Just a quick reminder that we are giving away 3 copies of “The Lonely Hearts Club” if you click here and follow the very simple instructions.
As soon as the winners are announced for that, keep your eyes here for another quick giveaway.
Good Luck!
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Just a quick reminder that we are giving away 3 copies of “The Lonely Hearts Club” if you click here and follow the very simple instructions.
As soon as the winners are announced for that, keep your eyes here for another quick giveaway.
Good Luck!
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I both love and hate this one. Love because it’s creepy and hate because it’s creepy. Alas, here we go:
The Eternal Kiss was published July 2009 by Running Press Kids. It’s a collection of short stories.
Wicked Vampire by Nina Bangs (what a name!) was published September 2009 by Leisure Books.
The cropping and coloring are different, and it’s interesting in the second book that the mole (maybe it’s a piercing) was taken out. Maybe this was intentional so there wouldn’t be the double take.
Do you prefer one over the other? Wicked Vampire reminds me a lot of the True Blood-cover of the first Sookie Stackhouse title.
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Suzanne Young was kind enough to send me an early copy of The Naughty List and let me say: I was not disappointed!
The Naughty List follows a group of junior-year cheerleaders — dubbed the Society of Smitten Kittens (SOS) — who go undercover to bust the cheating mates of their classmates. This underground operation has Tessa as their leader, who herself has been in a solid, unwavering relationship with Aiden for two years. Their goal as the SOS is not to ruin relationships but instead to help the person being cheated on get out sooner, rather than later. They have a code of ethics, including upholding themselves as model citizens at all times; Tessa is, for example, adamant about not swearing and makes up her own ways to vent frustration (this is really, really funny) and she is always working on correcting others when they do.
While Tessa and Aiden have the ideal relationship — one which we as readers see as healthy — she hasn’t been totally honest with him. In fact, she’s managed to keep the SOS a secret for their entire relationship.
When Christian and his sister Chloe move to town after their parents split up, things begin to change a bit. Christian is a merciless flirt with Tessa, who doesn’t like the attention. And Chloe is rude, nasty, and mean to everyone. Everyone, that is, except Aiden, with whom she is paired with in their chemistry class. Will Tessa have the SOS called on her or will someone be calling on her behalf to investigate Aiden?
Suzanne Young’s book is the first in a series, and I think this is the first time in a long time I can say I’d go out and read the next ones without doubt. I loved Tessa’s attitude, humor, and her relationship with Aiden. I thought it was spot-on appropriate for her age and that teens would definitely relate to her.
Moreover, the twists and turns this book took surprised me. I thought there were a lot of things that would happen (if you don’t like spoilers, skip this): I thought Tessa’s sickness was going to be an unexpected pregnancy and I thought that her relationship with Christian was going somewhere else entirely. There is a mega twist with that plot that I really liked because it was not what I thought.
And of course, there is a lesson learned here, but it’s not a moral lesson. Instead, it’s a moment of realizing that not all people ARE cheaters and that some things are, in fact, accidents or mistakes of judgement or perception. It’s also nice to see not only respectable cheerleaders in a book, but cheerleaders who are smart and who are really trying to be rolemodels for their classmates.
If I were to criticize the book, I think what stands out to me is that Tessa’s quirk of using other terms for swearing may have been a bit over done. But perhaps this was intentional, to give us a good idea of who Tessa is (a bit over dramatic at times). I didn’t quite get enough of what made Aiden so attractive or wonderful, since all I learned of him was through Tessa. The beauty of there being more than one book in this series, though, is that maybe we’ll know more about him soon. Oh, and Tessa’s parents sounded interesting — they’re musicians — so I hope there’s more of them to come, too. Perhaps what really got me, though, was how the heck Tessa kept this a secret for two years from Aiden. I got she was sly, but it seems like so much could happen in two years to break the secret. I wanted more back story to that or I wanted their relationship to not have been so solid and strong, to make that aspect (a big one, I might add) more believable.
This is a title I know has a lot of readalikes, but I’m drawing a blank right now. I think this might work with Sarah Dessen or Elizabeth Scott titles, and though I haven’t her books yet, I think the SOS aspect will appeal to fans of Ally Carter.
