Tuesday Top Ten – Most Anticipated Spring Book Releases!

Okay, sales right, page so *technically* this is a Tuesday Top Ten and I’m supposed to choose only my top Ten most anticipated spring releases but guys its really hard! There are always so many awesome books coming out! I’m still feeling a little slump-like with books lately but I’m hoping with all these AMAZING books coming to the stores this spring, thumb I’ll be kicked back into gear!

Honorable Mentions:

P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han

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I had never read Jenny before I read To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. It was so fun and quirky and I absolutely adore Lara Jean and so I can’t wait to see what happens to the huge mess she made, basically.

Release Date: May 26th, 2015

Emmy and Oliver by Robin Benway

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I’ve already read this book and I absolutely love it. Its so fresh and new and real, and EMOTIONAL. One minute, I’m laughing, the next, I’m squealing from the first love that they share and the next, I’m crying because there is just so many raw emotions in this book. Robin created a winner with this book.

Release Date: June 23rd, 2015

10. An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

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Okay, everyone is talking about this book. EVERYONE. Its everywhere, and I’m so excited for it. It sounds absolutely amazing and I truly love a great fantasy. Its been stirring up a lot of buzz, so I can’t wait to get my hands on it. I’ve been begging for an ARC for weeks and haven’t managed to get one, so I’ll just have to settle waiting for it like a normal person.

Release Date: April 28th, 2015

9. The Death Code by Lindsay Cummings

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Yay! I LOVE LOVE LOVE the first book so much and Lindsay is just SUCH a doll so I’m super excited to read the second one. I’m really excited too because I will be finally meeting Lindsay at RT in May and this book will have already released and yay for getting books signed!

Release Date: April 21st, 2015

8. A Court of Thorn and Roses by Sarah J Maas

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Sarah J Maas is a queen when it comes to fantasy and while I’ve been enjoying her Throne of Glass series SO much, I’m excited to read something new from her as well. She’s such a fun person to meet (our arguments of Sarah vs Sara are fabulous) and she truly is just incredibly talented. I’m eagerly awaiting this new series!

Release Date: May 5th, 2015

7. Awakening by Shannon Duffy

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I’ve already read this book. I have a serious soft spot for Entangled Teen releases and their publicist, Heather, is just a doll so when she was handing out ARCs of this, I jumped on it and I’m so glad that I did! Its a fresh new science fiction/dystopian sort of world and the characters are super lovable and I loved everything about it. This one comes out VERY soon so get your hands on it now!

Release Date: April 7th, 2015

6. Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen

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Come on, its Sarah Dessen. Sign me up every single time. Her last few releases haven’t been, well, fabulous but she’s a great writer, period so I’m excited for her new book nonetheless. I’ve read every single one of her books since I was 13 years old so I really have no plans in stopping any time soon.

Release Date: May 5th, 2015

5. Kissing Ted Callahan (And Other Guys) by Amy Spalding

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Another release that I’ve already read so I can say with full confidence that I am so excited for it to come out next week and for all of you to get your hands on it. Its hilarious and SO familiar. Who hasn’t had their fair share of guy confusion? I know this girl definitely has (and why does that not go away when you get older…) and its seriously so great. Amy’s a great writer so I definitely highly recommend this one next week!

Release Date: April 7th, 2015

4. Revenge, Ice Cream and Other Things Best Served Cold by Katie Finn

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And yet another book that I have already read. I absolutely adore Katie Finn and I swear it has NOTHING (okay maybe a little something) to do with the fact that I love love love Morgan Matson ;) Her Broken Hearts and Revenge series is SO fun, like a summer teen drama where you’re basically waiting on the edge of your seat for things to just EXPLODE. This book was great and I literally canNOT wait for book three! Plus the new covers are so cute!

Release Date: May 5th, 2015

3. The Heir by Kiera Cass

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AGH! I literally am DYING for this book. I loved the Selection series so much. I remember putting it off for so long and then I read it and fell in love with it. SUCH a great series and Kiera is just the coolest person. I adore her. I can’t wait to get my hands on this book. I’m probably going to sob over the cover in the bookstore before I even make it home to READ it. And I get to meet her again in May.

