The Mortal Instruments continuation

Two more books down! I'm definitely on a roll! I finished reading City of Glass, and City of Fallen Angels.

 















These books are somewhat addicting and I will admit they're like my secret guilty pleasure. City of Glass wraps up the quite nicely the first two books. It has a lot of action, resolves a lot of the story lines, and gives the reader a satisfactory ending. City of Fallen Angels, on the other hand, is a blatant cliffhanger. It builds and builds, pretty much stressing me out, and then there's some wrapping, then bam! cliffhanger! What the?! In any case, now I have to wait for a few months until the fifth book comes out.

And, fyi, Fallen Angels is just a little bit more steamier than any of the other books, which kinda surprised. Definitely a PG-13 rating.

New goal: to finish Eldest. Seriously. I gotta finish that book...

Two more books read!

I know. I know. It's been a long month or so, friends.  I got bogged down reading Eldest, but in about two weekends, I finished two different books.

Sorry, Eldest. Better luck next time.

The first was book 4 in the Lemony Snicket series:

It was a quick enjoyable read. Gotta love those orphans and their genius way.

The second was City of Ashes, book 2 of the Mortal Instruments series.

Wow, did I ever get caught up in this story! It was exciting, had a few unexpected twists, and plenty of teenager love and angst. Such a great read to just relax. I'm reading the third one now, and it's great too.

So, I'm alive and ticking and reading bit by bit. :)

Running, running, running...

Yes, I'm in the middle of the busiest week at work. Yes, I feel stressed. Yes, I'm trying my best to balance work, friends, and home life. But all I can think about lately is running.

Weird, I know.

I started running this week, and you know, the most surprising part is that it's not as difficult to get up at 5:45 a.m. as I thought it would be. Seriously. I roll over in bed, groan for a minute or two, then get up and go. Of course, I've been preparing myself for weeks by getting up early to exercise using my Wii. Good times running in place and doing arm and leg exercises.

The second most surprising part is I actually want to run.  If only my legs and ankles would cooperate with my vision of running elegantly down the street.

In the mean time, if you see me running so early in the morning, give a shout of encouragement, will ya? I would sure appreciate it.

—Melly

Another book down!

Yes, those are pumpkins with candles. This is a romance, after all.

Anyway, I'm now in the process of reading three books at once. Which one will I finish next?

Another Book Down!

Here's a quick update: I finished another book! The Eagle by Rosemary Sutcliff, written in 1956, is a story of a Roman soldier and his slave as they search for the lost Eagle of the Ninth. The recent movie is based off of this novel, and I have to admit, it has a whole lot more action and fight scenes. But I liked the themes of honor and redemption found throughout the book and movie. A great, entertaining read.

I Finished a Book!

Good news, everyone! I finally finished To the Rescue: The Biography of Thomas S. Monson. HURRAH! And I definitely give it a thumbs up. This book gave me a better view of Pres. Monson as a boy, man, father, apostle, and prophet. He is truly amazing and has led an incredibly faithful and devoted life to the Lord.

Did I mention that this copy is special? Well, it is. It's signed by both the Heidi S. Swinton and Pres. Monson!

Onto the next book . . .

Books, books, and more books

So recently I looked at my bookshelf and came to an astonishing realization: I have started a lot of books but haven't finished many at all.

Yes, this are all the books that I've started and still need to finish. Eight.

And these are the books I want to read. Nine. That's a total of seventeen books. So to encourage myself to actually finish reading books before picking up a new one, I'm going to celebrate every book I finish reading on this blog. Whether that means I'll give a review is debatable. More likely it means that I'll put up a picture, write a few thoughts about it, and choose what book I'll be reading next. (But as it is with me, most likely I'll be reading other books all at the same time. Variety, guys. Variety.)

In any case, the one I'm working on right now is the biography of Thomas S. Monson. I hope to finish in the next couple of weeks, I'm that close.

So happy reading to all of you, and happy reading to me!