Waiting on Wednesday: Unearthly

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. I'm a little late in the day getting this week's post up because I have taken up dancing, as of yesterday afternoon, as a part of a thesis project for a friend. Incidentally, I have decided that dancing is much fun, and have been out doing dance steps (and gymnastics) in my yard. >_>

Anyway, though, books! Or rather, book. My pick this week is Unearthly by Cynthia Hand. I think this cover is beautiful, although I'm wondering about the lack of color - I tend to like lots of bright colors and it kind of bothers me that there's no color at all on this cover. But it's still pretty!

Description from Goodreads: 

Clara Gardner has recently learned that she's part angel. Having angel blood running through her veins not only makes her smarter, stronger, and faster than humans (a word, she realizes, that no longer applies to her), but it means she has a purpose, something she was put on this earth to do. Figuring out what it is, though, isn't easy.

Her visions of a raging forest fire and an alluring stranger lead her to a new school in a new town. When she meets Christian, who turns out to be the boy of her dreams (literally), everything seems to fall into place--and out of place, at the same time. Because there's another guy, Tucker, who appeals to Clara's less angelic side.

As Clara tries to find her way in a world she no longer understands, she encounters unseen dangers and choices she never thought she'd have to make--between honesty and deciet, love and duty, good and evil. When the fire from her vision finally ignites, will Clara be ready to face her destiny?

***

Sounds good to me! I haven't read many of the growing number of YA angel books, but I like the ones I've read and I'm excited to see where this one goes.

What are you waiting on this week?

Tuesday Twins

I stumbled across the cover for Keep Sweet by Michele Dominquez Greene while I was browsing on the Barnes & Noble website and was instantly reminded of Blindsided by Priscilla Cummings. The similarity of these covers' set-ups is striking - the girl with hair blowing across her face and the title covering her eyes. The coloring and text is quite different, but the designs just kind of jumped out at me.

What do you think? And have you seen any "twin" covers that just jumped out at you like that? Let me know! :)

Two Threes

Happy Monday, everybody! Two newsy items today, both involving third books.

First, Becca Fitzpatrick announced that there will be a third book in the Hush, Hush series! Book three is titled Tempest and we can expect to see it in fall of 2011. You can see the full post on Becca's blog, here. I'm beyond excited for the release of Crescendo in October and I'm sure Tempest will be awesome too! Yay!

AND, Sarah Rees Brennan has just announced the title of the third Demon's Lexicon book! There's no release date yet that I've seen, but it will be called The Demon's Surrender (full post on Sarah's blog here). I'm so psyched for this one! I adored The Demon's Lexicon and The Demon's Covenant, and I cannot wait to find out what the conclusion to this wonderful trilogy has in store.

I think that's about it for today, folks! Hope you all had lovely weekends and lovely Mondays!

~Becky

Review: Unbelievable

Title: Unbelievable
Author: Sara Shepard
Publisher: Harper Teen
Pages: 335
Series: Pretty Little Liars #4
Rating: 4 stars
**WARNING: Spoilers for Books 1-3**
From the book jacket: 
Behind Rosewood's grand facades, where the air smells like apples and Chanel No. 5 and infinity pools sparkle in landscaped backyards, nothing is as it seems. It was here, back in seventh grade, that five best friends shared everything - Seven jeans, MAC makeup, and their deepest, darkest secrets. For Aria, Spencer, Hanna, and Emily, it was a dream come true...until Alison, the most beautiful of them all, suddenly vanished.

Now someone named A has turned their charmed lives into a living nightmare. Emily has been shipped off to her hyper-conservative cousins in Iowa. Aria is stuck living with her dad and his home-wrecker girlfriend. And Spencer fears she had something to do with Alison's murder. But Hanna's fate is far worse than all of that - she's clinging to life in the hospital, because she knew too much.

With A's threats turning dangerous and Ali's killer still on the loose, the girls must uncover the truth - about A, about Ali, and about what happened to Hanna - before they become A's next victims. But as they unravel Rosewood's mysteries and secrets, will it bring an end to the horror...or is this just the beginning?

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

I was really excited to start this one after the end of Perfect - I wanted to know what had happened to Hanna. At first I was a little disappointed: it felt like it took ages for the plot to get moving, because it was split between four different points of view and so there were little cliffhangers all the time and it was just very spread out. BUT! It did get moving, and the mystery of A comes to a big climax in Unbelievable.

Sara Shepard really does do a great job with the mystery. I did figure out the big secret she was throwing at us a few pages before it was officially revealed, but for most of the novel I genuinely had no idea who the culprit was. She managed to resolve a lot of issues (which is good) and still leave enough there to make me want Wicked ASAP.

The issues are changing, too, which is good. The characters are still their same old selves (for the record, Hanna is still my least favorite, but I love the other three) and they're still dealing with their issues, but it's changing. Their secrets are out, so they're facing a whole new set of hurdles. Plus, the mystery of "the Rosewood Stalker" is escalating and they're dealing with that. There was still more preppy-popular-fashion-stuff than I liked because I don't relate to that well, but the story and characters are well-created, so I can overlook the other stuff. I think Unbelievable may have been my favorite book in the series to date.

