Follow Friday (32)

Follow Friday is a really fun way to make new blogger friends and promote your blog in the process! This weekly meme is hosted by Alison Can Read and Rachel @Parajunkee.

Q: You are a matchmaker -- your goal, hook up two characters from two of your favorite books. Who would it be? How do you think it would go?

A: I would like to put Patch from Hush, Hush is the same room with Clara from Unearthly and just be a fly on the wall.  I don't expect anything romantic to happen between the two of them but I would really like to hear the kind of conversations they would have.  Either Clara would absolutely hate him and she would want to help him get his his wing back.  She might think it's her purpose!

I don't know what my obsession with Patch is today but I think things between Patch and Karou from Daughter of Smoke and Bone could get pretty hot and heavy.  I think he's the type of bad boy she would definitely go for! 

Thanks for reading and following my blog! Leave me a comment so I can read some of your match ups! 

Review- Tiger's Curse

Title: Tiger's Curse
Author: Colleen Houck
Series: Tiger's Curse #1
Publisher: Sterling
Find it here: Amazon, Goodreads
Source: Review copy provided by publisher

Passion. Fate. Loyalty.

Would you risk it all to change your destiny?

The last thing Kelsey Hayes thought she’d be doing this summer was trying to break a 300-year-old Indian curse. With a mysterious white tiger named Ren. Halfway around the world. But that’s exactly what happened. Face-to-face with dark forces, spellbinding magic, and mystical worlds where nothing is what it seems, Kelsey risks everything to piece together an ancient prophecy that could break the curse forever.

Tiger’s Curse is the exciting first volume in an epic fantasy-romance that will leave you breathless and yearning for more.

My thoughts: 

Tiger’s Curse was really a remarkable read for me. Within the YA genre, I find that books can tend to blend together because they’re so similar. But Tiger’s Curse has definitely stuck out in my mind. It was like a breath of fresh air and just packed full of action, adventure and romance. I think it’s definitely a must read!

Not only did I read this book I also listened to the audio book. The readers are by far the best I’ve ever heard! They do the accents of the Indian princes so well. I would be driving in my car and I would literally forget where I was going because I became so immersed in the story. It was just so vivid in my imagination!

Ren, my favorite character by far, is definitely one of my new book boyfriends! There is just so much I love about him because he reminds me of someone I know in real life. Ren is so sweet, kind, loyal, compassionate, funny and charming! Mixed with his good look and his to-die for accent, he is smoking hot in my book! This guy I know in real life is Indian (born and raised in America though) and he’s all those wonderful qualities and he’s hot and I’ve known him my entire life! Sigh, I might be in love!! But he’s not cursed be to a tiger. Ren is just a great character and everything I could hope for in a man!

I liked Kelsey through most of the book. She was patient and willing to travel to a foreign to try and lift this curse that has been plaguing the Indian princes for centuries. She’s getting along with Ren and it’s obvious that she’s falling in love with him. But then towards the end she does a total 180 with her feelings and lets her doubts get in the way. Which, I can understand because a lot of girls don’t think they’re pretty enough to be with a really gorgeous guy. But she wouldn’t give in and by the end I wanted to punch her in the face! I guess that’s what is going to get me to read the next book and the fact that they only broke part of the curse. There better be some really good Ren and Kelsey action going on in the next book!!

Tiger’s Curse is really great and I would recommend it to any YA fantasy lover! I give Tiger’s Curse 5 hearts because Ren is wonderful and makes me giddy and it is also one of the best books I’ve read this year!

Waiting on Wednesday (56)

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: Burn For Burn
Author: Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian
Hitting the Shelves: September 18, 2012

BIG GIRLS DON'T CRY...
THEY GET EVEN.

Lillia has never had any problems dealing with boys who like her. Not until this summer, when one went too far. No way will she let the same thing happen to her little sister.

Kat is tired of the rumours, the insults, the cruel jokes. It all goes back to one person– her ex-best friend– and she's ready to make her pay.

Four years ago, Mary left Jar Island because of a boy. But she's not the same girl anymore. And she's ready to prove it to him.

Three very different girls who want the same thing: sweet, sweet revenge. And they won't stop until they each had a taste.

Why I want this:  I've been looking forward to reading a really good, nitty gritty, mean girl book for a long time now.  And this book sounds AWESOME!!! Jenny Han is one of my favorite contemporary authors and she speaks very highly of Siobhan Vivian! I can't wait to get my hands on it!!

What are you waiting for?

Review- The Girls of No Return

Title: The Girls of No Return
Author: Erin Saldin
Publisher: Scholastic
Find it here: Amazon, Goodreads
Source: Purchased

Erin Saldin's The Girls of No Return is a lacerating young adult debut about girls, knives, and redemption. The Alice Marshall School, set within a glorious 2-million acre wilderness area, is a place where teenage girls are sent to escape their histories and themselves. Lida Wallace has tried to negate herself in every way possible. At Alice Marshall, she meets Elsa Boone, Jules, and Gia Longchamps, whose glamour entrances the entire camp. As the girls prepare for a wilderness trek, Lida is both thrilled and terrified to be chosen as Gia's friend. Everyone has their secrets – the “Things” they try to protect; and when those come out, the knives do as well.

My thoughts:

It’s been almost a month since I’ve read this book and I still don’t know how I feel about it. I guess it just threw me completely off guard and not in a good way. When I first saw the cover and the title, I thought that the book would be a little bit scary. I was actually hoping that it would be. Here is what I thought it would be about in one sentence: A bunch of girls who are at a camp or boarding school, row off together but something so terrible happens that only one of them returns. That was not what The Girls of No Return was about.

