Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. It’s awesome. Every Tuesday, the lovely folks over at The Broke and the Bookish post a top ten list topic so that book lovers like you and me can pour over our shelves and make our own lists. You can check out all the other Top Ten Tuesday‘s on their site!
***
Recommend A… is a SUPER meme hosted by Shanyn from Chick Loves Lit that lets us get a little random, and a little off the radar. I LOVE IT.
Ahh, summer. I love it so much when it’s just gathering steam, but I’m never sad to see it go because fall is my FAVORITE season of ever. And since we’re talking about seasons this week, I might as well just tell you up front that I’m a seasonal reader. Like, I won’t read books about summers on the beach at Christmas time, just like I won’t read books that take place in cold, snowy climes in the summer. I also often find myself craving less substantive books in the summer. Fall is basically fantasy time. Anyway, this post is really getting away from me. FOCUS, AMY. BOOK THAT REMINDS ME OF SUMMER. I’m going to hit you with some MG this week, friends.
The Penderwicks: Penderwicks #1 by Jeanne Birdsall
This is one of my favorite middle grade series ever, and it just so happens to take place in the summer. I first read it in the summertime, so every time I look at it or reread it, it reminds me of summer. But more than taking place in the summertime, THE PENDERWICKS is a really sweet, funny, heartwarming story about a family of sisters living with their widowed father. The sisters are so different but close, and their father is lovable if a little absent-minded. SUCH a great series, guys.
In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi over at The Story Siren. It’s awesome. Every week, we all get a chance to tell everyone what new books we’ve gotten so that we can tell you guys and we can all drool and squee together! Huzzah for squees!
I’ve returned to NetGalley my friends. I couldn’t help it. There were good books on there!
NETGALLEY
Princess of the Silver Woods: Princess # 3 by Jessica Day George (December 11, 2012 from Bloomsbury). I didn’t realize that this book is the third in a series, but they sound like companion-ish things more than sequential series books, and I’ve got some time to catch up on these fairy tale retellings (HELLO AWESOME!). This one sounds like a mash-up of Little Red Riding Hood and ROBIN HOOD, where the Merry Men are freaking werewolves. I mean…
Flash Point by Nancy Kress (November 8, 2012 from Viking Juvenile). Dystopian novel about a future America after a HUMUNGOUS economic collapse where the only work the main character, Amy, can get is as a contestant on a reality TV show. Sounds good. Also a little bit closer to home than other dystopians, and I find that I like those the best. Also, AMY. I can’t resist my namesakes.
Five-Star Friday is a periodically regular (say what?!) feature that I’m planning on running on Fridays (but not every Friday) in which I talk about (or verbally drool over) a book that I’ve read and ADORED (sometimes they’ll be recent releases and other times they might be older…my piles are tall and the bottoms are old). Yay! I always feel so happy and light and wonderful when I am beside myself with delight over a book, and I want to share the love with you all in the hopes that we can all get together and have an embarrassing, squeal-filled love-fest full of lots of high-pitched “Ohmygod, I KNOW!s” and chest-clutching sighs of contentedness. Huzzah!*
Hello, there, old friend! It’s been a little while since we last caught up with one another. Don’t get all frowny-face on me, though, because have I got a good one for you! TIGER LILY by Jodi Lynn Anderson, one of my favorite books of the year no question or doubt at all. Because I loved it so much, and because the writing was so sublime, I’m going to do something a little different and review the book in quotes. Just a few; just a taste. But it’s a good, juicy taste, I promise.
I received this book for free from BookExpo in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas 
After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin. Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king’s council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she’ll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted her freedom. Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilarating. But she’s bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her… but it’s the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best. Then one of the other contestants turns up dead… quickly followed by another. Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. It’s awesome. Every Tuesday, the lovely folks over at The Broke and the Bookish post a top ten list topic so that book lovers like you and me can pour over our shelves and make our own lists. You can check out all the other Top Ten Tuesday‘s on their site!
***
Recommend A… is a SUPER meme hosted by Shanyn from Chick Loves Lit that lets us get a little random, and a little off the radar. I LOVE IT.