Release Date: May 5th, 2015

2. A Girl Undone by Catherine Linka

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I’m about halfway through this book and I’m already absolutely in love with this book. The first book was fabulous, of course, but there’s just something about this second book. A lot has changed and its reflected in the writing and the storytelling and its just so beautiful so far. Catherine creates all of these realistic and memorable characters and the world opens up even more in this book and if you haven’t read the first one, go get it now so you can be ready for this second one!

Release Date: June 23rd, 2015

1. Royal Wedding by Meg Cabot

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When Meg announced that she was writing this novel, my 12 year old self literally squealed. My 27 year old self squealed. I’ve been reading this books my entire life and have shipped Michael Moscovitz and Mia Thermopolis since BOOK ONE. Now that they’re finally together and they’re getting married (*SQUEE*)…I just literally can’t handle this at all. I tried so hard to get my hands on an ARC, but I have failed immensely. But I literally am DYING to get my hands on this book. This is 15 years in the making!

Release Date: June 2nd, 2015

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What are some of the releases coming up soon? Let me know in the comments!

Book Review: Kissing Ted Callahan (And Other Guys) ARC by Amy Spalding

18333999This review is based on an advanced reader’s copy of the novel obtained through Edelweiss at the permission of Poppy. This is in no way had an effect on the integrity of my review. Please note that published novel will differ from this ARC.

Genre: 

Young Adult, viagra 60mg Contemporary, Romance

Pages: 

320

Part of a Series?:

Standalone Novel

Release Date: 

April 14th, 2015

You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Book Depository

Author Website

GoodReads Summary: 

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist meets Easy A in this hilariously realistic story of sneaking out, making out, and playing in a band.

After catching their bandmates in a compromising position, sixteen-year-old Los Angelenos Riley and Reid become painfully aware of the romance missing from their own lives. And so a pact is formed: they’ll both try to make something happen with their respective crushes and document the experiences in a shared notebook.

While Reid struggles with the moral dilemma of adopting a dog to win over someone’s heart, Riley tries to make progress with Ted Callahan, who she’s been obsessed with forever-His floppy hair! His undeniable intelligence! But suddenly cute guys are popping up everywhere. How did she never notice them before?! With their love lives going from 0 to 60 in the blink of an eye, Riley and Reid realize the results of their pact may be more than they bargained for.

My Review:

Its going to sound pretty silly but when I read this book, and finished it, I stopped and thought, its like Amy knows me or something.

Riley and her friend Reid make a pact to expand their love lives after catching their friends together, and realizing how alone both of them are. So they decide to do something about it. While Reid focuses on one girl, Riley kind of spreads herself around. She has a massive crush on Ted Callahan but she can barely speak in front of him and she doesn’t really know if she likes him. So she meets other guys, who are interested and that feels nice so she goes for it. And its so me, I can’t handle it. Because its always a mess! Its like, she’s unsure if Ted likes her, so she doesn’t want to put all of her eggs in one basket, so to speak, and miss out on other guys that might like her, so she kisses and dates other boys, but really, its just a mess.

And that’s what makes this book SO good. Amy has a way of capturing characters in such a REAL way, even in the ways that can make us kind of silly, immature and even just plain stupid. Riley makes a TON of mistakes in this book: pushing away her best friend, not being honest with the boys she dates, writing down all the details of said love life, etc, and it all sort of blows up in her face, and as weird as it sounds, its kind of fun to watch. Its real and familiar and its nice to see that you’re not the only one that does stupid things like that.

But what I really like is the relationship that builds between Ted and Riley. It has bumps (mountains?) and its so uncertain and scary for both Riley and the reader but that is what makes it so real. They don’t automatically fall in love and have this tragic beautiful romance. There are awkward moments and they both make mistakes and have insecurities and it takes a bit for them to get on the same page and come together, and I think that happens a lot in real life and that’s what makes it such a great story.

Plus Riley is a drummer and is massively obsessed with music and I think that’s totally cool. It really makes her such a fun character to read, besides just the stuff that she goes through. I love characters that have passions and that sort of thing. Makes them more real, makes them fun and memorable.

Also, I love that it takes place in Southern California, around things that are super familiar. I loved the different venues and places they went because I know them and now they feel a little different, in a good way, because I know the things that Riley and the rest experienced while at these places and that’s really awesome.

Rating: 

January Book Wrap Up!

