Monthly Archives: September 2011

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Waiting on Wednesday (18)

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Arti­cle 5 by Kris­ten Simmons

Wait­ing on Wednes­day is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Break­ing the Spine to spot­light any upcom­ing releases you are eagerly anticipating!

This isn’t out until next year so there hasn’t been much in the way of infor­ma­tion or reviews on this one yet. How­ever, I have read a cou­ple of early reviews by blog­gers who have got­ten advanced copies (I think at BEA) and they have loved it. Its a dystopian which I love, and it looks and sounds like it could be a really good one! And I love that it seems as though it is the protagonist’s mother who is the rebel instead! I’m very excited for this book!

‘New York, Los Ange­les, and Wash­ing­ton, DC have been abandoned.

The Bill of Rights has been revoked, and replaced with the Moral Statutes.

There are no more police — instead, there are sol­diers. There are no more fines for bad behav­ior — instead, there are arrests, tri­als, and maybe worse. Peo­ple who get arrested don’t usu­ally come back.

17-year-old Ember Miller is old enough to remem­ber that things weren’t always this way. Liv­ing with her rebel­lious sin­gle mother, it’s hard to for­get that peo­ple weren’t always arrested for read­ing the wrong books or stay­ing out after dark. That life in the United States used to be different.

In the three years since the war ended, Ember has per­fected the art of keep­ing a low pro­file. She knows how to get the things she needs, like food stamps and hand-me-down clothes, and how to pass the ran­dom home inspec­tions by the Fed­eral Bureau of Ref­or­ma­tion. Her life is as close to peace­ful as cir­cum­stances allow. That is, until her mother is arrested for non­com­pli­ance with Arti­cle 5 of the Moral Statutes. And what’s worse, one of the arrest­ing offi­cers is none other than Chase Jennings…the only boy Ember has ever loved.‘

What are you wait­ing on this week?

ttt3w

Top Ten Tuesdays (8)

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Top Ten Books I Want To Reread

Top Ten Tues­days is a weekly meme held by the fab­u­lous Broke and the Bookish

I like this week’s Top Ten because instead of talk­ing about newer books I love, I can talk about older ones I haven’t read in years!

Here are some truly won­der­ful books that I need to make to make time to revisit (and you should to!):

1) Jane Eyre by Char­lotte Bronte

I saw the new film recently and read a less than great con­tem­po­rary ver­sion and both have made me des­per­ate to re-read this classic!

2) The Host by Stephanie Meyer

So I’m not a Twi­light fan at all, but I actu­ally rather enjoyed this Sci-fi(ish) book by Meyer — I’d like to re-read it again now I’m older and see if I still like it or not.

3) Across the Nightin­gale Floor by Lian Hearn

For some rea­son I never got round to read­ing the rest of this series. Its been many years since I read the first book and I’d like to re-read it and fin­ish the series of.

4) Wind Singer by William Nicholson

Great fantasy/dystopian series for younger read­ers and far too long since I read it.

5) Sabriel by Garth Nix

Excel­lent books by Garth Nix, I’ve wanted to read this again for a while but a friend has my copy!

6) The Named by Mar­i­anne Curley

Guardians of time, who go back in his­tory to stop Chaos from tak­ing over? Why wouldn’t any­one want to read this series?

7) Pride and Prej­u­dice by Jane Austen

I like to re-read this every year or so and love it just as much as the first time I read it.

8 ) Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I’ve actu­ally only read this series once! I def­i­nitely need to re-visit it!

9) Harry Pot­ter by J.K Rowling

I haven’t read these since they first came out and now there’s no more films, its time to indulge in these again!

10) Sally Lock­hart series by Philip Pullman

I’m in the mood for a good Vic­to­rian mys­tery after read­ing A Spy in the House and you can’t beat Philip Pull­man for that!

What books are you look­ing for­ward to re-reading?

brown paper packages

In My Mailbox (16)

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In My Mail­box is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi @ The Story Siren and inspired by Alea @ Pop Cul­ture Junkie

Thanks to the awe­some Jo over at Wear the Old Coat, I have had some amaz­ing mail­box this week!

I also popped into Water­stones and took advan­tage of their cur­rent 3 for 2 offer *ahem*.

Bor­rowed

Mar­che­tta Goodies!!!

