Teaser Tuesday (24)

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

 

 

 

Title: Death Sworn

Author: Leah Cypess

Release date: March 4th 2014           

Publisher:  Greenwillow
Page: 55

 

 

When Ileni lost her magic, she lost everything: her place in society, her purpose in life, and the man she had expected to spend her life with. So when the Elders sent her to be magic tutor to a secret sect of assassins, she went willingly, even though the last two tutors had died under mysterious circumstances.

But beneath the assassins’ caves, Ileni will discover a new place and a new purpose… and a new and dangerous love. She will struggle to keep her lost magic a secret while teaching it to her deadly students, and to find out what happened to the two tutors who preceded her. But what she discovers will change not only her future, but the future of her people, the assassins… and possibly the entire world.

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Her stomach twisted into a knot. She reached out, plucked the ball from his hand, and popped it into her mouth. It tasted bitter and sweet, solid and melting all at once, and lingered in her mouth as if she would taste it forever. She gaped at Sorin. "Chocolate?"

 

 
  

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I'll point out that two sentences before this, she thought it was poison. Death by chocolate.
What're you reading?

 

Review: Heartbeat

Heartbeat
Author:  Elizabeth Scott

Publication Date:  January 28th 2014         
~A copy was provided by Harlequin Teen via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review~

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Life. Death. And...Love?

Emma would give anything to talk to her mother one last time. Tell her about her slipping grades, her anger with her stepfather, and the boy with the bad reputation who might be the only one Emma can be herself with.

But Emma can't tell her mother anything. Because her mother is brain-dead and being kept alive by machines for the baby growing inside her.

Meeting bad-boy Caleb Harrison wouldn't have interested Old Emma. But New Emma-the one who exists in a fog of grief, who no longer cares about school, whose only social outlet is her best friend Olivia-New Emma is startled by the connection she and Caleb forge.

Feeling her own heart beat again wakes Emma from the grief that has grayed her existence. Is there hope for life after death-and maybe, for love?
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There is no possible way to write a review without it getting personal. Because it is. Personal. It also hits home a lot more than I'd like to admit, and it's hard to have an unbiased review because of that. It's always hard to see both sides when you know somebody else's so much better. Now, mine and Emma's is not the same, I got to grieve for the person I lost, while Emma hasn't, not that she hasn't tried, but the fact that she can't because her mother's body is being kept alive for the baby growing inside of her, and she has to see her, everyday, knowing that her mother's dead, yet she's right there in front of her, just out of reach. In a way, it's a whole lot worse that just losing somebody. They die, you say goodbye, they're buried, they're gone, and eventually you try and move on,  but the fact is, she literally can't.

Stacking the Shelves (#26) & Recap

Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews.


It's that time again, yes, the Harper Collins Edition. I only downloaded five this time, I had some self control. Whoo. e.l.f. Cosmetics has made Vampire Academy makeup...I- really? You know I'm going to be stupid enough to buy some.

How was everyone's week?

 For review:
 

 

 

 

 

 

How to Meet Boys, The Geography of You and Me, Side Effects May Vary, The Half Life of Molly Pierce, The Secrets of Lily Graves and The Vanishing Season,

(Thanks to Netgalley, Harperteen, Balzer + Bray and Edelweiss)

 What did you get this week? :)

   



 A recap of posts this week

 

• Monday I reviewed  Uninvited by Sophie Jordan
• Teaser Tuesday from Vengeance by Megan Miranda
• Waiting on Wednesday: The Half Life of Molly Pierce by Katrina Leno
• Thursday I DNF reviewed The Lost Boys by Lilian Carmine
• Friday I reviewed And We Stay by Jenny Hubbard

 

Review: And We Stay

And We Stay
Author: Jenny Hubbard

Publication Date:  January 28th 2014    
~A copy was provided by Random House Childrens/Delacorte Press via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review~




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When high school senior Paul Wagoner walks into his school library with a stolen gun, he threatens his girlfriend Emily Beam, then takes his own life. In the wake of the tragedy, an angry and guilt-ridden Emily is shipped off to boarding school in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she encounters a ghostly presence who shares her name. The spirit of Emily Dickinson and two quirky girls offer helping hands, but it is up to Emily to heal her own damaged self.

This inventive story, told in verse and in prose, paints the aftermath of tragedy as a landscape where there is good behind the bad, hope inside the despair, and springtime under the snow.

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I'll be the first to admit I don't get all poetry, I can get the feelings behind it, but don't ask me what they actually mean because I have no clue. I'm a lyrics person myself, and though you might say it's basically the same. It's not. Personally, I find poetry too restricting at times, I love reading it, but writing it is not for me.

And We Stay from the description is a little misleading but I really enjoyed it. Well, "enjoyed" isn't the word because it's depressing at points, but really beautiful. Emily Beam's story is not an easy one, it's not a comfortable one either. The last few months of Emily's life has been hell, and you see how it takes its toll on her, she doesn't know how to move away from it.  It's one thing to have your ex-boyfriend come into school and corner you in the library with a gun, but the aftermath isn't what Emily expected, she can't shake it off. But, that's not where Emily Beam's story begins or ends...

DNF Review: The Lost Boys

The Lost Boys
Author: Lilian Carmine

Publication Date:  January 1 2014
~A copy was provided by Ebury Press via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review~

 

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Fate has brought them together. But will it also keep them apart?

Having moved to a strange town, sixteen-year-old Joey Gray is feeling a little lost, until she meets a cute, mysterious boy near her new home.

But Tristan Halloway is not what he seems. And there's a very good reason why he's always to be found roaming between the gravestones in the local cemetery...
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I knew from the first page I was not going to ask me. You know when you get a sense of a book from the very first paragraph? This was it, but I kept to it, hoping it would change, because though the writing sounds juvenile and the characters awkward and forced, it wasn't that bad to struggle through.

Until...

Waiting on Wednesday (#26)

 "Waiting on" Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases.

The Half Life of Molly Pierce by Katrina Leno

Expected publication: July 8th 2014 by HarperTeen

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A mysterious and visceral page-turner about a seventeen-year-old girl who unravels the secrets of her alternate personality, reminiscent of the film Memento.
You live and you remember.
Me, I live and I forget.
But now-now I am remembering.
For all of her seventeen years, Molly feels like she's missed bits and pieces of her life. Molly suffers from dissociative identity disorder, and since she was a little girl, she's played host to Mabel, a completely separate and individual personality. When Mabel is in control, Molly experiences the blackouts she's been so scared of. But now Mabel is letting Molly in on her secrets; she's letting Molly remember. And in doing so, Molly uncovers the separate life she seems to have led...and the love that she can't let go.

The Half Life of Molly Pierce is a suspenseful, evocative psychological mystery about uncovering the secrets of our pasts, facing the unknowns of our futures, and accepting our whole selves.

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Reason why? So simple, this, dissociative identity disorder is, after 170,000 words, what I've been writing about the past year and a half. I so want to ditch my schedule and read it now.

What're you waiting on? :)