BTT: Blurb: What attracts you to a book?

Suggested by Jennysbooks:
Something I’ve been thinking about lately: “What words/phrases in a blurb make a book irresistible? What words/phrases will make you put the book back down immediately?”

hmmm…very interesting.

For me, words like “true story”, “war zone”, “fairy tale”, “scary”, “southern charm”, “romantic”, “in the depths of the forests”, “magical” make a book irresistible.

What I won’t care about is probably “spiritual journey”, “suffering from incurable disease”, “sports”, “has to take a super secret chip from Russia and plant it in the USA and then act as a spy by infiltrating the British Army” (basically anything that looks too complicated)

That’s it’s actually. But I am a very impulsive person; I just might pick anything depending on whim and if any blogger I trust effectively pitches it

I have answered the question considering what I understood is correct

Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale

Title: Book of a Thousand Days
Author: Shannon Hale
Genre: Young Adult
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books
Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

About the book (From Amazon):
When Dashti, a maid, and Lady Saren, her mistress, are shut in a tower for seven years for Saren’s refusal to marry a man she despises, the two prepare for a very long and dark imprisonment.
As food runs low and the days go from broiling hot to freezing cold, it is all Dashti can do to keep them fed and comfortable. But the arrival outside the tower of Saren’s two suitors—one welcome, and the other decidedly less so—brings both hope and great danger, and Dashti must make the desperate choices of a girl whose life is worth more than she knows.
With Shannon Hale’s lyrical language, this forgotten but classic fairy tale from the Brothers Grimm is reimagined and reset on the central Asian steppes; it is a completely unique retelling filled with adventure and romance, drama and disguise.

My Thoughts:
Book of a thousand days is based on Grimm’s fairy tale Maid Maleen. But Shannon Hale has effectively twisted the tale and made it her own.

The story begins with a princess and her Maid being shut down in a tower for 7 years. The princess’s father wants her to marry Lord Khasar, the ruler of the down under, but the princess wants to marry Khan Tegus, also the ruler of one of the eight realms. The father wants to teach her a lesson by isolating her for 7 years in the hope of bringing her to her senses.

The maid is a 15 year old girl who has no family of her own to speak of and she is assigned to the princess just one day before she is to be locked in the tower. The maid without knowing anything about this pledges to serve the princess in all conditions.

The maid’s name is Dashti and she is a mucker, the people who roam the grasslands for a living. She knows how to live in frugal and harsh conditions and in turn takes care of the melancholy princess.

This book has the perfect fairy tale ingredients, obviously since it’s a re-telling of one. But I loved how Shannon Hale gave an extra dimension to every character in the story. She created characters you could hate and love. She also created a wonderful atmosphere which was as melancholy as the princess’s situation. Here is one of my favorite paragraphs:

Here’s something true about darkness-after enough time, you begin to see things that aren’t there. Faces look at me, and when I turn my head, they dissapear. Colors wash themselves before my eyes, then fade away. Shiny gray dream rats dart between my feet but don’t make a sound. I wanted to write this down so I can remember that those things aren’t real.

Shannon Hale has also challenged the concept of beautiful in connection to happily ever-after in The book of a thousand days which made me appreciate the story even better. If you’ve read Grimm’s fairy tale or this book, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

All in all I would it’s a very good book with an ending suitable for fairy tales. This is one of the YA books that could be a cross over. I cannot wait to get my hands on other books by Shannon Hale. Recommended.

HELP!!!

Before you go any further, I would like to tell you where this all started.

It started when an author put a link back to my review of his book.

See? What I mean? How sad does that look? So I decided why not have a button and change my avatar in general, I’m kind of bored of this girl.

So I spend more than 2 hours in making these buttons which I thought were good enough at that time. But now I’m not so sure. I don’t quite like any of them or maybe I’m being too critical?

So dear all, please do tell me what you think? Do you like any one specifically or do you like all? Feel free to tell me to chuck them all.