I crack open the book, so excited to get started on this super crazy, creepy mystery, that I could hardly contain my excitement when the book starts off with these really cryptic journal entries about something that happened that the main character can’t talk about. My excitement continues until about half way through the book when I realize that my assumptions are probably wrong. As it turns out, it’s about a girl who is sent to an all girl boarding school in the middle of nowhere because she’s rebellious.

Lida is a pretty cool character who really discovers who she is and what she’s good at while she attends the Alice Marshall School. I felt so bad for her after another girl cut off her hair while she slept during her first night there. Which made me think there was going to be some kind of mean-girl action going on which would have been awesome, by the way.

As far as the story goes, I really liked it. I’m always up for a good boarding school book and even though it was an all girls’ school, it still kept me interested. It was paced really well and I didn’t find myself getting bored. The ending was crazy and I definitely didn’t expect it. I give the Girls of No Return 3 hearts because the back and forth flash back action was done really well.

Waiting on Wednesday (55)

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: Earth Girl
Author: Janet Edwards
Hitting the Shelves: August 15, 2012

2788. Only the handicapped live on Earth. While everyone else portals between worlds, 18-year-old Jarra is among the one in a thousand people born with an immune system that cannot survive on other planets. Sent to Earth at birth to save her life, she has been abandoned by her parents. She can’t travel to other worlds, but she can watch their vids, and she knows all the jokes they make. She’s an ‘ape’, a ‘throwback’, but this is one ape girl who won’t give in.

Jarra invents a fake background for herself – as a normal child of Military parents – and joins a class of norms that is on Earth to excavate the ruins of the old cities. When an ancient skyscraper collapses, burying another research team, Jarra’s role in their rescue puts her in the spotlight. No hiding at back of class now. To make life more complicated, she finds herself falling in love with one of her classmates – a norm from another planet. Somehow, she has to keep the deception going.

A freak solar storm strikes the atmosphere, and the class is ordered to portal off-world for safety – no problem for a real child of military parents, but fatal for Jarra. The storm is so bad that the crews of the orbiting solar arrays have to escape to planet below: the first landing from space in 600 years. And one is on collision course with their shelter.

Why I want this: This book really excites me! By the synopsis I feel like it has a lot of potential.  There can be a lot of world building, great characters and I'm really interested to see how it plays out to the end. 

What are you waiting for?

Top Ten Tuesday: Non-bookish Websites/Blogs

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

This week's topic is top ten websites or blogs that aren't book related.

So before I get into my list I should say that most of these websites I read while I'm at work and the Disney network is extremely limited and we are not allowed to read any kind of blog while working.  These are some websites that I've come across:

1. E! New online.  I feel kind of vain and shallow that I read this website almost everyday.  But it's very entertaining and it makes the slow hours at work fly by faster.  And it's pretty much the only kind of websites that aren't blocked. 

2. Cracked.  This website in completely inappropriate and totally not acceptable for work but it's so hilarious that I can't help it.  It has nothing to do with anything that's going on in the world but the articles always have me laughing off my work chair! The photoplasty pictures are the best!

3. The Huffington Post.  I read this website occasionally and it has a little bit of everything.  Relevant news, entertainment, comedy and culture.  I first came across this website when I discovered they featured all the finalists for the Peep Show competition where people make scenes with Peeps.  It's a cool website if you're bored.

4. The Onion.  I've been reading this hilarious news network for years now. It's a news website that makes fun of the news! I love it!

5. Consequence of Sound.  This website has all the latest and greatest breaking news when it comes to indie and rock music.  

6.  Wish Wish Wish.  I wish I saw fashion the way this girl does.  Everything she wears is fashion forward and looks fabulous! Just an ounce of her fashion sense would go a long way for me.  

7.  NPR.  I visit this website because I really like the stories they play on the Saturday morning show "This American Life". Some of them are so mysterious but they're all true stories.  My favorite one they ever played was a real life story about two girls who were switched at birth and didn't discover it until they were adults.  It was crazy.  

Stacking the Shelves (2)

Hey there! Welcome to this week's Stacking the Shelves! This awesome meme is hosted by Tynga's Reviews and we get to show each other the books we acquired this week whether bought, from the library or for review!

For review:

Envy by Gregg Olsen

Betrayal by Gregg Olsen

Last year I received a finished copy of Envy for review and I absolutely loved it! I really love murder mystery books! So when I realized that Betrayal (the second book in the Empty Coffin Series) would be coming out this fall I had to request a copy! Along with the ARC of Betrayal, they send me a paperback copy of Envy! Thank you so much Splinter Publishing! 

Purchased:

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

I pre-ordered Insurgent and I got in on time and everything but I was always forgetting to put it in my post becaue my mom was reading it! She loves this series and she started reading it as soon as I got it in the mail!

Unwind by Neal Shusterman

I bought Unwind last week and completely forgot to include it.  I've already read it and it was excellent! I was sure that I was going to have nightmares about being unwound!

Hemlock by Kathleen Peacock

I also got this when it first came out and for some reason I forgot to include it, as well.  It sounds really good and I'm super excited to read it this summer!

Posted this week:

Review-Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Review-Unbreak My Heart by Melissa Walker

Waiting on Wednesday- The Turning

Unbreak My Heart Blog Tour- Guest Vlog by Melissa Walker

What's stacking your shelves this week?