Amara's Eden

In my experience, there is a lot of homogeneity in the book blogging community. Book bloggers, or at least the ones I'm familiar with, tend to be very specific people. They're usually socially liberal, middle class, young women of European descent who live in the U.S. or Canada (and if they're not, they tend to be from Australia or Europe).

Now, I don't mean to say that there aren't conservatives or ethnic minorities or men or older people or non-American/Canadian/Australian/Europeans in the community. There are, and I follow quite a few who don't fit the specific profile I mentioned above. It's just, I've found the overwhelming majority of people I'm following hit almost all of the above categories, meaning that there's just not a lot of diversity to the people behind the blogs I'm reading.

Of course, this could just be me. Maybe I'm following those demographics most because that's who I gravitate towards or because it's who bloggers I respect gravitate towards and I'm just not digging deep enough into the community to find subcultures of other demographics. Or maybe it's a real representation issue in the community; maybe there really aren't as many (or many at all) book bloggers who are conservatives, ethnic minorities, men, older than their mid-thirties, or from countries other than the U.S., Canada, Australia, the U.K., etcetera. (The one obvious caveat here being that U.S., Canadian, Australia, and U.K. bloggers are most likely to blog in English, which is the only language I can read.)

I'm not trying to argue that this is some kind of "stop the presses!" huge deal, of course. It just strikes me as a bit... strange when I notice it. Because, going along with the prevalence of social liberals in the book blogging community (I don't think I've ever seen anyone I could reasonably describe as conservative, and I myself am far from a social conservative... but, of course, it's always possible that they tend not to talk about their politics as often or as openly as socially liberal bloggers, so I overlook them), we talk a lot about making sure there's diversity and representation in the books we read... but I haven't seen a ton in our community itself. It's a little eerie, honestly, and sometimes I wonder if that we're in danger of becoming--or have already become--some kind of buzzword-touting, secretly-hypocritical-and-non-diverse hivemind.

At the very least, it makes me want to keep an eye out for more bloggers who aren't in those (perceived?) majority demographics.

Seriously, give me recommendations. I'd especially be interested in following more blogs from men, ethnic minorities, and people who blog in English as a second language.

Book bloggers are very respectful of each other's opinions of books... but some (especially on Tumblr) turn vicious when social politics come into the equation. As I said earlier, pretty much every blogger I've ever seen has been a social liberal, myself included. So it's no surprise that when I see a politically charged post, it's about an issue that's traditionally "liberal". Usually, my thoughts are similar to the person posting, and that's okay; sometimes they're not, and that's okay, too. Except that every now and then, I'll see someone commenting on a politically-oriented post to offer a dissenting opinion and be torn apart by the people who agreed with the blogger (and sometimes, the blogger themselves). I've seen this most often on Tumblr, where I actually saw more than a few instances of bloggers telling people who disagreed with their opinions of certain books, words, news articles, social issues/concepts, etcetera to "get the fuck off my blog" and the like. I was floored when I saw it; having a different opinion about whether a demographic is represented respectfully in a book or whether a word is acceptable in a particular context (or ever) means that person isn't welcome to talk about books with you or look at your blog? Holy shit!

This, unfortunately, was what led me to stop using Tumblr (for the most part), as the problem seemed to be so much worse there. I've also seen it happen to a lesser degree on a few other blogs, but thankfully, most of the time the people running or commenting on a Wordpress or Blogspot blog tend to keep their heads a little more and try to maintain at least some respect for each other.

The blogging itself can become overwhelming... and when it gets too overwhelming, the stress can dampen my desire to read, too. Blogging can be a big responsibility, and sometimes you can bite off more than you can chew. Maybe you've downloaded too many eARCs, maybe you're fallen far behind on your intended posting schedule, or maybe you've signed up for way too many reading challenges. I've done all three in the past, and each tends to inevitably lead to a day when I realize that I'm sunk. I'm not going to be able to catch up within any reasonable timeframe, and with that realization goes my urge to continue. And that gets me even further behind schedule, which makes me even less likely to catch up, which makes me even less interested in trying, which keeps the cycle going and going and going until I just throw in the towel.

Seriously, at some point in this whole blogging thing, you--well, I, specifically--need to learn to bite off only what you can actually get down. Or, you know, what you can actually get done.

So what do you think? Is there anything that bothers you about blogging or the book blogging community? Have any input on any of my observations? Let me know in the comments below!

