Supernaturally Cover Reveal!

THIS. I want this one too. ASAP. Paranormalcy was fabulous. And I wanna read the sequel.

I like this cover, although I think I liked the first one better because of the color scheme. But still. This is cool and I am excited.

So Silver Bright Cover Reveal!

"The course of true love never did run smooth..."

I am excited. Can I have this book right now please? I love this series and I wanna read this one as soon as it comes out. And this cover is gorgeous. I love her dress.

Sorry I've been so absent lately, things around here have been a bit hectic and blogging has had to take a backseat. Unfortunately, I'm probably not going to be able to post much this weekend either, but hopefully next week I'll be able to get back on track. I have several books I want to talk about so I'm not lacking in stuff to post, I just have to write the posts! Apologies again for my absence. I have missed the blogosphere and will be glad to get back into it soon. :)

Also. So Silver Bright. I want it.

Happy February 14th!

Yes, today is Valentine's Day/Singles Awareness Day. Honestly, probably my least favorite holiday - if I may be bluntly honest, I think it's disgustingly commercialized and it seems designed to make single people feel bad about themselves. Contrary to society's belief, you don't need a romantic partner to be happy in life.

But what Valentine's Day does provide is a chance to eat lots of chocolate, and that's something I won't complain about. ;)

Happy Hearts Day, readers! ♥

Review: Angel

Title: Angel
Author: James Patterson
Publisher: Little, Brown
Pages: 272
Series: Maximum Ride #7
**WARNING: Spoilers for earlier books in the series (not for this book)**
Description from Goodreads:
In the seventh book in the bestselling series, evil scientists are still trying to convince Max that she needs to save the world, this time by providing the genetic link in speeding up the pace of evolution. Worse, they're trying to convince her that her perfect mate is Dylan, the newest addition to the flock. The problem is that, despite herself, Max is starting to believe it.

Fang travels the country collecting his own gang of evolved humans, but the two separate flocks must unite to defeat a frightening doomsday cult whose motto is Save the Planet: Kill the Humans. And this time, the true heroine, for once, might just be little Angel.

-------------

I have mixed feelings about this one. I liked that it had some semblance of an actual plot and wasn't all just gushy-gushy. I adored the first three books in this series because there was a real story, and I feel like beginning with book four the series has slowly declined. The quality of the writing is a lot lower; the stories are less interesting; and Max, rather than being kick-butt, snarky, and totally independent, is whiny and lovestruck.

Angel basically fits into the same category because (MAJOR FANG SPOILER) Max spends almost the entire book moping about how Fang left her. I like Fang...I also like Dylan. I don't care which one she ends up with, not anymore, as long as she stops complaining about it! (END SPOILER.) And yet...

In this one, there's plot again. The scientists are back to telling Max she has to save the world... except now there's some sort of cult called the Doomsday Group that seems to be able to hypnotize people. Their motto: "Save the world. Kill the humans." In Angel, Max and the flock are investigating the DG, as are Fang and his own new group of genetically enhanced kids. The romance (which I thought was cute in Max and then blatantly overdone in Fang) is still drippy and overdone, BUT there's other stuff going on, too. Angel, who is apparently no longer interested in taking over the flock or betraying them to evil scientists, seems to know more about what is going on than anyone else because of her ability to read minds. She speaks and acts as if she were way older than seven.

I don't know. I like the snarky comments, I like the action, it was a fun read - but it's not the same quality as the first three books, and there's some stuff in here that's starting to seriously get on my nerves. I do think it's a step up from Fang and The Final Warning, and I think if you've enjoyed the others in the series you should definitely read it. I know I'll be reading Book 8 whenever it comes out, if only because despite all my frustrations, I do love these characters a lot.

If you're reading this review on the day I've posted it, take note - Angel releases in stores tomorrow!

Links:
James Patterson's website
Maximum Ride website

Books from Before (6)

Books from Before is my own meme in which I talk about books that I read and loved before I started blogging. Feel free to use my meme, but please credit me!

