Hey everyone! Now that I've fallen off the planet for a while, I'm happy to say I'm back! The end of this summer has been so crazy at work (I also got away to Vermont for a family reunion!) that I haven't had a chance to really read, let alone post about reading!
I'm looking forward to the school year starting and things settling down a bit so I can get back to reading and blogging! :)
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Sunday, August 1, 2010
In My Mailbox 8/1
In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by The Story Siren.
Can you believe it's August already? Where are you going summer? Anyway, here are all the books that fell onto my TBR pile this week:
Can you believe it's August already? Where are you going summer? Anyway, here are all the books that fell onto my TBR pile this week:
For review (on my nook):
The Absolute Value of -1 by Steven Brezenoff (ARC)
Tyger Tyger by Kersten Hamilton
From my aunt (one of my best book suppliers)
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Little Bee by Chris Cleave
From the library:
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
I think that's it! Can't wait to see what everyone else got this week :)
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Book Trailer: The Absolute Value of -1 by Steve Brezenoff
So I've been talking quite a bit about this book lately, but here is the book trailer for The Absolute Value of -1 by Steve Brezenoff featuring Brezenoff's own drawings. My review of the book will be up on Monday!
Friday, July 30, 2010
Blog Hopping!
My favorite new-to-me author this year is John Green. I read both Looking for Alaska and Will Grayson Will Grayson this year and absolutely fell in love!
Fragment Friday 7/30
This week's fragment is from The Absolute Value of -1 by Steve Brezenoff.
Fragment Friday is a weekly meme hosted by James of Book Chic Club.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Review: Wildthorn by Jane Eagland
Wildthorn by Jane Eagland
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, September 2010
352 pages
Rating: 4 out of 5
From Goodreads:
Most of the characters were extremely frustrating and one-sided, though that only brought me closer to Louisa. Though I normally would want a bit more out of the secondary characters, in this case I think I was able to relate more to Louisa because they were so impossible to like.
The story is exciting and fast-moving, for the most part. Once I got into it, I had a hard time putting it down. I do think sometimes the relationships between characters suffer because the book moves so quickly—I found the relationships developing almost out of nowhere as the story moved. Other than that, I really appreciated how exciting the story was.
Wildthorn is structured between the present story and flashbacks to Louisa's childhood and near past. At the beginning of the story before the action at Wildthorn really starts, these flashback chapters are frequent and serve to lead up to the present action. However, once Louisa is at Wildthorn, the flashback chapters sort of disappear. They return later, almost surprisingly, and I felt that I had been missing an important aspect of the book without them.
Overall, I really enjoyed Wildthorn. It was a very different read from what I'm used to and had a very exciting and often thrilling story.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, September 2010
352 pages
Rating: 4 out of 5
Seventeen-year-old Louisa Cosgrove longs to break free from her respectable life as a Victorian doctor's daughter. But her dreams become a nightmare when Louisa is sent to Wildthorn Hall: labeled a lunatic, deprived of her liberty and even her real name. As she unravels the betrayals that led to her incarceration, she realizes there are many kinds of prison. She must be honest with herself - and others - in order to be set free. And love may be the key...I didn't really know what to expect from Wildthorn. I don't usually read historical YA fiction, so it was a very different read for me. I also found the book to be incredibly refreshing because of this—a young character with all of the troubles we're used to seeing in teens (family problems, identity issues, the struggle to fit in, the discovery of love) but set in a world we've all read about in classics.
Most of the characters were extremely frustrating and one-sided, though that only brought me closer to Louisa. Though I normally would want a bit more out of the secondary characters, in this case I think I was able to relate more to Louisa because they were so impossible to like.
The story is exciting and fast-moving, for the most part. Once I got into it, I had a hard time putting it down. I do think sometimes the relationships between characters suffer because the book moves so quickly—I found the relationships developing almost out of nowhere as the story moved. Other than that, I really appreciated how exciting the story was.
Wildthorn is structured between the present story and flashbacks to Louisa's childhood and near past. At the beginning of the story before the action at Wildthorn really starts, these flashback chapters are frequent and serve to lead up to the present action. However, once Louisa is at Wildthorn, the flashback chapters sort of disappear. They return later, almost surprisingly, and I felt that I had been missing an important aspect of the book without them.
Overall, I really enjoyed Wildthorn. It was a very different read from what I'm used to and had a very exciting and often thrilling story.
Iron Daughter Twitter Release Party!
This sounds like it's going to be awesome! Click the picture above for more info.
