The Kari AnnAlysis

I’ve never done a monthly wrap-up post, but it’s a new year, might as well try new things. Kind of like my last post on Cover Wars.

Books Read:
Dead to the World
The Life O’Reilly
Pet Peeves
Gods Behaving Badly
Truly, Madly
The Lovely Bones
Dead as a Doornail
Tainted
To read the reviews for these books, click here.

Pages Read: 2393

Bookmarks Given:
1. 0 Books
2. 2 Books
3. 2 Books
4. 2 Books
5. 1 Books
*There was one book I didn’t give a rating to because it was short stories.

Favorite Book: Tainted
Least Favorite Book: Dead as a Doornail

Giveaways:
I gave away Truly, Madly and had quite a few entries. The Duty of Love didn’t fare so well. No entries, but if you are interested, let me know. If I don’t hear anything by the weekend, I’ll give it to my church for the church book sale.

Goals for February:
1. Get some reading done for my 2010 Young Adult Reading Challenge
2. Finish up the books I have from publishers/borrowed/contests and read the ones I’ve bought
3. Read 9 books. That may be a stretch. I didn’t realize I read so many in January, but it’s a goal

Looking Forward to in February:
Starting the Private series and finishing the Sookie Stackhouse series.

Hey all! First, thanks for entering my giveaways! And without further ado, the winner to Truly, Madly is:

Yan at Books By Their Cover

And no one entered The Duty of Love giveaway. I will leave it up there for another week. If no one enters, I’ll give it away at my church book sale. 

Keep your eyes peeled for more giveaways. I have a couple on my shelf that I am ready to clear out.

Release: August 18,2009

I got this book from The Kelley and Hall publishing company. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about it because I knew it was about a lawyer and I know NOTHING about law, but there were enough twists and turns to keep me reading.

In this book, we are introduced to Nick O’Reilly. He is a corporate lawyer at a huge firm. He has become partner and made a huge name for himself. Problem is, all he ever does is work. He doesn’t have a lick of a social life. Things start to change for Nick when his firm decides to start picking up a pro bono case every now and then. They aren’t doing it for the good  of the people, but to make a better name for themselves.

Nick’s case is a domestic one. A young mother trying to get away from her abusive ex and keep her little boy safe. Nick is immediately in the case, but he might be “in” a little too much. The case ends and Nick wins, but his life is flipped upside down.

It’s hard for me to continue after that without giving away everything in the book. But it is definitely not predictable. Yes, Nick and Dawn have a connection, but there’s so much more than that.

This is a story of a man who does all he can to make money, but realizes that is not important at all. While through most of the book I was very excited to see what happened next, there were parts that I almost put it down. I knew going in that it was about a lawyer, but when the lawyer lingo came up, I was so confused I didn’t know if I could take anymore.

I will warn future readers that this book is a bit of a tear jerker towards the end. Although this is fiction, there is so much room for reality, it is very scary. You never know when things will change in your life. But you hope when they do, you can be even a smidge as positive and strong as Nick.

I give this book 3 bookmarks. I know that the lawyer lingo was needed because the main character is a lawyer, but it definitely took away from the story with me. I like girly books, what can I say?

If you think you would like this book, keep your eye out. I plan on hosting a giveaway for it within the next few weeks.

Hello all! Hope you are having an amazing start to 2010! I sure am! I have started a new shift, which makes it wonderful to be home by 7:30 p.m. instead of midnight. It’s also wonderful, and a bit strange, to be able to spend so much time with my husband on week nights. For the past year and a half, I’ve worked a 2-11pm shift. He’s in bed when I get home and I am in bed when he leaves so it was a maximum of 2 minutes a day that we saw each other. Wonder how long until we get on each others nerves?

The change of the new shift i wonderful, but I’m having a hard time getting my sleep schedule on track. I was used to sleeping until about 9:30 every morning. Now I get up at about 6:15. I was going to bed around 12:30, now I’m going to bed around 11:15-11:30. So as you do the math, you see I’ve lost a few hours. Today, I am pooped, but I’ll get it back on track by next week and be as bright as the sunshine (I know the morning crew loves me coming in all cheery).

This change of schedule has also changed my blog. OBVIOUSLY! I haven’t posted anything since the 3rd. While I have more time to read in the evenings, I have to take more breaks so I don’t fall asleep at 8:30 LOL. Also, Michael and I have been taking turns on the laptop. I’ll play for a while, then pass it off to him. We continue this until bedtime. That will change next week. I am really excited! I have ordered this:

YAY! I can’t wait to get this in my lap! We got a Wii and Wii Fit for Christmas from my dad. But we decided that if we would both be home in the evenings, we should probably get another computer since we both are on it so much. I decided with this 1. because it was right around the same price as the Wii bundle and 2. all I needed it for was to keep my blog updated and maybe some work emails and what not. It’s so pretty! I can’t wait!

Now down to business! Tomorrow is the last day to enter in the Truly, Madly book giveaway. While I had planned on keeping the Duty of Love open until January 20th, it’s not been getting much traffic. So, I will also end this giveaway at midnight tomorrow as well! So, get your entry in here too!

Have a wonderful weekend and I’ll be posting a review soon on Life O’Reilly.

So if you’ve been keeping up with my On My Bookshelf posts for the past couple of weeks, then you already know I got two copies of Truly Madly and that means one will go to one of my lucky readers.

Now since I got these from Goodreads.com and Librarything.com, I will ask that you post a review of the book when you are done reading.

Normally I make the giveaway periods a month, but since this book comes out in February, I want to make sure I get it sent out so you have time to read and review before the release date. So, this giveaway will end at midnight on Saturday,  January 9th. I will announce the winner on Sunday the 10th and send it out on the 11th.

Here’s what Goodreads.com says about the book:

Meet Lucy Valentine; sassy, fabulously original…and psychic.

Lucy hails from a long line of matchmakers known as Valentine INC. According to family legend, the Valentines have been blessed by Cupid with the ability to help couples find true love. Trouble is Lucy’s powers were zapped away by an electrical surge and now all she can find are lost objects.

But what good is that in the matchmaking world?

Lucy is about to find out when she tries to solve a murder and winds up falling into a romance of her own.

Here’s how you enter the contest:
+1 Leave me your email address
+2 Put this on your sidebar or tweet about it (leave me both links)
+3 Tell me about one of your matchmaking experiences

Again, this ends at midnight January 9th. I am really excited about this book and hope you are too!

Now, here’s my matchmaking experience: My senior year of high school, my homecoming date asked me to go shopping with him to get his outfit. We were going to go meet his dad at the mall, go shopping and have lunch. Although I had known this guy since kindergarten, I had never met his dad. The next weekend, he was at the homecoming game to watch his son and I thought my mom would hit it off with him. I introduced them and the next day he came to my cross country meet. They talked for a while, started dating, quit dating and now almost 6 years later, they are still together. Maybe Valentine Inc. should hire me