ARC Book Review | One Past Midnight by Jessica Shirvington

Format: e-ARC
Source: Publisher via Netgalley
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Publication Date: July 22, 2014
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Name of overseas edition of Between The Lives.

Above all else, though I try not to think about it, I know which life I prefer. And every night when I Cinderella myself from one life to the next a very small, but definite, piece of me dies. The hardest part is that nothing about my situation has ever changed. There is no loophole.

Until now, that is...

For as long as she can remember, Sabine has lived two lives. Every 24 hours she Shifts to her ′other′ life - a life where she is exactly the same, but absolutely everything else is different: different family, different friends, different social expectations. In one life she has a sister, in the other she does not. In one life she′s a straight-A student with the perfect boyfriend, in the other she′s considered a reckless delinquent. Nothing about her situation has ever changed, until the day when she discovers a glitch: the arm she breaks in one life is perfectly fine in the other.

With this new knowledge, Sabine begins a series of increasingly risky experiments which bring her dangerously close to the life she′s always wanted... But just what - and who - is she really risking?

 

My Thoughts:

Have you ever read a book that left you speechless? Well, One Past Midnight had that effect on me when I finished it. I admit that I wasn’t really expecting to love it as much as I did going on, only because I had never read anything by this author before and with it being parallel worlds, I was a little hesitant because it takes an amazing writer to pull that off. However, I’m happy to report that I was wrong, I was immediately sucked into the story and I didn’t want it to end and I really, really want to know what happens to Sabine, especially after THAT ending. I can only hope that Shirvington has plans for a sequel because if not…well, I don’t even want to think about that.

All her life Sabine has lived each day twice, every night at Midnight she ‘shifts’ over to her other world and everything except her name changes. In one world she has two brothers and a boyfriend and in the other she has a little sister and no boyfriend. Sabine has lived her lives carefully as anything physical to her body has always transferred over to the other life so she’s always been real careful about everything, not dying her hair in one world only to not have an explanation in the other. All of this changes when Sabine breaks her wrist in one world only to shift to the other that night and finding out that the break didn’t cross over. This sets something in motion for Sabine, she’s sets up a series of tests to try and find a way to have one life like everyone else. And she already knows which life she would chose, or at least she thinks she does.

Sabine was a unique character and she was different in both lives, but still kind of the same, if that makes sense. While I didn’t agree with some of her tactics in determining whether the break in her wrist was a fluke, I can understand why she would go to extreme lengths. I mean, here is a girl who has lived her entire eighteen years twice, she graduated high school twice, she has her period twice as long each month, and I’m sure us ladies can imagine the torture THAT WOULD BE. All she has ever wanted was to live one WHOLE life just like everyone else, and who’s to same that I wouldn’t have gone to the same lengths if I was in her position. Plus it lead her to Ethan ;)

Ahhh, Ethan. While I would love to devote this whole review to him, I can’t because that would spoil so much of the book so you’re just going to have to trust me when I say that Ethan everything a book boyfriend should be and you should definitely look forward to meeting him.

Overall, One Past Midnight is a wonderfully constructed and unique contemporary. You will laugh, you will cry and you will be stunned by the ending.

 

---Christy

Waiting on Wednesday | Astray by Amy Christine Parker

 

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine

 

My Pick

 

Astray by Amy Christine Parker

 

Expected Publication Date: August 26, 2014 by Random House Books for Young Readers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lyla is caught between two worlds. The isolated Community that she grew up in and the outside world that she’s navigating for the very first time. The outsiders call the Community a cult, but Pioneer miraculously survived a shooting that should have killed him. Are the faithful members right to stay true to his message? Is this just a test of faith? One thing is for sure: the Community will do anything to bring Lyla back to the fold. Trapped in a spider’s web of deception, will Lyla detect the sticky threads tightening around her before it’s too late? She’ll have to unravel the mystery of what Pioneer and the Community are truly up to if she wants to survive.

Suspenseful and chilling, Astray is Amy Christine Parker’s nerve-fraying sequel to Gated. This fast-paced psychological thriller is masterfully plotted and sure to leave goose bumps. Perfect for fans of creepy YA thrillers and contemporary fiction alike.

What are you waiting on?





