Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. It’s a fun way to get to know fellow bloggers while simultaneously enjoying the fun of a list! And what’s more, a list about BOOKS! What could be better?

May 15: A freebie week. I chose Top Ten Gadgety Thing-a-ma-bobs from books that I’d want

1) Time-turner- Harry Potter- Lately I’ve wanted one of these MORE THAN EVER as I try to plot my BEA schedule. You guys, there is just going to be SO MUCH happening that week!

2) Hoverboard- Uglies- Fairly self-explanatory I think, even though I suspect I’d be really terrible at this. I sucked at my few attempts to skateboard. But, DUDE, I JUST WANNA HOVER.

3) Eye lie detector- Cinder- Okay, I would not want that sumbitch embedded in my eye because, hello, I’ve got this ridiculous fear of needles, but if I just HAPPENED to be born with an eye lie detector? I think that would be pretty awesomesauce

4) The shower in the Capitol- The Hunger Games- Most things in The Hunger Games? Horrifying, totally completely awful. BUT ADMIT IT. You want that awesome shower. You want to smell like roses just like Peeta when Caesar Flickerman smells him.

5) The Luna Pen- Sailor Moon- You guys, among other things, I would have a lot more money in my bank account because I could stop buying clothes. “Luna Pen! Dress me in the perfect outfit for this job interview!”

6) Winged shoes- Percy Jackson and the Olympians-Again I’m practical enough to realize that I’d probably suck at an actual application of this thing as I am afraid of heights. BUT IF I WASN’T, Nike would never have my business AGAIN if I had a pair of those bad boys! Also I am a nerd and therefore feel the need to share that Hermes’s winged sandals are technically called Talaria. But I’m pretty sure they’re not sandals in Percy Jackson. ANYWAY.

7) Wand- Harry Potter (yes, this is from a LOT of books, but I like JKR’s ‘custom-fit’ version of a wand)- You do not seriously require an explanation for this one, do you?

8) Pensieve- Harry Potter- Because like Dumbledore “I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind.” I could sure use a Pensieve when that happened

9) Ella’s fairy book- Ella Enchanted- This almost seems like a magical Kindle, though I never made that connection before now. Something new every time you open a book!

10) Scuppie (small wish) necklace- Daughter of Smoke and Bone- Realizing that many things on my list are cosmetic… but whatevs. If I could experiment on my hair without having to deal with bad hair days if my experiments should go awry, I SO would. Or I could get that tattoo I’ve always wanted. WITHOUT NEEDLES!

What was on your Top Ten this week? What topic did you choose?

View the post: Top Ten Tuesday: Gadgets and Gizmos Aplenty

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Title: Pilgrims Don’t Wear Pink

Author: Stephanie Kate Strohm

Published May 8th 2012 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Review:

Pilgrims Don’t Wear Pink by Stephanie Kate Strohm combines two of my very favorite genres: YA and (I hesitate to use the term since it seems to be frowned upon these days, but…) chick-lit. It has all the earmarks of a classic chick-lit: a loveable main character with a weakness for fashion, a quirky love interest, even the stereotypical gay best friend.

Libby, the main character, was easy for me to bond with. She has a difficulty choosing which clothes and accessories to leave behind when packing for her summer. I have… similar issues that I won’t get into much here. Let’s just say I’ve had to get creative in an airport after weighing my bag to avoid an additional baggage fee.

Plus, the girl has strong interest (read: OBSESSION) with history. Random historic facts are peppered throughout the novel and they fascinated me. Though I didn’t keep up with it, World History was one of my favorite subjects in school. Libby thinks of it much the same way that I always did:

“History isn’t an endless parade of facts[...] History is just stories– I mean think about it, story is right in the word– history is the life stories of millions and millions of people. Real people, living, beautiful, ugly, wonderful, horrible, messy, complicated human lives.”*

While she loves history, Libby is undoubtedly a girl of the modern age, with her unwillingness to let go of her cell phone and connection to her best friend. Her life has countless references to pop culture that served the book well, but date it.

