December New Book Releases

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Happy December!

How did we get here? We are officially in the final month of 2014. Crazy, right?! As we dress the house with lights and trim our evergreen trees let us not forget that we have some super-radtastic books releasing this month! Get ready to add these on to your Christmas list… (I know they are already on mine.)

1. No Place to Fall by Jaye Robin Brown
Release Date: December 9th by Harper Teen

16144570Amber Vaughn is a good girl. She sings solos at church, babysits her nephew after school, and spends every Friday night hanging out at her best friend Devon’s house. It’s only when Amber goes exploring in the woods near her home, singing camp songs with the hikers she meets on the Appalachian Trail, that she feels free—and when the bigger world feels just a little bit more in reach.

When Amber learns about an audition at the North Carolina School of the Arts, she decides that her dream—to sing on bigger stages—could also be her ticket to a new life. Devon’s older (and unavailable) brother, Will, helps Amber prepare for her one chance to try out for the hyper competitive arts school. But the more time Will and Amber spend together, the more complicated their relationship becomes . . . and Amber starts to wonder if she’s such a good girl, after all.

Then, in an afternoon, the bottom drops out of her family’s world—and Amber is faced with an impossible choice between her promise as an artist and the people she loves. Amber always thought she knew what a good girl would do. But between “right” and “wrong,” there’s a whole world of possibilities.

2. Top Ten Clues You’re Clueless by Liz Czukas
Release Date: December 9th by Harper Teen

20646933Top Five Things That Are Ruining Chloe’s Day

5) Working the 6:30 a.m. shift at GoodFoods Market

4) Crashing a cart into a customer’s car right in front of her snarky coworker Sammi

3) Trying to rock the “drowned rat” look after being caught in a snowstorm

2) Making zero progress with her crush, Tyson (see #3)

1) Being accused—along with her fellow teenage employees—of stealing upwards of $10,000

Chloe would rather be anywhere than locked in work jail (aka the break room) with five of her coworkers . . . even if one of them is Tyson. But if they can band together to clear their names, what looks like a total disaster might just make Chloe’s list of Top Ten Best Moments.

3. Now That You’re Here by Amy K. Nichols
Release Date: December 9th by Knopf Books for Young Readers

18309634In a parallel universe, the classic bad boy falls for the class science geek.

One minute Danny was running from the cops, and the next, he jolted awake in an unfamiliar body–his own, but different. Somehow, he’s crossed into a parallel universe. Now his friends are his enemies, his parents are long dead, and studious Eevee is not the mysterious femme fatale he once kissed back home. Then again, this Eevee–a girl who’d rather land an internship at NASA than a date to the prom–may be his only hope of getting home.

Eevee tells herself she’s only helping him in the name of quantum physics, but there’s something undeniably fascinating about this boy from another dimension . . . a boy who makes her question who she is, and who she might be in another place and time.

And, coming soon, Duplexity, Part II: While You Were Gone flips this story on its head and tells the tale of the alternate Danny and the alternate Eevee, living in Danny’s parallel world.

4. Princess of Thorns by Stacey Jay
Release Date: December 9th by Delecorte Press

18782855Game of Thrones meets the Grimm’s fairy tales in this twisted, fast-paced romantic fantasy-adventure about Sleeping Beauty’s daughter, a warrior princess who must fight to reclaim her throne.

Though she looks like a mere mortal, Princess Aurora is a fairy blessed with enhanced strength, bravery, and mercy yet cursed to destroy the free will of any male who kisses her. Disguised as a boy, she enlists the help of the handsome but also cursed Prince Niklaas to fight legions of evil and free her brother from the ogre queen who stole Aurora’s throne ten years ago.

Will Aurora triumph over evil and reach her brother before it’s too late? Can Aurora and Niklaas break the curses that will otherwise forever keep them from finding their one true love?

5. Love and Other Theories by Alexis Bass
Release Date: December 31st by Harper Teen

18480081If you want more, you have to give less.

That’s the secret to dating in high school. By giving as little as they expect to get in return, seventeen-year-old Aubrey Housing and her three best friends have made it to the second semester of their senior year heartbreak-free. And it’s all thanks to a few simple rules: don’t commit, don’t be needy, and don’t give away your heart.

So when smoking-hot Nathan Diggs transfers to Lincoln High, it shouldn’t be a big deal. At least that’s what Aubrey tells herself. But Nathan’s new-boy charm, his kindness, and his disarming honesty throw Aubrey off her game and put her in danger of breaking the most important rule of all: Don’t fall in love

What are you reading this month?!

