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July 2014: Review Recap!

Review Recap

Although I started several amazing books, I only actually finished 2 novels throughout the entire month of July. I am a bit horrified at this. Considering I average 2.5 novels per week, 2 per month is just pathetic. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever read so little in a month, even when I was going through my Masters program. I blame 1) starting a new business with my husband and 2) a Wii game called Fortune Street that I’ve been playing with my mom several times a week. I certainly can’t blame the amount of excellent books in my TBR!

 However, all is not lost! If you caught my Book Review Conundrum post, you’re aware that I have over a dozen books that still need to be reviewed, so at least this month’s review posting wasn’t as sad as my reading habits.

Book Reviews:

Crashed by Robin Wasserman – 3/5 stars

Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi – 3.5/5 stars

Prophecy by Elizabeth Haydon – 3.5/5 stars

Cinder by Marissa Meyer – 4/5 stars

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson – 4/5 stars

The Jewel by Amy Ewing – 4.5/5 stars

And my favorite:

The fiery heart

The Fiery Heart – 5/5 stars!

 Top Ten Tuesday Features:

Niki’s Top Ten Blogging Confessions

 Top Ten Movies and TV Shows

Top Ten Series I’d Take With Me on a Deserted Island

Top Ten Authors I Own the Most Books From

Waiting on Wednesday Features:

 Escape Reality Book Club:

August’s Selection:

How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier

How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier

That sums up my month! How was yours?

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Escape Reality Book Club – August’s Selection!

Escape reality book club

Hosted by your’s truly and Charlotte at Apathy and Rhetoric

Your votes have been counted and the results are in! The voting was incredibly close this month – in fact, there was a tie. In the event of a tie, it seems reasonable that the nominator (in this case, Charlotte) make the final decision on which book we read.

August 2014′s official book club book is:

How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier

How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier

Title: How to Ditch Your Fairy

Author: Justine Larbalestier

Welcome to New Avalon, where everyone has a personal fairy. Though invisible to the naked eye, a personal fairy, like a specialized good luck charm, is vital to success. And in the case of the students at New Avalon Sports High, it might just determine whether you make the team, pass a class, or find that perfect outfit.

For 14-year-old Charlie, having a Parking Fairy is worse than having nothing at all—especially when the school bully carts her around like his own personal parking pass. Enter: The Plan. At first, teaming up with arch-enemy Fiorenza (who has an All-The-Boys-Like-You Fairy) seems like a great idea. But when Charlie unexpectedly gets her heart’s desire, it isn’t at all what she thought it would be like, and she’ll have resort to extraordinary measures to ditch her fairy. The question is: will Charlie herself survive the fairy ditching experiment? From the author of the acclaimed Magic or Madness trilogy, this is a delightful story of fairies, friendships, and figuring out how to make your own magic.

So what happens now?

If you missed the Escaped Reality Book Club launch post, click here for more details.

Otherwise, you are all invited to join in the fun!

We will be reading How to Ditch Your Fairy throughout the rest of August and geeking out about it on our official Facebook page, followed by a meeting at Menchies Frozen Yogurt for those of you in the Southern Utah area.

This blog reaches a global audience, so not everybody will be able to make it to the meetings. Because of that, if you read the book and want to be included in the discussions, I would love to host a Facebook conversation for anybody who shows interest (just send me a message through our Facebook group, or leave a comment).

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Stacking the Shelves – July 2014 Edition!

Stacking the shelves

Hosted by Tinga’s Reviews

Stacking the Shelves is probably my favorite book blogger feature. I absolutely love looking at all of the great books other readers bring home and equally love sharing my own haul! Here’s a look at the books that stacked my shelves this month:

Hardcopies:

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 This month I surprised myself by sticking to my Read 4, Buy 1 challenge. I’m excited about all of these books, but of course, Silver Shadows is going to get top priority!

Ebooks:

Yeah, totally an eclectic ebook category this month…

Library:

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 Even though I want to read these, I sadly won’t get around to all of them. I don’t know what it is about libraries, but I find myself requesting things constantly that I don’t have time for just because I know I want to read them eventually. Less effective.

Audio:

 Even though I read constantly, there’s something nice about being able to devour a book while focusing on something else. I listen to them on walks, while doing dishes, while cross stitching, and even as I fall asleep. Audiobooks rule.

ARCs:

 I have been clamoring for copies of these for months – so excited!!

 What books stacked your shelves this month? :-)

by Niki Hawkes

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Book Review: Crashed by Robin Wasserman

CrashedTitle: Crashed

Author: Robin Wasserman

Series: Cold Awakening #2

Genre: Teen Fantasy

Rating: 3/5 stars

The Overview: Before the accident, Lia Kahn was happy.Before the accident, Lia Kahn was loved. Before, Lia was a lot of things: Normal. Alive.

Human.

Lia no longer believes in before. Six months after the crash that killed her, six months after being reborn, Lia has finally accepted her new reality. She is a machine, a mech, and she belongs with her own kind. It’s a wild, carefree life, without rules and without fear. Because there’s nothing to fear when you have nothing left to lose. But when a voice from her past cries out for revenge, everything changes. Lia is forced to choose between her old life and her new one. Between humans and mechs. Between sacrificing the girl she used to be and saving the boy she used to love. Even if it means he’ll hate her forever.