My absolute most favorite thing about book blogging is the books. (Duh!) Through book blogging and book-centric websites (such as Goodreads), I've discovered so many books I never would have. Of course, this is more than a bit overwhelming, since I already don't have time to read the books I actually own... but it's still friggin' awesome. At the very least, I get to see some damn gorgeous covers!

I'm also fairly in love with the concept of reading challenges. Now, this needs a bit of qualification because in my experience, I actuallysuck at completing reading challenges... but that's because I have a bad habit of hoarding reading challenges the same way I hoard books. I see one I like. I see a few more I like. And a few more. And a few more. And then suddenly I'm drowning. Too many books, too many challenges, and too little time to squeeze it all into--especially since reading and blogging aren't my only hobbies! I still need to make time for watching Legend of Korra and American Horror Story, playing games like Spyro and The Sims and Crusader Kings II, rewatching old shows likeRugrats and Arthur and Digimon, checking out new (to me!) shows like Arrested Development and Naruto and Attack on Titan, and the overwhelming number of other things I want to do with my life, It's hard, dude.

But I'm getting off topic. Reading challenges are endlessly charming to me, even if I kind of tend to drop the ball.

I'm delighted to have my own space to share my opinions. I've struggled with some serious social anxiety issues since the time puberty began, and while many people dealing with the same problems seem to find it easier to handle the Internet than face-to-face interactions, I'm just as shitty with the 'net as I am in person. Probably shittier. There's no real reason to it, it's just a physiological reaction I need to struggle to stay in control of. And having my own space to post whatever I want (within the Blogspot TOS, of course) is a blessing on that front. I have more confidence being open here than, for example, I did when I was first posting at Goodreads, given that I joined the site for the cataloging feature and was initially very uncomfortable with the social aspect. Goodreads was, in a sense, everyone's space, but Amara's Eden is mine (even though, in a sense, I'm only leasing it from Google). It's great.

So, I feel like I'm forgetting lots of cool things about book blogging and the community. What's your favorite thing about reading blogs or writing one? Let me know in the comments!

An explanation for my ratings system can actually (currently) be seen in the right-hand sidebar of Amara's Eden. It is also explained in a more in-depth nature on my Review Policy page. But here's the gist of it.

One Star

If I've rated a book one star, that means I didn't enjoy the book at all. It wasn't just mediocre; it was unpleasant, offensive, disappointing, or just plain boring. What exactly earned the book's single-star rating can vary. Perhaps the plot was nonsensical, the characters were aggravating, the themes of the story were upsetting (and not in an intentional, thought-provoking way), or the writing and/or editing was beneath my standards. One particularly poor category here can ruin my opinion of a book, unless there's some other particularly well-done aspect to make up for it.

Some examples of one star reviews here at Amara's Eden include Everneath by Brodi Ashton, which bored me to the point that I decided to DNF, and The Terrorist by Caroline B. Cooney, which featured an insufferable and racist main character.

Two Stars

Two star books are books that didn't disappoint me, exactly... but they didn't impress me, either. They just didn't garner a particular emotional response, and all in all, they came across to me personally as mediocre, and they don't particularly inspire me to read the next book(s) in the series or look for more of the author's work. But I certainly won't swear off doing so, either.

Examples of two star reviews here at Amara's Eden include Meet Kirsten: An American Girl by Janet Beeler Shaw, which was a bit of a strange bird in the American Girl series, and Chu's Day by Neil Gaiman, which was cute but not exactly what I expect from a Gaiman story.

A lot of the picture books I read tend to fall into this category.

Three Stars

Three stars is where things start getting good. Any book that earns three stars from me is a book that I can safely say I enjoyed. It might not be something I'm going to come back to, but it was something that I finished reading with a feeling of satisfaction. Either the characters appealed to me, the plot was entertaining, the writing style was impressive, or some other factor made it a fun way to spend a few hours (or minutes, if it was a picture book) of my life. Three star books are the kinds of books that I'll plan on eventually picking up the sequel to, and they're the kind that inspire me to read more from the author.

Some examples of three star reviews I've written are The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene, which is a classic Nancy Drew story I've enjoyed since childhood, and Mustache Baby by Bridget Heos, which was a picture book with some truly adorable art.

The three star category tends to house most of my revisited childhood reads.

