We're an Open Book
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(Get it ? Cause her name is America…)
This book seems to be lurking around every corner since we started Book and Sensibility three years ago. I finally grabbed the ebook and when I put it in the running for book club selection, it ultimately got…selected. I couldn’t really get a sense of the story from the first book, so I went to the second and figured what the heck since I’ve been taking a lot of 30-minute bus rides lately. I may as well finish it. …
Synopsis : As a general’s daughter in a vast empire that revels in war and enslaves those it conquers, seventeen-year-old Kestrel has two choices: she can join the military or get married. But Kestrel has other intentions. One day, she is startled to find a kindred spirit in a young slave up for auction. Arin’s eyes seem to defy everything and everyone. Following her instinct, Kestrel buys him—with unexpected consequences. It’s not long before she has to hide her growing love for Arin. But he, too, has a secret, and Kestrel quickly learns that the price she paid for a fellow human is much higher than she ever could have imagined.
For 10 years the Valorians have ruled the Herrani, a race of people enslaved in their own land. At a slave auction Kestrel, a member of the Valorian upper class, wins the Herrani of her choice and in that moment of winning she will also lose everything and she doesn’t even know it.
The story follows Krestel as she makes her way through high society and how it often clashes with her candor and affinity for music and art. She is also at war with her growing feelings for Arin the Herrani slave and the truth he is making her see.
Honestly, I think Krestel had a bit too much going on conflict wise. She’s at a crossroads she can either get married or become a solider but wants to do neither, she likes music but that is not thought highly of by her people. She struggles with what how to treat Arin in addition to feuds with fellow Valorians. I think I would have preferred to focus on one of these conflicts.
The big winner in this book has to be the forbidden romance that forms between Kestrel and Arin , overall that was what kept me reading during the somewhat slow build in the novel. I don’t want to give to much away about Arin, but his character development in the book was one I enjoyed reading. I wish that the novel focused more on him.…
- Release Date : 2006
- Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- Pages : 337
- Genre : Science Fiction/Survivalist/Contemporary
I picked this book up for my book club
not knowing anything about it. I was interested in it because it was
discussed as being Dystopian and I hadn’t read a Dystopian in a while. However, I found this less Dystopic and more of a small-scale survivalist story. This isn’t the story about how a teen is going to save the end of the world.
. . But how she is going to survive it.
Life As We Knew It will have you thinking twice about what it means to survive and the importance of family. A great read if you are looking a more realistic ‘end of the world’ YA novel.
Life As We knew It
is the gripping tale of a family’s survival in the midst of a global disaster. Told through the diary of 16-year-old
Miranda, each day presents the challenges that come with daily survival for her brothers and Mom after a surprise astrological
event changes the world as they knew it.
…
- Publication Date: May 26th 2010 (ebook)
- Pages: 322
- Publisher: Carina Press (Harlequin)
- Series: The Kowalskis #1
Well, I have really been genre-hopping this year. I’m finally taking the time to read more than YA and checking out book categories I’ve wanted to know more about like literary and narrative nonfiction. Now I’m finally jumping into the adult romance genre.
The romance novel has always fascinated me. I mean they have to be some of the most lucrative and consistently popular genre novels over the past 50 years. Every time I go to a used book sale or used bookstore there is always a woman or two with a rolling basket in hand carefully scanning the Harlequins and stocking up. I’ve always picked up one or two because I figure they are cheap and not a big commitment, but I just never actually read them. At one point I’d read a few pages into a Regency romance, but couldn’t get into it. When I stumbled across this book for .50 cents at a library book sale I got it on a whim, it was about a journalist and a novelist so I figured I could relate. Plus, it was in third person which is my favorite POV….
New Adult or NA novels seem to be taking over! Every week it seems like more and more are being released and this week I take a peek at two NA novels.
The Space Between by Victoria H. Smith
This New Adult novel follows the relationship of a pair of 19-year-olds from two different sides of Chicago; Derek, the privileged adopted son of a Senator and Lacey, a struggling opera prodigy from the wrong side of the tracks with a mother dying of cancer. When these to meet in a blaze of passion, they have to overcome racism, class and their own family to be together. Seeing a romance that focuses on a biracial girl and Korean guy was definitely a first for me and I liked that Victoria wrote about this type of relationship. The plot relies a lot on insta-lust and I was kind of annoyed of how Lacey is constantly described as desert with chocolate eyes and caramel skin. Falling on the steamier side of NA, so there are quite a few scandalous scenes. This is the first in a series, so I’ll be interested to get the other ones if I stumble across them. Also how great is this cover !- ★★★
If You Stay by Courtney Cole
Pax Tate is a selfish, trust fund baby with an addictive personality and Mila Hill is an orphaned artist living a quiet life with her sister. Their first encounter is anything but romantic when Mila discovers Pax overdosing in his car. This gruesome meeting unravels into a NA story that is the rather standard good girl meets broken bad boy with a fair share of steamy moments. The story packs on the melodrama and angst with everyone having dark secrets. After about the third revelation it started to feel a bit… soap-operatic ? This book also has healthy a bit of slut-shaming, which I think I’m just getting used to in YA/NA fiction at this point. I don’t know if this is done to create foils for the main female characters, but if you are an openly sexually active female, chances are bad things will happen to you. If you want an angsty, steamy romance this may be your kind of book. I think this story had a lot of potential in the beginning, but if you’ve read any kind of NA before this story will seem generic. Also,a month after reading it, I barely remember anything about it. – ★★ + .5
Audiobook: Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdoch
I picked up these audio CDs at the library at random to listen to in the car and ended up really enjoying this story. 15-year-old D.J Schwenk, has been pulling the weight of her family’s dairy farm while her father is sick and the last thing she needs is more work. Then she gets asked to help train the rival team’s lazy quarterback and show him the value of hard work. Not really a traditional sprorts story, but a story about family, loyalty and growing up. D.J is this wonderfully full developed and faceted protagonist as she tries to figure out how to be both a teenager and a caregiver for her family. This novel has a lot energy as we explore football life in this small Wisconsin town.The audiobook narrator does a midwest accent that fits the story, but can be grating until you get used to it. This book is great for fans of Miranda Kenneally’s Catching Jordan–incidentally she is the first person I heard about this book from. I learned this is the first in a 3 part series, and will pick up the others when I need a good read. –★★★★
False Memory by Dan Krokos
This novel starts with a bang when Miranda wakes up in a shopping mall with no memory and with abilities she doesn’t understand. The story unravels as she learns she is part of a secret program where nothing is ever what it seems. This debut novel is an action packed and energetic thriller , it never stops to catch it’s breath. I was able to devour this book and was really into the plot as I was reading, but after a few days I’d forgotten most of the details.The story seems to shrug of some of the more serious implications and has to do some handwaving to make the plot work.-★★★+.5
Stupid Perfect World by Scott Westerfeld
This was my first foray into the world of the young adult e-novellas. When short story imprints like Harper Teen Impulsecame out I never thought I would pay for one, but I found myself snapping them up when I saw them on my local library’s Overdrive. I chose this one because it is one of the few that isn’t part of an established series. At just over 50 pages, it tells the story of a future where all human imperfections have been cured, but not forgotten. In a course called Scarcity every student must live two weeks with an ailment from before the world was perfect. Keiran Black decides to do something people haven’t done in years…sleep. An interesting concept, it was an enjoyable read and I think the length was perfect. Sometimes YA short stories seem like scenes that could be working towards book, but Westerfeld tells a complete story. I think too much of it would have been overkill. I’d really like to see more of these standalone novellas, they are perfect for when you have an hour to spare. -★★★+.5