But it doesn’t matter what era she thinks she belongs in, she makes the same mistake many girls have made throughout time: she has a crush on a big D-bag. It gets to the point with that (and the fact that she can be a little judgmental) where you want to take reporter Garrett’s Hobbit-y feet and use them to stomp some sense into her head.

The ending felt a bit rushed and out of place to me. Largely because the main thread of the story revolved around Libby’s romantic life and once that’s resolved, I didn’t feel that I needed much else to have the novel finished. We return instead to the resolution of the haunting question aboard the boat in Camden Harbor and one last twist that gets resolved very quickly.

Still, overall I’d recommend Pilgrims Don’t Wear Pink if you’re a fan of chick-lit along the lines of Confessions of Shopaholic. There’s a major CHEESE factor to this novel. If that’s not your thing, then this probably isn’t for you. It’s a quick, frivolous read that didn’t fail to make me smile.

View the post: Pilgrims Don’t Wear Pink by Stephanie Kate Strohm Book Review

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Camp Wordsmith is a weekly venture in which Angel of Mermaid Vision Books, Christa of Hooked on Books, and I post about our work in writing over the past week. We’ll also discuss various issues to do with craft. The goals here are simple. We want to write, so we’re making a public effort before all of our followers and readers to do so. And by the end? We hope to make it a little closer to our dreams of being published.

Week 19
Stage: First draft and planning
Week’s Word Count: Like… 2000? It’s hard to tell since I’ve SUCKED at progress reporting
Total Word Count: 34000

I have been the worst updater ever. BUT I think I’m back in the game.

Things that made me productive this week:

1) Panera Bread- I had a lovely sandwich, tucked myself in a corner with an outlet and wrote away for a couple of hours. Wore my typewriter necklace for a little fashion motivation too ;)

2) Write or Die- Nothing like a chorus of “Mmm, Bop” to set your fingers frantically typing away.

3) The desire to have a 1st draft by BEA which less than a month away. Based on the scenes that I know I have left to write (An entire “act!”) I’d estimate that I’ve currently got the bare bones of 1/2-2/3 written. So if I want this to happen, I’d better get my rear in gear.

I’ve also set myself a deadline on a smaller project as well, so here’s hoping I can accomplish both!

View the post: Camp Wordsmith Check-in

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Title: Code Name Verity

Author: Elizabeth Wein

To be published May 15th 2012 by Hyperion Books for Children

Source: Received for review from the publisher via NetGalley

Goodreads summary:

Oct. 11th, 1943—A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival. The other has lost the game before it’s barely begun.

When “Verity” is arrested by the Gestapo, she’s sure she doesn’t stand a chance. As a secret agent captured in enemy territory, she’s living a spy’s worst nightmare. Her Nazi interrogators give her a simple choice: reveal her mission or face a grisly execution.

As she intricately weaves her confession, Verity uncovers her past, how she became friends with the pilot Maddie, and why she left Maddie in the wrecked fuselage of their plane. On each new scrap of paper, Verity battles for her life, confronting her views on courage and failure and her desperate hope to make it home. But will trading her secrets be enough to save her from the enemy?

Review:

I don’t even know where to begin to review Code Name Verity. My hopes were high as I began reading due to all of the hype surrounding the title, which always feels like a bit of a gamble. But my hopes could have been even higher and Code Name Verity would not have disappointed me.

The phrase from the summary– “intricately woven”– is amazingly apt. As Verity writes her confession, trading her knowledge with the Nazis for a few more precious days, I felt vaguely ill, imagining the horrors that were to come. When Verity, referring to the war, “You always feel a little bit sick inside, knowing the worst might happen at any moment,”* it felt as if Elizabeth Wein knew what I was going through as I read her book.

Though seemingly a traitor, Verity is an amazingly brave and sympathetic character. Her captors are breaking her as best they can with the knowledge that her best friend has died, the screams of other prisoners, and her own torture. But she’s obviously angry over the great injustice taking place and she still she seizes on small moments of defiance. She also has her moments of caustic humor and times when her incredible intelligence comes through.