 

ARC Book Review | Some Boys by Patty Blount

Format: e-ARC
Source: Publisher via Netgalley
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Publication Date: August 5, 2014
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Some boys go too far. Some boys will break your heart. But one boy can make you whole.

When Grace meets Ian she's afraid. Afraid he'll reject her like the rest of the school, like her own family. After she accuses the town golden boy of rape, everyone turns against Grace. They call her a slut and a liar. But...Ian doesn't. He's funny and kind with secrets of his own.

But how do you trust the best friend of the boy who raped you? How do you believe in love?

A gut-wrenching, powerful love story told from alternating points of view by the acclaimed author of Send.

My Thoughts:

Haunting, emotional and gut wrenching, Some Boys tells the heart breaking story of a seventeen year old girl trying to deal with not only getting raped, something NO GIRL SHOULD EVER HAVE TO SUFFER but the fallout after the fact. The boy who hurt her is the most popular guy in school and everyone takes his side and no one believes her, her friends stop talking to her, people start harassing her and calling her crude names.

I don’t know if I can even explain the emotion this book brought out in me. I was sad for Grace, I was angry with the way people treated her, at times I was disappointed with Ian and Grace’s dad. It was just a rollercoaster of emotion and that my friends is when you know you are reading a good book. Any book that can send me from tears to flat out rage within a paragraph is definitely one that deserves praise.

Like I said above, Grace is trying so hard to stay strong and deal with everything that has happened to her, because she knows that if she takes her mom up on the offer of going abroad for a semester then Zac wins. But with everyone making her life a living Hell, it just gets harder but Grace is a fighter. Ian, what can I say about him? I could tell from the beginning that he wasn’t as bad as his friends, he didn’t go out of his way to harass Grace, but then again he didn’t stand up for her either. It isn’t until he’s forced to work with Grace that he starts getting to know her, and starts questioning everything his ‘buddy’ Zac tells him about THAT night.

Another thing that I liked about this book is that the parents are present and active in the kids’ lives. Yeah, at times I was so disappointed with Grace’s dad and I wondered how in the hell he could treat her that way but light gets shed on his reactions at the end of the book and I can kind-of get where he’s coming from, KIND-OF. Grace’s mom and Ian’s dad though, were wonderful. Grace’s mom was always there when she needed her and she didn’t get upset about little things Grace would do to try and make herself feel safer. Ian’s dad was also very respectful towards Grace and he didn’t treat her like someone who was broken or someone who was lying, like everyone else was doing.

Some Boys is an emotional and heart wrenching story that sheds light on rape and bullying. I think a lot of the time teenagers don’t realize the effect that their words or actions can have on someone else, but regardless that doesn’t make bullying ok in any way shape or form and maybe if books like this or Thirteen Reasons Why was made assigned reading in high school, it might make them think twice before saying crude things to someone.

--- Christy

Sunday Showdown (16) August Covers

It's almost August!!! That means it's almost my birthday, *raises glass* here's to wishing for lots of bookish presents :) 

Here's a few of my favorite August covers:

Which is your favorite?

 

which cover is your favorite?
	Mortal Danger
	The Beautiful Ashes
	The Girl from the Well
	Between the Spark and Burn
	Gates of Thread and Stone
pollcode.com free polls

Stacking the Shelves (52)

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Review

My Haul:

Say Her Name by James Dawson - Purchased

Unbreakable by Kami Garcia - Purchased

Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry - Traded (I love this series but I only owned 1 book in the series so I'm on a mission to get them all :) )

What did you get?

ARC August Sign Up Post

Due to the fact that I feel like I’m drowning in review books, I’ve decided to sign up for Read. Sleep. Repeat’s ARC August!

As of right now I have 24 ARCs/e-ARCs that I need to review. I’m currently reading 2 of those so I think at the beginning of August I will have 22. Well, I’ll have 22 as long as I stick with my ARC requesting ban, which I plan to do.

My goal – While I would love to knock out half of my 22 by the end of August, I just don’t know if that’s practical with school, work and kids. So, I’m going to set my goal of AT LEAST 5 books being knocked off the list, while I secretly hope that I can read more.

Wish Me Luck and If you’d like to join you can find all of the details HERE!

Book Review | Beautiful Oblivion by Jamie McGuire

Format: Paperback
Source: Purchased
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication Date: July 1, 2014
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Beautiful Disaster and Walking Disaster phenomenon continues in the first heart-pounding new adult romance in The Maddox Brothers series.


