I love gadgets, they don’t love me back, but that’s another story. I’ve been obsessed with my iPad ever since it changed my life 2 years ago when I bought it. It’s gotten pretty bad; I don’t take it with me when I go places like work, since I know what would happen. But, at home, I have to have it by my side at all times. I can’t even watch TV without playing on it at the same time. I love TV, and now I don’t ever know what happens on my favorite shows because my iDD (see what I did there (changed the “A” to an “i”, I crack myself up) has gotten so bad. I’ve tried to just watch TV, but I get all twitchy and bored. This is just TV, now let’s move onto reading.

I try and read books on my iPad, but obviously I only get about 2 pages in before I start playing Draw Something or checking in on facebook and seeing which of my friends have posted some kind of vague annoying status update in apparent cry for attention. By now you’re probably thinking, so pick up a real book, aren’t you a librarian? Yes, of course, I LOVE real books. The problem is, again, that I get about 2 pages in, and reach for the iPad. I tried putting the iPad in a different room, but it calls to me and I go pick it up after about 10 minutes. What I need is for someone to come and sit and read me the books while I play games on my iPad; that would be the best case scenario. Takers?

I am trying to finish a book on my iPad as we speak, and I’ll be sure to let you know when I finish. It’s great so far, but maybe now that I’ve told you about it, I’ll feel accountable and finish it! It is The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson, I think part of the reason I haven’t finished yet is because it’s creepy! We have it in several formats: audio, ebook and good old fashioned paper! It’s set at a boarding school, so obviously I’m on board!

Can I admit something? I like Princesses. All of them. I like the pretty ones and the sassy ones. When I was a kid, I think I was torn between wanting to be Cinderella and She-Ra (She-Ra was totally the forerunner. I REALLY wanted to be She-Ra). Here I am in my She-Ra Mask on Christmas. The picture is awful quality, but you can see how happy I am!

And for those of you too young to know who She-Ra is you need to find it on YouTube or rent the DVD’s because this show is amazing. She was He-Man’s sister who was stolen from her parents when she was a child. When she discovers she is a princess she is given the Sword of Protection which makes her super awesome. But, I digress.

Anyway, I like Princesses. I also like Meg Cabot. So, you know I love The Princess Diaries. Today, I thought we would revisit the awesomeness that is the Princess Diaries Series!

For those of you who are unfamiliar with these books, let me fill you in. The main character is Mia Thermopolis. She lives in New York with her artist mom, but her dad is actually the heir to the throne of Genovia. She discovers her dad is a prince when her father learns he can’t have any more children, so Mia has to learn to be a princess from her stern and sophisticated Grandmere.

So, in true Mia fashion, I’m going to tell you the top ten reasons I love this series.

1. Mia is real. Sure, she’s a princess, but she’s also a high school girl with typical high school problems.

2. The books are funny! Mia’s hijinks are great. I can’t even tell you the number of times I have honestly laughed out loud while reading these books.

3. They are fun to read. Seriously, I have a good time reading any of the books in this series.

4. Michael Moscowitz is kind of dreamy (Mia and Michael have some ups and downs in the books, but overall, he’s pretty awesome).

5. Mia’s friends are great. Lilly can be a pain in the bootie, but she’s funny and a loyal friend. Tina is just a lot of fun!

6. I love the way it’s written. Reading Mia’s journal is personal, funny, and engaging. You really do feel like you are reading a note from a friend.

7. Fat Louie!! I want a cat like Fat Louie.

8. Princess Lessons. Grandmere is a little scary, but I kind of want her to teach me how to be a proper lady.

9. The books are WAY better than the movie. The movie is cute, but not the same, and like most things, the books are so much more entertaining.

10. These books are award winners including the ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers award for the first book, which just proves how great these books are.

If you haven’t read these books, I highly recommend you check the first one out and give it a try. By the end of the first book you’ll feel like Mia is your new best friend, and you won’t be able to wait to read more of her story.

Check out an excerpt from the first book here (along with some other info about the first book).

Are you already a Mia Thermopolis fan? Check out her personal website or the Official Website of Genovia.

I read two books recently that turned out to be great reads.  Did someone tell me about them?  Were they on the cover of a magazine?  Were they on a bestsellers list?  Did the cover draw me in and I couldn’t wait to find out what was inside?  Nope.  They were available from the library for my iPad.  I am determined to use my iPad for more than just Words with Friends and Temple Run.  So, I decided to download some books.  The library offers them FREE right, so why not?  So I took some time to look through our Woodlands catalog to see what was there.  It is easy.  You can download books to any eReader.  There are different ways depending on the eReader, but it is pretty simple (especially if I can do it!) and someone can easily help you too.  You just have to download Adobe Digital Editions and browse the catalog.  Just go to http://mymcls.com/download to learn all about it.

