Alluring Reads

Giveaway: The Well's End

2013-06-19T00:00:00.000-06:00

I'm excited to be taking part in a Putnam launch event for The Well's End by Seth Fishman. This one sounds good you guys, I can't wait to get my hands on it. Below is a bit more about the book, an interview with the author and a chance to win yourself an Advanced Copy!

TITLE The Well's End
AUTHOR Seth Fishman
PUBLICATION February 25th 2014 by Putnam Juvenile

Mia Kish is afraid of the dark. And for good reason. When she was a toddler she fell deep into her backyard well only to be rescued to great fanfare and celebrity. In fact, she is small-town Fenton,Colorado’s walking claim to fame. Not like that helps her status at Westbrook Academy, the nearby uber-ritzy boarding school she attends. A townie is a townie. Being nationally ranked as a swimmer doesn’t matter a lick. But even the rarefied world of Westbrook is threated when emergency sirens start blaring and the school is put on lockdown, quarantined and surrounded by soldiers who seem to shoot first and ask questions later. Only when confronted by a frightening virus that ages its victims to death in a manner of hours does Mia realize she may only just be beginning to discover what makes Fenton special.

The answer is behind the walls of the Cave, aka Fenton Electronics. Mia’s dad, the director of Fenton Electronics, has always been secretive about his work. But unless Mia is willing to let her classmates succumb to the strange illness, she and her friends have got to break quarantine, escape the school grounds, and outsmart armed soldiers to uncover the truth about where the virus comes from and what happened down that well. The answers they find just might be more impossible than the virus they are fleeing.

Interview with Seth Fishman

I see that The Well's End was inspired by a pretty dramatic story that happened in your hometown. Can you tell us a bit about that and why you had it in your mind while crafting this novel?
Yeah, Baby Jessica was a big deal everywhere, but especially in my home-town. I remember when they freed her, we were listening to the radio in the car and we honked to celebrate. And everyone else honked too. Nothing like that has ever happened to me since. So, I used that scenario as a base for my character, Mia. Something to craft her with. Then, I figured out an entirely different story to put this crafted character into. The thing is, the well keeps coming back to me, and so does the fall, and now as I write book two, it's creeping up as a more than an 'influence'... that's all I can say, for now. But I'm really enjoying exploring it.

I always wonder if it's difficult for a male author to write about a female main character. Did you find this challenging at all? If so, what steps did you take to bridge any gender gaps you may have come across?
Ha, I found this very challenging. My editor, the wonderful Stacey Barney, was instrumental in helping me sort out some of the technicalities. The funniest thing, though, was writing about the romance budding between main characters. I wrote the boy as I KNEW boys acted, but from Mia's perspective, what they were doing seemed weird, uninterested, which is both very real-life, but also not as helpful for the book. An odd balance to strike.

Do you have a writing room? If so, what does it look like?
I don't really, sadly. That's the future. Right now I'm in the living room in the morning, or the bedroom at night, depending on when. But my wife DID get me an awesome glass desk to write on for my birthday last year. I envision a leather chair and a library and a cat purring nearby.

What books are currently on your to-read shelf?
Good question. My clients' books, of course - can't wait for new ones to come in. But, otherwise, my to-read (and not my currently reading) shelf has Patrick Ness, recommended by the great writer Alexander London. And also, finally, some Alice McDermott.

What were some of your early influences that may have helped shaped your writing style? (books, movies, music, etc.)
My first love was Tolkien, but I wouldn't say that influenced my style. I love books that bend the grammar rules, that feel like the words are actually from a person's mind, and not the author's, and I tried to do that with mine. A modern example would be John Green. When I was younger, everything from Falkner to Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card to ANYTHING by David Mitchell. Movie: Dead Poet Society (I am a crier, even at emotional commercials, ha). This book is sort of a Toy Soldiers meets Red Dawn (the old one), so we can toss those in too, but I love the odd and imaginative. And I try to do the same in my writing. Straightforward different.

Thanks for taking the time to let us get to know a bit more about you and The Well's End, Seth!

Seth's Website | Twitter | Goodreads

Seth Fishman (me) was born and raised in Midland, Texas (think Friday Night Lights) and received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England (think cold and rainy and millions of castles). His YA thriller, The Well's End, is the first in a series and the protagonist, Mia Kish, is roughly inspired by a hometown drama that (when I was young) really blew him away: Click Here To Read The Article

Giveaway

Putnam has graciously offered up an advanced copy of The Well's End along with an original piece of artwork from Canadian artist Kate Beaton (to see some of her work for The Well's End Click Here.)

Open to US addresses only

Giveaway runs until July 4, 2013

Fill out the Rafflecopter below to enter:

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Mini-Me Reads - Zero Tolerance

2013-06-18T00:00:00.000-06:00

TITLE Zero Tolerance
AUTHOR Claudia Mills
PUBLICATION June 18th 2013 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
READ June 07 to 08, 2013
SOURCE From Raincoast Books for review

Seventh-grader Sierra Shepard has always been the perfect student, so when she sees that she accidentally brought her mother's lunch bag to school, including a paring knife, she immediately turns in the knife at the school office. Much to her surprise, her beloved principal places her in in-school suspension and sets a hearing for her expulsion, citing the school's ironclad no weapons policy. While there, Sierra spends time with Luke, a boy who's known as a troublemaker, and discovers that he's not the person she assumed he would be--and that the lines between good and bad aren't as clear as she once thought. Claudia Mills brings another compelling school story to life with Zero Tolerance.

After reading a few mindless middle grade books that were purely for fun and to pass the time it was nice to pick up Zero Tolerance and delve into a story with strong characterizations and an important message for young readers. We are quickly thrown into Sierra Shepard’s life where being a leader at school and getting A’s are the most important things. We also get to meet a host of really great secondary characters and learn a little something along the way.

Right off the bat I was really happy with Sierra as our MC. She was a great role model for a younger audience in that good grades and being a leader at her school were very important to her. She strived to impress her teachers and parents and she also knew how to respect her elders. We do get to see her falter a bit in her path of righteousness which really brought her to life for me. She has a core group of friends in the beginning and we get to witness their ups and downs as well. As is with most MG titles there is also a pretty subtle romance in Zero Tolerance. Actually I would say that there is a bit more of a focus on the boys in Sierra’s life than in most other MG titles but it was still very much in the background. I liked the progression that her crush’s went on in the novel and how the shift really helped drive the moral of the story home with the reader.

While Sierra always ensures that she does the right thing she never guessed that it would get her into the trouble that it did. She opened her lunch kit one lunch break to find that she had brought her mothers matching kit by accident. What made this so bad is that her mom had packed an apple in her lunch, and along with that, a knife to cut it. Immediately Sierra turns it into the lunch lady who marches her straight to the office. Due to the schools “Zero Tolerance” policy when it comes to bringing weapons to school she faces immediate in school suspension and possibly expulsion. I liked how the plot really brought out that there are grey areas in what is right and wrong. Sierra did the right thing and got herself into so much trouble and I could really see both sides of the argument (though of course I think she should never have been penalized for such an innocent mistake.) We also get to meet the “bad kids” while she serves the full week of her suspension which also brought to light that people aren’t always who you think they are.

A very sweet, quick read with a great lesson to be learned, Zero Tolerance is a great read for any MG reader. Bringing to light a story of acceptance and not judging books by their covers this is not one to be missed.

Book Girls Don't Cry - My Fav Mind-F*cks

2013-06-17T00:00:00.000-06:00

This week us Book Girls have decided to pick our favorite genre and list some of our favorite books in that genre. My initial thought was to pick contemporary and list my top 5 or 10 books, but then I browsed through all my old posts and realized that I always feature contemporary. So I am going to spice up my post a bit. I'm posting about my favorite mind fuck books. I chose this because next to contemporary I have to say that books that play with my mind are my next favorite and because I haven't read enough of them so I need some recommendations!

I love reading through a book and feeling like I am lost and trying to find my way out of a thick fog. These 5 books all had me feeling lost and completely enthralled at the same time (in no particular order):

The very first mind fuck that I can remember is Fight Club. Admittedly, I did that one backwards, I read the book AFTER I saw the epic movie but the book still blew me away. Also, to this day that is probably in my top 5 movies of all time. Tyler Freaking Durden!

Another Little Piece is the most recent one for me and I loved every second of that novel. The gruesome imagery and finding out exactly what was going on with this new Annaleise who wasn't really Annaleise was just way too fun.

Lucid was one that I was able to call early on (partly because ever since Fight Club I always think something reminiscent of that novel is going on and scrutinize the MC and the wording used meticulously.) Despite that, I had a heck of a time reading this one as well.

Finally, I want to just have Nova Ren Suma on the list because she is the Queen of the Mind Fucks in my books. Both Imaginary Girls and 17 & Gone had me questioning everything that was happening. Those books are the definition of feeling lost and trying to find your way out of a heavy fog to find out what is going on.