Fiercely independent Camille "Cami" Camlin gladly moved on from her childhood before it was over. She has held down a job since before she could drive, and moved into her own apartment after her freshman year of college. Now tending bar at The Red Door, Cami doesn’t have time for much else besides work and classes, until a trip to see her boyfriend is cancelled, leaving her with a first weekend off in almost a year.

Trenton Maddox was the king of Eastern State University, dating co-eds before he even graduated high school. His friends wanted to be him, and women wanted to tame him, but after a tragic accident turned his world upside down, Trenton leaves campus to come to grips with the crushing guilt.

Eighteen months later, Trenton is living at home with his widower father, and works full-time at a local tattoo parlor to help with the bills. Just when he thinks his life is returning to normal, he notices Cami sitting alone at a table at The Red.

As the baby sister of four rowdy brothers, Cami believes she’ll have no problem keeping her new friendship with Trenton Maddox strictly platonic. But when a Maddox boy falls in love, he loves forever—even if she is the only reason their already broken family could fall apart.

In the first installment of the Maddox Brothers books, readers can experience the rush of reading Beautiful Disaster for the first time, all over again.

My Thoughts:

I’m sure fans of the Disaster books were ecstatic to get their hands on another Maddox brother book and I was no exception. I had this book pre-ordered a month before the release date and as soon as it came in the mail, I dropped everything to start reading it. I was expecting the same wild ride that we got in the Disaster books but it turns out that wasn’t the case. While Trenton is kind of man whore and has a bad temper, he’s much more controlled than Travis.

Don’t get me wrong, Trent is a Maddox so of course he flies off the handle, but he seems to be able to reign in back in fairly easy. Cami is the opposite, she isn’t really the type to let her temper rule her, she’s much more level headed, which is exactly what Trent needs.

Going into this book I didn’t know that Beautiful Oblivion follows the same timeline as BD, while I was expecting this to take place after, it really didn’t bother me that much. I really liked the fact that we get the Pigeon tattoo scene in this book, I can’t believe I didn’t know that Trent was the one who gave Travis the tattoo…I either missed that little tidbit in BD and WD or I’ve forgotten more than I thought about those books.

I really loved the secondary characters in this book too, Hazel cracked me up and Raegan was an amazing friend to Cami, even though she was going through some boy troubles of her own. I really like the family vibe that Red and Skin Deep had. You could feel the love and respect that they had for one another and that’s extremely rare now days.

Overall, Beautiful Oblivion was just as compelling and unputdownable as BD and WD. I’m sure fans of the Disaster books will fall in love with Trent just as much as they did Travis.

---Christy

Waiting on Wednesday | A Vault of Sins by Sarah Harian

 

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine

 

My Pick

 

A Vault of Sins by Sarah Harian

 

Expected Publication Date: September 16, 2014 by Penguin

 

 

 

 

 

In her stunning New Adult debut, The Wicked We Have Done, Sarah Harian introduced readers to the Compass Room: a twisted experimental jail where the guilty and the innocent suffer alike. But breaking out was only the beginning…

Even though she’s escaped, twenty-two-year-old Evalyn Ibarra is anything but free. She’s desperate to return to a life that no longer exists, but prying reporters continually draw her back into nightmarish memories, using the tabloids to vilify her. Bad press is the last thing she needs during the trial of the year: the case that she and her fellow survivors staked against the Compass Room engineers. A case that could terminate the use of the inhumane system forever...

But in her dreams, she is still locked in that terrifying jail.

When she wakes, someone is trying to communicate with her in secret, through strange and intricate clues. As Evalyn follows their signs, she uncovers a conspiracy that goes so much deeper than her own ordeal. A dangerous intrigue that only she can bring to light. One that will force her to work with the one person she doesn’t want to see.

The person who owns her heart...

What are you waiting on?

 

Covers That Should Be Redesigned

Can We Get a Cover Change?

 

 

 

I know that there are covers that we all LOVE, hell, I even have a Cover Love shelf on Goodreads.  But I got to thinking about those books that we come across with those covers that are freaking ugly  not very eye catching.  I know that I should judge a book based on what the outside looks like, but I CAN'T HELP IT.  If a book is hideous on the outside, it's highly likely that it will never grace the shelves of my collection.  I hate to admit that I'm a cover whore and very shallow when it comes to what's on the outside, but there you have it. 

