Weres Wanna Know: Most Anticipated Fall Releases

Weres Wanna Know is a new discussion feature where we share a topic that's been on our minds and invite you to share your thoughts as well.

 

There are a lot of popular weekly memes in the book blogging community. You all know that we are fans of the Waiting on Wednesday meme here on the Goldilox blog. But there are so many other memes that we don't participate in that I still enjoy reading every week. One of my favorites is Top Ten Tuesday by The Broke and the Bookish. I love both books and lists so the meme for me is a matche made in heaven! I love seeing everyone's different lists for the same topics. In the last month or so, there have been a couple of topics that I haven't been able to stop thinking about. They are similar topics that revolve around the following question: 

What Are Your Most Anticipated Fall Releases?

It's a great question, isn't it? I kept thinking about it and decided it would make for a wonderful Weres Wanna Know post! So here we are! Gretl and I are going to share the books we're most looking forward to until the end of the year. Since it's been fall for a few weeks now, our lists may include books that have already been released.

Rose Red's Picks

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

(Six of Crows #2)

Release Date: September 27, 2016

The Rise of Io by Wesley Chu

Release Date: October 4, 2016

Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

(The Illuminae Files #2)

Release Date: October 18. 2016

Archangel's Heart by Nalini Singh

(Guild Hunter #9)

Release Date: November 1, 2016

Timekeeper by Tara Sim

(Timekeeper #1)

Release Date: November 8, 2016

Gretl's Picks

Conspiracy of Ravens by Lila Bowen

(The Shadow #2)

Release Date: October 11, 2016

Curse on the Land by Faith Hunter

(Soulwood #2)

Release Date: November 1, 2016

Romancing the Inventor by Gail Carriger

(Supernatural Society #1)

Release Date: November 1, 2016

Heartless by Marissa Meyer

Release Date: November 8, 2016

Treasure & Treason by Lisa Shearin

(Rain Benares #8)

Release Date: November 2016

Those are our most anticipated books for the rest of the year!

What are your most anticipate books for the rest of 2016? Let's discuss!

If you have a topic you'd like to see discussed in a Weres Wanna Know post, let us know in the comments, send us a Facebook message, or email goldiloxandthethreeweres@gmail.com.

Weres Wanna Know: Do You Reread Books?

Weres Wanna Know is a new discussion feature where we share a topic that's been on our minds and invite you to share your thoughts as well.
 

Gretl and I have talked about starting a discussion post series on the blog for a while now because as much as we love reviewing and recommending books we want to be able to discuss current happenings in the book community and other bookish related things on our minds. So we're starting the Weres Wanna Know feature! We'll be posting discussion posts randomly as inspiration hits us so stay tuned for more posts in the near future!

Today, I want discuss something that has been on my mind for a while because it's something I had never thought about until I joined the blogging community. What I want to discuss is:

Do You Reread Books?

I'm going to be honest right now. I’m kind of a special snowflake. Up until I started becoming active in the online book community, I didn't realize that rereading books was something that not everyone does. I'm one of those people who sit down at the start of every year and makes a list of books I want to make my highest priority to reread. Some years I get to all of them and some years I get caught up in all the new releases and only get to one or two on the list reread. But I'm always rereading something thanks to audiobooks. I’m actually one of those people who could just reread books all the time and be perfectly happy doing so. Some days I actually have a hard time picking up my unread books because I want to reread a book so badly. *cough* Like the Guild Hunter books! *cough*

I have a tendency to start rereading a book or series immediately after finishing. Case in point: I binge read The Raven Cycle books by Maggie Stiefvater at the end of last week and immediately started listening to the first book on audio because I'm not ready to be done with these characters and these books. Actually, now that I think about it, it's something I do quite a bit.

Don’t get me wrong, I adore reading new to me books! But I’m constantly fighting myself to keep my new reads to rereads ratio balanced. There were years when I was younger that I didn't read any new books because I was too busy rereading my favorites. I'm a bit more conscious of my tendency to just reread so some years I tend to skew in favor of reading new releases to correct myself. But even when I go in the opposite direction, I still manage to do quite a bit of rereading in those years.

A few months ago, I had a discussion with a friend who doesn't reread books at all and it blew my mind! Intellectually, I knew people like her existed but I had never known I was friends with one. It turned into a fascinating discussion because we're both the polar opposites on the extreme ends of the spectrum. For me, rereading books is how I battle my bouts of depression and stress and some days I just need the comfort of a familiar world that is not our reality. For my friend, she doesn't reread because she doesn't want to miss out on any new books by spending her time rereading old favorites. I'm interested to know your opinions and reasoning on this topic. So...

Do you reread books? Why or why not? Let's discuss!

If you have a topic you'd like to see discussed in a Weres Wanna Know post, let us know in the comments, send us a Facebook message, or email goldiloxandthethreeweres@gmail.com.

