About

Hi! *waves* Thanks for 1. Visiting my blog and 2. Being bored enough to click on the about me section! My name is, as you may have figured out, Mary. I also answer to Mary H (my Goodreads and twitter names) and Knoxdiver (my Twitter handle and preferred screen name). I am a long-time lover of books, and as of December 2014, my dream of working in the book industry became a reality when I was hired onto the Teen Services team at one of the top ya libraries in North Texas.

As a Senior Library Assistant, I spend my time developing the young adult collection (purchasing books = heaven!); planning ya-focused events like panels, parties, book clubs, and the North Texas Teen Book Festival; and, of course, assisting the library patrons who allow our team to do the cool stuff we do.

My spare time is spent reading a lot of books, reviewing some books, and cursing all Dallas traffic. Very occasionally I venture out into the real world and associate with real people but never on a Tuesday (cause I'm usually busy reading new releases!). I also love love love sports, especially football, soccer, diving, hockey, and gymnastics.

Mary Had a Little Book Blog stats & info can be found on the Contact Info page

Why am I a reviewer?

Good question that you didn't ask.  I learned to read at a very young age due to the pressure of being the youngest child and wanting to do everything my siblings were doing. My sister received a box set of The Little House on the Prairie from an aunt when I was 6 or so, and my dad used to read to us every night. For some reason, he was never able to finish Farmer Boy with us. My sister didn't care to finish the story but I was like "OMG CLIFFHANGER MUST FINISH OR ELSE I SHALL SURELY PERISH!!!!" I then appropriated her books (they're still on MY bookshelf nearly 20 years later) and sped through the adventures of LIW. My mom also got me a library card very early and I spent each summer racking up a book count for the summer reading program (because the crappy prizes that they gave out were amazing in my eyes: yay for can cozies with a book printed on them!).

Fast forward to 1999. My mom, a teacher, gave me a copy of a new book she'd just read about a boy who goes to a magic school for wizards. I read the first chapter about this weird evil family who hated the world and some guy with a beard and wtf is up with his glasses and there's a cat that's actually a woman flying motorcycle giant man scar. *mind blown* I hated that book so I gave it back and forgot its miserable existence. Imagine my disappointment when another aunt gifted that awful book for Christmas two months later. I resolved to give it another try. It was a gift, after all. I skipped the first chapter (to this day, I always skip it. I think I've only read it one other time after that initial disastrous first read), and never looked back. Received books 2 and 3 for my birthday in March, spent two years pining over not having 4, and so on and so forth. Reading Harry Potter changed my life. It was when I was 11 years old that I resolved to work in the publishing industry in some capacity. My original goal has changed as I've grown up and life has morphed into unexpected adventures and challenges, but I finally resolved at the end of last year to use my vast reading experience to start and maintain a young adult (my preferred genre) book review blog. I spend all my time recommending books for my friends and family to read. I figured I'd go ahead and put it on the internet! So...here I am!

Why YA?

Good other question I'm actually just asking myself! I'd always been drawn to books older than myself, but once I hit high school and beyond, I stayed in adolescent lit. Adult lit is all well and good, but often doesn't include the excitement, the passion, the uncertainty, the drama, the cute boys that the brink of adulthood does. Mostly the cute boys, I'll be perfectly honest. I don't have a specific favorite sub-genre as I read contemporary, sci-fi, paranormal,  fantasy, etc. At times I may dip down to middle grade or slide up to new adult (which is a much-needed genre so yay for publishers realizing that!), but my focus here will primarily be young adult.

Want to know more? Check out my blogger interviews:
-with The Great Noveling Adventure
-with Pages Unbound

Favorites:

Authors: J.K. Rowling (duh), Richelle Mead, Ally Carter, Jennifer Echols, JRR Tolkien, Meg Cabot, Eoin Colfer, Cassandra Clare, Suzanne Clare, Gail Carson Levine, Carolyn Keene, Elizabeth Eulberg, Philip Pullman, William Shakespeare

Books: every book listed by authors above, The Host by Stephenie Meyer, Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross, Once Upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris, The Mark of Zorro by Johnston McCulley, The Giver and Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, Boycotts & Barflies by Victoria Michaels, The Secret of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien, Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler, Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver, Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson, Pirates! by Celia Rees, Holes by Louis Sachar, A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks

Bragging rights:

That time Stephanie Perkins mentioned me in her blog

Background story: Stephanie posted that totally adorbs picture of that kid hanging out with Tom Hiddleston aka Loki, and I sent her the behind-the-scenes story. I had no idea she'd actually link my twitter account to the post, but she did and it was awesome.

That time Richelle Mead posted a picture of me on her blog

Background story: I made fake Rock the Vote shirts proclaiming membership on different VA/Bloodlines teams and gave one to Richelle.  Shout out to my mom for making the 4+ hour round trip in addition to staying all 3 hours of the signing with me. I figured I might as well wait all the way to the end to have more face time with Richelle, and my mom was totally game. PS It worked. More face time, I mean.

That time Elizabeth Eulberg posted my tweet on her blog

Background story: Elizabeth promoted her novel Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality with this totally awesome twitter party where everyone posted about what makes a great personality. She then posted her favorites on her blog. Mine is the second under the Twitter friends section.

That time Amy Plum declared me a HAPP superfan

Background story: Amy and fellow authors Josephine Angelini, Tara Hudson, and Aprilynne Pike hid a secret 2-word phrase that pays in their novels If I Should Die, Dreamless, Arise, and  Destined. Whoever guesses the phrase gets put on the superfan list and wins swag from Amy!

That time I realized my review was blurbed on Meg Cabot's website

Background story:  I read the book. I reviewed the book. Somehow I found out part of it was posted on Meg's website, and I nearly had a heart attack. My family thought something was wrong with me until I showed them why I looked so shaken up. I couldn't speak for a few minutes, but after that I couldn't stop grinning like a lunatic.

That time my picture was posted on Julie Kagawa's blog
Background story: This is the Dallas stop of the Yeah YA! Tour from Harlequin Teen. Even though many seats were already taken, somehow I managed to snag one at the very front (that's me in the black shirt left of center).

That time I realized my review was blurbed on Mary E. Pearson's website
Background story: I LOVE The Remnant Chronicles, and Mary and I have bonded over my sasstacular review of The Beauty of Darkness, but I only recently found out a blurb was posted on Mary's site!