The Naughty List comes out February 4, 2010. But if you keep your eyes peeled, you might be able to score my ARC before that. Oh, did I mention my ARC is signed, too?
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Welcome to the big top! One of STACKED’s goals this year is to post more and a wider variety of content (believe it or not, we have a huge, varied list of topics we want to cover in a Google Doc). To start, we’re hoping to post more non-fiction reviews and discussions. And onward.
The Great and Only Barnum by Candice Fleming was one of the first young adult non-fiction books I’ve read. Not to mention it’s a biography, which is another genre I’m pretty poor at reading in. But let me say, this title did NOT disappoint.
TGAOB follows the life of show man P. T. Barnum from his birth to his death, highlighting his younger years as a sales clerk, shuffling between Connecticut and New York City and his decision to go into show business. His circus career began, as it seems, quite accidentally, after a long stint in the museum business. I thought Fleming’s narrative was engrossing: I found myself flying through the text, eager to learn more about the man of infamy. At the beginning of the book, we meet his lineage, and throughout the text, I kept thinking back to a connection Fleming made between Barnum’s prankster grandfather and himself. The likeness was not only amusing, but it really did shed a lot of light into why Barnum chose the path he did in life and why, even though he has had so many critics, he is still a fascinating and likeable character.
Throughout the book, there are ample photographs, and there is a fascinating spread of sideshow trading cards. I thought the section about the people Barnum brought to the spotlight left him more of a good person than a bad person — if there were a bias in this book as a whole, it would be that it was quite apologetic for Barnum’s decisions to showcase people with different physical traits from the norm. But at the same time, it didn’t delve deeply enough into the criticisms he received to make these apologetics worth including in the text; it almost seemed like a preemptive band-aid for those reading the text who might be ready to be angry. From the text, it seemed to me that Barnum really and truly cared for his people, putting them to spotlight to showcase the varied nature of humanity (and while there was absolutely financial gain here for him, he also took great care of these people who may otherwise have been outcasts in society).
Some of the issues I had with the book included the facts that were brought up but not elucidated further. I wish I could learn more about the strange relationship Barnum had with his first wife (though we hear about his quick marriage overseas) and I would love to learn more about the race relations. Barnum’s museum had a policy to not allow African Americans in, except for a few hours one day a week. Knowing the museum was in New York City, I had a lot of questions about whether this was the norm and whether Barnum’s policy was groundbreaking because he let them in. Here’s perfect fodder for a future book!
I thought the use of sidebars and photos was well done, with just enough to keep me interested. I appreciated how, for the most part, the narrative ended on the page where a side bar was so I could read those without flipping pages; unfortunately, this did not last throughout the book and became a point of frustration for me. More frustrating, though, were the sidebars that jumped pages and the use of the black box with white text. It is well-known this is the hardest way to read text. But aesthetically, the book showcased a nice use of font to text to decorative elements, and it felt like a lengthy magazine article. This will definitely appeal to teen readers AND to adult readers who want to know about Barnum but don’t want to invest time into a lengthier biography. I got just enough to pique my interest.
My other criticism on this title is that there was not enough discussion of the circus. I went in believing to know about Barnum’s circus career and decisions, and though I learned these came near the end of his life, I wanted more. I wanted to know how the various circuses came to meld together and become what they are in today’s society. Again: here’s another prime book opportunity. Something of that nature would be a great readalike to this one. Authors – take note!
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Remember our teaser to keep your eyes here on my review of The Lonely Hearts Club? Well, here’s why:
We’re giving away THREE COPIES of the book to US residents. That’s right — this is an opportunity to snag a copy of Elizabeth Eulberg’s first title.
How do you enter? Simple! Fill out the form below between today January 4) through January 18. You have the chance to get multiple entries on this contest since it’s a big giveaway, so read the form carefully to make sure you can earn those entries.
Thanks to Big Honcho Media for giving us the opportunity for such a fun giveaway to start out a new year of blogging about books. They also put together this great trailer for the book: