Monthly Archives: May 2016

Coming Soon: June 2016

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It’s that time of the month my lovelies, more books are coming out soon. I have no idea what to do with myself, THERE ARE SO MANY AMAZING BOOKS COMING OUT! Argh, I need them all. I can’t wait to get my hands on some of these beauties.

1.738 Days by Stacey Kade

Summary from Goodreads:

At fifteen, Amanda Grace was abducted on her way home from school. 738 days later, she escaped. Her 20/20 interview is what everyone remembers—Amanda describing the room where she was kept, the torn poster of TV heartthrob Chase Henry on the wall. It reminded her of home and gave her the strength to keep fighting.

Now, years later, Amanda is struggling to live normally. Her friends have gone on to college, while she battles PTSD. She’s not getting any better, and she fears that if something doesn’t change soon she never will.

Six years ago, Chase Henry defied astronomical odds, won a coveted role on a new TV show, and was elevated to super-stardom. With it, came drugs, alcohol, arrests, and crazy spending sprees. Now he’s sober and a Hollywood pariah, washed up at twenty-four.

To revamp his image, Chase’s publicist comes up with a plan: surprise Amanda Grace with the chance to meet her hero, followed by a visit to the set of Chase’s new movie. The meeting is a disaster, but out of mutual desperation, Amanda and Chase strike a deal. What starts as a simple arrangement, though, rapidly becomes more complicated when they realize they need each other in more ways than one. But when the past resurfaces in a new threat, will they stand together or fall apart?

June 7th 2016 by Forge Books

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Teaser Tuesday

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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB at Books and A Beat

This week’s Teaser Tuesday is for One Paris Summer by Denise Grover Swank!

I still had a Broken heart. Then I realized I had to stop hanging on, no matter how much it hurt. I had to let him go.

Summary from Goodreads:

Most teens dream of visiting the City of Lights, but it feels more like a nightmare for Sophie Brooks. She and her brother are sent to Paris to spend the summer with their father, who left home a year ago without any explanation. As if his sudden abandonment weren’t betrayal enough, he’s about to remarry, and they’re expected to play nice with his soon-to-be wife and stepdaughter. The stepdaughter, Camille, agrees to show them around the city, but she makes it clear that she will do everything in her power to make Sophie miserable.

Sophie could deal with all the pain and humiliation if only she could practice piano. Her dream is to become a pianist, and she was supposed to spend the summer preparing for a scholarship competition. Even though her father moved to Paris to pursue his own dream, he clearly doesn’t support hers. His promise to provide her with a piano goes unfulfilled.

Still, no one is immune to Paris’s charm. After a few encounters with a gorgeous French boy, Sophie finds herself warming to the city, particularly when she discovers that he can help her practice piano. There’s just one hitch—he’s a friend of Camille’s, and Camille hates Sophie. While the summer Sophie dreaded promises to become best summer of her life, one person could ruin it all.

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The Art of Being Normal

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Title: The Art of Being Normal

Author: Lisa Williamson

Series: Standalone

Publication: May 31st 2016 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

Pages: 352

Source: Netgalley

Summary from Goodreads:

David Piper has always been an outsider. His parents think he’s gay. The school bully thinks he’s a freak. Only his two best friends know the real truth: David wants to be a girl.

On the first day at his new school Leo Denton has one goal: to be invisible. Attracting the attention of the most beautiful girl in his class is definitely not part of that plan. When Leo stands up for David in a fight, an unlikely friendship forms. But things are about to get messy. Because at Eden Park School secrets have a funny habit of not staying secret for long , and soon everyone knows that Leo used to be a girl.

As David prepares to come out to his family and transition into life as a girl and Leo wrestles with figuring out how to deal with people who try to define him through his history, they find in each other the friendship and support they need to navigate life as transgender teens as well as the courage to decide for themselves what normal really means.

My Thoughts:

Wow.. just wow. I have to tell you, The Art of Being Normal is so far out of my comfort zone – and I think that made me love it even more than I already do. This book is a work of art itself. It is provocative, innovative, unique, and everything a contemporary novel should be. It has opened my eyes to something I knew little about. It has created a new set of standards. It is more than just diverse, it completely diverges from our idea of normal and thrusts readers into a situation some individuals experience every day of their living lives.