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All opinions are my own and are not endorsed or affiliated with any company or organization. 

Review | I’ll Give You the Sun

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20820994*****
Rating: 5/5

Guys. This has been by far my favorite read this year. It is of extreme importance that you dash to your local library/bookstore or grab your nook/tablet/iPad and buy this wonderful, wonderful, (did i mention wonderful?), book RIGHT this minute.

Dear Jandy Nelson, where have you been all of my life? There is so much good in this book I could go on and on and on, but I don’t want to give away any spoilers. With that being said here is an overview of Nelson’s masterpiece of a novel:

Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways . . . until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else—an even more unpredictable new force in her life. The early years are Noah’s story to tell. The later years are Jude’s. What the twins don’t realize is that they each have only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world.

This radiant novel from the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing—often all at once.

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Nelson will leave you with feels that capture every emoji on your iphone. It will make you laugh, cry, and scream. At times you’ll be confused, happy, often angry, but in love. It will wrap your heart up and open your eyes to a world of acceptance. Your vision will become renewed by Noah’s unique perspective and life around you will seem a bit more vibrant.

This is a book that makes you appreciate the brokenness, or at least embrace the heart ache. Friends, this one is a giver, a taker, and one that you will not put down nor forget. This is the next big one, I can feel it deep in my bones.

Seriously, what are you waiting for? Go read it.

QUOTES:

“How can you judge a fella until you picnic with him?” (211)

“A broken heart is an open heart” (348)

“Or maybe a person is just made up of a lot of people’, I say, ‘Maybe we’re accumulating these new selves all the time hauling them in as we make choices, good and bad, as we screw up, lose our minds, find our minds, fall apart, fall in love, as we grieve, grow, retreat from the world, dive in to the world, as we make things, as we break things.” (354)

“Maybe some people are just meant to be in the same story.” (365)

“Meeting your soul-mate is like walking into a house you’ve been in before-you will recognize the furniture, the pictures on the wall, the books on the shelves, the contents of drawers, you could find your way around tin the dark if you had to.” 

“If a boy gives a girl an orange her love from him will multiply.” (178)

“People die, I think, but your relationship with them doesn’t. It continues and is ever-changing.”

“When people fall in love, they burst into flames.”

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All opinions are my own and are not endorsed or affiliated with any company or organization.

Review | The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

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20819685

Source: Goodreads

Synopsis via Goodreads

Following a scalding row with her mother, fifteen-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: a sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as “the radio people,” Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life.

For Holly has caught the attention of a cabal of dangerous mystics—and their enemies. But her lost weekend is merely the prelude to a shocking disappearance that leaves her family irrevocably scarred. This unsolved mystery will echo through every decade of Holly’s life, affecting all the people Holly loves—even the ones who are not yet born.

A Cambridge scholarship boy grooming himself for wealth and influence, a conflicted father who feels alive only while reporting from occupied Iraq, a middle-aged writer mourning his exile from the bestseller list—all have a part to play in this surreal, invisible war on the margins of our world. From the medieval Swiss Alps to the nineteenth-century Australian bush, from a hotel in Shanghai to a Manhattan townhouse in the near future, their stories come together in moments of everyday grace and extraordinary wonder.

Rating: 8/10
GREAT READ

The Bone Clocks is, for lack of a better word, boundless. It has no beginning and it has no end. This will only make sense, really, once you read it, but it’s the best way I can describe the story. All focus is aimed on the life of Holly Sykes and her “radio people”; voices and visions she encountered since she was a child. However, her view point is only portrayed in two segments of the book, the rest is viewed through the lives of men and women she falls into contact with throughout her life span starting in 1984 and ending in 2048.

The Bone Clocks holds a genre of it’s own, for with every section comes  a new story and with each new story comes a new genre. The change in character kept the story interesting and prompted your brain waves to alter its initial course, however in the end some of the characters became just a pawn when you first envisioned them being a queen, or at the very least a knight. Not all characters hold their value, but that may be what Mitchell intended.

All in all David Mitchell is a literary genius; a statement intended with no embellishments. His ability to capture a life and evolve it into a network of stories that reflect the world in such a large span of time baffles my mind. (Someone please send me his IQ because I am sure it is out of this world.)

If you are looking for a novel that tells one heck of story and will challenge you just the same, this is a top-notch pick.

