Monday, August 8, 2011

Cover Crazy- Blood Wounds


This week I am CRAZY About....

Blood Wounds
Susan Beth Pfeffer
Harcourt Children's Books
Pub Date-  September 12, 2011

I think this cover is incredibly striking.  The expression of the girl is so intriguing, it makes me wonder who she is and what story she has to tell.  Is she angry? disturbed?  frightened?  I can't wait to find out.

 From Goodreads:
 
Willa is lucky: She has a loving blended family that gets along. Not all families are so fortunate. But when a bloody crime takes place hundreds of miles away, it has an explosive effect on Willa’s peaceful life. The estranged father she hardly remembers has murdered his new wife and children, and is headed east toward Willa and her mother.
Under police protection, Willa discovers that her mother has harbored secrets that are threatening to boil over. Has everything Willa believed about herself been a lie? As Willa sets out to untangle the mysteries of her past, she keeps her own secret—one that has the potential to tear her family apart.


Cover Crazy is hosted by Tawni at The Book Worms.  Check it out!


Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Waiting on Wednesday- The Probability of Miracles


For this week's edition of WOW, I am featuring:
The Probability of Miracles
Wendy Wunder
Razorbill
Pub Date- Dec 8, 2011


From Goodreads: 

  Dry, sarcastic, sixteen-year-old Cam Cooper has spent the last seven years in and out hospitals. The    last thing she wants to do in the short life she has left is move 1,500 miles away to Promise, Maine - a place known for the miraculous events that occur there. But it's undeniable that strange things happen in Promise: everlasting sunsets; purple dandelions; flamingoes in the frigid Atlantic; an elusive boy named Asher; and finally, a mysterious envelope containing a list of things for Cam to do before she dies. As Cam checks each item off the list, she finally learns to believe - in love, in herself, and even in miracles.

A debut novel from an immensely talented new writer, The Probability of Miracles crackles with wit, romance and humor and will leave readers laughing and crying with each turn of the page.


Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine where bloggers post about pre-publication titles they are eagerly anticipating.
 

Monday, July 25, 2011

Cover Crazy: FROST


This week, I am CRAZY about...

Frost
Marianna Baer
Balzer & Bray
Pub Date- Sept 13, 2011

I love a good ghost story and for me, this cover screams scary.  I love the gray fog, the dead trees and the spooky old house, as well as the creepy image of the girl- it is so striking!   Even better, the story sounds frighteningly amazing:

Leena Thomas’s senior year at boarding school begins with a shock: Frost House, her cozy dorm of close friends, has been assigned an unexpected roommate: confrontational, eccentric Celeste Lazar. But while Leena’s anxiety about a threat to her sanctuary proves valid, it becomes less and less clear whether the threat lies with her new roommate, within Leena’s own mind, or within the very nature of Frost House itself. Mysterious happenings in the dorm, an intense triangle between Leena, Celeste, and Celeste’s brother, and the reawakening of childhood fears, all push Leena to take increasingly desperate measures to feel safe. Frost is the story of a haunting. As to whether the demons are supernatural or psychological . . . well, which answer would let you sleep at night?


Cover Crazy is hosted by Tawni at The Book Worms.  Check it out!

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Review: Linger

Linger
Maggie Stiefvater
Scholastic Audio
Pub Date- July 13, 2010

Moving right along with the wolves of Mercy Falls, I took a brief 3-day break after finishing Shiver before diving in to Linger.  If you’ve read my review of Shiver, you’d know that I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the first book and would have abandoned the series altogether if it weren’t for the last few chapters and a bizarre cliffhanger.   Well, I’m certainly glad I didn’t.   By the middle of Linger, I had decided that I liked it and by the end, I was almost convinced that I loved it….ALMOST.

From Goodreads:
In Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver, Grace and Sam found each other.  Now, in Linger, they must fight to be together. For Grace, this means defying her parents and keeping a very dangerous secret about her own well-being. For Sam, this means grappling with his werewolf past . . . and figuring out a way to survive into the future. Add into the mix a new wolf named Cole, whose own past has the potential to destroy the whole pack.  And Isabelle, who already lost her brother to the wolves . . . and is nonetheless drawn to Cole.
At turns harrowing and euphoric, Linger is a spellbinding love story that explores both sides of love -- the light and the dark, the warm and the cold -- in a way you will never forget.

