Merry Christmas, from Geeky Chiquitas!

We hope you guys are having a wonderful holiday. As I (Kimi) write this, I am sitting on my bed at home, snuggled under a blanket, and listening to the Under the Mistletoe playlist on Spotify, as occasionally a firework goes off (which is pretty weird since it's morning here). Meanwhile, Audrey and Beryl are off at Osaka, Japan, doing who knows what (I haven't had an update from them yet) but probably having fun, taking lots of selfies, slurping ramen, and building snowmen (is there snow in Japan right now??? I'm not sure).

Last night for Christmas Eve, we had dinner at my grandparents' place with some relatives. I've been complaining for the past few days that I can't seem to feel the Christmas vibes, no matter what I do or how hard I try. And now that it's finally Christmas, meh, still no holiday vibes. A few years back, Christmas was such a fun holiday and I remember all my cousins would be around at my grandparents' house, since it's our tradition to spend it there. This year, a lot of them have other plans with their family (ehem Beryl and Audrey are gone) so I'm stuck spending the Christmas with my own immediate family, plus a few of my cousins, who are all unfortunately toddlers - and while toddlers are cute, they are no use making conversation with and usually sleep early, so you get stuck doing nothing as you wait for the clock to strike midnight for Christmas day, which is basically what I did last night.

The Feature & Follow is hosted by TWO hosts, Parajunkee of Parajunkee’s View and Alison of Alison Can Read. Each host will have their own Feature Blog and this way it’ll allow us to show off more new blogs!

How does this work?

1. Do you have any holiday traditions?

Well with my family one gift we can all expect is socks! It's something my grandma used to do for all of us. So it's stuck with us even after she passed away.
Other is one I do for my older sister. I always double box and double wrap her gift because she hates opening presents.

2. What's your favorite thing about the Christmas season?

I just love Christmas in general. I love surprising my family with gifts. I love looking at Christmas lights on all the houses. And Christmas cookies are good too! Though not for my waistline! Lol.

3. Do you have any book recommendations that are great for the holiday season?

Hmm...that's a bit harder as I rarely read holiday themed reads at the right time! One anthology that I read some years ago was Holidays are Hell. It had some novellas by Kim Harrison, Marjorie M. Liu, Lynsay Sands, & Vicki Pettersson! Another anthology was Wolfsbane & Mistletoe. Those were a bit shorter stories as there were a lot of authors in that one!

4. What is your favorite Christmas treat?

Favorite Christmas treat is definitely cookies! Some of them we only make at Christmas time. Like frosted sugar cookies, gooey butter cookies, peanut blossoms! Yum!

5. Do you prefer the cold weather or the warm weather?

Definitely the cold! I'm a winter baby. Sorta. So I prefer colder weather. Though St. Louis has crazy weather. Right now it's raining & on Christmas we'll be in the 50s which isn't normal for us.

6. What's your new year's resolution?

I think one of them will definitely be to figure out some self-publishing for my book. Right now I submitted it to a publisher & am still waiting for a response. After that I will figure out what to do!

7. Share a picture of your go to outfit this season.



8. Have you decorated for Christmas? If so, please attach a picture. If you haven't, is there any design that you find attractive?





9. Movie recommendations?

As some of my blog followers might know my favorite Christmas movies are A Christmas Story and then a more recent favorite Elf! And omg that movie is already over 10 years old! Where has the time gone!

10. Share your social media links, etc. (Blog, Twitter, Instagram, etc)

Blog: Jessica-agreatread.blogspot.com
Twitter: Twitter.com/agreatreader
Instagram: Instagram.com/agreatreader

Thank you so much for taking the time to be up on our blog! We're glad to have you for our first Holiday Blogger Highlight. If you guys still haven't, check out Jessica at the links above.

Stay tuned for our next HBH 2015! :)

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

Hey everyone! It's been a while since I've last blogged. It's been a crazy term for me, I'll tell you guys all about it in a separate post, but for now, I'm checking in to let you guys know about my Christmas wish list for this year! :) There's only 3 days left til Christmas and I'm excited! Are you?

So here is my bookish wishlist, and although I'm surely not getting any of these, it's great to daydream sometimes, right?

1. Kincso Nagy's Harry Potter design concept
This designer created a design concept for Harry Potter books, which includes glow in the dark covers and pop up illustrations inside. Isn't it beautiful?! I would totally buy these books if they were actually created!

We're pretty excited to finish this year already and just say hello to 2016. We feel like a huge mess this week cause of being unproductive, eating more than 5 times a day lol, and having no pep training. :( Finals are also coming next week! UGH! SAVE US!

Enough of us blabbering and ranting, let's get down to business! (to defeat the Huns) HAHAHA. Kidding guys.