Today I want to talk about Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson. I read this book around a year ago now and I fell in love. Of course, I love just about everything I've read by MJ, but this one is possibly my favorite. It's funny, it's unique, and the characters are just fantastic. (Personally, my favorite is Spencer. I would love to meet him, I really would.) The idea is so cool, too. Trying to pull of a secret play in a hotel (that just happens to be your home)? Awesome. I laughed out loud while reading this, and I also connected to it in a lot of ways. And the sequel, Scarlett Fever, is just as great. Go read!!!

Goodreads Description:
Scarlett Martin has grown up in a most unusual way. Her family owns the Hopewell, a small Art Deco hotel in the heart of New York City.
When each of the Martins turns fifteen, they are expected to take over the care of a suite. For Scarlett’s fifteenth birthday, she gets both a room called the Empire Suite and a permanent guest named Mrs. Amberson. Scarlett doesn’t quite know what to make of this C-list starlet and world traveler.
And when she meets Eric, an astonishingly gorgeous actor who has just moved to the city, her summer takes a second unexpected turn.
Before the summer is over, Scarlett will have to survive a whirlwind of thievery and romantic missteps. But in the city where anything can happen, she just might be able to pull it off.


I love this book so much.

Waiting on Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Jill of Breaking the Spine.

Sorry I'm a little late posting this today! This week I'm waiting on Perfect by Ellen Hopkins. It's a companion to Impulse, and this one follows Connor's sister. I still haven't had the opportunity to finish Impulse but what I have read, I have loved, and I plan to finish it ASAP, so I'm pretty excited about this one too. Plus, isn't the cover just wonderfultastic (which should totally be a real word)? I love the inky sort of blue-purple.

Description from Goodreads:
Everyone has something, someone, somewhere else that they'd rather be. For four high-school seniors, their goals of perfection are just as different as the paths they take to get there.

Cara's parents' unrealistic expectations have already sent her twin brother Conner spiraling toward suicide. For her, perfect means rejecting their ideals to take a chance on a new kind of love. Kendra covets the perfect face and body - no matter what surgeries and drugs she needs to get there. To score his perfect home run - on the field and off - Sean will sacrifice more than he can ever win back. And Andre realizes to follow his heart and achieve his perfect performance, he'll be living a life his ancestors would never understand.

Everyone wants to be perfect, but when perfection loses its meaning, how far will you go? What would you give up to be perfect? 

**********

Sounds awesome, can't wait! What are you waiting on this week? Leave a link in the comments and I'll stop by!

Bloodlines Cover!

So I still haven't gotten to read Last Sacrifice (next on my reading list, though, finally! *squeak*), but I adore the Vampire Academy series, so naturally I'm beyond excited about the spinoff series, Bloodlines. And now we have a cover for the first book in that series, also titled Bloodlines:

It's way different from the VA covers (which is probably good), and I'm still not quite sure what I think of it. But I so want to read this book. What do you guys think?

A Note and a Poem

Hey everyone! Sorry I never got a post up on Saturday, I was going to do a Books from Before and then stuff came up and it didn't happen. I'll have one next week, promise!

So who watched the Superbowl last night? (I didn't. I saw some of the commercials, but I deliberately avoided watching the actual game. I'm not a fan of football, even though most of my family is.) I will say I thought the Volkswagen commercial with the Darth Vader kid was kind of adorable, and some of the others were great too. As for football...well, congratulations to the winners! I know my family is quite pleased that the Packers won and some of my friends are not... Anyway, congrats to both teams on what I assume was a game well played and on making it to the Superbowl, and good job to the Packers for their victory!

I haven't gotten a whole lot of reading done lately, but I did find a poem that I really like, and I wanted to share it with all of you. It's called "Harlem," and it's by Langston Hughes:

Harlem

BY LANGSTON HUGHES

What happens to a dream deferred?

      Does it dry up

      like a raisin in the sun?

      Or fester like a sore—

      And then run?

      Does it stink like rotten meat?

      Or crust and sugar over—

      like a syrupy sweet?

      Maybe it just sags

      like a heavy load.

      Or does it explode?

