Fri, May 17, 2013
Goodreads’ New YA Newsletter
Friends! I am doing a happy dance today because Goodreads just sent out their new YA newsletter…featuring moi!
Sign up to get future newsletters.
And click here to check out this month’s, which includes an interview with yours truly.
And let’s be friends on Goodreads while you’re at it, pretty please!
How fun is this?!
Thu, May 16, 2013
Golden by Jessi Kirby Excerpt & Giveaway
Hi, friends! As you might remember, I was raving about Golden by Jessi Kirby just a little bit ago. (You can read my review here.) I’m so thrilled to be a part of the blog tour this week and to share the excerpt below. Plus, you can enter to win copies of Golden and all of Kirby’s books! Love it!
About Golden:
Published by: Simon & Schuster
To be released on: May 14th, 2013
Purchase it from: Simon & Schuster | IndieBound | Amazon
Add it to Goodreads
Love, tragedy, and mystery converge in this compelling novel from “an author to watch” (Booklist).
Seventeen-year-old Parker Frost has never taken the road less traveled. Valedictorian and quintessential good girl, she’s about to graduate high school without ever having kissed her crush or broken the rules. So when fate drops a clue in her lap—one that might be the key to unraveling a town mystery—she decides to take a chance.
Julianna Farnetti and Shane Cruz are remembered as the golden couple of Summit Lakes High—perfect in every way, meant to be together forever. But Julianna’s journal tells a different story—one of doubts about Shane and a forbidden romance with an older, artistic guy. These are the secrets that were swept away with her the night that Shane’s jeep plunged into an icy river, leaving behind a grieving town and no bodies to bury.
Reading Julianna’s journal gives Parker the courage to start to really live—and it also gives her reasons to question what really happened the night of the accident. Armed with clues from the past, Parker enlists the help of her best friend, Kat, and Trevor, her longtime crush, to track down some leads. The mystery ends up taking Parker places that she never could have imagined. And she soon finds that taking the road less traveled makes all the difference.
Excerpt:
I haven’t completely made up my mind not to tell her about the journal yet, but I’m not sure she’ll understand at this point. I couldn’t fall asleep last night until I’d decided to go find Shane and Julianna’s tree. It doesn’t totally make sense to me, why I need to see it so much, but I can’t ignore it. Especially now that I need to see it so much, but I can’t ignore it Especially now that I know the story behind the carving. It’s more evidence that love like theirs actually happens beyond books and movies, in real life. Life that’s close to home.
As silly as it seems, it makes me feel like I somehow have a connection to it. To them. I want to see their tree the same way people want to see things that once were connected to famous people[especially once they’re gone. Little slivers of their personal pasts, like photos no one has ever seen, or letters that surface years after their deaths. Or journals. Maybe because they are the things that somehow make them more real to us. Or maybe because all of them add to the myth of the person. It’s hard to say which, but I need to find that tree. even if it takes me all week.
When I round the corner to Senior Hall, it’s empty except for one person. Trevor Collins. Of course. My newfound boldness wavers the tiniest bit when I pass him and catch the mix of laundry detergent and the cologne he always wears thatI always want to ask about so I can buy if for my future boyfriend. It’s clean and sexy with a little bit of spice to it, which is how I imagine him to be. The future boyfriend, not Trevor. I know him well enough to know better than to imagine him that way. I don’t say anything when I pass, but go straight to my locker, set the box of journals down, and spin the dial like I don’t notice him there. That’s when I feel him turn and look me over.
“Morning, Frost.” He says it like he knows I’m pretending not to see him, which I’m sure he does.
About Jessi:
Jessi Kirby is the author of Golden, which will be released in May of 2013, Moonglass, In Honor. She is also a former English teacher and librarian, wife, mom, beach lover, runner, and lover of Contemporary YA, strong coffee, and dark chocolate. In that order.
The giveaway:
Win a Jessi Kirby prize pack featuring Golden and each of her books!
Wed, May 15, 2013
The Beautiful and the Cursed Review and Blog Tour
The Beautiful and the Cursed
By Page Morgan
Publication date: May 14, 2013
Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 352 pages
Source: Blog tour
After a bizarre accident, Ingrid Waverly is forced to leave London with her mother and younger sister, Gabby, trading a world full of fancy dresses and society events for the unfamiliar city of Paris.
In Paris there are no grand balls or glittering parties, and, disturbingly, the house Ingrid’s twin brother, Grayson, found for them isn’t a house at all. It’s an abandoned abbey, its roof lined with stone gargoyles that could almost be mistaken for living, breathing creatures.
