Monday, June 4, 2012

Armchair BEA 2012: Introductions First!

This year, I'm participating in Armchair BEA 2012! Here's a small interview with myself to kick off this year's activities with.

1. Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging?

Hi! I'm Ashleigh, a fan of books, cats, scented candles, and parenthetical asides (I like to think they're my unique little touch). I've been blogging for roughly a year and a half now, having started in September 2010, and I admit, I started blogging because I saw all the lovely books other bloggers were getting and wanted a piece of that. Shortly thereafter, I came to care less about the ARCs (though I appreciate them when I get them) and more about the freedom to share my thoughts on books with other people. No one in my life except for my two best friends read the same kind of books I do and finally being able to discuss them has made me that much more intelligent.

2. What are you currently reading, or what is your favorite book you have read so far in 2012?

I'm divided between four books I'm reading right now:

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas; I'm a little wary of it after reading the three available novellas, but I planned a month-long event for the novellas/novel and I'm going to stick with it. I really hope I like it just so the money I spend on the hardcover of Throne of Glass I'm giving away during the event won't make me feel icky.

Waking Storms by Sarah Porter; The events of the first book are a little fuzzy in my head because I read it well over a year ago, but I've gotten about forty pages into the second and I'm liking it so far. Here's hoping the romance doesn't take over. I loved that the first book was about the mermaid dynamic, not romance.

Struck by Jennifer Bosworth; I'm reading it solely on a recommendation from one of my friends. Otherwise, I'm not sure I would have picked it up, though the idea of a lightning addict and two religious cults who want her sounds interesting enough. Fingers crossed!

Dearly, Beloved by Lia Habel; I admit, I'm reading this solely for Pamela. She is one badass girl! Not looking forward to the six points of view, though. The first novel couldn't use five well and I doubt this one can use six well.

3. Tell us one non-book-related thing that everyone reading your blog may not know about you.

On June 1, I graduated magna cum laude from high school with a GPA of 4.18. When I go to college in August, I'm attending on a full-ride academic scholarship.

9. What is your favorite part about the book blogging community? Is there anything that you would like to see change in the coming years?

I love that the book blogging community is drama-free--in a manner of speaking, of course. Most of us know how it's been lately with all the author/reviewer fights and Kristi the Story Siren's plagiarism (now that was an implosion) and that definitely isn't the kind of drama-free I mean. Maybe I don't get out enough, but I don't see one book blogger fighting and creating drama with another book blogger for no reason. When I jump online, I don't hear about So-and-So from This Blog spamming and threatening This Person all the time.

In the next few years, I would like to see authors, publishers, and book bloggers alike come to a better understanding of one another so that all the drama stops. In addition, I'd like everyone to be more aware of the intricacies of plagiarism so nothing like the Story Siren implosion happens again. The response to that made me happy in some ways (yay! Everyone knows more about plagiarism now and what to do about it!) and disappointed in others (who the fuck thought it was a good idea to email threats to the plagiarism victims?!).

10. Have your reading tastes changed since you started blogging? How?


My God, how they have changed. By reading so many books both great and terrible, my tastes have become more refined. I'm difficult to impress and I know exactly what kind of book I want to read. I've become more socially minded in the past few years. Reading with a feminist eye has become second nature to me and when a book is blatantly anti-feminist (see When You Were Mine, Starcrossed, and Nightshade), I go on the warpath. Abusive relationships (and not just physically abusive), slut shaming, and homophobia turn me off to a book; books that celebrate the diversity of people in gender, orientation, and ability make me swoon. Code Name Verity in particular was one I swooned over because of how it showed men weren't the only ones fighting hard for their freedom; women were fighting just as hard.

In addition, I've gotten a little bit masochistic with my reading. I get a little fascinated with how terrible a book is said to be. Hey, nothing makes you appreciate a fantastic book the way a horrible book does. I only pick up those kinds of books from time to time, though. Ninety percent of the time, I read a book honestly hoping I will love it.

