Monday, January 16, 2012

2012 Debut Author Challenge

Hosted by one of my favorite bloggers, The Story Siren.

CHALLENGE OBJECTIVE:
  • To read & review a minimum of twelve young adult or middle grade debut novels between the dates of January 1, 2012 – January 31, 2013.*
*The 2013 extension is so that December Debuts can be read and count toward the challenge.
  • Any advance reader copies you read from 2012 BEFORE the January 1st start date DO NOT count toward the challenge! 
  • You can read twelve books in one month, or one book a month. It doesn’t matter as long as you have 12 read by the end of the year! 
RULES & GUIDELINES:
  • You must have a Blog to post your reviews or be a member of Goodreads. Youtube Book Reviewers count too!
  • Your blog/video must be written in English.
  • Deadline to join is May 31, 2012.
BOOK GUIDELINES:
  • Must be a young adult or middle grade title.
  • Must be the author’s YA or MG debut, released in 2012.
  • If an author has a previous novel published for adults or children, they can still qualify for the challenge.
  • If an author has a previous YA or MG title, they do not qualify for the challenge.
Sign ups here!


Really excited about joining in this year! Everybody keeps saying that this is one of their favorite challenges! I think I'm going to enjoy it. Here's a list of books (no particular order) that come out this year that I'm hoping to read, for this challenge and for personal reasons!:D

-Everneath by Brodi Ashton
-Tempest by Julie Cross
-Incarnate by Jodi Meadows
-The Alchemy of Forever by Avery Williams
-Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi
-Illuminate by Aimee Agresti
-Of Poseidon by Anna Banks
-The Unquiet by Jeannine Garsee
-Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown
-Fracture by Megan Miranda
-Sweet Evil by Wendy Higgins
-Grave Mercy by R.L. LaFevers
-Gilt by Katherine Longshore

The NetGalley Challenge

Orginial post @ Miss Remmers' Reviews

I didn't think I'd be one to participate in challenges, but it seems really fun! Hopefully I won't get involved into too many and end up not finishing them.

I'm a new NetGalley member, and I must say I love NetGalley! At first, I was a tad bit hestitant. But then I got accepted for the first time and it made me super excited. I also got declined for the first time, but that's a different story. For this challenge, I'm going to try and read an approximate number of 30ish NetGalley books. With my new Kindle, it's quite easy to read books fast! I'm almost done with my second ebook! So, wish me luck(: I'll keep up-to-date with everything on this post.

1 - New Girl by Paige Harbison

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Between the Sea and Sky by Jaclyn Dolamore {24th]

Title: Between the Sea and Sky
Author: Jaclyn Dolamore
Pages: 229
Format: Kindle
Publish Date: October 25th, 2011 ; Bloomsbury USA Children's Books
Source: Bought
Synopsis:
For as long as Esmerine can remember, she has longed to join her older sister, Dosinia, as a siren--the highest calling a mermaid can have. When Dosinia runs away to the mainland, Esmerine is sent to retrieve her. Using magic to transform her tail into legs, she makes her way unsteadily to the capital city. There she comes upon a friend she hasn't seen since childhood--a dashing young man named Alander, who belongs to a winged race of people. As Esmerine and Alander band together to search for Dosinia, they rekindle a friendship . . . and ignite the emotions for a love so great, it cannot be bound by sea, land, or air.

 Between the Sea and Sky is a cute and short read. This is the first mermaid book I have read since . . Little Mermaid. So, no high expectations were made. I just wanted to see how well an author can portray a mermaid story. Jaclyn Dolamore did a great job with that.

This story follows a mermaid that goes to search for her runaway sister. Esmerine, the main character, has just become a siren. Her and her sister, Dosia (Dosinia), are the only sirens in her family. Esmerine and Dosia are really close, so when Dosia just runs away, Esmerine is shocked and determined to find her. Sirens are allowed to change into humans, by growing legs, but whenever the walk, their feet will burn with an agonizing pain. But Esmerine is dead-set on finding her sister. Esmerine manages to get a ride into town, hoping to find an old friend of hers. A winged man, Faransee, named Alander. He used to come to the sea and read books to Esmerine. It's been years since Esmerine has last saw him, from him saying he can't come back to see her and the disapproval from the mermaid community. After some catching up and figuring out where exactly Dosia is located, Alander and Esmerine set out to go find her. Which ends in expecting twists and turns.

Between the Sea and Sky wasn't a cliched book. The plotline didn't remind me of another book. Actually, there is no other book that I can related this book to. It has a story of it's own. The romance, thankfully, wasn't instant. It developed over the whole book. Different than those books that romance happens over just one chapter. I love the foreign names that I ran across in the book. Esmerine, Alander, Dosinia, Karinda, Swift, etc. It was fun to read this book; I really enjoyed it. Jacyln's writing style was very easy to follow along with.

I recommend this book to fantasy lovers(:

Esmerine swallowed, remembering the day when the elder sirens explained how to wreck a fishing boat that took more than its share of fish and how to drown a human swiftly.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Cover Reveal - Rebel Heart

Dust Lands #2
Author: Moira Young
Published and Publisher: October 30th, 2012 ; Margaret K. McElderry

The Tonton have been defeated. Lugh has been rescued. The heartstone has brought Saba and Jack together 
Now, Saba and her family head west to meet him and start a new life. All should be well. 
But shadows of the dead are stalking Saba. 
And another kind of shadow is creeping over the dustlands. 
Then a messenger shows up. 
With news of Jack.

Omg. Omg. I'm literally smiling really big right now. Look at that cover! Yes, this is only the Kindle edition, but just wait for the real edition! Omg. I'm fanatic right now. This cover matches Blood Red Road e-book edition of the book.

