Armchair BEA || Young Adult/Middle Grade

I wasn't planning on making a post for Armchair BEA today, but as a last minute decision I've changed my mind. First off, today is the last day of the Armchair BEA event. I want to start off by thanking the hosts and everyone who made this event possible. It's been a super fun experience and has totally helped to distract me from feeling sad since I'm not at the real BEA. Today's Armchair BEA post topics are "Topic of Choice" and "Middle Grade/Young Adult." I will be sort of combining both topics for today. On the prompts provided on the Armchair BEA blog, the MG/YA topic focuses on recommending books in those genres. I'm someone who reads almost entirely YA as well as the occasional Middle Grade, New Adult or classics. However, I feel like doing more of a discussion In this post I'm going to specifically talk about the reputations of specific genres and why I think people had bad connotations with good genres!

I know this post isn't meant to be about New Adult, but recently I've noticed quite a few people discussing the reputation of that genre/reading level. In my opinion, NA is great! I think that many people think NA is YA+sex and that is SO not the case. The literal definition of YA and NA-- as well as really any reading level genre-- deals with the characters in said books. If you're reading a YA book it will mainly focus on characters who are in the young adult age range-- late middle school/high school. NA revolves around college aged characters. And, just like you may have guessed, Middle Grade is about kids younger than those in YA. But I want to point out that I feel like MG is just a little bit different in that regard. The way I think of MG is as adventure books who happen to feature younger characters by default. MG stories are those that focus more on the epic journey/problem solving and less on the romance you might find in other genres.

The thing I think people need to realize is that you can totally read and enjoy all of these genres! I feel like discriminating or taking away what makes a book a book is just so.. uncalled for in a community like this. When people just cast off NA because they think it's just sex with no plot, I get infuriated. Sure, NA contains sexual themes. Want to know why? Because it's about college kids! It's realistic! And, I'm not going to say that there aren't over-sexual NA novels because there definitely are. But, I would say the majority of the popular books you'll find are respectable novels just as well as any YA, MG or Adult book. You find sex in NA just as often as you find kissing and teen angst in YA. That's not because it's the "rated R version," it's because it's honest. And, that's what I wish more people would realize. I think the biggest reason that I enjoy reading all of these different types of stories is because I'm a 19 year old girl! If we want to get technical, I'm in the earlier stages of NA age-wise. I enjoy reading YA because I've just been through all of that. I enjoy reading NA because I'm just getting into all of that. And, I enjoy reading MG because it's nice to reminisce. It's plain and simple. Reading is reading. Books are books.

Thanks for listening to my opinions on this topic! What do you think? Do you agree with me? Let me know in a comment below!

Armchair BEA Chat || Expanding Blogging Horizons

Hey, lovelies! Today's Armchair BEA topics are "Expanding Blogging Horizons" and "Novellas/Short Stories." I think novellas are great, but for some reason the former topic really spoke to me. The prompt that the hosts gave in regard to "Expanding Blogging Horizons" asked about how we as bloggers expand our blogs. It mentioned possibly remodeling you blog, podcasts, vlogging and even freelance writing. Personally, none of those things really scream "Ok, Let's Read" to me aside from vlogging. I actually filmed my very first ever BookTube video today (spoiler alert; it's a potential summer reading books list), but I had a very unfortunate mishap. After filming, I was so excited that I just wanted to edit it right then. But, when I went to upload it, I realized I have absolutely no idea where the cord for my camera went. So, I have a dilemma. However, I ordered a new one on eBay right away and it should be here in the next few days. So, the moral of the story is that you can expect to see a VIDEO OF MY FACE here in the next week or so. If you're a fan of my blog, I would LOVE if you would subscribe to my YouTube channel. Of course, the videos will be posted here, but it's incredibly reassuring to see people enjoying my videos on YouTube itself. So, if you'd like to subscribe to my channel and make me super happy, you can do so right HERE.

I got off on a little bit of a tangent there. What I really wanted to focus on in this post was what makes my blog unique. I really do feel like my blog is very different from other book bloggers. Sure, there are plenty of similarities, but there are things about my blog and my personality that I feel like set me apart from others. Everything I'm about to say about my blog is going to be true about my YouTube channel once I start putting videos up. Basically, I'm super sassy. That's a big point. Being opinionated, assertive and brutally honest are just things that are innately ingrained in my personality. They're just a few things that make me me. It's impossible for me to take those traits away from things I do here in the book community and I wouldn't want to anyway. I think being honest and unafraid to speak your mind is something that is incredibly beneficial in a community and setting like this. When reviewing a book, I don't hesitate to be 100% truthful regardless of my opinions, and I think that's super important! I know a lot of bloggers have totally honed in on their writing voice as well, but I feel like a majority of bloggers have not. And, that's why this is something that makes me so unique and has, in my opinion, expanded my blogging horizons.