 

 

Here's just a few of covers that hurt my eyes my least favorite covers

 

 

 

OOHHH, looks it's a light bulb, I must read this book so that I can find out what lights the bulb!!

 

 

 

Don't that weird looking thing over this huge face make you want to pick this book up!

 

 

Someone has a sun burn...

 

 

 

 

Yeah, I don't even know.

 

 

 

 

Someone played outside in the snow a little too long and ended up with Frost Bite

 

 

The Host The Eye...it's watching you *muhahahaha*

 

 

 

What do you think of these?

 

 

 

 

 

DNF Review | The Vanishing Season by Jodi Lynn Anderson

 Format: e-ARC
Source: Publisher via Netgalley
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication Date: July 1, 2014
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Girls started vanishing in the fall, and now winter's come to lay a white sheet over the horror. Door County, it seems, is swallowing the young, right into its very dirt. From beneath the house on Water Street, I've watched the danger swell.

The residents know me as the noises in the house at night, the creaking on the stairs. I'm the reflection behind them in the glass, the feeling of fear in the cellar. I'm tied—it seems—to this house, this street, this town.

I'm tied to Maggie and Pauline, though I don't know why. I think it's because death is coming for one of them, or both.

All I know is that the present and the past are piling up, and I am here to dig.I am looking for the things that are buried.

From bestselling author Jodi Lynn Anderson comes a friendship story bound in snow and starlight, a haunting mystery of love, betrayal, redemption, and the moments that we leave behind.

My Thoughts:

Please note that this review is based only on what I read, I DNF’d at 40%.

This book was not what I was expecting….AT ALL. When I read the summary for this book, I was expecting some creepy mysterious ghost story, unfortunately that’s not what I got. I didn’t really care about the characters at all, the plot was too lacking for my taste and I really didn’t understand the whole ghost POV thing.

I hate to say this, but I had a hard time reading this book from the very beginning. Everything was just moving way toooooo slow and I wasn’t getting invested. BUT, I hung in there because I’ve come across books that started out slow like this before and absolutely loved them by the end. However, this just wasn’t the case when it came to this book. I held in there until 40% and I just couldn’t take anymore.

Like I said above I really didn’t care about the characters at all, and since there seemed to be basically no plot, it wasn’t enough to keep me reading. If you’re looking for a thrilling ghost story, then you should probably look somewhere else, because this book isn’t it. But if you’ve read and enjoyed this author’s work before, then you should probably give it a try because you may like it better than I did.

 

 

----Christy

Sunday Showdown (15)

 

I have quite a few interesting covers to put up against each other today!

 

Here's the contenders:

 

 

Let the Showdown begin!!

Which cover is your favorite?
	Blackbird
	The Dolls
	Don't Touch
	Even in Paradise
	Falling Into Place
pollcode.com free polls

Stacking the Shelves (51)

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews!

My Haul:

All That Glows by Ryan Graudin - e-book from Library

Rock Chick Rescue by Kristen Ashley - Borrowed from friend

Boomerang by Noelle August - Kindle Book

We also got this..........

This is Bones, he's a lab and boxer mix and his 6 weeks old :)

Everyone is welcome to participate in the Countdown Survey!

What did you get?

--- Christy

Guide for the Lovers of The Fault in Our Stars

With the 'The Fault in Our Stars' being as big as it is now I thought I would do a little book guide of books I think a lover of TFiOS may enjoy.  If you've loved TFiOS and any of the books on my list let me know in the comments :)

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life of a Blogger | Tattoos

Today’s Life of A Blogger which is hosted by Novel Heartbeat is all about tattoos 

Those who know me know that I’m a sucker for tattoos, I have 7 and my husband has 10. Unfortunately, my husband won’t let me show off his on the blog but I’m delighted to show mine off! I have people ask me whether or not I plan to get any more and I always answer I don’t know. Since I just got my last one a few months ago, I don’t have the ‘itch’ for another right now but who knows what the future holds ;)

My daughter's name

My son's name

My husband and I got these for our anniversary a few years ago

My most recent tattoo, this was right after it was finished.