The Art of Being Normal focuses on David Piper (Kate), a young boy who has only ever wanted to become a girl. Even since kindergarten, he knew. When the teacher asked the class what they wanted to be when they grew up, there was a slew of standard ballerina and astronaut answers – and then there was David, who wrote something that broke the barriers of acceptable answers. While David’s closest two friends are supportive, the school treats him as a pariah and his parent have their suspicions though he hasn’t come out to them yet. This is the story of his journey and his growth – and it was beautiful.

This is one of those books that grabs you by your wrists and ankles and drags you through the muck until the end. There is no escape. You find yourself trapped, captivated, and utterly willing to keep getting muddy. While you might be uncomfortable with certain aspects of this novel, I certainly was, you shouldn’t let that deter you from delving head first into a book that demands to be read. It’s worth it. Trust me.

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Snippet Sunday

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I’m back at it! You all know what day it is: Sunday. Know what that means? SNIPPET SUNDAY IS A GO.

Snippet Sunday

How to participate in Snippet Sunday:

  • You share a snippet of your current work in progress or whatever else you are working on. A scene, dialogue, a whole chapter, a poem – anything goes. 
  • Link your Snippet Sunday back here, and we can watch the world burn in our amazingness together
  • Ta da! Snippet Sunday complete

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The Assassin’s Blade

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If you can learn to endure pain, you can survive anything. Some people learn to embrace it- to love it. Some endure it through drowning it in sorrow, or by making themselves forget. Others turn it into anger.

Title: The Assassin’s Blade

Author: Sarah J. Maas

Series: Throne of Glass # 0.1-0.5

Publication: March 4th 2014 by Bloomsbury Childrens

Pages: 448

Source: Purchased

Summary from Goodreads:

Celaena Sardothien is Adarlan’s most feared assassin. As part of the Assassin’s Guild, her allegiance is to her master, Arobynn Hamel, yet Celaena listens to no one and trusts only her fellow killer-for-hire, Sam. In these action-packed novellas – together in one edition for the first time – Celaena embarks on five daring missions. They take her from remote islands to hostile deserts, where she fights to liberate slaves and seeks to avenge the tyrannous. But she is acting against Arobynn’s orders and could suffer an unimaginable punishment for such treachery. Will Celaena ever be truly free? Explore the dark underworld of this kick-ass heroine to find out.

My Thoughts:

ARGH! The feels, I cannot handle all the damn feels right now. I just finished this before I sat down and started banging away at my keyboard and my brain cannot compute. If you’ve read Throne of Glass (which I’m about to go reread), you know how it starts off. Our beloved Celaena in the Salt Mines… but ever wonder how she ended up there? The Assassin’s Blade is a collection of five novellas in which Celeana’s past is illuminated in excruciating detail. It was so painfully beautiful. I don’t know how to talk about my feelings, this is the kind of pain you can only experience for yourself.

This collection details five of Celaena’s – my favorite precious cinnamon roll of an assassin – adventures and the road leading her to Endovier.  Some are shorter than others, but all pack one hell of a punch. After reading this collection, and even though I already loved Celaena, these stories have completely changed my views of her. She has always been amazing, and I love her even when she is being a bit of a bitch (but that’s part of the reason I love her), but this book has shot Celaena into new heights in my eyes. In this collection, you really get to see within the cracks. You get a peek at the girl who loved and who trusted, who was betrayed in more ways than should be humanly possible, and who was feared but soon became the thing of nightmares we see in Throne of Glass. She is so strong, so, so strong and independent. But, even Celaena Sardothien needs someone every now and then.

I really don’t know how else to describe what I just read. You need to read it, but I would recommend waiting to read it at least until after you’ve read Throne of Glass. Though this is a prequel to the actual series, Throne of Glass introduces Celaena as you’re supposed to see her – The Assassin’s Blade softens the edges and makes it easier to understand her motives. I’m in love, honestly. Sarah J. Maas can do no wrong in my eyes. I could let myself ramble, try to come up with ridiculous metaphors while attempting to explain just why these books, this series, are so amazing – but that’s an impossible feat. You must read these. Sheer perfection, that’s what The Assassin’s Blade is. Sheer perfection, heart-break, and otherworldly amazingness.

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