Waiting On Wednesday (113): After the End & Maybe Someday

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

After the End (After the End #1) by Amy Plum

Release date: May 6th 2014 

She’s searching for answers to her past. They’re hunting her to save their future. 

World War III has left the world ravaged by nuclear radiation. A lucky few escaped to the Alaskan wilderness. They've survived for the last thirty years by living off the land, being one with nature, and hiding from whoever else might still be out there. 

At least, this is what Juneau has been told her entire life.

When Juneau returns from a hunting trip to discover that everyone in her clan has vanished, she sets off to find them. Leaving the boundaries of their land for the very first time, she learns something horrifying: There never was a war. Cities were never destroyed. The world is intact. Everything was a lie.

Now Juneau is adrift in a modern-day world she never knew existed. But while she's trying to find a way to rescue her friends and family, someone else is looking for her. Someone who knows the extraordinary truth about the secrets of her past.

Why I'm Waiting?

I like post-apocalyptic novels and this one sounds really good.

Maybe Someday by Colleen Hoover 

Release date: March 18th 2014

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover, a passionate tale of friendship, betrayal, and romance—and the enchanting music that inspires one young woman to put her life back together.

At twenty-two years old, aspiring musician Sydney Blake has a great life: She’s in college, working a steady job, in love with her wonderful boyfriend, Hunter, and rooming with her good friend, Tori. But everything changes when she discovers Hunter cheating on her with Tori—and she is left trying to decide what to do next.

Sydney becomes captivated by her mysterious neighbor, Ridge Lawson. She can’t take her eyes off him or stop listening to the daily guitar playing he does out on his balcony. She can feel the harmony and vibrations in his music. And there’s something about Sydney that Ridge can’t ignore, either: He seems to have finally found his muse. When their inevitable encounter happens, they soon find themselves needing each other in more ways than one…

From the author of the New York Times bestsellers Slammed, Point of Retreat, Hopeless, This Girl, and Losing Hope, Maybe Someday is destined to become another bestseller and long-lasting fan favorite.

Why I'm Waiting?
Because I´ve read and loved all Colleen´s novels and can´t wait to read more of her books.

What book are you waiting this week?

Leave your WOW links 

Top Ten Tuesday (34): Popular Authors I've Never Read

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish.

Top Ten Popular Authors I've Never Read 
(in no particular order)

1. Stephen King (Carrie, The Shining, It, The Green Mile and more): I've seen several of the movies based on his books, but I´ve never read one of his books.

2. George R.R. Martin (A Song of Ice and Fire series aka A Game of Thrones): This is a series that I´ve wanted to read for a while but I haven´t because sometimes just seen a big fat book intimidates me.

3. Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, Kane Chronicles series and The Heroes of Olympus series) : I´ve the first e-book of Kane Chronicles and Heroes of Olympus, but I haven´t read it yet.

4. James Dashner (The Maze Runner series and The Mortality Doctrine series): I´ve the e-book of Maze Runner that I need to read before the movie comes out.

5. Scott Westerfeld (Uglies series and Leviathan series): I´ve heard that the Uglies series is really good but I haven´t read it yet.

6. Sophie Kinsella (Shopaholic series, Can You Keep a Secret?, I've Got Your Number and more): I just bought can you keep a secret?, so maybe later this year I´ll read it.

7. Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper, Nineteen Minutes and more)

8. Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak, Wintergirls and more): ¨ve Wintergirls so maybe later this year I´ll read it.

9. Meg Cabot (The Princess Diaries series, Heather Wells Mysteries series and more)

 10. Rainbow Rowell (Eleanor & Park, Fangirl): I´ve both e-books and I haven´t read them, maybe I´ll read one of them between some of the books that I´ve for review.

These are some of the popular authors that I haven´t read yet. Other authors that I haven´t read are Diana Gabaldon and Nicholas Sparks.

What popular authors have you never read?

Leave me your link in the comments.

Stacking the Shelves (33): February

Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga´s Reviews, which showcases the books we've purchased, won, borrowed and received in the mail. 

These are the books in my shelves from the past month. 

FOR REVIEW

On the Fence by Kasie West

In the End (In the After #2) by Demitria Lunetta

Sublime by Christina Lauren

Thank you very much to HarperTeen, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers and Edelweiss for the egalleys.

