Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.
The book I´m waiting this week is
Girl Against the Universe by Paula Stokes
Release date: May 17th 2016
Maguire is bad luck.
No matter how many charms she buys off the internet or good luck rituals she performs each morning, horrible things happen when Maguire is around. Like that time the rollercoaster jumped off its tracks. Or the time the house next door caught on fire. Or that time her brother, father, and uncle were all killed in a car crash—and Maguire walked away with barely a scratch.
It’s safest for Maguire to hide out in her room, where she can cause less damage and avoid meeting new people who she could hurt. But then she meets Jordy, an aspiring tennis star. Jordy is confident, talented, and lucky, and he’s convinced he can help Maguire break her unlucky streak. Maguire knows that the best thing she can do for Jordy is to stay away. But it turns out staying away is harder than she thought.
From author Paula Stokes comes a funny and poignant novel about accepting the past, embracing the future, and learning to make your own luck.
Title:I Crawl Through It Author: A.S. King Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Release date: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Source: Netgalley Format: eARC Rating: 2/5 Buy on: Amazon | B&N | BookDepository
Four teenagers are on the verge of exploding. The anxieties they face at every turn have nearly pushed them to the point of surrender: senseless high-stakes testing, the lingering damage of past trauma, the buried grief and guilt of tragic loss. They are desperate to cope, but no one is listening.
So they will lie. They will split in two. They will turn inside out. They will even build an invisible helicopter to fly themselves far away...but nothing releases the pressure. Because, as they discover, the only way to truly escape their world is to fly right into it.
The genius of acclaimed author A.S. King reaches new heights in this groundbreaking work of surrealist fiction; it will mesmerize readers with its deeply affecting exploration of how we crawl through traumatic experience-and find the way out.
I really try to like this book because it´s written by A.S. King author of Everybody See the Ants and although it´s a weird book, I did enjoyed it, but I came pretty close to not finish reading I Crawl Through It, but I decided not to give up and read it to the end, but it just did not liked it.
First of all it´s a very strange, surreal book with unreliable characters (in other books I´ve enjoyed this type of character) and quite frustrating. This was definitely not a book for me, but maybe other people will like it.
The lives of four teenagers who cope day to day in different ways (and some of them have PTSD) is intertwined in the story of Stanzi who feels she´s divided in two, likes to dissect frogs, and wears a lab coat at all times, with constantly absent parents and she´s hopelessly in love with her friend Gustav. Gustav spends his free time building a red helicopter which is invisible, no one can see it except Stanzi (but she can only see it on Tuesdays). China is a girl that due to something that happened long ago has swallowed herself and loves to write poems. And Lansdale is a compulsive liar and that due to this fact her hair grows every time she tells a lie (like Pinocchio).
I started reading Crawl Through It with great expectations but it may be that surrealistic novels are not for me or at least this one failed to capture my attention, it´s extremely weird and bizarre. This book wasn't for me, but I will try to read other A.S. King´s books.
Title: The Rest of Us Just Live Here Author: Patrick Ness Publisher: HarperTeen Release date: October 6th 2015 Source: Edelweiss Format: eARC Rating: 3.5/5 Buy on: Amazon | B&N | BookDepository
What if you aren’t the Chosen One?
The one who’s supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever the heck this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death?
What if you’re like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school. Again.
Because sometimes there are problems bigger than this week’s end of the world, and sometimes you just have to find the extraordinary in your ordinary life.
Even if your best friend is worshiped by mountain lions.
Award-winning writer Patrick Ness’s bold and irreverent novel powerfully reminds us that there are many different types of remarkable.
I was a fan of the TV show - Buffy the Vampire Slayer and it seems that Patrick Ness also liked it because there are several references that reminded me of the TV series, but with this story the author wanted to focus on those who are not the "chosen one", they aren´t even friends of the "chosen one", so that the main character of this story are those who regularly on a supernatural/paranormal stories, are the extras, the background. This story reads almost like a contemporary novel, because it has some supernatural elements, but it´s not the main of the plot.