Sav­ing Francesca and The Piper’s Son by the bril­liant Melina Marchetta

Big big big mas­sive thanks and hug to Jo for send­ing me these to read! Plus, a gor­geous lit­tle card/letter by a favourite illus­tra­tor of mine and funny notes! Best post eva!!

Bought

Yes I know — I left the stick­ers on, but it’s proof instead of spend­ing any money, I actu­ally saved some. (Shhhh, the logic works in my head anyway).

Time Rid­ers by Alex Scarrow

I’ve been curi­ous about this series for a while (and I needed two more books to make buy­ing Hunt­ing Lila a legit­i­mate purchase)

Hunt­ing Lila by Sarah Alderson

Ahhhh so happy *dances*

Hunger by Michael Grant

I need to con­tinue this series, I really do. Of course, just because I’ve bought the book doesn’t mean I’ll get round to it any time soon *war­ily eyes the expand­ing, top­pling TBR pile in cor­ner of room*

What was in your Mail­box this week?

On My Wishlist (17)

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On my Wish­list is a weekly meme hosted by Book Chick City where you get to chat about some of the books you des­per­ately want but haven’t actu­ally got round to buy­ing yet!

Heres what’s on my wish­list this week:

Stu­pid Fast by Geoff Herbach

‘Fifteen-year-old Fel­ton Rein­stein has always been on the small­ish side, but in his sopho­more year he starts growing…and growing.

Dur­ing gym one day he smokes the foot­ball jocks in a 600-yard race. Fel­ton has never been inter­ested in sports, but there’s no doubt-he is “stu­pid fast.” As he jug­gles his new­found ath­letic prowess, his mom’s sud­den depres­sion, an annoy­ing lit­tle brother, and his first love, he dis­cov­ers a shock­ing secret about his past which explains why he’s turn­ing out the way he is.’

I want this book because I read a gush­ing review on it (but I can­not remem­ber where, sadly) and because I always seem to enjoy YA writ­ten with a male nar­ra­tive. A quick look at Goodreads will tell you nearly every­one thinks this one is a win­ner and hilar­i­ous while deal­ing with some seri­ous issues — which is fast becom­ing my kind of book! Plus I really love the cover.

What’s on your wish­list this week?

BirthmarkedPBCover

Book Review: Birthmarked by Caragh O’Brian

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Pub­lisher: Simon and Schus­ter Children’s Books

First Pub­lished: 30th March 2010

For­mat: Paper­back

Pages: 361

Genre: Dystopian, YA

Rec­om­mended Read­ing Age: 16+

Rat­ing: 6/10

Ama­zon/Goodreads

 

‘In the future, in a world baked dry by the harsh sun, there are those who live inside the walled Enclave and those, like sixteen-year-old Gaia Stone, who live out­side. Fol­low­ing in her mother’s foot­steps Gaia has become a mid­wife, deliv­er­ing babies in the world out­side the wall and hand­ing a quota over to be “advanced” into the priv­i­leged soci­ety of the Enclave. Gaia has always believed this is her duty, until the night her mother and father are arrested by the very peo­ple they so loy­ally serve. Now Gaia is forced to ques­tion every­thing she has been taught, but her choice is sim­ple: enter the world of the Enclave to res­cue her par­ents, or die trying.’

I was quite excited to read Birth­marked, hav­ing read all the glow­ing reviews on it, and after hear­ing there was a young mid­wife as the hero­ine. Sadly, it turned out to be rather a dis­ap­point­ment.
 Con­tinue read­ing →

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Waiting on Wednesday (17)

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A Mil­lion Suns by Beth Revis

Wait­ing on Wednes­day is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Break­ing the Spine to spot­light any upcom­ing releases you are eagerly anticipating!

I love love loved Across the Uni­verse, like many other peo­ple and can­not wait for the next book, A Mil­lion Suns. There were sev­eral twists and mys­ter­ies going on in the first book and I’m excited to find out what hap­pens next. I’m also look­ing for­ward to see­ing Elder and Amy’s rela­tion­ship (hope­fully) develop and to explore their indi­vid­ual char­ac­ters fur­ther as well! A Mil­lion Suns will be on book­shelves Jan­u­ary next year.

