Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Waiting On Wednesday [@randomhousekids @misterkristoff]

Waiting On Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine

My pick for this week:



LIFEL1K3 by Jay Kristoff

On an island junkyard beneath a sky that glows with radiation, a deadly secret lies buried in the scrap.

Seventeen-year-old Eve isn't looking for trouble--she's too busy looking over her shoulder. The robot gladiator she spent months building has been reduced to a smoking wreck, she's on the local gangster's wanted list, and the only thing keeping her grandpa alive is the money she just lost to the bookies. Worst of all, she's discovered she can somehow destroy machines with the power of her mind, and a bunch of puritanical fanatics are building a coffin her size because of it.

If she's ever had a worse day, Eve can't remember it. The problem is, Eve has had a worse day--one that lingers in her nightmares and the cybernetic implant where her memories used to be. Her discovery of a handsome android named Ezekiel--called a "Lifelike" because they resemble humans--will bring her world crashing down and make her question whether her entire life is a lie.

With her best friend Lemon Fresh and her robotic sidekick Cricket in tow, Eve will trek across deserts of glass, battle unkillable bots, and infiltrate towering megacities to save the ones she loves... and learn the truth about the bloody secrets of her past.



published May 295h by Knopf Books for Young Readers

add to your Goodreads shelf // pre-order from Book Depo // or Amazon


Why?

There are so many different elements of this that sound appealing to me: first it's science fiction on a 'junkyard island' and there's radiation; Eve built a gladiator robot -- which I love for the gladiator part, the robot part and the Eve building it part; and the androids. Then also? Her best friend is named Lemon Fresh. That is just the right level of absurd and quirky, I really want to know why that's her name (if there is a why).

I really want to discover this junkyard Eve lives on, why the sky 'glows with radiation,' what the gangsters are like, how much the androids and gladiator robots are a part of their society, and, of course, if Eve can stay ahead of the danger. Or what happens if she cannot.




That's my pick for this week, what's yours? Tell me in the comments and/or link me to your own post!

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Top Ten Tuesday


This week's Ten:

Books I Really Liked but Can’t Remember Anything/Much About



Breathing by Cheryl Renee Herbsman


Harbinger by Sara Wilson Etienne





Putting Makeup on Dead People by Jen Violi
review + links



Fallen Grace by Mary Hooper
review + links



This is What I Want to Tell You by Heather Duffy Stone


Invisible Touch by Kelly Parra




Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
Goodreads



Wicked Lovely (#1) by Melissa Marr


A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle #1) by Libba Bray
Goodreads



By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead by Julie Anne Peters
Goodreads




Please leave a comment and let me know what books you remember loving even if you can't remember too much (or anything!) of what happened in them!

Monday, January 22, 2018

Piglettes by Clémentine Beauvais (earc) review [@PushkinPress]

Piglettes
Pushkin Children's Books
August 08, 2017
288 pages
add to Goodreads/buy from Book Depository/or Amazon


A wickedly funny and life-affirming coming-of-age roadtrip story - winner of France's biggest prize for teen and YA fiction.

Awarded the Gold, Silver and Bronze trotters after a vote by their classmates on Facebook, Mireille, Astrid and Hakima are officially the three ugliest girls in their school, but does that mean they're going to sit around crying about it?

Well... yes, a bit, but not for long! Climbing aboard their bikes, the trio set off on a summer roadtrip to Paris, their goal: a garden party with the French president. As news of their trip spreads they become stars of social media and television. With the eyes of the nation upon them the girls find fame, friendship and happiness, and still have time to consume an enormous amount of food along the way.

Originally published in 2015 as Les Petites Reines in France, the English version, Piglettes was translated by the author.

Mireille, Astrid and Hakima are ugly. So sayeth the annual vote by their classmates on Facebook, at least. Mireille, for one, absolutely agrees and insists it no longer bothers her, that it's something she accepted. The other two girls have not quite reached that point (if they ever will or, you know, should).

Mireille's self deprecating and often (really) dark sense of humor was very funny, but at times it was hard to know if it was really how she saw things, or the protective barrier she'd built for herself. And if it was funny or just sad. ("I think you made the wrong choice. In retrospect, I mean. Seeing what I turned out to be like, personally, I'd have aborted myself." [pg 179])

The more the story progressed and the more we got to know the three girls, the more I appreciated that we weren't going to get that She's All That makeover scene. These are three girls who are not physically attractive. But you know what? So what. Their physical appearance is only that, it isn't reflective of their knowledge or their ambition or what they can achieve. It's not who they are.