I need more of these books in my life! Do you have any recommendations that fit this bill?

Also, don't forget that we are always looking for topic suggestions for future posts.

Fill out the suggestion form here!

Stacking the Shelves (58)

2013-06-15T00:00:00.000-06:00

Books Mentioned (click title for Goodreads):
To Be Perfectly Honest by Sonya Sones
Fall Ball by Peter McCarty
When It Snows Richard Collingridge
Freakboy Kristen Elizabeth Clark
The F It List by Julie Halpern
Altered (Crewel #2) by Gennifer Albin
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Genevieve Tucholke
Parasite (Parisitology #1) by Mira Grant
Unbreakable (Legion #1) by Kami Garcia
All The Truth That's In Me by Julie Berry
The 100 (The Hundred #1) by Kass Morgan
The Coldest Girl In Coldtown by Holly Black

eBook Haul (click cover for Goodreads):

Bloggers mentioned:

Giselle of Xpresso Reads

Micheline of Lunar Rainbows

Enormous thank you's go out to Simon & Schuster Canada, Macmillan, Harper, Disney Hyperion, Sophia Bleu, Giselle & Micheline this week!

Speak Review

2013-06-14T00:00:00.000-06:00

TITLE Speak
AUTHOR Laurie Halse Anderson
PUBLICATION April 1st 2001 by Puffin
READ June 05 to 06, 2013
SOURCE Purchased

Melinda Sordino busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops. Now her old friends won't talk to her, and people she doesn't even know hate her from a distance. The safest place to be is alone, inside her own head. But even that's not safe. Because there's something she's trying not to think about, something about the night of the party that, if she let it in, would blow her carefully constructed disguise to smithereens. And then she would have to speak the truth. This extraordinary first novel has captured the imaginations of teenagers and adults across the country.

Upon seeing that I have such a dead review month in June for ARC’s I was excited to get to read whatever I wanted to fill up a few of the days. I was quick to jump on reading Speak. This is a novel that I know I read in high school because I was quick to recommend it to my sister who loved it dearly, as I must have to recommend it in the first place. Looking back I remembered absolutely nothing about the novel. It’s weird, sure my memory sucks and I have trouble recalling small details but I usually remember the plot and where the story goes. Speak was a blank for me. I remembered nothing. So re-read I did, and I am left wondering what my high school self saw in this novel.

I’m wondering if I have become desensitized to issue books. I have read so many books that deal with rape and they deal with it much better than this one. Don’t get me wrong I think Anderson captured Melinda’s inner turmoil after the tragic event very well but I just couldn’t connect with her. Could it be the short, clipped sentence structure? Maybe. The fact that the event is simply alluded to for much of the novel? Maybe. The rather innocent approach to the subject matter? Probably. I think it all comes together and I was left wanting...more. Most of the novel is simply Melinda going about her days and completely cutting herself off from everyone. For much of the novel I don’t think I would have even realized what had happened to her if I didn’t know beforehand. There are in depth looks at social history in her classes and spiels about how plants seed and all of those rants just left me scratching my head.

There isn’t really anyone to like in this novel. I probably liked Mr. Freeman (Melinda’s art teacher) the most. He was anti-establishment and I really liked how he let the students go in any direction that they wanted. But Melinda’s parents were absolutely horrible. Upon seeing that her daughter had cut up her arm with a paperclip all her mother says is “I don’t have time for this, Melinda.” That heartless comment absolutely floored me. I mean at that point I knew her parents were pretty shitty because they ignore everything that is going on with their daughter but still. Her grades are going down the toilet fast, she rarely speaks and now she has taken to cutting and you don’t have time for her? I would love to meet that mother in a dark alley at night. The one friend that she makes at school is a witch and all her old friends have just moved on from her so we never really get to know them (aside from their snide comments that proves them witch’s too.)

I didn’t even come to really feel for Melinda. I mean I know what she went through and how incredibly terrible it was but I always felt like an outsider. I didn’t feel like I was sucked into her world and feeling her plight. Her emotions weren’t palpable to me, I longed for much more of a connection through the entire novel. I think this is possibly because of all the weird rants and side things that happened in the story.

Between not liking anyone in the novel and not feeling the emotions that should have been conveyed I was definitely left underwhelmed by this one. For its time it may have been a groundbreaking novel but there have been way better books put out in this field that I would definitely recommend over this one. It makes me sad because I know that at one time I really loved this book but I just didn’t feel it this time around. Hopefully my next re-read goes a lot better than this one.

Tour Stop: Death, Dickinson and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia

2013-06-13T00:00:00.000-06:00

TITLE Death, Dickinson, and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia
AUTHOR Jenny Torres Sanchez
PUBLICATION May 28th 2013 by Running Press Kids
READ June 03 to 04, 2013
SOURCE Running Press Kids for review

Frenchie Garcia can’t come to grips with the death of Andy Cooper. Her friends didn’t know she had a crush him. And they don’t know she was the last person with him before he committed suicide. But Frenchie’s biggest concern is how she blindly helped him die that night.

Frenchie’s already insane obsession with death and Emily Dickinson won’t help her understand the role she played during Andy’s “one night of adventure.” But when she meets Colin, she may have found the perfect opportunity to recreate that night. While exploring the emotional depth of loss and transition to adulthood, Sanchez’s sharp humor and clever observations bring forth a richly developed voice.

"I close my eyes and try to focus only on the buzz and the pain, but all I can see is Andy. Andy in his room, alone, swallowing pills, lying down and convulsing to death. Is that how it went? Did he maybe change his mind halfway through it, but it was too late? He couldn't even get up to get help? Or was every agonizing second better than what he was leaving behind?"

-Quoted from an unfinished ARC

I was nervous going into this one. Having not read anything by Emily Dickinson nor knowing much about her life I worried that I would miss out on a lot of the meaning of the story. I worried that I wouldn’t get some of the references in the text but that was completely unwarranted. While Dickinson’s work does make the odd appearance it is merely a stanza here and there or a mention of how she lived her life secluded. I was happy to see that she wasn’t a main focal point in the novel, instead her essence was merely a friend to our main character Frenchie.

Frenchie Garcia is a very dark character when we meet her. It’s clear right from the get go that she is dealing with some heavy stuff and attempting to come to terms with something very dark. I was surprised at how drab the novel felt to me in the beginning. Frenchie was depressed, she was in a bad place and began pushing everyone away from her because of it. What was beautiful in the story is how she begins to dig herself out. We get to watch her come to terms with the sudden death of Andy Cooper and we get to watch her realize that the world isn’t as bad as she may think.

The person helping her most along the way is Colin. He’s a guy who has had a crush on her in the club scene for a while and he finds himself tagging along with Frenchie on a one night adventure. I really came to like him. He saw a beauty in Frenchie and dug in deep to get to her core and open her up. Watching these two as their relationship progressed was great. In a single night they open up to one another in ways that people in long term relationships don’t even do. There was a brutal honesty to their adventure and it was funny, sweet and at times brought me to tears.

I think what worked so well for this novel is the way it was told. We are Frenchie months after Andy’s death and their one night together and we get to follow her as she recreates the night with Colin. As she visits all the sites of that night we also get interspersed chapters that tells of the original night with Andy. I loved watching the parallels between the two nights. The excitement of the night with Andy was palpable and I could really sense how it affected Frenchie deeply. Upon recreating the night I felt like I was searching along with her. I found myself dissecting absolutely everything that Andy said to try to find out why he took his life.

A rather depressing novel that does find the light in the end, Death, Dickinson and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia is one that I highly recommend. It’s full of interesting outlooks and features a wonderful budding romance. If you’re looking for a darker contemporary read that is full of honesty then this could be a good place to start.

Jenny's Website | Twitter | Goodreads

Jenny Torres Sanchez lives in Florida with her husband and children where she currently writes full time. Before her debut novel The Downside of Being Charlie she taught high school for several years, where she credits her eclectic students for inspiring her to write young adult novels.

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The Girl Who Was Supposed To Die Review

2013-06-11T00:00:00.000-06:00

TITLE The Girl Who Was Supposed To Die
AUTHOR April Henry
PUBLICATION June 11th 2013 by Henry Holt and Co.
READ June 01 to 02, 2013
SOURCE Raincoast Books for review

“Take her out back and finish her off.”

She doesn’t know who she is. She doesn’t know where she is, or why. All she knows when she comes to in a ransacked cabin is that there are two men arguing over whether or not to kill her.

And that she must run.

In her riveting style, April Henry crafts a nail-biting thriller involving murder, identity theft, and biological warfare. Follow Cady and Ty (her accidental savior turned companion), as they race against the clock to stay alive.

