Giveaway: CSNStores.com $35 Gift Certificate

CSN stores has a over 200 stores within one website! This is a great chance to get something special just for you - after all you have been slaving away through this holiday season trying to make is special for everyone else! Or maybe you want to get something on your Christmas shopping and order just the perfect something for that special someone? Have you seen their awesome selection of leather messenger bags, which by the way make great book bags for real readers, who have more than one book to read at at time!

Maybe something like this super cute Aerosoles Egg Role Pump in Grey Leather

Or maybe something practical like the Winsome Basics Foldable Shelf

Perhaps you want to get something for your best book buddy like the Verilux Natural Spectrum® PageLight

Whatever you are in need or want of you will most likely be able to find something in one of the hundreds of CSNstores! I think you are more likely having trouble narrowing it down to just a few things!!

Win It: The good people at CSNstores.com have agreed to give one lucky winner their very own $35 gift certificate.

All entries must be posted by 11:59pm PST on December 20, 2010 to be counted. The winner will be announced by Noon on the next day! (don't worry they have super fast shipping, you should get it in a few days)

So here is what you have to do to get an entry:

MANDATORY ENTRY:

Go to CSNstores.com and tell me what you would pick with your Gift Certificate.


(Remember to include you email address so you can be contacted if you win! Anti-spam version is fine: yourname[at]yourserver[dot]com) If you do not do this entry all of your other entries will be deleted!

Get more Entries:

(you must leave a separate comment for each and every entry). You can do all or none or some =) (If you have already done any of these you can just leave a comment saying so)

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Contest open to US and Canadian residents!(however Canadian residents will incur additional international shipping charges which will not be covered by the gift certificate) 

GOOD LUCK!

Disclaimer: I was in no way compensated to publish this post.

YOU ARE A WINNER

I would like to thank everyone who participated and also advertised my giveaway. This has been a great two weeks and I honestly didn't think my follower list would have tripled but it did and I'm so excited. Hopefully I will be able to keep you all entertained with my reviews and my random thoughts :-).

Giveaways are awesome aren't they? The winner was chosen randomly through random.org. Without further ado, the winner is...

#80 Anna Galanos

You have 48 hours to contact me and let me know which gift card you would like. If I haven't heard from you in 48 hours I will be forced to pick a new winner


Thank you everyone for entering.

Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton

About the Book: 
First there are nightmares.

Every night Ellie is haunted by terrifying dreams of monstrous creatures that are hunting her, killing her.
Then come the memories.

When Ellie meets Will, she feels on the verge of remembering something just beyond her grasp. His attention is intense and romantic, and Ellie feels like her soul has known him for centuries. On her seventeenth birthday, on a dark street at midnight, Will awakens Ellie's power, and she knows that she can fight the creatures that stalk her in the grim darkness. Only Will holds the key to Ellie's memories, whole lifetimes of them, and when she looks at him, she can no longer pretend anything was just a dream.

Now she must hunt.

Ellie has power that no one can match, and her role is to hunt and kill the reapers that prey on human souls. But in order to survive the dangerous and ancient battle of the angels and the Fallen, she must also hunt for the secrets of her past lives and truths that may be too frightening to remember.

About the Author: Courtney Allison Moulton lives in Michigan, where she is a photographer and spends all her free time riding and showing horses. She has always loved reading about ancient mythologies, studying dead languages, and telling scary, romantic stories. Angelfire is her debut novel.


My Thoughts: Angelfire is filled with action, suspense, intrigue and a little bit of romance. When Ellie begins to have her dreams right before her 17th birthday and the handsome Will shows up wherever she is and tells her that they've known each other for over 500 years and he has been waiting for her rebirth, Ellie thinks he is not only weird but on something. Once the attacks and fights against her begins, her memory begins to return and we find out that not only is Ellie more than human and super strong, she has been selected as the one person to fight along her Guardian to protect humankind from evil. 
Angelfire is a mix of supernatural and magic with a female as heroine. Although there is some romance in the book, there isn't a lot of girl meets boy, girl instantly falls in love with boy and they live happily ever after. There is one part that was left unresolved in my opinion and it was Ellie's father. He became more and more hateful throughout the book and at one point Will mentioned that he smelled of blood. If Angelfire is the first of a series, I hope her father's behavior is addressed in the future. 

