Forbes Arnone's Blog, page 7
April 11, 2015
J is for Jaded
Reading and Wraps (Jamberry Nail Wraps)
Jaded and Maybe Someday
Maybe Someday is such an awesome book with all the incredible feels. Ridge is my book boyfriend, so watch out!! He’s mine. :) Sydney just had a really bad experience and is left totally Jaded. I’ve paired this book with the nail wrap, Jaded. It’s a perfect fit. Colleen Hoover has easily become an instant read author of mine. Anything she releases, I’ll read. I love all her books, but this is my favorite! You’ve got to read it, and, bonus, Griffin Peterson recorded an album especially for this book. So, the lyrics in the book actually have real songs to go with them.
Maybe Someday by Colleen Hoover
Summary:
At twenty-two years old, Sydney is enjoying a great life: She’s in college, working a steady job, in love with her wonderful boyfriend, Hunter, and rooming with her best friend, Tori. But everything changes when she discovers that Hunter is cheating on her—and she’s forced to decide what her next move should be.
Soon, Sydney finds herself captivated by her mysterious and attractive neighbor, Ridge. She can’t take her eyes off him or stop listening to the passionate way he plays his guitar every evening out on his balcony. And there’s something about Sydney that Ridge can’t ignore, either. They soon find themselves needing each other in more ways than one.
A passionate tale of friendship, betrayal, and romance, Maybe Someday will immerse readers in Sydney’s tumultuous world from the very first page.
To learn more about Jamberry Nail Wraps, go to my website http://jenngarcia.jamberrynails.net
If you ‘d like to pair nail wraps with your favorite books, use hashtag #reading&wrapsjjn to share!
Filed under: A to Z Challenge, Writing
April 10, 2015
I is for Island Energy
Reading and Wraps (Jamberry Nail Wraps)
Island Energy and Honolulu
I have to say this is the best book I’ve read this year and the second best book I’ve ever read.
I love historicals with rich views on other countries and cultures. I also love books about family. Island Energy is a perfect wrap for this book because not only does the heroine in this book have some serious strength and energy, but the wrap also fits with the island location.This was a book about a strong woman, who despite every single obstacle she was faced with, rose above. And it’s important to know that not only did she continue but she accomplished so much more than anyone could have ever imagined. Her road was difficult and filled with so many twists and turns, rights and wrongs, and happy and sad moments.
The author had a wide group of side characters that quickly became very important. He brought them all alive and gave them strong roles in the story. He was able to bring out so much emotion in me that I hadn’t sobbed or laughed this much since I read The Shoemaker’s Wife by Adrianna Trigiani.
Not only did the author succeed in throwing us into the lives of these characters, but he took us on a tour of Korea and Oahu. His descriptions were vivid and amazing and made me feel that I was there seeing it with my own eyes.
This is one of those books that will “stick” with me forever and I recommend this for anyone that wants to be a part of a rich vivid tale of a strong woman.
Summary:
The story of a young immigrant bride in a ramshackle town that becomes a great modern city
“In Korea in those days, newborn girls were not deemed important enough to be graced with formal names, but were instead given nicknames, which often reflected the parents’ feelings on the birth of a daughter: I knew a girl named Anger, and another called Pity. As for me, my parents named me Regret.”
Honolulu is the rich, unforgettable story of a young “picture bride” who journeys to Hawai’i in 1914 in search of a better life.
Instead of the affluent young husband and chance at an education that she has been promised, she is quickly married off to a poor, embittered laborer who takes his frustrations out on his new wife. Renaming herself Jin, she makes her own way in this strange land, finding both opportunity and prejudice. With the help of three of her fellow picture brides, Jin prospers along with her adopted city, now growing from a small territorial capital into the great multicultural city it is today. But paradise has its dark side, whether it’s the daily struggle for survival in Honolulu’s tenements, or a crime that will become the most infamous in the islands’ history…
With its passionate knowledge of people and places in Hawai’i far off the tourist track, Honolulu is most of all the spellbinding tale of four women in a new world, united by dreams, disappointment, sacrifices, and friendship.
To learn more about Jamberry Nail Wraps, go to my website http://jenngarcia.jamberrynails.net
If you ‘d like to pair nail wraps with your favorite books, use hashtag #reading&wrapsjjn to share!