Four Stars

Four stars is much rarer than three, but far from unheard of. Four star books are books that I enjoyed and feel qualify as "above average" in some way. Maybe I loved the world-building or the story had an emotional impact on me. Whatever the reason, four star books are enjoyable, like three star books, but not quite at the five star level--but they have the potential to get there upon rereading, and four star books have a pretty good chance of being revisited one day.

Some examples of four star books are The Truth about Bats by Eva Moore, which was a childhood favorite of mine, and The Ultra-Violets by Sophie Bell, which was a really adorable and charming story with awesome art.

Five Stars

Five star books are potential new favorites. These books truly wowed me in some way, whether by telling an amazing story, building an amazing world, or emotionally impacting me in a genuine, intense way. These are books that I will almost certainly reread eventually--with the possible exception of nonfiction--and have a pretty good chance of moving up to the gold star category one day.

Examples include Into Great Silence: A Memoir of Discovery and Loss Among Vanishing Orcas by Eva Saulitis, which was an environmentalist memoir that struck me an emotional chord with me toward the end, and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, which is one of the few classics I've read that I feel truly deserves its reputation.

Gold Stars

Gold star books are alternately referred to as favorites. These are books that I'll recommend to anyone and everyone looking for something to read. They're books that I'll go back to over and over again, rereading obsessively even when I should be reading something else. They're books that held nurture or define my love of reading, and they're books that have made a lasting impact on me in some fashion. A lot of these are childhood favorites, but that should start changing as I become a more active reader in my adulthood (after a slump in my adolescence).

Examples include The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #1) by Lemony Snicket, which is a late childhood favorite of mine, andThe Absent Author (A to Z Mysteries, #1) by Ron Roy, which is perhaps the first series I truly fell in love with.

On websites like Leafmarks, BookLikes, and Goodreads, of course, there are no gold stars, so these books get mixed in with five stars on those platforms.

Star Distribution

This is my current star rating frequency on Goodreads. (The blog will be a bit different, as I haven't reviewed everything I've rated at GR.)

As you can see, the vast majority of books I read fall in the two to three star range, and the four and one star categories around almost even. So, given that three is enjoyable and my current GR average is 2.79 stars, I'd say my rating system is fairly on point. Most things are indeed good (three stars) or average (two stars), with bad (one), great (four), and awesome/favorite (five) being outliers.

So what about you: how do you rate? Do you wind up with an average rating far above or below your star rating that actually meansaverage? Or you a reviewer who tends to give mostly four and five star ratings or never gives out one star ratings? Or do you tend to give out mostly low star ratings and no high ones? Let me know in the comments below!

In 2015, Yvonne of Socrates Book Reviews is hosting the What An Animal Reading Challenge. The challenge is simple: read at least six books with an animal (excluding humans) in the title, an animal on the cover, an animal as a major character or plot point in the story, or a main character who is or becomes an animal. And if you'd like, supernatural creatures like vampires, werewolves, and fairies can count as "animals" for the purposes of the challenge.

Well, I fairly thoroughly covered my review process in My Blogging Workflow, so there's not really anything new to say today! But here it goes anyway.

Step One: Transferring Notes

I take notes while I read, and if the book in question was a physical book (as opposed to an ebook), I'll have at least one page of handwritten notes on loose leaf paper. (If it was an ebook, I'll have notes stored on my Kindle--but probably not as many as I'd like, because it can be a pain in the ass to take notes that way.) I store these notes in a large three-ring binder, just in case I ever want to refer back to them after I've finished writing the review.

Anyway, this is the point at which I get my notes organized. First, I transcribe everything into either a Blogspot draft or a Google Doc. (A Blogspot draft is for reviews I expect to finish writing in one sitting; if I'm going to be taking my time with the review in question, it'll go into my Google Drive.) While I use page numbers on my physical notes, I usually switch to simple bullet points in my transcribed notes and simply jot down any page numbers that I think might actually be included in the review.

Step Two: Reorganizing Notes

As I said in the My Blogging Workflow post, I now begin reorganizing my notes into points. Notes that talk about the same character or plot point are grouped together at this stage; if I talked about the main character on page twelve, then talked about him or her again on page one hundred and twelve, those notes are going to be copy/pasted under a single heading about the subplot. If I complained about a particular subplot on page fifty two only to be pleasantly surprised by the outcome of said subplot on page three hundred and five, those two notes will be grouped together under a single heading about the subplot.

