The Book Addict’s Guide Birthday Giveaway 2015!

Hooray! It’s my birthday!!! I guess I’m not THRILLED about getting older but hey, I’m always excited for my birthday! (I mean, 28 isn’t that old, right?) It’s the one day a year that’s allllll for me (really, how could you NOT like that?) but as always, I’m sharing the birthday festivities with all of my blogging friends!

Each year, I’m more and more grateful for everything that blogging has brought into my life. I had no idea that when I started this endeavor almost three years ago (my blogoversary is in April!) that I would make life-long friends, fangirl about authors, go to book conferences, and pick up a hobby that became more of a lifestyle. I’m SO happy that I started my blog and I can’t imagine how different things would be now if I had never started it!

Last year on my birthday I shared my top five things that happened that year, but there are just TOO many good things that happened this year so I’m choosing things in threes! Here are my top three…

EVENTS

• BEA 2014: BEA is always one of my favorite events but this year was even more special for me! I got to room with both Alyssa and Amy, attend the YA Rooftop Party, AND attend a blogger party hosted by Macmillan — not to mention that we also snuck in a viewing of Maleficent, of course all the books, and I got to meet Cary Elwes (HE WINKED AT ME (although I think he winked at all the ladies, BUT STILL))! I’m not going to BEA this year (vacation time and money UGH but next year it’s in Chicago!) so I treasure it even more!
• ALAMW15: I also attended ALA Midwinter in January this year! I had never been to ALA before (didn’t even realize that bloggers were allowed to go until last year) and I had SO much fun even though I was only able to attend on Saturday. I had to miss out on the Bloomsbury dinner because of the crazy snow storm that happened Saturday night/Sunday morning, but I’m so glad I got to grab most of my must-have titles, meet a few new friends (bloggers & publishers!), and spend the day doing awesomely bookish things! Since I’m not going to be able to go to BEA this year, I’m thinking ALAMW16 in Boston…….
• Fierce Reads Tour Fall 2014 (Chicago): I ALWAYS love the Fierce Reads tours, but this one was extra special for me! Not only did Macmillan ask me to be the “featured blogger” of the event (meaning I got to have a special interview with the authors), but they also asked me to MODERATE THE PANEL omg. AND Marissa Meyer was one of the authors. I was so panicky but in a good way and it all turned out to be supremely awesome! Macmillan totally made my dreams come true (a dream I didn’t even know I had until that point) and the authors, as always, were delightful! Marissa Meyer was also SO GRACIOUS and personalized ALL of my Lunar Chronicles books (which as we know is a LOT).

NEW-TO-ME AUTHORS

• Brandon Sanderson: I had Mistborn on my list of adult fantasies to try and I ALMOST started Name of the Wind but my library didn’t have the audio… so I started Mistborn instead and OOPS ended up becoming obsessed and reading 12 books (including novellas) by Brandon Sanderson in less than a year. Uhhhh. Yeah, I’d say hooked! It was actually closer to six months in which I binge-read all of these books 😀
  • Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn #1), The Well of Ascension (Mistborn #2), The Hero of Ages (Mistborn #3), The Alloy of Law (Mistborn #4), Legion (Legion #1) & Legion: Skin Deep (Legion #2), The Emperor’s Soul, Steelheart (Reckoners #1), Mitosis (Reckoners #1.5), Firefight (Reckoners #2)
• Sarah J. Maas: I also started binge-reading Sarah J. Maas’ books over the summer and quickly became infatuated! I had originally tried Throne of Glass when I was not ready for fantasy yet so I came back to it this year and then could not stop reading this series! I caught up through Heir of Fire and then couldn’t wait when I got my ARC of ACOTAR and read it in December even though the book doesn’t come out until May. YES. Definitely excited!
  • The Assassin’s Blade (Throne of Glass #0.1 – 0.5), Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1), Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass #2), Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass #3)
• Liz Czukas: I’ve fallen in love with Liz Czukas’ books and writing! She was actually a debut author in 2014 and her first novel, Ask Again Later, released this day last year! (I happily shared my birthday with this wonderful books!) I also loved Top Ten Clues You’re Clueless and OBSESSED over When Joss Met Matt, her new adult book written under the penname Ellie Cahill. I am so excited for anything new from Liz!
  • Ask Again Later, Top Ten Clues You’re Clueless, When Joss Met Matt

REVIEWS

• Better Off Friends by Elizabeth Eulberg: I’m actually kind of surprised at what some of my top reviews were (in terms of how many views they got) but I’m delighted to see Better Off Friends as one of them! I really enjoyed this book. Elizabeth Eulberg’s characters are always just so much fun!
• Cress (The Lunar Chronicles #3) by Marissa Meyer: I’m actually not surprised by Cress and it makes me oh so happy! It’s one of my favorite reviews too! 😀
• Altered (Crewel World #2) by Gennifer Albin: This is another one that surprises me but in a good way! I still need to read the last book in this series but I REALLY enjoyed Altered! It’s another series that I didn’t realize how popular it was!

