Giving in to the Crazies

Do you ever wake up some mornings and think the world's decided to go mad and forgotten to let you know so you're, like, the only sane person left?

I don't know why I feel that way this morning.  Perhaps it's because I'm still reeling from jerk-face who cut me off the other day when he had a red light and then proceeded to swear at me.  Or maybe it's because I can't believe a story about a woman with a gazillion pairs of shoes would actually make the news when there's real, serious stuff to be talked about.  Or MAYBE it's because I've found myself laughing at the ridiculousness of a situation that would have ME signing my name on bookmarks.  I mean, yes it's cool, but come on?  Who would honestly want MY signature?!  I'm just Emily (i.e. not cool enough to be experiencing any type of awesome).

The world that's existed this past week has been absolutely and utterly insane.  And I'm having a very hard time wrapping my mind around all of it.

Do you ever get that way?  What do you do about it?  Is there a special chocolate I can eat to make it all go away?  :)

Oh!  I just thought of something!  This MUST be common!  Maybe this is why zombie stories about MCs surrounded by mind-eating crazies are so popular.  Resistance is futile... :P

And the Winner of the Super Amazing Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Poster Is...

*drum roll* ...

*drum roll* ...

*drum roll* ...

*clowns doing clownish things* ...

TRACEY L. BENTLEY!!!!!

*tosses balloons*

Woohoo!!!  I hope you love it, Tracey!  It is gorgeous!!

Stop back on Wednesday for a review of the book!

~By the way, yes I do know I've been lacking on the blogosphere lately.  It makes me sad too.  Well, no it doesn't. :P I'm enjoying summer and getting a lot of work done.  I promise to get back to my active self come September.  In the meantime, sit back and relax, sip a cup of tea, and enjoy my pretty pink wallpaper~   :)

The Hazards of Watching Good Book Trailers

You get free stuff to give away!!

That's right!  Right after I posted my review of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, someone from Quirk Books contacted me about it.  Well, they offered to send me a poster to give to one of you lucky readers!!

And it came in the mail on Saturday!!

So all you have to do to win this gorgeous poster (yup, it looks like the picture above) is leave a comment below!  An extra entry will go to anyone who spreads the word about the giveaway (please provide a link) on his/her blog, twitter, or facebook account!

Good luck!

And in other very exciting news, I'm being interviewed at Read Write Review--YA Style!  The post hasn't been put up yet, but will be up this afternoon.  Check it out! 

Bad Taste in Boys! A Review! For Real This Time!!

Someone's been a very bad zombie.

Kate Grable is horrified to find out that the football coach has given the team steroids. Worse yet, the steroids are having an unexpected effect, turning hot gridiron hunks into mindless flesh-eating zombies. No one is safe--not her cute crush Aaron, not her dorky brother, Jonah . . . not even Kate!

She's got to find an antidote--before her entire high school ends up eating each other. So Kate, her best girlfriend, Rocky, and Aaron stage a frantic battle to save their town. . . and stay hormonally human.



About the Author:

"Carrie Harris is a geek-of-all-trades and proud of it.  Brains are her specialty; she used to work in a lab where they were delivered daily via FedEx.  After that, it seemed only natural to write a zombie book.  Now she lives in Michigan with her ninja-doctor husband and three zombie-obsessed children.  Learn more about her at carrieharrisbooks.com."


What I liked:


Holy cannoli, people, this book is a winner.  It is so hilarious, so campy, so zany (a word I've decided to use as often as I can), so...so...worth reading.  When two of the main supporting characters are named Rocky and Kiki, you know you're in for a laugh-out-loud treat.


Kate Grable is a full-on geek with frizzy hair, glasses, and non-existent social graces and she is soooo proud of it.  Well, maybe not those parts, but she's definitely proud of the brains that come with geek-dom.  Braaaaaiiiins.  Hehe!  In a story where the high school jocks have become brain dead in every sense, having a few smarts to save the day is definitely a plus.  And with geeky little brother by her side--a pseudosword in his hand--the quest to cure the zombies is her newest life mission.


