Pursued by Maven, now a vindictive king, Mare sets out to find and recruit other Red-and-Silver fighters to join in the struggle against her oppressors.
Tag: books
Book Review: Going Geek by Charlotte Huang
Genre:
Young Adult, web Contemporary
Pages:
304 pages
Part of a Series?:
Standalone
Release Date:
September 13th, 2016
You Can Find the Book At:
GoodReads Summary:
A girl forced out of her comfort zone finds that being true to herself is the best way to live her life, in this second novel from the author of For the Record.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Skylar Hoffman’s senior year at her preppy East Coast boarding school should have been perfect:
amazing boyfriend
the coolest friends
the most desirable dorm
But it’s far from it. To her dismay, Skylar’s not going to rule senior year because she’s stuck in Abbot House, a tiny dorm known for, well, nothing. Living with a group of strangers everyone thinks is lame is bad enough. Worse is that Skylar wasn’t exactly truthful about how she spent summer break in Los Angeles—and her little white lie is causing her once rock-solid romance to crumble fast. And when it turns out that Skylar’s best friend is the one responsible for having her booted from Lincoln? It’s an all-out war.
Stepping out of her comfort zone never felt so scary—or necessary. But everything is different now. Including, maybe, Skylar herself . . .
My Review:
Have I ever mentioned how much I seriously love boarding school stories? Seriously. I probably would have totally hated going away to school, because I’m a total homebody and I would hate having a roommate, most likely, but I absolutely 100% love boarding school stories. It opens up so many possibilities. I love that there always seems to be a distinct lack of supervision. I doubt that’s the way it really is but I love that the stories ALWAYS include that and it provides for so much shenanigans. Boarding school life is always sort of romanticized in a way in books and as soon as I find out Skylar was a boarding school kid, I was hooked.
What I loved about this book, and what made me love Charlotte’s first book, is that she excels at capturing the teen voice and the teen spirit. There are times when I’m about ready to strangle Skylar’s neck but I love Skylar. I love her journey for It Girl to Geek Girl to just straight up, I’m Skylar Hoffman and I may not totally know who I am but I’m figuring it out and that’s okay. She makes Skylar so real. She rises and falls and makes mistakes again and again but she comes out at the end a little stronger than she was in the beginning. What I loved was that Skylar doesn’t come out of the story, perfect and all knowing. She’s still stumbling and figuring things out, which I think is pretty normal for any 18 year old girl.
The best part of the book, however, is all the supporting characters. I adore each and every single one of Skylar’s new friends in her new dorm. I love how each and every single one of them is so unique and fun and they all have their own dorky quirks. All I could think of any time one of them came on the page is how much I wish they were real and how much I wish they could be my friends. I really think its a great thing when authors can create incredible secondary characters. Sometimes the supporting characters sort of blend in the background because the author focuses so much on the main character but every character that Charlotte brings on the page is so unique and so well developed and its why each one will stick with you.
This book comes out in less than a week and this blogger will be moderating her launch event with Julie Buxbaum and Adriana Mathers at Chevalier’s Books in Los Angeles and I honestly can’t wait. It’s a wonderful book and I highly recommend it. It’s a quick read, and a fun read and I absolutely adored it. Charlotte is two for two so far with me and I can’t wait to see what else she brings to the table.
Rating:
4 out of 5 Stars
Thank God Its Monday Blog Tour featuring Jessica Brody’s A Week of Mondays and My Best and Worst Mondays!
I love Mondays. I really do. I know to most people that probably sounds super strange but I actually do really love Mondays. But Monday is also the first day of my weekend, diagnosis so maybe I’m a little biased :). Either way, buy I’m super excited to be a part of the A Week of Mondays blog tour, more about which is a brand new book coming in just a handful of weeks by one of my favorite authors and dearest friends, Jessica Brody.
A Week of Mondays!
