Bookworm- The YA Challenge!

If you are a "faithful" reader of this blog (it's probably not that hard!), then you know how much I love to read. 

I have parlayed that love into a NEW blog venture. My friend Ashley and I have challenged each other (and ourselves) to read all of Time.com's 100 Best Young Adult Books of All Time. 

Head on over to https://yabookchallenge.wordpress.com/  and check out the fun! Go ahead and subscribe by email or follow the blog, and you'll never miss a new post. 

Please share with anyone you think would be interested... we would love to have lots of you reading along with us and sharing your thoughts!

Can't wait to see you over there!

The Voice Top 8

So. Many. Feelings!

PERFORMANCES

Delvin "I Believe I Can Fly" - First reaction: nooooooooo! This is one of the most overdone songs in singing competition history. And it's never that great. However, Delvin sang the heck out of this song. He finally got to take those gospel chops and put them to the best use possible. The season 2 WINNER of "The Voice" did this song, and didn't come anywhere close to being as good as Delvin was.

Christina "How to Love" - Adam went on and on about how there's no other version with a girl singing, and blah blah blah. However, Delilah performed this when they were on The Sing Off a few years ago and I preferred their version. This was not bad by any means though. I just don't want her to get pigeonholed into this rap song turned slow jam thing she's had going on the past two weeks. I preferred last week's performance.

Kat "Get Lucky" - I thought I would hate this. I wanted to hate this. But I didn't. I was pleasantly surprised. I think to do a song in a different way and be good, it has to be SO different that you barely recognize it. This version definitely had that going for it. 

Josh "I Can't Make You Love Me" - Full disclosure: I have a very deep love of and connection to this song and am very critical of performances of it. It actually is my favorite performance of Josh's during the live rounds, but that's not saying much. I still am waiting for him to pull off something else as joyous as his Battle Round performance of "Happy," but that is just not happening. Apparently that doesn't matter though because people, myself included, seem to like him anyway :-)

Audra "Forgive" - It's really weird, but it sounds like the tone of Audra's voice has changed throughout the course of the competition. I'm not sure how that happens, but as someone mentioned on another blog, she now sounds like Carrie Underwood, which I never would have thought at the beginning of the season. 

Kristen "I Drive Your Truck" For me, this whole performance was kind of a mess. There was too much going on and I thought the vocals suffered.

Jake "Hillbilly Deluxe" - Not terrible, but I'm ready for this guy to go home. 

Sisaundra "River Deep, Mountain High" - As Simon Cowell would say, this could be seen on any cruise ship in the world. I was not impressed. Tina and Celine can both sing circles around her with this song!

LAST CHANCE

If Sisaundra had sung this well on Monday, maybe she wouldn't have been in the bottom half. I wish Audra had been performing songs like this the whole time. I didn't like Kat's performance, and I thought Delvin did well. I am officially ticked off at Adam. To me, he is solely to blame for Delvin going home. He essentially told anyone who was voting for his team to vote for Kat. I think that is completely wrong. Next season they should do away with judges' comments after the Last Chance performances. Let America think for themselves! Ugh, so sad and disappointed with the decision, especially since I can almost guarantee Kat will go home this week.

RANKINGS

1. Christina Grimmie

2. Josh Kaufmann

3. Kristen Merlin

4. Kat Perkins

5. Jake Worthington

The Voice Top 10

PERFORMANCES

1. Delvin "Bright Lights" - WOW. He killed it. There is nothing more to say. 

2. Christina "Hold On (We're Going Home)" - Drake? For real? This girl can sing anything. As I said last week, she is a true artist already. I have no idea what the actual version of this song sounds like, but it certainly can't be as good as this!

3. Tess "Ain't It Fun"- I was fairly skeptical when I saw she was singing this, since we've heard her only do ballads for the most part. However, I think she did it justice! This is one of my absolute favorite songs out right now, so I dug it. 

