Book Review: Freak of Nature by Julia Crane

AUTHOR: Julia CranePUBLISHER: Valknut 
PAGES: 284
STAND ALONE/SERIES: series I think
SOURCE: bought
OUTLINE:
Donate Body to Science. Check.
When seventeen-year-old Kaitlyn checked the box, she never suspected she’d have her life–and her body–stolen from her. She awakens one day in a secret laboratory to discover that her body is now half-robot and is forced to hide her own secret: that she still has human emotions and a human mind. If the scientists who made her find out, they’ll erase what remains of who she was.

Kaitlyn finds an unlikely ally in Lucas, a handsome, brilliant scientist who can’t get over the guilt he feels knowing she was once a vibrant, beautiful young woman. He never expected a science project to affect him the way she does. As he tries to help her rediscover her past, he finds himself falling for the brave girl struggling to find her place and acceptance between the human and computer worlds

MY THOUGHTS
A cyborg falling in love with a human...sort of a far-fetched idea huh? Ok, yes it is, but Julia Crane did it so well that it works for me.

Kaitlyn does a good job acting as if she is only a robot and nothing else, but the truth is she's more human than they think. She has a mind and emotions, and they're telling her that lucas is hot and that she could be meant for so much more then whatever the goverment has in store for her. I truly enjoyed the way this story unfolded. At times I just wanted Kaitlyn to tell everyone that she was more than she appeared to be, more than just wires and metal.

I felt sort of bad for her being stuck in a room with just a tv and nothing more, white walls, it sounds to me like a psyhc ward. (Not that I would know what that is like) I was glad that she had one person who gave her the time of day, even if the person is a child.

Karma's A biatch!

-Personal Story-

My July has totally been craptastic, but yesterday pretty much was shit-tastic. I woke up to my fiance tossing things around at 630 in the morning trying to find his wallet. I tried to ignore it and go back to sleep, but he finally was like "Will you see if you can help me find my wallet?" so I get up and we look numerous times everywhere. It's nowhere to be found, and he was pissed because naturally he had his liscense, bank card, gas card, emergency credit card, kays card, pep boys card, among other things in there. So by 830 when everything was opening up we went to his job first to see if it was there, and then we decided to go to the bank and cancel that card juat in case. Well whatwe  learned when we got there was that some jackass had found the wallet and spent in one day 430.00 dollars at best buy online (with our bank card), 200.00 on the gas card (technically the cards in his mom names), 130.00 on the emergency card (that's all they could before talking to Ryan), 97.00 at 7eleven on the bank card, 65.00 at walmart, and a few other charges. What sucks even moreis  we didn't have money on the card until both our checks direct deposited that same morning. So they had all our money spent before it was even there. That caused us overdraft charges. We spent a good 8 hours calling, canceling, and talking to places to get it straightend out. We finally went to the poilce department to file a report and they said they couldnt do much until tuesday when the detective that handles that kind of thing comes in. REALLY? Then Ryan calls best buy and finds out the person was trying to buy a laptop, and we got the name that they were having it sent too. Side note if you still someones shit don't use your real name because eventually you will be caught.  

We now have to have everything transfered to a new account, and probably wait 10 days to 45 days to get back anything. It's a damn good thing we have family and some friends who care otherwise we'd really be in a shit creek. Looks like I'm really on a book buying ban for awhile. It just amazes me how uncaring some people are.We worked really really hard for our money to have some bitch/bastard take it all in one day. I just keep telling myself that karmas a bitch and what comes around goes around. To the person who did this you may have gotten a few things out of it, but if everything works you'll be the one getting screwed. Do people not realize there are cameras pretty much anywhere you go. Especially if you steal it at 2am to 3am in the morning at a gas station. Employee?

Then to top that off I get a text from a co-worker telling me not to worry about working today (I was suppose to at 11am) because I hadn't done a module that was due yesterday when all this shit was happening. I was PISSED to say the least. It was my manager who told her to tell me. Really? Be a man and have some balls and call me to let me know. Don't get someone else to do your job. So I went ahead and did it last night, and was I called today and told I could work... once they saw I did it..nope! That's just being heartless in my opinion after I told them my bank account was drained. It's cool though I'll get a vacation day for it, and all be damned if they tell me no.

Then today we stilled had stuff we had to finish taking care of. People if you find someones wallet think about this: How would you feel if someone found your card, money, or whatever and decided to use it knowing that it's wrong and could cause problems for that person?

Kindle Deals (11)

I always see blogs that have a page that show deals for the kindle, and I occasionally find one or two books on there that I would want. I'm more of a YA girl, and seeing as how most my followers are (I'm assuming here) I decided to make a list of the YA books I found that are $3.99 and less for the kindle. There are plenty more Ya books that are on amazon, but these caught my attention because either I have them, I've read them, or I'm dying to read them. :) Just click on the title and it takes you to their amazon page in a new window.

I'm not sure how long these deals will be here so get them while they're available.

(Sidenote: Remember to look at the prices to make sure)

YeahYA! Author Signing

 

(picture courtesy of Mundie Moms)

(I'm on the right side the very back with the blue shirt and hat)

This was the Southlake, Texas stop on the tour. We had Julie Kagawa, Aimee Carter, Katie McGarry, Rachel Vincent, and Gena Showalter. I didn't get a whole bunch of pictures but here are what I did get.

