Stacking The Shelves (12)

Books mentioned (click title for Goodreads):
Anna Dressed in Blood (Anna #1) by Kendare Blake
Wildefire (Wildefire #1) by Karsten Knight
The Everafter by Amy Huntley
Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross
In Honor by Jessi Kirby
What's Left Of Me (The Hybrid Chronicles #1) by Kat Zhang
Lost Girls by Ann Kelley
Stormdancer (The Lotus War #1) by Jay Kristoff

Bloggers mentioned:
Giselle from Xpresso Reads

A big thank you goes to St. Martin's Press as well as Giselle this week!! Thanks!

What did you get this week?

A Midsummer's Nightmare Review

TITLE A Midsummer's Nightmare
AUTHOR Kody Keplinger
PUBLICATION June 5, 2012 by Poppy
READ July 4, 2012

Whitley Johnson's dream summer with her divorcé dad has turned into a nightmare. She's just met his new fiancée and her kids. The fiancée's son? Whitley's one-night stand from graduation night. Just freakin' great.

Worse, she totally doesn't fit in with her dad's perfect new country-club family. So Whitley acts out. She parties. Hard. So hard she doesn't even notice the good things right under her nose: a sweet little future stepsister who is just about the only person she's ever liked, a best friend (even though Whitley swears she doesn't "do" friends), and a smoking-hot guy who isn't her stepbrother...at least, not yet. It will take all three of them to help Whitley get through her anger and begin to put the pieces of her family together.

Filled with authenticity and raw emotion, Whitley is Kody Keplinger's most compelling character to date: a cynical Holden Caulfield-esque girl you will wholly care about.

This is my first time reading Kody Keplinger's work and I can safely say that it will not be the last. A Midsummer's Nightmare is a perfect summer read that I devoured in one day. The pacing is great and the characters are very well developed. Whitley Johnson has slowly been on a downward spiral, she drinks way too much and likes to escape into the party scene where she often makes some less than stellar decisions.  She looks forward to her summer's when she gets to spend time at her father's condo, rather than at home with her downer mother.  But once her father picks her up she is thrown a curve ball, her father is now engaged and she has soon to be step siblings. This is the story of Whitley acting out and learning to deal with the change.

I really enjoyed Whitley, she was a funny, sassy character. Even though she definitely had her issues and I didn't agree with some of the choices she made, I could always see where she was coming from.  Yeah, her actions were pretty selfish but that's what made the novel so good, we get to watch her change.  It is safe to say that Whitley Johnson starts out as one person and ends the novel having done a complete 180. Her father's "new" family consists of his fiancee Sylvia and her two kids Bailey and Nathan.  Sylvia's character was given a lot of depth and I really felt for her as she tried to bring Whitley into her life despite Whitley's behaviour.  Bailey was also a great addition to the story as she was a big part of Whitley growing up and realising that she needed to be more of a role model to her future step sister. A stark contrast to the loving, supportive Caulfields is Whitley's father and mother.  They are pretty selfish and don't always put their children first.  I was so angry at both of her parents for putting her in the position that she was in and just overall not caring about her.

The romance in this one is swoon worthy for sure. I can honestly say that I read the last 50 pages of this novel with a stupid grin plastered across my face. While the romance does start off with a bang (pun intended) it does have a nice progression that really makes you connect with it and long for more.  Every time there was a scene with Nathan and Whit I got so excited! At this point it takes a lot for me to actually swoon over the romance, and it seems as though a lot of authors have a completely different idea about what makes a hot romance than I do. Nathan is so sweet and he wants nothing more than for Whitley to find herself and be happy with herself.  He doesn't take advantage and he doesn't push her. I also respected his brutal honesty towards her and thought he handled everything so well.

Kody Keplinger has put together a sweet romance that also deals with some heavy teenage issues.  It's all handled in a very real way and I can't even tell you how much I loved this story. The characters are great, the plot is fun and there is the perfect amount of romance.  This one should definitely be on your summer reading list!

Ashfall Review

TITLE Ashfall (Ashfall #1)
AUTHOR Mike Mullin
PUBLICATION October 10, 2011 by Tanglewood Press
READ June 30 - July 1, 2012

Under the bubbling hot springs and geysers of Yellowstone National Park is a supervolcano. Most people don't know it's there. The caldera is so large that it can only be seen from a plane or satellite. It just could be overdue for an eruption, which would change the landscape and climate of our planet.

Ashfall is the story of Alex, a teenage boy left alone for the weekend while his parents visit relatives. When the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts unexpectedly, Alex is determined to reach his parents. He must travel over a hundred miles in a landscape transformed by a foot of ash and the destruction of every modern convenience that he has ever known, and through a new world in which disaster has brought out both the best and worst in people desperate for food, water, and warmth. With a combination of nonstop action, a little romance, and very real science, this is a story that is difficult to stop reading and even more difficult to forget.

Ashfall is yet another title that came to me highly recommended by my fellow bloggers. I'll admit, that did make me very wary going into it, I thought for sure this would be another that would leave me thinking "everybody else loved it, WHAT DIDN'T I?" But those worries were completely unfounded, Ashfall is an amazing novel that is so well written you're left feeling like you have ash crammed in crevices where ash should never be.  It is chalk full of impeccable world building and you truly care for the characters as if they were your own children.