NUMBER 1:
GET FREAKING ABS

Since last year and the year before that and before that and before that, we've been wanting to have abs! It's just a mixture of hard work and perseverance which we don't really have.

HASHTAG GOALS

NUMBER 2
MAKE A PERSONAL BLOG

Don't get us wrong we LOVE this blog, but we love other things too like fashion, beauty, and food. We've also been wanting to create one since forever, so we hope to make one SUCCESSFULLY, It's not that easy ya know from creating the design and all those especially since we're not experts.

NUMBER 3
BERYL WILL FINALLY DECIDE WHAT SHE WANTS TO BE

I need serious help because I have zero idea what I want to be in the future, what i want to take in senior high and in college! I have no choice though because I can't be a bum forever.

Title: The Selection

The Feature & Follow is hosted by TWO hosts, Parajunkee of Parajunkee’s View and Alison of Alison Can Read. Each host will have their own Feature Blog and this way it’ll allow us to show off more new blogs!

How does this work?

We've been gone for a while in the blogging world so we feel like we haven't shared to you details of what we've been up to. We have the exact same excuse as all the other times we've been gone, which is that school's been taking up all of our time. It was finals week last week, so we've all been really busy trying to catch up with all the deadlines and cramming for all the exams. We can't be sure of whether or not we'll be busy this week, so we'll try to update you with this blog post as much as we can and give you all the details now in case we don't have time to blog again.

Hi guys!

We know we have been MIA for so so long, but we're trying to work on that right now. Since, we're not that busy this weekend, we're currently making queued posts that we'll be posting all through next week (technically this week, actually, because this will be posted tomorrow...). This is so that we can still give you guys good content when we're busy.

September is quickly ending, so we're here to give you a list of book releases to look forward to for the next month! Let's start with YA books (our fave genre), shall we?

1. Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
Expected Publication: October 6, 2015 by St. Martin's Griffin



Synopsis (via Goodreads):
Rainbow Rowell continues to break boundaries with Carry On, an epic fantasy following the triumphs and heartaches of Simon and Baz from her beloved bestseller Fangirl.

Simon Snow just wants to relax and savor his last year at the Watford School of Magicks, but no one will let him. His girlfriend broke up with him, his best friend is a pest, and his mentor keeps trying to hide him away in the mountains where maybe he’ll be safe. Simon can’t even enjoy the fact that his roommate and longtime nemesis is missing, because he can’t stop worrying about the evil git. Plus there are ghosts. And vampires. And actual evil things trying to shut Simon down. When you’re the most powerful magician the world has ever known, you never get to relax and savor anything.

Carry On is a ghost story, a love story, a mystery and a melodrama. It has just as much kissing and talking as you’d expect from a Rainbow Rowell story — but far, far more monsters.


2. Future Perfect by Jen Larsen
Expected Publication: October 6, 2015 by Harper Teen

Synopsis (via Goodreads):
Every year on her birthday, Ashley Perkins gets a card from her grandmother—a card that always contains a promise: lose enough weight, and I will buy your happiness.

Ashley doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with the way she looks, but no amount of arguing can persuade her grandmother that “fat” isn’t a dirty word—that Ashley is happy with her life, and her body, as it is.
But Ashley wasn’t counting on having her dreams served up on a silver platter at her latest birthday party. She falters when Grandmother offers the one thing she’s always wanted: tuition to attend Harvard University—in exchange for undergoing weight loss surgery.

As Ashley grapples with the choice that little white card has given her, she feels pressured by her friends, her family, even administrators at school. But what’s a girl to do when the reflection in her mirror seems to bother everyone but her?

Through her indecisions and doubts, Ashley’s story is a liberating one—a tale of one girl, who knows that weight is just a number, and that no one is completely perfect. 
Toni and Gretchen are the couple everyone envied in high school. They've been together forever. They never fight. They're deeply, hopelessly in love. When they separate for their first year at college—Toni to Harvard and Gretchen to NYU—they're sure they'll be fine. Where other long-distance relationships have fallen apart, their relationship will surely thrive.

The reality of being apart, however, is a lot different than they expected. As Toni, who identifies as genderqueer, falls in with a group of transgender upperclassmen and immediately finds a sense of belonging that has always been missing, Gretchen struggles to remember who she is outside their relationship.

While Toni worries that Gretchen, who is not trans, just won't understand what is going on, Gretchen begins to wonder where she fits in Toni's life. As distance and Toni's shifting gender identity begins to wear on their relationship, the couple must decide—have they grown apart for good, or is love enough to keep them together?
Pride and Prejudice meets Friday Night Lights in this contemporary novel about falling in love with the unexpected boy, with a new brother, and with yourself.

Title: Secret of the Sevens