Getting Rooted in New Zealand guest post

I'm excited to welcome author Jamie Baywood to my blog today to talk about her book Getting Rooted in
Zealand. I love travelling, so this one definitely interests me! Anyway, here's Jamie:


It was always my dream to live abroad when I was growing up in California. I had bad dating experiences in California and read in a New Zealand tour book that the country’s population at 100,000 fewer men than women. I wanted to have some me time and an adventure. New Zealand seemed like a good place to do so. Although I intended to have a solo adventure I ended up meeting my husband a Scottish man in New Zealand. 

I consider myself an accidental author. I didn’t go to New Zealand with the intentions of writing a book about my experiences there. I had funny experiences that I had trouble believing were true. I wrote the stories down to stay sane. I wrote situations down that were happening around me and shared them with friends. The stories made people laugh so I decided to organize the stories into a book and publish in the hopes to make others laugh too.

One of the first people I meet was Colin Mathura-Jeffree from New Zealand’s Next Top Model. I had no idea who he was or that he was on TV when I meet him. He is friends with my former flatmate. We had a steep staircase that I kept falling down. Colin taught me to walk like a model so I wouldn’t fall down the stairs. 

In New Zealand, I had a lot of culture shock. One of the most memorable moments was learning the meaning of the Kiwi slang word “rooted.” One night I was brushing my teeth with my flatmate and I said, ‘I’m really excited to live in this house because I have been travelling a lot and I just need to settle down, stop traveling and get rooted’. He was choking on his toothbrush and asked me if I knew what that meant because it had a completely different meaning New Zealand than it does in the States.

I had the opportunity to write and perform for Thomas Sainsbury the most prolific playwright in New Zealand. I performed a monologue about my jobs in the Basement Theatre in Auckland. The funny thing about that experience was Tom kept me separated from the other performers until it was time to perform. I was under the impression that all the performers were foreigners giving their experiences in New Zealand. All of the other performers were professional actors telling stories that weren’t their own. At first I was mortified, but the audience seemed to enjoy my “performance,” laughing their way through my monologue. After the shows we would go out and mingle with the audience. People would ask me how long I had been acting. I would tell them, “I wasn’t acting; I have to go to work tomorrow and sit next to the girl wearing her dead dog’s collar around her neck.” 

I love making people laugh more than anything else. I feel very grateful when readers understand my sense of humor. I plan to divide my books by the countries I’ve lived in. My next book will be about attempting to settle in Scotland. 


About the book Getting Rooted in New Zealand:

Craving change and lacking logic, at 26, Jamie, a cute and quirky Californian, impulsively moves to New Zealand to avoid dating after reading that the country's population has 100,000 fewer men. In her journal, she captures a hysterically honest look at herself, her past and her new wonderfully weird world filled with curious characters and slapstick situations in unbelievably bizarre jobs. It takes a zany jaunt to the end of the Earth and a serendipitous meeting with a fellow traveler before Jamie learns what it really means to get rooted.


About the author Jamie Baywood:

Jamie Baywood grew up in Petaluma, California. In 2010, she made the most impulsive decision of her life by moving to New Zealand. Getting Rooted in New Zealand is her first book about her experiences living there. Jamie is now married and living happily ever after in the United Kingdom. She is working on her second book.

Getting Rooted in New Zealand is available in paperback and ebook on Amazon

Jamie Baywood can be followed on the following sites: Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Goodreads | Amazon


Thanks so much to Jamie for being on my blog today (and for making me check the meaning of rooted on Urban Dictionary)!

Stacking the Shelves (3)

Stacking the Shelves is a meme by Tynga's Reviews to share the books you've recently acquired.

Last weekend was the Edmonton Book Bloggers Holiday meetup. While I don't live in Edmonton currently, I made the 3 hour drive to visit my fellow bloggers. I even got to meet two of the newer members, Mandy from Forever Young Adult and Tanya (whose blog I can't find suddenly. Tanya, if you read this, please comment with your blog link and I will come visit you).

We did our secret santa, which is always a blast. Tanya totally spoiled me. Ambur from Burning Impossibly Bright also spoiled me! Fellow bloggers Tammy, Ambur, Cass and Aylee and I also made some baby quilts from the new (or very soon to be) moms in the group.


Gifted:

The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong
The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong
The Reckoning by Kelley Armstrong
Devonian Garden bookmark - doesn't the one flower look like a tropical fish!
HUGE thanks to Tanya for gifting me this entire trilogy. It was nice to meet you as well!

Racing Savannah by Miranda Kenneally
Thanks so much Ambur! I was so excited to read this! I'm a sucker for anything about horses and this series comes so highly recommended.


Review:

Unaccompanied Minor by Hollis Gillespie
No Surrender Soldier by Christine Kohler
Thanks to Merit Press!

That's all for me this week! I can't wait to see what everyone else got!

One more reading challenge - Book Bingo

Ok, so I was really going to limit myself on my reading challenges this year, but then I decided I had to add one more. Partly because I've met Kristilyn is real life and she is awesome!