Weres Wanna Know: Favorite Kinds of Non-Review Posts?

Weres Wanna Know is a new discussion feature where we share a topic that's been on our minds and invite you to share your thoughts as well.

 

When I was thinking about my blogging goals for the year, I had the thought that I want to do more posts that aren't reviews. Don't get me wrong, I love writing reviews but I'm also wanting to shake things up a bit. I get bored doing the same thing over and over again. I want to stretch my wings creatively but still talk about books. So today, I want to ask the following question: 

What Are Your Favorite Kinds of Non-Review Posts?

As I thinking about this topic, the first and only thing that came to mind for the longest time was that I want to do more Weres Wanna Know discussion posts. I love getting to talk about bookish things and have discussions with you all in the comments. I have several ideas for posts so I'm hoping to be more consistent in posting those this year.

So more discussion posts. Check. But what other posts could I do? For the life of me, I couldn't think of anything else for a few days. Then several ideas hit me all at once.

For those of you who don't know, I kind of love watching Booktube videos. I really love all the different types of videos that people make but I don't think I'd ever want to personally make them. I leave that to Goldilox. One of the best things about Booktube is seeing the different books that people are excited for and what books they buy. I even like seeing how people organize their shelves. But I especially love watching book tags. So this year, I'm going to try to do one or two tag posts each month. If you have any suggestions of tags you'd like to see done, please leave a comment.

There are a lot of popular weekly memes in the book blogging community. In fact, we're switching things up this year on the blog. Instead of doing the Waiting on Wednesday meme we've done for the last few years, we've decided to do Top 5 Wednesday. I'm really excited for this change! I love making bookish lists!

But there are so many other memes that we don't participate in that I still enjoy reading every week. One of my favorites is Top Ten Tuesday by The Broke and the Bookish. I love both books and lists so any meme where I get to make bookish lists is a match made in heaven! I love seeing everyone's different lists for the same topics. We recently did our year end Goldilox and the Top Ten Lists feature where we talked about our favorite books of last year in different categories. I loved doing those posts so I'm thinking I may use  a Top Ten Tuesday topic every once in a while and slip in a few Top Ten List posts this year. I think it sounds fun!

What are your favorite non-review posts?
Do you have any suggestions on posts you'd like to see us do?
Let's discuss!

If you have a topic you'd like to see discussed in a Weres Wanna Know post, let us know in the comments, send us a Facebook message, or email goldiloxandthethreeweres@gmail.com.

Weres Wanna Know: Is Book Hype A Good Thing?

Weres Wanna Know is a new discussion feature where we share a topic that's been on our minds and invite you to share your thoughts as well.

 

I've been thinking a lot about Gretl's Weres Wanna Know post from last week. She discussed the things that keep her from picking a book up. When I read her post the first thing I thought of that keeps me from reading a book is book hype.

Yeah. I said it. Book hype, for me, is a double-edged sword. On one hand, hearing tons of good things about a book makes me excited to read said book. On the other hand, book hype can kill any or all of my desire to read a book. I don't know about you but to me it seems like book hype is getting to be a more prevalent thing than it used to be and it's something that seems to more prevalent in the YA book community than any other. It may just be that I notice it more now because social media lets me see what's popular in the book community at all times. So I want to ask:

Does The Book Hype Make You Want To Read A Book?

When I first got seriously involved in the online book community, I took book hype seriously. I would end up hearing of a hyped book that everybody loved and I'd immediately feel inclined to get my hands on it. So I bought several of the really popular and hyped YA books and I read them. The thing was I didn't like them as much as I thought I would. Don't get me wrong! I loved several of those books and I still love them. But the hype that had built up around those books had raised my expectations so high that some of those books didn't even come close to meeting them. I became the black sheep and I feel betrayed when I don't love a book everyone else does. Unfortunately, it took me a year and a not insignificant amount of money to accept that I'm not going to like a lot of books others are loving and that being the black sheep was not a bad thing.

The biggest thing I've learned is how to deal with book hype in a way that lets me read for myself. I curate the hell out of the books I choose to pick up. I know more of my likes and dislikes so I don't give in to the book hype as much any more because there are some books that no matter the hype I KNOW that I won't like them. For the ones I'm on the fence about, I've learned that the best possible thing for me to do is to wait. That way I can see whether the book hype disappears quickly or if it just keeps picking up momentum. There are some books that the hype dies as soon as they come out and in those cases most of the time my interest dies with it. It's the books where the hype doesn't die the first six months after release that I find myself gravitating to. 