Past Midnight by Mara Purnhagen

Title: Past Midnight
Author: Mara Purnhagen
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Pages: 216
Series: Past Midnight #1
Description from Goodreads:
Let me set the record straight. My name is Charlotte Silver and I'm not one of those paranormal-obsessed freaks you see on TV…no, those would be my parents, who have their own ghost-hunting reality show. And while I'm usually roped into the behind-the-scenes work, it turns out that I haven't gone unnoticed. Something happened on my parents' research trip in Charleston—and now I'm being stalked by some truly frightening other beings. Trying to fit into a new school and keeping my parents' creepy occupation a secret from my friends—and potential boyfriends—is hard enough without having angry spirits whispering in my ear. All I ever wanted was to be normal, but with ghosts of my past and present colliding, now I just want to make it out of high school alive….

*********

I love when I find a book that completely exceeds my expectations. I thought Past Midnight was going to be good -- certainly not bad, but ghost stories are often hit-or-miss with me, and I thought "good" was as good as it was going to get. But...I was wrong. And in times like these, I love being wrong.

Charlotte's parents are professional ghost-story debunkers. They believe in residual energy, nothing more. They never live in one place for very long, always on the move to debunk more ghost stories. So when they settle in South Carolina with the intent to stay there long-term, Charlotte is thrilled. Until a pair of ghosts turns up in her bedroom...and her new friends turn out to have ghosts of their own.

I loved the friendships between Charlotte and the cheerleaders and Charlotte and Noah. As much as I love romances, I loved that this wasn't a romance. I loved that college was mentioned - it's realistic. I can attest to the fact that high school seniors spend a lot of time thinking about college, so that was a nice touch. And I loved that I didn't solve the mystery before the end of the book - it kept me reading to find out what was going to happen next. Mostly, I just really liked Charlotte as a narrator, too. And, okay, I've read books set in Charleston where you can tell the author has never actually been there, but Mara Purnhagen got it right. So the book gets bonus points for that too. :)

Past Midnight hasn't earned a place on my all-time-favorites, read-them-over-and-over list...but it was definitely an awesome, fun read (and pretty short, too, if you don't want something long). It gets the thumbs-up from me! Check it out if you get the chance.

Oh, and before I go: is this cover gorgeous or what? I'm not sure what about it appeals to me so much, but I love it. It's awesome.

TWO Cover Reveals!

Yesterday, Ally Carter revealed the cover for her next book, Uncommon Criminals, the sequel to Heist Society. I really enjoyed Heist Society so I can't wait to read this one! Without further ado, here's the cover:

You can see the original post at Ally's website, here. What do you think? I love the blue and purple!

AND, if that's not enough... Lesley Livingston just released the cover of her upcoming book Once Every Never. I read and adored Wondrous Strange and Darklight, and although I haven't had access to a copy of Tempestuous yet, I can't wait to read it, so I'm really excited for Once Every Never. And I think this cover is gorgeous. Here it is:

Again, the full blog post is on Lesley's blog, here. What do you guys think?

Musings on the Whole Twilight Thing...

Yes, I'm opening that can of worms. Sort of.

I know a lot of people despise Twilight -- absolutely despise it. I know a lot of people love Twilight, as in, absolutely freaking adore it. I'm in the middle. There are a lot of things that I really don't like about those books. I don't like the way creeper-ness has become synonymous with love ("I like to watch you sleep, every night, by climbing in your window without telling you" is NOT romantic. "You're cute when you're asleep" might be, but the creeper one is not, nor will it ever be) because of Edward Cullen. I don't like the implication that you can never find true happiness without a romantic partner. I really, really hate the idea that it is in any way okay for a boy to tell a girl that she is his only reason for living and that without her, he would kill himself.

BUT...there are also good things about it, primarily this: even though the writing isn't always perfect and there are certain messages that I object to, I can read the books and enjoy them for what they are -- simple, fun stories that are meant to take us away from the realities of day-to-day life for a couple of hours. And in my book (pun intended), anything that can inspire so many teenagers to read is a good thing.