25 comments:

  1. High five for feminism! I have to admit most of my interest in feminism stemmed from my academic career, but it's still an important aspect in the books I read!

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    1. High five! With some of these books I read, I'm practically screaming at them "What are you doing?! This is not how you treat women!" When I see some fans thinking it's okay for the heroes to treat the heroines the way they do, I want to put my head in my hands.

      I can't even remember where my interest in feminism started; it feels like it's always been there even though I know it hasn't. I think it started around eighth or ninth grade--about the same time I started reading more YA books. Kids threw sexist remarks at me and bullied me for daring to be female and it troubled me to see the same bad attitudes in some of my books.

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  2. congrats on your scholarship! ANd good luck with college!
    Chelle

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    1. Thank you! I worked hard for it and when I got it, I was bouncing around the house for ages. As long as college is better than my rough high school experience, I'm happy. Not so happy about going to school so far from home, though.

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  3. First: Congrats on the scholarship and graduating with so many honors! That is beyond fantastic!!!

    Second: I am so glad to see that I am not the only one that has multiple books going on at once. Variety is the spice of life and/or the cure to my moody reading syndrom!

    Third: I am always the last to catch on to drama too -- mostly because I just ignore it for the most part. The SS drama was hard to avoid but I am glad everyone is more aware now. The rest of it just represents the worst of mob mentality but that is hopefully slowed down some.

    It was great to meet you!

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    1. Thank you! I worked my hind end off all four years and I was so happy to see it pay off. My scholarship is something I love to mention whenever someone asks me about what I'm doing after high school because I'm so proud of it.

      I normally read only two to three books at once, but I challenged myself to read all my unread print books (28 at this point) before I moved away for college in two and a half months. The ARCs are top priority and so I'm trying to get all those read first.

      Sometimes, I know nothing of the drama until one of my friends brings it up, but sometimes my friends are the unfortunate targets and ignoring it becomes impossible. The bloggers who got attacked by Leigh Fallon and Kiera Cass's agent are friends of mine and have been for some time. I really hope the drama slows down too. A recent one freaked me out so badly that I had to get rid of all my online photos of myself. :/

      Nice to meet you too, Felicia!

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  4. Sometimes the worst books are the most entertaining. And yeah that Story Siren thing was crazy and definitely the worst book blogger dust-up I've ever experienced. Welcome to Armchair BEA and nice to meet you!

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    1. They are, aren't they? I just came across one that used to be a InuYasha fanfic, but the author changed the names with the Find/Replace tool and almost everything else was left the same. I'm considering buying/reading it just to laugh at it; the preview was the best kind of unintentional comedy and I need more funnies in my day.

      I dunno, I think the Story Siren thing might now tie with an author revealing a blogger's personal information. They're two different kinds of drama, but they're both massively horrible.

      Nice to meet you too!

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  5. I tend to stay out of all the drama that goes on around the community and am normally only finding out about it after it's all over with.

    Congrats on your scholarship and good luck with school.

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    1. I can ignore them sometimes, but then there are ones that drag me/my friends into and I really can't avoid them. A recent one really freaked me out and I had to get rid of all the photos of me I had online.

      Thank you! I'm not looking forward to moving so far away from home, but I worked my butt off so I could get a scholarship like that and I'm definitely taking advantage of it.

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  6. Graduating magna cum laude?! I'm so impressed! That is very hard to do, and a wonderful acheivement. This, from a teacher who values her students and the effort they put into their work. It's nice to meet you! Happy BEA Week!

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    1. Thank you! I've got nothing on my friend's brother, though. He's like the textbook definition of a genius. Skipped a grade, graduated summa cum laude with a 5.0 GPA, and got a full ride to Notre Dame. Notre Dame! I love my brain to bits, but his is like whoa.

      Nice to meet you too!

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  7. Congrats on the scholarship!Awesome blog!!

    http://lovesbooksreviews.blogspot.com/2012/06/armchair-bea-about-me.html

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  8. I have Throne Of Glass and all the novella's sitting in my kindle, and I've been dying to start it. I'm wondering why your wary to start Throne, hmm my curiosity is piqued.