Quotes:

“What if… what if heaven is real, but only in moments? Like a glass of water on a hot day when you’re dying of thirst, or when someone’s nice to you for no reason, or… Mam’s pancakes with Mars Bar sauce; Dad dashing up from the bar just to tell me, “Sleep tight don’t let the bedbugs bite”; or Jacko and Sharon singing “For She’s a Squishy Marshmellow” instead of “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow” every single birthday and wetting themselves even though it’s not all that funny; and Brendan giving his old record player to me instead of one of his mates. “S’pose heaven’s not like a painting that’s just hanging there forever, but more like… like the best song anyone ever wrote, but a song you only catch in snatches, while you’re alive, from passing cars, or… upstairs windows when you’re lost…”

“Being born’s a hell of a lottery.”

“Love’s pure free joy when it works, but when it goes bad you pay for the good hours at loan-shark prices.”

“People are icebergs, with just a bit you can see and loads you can’t.”

“We live on, as long as there are people to live on in.”

“… Modesty is Vanity’s craftier stepbrother.”

“Human cruelty can be infinite. Human generosity can be boundless.”

Books in the News | 9/29-10/3

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Hello, all!

I hope each of you have had a splendid week and are basking in all things fall and October-ish. (Are your bellies full of pumpkin spice breads, lattes, cookies, muffins, and OREOS, yet?)

So many bookish things happening in the news this week…

First let’s talk about this guy, Menahem Asher Silva Varga. What a hero…or a nut. All depends on your perspective I guess. I am totally a fan and feel like I have not lived up to my Harry Potter fanatic title after seeing his collection. Seriously, impressive.

Derek Jeter enters the news in the publishing realm this week. The world-class baseball star announced the creation of a new digital publishing platform, The Player’s Tribune, which aims to shrink the gap between fans and athletes through story-telling, Q&A, polls, videos, and more.

Lena Dunham’s highly anticipated book, Not That Kind of Girl, hit the shelves on Tuesday. So far, critics have been in favor of her work. I hear it’s a must read–especially for women. Have any of you had the chance to pick this up yet? Thoughts? I’m still #5 on the waiting list at the library…

The Riverside Unified School District in California decided to roll up their sleeves and ban John Green’s, The Fault in Our Stars, in all their middle school libraries this week. The basis for the ban? Crude language, sex, and…mortality? John Green posted his reaction to the news on his Tumblr page.

Gone Girl makes its debut on the big screen today. I’ll be seeing it on $5 Tuesday’s at my local theater. To those who are more willing to spend the big bucks–what did you think?

Lastly, apparently Nicholas Sparks is a homophobic racist. My personal opinion? Someone is seeking a bit of revenge for being canned.

That is all for this week folks.

Have a wonderful weekend & keep reading.

-Britt

October New Book Releases

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Happy October!

New month = new releases

There are so many awesome-possum releases coming your way in these next 31 days it is hard to keep track. For all of you GOT fans, George R. R. Martin’s, The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones, releases late this month, Amy Poeler’s comical autobiography, Yes Please, is set to launch the same day, October 28th, and Garth Nix’s fourth installment of the Abhorsen series, Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen, will be brought your way on the 14th. (Have I got you excited yet?!)

Below are a few of MY most anticipated releases:

1. The Young Elites by Marie Lu
Release Date: October 7th

The Young Elites

I am tired of being used, hurt, and cast aside.

Adelina Amouteru is a survivor of the blood fever. A decade ago, the deadly illness swept through her nation. Most of the infected perished, while many of the children who survived were left with strange markings. Adelina’s black hair turned silver, her lashes went pale, and now she has only a jagged scar where her left eye once was. Her cruel father believes she is a malfetto, an abomination, ruining their family’s good name and standing in the way of their fortune. But some of the fever’s survivors are rumored to possess more than just scars—they are believed to have mysterious and powerful gifts, and though their identities remain secret, they have come to be called the Young Elites.

Teren Santoro works for the king. As Leader of the Inquisition Axis, it is his job to seek out the Young Elites, to destroy them before they destroy the nation. He believes the Young Elites to be dangerous and vengeful, but it’s Teren who may possess the darkest secret of all.

Enzo Valenciano is a member of the Dagger Society. This secret sect of Young Elites seeks out others like them before the Inquisition Axis can. But when the Daggers find Adelina, they discover someone with powers like they’ve never seen.
Adelina wants to believe Enzo is on her side, and that Teren is the true enemy. But the lives of these three will collide in unexpected ways, as each fights a very different and personal battle. But of one thing they are all certain: Adelina has abilities that shouldn’t belong in this world. A vengeful blackness in her heart. And a desire to destroy all who dare to cross her.
 
It is my turn to use. My turn to hurt.