I have also come to realize that there are different kinds of hype: publisher hype and reader hype. I deal more easily with one than I do the other. Personally, I hardly ever like the books that publishers decide to push hard. It feels like there's more of a push to promote certain books these days but it seems like each publisher chooses just one book out of all of their upcoming releases to throw all their money at. You all know what I'm talking about and probably can think of a book or two that has been heavily promoted in the last couple of months. I've tried so many of these books the last few years and I can count on one hand the ones I've liked. One of the most disappointing books I read last year was one where the publisher pushed it hard.

The other type of hype is reader hype. This is the hype I don't mind as much. There are still books that get so overhyped that I feel no desire to read them, but I find that I enjoy the ones I do pick up more often than not. I have several book and blogger friends who have almost the same taste in books that I do and they're the ones that I let persuade me instead of trusting the entire capslocky "OMG! READ THIS NOW!" part of the book community. If 85% of my friends love a certain book, I know that I'll be more predisposed to love it too regardless of how much hype it has gained. There have been some exceptions to that. *tries not to glare at the Throne of Glass books*

I will admit that most of this post applies to YA books because I just don't feel the same way about the hype around adult books even though it's there. The hype doesn't feel as urgent or as big as it does in the YA community. It's probably my YA burnout talking, but that's how I feel. I'm much more willing to pick up a hyped adult fantasy book than I am a YA one. My expectations are still high with the adult books but they're not set as ridiculously high as with YA. I really have no idea why I feel so differently between the two age groups. Maybe I've just been burned too many times by similar plot lines and love triangles in YA. Your guess is as good as mine at this point.

So how do you feel about book hype...

Does it make you want to read a book? Why or why not? 

How do you deal with the hype? Let's discuss!

If you have a topic you'd like to see discussed in a Weres Wanna Know post, let us know in the comments, send us a Facebook message, or email goldiloxandthethreeweres@gmail.com.

Weres Wanna Know: Monthy TBR, Yearly TBR, or No TBR?

Weres Wanna Know is a new discussion feature where we share a topic that's been on our minds and invite you to share your thoughts as well.

 

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about TBRs. Specifically I've been thinking about how bad I am about sticking to the monthly TBRs I set for myself. Each month I pick out an average of six books and I maybe read two of those tops. Part of my problem is that I'm a serious mood reader so books that I want to read at the first of the month aren't the ones I want to read by the middle of the month.

Conversely, I do really well with making a yearly TBR list and sticking without. I usually complete 75% of the 100 or so books I choose to read at the beginning of each year. I think the longer time span counteracts my mood reading perfectly so I'm more successful with a yearly TBR compared to a monthly one.

So us Weres wanna know...

Do you like making TBRs?

Do you make a monthly one or a yearly one? 

Do you have any tips or tricks that'll help us stick to a set TBR?

 

If you have a topic you'd like to see discussed in a Weres Wanna Know post, let us know in the comments, send us a Facebook message, or email goldiloxandthethreeweres@gmail.com.

Weres Wanna Know: Do You Stockpile Books?

Weres Wanna Know is a new discussion feature where we share a topic that's been on our minds and invite you to share your thoughts as well.

 

One thing I have noticed since joining the book community is how obsessed most people tend to be with their unread books a.k.a. TBR piles. I had never really thought about it before. Of course I have unread books on my shelves. I mean, who doesn't? My personal library is one of the things I'm the most proud of. But I admit that I think about those unread books a lot more now. Heck, I'm specifically participating in a couple reading challenges this year that will help me manage Mount ToBeRead.

But I'll let you in on a little secret. I'm not at all ashamed that I currently have 234 unread books on my shelves and lord knows how many unread ebooks on my Kindle. Honestly, I'm kind of happy to have lots of unread books. In fact, I kind of make sure I have a surplus of unread books. So today I want to ask...

Do You Stockpile Books?

Stockpiling books has become so much easier with the advent of ereaders and ebooks, but I've always stockpiled books. My TBR is my safety net and I'm grateful for it. Although, I will be the first to admit that I have a one-click Kindle deal buying problem. I like to buy ebooks on sale when they're cheap. I've mostly gone digital with my stockpiling because I don't have to worry about ebooks taking up a lot of space. You're probably thinking "Why do you stockpile books while trying to manage your TBR pile, Rose Red? You're being contradictory.". I know I am. Honestly, I wouldn't want to get too many more books on my TBR than what I have now but I like having them. There's lots of reasons why I still stockpile books when I have such a bulky TBR, but in the end it boils down to just two.

The first is that I'm a huge mood reader and I currently live in a library district that has a collection dictated by a community that has radically different reading tastes than I do. I've seriously never seen such small fantasy and romance sections. When I get in the mood for paranormal romance or any genre, I can easily read thirty books in said genre before my mood changes so I try to make sure I have enough books stockpiled so I won't feel like I need to buy anything. I do tend to reread favorites when I get in these moods but I've gone through binges before where I don't want to read what I already own so I buy what I want. Those times can really hurt the pocketbook. *Looks accusingly at her Nalini Singh collection* So I take advantage of Kindle deals and used bookstores to stockpile paranormal romance, urban fantasy, steampunk, and fantasy books.

