Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews and is all about sharing the books you are adding to your bookshelf, be it the physical one or your digital one!
I have been busy lately, working on finishing a deck that we started a few weeks ago. I have been reading Tiger Lily lately and while I hope to finish it and get a review out to all of my readers, I can't help but admit, I am not finding this book as inspiring as I thought I would. I hope to update the review section tomorrow, and maybe start working on a series review bit. I'm not sure what series to start with (that I have read). Any suggestions on what I could do to make this a better blog/read let me know; send me a message or leave a comment.
Alright, on to, Mailbox Monday. This week I am not sure.
to Goodbye |
Mailbox Pickup:
Author: Sarah Dessen
Format: Paperback
Release Date: April 8th, 2013
Since her parents' bitter divorce, Mclean and her dad, a restaurant consultant, have been on the move - four towns in two years. Estranged from her mother and her mother's new family, Mclean has followed her dad in leaving the unhappy past behind. And each new place gives her a chance to try out a new persona: from cheerleader to drama diva. But now, for the first time, Mclean discovers a desire to stay in one place and just be herself - whoever that is. Perhaps her neighbor Dave, an academic superstar trying to be just a regular guy, can help her find out. Combining Sarah Dessen's trademark graceful writing, great characters, and compelling storytelling, What Happened to Goodbye is irresistible reading.
Sarah Dessen caught my attention after I finished reading Keeping the Moon, and I have been looking for more of her work and her writing to get into. Her emotional work and her emotional characters bring about a life that I enjoy. Furthermore, her characters and the plot all has meaning behind them. Keeping the Moon was a great read, and I constantly look forward to more of her work. As well, to prove that just one chick-lit book won't stop me from being an avid diverse reader.
Sarah Dessen's writing is marvelous, and the dramatic characters blend well in every book she writes. McClean is stuck between her parents, or a divorce that I am sure she is guilty of, or blaming herself for. Furthermore, what happens when she doesn't want to move from town to town with her father anymore? Her family would cave in, and much of her desires would wither, if not for something else. I look to this book, and seeing how Dessen wields a pencil into a work of art again.
Title: Spellcaster
Author: Claudia Gray
Format: Hardcover
Release Date: March 5th, 2013
Spellcaster was one of those novels in which I found in Anderson's Bookshop and had the pleasure of getting a signed copy. I wish all of my books were signed and eventually that's the goal of all novels that I own. However, I was especially happy to get this novel because of how great this novel sounds. It reminds me of Beautiful Creatures sort of, but I am hoping there'st more magic and espionage in this book than meets the eye.
Now this book is being compared to Hex Hall and The Castor Chronicles, but I am not sure if that's accurate. From Beautiful Creatures there wasn't that much magic, and I hope in this book the magic takes precedence. Nadia and Mateo sound like there could be a great romance brooding. What happens when dark magic rules one's life, for instance Mateo who believes his family is cursed. Okay I do have to say this is sounding more and more like Beautiful Creatures. I hope that this isn't the same or anything near that concept; it's not good to read an unoriginal book or something that's been done over and over. So I am curious to see how this book plays out, and just what romance the characters bring.
Title: Renegade
Author: J.A. Souders
Format: Hardcover
Release Date: March 1st, 2012
Renegade was a next pick-up at Anderson's Bookshop. I bought it on the synopsis alone, and how it caught my eye. Evelyn seems like a character that is strong and knows what she wants and believes in. When she figures out everything is a lie, that her life isn't her own to control. How would that work, and would it be hard to know that you couldn't control your life? Furthermore, her mother is the monster after her, and there's some secret that could destroy everyone and everything.
What drew me to this book was the thought of a girl who has been told all her laugh one story when in fact the truth is buried deep beneath the surface. As well Gavin enters to bring a romance and a drive behind Evelyn. There's motivation and strength added to Evelyn actions with Gavin; love is a great motivator. My question though is how does Evelyn's "mother" have control over Evelyn? That's going to play a key roll in just how the story and the plot play out.
Title: Wasteland
Author: Susan Kim and Laurence Klavan
Format: Hardback
Release Date: March 26th, 2013
Wasteland I have to admit I bought simply for the cover alone. I mean come on the cover depicts wasteland entirely, but as I read the synopsis I got the feeling it was going to be more like Blood Red Road than I had thought and loved it even more. Hermaphroditic outcasts... that's a new villain or something to give a book that suspense feel. I am mostly curious why they will be suspenseful or fearsome; without that fear they will more or less be just background noise.