Add the book on GoodReads and Preorder the book at your local bookstore or at the following links:
Amazon / Barnes and Noble / iBooks / Book Depository
Ellie is having the worst Monday of her life. She messes up her school speech for the class vice presidency position, she manages to take the world’s worst school picture, she bombs softball tryouts, and the icing on top of this awful cake: her perfect boyfriend who is in a high school rock band dumps her. At the end of the day, Ellie wishes she could redo everything. When she wakes up the next morning, she discovers that it’s Monday again! She has six more chances to redo the day in the hopes of having everything go exactly the way she wants. But in the process, she just may find out that what she really wants and what she actually needs are two very different things.
About Jessica Brody
Jessica Brody knew from a young age that she wanted to be a writer. She started self “publishing” her own books when she was seven years old, binding the pages together with cardboard, wallpaper samples, and electrical tape.
After graduating from Smith College in 2001 where she double majored in Economics and French and minored in Japanese, Jessica later went on to work for MGM Studios as a Manager of Acquisitions and Business Development. In May of 2005, Jessica quit her job to follow her dream of becoming a published author.
You Can Find Her:
Her Website / Her Facebook / Her GoodReads / Her Twitter / Her Instagram
My Best Monday
Like I said before, I adore Mondays. At the moment, I’m typing up this blog post with a Starbucks in my hand, enjoying the beautiful gorgeous sunny California day. It has already started out as a great day. I adore Mondays. But let’s see, my best Monday ever. I probably couldn’t pinpoint an exact day, that would just be too hard to remember. But I’ll tell you what could potentially be a great Monday.
My best Monday would include all my favorite things. I would wake up and go get breakfast at my favorite breakfast place, which is a little place called The Filling Station in Old Towne Orange. They have the most amazing breakfast and mimosas and that would just be an amazing start to the day. After that, I would drive down to Universal Studios, spending a handful of hours in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which has easily become my favorite place to be since its unofficial open in February. My friends would be there and I would enjoy a butterbeer, go on both rides, do some magic with my interactive wand and watch the frog choir – which is my absolute favorite. After that, I would hop on the freeway to head home, making sure to stop at Sprinkles Cupcakes. I would grab some dinner at Mad Wolf Mongolian BBQ, which is my hometown and is literally my favorite place to eat; I can’t get enough. After that, I would head to Angel Stadium with my dad and siblings and watch a game, because the Angels and baseball are some of my favorite things in the world, and I would go home super happy, because they would have won, of course. On the way home, I’d stop by Barnes and Noble before they closed and spend the last few minutes in the store, shopping for all the new books that I could buy.
Simple. I think that would be the best Monday ever. All my favorite things.
My Worst Monday
Okay, so this is how it would start. It would start with me waking up way earlier than I want to. Remember, Mondays are my day off so I do not like getting up early on Mondays; that’s my one day to actually sleep in and it would be the daycare behind my house. The kids would be loud and wake me up from a fabulous dream involving me being a Shadowhunter and Matthew Daddario (aka Alec Lightwood) would be my Shadowhunter boyfriend. My hair wouldn’t straighten right, I wouldn’t be able to get my winged eyeliner exactly right, and my favorite shirt would have a massive stain on it – and I’d have no time to wash it. My favorite restaurants would be closed and it would be freezing cold (I’m such a baby when it comes to the cold). All of my friends would be busy and there would be no new books to read and Sprinkles would run out of my very favorite cupcake. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter would be so crowded that day and I wouldn’t even be able to get my hands on a butterbeer. The Angels would lose that day. My worst days are always the ones where all the little things add up and I just feel like I can’t win. My car wouldn’t start. That sort of thing. I certainly hope that I don’t have one of those Mondays any time soon because the Monday I’m having today and the Monday I described above sound so much better than a bad Monday!
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Thank you so much for hanging out for A Week of Mondays blog tour! Look out this week for a spoiler free review of the book!
I Read YA Week Interview with Melissa Landers!