I think it's fine to be a Twilight fan. For a long time, I was a big fan -- and then some stuff happened in my personal life that rather shifted my perspective on a lot of it. Now...I'm sort of in between, I guess. But I don't mind Twilight as a series or a franchise or whatever. No, my two big problems with Twilight have nothing to do with the actual Twilight books:

1. "The next Twilight" is a phrase that I am absolutely sick of hearing. Next time there's a series as popular as Twilight,we'll know it for what is is. Then it'll be "the new XYZ Series," etc. Great books stand on their own. I'm sick of comparing them to Twilight. (This also holds true for Harry Potter, and anyone who's spent five minutes around me in real life will know that I'm a total Harry Potter nerd. This isn't anti-Twilight so much as anti-comparison, but Twilight is the one we hear all the time now.)

2. Twilight copycats. They remade the covers of Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice and Romeo and Juliet to look more like the Twilight covers! (I blogged about that a long time ago, actually.) That did not make me happy. And I'm not happy with what vampires have become in the YA Lit world. I like vampires. I don't know why we decided that they should all sparkle just because the Cullens did. I miss evil vampires. But the other thing is that I don't like the automatic associations of everything to Twilight -- "oh, it has vampires AND werewolves in it, and there's a vampire named Victoria and a character named Riley? It's totally a Twilight knockoff." No, no it's not. Unraveled may have taken me a while to get into, but it was still a good book and it was nothing like Twilight. The world is not divided into Twilight-knockoffs and books with no vampires, werewolves, Victorias, Rileys, Edwards, Bellas, Alices, creepers, or anything else that ever appeared in Twilight.

And that got a little bit rantier than I meant for it to. My sincerest apologies. But now that I've said all that... where do you guys fall on this issue?

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Title: Delirium
Author: Lauren Oliver
Publisher: Harper Teen
Series: Delirium #1
Pages: 440
Description from Goodreads: 
Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing. They didn’t understand that once love - the deliria - blooms in your blood, there is no escaping its hold. Things are different now. Scientists are able to eradicate love, and the governments demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Holoway has always looked forward to the day when she’ll be cured. A life without love is a life without pain: safe, measured, predictable, and happy.

But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena does the unthinkable: She falls in love.
*******

I've gotten slightly behind the times. I wanted to post this yesterday when it came out, but then I was still sick on Monday so yesterday's post ended up being the one I wanted to write Monday about a few minor changes... BUT ANYWAY.

This book. Oh my goodness. Once I started, I couldn't stop reading. I loved it. I really, really did.

In a lot of ways, Delirium is what you'd expect from a dystopian novel. I feel like if Matched and Birthmarked had a child, it would almost-not-quite be this. But I don't mean that in a bad way -- there are certain things that all dystopians have, just as trademarks of the genre, and for what it's worth, I thought Delirium did it very well. Despite the fact that it reminded me of both of those other novels, it is definitely a story all its own.

Lena is seventeen. In ninety-five days, when she turns eighteen, she will get the cure -- the cure for the amor deliria nervosa. Love, the disease that kills you when you have it and when you don't. But then she meets Alex, and everything changes. She's been infected, badly infected, but she's happy that way.

I loved the characters. Lena, Alex, Hana... I want to be their friend. I loved the little things that made them human. Yes, Lena is scared of rebelling. Her fear makes her real, and her courage makes her a heroine worth reading about. I love the development of the relationship between Lena and Alex. I love the friendship dynamic between Lena and Hana. I loved the history, too. The clips from The Book of Shhh at every chapter, the story of how society came to be the way it is, and the personal history, too -- the story of Lena's family. So much awesome packed into 440 pages.

The story kept me turning pages to see what would happen next. And by the end, I knew what was going to happen -- I had figured it out, but I had to keep turning pages because I had to know for sure if I was right. Obviously I'm not going to tell you what that ending was, because that would be terribly spoilery of me, but I will say that I was right. But the fact that I could figure out the end, that it wasn't entirely unpredictable, didn't lessen the story at all. In fact, I think maybe the [insert non-spoilery word here, because all the ones I can think of are spoilery] of the ending just made me love it even more.

I'm going to stop talking now, because I feel like I'm going to say something spoilery by accident if I don't. So I will leave you with three things: 1. Delirium made me go read some poetry. (I love when books give me good poetry to look up.) 2. I want Pandemonium nowww.... And 3. Go read this book right now. Please and thank you. :)

Back, with Updates!