The other reason is because I know times are going to come in the future where I'm not going to have as much disposable income as I do now and won't be able to buy books like I do now. I know going to the library is always an option. The thing is I've lived in areas that have excellent libraries and I've lived in areas with terrible libraries. I guess I just want to make sure that I have plenty of books in the genres I want to read handy whatever my circumstances become. Not having anything I feel like reading is a nightmare scenario for me because reading is how I deal with my stress and anxiety. Maybe I'm just being paranoid and a little crazy but I feel better having my moderately large TBR pile, even when I'm trying to manage it. I'm interested to know your opinions on this topic. So...

Do you stockpile books? Why or why not? Let's discuss!

If you have a topic you'd like to see discussed in a Weres Wanna Know post, let us know in the comments, send us a Facebook message, or email goldiloxandthethreeweres@gmail.com.

Weres Wanna Know: Should I be listening to audiobooks?

Weres Wanna Know is a new discussion feature where we share a topic that's been on our minds and invite you to share your thoughts as well. We usually post them on Fridays but we've got something special in store tomorrow so I'm doing it a little bit early this week.

I might be the only person in the whole world who has never listened to an audiobook. I know all the cool kids are doing it, but I've never been interested. I don't understand why you'd want to take twice as long to finish the book unless it was some special situation like a road trip (or, you know, blindness.)

 But a few weeks ago I went on a binge and read four books in three days. (No way you could do that with audiobooks, right?) For a week afterward, I couldn't hold my iPad long enough to read my Twitter feed, much less another book, because of pain in my wrists. There went all that ground I made up on my Goodreads goal! And that got me thinking maybe it's time to give this audio thing a try.

Should I be listening to audiobooks?

 But I'm still hesitant because I don't know what I'm supposed to do while I listen. I don't have a long commute but even if I did, the car is the only place I really listen to music and I don't want to give that up. I could see drawing or knitting while listening, but both of those would be counterproductive if I'm trying to spare my wrists. And I'm not good at paying attention to two things at once. If I get on the internet during a commercial break, I don't always notice when the show comes back on. So am I just supposed to stare at the ceiling for three days while I listen to a book?

Somebody please explain this whole thing to me. What do you do while you're listening to audios? How does it change your reading experience? And if I were going to start, what books would you recommend?

Should I be listening to audiobooks?
What are your favorites?

If you have a topic you'd like to see discussed in a Weres Wanna Know post, let us know in the comments, send us a Facebook message, or email goldiloxandthethreeweres@gmail.com.

Weres Wanna Know: What's Your Literary Palate Cleanser?

Weres Wanna Know is a new discussion feature where we share a topic that's been on our minds and invite you to share your thoughts as well.

 

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about palate cleansers. My boyfriend's brother has gotten into wine tasting and has become obsessed with finding the ideal one. I've heard about the cleansing virtues of certain foods from lemon sorbet to apple slices.

You're probably asking yourself why I'm talking about palate cleansers on a book blog. Well, I just got done with a massive steampunk and paranormal binge. It had me kind of burned out on those genres even though there are a ton of books in each I want to read. I'm not a TV person so taking a break from reading to binge a TV series doesn't work for me as a reset. But thanks to the boyfriend's brother, I started to think that I needed a literary palate cleanser. So I applied the concept to my reading and guess what? It worked!

Literary palate cleansers aren't a new concept. Looking back over my Goodreads data for the last few years has shown that I've unconsciously used the idea in the past. The difference is that this is the first time I've thought about it and deliberately applied the concept. I shouldn't be surprised that it worked. I know everyone has their own go to genre they read all of the time but I'm curious what you read when you take a break from your normal genre. So I want to ask:

What's Your Literary Palate Cleanser?

For me, I tend to read nonfiction and cookbooks. Yeah. I totally just said cookbooks. I'm a scientist so I like researching things and reading cookbooks is a kind of research I can get behind. Most are more than just a collection of instructions you can follow that allows you to put together the fixings for a delicious meal. I've learned the differences between different cuts of meat, how to choose the best ground beef for a recipe, the history of a particular dish, or why the author loves a specific recipe. There is so much more to cookbooks than the recipes and I love reading them. I also love coming away with recipes to try because I love food and cooking. Random weird but awesome fact: a lot of libraries have cookbooks you can check out so you don't have to go out and buy the expensive suckers.