The story is told almost entirely from the point of view of Mikey, a sort of normal guy, without any special power, he has problems of anxiety and OCD, he has a politician mother, an alcoholic father, an anorexic older sister - Mel - and Meredith his overachiever little sister, but they must appear to be the perfect family. Besides this he has a crush with his friend Henna since forever and seems to he finally have the opportunity to confess his feelings ... if he gets the courage and decides to say something before graduation.
Mikey group of friends consist of Mel (Mikey´s sister), Jason is his best friend, whom is gay and is a grandson of the goddess of cats and Henna for whom he has romantic feelings. And these gang is just waiting for the near future, to just finish school and go to prom.
At the beginning of each chapter there is a paragraph that describes generally the paranormal part of the plot, as the Immortals come to the human world with the intention to seize it and how the "indie" kids from any high school are always the chosen ones to fight these evils.
But the battle between the Immortals and the indie kids is in the background and the main characters refer to these guys as the ones that always are fighting the zombies, vampires, ghosts, etc. and Mikey and gang can only hope that this time they do not destroy the school before graduation as they have at other times (this part was really funny).
Overall, The Rest of Us Just Live Here is a contemporary novel with satirical elements, besides having paranormal details as background, but the plot is about friendship, family and foremost is Mikey´s coming of age story, and how everybody can be the "chosen ones" and that's okay. I enjoyed reading this book.
“Not everyone has to be the Chosen One. Not everyone has to be the guy who saves the world. Most people just have to live their lives the best they can, doing things that are great for them, having great friends, trying to make their lives better, loving people properly. All the while knowing that the world makes no sense but trying to find a way to be happy anyway.”
Title: A Madness So Discreet Author: Mindy McGinnis Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books Release date: October 6th 2015 Source: Edelweiss Format: eARC Rating: 3.5/5 Buy on: Amazon | B&N | BookDepository
Grace Mae knows madness.
She keeps it locked away, along with her voice, trapped deep inside a brilliant mind that cannot forget horrific family secrets. Those secrets, along with the bulge in her belly, land her in a Boston insane asylum.
When her voice returns in a burst of violence, Grace is banished to the dark cellars, where her mind is discovered by a visiting doctor who dabbles in the new study of criminal psychology. With her keen eyes and sharp memory, Grace will make the perfect assistant at crime scenes. Escaping from Boston to the safety of an ethical Ohio asylum, Grace finds friendship and hope, hints of a life she should have had. But gruesome nights bring Grace and the doctor into the circle of a killer who stalks young women. Grace, continuing to operate under the cloak of madness, must hunt a murderer while she confronts the demons in her own past.
In this beautifully twisted historical thriller, Mindy McGinnis, acclaimed author of Not a Drop to Drink and In a Handful of Dust, explores the fine line between sanity and insanity, good and evil—and the madness that exists in all of us.
A Madness So Discreet is a historical murder mystery novel that takes place within an insane asylum and begins with Grace Mae as a mental patient and the reason of why she´s there is because she´s a daughter of respectable family and is pregnant, so to hide the fact her parents admitted her to the asylum for the duration of her pregnancy. But it is there in the asylum, despite the treatment and care she receives as a mental patient, where she feels safer than at home, so with the help of Doctor Thornhollow, she manages to escape the Boston asylum and moves to the Ohio asylum, where she have a more humane treatment as a patient.
Dr. Thornhollow, is a young doctor, who is obsessed with criminal minds, and he´s studying murders and trying to determine the profile of the murderer according to details of the crime scenes and where there were committed. When he meets Grace, he decides to help her due to her good memory and her gift of observation to detail, so she becomes his assistant and together they watched crime scenes trying to make profiles of murderers (much like the TV show Criminal Minds, but when science was in its infancy), but only as observers with the permission of the police. And it´s by means of their nocturnal visits to various crime scenes that both the Doctor Thornhollow and Grace conclude that there is a serial killer in their city that targets young women and that the police are not making the connection..
The first part of this book takes place at the Boston asylum and is very disturbing, due to the methods the asylum use in their patients and the doctors and staff are horrible. This part is very dark and raw.
The second part of the book takes place when Grace is at the Ohio asylum, which has a better staff, and the doctor who is in charge is Thornhollow and patients have a little more freedom and humane treatment, this part was less dark. And is in this part where the mystery begins and we get to know more about Grace.