BOOKISH GRAPHICS

• The Book Addict’s “GUIDE” to Crossover Books: I love making infographics & reading guides and it seems that lots of people loved this “guide” to “crossover” books — I wanted to share some YA books that adult readers might enjoy and vice versa and this is still one of my favorite graphics to-date too!
• If You Liked… If I Stay: I also created a new “series” of recommendation graphics and started off with a few books whose movie adaptations were out this year. I LOVE Gayle Forman and all of her books so I wanted to share some books that I loved that felt similar to me.
• If You Liked… The Fault In Our Stars: This was another recommendation guide that I had a lot of fun making! It was actually the first one, right around when the movie came out too.

BLOG FEATURES

• Book and a Beverage: This is always one of my favorite features! I LOVE featuring a new blogger each week! I’m still catching up on the current schedule for now since I have people scheduled through May but I THINK I will open sign-ups again in April! 🙂
• Have You Seen This: This was a feature that Andi and I came up with and the idea behind it was that we were both looking for some hard-to-find ARCs and special editions to add to or complete our collections of books. We wanted to have a spot for other people to add what books they were looking for and help a blogger out! I’m SO impressed by the success it’s had so far and I’m so thankful for everyone’s generosity to each other!
• Pub Date: Pub Date is another one of my favorite features, started this year. I wanted to put my love of books and beer together, so each week, Estelle (Rather Be Reading), Andi (Andi’s ABCs), Maggie (Just A Couple More Pages) and I posted a book and beer-themed post. They don’t always get the most views or attention but I LOVE doing this feature with them and I really enjoy featuring these two favorites in my life together!

BLOG EVENTS

• Book Blogger Organization Challenge: I really wanted to work on getting more organized this year but in a low-stress way. I feel like blog maintenance is really overwhelming for a lot of people so I created the Book Blogger Organization Challenge which focuses on something different each month to help people have a specific focus and not get bogged down on ALL THE THINGS. If you still want to join, you can hop in at any time! You don’t even have to officially sign up, but it’s there if it helps to keep you committed! 🙂
• On the Same Page Secret Sister – Round 2: We started the second round of our Secret Sister project! We had SUCH a great response and hope that anyone who didn’t make it in this round because they missed sign-ups will join us for round three in July/August!
• Fairest Blog Tour: I got to be on the blog tour for Fairest! I was just SO happy to share my love for The Lunar Chronicles all over again and tried to spread the word to even MORE people about how awesome this series is!

GIVEAWAY!

If you participated in the birthday giveaway last two years, GOOD NEWS! It’s the same again this year! The giveaway is simple: The winner gets to pick ANY book that I’ve reviewed so far on my blog and I will send the winner a physical copy (granted the physical copy exists and it’s not ebook only). All YOU need to do is leave a comment on the review of the book you’d like to win letting me know that’s your choice (and maybe a leave a little meaningful comment about the review as well? :))! Need help figuring out which books you can choose from and where to find those reviews? Here’s the index of every review I’ve written on The Book Addict’s Guide so far!

// —> INDEX OF REVIEWS <— \\

Okay, so here are the details:

1. This contest is US and International! If you are an international winner, your book will be shipped directly from The Book Depository. If you’re a US winner, the book will mostly likely ship from Amazon. One winner, only!
2. You will have from today, 3/11 until next week 3/18 to enter and to let me know which book you’d like to win! Since other reviews may be popping up throughout the week, please limit your choices to reviews posted before this week.
3. Use the Rafflecopter form below to enter and don’t forget to leave a comment on the review for the book you’d like to win!

And that’s it! Not too hard, right? Right! Check out the Rafflecopter form below for entry and extra entries too!!! If you have any questions, let me know!

a Rafflecopter giveaway