Also, a random side note: these books are really hard to review once you get past the first one, because the plot is so wrapped up in the mystery that it's difficult to find something to say that's not some kind of spoiler, and I hate spoilers. But I shall keep trying, because I'm really enjoying these books. :)

Links: 
Pretty Little Liars website

Review: Fever Crumb

Title: Fever Crumb
Author: Philip Reeve
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Pages: 325
Rating: 3.5 stars
From the book jacket: 
There is a great secret lurking in Fever's past. A secret only Fever can uncover.

Fever Crumb has been adopted and raised by Dr. Crumb, a member of the Order of Engineers, where she serves as an apprentice. At a time when women are not seen as reasonable creatures, Fever is an anomaly, the only girl to serve in the Order. Soon, though, she must say good-bye to Dr. Crumb to assist archaeologist Kit Solent with a top secret project. The assignment involves a mysterious room that once belonged to Auric Godshawk, the last of the Scriven overlords, and Fever must help unlock it. The Scriven, not human, ruled the city some years ago but were hunted down and killed in a victorious uprising by the people.

As Fever's work begins, she is plagued by memories that are not her own, and Kit seems to have a particular interest in finding out what they are. All Fever knows is what she's been told: She is an orphan. But whose memories does she hold? And why are there people chasing her, intent on eliminating her? Is Fever the key to unlocking the terrible secret of the past?

----------

Fever Crumb came highly recommended by one of my best friends, and although I didn't love it, I did enjoy it and I can definitely see why she liked it. The characters are fun and likable (or, in the villains' cases, distinctly unlikable), the story-world is very well-developed, the story is intriguing, and it's funny. One thing I particularly liked: in this new post-apocalyptic world, they use a lot of our words to mean different things, and "blog" is a swearword! Also, someone has discovered Harry Potter and decided that he is an "old world prophet." I was so amused.

At the start of the story, Fever is the only female apprentice to the Order of Engineers, and she's been recruited by an archaeologist to help him with a very secret project. Engineers are trained to always be rational and ignore all emotions, so living with Kit and his children is appalling to Fever: they're the most unreasonable people she's ever met. But she's becoming unreasonable too, it seems, because she keeps remembering things that she's never seen before.

Her strange memories aren't the only thing strange about her. Fever's eyes are two different colors, and those that remember the reign of the Scriven are convinced that she is a Scriven, returning to destroy them. The only logical solution is to destroy her first.

There were a lot of times in this book where I wanted a better idea of what Fever was thinking and trying not to feel - I wanted to see more character development and I felt like the story was kind of predictable in places. But that aside, Fever Crumb was a fun futuristic story with an interesting take on post-apocalyptic England and characters that are endearing and enjoyable. I'm not recommending it with all the love in my heart, but I do think it's a worthwhile read.

Links:
Philip Reeve's website/blog

Waiting on Wednesday (It's Back!)

Well, actually I suppose it was never gone. Jill at Breaking the Spine has continued to host Waiting on Wednesday during the last few weeks. I just haven't posted one in a while. But never fear! I have a WoW pick this week.

This week I'm waiting on Rosebush by Michele Jaffe. I absolutely adored the other books I've read by this author (Bad Kitty and Kitty Kitty), so although I think this one is in a bit of a different vein, I'm still excited to read it. Here's the description from Goodreads:

Instead of celebrating Memorial Day weekend on the Jersey shore, Jane is in the hospital surrounded by teddy bears, trying to piece together what happened last night. One minute she was at a party, wearing fairy wings and cuddling with her boyfriend. The next, she was lying near-dead in a rosebush after a hit and run.


Everyone thinks it was an accident, despite the phone threats Jane swears were real. But the truth is a thorny thing. As Jane's boyfriend, friends, and admirers come to visit, more memories surface--not just from the party, but from deeper in her past...including the night her best friend Bonnie died.


With nearly everyone in her life a suspect now, Jane must unravel the mystery before her killer attacks again. Along the way, she is forced to examine the consequences of her life choices in this compulsively readable thriller.

***

Murder mystery + author that I've liked before = happy Becky. (Yay for non-math math!) Anyway, I'm really looking forward to this one! Rosebush comes out December 14 of this year. I'll be looking for it then!


What are you waiting on this week?

New Books and Long Weekends (and Piracy)

One thing I love about long weekends: reading time! I read lots of books this weekend - finished Clockwork Angel, read Flawless and Perfect and The Wednesday Wars, and started Fever Crumb - and it was really nice. Ordinarily I probably wouldn't have read quite that much, but I was a little bit sick (yay for going through half a box of tissues in a day, by yourself) and so I wasn't going anywhere. And the reading time was really, really nice.

One thing I do not love about long weekends: teachers decide to make up for them with lots of extra work all at the same time. It may be a while before I can finish Fever Crumb.

One thing that is special about today: book release! Firelight by Sophie Jordan hits shelves today, which is one that I'm very excited about. I've seen lots of ARC reviews of Firelight and it looks awesome - I can't wait to read it!

Finally, one issue that I think matters a lot: e-piracy. It's not cool, you guys. Don't do it! Illegally downloading books --> authors do not get paid for those books --> authors do not write more books --> we do not get to read more books. Plus, there's the whole thing about it being illegal. Illegal = bad. Kristi at The Story Siren wrote about it a lot more eloquently than that. You should check out her post on the subject.

Happy Tuesday! And because I don't think I ended up posting this yesterday, happy belated Labor Day!

~Becky