I am so insanely excited to bring you the second interview with an excellent YA author, information pills Melissa Landers! She is one of my favorite authors and a huge influence on my own writing. I am so pleased and honored to have her here on What A Nerd Girl Says and I’m ready to jump right in so let’s do this!
ABOUT MELISSA LANDERS
Melissa Landers is a former teacher who left the classroom to pursue other worlds. A proud sci-fi geek, price she isn’t afraid to wear her Princess Leia costume in public—just ask her husband and three kids. She lives just outside Cincinnati in the town of Loveland, “Sweetheart of Ohio”.
You Can Find Her:
Her Website / Her Twitter / Her Facebook / Her GoodReads / Her Instagram
HER BOOK
Add Melissa’s fantastic sci-fi novel on GoodReads and buy a copy at your local bookstore or on Amazon, Barnes and Noble or Book Depository!
Life in the outer realm is a lawless, dirty, hard existence, and Solara Brooks is hungry for it. Just out of the orphanage, she needs a fresh start in a place where nobody cares about the engine grease beneath her fingernails or the felony tattoos across her knuckles. She’s so desperate to reach the realm that she’s willing to indenture herself to Doran Spaulding, the rich and popular quarterback who made her life miserable all through high school, in exchange for passage aboard the spaceliner Zenith.
When a twist of fate lands them instead on the Banshee, a vessel of dubious repute, Doran learns he’s been framed on Earth for conspiracy. As he pursues a set of mysterious coordinates rumored to hold the key to clearing his name, he and Solara must get past their enmity to work together and evade those out for their arrest. Life on the Banshee may be tumultuous, but as Solara and Doran are forced to question everything they once believed about their world—and each other—the ship becomes home, and the eccentric crew family. But what Solara and Doran discover on the mysterious Planet X has the power to not only alter their lives, but the existence of everyone in the universe…
HER INTERVIEW
Nerd Girl: Why do you write YA?
Melissa: Quite simply: because I want to. There’s so much to enjoy as a YA author: a supportive writing community, enthusiastic fans, limitless story possibilities. I’m having a lot of fun writing for this market. Maybe that’s a selfish reason, but it’s true. :)
Nerd Girl: What are some of your own favorite YA reads?
Melissa: For me, nothing tops Harry Potter. The series started as middle grade and transitioned to YA in a smooth, seamless way that mirrored Harry’s growth. I enjoyed these books so much, and now I’m reading them to my children. It’s great to share that love of the series with them.
Nerd Girl: Describe your latest work in five words or less.
Melissa: Let’s battle an intergalactic mafia!
Nerd Girl: What advice would you give aspiring science fiction authors, especially those who want to dive into space/alien stories like yours?
Melissa: Don’t be afraid to get WEIRD. In this genre, weird is good! I’ll bet Frank Herbert’s friends gave him the side-eye when he said, “I have a story idea about a desert planet where giant sandworms poop out an addictive drug called spice!” But look how that turned out. Dune is (IMO) the gold standard for science fiction.
Nerd Girl: Both the Alienated series and Starflight do such a wonderful job of balancing a science fiction story and fun and awesome romance. How do you balance the two of them when writing?
Melissa: Thank you! Over time, I’ve learned to become more aware of that balance. My natural inclination is to veer toward romance, (I love making characters fall in love!), so I have to remind myself during the plotting stage not to let the romance take over. It helps to have an experienced editor in my corner. She’s good at pointing out imbalances. In fact…she just sent me an edit letter for Starfall, so I’m going to say “goodbye” and get to work. :)
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Thank you, again, Melissa, for joining us! We were so happy to host you during I Read YA week! I can’t wait for United this summer! EEK!
And you guys, don’t forget to head to my instagram, to enter my I Read YA Week giveaway! It runs until May 8th and includes two contemporary YA ARCs and a ton of signed swag!
I Read YA Week Interview with BT Gottfred!