And once I get my notes grouped together under headings, I take a few more minutes to reorganize the headings into a coherent order that I'll be able to turn into a reasonably flowing review a few steps from now.

Step Three: Introductory Paragraph

With all my notes reorganized, I'm ready to start writing my review. But before I start turning headings and points into paragraphs, I skim everything I've got so far--including my star rating--to get a feel for what I really thought of the book. The star ratings here at Amara's Edencorrespond with my satisfaction in regards to the book, not my technical critique of it, so it's purpose here is to help define the tone of the review; a three star rating should correspond to a warm review, as it means I enjoyed the book, while a two star review will be less enthusiastic, given that I thought the book was mediocre. Higher star ratings earn more praise and enthusiasm, while lower star ratings correspond to colder, less interested reviews. On the other hand, some one star books may receive passionate reviews... but not in a good way!

So, with my attitude toward the book in mind, I write up my introductory paragraph. If I have anything potentially relevant to share at this point (such as an anecdote from childhood, the story of how I discovered the book, a few words on why I was or wasn't eager to read the book, etcetera), this is where I deliver it. (Alternately, it may go into a closing paragraph later.)

Step Four: Points Become Paragraphs

It kind of turns into an elementary school style essay at this point (make of that what you will...), with headings and their supporting points forming paragraphs. Hopefully, I came away from the book with enough notes to make a relatively coherent review of a reasonable length at this stage.

Step Five: Reflection and/or Closing Paragraphs

Once I've gotten the introduction and the meat of the review out of the way, I'm almost finished. After having summed up my thoughts pre-support in the introductory paragraph, it's time to do that again with support in the closing paragraph, which may include whether or not I recommend the book, who I would recommend it to, whether I'll be reading sequels or other books from the author, and other relevant information.

But before the closing paragraph, I may include a reflection paragraph. If I'm at all conflicted over the content of the book or my reaction to it, I might choose to spend a few paragraphs musing about the points I've brought up so far and my response to them. If I'm uncertain about my star rating, this is where I'll mention it; sometimes I'll qualify that I wanted to like the book, but didn't, or that the book was, in spite of my complaints, actually better than I expected and a potentially positive experience for someone else, or some similar observation.

Step Six: That's All, Folks

Of course, there's some quick proofreading to be done before hitting publish... and what happens after that point is included in the end of My Blogging Workflow, so if you want to know more, you should go check that post out!

So, do you review in a similar fashion? Do you do something entirely different? Have any suggestions for how to write better reviews in general? Let me know in the comments!

Build up at least a few posts before you publish the first. If you're anything like me, a project you're sufficiently behind on becomes a project you're probably going to quit. When you start a new blog, you should have at least a few posts ready to go, and the platform you're using must have the ability to let you schedule these posts for sometime over the next few days or weeks. (Seriously, if your chosen platform doesn't have this option, look for something else. You're gonna need this feature sooner or later.) If you're a few days or weeks ahead when you start, getting into the habit of blogging is going to be a lot less stressful, and your schedule is going to be a lot more sustainable.

Join the book blogging world as a reader before you join it as a blogger. I didn't do this, and, honestly, it was probably my first mistake. I didn't take the time to be a reader before I became a creator, and now I'm doing it all backwards. Maybe you're not shy like I am, but I've found myself trying to force myself to join the larger community by commenting, which is getting over an incredible hump of social anxiety for me. But, the little voice in the back of my head keeps saying, why put myself through the potential trauma of commenting on other people's blogs when I can just sit comfortably over here at my own? And that's some bullshit advice from a weasel of a voice. Shame on it.

If you spend time in the book blogging community as a reader, leaving (polite!) comments on posts that interest you at blogs that appeal to you, you'll start building relationships that you'll probably want to have once you have a blog of your own. But if you build the relationships first, you'll have a social head start on any newbie who doesn't.

Seriously consider what information you want your blog to reveal about you. If you're not already familiar with high profile cases of the dangers of blogging about and reviewing books, take a moment to read up on cases like STGRB*, Kathleen Hale, and Richard Brittain. There is the potential for IRL stalking and violence in this line of hobby work; know the dangers, and brace yourself for the worst while hoping for the best. You may wish to avoid using your real name and/or photo, and I highly recommend that you purchase a P.O. box or similar service if you wish to receive mail from anyone. *Fear not, this link does not go to the STGRB website.

