I’ve Moved!

After much thought and consideration, I have decided to stop posting on this blog. 

HOWEVER, I haven’t stopped blogging. I have just changed directions. 

The Printed YA Word was started as a YA book review blog…nothing more would be added to it. But over time, I found myself wanting to blog about other things and not just about book reviews. So, instead of revamping The Printed YA Word, I decided to just create a new blog that had been on my mind for quite some time.

Thus, Books and Burlap was born. My new blog not only will contain book reviews (mostly YA, but some other genres thrown in as well), but it will also have other features (go take a look to find out what those are! Please?)

I can’t bring myself to “get rid of” The Printed YA Word, so it will continue to be here…I just won’t be posting on it. I know, I know, it’s super sad (at least to me), but I needed to change my blogging direction and this is the best way (I think) to do so. I hope my followers will continue to follow me on Books and Burlap. Thank you all for the follows, likes, comments, and messages…I truly appreciate it all.

 

Top Ten Tuesday: Blogging Confessions

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week, they will post a new Top Ten list that one of their bloggers at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Anyone can join!

Blogging confessions, eh? Man, do I have a bunch of those… let’s see…

1. I’ve gotten bored with my current blog. Yup, it’s true. Not so much the content, I still love reading YA books and talking about them. But I feel like my blog has limited me to ONLY reading and reviewing YA books. I have so many adult books that I want to read, but I feel like I can only focus on YA because of this blog…

2. My TBR list is growing at an alarming rate. The nearest bookstore to me is about 2 hours away, so when I go, my book haul is always massive. I can’t read as fast as I buy, which leads me to…

3. I’m not a fast reader. I see all these book bloggers who can do multiple book reviews a week and I struggle to do one every 2 weeks or so. Aside from my blogging slump right now, I haven’t written a book review in a while because it gets me down that I don’t read as fast as others…

4. I almost NEVER go to the public library. This is because I usually buy my books, as I want to OWN them, not borrow them. I really should frequent the library more though…I AM a librarian, after all.

5. When I hear about the friendships bloggers have formed with other bloggers, it makes me sad. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sad that they formed friendships. I’m just sad that I haven’t formed any, though I suppose my lack of continuous blogging hasn’t helped that recently.

6. I hate giving a book a bad rating, even if I didn’t like it. I just feel so bad about even thinking about giving a book a bad rating!

7. I am terrible at commenting on blogs. I think about doing it and even come up with a comment, but then just…don’t.

8. I judge books by their covers, but I’ve covered that before in a previous post.

9. I wish I could schedule blog posts. Some blogs are just so organized. Nope, not mine.

10. I’ve stopped requesting ARCs because I’m scared I’ll hate them…and I don’t want to.

Do my confessions match up with anyone else’s? I’m hoping I’m not alone!

Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Classic Books

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week, they will post a new Top Ten list that one of their bloggers at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Anyone can join!

I absolutely adore the classics. Of course, everyone seems to have a different definition of what the classics are. Quite honestly, I don’t even know how I define them myself. But I do know what I consider a classic novel to be. In no particular order (except the first one is my favorite book ever) are my top ten favorite classic novels.

1. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

2. The Crucible – Arthur Miller

3. Animal Farm – George Orwell

4. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

5. Anything by Shakespeare

6. Dracula – Bram Stoker

7. Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury

8. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

9. The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne

10. Frankenstein – Mary Shelley

What are some other classics I missed? There’s a good chance I haven’t read them yet (The Grapes of Wrath for example…apparently that was my mother’s favorite book). Any suggestions for some classics I should check out? I love me some classic novels!

Top Ten Tuesday: Books On My Summer TBR List

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week, they will post a new Top Ten list that one of their bloggers at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Anyone can join!

This week’s topic is all about the books we bloggers plan to read this summer. I have SO many books I want to read this summer, but the following are the ones I really want to have read by the time summer has come to an end.

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

2. The Giver quartet by Lois Lowery

3. All of the Agatha Christie mystery books I own

4. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

5. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

6. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

7. Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

8. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

9. Looking for Alaska by John Green

10. The Maze Runner by James Dasher

So what do y’all think of my list? It’s a bit of a mix between YA and others; I’ve been meaning to have more variety in what I read lately, just so I don’t miss out on great books that aren’t in the YA genre.

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I’ve Read So Far This Year

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week, they will post a new Top Ten list that one of their bloggers at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Anyone can join!

This week’s topic is easy: what books have we read so far this year. I’ve read quite a few, but I’m going to post only my favorites.