I was also hoping to do some reading while spending some time on a borrowed elliptical, but when I found myself standing on it and reading, I decided that I may as well be comfortable on the couch.

Woodlands downloadables works just like a regular library, only it is virtual!  There are books that are “available” and you can download them instantly and begin reading from home!  You can get on a list for other books, but because of my impatience, I just looked for some reads that were available, and it turned out that I loved them both!

The first one, “How I Live Now” by Meg Rosoff is about a girl that goes to visit her cousin in England from the United States and there is a war going on.  It is very sad and reminds me of Katniss from the Hunger Games (which has been referenced many times here).  She is trying to take care of her cousin and make it on her own and it is just devastating that while she tries to get back to her other cousin, she both loses and finds herself.  Very dark but good.

The second book was called, “The Summer I Learned to Fly” by Dana Reinhardt and it was an excellent read.  Birdie, the main character is helping her mom who owns a cheese shop and her dad has died and she is 13 and trying to figure things out in life.  She spends a lot of her time doing the right thing and establishing relationships that seem unlikely and while she is sad, she is making the most of her life.  There are just so many questions that she wants answered.  She meets Emmett, a mysterious friend, and her life is changed.  They decide to go searching for answers together.  It is a great book and it reminds me of “Sorta Like a Rockstar” which you can read about here.

Anyway, both of these reads were great and it was so nice to find a little surprise tucked away in the Woodlands search.  You can download them both now, because I turned them back in and they should be available.  Or, you can request or check out a copy in print from the library as well and find them in the catalog the old fashioned way: The Summer I Learned to Fly & How I Live Now

I think that it does.  This is one of my favorite break-up stories to tell, even though it probably doesn’t really count in the record books of break-ups.  This is at least one story that I am willing to share.  In the days when “going out” was determined by secret notes when you circle yes and no and holding hands on the playground, my best friend and I decided to be “going together” in 4th grade.  We did everything together anyway, right?  It just made sense. We sat by each other in class and borrowed answers from each other.  We would play games on the playground and sit together at lunch, so I think that it was inevitable that he become my boyfriend.  I’m sure that one of us asked a friend to find out for us.  On Valentine’s Day I must have heard from a friend (of course) that he got me a gift, and I realized that I should do the same.  I made my mom take me to a local small store and I purchased a cute little penguin “I Love You” stamp and some candy.  We exchanged gifts and things were great.  After a while though, as with any relationship, things changed.  He started acting differently and instead of being my best friend to play kickball on the playground with, he started to act like a boyfriend.  Something I was not a fan of.  I tried to explain this politely, and that I just wanted my best friend back and that we could still be friends (doesn’t everyone say that?), but that we were breaking up.  He took it really hard.  Worse than I thought that he was going to, considering that we were still going to see each other every day.  He was upset and maybe even shedding a few tears, and he took out the beloved penguin stamp and smashed it in front of me on his desk!  This was not like him at all, so I was both shocked and surprised and a little mad, since I had given that to him.  So much for a nice, clean break.  Luckily, we grew up and stayed close and even went to prom together (I hear some people have some good break-up stories from prom) and are still friends today, so we are both beyond what I will always refer to as “The Penguin Stamp Incident.”  My advice?  Don’t give anything as a give that you can’t handle watching get destroyed in the event of a break-up.

Don’t forget to leave a comment about your own break-up story.  Prizes will be given out for the best story at the DDLHC Party on February 17th!

In honor of the upcoming Dr. Dorsch’s Lonely Hearts party, I thought I’d share a story with you all. This is a story from my junior prom. It’s not really a break up story, since we weren’t really dating and certainly weren’t dating after the event! So, I didn’t have a date to the junior prom, and a friend of a friend was interested in coming along. So, I went along with it, and met my date a couple of times before the prom. He went to a private school with no dancing so I think this was his first dance ever. Since I didn’t know him well and don’t like awkwardness as a rule, I spent much of my prom dancing with my friends. I was soon approached by another friend who said my prom date was in the mens room with blood all over his face. This was a bit concerning. What happened? Was he in a fight? Nope, apparently he was dancing with a couple friends to the song “Jump Around” ironically and they threw him in the air. Well his “jump” didn’t go so well, and he landed on his face. I sat with him and the principle waiting for the ambulance to arrive. I had a fleeting thought I should go along to the hospital, but I really wanted to go to the after party I had begged my mom to let me attend! Plus, I was afraid of the wrath of his mom, not that it was my fault, but moms are scary. I did have to go to his house a few days later to pick up a few belongings I had left in his car. When I arrived, he handed me a letter to read since he couldn’t really talk because his jaw was wired shut. Apparently, he had broken his face, woopsies.

