The Power of WordPress: An Act of Selfless Kindness.

Once upon a time in a far away land and across a vast and treacherous ocean, a woman was on a mission. It was August 25th full of summer and excitement. The woman had convinced her husband to join her on the long drive, and the anticipation in the car was tangible. When she reached her destination nearly two hours early she sent emails with glee to a girl across the globe. A girl who was just as enthusiastic, sitting at her desk refreshing her emails. The woman queued with the determination only a true fan could have and when she finally reached the desk she took a deep breath.

~ * ~

WordPress can do a lot of things, but I never thought it would send me a book from across the globe.

I’m sure you all remember my participation in the 30 Day Book Challenge? It already seems like so long ago I was writing daily posts in the glare of the sun, feeling the warm grass beneath my feet while I tapped away at my keyboard, but according to my blog history it did happen! One of my posts had the theme an ‘author I wish people would read more’ and I chose to gush about Kelley Armstrong, a YA genius that gave me one of my biggest book hangovers to date.
Little did I know that this post would spark something quite extraordinary. 

Reflections on the 30 Day Book Challenge

So the next time I come to you guys saying how I’ve found this spectacular, fun new challenge that I just HAVE to try, you need to tell me that I am insane and I should go back my natural habitat – my reading cave! Especially if it involves blogging for 30 days straight and severe reading withdrawal. Phhaaaaa, I’m just kidding… mostly. The majority of this challenge was an absolute blast, it was so much fun allowing myself to be nostalgic about old reads, I reveled in the challenge of pushing myself to write consistently and I am so proud that I didn’t even miss one day! Plus, all the wonderful reading suggestions you have given me will keep me going for a long time. 🙂 That being said, I’m also glad that it’s over now because I was feeling incredibly burnt out by the end, I was even considering a blog detox. The horror!

So what did I learn from this experience? Well, quite a darn lot actually! Here I present thee with the five possibly pointless life skills I learnt from the 30 Day Book Challenge.

DAY 30: A Book You Couldn’t Put Down.

Holy moley, day thirty! I MADE IT. I thought it would never come, it seemed so far away. But before I get too celebratory, lets get this post on the proverbial road. 🙂

There were so many books I could have chosen for this day of the challenge, so I tried to think of which I would like to spotlight that others may not have heard of or could have forgotten about. I also wanted to pick something that I had never mentioned on my blog before. With this train of thought, I decided upon 

DAY 29: A Book you Hated.

Awwwh man I feel mean writing this post. It’s one thing to write a sarcastic ranty review of a book I had a lot of problems with because it’s kind of relevant and in context, but to spotlight a book specifically to be negative about it seems a bit unnecessary. Especially with the word ‘hate’ – so harsh! I never say I hate anything, strongly dislike sure, but not hate. Unfortunately though, I do recollect one book that fits perfectly into this category, normally I can always find at least one redeeming quality in a novel, but with this one I was lost for words…

DAY 28: Favorite Quote From a Book.

My first thought when I saw this was how can I pick ONE favourite quote? Are they mad?

My second thought was, EVERYTHING TOLKIEN AN ROWLING.

Yeah, I’m not predictable, nu-uh.

It is only within the last year or so that I have started collecting quotes, which is probably a good thing because if I’d been doing it for longer this would be a full on essay! So this post is basically an eclectic mix of quotes I love, a few have been mentioned on the blog before in reviews or my meme Quoting the Quill, while others are entirely new. I hope you enjoy. 🙂

DAY 27: A Book That has Been on Your “To Read” List the Longest.

I am sad to say that there are some books I have had on my shelf for the longest time and completely neglected. I have mentioned before now that I am almost unable to bypass a good book deal, and my literature related whims can be impossible to control. It’s the one area of my life I allow myself to splurge on, everyone needs an outlet and reading is mine! But the problem with books is you have to invest the time, something which can be tough to do in 2013, a world of endless information, social networking, TV channels and music. Not to mention all our responsibilities, from family and friends to education and work.
Possibly my worst bookworm trait is that I get distracted by my current book purchases and so some of my older ones occasionally slip through the cracks and get left on my shelf to collect dust for years! So, allow me to direct you to the realm of my forgotten books. 🙂

DAY 26: A Book That Makes You Laugh Out Loud.