Piglette's characters takes its characters on a great journey, both literally and metaphorically. I loved that what they learn and how they grow was simply a part of the story and that you often did not realize it was happening, at the moment. (We weren't given little asides pointing out what X character had just realized or learnt.) It was all very natural and made for a great read.

I do not think I will ever forget Mireille or the other characters and their trip to Paris (with all of its food and drink and history). This was a funny, smart, touching read and I also think it's fantastic that the author is also the translator!







review copy received, thanks to publisher, via NetGalley

Friday, January 19, 2018

Book Trailer Friday [@hannahtinti @randomhouse]

The trailer I chose this week is for The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti.




about The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley:

A father protects his daughter from the legacy of his past and the truth about her mother's death in this thrilling new novel from the prize-winning author of The Good Thief.

After years spent living on the run, Samuel Hawley moves with his teenage daughter, Loo, to Olympus, Massachusetts. There, in his late wife's hometown, Hawley finds work as a fisherman, while Loo struggles to fit in at school and grows curious about her mother's mysterious death. Haunting them both are twelve scars Hawley carries on his body, from twelve bullets in his criminal past; a past that eventually spills over into his daughter's present, until together they must face a reckoning yet to come. This father-daughter epic weaves back and forth through time and across America, from Alaska to the Adirondacks.

Both a coming-of-age novel and a literary thriller, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley explores what it means to be a hero, and the cost we pay to protect the people we love most.




Dial Press // March 28, 2018 // 376 pages // Goodreads // Amazon // Book Depository

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Waiting On Wednesday [@FeiwelFriends @alliechristo]

Waiting On Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine

My pick for this week:



TO KILL A KINGDOM by Alexandra Christo

Princess Lira is siren royalty and the most lethal of them all. With the hearts of seventeen princes in her collection, she is revered across the sea. Until a twist of fate forces her to kill one of her own. To punish her daughter, the Sea Queen transforms Lira into the one thing they loathe most—a human. Robbed of her song, Lira has until the winter solstice to deliver Prince Elian’s heart to the Sea Queen or remain a human forever.

The ocean is the only place Prince Elian calls home, even though he is heir to the most powerful kingdom in the world. Hunting sirens is more than an unsavory hobby—it’s his calling. When he rescues a drowning woman in the ocean, she’s more than what she appears. She promises to help him find the key to destroying all of sirenkind for good—But can he trust her? And just how many deals will Elian have to barter to eliminate mankind’s greatest enemy?


published March 06th by Feiwel & Friends

add to your Goodreads shelf // pre-order from Book Depo // or Amazon


Why?

There are sirens and princes and princesses and family honor and enemies and secrets and true identities and it all sounds like so, so much fun. I love that this has elements that sound like The Little Mermaid but then Princess Lira is the deadly one, not a sweet, innocent young girl.

I am really curious to see what the world of lira nd Elian and the sirens is like, how magical iti s, or how known all of those mythical or magical thigns are to the people. I also really want to discover Lira's story - and see what happens!



That's my pick for this week, what's yours? Tell me in the comments and/or link me to your own post!

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

White Bodies ~ Jane Robins (earc) review [@alfresca @TouchstoneBooks]

White Bodies
Touchstone
September 19, 2017
297 pages
add to Goodreads/buy from Book Depository/or Amazon

This chilling psychological suspense novel--think Strangers on a Train for the modern age--explores the dark side of love and the unbreakable ties that bind two sisters together.

Felix and Tilda seem like the perfect couple: young and in love, a financier and a beautiful up-and-coming starlet. But behind their flawless facade, not everything is as it seems.

Callie, Tilda's unassuming twin, has watched her sister visibly shrink under Felix's domineering love. She has looked on silently as Tilda stopped working, nearly stopped eating, and turned into a neat freak, with mugs wrapped in Saran Wrap and suspicious syringes hidden in the bathroom trash. She knows about Felix's uncontrollable rages, and has seen the bruises on the white skin of her sister's arms.

Worried about the psychological hold that Felix seems to have over Tilda, Callie joins an Internet support group for victims of abuse and their friends. However, things spiral out of control and she starts to doubt her own judgment when one of her new acquaintances is killed by an abusive man. And then suddenly Felix dies--or was he murdered?

A page-turning work of suspense that announces a stunning new voice in fiction, White Bodies will change the way you think about obsession, love, and the violence we inflict on one another--and ourselves.