Don’t forget to leave a comment about your own break-up story.  Prizes will be given out for the best story at the DDLHC Party on February 17th!

I suppose I should tie this to a real book with a break up until I write my own. I blogged about this a few years ago, yes apparently we’ve been doing this for 3 years, when did that happen? Anyways, imagine being a dumped and then having a song written about you? Well, it happened here, you can read my full review here.

Audrey, Wait!

February is upon us, which of course means the most romantic (or annoying- depending on your point of view) of all holidays- Valentine’s Day.

This year, in honor of Valentine’s Day we will be bringing you some great love stories (or a few break-up stories) here on Kitabu, and we want you to do the same. First, mark your calendars for Dr. Dorsch’s Lonely Hearts Club Cures for the Broken Heart- A post Valentines Party! Visit our facebook event page and post your best break-up story. If we think it’s an awesome story you may be eligible to win a prize at our Dr. Dorsch’s Lonely Hearts Club party on February 17^th.

Now that the business stuff is out of the way, let’s talk about one of my favorite books, which has some of the greatest things you can find in a book: break-ups, road-trips, and really nerdy math references.

We’ve talked about John Green many times here on Kitabu. Alaska is a huge fan, which you can read about here. What we haven’t talked about is An Abundance of Katherines.

Colin Singleton is a child prodigy. He’s a math whiz who has a particular type when it comes to girls. Basically, Colin only dates girls named Katherine. He’s dated (and been dumped by) nineteen different Katherines.

When the first Katherine (who is also the nineteenth Katherine- Katherine the Great) breaks up with him (again) he gets in a car with his best friend Hassan and drives to Tennessee on an adventure to cure himself of the Katherine plague. On the way, he tries to create a mathematical theorem to predict the outcome of any relationship. Of course, Colin and Hassan meet some interesting people and get in some entertaining situations.

I LOVE this book. It’s funny, it’s engaging. I also love the footnotes that are littered throughout the book. Colin adds interesting facts to the action as it happens in the form of little footnotes which I really enjoyed.

It’s a nerdy book, which is probably why I like it so much. I also love that Colin fixates on his break-ups (something many of us can relate to) but in the end he is able to get beyond it. Even though he spends most of the book trying to create a mathematical solution to relationships, in the end he realizes that some things just can’t be proved or disproved by math and science.

What do you think? Would you use a mathematical equation if it would tell you if a relationship was going to fail? Have you ever been on a road trip? Where did you go? Leave me a comment and you might win a prize at the Dr. Dorsch’s Lonely Hearts Club party!

And don’t forget to write your break-up story on the wall of our facebook event for a chance to win another fabulous prize!

Virals by Kathy Reichs

For those of you who are familiar with the TV series Bones and like forensic science, mystery and suspense this book series is for you. Kathy Reichs has created a new character named Tory Brennan who is 14 years old and has just lost her mother in a terrible car accident. Now she must adjust to not only the death of her mom but moving in with her father in South Carolina who she does not know. She now lives on an island where her 3 best friends are boys by names of Hi, Shelton and Ben.

These very curious teens find themselves in an unusual experience when they rescue a wolf pup from a science lab and find dog tags that belong to a girl who has been missing for 25 years. What they don’t seem to realize is the wolf pup was being used in an illegal parvovirus experiment. This parvovirus which is normally only contiguous to other dogs has been altered and is now contiguous to humans as well. Along with contracting the parvovirus, which makes them terribly sick, they also start to unravel the mystery of a young girl who was murdered 25 years ago.

To throw more into the mix Tory and her friends survive the altered virus only to deal with strange changes to their DNA. As they try and figure out what has happened to them and how to fix it they also start to realize the have upset someone of great power and importance. Soon the hunter becomes the hunted!

I encourage you to click the link below to watch an interview with the author Kathy Riechs and a review for the book that might just give you a little more incentive to try a new series that has mystery and suspense with a teen type of twist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI6aA0giq8g&NR=1

http://www.watchmojo.com/index.php?id=9011

Nightshade, by Andrea R. Cremer is a new take on werewolves, so you know I (as the Kitabu resident supernatural reader) was all about checking this book out!

Calla is a werewolf, or more accurately a Guardian. In her world Guardians are the protectors of a group of witches referred to as Keepers. The Keepers support the Guardians in return for their super strength, healing, and ability to change into pretty awesome wolves. Calla is pretty resigned to her life as the Alpha of the Nightshade pack. She accepts her fate a powerful Guardian. Everything in her life is planned out for her. When she turns 18 she’ll be married to Ren, Alpha of the Bane pack and they will form a new pack with the other young wolves of the two packs. She knows this is her future- Ren and doing whatever the Keepers ask of them. Calla accepts this, until Shay shows up.