I also have dolphins on my back but unfortunately I couldn't get a good picture haha.  But the dolphins were my first tattoo that I git, I had just turned 18 years old.  I'll try to get a good picture and update this post! 

Do you have any tattoos? 

Book Review | The Merciless by Danielle Vega

Format: Hardback
Source: Purchased
Publisher: Razorbill
Publication Date: June 12, 2014
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Forgive us, Father, for we have sinned

Brooklyn Stevens sits in a pool of her own blood, tied up and gagged. No one outside of these dank basement walls knows she’s here. No one can hear her scream.

Sofia Flores knows she shouldn’t have gotten involved. When she befriended Riley, Grace, and Alexis on her first day at school, she admired them, with their perfect hair and their good-girl ways. They said they wanted to save Brooklyn. They wanted to help her. Sofia didn’t realize they believed Brooklyn was possessed.

Now, Riley and the girls are performing an exorcism on Brooklyn—but their idea of an exorcism is closer to torture than salvation. All Sofia wants is to get out of this house. But there is no way out. Sofia can’t go against the other girls . . . unless she wants to be next. . . .

In this chilling debut, Danielle Vega delivers blood-curdling suspense and terror on every page. By the shockingly twisted end, readers will be faced with the most haunting question of all: Is there evil in all of us?

 

My Thoughts

 



Where do I even start with my review for this book? I actually finished it a few days ago but when I sat down to write my review, I had so much trouble putting my thoughts together that there was no way I could write them out and have them sound somewhat coherent. But, now I feel like I’ve had enough time to process the mind-f*ck that is The Merciless. I don’t know what I was expecting going in, but it definitely wasn’t that.

There was quite a few things that I liked about this book, first I liked that you never knew what was going to happen next. The books that can keep me guessing are often among my favorites. While I wouldn’t class this one as a “favorite” I really did enjoy it. I also liked Sophia, she ‘seemed’ (you will understand once you read it) like a caring girl, she comes home every day after school to take care of her sick grandmother and when things start taking a turn towards the dark side, she immediately tries to get herself out of the equation. But if I’ve learned anything in my years of reading, it’s that everything and everyone aren’t as they seem.

If you’ve read any of the reviews then I’m sure you’ve seen the ones that say that there is quite a bit of similarities between this book and the movie Mean Girls. While that is true and I did see some resemblances it wasn’t enough to overshadow the plot of the book so it didn’t bother me that much. My only real downfall was that there was enough character development for me, I would have liked to have gotten to know Brooklyn a little more before the whole basement thing. I feel like it would have made the whole torture thing more intense. Not to say that everything they were doing wasn’t intense, but I guess it didn’t hit me as much as it would have had I gotten to know Brooklyn better beforehand, does that make sense?

Overall, The Merciless is a disturbing and shocking horror book. If you have a pretty weak stomach then you might want to steer clear of this but if you’re like me and love horror stories, then you should definitely give this one a go.

----Christy 

Waiting on Wednesday | Of Scars and Stardust by Andrea Hannah

 

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine.

 

My Pick

 

Of Scars and Stardust by Andrea Hannah

 

Expected Publication Date: October 8, 2014 by Flux

 

 

After her little sister mysteriously vanishes, seventeen-year-old Claire Graham has a choice to make: stay snug in her little corner of Manhattan with her dropout boyfriend, or go back to Ohio to face the hometown tragedy she's been dying to leave behind.

But the memories of that night still haunt her in the city, and as hard as she tries to forget what her psychiatrist calls her "delusions," Claire can't seem to escape the wolf's eyes or the blood-speckled snow. Delusion or reality, Claire knows she has to hold true to the most important promise she's ever made: to keep Ella safe. She must return to her sleepy hometown in order to find Ella and keep her hallucinations at bay before they strike again. But time is quickly running out, and as Ella's trail grows fainter, the wolves are becoming startlingly real.

Now Claire must deal with her attraction to Grant, the soft-spoken boy from her past that may hold the secret to solving her sister's disappearance, while following the clues that Ella left for only her to find. Through a series of cryptic diary entries, Claire must unlock the keys to Ella's past—and her own—in order to stop another tragedy in the making, while realizing that not all things that are lost are meant to be found.

Find on Amazon

 

Add to Goodreads