Have you ever read a book where you really, really wished the characters were real and not just fictional? Well, White Bodies is not that book. And these characters are certainly not those characters. Callie and Tilda and the others are more the characters you are really glad are fictional and not someone you might encounter in life. (Though, there are people very much like them . . .)

Callie's fascination with or fixation on her prettier, more popular, more everything twin sister Tilda manifests in some really, really strange ways. Like really strange.


The author does a great job making you unsure of just how out there Callie really is. Yes, she does odd things, but how much of her interpretations or observations or decisions can really be trusted? How many of them are right because of who she is and how she feels about her sister? How many might be right in spite of it?

Even, later in the novel, as I had a better grasp on who Callie was and how she was viewing the world, some of her decisions and statements really did not make sense. (Even for her character.) Things she said or wanted/planned to do were such obviously horrible, wrong choices if she truly believed her sister was being abused. 

The relationship between Callie and Tilda (and their mother, friends and a boyfriend) was weird, creepy, unsettling and, often, confusing. Yet, it did make for a compelling story. Even when I was beyond irritated with Callie, I had to keep reading to find out what happened, to find out the truth - and not just one character's version of i.

The last parts of the book were really well done. Things are more twisted and startling than you expect and it's hard to know what the characters will do - or have done. I liked the inclusion/mentions of Strangers on a Train, Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel and Hitchcock. Callie's character did not always work for me but this is a very compelling, twisty read with dark, weird, disturbing relationships that all keep you guessing until the end.







digital review copy received thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley

Friday, January 12, 2018

Book Trailer Friday [@Sayantani16 ‏@Scholastic]

Here is the trailer for The Serpent's Secret (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #1), the first book in a middle grade fantasy series by Sayantani DasGupta:



about The Serpent's Secret:

MEET KIRANMALA: INTERDIMENSIONAL DEMONSLAYER

(But she doesn’t know it yet.)

On the morning of her twelfth birthday, Kiranmala is just a regular sixth grader living in Parsippany, New Jersey… until her parents mysteriously vanish later that day and a rakkhosh demon slams through her kitchen, determined to eat her alive. Turns out there might be some truth to her parents’ fantastical stories—like how Kiranmala is a real Indian princess—and a wealth of secrets about her origin they've kept hidden.

To complicate matters, two crushworthy Indian princes ring her doorbell, insisting they’re here to rescue her. Suddenly, Kiran is swept into another dimension full of magic, winged horses, moving maps, and annoying, talking birds. There she must solve riddles and slay demons all while avoiding the Serpent King of the underworld (who may or may not want to kill her) and the rakkhosh queen (who definitely does) in order to find her parents and basically save New Jersey, her entire world, and everything beyond it…



Scholastic // February 18, 2018 // 368 pages // Goodreads // Book Depository // Amazon

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Waiting On Wednesday [@harperteen @epicreads @amyplumohlala]

Waiting On Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine

My pick for this week:


NEVERWAKE (dREAMFALL #2) by Amy Plum

For most people, nightmares always come to an end. But for Cata, Ant, and the others, there may be no escape from theirs. After an experimental treatment meant to cure their insomnia went horribly wrong, the teens were dragged into a shared dreamworld where their most terrifying fears became reality.

The six of them have no way of waking up. And they’re beginning to realize that if they die here, they might actually die in the real world. One of the dreamers is already gone, and anyone could be next. The only thing they know for certain is that they have to work together to survive. But as they learn the truth about one another’s pasts, they soon discover they are trapped with something far worse than their nightmares….


published August 07th by HarperTeen

add to your Goodreads shelf // pre-order from Book Depo // or Amazon


Why?

Dreamfall was a weird, surprising, and exciting read. The ending of that first book really, really, really left me wanting to know what was going to happen next!

It isn't a big, complex why, I just very much want to konw what happens to Cata and the others, how this experiment is working (or not working more precisely) and if they can survive their nightmares/the experiment/whatever they're facing now.



That's my pick for this week, what's yours? Tell me in the comments and/or link me to your own post!

Tuesday, January 9, 2018

The Chalk Man ~ CJ Tudor (earc) review [@CrownPublishing @cjtudor]

The Chalk Man
Crown Publishing Group
January 09, 2018
280 pages
add to Goodreads/buy from Book Depository/or Amazon


In 1986, Eddie and his friends are just kids on the verge of adolescence. They spend their days biking around their sleepy English village and looking for any taste of excitement they can get. The chalk men are their secret code: little chalk stick figures they leave for one another as messages only they can understand. But then a mysterious chalk man leads them right to a dismembered body, and nothing is ever the same.