So when you are living on the outskirts of a city doing nothing but toiling in a garden scrournging for food. Furthermore Caleb comes out of no where, a stranger to a village and provides more questions than he does answers. However, the part in which everyone is the subject of trust issues, there seems to be something going on that isn't on the surface. How can you not trust a town/village that you grew up in, or at least some of the people or friends that you may have acquired over the years, it just doesn't seem realistic. Than to leave and try to fight with some stranger you barely know, I don't buy into it yet, but I'm willing to give it a shot.
I bought this on a whim and while I was looking through other books at Barnes & Noble the cover caught my eye. While I read the synopsis I got more confused, Itch just is an odd name. Furthermore the book seems a bit younger than I would normally read, and the premise of the book seems harder and harder to get a hold of. The whole premise of the book seems childish, almost too young to be in the teen/young-adult section. While I understand that the idea of the book is trying to give the younger teens a bit more courage, and independence, but this is over the top.
Itch, a book about a fourteen year old who is using his brain to outwit a top-secret government agency? Does that sounds absurd to anyone else? I don't understand how anyone could write a book about a government agency or any adult being fooled or run around by a fourteen year old. My parents always knew what I was up to, and I couldn't ever get away from anything. So why is it that Itch can allude all of those? I am confused and he better be a genius in order to allude that many officials and adults.
Author: Claudia Gray
Format: Hardcover
Release Date: March 5th, 2013
When Nadia’s family moves to Captive’s Sound, she instantly realizes there’s more to it than meets the eye. Descended from witches, Nadia senses a dark and powerful magic at work in her new town. Mateo has lived in Captive’s Sound his entire life, trying to dodge the local legend that his family is cursed - and that curse will cause him to believe he’s seeing the future … until it drives him mad. When the strange dreams Mateo has been having of rescuing a beautiful girl—Nadia—from a car accident come true, he knows he’s doomed.
Despite the forces pulling them apart, Nadia and Mateo must work together to break the chains of his family’s terrible curse, and to prevent a disaster that threatens the lives of everyone around them. Shimmering with magic and mystery, New York Times bestselling author Claudia Gray’s new novel is sure to draw fans of the Hex Hall and Caster Chronicles series, and fans of the hit CW TV show The Secret Circle.
Despite the forces pulling them apart, Nadia and Mateo must work together to break the chains of his family’s terrible curse, and to prevent a disaster that threatens the lives of everyone around them. Shimmering with magic and mystery, New York Times bestselling author Claudia Gray’s new novel is sure to draw fans of the Hex Hall and Caster Chronicles series, and fans of the hit CW TV show The Secret Circle.
Spellcaster was one of those novels in which I found in Anderson's Bookshop and had the pleasure of getting a signed copy. I wish all of my books were signed and eventually that's the goal of all novels that I own. However, I was especially happy to get this novel because of how great this novel sounds. It reminds me of Beautiful Creatures sort of, but I am hoping there'st more magic and espionage in this book than meets the eye.
Now this book is being compared to Hex Hall and The Castor Chronicles, but I am not sure if that's accurate. From Beautiful Creatures there wasn't that much magic, and I hope in this book the magic takes precedence. Nadia and Mateo sound like there could be a great romance brooding. What happens when dark magic rules one's life, for instance Mateo who believes his family is cursed. Okay I do have to say this is sounding more and more like Beautiful Creatures. I hope that this isn't the same or anything near that concept; it's not good to read an unoriginal book or something that's been done over and over. So I am curious to see how this book plays out, and just what romance the characters bring.
Author: J.A. Souders
Format: Hardcover
Release Date: March 1st, 2012
Since the age of three, sixteen-year-old Evelyn Winters has been trained to be Daughter of the People in the underwater utopia known as Elysium. Selected from hundreds of children for her ideal genes, all her life she’s thought that everything was perfect; her world. Her people. The Law.
But when Gavin Hunter, a Surface Dweller, accidentally stumbles into their secluded little world, she’s forced to come to a startling realization: everything she knows is a lie.
Her memories have been altered.
Her mind and body aren’t under her own control.
And the person she knows as Mother is a monster.
Together with Gavin she plans her escape, only to learn that her own mind is a ticking time bomb... and Mother has one last secret that will destroy them all.
But when Gavin Hunter, a Surface Dweller, accidentally stumbles into their secluded little world, she’s forced to come to a startling realization: everything she knows is a lie.
Her memories have been altered.
Her mind and body aren’t under her own control.
And the person she knows as Mother is a monster.
Together with Gavin she plans her escape, only to learn that her own mind is a ticking time bomb... and Mother has one last secret that will destroy them all.