Books Pledged to Read in 2015:

150

Am I On Track: 

3 books head

Books Read So Far: 

16

Total Books For January: 

16

This Shattered World

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Suspicion

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The DUFF (Re-Read)

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Half-Blood (Re-Read)

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Unleashed

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Paper or Plastic

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My True Love Gave to Me

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Everything Leads to You

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The Winner’s Curse

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The Orphan Queen

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Top Ten Clues You’re Clueless

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Inspire 

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From the Notebooks of a Middle School Princess ARC

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Kissing Ted Callahan (And Other Guys) ARC

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I Was Here by Gayle Forman 

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Fairest by Marissa Meyer

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Book Review: Ink is Thicker than Water by Amy Spalding

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You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Author Website

GoodReads Summary:

For Kellie Brooks, decease family has always been a tough word to define. Combine her hippie mom and tattooist stepdad, clinic her adopted overachieving sister, health her younger half brother, and her tough-love dad, and average Kellie’s the one stuck in the middle, overlooked and impermanent. When Kellie’s sister finally meets her birth mother and her best friend starts hanging with a cooler crowd, the feeling only grows stronger.


But then she reconnects with Oliver, the sweet and sensitive college guy she had a near hookup with last year. Oliver is intense and attractive, and she’s sure he’s totally out of her league. But as she discovers that maybe intensity isn’t always a good thing, it’s yet another relationship she feels is spiraling out of her control.

It’ll take a new role on the school newspaper and a new job at her mom’s tattoo shop for Kellie to realize that defining herself both outside and within her family is what can finally allow her to feel permanent, just like a tattoo.

My Review:

I’m just going to say one thing to start off: I absolutely love the way Amy Spalding writes her novels. Maybe because she has a similar voice to me and I’m completely biased and all of that fun stuff. But I do. I absolutely love the way she writes. She writes casual, she tells, she doesn’t show and this is how I write. I love that it feels like I’m reading a journal from my  best friend. Its wonderful.

That being said, this story was incredibly fun and awesome to read. Its a family story. I love family stories. I have five brothers and sisters and I love them all so I absolutely family stories. This definitely is that. While there is the love story between Kellie and Oliver, the story really centers on the family. I love that Amy really knew the dynamics of a family, no matter how the family is broken down. I think that’s beautiful. So much of the story felt so incredibly familiar to me. While I have never had a sibling that was adopted or found their birth mother, I definitely have had siblings pull away, discover their own path, that sort of thing, so I felt so close to Kellie. When Sara starts to pull away, and feel close to her birth mother, and Kellie starts to miss her…that hurt my heart. It felt so incredibly familiar to me.

I also felt so close to Kellie because of her differences between herself and her siblings. As much as your parents tell you again and again and again, that they love you equally, sometimes it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like a parent approves of one child more than the other. That’s the way Kellie feels with Sara and her father. Its the way I felt when I was younger and my brother got all of the attention. He was the sports star, and sports have always been SO huge in my family, and I was the geeky girl, with very little friends and my nose stuck in a book, and my fingers on the keyboard as I wrote. My brother was always the star, even though he is younger, and when he moved out and my whole family went into a frenzy, it was rough for awhile, so this part of the story felt so familiar to me.

Lastly, without spoiling the book, because I work so hard to not do that, I felt a connection with the relationship between Kellie and Oliver because it felt so real. I feel like so many relationships in books tend to be glamorized and that sort of thing but this one felt real, every bit of it and I think that’s why I enjoyed reading about it so much. It felt like a relationship that any one of us could have, and so it felt familiar and relatable and you sort of enjoy going on those roller coaster of emotions with Kellie.

In conclusion (I feel like I’m writing a really bad high school essay now…), I really love this book. I love the way Amy writes, I love that I feel like I’m curled up in bed, reading a note from my best friend and I love that she has a really good way of capturing emotions and feelings. She captures friendship and family and love so well and it all felt incredibly familiar which made for a very quick and a very fun read.

Rating:

4 out of 5 Stars

Los Angeles Times Festival of Books Authors Announced!

I can hardly contain my excitement and the list went up HOURS ago.

HOURS.

I love this event, clinic I have a blast every single year that I go and as I dive deeper into this world, the more I fall in love with this event, because of all the authors I get to meet!

And they’ve finally put up the list of authors that are going to be there. If your’e in the Los Angeles area, you HAVE to be there. Pssh, even if you’re not in the area, you should find a way to GET to the area because its going to be amazing.