On the third part of the book, the plot changes and Grace´s problems are more personal and is where she confronts her demons.
Overall, A Madness So Discreet it was a good read, it´s a very interesting, dark, raw historical thriller. My favorite part is the part where the Doctor and Grace are doing profiles of potential murderers. As this is the third book I´ve read written by Mindy, I already had the idea that there would be romance and I was right, plus it was not necessary. It was an interesting read, that speaks a lot about the beginnings of criminal psychology.
Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.
The book I´m waiting this week is
The Dark Days Club (Lady Helen #1) by Alison Goodman
Release date: January 26th 2016
New York Times bestseller Alison Goodman’s eagerly awaited new project: a Regency adventure starring a stylish and intrepid demon-hunter!
London, April 1812. On the eve of eighteen-year-old Lady Helen Wrexhall’s presentation to the queen, one of her family’s housemaids disappears-and Helen is drawn into the shadows of Regency London. There, she meets Lord Carlston, one of the few who can stop the perpetrators: a cabal of demons infiltrating every level of society. Dare she ask for his help, when his reputation is almost as black as his lingering eyes? And will her intelligence and headstrong curiosity wind up leading them into a death trap?
It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is a meme hosted by Book Journey.
Each week we spotlight the books we are reading, planning on reading or just finished reading.
Click on the image to look description in Goodreads. Finished reading
The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness (3 or 3.5/5 stars) I´m currently reading
Title: Tonight the Streets Are Ours Author: Leila Sales Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) Release date: September 15th 2015 Source: Netgalley Format: eARC Rating: 3.5/5 Buy on: Amazon | B&N | BookDepository
Recklessly loyal.
That’s how seventeen-year-old Arden Huntley has always thought of herself. Caring for her loved ones is what gives Arden purpose in her life and makes her feel like she matters. But lately she’s grown resentful of everyone—including her needy best friend and her absent mom—taking her loyalty for granted.
Then Arden stumbles upon a website called Tonight the Streets Are Ours, the musings of a young New York City writer named Peter, who gives voice to feelings that Arden has never known how to express. He seems to get her in a way that no one else does, and he hasn’t even met her.
Until Arden sets out on a road trip to find him.
During one crazy night out in New York City filled with parties, dancing, and music—the type of night when anything can happen, and nearly everything does—Arden discovers that Peter isn’t exactly who she thought he was. And maybe she isn’t exactly who she thought she was, either.
Tonight the Streets Are Ours is a coming of age contemporary novel about the growth and self discovery of the main character.
Like all stories, the one you're about to read is a love story.
If it wasn't, what would be the point?
And it´s a love story but just not the typical one.
Arden is a seventeen-year-old girl that has always puts the welfare of others before herself, regardless of the consequences she always puts the needs of others before hers, and Lindsey her best friend since she was a little girl, is the one that constantly benefits from this.
But one day that Arden is with low morale she searches Internet on why nobody loves me as much as I love them? and that search leads her to find the blog/journal of Peter, a young man living in New York and in one of his entries he ask himself exactly the same question and this leads Arden to follow his blog and start reading from the beginning, the everyday life of Peter and his romance with the beautiful Bianca, as some of the things he does to gain the attention of Bianca. Meanwhile Arden dreams/wishes that her romance with her boyfriend Chris was like theirs. Arden follows the blog for several months and the day she has a disagreement with her boyfriend Chris, on Peter´s blog she reads that Bianca broke up with him, which prompts Arden on a spur of the moment to do a road trip along with Lindsey to New York with the intention to find Peter.
And it is on that night in New York, so different from what she is used to, Arden makes decisions and do things that she normally would not do and ends up discovering another side of the people around her and herself,
The beginning of Tonight the Streets Are Ours is slow paced, as we get to know Arden first, her friends, her boyfriend, family and that she´s not completely happy as she seems, but is not until her trip to New York that the plot begins take pace and managed to captivate my attention, it´s a little different than I expected, but I did liked it.
Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.
The book I´m waiting this week is
Passenger (Passenger #1) by Alexandra Bracken
Release date: January 5th 2016
passage, n.
i. A brief section of music composed of a series of notes and flourishes.
ii. A journey by water; a voyage.
iii. The transition from one place to another, across space and time.
