Another Book Read: Barnes and Noble
• Shooting Stars Mag
• Reading Mania
• The Compulsive Reader
• Bookluverreviews
• The Story Siren
• B is for Books
• Teen Troves: Amazon
• From the Corner of Megan’s Mind
• Presenting Lenore
• Writer’s Block Review
• In Bed With Books
• Reader Rabbit
  

So if you do your math: You buy ONE book an get entered in to win 13 $10 gift certificates. 10 x 13 = 130! One lucky winner will win $130 worth of gift cards to various book stores and possibly itunes, as the book is very music centric.

The grand prize may increase if more book bloggers join in! So check back as we’ll be updating the list of blog participants and the gift card list!

Teen Troves is pitching in with a $10 gift card to Amazon.com.

Finally! We have a trailer for Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist!

Although, I have to say that I’m a little worried about how the novel is going to translate on screen. This is one of my all time favorite YA novels and I think it’s going to be really hard to turn N&N into a movie when so much of the book was internal monologue from each character’s point of view.

Not to mention that they’ve already veered from the book by having NORAH ask NICK if he would be her boyfriend for five minutes, instead of the other way around. Grrr. But I’m trying to keep an open mind because I love Michael Cera (Superbad & Juno), although he was not at all what I had pictured for Nick, and I thought Kat Dennings did a great job in Charlie Bartlett. So, we’ll see…..

What do ya’ll think?!!!!

Breaking Dawn is being released tonight at Midnight! You better believe I’ll be at my neighborhood Barnes and Noble! Glad it’s just across the street!

Be sure to check out Stephanie’s website for all the latest news and updates on Stephanie and the Twilight series!

They’ve finally release the official trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince! Ariel and I are HUGE Harry Potter fans and we CAN’T WAIT to see this! So excited because we’re planning on seeing it at Midnight on November 20th which happens to be my twenty-sixth (yes I’m twenty-six and LOVE Harry Potter) birthday!

Edited By: Claire Robson

I was a kid who didn’t fit in - too skinny, too wild, too weird. I have to say, though, looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing. Being on the outside looking in sharpened both my powers of observation and my sense of humor. It toughened me up. Besides, why would anyone strive to be just like everyone else?

Outside Rules is a compilation of short stories by young adult authors. Each story is unique in how it explores the experience of being a nonconformist teen. There are stories about being the uncool artistic kid, the overweight shy girl, the head strong Muslim after 9/11, and the runaway gypsy. What was so wonderful about this collection was the way each author created characters with which you couldn’t help but identify. Maybe it’s because I was a bit of an outsider, but I felt connected to the characters in a way that only the eccentric can. Another interesting aspect of the book was that the stories weren’t always told through the outsider teen’s eyes. Frequently, it was told by another teen watching the outsider and beginning to identify with their experience. I highly reccommend this book. I couldn’t put it down and it really gave voice to teens who can feel silenced.

There’s still time to enter the Pimptastic Book Pimpin’ contest to win $130 worth of gift cards! Contest ends July 30th.