Hi, guys! I'm back now. Turned out I needed a little more time off than I thought I did, but it paid off because I'm feeling much better now. Still sneezing more than I like, but getting better, which is good. I hope nobody else comes down with what I had(/maybe still have, a little), because it is no fun at all.

Anyway, enough about that. I also wanted to tell you about a couple of changes I'll be making on the blog. Nothing big or dramatic, just some little things, but I think they're important.

1. No more numbers. I hate trying to assign numerical values to books. From now on, my reviews will not have "4/5" or "5/5" or "3/5" or any of those things. I'll still fill in stars on Goodreads, I'm sure, but I'm not going to be putting numbers in my reviews. I feel like they're really superficial anyway - two books might both fall in the 4/5 category for me but I could feel completely different about the books. After nearly seven months of trying to conform to what seems to be the predominant system among book bloggers and slowly realizing how much I dislike it, I've decided to stop. No more numbers!

2. What I post is what I want to post. I started out with this goal in mind anyway. I love reading and I love talking about what I read, so I was going to use my blog as an outlet to share the books I like with other people. As I explored the YA-book-blogosphere, I sort of let the trends affect what I posted. I thought it was my job to review everything I read, good or bad, assign ratings, talk about the books professionally. I still want to be honest and professional about what I read, but blogging isn't my job. It's supposed to be something I do for fun -- my way to talk about the books I love. So if I don't like a book, I probably won't post about it. And if I really like a book, I may gush a bit. I want you, my awesome readers, to find out about good books from this -- but it has to be something that I do for me, first.

I'll still be adding the books I talk about to my list of reviews. The way I do these reviews will just change a little. Hope you guys will still enjoy! And as always, thanks for reading. ♥

Where I've Been...

Hey guys. I just wanted to apologize for disappearing without warning for the last couple of days and offer a bit of explanation.

I am sick. Nothing life-threatening, but sick enough that I don't want to do much of anything that requires thinking or moving or really doing much of anything, including blogging.

Obviously, I'm up enough to get this post up, but I'm going to take tomorrow off as well and use this weekend to get better. Hopefully I'll be back to business as usual by Monday. Hope you guys are having a great weekend! :)

Waiting on Wednesday: The Warlock

*Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.*

This week, I'm waiting on The Warlock by Michael Scott. It's the fifth book in The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series, and I'm not going to post a synopsis because I don't want to spoil the earlier books for those of you who haven't read them. But what I will say is this:

I love these books. They are so full of mythology and history and action and comedy, and I adore them. I can't wait for The Warlock to find out what happens to Josh and Sophie and the Flamels next! And Scatty. Scatty = FAVORITE. At any rate, The Warlock comes out on May 24th and I can't wait to read it!

What are you waiting on this week? Leave a link in the comments and I'll stop by to visit!

Release Day Reminder!

Today is the release day for Vesper by Jeff Sampson, which I reviewed last week. I know there have been a few copies spotted already because some stores put them out early, but today's officially the day! That book you read about last week? You can read it now. :)

Review: Hunger

Title: Hunger
Author: Jackie Morse Kessler
Publisher: Graphia
Pages: 174
Series: Horsemen of the Apocalypse #1
Rating: 3/5
From the back cover:
"Thou art the Black Rider. Go thee out unto the world."


Lisabeth Lewis has a black steed, a set of scales, and a new job: she's been appointed Famine. How will an anorexic seventeen-year-old girl from the suburbs fare as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?

Traveling the world on her steed gives Lisa freedom from her troubles at home -- her constant battle with hunger and the struggle to hide it from the people who care about her. But being Famine forces her to go places where hunger is a painful part of everyday life and to face the horrifying effects of her awesome new power. Can Lisa find a way to harness that power -- and the courage to fight her own inner demons?