Look for memes and challenges you'd like to participate in! Joining popular memes like Top Ten Tuesday and Waiting On Wednesday can be a lot of fun, but if you're looking to meet new people through the memes, you might want to check out smaller memes like Cover Characteristics or Friday Finds. As for challenges, you can check out my Pinterest board of 2015 Reading Challenges here or browse around the A Novel Challenge blog. Remember that year-long reading challenges tend to be announced in November or December, while reading challenges or read-a-thons that run for days or weeks tend to be announced in the month preceding the challenge or read-a-thon.

Remember to explain your star ratings (everyone's different!) and write up a review policy. You'll probably need to know fairly early whether you're going to want to accept books for review, and if you don't want any, you should make sure that information's on your site somewhere. (But don't be surprised when authors pitch their books to you anyway...) If you only want to read specific kinds of books, make sure that's somewhere on there, too, and definitely make sure your contact information is visible. I'd recommend having a separate email address for review requests or using something like a Google form. If you have no idea what you want or need to put in your review policy, browse around some blogs you know, read, and respect to get an idea.

And that brings me to a bonus tip...

For the love of whatever you hold dear, do not under any circumstances plagiarize anyone or anything! You'd think I wouldn't have to say this, but you'd be wrong.

There's so much many more little things I could bring up, but I think that's about covers it for now. Who knows, maybe I'll post more soon!

So, do you have any additional tips for newbies? Are you a newbie with some questions? Let me know in the comments!

I'm not gonna lie, most of my "popular" posts aren't really all that popular. No, I don't mean that I'm on the nobody side of the blogging popularity scale and what's popular for me is extremely unpopular for someone who's actually a blip on the world's radar. What I mean is that the posts Blogspot claims are my most viewed tend to be that way because of spam bots.

Let's take a look.

#1 - The Haunted Hotel (A to Z Mysteries, #8) by Ron Roy

I have no idea why, but this post has seen a huge number of bot views and spam comments lately, to the point where I actually had to shut down the Disqus comments at one point. Now, Disqus does a fine job of making sure spam comments are filtered out, but that didn't change the fact that I was getting somewhere between five and ten emails a day about a new comment on this post, only to find out that it was another random bit of spam. Who's spamming this post and why? I don't know, and I don't really care. But as it stands right now, the artificial views have bumped this up to my most "popular" post according to Blogspot, with over forty-five hundred views.

#2 - Dinosaurs (Magic Tree House Research Guides, #1) by Will and Mary Pope Osborne

Again with the spam. Before The Haunted Hotel got hit, Dinosaurs was the Spam Queen for a few weeks, and it the post ended up with over thirteen hundred views.

#3 - The Berenstain Bears Get the Twitchies by Stan and Jan Berenstain

This is the first one to actually get the amount of views that Blogspot says it did. Not through anything I did, unfortunately; the book was the subject of an /r/WTF thread almost a year ago, and someone there linked to this post.

Nobody really gave a crap about the review, of course, and I certainly didn't get any new readers from it... but still my highest spam-free post, nonetheless. It currently sits at around four hundred and fifty views.

#4 - Zepha the Monster Squid (Beast Quest, #8) by Adam Blade

This was actually the first review to receive a sudden and fairly startling influx of spam views. At the time, four hundred spam views within a few days had seemed mind-blowing... but now that The Haunted Hotel and Dinosaurs sit at first and second place with, in the former case, ten times as many views, it doesn't seem quite as strange.

I'm still fairly baffled by the whole thing, though.

After this point, I don't really know the ratio of real views to spam views, so here's the rest of my "top ten most popular posts" list, presented without comment.

• The Truth About Bats (Magic School Bus Chapter Books, #1) by Eva Moore | 333 views
• Monster by Christopher Pike | 197 views
• Haunted Animals: True Ghost Stories by Allan Zullo | 156 views
• This Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen | 93 views
• Disney Scary Storybook Collection: A Treasury of Tales | 89 views
• Paranormal Activity 3 | 77 views

A lot of book lovers say you can never own too many books. They haven't seen my bedroom.

Counting physical books alone, I own over 1700 books. They're everywhere; I have two large bookshelves that aren't enough to contain even half of my collection, so there are boxes of books under my bed, bins of books in my closet, and a pile of paperbacks beside my nightstand. I am drowning in books.

