Waiting on Wednesday (113)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we are eagerly anticipating. This is one of my favorite memes because not only is my TBR pile so much bigger at the end of the night but also the covers are always amazing!

Title: The Break-Up Artist
Author: Philip Siegel
Hitting the Shelves: April 29, 2014

Some sixteen-year-olds babysit for extra cash. Some work at the Gap. Becca Williamson breaks up couples. 



After watching her sister get left at the altar, Becca knows the true damage that comes when people utter the dreaded L-word. For just $100 via paypal, she can trick and manipulate any couple into smithereens. With relationship zombies overrunning her school, and treating single girls like second class citizens, business is unfortunately booming. Even her best friend Val has resorted to outright lies to snag a boyfriend.

One night, she receives a mysterious offer to break up the homecoming king and queen, the one zombie couple to rule them all: Steve and Huxley. They are a JFK and Jackie O in training, masters of sweeping faux-mantic gestures, but if Becca can split them up, then school will be safe again for singletons. To succeed, she'll have to plan her most elaborate scheme to date and wiggle her way back into her former BFF Huxley’s life – not to mention start a few rumors, sabotage some cell phones, break into a car, and fend off the inappropriate feelings she’s having about Val’s new boyfriend. All while avoiding a past victim out to expose her true identity.

No one said being the Break-Up Artist was easy.

What Does the Bookworm Say? Negative Reviews

The topic this week is “Do I write negative reviews?” Don't forget to check out this topic at Nite Lite Reviews, The Reader's Antidote and The Windy Pages.

The simple answer to this question is yes! I don’t think there is anything wrong with a negative review. When an author puts their work out into the world, it’s natural that there are going to be some people who absolutely love it and some people who don’t like it as much and maybe even hate it.

When it comes to writing a negative review, I usually take more care and choose my words more carefully than if I were writing a positive review. I try to be very concise so that my words aren't twisted or taken out of context.

I think negative reviews are really important and I usually want to tell my readers why I didn't like a book. Whether a book had no plot, really annoying characters or a stupid love triangle; these are thing I like to talk about in a negative review even though these likes and dislikes are based purely on opinion.

When it comes to reading reviews, I always read the negative reviews because I really want to know why some readers did not like the book! I always want to weigh the book and the bad before I buy a book. And by writing a negative review I hope that I can help out another reader weigh their pros and cons before purchasing.

The only thing I really have to say about negative reviews is that I'm all for them! I like to write them and I like to read them! 

What do you think about negative reviews? Do you like to read/write them?

Have a topic you would like us to talk about? Let me know in the comments! 

Waiting on Wednesday (112)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we are eagerly anticipating. This is one of my favorite memes because not only is my TBR pile so much bigger at the end of the night but also the covers are always amazing!

Title: Since You've Been Gone
Author: Morgan Matson
Hitting the Shelves: May 06, 2014

The Pre-Sloane Emily didn't go to parties, she barely talked to guys, she didn't do anything crazy. Enter Sloane, social tornado and the best kind of best friend—the one who yanks you out of your shell.But right before what should have been an epic summer, Sloane just... disappears. No note. No calls. No texts. No Sloane. There’s just a random to-do list. On it, thirteen Sloane-selected-definitely-bizarre-tasks that Emily would never try... unless they could lead back to her best friend. Apple Picking at Night? Ok, easy enough.Dance until Dawn? Sure. Why not? Kiss a Stranger? Wait... what?

Getting through Sloane’s list would mean a lot of firsts. But Emily has this whole unexpected summer ahead of her, and the help of Frank Porter (totally unexpected) to check things off. Who knows what she’ll find?

Go Skinny Dipping? Um...

Why I want this: I love Morgan Matson's really fun, summery contemporary reads! I'm currently reading Second Chance Summer right now which is making me even more excited about Since You've Been Gone and the book by her alter ego Katie Finn, Broken Hearts, Fences and Other Things to Mend. I'm so in the mood for summery contemporary reads right now! 

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Unique Books I've Read

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme of lists hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's topic is the top ten books that we've read that we think are the most unique. The books that I chose are not necessarily unique as in there are no others like them, but I definitely thought they were unique when I first read them.  Or they are standouts in their genres.  

1. The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan: I don't read very many zombies books but The Forest of Hands and Teeth stood out to be because it's all about how people have survived all these years later.  Even though, for me, the series went a little downhill, the first book is pretty great!

2. I Know it's Over by CK Kelly Martin: I Know it's Over is a contemporary novel about teenage pregnancy and abortion told from the guy's perspective.  Seeing how a guy feels in a situation like this is what really made this novel stand out for me. 

3. Unwind by Neal Shusterman: I have certainly never read a book like this before ever! Talk about a completely new twist on abortion and what makes a person's life worthwhile.  The unwinding scene is probably one of the creepiest scenes I've ever read! 

4. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: I chose The Hunger Games for this list because I really believe it was unique when it was first released.  And even though other books try as they might, there is still nothing like The Hunger Games.

5. Identical by Ellen Hopkins: There are a lot of books out there that are written in free verse but Identical was the first one that I've read so, to me, it stands out as being unique. 