---------------

This review is a hard one for me to write. I had a lot of problems with this book, but at the same time I thought it had a really interesting premise and I loved Jackie Morse Kessler's writing style. The idea behind the story is simple enough: Lisa is anorexic, depressed, and one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Three pills into her suicide attempt, Death shows up at her front door and hands her the role of Famine. Lisa doesn't know how to handle the new job, especially not with all the pressure from her family and her boyfriend and her ex-best friend, but maybe, just maybe, it will teach her some important lessons.

My main objection to Hunger was at the very beginning. When Death shows up to hand her the Scales that are the symbol of the office of Famine, Lisa is three pills into a suicide attempt. He says a couple of weird sentences, hands her some scales, and leaves. Lisa decides that she is hallucinating (and fat), but says "At least I'm not depressed anymore." Not right-this-second suicidal I can understand. To be so torn up as to be in the middle of a suicide attempt and then decide after a brief interruption that she's not at all depressed anymore? It didn't seem realistic. At all.

My other problem was the characterization of Lisa and her friends. All we really know about Lisa is that she's anorexic. Everything we see about her character is directly related to anorexia. We don't know who she is as a person, we know who she is as an anorexic girl. By the end, we do see a few of her character traits, but it's still mostly about her anorexia. Tammy is just the bulimic friend. I'm still not quite sure how I feel about the way that subject was handled, but all we know about Tammy is that she's bulimic. The relationships with James and Suzanne are more interesting, but we don't know really anything about them, either.

That aside, I loved Jackie Morse Kessler's writing style, and the concept was really cool. Death was my favorite character by far, and it was interesting to see the way Lisa's role as Famine affected her personal life and vice versa. Despite my initial problems with the characters, I did enjoy the book and will most likely read the second one when it comes out. Hunger is not a book that I'm going to press into someone's hands and say "Read this!" but I do think it makes a good read.

Links:

Jackie Morse Kessler's website

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P.S. On a completely unrelated note, I'd like to take a moment today to wish my (not-so-)little brother a very happy birthday today!

In My Mailbox (10)

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren which allows bloggers to share what books they got during the week.

This week I just have one new one, and it showed up rather unexpectedly in the mail (which is always the best way, in my opinion - nothing like a surprise book to make a day much better!). Thanks very much to Katie of Katie's Book Blog for my ARC of Torment by Lauren Kate.

Really looking forward to reading this! Although I might have to skim through Fallen again to get the details... it's been a while since I read it.

What did you guys get this week?

Books from Before (5)

*Books from Before is my own meme, in which I talk about a book or series that I read and enjoyed before I started blogging. You're welcome to use my meme, but credit me please!*

This week I want to share with you is one of my favorite dark-and-creepy novels. Bad Girls Don't Die by Katie Alender is basically a ghost story. It's incredibly creepy, and it's also incredibly well done. There is so much to love about this book. If you get scared easily, don't read it after dark! But definitely make time to read it, because it's awesome.

Description from Goodreads:

When Alexis's little sister Kasey becomes obsessed with an antique doll, Alexis thinks nothing of it. Kasey is a weird kid. Period. Alexis is considered weird, too, by the kids in her high school, by her parents, even by her own Goth friends. Things get weirder, though, when the old house they live in starts changing. Doors open and close by themselves; water boils on the unlit stove; and an unplugged air conditioner turns the house cold enough to see their breath in. Kasey is changing, too. Her blue eyes go green and she speaks in old-fashioned language, then forgets chunks of time.

Most disturbing of all is the dangerous new chip on Kasey's shoulder. The formerly gentle, doll-loving child is gone, and the new Kasey is angry. Alexis is the only one who can stop her sister -- but what if that green-eyed girl isn't even Kasey anymore?

-------------

See, it even sounds awesome. Absolutely read it. And the sequel, From Bad to Cursed, is due out before too long, too. You won't even have to wait for the sequel.

Book Trailer Love!

A full length book trailer has been released for Lesley Livingston's Tempestuous and I LOVE it. I still haven't gotten to read the book (*glare at local bookstore and library*), although I want to ASAP, but in the meantime... I am seriously loving this trailer. And now I'll shut up and let you watch:



This is what a book trailer should look like. For real. (And if you haven't read Wondrous Strange, go do that right now. It's excellent.)