Distressingly, I'm nowhere near as on top of all the reading these books require. Reading is only one of my hobbies, and I phase in and out of reading moods suddenly, seemingly randomly, and for extended periods of time. I read a lot in 2011 and even more in 2012. But my stats fell in 2013, and now they're even worse as of 2014. I've only read 89 books this year, and when you're staring at a collection of unread books that threatens to consume your living space, 89 books just isn't going to cut it.

The worst of the problem, then, is that of those 89 books, damn near none of them were books I actually own. There's a lot of library books mixed in there and some ARCs, but my owned TBR pile has languished for quite some time--and I can't seem to stop myself from adding to it!

I'm hoping the 2015 Mount TBR Reading Challenge, hosted by Bev of My Reader's Block, can help me with that particular character flaw. I'm officially signing up for Pike's Peak, the challenge's "Level 1". It has the low goal of twelve owned books a year--shamefully more than I think I've read in 2014--and while that certainly won't even make a visible dent in my TBR piles, hopefully it'll be enough to kick me into gear with reading books I actually own. And if it doesn't... well, twelve is better than none, right?

I only participate in a few memes at Amara's Eden (though I'm sure someone who participates in no memes at all would probably have a different opinion!), and participation in all of these is sporadic. Here are the memes I've participated in at least once at Amara's Eden, and clicking on the meme image will take you to the corresponding posts. For another overview of the memes (and other posts) I've posted since the inception of the blog, check out the Archive page here. Memes can be found toward the bottom.

Library's For-Sale Shelf

First, I'd like to point out that, yes, this post does indeed cover a topic more like "My Reviewing Workflow" than "My Blogging Workflow". But honestly, most of what I do at Amara's Eden to date is review, so... close enough, right?

Step One: Finding a Book

I don't have any trouble finding the next book I want to read. If you've ever looked at my Goodreads shelves, you know I have more books on my TBR lists than I could ever hope to read. The trouble I have is with deciding which book I should actually read next, and I have a bad habit of ignoring one immediately accessible to me in favor of things I find more interesting. I can't tell you many times I've neglected a book I own or an ARC in favor of a library book that could easily have waited its turn in line. I'm really, really bad about prioritizing books. (There's a New Year's resolution for me!)

So I'm kind of chaotic when it comes to picking a book. I pick on whims, really, and read whatever catches my eye for whatever arbitrary reason. Then I get the book (usually from the library), and I set down to read.

Step Two: Reading the Book

I've talked several times recently about my reading process. I take notes on loose leaf paper, store it in a binder, and eventually use it for the review. I read fairly fast (I score anywhere between ~200 and ~800 words a minute on reading tests, depending on how I'm feeling that day and what exactly I'm reading), so reading something doesn't take long. My biggest issue with this step comes in the form of procrastination. I have a very bad habit of letting books sit around while I focus on other things (games, shows, movies, other books, etcetera), which is only compounded upon by the prioritizing issue I mentioned above. And if I have any kind of stress about reading (or reviewing) a particular book for whatever reason, the procrastination worsens tenfold.

So a lot of the time, starting a book is a matter of literally picking it up while I'm not focusing on anything else, forcing myself to shut down all extraneous thought (I also have an issue with racing thoughts, so stopping long enough to get focused enough to read can be difficult sometimes--not to mention the insomnia it can cause), and reading the book until it hopefully catches my interest. Some days are better than others, and a lot of it depends on how anxious I am on a given day. Too much stress, and reading becomes just another stressor. No fun there.

Step Three: Writing the Review

Once I've read a book, I should have at least a page of notes. I'll probably have more, but the more notes I take tends to correspond negatively with how much I enjoyed the book. (I have a bad habit of only take notes about things that I want to complain about, or things that seriouslyimpressed me. The little pleasant things tend to get overlooked. I'm working on it.) In any case, once I have those notes on paper, it's time to get onto the computer so I can expand them into something resembling a review.

My process here usually to just write the notes out as they're written on the page, which means they'll end up in the order in which they happened in the book, and then start rearranging into points. If I had a complaint on page 18 that I retracted on page 119, my page 18 note and my page 119 note get grouped together at this point to wind up with something like this hypothetical point:

Jessie starts out really annoying, but I actually warmed up to her over the course of the story.

• Fuck, Jessie is acting like a complete bitch to Marcella.

• Huh. What do you know? Jessie actually was right; Marcella's a horrible person.

There aren't really many things that I would consider part of my "blogging toolkit," but here's what I got.