I won’t feel bad except to regret the 2 wasted hours of my life when I should have read a book instead of making these useless buttons

Button number	Button
1
2
3
4
5
6
	Some buttons featuring girls
7
8
9

P.S: I’m kind of partial to the last one.

Thank you so much for your help. As Wendy said, looks like everyone has different choices But I guess many people like #5 and #9. I’m not so fond of #5, so I’ll go with #9. Thank you again, you all are awesome

Hour 24: Read-a-thon

It’s 5.30 in the evening here in India and I did not manage to read much because my cousin dropped in with his wife and we chatted for a long time. BUT…I finished the short story Pop Art from 20th Century Ghosts. yay!!!

And we are at the end. I think we all did great!!!

1. Which hour was most daunting for you?
I think around 1.30 in the night. I took a nap for half an hour and felt really good. Naps work people.

2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?
Short books, romantic, chick lit, Young Adult, humor and so on. Something which does not require too much concentration.

3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?
Ummm…could we keep the mini-challenges a little less complicated? Lol, no, honestly? Nothing, it went so smoothly

4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?
Cheerleaders, as always

5. How many books did you read?
One book, one novella and one short story and a little from a book.

6. What were the names of the books you read?
The Thousand and one days by Shannon Hale.
The novella, The Teacher from Upon a Midnight clear by Jude Deveraux and short story Pop Art from 20th Century Ghosts
66 pages from The Everafter by Amy Huntley

7. Which book did you enjoy most?
I enjoyed all the books actually. I took care to stop reading and do something else, like cheerleading if I felt very tired.

8. Which did you enjoy least?
None.

9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?
I wasn’t an official cheerleader. But no advice, they were all wonderful.

10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?
I think being a reader works for me because I do comment on other blogs anyway in my break time. But it really depends on how much I can commit at that particular time.

Finally, thank you so much to all the Readathon organizers and volunteers. You seriously rock!!!

Hour 21: Read-a-thon

Hello everyone!!!
It looks like I spend most of my time reading and blog hopping than reading, lol. It’s 1.30 in the afternoon.

Anyway, I was out for about 1.5 hours on errands. By the time I reached home it was lunch time. I did read 15 pages on the bike though but I started feeling a bit nauseous, so I didn’t.

Anyway, veggies look elsewhere. This is part of my lunch, one of my most favorite dishes in the whole wide world Chicken Lollipop.

I’m so full now but I don’t feel sleepy. I realize I need to change books because doesn’t look like I’ll be able to finish The Eevrafter and right now I need the motivation of something that says “done”.

I guess I’ll pick up 20th Century Hill by Joe Hill. I’ll probably start with Pop Art that Eva suggested that also happens to be the next story. I like reading in sequence and I’ve already read the first 2 a few days back.

I think I’ll blog hop some more, it’s fun to see what other people are upto

Hour 18: Read-a-thon

First and foremost, thank you to those who commented. You keep the spirits high

My last post was at 3.00 in the night. After that I shut down the computer and went to bed with a book, a collection of short stories, novellas rather- Upon a midnight clear.

I finshed the first story which was 90 pages long as a really good way to stay awake, I said romance can keep me awake, didn’t I?

I slept at 5.00 in the night after finishing the story, woke up at 9 in the morning and read 50 pages from The Everafter by Amy Huntley. Yes, I found my previous readathon books

Title of book(s) read since last update: None
Number of books read since you started: One, The book of Thousand days
Pages read since last update: 140
Running total of pages read since you started: 440
Amount of time spent reading since last update: 3 hours
Running total of time spent reading since you started: (keep track of this one to be eligible for a prize!): No Idea
Mini-challenges completed: Don’t remember, 2 I think
Other participants you’ve visited: A few, I did a little cheerleading last night.
Prize you’ve won: none

Now my sis is making tea and I get to drink it, I think I’ll do a little blog hopping for some time now. Then we have to out to collect some things for my bro-in-law. Hopefully it won’t take more than an hour. See you around. How’s your reading/ cheerleading going?