BOUGHT

FOR MY KINDLE

Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

Breaking Beautiful by Jennifer Shaw Wolf

The Archived (The Archived #1) by Victoria Schwab

My Life Next Door (My Life Next Door #1) by Huntley Fitzpatrick

Origin (Origin #1) by Jessica Khoury

The Merchant's Daughter by Melanie Dickerson

The Healer's Apprentice by Melanie Dickerson

Where the Stars Still Shine by Trish Doller

Sophie & Carter by Chelsea Fine

Love Show by Audrey Bell

Epilogue (The Dark Duet #3) by C.J. Roberts

FREEBIE

Bitter Sweet Love (The Dark Elements 0.5) by Jennifer L. Armentrout

What books did you get?

Leave me your link in the comments.

Review: Faking Normal by Courtney C. Stevens

Title: Faking Normal
Author: Courtney C. Stevens
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release date: February 25th 2014
Source: Edelweiss
Format: egalley

Rating: 5/5

Buy on: Amazon | B&N | BookDepository

An edgy, realistic, and utterly captivating novel from an exciting new voice in teen fiction.

Alexi Littrell hasn't told anyone what happened to her over the summer. Ashamed and embarrassed, she hides in her closet and compulsively scratches the back of her neck, trying to make the outside hurt more than the inside does.

When Bodee Lennox, the quiet and awkward boy next door, comes to live with the Littrells, Alexi discovers an unlikely friend in "the Kool-Aid Kid," who has secrets of his own. As they lean on each other for support, Alexi gives him the strength to deal with his past, and Bodee helps her find the courage to finally face the truth.

A searing, poignant book, Faking Normal is the extraordinary debut novel from an exciting new author-Courtney C. Stevens.

I have said more than once that I like realistic books that break my heart into little pieces but with a more or less happy ending and this is not the first book I read about sexual assault, but one of the few who once I start reading it, I couldn't put it down and once I finished reading it, couldn't get it out of my mind.

Faking Normal tells the story of Alexi, a girl that her life has not been the same since summer, because that was when she was sexually assaulted, but she pretends to be fine and acts normal in front of her family, friends and classmates, but every day she sits inside her closet and compulsively scratches her neck until it bleeds and then she counts compulsively the vents in her bedroom, all this allows her to calm down somehow. Because after all she is not sure if she really was abused, because she never said no, she just froze in panic, so she blamed herself for letting it happen and all the blame lies with her ​​and not her attacker.

Then Bodee comes into her life, he´s a guy from school whom she´d never has crossed a word, he´s the weird kid and everyone knows him as the "Kool-aid kid", because he dyes his hair with Kool-aid; Bodee comes to live at her house, he is going through a very difficult time in his life and Alexi¨s family invite him to live with them temporarily. I must say that Bodee is my favorite character of the book, despite also having his own problems and been broken, he's kind, very protective and knows that something is going on with Alexi and tries to be there for her.

Also as part of the plot and something that makes Alexi´s days bearable and that is the mystery of Captain Lyric, a guy who writes songs phrases or quotes everyday on her desk and Alexi completes the verse of the song and she challenge him by leaving another verse of a song so that he completes it, they only communicate through songs and she does not know who he is.

Overall, Faking Normal is a very beautifully written contemporary novel with a powerful, heart wrenching, poignant and realistic plot, with unforgettable characters and that broke my heart to teeny tiny bits. Definitely a MUST read book.

I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange of an honest review.

Favorites quotes

I say a little prayer of thankfulness. Mom and Dad believe they invited Bodee into our home to help him, but the truth is, he´s helping me.

"..this´ll sound weird, but when I was a kid I believed in monsters. You know, like vampires. Werewolves. Ghosts. And I believed in them because I knew at least one monster existed. He wore a shirt with his name stiched across the pocket. And carried a fifth for a weapon. And sometimes a knife."

Review: Alienated by Melissa Landers

Title: Alienated (Alienated #1)
Author: Melissa Landers
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Release date: February 4th 2014
Source: Netgalley
Format: egalley

Rating: 4.5/5

Buy on: Amazon | B&N | BookDepository

Interplanetary relations have never been more exciting! The first in a funny, romantic YA sci-fi series.