4. Sisaundra "Oh Sherie" - Y'all know how I feel about her, but there is no denying this performance.

5. Audra "You Lie" -  Reba saved this girl in my eyes. This was definitely my favorite performance of hers thus far. She had great dynamics and her falsetto was really pretty. 

6. Josh "This is It" - Josh has been one of my favorites for a while, but I don't understand these song choices. If he wants to be a current artist, I want to hear more current songs!

7. Kristen "Let Her Go" -This was another performance I was on the fence with. It was nice, but she didn't do much that varied from the original.

8. Kat "Landslide" - I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either. Full disclosure: I don't like Stevie Nicks and Kat sounded too similar to her for my taste. (I really appreciate the Dixie Chicks version) However, I thought it was a good choice for her to do a slower song, one where she wasn't screaming like a banshee :-)

9. Bria "I'm with You" - Once again, not a good song choice for her. Her voice was not suited for the clarity this song required. With that said, I think the judges were exceptionally hard on her. She did all she could with the song that was given to her. I felt awful, because I would have totally been up there crying too.

10. Jake "Run" - Fan of country or not, this just was not good for the most part. He sounded super nervous at the beginning, and I didn't think it got much better from there. 

LAST CHANCE

Based solely on the Last Chance performances, Kat deserved to stay. It was the first performance I really enjoyed from her. However, Bria finally did the kind of song she should have been doing the past two weeks, but too little too late. It is TOTALLY the coaches' fault that she was in the bottom three. Tess completely copped out on "Who Knew" and didn't sing hardly any of the high parts. She deserved to go home.

RANKINGS

1. Delvin Choice

2. Christina Grimmie

3. Josh Kaufman

4. Kristen Merlin

5. Audra McLaughlin

6. Kat Perkins

7. Sisaundra Lewis

8. Jake Worthington

I think Team Adam is the team to beat!

The Voice- Top 12

As most of you know, I am obsessed with pop culture, television and singing. I always have a lot to say about each, but don't really have a lot of people to talk about it with. So, I decided to start doing some blogging about it, and am going to start with The Voice, one of my favorite TV shows. The live shows started this week, so each week I'm going to rank my favorite performances, the last chance performances, and the singers. Feel free to chime in on the comments section about what you like, don't like, or anything else you want to talk about!



PERFORMANCES

1. Christina "Dark Horse" -- I don't even like this song, which says a lot about the performance! I agreed with most of what the coaches said about it and the way she made it her own.

2. Kristen "Stay" -- Such an authentic performance and much better than I anticipated

3. Delvin "Unchained Melody" -- Great performance of a timeless song

4. TJ "Waiting on the World to Change" -- I actually really liked his take on this song, with the slight Caribbean feel. TJ's voice is so smooth!

5. Josh "Stay with Me" -- I don't know this song, but it was a likeable performance. I wasn't blown away though.

6. Dani "Just Give Me a Reason" -- While this was a good performance, I expected more from her after her playoffs performance.

7. Tess "I'll Be There for You" -- Boring song choice, but she sounded pretty good

8. Bria "Rolling in the Deep" -- This is one of my favorite songs, and I like Bria, but I really wasn't feeling this rock version.

9. Jake "Anymore" -- Boring, but I'm sure the country crowd loved it

10. Audra "Angel in the Morning" -- See above :-)

11. Sisaundra "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" -- She's definitely a good singer, but didn't bring anything new to this completely overdone song.

12. Kat "Magic Man" -- Didn't like the song choice. At all.


LAST CHANCE:
I'm not surprised that Tess was the one saved, but I thought she had the worst "Last Chance" performance. Hopefully she'll step it up next week! I was sad to see TJ and Dani go, as they were definitely not on the bottom of my list.


RANKINGS

1. Delvin Choice -- There's no denying he's my favorite simply because he's from Greenville! With that said, he is superbly talented and I hope he goes really far!