I don’t tend to seek out humorous books, I’m more of a dragons, demons and vampires kinda gal, so my laugh out loud moments normally come from unexpected places. I had to think about this question for a bit to come up with my answers, but when I did it was a light bulb moment of epic proportions! How could I have almost forgotten these two wonderful series?! 

DAY 25: The Most Surprising Plot Twist or Ending.

Yay, another easy question! It didn’t take much thought to come up with this one because there is one book out there that I found to have the most surprising ending AND it was also a plot twist at the same time. 🙂

Yepp, it’s that Trudi Canvan woman again. Are you sick of her yet?

If you said yes, tough, because I’m talking about her anyway! 😛 

DAY 24 Book You’re Most Embarrassed to Say You Like/Liked.

*Sigh* Okay, it’s confession time.

You see, I have a deep dark past… 

DAY 23: Best Book You’ve Read in the Last 12 Months.

Well originally I was going to use The Hunger Games Trilogy for this day, but as that ship has sailed far past the area of twelve months, I guess I will be thinking again! Although this year started slowly in terms of reading due to settling into University, I have sure been making up for that this summer by racing through many books! I’m happy to say there have also been a few five stars handed out in my reviews which I love being able to do because it doesn’t happen often. 😀 Within the last twelve months I have given out five five stars, (ohh how poetic) and that’s pretty good going for me. But how an earth do I pick which of these elite is my favourite? 

Day 22: Least Favourite Plot Device.

Hey guys, today we’re going to be talking about…….LOVE TRIANGLES. Doesn’t that sound fun?

Today’s topic is your ‘least favourite plot device employed by way too many books you actually enjoyed otherwise’ but I shortened the title because hey, WORDY.

So we all know that love triangles are a painfully consistent trend in YA at the moment, and and it doesn’t seem like it will be changing any time soon. I feel that there are a few reasons for this. Firstly, love triangles are

DAY 21: Book You Tell People You’ve Read, but Haven’t (Or Haven’t Actually Finished).

Well this is probably going to be another short but sweet post I imagine because seriously, who tells people they’ve read something when they haven’t?! (Apologies if you actually HAVE done that) I could understand someone doing it at a young age I guess if they wanted to look cool or intellectual, but I don’t see why anyone would feel the need to do that. There is nothing wrong with saying you haven’t read a book, no matter how popular or critically acclaimed it is. There are so many wonderful novels in the world and it is impossible to read all of them! So instead I am going for ‘a book you tell people you’ve read but haven’t actually finished’ because I do have two books that fit this criteria.

As I have mentioned before I don’t often abandon books, so these were the exceptions to the rule rather than the norm. The two that I am going to be talking about were books I was made to read at school, figures!

DAY 20: Your Favourite Childhood Book.

For as long as I can remember I have loved books; I haven’t always been as prolific a reader as I am now, I hit my real stride around the age of 14 when I discovered the beauty of the school library, however, books have still been a constant throughout my life. When I was young my parents read to me, then I upgraded to memorizing every word in a book so it ‘appeared’ that I could read, until eventually I learnt to interpret the scribbles on the page.

Unfortunately I don’t remember the names of authors from the very early stages of my childhood. There was some jam panda book that failed to teach me how to tell the time, a baby polar bear that didn’t know how to swim and a mysterious toy horse that came to life but I don’t remember any of those that well. What I do remember though is my extreme obsession with the author 

DAY 19: A Favourite Author.

Okay, so I am going to look at this question as picking from one of my many favourite authors because seriously, I would be here all day otherwise! Since I have already talked about my love for J.K. Rowling, Emily Brontë, Kelley Armstrong, Tolkien and Sarah Dessen these guys are out of the running. So, can you lovely bloggers guess which author is missing? I’ll give you a clue, she’s Australian and I’ve mentioned her many times on this blog before.

Still stuck?

I will give you another clue, 

DAY 18: A Book You Wish You Could Live In.

Ok, there’s no way I’m going to be able to pick just ONE book I wish I could live in, there are far too many fantastic ones! For the most part though my choices lean heavily to the fantasy genre for obvious reasons. I mean, who wouldn’t want to escape to a place where fairies, trolls, unicorns, and magic exist? That is just too greater opportunity to pass up. 😀

The first book I would love to live in is