Books and Sensibility

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Book Reviews

The Dream Theives by Maggie Stiefvater

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  • Release Date: September 17th 2013
  • Pages: 448 Pages
  • Genre: Gothic/Magic Realism/Supernatural/ Paranormal ???
  • Publisher: Scholastic

Synopsis: Now that the ley lines around Cabeswater have been woken, nothing for Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Adam will be the same. Ronan, for one, is falling more and more deeply into his dreams, and his dreams are intruding more and more into waking life. Meanwhile, some very sinister people are looking for some of the same pieces of the Cabeswater puzzle that Gansey is after...

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Book Review: Where The Stars Still Shine by Trish Doller

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  • Release Date: September 24th 2013
  • Pages: 352
  • Genre: Contemporary/ Social Issues
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury

Synopsis: As a child from her large and loving family, and on the run with her mom for more than ten years, Callie has only the barest idea of what normal life might be like. She’s never had a home, never gone to school, and has gotten most of her meals from laundromat vending machines. Her dreams are haunted by memories she’d like to forget completely. But when Callie’s mom is finally arrested for kidnapping her, and Callie’s real dad whisks her back to what would have been her life, in a small town in Florida, Callie must find a way to leave the past behind. She must learn to be part of a family. And she must believe that love–even with someone who seems an improbable choice–is more than just a possibility.

Kidnapped by her mother as a child, 17-year-old Callie has spent her entire life on the run. When her mother is finally arrested, Callie is returned to a father she never knew in the close-knit Greek-American tourist town of Tarpon Hills, Florida. But for a girl who spent most of her life on her own joining this loving Greek family is more of a struggle than a happy reunion.…

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Book Review : Coldest Girl In Coldtown

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  • Release Dat : September 13th 2013
  • Pages: 432
  • Genre: Fantasy
  • Publisher : Little Brown For Young Readers

Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. The only problem is, once you pass through Coldtown’s gates, you can never leave.
One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them the only way she knows how: by going straight to the wicked, opulent heart of Coldtown itself.

The Coldest Girl In Coldtown is based on the world created in Holly Black’s short story of the same name. I reviewed this short story a few months ago so I had some insight going into the novel….

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Book Review : All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill

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  • Release Date : September 3 2013
  • Genre : Sci-Fi/Thriller
  • Publisher : Hyperion Teen
  • Pages : 368

Synopsis : Imprisoned in the heart of a secret military base, Em has nothing except the voice of the boy in the cell next door and the list of instructions she finds taped inside the drain.
Only Em can complete the final instruction. She’s tried everything to prevent the creation of a time machine that will tear the world apart. She holds the proof: a list she has never seen before, written in her own hand. Each failed attempt in the past has led her to the same terrible present—imprisoned and tortured by a sadistic man called the doctor while war rages outside . . . All Our Yesterdays is a wrenching, brilliantly plotted story of fierce love, unthinkable sacrifice, and the infinite implications of our every choice.

All Our Yesterdays has been on my radar since I heard it was one of the books on the 2013 Book Expo America YA Editor’s Buzz Panel. It was described as “deceptively simple” and  “more than  a standard girl goes back in time to save the world.”

This is a story that starts at the end. Em is a prisoner in
a secret government facility. Her only company is   Finn, the boy in the cell
next to her. Now I know this might sound like Shatter Me byTahereh Mafi but don’t let these first few pages fool you.  Em and Finn have to escape and go back in time to their yesterdays (wink wink nudge nudge) and kill ‘ the doctor”, the man who changed the world for the worst in order to save the future.…

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Tumble & Fall by Alexandra Bullen Coutts

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  • Release Date: September 17th 2013
  • Genre: Contemporary
  • Publisher : FSG (Macmillan)
  • Pages : 384

Synopsis : The world is living in the shadow of oncoming disaster. An asteroid is set to strike the earth in just one week’s time; catastrophe is unavoidable. The question isn’t how to save the world—the question is, what to do with the time that’s left? Against this stark backdrop, three island teens wrestle with intertwining stories of love, friendship and family—all with the ultimate stakes at hand. 

 I think most of the criticism of this book comes from the misconception that this novel is a full on dystopian. When I started Tumble & Fall I got what I expected;  a contemporary with some pre-apocalyptic undertones. Even with that said,  this book doesn’t hit a lot of high notes for me. 

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The Beginning of Everything (Severed Heads, Broken Hearts in the UK) by Robyn Schneider

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  • Publisher : Katherine Tegen Books
  • Release Date : August 27th 2013
  • Pages : 352

Synopsis: Golden boy Ezra Faulkner believes everyone has a tragedy waiting for them—a single encounter after which everything that really matters will happen. His particular tragedy waited until he was primed to lose it all: in one spectacular night, a reckless driver shatters Ezra’s knee, his athletic career, and his social life.No longer a front-runner for Homecoming King, Ezra finds himself at the table of misfits, where he encounters new girl Cassidy Thorpe. Cassidy is unlike anyone Ezra’s ever met, achingly effortless, fiercely intelligent, and determined to bring Ezra along on her endless adventures.

The Beginning of Everything tells the story of Ezra Faulkner, the popular high school tennis star with the perfect senior year in front of him. But it all falls to pieces in a moment when Ezra is hit by a car and left walking with a cane. Now, his girlfriend has left him, he doesn’t know how to relate to his friends and has resigned to spending his senior year alone. Then he is taken in by his neighbor, Toby, and along with a few quirky debate team members  Ezra grows in ways he never expected….

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