A Year at JYTBB

I thought it'd be fun to do some highlights of what all has happened over the past year here at JYTBB. It also allowed me to see how much things have changed, what I need to work on, and to quit slacking on my reading!



♥JANUARY

We still had weekly slogans like Manic Monday, Teaser Tuesday, Writers Wednesday, Rock This! Thursday, and Fantasy Friday during this month.  The first author we ever interviewed was Cassandra Clare. Cassandra was also our very first Author of the Month.


We reviewed a total of 6 books. My personal favorite was Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway.

♥FEBRUARY


During this month is where real life kicked in and we barely had any posts. This is about the time the daily slogans also got canned. Our Author of the Month and second author interview was Amanda Marrone.
We also were contacted by a couple authors via myspace to review their books.

A grand total of 2 books were reviewed. My personal favorite was Cracked Up To Be by Courtney Summers.

♥MARCH

This was the month we started to get the hang of things, started meeting other bloggers, and got this blog really rolling! We had a lot of our blogger firsts, too. Our Author of the Month pick was Elizabeth Scott who let us interview her. We also held our very first contest with Scott's then new release of Something, Maybe.

We made our first rating system with bookworms. One of our readers named Emily did a guest review of That Summer by Sarah Dessen. We received our very first award from Christina over at Insert Book Title!  Signed up for the 100+ Reading Challenge (we failed at this!). We did our first double review of the book Need by Carrie Jones. Cheryl received her first signed book, Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols which was super exciting! We also decided that doing double reviews were boring so after we both read Going Too Far, Cheryl and Amber Discuss was born!  I also thanked Stephenie Meyer for getting my older sister back into reading.

We reviewed a grand total of 14 books! Favorites were Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols and Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkles. Also in my review of Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr, I showed off my very first tattoo. It also gets tons of hits still because most people are looking for the tattoo in the book, but instead get mine - oops!

♥APRIL


Our Author of the Month pick was Jennifer Echols who also did an interview with us. I rocked the drop and readergirlz is doing this again in 2010. We did our first meme of I'd Verb His Noun. (I plan on bringing this meme back in action.)

We reviewed 7 books in the month. My favorite read would have to be Something, Maybe by Elizabeth Scott.

♥MAY

We interviewed authors Roger L. Trott and Deborah Davis. We were contacted by our first publisher - exciting! Also started to kick off the plans for the next month's big giveaway.

We reviewed 6 books for the month. Some of my favorites were Getting In Tune by Roger L. Scott and Glass Houses: Morganville Vampire Series by Rachel Caine.

♥JUNE

Our Author of the Month was Sarah Dessen. To celebrate the release of her newest book, Along for the Ride, we had our very first huge giveaway: Sarah Dessen Extravangazna! Because of this, June had the most hits on the blog for the ENTIRE year! Besides that I also did my first concert post for Rock This! Thursday.

We reviewed 6 books for the month. I fell in love with the book If I Stay bye Gayle Forman.

♥JULY

Our Author of the Month was Stephanie Kuehnert who was nice enough to do an interview and do the first official Rock This! Thursday interview. Author Michelle Zink also stopped by to Rock This! at the end of the month. We also had what I thought was the coolest giveaway at the time. A free bookcase offered up by CSN Furniture. Sadly, the winner NEVER received their bookcase even after I emailed CSN about seven different times and got no response. #CSNFAIL!

We reviewed 5 books and by far my favorite was City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. (And I will say this to the death - Garrett Hedlund needs to play Jace!)

♥AUGUST

We interviewed author R.A. Riekki. Author Jack Regan did a guest post. I did a book blog photo shoot with my niece. And JYTBB was nominated for the BBAW Awards!

We reviewed 5 books for the month. My favorite book besides completely devouring the rest of the Moral Insturment series was Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler.

♥SEPTEMBER

I did my first ever interview over at Monniblog. Rock This! Thursday had its first interview with a fellow blogger, Handle Like Hendrix.

My book reading just went down hill with a whoppin' 4 reviews for the month. The favorite read was Hate List by Jennifer Brown.

♥OCTOBER

To celebrate Halloween, we held a Trick or Treat Giveaway that went all month long! I was featured in Bloggers Get Blogged at author Hayley Anne Perkin's site. We had our first international giveaway thanks to Nancy Holder.

5 books were reviewed for the month. My favorite read was Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick.

♥NOVEMBER


NaNoWriMo kicked started which pretty much left me MIA. I got the nerve to post some snippets from my very raw and horrible rough draft, but enjoyed everyone's feedback! Also the blog hit 300 followers!! WHOOT WHOOT!!

Read 3 books for the month. My favorite was Demon Princess: Reign or Shine by Michelle Rowen.

♥DECEMBER


This was my month of slowly getting back into the swing of things. I started making sure Rock This! Thursday was a regular feature and have interviewed some great bloggers. I listed my Top 10 reads of 2009.

I reviewed 5 books and my top favorite was Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers.


It's been a great and fun year and I'm ready to really get back into the blog with more reviews and fun features!

♥amber