Of course, a challenge isn’t really a challenge unless there are some rules and guidelines:

1. Be awesome. If you’re not, this isn’t going to work.
2. The challenge runs from January 1 to December 31, 2014.
3. If you want to participate, you can join in any time of the year! Feel free to write up a blog post with the rules linking back to my and Anne’s blog in your sign-up post. You can add your post to the Linky at the end of this post!
4. If you read one book for the “1 book” in any category, you can’t change it later on when you read another book to “2 books.” Once a square is crossed off, it’s crossed off for good! (Feel free to print off the scoreboard to keep track!)
5. Books read for one square are for that square ONLY and cannot be counted towards another category. This is all about reading ALL THE BOOKS.
6. The FREE SQUARES are a little different this year — now you can use those squares to read ANY book you like of any genre! Woo!
7. You can start your board over again, but ONLY if you receive the stamp of awesome by completing a blackout. The “winners” of the challenge will be the ones who achieve the most winning combinations by the end of 2014.
8. You can feel free to post your reading list for each category, though it’s not a requirement.
9. Having a blog or writing reviews for books read is not required. So long as you want to have fun, you can participate!
10. Every 3 months I will post an update here and all participants can link to their own updates. An update post will go up April 1st, July 1st, October 1st, and December 31st.
11. This isn’t a race, but don’t be afraid to rub your reads in the other player’s face. This will be seen as encouragement. Feel free to use the hashtag #BookBingo2014on Twitter!

While you can definitely “win” by the boring ol’ vertical or horizontal (or diagonal!) lines, the best ways to win are as follows:

Like it says in the guidelines, the ONLY way to start a new board is to become the SUPER READER! The goal is to read ALL THE BOOKS! To be a winner (thus, to become the awesomest reader around), you’ll want to accomplish as many wins as possible!

I'm not going to get too worried about this one and basically not set a goal and see how far I get. Maybe once I finish my other reading challenges, I can focus on this one.

Review: Cinder

Info:
Title: Cinder
Author: Marissa Meyer
Series: The Lunar Chronicles #1
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Publication Date: January 3, 2012
Source: Purchased


Synopsis: 
Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl.

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

Review:
I am in love with this book. Seriously! Best book I've read in months.

Sometimes it's hard to write reviews of book you love that make sense and aren't completely filled with fangirl flailing. But here it goes:

Characters: Awesome!
Plot: Awesome!
World-building: Extra Awesome!

There were so many little details and excellent minor characters. Like Iko, who is probably my very favourite character. The world-building, as I said, was a highlight for me. It was so good. There were no noticeable info dumps, but I felt like I really knew the world.

The only possibly negative thing I have to say is that it was a touch predictable. Retelling often are, by their nature, but the big twist near the end I predicted on page 116. This didn't matter to me though, I still loved the book and having guessed the ending didn't diminish my enjoyment at all. In fact, it probably increased it because I got to shout "I KNEW IT!" at the top of my lungs. So satisfying.

Basically, I loved Cinder and wish I hadn't waited so long to start it. But on the bright side, now I can dive straight into Scarlet.

 Find the Book:
 Goodreads | Amazon | The Book Depostiory

Find the Author: 
 Goodreads | Web | Facebook | Twitter

Don't Just Take My Word For It:

Xpresso Reads

Cover Compare: The Fault in Our Stars

Oh, The Fault in Our Stars. I'll read you one day, I promise. Until then, here's a cover compare.

Wow, this one has been translated a boat-load of times. Some are lovely (Hebrew anyone?), some are ugly (sorry Dutch) some look like every other YA book ever (Lithuanian and Spanish) and some are just bizarre (the strangle childlike Indonesian cover). Overall, I think my favourite is the Hebrew. I do like the US cover, not neccessarily for the cover, but for the way it looks on my shelf. I can pick it out immediately when I glance over due to it's beautiful bright blue spine. Which is your favourite?

US

German

Portuguese

Italian

Dutch

Indonesian

Spanish

Finnish

Danish

Polish

Norwegian

Lithuanian

Hebrew

Chinese

DNF Files (2)

4 to 16 Characters - Kelly Hourihan

This one was a case of not being able to stand the main character for one more page. She was so annoying and bitchy and arrogant. I liked the idea the author was going for, but the format didn't quite work either. But mostly I just wanted to punch Jane in the face.













The Mayfair Moon by J. A. Redmerski

This one was more boring than bad. There was nothing particularly terrible about it, I just felt like I'd read it before. It has a serious Twilight feel, so if that's your thing you might love this one. But Adria was boring and seemed a bit dumb and I just felt like my life wasn't going to be any better for having read this book. Also, look at how creepy that dude's hand is! Eww!!!!










These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner

I feel so bad for DNFing this one! I love YA sci-fi and honestly wish there was more of it. However, These Broken Stars didn't do it for me. I had two main gripes with this one and I know 100% that one of them in totally personal preference. That's the romance. It felt like the ENTIRE story, which is crazy considering there's a space ship crash. But I felt like everything was thrust into the background to make room for Lilac and Tarver trying to deny their feelings. I definitely prefer romance to be secondary in books, so this one wasn't for me for this reason. Secondly, Lilac drove me insane. She's really whiny and useless and annoying for me. I mean, I understand that it has to do with her class, but I found her really annoying and unlikeable. Considering at one point she says "the ultimate humiliation" is for Tarver to see her smiling because he gave her a compliment. Really? THAT'S the ultimate humilitaion? Seriously. I'm definitely the black sheep on this one, as most other bloggers seemed to have loved this one!

Source

Stacking the Shelves (2)

Stacking the Shelves is a meme by Tynga's Reviews to share the books you've recently acquired. I haven't done one in a couple months, but I've really tried to cut down on the number of review books I request and books I buy.

For review:
Poor Little Dead Girls by Lizzie Friend - Thanks to Merit Press!
Camelot Burning by Kathryn Rose - Thanks to Flux and Netgalley

Bought:
World After by Susan Ee
The Gathering Storm By Robin Bridges
Star Wars: Scoundrels by Timothy Zahn
A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin -  This one was acutally a Christmas gift for the bf