Jump Into Books

What is teaser tuesday? It's a meme hosted by  Should Be Reading  and here are the rules:  • Grab your current read • Open to a random page • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page •  BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!  (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! "I wouldn't put it past her to leave a severed My Little Pony head in your bed if you refuse their membership offer," he says, and takes a bite of his muffin.  "Friendship is magic," I say.  -Into the Dark (The Shadow Prince 1), 34% on Kindle, by Bree Despain I'm not sure why, but this part made me laugh out loud. Totally surprising and hilarious. Loving this one so far!

Hello! March has been a sort of okay month for me reading wise, but not particularly great. I did get to go to the Hot Key Books blogger brunch with Piccadilly Press and Templar books also taking part, and got to meet/see a lot of bloggers again, which was lovely. Books read: The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes Young Avengers Volume 2 by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie We Were Liars by E Lockhart Say Her Name by James Dawson Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith The Lucy Variations by Sara Zarr Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira Total: 7  Books reviewed: Spy Society by Robin Benway Banished by Liz de Jager Cress by Marissa Meyer The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes We Were Liars by E Lockhart Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith Book of the Month: Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith. I luuuurved this book. But We Were Liars and Say Her Name were both excellent reads, too. And I adore Young Avengers. At Hot Key I got to see a bunch of lovely bloggers (which I am going to try and n...

Ten years after graduating from high school in Neptune, California, Veronica Mars is back in the land of sun, sand, crime, and corruption. She’s traded in her law degree for her old private investigating license, struggling to keep Mars Investigations afloat on the scant cash earned by catching cheating spouses until she can score her first big case. Now it’s spring break, and college students descend on Neptune, transforming the beaches and boardwalks into a frenzied, week-long rave. When a girl disappears from a party, Veronica is called in to investigate. But this is no simple missing person’s case; the house the girl vanished from belongs to a man with serious criminal ties, and soon Veronica is plunged into a dangerous underworld of drugs and organized crime. And when a major break in the investigation has a shocking connection to Veronica’s past, the case hits closer to home than she ever imagined. In Veronica Mars , Rob Thomas has created a groundbreaking female de...

Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga at  Tynga's Reviews ! It's a way to highlight the books that everyone got throughout the week. Purchased: Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham From Rob Thomas, the creator of the television series and movie phenomenon Veronica Mars , comes the first book in a thrilling mystery series that picks up where the feature film left off. Ten years after graduating from high school in Neptune, California, Veronica Mars is back in the land of sun, sand, crime, and corruption. She’s traded in her law degree for her old private investigating license, struggling to keep Mars Investigations afloat on the scant cash earned by catching cheating spouses until she can score her first big case. Now it’s spring break, and college students descend on Neptune, transforming the beaches and boardwalks into a frenzied, week-long rave. When a girl disappears from a party, Veronica is called in to investigate...

Grasshopper Jungle Andrew Smith February 27th 2014 Electric Monkey In the small town of Ealing, Iowa, Austin and his best friend Robby have accidentally unleashed an unstoppable army. An army of horny, hungry, six-foot-tall praying mantises that only want to do two things. This is the truth. This is history. It's the end of the world. And nobody knows anything about it. Funny, intense, complex and brave,  Grasshopper Jungle  is a groundbreaking, genre-bending, coming-of-age stunner. This book was just wild from start to finish. It is so weird and so gross and so great I don't even have the words to describe my feelings about this book. Though that's probably more because I still do not really know how I feel about it... This is starting to look like a recurring theme with my reviews. I did definitely like it a whole bloody lot though. But I'm still not sure why, so I should probably think on that. One thing I know I definitely loved about it was Austin, and specifically...

Waiting on Wednesday was started by Jill at  Breaking the Spine . This weekly meme shares the upcoming books that I'm most excited about.  The Shadow Prince (Into the Dark 1) by Bree Despain Haden Lord, the disgraced prince of the Underrealm, has been sent to the mortal world to entice a girl into returning with him to the land of the dead. Posing as a student at Olympus Hills High—a haven for children of the rich and famous—Haden must single out the one girl rumored to be able to restore immortality to his race. Daphne Raines has dreams much bigger than her tiny southern Utah town, so when her rock star dad suddenly reappears, offering her full tuition to Olympus Hills High’s prestigious music program, she sees an opportunity to catch the break she needs to make it as a singer. But upon moving into her estranged father’s mansion in California, and attending her glamorous new school, Daphne soon realizes she isn’t the only student in Olympus who doesn’t quite b...