Historical novels– well-done ones– are a weakness of mine. and Code Name Verity absolutely qualifies. Elizabeth Wein did a clear amount of research to bring the terrifying times of World War II to life in excruciating detail.

Elizabeth Wein is also the master of surprise. I found myself sobbing rather violently through Code Name Verity’s resolution as she took me on a rollercoaster plummet of emotions.

Overall rating: 5/5. Masterfully written, Code Name Verity is a World War II novel that will break your heart.

View the post: Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein Book Review

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Title: Insurgent

Author: Veronica Roth

Published May 1st 2012 by HarperTeen

Source: Purchased

Goodreads summary:

One choice can transform you—or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves—and herself—while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love.

Tris’s initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable—and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.

Review:

After reading Divergent, I felt like I started foaming at the mouth with want every time the word Insurgent was mentioned. That’s probably a bit creepy, but I friggin’ LOVED Divergent and was beyond excited to continue reading a new favorite series. The day Insurgent came out found me walk-jogging into the nearest bookstore to buy my own copy.

We catch up with Tris nearly immediately after her would-be initiation day and the battle that took place there. To be perfectly honest, I am both glad and and disappointed that I couldn’t make time to reread Divergent beforehand, so I wasn’t bothered by any reported continuity errors, but I found myself struggling to recall the exact events that are referred to throughout Insurgent.

My reading of Insurgent was a somewhat confused one. Tris, Tobias (Four), and others that they travel with move around a lot. My feelings… and essentially ratings then started to fluctuate wildly.

After less than ideal circumstances, Tris and Four are now together. But their relationship no longer feels like a healthy one. It seems they argue as much as they do anything else and Four starts pulling one of my least favorite behaviors, occasionally adopting an “I know best” attitude. Fortunately, it’s not a constant thing for him, so it only irritated me and didn’t make me hate him.

Tris becomes a character who starts to feel a bit flat to me as well. Her Divergence and aptitude for other factions seems like an excuse to make her a little too much of the hero. Certain scenes have other characters turning to Tris for advice because she had an aptitude for Erudite, so despite her age, lack of training or experience in that faction, lack of insider knowledge, and lack of seniority even within her own faction, clearly she’s the best one to make a plan. It felt like a stretch.

The long slog through the middle of the novel moving from faction to faction had me somewhat bored.

The difference between those scenes and the action is marked. Because adventure and action is where Veronica Roth’s writing really shines. Those were the scenes that had me wide-eyed, frantically turning to the next page. Those were the scenes that had me completely in their thrall and pulled Insurgent’s rating up for me.

And that ending… hoo boy. What a cliffhanger. Let’s just say that I can’t wait for the next novel.

Overall rating: 3.5/5. Not as much of a WOW as Divergent, but a decent follow-up.

View the post: Insurgent by Veronica Roth Book Review

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Title: The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls

Author: Julie Schumacher

Expected publication: May 8th 2012 by Random House Children’s Books

Source: Received for review from the publisher via NetGalley

Goodreads summary:

I’m Adrienne Haus, survivor of a mother-daughter book club. Most of us didn’t want to join. My mother signed me up because I was stuck at home all summer, with my knee in a brace. CeeCee’s parents forced her to join after cancelling her Paris trip because she bashed up their car. The members of “The Unbearable Book Club,” CeeCee, Jill, Wallis, and I, were all going into eleventh grade A.P. English. But we weren’t friends. We were literary prisoners, sweating, reading classics, and hanging out at the pool. If you want to find out how membership in a book club can end up with a person being dead, you can probably look us up under mother-daughter literary catastrophe. Or open this book and read my essay, which I’ll turn in when I go back to school.

Review:

I confess, I made the mistake of judging a book by its cover before I began reading The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls by Julie Schumacher. The lovely pool water, the casually tan legs, the cute nail polish and a book. I assumed that I was going off on a journey with a totally light novel.

I was slightly mistaken.

In addition to a certain degree of lightness and humor, Julie Schumacher delivers a novel of surprising depth in The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls.