    Anyway, have a great bea week and congrats on your achievements!

    My Intro

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    1. I'm feeling wary of the novel because I didn't care much for the novellas. The first one was fun, but the second was a little worse and the third was just plain bad. The only woman in the novellas who isn't a villain or a caricature is Celaena and that kind of off-kilter female representation really bothers me. I'm scared the same problem will show up in the novel, but I've read the beginning of it and I like it so far.

      Thank you, and I hope your BEA week rocks too!

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  9. Congrats on all your academic success! Until recently I didn't know it was possible to get a GPA over 4.0! Your tastes in books sounds pretty similar to mine, so I think this is a new blog I'd love to follow! I'm all for positive characters and story lines and I always put down a book that has any kind of negativity or abuse in it. I look forward to exploring your blog some more! :)

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  10. Congratulations on your achievements. I'm a Floridian as well, although I don't live in the Fort Meyers/ Tampa area.

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  11. It was so awesome getting to know about you! First off, congrats on all your fantastic acheivements! Getting a GPA over 4.0 can be super challenging, so congrats for pulling that off. =) Anyways, Throne of Glass looks super good, so I hope you do end up liking it!! It's on my to-buy list. Struck was pretty interesting, the concept was very cool.

    Have fun during Armchair BEA!

    -Aneeqah @ My Not So Real Life

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  12. Hi There!

    The Story Siren debacle was certainly an eye opener for me: I never imagined that people would be so rude to the people who had content stolen from them! :(

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  13. Congrats on getting a GPA over 4.0 very impressive!!
    It's so great to meet you!!
    Hope you have a great Armchair BEA week!
    Here's my post: http://little-red-reads.blogspot.com/2012/06/armchair-bea-introductions.html

    xo Stephanie

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  14. Hey Ashleigh!

    I have a client in Ft. Meyers, but I suggest you steer clear of that!

    Good to meet you, and congrats on the 4.17 and the full ride! That's huge!

    LOL on the horrible books, but yeah I mean funny factoid, reading Twilight actually made me think I could finish writing my books. And then every other book I've read since then has told me either a) I can still do this or b) I'll never be this good. It's an interesting mix to see how it goes.

    :)

    Talk to you soon!

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  15. Tampa area, right here!! I'm not all that close to Fort Myers, but definitely Tampa. :) Congrats on that GPA, impressive stuff! Definitely something to be proud of.

    Starcrossed... I have it for my iPhone's Kindle app, but I can't get into it. I really wanted to, since it's set on the island I used to live on. But ugh. I didn't even GET to the anti-femisim part. Maybe I'll have to. ;-)

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  16. I totally agree with you for what you'd like to see change! I think for the amount of people involved in this community, the drama is pretty small but it still exists. It'd be nice if it could be eliminated all together.

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  17. I feel really sad b/c I didn't super love TOG the way I thought I would and had it really built up, but I still adore the author and her blog! I can't wait to hear your thoughts when you finish WS! STRUCK...it disappointed me. Then again, I was expecting it to be about a superhero or elemental magic or something, not Doomsday and religious cults, so boo. Wow, congrats on graduating magna cum laude! That's incredible! Aww, I graduated from UT. If I still lived there, we could have met up! "I'm difficult to impress and I know exactly what kind of book I want to read." I agree! The more you read, the pickier you become in terms of what you "like" (and the more open you are to things you might have never tried because you liked another similar title....*thinks of contemporaries she read looking for another ANNA*). My one co-worker always says that I "like everything I read" and doesn't understand that the reason I like 90% of what I read is that I know my tastes and can pick out what I actually want to read and will enjoy most of the time!

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  18. Congrats on your scholarship. Well deserved with that GPA. ;)

    Nice to meet you!

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I love hearing what others have to say about books and it makes me feel less like I'm talking to an empty auditorium, so comment away. Thank you for reading my blog post!