What is teaser tuesday? It's a meme hosted by  Should Be Reading  and here are the rules:  • Grab your current read • Open to a random page • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page •  BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!  (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!  "I tore a sheet from a notebook on the desk and quickly copied the symbols, then shoved the paper in my pocket and headed to the study. I passed James on my way down."  -Secret Letters, Page 161, by Leah Scheier I've been enjoying this one, although life has been getting in the way of reading time.

Okay, so that title sounds really pretentious. But I've just been thinking a lot about blogging and the impact it's had on my life over the past couple of years and I kind of just wanted to write about it? Well actually I talk about blogging quite a lot, so I guess it's not really anything too different. I have a turbulent relationship with blogging, as I think most bloggers do, really. I love it a lot, but it's hard to love it all the time, and I go through a cycle of being really happy about blogging regardless of things like comments and views and I just do it for the reason that I started doing it - because I love talking about books and various other shit and now I can do that in real life AND on the internet. But other times I go through that annoying thing where you feel like you aren't getting any where and that your output just doesn't matter and that there's no growth and you feel stifled, and think that your content is boring because you're no...

Poppy Wyatt has never felt luckier. She is about to marry her ideal man, Magnus Tavish, but in one afternoon her “happily ever after” begins to fall apart. Not only has she lost her engagement ring in a hotel fire drill but in the panic that follows, her phone is stolen. As she paces shakily around the lobby, she spots an abandoned phone in a trash can. Finders keepers! Now she can leave a number for the hotel to contact her when they find her ring. Perfect! Well, perfect except that the phone’s owner, businessman Sam Roxton, doesn’t agree. He wants his phone back and doesn’t appreciate Poppy reading his messages and wading into his personal life. What ensues is a hilarious and unpredictable turn of events as Poppy and Sam increasingly upend each other’s lives through emails and text messages. As Poppy juggles wedding preparations, mysterious phone calls, and hiding her left hand from Magnus and his parents . . . she soon realizes that she is in for the biggest surpri...

We Were Liars E. Lockhart May 15th 2014 Hot Key Books A beautiful and distinguished family. A private island. A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy. A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive. A revolution. An accident. A secret. Lies upon lies. True love. The truth.   We Were Liars  is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart.  Read it. And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE. *****SPOILER FREE***** I finished We Were Liars about a week or so ago, and I still don't know how I feel about it. I'm going to try and talk about it without spoiling anything or without hyping anything up, because I know the hype about it has let a lot of people down, but I think that it's a book that, whether you love it or hate it, you still want to talk about it. It's a book that I think a lot of people should read, just because I think it is special regardless of whether I lo...

Now that I finally have a new job (hurrah I can pay my student loans...wait, that's not very fun), I've been working on creating a library in my house. I've spent so much time on pintrest that my eyes are strained, so I wanted to see if anyone had any decorating advice? It's a pretty small space, but it does have a window. My must haves: A throw rug An overstuffed chair or chaise (chair with an ottoman is probably best, so I don't take as many surprise naps). Bookshelves! Any decorating websites you love? Are you experienced in making smallish spaces cozy? Ahh, help me!!

What is teaser tuesday? It's a meme hosted by  Should Be Reading  and here are the rules:  • Grab your current read • Open to a random page • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page •  BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!  (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!  "We were interrupted by a tall footman bearing a steaming food tray to the dining hall. As he passed us, Agatha and I scurried backward into the shadow behind the plant." -Secret Letters, Page 118, by Leah Scheier

The Naturals Jennifer Lynn Barnes November 7th 2013 Cassie Hobbes is not like most teenagers. Most teenagers don’t lose their mother in a bloody, unsolved kidnapping. Most teenagers can’t tell who you are, where you’re from and how you’re likely to behave within moments of meeting you. And most teenagers don’t get chosen to join The Naturals. Identified by the FBI as uniquely gifted, Cassie is recruited to an elite school where a small number of teens are trained to hone their exceptional abilites. For Cassie, trying to make friends with the girls, and to figure out the two very different, very hot boys, is challenging enough. But when a serial killer begins recreating the details of her mother’s horrific crime scene, she realises just how dangerous life in The Naturals could be... I really enjoyed The Naturals. It was like reading a YA version of Criminal Minds, and I love Criminal Minds, so, there's really no way to go wrong there. Plus it was a nice sort of twist to have on the ...

So, I don't want to give false hope to those of us who are dreaming of this series becoming a tv show, but I did want to do a what if post. Series Synopsis: Alanna and her twin brother Thom are about to be sent off to two very different places. Alanna to a convent, and Thom to become a knight. Unfortunately, they both crave something other than the futures that have been predetermined for them. So, being twins, they switch places. Over the course of four books Alanna experiences the fears of being discovered (she's pretending to be her brother), dealing with love, and who she can trust. This was the first "YA" series that I read as a pre-teen, and Pierce has a special place in my heart. Of course, the books begin when she is very young, so the characters would have to be aged up. I sort of also wish that it could be a Netflix/HBO/Showtime series. Shorter seasons, and not as much focus on love triangle stuff (I fear this would happen on the CW). So, the characters... M...