Filed under: A to Z Challenge, Writing
April 9, 2015
H is for Happily Ever After
Reading and Wraps (Jamberry Nail Wraps)
Happily Ever After and Persuasion
One thing all the books I love must have in common is a Happily Ever After. That doesn’t mean it’s all I read. One of my most favorite authors is Jane Austen, and my favorite book of hers is Persuasion. I do love all her books, but that one touched me the most. Anne Elliot is persuaded to break off her engagement to naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, because he’s beneath her. Of course, she loves him and regrets her decision forever, but seven years later, she sees him again. And, the rest you’ll have to get from reading it. However, you will get a Happily Ever After.
Summary:
Twenty-seven-year old Anne Elliot is Austen’s most adult heroine. Eight years before the story proper begins, she is happily betrothed to a naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, but she precipitously breaks off the engagement when persuaded by her friend Lady Russell that such a match is unworthy. The breakup produces in Anne a deep and long-lasting regret. When later Wentworth returns from sea a rich and successful captain, he finds Anne’s family on the brink of financial ruin and his own sister a tenant in Kellynch Hall, the Elliot estate. All the tension of the novel revolves around one question: Will Anne and Wentworth be reunited in their love?
Jane Austen once compared her writing to painting on a little bit of ivory, 2 inches square. Readers of Persuasion will discover that neither her skill for delicate, ironic observations on social custom, love, and marriage nor her ability to apply a sharp focus lens to English manners and morals has deserted her in her final finished work.
Side Note: Jamberry has a Nail Art Studio that allows you to design your own website. I designed some Austen wraps that I wear to my JASNA book club meetings. I love these!!!
To learn more about Jamberry Nail Wraps, go to my website http://jenngarcia.jamberrynails.net
If you ‘d like to pair nail wraps with your favorite books, use hashtag #reading&wrapsjjn to share!
Filed under: A to Z Challenge, Writing
April 8, 2015
G is for Gelato
Reading and Wraps (Jamberry Nail Wraps)
Gelato and The Big Stone Gap Series
I have to start off stating that I love the way Adriana Trigiani writes. She has a way with words and uses them to paint a scene so vivid that you feel as if you’re there.
I started reading her books out of order. I discovered her through the The Shoemaker’s Wife (which I used for the first day of Reading and Wraps) from the NYT Best Seller’s List and fell in love.
Her books are always so heartfelt. Big Stone Gap made me fall in love with Virginia like no other. The book had me in tears almost throughout the whole thing. I was either heartbroken, touched, or so happy that the tears wouldn’t stop flowing. It took me two days to finish this book. This whole series, like all Adriana’s books have Italy in them some how. So, Gelato reminds me of this book so much, because Ave Maria really finds out who she is when she goes to Italy. Not to mention, Gelato is one of the most gorgeous wraps that came out in the new Spring catalog.
Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani
Summary:
“FUNNY, CHARMING, AND ORIGINAL.”
-FANNIE FLAGG
Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, the tiny town of Big Stone Gap is home to some of the most charming eccentrics in the state. Ave Maria Mulligan is the town’s self-proclaimed spinster, a thirty-five year old pharmacist with a “mountain girl’s body and a flat behind.” She lives an amiable life with good friends and lots of hobbies until the fateful day in 1978 when she suddenly discovers that she’s not who she always thought she was. Before she can blink, Ave’s fielding marriage proposals, fighting off greedy family members, organizing a celebration for visiting celebrities, and planning the trip of a lifetime-a trip that could change her view of the world and her own place in it forever. Brimming with humor and wise notions of small-town life, “Big Stone Gap” is a gem of a book with a giant heart. . . .
To learn more about Jamberry Nail Wraps, go to my website http://jenngarcia.jamberrynails.net
If you ‘d like to pair nail wraps with your favorite books, use hashtag #reading&wrapsjjn to share!
Filed under: A to Z Challenge
April 7, 2015
F is for First Crush
Reading and Wraps (Jamberry Nail Wraps)
For me, First Crush is a perfect pairing to go with this amazing book, How to Get Ainsley Bishop to Fall in Love with You. Oliver is unique with his lists, but he has a major crush on the popular girl, Ainsley. He wants to make her fall in love with him, and he has to make a list to do it. This is a must read for all high school boys. It’s also great for us adults, too. I got a kick out of this book and the relationships/friendships. They were real, relatable, and perfectly written. You have got to see this trailer, then read it. You won’t be sorry!!