So what's so chilling about Ashfall? Well how about the fact that this can, and most likely, will happen sometime in the future.  I'm not a scientist and I haven't done a lot of research into this matter but I have looked into it enough to know that it can happen. I'm not sure as to what length the devastation would go to, if it would be this extreme but it is still damn scary.  Mike Mullin describes the devastation through Alex's eyes in such a real way, I felt like I was skiing on the ash and felt the onset of frostbite on my own fingers.

The characters in Ashfall are the real gem.  Alex is a character who grows a lot throughout the novel and I felt that his progression was spot on. He starts out as an innocent World of Warcraft playing child and ends a man who has survived insurmountable feats.  He falls for Darla, a country girl who is very intelligent, mechanically inclined and perfectly witty.  I read that Mike Mullin likes to reverse gender roles and I loved that in this novel.  Darla was much more handy when it came to survival instinct and making contraptions, I found that I really liked her and respected her.  There are many secondary characters that Darla and Alex meet on their trek across Iowa and they all serve to achieve a different layer in our protagonist. Target (the escaped convict) progresses Alex's strength and Katie's mother shows his compassion, everything is twined together so well.

There are a lot of heavy, chilling scenes in this novel and it was, at times, hard to read. I was sickened by Target & his friend and I could probably now skin & gut a rabbit all on my own (would I? NO! but still..) This is a very well crafted post apocalyptic novel that conveys desperation extremely well. I will be anxiously awaiting Ashen Winter to see where Alex and Darla go from here!

Waiting on Wednesday (22)

Dance of Shadows 
by Yelena Black
to be published December 21, 2012 by Bloomsbury

Curtains up on a deliciously dark new YA trilogy from the creators of Lauren Kate’s Fallen.

Vanessa Adler isn’t so sure she really belongs at the School of American Ballet. But dance runs in her family. It’s been a part of her life for as long as she can remember. Her grandmother and mother were prima ballerinas, and her older sister Margaret was, too. That is, until Margaret mysteriously disappeared from school three years ago. Vanessa is heir to the family’s gift and the only person who can fulfill her sister’s destiny. She has no choice.

But she never could have guessed how dangerous the school is. The infamous choreographer, Josef, isn’t just ruthless with his pupils, he guards a sinister secret, one in which the school’s dancers—prized for their beauty, grace, and discipline—become pawns in a world of dark, deadly demons.

I'm not going to lie and say I read the blurb of this, I haven't. There's a strong possibility that I would buy this book just to simply stare at that stunning cover. But then I see the pose and the ballet flats and realize it's about dancing and I'm totally there.  This books looks full of AWESOME!

What are you waiting on this week?

Never Enough Review

TITLE Never Enough
AUTHOR Denise Jaden
PUBLICATION July 10, 2012 by Simon Pulse
READ July 7 - 9, 2012

From the author of Losing Faith, a novel about two sisters and the eating disorder that threatens to destroy their family.

Loann’s always wanted to be popular and pretty like her sister, Claire. So when Claire’s ex-boyfriend starts flirting with her, Loann is willing to do whatever it takes to feel special… even if that means betraying her sister.

But as Loann slips inside Claire’s world, she discovers that everything is not as it seems. Claire’s quest for perfection is all-consuming, and comes at a dangerous price. As Claire increasingly withdraws from friends and family, Loann struggles to understand her and make amends. Can she heal their relationship —and her sister—before it’s too late?

We can tell from the blurb for Never Enough that it deals with eating disorders, but what we can't tell it all the other heavy issues it presents. I was fully prepared to read a touching story about a girl whose sister is struggling with an eating disorder, but I wasn't prepared for the flood of emotions it would bring out in me on a wide array of issues. There is so much within these pages and I loved every second of it. It deals with family issues, eating disorders, child abuse and virtue. There was not a part of this book that didn't draw some emotion out of me. About halfway through I had to put the book down and get ready to head out with my family and the whole time I was getting ready all I could think was "How can I be getting ready to go to a party with what just happened to Loann?" This is a powerful novel that is very well written.

What really stuck out for me in this novel are the relationships, and all of the deep layers that they consisted of. Loann and her sister always had an understanding, they looked out for each other and were very open with one another. Once that started to deteriorate on Claire's end, Loann was confused and lost. As someone who has dealt with eating disorders in her family I know how helpless it can make you feel and I think that all of the emotions and actions throughout the novel were conveyed so very well. Loann's feeling of desperation, Claire's seclusion, even their parents reluctance to accept the issue at hand and their inevitable depression over possibly failing their children in some way. Everything is handled so well and just felt completely real.

Another very real issue comes from Loann's new found friend, Marcus. Their relationship was one that had me puzzled for about half the novel, but once more is revealed and we find out why Marcus is so distant it really flourished for me. Their relationship really was a beautiful progression that was achieved by their understanding that each of them had their own issues to deal with. Marcus was what every girl would want in a best friend or possible boyfriend, he was a great listener and he knew how to read the undertones of Loann's statements and dig deep enough to find out what she really wanted. I liked him so much in the end and was totally rooting for the two of them.

Never Enough is a beautiful novel and one that I will think about for a while. Denise Jaden doesn't shy away from raw emotion, she embraces it and that makes for a very memorable novel.