First, if you want to check out a little bit of the book, check out this excerpt.

So, Calla saves Shay from being killed, even though doing so goes against the Keepers. Then she begins to question her future. What are they guarding? What if she doesn’t want to marry Ren? Why can’t Guardians make their own choices in life?

I’m pretty torn on how I feel about this book. It’s the first in a series, so this book doesn’t really have an ending (which I HATE!). Also, this particular breed of werewolf has it pretty easy. Shifting is easy. Turning a human in to a werewolf is easy. There really isn’t much of a downside to being a werewolf except for practically being a slave to the Keepers. I enjoyed the story and I really liked the characters, but there were definitely parts of this book that bothered me, like the lack of ending and the ease with which becoming a werewolf occurs.

I did really like the world Cremer created. The werewolf lore is totally different from anything I have ever read. I liked that the wolves are warriors who protect the Keepers. Nightshade is a totally different werewolf story.

What do you think? Have you read the book? Did you like this new take on werewolves?

In, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer, by Lish McBride Sam is a pretty typical guy. He works at a fast food place with his best friends. He rides a skateboard; he struggles with whether or not to go back to college. What’s not so normal about Sam? He just found out he’s a necromancer with control over the dead.

I LOVED this book. Firstly, the main characters reminded me so much of some of my friends. In fact, Sam discovers he’s a necromancer after playing potato hockey at work. Sam and his best friend Ramon are outside of their fast food job playing hockey with a potato from the restaurant when they accidentally hit someone’s car. The guy turns out to be a dangerous necromancer who realizes that Sam is a necromancer as well. I loved this part of the book because I could totally picture this happening. A million years ago when my husband was in high school he worked at Burger King. He and his best friend Jeremy used to play hockey with breakfast biscuits, so apparently if you work at a fast food place you must play hockey with the food!

Anyway, I digress. I also loved this book because it was just plain funny. Ramon is one of the best characters I have read in a while, and Sam is also pretty great. These two characters are pretty typical guys who are thrown in a supernatural world they never knew existed.

This book has all of the best things in a book: supernatural creatures, humor, fast food shenanigans! Check out this book trailer and let me know if you love this book as much as I did!

For my favorites list this year, I decided to focus more on what I read and loved this year, as opposed to what year it came out. I’m sure there are tons more that I need to read, I fell a bit short on my list this year with reading as many books as I want to. Working in a library, you hear all day about books you HAVE to read, and it gets stressful! I don’t give full out reviews here, mainly because I’m listing my favorite books of the year, so do I need to tell you why they’re awesome? No! They are because I (and lots of other people) said so. That doesn’t mean they’ll be awesome to you obviously, so I won’t judge you if you don’t like my list. Please feel free to add your favorites in the comments below.

Without further ado, my favorite books read in 2011…

	Everybody Sees the Ants By:  A.S. King This is only the 2nd A.S. King book I’ve read, but I already feel like I wouldn’t hesitate to call her one of my favorite authors. I’m working on a full review for this, but in the meantime, pick it up!
	Divergent By: Veronica Roth Another book to read if you are a Hunger Games fan, and they already sold movie rights. This is a fast paced read with lots of action.
	I’ll Be There By: Holly Goldberg Sloan I’m not even sure what style this book is written it, but it was breathtaking. I loved each character so much. It had a definite storytelling vibe to it. There were lots of pages I read over and over just because they were so nicely written. LOVED IT!
	Between Shades of Gray By: Ruta Sepetys I had the privilege of hearing Ruta speak last year, and she is an amazing speaker. This is a story that needed to be told, you can read my full review here.
	The Knife of Never Letting Go By: Patrick Ness This is the first book in the Chaos Walking trilogy, and the series is absolutely amazing. If you are a Hunger Games fan, you must pick this up! I think as a whole, I actually enjoyed this series more, just by a hair.
	A Monster Calls By: Patrick Ness inspired by Siobhan Dowd Apparently Patrick Ness is the man. The idea for this book was started by the late Siobhan Dowd, and Patrick Ness picked up where she left off and finished the book. I actually picked it up because I love Siobhan Dowd’s books so much. If you haven’t read any, you must!
	The Sky is Everywhere By: Jandy Nelson This was a gorgeous story about grief and love, and, oh, those Fontaine boys.
	Badd By: Tim Tharp Speaking of favorite authors, add Tim Tharp to that list! I’ve loved everything I’ve ever read by him, and this is no exception.  This one is about a girl coping with her brother’s return from war.
	Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares By: Rachel Cohn and David Levithan This is a great winter read. It was such a sweet book, and I loved the whole concept.  It was on my “to read” list last year, and now that I’ve actually read it, I can definitely recommend it.