How to Get Ainsley Bishop to Fall in Love with You by T.M. Franklin
Summary:
Seventeen-year-old Oliver Wendell Holmes (Yes, his parents are just that peculiar, but his brother’s name is Sherlock, so it could have been worse) knows that he’s different. He’s quirky, awkward, and he’s okay with that. Oliver also likes making lists—meticulous procedures for achieving his goals, step-by-step. Whether it’s “How to Get an A in Chemistry” or “How to Get Accepted to MIT,” he has a process, and it’s worked for him so far. He doesn’t even care that the popular kids mock him. Oliver’s got his eye on the prize.
So when he decides it’s time to declare his feelings for Ainsley Bishop, the girl of his dreams, it’s only natural for him to make a list—a point-by-point strategy to win her heart. He knows it will take a grand gesture for her to see all he has to offer, and her approaching birthday provides the ideal opportunity for Oliver to put his plan into action.
Finding the perfect gift is a challenge Oliver meets with his usual dogged determination. He’ll need to watch her carefully for clues to pinpoint exactly what he should give her. And along the way, he might just learn that what Ainsley really needs is not quite what he expected.
To learn more about Jamberry Nail Wraps, go to my website http://jenngarcia.jamberrynails.net
If you ‘d like to pair nail wraps with your favorite books, use hashtag #reading&wrapsjjn to share!
Filed under: A to Z Challenge, Writing
April 6, 2015
E is for Elephant Gray
Reading and Wraps (Jamberry Nail Wraps)
I think this is a bit obvious, but I chose Elephant Gray to go with the book Water for Elephants. This wrap signifies the skin of an elephant, and one of those adorable mammals plays a big role in the movie. This wonderful story came to life under the big top from memories of a lonely, old man that worked for a circus. I loved Jacob, old and young, but the character that stole my heart was Rosie the elephant. This is definitely a must read for those that like historical fiction, romance, and a realistic view into 1930s circus life.
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Summary:
Orphaned, penniless, Jacob Jankowski jumps a freight train in the dark, and in that instant, transforms his future.
By morning, he’s landed a job with the Flying Squadron of the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. By nightfall, he’s in love.
In an America made colourless by prohibition and the Depression, the circus is a refuge of sequins and sensuality. But behind the glamour lies a darker world, where both animals and men are dispensable. Where falling in love is the most dangerous act of all…
To learn more about Jamberry Nail Wraps, go to my website http://jenngarcia.jamberrynails.net
If you ‘d like to pair nail wraps with your favorite books, use hashtag #reading&wrapsjjn to share!
Filed under: A to Z Challenge, Writing
April 4, 2015
D is for Dancing Lilacs
Reading and Wraps (Jamberry Nail Wraps)
Dancing Lilacs is such a gorgeous wraps. It’s clear on the nail with just a touch of flower to the side. It can be worn alone or over another wraps or lacquer, so it’s versatile. Dancing Lilacs brought to mind The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert. This was such an amazing book about Alma, a very smart, independent girl that wanted–needed–love so badly, but found her plants and moss the only constants in her life. She traveled the world searching and exploring. Gilbert told us an amazing story, one that I’ll remember always.
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
Summary:
In The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction, inserting her inimitable voice into an enthralling story of love, adventure and discovery. Spanning much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker—a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia. Born in 1800, Henry’s brilliant daughter, Alma (who inherits both her father’s money and his mind), ultimately becomes a botanist of considerable gifts herself. As Alma’s research takes her deeper into the mysteries of evolution, she falls in love with a man named Ambrose Pike who makes incomparable paintings of orchids and who draws her in the exact opposite direction — into the realm of the spiritual, the divine, and the magical. Alma is a clear-minded scientist; Ambrose a utopian artist — but what unites this unlikely couple is a desperate need to understand the workings of this world and the mechanisms behind all life.
Exquisitely researched and told at a galloping pace, The Signature of All Things soars across the globe—from London to Peru to Philadelphia to Tahiti to Amsterdam, and beyond. Along the way, the story is peopled with unforgettable characters: missionaries, abolitionists, adventurers, astronomers, sea captains, geniuses, and the quite mad. But most memorable of all, it is the story of Alma Whittaker, who — born in the Age of Enlightenment, but living well into the Industrial Revolution — bears witness to that extraordinary moment in human history when all the old assumptions about science, religion, commerce, and class were exploding into dangerous new ideas. Written in the bold, questing spirit of that singular time, Gilbert’s wise, deep, and spellbinding tale is certain to capture the hearts and minds of readers.
