Top Ten Tuesday (64)

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

This week's topic is

I'm going to start off this list by making a confession.  I am SO tired of winter.  It's been a tough one here in Jersey and I'm tired of the cold, I'm tired of the snow, and I am super looking forward to some warmer weather.  For that reason, I really can't wait to start reading some of the new books that come out in the spring, but take place in the summer. Usually I like to wait on those because I like to season-theme my reading whenever I can (I know, I'm weird, you don't have to tell me), but I'm really excited to start some early summer reading.

1. What I Thought Was True - Huntley Fitzpatrick
2. Better Off Friends - Elizabeth Eulberg
3. The Art of Lainey - Paula Stokes
4. Side Effects May Vary - Julie Murphy
5. Dorothy Must Die - Danielle Paige
6. The Vanishing Season - Jodi Lynn Anderson
7. Between the Spark and the Burn - April Genevieve Tucholke
8. Half Bad - Sally Green
9. Nearly Gone - Elle Cosimano
10. We Were Liars - E. Lockhart

Okay, not as many summer books as I originally thought, but just know that I'll be thinking warm thoughts while I'm reading all of these.  What are you guys looking forward to this spring?

Top Ten Tuesday (63)

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

This week's topic is

This week's topic was a little tough for me.  Lately I've been hitting some of the bigger authors I've never read before, so ones that I would have put on the list a few weeks ago (Jennifer Echols, Elizabeth Scott, Laurie Halse Anderson) I can't anymore.  Don't worry, there are still PLENTY of big authors that I haven't hit yet that I've been meaning to, including:

Kristin Cashore
E. Lockhart
Scott Westerfeld
Francesca Lia Block
Lauren Kate
Libba Bray
Gabrielle Zevin
Tahereh Mafi
Veronica Rossi
Becca Fitzpatrick

So, yeah, I clearly still have a lot of work to do.  Have anymore suggestions for me?  Leave 'em in the comments please!

Reality Boy - A.S. King

Title: Reality Boy

Author: AS King
Pages: 368
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
From goodreads.com: Gerald Faust knows exactly when he started feeling angry: the day his mother invited a reality television crew into his five-year-old life. Twelve years later, he’s still haunted by his rage-filled youth—which the entire world got to watch from every imaginable angle—and his anger issues have resulted in violent outbursts, zero friends, and clueless adults dumping him in the special education room at school.
Nothing is ever going to change. No one cares that he’s tried to learn to control himself, and the girl he likes has no idea who he really is. Everyone’s just waiting for him to snap…and he’s starting to feel dangerously close to doing just that.


My first A.S. King and I LOVED IT.  I was a little nervous at first because I knew it was magical realism (and I've never read magical realism before,) but it worked so perfectly here that it didn't even seem weird.

You really carve a place out in your heart for Gerald.  He's been done so wrong by everything: his parents, his sister, his experiences.  You can't help but want things to get better for him.  I loved that Hannah wasn't a magical cure for everything in Gerald's life.  It gets messy and he wants things to go slow because he's been burned by pretty much everyone he's ever encountered.  Also that her family is far from perfect and she has issues of her own.  This book is really a portrait of imperfect people and families who are doing what they think is best to survive.  It turns out that their best isn't working.  All the slow reveals have perfect timing.  I can't wait to read more from A.S. King!

The Fault In Our Stars Trailer is finally here!

Overall, I think it looks awesome, but some of the dialogue feels a bit clunky to me.  I hope it's just because it's a trailer, and once I'm sufficiently immersed in the movie I won't care anymore.  I love that they used the book fonts and colors.  And when she says, "Okay," I seriously got the shivers, so that's a good sign. Now all we have is the long wait until June.  (But there's going to be plenty of YA adaptations to keep us busy until then!)  What do you guys think of the trailer?

Waiting on Wednesday (55)

Hosted by Breaking the Spine

Title: Vengeance

Author: Megan Miranda

Pub Date: 2.4.14

From goodreads.com: 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.

Top Ten Tuesday (62)

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

This week's topic is

With the influx of dystopian books/series that we've seen over the past couple of years I feel like there are just so many worlds that I would absolutely go nowhere near.

Starters immediately pops into my mind because I'm reading Enders now.  A world full of only the elderly and the young, where unclaimed kids live in hiding and rich old people can rent out young bodies to do whatever they please?  No thanks.

Delirium, where love is an illness with a mandated vaccine that you get when you come of age.

Divergent, a world where extreme values decide where and how you'll spend your time.

Matched, where the society has decided everything for you AND has the bonus of having had most of the art, books, and music destroyed.  Censorship, yay.

The Hunger Games.  I wouldn't last ten minutes in the arena.  Hell, I probably wouldn't even make it INTO the arena.

The Darkest Minds, where the kids who've survived a mysterious illness are either gathered into "rehab" camps or being hunted down by people who want to use their newly acquired powers for personal gain.

Now, there are some decidedly not dystopian worlds I'd rather not be a part of also.

Harry Potter.  I know, I know, but that's the dream, you cry.  I just...I would so not want to be around during the Second Wizarding War.  Let me be transported in after the, "All was well" (or any point in the 19 years after the war) and I'm totally there.

The 5th Wave, where if the first four plagues didn't get you, the aliens disguised as humans probably will.

Everneath, where a rock band culls life force from their fans to be immortal.

Anna Dressed in Blood.  I love scary stuff, but if ghost hunting was my real life I'd be scared out of my mind.


What about you guys?  Where would you definitely NOT want to be?

Congratulations Award Winners!

Congratulations to this year's winners!  It's so awesome to see everyone on my twitter feed so excited about these books.  The only ones I've read are Doll Bones and Eleanor & Park, so I can't wait to check out the rest!

Waiting on Wednesday (54)

Hosted by Breaking the Spine

Title: Teen Spirit

Author: Francesca Lia Block

Pub Date: 2.4.14

From goodreads.com: After Julie's grandmother passes away, she is forced to move across town to the not-so-fancy end of Beverly Hills and start over at a new school. The only silver lining to the perpetual dark cloud that seems to be following her? Clark—a die-hard fan of Buffy and all things Joss Whedon, who is just as awkward and damaged as she is. Her kindred spirit.

When the two try to contact Julie's grandmother with a Ouija board, they make contact with a different spirit altogether. The real kind. And this ghost will do whatever it takes to come back to the world of the living.

Top Ten Tuesday (61)

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

This week's topic is

I didn't come up with ten this week, but here's a few things I want to see more of in YA books.

Waiting on Wednesday (53)

Hosted by Breaking the Spine

Title: And We Stay

Author: Jenny Hubbard

Pub Date: 1.28.14

From goodreads.com:  When high school senior Paul Wagoner walks into his school library with a stolen gun, he threatens his girlfriend Emily Beam, then takes his own life. In the wake of the tragedy, an angry and guilt-ridden Emily is shipped off to boarding school in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she encounters a ghostly presence who shares her name. The spirit of Emily Dickinson and two quirky girls offer helping hands, but it is up to Emily to heal her own damaged self.

This inventive story, told in verse and in prose, paints the aftermath of tragedy as a landscape where there is good behind the bad, hope inside the despair, and springtime under the snow.