In one devastating night, violin prodigy Etta Spencer loses everything she knows and loves. Thrust into an unfamiliar world by a stranger with a dangerous agenda, Etta is certain of only one thing: she has traveled not just miles but years from home. And she’s inherited a legacy she knows nothing about from a family whose existence she’s never heard of. Until now.
Nicholas Carter is content with his life at sea, free from the Ironwoods—a powerful family in the colonies—and the servitude he’s known at their hands. But with the arrival of an unusual passenger on his ship comes the insistent pull of the past that he can’t escape and the family that won’t let him go so easily. Now the Ironwoods are searching for a stolen object of untold value, one they believe only Etta, Nicholas’ passenger, can find. In order to protect her, he must ensure she brings it back to them— whether she wants to or not.
Together, Etta and Nicholas embark on a perilous journey across centuries and continents, piecing together clues left behind by the traveler who will do anything to keep the object out of the Ironwoods’ grasp. But as they get closer to the truth of their search, and the deadly game the Ironwoods are playing, treacherous forces threaten to separate Etta not only from Nicholas but from her path home . . . forever.
Title: The Immortal Heights (The Elemental Trilogy #3) Author: Sherry Thomas Publisher: Balzer + Bray Release date: October 13th 2015 Source: Edelweiss Format: eARC Rating: 5/5 Buy on: Amazon | B&N | BookDepository You can read my review of The Burning Sky - here & The Perilous Sea - here
In a pursuit that has spanned continents, Iolanthe, Titus, and their friends have always managed to remain one step ahead of the forces of Atlantis. But now the Bane, the monstrous tyrant who bestrides the entire mage world, has issued his ultimatum: Titus must hand over Iolanthe, or watch as his entire realm is destroyed in a deadly rampage. Running out of time and options, Iolanthe and Titus must act decisively to deliver a final blow to the Bane, ending his reign of terror for good.
However, getting to the Bane means accomplishing the impossible—finding a way to infiltrate his crypt in the deepest recesses of the most ferociously guarded fortress in Atlantis. And everything is only made more difficult when new prophecies come to light, foretelling a doomed effort....
Iolanthe and Titus will put their love and their lives on the line. But will it be enough?
With The Immortal Heights, Sherry Thomas brings the acclaimed Elemental Trilogy to its breathtaking conclusion.
Great conclusion of this amazing fantasy trilogy, full of magic and good action sequences ....... I loved it!!!
The Immortal Heights starts exactly where it left off the previous book, we see Iolanthe and Prince Titus facing the army mages of Atlantis and as both are willing to do anything to prevent Iolanthe from being captured by them, because if she was captured she will be used to make the Bane (he´s the ruler of Atlantis) more powerful.
Iolanthe or Fairfax as Titus regularly refers to her, is the most powerful elemental mage of her generation and Titus has prepared all his life to be instrumental in the final battle against the Bane, this because his mother was a seer and left him a diary where she wrote her visions, which he keeps as a guide of what to do, even though he knows that there is a vision where his mother saw that he will not survive this battle. And in this last battle accompanies them Kashkari, a mage who also has prophetic dreams and during the trip he has several dreams that concern Fairfax and Titus that do not paint a good future for either of them.
Iolanthe and Titus are really good characters because during the duration of the trilogy I got attached to them, I care about them and I'm invested in their welfare. I liked that their romance is very stable and there is no dramas and both are very much in love with each other ... there is balance between them.
The Elemental Trilogy has original features with a well-defined world and a really beautiful romance, the last chapters had me on the edge of my seat as we get to see the fulfillment of the vision/prophecies that have been mentioned during the trilogy, the ending of this book is amazing and I loved the epilogue. I highly recommend this extraordinary trilogy.
It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is a meme hosted by Book Journey.
Each week we spotlight the books we are reading, planning on reading or just finished reading.
Click on the image to look description in Goodreads. Finished reading
Spinning Starlight by R.C. Lewis (3/5 stars)
Tonight the Streets Are Ours by Leila Sales (4/5 stars)
A Madness So Discreet by Mindy McGinnis(3 or 3.5/5 stars) I´m currently reading
