This summer, We Live and Breathe Books (Kiersten in particular) is participating in the Summer Blog Promo Tour hosted by The Book Bratz! That means, every Sunday in July and August, we'll be hosting a different blogger to spread the love.
This week, Chayse from The Book Reaper is here for a blogger interview. Read on to find out more about him, his blog, and his favorite books!
Interview with Chayse
Let’s start by introducing yourself and your blog!
My name is Chayse and I blog over at The Book Reaper. I am currently in grad school working towards my Masters in Library and Information Scientist, where one day I hope to become a youth librarian. When I am not reading I love to swim, play volleyball, walk the aisles in Target, and watch movies.
How long have you been blogging? What made you want to start?
I started blogging about 5 yrs ago. I was a part of my local library’s book club when someone came and talked about her blog and what she did. I became interested and contacted her and from there my blogging life took off.
What’s your favorite thing about blogging?
My favorite thing is being able to connect with so many people and also read books I may have never walked into a bookstore to pick up on my own.
Is there a specific book/series that was your gateway to being a reader?
As cheesy as this sounds...Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
What’s your favorite genre to read?
Fantasy
If you could live in any book world, which would it be?
Harry Potter
What characters would you want in your squad?
Hermione Granger, Feyre, Aiden
What are some books you highly recommend?
Zenith, The Mirror King, All American Boys, the list can go on and on...
What upcoming releases are you most looking forward to?
A Torch Against the Night, The Sun is Also a Star, Furthermore,
This summer, We Live and Breathe Books (Kiersten in particular) is participating in the Summer Blog Promo Tour hosted by The Book Bratz! That means, every Sunday in July and August, we'll be hosting a different blogger to spread the love.
Today, Eli from The Silver Words and Kiersten are going to share some of their favorite dances, which is especially appropriate since National Dance Day was yesterday!
Eli's Picks
Hi everyone, and thanks to Kiersten for hosting me today! One of my non-reading/writing interests, dance has been something I’ve been interested in since I was little. I can’t dance myself, but I love watching it, especially hip hop and lyrical hip hop. Here are some of my favorites, in no particular order. If you love any of these dances, or if you have your own to recommend me, don’t be shy and talk to me on Twitter at @thesilverwords :)
iKON - 6 Foot 7 Foot
iKON is one of my favorite kpop groups, and their performances have amazed me since they were trainees. This dance is from when they were competing in the show WIN: Who is Next as Team B, and I love the way that they perfectly synchronized with the music. They work together as a team brilliantly, and they always look like they’re having fun.
Dumbo & Lawrence from Poreotics - Silhouettes
Even though their concepts aren’t the most original or awe-inspiring, Poreotics still manages to wow me with their dances. This has been one of my favorite dances for a long time. It’s elegantly simple, and even though it’s pretty short, it captures the talent of both Lawrence and Dumbo.
Melanie & Marko - I Got You
This dance is from So You Think You Can Dance Season 8, and with it, Melanie and Marko were cemented as my two favorites from that season. They’re both incredibly talented, and I loved the stories that they were able to tell through their dances. This one especially meant a lot to me, and I was glad that they were able to perform it.
Cyrus - Holy Ghost
Admittedly, part of why I love Cyrus so much, as opposed to other amazing poppers, is because of his personality. I admired the way that he persevered and made it so far in So You Think You Can Dance Season 9, and his amazing attitude throughout it all. His Dance for Your Life performance was what brought it all together for me, and I was rooting for him throughout the entire competition. If you’re just as impressed as I am, allow me to recommend this one :)
I Am Me - S&M
Before I Am Me, I was completely partial to Quest Crew. Quest is flashy and fun, but I Am Me won me over with their heart and their incredible ability to work as a team. The illusions that they create are stunning, and their performances are always powerful. This one is one of the many great ones that they did while competing in America’s Best Dance Crew, and I was so proud of them when they won.
