Where do you get all those books?

I have a few friends that have asked this numerous times. You see, I'm a recovering book-a-holic. That doesn't mean I don't read anymore, it means I can't go into a bookstore without having a book blackout and spending hundreds of dollars. But I love books, and I always have a new book to read, how do I do it? I'm magic! Seriously though, there's many different ways to get free books - legally. You can enter contests - I'm really good at winning those, just won one today. You can join a street team for one of your favorite authors; some of them give you advanced reading copies (ARCs). There's always Amazon, of course! And to help weed out the rotten freebies from the good ones, Bitten By Books has a nice list for ya! Click here, for free reads.

Toe-Tapping Thursday: Go Slow

I almost forgot about Toe-Tapping Thursday - a lot of craziness happened last night. Let's just say it involved me moving a sofa from my 2nd floor apartment all the way downstairs and outside by myself, and leave it at that.

But while I was struggling with furniture, or playing online games, or reading, or whatever else I've done this week, there was one song that I kept listening to. And when I wasn't listening to it, I was humming it or singing it in my head. The song is Go Slow by HAIM. Yes, I know I talked about HAIM a few weeks ago, but in my defense I spoke of them as a whole, and now I'm speaking about one particular song.

Usually what I do when I listen to an album, is locate my favorite track and listen to it non stop. Then slowly, I start listening to the rest of the album, with a lot of repeats of the favorite track. But little by little, I find a 2nd favorite song, or a discover I really like the beat of a certain song or the lyrics of another track speak to me. This is what happened with Go Slow. After exhausting If I Could Change Your Mind and Better Off, I found myself going back to Go Slow. I think what really made it my current obsession was their live performances of the song; I found little nuances that I hadn't heard in the album - they're there, I hear them now that I know to look for them, but they're so far in the background that I've missed it this whole time. The lyrics are really good; the more I listened to them, the more I realized that they spoke to me. The song is about an ex and I think we all have an ex, right? :P It's just a great song overall, HAIM killed it with this track in a very sneaky way; the song is understated until you really listen to it...a lot. LOL.

(Funny story before I show the video/song: If you read my post on HAIM from a few weeks ago, or if you're a fan of the band, you know that Alana Haim looks like Troian Bellisario from Pretty Little Liars. Well, HAIM performed at Coachella this past weekend, and Troain was there. Someone tweeted Troian, "Hey are you in HAIM!?" and Troian replied, "Yes I am." HAHAHA! Love it!!!)

Ok ok here it is - this is my favorite live performance that I've seen. And it has a funny pick up line in the end. :P

Toe-Tapping Thursday: Heartburn

I'll admit it - after I wrote last week's Toe-Tapping Thursday I binge-watched Making The Band 3 seasons one and two. I loved that show, and watching the formation of Danity Kane. Ok, I mainly watched for Laurieann Gibson and her boom kacks - I can watch her forever.

My MTB3/Danity Kane (re)obsession last week has led to this week's Toe-Tapping Thursday song: Heartburn by Alicia Keys. If you've seen MTB3 then you know that Laurieann used this song (as well as others) to teach the girls choreography. This was always my favorite song that they danced to, (aside from the track that they girls had to write lyrics to) and I'll be honest, the first time I saw this show I didn't know who sang the song. It wasn't until I was rewatching it all last week that the song came on and I immediately recognized Alicia Key's voice. "How the hell did I NOT realize that before!?" I'm special. :P

So here it is, the song that has been playing non stop this week - Heartburn by Alicia Keys:

Did You Just Sign Me Up To Your Newsletter Without My Permission?

I just realized this earlier today, and the more I think about it, the more irritated I become. We all know I love to read and some of you may know that I have a book review blog (see the tab above), and I'm all for supporting authors...that being said, I don't like people to just assume things or push things on me without my knowledge or consent.

Now, I have been pretty active these last two weeks; entering contests, adding new authors, following said authors, etc. and there is a very small chance that I did this myself - but I don't think so. Here's why:

I don't know this author. I've never read anything by them. I even looked at my browser history to see if her name popped up and nothing did. I am familiar with the author's name, and that's because my best friend, who is also one of my contributors to Book Verse, wrote a review for one of her books. I went over and checked the date of the review and then did a search in my inbox to see when the first newsletter came in, and it was dated 3 days after my friend posted her review.

So here is what I think happened: She got a ping on Google or something alerting her that someone had mentioned her name, and she went to my blog and read the nice review that my friend left, and then clicked on the contributor links where I have my email address and proceeded to sign me up to her newsletter.

Like I said, I don't have a problem supporting authors. In fact, I have gotten emails before from authors who asked if I could read and review one of their books, or to follow them on social media or sign up to their newsletter. I am more than happy to. But don't force it upon me. I will choose whether or not to follow you or your newsletter - do not take the choice away from me. And yes, I know I can (and definitely plan to) unsubscribe, but the lack of courtesy really bugs me. I have my email address up so if an author wants to contact me for whatever reason they can, not so you can abuse it and spam me. Yes I called it spam, because it was unsolicited.

For any writers/authors reading this: This isn't meant to discourage you from contacting me. I welcome it! A simple, "Hi, thanks for the nice review. Can I sign you up for my newsletter?" will go a long way with me.

Toe-Tapping Thursday: Welcome To The Dollhouse

This week's Toe-Tapping Thursday is the album Welcome To The Dollhouse by Danity Kane. This was the group's sophomore (and last) album which came out back in 2008.

I was obsessed with this group almost since the very beginning. I stumbled across a marathon of Making The Band 3 one weekend and I LOVED it! From that moment on, I was invested in finding out who Diddy was going to pick to be in the band. And from the very beginning, both Aundrea and Aubrey were my favorites - and they ultimately ended up becoming two of the members. I loved how they become best friends. Of course they didn't stay best friends...

It was a long road forming this group. At the end of the season, Diddy did not make a band. Instead he picked some of the contestants to move on to round 2 (Making The Band 3 Season 2) where they - along with new contestants - had to dance harder, and sing better. At the end of this season Danity Kane was formed. Unfortunately they didn't last long. There was a lot of drama between the girls and Diddy, and he eventually fired Aubrey and D. Woods from the group. Shortly after that he got rid of Aundrea and only kept Dawn (I think Shannon left of her own accord, I don't remember honestly). It was heartbreaking seeing these girls who worked their asses off disband in a relatively short amount of time.

But they're back! The girls have gotten back together - sans D. Woods - and are working on their third studio album, and are going on tour this May. I think that's cool. Makes me wonder if Aubrey and Aundrea overcame their issues and are good friends again.

Anyway, for some reason I just had this urge to listen to their second album, so I went searching for it in my room and found it rather quickly. I hadn't listened to it in over 4 years, and I'd forgotten how good it was. Of course I remembered how good the song Damaged was, since it was their single. And Bad Girl was always playing in my old apartment (it was my Whore's anthem). But I forgot how good the other tracks were, especially Strip Tease and 2 Of You which are my favorite tracks besides Damaged.

I will definitely check out their third album when it comes out.