Waiting on Wednesday (107)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we are eagerly anticipating. This is one of my favorite memes because not only is my TBR pile so much bigger at the end of the night but also the covers are always amazing!

Title: The Vanishing Season
Author: Jodi Lynn Anderson
Hitting the Shelves: July 01, 2014

Girls started vanishing in the fall, and now winter's come to lay a white sheet over the horror. Door County, it seems, is swallowing the young, right into its very dirt. From beneath the house on Water Street, I've watched the danger swell.

The residents know me as the noises in the house at night, the creaking on the stairs. I'm the reflection behind them in the glass, the feeling of fear in the cellar. I'm tied—it seems—to this house, this street, this town.

I'm tied to Maggie and Pauline, though I don't know why. I think it's because death is coming for one of them, or both.

All I know is that the present and the past are piling up, and I am here to dig. I am looking for the things that are buried.

From bestselling author Jodi Lynn Anderson comes a friendship story bound in snow and starlight, a haunting mystery of love, betrayal, redemption, and the moments that we leave behind.

Why I want this:  I've never read Jodi Lynn Anderson but I've heard some pretty amazing things about Tiger Lily!  This book definitely sounds interesting.  I can't tell if the point of view is from an actual person (living or dead) or something more mysterious! I think it's definitely worth checking out!

Waiting on Wednesday (106)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we are eagerly anticipating. This is one of my favorite memes because not only is my TBR pile so much bigger at the end of the night but also the covers are always amazing!

Title: Fiendish
Author: Breanna Yovanoff
Hitting the Shelves: August 14, 2014

Clementine DeVore spent ten years trapped in a cellar, pinned down by willow roots, silenced and forgotten.

Now she’s out and determined to uncover who put her in that cellar and why.


When Clementine was a child, dangerous and inexplicable things started happening in New South Bend. The townsfolk blamed the fiendish people out in the Willows and burned their homes to the ground. But magic kept Clementine alive, walled up in the cellar for ten years, until a boy named Fisher sets her free. Back in the world, Clementine sets out to discover what happened all those years ago. But the truth gets muddled in her dangerous attraction to Fisher, the politics of New South Bend, and the Hollow, a fickle and terrifying place that seems increasingly temperamental ever since Clementine reemerged.

Why I want this: I liked Paper Valentine, Yovanoff's previous novel, although I think it could have been more mysterious.  I'm hoping this book is as creepy as it looks and sounds! Here's to hoping! 

Top Ten Tuesday: Why I love Being a Blogger/Reader

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and it's a meme of lists.

This is such a great topic because I love talking about blogging! And I love talking about reading! When I first started this blog I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I was already a reader and I was looking for some sort of outlet that I couldn't find in my real life. And then I discovered book blogs. I soon realized that I had only skimmed the surface of what it means to be a book blogger. There are so many great aspects of being a blogger/reader and here are a few of my favorites!

Blogging

1. Books: I love being a blogger because I love books! I wouldn't be here if I didn't! There are so many great books out there and even though I've been at this reading/blogging thing for 4 years now, I've only discovered the tip of the iceberg of the awesome books out there!

2. Community: I love this community! I have met some really great friends (people I can actually hang out with in real life) who have the same interests as me (not just books) and we get along famously! They literally keep me sane and help me realize I’m not the only crazy book lover, knitter, cat lady, BBC watcher and all-around introvert out there. 

3. Reviewing: Even though I often complain that I have to write a review about this book or that, I really do love posting reviews and hearing my reader’s feedback! I especially love it when I recommend a book that I love to people and they come back to me saying how much they loved it and read it because of my review! I feel like I’m making a little bit of a difference in the book world (even if it’s just a tiny, tiny bit)!

4. Recommendations: I love getting recommendation from other book bloggers. They can see the books that I've read or am currently reading and say, “Hey, I see you've read and LOVED The Girl of Fire and Thorns; you’ll probably really like Throne of Glass!” Hey guess what?! I DID!!! I wouldn't know even half the books I've read if it wasn't for other bloggers giving me recommendations. 