Wow what a short, intense read this was. I wasn’t too sure going into it how I would fare with it because it was such a short novel and the first I have read from Henry, but I’m happy I gave this one a try. This one does not let up from page one and I was on the edge of my seat as Katie ran her butt off and tried her best to find out who she was and who was after her.

We catch up with Cady right in the thick of things. She wakes up beaten and bruised on the floor of a cabin and has absolutely no recollection of who she was and how she got there. She also has no idea who the two men are standing above her saying to kill her because she knows nothing. Straight away my interest was piqued, I wanted to know who these men were and why they had tortured Cady for information. What worked very well for this one was how linear the plot was. There wasn’t much romance or friendship drama to bog it down though she does make one connection along the way. When she meets Ty I liked him immediately. You could tell that he had such a kind nature but it quickly comes to light that he hasn’t had the easiest life. While that was all fine and good I did find that the extent to which he was willing to put his life on the line was a little unbelievable. I get that he likes to help out his fellow man and pay it forward but he got himself into some serious legal issues for a girl that he just randomly met at McDonalds.

With very short chapters our attention never has the chance to stray with this one. Something is constantly happening and the tension is top notch. We don’t get a lot of layers to our bad guys as everything is revealed which is something that I would have liked a bit more of. I always appreciate when I get to see multiple sides of the bad guy and maybe even come to understand their motive. Here we get very little information about them and a head honcho who is incredibly typical. I think for what this story was, it worked. It kept the novel short and if you sit back and take it at face value too many details may have began to bog the story down a bit.

There isn’t too much to say about this one because of how short and linear the plot is but I can say this: The Girl Who Was Supposed To Die turned out to be a godd, fun way to spend a few hours on a rainy Sunday morning. If you’re looking for a quick mystery to get you out of a paranormal rut then this one could be for you.

Book Girls Don't Cry - What's With All The Romance?

2013-06-10T00:00:00.001-06:00

We're Back!

Hello everyone! We took the week off last week but we are back at it with a great topic that was suggested by Leigh of Little Book Star. She wants to know how we feel about romance in YA books and if we ever feel that we would have loved a book more without the romance. I know that there are many instances where the romance definitely hinders my enjoyment of a story, so here goes!

So often it seems in YA that we are presented with a strong, kick-ass heroine who I come to respect and almost admire in the beginning of books. As the story goes on she meets a boy, and once she meets the boy and falls head over heels for him she completely loses who she is. Most recently this happened with Reboot by Amy Tintera. I loved Wren, she was so cold and detached but once she met Callum (who I also really liked) she became such a gooey puddle of love and I lost so much respect for her. What was really saddening about that one was just how much I liked those characters separately but lost all my love for them once they were together.

Then there are the times when the romance just doesn't make sense to me, or have the enough backing for me to fully buy it. Ann Aguirre's Enclave is a perfect example of this. I was all for the story when they were down in the sewers and trudging away at life but once Deuce went topside and fell for a rapist the story started to lose me. I'm sorry but that love story will NEVER make sense to me. Also, Erin Bowman's Taken had a romance that left a sour taste in my mouth. The first few chapters of the book were spent solidifying how much Emma disliked Gray and then BOOM his brother dies and they are traipsing all over town together. The shift into a romance for them just didn't make sense and was not natural and therefore not believable at all. I'm not sure if there is any saving the latter here but I do think there is a strong possibility that, had these icky romances not been a part of the story, I could have gotten more lost in the plot and came to like the characters by themselves.

It seems as though authors see romance as a pre-requisite for crafting a young adult novel and I really wish this wasn't so. Sometimes I find myself getting lost in and enjoying middle grade novels so much because the romance just isn't there and I am more than OK with that. I love seeing strong women in my stories and a strong woman does not need a man by her side, so I would love to see that explored more. There is nothing wrong with an MC (male or female) surviving in a post apocalyptic world and NOT randomly finding the one person on earth that is perfect for them and whom they just can't live without. I mean really there is a strong possibility that that would realistically happen, no? I don't think I would be looking to get down and dirty when I haven't had a shower in weeks nor shaved any part of my body.

What do you think about the constant presence of romance in YA?

Any instances where it didn't work for you at all?

Stacking the Shelves (57)

2013-06-08T00:00:00.000-06:00

Books Mentioned (click title for Goodreads):

Lulu in La La Land by Elisabeth Wolf

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick

Tarnished (Silver #2) by Rhiannon Held

eBook Haul (click cover for Goodreads):

A big thank you to Tor Books, Raincoast Books, Hachette Book Group Canada, Natasha Boyd, Shelly Crane and St. Martin's Press this week!

In The After Review

2013-06-07T00:00:00.000-06:00

TITLE In The After (In The After #1)
AUTHOR Demitria Lunetta
PUBLICATION June 25th 2013 by Harper Teen
READ May 27 to 30, 2013
SOURCE From the publisher for review

They hear the most silent of footsteps.
They are faster than anything you've ever seen.
And They won't stop chasing you...until you are dead.

Amy is watching TV when it happens, when the world is attacked by Them. These vile creatures are rapidly devouring mankind. Most of the population is overtaken, but Amy manages to escape—and even rescue “Baby,” a toddler left behind in the chaos. Marooned in Amy’s house, the girls do everything they can to survive—and avoid Them at all costs.

After years of hiding, they are miraculously rescued and taken to New Hope, a colony of survivors living in a former government research compound. While at first the colony seems like a dream with plenty of food, safety, and shelter, New Hope slowly reveals that it is far from ideal. And Amy soon realizes that unless things change, she’ll lose Baby—and much more.

Rebellious, courageous, and tender, this unforgettable duo will have you on the edge of your seat as you tear through the pulse-pounding narrow escapes and horrifying twists of fate in this thrilling debut from author Demitria Lunetta.

It took me quite a bit longer than usual to make it through IN THE AFTER. What started off as an intense look at an alien invasion turned into a dystopian tale that really started to wane at the 50% mark. The drive that kept me reading the novel was Amy and some of the connections that she makes along the way.

Amy was about as kick ass as they come. At no point in this novel did she let her guard down. She was incredibly resourceful and intelligent in the most dire of situations. How she took charge of her fate and made sure that she lived in the After was great and also how she took charge once at New Hope as well. Her characterization is definitely the standout in these pages and I think I would have lost interest early on without her personality on every page. The best thing about the story is that even when there is a hint of a romance, Amy does not let it change her at all and it never becomes the focus of the story. Romance is definitely kept to a minimum here (thank you Demitria Lunetta!!) Along with being strong she is also very mothering. Once she takes in Baby and has a cohort in the After we see a side of her that is much softer and I think that is also something that helped her survive for so long, she gave herself a reason to live.

The world is ugly in this book. The creatures that have taken over are nasty and about as creepy as they come. With their green skin and sharp razor teeth that are too big for their mouths the pictures in my head were scary. I was pretty excited straight off the bat because I felt like I was getting the alien invasion story that I had longed for at the end of Rick Yancey’s THE 5TH WAVE but I just wish this one had the strong pacing that came along with it. We did meet a few interesting twists in the story, most of which were pretty easy to see coming but did still add interesting layers to the novel as a whole.

Once all of the reveals were said and done we get a clear picture of what happened in this world which was perfect to leave me satisfied (thank you again, Lunetta!) There were definitely some missed connections along the way that left me not feeling the emotion that was trying to be conveyed. Some of the people lost in the story really didn’t matter to me so I didn’t have my heart in those scenes as much as I would have liked to but I did enjoy the core group of characters that we meet. Leaving off at what some may see as a cliffhanger, but what I see as just moving on to the next chapter, I am excited to see where the series goes in the next installment. I just hope it comes with a little more depth to the secondary characters and is something I can really throw my heart into.

Another Little Piece Review

2013-06-06T00:00:00.000-06:00

TITLE Another Little Piece
AUTHOR Kate Karyus Quinn
PUBLICATION June 11th 2013 by HarperTeen
READ May 24 to 26, 2013
SOURCE From the publisher for review

The spine-tingling horror of Stephen King meets an eerie mystery worthy of Sara Shepard's Pretty Little Liars series in Kate Karyus Quinn's haunting debut.

On a cool autumn night, Annaliese Rose Gordon stumbled out of the woods and into a high school party. She was screaming. Drenched in blood. Then she vanished.

A year later, Annaliese is found wandering down a road hundreds of miles away. She doesn't know who she is. She doesn't know how she got there. She only knows one thing: She is not the real Annaliese Rose Gordon.

Now Annaliese is haunted by strange visions and broken memories. Memories of a reckless, desperate wish . . . a bloody razor . . . and the faces of other girls who disappeared. Piece by piece, Annaliese's fractured memories come together to reveal a violent, endless cycle that she will never escape—unless she can unlock the twisted secrets of her past.

