The Plight of the Committee Member

I'm sure you all thought this blog was dead. But it's not! I mean, sort of. But no! I realize I haven't written any posts of substance in... months... but I totally have an excuse. I've been serving on committees that require a ton of reading and zero reviewing. This means that even though I just spent the last two months reading a book a day (it was a little slice of torture), I can't even tell you about all of them!

So, I have a new plan.
I'm going to keep up with the "Out This Week" posts - because those help with my job as well as keep me up to date on what's going on in the world. And I'll post other things when I can - about books that aren't a part of any of my committee work. I will still do some reviews, but it's going to steer clear of anything I'm required to do. I'm currently in a jag of reading a bunch of silly chick lit books, so I may just dump those into one fun review for summer. We'll see!

I know this blog hasn't exactly been fascinating for anyone, but it's kept my head in the game for years. And I really can't let it go... I'm too committed! :) Can you imagine letting go of that much content?? And I definitely haven't forgotten about it. I trained myself for so long to write a review before I start another book. Basically, I've felt super guilty about not updating as often.

Things might be a little different around here, but it's for the best. Maybe one day I'll get back to reviewing every title I read. For now, I promise to try my best to keep things updated here! Thank you all for reading. :)

YA Top 100

I've seen this list around the blogosphere, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Let's see how I do...

Bold = I've read it
Italic = I own it but haven't read it

1. Alex Finn – Beastly
2. Alice Sebold – The Lovely Bones
3. Ally Carter – Gallagher Girls (1, 2, 3, 4)
4. Ally Condie – Matched
5. Alyson Noel – The Immortals (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
6. Anastasia Hopcus – Shadow Hills
7. Angie Sage – Septimus Heap (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
8. Ann Brashares – The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (1, 2, 3, 4)
9. Anna Godbersen – Luxe (1, 2, 3, 4)
10. Anthony Horowitz – Alex Rider (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
11. Aprilynne Pike – Wings (1, 2, 3)
12. Becca Fitzpatrick – Hush, Hush (1, 2)
13. Brandon Mull – Fablehaven (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
14. Brian Selznick – The Invention of Hugo Cabret
15. Cassandra Clare – The Mortal Instruments (1, 2, 3, 4)
16. Carrie Jones – Need (1, 2, 3)
17. Carrie Ryan – The Forest of Hands and Teeth (1, 2, 3)
18. Christopher Paolini - Inheritance (1, 2, 3, 4)
19. Cinda Williams Chima – The Heir Chronicles (1, 2, 3)
20. Colleen Houck – Tigers Saga (1, 2)
21. Cornelia Funke – Inkheart (1, 2, 3)
22. Ellen Hopkins – Impulse
23. Eoin Colfer – Artemis Fowl (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
24. Faraaz Kazi – Truly, Madly, Deeply
25. Frank Beddor – The Looking Glass Wars (1, 2, 3)
26. Gabrielle Zevin – Elsewhere
27. Gail Carson Levine – Fairest
28. Holly Black – Tithe (1, 2, 3)
29. J.K. Rowling – Harry Potter (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
30. James Dashner – The Maze Runner (1, 2)
31. James Patterson – Maximum Ride (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
32. Jay Asher – Thirteen Reasons Why
33. Jeanne DuPrau – Books of Ember (1, 2, 3, 4)
34. Jeff Kinney – Diary of a Wimpy Kid (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
35. John Boyne – The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
36. John Green – An Abundance of Katherines
37. John Green – Looking for Alaska
38. John Green – Paper Towns
39. Jonathan Stroud – Bartimaeus (1, 2, 3, 4)
40. Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl – Caster Chronicles (1, 2)
41. Kelley Armstrong – Darkest Powers (1, 2, 3)
42. Kristin Cashore – The Seven Kingdoms (1, 2)
43. Lauren Kate – Fallen (1, 2, 3)
44. Lemony Snicket - Series of Unfortunate Events (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
45. Libba Bray – Gemma Doyle (1, 2, 3)
46. Lisa McMann – Dream Catcher (1, 2, 3)
47. Louise Rennison – Confessions of Georgia Nicolson (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
48. M.T. Anderson – Feed
49. Maggie Stiefvater – The Wolves of Mercy Falls (1, 2, 3)
50. Margaret Peterson Haddix – Shadow Children (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
51. Maria V. Snyder – Study (1, 2, 3)
52. Markus Zusak - The Book Thief
53. Markus Zusak – I am the Messenger
54. Mark Haddon – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
55. Mary Ting – Crossroads
56. Maureen Johnson – Little Blue Envelope (1, 2)
57. Meg Cabot – All-American Girl (1, 2)
58. Meg Cabot – The Mediator (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
59. Meg Cabot – The Princess Diaries (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
60. Meg Rosoff – How I live Now
61. Megan McCafferty – Jessica Darling (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
62. Megan Whalen Turner – The Queen’s Thief (1, 2, 3, 4)
63. Melina Marchetta – Jellicoe Road
64. Melissa de la Cruz – Blue Bloods (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
65. Melissa Marr – Wicked Lovely (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
66. Michael Grant – Gone (1, 2, 3, 4)
67. Nancy Farmer – The House of the Scorpion
68. Neal Shusterman – Unwind
69. Neil Gaiman – Coraline
70. Neil Gaiman – Stardust
71. Neil Gaiman – The Graveyard Book
72. P.C. Cast & Kristin Cast – House of Night (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 )
73. Philip Pullman – His Dark Materials (1, 2, 3)
74. Rachel Caine – The Morganville Vampires (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
75. Rachel Cohn & David Levithan – Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist
76. Richelle Mead – Vampire Academy (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
77. Rick Riordan – Percy Jackson and the Olympians (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
78. Rom LcO’Feer – Somewhere carnal over 40 winks
79. S.L. Naeole – Grace (1, 2, 3, 4)
80. Sabrina Bryan & Julia DeVillers – Princess of Gossip
81. Sarah Dessen – Along for the Ride
82. Sarah Dessen – Lock and Key
83. Sarah Dessen – The Truth about Forever
84. Sara Shepard – Pretty Little Liars (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
85. Scott Westerfeld - Leviathan (1, 2)
86. Scott Westerfeld - Uglies (1, 2, 3)
87. Shannon Hale – Books of a Thousand Days
88. Shannon Hale – Princess Academy
89. Shannon Hale – The Books of Bayern (1, 2, 3, 4)
90. Sherman Alexie & Ellen Forney – The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
91. Simone Elkeles – Perfect Chemistry (1, 2, 3)
92. Stephanie Meyer – The Host
93. Stephanie Meyer – Twilight Saga (1, 2, 3, 4)
94. Sue Monk Kidd – The Secret Life of Bees
95. Susan Beth Pfeffer – Last Survivors (1, 2, 3)
96. Suzanne Collins – Hunger Games (1, 2, 3)
97. Suzanne Collins – Underland Chronicles (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
98. Terry Pratchett – Tiffany Aching (1, 2, 3, 4)
99. Tonya Hurley – Ghost Girl (1, 2, 3)
100. Wendelin Van Draanen – Flipped