Even with all the gory bits (and yes, there were gory bits--this is a book about zombies, people), I managed to laugh through 90% of this book.


Think I'm exaggerating about the hilarity? Let's take a look at some of Ms. Harris's witty phrasing that permeates the pages:


"It was game on, zombies. Game. On."


"He giggled. Yep, it was really him. I didn't know any other teenage male who would giggle in public. Or at all."


Ahahaha!  Okay, I realize that without context these lines might be totally lost on you, dear readers, but trust me, they're hilarious.


What I didn't like:


There was literally nothing I didn't like.  Even the cheesiness at the end was so completely perfect, so in keeping with the rest of the book that I couldn't help but laugh.


I definitely give this book five stars and am wondering why you're still here reading this review!  Go buy it!  You can even click this link for your purchasing convenience.

Bad Taste in Boys! A Review! Well, not really...

My plan was (and still is) to review Bad Taste in Boys, by Carrie Harris today.  I'm 66% done and reading it like a madwoman on...something...that she gets all crazy about...yeah.  :o

So, the review will come today!  But my post will be a little later than usual.  Look for it!  You know you are just dying to know what I think! *snarf*  <---If you followed Carrie on her blog, you would totally laugh at that!

Stop back later!  I promise it's gonna be great! 

Bad Taste in Boys!!

 I don't know about you, but I've been anxiously awaiting this book for a LOOOOOONG time now.  The author is hilarious, the cover is amazing, and any book about zombies is sure to pique my interest.

And it came out this week!!!  Woohoo!!  I'm buying it today.  How about you? 

In case you haven't heard of this book (from Goodreads):

Someone's been a very bad zombie.

Kate Grable is horrified to find out that the football coach has given the team steroids. Worse yet, the steroids are having an unexpected effect, turning hot gridiron hunks into mindless flesh-eating zombies. No one is safe--not her cute crush Aaron, not her dorky brother, Jonah . . . not even Kate!

She's got to find an antidote--before her entire high school ends up eating each other. So Kate, her best girlfriend, Rocky, and Aaron stage a frantic battle to save their town. . . and stay hormonally human.


Doesn't that sound amazing???  You must buy it.  You must buy it now!!  At least, I know I am!  :)

Do you know of any other great books that have come out recently?  Share!

Monday Morning Video Brought to You By Wither by Lauren DeStefano

Good morning, readers!!  I know!  It's Monday and I'm actually here!  Shocking.  :P

Let's get right to the video, shall we?




From Goodreads:

What if you knew exactly when you would die? 

Thanks to modern science, every human being has become a ticking genetic time bomb — males only live to age twenty-five, and females only live to age twenty. In this bleak landscape, young girls are kidnapped and forced into polygamous marriages to keep the population from dying out. 

When sixteen-year-old Rhine Ellery is taken by the Gatherers to become a bride, she enters a world of wealth and privilege. Despite her husband Linden's genuine love for her, and a tenuous trust among her sister wives, Rhine has one purpose: to escape — to find her twin brother and go home. 

But Rhine has more to contend with than losing her freedom. Linden's eccentric father is bent on finding an antidote to the genetic virus that is getting closer to taking his son, even if it means collecting corpses in order to test his experiments. With the help of Gabriel, a servant Rhine is growing dangerously attracted to, Rhine attempts to break free, in the limited time she has left.

My Thoughts:

I actually kind of like this video despite the awkward voice-over (something I learned from my theater classes in college:  voice-overs are difficult, especially ones that are supposed to be packed with emotion.  Oftentimes, they come across as too breathy or forced).  This one was a touch too forced in some spots, but I still felt the whole trailer adequately portrayed the depressive feel of the book.

Your thoughts, dear readers?  Would you read this book based on the trailer?

Bad Emily!

I realize I've been MIA lately.  Actually, I've been here, but I've been doing the whole lurking thing.  You know the one where I read posts but don't comment.  Yeah... You see, I've been reading and writing so much (my very awesome editor and equally awesome fellow author friend from SHP sent me some books, and I've been reading them...non-stop) that the idea of writing on the blog (even just a comment or small post) has kind of made me go ehhhhh...no.