This was the perfect kind of mind fuck book in my opinion. I spent much of the novel feeling like I was looking at everything through a haze, only getting a blurry picture of what was actually going on and upon finishing I was still left with quite a few questions. But I felt like that was OK here. Normally the questions would bother me but I think it was perfect for the mysterious tone of the story and I was supremely happy with the details that we did get.

Annaliese had been missing for nearly 1 year and she randomly comes back looking beat up and wearing a garbage bag to protect her from the rain. She has no recollection of where she was in the last year and also no memory of her life before she went missing. The detached feeling that anyone in her situation would have felt was conveyed very well. When she thought of her mom and dad she referred to them as “the mom” and “the dad” and of course collectively as “the parents.” I think that these constant reminders of how out of place she was feeling were perfect for the story. We are thrown into this world right as Annaliese is coming back and it sets a very ominous, mysterious tone that is maintained expertly throughout. As I mentioned before we do get details about exactly what sinister behavior caused Annaliese to go missing but we definitely don’t get the whole picture. I enjoyed peeling back the layers slowly and I appreciated how it took a lot of reading between the lines. This isn’t a story where everything is laid out plain and simple, you have to pay attention and pick up the littlest of details when you can.

Annaliese was definitely a girl who changed immensely throughout the novel. She started out as very lost and closed off, but her persistence in trying to figure out what happened to her and where she was really brought her out. She became someone who was very fierce and someone who would elicit fear out of people. I can’t say that I connected with her because her character was not a normal character in any way, but I did love the oddity that she was. I found myself devouring her words and loving the flashbacks we got to her of before. She does have a love interest here in her neighbor Dex. I really liked him! Quickly we see that not everyone is as they seem in the story and digging through his story was, at times, just as enthralling as finding out what happened to Annaliese.

The story is unfolded in a really neat way. We have our chapters and we also have what I would call sub-chapters. The time of the story changes very swiftly at times and we just get a small heading and are taken into the past. At first I did find this a little jarring but as I got into it I had no trouble quickly adjusting and finding out exactly who and when I was reading about. I think this was a great way to tell the story and feel that it really added to the ominous tone that I mentioned. It’s almost as if we get thrown from the present to the past just as Annaliese is thrust there in her sudden flashbacks.

I’m going to cut myself off there because I really don’t want to ruin this one for any potential readers. If I could give you any advice in closing it would be to not read reviews for this one. I scanned through the reviews on Goodreads and quickly found at least 5 that I consider extremely spoilery and that I think would ruin the reading experience. This isn’t a story that you want to know anything about, you want the past to be a blank slate, just as it is for Annaleise for much of the novel. I highly recommend this one and I definitely think that Kate Karyus Quinn is an up and coming author to watch. I will be waiting on her next novel with bated breath because I want the same chills and tingles in my life that this novel gave me.

Mini- Me Reads - The 13-Story Treehouse

2013-06-04T00:00:00.000-06:00

This week I am super excited to be featuring a really fun book that I got from Macmillan here on Mini-Me Reads. I know this meme has kind of fallen to the wayside in the last little while but I got a whole bunch of children's and middle grade books so it will slowly be coming back!

TITLE The 13-Story Treehouse
AUTHOR Andy Griffiths, Terry Denton
PUBLICATION April 16th 2013 by Feiwel & Friends
READ May 23, 2013
SOURCE From Macmillan for review

Who wouldn't want to live in a treehouse? Especially a 13-storey treehouse that has a bowling alley, a see-through swimming pool, a tank full of sharks, a library full of comics, a secret underground laboratory, a games room, self-making beds, vines you can swing on, a vegetable vaporiser and a marshmallow machine that follows you around and automatically shoots your favourite flavoured marshmallows into your mouth whenever it discerns you're hungry.

Two new characters – Andy and Terry – live here, make books together, and have a series of completely nutty adventures. Because: ANYTHING can happen in a 13-storey treehouse.

This is a major new series from Andy and Terry- and it's the logical evolution of all their previous books. There are echoes of the Just stories in the Andy and Terry friendship, the breakaway stories in the Bad Book (the Adventures of Super Finger), there's the easy readability of the Cat on the Mat and the Big Fat Cow, and like all these books, the illustrations are as much a part of the story as the story itself.

On an afternoon when I was incredibly tired and just had no drive to pick up the next novel in my reading pile, I decided I needed a light read and picked this one up. It was just what I needed at the time! This was wildly funny and reading it just didn’t take much thought at all. I breezed through it in about a half an hour (which made me feel like I accomplished something huge on an otherwise unproductive day, so brownie points there) and had so much fun in the process.

Andy and Terry live in the most kick-butt treehouse ever thought up. I mean, this place is complete with a bowling alley, full bathroom, underground laboratory and even a shark tank. With the pressure of their publisher on their backs to finish their next novel, Andy and Terry are trying to buckle down and get their work done but there are just distractions everywhere. As you can tell, there isn’t a whole bunch of realism here, it’s an escapism tale and brings the laughs.

Terry & Andy are pretty much opposites of each other. While Andy is much more goal oriented and spends much of the novel simply going along with Terry so he can finally get him settled down to work, Terry is just everywhere. This guy had the attention span of a fish! He could not sit down and concentrate on anything. I had hoped that there would be a message there about how in life it is important to buckle down at times and get the task at hand done, but it ended up that Terry's zaniness payed off and helped the cause.

The illustrations are rich and plentiful. Some pages didn’t even have words and just featured funny comic strip like doodles for the reader to zoom through. I actually found myself staring at the pictures for much longer than I spent really reading the novel. Upon finishing my 5 year old daughter came up and flipped through the book while I described the story for her and I basically ended up reading it twice. The second time around she laughed even harder than I had.

There isn’t much of a lesson to be learned here but I did enjoy watching Andy and Terry get up to random shenanigans and realize that the best stories come from every day life. From flying catnaries to gorillas hunting oversized bananas and sea monsters disguised as gorgeous mermaids this hilarious middle grade novel holds nothing back and it pays off in the end. This is middle grade for a younger audience, I would say 5-10, and it’s perfect for exactly who it is aimed at. I think this is one that my kids and I will be reading a few times in the future.

Anatomy of a Single Girl Review

2013-05-31T00:00:00.000-06:00

TITLE Anatomy of a Single Girl (Anatomy #2)
AUTHOR Daria Snadowsky
PUBLICATION January 8th 2013 by Delacorte Books for Young Readers
READ May 20 to 21, 2013
SOURCE From the author for review

With Judy Blume-like honesty and insight, this sequel to Anatomy of a Boyfriend is about life after first love--romance, sex, friendship, family, and the ups and downs of life as a single girl.

After everything that happened—my first boyfriend, my first time, my first breakup—jumping back into the dating game seemed like the least healthy thing I could do. It’s not that I didn’t want to fall in love again, since that’s about the best feeling ever. But as a busy college premed still raw from heartbreak, which is the worst feeling ever, I figured I’d lie low for a while. Of course, as soon as I stopped looking for someone, an impossibly amazing—and devastatingly cute—guy came along, and I learned that having a new boyfriend is the quickest way to recover from losing your old one.

The moment we got together, all my preconceptions about romance and sex were turned upside down. I discovered physical and emotional firsts I never knew existed. I learned to let go of my past by living in the present. It was thrilling. It was hot. It was just what the doctor ordered.

But I couldn’t avoid my future forever.

In Daria Snadowsky’s daring follow-up to Anatomy of a Boyfriend, eighteen-year-old Dominique explores the relationship between love and lust, and the friendships that see us through.

And the series continues to be great! I jumped into ANATOMY OF A SINGLE GIRL immediately upon finishing ANATOMY OF A BOYFRIEND and it did not disappoint. We get to see a very different side of our MC, Dom and we also get to revisit some of our favorite relationships from the first.

We meet Dom upon finishing up her first year of college as she is headed home to spend the summer. Good old Calvin is dropping her off and we see that she is still torn on her feelings for this funny guy. I was happy to see that she was still questioning her emotions for him and that she hadn’t just jumped in with him head first just to get over Wes. Once she is home she meets another hottie, Guy and starts to experiment a bit more with him. This exploratory side of Dom was new, and I liked it! She still had her cautious characteristics to her (forcing an STD test and vaccination records out of the guy) but at the same time she let herself live a bit and feel a bit. We also see a new dynamic to Dom and Amy’s friendship. Now Dom is the single girl and Amy is the one in the relationship. We got to see a more vulnerable side of Amy and more ups and downs when it came to the two of them which was great because friendships are filled with ups and downs.

The sex is still ever present in this one and it is a bit more experienced. Seeing Dom take charge in the sack and really figure out her body was great! I love how the series doesn’t portray sex as something that is perfect for each person in the act every time. I think there is definitely a learning curve to finding what feels good for each partner and Snadowsky really captured that in her signature completely honest way. Hell, the book even made me want to try a few new things!

