Instead of a “This Week in Reading” post today — I’ll do a big post next week — I thought I’d do a giveaway.

Up for grabs are 6 paperback copies of Lenore Appelhans’s The Memory of After, which you may remember was titled Level 2 in hardcover. The sequel, Chasing Before, is out later this month. I got the chance to read a very early draft of the sequel and liked it even more than I liked The Memory of After. You can read my thoughts on the book here.

Since her untimely death the day before her eighteenth birthday, Felicia Ward has been trapped in Level 2, a stark white afterlife located between our world and the next. Along with her fellow drones, Felicia passes the endless hours reliving memories of her time on Earth and mourning what she’s lost-family, friends, and Neil, the boy she loved.

Then a girl in a neighboring chamber is found dead, and nobody but Felicia recalls that she existed in the first place. When Julian-a dangerously charming guy Felicia knew in life-comes to offer Felicia a way out, Felicia learns the truth: If she joins the rebellion to overthrow the Morati, the angel guardians of Level 2, she can be with Neil again.  — Description via Goodreads

This giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents only, since I’ll be shipping them myself. But there are 6 copies available, meaning 6 winners total. You have until August 15 to enter, and I’ll pull and contact all of the lucky folks then.

Click here to enter.

Kimberly and I have now been blogging here at Stacked for five years.

Five years!

To celebrate, we’re going to give away 10 books — five from each of us — which have stuck with us, that have impacted us, or that we’ve somehow had a big connection with in these last five years of blogging. One winner will get a copy of each of the 10 titles (and perhaps this is a look at the flavor of Stacked at a glance, too).

Tomorrow and Wednesday, we’ll be celebrating our anniversary with a pair of interviews we’ve done with each other. It was fun to ask Kimberly questions and it’s been fun, though tough, to come up with answers to the questions she’s had for me.

But without further ado! Here’s what we’re giving away as a huge thank you to everyone who takes the time to read, share, or comment on our posts. We’re eager to see what another year of blogging and shenanigans have in store. This giveaway is open to US or Canadian residents only. Entry form is at the bottom, and we’ll pick a winner on or around May 15.

Kelly


I thought picking five titles to giveaway — five that have had an impact on me — would be hard. But it wasn’t and maybe because I “cheated” for more than half of the titles.

If “cheating” is choosing to give away three titles that I selected as winners/finalists in the Cybils when I served as a judge/panelist.

In 2010, I was on the judging side of the YA category for the Cybils, and our winner was Courtney Summers’s Cracked Up to Be. In 2011 and in 2012, I served on the panelist side of the Cybils, and Swati Avasthi’s Split and Geoff Herbach’s Stupid Fast were titles that went on to become Cybils winners.

I guess, technically, I’ve got four books up for grabs there, since I’m going to give away a copy of What Goes Around, rather than Cracked Up to Be, since it contains both the Cybils winning Cracked Up to Be and the Cybils short listed Some Girls Are.

As for the other two titles I’m going to give away, they shouldn’t be too surprising. I went for books that have stuck with me long past the time I’ve read them and/or tackle subjects near and dear to my heart.

Also included in my five-book pick for this giveaway are Susan Vaught’s My Big Fat Manifesto — one of the few books that does justice to fat female characters — and Trish Doller’s excellent debut Something Like Normal, which tackles mental illness and so much more (and a title on the Outstanding Books for the College Bound list).

But because I can’t resist a nice giveaway, I thought I’d throw in three pre-order titles as well, to sweeten the pot a little bit more. These books will arrive in May, July, and September, respectively:

Not having reviewed any of them yet, I’ll say this much: I want to give them away as preorders because I really dug each one for very different reasons. Guy in Real Life tackles gender and gender expectations (and gaming!). Dirty Wings is about friendship and plays with the Persephone myth in a really neat way. Poisoned Apples is a collection of art and poetry that could best be described as a series of feminist fairy tales. Hopefully, it’s endorsement enough that I want to give them away before I’ve even reviewed them.

I think this is a nice mix of contemporary and non-contemporary titles. There’s humor, there’s darkness, and there’s everything in between.

Kimberly 



Choosing only five books was tough.

Since starting this blog with Kelly, the amount of reading I’ve done has exploded. Not really through any conscious effort – just being plugged in so much more to a community of readers has upped the amount of time I dedicate to reading and writing about books. And I’ve read a lot of great stuff in five years.

I decided not to go with my absolute favorites, necessarily, but instead chose titles that I come back to again and again, titles that I find particularly thoughtful or creative or haunting or groundbreaking. Most are books I wish would get more attention, which is why you won’t see titles like Daughter of Smoke and Bone or Grave Mercy on here. They’re all books I loved in some way or another, and I hope our winner will love them too.

 
First up are two completely different sci fi tales. The Knife of Never Letting Go was one of the first books I reviewed, back in September of 2009. It doesn’t need my help to get readers, but I couldn’t leave it off my list. This was one of the books that solidified my interest in YA as an adult, and I find myself recommending it over and over again to readers looking for something fresh and challenging. The True Meaning of Smekday, which I read and reviewed in 2010, is still the funniest book I’ve read since I started blogging. It’s creative and hilarious and full of Deep Thoughts. Just thinking about it again makes me want to re-read it. I want to push it into the hands of every 12 year old with even a tangential interest in sci fi. 

I read and reviewed The Obsidian Blade in 2012, and it is the very definition of a book that sticks with you. It’s got time travel, human-sized maggots, cults, ritual sacrifice, non-corporeal beings, robots, math that causes illness, and portals to other dimensions. It is so bizarre, and it all works. Each page brings something new to discover.

There were a number of different fantasy titles I could have included in the giveaway. I considered two recent favorites, The Winner’s Curse and Cruel Beauty, both of which are standouts for different reasons. I decided to go instead with a couple of older titles that I know have had staying power for me – Vessel and The Shattering. They’re each very different from the other. Vessel is a high fantasy story that features gods who inhabit the bodies of their devotees. I can still easily summon up a mental image of the book’s desert setting, described so vividly and so well. The Shattering is a modern fantasy set in New Zealand that tackles suicide while still managing to be fun (and even funny at times). I fell in love with Healey’s writing with this book. She knows just how to deliver an emotional punch.

Bonus pre-order! Mary E. Pearson’s The Kiss of Deception publishes in July, and all fantasy lovers are in for a treat. It reads like an old-fashioned high fantasy tale, featuring a runaway princess, a scorned prince, a little bit of magic, and a good deal of trickery. I’m excited for it to be out in the world in a few months.

Would you like to win all FOURTEEN of these most excellent books? Enter your information below. We’ll select a winner on or around May 15. All information will be kept confidential and removed after the giveaway ends.