Mundie Moms

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Cassandra Clare Questions & Chat & Audio Book Giveaways

Hi everyone!!

I've received a lot of emails asking when Cassie would be able to answer the questions we ran out of time for on our last chat. With Cassie being on the road, and getting married, she doesn't have a lot of free time right now, but she does want to answer everyone's questions. SO, we will be chatting with Cassie at the end of October, and possibly monthly from October till the release of City of Fallen Angels!!!

This will give everyone plenty of chances to ask Cassie all your questions about Jace, Magnus, Will, Jem, Tessa, Alec etc etc. AND I have received some amazing giveaways- Audiobooks!! We already gave our first Clockwork Angel AudioBook away and I've got a lot more. We'll be posting our giveaways for those soon, BUT since I'm so excited and can't wait, I'll give one away right now.

Before you enter, please be sure to read our Giveaway Policy page (http://tinyurl.com/28mobe3)
This is open to our International Followers. You must be a blog follower or forum member to enter. Our giveaway will end on September 30th, 2010! GOOD LUCK!!



Thank you to Simon and Schuster for making these giveaways possible!!!

Book Review- Losing Faith

By Denise Jaden
Published by Simon Pulse
Released on September 7th, 2010
Source- Simon and Schuster
3 stars- It was a Good Read

When Brie's sister, Faith, dies in a fall from a cliff, Brie's world falls apart. As she goes through the bizarre and devastating process of mourning the sister she never understood, Brie must also contest with the increasingly distant parents, her boyfriend's betrayal, and her sudden outcast status at school.

Once she's over the initial shock of Faith's death, Brie encounters more questions than closure: Certain facts about the way Faith died just don't line up. She soon uncovers Faith's role in a dark and twisted religious cult...a cult that wants Bree as a member. (From from the back of the ARC).

Losing Faith is a story about love, and loss, and the some times complicated relationships we have with our family and friends. I liked Brie's character. She grew up a lot after her sister's death. She went from being self centered, not having a very close relationship with her sister and finding ways to sneak away to see her popular boyfriend, to a very relatable character, as she looks into finding out what happened to Faith the night she died.

It was heart breaking reading how alone Brie felt after Faith's death. Brie's parents are so lost in their own grief, they're not much of a support for her. Her so called friends oust her and her boyfriend cheats on her. It's during this time that she learns a lot more herself, especially after she becomes friends with someone she never gave a second thought to. I really liked Tessa. She's the scary goth chick who doesn't put up with anything, but has this soft side that she only exposes to Brie. Brie and Tessa become close friends and they work together to find out what happened to Faith. Even though the cover says there's a religious cult, don't let that scare you from reading Losing Faith. What Brie uncovers is a girl who's mentally not well and has a following that consists of very few people (I can't give more away or it will be spoil some of the plot).

Denise does a great job with each of her characters. Each character has a part of them they don't want others to know about, and yet with how broken they each are, they all have an inner strength that I was really drawn to. My favorite character is Alis. He was not at all how I thought he'd be when he's first introduced. The relationship between Alis and Bree kept me reading. I wanted to find out more about them. Their relationship is both sweet and raw all at the same time. I'm sure that doesn't really make sense. They're both loners, have dwelt with grief that no one else would understand and have a real, honest, believable connection I wanted to keep reading more about.

Losing Faith is a heartbreaking, real, satisfying read. I think Denise did a good job with the romance, the subject of love, life and death, as well as religious cults. There's a little bit of everything in Losing Faith.

Thoughtful Thursday- The Harry Potter Alliance

I had no idea that the HP Alliance existed until they were recommended to us a couple months back from one of our followers, hkurtzw. They have done some wonderful things. Here's a little bit about them-

"Just as Dumbledore’s Army wakes the world up to Voldemort’s return, works for equal rights of house elves and werewolves, and empowers its members, we:"

* Work with partner in NGO's in alerting the world to dangers in global warming, poverty, and genocide.
* Work with their partners for equal rights regardless of race, gender and sexuality.
* Encourage their members to hone the magic of their creativity in endeavoring to make the world a better place. (all quoted from their site)

Here's just a few things they've already done:

* Raised funds to protect thousands in Darfur and Burma
* Donated over 14,000 books across the world, including 4,000 to a youth village in Rwanda
* Gathered over three quarters of the 10,000 signatures that the UK based Aegis Trust sent to the UN Security Council concerning Darfur.
* They've prepared tens of thousands of student leaders to face the global challenges of ending genocide, equal rights, environmental protection, media reform, fair trade and more.
(all quoted from their site)

If you'd like to become apart of Dumbledore's Army and take an active role in the fight to make the world a better place, than visit their site here http://www.thehpalliance.org

Cynthia Leitich Smith Giveaway Winners

Congratulations to our winners from our Cynthia Leitich Smith Giveaway!!

Tantalize- #4 Jill Koltz
Eternal- #42 Amber Clark

Congratulations! Both winners have been notified. Thank you to everyone who's entered. Thank you to Cynthia Leitich Smith and Candlewick for supporting our giveaway.

Banned Books Week- The Giver

I wanted to talk about one of my favorite books for Banned Book Week, The Giver by Lois Lowry. If you know me you might have heard me talk about this book before, I love love love it! The first time I read The Giver was when I was in middle school for my English class. I wasn't much of a reader back then, actually I wasn't a reader at all, Now I'm very thankful that I was forced to read The Giver because it really made me change my opinion on books. It was the very first book that really make me feel connected to the main character which was the same age I was back then, the first book that moved me emotionally and had me wondering at the end and desperate for more.

I remember thinking about it several days after reading, what happened after the ending? Where did they end up? Did they survive? I had read books before The Giver but none that made my imagination really roam, or sparked my interest and curiosity. I kept thinking, if this book made me feel this way, what else is out there that I've been missing out on? Well from then on I was a reader, I had to be reading constantly and I never denied a book that an English teacher recommended. I can't say that I loved all of them, because there were some that were really boring, but I was willing to try.

Now The Giver has been on the banned books and challenged lists several times and to me it's unbelievable the reasons why, some are because the book is negative, because it has violence, or is too morbid. Yes, I agree The Giver has several sad parts in the story, it's definitely not a cheer you up type of book, But to me it's an amazing book that changed the way I felt about reading. The story about a boy that lived in a "supposedly" Utopian society and realized that he didn't approve with the life and decisions he was being forced to live by and wanted to change it and leave it behind, to take a stand against it!! I guess that is not something so many people will like or approve of, but I think it's up to each parents decision on what their child should be reading and not for just a handful of people to decide for everyone else and take away the experience of reading this book, which by the way won The Newberry Medal in 1994.

What if it would've been banned from my school when I was 12, would I have eventually gotten hooked on reading? Yes, eventually, but maybe not when I was that young or maybe not as passionate about it. Yes, there are great amazing books that change the way you think about reading, some that might even change your life or will move you emotionally, I've read several since then. The Giver might not be for everybody and will definitely not appeal to everyone, but it was for me and I'm grateful for it. So which book changed you? Which book was The Giver to you?

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