Renegade was a next pick-up at Anderson's Bookshop. I bought it on the synopsis alone, and how it caught my eye. Evelyn seems like a character that is strong and knows what she wants and believes in. When she figures out everything is a lie, that her life isn't her own to control. How would that work, and would it be hard to know that you couldn't control your life? Furthermore, her mother is the monster after her, and there's some secret that could destroy everyone and everything.
What drew me to this book was the thought of a girl who has been told all her laugh one story when in fact the truth is buried deep beneath the surface. As well Gavin enters to bring a romance and a drive behind Evelyn. There's motivation and strength added to Evelyn actions with Gavin; love is a great motivator. My question though is how does Evelyn's "mother" have control over Evelyn? That's going to play a key roll in just how the story and the plot play out.
Author: Susan Kim and Laurence Klavan
Format: Hardback
Release Date: March 26th, 2013
Welcome to the Wasteland. Where all the adults are long gone, and now no one lives past the age of nineteen. Susan Kim and Laurence Klavan’s post-apocalyptic debut is the first of a trilogy in which everyone is forced to live under the looming threat of rampant disease and brutal attacks by the Variants —- hermaphroditic outcasts that live on the outskirts of Prin. Esther thinks there’s more to life than toiling at harvesting, gleaning, and excavating, day after day under the relentless sun, just hoping to make it to the next day. But then Caleb, a mysterious stranger, arrives in town, and Esther begins to question who she can trust. As shady pasts unravel into the present and new romances develop, Caleb and Esther realize that they must team together to fight for their lives and for the freedom of Prin.
Wasteland I have to admit I bought simply for the cover alone. I mean come on the cover depicts wasteland entirely, but as I read the synopsis I got the feeling it was going to be more like Blood Red Road than I had thought and loved it even more. Hermaphroditic outcasts... that's a new villain or something to give a book that suspense feel. I am mostly curious why they will be suspenseful or fearsome; without that fear they will more or less be just background noise.
So when you are living on the outskirts of a city doing nothing but toiling in a garden scrournging for food. Furthermore Caleb comes out of no where, a stranger to a village and provides more questions than he does answers. However, the part in which everyone is the subject of trust issues, there seems to be something going on that isn't on the surface. How can you not trust a town/village that you grew up in, or at least some of the people or friends that you may have acquired over the years, it just doesn't seem realistic. Than to leave and try to fight with some stranger you barely know, I don't buy into it yet, but I'm willing to give it a shot.
Title: Itch: The Explosive Adventures of an Element Hunter
Author: Simon Mayo
Format: Hardback
Release Date: April 2nd, 2013
Author: Simon Mayo
Format: Hardback
Release Date: April 2nd, 2013
Thrills. Danger. And world domination. Itch is as action-packed and suspenseful as a middle-grade novel can get!
Fourteen-year-old Itchingham Lofte, nicknamed Itch, has an unusual passion: collecting specimens of every element in the periodic table. So what if that means he's had a few ... mishaps? But when he gets his hands on a suspiciously warm rock made of a new, previously unknown element, things really begin to explode. Soon, a malevolent teacher, an evil-doing corporation, and a top-secret government agency are all after Itch. Can his science know-how keep him one step ahead of everyone...and help him stay alive?
Fourteen-year-old Itchingham Lofte, nicknamed Itch, has an unusual passion: collecting specimens of every element in the periodic table. So what if that means he's had a few ... mishaps? But when he gets his hands on a suspiciously warm rock made of a new, previously unknown element, things really begin to explode. Soon, a malevolent teacher, an evil-doing corporation, and a top-secret government agency are all after Itch. Can his science know-how keep him one step ahead of everyone...and help him stay alive?
I bought this on a whim and while I was looking through other books at Barnes & Noble the cover caught my eye. While I read the synopsis I got more confused, Itch just is an odd name. Furthermore the book seems a bit younger than I would normally read, and the premise of the book seems harder and harder to get a hold of. The whole premise of the book seems childish, almost too young to be in the teen/young-adult section. While I understand that the idea of the book is trying to give the younger teens a bit more courage, and independence, but this is over the top.
Itch, a book about a fourteen year old who is using his brain to outwit a top-secret government agency? Does that sounds absurd to anyone else? I don't understand how anyone could write a book about a government agency or any adult being fooled or run around by a fourteen year old. My parents always knew what I was up to, and I couldn't ever get away from anything. So why is it that Itch can allude all of those? I am confused and he better be a genius in order to allude that many officials and adults.
