The Lonely Hearts Club winners!

I've randomly picked the three winners of my The Lonely Hearts Club giveaway! Thanks to everyone who entered. It's such a fun book, you won't be disappointed. :) Congrats to the three winners:

Sab H.
Sara
Khy
Ultimate YA Creator

I've emailed each of you, please reply with your mailing address. Congrats!

My Soul To Save giveaway!

The second book in the Soul Screamers series, My Soul To Save, comes out this month! I have three copies to give away to three lucky winners.

When Kaylee Cavanaugh screams, someone dies. So when teen pop star Eden croaks onstage and Kaylee doesn’t wail, she knows something is dead wrong. She can’t cry for someone who has no soul.

The last thing Kaylee needs right now is to be skipping school, breaking her dad’s ironclad curfew and putting her too-hot-to-be-real boyfriend’s loyalty to the test. But starry-eyed teens are trading their souls for a flickering lifetime of fame and fortune in exchange for eternity in the Netherworld—a consequence they can’t possibly understand.

Kaylee can’t let that happen, even if trying to save their souls means putting her own at risk….

Open to:
USA only (international readers can enter if they have a friend in the States who can accept their prizes by mail.)

To enter:
Leave a comment below.

+1 For posting a linking back to the contest somewhere.

Deadline:
Last day to enter is February 8th.

Review: David Inside Out

Title: David Inside Out
Author: Lee Bantle
Publication date: May 12th, 2009

Summary:

David Dahlgren, a high-school senior, finds solace in running with the track team; he’s a fast runner, and he enjoys the camaraderie. But team events become a source of tension when he develops a crush on one of his teammates, Sean. Scared to admit his feelings, David does everything he can to suppress them: he dates a girl, keeps his distance from his best friend who has become openly gay, and snaps a rubber band on his wrist every time he has “inappropriate” urges. Before long, Sean expresses the thoughts David has been trying to hide, and everything changes for the better. Or so it seems.

Review:
I have mixed feelings about this book. To some extent I enjoyed reading about the characters in this book, but for the most part I felt it was nothing I hadn't read before. It also seemed to make things too casual for my taste (like excessive teenage drinking/sex), so I didn't have a ton of respect for the characters because of the things they were doing so freely. I could sympathize with some of their feelings at times, but at others, not so much. It's an interesting addition to my GLBT book collection, but I can think of a ton of other books on the subject that I enjoyed a lot more thoroughly. I enjoyed this book for what it was, though it didn't meet my expectations.

Characters: 6/10
Plot: 6/10
Originality: 5/10
Writing: 6/10
Overall grade: D

Lonely Hearts Club twitter party!

Join Lonely Hearts Club author Elizabeth Eulberg and Amy of MyFriendAmy for a Twitter party Wednesday, January 20, between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m. EST!

• Be sure to follow Elizabeth @ElizEulberg and Amy @MyFriendAmy before the party!

• Join the fun! No one expects you or your tweets to be perfect; we’re just happy you made it to the party!

• Anyone who tweets during this hour using #LonelyHeartsClub is entered to win a limited edition Lonely Hearts Club t-shirt!

• Watch for questions from @MyFriendAmy and win awesome prizes including an iPod shuffle, $50 iTunes gift card or $25 VISA gift card!

• To join the party, you can use our official party tweetgrid or just search #LonelyHeartsClub on Twitter.

• Ask Elizabeth questions or chat with other partygoers about how excited you are to read LHC—just use the tag #LonelyHeartsClub in all of your party tweets! (This is added automatically in TweetGrid.)

• Please don’t post any spoilers and don’t forget to pay attention to the time zones, the party starts at 8:30pm EST.

Review: The Lonely Hearts Club

Title: Lonely Hearts Club
Author: Elizabeth Eulberg
Publication date: December 29th, 2009

Summary:
Penny is sick of boys and sick of dating, so she vows: No more. She’s had one too many bad dates, and has been hurt by one too many bad boys. It’s a personal choice…and soon everybody wants to know about it. It seems that Penny’s not the only girl who’s tired of the way girls change themselves (most of the time for the worse) in order to get their guys…or the way their guys don’t really care about them. Girls are soon thronging to The Lonely Hearts Club (named after Sgt. Pepper’s band), and Penny finds herself near legendary for her non-dating ways – which is too bad, since the leader of The Lonely Hearts Club has found a certain boy she can’t help but like…

Review:
It didn't take me very long to read through this book, but I enjoyed every minute of it. It was cute and funny, and I loved reading about Penny Lane's life. Everything from her Beatles' obsessed parents, to her boy drama and decision to start The Lonely Hearts Club. At the beginning, I thought that too much was introduced at once. There were so many different boys and girls being talked about, and I wasn't quite sure which were the main characters. But as the book went on and some of them were talked about more in-depth than others, I really liked the feeling the novel had. While it is cute and fun, I think there's also a great meaning behind it. A must read for any girl who's ever had her heart broken by a guy.

Characters: 7/10
Plot: 8/10
Originality: 7/10
Writing: 7/10
Overall grade: C

The Lonely Hearts Club giveaway!

Three lucky people will win a copy of The Lonely Hearts Club by Elizabeth Eulberg. It just came out on December 29th; I've heard many things about it from other blogs and I'm sure you have too. In fact, I just started reading my copy today, and I'm loving it so far!

Open to:
People in the US only (international readers can enter if you have a friend with a US mailing address).

To enter:
Leave a comment below!

+1 For every person you get to enter.

Deadline:
Last day to enter is January 27th.

GLBT Mini Challenge #1

The January mini-challenge for "The Challenge That Dare Not Speak Its Name" is to write about why this challenge/issue is so important to me.

GLBT issues are something that have always been really important to me. I've always been very interested in promoting GLBT rights, not only because it's an interesting topic but also because it affects me (as well as some of my closest friends) personally. The issue of hate/harassment towards people of different sexual orientations is often shrugged off or turned away from. I can recall multiple instances where I've personally been harassed for it, and I have more memories than I can count of seeing others being harassed or bullied because of their sexual orientation. Especially in high school, people loosely use terms like "that's so gay", and call each other "fags" without taking the time to think about who they might be offending. A group of my friends in another town were denied being allowed to start a Gay Straight Alliance at their school, even after following the proper procedure to start a club, because the staff claimed they "didn't need one". I've had friends in this same town skip school because they were so afraid of how they were being treated by their peers.

I chose to participate in this challenge because I strongly support GLBT rights and believe that GLBT literature is important, especially for young adults. We are all people, we all deserve equal rights, and I think that raising awareness is an important step in achieving that.

End of the Holiday Break Reading Challenge

Last night at midnight marked the end of the Holiday Break Reading Challenge, and I'm somewhat disappointed to say that I only managed to read 4 books from my goal of 10. I had planned to do a ton of reading over the last few days, but unfortunately I got a horrible case of food poisoning starting at 10 PM on New Year's Eve and am STILL recovering. Needless to say, I've been exhausted and spent most of my time sleeping and resting. I still had a ton of fun participating in the challenge though, and hopefully I can do more damage with it next year! Thanks to Karin for hosting such a wonderful challenge.