Outside of cookbooks, nonfiction is my go to palate cleanser. I don't read a lot of it every year because I'm a scientist and my work life is full of nonfiction reading but I enjoy the ones I've read. I like to pick up memoirs like It Was Me All Along by Andie Mitchell, motivational/inspirational/philosophical books like The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, microhistories like The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean, history surrounding a specific event like The Devil in the White City by Erik Larsen, and nonfiction that documents the making of something like Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter. They satisfy my need for random bits of knowledge while providing a different reading experience from fiction. I'm totally that person you want on your trivia team at pub night because I know a lot of random facts.

So...

What do you read when you need a break from your favorite genre?

Also, do you have any nonfiction or cookbook recs for me?
Let's discuss!

If you have a topic you'd like to see discussed in a Weres Wanna Know post, let us know in the comments, send us a Facebook message, or email goldiloxandthethreeweres@gmail.com.

Weres Wanna Know: How Often Do You Give a Book 5 Stars?

Weres Wanna Know is a new discussion feature where we share a topic that's been on our minds and invite you to share your thoughts as well.

We all probably have that one friend on Goodreads who seems to give everything 5 stars. The one that when you see her post a 4 star review, you snark to yourself, "wow, she really hated that one." I know I have at least one of those. (I also have one friend who seems to hate everything, but that's a whole other post.) I recently felt the need to defend a 4 star rating, which was already well-explained in the review, to one of those "everything is awesome" people, so today I want to talk about 5 star reads. 

How do feel when you finish a 5 star book? How often do you get that feeling?

So far this year, I've given 5 stars to 2 of 27 books I've read. (I'm a little behind on my reading goal.) Last year it was 17 out of 161 and in 2014, 34 out of 228. So that's about 12% of the books of I've read over the last 2+ years. And that number includes some 4 1/2 star reviews since Goodreads doesn't let you click on half stars.

Most of the time I know how I'm going to rate a book as soon as I finish reading it. I just feel like "that's a 4" (or a 3 or whatever) even before I've thought through what I did or didn't like about it. I did try to recalibrate myself a bit when I felt like I was defaulting to 4 stars too much, so I give more 3's and 3 1/2's than I did two years ago. But I've always known how a 5 feels. It's like having your mind blown, being rendered speechless, and not wanting to change a single thing. It's those times when you want to hug the book. I think if I have anything negative to say about it, that's not a 5 star book.

So, for example, a slow start with an amazing second half might be a 4 1/2. Maybe I'm stingy with the 5 star ratings. I've read eight of last week's RT award winners and I only gave two of them 5 stars. But I look at it like getting 100% on a test. It can happen, but it's rare. And that's what makes it special.

What's your 5 star feeling? How often do you get it? Let's discuss!

If you have a topic you'd like to see discussed in a Weres Wanna Know post, let us know in the comments, send us a Facebook message, or email goldiloxandthethreeweres@gmail.com.

Weres Wanna Know: What would keep you from reading a book?

Weres Wanna Know is a new discussion feature where we share a topic that's been on our minds and invite you to share your thoughts as well.

In the last few months, I've seen several people swear off a particular author/narrator/cover model because of comments they've made on social media. Though I understand that decision, I'm not going to open that can of worms again. I don't want to discuss any of those people specifically, but it's got me thinking about deal breakers.

What Would Keep You From Reading a Book?

I've never read The Hobbit because when I was three years old, I saw the animated version and was scared of the chair in the corner of my room for a week. (In the dark, I thought it was a dragon.) I still associate that book with the scary chair and I have no interest in reading it. Also, I will never read a book where I know something bad happens to the dog. Brutalize the humans all you want, it won't bother me, but leave the dog alone. And I'll probably never read the book that was my very first rejected ARC request. I've read other books that I didn't get approved for since then, but something about that first one really hurt my feelings and I just don't want to read it anymore.

I recently read a blurb that was so poorly written, I couldn't even consider reading the book. It had a typo in the first paragraph and a grammatical error in the second. (It was only two paragraphs long.) It was a subject I like and the book had lots of positive comments. And it wasn't a self-pubbed title so the author probably didn't even write the blurb. But I just can't.

I have the same problem with reviews sometimes too. I know nobody's perfect and I try to cut people some slack, but there's a point where it's just too distracting. If I can't read your review without getting out my mental red pen, I just won't read it. And if it has more GIFs than words in it, I'm not going to read that either.

What are your deal breakers?

Let's discuss!

If you have a topic you'd like to see discussed in a Weres Wanna Know post, let us know in the comments, send us a Facebook message, or email goldiloxandthethreeweres@gmail.com.

Weres Wanna Know: Do you read the book before you see the movie?

Weres Wanna Know is a new discussion feature where we share a topic that's been on our minds and invite you to share your thoughts as well.

I've been watching several new shows based on books recently and it's got me thinking about adaptations. I know lots of people who read The Martian before the movie came out last year. And I guess the world is full of people who want to do that since the movie tie-in version of the book always comes out well before the film does. But I've never been one of those people.