Kiersten's Picks
I'm not sure if I've talked about it on here before, but I started dancing when I was 6-years-old, started competing at 9, and even after graduating from high school and retiring from competitive dance, I still dance and choreograph for a dance organization at school. I've done many different styles including contemporary, ballet, pointe, modern, hip hop, jazz, tap, musical theater, and I even took a beginner ballroom class at school. Basically, I've always loved to dance and watch dance. I was supposed to pick five dances to round out this top ten, but I'm going to cheat because I DO WHAT I WANT.
Wade Robson - Ramalama (Bang Bang)
This dance happened in the first season of So You Think You Can Dance, and I'm still not over it. I'll never be over it. This is just one of those dances for me that I'll forever think is absolutely brilliant. It was so different from anything I'd seen before when I first saw it, and I still love it all these years later.
Kyle Hanagami - Iron
I'm working on a dance project in the fall for my friend's honors capstone project, and he's been sending us some of his research so we can start seeing the style for the piece. This is probably my favorite of the dances he's sent so far. The thing I love about this one is that it's so compelling - even when I don't plan on watching it all the way through, I just can't pull my eyes away until the end.
Tricia Miranda - Bitch Better Have My Money
This is one of my favorite hip hop combinations of all time. The great thing about this is how different each group looks doing the same choreography. While I love really precise dances (I'll have one lower that's really tight), there's something so great about looser dancing like this. Also, these people hit this choreography SO HARD. Goals.
Royal Family - FRONTROW
Ok, so I know this is a ten minute dance, but I promise that it's totally worth it. This one was choreographed by Parris Goebel, who you might recognize from Justin Bieber's Sorry music video (Aka the music video that actually made me like that song. Like, I'm so obsessed with the dance that it makes me like the song more. I learned a lot of the choreography from the video, so now I ALWAYS want the song to come on so I can wow all my friends by doing the dance). Anyway, this dance has so many different flavors of hip hop in it, and they're all executed so well. I can't imagine how it must have felt to be in the audience for this.
Since I mentioned watching dance in the audience, I just wanted to add a little bit of my two cents in on that because it is partially related to my next dance pick. I personally feel like there's something that's so much more magical about watching a dance live. When the recital at my dance school was coming up, all the dance classes that happened at the same time would usually come together and show their dances as practice for the performance. There was this one dance from another class that I really loved watching - the choreography was so great, and there was this feeling in the room when they did the dance. Of course, I've since then watched the dance on the recital DVD, but it's not the same. There was something about seeing that dance in person, in the rehearsal space, that added to it - something about watching it up close. From a distance, some of the magic was lost.
Kate Jablonski - In This Shirt
I could go on forever about this dance. This is honestly one of my favorite dances of all time. I think about it almost everyday (I'm not kidding). This is choreography goals to me. Contemporary has always been my favorite style, and I absolutely love this kind of choreography. The dancers are so committed and precise - they dance with such beautiful abandon. The video above is the one posted on the choreographer's YouTube channel, but I'm also going to link to a video of the dance at a competition because I feel like seeing it straight on like an audience would gives an entirely different perspective to the choreography. I'll never get sick of watching this. If I could go back in time and redo anything in my life, it would be making sure that I was in this dance.
So this was originally supposed to be the end of my picks (aka sticking to just five) but then THIS DANCE HAPPENED ON MONDAY NIGHT ON SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE, AND I WOULD BE DOING A DISSERVICE TO YOU ALL IF I DIDN'T INCLUDE IT OK. I'm sorry for yelling.
Travis Wall - Send In The Clowns
I will admit that this one is a bit strange, but it's absolutely beautiful nonetheless. Travis Wall is always brilliant. This is definitely my most artistic pick on this list.
Now Let's Talk More About Me
Like I mentioned above, in the past two years of college I started choreographing for the dance organization that I'm in. I've decided that I'm going to share with you guys some dress rehearsal videos of the dances I choreographed! You can look for me in the videos - I'm the one with the dark hair with blonde underneath, if you can see it.
Atlas
This is the first thing I ever choreographed! It started out as a combination for a workshop, and then I decided to do a full dance with it.