In 2016, Eddie is fully grown and thinks he's put his past behind him, but then he gets a letter in the mail containing a single chalk stick figure. When it turns out that his friends got the same message, they think it could be a prank--until one of them turns up dead. That's when Eddie realizes that saving himself means finally figuring out what really happened all those years ago.

According to the author's biography on Goodreads, C.J. Tudor's The Chalk Man, "was inspired by a tub of chalks a friend bought for her daughter’s second birthday.: That has to be the best and most unexpected way for this story to have begun.

The Chalk Man is creepy and unnerving and mysterious and startling, an all-together great read. That the 1986 portions of the novel revolve around a twelve-year-old boy, his group of friends and their lives is fantastic. Not only does the author do a fantastic job really inhabiting the time and the characters, but the boys, their age, the year, and everything happening to them make them the perfect ones for what happens - and what they do.

The current parts of the story, set in 2016, are surprising for their own reasons. Readers know some of the outcome before really knowing what it was that led to it. It causes you to second guess characters and their actions - and really increases the tension and need to know what all happened. Most surprising of all, though, is probably where and how Eddie and his friends are, thirty years later. It is not what I would have expected if presented with only the 1986 story, but it all ends up making sense.

The writing was superb, as well. Not only were things revealed at just the right time, in just the right way, but little clues were slipped in, often going unnoticed and there were more than a few false leads, too. The actual writing, the phrasing, the metaphors, emotions, etc was really, really good.

There were more twists, turns, curves and speed bumps on the path to the end of this book than I anticipated. Everyone had their secrets - from their family, from their friends, from the town, even from themselves. The Chalk Man really illustrates just how weird, twisted, hypocritical, confused, misguided or downright dangerous seemingly nice, normal, upstanding people can be beneath what they let everyone see.

This story keeps readers guessing and continues to startle - and, often, shock - with its revelations. Some are things you want to have found out while others you may wish not to know. As one fo the characters says,"Sometimes . . . it's better not to know all the answers."

Well that and, "Secrets are like arseholes. We all have them. It's just that some are dirtier than others."

I hope there will be much more from author C.J. Tudor in the future.








digital review copy received from publisher, via NetGalley

Friday, January 5, 2018

Book Trailer Friday [@AmieKaufman @HarperChildrens @HarperCollinsCh]

Amie Kaufman's Unearthed (written with Meagan Spooner) will be released next Tuesday, but that is not her only early 2018 release, there is also the first book in a new Middle Grade fantasy series, Elementals: Ice Wolves. It's not out until March but you can watch the trailer now:




about Elemental: Ice Wolves (Elementals #1):

Everyone in Vallen knows that ice wolves and scorch dragons are sworn enemies who live deeply separate lives.

So when twelve-year-old orphan Anders takes one elemental form and his twin sister, Rayna, takes another, he wonders whether they are even related. Still, whether or not they’re family, Rayna is Anders’s only true friend. She’s nothing like the brutal, cruel dragons who claimed her as one of their own and stole her away.

In order to rescue her, Anders must enlist at the foreboding Ulfar Academy, a school for young wolves that values loyalty to the pack above all else. But for Anders, loyalty is more complicated than obedience, and friendship is the most powerful shapeshifting force of all.




March 27, 2018 // HarperCollins // 326 pages // Goodreads // Book Depository // Amazon

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Waiting On Wednesday [@maureenjohnson @epicreads @KatherineTegen @HarperTeen]

Waiting On Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine

My pick for this week:


TRULY DEVIOUS (#1) by Maureen Johnson

New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson weaves a delicate tale of murder and mystery in the first book of a striking new series, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie and E. Lockhart.

Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. It was founded by Albert Ellingham, an early twentieth century tycoon, who wanted to make a wonderful place full of riddles, twisting pathways, and gardens. “A place,” he said, “where learning is a game.”

Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed with the frightening pseudonym “Truly, Devious.” It became one of the great unsolved crimes of American history.

True-crime aficionado Stevie Bell is set to begin her first year at Ellingham Academy, and she has an ambitious plan: She will solve this cold case. That is, she will solve the case when she gets a grip on her demanding new school life and her housemates: the inventor, the novelist, the actor, the artist, and the jokester. But something strange is happening. Truly Devious makes a surprise return, and death revisits Ellingham Academy. The past has crawled out of its grave. Someone has gotten away with murder.