Narrator Adrienne, alongside classmates CeeCee, Jill, and Wallis have found themselves completing their summer reading assignments in a Mother-Daughter book club. The girls have virtually nothing in common beyond the fact that they’ll all be taking AP English next year as Juniors. The novel is Adrienne’s essay, defining literature analysis terms with each chapter that I myself first learned beginning in my AP English class junior year.

Adrienne draws parallels from the required reading to her own life. A voracious reader, it was therefore easy for me to draw my own parallels  from my thoughts to hers. One of my favorite moments is when she says:

“To me, a recently read novel was like a miniature planet: only a few hours earlier I had been breathing its air and living contentedly among its people”*

There are a ton of laugh-out-loud moments found in the interactions of the girls. CeeCee’s attitude, in particular, surprised a laugh from me more than once. Adrienne’s description of some of the other girls and people also had me giggling. Every time she said that Wallis “growled” some dialogue, I couldn’t help but snicker imagining someone growling out a perfectly ordinary phrase.

This isn’t a book about boys. Honestly, it’s not even really a book about friendships because I doubt CeeCee, Jill, Adrienne, and Wallis will ever truly talk to each other again now that the summer and the book club are over. It’s about connecting. Adrienne connects with the other girls, with the literature, with her mom. And I found my eyes welling up with tears over it because the book connected with me.

Overall rating: 4/5. Humor, depth, books, and connectivity. I can’t say I’d ask for much more.

*Note: quote is from a review copy and may have changed

View the post: The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls by Julie Schumacher Book Review

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Title: Bitterblue

Author: Kristin Cashore

Published May 1st 2012 by Dial

Source: Trade with Anna of Literary Exploration

Goodreads summary:

Eight years after Graceling, Bitterblue is now queen of Monsea. But the influence of her father, a violent psychopath with mind-altering abilities, lives on. Her advisors, who have run things since Leck died, believe in a forward-thinking plan: Pardon all who committed terrible acts under Leck’s reign, and forget anything bad ever happened. But when Bitterblue begins sneaking outside the castle—disguised and alone—to walk the streets of her own city, she starts realizing that the kingdom has been under the thirty-five-year spell of a madman, and the only way to move forward is to revisit the past.

Two thieves, who only steal what has already been stolen, change her life forever. They hold a key to the truth of Leck’s reign. And one of them, with an extreme skill called a Grace that he hasn’t yet identified, holds a key to her heart.

Review:

I fell in love with Kristin Cashore’s characters in Graceling and Fire. It was in Graceling that we first met a young princess named Bitterblue with a father who was so evil that he’d thoroughly corrupted the land he ruled over with his power. I looked forward to catching up with Bitterblue after she’d had a chance to grow into her title.

I keep seeing mixed reviews for Bitterblue. Some people are lovin’ it, some feel let down by it. My opinion? I adored the novel, but I had to adjust my expectations. Mind you, I didn’t have to lower them, but while Fire and Graceling were fairly action-packed and moved about the Seven Kingdoms a great deal, Bitterblue is rooted in Bitterblue’s castle, in her city. They’re fleshed out, a small world themselves, but the characters don’t roam as much as in the other novels. And as April of Good Books and Good Wine pointed out, Bitterblue “is definitely more politically-oriented.”

Bitterblue is itching for the ability to do something. Her advisers have fenced her in so that any attempts she makes to advance the lives of her people, to understand what is going on in her reign, are hindered. She feels like a powerless queen. A puppet queen with her advisers pulling the strings. A queen in name only. You get where I’m going with this? A redundant queen.

But Bitterblue, like Fire and like Katsa, is a heroine that I can get behind. People try to keep her in the dark? NUH-UH. She may not have Katsa or Fire’s supernatural abilities, but Bitterblue’s got a sharp and agile mind that she puts to WORK. Everyone is crazy. Her advisers– the people who are pretty much running her kingdom instead of her– are CRAZY. And dammit all, with the help of those she trusts (sidebar: one of those people is a librarian named Death– BAHA) she’s going to FIGURE OUT why.