This is actually hard because I haven’t been on a vacation in, oh, several years. I KNOW. But it’s true. Unless you count weekend trips to Virginia to visit family, which is hard to do because, well, a weekend with family doesn’t usually leave lots of time for reading. So, I’m going to keep it short and sweet this week and recommend not only one my favorite books that I’ve read this year–or possibly ever–and one of the books I read on one of my most recent “vacations.”
Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson
Friends, this book–a Peter Pan prequel/retelling from the point of view of Tiger Lily–is flat-out amazing. Seriously. I’ve always loved the Peter Pan story, but the one that we are familiar with is so different from the one Jodi Lynn Anderson tells in TIGER LILY. I called it a prequel earlier because it really does take place before the timeline of the story most people know. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t heartbreaking and beautiful and basically outstanding. Read this one. At home, on vacation, in the car, wherever.
So, for the first week EVER since I started participating, I have no books for In My Mailbox. I didn’t really get any books this past week (well, except for the little gem of a birthday gift at the bottom, courtesy of my sister), and to be honest with you, I kind of needed it. I’ve got LOTS of things to read already! So instead of highlighting books that I received this week, I thought I’d do a little something new and give a shout to the next couple of books on my TBR. I’m sharing partly to geek out over my reads with you all, and partly to try and keep myself on some kind of schedule-ish sort of thing. I don’t usually subscribe to the schedule method because having one will only make me want to deviate from it; I’m WAY to easily distracted by other things, and I like to pick up things that I feel like reading because I know that if I pick up a book that I would usually enjoy but am just not in the mood for, it’ll take me even longer to pick it up again and give it another shot. But, I’ll give it the old college try anyway. So without further ado, the books I’ve got on deck!
Because Tara from Hobbitsies told me I had to. And, well, basically all the other people I know and whose opinions I trust for always. A fantasy this awesome-sounding should not have lingered so long on my TBR, guys. I feel guilty.
The continuing saga of Katiya the necromancer and her life in pre-Revolutionary Russia with ALL the paranormal creatures you could possibly think of. Also, George. But Tsarist Russia? Psh. Obviously I would be in, even if the first book in this series, THE GATHERING STORM, had its issues for me.
Basically because I need to stop TALKING about this book and just read it already. It sounds amazing and different from anything else I’ve ever read, and that is really piquing my interest HARD.
I’m blog touring this one at the end of October, guys, and I’m STOKED. I just love the sound of it, with the gaming angle and the nerdiness. HOLLA, RPGs!!
A middle-grade historical fiction/fantasy with heaps of mythology-based shenanigans and other awesomeness. This is my next MG review for Bookalicious.org, and it’s got so many of the things I love the most. Fingers crossed that it’s super!
First US Edition of HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS
A quick story about this gift: I used to have one of these. My sister lent it to one of her friends a few years ago and she absconded to Virginia with it when she moved. Currently, my sister and this friend are friends no longer, but the girl STILL has my book. All of my Harry Potter books are hardcover, EXCEPT for Chamber of Secrets, which until now, has been a second-hand paperback copy that I got from a friend because she had two copies. A second-hand paperback substituting for a hardcover first edition! I DIE. But not anymore. Huzzah!
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Don't You Wish by Roxanne St. Claire
When plain and unpopular Annie Nutter gets zapped by one of her dad’s whacked-out inventions, she lands in a parallel universe where her life becomes picture-perfect. Now she’s Ayla Monroe, daughter of the same mother but a different father—and she’s the gorgeous, rich queen bee of her high school.
In this universe, Ayla lives in glitzy Miami instead of dreary Pittsburgh and has beaucoup bucks, courtesy of her billionaire—if usually absent—father. Her friends hit the clubs, party backstage at concerts, and take risks that are exhilarating . . . and illegal. Here she’s got a date to lose her V-card with the hottest guy she’s ever seen.
But on the inside, Ayla is still Annie.
So when she’s offered the chance to leave the dream life and head home to Pittsburgh, will she take it?
The choice isn’t as simple as you think.
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. It’s awesome. Every Tuesday, the lovely folks over at The Broke and the Bookish post a top ten list topic so that book lovers like you and me can pour over our shelves and make our own lists. You can check out all the other Top Ten Tuesday‘s on their site!
***