6. Skeleton Creek by Patrick Carman: I really love this series and what makes it unique is the mixed media it uses to tell the story.  While you're reading the book you'll get to parts where you have to go online to the website it gives you and put in the password that they also give you and watch the video. And you have to watch the videos because they are so important to the story. The story is pretty creepy and scary.

7. The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer: These books are so unique and have so many elements that normally would be really weird but somehow they really work! Cyborgs, moon people and fairy tale characters! It's so awesome! 

8. Perfect Ruin by Lauren DeStefano: Perfect Ruin takes place in a community that is in the clouds. In. The. Clouds. It is so good! I'm so excited to see what happens next for these cloud people. 

9. The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness: To even try to explain this book would make me sound crazy but I've truly never read any book like it.  

10. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom: I pretty much cried through every page of this book and even though I read it ten years ago, it still stays with me. 

Early Review: The Taking by Kimberly Derting

Title: The Taking
Author: Kimberly Derting
Series: The Taking #1
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: April 29, 2014
Source: eARC
Find it Here: Amazon, Goodreads

A flash of white light . . . and then . . . nothing.

When sixteen-year-old Kyra Agnew wakes up behind a Dumpster at the Gas ’n’ Sip, she has no memory of how she got there. With a terrible headache and a major case of déjà vu, she heads home only to discover that five years have passed . . . yet she hasn’t aged a day.

Everything else about Kyra’s old life is different. Her parents are divorced, her boyfriend, Austin, is in college and dating her best friend, and her dad has changed from an uptight neat-freak to a drunken conspiracy theorist who blames her five-year disappearance on little green men.

Confused and lost, Kyra isn’t sure how to move forward unless she uncovers the truth. With Austin gone, she turns to Tyler, Austin’s annoying kid brother, who is now seventeen and who she has a sudden undeniable attraction to. As Tyler and Kyra retrace her steps from the fateful night of her disappearance, they discover strange phenomena that no one can explain, and they begin to wonder if Kyra’s father is not as crazy as he seems. There are others like her who have been taken . . . and returned. Kyra races to find an explanation and reclaim the life she once had, but what if the life she wants back is not her own?

My Thoughts:

Kimberly Derting has been one of my favorite authors for a very long time. I’m a huge fan of The Body Finder series and even though The Pledge wasn't that great for me, I was super excited when I found out she was releasing a new series! The Taking was literally the first book that I read this year! I was so excited about my ARC that I couldn't wait to dive right in.

The Taking is about a sixteen year old girl named Kyra who, after a softball game, suddenly disappears without a trace. She wakes up behind the dumpster of her local gas station 5 years later but it feels like the next morning to her. She’s still wearing her softball uniform and hasn't aged a day. Soon, a mysterious stranger starts showing up everywhere she goes and Kyra soon discovers that there is a lot more behind her disappearance than she originally thought.

Even though Kyra is a good main character I didn't feel all that emotionally attached to her. Everything that happens, her disappearance and reappearance, all happens so fast in the very beginning that you don’t really get a chance to become attached to the life that she had before. Most of the story is her struggle with accepting that everyone has moved on without her. We, the readers, don’t get the chance to know the Kyra before, we only know the person that Kyra becomes after she resurfaces.

I really enjoyed the relationship between Kyra and Tyler who incidentally is her “before” boyfriend’s younger brother. Since five years has now passed, Tyler is one year older than Kyra. They become really close throughout the book, both trying to figure out what happened to her. Tyler is really super cute! He always admired his older brother's girlfriend and now here she is, she hasn't aged a day and he has the chance to actually get to know her! I really like that he kind of always held a candle for her!

The plotting and the pacing of the book were a little bit slow at times, especially in the middle but it really kicks up towards the end, making me hopeful that book two will be an action-packed adventure. There was also a bit of a cliffhanger at the end which made me really excited! I don’t generally like cliffhangers but this one made me really anticipate the rest of the series! Oh, and since I wasn't super obvious about it, it’s about aliens which we definitely don’t have enough of in YA right now.

The Taking was a really great book to start the year off with and now in just a couple of weeks everyone can enjoy it as well! Not only was it a great start to a really exciting new series, it can really appeal to those readers who are new to sci-fi!

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Waiting on Wednesday (111)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we are eagerly anticipating. This is one of my favorite memes because not only is my TBR pile so much bigger at the end of the night but also the covers are always amazing!

Title: Brazen
Author: Katherine Longshore
Hitting the Shelves: June 12, 2014

Mary Howard has always lived in the shadow of her powerful family. But when she’s married off to Henry Fitzroy, King Henry VIII’s illegitimate son, she rockets into the Tudor court’s inner circle. Mary and “Fitz” join a tight clique of rebels who test the boundaries of court’s strict rules with their games, dares, and flirtations. The more Mary gets to know Fitz, the harder she falls for him, but is forbidden from seeing him alone. The rules of court were made to be pushed…but pushing them too far means certain death. Is true love worth dying for?

Why I want this: I loved Gilt and Tarnish! I also love that you don't have to have read the books before to know what is going on in the current book! So great! Lovers of historical fiction should pick these up immediately!