Happy New Year! and some Book-centric Social Media Sites

Happy New Year, everyone! I'm sorry I've gotten a little post-shy lately, but I think it's understandable and forgivable due to the holidays. Horrifically, unlike some, I was actually working through most of it. This means less free time for reading. But a book review is soon to come, so keep on the look out for it! Also, to make up for lost time, this update is going to be quite huge.

To start with, Here's an announcement: with the New Year, I decided to start something I think is pretty cool. Along with my book reviews, I'm going to include a unique illustration inspired by that book. This is because there's only two things I really love in this world, and that's reading and drawing. I think it would be irresponsible not to share both of those loves with you here, don't you think?

Now, I decided to try out some different Social Media websites created for readers. I've been using GoodReads for years now, and though it's still the bigger site of it's kind out there, many of it's users recently started moving over to new platforms after it was bought out by Amazon. This doesn't bother me much, personally. But I decided to scope out what else is out there. There is also Shelfari, which I'd used for many years before I found out about GoodReads. I much rather GoodReads of the two for many reasons, though. I don't like the idea of starting from scratch on any of these new sites, but I wanted to see if any had something interesting and new to offer me.

• BookLikes may be the most unique so far. It borrows some features I enjoyed from GoodReads (like the progress bar) and it seems to have a similar blogging function as Tumblr. This may very well become the new site for me. I've yet to explore all of it's functions, but what I see I like. Follow Me There
• Riffle is being described as "like Pinterest for books." Sort of, I guess. But I'm not convinced that I like it. The layout is beautiful and very reminiscent of Pinterest, but unlike Pinterest the focus is only on books. I suppose it's more fun when you get to mingle with other users, because there's a questionaire feature that let's you use books as answers, and cool list feature that might help you find something new to read. But other than that, I feel like it's a fancy toy on Christmas morning - the interest will fizzle pretty quickly. It is, however, still in beta - so there's lots of room to grow! Follow Me There
• Slice is my least favorite of all that I've tried out this morning. It, too, is still in beta - so hopefully it grows up with time. But for now, it's not much more than your Facebook feed, filtered out so that anything book-centric shows up. This is because you're restricted to linking up your Facebook account to it. Personally, I think that what happens on Facebook should STAY on Facebook. There aren't many redeeming features. It's pretty bland. I'd pass on it.