The Fall
After choreographing Atlas my sophomore year, I choreographed two other workshop pieces before I did this one last year. This one was especially fun to work on because I decided to play with a lot of different things happening at the same time. Rehearsals were often confusing, but I think it ended up being pretty cool!
I'm going into my senior year, and I'm hoping to choreograph again this year! I also have this idea for a duet that I want to potentially collaborate on to make a properly filmed version, so hopefully I can make that happen.
If you want to check out some of the workshop combinations I choreographed, you can check out the first one here and the second one here (I sprained my ankle a few days before teaching this workshop, so it was a struggle).
Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this dance post! While it is entirely unrelated to books, I know that Eli and I really enjoyed working on it!
This summer, We Live and Breathe Books (Kiersten in particular) is participating in the Summer Blog Promo Tour hosted by The Book Bratz! That means, every Sunday in July and August, we'll be hosting a different blogger to spread the love.
Today, Tina from Tina The Bookworm is here with us!
Hi Everyone! I’m Tina from Tina The Bookworm and I’d like to thank Kiersten for having me on her blog today. We both tried to brainstorm ideas for a collaborative posts and Kiersten came up with a bookish scavenger hunt. She would give me 10 prompts and I would give her 10 prompts. We saw that we were both supposed to spotlight each other today so you can see the prompts she gave me here and the prompts I gave her on my blog today.
Feel free to join in on the scavenger hunt, and check out what Kiersten found here!
A Book With Over 500 Pages
The Book Thief has a total of 550 pages. I recently just started reading this one and it’s pretty good so far.
A Book With a Face On The Cover
Hannah Fielding always has the most beautiful covers and they mostly have faces on the cover.
A 2016 Release
Emery Lord has the prettiest covers ever. When We Collided was no expectation. I haven’t read this yet but it’s so pretty to look at.
A Book That’s Title Starts With The Same Letter As Your Name (Not Counting “The”)
I actually didn’t think I had any books that started with a C but I saw Catching Fire sitting on my shelf.
A Book With More Than 3 Colors On The Spine
The spine on The Inside of Out by Jenn Marie Throne is just gorgeous.
A Series Finale
I’ve only read The Raven Boys so far and I’ve loved it. I plan on finishing The Raven Cycle very soon.
A Debut (Can Be From Any Year, Just Has To Be The First Book Written By The Author)
This is one of my most anticipated releases of 2016 but I haven’t read it.
A Book With A Sweet Romance
Aristotle and Dante are the sweetest. If you haven’t read this yet, you should.
A Book With A Great Villain
I’ve only read Cinder so far and I have to say that I am loving Queen Levana. I’m curious to see how this series goes.
A Book With Five Words In The Title
This was the hardest prompt. It took me a while to find a book that fit the prompt. I won this one in a giveaway.
Thank you so much Kiersten for the wonderful idea of a Bookish Scavenger Hunt. I loved searching for them.
About Tina
Hey there! I'm Tina
I am a twenty something stay at home mommy of three.
Proud Ravenclaw and Bullet Journalist.
New Adult, Indie and Romance Junkie.
I'm a recovering sodaholic, and by recovering I mean I'm not even trying.
I blog about books, movies, TV shows, and my bullet journal.
This summer, We Live and Breathe Books (Kiersten in particular) is participating in the Summer Blog Promo Tour hosted by The Book Bratz! That means, every Sunday in July and August, we'll be hosting a different blogger to spread the love.
Instinct: a book you picked up because of the cover Valor: a book with a kick-butt heroine
Bayram: TEAM VALOR, definitely Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Kiersten: TEAM MYSTIC!!! (It's ok, we don't let our team differences get between us) - Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins is such a fun book about a magical boarding school.
Bayram: I didn’t buy this book but the latest one I received was Reawakened by Colleen Houck
Kiersten: I feel like I never buy books anymore (I'm trying to read books I already own and use the elibrary), but I did receive an ARC of We Know it Was You by Maggie Thrash at Blogbound Con last weekend!