Another thing about my blog that totally represents me is the theme, color scheme, fonts and all that jazz. I honestly don't think I'll ever change too much about those things and here's why. I created all the graphics you see on my blog. And, everything on my blog was precisely chosen because I feel like it radiates "Ashley." The color scheme of aqua, lime and orange is my three favorite colors and it honestly makes me happy every time I look at it. The font is called DK Aderyn and it's my all time favorite font. The point of all this mindless rambling is this; If you're a newbie blogger like myself, or a seasoned blogger looking for advice, I think that the best things you can do for your blog is to make it uniquely you. Make everything as if it's just for you and reflecting your personality. Make your blog so pretty that you constantly want to look at it. Write things that even make you chuckle. Be happy with and enjoy the content you're putting out. If you do all those things, I am certain your blogging horizons will be limitless.

Thank you so much for stopping my blog if you were brought here as an #ArmchairBEA participant or otherwise. I am so excited to see so many new, friendly faces around here. I'm going to take a quick moment to shamelessly plug my weekly meme. If you haven't heard about Thursday Thoughts, it's an interactive meme that goes on each Thursday where we all come together to discuss all sorts of bookish topics. I'm actually beginning to run out of conversation topics, so if you're interested I would love it if you could check out the Thursday Thoughts tab above and maybe even tweet me some new topic ideas @okletsread! Thanks so much and have a great day!

Armchair BEA || My Introduction!

Can I just start out by saying that the creators of this totally should've changed the name to Armchair BookCon when BEA in real life became BookCon? Just saying. Anyways, YES! Hello. Hi. I'm Ashley, if you didn't know, and I will be participating in Armchair BEA for the next week/few days! If you don't know what Armchair BEA is, there's an amazingly organized blog for it that can be found right HERE. I'm so amazed at how fool-proof and fantastic that blog is. I'm super OCD about organization and things that that, so the schedule and all the answered questions make me so happy.

This is my introduction post for the event! We were told to answer 5 questions from a list of 10 to introduce ourselves within this Armchair BEA community. I'm not sure what more to say about this post, so without further ado let's just into the questions.

• Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging? Where in the world are you blogging from?
  
  
  Well, I'm Ashley. I'm a nineteen year old girl from Ohio, but no I do not live on a farm. Yuck. I'm too lazy for that. In fact, I live up North pretty close to Cleveland in a suburb that's known for being snobby and posh. But, don't worry. I'm not snobby or posh. I've only been blogging for almost 4 months and I'm so in love with this community. I've always been an active person online, so it seemed fitting to thrust myself into a community that deals constantly with something I love a lot. And, that was books! Becoming a book blogger is one of the best decisions I've made in a while. But, when I'm not book blogging or reading, I'm usually hanging out with my friends, doing musical theater or eating at Chipotle.

• Describe your blog in just one sentence. Then, list your social details -- Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. -- so we can connect more online.
  
  
  My blog in one sentence: "Sassy book talks, reviews, hauls and other fun stuff presented in a semi-inconsistent manner." And, here are links to my Twitter, Goodreads, Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram.

• Share your favorite book or reading related quote. 
  
  
  "The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it."
  - J.M. Barrie from Peter Pan

• If you were stranded on a deserted island, what 3 books would you bring? Why? What 3 non-book items would you bring? Why? 
  
  
  If I were stranded on a deserted island, I would bring Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, Cress by Marissa Meyer and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. Those three books are the three most diverse favorite books of mine. With a list like that, I don't think I would get bored very quickly, if ever. What non-book items would a bring? A laptop with infinite power, a never-ending supply of Diet Coke and a tent because I'm a huge wimp and I am sure there would be scary shit out there.
• What book would you love to see as a movie?
  
  
  I recently finished reading Nil by Lynne Matson. I loved this book in itself (although there were some slow parts), but I think it would be AMAZING as a movie. There is so much about it that allows it to translate beautifully to screen and I think someone should hop on that right now.

And, that's all the questions! I hope you enjoyed getting to know me a little more, and thank you so so much for stopping by if you're new! I'm super excited about Armchair BEA. I can just tell this whole event is going to be incredibly awesome! See you soon with more Armchair BEA fun!