Happy Friday everyone! The best day of the week in my opinion and today is no exception since I’m bring you not one, more about not two, viagra dosage but THREE awesome interviews with three equally awesome YA authors. Lets jump into the first one, with one of my absolutely favorite people ever, Brad Gottfred :)
ABOUT BT GOTTFRED
Taken from Brad’s website: Wrote and directed the play, “Women Are Crazy Because Men Are A**holes” that has played over four years in Los Angeles and Chicago and just made its Off Broadway premiere at the historic Cherry Lane Theatre. Los Angeles Times said: “Seldom have I been a part of a more enthusiastic and vocal audience. Checkout https://loanize.co.uk for more details, Brad T Gottfred’s play about young couples stumbling through the minefield of codependency taps a universal nerve.”
Wrote, directed, and executive produced the feature film “The Movie Hero” which played at over 20 film festivals worldwide, winning numerous awards including First Prize at the Rhode Island Film Festival and the Audience Award at the Austin Film Festival.
My first play, “Marry, F**K, Or Kill” was called “a guilty pleasure for veterans of the single life” by the Los Angeles Times. It went on to an Off Broadway premiere in the fall of 2011.
First web series “Sex and Love Conspire to Destroy the World” was released by MyDamnChannel in 2013.
My first-ish novel, “Forever for a Year”, was released in July 2015 by Macmillan/Holt. My second-isa novel, “The Nerdy and The Dirty” arrives November 2016 from Mac/Holt.
You Can Find Him:
His Website / His Twitter / His Facebook / His GoodReads / His Instagram
HIS BOOK
This book comes out in November 2016. I just started reading it and I already totally love it! Add it on GoodReads and preorder it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Pen Lupo is sick and tired of hiding who she is. On the outside, Pen is popular, quiet, and deferential to her boyfriend. On the inside, however, Pen is honest, opinionated–and not quite sure that she’s like other girls. Do they have urges like she does?
His classmates may consider him a nerd, but Benedict Pendleton knows he’s destined for great things. All he has to do is find a worthy girlfriend, and his social station will be secured. Sure, Benedict is different–but that’s what he likes about himself.
When fate intervenes, both Pen and Benedict end up at the same vacation resort for winter break. Despite their differences, the two are drawn together. But is there such a thing as happily ever after for a nympho and a nerd?
THE INTERVIEW
Nerd Girl: Why do you write YA?
Brad: Because the not-really-a-secret of the universe is that no matter how old you get, you’re always a ‘young adult’ inside and so this allows me to express all my crazy emotions while not-so-secretly-hiding them in the lives of teenagers.
Nerd Girl: What are some of your own favorite YA reads?
Brad: I fall in love with strong voices, ones so vibrant that you can feel them thinking inside your own brain. ‘Catcher in the Rye’ is the parent of all such books. Sherman Alexie’s ‘Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian’ was a recent favorite.
Nerd Girl: What do you think is a big misconception about YA and why do you think its wrong?
Brad: That all the books are the same. The variety is just as wide and interesting as work for ‘adults’. (Note the quotes are the word ‘adult’ ;)
Nerd Girl: Why do you think its important to have a “I Read YA” week?
Brad: All of us ‘adults’ will be forever dealing with issues that first rose in childhood so it’s vital everyone encourages everyone else that they should be proud they are exploring these issues through YA.
Nerd Girl: Describe your latest work in five words or less.
Brad: Brainy boy, fiery girl: collision
Nerd Girl: You have worked in both theatre and fiction. How do you tackle each one? What are some similarities/differences?
Brad: Both require me to be relentless in my pursuit of honoring the authenticity of the characters. In fiction, I get to explore their inner life a thousand fold while in theatre I have to reveal character through their interactions with others.
Nerd Girl: Do your kids have any influences over the stories that you create/do you think they will influence you in the future?