See the resemblance?! :D It's gorgeous! But how the heck am I supposed to wait  9 and a half more months for Rebel Heart?! I don't know what I'm going to do with myself! I think I'm going to pre-ordering this book real soon!

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Between Shades of Gray By Ruta Sepetys {23rd]

-This has been in my drafts for a long time-
Title: Between Shades of Gray
Author: Ruta Sepetys
Pages: 344
Format: Hardcover
Publish Date: March 22nd, 2011 ; Philomel Books
Source: School Library
Synopsis:
Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.

Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously - and at great risk - documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father's prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives.Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart.
Wow. What a read. From the plotline to Ruta Sepetys writing, I honestly didn't expect it to be so . . great! Not that I thought it'd be bad, but just something I didn't like. First off, it was like a nonfiction-type read. It's not, but it felt like it. It's filled with a bunch of events happening. A whirl of feelings and emotions. Such a raw novel, behind the scenes of people that were taken away because of the faith they believed in. Very similar, almost exact, to the Jews and what happened to them. When I read the first page, I was kind of effy about it. I heard such raving reviews, but I never stopped and took the time to read them. I thought it was normal YA romance. You can image my surprise when I realized it was definitely not. More like historical friction. The ending made me sad;l I didn't want it to end. It was way too many things happening at the time for it to just end. I had gotten attached to a book I thought I would hate, how ironic.

In other words, great book, great writing, great story-line, and great informational story. I'd read it over again if I got the chance.

"He was so clumsy, but he was so sincere. Sometimes there is such beauty in awkwardness. There's love and emotion trying to express itself, but at the time, it just ends up being awkward. Does that make sense?"

Blood Red Road by Moira Young {22nd]

-This has been in my drafts for the LONGEST time-
Title: Blood Red Road
Author: Moira Young
Pages: 344
Format: Hardcover
Publish Date: June 7th, 2011 ; Margaret K. McElderry
Source: Bought
Synopsis:
Saba has spent her whole life in Silverlake, a dried-up wasteland ravaged by constant sandstorms. The Wrecker civilization has long been destroyed, leaving only landfills for Saba and her family to scavenge from. That's fine by her, as long as her beloved twin brother Lugh is around. But when a monster sandstorm arrives, along with four cloaked horsemen, Saba's world is shattered. Lugh is captured, and Saba embarks on an epic quest to get him back. Suddenly thrown into the lawless, ugly reality of the world outside of desolate Silverlake, Saba is lost without Lugh to guide her. So perhaps the most surprising thing of all is what Saba learns about herself: she's a fierce fighter, an unbeatable survivor, and a cunning opponent. And she has the power to take down a corrupt society from the inside. Teamed up with a handsome daredevil named Jack and a gang of girl revolutionaries called the Free Hawks, Saba stages a showdown that will change the course of her own civilization. Blood Red Road has a searing pace, a poetically minimal writing style, violent action, and an epic love story. Moira Young is one of the most promising and startling new voices in teen fiction.
Blood Red Road changed my life. Not literally, but it moved me. From the most unique and poetic writing style, to the characters portrayal. Moira Young blew me away with her novel.

Moira Young's writing is different, honestly. The way she represented Saba's voice, was the most creative thing ever. At first, I thought there were just a few typos, because, come on, there's always something that an editor misses. Instead of  'just', it was 'jest'. Instead of 'and' there was 'an'. Instead of 'get', she wrote 'git'. But then I kept seeing it spelled wrong over and over again. Plus, there were no quotation marks. So, I knew that this wasn't accidental anymore. I think I read the first few pages about five times before actually understanding that that was her writing style for this novel. It truly blew me away.

Back to the actual story, I loved the characters. Saba surprised me the most. At first, she wasn't my favorite character. She was someone that didn't seem . . nice. Lugh, on the other hand, has always been my favorite character! It made me sad when he was captured. Since it was just the beginning, and my feelings for Saba hadn't quite developed, I wanted her to have gotten captured instead. So, when the took Lugh away, it made me very upset.  But my opinions changed about Saba after she went through everything just to save her brother. Skipping to the middle of the book, one word . . Jack. If only he was a real person. He'd be all mine. From the way Moria Young described him, his personality, his looks, his attitude. . YUM. No wonder Saba became interested! The ending was one of my favorite parts. I know endings are never good, but I loved this one. Even though I knew it was the end, I still flipped some pages just to see if that was really the end.

I've never loved a book as much as I love Blood Red Road. This girl is eagerly awaiting the next book in the series. If only they had a cover, I'd be a-okay. I know the title, which is Rebel Heart, and the very brief description. But is that enough? NO. I loved joining Saba's quest to get her brother back. It was definitely adventure! I am definitely recommending this book, to everybody. Babies, toddlers, preteens, teens, young adults, adults, middle-agers, over 50, seniors, over 100.



We jest stand there. Stand an stare. We git all kinda weather here. Hot winds, firestorms, tornadoes, an once or twice we even had snow in high summer. So I seen plenty of dust storms. But never one like this.
That's one bastard of a cloud, I says.

Teaser Tuesday - {9th]

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
■Grab your current read 
■Open to a random page 
■Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page {I often use more!}
■BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
■Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I have a Kindle! Woohoo! A Kindle Touch! I am in love with it!:D As soon as I got it, I automatically starting getting books from Amazon. Such as Hollowland by Amanda Hocking and Jenny Pox by J.L. Bryan. Which were free, by the way(: 
His eyes dropped to her breasts and quickly up to her face again. Esmerine flushed in return. Humans seemed to treat bodies like nasty secrets, and she felt that way when she formed legs.
-Ebook {19% done}