Once again, Dom’s parents are very present in the story and brought on the laughs. These two are adorable and I adore all the scenes with them. They are definitely struggling with accepting the fact that their little girl isn’t so little anymore but they are also looking at their lives and deciding what’s best for them. They break some news to Dom in the story that made me really happy because it’s nice to see that once your kids are all grown up you can start thinking about yourself a lot more like you did before children.

The closure that we get with these characters and relationships is definitely satisfying. As the novel explores moving on after your first love, figuring out your body, and also fighting to keep relationships that are important to you in your life I came to really connect with these people. This is definitely a series that I will be recommending to any female friends that I have because I think everyone can appreciate the honesty in them and the good laughs that they throw at you.

Anatomy of a Boyfriend Review

2013-05-30T00:00:00.000-06:00

TITLE Anatomy of a Boyfriend (Anatomy #1)
AUTHOR Daria Snadowsky
PUBLICATION January 9th 2007 by Delacorte Books for Young Readers
READ May 19 to 20, 2013
SOURCE From the author for review

Before this all happened, the closest I'd ever come to getting physical with a guy was playing the board game Operation. Okay, so maybe that sounds pathetic, but it's not like there were any guys at my high school who I cared to share more than three words with, let alone my body.

Then I met Wes, a track star senior from across town. Maybe it was his soulful blue eyes, or maybe my hormones just started raging. Either way, I was hooked. And after a while, he was too. I couldn't believe how intense my feelings became, or the fact that I was seeing—and touching—parts of the body I'd only read about in my Gray's Anatomy textbook. You could say Wes and I experienced a lot of firsts together that spring. It was scary. It was fun. It was love.

And then came the fall.

I was recommended this series by my good friend Christina of A Reader of Fictions so when I got a review request from the author I was quick to accept. Am I ever happy that I did! I ate this book up. I couldn’t put it down and ended up finishing it in a day. I think what I loved the most about it was how authentic it all felt. I loved the characterizations and how I found myself thinking “been there, girlfriend” so many times throughout.

Dominique starts out as an inexperienced high school senior and we get to follow her into college and through her first serious relationship. I could totally relate to so many things Dom went through. We get to watch her experience so many firsts; her first boyfriend, her first time, her first time with herself, her first days at college and it’s all done in a completely relatable voice. Dom isn’t perfect and she doesn’t know how to handle everything that is thrown at her which was perfect in the story. She was flawed and had some super selfish thoughts as the story wore on, it brought me back to when I was in her shoes and feeling the same things.

The relationships in the novel are well done too. I absolutely loved Dom’s friendship with Amy. They were besties and so honest with one another. Their conversations were brutally honest and came to show that they were very opposite of one another. While Amy was always ready to throw caution to the wind and jump into everything headfirst, Dom was much more calculated in her actions and I loved what they brought out of one another. Dom also has a solid relationship with both of her parents who are very present in the story, yay for the rare appearance of parents! Her dad’s reactions always garnered a chuckle from me because he was such a dad, nobody was good enough for his little girl.

The main relationship to take the stage here is of course between Dom and her first boyfriend Wes. The growth of their feelings for one another and the attachment that Dom felt to him was spot on. When you have your first love and give yourself to a person for the first time there is definitely an attachment that could be seen as pretty frightening. The clinginess was definitely something that I remember and also the awkwardness. The sex scenes in this novel are plenty and they aren’t uber sensual scenes that turn a reader on, but real first times never are. I appreciated how there was always a curiousness and a want to explore everything but also an underlying nervousness. I mean these are things that our bodies are made to do but at first they are definitely frightening and I think Daria captured that almost perfectly.

This is a new series that I will be recommending to everyone and I can’t wait to finish writing this review because I am going to be jumping straight into the second book. I’m excited to see how Dom fares in college and for the series to take on a much more New Adult feel as we see her out on her own. This was a super fun novel to read and if you are looking for a real story about firsts then definitely pick this on up.

Blog Tour: Bitter Angel by Megan Hand

2013-05-28T00:00:00.000-06:00

TITLE Bitter Angel
AUTHOR Megan Hand
PUBLICATION April 1, 2013
READ May 18, 2013
SOURCE From AToMR Tours for the blog tour

Torn between two realities.
A choice that will mean life or death.
But she won’t know anything… until she wakes up.

College sophomore, Lila Spencer lived Friday night twice. She doesn’t know how or why, just that she did. As if she split in half and went in two different directions.

Out clubbing with her friends, Heather and Nilah, the girls rock it out and party hard. What begins as an innocent night will lead to a deadly fight for their lives, and Lila might be their only chance for survival.

In bed with her boyfriend, Jay, Lila is safe and warm as she drifts to sleep in the arms of the man she loves. Until she is sucked into a horrifying nightmare of her friends' deaths.

As the sunlight warms her face on Saturday morning, the two scenarios collide. But there can be only one outcome. Will she wake up in her warm bed with Jay by her side, devastated and grieving for her friends? Or was she there to save them?

The answer is just the beginning.

This book and me definitely had out ups and downs. It started off with and bang and was really interesting. I liked how we got to live the same night in two parallel ways and I liked how those two nights essentially wove together in a really good way. After we were initiated into the story and the actual plot got rolling I found that I had to stretch my imagination a bit and power through some definite lulls as I went.

Lila lives this particular Friday night twice. In one scenario she goes out clubbing with her friends and ends up getting abducted by a group of college guys who want to use them as play things. In the other she stays home with her boyfriend and has to deal with the things from the first scenario happening to her two best friends who still decided to go. I had expected that Lila would wake up and see how the night could play out and have to make the decision of what she was going to do and attempt to change the outcomes either way but instead I got more of a vigilante justice story as she heads off and attempts to cut everything off before it happens. This is where I had to stretch my imagination a bit and for the most part I could but there were numerous instances where I was definitely rolling my eyes. The most interesting was when she was on a stake out and had gone what could have been maybe 24-36 hours without eating and proceeds to hop into a garbage can and go through the bags until she finds some ok looking Chinese and then eats it. That was pretty darn far fetched to me, no matter the situation.

As for the characters I have to say that, for the most part, I liked Lila. She was incredibly head strong and determined (and she also proved to be pretty resourceful I guess: See above.) Her inner dialogue did grate on me a bit. She was constantly thinking about how her friends needed to stay in the dorm and her intense love for cuddling with her boyfriend Jay and it did detach me from the story and jar me out of scenes quite a bit. I also came to really like Jay. In the beginning I was annoyed at how perfect he was, he seemed to be the perfect looking, perfect acting guy but as the story wore on we saw that he did make some bad decisions and have his share of flaws. The relationship between Lila and her two friends Nilah and Heather was what really stood out to me. I loved how these girls had grown up together and felt that we really got a sense of how close they were, everyone needs some sisters to put before their misters.

While this wasn’t a perfect novel I was sucked into the story and had a good time watching everything unfold. I enjoyed some of the characterizations but did struggle going along with some of the plot points. I think the story could have been much stronger had Lila went about the evening one way or the other and tried to stop stuff while it was happening but taking it at face value it was still a good ride.

Megan's Website | Twitter | Goodreads

At twelve, Megan decided to write a novel. A month later, she quit. A reading junkie by nature, she started writing again in her twenties as a way to get the voices out, because who wouldn't want to create a Real Living Person out of thin air? Megan also plays the piano and sings. She teaches little kids and takes pictures of pretty butterflies. She eats way too much chocolate, is sort of a mad scientist with her blender, and spends an unhealthy amount of time LOLing on Facebook and Twitter. She lives in Ohio with her husband and very smiley son. Bitter Angel is her first published novel.

Giveaway
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Book Girls Don't Cry - Books That Brought On The Tears

2013-05-27T00:00:00.000-06:00

This week our topic was suggested by Kathy from I Read, I Write, I Review, she wanted to know what some of the books that have made us cry are. Now, I have made it pretty clear to anyone who talks to me on Twitter or reads my contemporary reviews that my emotions are pretty much a hot mess. I often find myself crying at the most random thing, from a sweet commercial to a sad movie, anything can spark my tear ducts to start leaking. I used to be able to reign it in a bit more but it seems that ever since I popped out my kids my hormones (and emotions) have just gone haywire.

A lot of people would think that I would be embarrassed by this or that it would be something I tried not to talk about but nope, I love me a good cry, I really do! After something, such as one of the books mentioned below, touches me and brings out all my emotions I feel so refreshed after that I had let everything out. Maybe when the tears do come I let out some tears that I have been holding in for other things in my life and that's why it feels so good, who knows, but it does! So here are some books that made my eyes leak (click the cover to read my review):

Yes, one of the books that got me going was a zombie book (laughs at self.) But anyway, all of these touched me in an extremely emotional way and they are all books that I am quick to recommend in any book related conversation. This Is Not A Test got me because of Sloane's family history and the memories that she looked back on throughout. What Happens Next and If You Find Me dealt heavily with rape and dealing with the aftermath, which is always something I find very hard to read. Before I Fall touched me so immensely because of the transformation that the MC goes through and the way all the threads of the day come together in the end. And If I Stay and Where She Went were just amazing all around. In If I Stay I was wrecked over Mia's dilemma and the position that her mind was in whereas Where She Went had me reeling over Adam's heartbreak. All of these novels are ones that you should have read by now, and if you haven't they should definitely be on your TBR.