5. Creativity: I love trolling blogs, checking out their titles and blog designs and seeing if they made it themselves or had someone else make it. There is so much creativity out there among book bloggers, its mind blowing! Some bloggers are absolutely fabulous at writing code and making the cutest designs. Then there’s me and I have no patience whatsoever when it comes to the tech and the intricacies of blog design. And that’s okay too!

Reading:

6. Books: I love being a reader because I love books! I love building my TBR, seeing what books are coming out this summer, finally buying that coveted next book in a series I love and just looking at them on my shelves! I love holding them in my hands and skimming my fingers across the beautiful covers! I LOVE books!

 

7. Escape: I’m not saying that I have some horrible life where I need books to escape from it (not that escape is a bad thing). I just think being human is boring and I would much rather spend my afternoon in the magic of a fantasy novel with dragons and wizards and a world that is completely different from my own.

8. Creativity: Authors are so creative! Sometimes I’m just in awe of how they craft these completely new worlds full of details out of their imaginations! It’s crazy!! I love discovering new and old fantasy novels and just losing myself in the magical storytelling.

9. Book to movie adaptations: I love a good book to movie adaptation! Harry Potter? The Hunger Games? I even like bad one too. Beautiful Creatures? City of Bones? I love seeing books come to life. I also love that someone has taken the time and the interest to put something I love so much (not Beautiful Creatures; that book was terrible) and put it on the big screen. I love being a fangirl!

 

10. Book Club: Being a part of a book club is a great way to mingle with other readers without having a blog! I love being a part of the book club that I go to and I have read some books that I would never have picked up on my own! It’s definitely one of the highlights of my month!

Blog Tour: Vengeance by Megan Miranda

Title: Vengeance
Author: Megan Miranda
Series: Fracture #2
Publisher: Walker Childrens
Release Date: February 04, 2014
Find it Here: Amazon, Goodreads

Nobody really believes in a curse. Until you know the people who disappear. Too much coincidence, you look for reason. Too much death, you grasp for something to blame. Carson pulled Delaney out and he died on the side of the road with her mouth pressed to his. Her air in his body. Troy. She told the cops it was suicide. Didn't matter. The lake released her and grabbed another. But when Decker's father dies in a pool of spilled water on their kitchen floor, all Decker can feel is a slow burning rage. Because he knows that Delaney knew that his dad was going to die. She knew and backed out of his house and never said a word. Falcon Lake still has a hold on them both, and Decker can't forgive Delaney until he knows why.

Community Reviews:

Reading Teen

The Starry-Eyed Revue

Book'd Out

What Does The Bookworm Say? Cover Changes and Vampire Academy

Cover changes are usually hit or miss for me.  Some of my absolute favorite covers are changed halfway through a series and I get really mad about it! So now I have three hardcover books in the old cover and now your changing the covers for the last 3 books but your going to release the first 3 books in paperback with the new covers so at least some of your books match the rest of them in the series.  So frustrating!! Then there are other time when I just think that a cover is so ugly that I hope and pray that they will change it eventually because I feel like that ugly cover is keeping people from reading this AWESOME book!

The latter is literally what happened with me and Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead. I can't tell you how many times and over the course of how many years I picked up Vampire Academy in the store and put it back on the shelf because that cover is SO ugly! When I finally did buy it, I was embarrassed to read it in public because of that hideous cover!

The first one is the copy that I had originally. Who is that one the cover! Is is supposed to be Rose? Why does she look like Angelina Jolie? Why is it such a close shot of her face? At this point I even welcome the movie cover as a much better alternative to the first one. I don't even usually like movie covers but I would take it over this!  The second cover is okay and in person, the face is really fogged in the background and the VA really stands out.  So the new covers are a little bit better and that's all I can ask for at this point. 