Hour 10: Read-a-thon

I have finished my first book of the Readathon, The book of a thousand days by Shannon Hale and I loved it. I especially loved the end where everything was so neatly tied up.

It usually doesn’t take so long for me to finish a book but I got detracted many times I was also very sleepy and tucking myself in a blanket doesn’t help too.

So I took a half an hour nap which worked wonders.

It’s 2.50 in the night and I’m wondering what to do. Should I start another book or should I go to sleep?

If I start one, it will probably one of the storied from this one. Its romance and I know that if anything can keep me awake is probably romance.

I’m going to do some cheerleading though before starting anything else.

I’m wondering what to eat, butter pepper popcorn or some Maggie noodles cooked my style

Title of book(s) read since last update: One, finally
Number of books read since you started: One, The book of Thousand days
Pages read since last update: 140
Running total of pages read since you started: 300
Amount of time spent reading since last update: 2 hours
Running total of time spent reading since you started: (keep track of this one to be eligible for a prize!): No Idea
Mini-challenges completed: one, the first
Other participants you’ve visited: None
Prize you’ve won: none

Hour 6: Read-a-thon

Title of book(s) read since last update: none
Number of books read since you started: none
Pages read since last update: 72
Running total of pages read since you started: 162
Amount of time spent reading since last update: 1.5 hours with lots of twittering.
Running total of time spent reading since you started: (keep track of this one to be eligible for a prize!) 5 hours with lots of twittering and a little commenting. (I’m doing some really wrong calculations, lol)
Mini-challenges completed: one, the first
Other participants you’ve visited: Only 1 DocShona But I’m going to visit many after I finish my first book. I’m only half way through.
Prize you’ve won: none

I had dinner within 15 mins and I’m back to reading. Had some yummy cup cakes and yummy chocolate biscuits before that. The thing is I cannot concentrate while eating, I mostly tend to admire how the chocolate melts in my mouth, yum.

Now with my Belly full I’m felling a little sleepy, it’s almost 11 in the night after all

Still reading The book of a thousand days by Shannon Hale and still enjoying it, it’s quite a sad book though.

Hour 4: Read-a-thon

Title of book(s) read since last update: none
Number of books read since you started: none
Pages read since last update: 90
Running total of pages read since you started: 90
Amount of time spent reading since last update: 4 hours with lots of twittering and a little commenting.
Running total of time spent reading since you started: (keep track of this one to be eligible for a prize!) 4 hours with lots of twittering and a little commenting.
Mini-challenges completed: one, the first
Other participants you’ve visited: 3 I guess, DocShona, Laura, and one more, I don’t remember who
Prize you’ve won: none

By the Way, I’m loving The book of a thousand days by Shannon Hale

Kick Off: October 2009 Dewey’s 24-Hour Read-a-thon!

It’s 5.30 in the evening in India and yes this is my first Readathon post.

We went to watch Julie and Julia at 2.00 pm which is an awesome movie. I was afraid I wouldn’t reach home on time. But here I am. I can’t find my initial Readathon books so I have selected new ones. As Care says “thank goodness for a very high stack of want-to-read books!”

Watching Julie and Julia has made me real hungry so my sis is cooking masala rice…yum and some hot tea after that.

Oh yes, these are my snacks for the Readathon. It includes maggie of course. I’m most excited about eating butter pepper popcorn

And this is the book I’m starting with.
The book of a thousand days by Shannon Hale which also happens to be my first book by this author.

I will post updates every one hour or 2 hours, I think, but Twitter will be running in the background

Mini challenge:

3 facts about me …
I live in India
I am a software engineer
I’m getting married in November

How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours?
I don’t know, so far I’m eying 3 books atleast…hopefully.
Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)?
Nope, no goals, I just want to read as much as I can and enjoy myself with the others.
If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, Any advice for people doing this for the first time?
Nope, just taken part in last Readathon but yeah…have fun