First off, I have to commend Maggie Stiefvater on her enchanting writing.    Her descriptions are in such vivid detail that I am able to visualize the story playing out in my head with ease.   I often found myself getting lost in the writing, daydreaming about the scene she was describing.  Okay, now on with the plot…
The story is told in 4 different perspectives as compared to 2 in Shiver:  Sam, Grace, Isabelle & Cole.  I really loved how all 4 narratives were incorporated into the story line because to be honest,  I looked most forward to the chapters told from Cole and Isabelle’s point of view.   For me, Cole was a much more interesting and appealing male character than Sam-  every girl deep down loves a bad boy, right?  Cole is a cocky, egotistical basket case, which was a nice change from Sam’s poetry reading, paper bird-making, bread-baking character.    And if you happen to listen to the audiobook version, Cole’s narrator is a million times sexier than Sam’s.   Moving on… As for Isabelle, she is definitely my favorite character in the book.  She is bossy and practical and says exactly what she thinks- sometimes, she is the only character who is thinking clearly.
So I can’t say that I LOVED Linger, because I still had issues with certain elements of the plot.   As expressed in my review of Shiver,  Grace’s parents continue to be a source of frustration for me.  In Shiver, they were completely absent from Grace’s life, unrealistically so.  Now all of the sudden, they  decide to be “normal” parents and try to control every aspect of their daughter's life.  They didn’t even seem like the same characters, and they appeared to be written as a way to add conflict or an element of “forbidden love” to the plot.  Perhaps this will be better explained in Forever?  Also, it drove me crazy how both Sam and Grace knew that Grace was turning into a wolf but were in complete denial and ignored the situation.  I thought this was completely uncharacteristic of Grace’s headstrong & blunt character.  Sam and Grace discussed everything, so why not discuss that they could potentially be torn apart again?  Despite my frustrations, I was actually sad to see the book end- I really enjoyed it.  I give it 4 out of 5 stars.  


 

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Trailer Thursday: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Ransom Riggs
Quirk Books
Pub Date-  June 7, 2011


I could watch this over and over again...it's completely mystifying.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Waiting on Wednesday: Fracture


I am SO excited about this week's WOW post:

Fracture
Megan Miranda
Walker Books for Young Readers
Pub Date- Jan 3, 2012

From Goodreads:

Eleven minutes passed before Delaney Maxwell was pulled from the icy waters of a Maine lake by her best friend Decker Phillips. By then her heart had stopped beating. Her brain had stopped working. She was dead. And yet she somehow defied medical precedent to come back seemingly fine—despite the scans that showed significant brain damage. Everyone wants Delaney to be all right, but she knows she’s far from normal. Pulled by strange sensations she can’t control or explain, Delaney finds herself drawn to the dying. Is her altered brain now predicting death, or causing it?

Then Delaney meets Troy Varga, who recently emerged from a coma with similar abilities. At first she’s reassured to find someone who understands the strangeness of her new existence, but Delaney soon discovers that Troy’s motives aren’t quite what she thought. Is their gift a miracle, a freak of nature—or something much more frightening?

For fans of best-sellers like Before I Fall and If I Stay, this is a fascinating and heart-rending story about love and friendship and the fine line between life and death.


I think this sounds amazing and can't wait to read it!  What do you guys think?


Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine where bloggers post about pre-publication titles they are eagerly anticipating.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Teaser Tuesday: Clockwork Angel


 My Teaser this week comes from...


 Clockwork Angel
Cassandra Clare
Margaret K. McElderry (Simon & Schuster)
Pub Date- Aug 31, 2010


"Tessa bit her lip- and winced at the unexpected sharp pain.  Camille's vampire teeth- her teeth were ruled by an instinct she couldn't understand."

"Your impatience," said Will, "is most unladylike," He grinned at her around the apple.


Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by Mizb at Should Be Reading.
  • Grab Your Current Read
  • Open to a Random Page
  • Share 2 Teaser Sentences from Somewhere on that Page
  • Share the Title & Author