Hop & Follow Friday (12)

Happy Friday, lovelies!

Can you believe it's that time again?! It doesn't feel like a Friday at all.  I guess that middle of the week "vacation" that I took really messed with my brain!

TGIF is a weekly meme hosted by Ginger at GReads where she poses a thought-provoking question to prompt some blogger discussion!

This week's question:

YA Saves: How do you feel about the "dark" books filling our YA shelves today?

I guess you could say I've always been a "fan" of darker books.  My all-time favorite book in high school was Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, which I read at the suggestion of my history teacher.  Now, that's a pretty disturbing book, but I can't say that it had any profound effect on me, positive or negative.  However, I've always been a voracious reader so I've read a lot of "dark" books along the way.  One thing that I honestly believe is that reading "dark" books have helped me to understand the world in ways that I never could have on my own.  I grew up in a very good home situation, with a working father and a loving stay-at-home mom.  I was VERY lucky.  As I went through my student teaching a few years ago, I definitely started to learn just how sheltered my upbringing had been and saw, through the eyes of some of my suffering students, just how blessed I was to grow up where I did and how I did.  "Dark" YA books have opened a window to a world that I knew existed but never had to experience.  I think that Aprilynne Pike put it best at the signing I attended recently when she said that there is something for everyone, from all "bubblegum and fluff" to dark and disturbing.  I think that's true and I believe that books have a way of finding their audience--and every book has its perfect reader.

"Follow My Book Blog Friday" is a weekly meme hosted by Rachel at Parajunkee's View where bloggers make new friends, including this week's featured blogger--Nicki J Markus!  Pop on over to Parajunkee's blog and join in the follow fun!!  All you have to do is follow the featured blogger, write your own post answering this week's question, and then leave your link!  Oh yeah--and then follow some new peeps!

This week's question:

Q. The magic book fairy pops out of your cereal box and says "you and your favorite character (from a book of course) can switch places!" Who are you going to switch with?

I'm going to switch with ... Tris from Divergent!  (1) That girl seriously rocks. I mean, seriously, how badass do you have to be to do everything that chick does?  (2) Four. Need I say more? Who wouldn't want Four? *sigh* (3) I want to zip-line off the Hancock Building. And jump off a skyscraper into a net. And jump on and off moving trains.  Wow, if only I had half this chick's guts my life would be WAY more interesting!

The "Book Blogger Hop" is a weekly bookish meme where you can get to know fellow bloggers! It's generally hosted by Jen @ Crazy for Books, but this week it's hosted by Lori @ Lori's Reading Corner.  Stop by and join in the fun!

This week's question:

Who is the one author you are dying to meet?

Oh...I'd love to meet SO MANY authors!  Seriously, so many!  I just love meeting authors!  I guess if I had to pick one I would pick Veronica Roth, author of the above-mentioned  Divergent.  (Oh, wait! I did meet her. lol *wink*)  I read her blog and I think she just seems really cool and down to earth.  I ADORED Divergent.  She was really cool to meet at the Dark Days signing in Naperville. Totally worth the 7 hour drive (especially since I also got to meet Amy Plum, Tara Hudson, Aprilynne Pike, and Ellen Schreiber).

**Since Blogger's GFC seems to be down on and off, you can also follow me on Goodreads or Twitter! (Or, if you're like me, go to your Blogger Dashboard and manually add URLs...but I'm a bit OCD like that!) But I hope you'll come back and follow me here too!!**