So what are some books that made your eyes leak?

Don't forget to submit your suggestions for future topics.

Stacking the Shelves (56)

2013-05-25T00:00:00.000-06:00

It's that time of the week again! This week I got some sweet ARC's, a prize came in the mail and I also did a little book shopping! Here are my new goodies:

I got The Beautiful and the Cursed after winning it in a giveaway on Xpresso Reads and I got Spark from St. Martins Press. I don't have the first book in that series but I guess I am going to have to grab it so I can start on the series.

On Tuesday after putting the brats to bed I snuck off to Chapters and got some contemporary reads that I think look really good! They both sound pretty gritty and right up my alley.

eBook haul (click cover for Goodreads):

A big thank you to Giselle, Randomhouse Canada, Flux Books, Disney Book Group and St. Martin's Press this week!

In case you missed it, Giselle and I have decided to open up our popular Cover Madness Giveaway so that everyone can get in on the fun. This is always the biggest event for my blog so be sure to click the button below to visit the page and get your name on that linky!

Charm & Strange Review

2013-05-24T00:00:00.000-06:00

TITLE Charm & Strange
AUTHOR Stephanie Kuehn
PUBLICATION June 11th 2013 by St. Martin's Griffin
READ May 15, 2013
SOURCE St. Martins Pree via Netgalley for review

When you’ve been kept caged in the dark, it’s impossible to see the forest for the trees. It’s impossible to see anything, really. Not without bars . . .

Andrew Winston Winters is at war with himself.

He’s part Win, the lonely teenager exiled to a remote Vermont boarding school in the wake of a family tragedy. The guy who shuts all his classmates out, no matter the cost.

He’s part Drew, the angry young boy with violent impulses that control him. The boy who spent a fateful, long-ago summer with his brother and teenage cousins, only to endure a secret so monstrous it led three children to do the unthinkable.

Over the course of one night, while stuck at a party deep in the New England woods, Andrew battles both the pain of his past and the isolation of his present.

Before the sun rises, he’ll either surrender his sanity to the wild darkness inside his mind or make peace with the most elemental of truths—that choosing to live can mean so much more than not dying.

So, yeah. What the heck did I just read? I have absolutely no idea how to go about reviewing CHARM & STRANGE, it is most definitely strange I just can’t decide if it held any charm. The one thing that is sticking out in my mind right now is that I feel just as confused upon finishing the novel as I felt at the 50% mark of the novel and I’m sure that’s not a good thing. Since I don’t know how to put my thoughts in review form for this one I am just going to talk about what I liked and didn’t like about it.

What I didn’t like: I didn’t like any of the characters in this novel. Everyone that we met incredibly was unlikeable and at no point showed any form of redemption. The main character Drew/Win was someone that I was never able to get a hold of. He seemed like he was a total outcast in his school but then when people were talking to him or about him he had all the signs of being a popular (if feared) athlete in his boarding school. I understand that he was quick to anger and troubled but I would have liked to get more of an idea of what his social status was. No one in his family treated him well at all, well except for his sister Siobhan but we only see her once and it was super weird. There is lots of mention of his mother but we never actually get to experience anything with her she is merely mentioned in passing here and there. There is so much that I want to talk about here but every time I think about how to talk about Win’s family I am taken into spoiler territory and we just can’t have that.

What I really didn’t like with this one is that I have so many questions upon finishing. I feel like everything was wrapped up so quickly and much too neatly and so many strings were just left flailing in the wind. I get why Win was the way that he was, I do, but there were so many little details that were mentioned about his immediate and extended family that were never mentioned again. I was excited at the end when he got to where he was going because I really thought there would be dialogue there that would bring everything together, but there wasn’t. I was left with far too many loose ends for me to look at this as a satisfying read. Had everything tied together more this would have easily been a 5 star read for me but as it stands I just don’t think it held the merit for that.

Did I enjoy reading the novel? Yes, I did. It was an enthralling, fast read that I could not put it down. I loved the ominous tone of it that was maintained expertly throughout but I don’t feel like it went anywhere. The whole book I was waiting for a plot to show up and it somewhat did in the end but there was just too much that happened that just doesn’t fit. I thought that if I sat down and thought about it more and talked to some friends who had read it things would start lining up but it’s just getting me more befuddled so I am going to stop thinking about it. This was a very strange beast indeed, it’s one that I want everyone around me to read because I want to hear everyone’s viewpoint on it. I really wish I felt a bit more conclusive about it and my rating could reflect the fun I had reading it but there are just too many loose threads for me.

Boy Nobody Tour Stop

2013-05-21T23:59:00.000-06:00

TITLE Boy Nobody (Boy Nobody #1)
AUTHOR Allen Zadoff
PUBLICATION June 11th 2013 by Little, Brown & CO
READ May 13, 2013
SOURCE From Orchard Books for review

Boy Nobody is the perennial new kid in school, the one few notice and nobody thinks much about. He shows up in a new high school, in a new town, under a new name, makes few friends and doesn't stay long. Just long enough for someone in his new friend's family to die -- of "natural causes." Mission accomplished, Boy Nobody disappears, and moves on to the next target.

When his own parents died of not-so-natural causes at the age of eleven, Boy Nobody found himself under the control of The Program, a shadowy government organization that uses brainwashed kids as counter-espionage operatives. But somewhere, deep inside Boy Nobody, is somebody: the boy he once was, the boy who wants normal things (like a real home, his parents back), a boy who wants out. And he just might want those things badly enough to sabotage The Program's next mission.

I waited a bit to write my review and was really worried how that would affect it but I learned something in this process. The way to bring it all back is to describe the plot and happenings to my husband and feed off his reactions. As I described the twists & turns and characters in BOY NOBODY to him he got excited because it played out like an action movie that he would love to watch and through that I was brought back to the excited place I was in while reading it.

Ben is an assassin. He is a highly trained operative who was brought up to be nobody. He knows how to blend into situations and get out completely unnoticed. I loved his inner dialogue, the way that he read every situation as a series of options he could take to deal with it. The novel definitely had a Jason Bourne feel which is always welcome with me. For someone who was so detached from everything I came to really like him and connect with him. When he meets Sam he starts to have emotions that are completely foreign to him and memories start to resurface that he had no idea were in his psyche.

The romance in this one could definitely be looked at as pretty insta lovey but I think you just have to take it for what it is here. He has 5 days to complete a mission and get a girl to fall for him, which did not prove easy once he got to know the target. Sam was a feisty one and while she did seem to fall for him rather fast she never made it easy on him at all. These two were pretty evenly matched, they could read every thing the other did and they didn’t hesitate to call them on it. I loved how we would experience the thoughts in Ben’s head and in a snap Sam was calling him out on exactly the head game he was planning to play. I love a girl who isn’t afraid to speak her mind.

The novel also comes along with it’s fair share of twists and I enjoyed watching the bad guy change from page to page. I never knew who to trust completely and I questioned everyone at least once. For a YA book it dealt with a lot of politics, which is usually a huge turn off for me, but there was just the right amount of angst and high school drama thrown in that it didn’t bug me at all. I actually came out really liking how it tied in the Israeli government and also some American politicians.

A strong start to a thriller series that is sure to be a hit, I don’t think this is one to be missed. Filled with action from beginning to end, this is one you will not be able to put down. If you are looking for a story with some endearing characters, great twists and pulse pounding action definitely give this one a go.

Interview with Allen Zadoff

Convince us to read BOY NOBODY twitter style (140 characters or less)

Brainwashed teen assassin wakes up and finds himself torn between his mission and a girl he loves. Will he survive?

What inspired you to write BOY NOBODY?

Boy Nobody himself inspired me. He appeared one day out of the blue when I was writing a comic novel. Suddenly I felt the presence of this boy without a name, a teen assassin with a secret past who moved from place to place, fitting in everywhere but belonging nowhere. I was immediately fascinated by him, and then he started to tell me about his life in short, intense sentences. I was hooked.

Which of the characters in the novel do you identify with most?

I’m a big fan of Howard, the geeky teen hacker who befriends Boy Nobody and may or may not help him in future missions. (I don’t want to give anything away.) Howard gets beaten up in school every day, but instead of plotting revenge, he funnels his hurt and anger towards his creativity. He uses his skills to become a “white hat”, a computer hacker dedicated to doing good and improving things on the web rather than breaking the law.