I’d love to see your combinations. Post them with hashtag #reading&wrapsJJN
Filed under: A to Z Challenge, Writing
April 3, 2015
C is for Catch Fire
Reading and Wraps (Jamberry Nail Wraps)
Catch Fire is a such a pretty wrap and not only looks like it goes with Catching Fire (The Hunger Game Series) but the name is fitting. This definitely reminds me of their costumes going up in flames.
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Summary:
Against all odds, Katniss has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol – a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.
Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest she’s afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she’s not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol’s cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can’t prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.
In Catching Fire, the second novel in the Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins continues the story of Katniss Everdeen, testing her more than ever before…and surprising readers at every turn.
I’d love to see your picks… tweet #Reading&WrapsJJN with your match ups.
Filed under: A to Z Challenge, Writing
April 2, 2015
B is for Bird on Fire
Reading and Wraps (Jamberry Nail Wraps)
I chose Bird on Fire to go with The Help, because I truly love Skeeter. I thought she was a noble, stand up character. She stood up for her beliefs and didn’t let herself get bullied into falling into the peer pressure of discrimination, cruelty, and heartlessness. She was a Bird on Fire!
Summary:
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.
Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.
Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.
Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.
In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women–mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends–view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don’t.
I’d love to see your picks… tweet #Reading&WrapsJJN with your match ups.
Filed under: A to Z Challenge, Writing
April 1, 2015
A is for Amore
Reading and Wraps (Jamberry Nail Wraps)
This month, I’m going to be pairing Jamberry Nail Wraps with some of my favorite books. The first wrap is Amore and I’m pairing that with The Shoemaker’s Wife by Adriana Trigiani. This was the first book I read of Adriana’s and I fell in love. It was filled with culture, traveling, emigration, war, love, life, and some tragedy.
Enza went to the United States at the turn of the Century and decided to be a seamstress. She reunited with a boy she met in Italy when they were kids, and Amore strikes… but not instant love. They had to work at it. Ciro and Enzo had a love to conquer all loves. The wraps, Amore, fits so well, I think, because of the pattern. It’s flowery and pretty, and, most likely, a fabric Enza would have used to sew a beautiful piece of clothing.
The Shoemaker’s Wife by Adriana Trigiani
Summary: The majestic and haunting beauty of the Italian Alps is the setting of the first meeting of Enza, a practical beauty, and Ciro, a strapping mountain boy, who meet as teenagers, despite growing up in villages just a few miles apart. At the turn of the last century, when Ciro catches the local priest in a scandal, he is banished from his village and sent to hide in America as an apprentice to a shoemaker in Little Italy. Without explanation, he leaves a bereft Enza behind. Soon, Enza’s family faces disaster and she, too, is forced to go to America with her father to secure their future.
Unbeknownst to one another, they both build fledgling lives in America, Ciro masters shoemaking and Enza takes a factory job in Hoboken until fate intervenes and reunites them. But it is too late: Ciro has volunteered to serve in World War I and Enza, determined to forge a life without him, begins her impressive career as a seamstress at the Metropolitan Opera House that will sweep her into the glamorous salons of Manhattan and into the life of the international singing sensation, Enrico Caruso.
From the stately mansions of Carnegie Hill, to the cobblestone streets of Little Italy, over the perilous cliffs of northern Italy, to the white-capped lakes of northern Minnesota, these star-crossed lovers meet and separate, until, finally, the power of their love changes both of their lives forever.
Lush and evocative, told in tantalizing detail and enriched with lovable, unforgettable characters, The Shoemaker’s Wife is a portrait of the times, the places and the people who defined the immigrant experience, claiming their portion of the American dream with ambition and resolve, cutting it to fit their needs like the finest Italian silk.
This riveting historical epic of love and family, war and loss, risk and destiny is the novel Adriana Trigiani was born to write, one inspired by her own family history and the love of tradition that has propelled her body of bestselling novels to international acclaim. Like Lucia, Lucia, The Shoemaker’s Wife defines an era with clarity and splendor, with operatic scope and a vivid cast of characters who will live on in the imaginations of readers for years to come.
(This post is also on my book blog http://itlnbrt.com)
I’d love to see your picks… tweet #Reading&WrapsJJN with your match ups.
Filed under: A to Z Challenge, Writing