Bitterblue has also got a natural curiosity about the people she rules over that leads to her sneaking out of her castle where she meets Saf. I love how Kristin Cashore sculpts her romances. Particularly, I love how no two are exactly alike and that each result of a romance depends on the heroine. None of them let anyone else tell them how a relationship is going to wind up.

Finally, Bitterblue is joined a cast of familiar characters and you can’t help but smile. Katsa and Po are the people we grew to love before, and though this isn’t their story, they add an extra oomph to it.

Overall rating: 5/5. For me this was a very satisfying conclusion to the Seven Kingdoms series. The only thing that would make me more satisfied would be the announcement that more books were going to be written.

See my reviews of the other Seven Kingdom books:
Graceling
Fire

View the post: Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore Book Review

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Title: New Girl

Author: Paige Harbison

Published January 31st 2012 by HarlequinTeen

Goodreads summary:

A contemporary young-adult retelling inspired by the classic 1938 romantic suspense bestseller Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.

They call me ‘New Girl‘…

Ever since I arrived at exclusive, prestigious Manderly Academy, that’s who I am. New girl. Unknown. But not unnoticed—because of her.

Becca Normandy—that’s the name on everyone’s lips. The girl whose picture I see everywhere. The girl I can’t compare to. I mean, her going missing is the only reason a spot opened up for me at the academy. And everyone stares at me like it’s my fault.

Except for Max Holloway—the boy whose name shouldn’t be spoken. At least, not by me. Everyone thinks of him as Becca’s boyfriend…but she’s gone, and here I am, replacing her. I wish it were that easy. Sometimes, when I think of Max, I can imagine how Becca’s life was so much better than mine could ever be.

And maybe she’s still out there, waiting to take it back.

Review:

I thought that New Girl and I were going to click easily. I didn’t read Paige Harbison’s prior work, but I’m a fan of her mother’s and hoped that the talent ran in the family.

And when we started off, things looked fairly promising. The main character, “New Girl” (for we don’t know her by any other name until the end of the novel) is off to a boarding school from St. Augustine. She’d once been eager to attend, but now that she’s a senior in high school, she’d much rather stay and enjoy the last year before college. But her parents are so excited about being able to do this for her that off she goes to a school where almost everyone seems to hate her.

New Girl is based on a gothic novel  called Rebecca and I will absolutely give this to Paige Harbison: she nailed the gothic tone perfectly.

But unfortunately, the biggest message that I took away from this novel was that people are batshit crazy. New Girl seems to hold onto her sanity the longest, but the guy she likes is RATHER douchey, her best friend back home turns into a jerk, the missing girl Becca is a snob, and her roommate is the craziest of them all.

And I therefore didn’t like ANYONE which made it difficult to enjoy their story.

Overall rating: 2.5/5. I regret to say that I found this one a disappointment. Great tone, but little to no character depth.

View the post: New Girl by Paige Harbison Book Review

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Title: Struck

Author: Jennifer Bosworth

To be published May 8th 2012 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Goodreads summary:

Mia Price is a lightning addict. She’s survived countless strikes, but her craving to connect to the energy in storms endangers her life and the lives of those around her.

Los Angeles, where lightning rarely strikes, is one of the few places Mia feels safe from her addiction. But when an earthquake devastates the city, her haven is transformed into a minefield of chaos and danger. The beaches become massive tent cities. Downtown is a crumbling wasteland, where a traveling party moves to a different empty building each night, the revelers drawn to the destruction by a force they cannot deny. Two warring cults rise to power, and both see Mia as the key to their opposing doomsday prophecies. They believe she has a connection to the freak electrical storm that caused the quake, and to the far more devastating storm that is yet to come.

Mia wants to trust the enigmatic and alluring Jeremy when he promises to protect her, but she fears he isn’t who he claims to be. In the end, the passion and power that brought them together could be their downfall. When the final disaster strikes, Mia must risk unleashing the full horror of her strength to save the people she loves, or lose everything.

