Utah Book Month HotSpots

Utah Book Month is almost over! Eeeep! And I've only read one Utah author book so far. Oh well. This weeks theme is Utah Bookish Places. So I thought I's share some fun pictures with you. Enjoy!

Pioneer Book 

Orem  Library

Provo Library

The King's English Book Store

We have such a great selections of  libraries and bookstores in Utah. Jealous yet? No, I tease, but seriously, if you're ever passing through you should check some of these places out!

Top Ten Tuesday

It's Top Ten Tuesday again! This week's prompt: Top Ten Auto-Buy Authors for me. Head on over and link up if you want to make your own list. What with it being Utah Book Month I should list UTAH authors but I'm having a hard enough time coming up with ten authors so you'll have to be satisfied that only  two of the authors on my list are from Utah. Here we go.

UTAH AUTHOR

Sara Zarr. Couldn't find a picture of her holding one of her books.
UTAH AUTHOR















Sheesh! That was hard. There's plenty of authors I love but would I really read ANYTHING they wrote? No, probably not. These ten, though, yep! I'd read anything from them.

Mini Movie Reviews #5

Theater

Mission Impossible Rouge Nation
Typical MI movie. I enjoyed Simon Pegg's contribution. He's always been a favorite of mine and was great at keeping the, otherwise wild and tense, movie a little easier to breath through. I also, surprise, surprise, liked the girl. I usually can't stand the girls in these movies but this one was likable. The Villain was a little too "comic book/evil genius" for me but all in all, the movie was enjoyable. If only the theater had turned the AC down. Seriously 85/90 degrees with about 150 people in the theater is just too damn hot!









                                                                                                                              Redbox

Ex Machina
Honestly, I only watched this one on the recommendation of my brother-in-law. I'm pretty sure I had a permanent expression of confusion on my face for the duration of the movie. It went right over my pretty little head. After talking to my BIL and hearing what he thought the message behind the movie was it made a little more sense...but I'm still not sure I agree with his assessment and I still wouldn't recommend this one.









Netflix

If I Stay
I saw this one on Netflix and thought, "well, I hated the book but what the hell." I'm actually glad I watched the movie. It made me really appreciate the book better. Something about seeing these characters go through what they did and seeing their emotions helped. I even teared up a bit. I will warn you it jumped around so much that it felt longer than it was, which is never a good thing, but I think it's worth the watch.

Review: Bone Gap

Title Bone Gap
By Laura Ruby
Genre NA Magic realism
Pages 373


First Sentence 
The corn was talking to him again.



Synopsis
Finn and Sean O'Sullivan are used to losing things in their small town of Bone Gap. Their mother left them to fend for themselves and Sean gave up on his dreams to raise Finn. When the beautiful Roza joins their lives it seems things might be getting better but just as quickly as Roza appeared she's disappeared and the only witness to her kidnapping is Finn. Finn the boy they call Moonface, Sidetrack and Spaceman.

What is has going for it
I could just tell you that this was my first five star book of the year and leave it at that but  I loved this book too much to not talk about it. First of all, how did I not know about this amazing author? Laura Ruby's writing...,guys, it's so beautiful and poetic. And then comes this wonderful story. It's mysterious and heart wrenching. The feels! This has it all, a hint of magic, with a side of romance topped with suspense. Argh! I guess I'm not going to talk about it too much after all. I don't want to give anything away. You just need to read this book!

What's lacking
Nothing is lacking but I will warn you this is more of an NA than a YA so there was a scene that was for more mature readers.

Yea or Nay?
Seriously? You're still on the fence? Read. This. Book!

Utah Author Highlight

This week for Utah Book Month the theme is Utah Author's as I mentioned here, there are a lot of them. I thought about all of them and was trying to decide which one to highlight. I know there're some people out there who's jaw is going to hit the floor but here goes.

Brandon "McSmug" Sanderson

The reason my highlight choice is so shocking is because I really, REALLY do not like this man. Still, he has quite the nerdy following and is probably one of the biggest known Utah authors. So in traditional Jenny style I thought I'd list all the reasons I really just can't stand the guy. Ready?

1 I don't speak THAT dialect of nerd.

Look at them! Every book signing or author event that this guy is at is just filled with these nerdy nerds. Now, I consider myself a huge nerd. I like X-men and can probably tell you more about each of the X-Men's backgrounds than you'd ever want to know. I religiously watched Batman and Spiderman cartoons when I was a teenager. I've seen all the DC and Marvel movies and, yes, I can tell you which heroes are from which universe. I know what Stan Lee looks like etc etc. Seriously, guys, I'm a nerd. Just not THAT kind of nerd.

2 I don't like his books

Pretty good reason, right? Well, not really but let me explain. Sanderson seems like a nice guy but he has this self satisfied, arrogant, pat himself on the back personality and it's so out of control it shows up in his writing. Like this: "Look at me! Look at my books! Look at this world I built! Oh wait, I'm supposed to have likable characters? I could cut my books in half by leaving out all the flashy, attention seeking details? But...my world building is so awesome! Not to mention my magical system! LOOK AT IT!!!"

3 He actually knows enough about these books to have been chosen to finish the series

Need I say more? Sheesh! He's probably got them memorized. *cough cough* geek *cough"

I'll stop now before a nerdy lynch mob with greasy hair shows up in their flooder pants, waving their pointy elbows around like a chicken and threatening to use D&D like powers on me. ;) I've seen Sanderson's house, people. It's huge. Obviously the man is talented and earns lots of money. Making anything I have to say about him moot.

So there you have it, folks, my weird highlight on that "smug" SOB Sanderson. :)