Merry Christmas!

Today will be the day most people are finishing work and preparing to do the last of their Christmas shopping (this is where I feel a bit smug about having already finished my shopping and wrapping!). As this is a time of year to be spent with friends and family, I'll be breaking from blogging over the festive period. I'm sure I'll be back after Christmas to discuss the books I got under my tree and being away from the blog always gives me the itch to get back! So I look forward to 2013 and all it will bring.

In the mean time I'm going to go and curl up with Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy by Ally Carter, a cup of tea and several mince pies. Enjoy whatever it is you're reading over the Christmas break, and I look forward to seeing you all again in the New Year!

Sarah x

Update: Why the blog has been quiet!

Hi everyone! Just wanted to post a little update for you.

Last week I lost my Internet after our router broke which meant I wasn't able to post a few of my reviews or my regular round up. The good news is the new router arrived this morning - hurrah! (I've been going a bit mad living off mobile web...)

What I was going to mention in the round up post that never got posted is that the blog will be a little quieter than usual for the next few weeks as I'm currently recovering from some routine keyhole surgery. My health comes first! I'm also just not able to read as much as I usually do at the moment.

Please stay tuned to the blog as I hope to start posting regularly again really soon! I have a review of Linger by Maggie Stiefvater to come as well as a load of books that have arrived on my shelves to squee over! I've had so many ideas for opinion posts, too.

Now like the rest of the world, I'm going back to my copy of The Casual Vacancy!

Sarah x

Back to Blogging!

Hi everyone! I'm back from my summer holiday so just wanted to update my lovely readers and let you know that regular blogging will resume as soon as possible - hurrah!

I'll post a proper post on Sunday documenting all the book news I have from over the past 2 weeks (I have SO much to talk about) and reviews will start appearing regularly again, too.

Thank you so much for your patience and for continuing to visit the blog!

Sarah x

Holiday time!

Hi everyone! I just wanted to update you on what will be happening for the next few weeks. It's summer which means holidays are calling!  Apologies if the blog goes a little quiet. Normal blogging service will be resumed when I get back in a few weeks.

I've got a few drafts saved which I will schedule. Blogger being technology and technology being tempremental (none of my scheduled posts in the past have ever posted *grumble*) I have a few back up plans to make sure something will appear whilst I'm away. Fingers crossed! I'll reply to emails and comments when I get back :)

To tickle your tasetebuds, upcoming blog posts include my reviews of Hush, Hush and Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, as well as a few opinion posts. My Friday Finds post will go up tomorrow as usual, too.

I'll still be on Twitter whilst I'm away (addicted) so keep up with me on there! @TotalTeenFic

I hope you all have a great summer of reading, enjoy the Olympic games and I'll see you again soon!

Sarah x

The new look Total Teen Fiction!

Today I am super excited to reveal Total Teen Fiction's new look! If you're reading this then you can see my shiny new background. I've been wanting to change it for a while, but I wanted to create a custom-made background rather than one of the standard Blogger ones I had been using. This way it makes it feel a lot more personal and hopefully it gives the blog its own identity!

It is pretty personal because I doodled the background image with my own fair hands. I'm no artist (it still makes me laugh that my year 9 art teacher wanted me to take GCSE art - I think she was just too polite to tell me I was awful) so it's nothing groundbreaking. But I like doodles.

I really wanted the background to be YA themed, so I chose the heart to represent love and the want to represent magic because those are two of my favourite things in YA novels! And the bookshelf and the laptop are pretty self-explanatory. This is a book blog so I have to include books and the internet in there somewhere.

I'm not going to make a habit of changing the background, mainly because I'm a total perfectionist and once I start tinkering with these things I find it very hard to stop. Also, because when it comes to websites, I'm one of those people who doesn't like change (I still haven't gone over to Facebook Timeline!) and so I won't force it on you lovely readers. Plus the actual important bit of the blog is the content; the posts and reviews. Being pretty is just a nice bonus ;)

I hope you like it!

Update to the Reviews Page!

Hi everyone! Especially those who have stumbled across my blog after Teaser Tuesday yesterday. Welcome!

I wanted to write a little post to explain a few changes I've made to my Reviews page. This blog has been up and running just over a week (already, I can't believe it!) but obviously I've been reading books for years before I decided to start blogging about them. I joined Goodreads at the start of 2011 and so since then I've been documenting my reading and leaving reviews on there.

I had planned to write out new reviews of teen books I've read over the past year or so so that they can feature on this blog, but it started to take up a lot of the time and energy I could be dedicating to reading and reviewing new books. Most of them already have a short (just occasionally long and rambly) review already on my Goodreads page, so for now I've decided to leave links to the Goodreads review on my Reviews page.

All this means is that when you visit my reviews, some of the links will take you to my Goodreads review instead of a blog post. It's still my review, and you still get a star rating so it gives you a good idea of what I thought of it and whether I liked it. Unfortunately it means they won't show up in the tag index (star rating or topic) but it gives my blog a more comprehensive index of what I've read in the YA genre which is what I wanted.

What's great is that you can now check out even more reviews from my Reviews page! Including some really exciting books (The Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare, books from Jaclyn Moriarty and Maureen Johnson and more!).
Check them out here!