Brad: Much of what draws me to stories are wanting one-of-a-kind characters to have a voice and a place in the world. And I hope my kids feel empowered to be their own kind of one-of-a-kind ;)
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Thank you again Brad for lending yourself to What A Nerd Girl Says to celebrate I Read YA Week! You are awesome and I can’t wait to get my hands on a finished copy of The Nerdy and the Dirty!
Don’t forget everyone, head to my instagram to enter my I Read YA Week giveaway, which includes two YA contemporary ARCs and a TON of signed swag!. Checkout loanblues com for more details.
Book Review: The Power by Jennifer L Armentrout
Genre:
New Adult, order Paranormal, Fantasy, Romance
Pages:
344 pages
Part of a Series?:
Second in the Titans series, companion to the Covenant series
Release Date:
February 23rd, 2016
You Can Find the Book At:
GoodReads Summary:
With any great change, there is always strife, and the Covenant University has become the frontline between pure-bloods who want the Breed Order reinstated and the half-bloods who want the right to control their own destinies.
Fate has other plans.
The violence is escalating and war between the races seems inevitable, and it couldn’t come at a worse time. Hyperion may be out of commission, but Josie and Seth know they have only earned a reprieve. Seth must get Josie fully prepared, which means controlling her newfound abilities, and they need to find the other demigods before the Titans do.
But the gods are sensing a greater threat.
Only one thing is more dangerous than a bunch of starved Titans, and that’s an out-of-control Apollyon. The aether in Josie is drawing Seth in deeper, and when lust mixes with love and gives way to power, he knows being close to her is not only dangerous to her, but to everyone around them, but letting her go requires a level of selflessness that just isn’t Seth’s style.
The paths taken in the past are becoming the roads of the future.
Just as chaos breaks out, familiar faces from the past return, complicating the already strained bond between Josie and Seth, and when the danger from the Titans erupts with devastating consequences, the dark allure of power calls to Seth again, but this time Josie might not be able to pull him back.
And when the struggle between power and love becomes the deadliest battleground, there may be no salvation.
My Review:
I was so afraid that when I went to read this book, I wouldn’t remember a thing about the first book and I was mostly right about that. I read the ARC of the first book nearly two years ago, so I had forgotten a little bit about what was going on. Luckily, the story picks up quickly and I was caught up fast. I immediately fell back in with Seth and Josie, both of whom I love to death.
What I really loved about this book was the struggle that both of the characters were going through. Seth really is trying so hard to be different than literally what he was born to me. And its a physical struggle for him and there are times when I want to throttle him and there are times when I just want to wrap him in my arms and cuddle him like a little baby. Oh, Seth, he does things to a reader’s emotions, especially since we had gotten to know him so well, as the bad guy, in the Covenant series. But I adore him, and I feel so much sympathy for his struggle, especially since he cares for Josie so insanely much.
Oh, and Josie! This is a girl after my own heart! I love her stubbornness and I love her flaws and I love how she is trying so hard to be a demigod and learn and harness her powers to get ready to fight the Titans but she’s also in love with French fries and she struggles with her feelings for Seth. I love that she’s SO incredibly human, because despite the fact that she’s this great power and she’s intended for great purpose, she’s so relatable. She reminds me of Alex that way.
Which brings me to my FAVORITE part of the whole book, the fact that we get to have Alex and Aidan back! I love the Covenant series so much, I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love that series and Alex is one of my favorite characters ever, period, and that series has been so incredibly influential to me. So having them back, both evolved characters from when we knew them in their own series, but also so so…them, was amazing. Any time they were on the page, I did a little happy dance in my chair. I hope to see more of them in the next book!
And the next book! I need it now. Its called The Struggle, which is a fitting title since it doesn’t come out til NEXT YEAR. I don’t like waiting, especially after that incredible ending. I knew something big was coming but what happened was so unexpected and I am dying to find out what happens next!
All in all…another fantastic book by JLA!
Rating:
5 out of 5 stars