I GIVE THIS:

DISCLAIMER: I was in no way compensated to review this book. These are my opinions of a book in which I from Harper Collins/HarperTeen through NetGalley.

Totally Postal Thursday

This is my favorite time of year, besides my birthday. I LOVE the Christmas holiday season. I have been listening to Christmas songs since Monday morning and for once since I left the East Coast, I am in the spirit early. I think that also includes the spirit of gifting, except I'm gifting my Nook :-). I thought I was going to be good this week and technically I was. I only bought one book so that I could let my dear friend read it but then of course I found a slew of freebies on the Barnes and Noble site.

• Tempted - P.C Cast

So what made you totally postal this week? You can make a post on your own blog, list all the books you’ve received since last Friday and then tell us how you got them and where on your TBR list they will be and then link up (direct URL, please) here:

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

About the Book: Samantha Kingston has it all: the world's most crush-worthy boyfriend, three amazing best friends, and first pick of everything at Thomas Jefferson High-from the best table in the cafeteria to the choicest parking spot. Friday, February 12, should be just another day in her charmed life.

Instead, it turns out to be her last.

Then she gets a second chance.

Seven chances, in fact. Reliving her last day during one miraculous week, she will untangle the mystery surrounding her death-and discover the true value of everything she is in danger of losing.

About the Author: Lauren Oliver is the author of Before I Fall, which ALA Booklist called a "compelling book with a powerful message [that] should not be missed." A graduate of the University of Chicago and the MFA program at New York University, Lauren is now a full-time writer and lives in Brooklyn, New York. Delirium is her second novel.

My Thoughts:  Initially I found pieces of Before I Fall to be a little bit unrealistic. The behaviors of the teenagers weren't what I found unrealistic but the fact that it seemed like the parents were never around and all the kids did was get drunk. Then I thought back to when I was in high school and realized that I did go to high school with a lot of people like that. After that realization, it was easier for me to get through the book.
Throughout the book, I kept thinking that I would never want to relive the same day over again seven times. I liked that the author didn't have Sam automatically become this nice person on day one of her recurring days. Sam had to go through a number of days going through different emotions and realizing different things, even at the risk of losing her best friends. 
Before I Fall was very well written and I think each and everyone of us can relate to what went on in the halls of Thomas Jefferson High School in some way shape or form. I was hoping that it would have ended differently and that be the only thing that I didn't really like about the book.  It wasn't a bad ending but I wanted it to be different :-)

I GIVE THIS BOOK:

DISCLAIMER: I was in no way compensated to review this book. These are my opinions of a book in which I purchased on my own.

Random Thought

I hope everyone who celebrates Thanksgiving had a wonderful day. This is my favorite time of year besides summer. Although I hate the commercialization of Christmas, I love the holiday. I like the smell of Christmas trees, I love holiday music and I love to look at the lights and decorations on people's houses. I also like that it's a low period at work for me...LOL


Anyway, the point of this post is to find out how often people go through dry spells in reading. When they do go through one, what do they do to get back in the swing of things? I think I may be going through a dry spell. Everything I've tried to read in the last two weeks have been nothing but the sound of Charlie Brown's teacher in my head. The bad part about it is that these books have gotten great reviews and under normal circumstances would catch my interest. I'm not sure what's wrong. I thought that once I was done with school I would have so much more time to read and would be able to put a dent in my TBR pile. Anyone have any advice?

Totally Postal Thursday

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

Well, this week was once again a fantastic week. I did not spend any money on books this week. Some great things happened this week though. Barnes and Noble started shipping their Nook color, no I didn't get one but I'm such a gadget freak I feel like I WANT one. I've been good though. My giveaway seems to be going well so far...thanks everyone who have entered so far. This is a short week for work and even though Thanksgiving isn't technically a holiday I grew up with, I'm happy to celebrate and give thanks. Oh, and I almost forgot, Barnes and Noble provided us with an upgrade to our Nooks that I think is a pretty neat upgrade. 

• Three Seconds - Anders Roslund (B&N First Look book club ARC)
• Skinny Cocktails - Free Friday Nook Book

So what made you totally postal this week? You can make a post on your own blog, list all the books you’ve received since last Friday and then tell us how you got them and where on your TBR list they will be and then link up (direct URL, please) here: