Stacking the Shelves (64)

Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews where bloggers share what they got throughout the week!

For Review

Just one book for review this week, but I absolutely love the cover! This is the third book in the series and I've only read the second one, so hopefully I'll remember enough and enjoy this one!

From the library

Being back at school means I had to visit the local library and get some books! I got about 10 movies to keep me occupied between the mounds of homework and class time, and I picked up these three books as well! I've been wanting to read April Lindner's books for forever, so I was excited to see her book based on Wuthering Heights on the shelf. I still haven't read Sophie Kinsella's newest book, but now I have a copy! And Breakfast At Tiffany's is one of my favorite movies ever and I absolutely can't wait to read the book! 

And that's all for me! What did you all add to your shelves this week? 

Follow My Book Blog Friday (100)

This is a meme hosted every Friday by Parajunkee, where book bloggers answer a question each week and check out how others answered it. It's a cool way for bloggers and viewers to connect and learn more about each other!

Question: If you could have ONE - one book - for the rest of your life. Don't cheat...what would it be? 

Answer: Gah, only one book? How the heck am I supposed to choose one? That's like, living in a world where only one book existed...

But if I HAD to live in this hypothetical awful world, the one book I would like to exist would be...

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I contemplated choosing one of my favorite YA or adult contemporary fiction books, but would I want to read those for the rest of my life? Will I always love YA books? Or will I eventual *gasp* outgrow them? I don't know! But I do know that Pride and Prejudice is a timeless novel with such an incredible romance that I know I could never get tired of the story. So that's my choice :)

Book Review: The Book Of Broken Hearts by Sarah Ockler

The Book of Broken Hearts

By Sarah Ockler

Release Date: May 21, 2013

Source: Library

Summary: When all signs point to heartbreak, can love still be a rule of the road? A poignant and romantic novel from the author ofBittersweet and Twenty Boy Summer.

Jude has learned a lot from her older sisters, but the most important thing is this: The Vargas brothers are notorious heartbreakers. She’s seen the tears and disasters that dating a Vargas boy can cause, and she swore an oath—with candles and a contract and everything—to never have anything to do with one.

Now Jude is the only sister still living at home, and she’s spending the summer helping her ailing father restore his vintage motorcycle—which means hiring a mechanic to help out. Is it Jude’s fault he happens to be cute? And surprisingly sweet? And a Vargas?

Jude tells herself it’s strictly bike business with Emilio. Her sisters will never find out, and Jude can spot those flirty little Vargas tricks a mile away—no way would she fall for them. But Jude’s defenses are crumbling, and if history is destined to repeat itself, she’s speeding toward some serious heartbreak…unless her sisters were wrong?

Jude may have taken an oath, but she’s beginning to think that when it comes to love, some promises might be worth breaking.

Review: I love love love Sarah Ockler's books. Bittersweet? One of my favorites. So when I saw she had a new release, I knew I had to get my hands on it asap. Who doesn't love a story about a girl falling in love with a notorious heartbreaker? 

If there's one thing Jude's learned from her older sisters, it's this: never ever date a Varags. Now that all of her sisters have grown up and moved away, Jude is left to live with her parents. So when her dad's early onset Alzheimer's starts to get worse, Jude decides to spend her summer before college taking care of him. And the only thing that her dad seems to clearly remember is his motorcycle, which hasn't worked in years. So Jude hire someone from the local mechanic to help fix the bike in hopes of fixing her dad. Little does Jude know that the mechanic turns out to be non other than a Vargas. But does every Vargas have to be a heartbreaker? I guess there's only one way to find out...

Gah, Sarah Ockler always finds a way to write a contemporary romance with some serious issues thrown into the mix. While it was fun to see Jude and Emilio bicker and turn on some serious chemistry, the whole deal with her father's alzheimer's is so sad and emotional. How can you expect an 18-year-old girl to watch her father fall to pieces? But I love how Jude uses her father's old bike as a way to try to put him back together. Of course, though, there's got to be a hunky mechanic to help her along the way. 

Oh Emilio. How perfect you are for Jude at this point in her life. Seriously, despite his reputation due to his Vargas name, Emilio can be so sweet with both Jude and her father. Even when moments can become extremely awkward, Emilio just takes life in stride and knows exactly how to act to make Jude tempted to break the promise she made to her sisters years and years ago. Who could resist someone as charming as that?

The only thing I wasn't a big fan of with this book was how quickly some of the romance moved. I think their relationship should have built more and the attraction shouldn't have been so sporadic and sudden as I read it. Other than that, though, the story was so emotional and I was definitely a fan of the romance. And Emilio and Jude had the bickering, stubborn kind of romance that I just love in contemporary romances. So if you're a fan of Sarah Ockler, definitely pick up her newest release. And if you haven't read anything by her yet, then what are you doing? Go out and find a copy of ANYTHING by her now! Because you're missing out on one seriously amazing author.

Waiting On Wednesday (106)

This is a meme hosted by Breaking the Spine where every Wednesday bloggers highlight a book that they are eagerly anticipating the release of!

Crash Into You

By Katie McGarry

Release Date: November 26, 2013

Summary: From acclaimed author Katie McGarry comes an explosive new tale of a good girl with a reckless streak, a street-smart guy with nothing to lose, and a romance forged in the fast lane 

The girl with straight As, designer clothes and the perfect life-that's who people expect Rachel Young to be. So the private-school junior keeps secrets from her wealthy parents and overbearing brothers...and she's just added two more to the list. One involves racing strangers down dark country roads in her Mustang GT. The other? Seventeen-year-old Isaiah Walker-a guy she has no business even talking to. But when the foster kid with the tattoos and intense gray eyes comes to her rescue, she can't get him out of her mind. 

Isaiah has secrets, too. About where he lives, and how he really feels about Rachel. The last thing he needs is to get tangled up with a rich girl who wants to slum it on the south side for kicks-no matter how angelic she might look. 

But when their shared love of street racing puts both their lives in jeopardy, they have six weeks to come up with a way out. Six weeks to discover just how far they'll go to save each other.

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I absolutely love everything Katie McGarry has written, and I devoured Pushing the Limits in one day. I really didn't like Isaiah in that one, though. Maybe because he got in the way of how I wanted things to work out in the story. Now that he has his own story and his own romance, maybe I'll like him better! And look at that cover! How could I not want to pick this one up? 

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Memorable Secondary Characters

This is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish where each week bloggers share a list of books for the prompt given. So hopefully I'll have a new list to share with you all each week!

This Week's Topic: Top Ten most Memorable Secondary Characters

Oh boy, this one was a hard one. I always remember the main characters of the books, but things like secondary characters get a little fuzzy. So here are ones that stick out in my mind because if I remember them, that means they were some pretty awesome characters...

1. Hermione Granger from Harry Potter

2. Ron Weasly from Harry Potter

3. Simon from The Mortal Instruments

4. Jessica from Twilight

5. Elli from On Dublin Street

6. Dee from Obsidian and Onyx (but not in Opal...)

7. Jane Bennett from Pride and Prejudice

8. Patrick from The Perks of Being a Wallflower

9. Fred Weasley from Harry Potter

10. Kiersten from Point of Retreat (Slammed #2)

Weekly Roundup [8/20-8/26]

Hey guys! I'm writing to you from my very first apartment! I moved in on Friday with my three roommates and classes start today for the semester, so I'm both nervous and excited for this day to start! Hopefully the classes go okay and this semester won't be too bad with my class load. I guess we'll see :)

Book Reviews

Of Beast and Beauty by Stacey Jay

Sharkopedia by Discovery Channel

Dust Girl by Sarah Zettel

Paradox by AJ Paquette

Dead River by Cyn Balog

Memes

 

Top Ten Tuesday: Things that Make Our Lives as Bloggers Easier/Better

Waiting On Wednesday (105)

Stacking the Shelves (63)

Book Review: Dead River by Cyn Balog

Dead River

By Cyn Balog

Release Date: April 9, 2013

Source: Publisher

Summary: My friends and I are spending prom weekend at a remote wooded cabin on the Dead. The Dead River. 

I thought it was going to be just us.

I was wrong. 
Nothing is what it seems in this creepy paranormal thriller by Cyn Balog.

Review: I don't ever read thrillers or scary books. I'm one of the people who get scared to death watching scary movies. So going into this one that's described as a "creepy paranormal thriller," I was a bit nervous. 

Ki hasn't set foot near water since her mother walked out into a river and never came back. So when her friends want to go to a cabin on Death River for the weekend instead of going to prom, Ki decides to join in and lie to her dad. But Ki soon learns that there may have been more to why she's never been allowed by water. As ghost stories turn far too real, Ki doesn't know how she's going make it through the day, let alone the entire weekend. 

In the beginning, I was a bit freaked out by this book. I started it at night, with only my bedside lamp on, so I was in absolutely no state to be reading something even remotely scary. But I did it anyways. That's why I think I was so creeped out by the place Ki was staying and the weird things that would show up in her life. Either way, the author did a great job creating such a creepy atmosphere using just her words. 

I missed the whole "paranormal" part of the description, so when that stuff started to pop up, I wasn't as scared by the book as I was when I thought it was going to be a realistic fiction thriller. Either way, though, the story still grabbed my attention and only had a couple of slow moments. I actually really liked the whole ghost/paranormal aspect, especially since I had no idea what could possibly be paranormal from the summary. It added a lot more to the story and I couldn't wait to see how it all turned out. 

I really liked Ki's character and how her boyfriend and her best friend went on the trip with her. All of the characters were perfect for this story, even Hugo, the annoying guy Ki's best friend invited so she didn't have to be the third wheel. While this book won't be the next must-read in YA books, I still enjoyed the thrilling tale the author had to offer.

Stacking the Shelves (63)

Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews where bloggers share what they got throughout the week!

From Barnes & Noble

My brother got me a Barnes & Noble gift card for my birthday and I decided to buy myself a copy of The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp. I've heard great things about the movie, and I wanted to read it before it came out. Hopefully it's a good one!

From Netgalley/Edelweiss 

These two look so good and words can't even begin to describe how excited I was when I was approved to receive an ecopy of them. I love Cora Carmack's books and The Promise of Amazing just looks super cute. I can't wait to read these two!

From Librarything

 

I've never heard of this one, but I absolutely love the cover! And the story sounds like one full of teenage angst, romance, and drama. I'm excited to see where this one goes!

That's it for me! What did you all add to your shelves this week? 

Book Review: Paradox by AJ Paquette

Paradox

By AJ Paquette

Release Date: June 25, 2013

Source: Publisher

Summary: Fans of James Dashner's Maze Runner series will love this postapocalyptic adventure about a girl who must survive an alien planet in order to save the Earth.

Ana only knows her name because of the tag she finds pinned to her jumpsuit. Waking in the featureless compartment of a rocket ship, she opens the hatch to discover that she has landed on a barren alien world. Instructions in her pocket tell her to observe and to survive, no doubt with help from the wicked-looking knives she carries on her belt. But to what purpose?

Meeting up with three other teens--one boy seems strangely familiar--Ana treks across the inhospitable landscape, occasionally encountering odd twists of light that carry glimpses of people back on Earth. They're working on some sort of problem, and the situation is critical. What is the connection between Ana's mission on this planet and the crisis back on Earth, and how is she supposed to figure out the answer when she can't remember anything?

Review: Gosh this book was cool. So cool. I'm not a big fan of the cover, so I wasn't sure how the story was going to go. But when I read the inside flap, I decided to give it a try, and I'm so glad I did! 

When Ana wakes up in a strange space craft on a strange planet, the only thing she knows is her name. Where is she? How did she get there? Is she alone? All Ana knows is that her watch is counting down to something and she has to follow the map before time runs out. On her way, she meets others from her craft who seem to know more about Ana's "mission" than she does. Not to mention Ana has been running into strange wisps of someone else's memory back on earth, where life seems to be falling apart. What is Ana supposed to believe? And can she make it to base camp before her clock turns to zero?

Right off the bat, you're dropped of onto this new world that Ana has landed on, with just as much knowledge as she has, which is basically nothing. What the heck is going on? You have no clue! All you know that Ana is on a weird planet with her memory wiped. And then, when the three other teens enter the picture, they know something but can't share it. Why not? Being as in the dark as Ana was made the story so intriguing and has you dying to know why all of this is happening. 

Sci-fi books aren't really my thing, which is why I'm really surprised I liked this book so much. I think that the added mystery to what's happening on Earth, what Ana is going through, and what's waiting for Ana at the end of the countdown made this book as good as it was. I was so into the story that I had to finish it in one day because I wanted to know what was happening so badly. 

So even though the cover didn't really draw me in, the story hooked me from the start. There's mystery, giant worms, near death experiences, and a terrifying journey across an unknown planet. Once you start Paradox, you won't want to put it down.

Book Review: Dust Girl by Sarah Zettel

Dust Girl

By Sarah Zettel

Release Date: June 26, 2013

Source: Publisher

Summary: Callie LeRoux lives in Slow Run, Kansas, helping her mother run their small hotel and trying not to think about the father she’s never met. Lately all of her energy is spent battling the constant storms plaguing the Dust Bowl and their effects on her health. Callie is left alone when her mother goes missing in a dust storm. Her only hope comes from a mysterious man offering a few clues about her destiny and the path she must take to find her parents in “the golden hills of the west”: California. 

Along the way she meets Jack, a young hobo boy who is happy to keep her company—there are dangerous, desperate people at every turn. And there’s also an otherworldly threat to Callie. Warring fae factions, attached to the creative communities of American society, are very much aware of the role this half-mortal, half-fae teenage girl plays in their fate.

Review: I didn't know if I would like this one seeing as it's set during the Dust Bowl in America and I'm not too big of a fan of that time period. And the main character's a fairy? I didn't really know what to expect going into the first chapter, but I thought I'd give it a try. 

Callie has lived in Kansas all her life, helping her mother run their inn while they wait for her father to return like he promised. Even though they haven't seen him since before Callie was born. One night, the biggest dust storm Kansas has seen rolls into town and Callie's mother gets lost in the storm. Left by herself, strange people starting visiting Callie and she knows she's got to find her parents, so she heads to the one place she's told they are: California. On the way, Callie meets Jack, a boy who's hoping to head exactly where she wants to go. But there's much more to Jack than meets the eye and he may hold secrets even darker than Callie. 

Okay, so this book was weird. The whole supernatural/fantasy aspect did not click at all with this background. Callie's half fairy and there are weird bugs who look like people that show up at her house. Then, there are even more fairies and weird secret portals to past worlds that don't even make sense. Even by the end of the book, I still didn't understand Callie's powers and who she was even supposed to be in her whole fairy world. 

Not only was the world Callie lived in confusing, but some parts seemed to drag by. In the beginning, all Callie talked about was the dust and things just lagged as she sat there, complaining about how dry things were and how hungry she was. I get it, you're in a dust bowl. Can we move on please? Also, I didn't really understand how she could even get out of the dust bowl and on her way to California. Then, the whole thing at the end was a blur that I didn't really catch on to. 

In the end, Callie wasn't one of the best characters I've ever read about. She seemed a bit juvenile, so I feel like Callie's character would be more suited in a middle grade book than a YA novel. If you can't tell, I wasn't too big of a fan of this books. The main character and the historical time period of the Dust Bowl were both turnoffs for me. If you're looking for your next read, I'd say you can skip this one. 

Book Review: Sharkopedia by Discovery Channel

Sharkopedia: The Complete Guide to Everything Shark

By Discovery Channel

Release Date: June 11, 2013

Source: Publishers

Summary: Meet the most incredible creatures in the sea! Sharkopedia takes you inside the exciting world of sharks. From Discovery Channel, the people who bring you Shark Week every summer, learn everything there is to know about these awesome predators. The book includes more than 400 photos of sharks and all 498 known species of sharks.

Which shark has been clocked swimming 55 miles per hour?
What feeding habits give tiger sharks their nickname "garbage guts"?
Which shark has 25 rows of super-sharp teeth in its mouth?
And more!

Review: I know I never review non-fiction books. Ever. But when I had the opportunity to review a book that was described as the complete guide to everything shark, I knew I had to get my hands on a copy. 

With more than 400 photos, Sharkopedia shares everything there is to know about sharks. The people of the Discover Channel bring the world of this giant beast alive with their guide to all 498 species of the shark. 

Did I ever mention that I love sharks? Well, I do. And Shark Week is one of the best weeks of the year. So being able to look at a book full of everything shark is pretty awesome. The pictures are so amazing and you really get up close and personal with the sharks. Every single page is filled with colorful pictures as well as new, interesting facts about the huge, scary creatures. 

Not only were the pictures amazing, but the facts were so interesting and fun to read. Some pages even have a "fin fact," which I think is clever and adds some fun to the animal. Every page brings something new and the layout and colors never, ever get boring. There are so many different types of sharks and you get to see each and every one of them in this book. 

If you're a fan of sharks, I'd definitely recommend picking up this book. It's one you can look at over and over again and never get bored. So while non-fiction really isn't my thing, sharks will always be an exception. Go out and get yourself a copy of Sharkopedia now and explore the incredible world of sharks. 

Waiting On Wednesday (105)

This is a meme hosted by Breaking the Spine where every Wednesday bloggers highlight a book that they are eagerly anticipating the release of!

The Edge of Always

By JA Redmerski

Release Date: November 5, 2013

Summary: He was taking the long road. She was taking the road to nowhere. It just so happened that they led to the same place…

When everything falls apart, love remains . . .

THE EDGE OF ALWAYS

Camryn Bennett has never been happier. Five months after meeting on a Greyhound bus, she and her soul mate Andrew Parrish are engaged—and a wedding isn’t the only special event in their future. Nervous but excited, Camryn can’t wait to begin the rest of her life with Andrew – a man she knows in her heart will love her always. They have so much to look forward to—until tragedy blindsides them.

Andrew doesn’t understand how this could happen to them. He’s trying to move on, and thought Camryn was doing the same. But when Andrew discovers Camryn is secretly harboring a mountain of pain and attempting to numb it in damaging ways, there is nothing he won’t do to bring her back to life. Determined to prove that their love can survive anything, Andrew decides to take Camryn on a new journey filled with hope and passion. If only he can convince her to come along for the ride…

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I fell in love with The Edge of Never when I read it a couple of months ago and I'm super excited for the second book to be released. I'm so happy that Camryn and Andrew are engaged, but I have no idea what tragedy is going to happen to them. And how is Camryn numbing her pain? I really want to know! Hopefully this one is as amazing as the first book!