Hm. Looks like I have some catching up to do. How did everyone else fare?

Moving is Hell on the Blog

Well, I've been through some huge changes lately. The only thing you can tell from the blog is that I haven't been posting. I promise I haven't abandoned ship. It's more that I've been crazy busy and unable to fit much else into my days - even just reading. Sigh...

So, my husband and I recently moved from NYC back to Tennessee. It was a necessary move and I'm glad we did it. I'm not glad to have left my job... job searching seriously sucks. But it's good for me mentally and to be closer to my family. That was one of the main reasons.

Now it's time to play catch up. I've got reviews to write and tons of blogs to read. My blog reader is brimming. Hopefully it won't take me too long to get through them. Luckily I only have two reviews to get off - I've had so little time to read lately, it's almost a blessing at this point. In the next day or so I hope to have those taken care of.

Note to any publishers/editors: If you have my address on file, please email me because it's changed (theninjalibrarian@gmail.com). Thanks!

Hope to be caught up soon! Thanks for your patience.

I'm Baaaack!

Hello, Hello... one and all!

I'm sure no one noticed, but I've been gone for the past two and a half weeks. I had this little thing to attend to - also known as getting married. And then a honeymoon cruise to Mexico.

Everything went wonderfully and I'm back to work tomorrow (that'll be eye opening, I'm sure). If anyone is wildly interested, I can post some pictures or something later. I don't have my professional ones yet, of course. But I'll be happy to share.

All that being said, I'm super behind on the whole blogging thing. I only finished two books while I was gone - not many, but it was a busy time. Still, I need to blog those books and catch up on a bunch of emails and such. So if you've emailed me lately, I'm getting to it. Promise. Hopefully I can get things back on track in the next few days.

Thank you all for being understanding. :). I look forward to getting my blogging and my blog reader under control. I hope I didn't miss anything too amazing.
All my love to the blogging world!

Offering Excuses

I come offering excuses for my lazy-seeming blogging lately. See, I do have a legit reason. I just didn't want to admit that I'm bogged down at the moment. But it's to the point where I'm not sure how regular the blog is gonna be updated in the next few months.

Here's my super-legit reason:

I'm getting married on April 9!!!

Yeah. So, I'm stressed.

We're looking at less than six weeks now.

39 DAYS! Holy crap, I shouldn't have looked at that.

I'm buried in flower decisions, meetings with everyone we've hired, and doing all this while being in another state. It's more than I was hoping it would be. Of course, I was the dumbo thinking it would be easy.

All this to say, yes... I'm still reading. Yes, I'm still blogging about each book I read. But it feels like I'm slowing down a lot. I can't spend my time at home getting lost in a book (even though I do sometimes to de-stress). But the posts may be slowing down a little. I'd like to think they won't, but I wanna post a warning in case:

Warning: Stressed Librarian Blogging!!!

Okay, I feel better now.