What has been your favourite part of publishing your novels?

There are two elements to writing that delight me. The first is the actual process of creation. It’s a combination of sweat and magic. If I’m willing to sweat (i.e. do the work), the magic sometimes happens. The second element is sharing my work with readers. As I write this, Boy Nobody is on the verge of publishing in the UK and US. This book that I’ve lived with mostly privately for two years is about to make its way out into the world. I’m nervous and excited, but also relieved that the time has finally arrived.

Being an author can definitely require some thick skin. What advice do you have for up & coming authors on how to deal with the ups & downs of being a published author?

You’re right. There are a lot of ups and downs. This is true of life in general, but it’s particularly true of a writer’s life. It helps me to remember that not everybody is going to like my work, and they’re not supposed to. Of course I care what people think and I hope they enjoy my work, but It’s a mistake to define myself by what others think of me. This is not just the writer’s journey, it’s all of our journeys. If you need everyone in school or work to love you, then you are going to be very disappointed, right?

This or That:
Coffee or tea? Morning coffee, afternoon tea.
Summer or winter? I live in L.A. I miss winter.
Chocolate or vanilla? Vanilla.
Comedy or horror? Comedy.
Movies or reading? Reading, reading, reading.

Allen's Website | Twitter | Goodreads

Allen Zadoff is the author of three YA novels. His debut novel, Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have won the Sid Fleischman Humor Award and was a YALSA selection for Most Popular Paperbacks of 2012. His second novel was My Life, the Theater, and Other Tragedies, the story of a techie hiding from life after a family tragedy. His most recent novel Since You Left Me is set in Los Angeles and tells the story of a religious school student who doesn't believe. He also wrote the memoir for adults, Hungry:Lessons Learned on the Journey from Fat to Thin.

Allen is a graduate of Cornell University and the Harvard University Institute for Advanced Theatre Training. Look for Boy Nobody, a YA thriller series, coming summer 2013 from Little Brown.

Bruised Review

2013-05-21T00:00:00.000-06:00

TITLE Bruised
AUTHOR Sarah Skilton
PUBLICATION March 5th 2013 by Amulet/Abrams
READ May 11 to 12, 2013
SOURCE Purchased

When Imogen, a sixteen-year-old black belt in Tae Kwon Do, freezes during a holdup at a local diner, the gunman is shot and killed by the police, and she blames herself for his death. Before the shooting, she believed that her black belt made her stronger than everyone else -- more responsible, more capable. But now her sense of self has been challenged and she must rebuild her life, a process that includes redefining her relationship with her family and navigating first love with the boy who was at the diner with her during the shootout. With action, romance, and a complex heroine, Bruised introduces a vibrant new voice to the young adult world -- full of dark humor and hard truths.

I always find stories that deal with a traumatic incident and how it affects the characters minds (and essentially their day to day life) utterly fascinating. BRUISED dealt with just that. After Imogen lives through being one of the few patrons in a diner when it is held up she has blocked much of the event out of her mind. As she struggles with clearing the clouds in her memory of that day and with how mad she is at herself for not doing anything an interesting story unfolds but it left me longing for more of a connection to the characters.

Imogen is a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, her ranking and the fact that she didn’t do anything to take the gunman down during the heist is wreaking havoc inside her. Immediately after the event I really felt for her and I was sad that she was struggling so much with her self confidence. I could understand why she was beating herself up over it after having gotten so far and mastered her colors in TKD. But somewhere along the way her inner turmoil just lost me and I started to feel as if it was a bit grating. This is entirely personal and I know that there are tons of people who disagree with me but I started to kind of glaze over to her emotions. I longed for more to happen outside of her strife and inner dialogue that was essentially beating herself up.

She does make a great connection with Ricky (another survivor of the heist) he was a sweet guy but failed to become more than that. I think there were quite a few missed connections in the story and looking back there was so much potential. Imogen is in a fight with her very best friend and I wanted to get to see them work it out, she is having a hard time accepting her brother’s sleazy ways and I wanted to see them work it out, but there was so much turmoil which led up to some very short resolutions in the end. I think had I gone on more of the ups & downs in these relationships I would have connected to them more, but it was pretty much always down and I never got to experience the peaks. One relationship that I could connect to was between Imogen and her father. As someone who has a father who struggles with overeating greatly affecting his health I could feel the frustrations that she felt when looking at him. I latched onto those moments and was happy that we got to go through more with those two than with the relationships I mentioned previously.

An interesting look at PTSD and how it can affect a teenagers life, BRUISED was a read that kept me entertained for a day and a half but it’s not one that I will be thinking about for a long time to come. I think this is a solid read but I wish I had gotten more out of it. But hey, look at all the glowing reviews on Goodreads, maybe you will get something more out of it than me.

Book Girls - I Wish I Could Have Loved You

2013-05-20T00:00:00.000-06:00

You know those books that everyone around you love so hard and recommended to you saying you will love them too, but then you're left wondering what all the hubbub is about? This week is all about those books. Ruby from Feed Me Books Now!!! suggested that we talk about "books you wanted to love, but couldn't." It seems like this is something that happens quite a bit and it just shows what I love so much about book blogging. We've even gone so far as to use the term "black sheep" to describe these situations. Everyone perceives literature so differently and one person can take away something completely different from a novel than any other person. So I guess in a way this topic ties into the hype one we had done earlier but there is much more to this one.

Being the black sheep isn't the only time I have found myself in these situations. It seems so often lately there are books coming out with kick-ass covers and blurbs that have me salivating for more only to leave me wondering how they put something so disappointing in such a pretty package. I've gone through so many books this year that I have been waiting months to get my hands on that leave me less than impressed.

So here are a few books that I went into wanting to love them so bad, but in the end I felt completely let down. For those who are curious you can click the cover to see my full review (except for Mockingjay because that was read before I started the blog.)

The First Days: This is one that let me down on both fronts. Not only does this one have huge amounts of hype surrounding it amongst my Goodreads friends but it also has the cool cover and a blurb that had me wanting more. I loved the idea of these two kick-ass bitches battling it out and surviving on their own terms. Unfortunately, the characterizations and dialogue left much to be desired from me.

Renegade: Pretty cover? Check! Also I had read so much about the gore in this one that I was expecting a bloody good ride and instead I got an evil prude and an MC I didn't give a hot damn about. Too bad because it's gorgeous!

Onyx: When I read Obsidian I remember totally fangirling over it. I was in love with Daemon and Katy had so many great aspects to her personality that she had me connecting with her quickly. In the second instalment however, I found myself so annoyed by the way these two were constantly going back and forth on their feelings for one another. That whole "I love you but I can't be with you" thing drives me insane!

Dualed: Another one that had me so excited about meeting a kick ass girl that left me wanting more, a lot more. West's decisions and actions were so flip floppy and I never did get a grasp of exactly why she became an assassin and yet ran her ass off when the time came to meet her alt. What left me wanting a lot more though was the world building, where was it?

Siege: I've said it before and I will again: I have a weird obsession with school shooting books. So when I read the shocking blurb for this and the warning that comes along with it I was so excited. I was expecting a gritty contemporary type story but it turned into something completely different and lost me along the way. I was really sad after this one.

Mockingjay: I really don't even want to get started on this one. So I won't. *rages*

Daughter of Smoke & Bone: I can see why people would love this one but I think my reading ADD kicked in for it so I was bored through most of it. I do still plan to read the sequel though!..... One day..... Someday.

What books did you want to love but couldn't? We all have them so lets dish!

Cover Madness Giveaway Hop Sign Up

2013-05-19T10:31:00.000-06:00

Last year, Giselle of Xpresso Reads and I noticed that there were so many pretty covers being revealed and we wanted to find a way to celebrate them. Through that our Cover Madness giveaway was launched. The response was astounding and since everyone loved it so much we wanted to let everyone in on the madness! If you're not familiar with the giveaway you can have a look here. Basically what it is, is we find a bunch of fabulously covered upcoming books (we try to find recently revealed covers) and we throw a giveaway for a chance to win a pre-order of one of the pretties! We've done 3 very successful Cover Madnesses so far, and for the 4th we decided to invite you all along as well!

Here's how it will work:

Sign ups will stay open for 6 weeks, to close on July 1st at 8:00AM EST
The hop will run for 2 weeks from July 1st to July 14th, 2013
Your giveaway post must be live by July 1st at 8:00AM EST (you may post up to 24hrs early)
When your post is live, the linky will be updated with your direct post link.
Your post must include the linky (or a link to either mine or Giselle's giveaway post where the linky will be located)
You may handle your giveaway as you wish as far as how you collect entries and choose a winner (you may have more than 1 winner if you wish).