I've also heard of people who absolutely refuse to see a movie or TV show for fear that it will ruin their favorite book. I'm not one of those either. 

Do you read the book before you see the movie?

 I suspect I'm an odd duck when it comes to adaptations. I don't have a preference about whether I read the book first or not, though I think I wind up seeing the movie first more often. It seems like everything is based on a book or a comic lately. Sometimes the movie or show makes me want to read the book, but not always.

For example, I saw all of the Twilight movies and had no desire to read the books before or after. I just didn't really need to know anything else about that world. Don't throw things at me, but I kind of feel the same way about Harry Potter. (I did actually read the last two books of the series before the movies were released. My mom gave me a copy of Half-Blood Prince and said I should read at least one of the books. And of course once I read it I had to read the next one because that's how I am with series.) I know that not everything in the books made it into the movies, but I don't feel like I'm missing anything.

In other cases, the movie gets me interested in the world and the characters and makes me want to know more. The Mortal Instruments movie was one of those. It's not the greatest movie, but it made me go "hey, I like that idea." The Shadowhunters TV show goes into more detail and might have been enough to satisfy my curiosity if I didn't already want to read the books. In that case what I'm interested in is figuring out how some of the changes, like making Clary eighteen instead of sixteen, affect the story. 

The Magicians did something similar, changing the characters from high school seniors to college seniors. That change grabbed my attention. Is there just as much sex and drugs in the books? (I'm assuming that the reason for the age change was to make that behavior more acceptable.) Now I really want to read the book and find out.  

I recently read that The 100 show started before the book was published. That grabbed my attention too. How much did they know about the books' story line and how much did the show influence the books? I'm much more interested in reading the books than I was before I knew that. I haven't actually read the books, or any of the others I just mentioned, yet though.

I started the Sookie Stackhouse series after watching the first two seasons of True Blood on Netflix. At the time I think eight books had released and I read them all multiple times before I started watching season three live on HBO. But I never read a new Sookie book during the True Blood season. Because the show was so different from the books, especially in the later seasons, I didn't want to get them confused. I also thought it was interesting to see how the show started influencing the books later on.

I read all thirteen books of the Bitten series before the show aired. In that case, I've been most interested in how the writers would handle the third season, which is airing now. The stars of the show are not the main characters in book three. So other than a time jump, which I would have hated, what do you do in season three? I'm not sure I love the direction they chose, but I do appreciate the fact that the ideas behind it come from the later books in the series.

I guess that for me, the book and the show are really two separate animals. If I just love the characters and want to spend more time with them, I can just read the book again or watch the movie again. For me to want to do both, I need them to be different. I need some questions unanswered by the first incarnation to compel me to seek out the second. Or some dramatic difference between the two that inspires me to compare and contrast. So while a lot of people would flip out if their favorite literary character were suddenly gender-swapped or living on another planet in the movie adaptation, it would make me a lot more likely to read the book.

Do you have to read the book before you see the movie or TV show? 

Why or why not? Let's discuss!

If you have a topic you'd like to see discussed in a Weres Wanna Know post, let us know in the comments, send us a Facebook message, or email goldiloxandthethreeweres@gmail.com.

Weres Wanna Know: Do you hunt for Easter Eggs in books?

Weres Wanna Know is a new discussion feature where we share a topic that's been on our minds and invite you to share your thoughts as well.

Since Easter is coming up this weekend, I've been thinking about Easter Eggs. If I've lost you already, Easter Eggs are hidden references or inside jokes, usually in movies, left by the creators for super fans to find.

 I first heard the term (many years ago) used to describe hidden extras on a DVD that you had to click on something other than the main menu to find. But according to Urban Dictionary, the term goes back even further, to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, where the characters held an Easter Egg Hunt but didn't find all the eggs. If you look closely, you can see Easter Eggs in random places throughout the movie.

The best known examples are probably in Marvel movies, all of which are full of references to other films that you might not catch on the first viewing. Things like Howard the Duck in the Collector's menagerie in Guardians of the Galaxy, or Bob from Hydra in Deadpool. But I'm starting to find them more often in books too.

For example, in Molly Harper's Jane Jameson series, Jane ships some books on werewolf dating to a customer in Alaska. Then one of the characters in her Naked Werewolf series receives a package from Half Moon Hollow. 

Jennifer Estep's books are full of Easter Eggs, probably because she's a big fan of those superhero movies that made them popular. In Dark Heart of Magic (Black Blade #2), they serve barbecue from The Pork Pit, the restaurant from her Elemental Assassin series. In that series, Finnegan Lane's suits are designed by Fiona Fine, a character from her Bigtime series. And the couple Gin Blanco meets in the opening of Bitter Bite honeymooned in Cloudburst Falls where the Black Blade series is set.