In the reading phase, I use a spiral notebook or loose leaf paper to take notes on, assuming that I'm reading from a physical book. (If I'm reading on my Kindle, I use the Kindle note-taking features.) Upon finishing the book I'm reading, the pages upon which I wrote my thoughts about the particular book are put in a three-ring binder I keep for review notes. (I keep three sections in there: WIP notes for books I've temporarily set aside and intend to get back to; completed notes for books that I've finished but haven't yet reviewed; and reviewed notes for books that I no longer need the notes for, as I've already written the review.)

When it comes to actually blogging, I use Goodreads or Leafmarks to keep track of my reading progress and history. When I finish a book, I mark it as read on both platforms, and then I'm ready to write up the review. If I'm doing that immediately, I head over to Blogspot and get started. But if it's something that I'm not ready to write my review for just yet, I go over to Google Drive; In my Drive, I have an Amara's Eden folder that houses my review request form and results, as well as folders devoted to book blurbs I've copied down from books I own and have read, ideas for future posts, and reviews in progress.

There are a few other tools I use after posts are published. When I post a new review, I share a link at Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Goodreads, and I post the review at BookLikes and Leafmarks in addition to here. (For non-review posts, I tend to only share them at Twitter and sometimes Tumblr.) Meanwhile, I use Feedburner and Bloglovin to make it easier for people to follow Amara's Eden.

Finally, the last tools I could reasonably describe as being in my "blogging toolkit" involve discovering new books and following new blogs. I use Netgalley and Edelweiss for eARCs, and I also find Kindle freebies via /r/freeEBOOKS and always remember to pick up University of Chicago Press's monthly freebie here. (For more places to find free books, fanfiction, and amateur fiction, check out my Free Fiction page.)

Meanwhile, I follow blogs via Feedly, and it's through these blogs that I get a lot of my book recommendations. I usually hear about new and upcoming releases via--don't laugh--Cover Snark at A Reader of Fictions, while I tend to find older books via Goodreads Recommendations (or at least, I used to when I was more active on Goodreads).

So, is there anything I'm not using that I totally should be? Anything you think I should try out? And what do you have in your "toolkit"? Let me know in the comments below!

When Amara's Eden was first created in October of 2012, my blogging platform of choice was a Weebly. I don't recall how long I lasted there, but I don't think it was more than a month, because I had migrated to Wordpress by Christmastime.

But that Weebly site is still up here and bears the original (as far as I can remember) design--a free Weebly theme that I've long since forgotten the name of. It didn't have those particular pages at the time, of course, and the whole thing wasn't just a big banner link to this site, obviously, but the design hasn't changed a bit!

Honestly, I'm still kind of fond of Weebly as a blogging/website platform, though I've literally never seen another book blogger user it. But I'm definitely going to be sticking with Blogspot for the foreseeable future. So here they are, side by side: the original design of Amara's Eden in its Weebly incarnation versus its current design at Blogspot.

After a few lame #BookBlogWriMo posts--and that lameness is totally on me, not the event or its creator, of course!--over the last few days, here's one where I can really shine. I read a ton as a kid, and while there are plenty of books that didn't stick out in my memory (some to the point of forgetting their titles to this very day), there are some that still have a really fond place in my memory.

First and foremost, if you want to take a glimpse at all the books I read during my childhood years, you can check out my shelves at Goodreads. 1993-2003 covers everything I can recall reading between my birth and the end of elementary school; 2004-2006 covers middle school; and 2007-2011 covers my high school years (plus a few months before and after I turned eighteen).

Let's do this in chunks, shall we?

A lot of little kids have an animal phase sometime after they learn to empathize with nonhuman creatures. My animal phase was long, intense, and fostered by series like Ben M. Baglio's Animal Ark and Dolphin Diaries, as well as Jeanne Betancourt's Pony Pals.

Books like Mummies in the Morning from Mary Pope Osborne's Magic Tree House series and Kristina Gregory's Cleopatra VII: Daughter of the Nile from the Royal Diaries series helped foster my early childhood obsession with ancient Egypt.

Series like J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter (of course!), Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness, Emily Rodda's Deltora Quest (and its sequels, Deltora Shadowlands and Dragons of Deltora), and Jackie French Koller's The Keepers helped make fantasy one of my two favorite genres to this very day.

My other favorite genre is horror, and spooky stories like Grace Maccarone's The Haunting of Grade Three, Mary Downing Hahn's Wait Till Helen Comes, and R.L. Stine's The First Horror helped solidify my love for all* things frightening. *Well, most. I don't do torture porn.