2. Josh Kaufman -- This guy's voice is simply amazing. He continues to make me smile, week after week. 

3. Christina Grimmie -- Future pop star. Period.

4. Bria Kelly -- This week's performance was the first one I didn't really like. Hopefully she'll have a better song choice next week.

5. Kristen Merlin -- She was not even on my radar in the early rounds, but she has gotten better and better each week. I look forward to seeing what she does in the coming weeks. 

6. Tess Boyer -- Her cover of "Human" the other week was amazing and I look forward to seeing her go back to that. (No more Bon Jovi!)

7. Jake Worthington -- I'm sure Jake will do really well after the show is over and I know country fans love him. Not a huge fan.

8. Audra McLaughlin -- Great voice, but I want to see her do some more uptempo stuff to move up my chart.

9. Cat Perkins -- Cat's not a bad singer, but I liked her much better when her name was Kat Robichaud on Team Ceelo last season. (Surely I'm not the only one who thinks that?!)

10. Sisaundra Lewis -- She is so full of herself I can't stand it. And boring. And unoriginal. Okay I'm done :-)


My general thoughts about this group are that there's not a ton of originality going on, and I already miss last season. There are several niche artists though, and I think they'll go far. I was really baffled by many of the song choices this week, as there were so many songs that weren't well known. They need to step it up for Top 10 if they're going to keep my interest!!

What did you think of the Top 12?

Bookworm- 2012 Part 2

We're going to pretend that I'm not writing this two months after I intended to :-)


For the second half of 2012, I found myself reading several sequels, most of which I had read the previous titles within the past couple of years.

Pandemonium and Hana by Lauren Oliver 
     Pandemonium is the first sequel to Delirium, which I previously wrote about a few months ago. I couldn't wait to dive in to this book, after the ending of the previous one. Unfortunately, it was a bit slow, which I think was partly due to the format of the story, which switched from chapter to chapter between "Then" and "Now." It did pick up more near the end, and, as with the first one, the last page of the book was gripping and I can't wait to read the final book!
     I'm not sure how to classify Hana. It takes place at the same time as Delirium and is told from the point of view of the main character's best friend. It was very short, which is mostly why I read it, and gave some more insight into the actions of this character. However, I don't really think it added much to my experience with the story, so I don't recommend reading it.

The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson
      I also wrote about 13 Little Blue Envelopes previously. I actually had no idea there was a sequel, but was messing around on the Richland County Library's e-reader app and found this book. I can't really say too much about this one without revealing what happened in the previous book. With that said, I didn't really like the conclusion of the story and think maybe it was better that we just not know what happened!

Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares
     This is the long awaited follow up to the popular Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series. I loved those books, so of course had high hopes for this one. Well, just like the other sequels I read this year, I was disappointed. To talk about my reasons would be a huge spoiler, so I will just warn those of you still planning to read this book that the tone is very different from the previous ones. I still recommend that you read it to help you conclude the girls' story.



The two non-sequel books I read the second half of this year could not have been more different:

A Time to Kill by John Grisham
     I don't think it's a secret that I love John Grisham. And this book did not end my love affair. It was a very sensitive topic, and had some language I could have done without, but what a powerful story. I love that all of his characters are so developed and relatable. It is easy to imagine what they might do or say and understand the actions that they take. This is also the first Grisham novel I've read that I actually enjoyed the movie as well. Book recommended!

Is Everybody Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling
     This is a book by a comedienne along the same lines as Tina Fey's Bossypants. While I didn't think this one was quite as funny, it still definitely had some laugh out loud moments for me. It gave me insight into her as a person, so that I didn't think of her as "Kelly" from The Office anymore. I think the book is great and it made me want to watch her TV show The Mindy Project. If you like her show, you should definitely read the book because it will make you appreciate the show even more (I promise!). Even if you don't watch the show, this is worth a read, just for a good laugh.



So, I think what I learned from this year is that maybe I should read less sequels... because they'll probably never live up to the original :-)