Top Ten Favorite Covers Of Books I've Read

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the fabulous ladies at The Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic is my top ten favorite covers of books I've read. Y'all know what a cover whore I am. Here we go!



Blood Magic by Tessa Gratton (the hardback!)



Graceling by Kristin Cashore (the UK cover)



The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin



Hourglass by Myra McEntire



Defiance by C.J. Redwine



Wither by Lauren DeStefano



The Forsake by Lisa M. Stasse



Just One Day by Gayle Forman



For Darkness Shows The Stars by Diana Peterfreund



Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr






And there you have it! What are some of your favorite book covers?

Harper Teen ARCs Giveaway

Thanks to the fabulous people at Harper Teen, I'm giving away five fabulous May Harper Teen ARCs. They are...

*Reboot by Amy Tintera (goodreads)
*Dark Shore (Book 2 of The Atlanteans) by Kevin Emerson (goodreads)
*Parallel by Laura Miller (goodreads)
*Night School by C.J. Daugherty (goodreads)
*Transparent by Natalie Whipple (goodreads)


To enter, all you have to do is fill out the Rafflecopter form below. This is only open to US participants and ends June 8th. Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favor.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Stacking The Shelves + Weekly Round-Up

Stacking The Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews.



For Review:

*This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales (goodreads) (LOVED Mostly Good Girls and Past Perfect)
*Horde (Razorland #3) by Ann Aguirre (goodreads) (Eek! Love me some Fade!)
*New Money by Lorraine Zago Rosenthal (goodreads) (Squee!)
*Reboot by Amy Tintera (goodreads)


***Special thanks to Macmillan, St. Martin, and Harper Teen***



Bought:

*Variant by Robinson Wells (goodreads)



Weekly Round-Up:

*Wherein I reviewed/fangirled Golden by Jessi Kirby
*My picks for the top ten books dealing with tough subjects.
*Who isn't waiting on Simone Elkeles latest book? Fo'show!
*Want to win a finished copy of IMPOSTOR by Susanne Winnacker? Well, here's your chance!




That's all, folks! What did you guys get this week? Let me know!

Giveaway: Impostor by Susanne Winnacker

"Can Tessa pose as Madison . . . and stop a killer before it’s too late?

Tessa is a Variant, able to absorb the DNA of anyone she touches and mimic their appearance. Shunned by her family, she’s spent the last two years training with the Forces with Extraordinary Abilities, a secret branch of the FBI. When a serial killer rocks a small town in Oregon, Tessa is given a mission: she must impersonate Madison, a local teen, to find the killer before he strikes again.

Tessa hates everything about being an impostor—the stress, the danger, the deceit—but loves playing the role of a normal girl. As Madison, she finds friends, romance, and the kind of loving family she’d do anything to keep. Amid action, suspense, and a ticking clock, this super-human comes to a very human conclusion: even a girl who can look like anyone struggles the most with being herself."

Thanks to the very awesome people at MM Publicity, I am giving away one hardback of IMPOSTOR. All you have to do is fill out the Rafflecopter form below. This is only open to US participants and ends June 8th.

Good luck and may the odds be ever in your favor.

*Barnes and Noble
*Amazon
*Indiebound
*Goodreads

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Waiting on Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking The Spine.

"After getting kicked out of boarding school, bad boy Derek Fitzpatrick has no choice but to live with his ditzy stepmother while his military dad is deployed. Things quickly go from bad to worse when he finds out she plans to move them back to her childhood home in Illinois. Derek’s counting the days before he can be on his own, and the last thing he needs is to get involved with someone else’s family drama.

Ashtyn Parker knows one thing for certain--people you care about leave without a backward glance. A football scholarship would finally give her the chance to leave. So she pours everything into winning a state championship, until her boyfriend and star quarterback betrays them all by joining their rival team. Ashtyn needs a new game plan, but it requires trusting Derek—someone she barely knows, someone born to break the rules. Is she willing to put her heart on the line to try and win it all?"

Why I Can't Wait: Out of every book being released this year, WILD CARDS is definitely on the top of my list. Hello, it's by Simone Elkeles. That means the romance will be steamy and the boys will be brooding. Plus, football? Win, win, win! Ack, I don't feel like waiting anymore. Bring it on, October!

Expected publication: October 1st 2013 by Walker Books for Young Readers

Add it on Goodreads.

Top Ten Books Dealing With Tough Subjects

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the fabulous ladies at The Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic is the Top Ten Books Dealing With Tough Subjects. Ready? Let's go!



Saving June is about suicide, finding out answers, and grief. There's also hope, love, and an unforgettable road trip. If you haven't read it yet, please do!



Goodness, how I loved The Survival Kit. It's about a girl who lost her mother to cancer and all the emotions and basically crap she has to deal with. She's not the same and is tired of people wanting her to be. But she also finds comfort in a boy who lost his father to cancer the previous year. Grief and healing, that's what this book is about.



First off, it's John freaking Green. This guy knows how to pull the heart strings. It's amazing how many times The Fault In Our Stars made me laugh and then made me cry. Unforgettable.