But I also enjoy mysteries, a genre which I was first introduced to through Ron Roy's A to Z Mysteries (with my favorite being the quite-spooky-when-you're-four story, The Haunted Hotel) and continued to explore with series like classic Nancy Drew and Ann M. Martin's The Baby-sitter's Club Mysteries.

I discovered manga via Miwa Ueda's Peach Girl, and ventured on with series like Reiko Yoshida and Mia Ikumi's Tokyo Mew Mew and Matsuri Hino's MeruPuri.

Carolyn Meyer's Young Royals series helped get me into historical fiction (and I have a particular fondness for historical princess/queen stories thanks to both it and Royal Diaries), and her books Mary, Bloody Mary and Doomed Queen Anne, along with Ann Rinaldi's Nine Days A Queen, got me through a brief period of Tudor fixation.

Of course, like a lot of 2000s teens, I had a vampire phase, and the books that got me through that admittedly rough period included romance-y stuff like Ellen Schreiber's Vampire Kisses (perfectly average upon rereading), and R.L. Stine's books, Dangerous Girls (didn't hold up upon rereading) and One Last Kiss (haven't been able to find for rereading!). But I also read horror-focused vampire stories, including Sebastian Rook's Vampire Plagues (still totally loved upon last rereading) and Darren Shan's Cirque du Freak (rereading... someday).

There were other favorites that didn't correspond with trends, of course. Elizabeth George Speare's The Witch of Blackbird Pond was a book that I read thinking there would be actual witches, but totally loved even when it turned out to be about puritanical witch persecution and its victims... though I never actively sought out more books like it. (The time period and subject matter weren't what hooked me with this one--it was the emotional impact of Speare's writing.)

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events was an awesome series that I got into long after I should have, but totally loved when I finally sat down to read it (and yes, I do like the ending in spite of what almost everyone else seems to think). But while I love that series, I haven't managed to read any similar series yet--with perhaps the exception of the first book in the Templeton Twins series, which uses a "Lemony Narrator".

And then there was Nancy Springer's I am Morgan le Fay, which really made me a bit obsessive toward that particular mythological figure for a while (and, to a lesser extent, Arthurian myth), but I never really got around to reading many Arthurian books besides Nancy Springer's other endeavor, I Am Mordred... which unfortunately wasn't as impressive to me.

(I'm hoping to reread I Am Morgan le Fay soon, and I really hope it holds up!)

Of course, after writing all this out, I have to say I'm fairly interested to realize that most of my favorite stories growing up were written by female authors... except when it came to my vampire phase, which was inexplicably populated by male authors' books! I'm honestly fairly fascinated, and I'd love to someday take the time to break down my author stats to look at sex, race/ethnicity, nationality, etc.

So what about you? Have you read any of these books--besides the all-but-obligatory Harry Potter and A Series of Unfortunate Events? And what were your childhood favorites? Feel free to leave a comment below!

Another fairly simple question for Day 5 of #BookBlogWriMo! I blog almost exclusively at home and usually in my bedroom, either in bed with my laptop or sitting at my desk. But if you want to expand the concept of "book blogging" to included the reading I have to do for Amara's Eden, the answer gets ever-so-slightly more interesting, as it branches out to include the places I talked about two days ago in Where I Read.

Honestly, my super boring answer to this question is kind of making me wish I blogged in more creative places! I totally wish I could say I blogged on vacation to fun places or something, or at least that I took my laptop outside into the fresh air once in a while, but... nope. Apparently I'm lame!

At least I should have something a little more interested to say for tomorrow's post.

For the past few years, I've read at least a few picture books per year--for one thing, I usually go through the nominees for the Goodreads Choice Awards to pick my vote. And sometimes, when I haven't read anything in a while, I'll read some picture books just so I have some reviews to post here at Amara's Eden!

So the I Love Picture Books 2015 Challenge, hosted at Book Dragon's Lair, is as good a fit for me as any. I don't expect to read a ton of picture books in 2015, so for now I'll say that my goal is twelve in total--one per month. If I get past twelve before November 2015, I'll bump it up to twenty-five or thirty. If I fly past it, I'll aim for fifty.

If you're another picture book reader and interested in checking out Gina's challenge, you can find the sign-up page with the challenge rules here at Book Dragon's Lair.