Feature and Follow Friday #192

Welcome to the Feature & Follow

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Gain new followers and make new friends with the Book Blogger Feature & Follow! If this is your first time here, welcome! You are about to make some new friends and gain new followers -- but you have to know -- the point of this hop is to follow other bloggers also. I follow you, you follow me.

The Feature & Follow is hosted by TWO hosts, Parajunkee of Parajunkee's View and Alison of Alison Can Read. Each host will have their own Feature Blog and this way it'll allow us to show off more new blogs!

How does this work? First you leave your name here on this post, (using the linky tools -- keep scrolling!) then you create a post on your own blog that links back to this post (easiest way is to just grab the code under the #FF picture and put it in your post) and then you visit as many blogs as you can and tell them "hi" in their comments (on the post that has the #FF image). You follow them, they follow you. Win. Win. Just make sure to follow back if someone follows you!

What sets this Hop apart from others, is our Feature. Each week we will showcase a Featured Blogger, from all different genres and areas. Who is our Feature today? Find out below. Just remember it is required, if you participate, to follow our Features and you must follow the hosts (Parajunkee & Alison Can Read) as a courtesy. How do you follow someone? Well, if you have a preference, state it in your #FF post. A lot of blogs are transitioning to Wordpress in which they do not have the luxury of GFC, so an RSS subscription is appreciated or if you choose an email subscription. If you don't have GFC please state in your post how you would like to be followed.

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How To Become a Featured Blog?

We pick our featured blogs randomly each week from the blogs who participated the week before.

Please be sure to feature your e-mail address clearly on your blog. Either on the main blog, on a Contact page, or on an About Me page. If I can't find your email easily, I will choose a different blog to feature.

Our Feature - Sarcasm and Lemons

1. When did you start blogging?

Technically I started in December 2009 at the end of my junior year of college, but I really got more serious about it until 2011, my senior year. I look back on those early, bumbling days and cringe a little. I had really no idea what I was doing. But my friend and I were writing a semi-satirical paranormal romance together (angels and demons, if you’re curious) and wanted a blog to go along with it—under a pseudonym, of course. I liked it enough that Sarcasm & Lemons came after.

2. What is your favorite part of book blogging?

It forces me to read. Not that I wouldn’t anyway, but definitely not as much. Grad school is wonderful in many ways but it’s also a demonic soul-suck, and it doesn’t leave much time for fun—assuming you can even have fun without feeling guilty. Blogging reminds me that I don’t have to give up that writerly part of myself. It’s also introduced me to books I never would have found otherwise. And (yeah, okay, this is more than one thing), it’s allowed me to meet some really sweet, lovely people who are as crazy about literature as I am.

3. What type of books do you mainly blog about?

I almost exclusively blog about young adult. I love adult fiction and classics, but I was reading so many of them during college—for class, for fun, again for class because I had to read about 50,001 books. I had gone through a literary kick too after my short story class, reading obscure things like Edwidge Danticat and Jenny Boully. (Okay, Danticat isn’t that obscure.) Then a Pahlaniuk / Easton Ellis craze. But blogging brought me back to my young adult roots. It’s what I’ve loved all my life. It’s what I write. You can never tell me that young adult books aren’t every bit as deep and interesting as their adult counterparts. While I’m a high fantasy nut (think Diana Wynne Jones and Tamora Pierce), I review almost every genre. And I throw a few adult books in occasionally.

4. What are your favorite books?

I used to say The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. It’s a sprawlingly huge read but it’s beautifully tragic and epic. It still has a special place in my heart, but my pretty unequivocal favorite is Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. I’ve read it so many times that my copy is falling apart, and every time it feels giddily magical and new.

5. What has been the best thing that has happened to you because of book blogging?

I’ve gotten to talk to (and meet!) some of my favorite authors. I remember happydancing around my room because Sharon Cameron, author of The Dark Unwinding, e-mailed me personally thanking me for a review I had written. Little old me. Another time, I met Sarah J. Maas at a little bookstore (along with Kat Zhang, Susan Dennard, and Erin Bowman) and she remembered me from my blog. Then there are the times when sweet bloggers send you books out of nowhere. It’s not about celeb-starstruck-ness or free books. It’s about a community like you can find nowhere else.

Question of the Week: Spring is in the air! Show off your favorite outdoors reading spot. If you don’t go outside...well where else do you read that isn’t inside your house? We want pics!

At the moment, Montana does feel springish, with highs in the 50s. But I don't trust it. The 10-day weather forecast has us back down in the 30s pretty soon. The average final frost date for my town is at the very end of May.

Lucky for me, I escape Montana all the time. I spent the past week visiting my parents in Arizona (that's why I wasn't commenting or posting much). The weather was perfect. Sunny and low 80s. I spent all my time sitting in my parents' backyard reading, moving only when the sun became too hot.

And so many more!

Here are some photos:

This is the backyard at my parents' brand new house. It's lovely but quite small.

This is the backyard in the house that I grew up in. This is what I imagine when I'm fantasizing about the ideal reading space (although the landscaping changed a lot over the years).

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Now for the Follow Fun!

With GFC going the way of the dodo bird for many bloggers, there is no better time to start following blogs via RSS feed. If you use a reader, it would be great if you followed my RSS directly.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

We have a new button, so update your blogs if you are used to doing this meme!

RULES

To join the fun and make new book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

1. (Required) Follow the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts {Parajunkee & Alison Can Read}
2. (Required) Follow our Featured Bloggers
3. Put your Blog name & URL in the Linky thing. You can also grab the code if you would like to insert it into your posts.
4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say "hi" in your comments and that they are now following you.
5. If you are using WordPress or another CMS that doesn't have GFC (Google Friends Connect) state in your posts how you would like to be followed
6. Follow Follow Follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "HI"
7. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the Love...and the followers
8. If you're new to the follow friday hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

Next Week's Question:

How have your reading habits changed in the past few years? Did you get interested in a new genre? Do you read more? Less? Why do you think your habits changed, if they did.

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