I know I constantly mention The Sea of Tranquility but it's one of my favorite books and also one of the hardest books I've ever had to read. We're talking bawling and needing time to recover hard. Oh, but it's so worth it!



This is the classic epic battle between good versus evil. It's about standing up for what you believe in, even if it means sacrificing your life. Yep, I cried at least ten different times reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.



Again, Wintergirls is not an easy read. Plenty of girls and even boys deal with weight issues and anorexia. Though it's a tough one to get through, I cannot recommend it enough.



Living Dead Girl is disturbingly good. I'm fairly certain I had to read at least five happy books before my heart could finally heal. It's about a little girl who was abducted as a child and how she's still living with her capture five years later...only now he speaks of killing her. It's intense, it's horrific, but it's good.



Suicide, notes left behind, and one boy's quest to find the answers. Thirteen Reasons why offers a fresh take as to how we (as a whole) can affect someone, even if we didn't mean to. It's brutally honest.



The cover may have a heart in it, but it's trapped in a block of ice. This doesn't even begin to cover the intensity that is Dreamland. By far, this is Sarah Dessen's darkest book. It's about being in a abusive relationship and not knowing how to get out of it, especially when you still think you love him. This book will make you want to hug your mama and never let her go.



Another book about being in an abusive relationship only this time, the main character still believes there's a good person in there somewhere. In Bitter End, she goes against her friends and those she loves most just for this one guy who she truly believes loves her back. Maybe he does, but he sure does have a horrible way of showing it.





What are some books you guys have read that deals with tough subjects? Did you love them or did you love/hate them?

Review: Golden

Title: Golden
Author: Jessi Kirby
Expected publication: May 14th 2013 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Source: ARC courtesy of the publisher for an honest review

"Love, tragedy, and mystery converge in this compelling novel from “an author to watch” (Booklist).

Seventeen-year-old Parker Frost has never taken the road less traveled. Valedictorian and quintessential good girl, she’s about to graduate high school without ever having kissed her crush or broken the rules. So when fate drops a clue in her lap—one that might be the key to unraveling a town mystery—she decides to take a chance.

Julianna Farnetti and Shane Cruz are remembered as the golden couple of Summit Lakes High—perfect in every way, meant to be together forever. But Julianna’s journal tells a different story—one of doubts about Shane and a forbidden romance with an older, artistic guy. These are the secrets that were swept away with her the night that Shane’s jeep plunged into an icy river, leaving behind a grieving town and no bodies to bury.

Reading Julianna’s journal gives Parker the courage to start to really live—and it also gives her reasons to question what really happened the night of the accident. Armed with clues from the past, Parker enlists the help of her best friend, Kat, and Trevor, her longtime crush, to track down some leads. The mystery ends up taking Parker places that she never could have imagined. And she soon finds that taking the road less traveled makes all the difference."

First line: "There's no such thing as a secret in this town."

Thoughts: Have you ever read a book where you become so captivated in the story, you start daydreaming about it randomly throughout the day? Well, that is what GOLDEN has done to me. I often hope people will just randomly bring it up so I can fangirl about it. I just want to hug it and squeeze it and love it forever. To say I'm under GOLDEN's spell is an understatement.

First off, did you know that though the story is based around Parker, it also has pieces of Julianna's story in there too? That's right, I said it. There's another story inside the story. How very Inception of Kirby to do this. Parker is one of the finalist for the Farnetti-Cruz scholarship and while this excites her mother, she can't help but feel like she's missing out on something. Sure, it'd be great to go to Stanford and not have to worry about tuition, but maybe there's more to life than this.

That's when Parker discover's Julianna's journal from ten years ago. From then on, she begins to embark on the mystery behind Julianna and Shane's untimely death and unknowingly begins to discover who she's meant to be. Maybe even who she's meant to be with.

Out of everything there is to love about this novel, my absolute favorite were Julianna's journal entries. They just brought so much depth to the story that I wasn't expecting to find. There's more to her than being the other half of the golden couple. At times, I often found Julianna's tale to be more interesting than Parker's. Maybe because you know it ends tragically? It's not to say Parker isn't interesting or that I didn't like her. I did and I still do, however, I just liked this portion of the novel more.

Let's talk about best friends. Let's talk about Kat! She's Parker's best friend and offers this funny, outgoing nature Parker (and the story) needs. Her fearlessness and adventurous personality reminded me so much of my best friend. That's probably why I adored her so much. GOLDEN wouldn't have been the same without her.

And last but not least, boys. Oh, Trevor. I cannot tell you how many times I sat there, wanting to just shake him and tell him to kiss Parker already. There's an obvious sexual tension between them hiding behind all the jokes, sarcasm, and innocent flirting. I love that he's willing to go on this journey with Parker. To some, it may just be a road trip but to me, it represented him being there for her. Who wouldn't love a guy like that?

Overall, I highly recommend GOLDEN to all fans of Sarah Dessen, Morgan Matson, and contemporary novels in general. There's mystery, self-discovery, and a twist I truly didn't see coming. Take GOLDEN with you to the beach or read it by the pool. Poor yourself a glass of wine (or tea or coffee), sit back, and enjoy GOLDEN and all its glory.



Rating: