Saturday, June 10, 2017

Author's Corner - Rachael Renee Anderson


Welcome to our newest Book Blog Meme hosted by Bookworm NationKatie's Clean Book Collection and KJ's Book Nook! Once a month Author's Corner will feature either a favorite author or new to us author. We will share the author's bio, one of our favorite books of theirs and a review. Each of us will be featuring a different author each month so there will also be links to each of our posts.

We love finding and sharing amazing authors with others, we thought this would be the perfect way to share the love not only with other bookworms but with the authors that we absolutely adore! So... without further adieu...



Rachael has been a favorite of mine for a very long time. I just really click with her books and love recommending them to people. I've been lucky enough to even meet her in person, and she was SO nice! I was pregnant with my twinners at the time and had my baby Josh with me. It was at an author book signing at B&N, there were a bunch of authors there and when I saw Rachael I was so excited, because I just loved her books. We chatted for a bit and have stayed in touch since.

While it was easy choosing Rachael to spotlight, it was a little harder narrowing down a favorite book of hers to showcase. For me, all her books are five star reads. She has a smooth writing style that really sucks you into the story. Likable characters with fun plots and I'm hooked every time. I decided to go with Working It Out, I really loved the characters in this one and the plot. Lots of fun chemistry, and it's one I think everyone would enjoy.


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And don't for get to check out Kathy Jo's post here and Katie's post here!

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Do you have a blog and want to join us for Author's Corner? Then grab the picture and post with us! We will be posting the 2nd Saturday of each month. Make sure you share your link with us so we can check out your favorite authors as well! 

Happy reading my fellow bookworms!


Thursday, June 1, 2017

My Choice to Boycott Simon & Schuster

**Update 06/05/17-- I had to go digging because Simon & Schuster has yet to release an official statement, and now I know why. I found this response from them on a comment on their Facebook page "Thank you for your comment. Our authors' opinions and comments on issues unrelated to their books are theirs alone." In other words, THEY DON'T CARE. I still with my decision to no longer review or purchase books published by them.

I don't want to get into politics, for me reading and my review blog is meant to be a fun escape from the sometimes serious cares of the world. However, since this particular issue actually involves a children's book author and the publishing industry, I wanted to share my thoughts.

As I'm sure many of you are aware, the "comedian" Kathy Griffin posted a disturbing and offensive picture to her Twitter account the other day. Of course, there was a lot of uproar over it and one author at Simon & Schuster (Ken Jennings) decided to chime in. His target for his attack ended up being that of the President's son, an innocent eleven-year-old boy, who should be completely off limits to any kind of political attack. Or any attack really. If you haven't seen his Tweet yet, here it is...


Politics aside, where is this man's empathy? Can you imagine an 11yo child sitting at home when up on the TV screen appears a picture of their father, beheaded and bloody. By all accounts, this was a very traumatic experience for the young boy. When Mr. Jennings learns that the child was upset about the photo, he takes to twitter to MOCK the child for his obvious trauma. It's disgusting. Not only has he left his offensive tweet up, but he has doubled down on his post and has issued no apology.

I took a moment to look over his twitter feed and found that this incident is not a unique one. He can be found mocking the disabled, the dead and he thinks rape is funny. And I'm sure there are many more of these sprinkled throughout his feed.  His sense of "humor" leaves a lot to be desired, I guess nothing is off limits for him.




It took me a minute to place who Jennings was, I vaguely remember him doing well on Jeopardy. I haven't thought of him since and had no idea he wrote children's books. I was stunned when I found that out yesterday, that someone who makes a living writing books for CHILDREN would openly mock a CHILD. I don't care about his political views, or his lame attempts at humor. But I have to draw the line when he abuses a child. And that's what this was... him thinking it was okay to bully an 11yo. And from what I understand, Jennings also has children, one of which is also 11yo. He should know better.

What I find most upsetting is that this man claims to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a faith which teaches that we should love our fellow men and to show kindness to others and to try and become like our Savior, Jesus Christ. Mr. Jennings is not a representative of this great faith, he has not shown kindness or love for others and his disgusting treatment of an innocent child shows his low morals and character.

I know that Simon & Schuster is aware of this situation, I know they have been flooded with complaints and yet they have yet to respond. I thought for sure by this morning they would have at the very least issued some kind of statement, at most a termination of Jenning's contract. Nothing. Their lack of action leads me to believe that they approve of his behavior and must share his views. Because of this, I can no longer support their company. Their complete indifference that one of their children's authors actively bullies a child is unacceptable to me. I hope others will join me in this and not support this author or his publishing company.