Purity by Jackson Pearce

Shelby made her mother three promises before she died: listen to her father, love as much as possible and to live without restraint.  Shelby has lived by the Promises for years, but now she's run in to trouble.  Her father wants her to help with and participate in the Princess Ball, a father-daughter dance that includes a vow to live a pure life - no drinking, no drugs, and no sex before marriage.  Shelby doesn't want to make the vow, but she can't go against Promise 1.  Shelby decides the only solution is to have sex before the ball, thereby negating the vow.  She's in a race against time to lose her virginity.

So this was...predictable.  Yes, that's how I would sum up this book.  Super predicable.  By the time I was on page 20 it was plenty clear exactly where this book was going and what was going to have happened by the end.

Shelby has two close friends, Ruby, her fun-loving adventurous crazy friend and Jonas, her organized, serious, male friend.  Together they help Shelby live life to the fullest by jumping of bridges and so forth.  Shelby has practically no relationship with her father.  They are awkward and uncomfortable together, and never have any kind of conversation.

Spoilers.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

Mindy Kaling, of The Office fame, writes a series of essays on things such as karaoke etiquette, the day she stopped eating cupcakes, and franchises she'd like to reboot.

This was lots of fun.  I had several, genuine, laugh-out-loud moments, and chuckled through the rest of it.  I didn't find everything funny, but I would totally recommend it to someone with a, "This is really cute.  Take it to read on your airplane trip or to the beach.  You'll get a good laugh."

I think Mindy Kaling is totally someone I'd want to hang out with.  However, we would not be able to talk about comedy.  She finds people like Will Ferrelle and Sarah Silverman to be geniuses.  I cannot even watch them.  Then she'd get mad at me because she does not like to be criticized and then we'd be in a fight.

Mindy (I've decided we're not on a first name bases) writes about all sorts of things, but basically she takes us through her life, with some detours.  She writes about her happy, normal childhood with her parents.  She writes about college.  She writes about moving to New York and being unemployed.  She interrupts herself from the main story line to talk about how the term "hooking up" is confusing and wonders why men put their shoes on so slowly.

She mentions her weight a lot.  At one point she mentions that she's a size 8, but from the way she'd been talking about herself before you'd have thought she weighed 500 pounds.  I understand that in the Hollywood world, a size 8 probably might as well be 500 pounds, but I got tired or hearing her talk about weight and diets and so on.  That's really my only complaint though.

That and her terrible taste in comedians.  A fun read.

The Future of School Libraries

This week there's been a bit of back and forth between two respected individuals in the school library field.  Linda W. Braun, a project management and consulting coordinator for LEO, a library consulting firm, as well as an adjunct professor at Simmons (who taught the school library technology class I took, it was excellent) and Buff Hamilton, The Unquiet Library who is a school librarian in Canton, Georgia. 

Linda wrote an article for School Library Journal called, “Next Year’s Model: Sarah Ludwig left the library, became a tech coordinator, and forged a path to the future”which talks about the work Sarah is doing in her new role as academic technology coordinator and how in many cases it's similar to the work librarians do.  Buffy Hamilton took issue with this and wrote a response "Do I Really Have to Leave the Role of School Librarian to Do the Work of a School Librarians?" which questions the idea that one has to leave the role of librarian to do the work of a librarian.

I found both articles interesting and agreed with points both Linda and Buffy made.  I agree with Buffy that one does not have to lose the title "librarian" to do much of the work that Sarah is doing in her school.  However, I do agree, as Linda points out, that much of the work Sarah is doing could be the future of school librarianship. 

There's a lot of discussion in the comment section Buffy's article, as well as on Twitter (@lbraun200, @buffyjhamilton).  Both articles are definitely worth a read.

Waiting on Wednesday: Dark Frost

"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 Dark Frost by Jennifer Estep.

 I’ve seen so many freaky things since I started attending Mythos Academy last fall. I know I’m supposed to be a fearless warrior, but most of the time, I feel like I’m just waiting for the next Bad, Bad Thing to happen. Like someone trying to kill me—again.

Everyone at Mythos Academy knows me as Gwen Frost, the Gypsy girl who uses her psychometry magic to find lost objects—and who just may be dating Logan Quinn, the hottest guy in school. But I’m also the girl the Reapers of Chaos want dead in the worst way. The Reapers are the baddest of the bad, the people who murdered my mom. So why do they have it in for me?

It turns out my mom hid a powerful artifact called the Helheim Dagger before she died. Now, the Reapers will do anything to get it back. They think I know where the dagger is hidden, but this is one thing I can’t use my magic to find. All I do know is that the Reapers are coming for me—and I’m in for the fight of my life. (Summary by Good Reads)

I've been remiss, and haven't reviewed the first two books in this series. I have to say that I LOVED them. Super funny and action-y, Gwen is an incredible protagonist and this isn't a typical boarding school supernatural romance series. I can't wait for it to come out.

Dark Frost is the third in the Mythos Academy series, it comes out May 29th.

News

The Fault in Our Stars has already been picked up to be a movie.  From Deadline.com

Okay for Now wins SLJ Battle of the Kids Books. 

Amusing Hunger Games PSAs.  From College Humor.

The Hunger Games is inspiring kids to take archery.  From Jezebel.

Awww!  I want someone to ask me out in a cleverly literary way!  From Mandee the Dreamer

We can expect to see lots more YA books turned in to movies with the success of The Hunger Games.  From LA Times.

So apparently Margaret Wise Brown doesn't really like children.  That's why she wanted them to go to sleep.  From Salon.

Damn!  I should have waited for the Wonder Woman Chuck Taylors!  From The Beat

Cool!  Womanthology will be an ongoing series.  From The Beat.

Women in Comics on Pinterest by Heidi MacDonald.

Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls by Mary Downing Hahn

It's the last day of school in 1956, and Nora and her friends are looking forward to summer.  Then the unthinkable happens.  In Nora's quite little suburban town where nothing ever happens, two girls have been shot and killed.  In the park.  In daylight.  And they were girls Nora knew.  The entire town breaks apart and the blame falls on one of the girls' ex-boyfriend, who swears he's innocent.

This was really heavy.  It's based on a true event that Mary Downing Hahn lived through in June of 1955.  While Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls is fictional, it pulls heavily from Hahn's own memories of that time, which she has never forgotten.  She talks a bit about the actual event at the end of the book and how she wanted to write about it for a long time.

The evening before the shooting there was a party and all the high school kids are together having a great time.  The next day two girls, Cheryl and Bobbi Jo, have been shot and killed in the park.  Cheryl's ex-boyfriend Buddy is accused of the crime.  Everyone in town is sure he did it.  Nora is not so sure, however.  It difficult for her to voice this though, because everyone else is so certain.

Giveaway: Purity by Jackson Pearce

A fabulous giveaway for you, our fabulous readers!

Before her mother died, Shelby promised three things: to listen to her father, to love as much as possible, and to live without restraint. Those Promises become harder to keep when Shelby's father joins the planning committee for the Princess Ball, an annual dance that ends with a ceremonial vow to live pure lives -- in other words, no "bad behavior," no breaking the rules, and definitely no sex.

Torn between Promises One and Three, Shelby makes a decision -- to exploit a loophole and lose her virginity before taking the vow. But somewhere between failed hookup attempts and helping her dad plan the ball, Shelby starts to understand what her mother really meant, what her father really needs, and who really has the right to her purity.

Purity comes out April 24, 2012.

Giveaway ends April 9th. 

This giveaway is now closed.