I've even started my own Easter Egg hunt in the Elemental Assassin series. I'm calling it the "name drop game." In each book, Estep mentions the title at least once. But last year I noticed that she also mentions the titles of other books in the series, so I started to look for them as I read. Biter Bite has three "bitter bites," two "poison promises," and eight "the Spiders." (I only count that last one when Gin refers to herself in the third person.) 

I think the term Easter Egg has become so popular that it's sometimes misused. Easter Eggs are supposed to be hidden references that not everyone will get. I saw someone on Twitter  refer to the Super Bowl Coke commercial featuring Ant Man and the Hulk as an Easter Egg, but there's nothing hidden about it. There could, however, be Easter Eggs in it. Though I didn't catch any when I re-watched it.

One that I missed until I saw people talking about it on social media is the appearance of George and Jack from Ilona Andrews' Edge series in Clean Sweep. Their names aren't used and they're all grown up, but I had a feeling I should know who they were and it just didn't click. That's what an Easter Egg is supposed to be and why it's so much fun to look for them.

Do you look for Easter Eggs in books?
What are some you've found?

If you have a topic you'd like to see discussed in a Weres Wanna Know post, let us know in the comments, send us a Facebook message, or email goldiloxandthethreeweres@gmail.com.

Weres Wanna Know: Do girls need their own superheroes?

Welcome to the first ever Superweek at Goldilox and the Three Weres, an entire week devoted to superheroes, supervillains, and superpowers!

Weres Wanna Know is our new discussion feature where we share a topic that's been on our minds and invite you to share your thoughts as well.

Have you seen the new DC Superhero Girls dolls at Target? They're teenage versions of Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Batgirl, Bumblebee, Poison Ivy, and Harley Quinn, done in a style similar to the Monster High dolls. They are super cute, but I wonder if they miss the point. 

The idea behind #WheresRey, and other similar movements, is not that there should be a line of Star Wars Barbies (though how cool would THAT be?) but that boys and girls should be able to play Star Wars together. And that, if they want to, boys can be Rey and girls can be Kylo Ren. The Superhero Girls actually attend Superhero High with teenage versions of Flash and Green Lantern, so why did they only make dolls for the girls? And why did Target, which just last year removed gendered signing from its toy departments, sign on to sell them?

Do girls need their own superheroes?

The toys are actually just part of the story. There's a website, a YouTube channel, an app, and a TV special which premiered recently. I watched the show and I like the "find your own superpower" message. It shows women in authority positions with Principal Amanda Waller, the female villain, and the students in leadership roles. But it seems like the school's population is at least 80% female. Beast Boy and Flash have just as much screen time as some of the girls, but they're the only boys who even speak. I guess it's taken the usual gender division in the superhero world and flipped it on its head. But what does that accomplish? We should be able to promote Girl Power without creating a No Boys Allowed world.

My four year old plays superheroes on the playground at preschool. I think it's bad enough that the world will tell her she can't be Superman, but Supergirl is pretty cool too. Are we now telling her that her best friend has to play on the other side of the playground because he's a boy? The superhero girls were already inside the clubhouse, they shouldn't need to build their own.

That said, I really do like some of the things the DC Superhero Girls are doing. These images are from the Twitter account @DCSuperHeroGirl. There are more supporting women in STEM and some with Wonder Woman supporting women as world leaders.

I also appreciate the fact that the girls aren't all blonde-haired and blue-eyed. (Though why Wonder Woman has blue hair is beyond me.) But I think the toys fumble the diversity ball as well by excluding Katana, one of the only two non-white main characters.

Superhero High would have been a perfect opportunity to create a franchise that appealed to both boys and girls. They could watch the show and play with the toys together, and each child could chose which hero they identify with regardless of gender. Wasn't that the whole point of removing the signs from the toy department, to remove traditional gender expectations and let kids define themselves?

What do you think?

Do girls need their own superheroes?

If you have a topic you'd like to see discussed in a Weres Wanna Know post, let us know in the comments, send us a Facebook message, or email goldiloxandthethreeweres@gmail.com.

Weres Wanna Know: Do You Read Fanfiction?

Weres Wanna Know is a new discussion feature where we share a topic that's been on our minds and invite you to share your thoughts as well.

 

I recently read the The Raven Cycle books and The Captive Prince Trilogy and I've quickly obsessed with both of them. Like super obsessed. I wasn't ready to leave these worlds and characters behind but I had run out of books and I wanted new stories. So I did something that I haven't done since college. Hello, my name is Rose Red and I am not ashamed to say that I read fanfiction.

Do You Read Fanfiction?