Has anyone else read any of these this year? I absolutely adored The Selection trilogy and really need to write my reviews for those. What has everyone else read?

No Longer On Hiatus

I feel like it has been forever since I last posted something here, even though May 20 was my last post. I haven’t posted a book review in quite some time and I haven’t done a Top Ten Tuesday list for the past 2 weeks. I feel bad that I haven’t posted anything recently, but between graduating from graduate school and working like a madwoman during these last few weeks of the school year, I haven’t had time to do anything except sleep.

But, thankfully, that is over now. I graduated from LSU with my MLIS degree on May 16, 2014. I will finish up my first year as a high school librarian on June 13, 2014. While I am hoping to begin my next degree in the fall and will start my second year as a high school librarian, I hope to also become way more present on my book blog. I had hoped to be that way from the beginning of the year, but I have had some difficulty organizing myself and dividing my time.

The bright side of all of this is that I will not be doing anything this summer, except reading. No school, no work, nothing stressful. Sounds perfect to me! I appreciate all of my followers still hanging in there with me while I took an unexpected hiatus, but I am back now and will have a book review (actually, several!) showing up within the next few days. Thank you all!

Top Ten Tuesday: Books About Friendship

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week, they will post a new Top Ten list that one of their bloggers at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Anyone can join!

This week’s topic is all about friendship. I interpreted this as any form of friendship, as I have one book on my list that is about best friends falling OUT of friendship (depressing, I know, but it shows the true workings of friendship). So here are my top ten…

So what books did y’all come up with? I’m sure there are plenty more that I completely missed, so let me know!

Top Ten Tuesday: Covers I’d Frame as Pieces of Art

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week, they will post a new Top Ten list that one of their bloggers at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Anyone can join!

This week’s theme is book covers that are so stunning, that we’d frame them and hang them on our walls. This is a tough one, mostly because there are so many beautiful book covers out there! I’m a horrible person/librarian, as I do sometimes pick up books to read because of their covers (yes, I judge a book by its cover…please don’t judge me, ha!) So let’s see if I can stick to just 10…in no particular order:

1. The Divergent Trilogy by Veronica Roth

2. The Last Year Series by Trisha Leigh

3. The Shatter Me Trilogy/Series by Tahereh Mafi

4. The Clockwork Angel Trilogy by Cassandra Clare

5. Bride Quartet Series by Nora Roberts

6. The Testing Trilogy by Joelle Charbonneau

7. The Selection Trilogy by Kiera Cass

8. The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

9. These lovely titles by Stephanie Perkins

10. The Trylle Trilogy by Amanda Hocking

I definitely did more than 10, but just look at these covers…aren’t they gorgeous? I think so, I’m madly in love with all of them. What do y’all think? Like what I picked? What other awesome covers did I miss? Let me know!

Top Ten Tuesday: Books to Read if You Like These TV Shows

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week, they will post a new Top Ten list that one of their bloggers at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Anyone can join!

This week is another topic that requires us to come up with something for X. So, I’ve decided to break mine down into 2 of my favorite shows: Awkward and Pretty Little Liars. If you like either of those shows, check out the following books…

BOOKS TO READ IF YOU LIKE AWKWARD…

BOOKS TO READ IF YOU LIKE PRETTY LITTLE LIARS…

So what do y’all think of my book choices for these shows? I’ll admit, I had a hard time coming up with something for both, but I think these are pretty good. None of them are exactly like the shows, but certain aspects are similar.

Top Ten Tuesday: Characters Who X (I Want on My Zombie Apocalypse Team)

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week, they will post a new Top Ten list that one of their bloggers at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Anyone can join!

So this week’s theme was a sort of freebie…as bloggers, we have to fill in the topic for X. Because of my complete disdain for zombies, I decided to create a team of book characters who I would want on my side during a zombie invasion. Just thinking about zombies gives me the creeps…

Death & Jack from The Arcana Chronicles

Katniss & Finnick from The Hunger Games

Tris & Four from Divergent

Althea & Pax from The Last Year

Allison from Pretty Little Liars

Will Robie from The Innocent

Decided to change things up a bit with that last choice…he’s the only character not from a YA book (shocking), but I’m pretty sure it would be awesome to have an assassin on my team. I also think Allison is sinister enough that she would make an awesome teammate…or perhaps she would be an awful one. So what do y’all think of my list? What other characters are out there that I missed that would be perfect for a zombie apocalypse team? I’d need all the allies I could get!