Pikachu A book that shocked you
Bayram: Riverkeep by Martin Stewart
Kiersten: I'm normally not a huge fan of contemporary romance, but I was shocked by how much I absolutely loved Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum.
Psyduck A book that you don't understand the hype about
Bayram: This is a bit of an old movie but definitely the Twilight movies
Kiersten: And I Darken by Kiersten White is a book I really wanted to love but I just couldn't get into it. It's not that it was bad, it just didn't work out for me.
Magikarp A book that was hard to get into but you ended up loving
Bayram: Illuminae was a bit confusing at the start but I ended up LOVING it
Kiersten: I'm going to cheat a little and do this one as a series. The concept for Cinder by Marissa Meyer put me off of reading it for a long time, but I ended up really loving the series!
Snorlax A slow paced book that was still great
Bayram: Its been a while since I read Passenger but it did seem to be slow throughout but still amazing
Kiersten: The Diviners by Libba Bray is definitely a slow paced book, but the way Libba Bray builds up all these layers in the story makes it so wonderful.
Gastly A book with ghosts
Bayram: I think The Archived by Victoria Schwab had ghosts in it but thats the only one I can think of
Kiersten: The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle is not only perfect for this category but is also one of my favorite books.
Prestige A book you'd consider a new classic (released in the 2000s)
Bayram: Any of the Harry Potter books
Kiersten: I feel like The Hunger Games are already starting to be taught in schools. I feel like it's definitely a staple of the YA genre and especially dystopian as a whole.
Revive A book that you had to recover from
Bayram: ACOMAF!!!!
Kiersten: Definitely A Court of Mist and Fury. All my feels, man. I also remember being a pathetic heap after Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare.
Bayram: Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo, everyone needs to read it
Kiersten: The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone by Adele Griffin is basically always my go to for things like this. It sounds like a strange book, but it's so good.
About Bayram
I am a senior in high school who LOVES to read, especially YA and sci-fi genre books. I started my blog more than two years ago and regularly post reviews of books I have enjoyed and received to review. I have had a passion for reading ever since I was in kindergarten and have only strengthened it ever since. I love talking to the book community and discussing various books with them.
As I mentioned in the last Previously post, We Live and Breathe Books (Kiersten in particular) will be participating in the Summer Blog Promo Tour hosted by The Book Bratz! That means, every Sunday in July and August, we'll be hosting a different blogger to spread the love. I hope you enjoy all the fun content we come up with!
This week, we're hosting Emily from Emily Reads Everything, and she's talking about baking!
I’m a person with many interests. I bounce from one hobby to another. Book Blogging is really the only thing I’ve ever done consistently for any period of time. I’ve had periods of time when I focused on crochet, sewing, knitting (never got the hang of this), biking, geocaching, playing ingress, roleplaying games and cosplay. I start a hobby, buy a bunch of materials for that hobby, begin a big project, then lose interest or get distracted. Maybe you can relate?
So not too long ago, my baking caught my interest. I started small, using boxed mixes and canned frosting. Even with all the ingredients in front of you, it can be a daunting task. Cakes can be difficult. They are prone to falling and can be a mess. I had a few big disasters.
Then I started researching recipes to bake cakes from scratch. There are so many food and cooking blogs online with fantastic recipes. Getting your recipes online though also can mean that they haven’t been sufficiently tested. Just recently I found a delicious looking recipe for chocolate cupcakes with chocolate peanut butter frosting. However, after following it exactly and refrigerating the frosting for 8 hours, it was still frosting soup. I ending up using the first frosting recipe (the soup) as a filling and I made a tried and true peanut butter frosting as the actual topping.
The recipe I’m proudest of perfecting is my butterbeer cupcakes!
These cupcakes require a from scratch cake base, a filling and a frosting, so they aren’t for the faint of heart. Still, they are worth every bit of the effort. They are sweet and buttery and delicious. After having butterbeer for the first time this week, I can tell you that these are a fairly good representation of the real thing!
If you want to try to make them yourself, check out the recipe from Erica’s Sweet Tooth. I’d love to see pictures when you are done! Good luck!