Here you can read a transcript of the questions asked

Mary Had a little blog.

Mundie Moms (more pictures)

Book Nerd Tour Stop: Shadow of the mark by Leigh Fallon

Leigh Fallon I was born in South Africa, raised in Dublin, Ireland and moved to Cork in my 20’s. While living in beautiful Kinsale, Co Cork I discovered a love of writing. I write mainly for the young adult market. My current book, The Carrier of the Mark, prompted me to abandon my ‘riveting’ career in corporate treasury and have been writing ever since. I have another three books in the Carrier series and a few other projects I'm working on. My family and I now share our time between Ireland and the US.

SOCIAL MEDIA: WEBSITE RAFFLECOPTER LINKS: a Rafflecopter giveaway

 Grand Prize Winner will get: - 1 Autographed ARC of SHADOW OF THE MARK - 3 CARRIER OF THE MARK Bookmarks - 3 SHADOW OF THE MARK Bookmarks - 2 Buttons for each book - 1 Irish Bookmark - 1 Postcard for each book open to US Only 1 Runner Up will receive a $20.00 Gift Card to Amazon or B&N, their choice! open internationally Shadow of the Mark

Should look like this on the Compose section:

Book Tour: Shadow of the mark by Leigh Fallon

Hey readers/bloggers here's my stop for Shadow of the Mark Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Becoming a Published Author

1. Your first book is the easiest to write. You have no pressure. You’re doing it because you love it, and you don’t have your editor in your head with a red pen scribbling out stuff before you even type it.

2. Editing is tough, editing a plot line on page 280 of a 300 page manuscript will create ripples all the way back to page 1. Be prepared to turn left when you were turning right to begin with.

3. Social Networking is more time consuming than writing. Striking a balance between the two is tough. I still struggle with it.

4. If you’re looking to make a quick buck, this business is not for you. Yes there are those authors and make a boot load of cash, but they are the exception. In general, advances are small and royalties are smaller.

5. Unfortunately, nasty reviews will rip your heart out. It’s inevitable. You pour your heart into a story, you work tirelessly on it for two years, writing, editing, marketing, and them BAM! The shredding begins. All you can do is stock up on ice cream and Kleenex, and take heart that they are few, and regardless of what they think of your book, most reviewers are of the awesome variety.

6. Being published doesn’t make you feel accomplished. You do get a rush of the OMGs, but with every completed book you’ll raise the bar. You want to do better, be bigger, and you will always doubt yourself. Writers in general are full of insecurities; this is why we need our writing buddies to bolster us.

7. Signing tours, book events, and conferences, are not a given. In fact, most authors don’t get even a whiff of these unless they go do it themselves. It’s a pricy but fun past time.

8. You have absolutely no control over your book cover. If you’re a lead title you might get consulted, but for most midlisters your cover is emailed to you when it’s more or less finished. Like it or lump it.

9. Most published authors, behind their confident exterior, suffer from the same nagging doubts, rejections, and failures as everyone else. I now rejoice in other authors successes because I know that each one means as much as the first to them. Each accomplishment should be celebrated, no matter how successful the author is.

10. Like with the book cover, we as the authors have no say in when our books come out, or even if they will come out. When an author turns in a book it’s in the hands of the publishing gods. It may hit the shelves in nine months, or you might have to wait a year or two. Patience is the number one skill required as an author.

Books to movies: What do you think?

Hey readers! I figured with all our favorite books turning into movies I would do a recap of what's being made into movies this year and the begining of next. I know I'm pretty freakin' excited for some of them, and the others I haven't read the books but I know I will soon.

Book number 1: The one that I could literally jump and down for and do flips (ok not really, but you see how EXCITED I am.) All I ever wanted since I read the first book was a movie to come out, and now come Feb 14 of next year it's out. Here's the link to IMDB's page for it Vampire Academy.

Book 2: Is the second one in the series, and I have to admit I enjoyed the movie more then I thought I would. I think I liked it more then the book. I am curious to see what they do with ths movie seeing as how I didn't really enjoy the second book either. Catching Fire comes out November 22,2013 Here's the link from IMDB's site Catching fire.

Book3: Is also a second movie the first being Percy Jackson and the lightning thief, I actually enjoyed the movie alot so I'm pretty excited for this movie as well. I have all the books in the series I need to read them though. Percy Jackson and the sea of Monsters comes  at August 7, 2013. Here's the link to Percy Jackson on IMDBs site.

Book 4: The first movie of a six book set. The Mortal Instruments: City of bones. I've read the first 3 books and loved them so I'm excited to see how the movie plays out. Out August 21, 2013. City of bones IMDB site.

Book 5: The maze Runner, although I haven't read the books yet they sound really good, and the thought of a movie being made is pretty cool. It says it's in production now and it's release date is Feb 14, 2014. Hopefully we will beseeing about it soon. IMDBs Maze Runner link

Book 6: Divergent, another futuristic story set to be released in March of 2014. I've read the first two books and pretty much loved them so knowing this is going to be a movie is cool. IMDB link for Divergent.