Waiting on Wednesday was started by Jill at  Breaking the Spine . This weekly meme shares the upcoming books that I'm most excited about. Chasing Before by Lenore Appelhans *This synopsis contains some spoilers for the first book! Felicia and Neil have left Level 2 behind, but another level stands between them and Heaven: Level 3. While the purpose of Level 2 is to relive your time on Earth and make peace with your memories, the objective of Level 3 is to completely detach from life and prepare for your divine vocation. During Felicia and Neil's training period, a series of explosions destroy the portals out of Level 3. Tension is high, and casualties are mounting. Though Neil wants to become either a Muse or a Healer to help, Felicia is drawn to the Seraphim Guard. A rift forms between the pair, one that grows wider when Felicia receives memories from the Morati. The memories cast doubt on the people she loves the most, but Felicia can't stop her curiosity. She ...

When Liv Bloom lands an art scholarship at Wickham Hall, it’s her ticket out of the foster system. Liv isn’t sure what to make of the school’s weird traditions and rituals, but she couldn’t be happier. For the first time ever, she has her own studio, her own supply of paints. Everything she could want. Then she meets Malcolm Astor, a legacy student, a fellow artist, and the one person who’s ever been able to melt her defenses. Liv’s only friend at Wickham, fellow scholarship kid Gabe Nichols, warns her not to get involved, but life is finally going Liv’s way, and all she wants to do is enjoy the ride. But Liv’s bliss is doomed. Weeks after arriving, she is viciously murdered and, in death, she discovers that she’s the latest victim of a dark conspiracy that has claimed many lives. Cursed with the ability to see the many ghosts on Wickham’s campus, Gabe is now Liv’s only link to the world of the living. To Malcolm. Together, Liv, Gabe, and Malcolm fight to expose the ter...

Cress (The Lunar Chronicles #3) Marissa Meyer February 6th 2014 Puffin Cress is the third book in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles series, following Cinder and Scarlet. Incarcerated in a satellite, an expert hacker and out to save the world - Cress isn't your usual damsel in distress. CRESS grew-up as a prisoner. With only netscreens for company she's forced to do the bidding of the evil Queen Levana. Now that means tracking down Cinder and her handsome accomplice Emperor Kai. But little does Levana know that those she seeks, and the man she loves, are plotting her downfall . . . As paths cross and the price of freedom rises, happily ever after has never seemed further away for Cress, Scarlet and Cinder. This is not the fairy tale you remember. But it's one you won't forget. I love this series. Like, properly, properly love it. And each book just gets better and better. I always knew that Cress would probably be one of my favourites because it's based on Rapunzel, w...

Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga at  Tynga's Reviews ! It's a way to highlight the books that everyone got throughout the week. Borrowed (Thanks Jenn !):  I've Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella I’ve lost it. :( The only thing in the world I wasn’t supposed to lose. My engagement ring. It’s been in Magnus’s family for three generations. And now the very same day his parents are coming, I’ve lost it. The very same day! Do not hyperventilate, Poppy. Stay positive :) !! Poppy Wyatt has never felt luckier. She is about to marry her ideal man, Magnus Tavish, but in one afternoon her “happily ever after” begins to fall apart. Not only has she lost her engagement ring in a hotel fire drill but in the panic that follows, her phone is stolen. As she paces shakily around the lobby, she spots an abandoned phone in a trash can. Finders keepers! Now she can leave a number for the hotel to contact her when they find her ring. Perfect! Well, perfect except tha...

So many secrets for such a small island. From the moment Anne Merchant arrives at Cania Christy, a boarding school for the world’s wealthiest teens, the hushed truths of this strange, unfamiliar land begin calling to her—sometimes as lulling drumbeats in the night, sometimes as piercing shrieks. One by one, unanswered questions rise. No one will tell her why a line is painted across the island or why she is forbidden to cross it. Her every move—even her performance at the school dance—is graded as part of a competition to become valedictorian, a title that brings rewards no one will talk about. And Anne discovers that the parents of her peers surrender million-dollar possessions to enroll their kids in Cania Christy, leaving her to wonder what her lowly funeral director father could have paid to get her in… and why. As a beautiful senior struggles to help Anne make sense of this cloak-and-dagger world without breaking the rules that bind him, she must summon the courage t...