Review:

After an earthquake rocked Los Angeles, Mia Price is just trying to hold things together with her family in an increasingly fragile city. Her mother has a form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Mia and her brother have to return to school in order to receive food rations that their family, like so many others, desperately needs.

I keep seeing Struck by Jennifer Bosworth described as a post-apocalyptic book, but I don’t think that’s exactly right. I’d say that the post might need to be removed from that categorization.

Because the apocalypse, if you believe Prophet and his cult of followers, is imminent. Jennifer Bosworth creates an amazingly gritty world on the brink of destruction in Struck. Based upon history’s documentation of human behavior in the aftermath of a disaster, the Los Angeles we see in Struck doesn’t seem like much of a stretch.

People have become fearful, greedy, and selfish. They seek comfort in religion, even if it’s a cult of a religion, like they find in Rance Ridley Prophet and his Followers, dressed entirely in white. They grasp desperately at something to believe in.

Those two aspects– the world and the cults– were probably my favorite parts of Struck. They were so beautifully executed and– if no one minds if I create a word (and even if you do)– CREEPTASTIC. I totally bought that a cult like Prophet’s would swell with Followers after the disaster and found myself wanting to reach into the pages to deliver a solid sock to the nose for Prophet.

Unfortunately, while Mia made me chuckle with a sort of bitter and blunt brand of honesty and I was fascinated by her lightning addiction and the powers that have come from it, I didn’t find myself wanting to take it to the BFF level with her. She seemed to always assume that she knew best, but often went into situations that just sounded like terrible ideas.

When we meet Jeremy and Mia starts fighting off a crush on him, I felt like maybe she could use some sense-shaking. It’s not that I didn’t like Jeremy as a separate character with his own motivations, I just don’t think you start a relationship with a glorified stalker. C’monnnn, Mia. Didn’t they teach you about stranger danger in elementary school?

Overall, though. Struck was quite the adventure, plot constantly moving, and Jennifer Bosworth wowed me with her gritty world and realistic cult portrayal.

Overall rating: 4/5. I’d happily read more by debut author Jennifer Bosworth in the future.

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View the post: Struck Jennifer Bosworth Book Review + Giveaway

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Title: I Hunt Killers

Author: Barry Lyga

Published April 3rd 2012 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Goodreads summary:

What if the world’s worst serial killer…was your dad?

Jasper (Jazz) Dent is a likable teenager. A charmer, one might say.

But he’s also the son of the world’s most infamous serial killer, and for Dear Old Dad, Take Your Son to Work Day was year-round. Jazz has witnessed crime scenes the way cops wish they could–from the criminal’s point of view.

And now bodies are piling up in Lobo’s Nod.

In an effort to clear his name, Jazz joins the police in a hunt for a new serial killer. But Jazz has a secret–could he be more like his father than anyone knows?

Review:

It has been so very, very long since I read a good old-fashioned serial killer thriller. I used to devour them. I was particularly obsessed with Kay Hooper’s Bishop novels. Happily, when I returned to the genre with Barry Lyga’s I Hunt Killers, I wasn’t disappointed. It offered all the fun of a murder mystery with additional layers.

Everyone’s parents mess them up at least a little, right? In the case of Jasper “Jazz” Dent, his father messed him up a lot. “Dear old Dad” is an infamous serial killer with victims numbering in the triple digits. And if you look at it from either psychological stand-point: nature or nurture, Jazz worries that he’s screwed.

Despite his worries that he’s like his father, Billy Dent, Jazz is too busy worrying about that to actually let it happen, but he’s got this feeling (well, I suppose lack of feeling is a better way of describing it) of dispassion towards an awful lot of people, but fortunately his girlfriend gives “good lessons in being human” and he has a tremendously loyal best friend to hold him to feeling human.

On the actual mystery front, Barry Lyga unfolds it in a way… well, I’m not exactly sure how to describe it without giving it away and spoiling it all for you, but let’s just say that it’s well done.

Overall rating: 4/5. In a novel that is part thriller, part character study, Barry Lyga truly has a winner with I Hunt Killers. I can’t wait to catch up with Jazz again in the future.

View the post: I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga Book Review

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