The Friday Five

1. Earlier this week I confessed that I am in a blogging rut. Something happened in making that claim that freed me and invigorated me. Who knew that it would be that simple? Part of the lull that I was experiencing had a lot to do with the fact that I wasn't sharing that much about myself in my blog posts. I need more of me on my blog. While I will continue to share mostly books at Actin' Up with Books because this is a YA book blog, I plan to share more about myself too.

2. I have read some pretty incredible contemporary books lately. Most recently was Amy Reed's Crazy which I reviewed yesterday. You can read the review here if you are interested. For reasons that I didn't reveal in my review, the book spoke to me on so many levels. It helped bring some clarity and perspective to incidents in my life that I didn't fully understand. I love it when a book and give you something that you needed that you didn't even know that you were looking for. Crazy did that for me. I'd love for more people to read this book so I wanted to share that Amy Reed is currently hosting a giveaway for three copies of Crazy. You can check out the details and enter her giveaway at

http://amyreedfiction.com/2012/06/12/a-personal-message-about-crazy-and-a-book-giveaway/

  

3. I need to properly thank Ginger of GReads! for introducing me to one of her favorite bands (in not her favorite), SafetySuit. It all started with a tweet of a song she was listening to. Then there was a blog post, and then another tweet and then I started paying attention. I'm constantly in my Maroon 5 music haze (more about that here) but SafetySuit has really caught my attention and it really is all that I've listened to for the past 3 months. I couldn't even tell you what other music is popular right now. Songs of the summer? I couldn't sing along to a single one.  

Back in April I went to see them in concert with one of my best girlfriends, Lisa. It was such an amazing time and a ton of fun.  We even meet the band!! It was one of the best live performances that I have ever seen.

We told them that Ginger sent us and Tate was like "GReadsBooks, yeah she's great."  I love that they knew who I was talking about (I was tweeting her throughout the concert) and that I found about them because of this blogging community. Thank you Ginger!!

4. I've started to make plans for attending YALLFest this November. I'm checking out the hotels now and am saving all my pennies (and nickels and dimes and quarters). I've been to several author signing but nothing of this magnitude. I'm excited about meeting some of my favorite authors and attending the various panels and meet up with some lovely bloggers!

5. I finished the City of Bones audiobook earlier this week and it wasn't entirely what I expected. Did anyone else think that music was involved in The Mortal Instruments in some way or another? I guess I didn't read the synopsis before starting the book. I am a dork. That is all.

The Friday Five is inspired by Sarah Dessen's blog posts The Friday Five, aka The Five. Her blog on LiveJournal was the first blog that I ever followed. You can can now visit her posts at sarahdessen.com.