And Grayson has gone missing.
No one seems to know of his whereabouts but Luc, a devastatingly handsome servant at their new home.
Ingrid is sure her twin isn’t dead—she can feel it deep in her soul—but she knows he’s in grave danger. It will be up to her and Gabby to navigate the twisted path to Grayson, a path that will lead Ingrid on a discovery of dark secrets and otherworldly truths. And she’ll learn that once they are uncovered, they can never again be buried.
— Publisher description
Just when you think we’ve seen it all when it comes to teen supernatural books — vampires, werewolves, ghosts, demons, demon killers, angels and more — we have a book about gargoyles. Which, I have to say, is pretty cool.
As someone who is leaning a bit more contemporary and a bit less supernatural/paranormal these days, I was pretty pumped to try out something different. Yay for different! I really applaud Page Morgan for her creativity here.
Where this book really worked for me was in terms of it’s creepy factor: I loved the gothic vibe and the grotesque bits (I think that was actually the original name of this book if I’m not mistaken) and the London setting.
Bonus factor: I really enjoyed the two sisters’ point of view on this one. Generally, I don’t love the bouncing back and forth, but I found both sisters to be tough and interesting in their own rights and was happy to keep checking in with them both.
A few things didn’t work for me: Instalove, slow start, some love triangle action.
Ultimately, I was hoping it would be a bit more City of Bones and it ended up more along the lines of Die for Me by Amy Plum or Sweet Evil by Wendy Higgins. Now, that being said, fans of those books will likely want to check it out. For me, though, it wasn’t a favorite.
Use the form below to enter to win one of five signed swag packs for the book. Or head to the blogs Books Complete Me and Once Upon a Twilight to correctly pair up as many Team Dispossessed trivia questions and answers and Team Waverly trivia questions and answers as you can. Two winners will be randomly chosen from those who get the most correct. Mine are below and the rest can be found on the blog tour site!
My trivia:
Team WAVERLY Trivia QUESTION: What is the name of the demon hunting society the Waverly siblings are drawn into?
Team DISPOSSESSED Trivia ANSWER: Gargoyle common grounds
About the author:
Page Morgan has been fascinated with les grotesques ever since she came across an old, black-and-white photograph of a Notre Dame gargoyle keeping watch over the city of Paris. The gargoyle mythologies she went on to research fed her imagination, and she became inspired to piece together her own story and mythology for these remarkably complex stone figures. Page lives in New Hampshire with her husband and their three children.
Tue, May 14, 2013
Top 10 Books Dealing with Tough Subjects
It’s Top 10 Tuesday (hosted at The Broke and the Bookish) and the topic is:
Cheating: Unbreak My Heart by Melissa Walker
Cancer: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Abuse: Raw Blue by Kirsty Eagar
Teen Pregnancy: How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr
Weight: Skinny by Donna Cooner
Family: I’ll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan
Death: If I Stay by Gayle Forman
Bullying: Speechless by Hannah Harrington
Suicide: Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
War: Something Like Normal by Trish Doller
Sun, May 12, 2013
Traveling with Books
I’m traveling a lot for work these days and have to tell you: The best thing about it is honestly all the reading time I get in.
Truly, how do people travel if they don’t read?! Don’t they go crazy from all that WAITING if they don’t have a book to keep them occupied!?!?!?!
I just got 300 pages in to a new book on a flight today — Rick Yancey’s The 5th Wave (spoiler alert: IT IS AMAZING). See! Look at all that quality reading! Here’s what I have with me…
…what should I read next?
All physical copies, I know! Usually I’m a Kindle girl when I travel, but here are my thoughts on that:
PROS: Lightweight, plenty of options if you do not like the book you’re reading, only need one
CONS: Cannot read them during takeoff/landing periods, if it busts you’re out of luck
Yeah, the lightweight bit is awesome, but the cons are VERY serious cons. What if you’re at a good part right when the flight attendants tell you to put the book away!? TORTURE!
And the risk of it breaking is not one I’m willing to take anymore. Not after a certain incident in which I started out a long beach vacation to the Bahamas like this…
And one misplaced lean the wrong way later…ended up with a cracked, broken Kindle and NO books for the rest of the trip. NIGHTMARE!
What are you thoughts? How do you like to travel with books?
About Me
I read. A lot. Mostly whatever YA novels the library has on hold for me that week. Sometimes grown-up books if my book club makes me.
Currently Reading
Jessica Darling's It List #1: The (Totally Not) Guaranteed Guide to Popularity, Prettiness & PerfectionBy Megan McCafferty
OMGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!