‘When Elder learns har­row­ing news about the space ship God­speed, he and Amy must work together to unlock a puz­zle that was set in motion hun­dreds of years ear­lier, all the while deal­ing with the romance that’s grow­ing between them and the chaos that threat­ens to tear them apart. It all boils down to one mind-bending con­clu­sion: They have to get off this ship.‘

What are you wait­ing on this week?

crescendo Becca_Fitzpatrick

UK Giveaway: Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick

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In honor of Becca Fitzpatrick’s upcom­ing book Silence (out 4th Octo­ber), the highly antic­i­pated con­clu­sion of the Hush Hush series, I will be giv­ing away a copy of Crescendo, so you can refresh your mem­ory before the final book ;)

The prize is my own copy of the book, read once and in brand new condition:

RULES

UK ONLY please — I’m post­ing this myself, so I’m afraid this give­away is only open to those who have UK address

Give­away will run from 18th – 22nd September

Please sub­mit your name only once - dupli­cate entries will be disqualified

To gain 2 extra entries and increase your chances of win­ning, you can sub­scribe to the blog and/or tweet about this giveaway

Win­ner will be cho­sen ran­domly using random.org and announced via email and on here Fri­day 23rd

Win­ner will have 48 hours to reply before another win­ner will be auto­mat­i­cally chosen

The book will be sent out recorded deliv­ery by the 27th at the latest.

Good luck!

*CLOSED*

brown paper packages

In My Mailbox (15)

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In My Mail­box is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi @ The Story Siren and inspired by Alea @ Pop Cul­ture Junkie

Got some lub­bly books this week :) I bought some sec­ond hand, swapped some and won one!

Bought

Finnikin of the Rock Melina Marchetta

We all know how I love my fan­tasy adven­ture books. After being absolutely blown away by Jel­li­coe Road I had to go out and buy Marchetta’s other books to read. Unfor­tu­nately I’m hav­ing trou­ble find­ing Sav­ing Francesca with­out pay­ing over the odds for it right now, but I’ve dying to read Finnikin for ages. I’m even more excited to read this than before!

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

I saw the amaz­ing trailer for this on another blog the other day and after that I just got too excited and had to buy it after hav­ing it on my wish­list for months.

The Dis­rep­utable His­tory of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

I’ve wanted this ever since I read Jo’s bril­liant review on it. Jel­li­coe Road also prompted this buy, as I saw it is also on the Honor list for the Michael L. Printz Award for Excel­lence in Young Adult Lit­er­a­ture 2009. If I also love this, I think I’m going to make my way through the list of winners/honor books.

Swapped

Ram­pant by Diana Peterfreund

Yes. It’s a story about killer uni­corns. But I was intrigued, okay.

The Girl with Glass Feet by Ali Shaw

I don’t know any­thing about this one, other than the cover looked pretty and it sounded interesting.

Won

Pod by Stephen Wallenfels

The ladies at Foyles all loved this book and couldn’t stop gush­ing about it, so I can’t wait to read Pod. Big thank you to Donna and Jes­sica at Book Pas­sion for Life and Tem­plar for the giveaway!

What was in your Mail­box this week?

On My Wishlist (16)

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On my Wish­list is a weekly meme hosted by Book Chick City where you get to chat about some of the books you des­per­ately want but haven’t actu­ally got round to buy­ing yet!

Heres what’s on my wish­list this week:

Paper Towns by John Green

‘When Margo Roth Spiegel­man beck­ons Quentin Jacob­sen in the mid­dle of the night — dressed like a ninja and plot­ting an inge­nious cam­paign of revenge — he fol­lows her. Margo’s always planned extrav­a­gantly, and, until now, she’s always planned solo. After a life­time of lov­ing Margo from afar, things are finally look­ing up for Q … until day breaks and she has van­ished. Always an enigma, Margo has now become a mys­tery. But there are clues. And they’re for Q. ’

I’ve never read any­thing by John Green and I think its time I did. I’ve read sev­eral very good reviews for Paper Town and I’m look­ing for my next road trip book after Amy and Roger. This looks like it will be a fun, emo­tional and pos­si­bly mov­ing read (going of the 5 star reviews on goodreads). I also like that the syn­op­sis doesn’t really give any­thing away.

What’s on your wish­list this week?