What do you think of the Vampire Academy cover changes? Let me know in the comments!! And don't forget to stop by Thuy @ Nite Lite Book Reviews, Kimberly @ The Windy Pages and Nicole @ The Reader's Antidote and see what they think about Vampire Academy cover changes! 

Review: Vicious by V.E. Schwab

Title: Vicious
Author: V.E. Schwab
Publisher: Tor
Release Date: September 24, 2013
Source: Library
Find it Here: Amazon, Goodreads

A masterful, twisted tale of ambition, jealousy, betrayal, and superpowers, set in a near-future world.

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.

Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end?

In Vicious, V. E. Schwab brings to life a gritty comic-book-style world in vivid prose: a world where gaining superpowers doesn’t automatically lead to heroism, and a time when allegiances are called into question.

My thoughts:

Before all the hype started to grow for Vicious I knew I wanted to read it. I read Schwab’s The Archived and immediately fell in love with her writing style, knowing that I would read pretty much anything else that she wrote. So when I heard about Vicious I was all aboard and got it from the library as soon as it became available to me.

Here’s a basic run down of the story. Eli and Victor are college roommates and best friends. Both are fairly smart and have bright futures ahead of them. Eli discovers that one can attain “extra ordinary powers” or become an EO through a near death experience. So Eli and Victor force themselves into near death experiences to become EOs. Without giving away any spoilers, 10 pass and the two are mortal enemies and Victor has made it his mission to take Eli out!

Almost every single character in this book is a terrible person. They almost have no redeeming qualities. Eli is out trying to fulfill what he believes to be his “God-given mission” and is just doing absolutely horrible things. Victor wants to do horrible things to Eli in the name of vengeance. Never a good reason. I think my favorite character is Sydney because she really struggles with right and wrong throughout the book. She has this innocence about her that, even though it doesn’t make Victor change his mind about anything, it really makes him take a good hard look at what he’s doing. And with everyone doing absolutely terrible things the whole time, it was refreshing to read from her perspective at times.

No spoilers, but the ending is definitely what made Vicious so good for me. It was very satisfying! If you’re a fan of Schwab’s other book I would definitely recommend reading Vicious!

Waiting on Wednesday (105)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we are eagerly anticipating. This is one of my favorite memes because not only is my TBR pile so much bigger at the end of the night but also the covers are always amazing!

Title: The Museum of Intangible Things
Author: Wendy Wunder
Hitting the Shelves: April 10, 2014

Loyalty. Envy. Obligation. Dreams. Disappointment. Fear. Negligence. Coping. Elation. Lust. Nature. Freedom. Heartbreak. Insouciance. Audacity. Gluttony. Belief. God. Karma. Knowing what you want (there is probably a French word for it). Saying Yes. Destiny. Truth. Devotion. Forgiveness. Life. Happiness (ever after).

Hannah and Zoe haven’t had much in their lives, but they’ve always had each other. So when Zoe tells Hannah she needs to get out of their down-and-out New Jersey town, they pile into Hannah’s beat-up old Le Mans and head west, putting everything—their deadbeat parents, their disappointing love lives, their inevitable enrollment at community college—behind them.

As they chase storms and make new friends, Zoe tells Hannah she wants more for her. She wants her to live bigger, dream grander, aim higher. And so Zoe begins teaching Hannah all about life’s intangible things, concepts sadly missing from her existence—things like audacity, insouciance,karma, and even happiness.

An unforgettable read from the acclaimed author of The Probability of Miracles, The Museum of Intangible Things sparkles with the humor and heartbreak of true friendship and first love.

Why I want this: I absolutely loved The Probability of Miracles! Wendy Wunder is one my favorite new contemporary authors and I'm so excited for her second book! I have a few go-to contemporary authors and she's quickly climbing to the top of that list! 

Review: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

Title: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
Author: Holly Black
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Release Date: September 03, 2013
Source: Library
Find it Here: Amazon, Goodreads

Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. The only problem is, once you pass through Coldtown’s gates, you can never leave.