What you give away:

Through Goodreads, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, or any other means, you find your favorite newly covered book(s) to feature in this giveaway. You can pick just 1 book, or you can pick 30 and let the winner choose--that is up to you. The book cover must have been out for no longer than 6 weeks at the start of the giveaway. This means the winner will most likely be winning a pre-order of the book (we recommend using The Book Depository as it's free to ship anywhere, but you can use Amazon or any book seller, or you can wait until the book is released, buy it locally, and ship it to your winner).

Here is an example of how Giselle and I have done it in the past, feel free to follow the same format.

Want to participate in this awesome? Sign up below with your blog name and who your giveaway will be open to (Example: Alluring Reads (INTL) and an email will be sent a few days ahead as a reminder and with the linky code, etc.

If you have any questions, ask away in the comments!

If you want to post the button on your sidebar to help spread the word you can use the code below:

After you've signed up, Tweet/Facebook about it so more people can join!

Stacking the Shelves (55)

2013-05-18T00:00:00.000-06:00

I have a short but sweet haul this week, a few ebooks and only two physical books. I am starting to love weeks like this because I am beginning to feel like I am actually starting to catch up on my mounds of review books. Here's what I got:

For a tour with Jean Book Nerd I got Death, Dickingson, and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia (that's a mouthful, hey?) And back in February I was one of the winners of Great Imaginations' Blind Date With A Book giveaway. My blind date ended up being How My Summer Went Up In Flames which seems like the perfect read for me. What great matchmakers Kara & Lyn are! Thanks ladies!

eBook haul (Click cover for Goodreads):

A big thank you goes out to HarperTeen, Daria Snadowsky, Sourcebooks and St. Martin's Press this week!

What did you get this week? Don't forget to link me up!

Wonder Review

2013-05-17T00:00:00.000-06:00

TITLE Wonder
AUTHOR R.J. Palacio
PUBLICATION February 14th 2012 by Knopf
READ March 17 to 18, 2013
SOURCE Purchased

I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse.

August (Auggie) Pullman was born with a facial deformity that prevented him from going to a mainstream school—until now. He's about to start 5th grade at Beecher Prep, and if you've ever been the new kid then you know how hard that can be. The thing is Auggie's just an ordinary kid, with an extraordinary face. But can he convince his new classmates that he's just like them, despite appearances?

R. J. Palacio has written a spare, warm, uplifting story that will have readers laughing one minute and wiping away tears the next. With wonderfully realistic family interactions (flawed, but loving), lively school scenes, and short chapters, Wonder is accessible to readers of all levels.

I went into Wonder with really high expectations. I had heard so much raving about how touching the story was and finally decided it was time to dig in for myself. All of the praise for this one is entirely warranted. I loved this story from page one straight through to the final page. It's probably the most heartwarming and hopeful story I have ever had the pleasure of reading.

August Pullman is starting grade 5. This is a huge year for him because not only is it his first year of middle school, but it is his first year ever going to a regular school. See, Auggie was born with a severe facial deformity. He was in and out of surgeries all throughout his childhood and frankly dealing with the publics stares and comments just wan't something his parents were prepared to make him deal with. But once grade 5 came it was decided by Auggie and his parents that it was time to put himself out there. As I'm sure you can imagine many heartbreaking scenes come as a result of Auggie putting himself into such a public place. There were people he met in school that I wanted to punch because they were so cold, but what is so great about this story is that there were way more characters that I wanted to hug or give a hand shake.

Sure Auggie meets his fair share of bullying as the story goes on, but he is always such a happy guy. I admire him, I think he has a lot of traits that people in his situation would kill to have. Helping him through everything is a great group of core friends, starting with Summer. I loved how summer was some random girl who just sat with him and day one and continued to do so. She always made him feel welcome and like he had something to look forward throughout the day. Then there is Jack, sure Auggie and Jack had their ups and downs but as we got to know Jack more I became accepting of his faults and saw that he was someone who really was trying to do the right thing, he just had to figure it out the hard way. As if these friends aren't good enough, we have Auggie's family also by his side.

This novel had an amazing family unit. As his parents, his sister Olivia and Auggie all conversed with one another they became people that I loved. You could see in the witty banter between the parents that they really loved one another, I thought they were absolutely adorable. The character that I connected most with was Olivia. She really struggled with how she was often forgotten about because Auggie needed so much care. Her inner conflict with knowing that Auggie needed more attention but yet wanting to be in the limelight was portrayed so well in the story.

One thing that ended up taking me by surprise in Wonder was that we were treated to multiple POV's. I had no idea going into this that it was told in that way and every time I switched the page and saw the name of who was coming up it was like a present. The POV's flowed together so well that I felt like I was always hearing from exactly who I should be in that point of the story. I also really liked the short chapters. Some are merely a page and others span up to 4 but they are all titled and tell of an incident. It feels like we are reading journal entries from each of the characters.

I loved how this story was told, I loved the characters in the story and even more so I loved the relationships between all of the characters. This story dealt with some heavy bullying but it was so uplifting. I took away a message of hope for mankind, and how kindness really shines through in darkness. This is a must read for anyone and everyone. Pick this one up on your next trip to the bookstore, it will not disappoint.

Thousand Words Review

2013-05-16T00:00:00.000-06:00

TITLE Thousand Words
AUTHOR Jennifer Brown
PUBLICATION May 21st 2013 by Little Brown Books for Young Readers
READ April 20 to 21, 2013
SOURCE From Hachette Canada for review

Ashleigh's boyfriend, Kaleb, is about to leave for college, and Ashleigh is worried that he'll forget about her while he's away. So at a legendary end-of-summer pool party, Ashleigh's friends suggest she text him a picture of herself -- sans swimsuit -- to take with him. Before she can talk herself out of it, Ashleigh strides off to the bathroom, snaps a photo in the full-length mirror, and hits "send."

But when Kaleb and Ashleigh go through a bad breakup, Kaleb takes revenge by forwarding the text to his baseball team. Soon the photo has gone viral, attracting the attention of the school board, the local police, and the media. As her friends and family try to distance themselves from the scandal, Ashleigh feels completely alone -- until she meets Mack while serving her court-ordered community service. Not only does Mack offer a fresh chance at friendship, but he's the one person in town who received the text of Ashleigh's photo -- and didn't look.

Acclaimed author Jennifer Brown brings readers a gripping novel about honesty and betrayal, redemption and friendship, attraction and integrity, as Ashleigh finds that while a picture may be worth a thousand words . . . it doesn't always tell the whole story.

I was quick to bump THOUSAND WORDS to the top of my reading pile because of my love for author Jennifer Brown. She has fast become one of my favorite contemporary authors because I love the way she deals with gritty issues in such a head on manner & creates characters that I can really empathize with. Her latest novel delivered everything that I have come to expect from her and while I did long to be a bit more moved emotionally, I came out having met characters that I really connected with in a story that is very relevant in this modern world.

Ashleigh was a high school girl who was definitely not without her flaws. From the very beginning of the novel she comes across as someone who has selfish thoughts and is quite susceptible to peer pressure. In these ways I could put myself in her shoes quite easily. I remember being that age and how easy it was to be swayed by the people around you and I could also really connect with her attachment to her first love. I was that girl, I had my first serious boyfriend and he became my world and I quite literally thought that I would never survive without him. As we watch the rocky road that Kaleb and Ash have found themselves on there was a lot that I could latch onto and I think that is due to Brown’s wonderful writing. It’s not flowery or over the top, it is straight and to the point, I really felt as if I was in the head of a teenage girl.

At the core of this novel it is really about the decisions that we make and the repercussions those decisions can have on us and our loved ones. Not only does Ashleigh pay the consequences for the photo that she sends out but her parents also face some pretty heavy tribulations. I liked how we got a wide picture of the whole scenario, we didn’t just get a tunnel view of how what happened affected Ash. I did long to see more of the consequences that Kaleb faced, he did a pretty heinous thing in the heat of the moment and ended up in some pretty hot water. We do get to see what has come of him but I would have liked some more resolution to know where he was at the end of the story.

I think this is an incredibly relevant story at this point in time and I think it has a very important message. One thing that I truly appreciated was that it didn’t make everything pretty. Even at the end of the story Ash’s life isn’t back to perfect and when we leave her she is definitely still struggling with figuring everything out. I would have been sorely disappointed had everything ended up perfect because life doesn’t usually work like that. She does have a better outlook as she brings some new people into her life and works on relationships of her past. In her community service hours she works after school everyday in a program for teens who create information pamphlets on whatever crime they had committed. I haven’t looked into this too much yet but I hope programs for community service like that really exist because not only is it giving the kids their hours but it’s making them face what they did head on and become more fluent in the issues they are facing.

A novel that feels like it could have been ripped from the headlines, THOUSAND WORDS is sure to please fans of issue books and contemporary in general. Jennifer Brown is remaining on my favorites list and I can’t wait to see what topic she tackles next.