I started reading fanfiction in high school when my best friend showed me that there was this online community writing Harry Potter fiction. I think a lot of my generation got introduced to fanfiction through the Harry Potter fandom, to be honest. It was amazing! I got to read stories that had Ron declaring his feelings for Hermione way before it happened in the series. Things just expanded from there to my other fandoms and I'm pretty sure it set the foundation that my love of reading online short fiction stands on. *waves at Fireside Fiction*

Fanfiction provided a way for me to consume new stories that I wouldn't have had. My family didn't have a lot of extra money for books and I grew up in a small rural town in Idaho that had an itty bitty library. Fanfiction gave me something to read when I had run out of printed stories and I was obssessed and consumed everything related to my fandoms I could get my hands on. *hides the Legolas/Gimli slash fic*

I fell off the bandwagon in my last couple of years in college because of lack of time so I haven't read or felt the need to read fanfiction for years now. That all changed when I marathoned The Raven Cycle books in February. Since then I've easily read over 500,000 words of TRC fanfiction and it has reminded me how much I loved this before. There are cheesy fluff pieces, smut, alternate endings, and future fic. I'm really, REALLY enjoying reading TRC future fic where everybody survives and my OTPs get together. Granted, there are still terribly written pieces, pieces that were abandoned and will never be finished, weird OTPs (I read a Luna/Draco fanfic once), and of course, there's the stories that have me hitting the back button so fast that I've probably given my iPad whiplash. Overall, reading fanfic in the TRC and Captive Prince fandoms has been addicting and has satisfied my need for more time with these characters I love. It's been amazing rediscovering how much I love the fanfic community.

The experience has made me want to go back and find all of my old favorites. Sadly, some of the sites I used to read fanfic on are gone since my high school and college days were way before Tumblr was a thing. There are some great new sites though! Archive of our Own is a beautiful place that I wish I had had before and they even let you download ebook versions of your favorite pieces!

Do you read fanfiction? Why or why not? 

If you do, what's your favorite fandom to read? Or site to use? Let's discuss!

If you have a topic you'd like to see discussed in a Weres Wanna Know post, let us know in the comments, send us a Facebook message, or email goldiloxandthethreeweres@gmail.com.

Superweek Weres Wanna Know: Why Do We Love Anti-heroes?

We had so much fun with the Superhero week we put together recently that we decided to do it again. (Plus, we still have a lot of superhero reads in our TBR piles.) All this week we're bringing you more super-themed reviews and features. Don't forget to enter our super giveaway!

Weres Wanna Know is a new discussion feature where we share a topic that's been on our minds and invite you to share your thoughts as well.

This week has been all about superheroes, but with a side of Alpha Showdown. I also finished season 2 of Daredevil on Netflix this week. Originally, I planned to post a review of the show today, but what the convergence of all these topics has got me thinking about is Alpha males and anti-heroes.

There's been a lot of discussion in the comment section and on Twitter about why Showdown voters nominate female characters but don't support them when it comes time to vote. Top-ranked Jane Yellowrock lost her first round match to the bottom ranked character and a lot of people voted for him because they think he's sexy. Gin Blanco lost to a lower ranked male character for the same reason. When we define the term Alpha male we usually use terms like strength, power, dominance, and even possessive or protective. In romance novels, they often seem to be men who make decisions for what they think is the good of others, usually women, without asking. They're prone to mansplaining and general assholishness. Why do we think that's sexy? I, for one, am not a big fan.

An anti-hero, on the other hand, is often sexy. They're rebels who follow their own moral code whether society agrees with it or not. This season of Daredevil was largely about Matt Murdoch deciding if he wanted to be a hero or an anti-hero. (Whiny, waffling Matt, not so sexy BTW.) He believed he was following a code by refusing to kill anyone. He believed he was selflessly defending his community from criminals. But was that really why he did it? Was his way any more effective or any more heroic than Frank Castle's? 

Castle is the epitome of the anti-hero. He probably killed hundreds of people in search of justice as he defined it, regardless of whether society agreed with that definition. But he also protected Karen throughout the season and in the end, he even saved Matt. He was arguably the most likable character in the show. He was also a major badass. If we had an Alpha Showdown for TV characters, I'm pretty sure he'd win. The other thing about Castle is that he could easily have been a hero. It was only after his family was murdered that he became an anti-hero.

Back to my original rant, woman can also be anti-heroes. I've been watching Wynonna Earp on SyFy. Wynonna drinks, sleeps around and generally engages in unheroic behavior. She kills at the drop of a hat. Like Frank Castle, she only kills bad guys (in her case they're demons.) But she does it not to keep the town safe, but in order to break her family curse. And like Castle, she might have been a hero if not for the wrongs done to her.

So why do we love these anti-heroes? There's even been some effort to make iconic heroes like Superman and Captain America darker and more like them. Is it because we sympathize with the trauma that made them that way or because we wish we could be more like them?

What do you think?
Let's discuss!

If you have a topic you'd like to see discussed in a Weres Wanna Know post, let us know in the comments, send us a Facebook message, or email goldiloxandthethreeweres@gmail.com.