But that's bad, so I'm actually going to give you a kind of real post today.

I know one of the questions I always wanted answered when I was doing the whole querying thing was what was the after-process actually like.  You know, the process AFTER you get an agent or sign with a publishing company.  What do you talk about with an editor/agent?  Is it an uncomfortable relationship as you two try to come to terms with the fact that you're working together now?  Do you still have the whole oh-my-goodness-this-is-totally-an-industry-professional-who's-coolness-is-still-so-far-above-me mentality?  Do you just click?  And if so, how?

To be honest, I always had my doubts that those budding relationships were anything but uncomfortable.  I just couldn't get my mind wrapped around the idea that you could go from looking up to someone who essentially had your career in the palms of their hands to working with them at that peer/equal level.  And maybe my whole situation isn't the best example to refute that because I'd been acquainted with Kate (my editor) for a while (ever since she started her blog) before she found out about my book and made the offer.  So I may not be the BEST example, but I'm at least an example, so I'll refute my original misgivings as best I can.

Yes, the two separate entities (editor/agent and author) can click immediately, and I finally understand why.  If you've got someone who's read your book (you know, the thing that carries pretty much everything about you in a nice little package) and loves it enough to want to get it published, you've basically already gone through the equivalent of 3-5 dates and found the person you can really get "serious" with.  You two are already on the same page.  But let's be honest, the author is like the lovable bad boy in the situation.  Yeah, the editor/agent loves the book, wants to work with you, but there's still some things that need fixin'.  And if you're like every other YA bad boy, you'll succumb to the fixin' because you know it's really in your best interest. :)

When Kate sent my first round of edits a few weeks ago, I'll be honest, I was terrified.  I've gone through a few bad beta situations where people I liked just didn't have the same scope for my novel in mind that I did.  So here I was knowing I really liked Kate, but did that mean we had the same ideas for my novel?  Would I open up the document and see every sentence crossed out and reworded?  Eek!

Well...no.  I opened the document and saw how silly I was.

I've mentally slapped myself since then because why would an editor take on something that he/she wanted to overhaul?  As I read all the notes and all the suggestions, I realized this person had precisely in mind what I was going for.  She'd read my book, loved it, and now just wanted to give it that extra little sparkle.

And I'd imagine this is similar to every other agent/editor and author relationship.  The two of you already have something in common long before you sign the contract: the love of your book.  Finding other things in common with each other is almost too easy after that.  :)

Speaking of finding things in common!  It turns out that a publishing company that publishes science fiction loves going to sci-fi conventions!  It also turns out authors who write science fiction love going to sci-fi conventions!  I know, it's almost too weird. :P  Spencer Hill Press will be at Pi-Con in August!  And I'm going to be there, too!  I'll be handing out bookmarks!  And smiling at strangers (or averting my eyes because I'm really very shy)!  It will be fun!  If you're going to be in the Connecticut area, you should come and say hi. :)

Oh!  And I've updated my blog!  Up above you can see all my pretty tabs for pages.  You might notice that there are a couple new ones!  Please check them out.  :)

Happy Fourth of July!

I don't have a book trailer for you today, but I do have a very nice video:




Have a great holiday, everyone!

How I'd Survive the Zombie Apocalypse

With tanks.

Forget swords or shovels, or a banjo (mature audiences only please).  I want something that can blow a horde of zombies into itty-bitty pieces before they even knew I was coming.  Boarded up windows?  Please!  Let's stay hidden in a fully armored vehicle a missile couldn't even get through.  Out of ammo?  Run them over!  There's no need to chop off any heads when the sheer weight of a tank will turn a zombie's head into jelly.

 Now, of course you may be thinking that's all well and good until I need to get out for food.  And you'd be right.  That's what a grenade launcher is for.  And yes, you may drool.  I did.

Zombies don't stand a chance.


Now, how about you, dear readers.  How would you survive a zombie apocalypse?  Oh, and you're all free to join me.  :)  I'll be the crazy blonde in the tank, rolling down your street.  Hehehe!