2. The Calling (Endgame Series #1) by James Frey & Nils Johnson-Shelton
Release Date: October 7th

Endgame The Calling

Twelve thousand years ago, they came. They descended from the sky amid smoke and fire, and created humanity and gave us rules to live by. They needed gold and they built our earliest civilizations to mine it for them. When they had what they needed, they left. But before they left, they told us someday they would come back, and when they did, a game would be played. A game that would determine our future.

This is Endgame.

For ten thousand years the lines have existed in secret. The 12 original lines of humanity. Each had to have a Player prepared at all times. They have trained generation after generation after generation. In weapons, languages, history, tactics, disguise, assassination. Together the Players are everything: strong, kind, ruthless, loyal, smart, stupid, ugly, lustful, mean, fickle, beautiful, calculating, lazy, exuberant, weak. They are good and evil. Like you. Like all.

This is Endgame.

When the game starts, the Players will have to find three keys. The keys are somewhere on Earth. The only rule of their Endgame is that there are no rules. Whoever finds the keys first wins the game. Endgame: The Calling is about the hunt for the first key. And just as it tells the story of the hunt for a hidden key, written into the book is a puzzle. It invites readers to play their own Endgame and to try to solve the puzzle. Whoever does will open a case filled with gold. Alongside the puzzle will be a revolutionary mobile game built by Google’s Niantic Labs that will allow you to play a real-world version of Endgame where you can join one of the lines and do battle with people around you.

Will exuberance beat strength? Stupidity top kindness? Laziness thwart beauty? Will the winner be good or evil? There is only one way to find out.

Play.
Survive.
Solve.
People of Earth.
Endgame has begun.

3. Even in Paradise by Chelsey Philpot
Release Date: October 14th

Even in Paradise

When Julia Buchanan enrolls at St. Anne’s at the beginning of junior year, Charlotte Ryder already knows all about the former senator’s daughter. Most people do… or think they do.

Charlotte certainly never expects she’ll be Julia’s friend. But almost immediately, she is drawn into the larger than-life-new girl’s world—a world of midnight rendezvous, dazzling parties, palatial vacation homes, and fizzy champagne cocktails. And then Charlotte meets, and begins falling for, Julia’s handsome older brother, Sebastian.

But behind her self-assured smiles and toasts to the future, Charlotte soon realizes that Julia is still suffering from a tragedy. A tragedy that the Buchanan family has kept hidden … until now.

4. Trust Me, I’m Lying by Mary Elizabeth Summer
Release Date: October 14th

Trust Me I'm Lying

Fans of Ally Carter, especially her Heist Society readers, will love this teen mystery/thriller with sarcastic wit, a hint of romance, and Ocean’s Eleven–inspired action.

Julep Dupree tells lies. A lot of them. She’s a con artist, a master of disguise, and a sophomore at Chicago’s swanky St. Agatha High, where her father, an old-school grifter with a weakness for the ponies, sends her to so she can learn to mingle with the upper crust. For extra spending money Julep doesn’t rely on her dad—she runs petty scams for her classmates while dodging the dean of students and maintaining an A+ (okay, A-) average.

But when she comes home one day to a ransacked apartment and her father gone, Julep’s carefully laid plans for an expenses-paid golden ticket to Yale start to unravel. Even with help from St. Agatha’s resident Prince Charming, Tyler Richland, and her loyal hacker sidekick, Sam, Julep struggles to trace her dad’s trail of clues through a maze of creepy stalkers, hit attempts, family secrets, and worse, the threat of foster care. With everything she has at stake, Julep’s in way over her head . . . but that’s not going to stop her from using every trick in the book to find her dad before his mark finds her. Because that would be criminal.

5. Atlantia by Ally Condie
Release Date: October 28th

Atlantia

Can you hear Atlantia breathing?

For as long as she can remember, Rio has dreamed of the sand and sky Above—of life beyond her underwater city of Atlantia. But in a single moment, all Rio’s hopes for the future are shattered when her twin sister, Bay, makes an unexpected choice, stranding Rio Below. Alone, ripped away from the last person who knew Rio’s true self—and the powerful siren voice she has long silenced—she has nothing left to lose.

Guided by a dangerous and unlikely mentor, Rio formulates a plan that leads to increasingly treacherous questions about her mother’s death, her own destiny, and the corrupted system constructed to govern the Divide between land and sea. Her life and her city depend on Rio to listen to the voices of the past and to speak long-hidden truths.

What releases are you looking forward to this month?! 

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All opinions are my own and are not endorsed or affiliated with any company or organization.