Day One Giveaway

Whoops! A little late, but you know how these things are. Here's what we'll be giving away in the next 24 hours. Enter, and I'll try and ship them out Monday, priority.

• Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama 8/12
• Tiger's Destiny by Colleen Houck 9/12
• Betrayal by Gregg Olsen 9/12

This giveaway is now closed. Check back for more giveaways this weekend

Because I'm doing this a bit late I'm also doing a second giveaway for the next 24 hours.

• Cascade by Maryanne O'Hara 8/12
• In Need of a Good Wife by Kelly O'Connor McNees 10/12

This giveaway is now closed

Lovely Day in California

 Well.  Southern California is lovely.  Quite lovely.  The weather is delightful.  70s during the day and gets nice and cool at night.  Our hotel is completely adequate.  Anaheim itself seems to be comprised completely of Disneyland, hotels, and every single chain restaurant you can possibly think of.

Also, everyone in California is really nice.  Like, really, really nice.  We're not sure if this is because people in California are just that nice, of if it's that Disney owns everything and people are contractually obligated to be perky and happy at all times.  Let me give a few examples.

We went to breakfast.  Before we'd even sat down, we'd been enthusiastically greeted by three different people.  On our way out, three different people enthusiastically bid us goodbye and wished us a nice day.  After breakfast we rented a car and drove to the lovely Huntington Beach since the actual conference doesn't start until this evening.  As we paid for the parking, the guy asked us where we were from (apparently we clearly stand out as not from around here.  Are we radiating aggressive East Costness?) and when we said we were from Boston, he chatted a bit about his trip to Boston.  There were two cars waiting behind us.  No one honked.

While at the beach, we saw dolphins.  Seriously, two dolphins, frolicking in the water.  WHAT IS THIS PLACE?  Is it  the constant sunshine?  The close proximity to the happiest place on earth?  We're sort of disconcerted, while also being in awe.

The only thing that could make this day any better is free books.  Man, are we ever in luck!  And maybe some ice, for Anna's sunburn.

ALA Anaheim!

It's that time of year again. We're headed off to the American Library Association's Annual Conference in Anaheim. It should be awesome. Of course Jamie, Arianna, and I are all looking forward to the sessions, speakers, banquets, and ADVANCE READER COPIES!

We'll be blogging what's going on and what we're doing. You can also follow us on twitter.

But here's the fun part: we'll be running short term giveaways each day that we're at the conference. They'll last 24 hours and we'll be post what we'll be giving away at 7pm PST starting Friday. So spread the word, it should be fun.

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

In the near future, on a day like any other day, Julia, her family and the rest of the world learn that the Earth is slowing down.  It's turning more slowly every day, and the days start to lengthen.  As humanity struggles to adapt, Julia begins to see sides of people she's never seen before.

A slow, quite story, which might seem a little odd for a science/fiction dystopia book.  Julia lives very much in her own head.  She is a thinker, and is looking back at this thing that happened when she was 11, which we learn at the end of the book was ten years ago.   Julia is a philosopher.  She does a lot of wondering, and lot of watching people and thinking about why they do what they do. 

Waiting on Wednesday: Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine to spotlight an upcoming release that we're excited about. This week I'm waiting on Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson.

 Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair. . . .

Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn't believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.

Peter is unlike anyone she's ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland's inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything—her family, her future—to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she's always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.

With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it's the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who's everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.


Tiger Lily comes out July 3, 2012.

Weird Fishes by Jamaica Dyer

Dee and Sam aka Bunny Boy are two middle schoolers who live in the social outskirts. Dee has bizarre visions and Bunny Boy hasn't taken off his Halloween costume since he first wore it. They've been the other's only friend, until they have a disagreement. Suddenly Bunny Boy is going for hipster chic and trying to get the attention of Goth Girl and Dee's visions are becoming all too real.

This was super weird. As in I'm still not sure of the point of the book, or to be honest if there is a point. It's got some interesting plot lines, and things get somewhat resolved by the end... but I finished with a very strong sense of "Huh." Fortunately I didn't feel like I had wasted my time, but I was just completely thrown off by what had just happened. Discombobulated as it were. I didn't find it obnoxious that it ended abruptly, because the book was so bizarre I just figure that they'll go off into the sunset and do whatever. Kind of like they have throughout the book

Let me side-note here: I should probably point out that most of the main characters are middle schoolers, but I kept forgetting because of the attitude, drug-use, and how they looked. They are all so much cooler than I ever came close to being at 14. But then they are also a lot more messed up, so I guess it's a trade-off.

Last thing, I thought the artwork was phenomenal. Super beautiful. Jamaica Dyer has a really lovely way of creating her pictures with sketches and (I'm assuming) watercolors. They serve as a really lovely juxtaposition to each other and tell just as much of the story, if not more, than the words. I wish every page could have been in full color because I think it would have blown my mind. Jamaica Dyer is a talented lady.

So is the book for just anyone? Definitely not. I'm not going to label it as a "Great Graphic Novel for Girls" because I'm not 100% sure that it is. I thought it was lovely and engaging, but I also think I was in the perfect mood to read it. A minute earlier or later and I would not be having this review for it. So I guess I'm going to say read at your own risk.

My Boyfriend is a Monster: My Boyfriend Bites by Dan Jolley and Alitha E. Martinez

Vanessa Shingle just likes to make people the best that they can be, kind of like the army except without the training or the ability to better people's lives. So what if her last three boyfriends/projects all ended up worse off than before? If they'd listened to her they wouldn't have ended up in jail/military school/unemployed. Which brings us to her latest fixer-upper: Jean-Paul. He's gorgeous, a literal life-saver, and turns into a bat. As things get more freaky, Vanessa learns that she has a destiny to fulfill and that the scariest things in life are not a bad first date.

This is the third book in the My Boyfriend is a Monster series. Each is a standalone book that depicts a different monster: Frankenstein, zombie, ghosts, etc. Ari read the first one I Love Him to Pieces and enjoyed it. I found this to be really intolerable.

I'm going to guess that Vanessa is supposed to have somewhat of a victim mentality at the beginning of the book and then grows into this warrior woman. I thought that she was just lame. As in needs to work on herself before she works on anyone else because she has MAJOR issues, I mean who really goes out of their way to date losers? What happens if the loser boys had improved themselves? Does she then continue to date them or then dump them so that she can go 'help' someone else? Also Jean-Paul really needs to work on keeping his were-bat-hood secret a secret. And his pseudo-relationship with Vanessa completely weirded me out. It developed strangely fast and yet they didn't really spend all that much time together.

It didn't help that the artwork was not my favorite. Jean-Paul kind of reminds me of the lead singer from Metalocalypse and Vanessa's lips are distractingly puffy. They are bigger than Angelina Jolie's. Weird. But what really sank this for me was the it was a strange amalgamation of Buffy tropes and Twilight characters. Except not as well done, which is pretty sad because let's be honest Twilight is not Stoker's Dracula.

So two very different reactions to this series. I will not be reading anymore of this series, because I thought it was awful.