Here’s the list of YA authors that will be at the fest. Plus some commentary by me, of course ;)

Katie Alender

She’s going to be at Ontario Teen Book Fest. Not sure of her yet, but I gotta try her books, of course!

Laurie Halse Anderson

I’ve only ever read Speak (I know, I know) but that book is amazing so I hope that I meet her soon. 

Carrie Arcos

She’ll be at Pasadena Teen Book Fest and I’m excited to see her because she’s awesome.

Kelley Armstrong

Leigh Bardugo

Always beautiful to meet. I’ll worry about her once Ruin and Rising comes out haha. 

Robin Benway

I’ll see her at Ontario TBF. And I just saw her at Disneyland in January. That was awesome. 

Francesca Lia Block

She is so sweet! I met her at Los Angeles TBF

Ann Brashares

I hope that I can meet her. The Traveling Pants books were huge to me in high school. 

Deb Caletti

Words cannot explain how excited I am about her coming. I can’t handle it. 

Cecil Castellucci

I’ve met her so many times, I’ve lost count haha. 

Stephen Chbosky 

Lovely lovely man. I’ve met him already but I don’t have a signed copy of Perks so that would be awesome. 

Heather Cocks

Eoin Colfer

Lovely man, and I’m so glad I was able to meet him and interview him. I know my sister will be happy to see him again. 

Andrea Cremer

Melissa de la Cruz

I hope to actually see her this year haha. I missed her last year because I hadn’t read any of her books. 

Ava Dellaira 

I will be seeing her at Ontario TBF

Huntley Fitzpatrick 

I LOVE her book, My Life Next Door, so I’m SO excited to meet her. This is a MUST. 

Maurene Goo

I met her at LA TBF and she was a doll, and she had an awesome dry sense of humor. 

John Green

I literally cannot handle this. I was shaking when I saw this. I need to tell him how amazing Abundance of Katherines is and I need to just love on him forever. Is that awkward? I don’t even care. Its like a fangirl’s dream come true to meet him. 

Daniel Handler

Bill Konigsberg

I met him at LA TBF but I have no books signed by him so hopefully I can do that here. 

E. Lockhart 

Sarah J. Maas

Always a blast to see her :) I’d love to see her again! 

DJ MacHale

I keep seeing his books all over the place so I gotta give him a try. If I can squeeze him, that’d be cool. 

Tahereh Mafi

Oh I’ve seen her so much haha. And I’m sure I can see her again, easily. 

Marissa Meyer

No words can describe. I MUST see her. I cannot go the weekend without meeting her. 

Jessica Morgan

Lauren Myracle

Lauren Oliver

If I can squeeze her in, that’d be great. I’ve met her before but getting Panic signed would be a full and complete collection. 

Ridley Pearson

Joanna Philbin 

Mimi Pond

Ransom Riggs

Have already met him, of course

Veronica Roth

YES! I was so hoping she would be back so I can get Allegiant signed! Which means I’ll have the WHOLE collection and I’ll be excited. 

Rainbow Rowell

Ohmygod I have to meet her. Even though Cassandra got me Fangirl signed, I need Eleanor and Park and Attachments and Landline if its out by then. And I need to write her a letter and tell her how amazing Fangirl was and how it changed my life, seriously. 

Rachel Shukert 

Neal Shusterman

I’ve met him! Yay!

Sarah Skilton

She’ll be at Ontario TBF

Holly Goldberg Sloan

Andrew Smith

He’ll be at Pasadena TBF so I’m going to try and get his books signed then. But I want to say hi to him at FoB because I adore him and I want to say hi, of course. 

Sonya Sones

Amy Spalding 

Ann Stampler

I think…Pasadena TBF? I think so. I’ve met her before though. Such a sweetheart. 

Margaret Stohl

I will meet her at Pasadena TBF. I am excited because I haven’t met her yet. 

Tamara Ireland Stone

I won both of her books signed, but it’d be cool to get them personalized, or even just to say hi because I like her books. 

Jonathan Stroud

Laini Taylor

I really need to read The Daughter of Smoke and Bone. And then I can meet her, without feeling like a fool. 

Maya Van Wagenen

John Corey Whaley

He’ll be at Ontario TBF. WOO! 

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For the complete list of authors, and for other information, visit their website here.