One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them the only way she knows how: by going straight to the wicked, opulent heart of Coldtown itself.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a wholly original story of rage and revenge, of guilt and horror, and of love and loathing from bestselling and acclaimed author Holly Black.

My thoughts:

There has been a whole lot of hype surrounding this book and people have been giving it rave reviews almost across the board. People have said that it’s a unique take on the overdone vampire story and that they found it very refreshing. I’m definitely going to be in the minority when it comes to The Coldest Girl in Coldtown because I don’t think that it’s all that great! So for this review I’m going to make a list of the problems and why it’s not all that unique.

1. Clocking in at over 400 pages, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is just way too long especially since not much happens for most of the book. The first 30 pages start off really strong with a super gruesome scene of an entire party that has just been slaughtered. So I thought, “Yes! This is going to be great!!” But no. It was very slow and at times I questioned whether or not I was going to finish it.

2. Tana, the main character, is very unlikable and just makes horrible decisions. “Hey, let me save this vampire who could possibly drain me dry once we are out of danger. That’s an awesome idea!” “Instead of just dropping my newly turned vampire ex-boyfriend off at the nearest coldtown I’m actually going to go in and hang out for a little bit! That also sounds awesome!” Everything that happened to her is her own damn fault. She is just a flat character and was exactly the same person at the end as she was at the beginning.

3. If I thought Tana was unlikable and annoying, her little sister was even worse! What a naive little brat. The only purpose she served was as a plot device for the ending of the story. That’s it!!

4. In my humble opinion this certainly did not seem like a “unique” vampire story. In The Coldest Girl in Coldtown there are vampires who have been around for a very long time who worked tirelessly to keep their existence a secret. When a person gets bit by a vampire they then turn into a full-fledged vampire after consuming human blood. The older the vampire is the stronger the vampire is. The vampires get burned to ash if they are in direct sunlight. How is this in any way unique? The only part that I thought was remotely interesting was the coldtowns. But unfortunately there is not a lot of information there.

So overall the book was a bit of a letdown. It’s way too hyped for what it is. If someone wants to read a unique take on vampires, go read the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead. Now that’s what I call a good vampire story!

What Does the Bookworm Say? Favorite Romances

We're back this week with another discussion post of What Does the Bookworm Say?! Go check out my fellow book bloggers, Nite Lite Book Reviews, The Reader's Antidote and The Windy Pages, as we discuss this week's topic. In honor of Valentine's Day we are discussing our favorite romances. It is literally so windy right now I feel like I should be talking about my favorite horror novels! 

I usually don't read books that are strictly romance and I've certainly never read the typical "romance" novel. I usually go for adventure, fantasy or paranormal books before I pick up contemporary or romance.  Those are my go-to. I like a plot that is enhanced by the romance, not driven by it.  But there have been a few books that I've read and loved that I would consider romancey. 

1. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger: I loved this book so much. It is such a beautiful story of love and the course of two people's lives and how they come together and meet. It's so unique and all the characters are just amazing.  It's not only one of my favorite romance novels but it's just one of my all time favorite books. 

2. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green: This is not only a great story about love but also about friendships and the relationships between people in general.  I love the emphasis on making every moment count and living life to the fullest. 

3. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell: The great thing about Eleanor & Park is that is doesn't have a satisfying happy ending.  It is very realistic in the fact that most high school romances are not going to last forever. 

4. Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols: I loved Going Too Far and the two main characters because they have that type of healthy relationship that not only helps fix a lot of the past hurt in their lives but also challenges each other to be better people. John After is also one of my favorite males characters ever!

5. Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins: I loved this book because it just shows how much we can miss out on if we let other people influence us.  Cricket let his sister's opinion get in the way of his feelings for Lola and it really created a barrier in their relationship.  But it's such a great story with a quirky main character that I just loved from start to finish. 

Even though these aren't the typical "romance" novel, romance is still the most prominent feature in these books so I'm going to call them love stories.  So what are some of your favorite love stories? Let me know in the comments!