Two years ago, the aliens made contact. Now Cara Sweeney is going to be sharing a bathroom with one of them.

Handpicked to host the first-ever L’eihr exchange student, Cara thinks her future is set. Not only does she get a free ride to her dream college, she’ll have inside information about the mysterious L’eihrs that every journalist would kill for. Cara’s blog following is about to skyrocket.

Still, Cara isn’t sure what to think when she meets Aelyx. Humans and L’eihrs have nearly identical DNA, but cold, infuriatingly brilliant Aelyx couldn’t seem more alien. She’s certain about one thing, though: no human boy is this good-looking.
But when Cara's classmates get swept up by anti-L'eihr paranoia, Midtown High School suddenly isn't safe anymore. Threatening notes appear in Cara's locker, and a police officer has to escort her and Aelyx to class.

Cara finds support in the last person she expected. She realizes that Aelyx isn’t just her only friend; she's fallen hard for him. But Aelyx has been hiding the truth about the purpose of his exchange, and its potentially deadly consequences. Soon Cara will be in for the fight of her life—not just for herself and the boy she loves, but for the future of her planet.

I 've always liked stories about aliens and especially the love stories between humans and aliens, I don´t know if someone remember Roswell (TV series)? it was one of my favorite series about aliens, so when I saw this book, I'll be honest the first thing that caught my eye was the beautiful cover (yes, I love books with beautiful covers), but after reading the synopsis really interested me.

Alienated tells the story of Cara, a girl in her senior year of high school and valedictorian. She´s chosen from thousands of students (valediactorians) in the U.S. to host one of the first exchange students from Planet L ' eihr because Aelyx will go to the USA, Syrine to France and Eron to China, in order to be a school year on earth and thus interact with humans and appear in a weekly talk show on TV (at least Aelyx), so that humans gradually got used to the idea of interacting with aliens, because the governments plans to make an alliance with the L'eihrs, and at the end of the school year, it is planned to be the human hosts the ones that would travel to planet L'eihr.

So once on earth Aelyx and Cara must lead an almost normal school life, or at least that is until the people living in the city begins to get paranoia and do not want Aelyx on earth and start making protest in front of their high school and Cara´s house and she starts receiving threatening and insulting messages and things start to spiral out of control.

The book is told from the point of view of Cara and Aelyx, and something I like the story is that there isn´t instant love because the first impression she has of Aelyx is that he´s extremely handsome, but that's it, she doesn´t declared her undying love or anything like that. Aelix is very distant and apparently on plant L'eihr they aren´t used to physical contact (he doesn´t like to be touched), or any type of demonstration affection. Initially Aelyx is a know-all, that says what he thinks without sugar coating or censored himself, but the more time he spends on earth and Cara, he tries to adapt and be a little more friendly.

Overall, I really liked Alienated, it´s a funny, very entertaining book with a fresh idea and some mysteries that had their answers in this book, with a good ending (without cliffhanger...yay!) and cannot wait for the next book - Invaded. I highly recommended this book for fans of YA sci-fi books with a budding romance.

I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

Book trailer

Waiting On Wednesday (112): On the Fence

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

On the Fence by Kasie West 

Release date: July 1st 2014

She's a tomboy. He's the boy next door…

Charlie Reynolds can outrun, outscore, and outwit every boy she knows. But when it comes to being a girl, Charlie doesn't know the first thing about anything. So when she starts working at a chichi boutique to pay off a speeding ticket, she finds herself in a strange new world. To cope with the stress of her new reality, Charlie takes to spending nights chatting with her neighbor Braden through the fence between their yards. As she grows to depend on their nightly Fence Chats, she realizes she's got a bigger problem than speeding tickets-she's falling for Braden. She knows what it means to go for the win, but if spilling her secret means losing him for good, the stakes just got too high.

Fun, original, and endearing, On the Fence is a romantic comedy about finding yourself and finding love where you least expect.

Why I'm Waiting?

I loved Pivot Point and I´ve heard great things about The Distance Between Us, so this one is going to my TBR list.

What book are you waiting this week?

Leave your WOW links 

Don´t forget to enter my current giveaway:

February New Release Giveaway Hop (INTL) - HERE.