The two interwoven mysteries of this first book in the Truly Devious series dovetail brilliantly, and Stevie Bell will continue her relentless quest for the murderers in books two and three.


published January 16th by Katherine Tegen Books

add to your Goodreads shelf // pre-order from Book Depo // or Amazon


Why?

The first reason is that it has been too, too long since I have read a new novel written by Maureen Johnson (admittedly, that is mainly my fault) and I am very ready to read one.

Second? I love murder mysteries and have discoverer that they can be really fun when set in fancy, somehow-weirdly-special-but-also-odd boarding schools. The way things are a 'game' at Ellingham Academy reminds me of the way thins were in another novel (which I can't remember the title of, but can remember scenes from . . . ?) and Sanctuary Bay a bit.

I really love Maureen Johnson's writing and humor and her characters and so am eager to discover the world of Truly Devious and  meet Stevie Bell!


That's my pick for this week, what's yours? Tell me in the comments and/or link me to your own post!

Tuesday, January 2, 2018

The Lost Season of Love & Snow ~ Jennifer Laam (erac) review [@jenlaam @StMartinsPress]

The Lost Season of Love and Snow
St Martin's Griffin
January 02, 2018
352 pages
add to Goodreads/buy from Book Depository/or Amazon

The unforgettable story of Alexander Pushkin’s beautiful wife, Natalya, a woman much admired at Court, and how she became reviled as the villain of St. Petersburg.


At the age of sixteen, Natalya Goncharova is stunningly beautiful and intellectually curious. But while she finds joy in French translations and a history of Russian poetry, her family is more concerned with her marriage prospects. It is only fitting that during the Christmas of 1828 at her first public ball in her hometown of Moscow she attracts the romantic attention of Russia’s most lauded rebel poet: Alexander Pushkin.

Enchanted at first sight, Natalya is already a devoted reader of Alexander’s serialized novel in verse, Evgeny Onegin. The most recently published chapter ends in a duel, and she is dying to learn what happens next. Finding herself deeply attracted to Alexander’s intensity and joie de vivre, Natalya hopes to see him again as soon as possible.

What follows is a courtship and later marriage full of equal parts passion and domestic bliss but also destructive jealousies. When vicious court gossip leads to Alexander dying from injuries earned defending his honor as well as Natalya’s in a duel, Natalya finds herself reviled for her alleged role in his death.

With beautiful writing and understanding, Jennifer Laam, and her compelling new novel, The Lost Season of Love and Snow, help Natalya tell her side of the story—the story of her greatest love and her inner struggle to create a fulfilling life despite the dangerous intrigues of a glamorous imperial Court.

The Lost Season of Love and Snow proved to not only be an enjoyable novel but also a wonderful discovery of both a time period and people I knew very little about. Most of what I have read - both fiction and nonfiction - set in Russia took place about a century after Natalya's story. In the early nineteenth century, there was still fear of the  Tsar but so, at least among Natalya and her family's social circles, of appearing seditious.

I did not already know really anything about Pushkin, so seeing him through Natalya's eyes as well as through her family's and society's was both informative and intriguing. The author does a great job with Natalya's character and showing us how much stock is put in her beauty and how much it's depended upon to help her family's future. We also see how Natalya would rather be valued for her mind than her face.

This makes her courtship with Alexander Pushkin both that much more believeable and that much sweeter. I appreciated that the author seemed to hold to what would have been historically relevant - both Pushikin's past associations and his future income potential.

I also loved that we got what seemed like a very real glimpse into society at that time: the balls, the relationships, the Tsar's influence and presence, etc. We see how much of the upper class spoke French (which, side note, I still think the articles in French vs Russian would be tricky) and how flirting (or coquette) was so commonplace. All of this: the balls, playing the coquette, Pushkin's past, his current/future writings, and how women were viewed at the time are crucial parts of Alexander and Natalya's story.

Author Jennifer Laam does a brilliant job giving us a story that is true to it's historical setting and that mindset while viewing her characters (particularly Natalya)  and their words and actions with a modern eye. It was truly a pleasure to discover more about Russia in the nineteenth century and Alexander Pushikin but even more so his romance with Natalya, their life together, and how the time viewed her and where or how that might not be accurate. I really look forward to reading more of Laam's work.





digital review copy received from publisher via NetGalley

Book Trailer Friday [@RandomHouse @TransworldBooks]

Beth Dorey-Stein's From the Corner of the Oval  - a tale of being the White House stenographer during the Obama administration will be ...