Crashed 2

The Review:

Because I’ve owned the beautiful little hardcovers of this series for several years now, I decided it was finally time to read them. Well, I guess you can say it was finally time to read them again, as this was my second time through the first novel, Skinned. While I enjoyed Skinned immensely more this time around, it still left me feeling depressed. I decided that if I was going to tackle the series again, Crashed better offer some sort of silver lining, or else I may never make it to the third and final book. You see, awful heart-wrenching things happen to Lia in the first book (some of which she brought on herself), and there really weren’t any positives to the story. Don’t get me wrong, it was written beautifully and parts of it were absolutely genius. Even so, I was still left without that tiny ray of hope and feared the negative aspects were going to be the only aspects of the series. While Crashed was equally evoking, it managed to give me what Skinned had not: balance.

Now that Lia has finally come to terms with her situation (well… mostly), it allowed the focus to shift to the broader conflicts of the story. It also provided an opportunity to get to know the secondary characters a bit more, and they were AWESOME. If I’m honest, I’m probably more excited to see where their decisions take them moving forward than the main character herself. That’s not to say the protagonist is a weak character, I just found others more relatable.

It’s one thing to have written great characters, but Wasserman really knew how to use them. Personalities clash, epiphanies take place, true motives are revealed, and all of it was evident through the brilliant dialogue. Thought-provoking, drawn-out arguments took place between the characters and they were always so engaging that I found myself riled enough to want to join in. Even if the rest of the book was total crap (it wasn’t), the dialogue alone would have been enough to keep me reading on – it was superb!

There are so many strengths to this series that I wish I could recommend it to everyone. The trouble is, the plot is downright depressing – focusing on all of the dregs life has to offer – that I just can’t justify putting it up for recommendation. If you decide to try it anyway, be warned that Wasserman will rip your heart out, but she’ll do it in the most beautiful, profound way possible. If you need me, I’ll be over here steeling myself for the final novel.

Other books you might like:

by Niki Hawkes

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Top Ten Authors I Own the Most Books From!

top ten tuesday

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

My apologies for posting this TTT so late – it took a surprising amount of time and effort to round up all of these amazing titles. Before you view the photos, you need to know that I am a book hoarder. If you don’t believe me, this slideshow presentation should alleviate any doubt. I tried to keep the focus on the authors I’ve actually read the most books from, not just collected. I think my collection of Mercedes Lackey, Terry Brooks, and Anne McCaffrey books might surpass a couple of these here, but I haven’t had a chance to read them all yet… #booknerdproblems 

Top Ten Authors I Own the Most Books From!

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I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into my library. :)

by Niki Hawkes

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Escape Reality Book Club – August 2014 Nominations!

Escape reality book club

Hosted by The Obsessive Bookseller

The Escape Reality Book Club is monthly feature where members take turns nominating the Young Adult titles they most want to read. We started it because we love geeking out about books, and knew a lot of other people who liked to too. This is a very low-pressure book club where anybody is invited to join. All you have to do is click here to be directed to our official Facebook page and asked to join the group. We host meetings here in Southern Utah, but all of you out-of-towners are invited to participate in a facebook book club meeting (which I will host if anyone shows interest).

August’s Nominations (via Charlotte):

unwind 2

Unwind

Connor, Risa, and Lev are running for their lives. The Second Civil War was fought over reproductive rights. The chilling resolution: Life is inviolable from the moment of conception until age thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, parents can have their child “unwound,” whereby all of the child’s organs are transplanted into different donors, so life doesn’t technically end. Connor is too difficult for his parents to control. Risa, a ward of the state is not enough to be kept alive. And Lev is a tithe, a child conceived and raised to be unwound. Together, they may have a chance to escape and to survive.

I'd tell you I love you 2

I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have To Kill You

Cammie Morgan is a student at the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women, a fairly typical all-girls school-that is, if every school taught advanced martial arts in PE and the latest in chemical warfare in science, and students received extra credit for breaking CIA codes in computer class. The Gallagher Academy might claim to be a school for geniuses but it’s really a school for spies. Even though Cammie is fluent in fourteen languages and capable of killing a man in seven different ways, she has no idea what to do when she meets an ordinary boy who thinks she’s an ordinary girl. Sure, she can tap his phone, hack into his computer, or track him through town with the skill of a real “pavement artist”-but can she maneuver a relationship with someone who can never know the truth about her? Cammie Morgan may be an elite spy-in-training, but in her sophomore year, she’s on her most dangerous mission-falling in love.

how to ditch your fairy 2

How to Ditch Your Fairy

Welcome to New Avalon, where everyone has a personal fairy. Though invisible to the naked eye, a personal fairy, like a specialized good luck charm, is vital to success. And in the case of the students at New Avalon Sports High, it might just determine whether you make the team, pass a class, or find that perfect outfit.

For 14-year-old Charlie, having a Parking Fairy is worse than having nothing at all—especially when the school bully carts her around like his own personal parking pass. Enter: The Plan. At first, teaming up with arch-enemy Fiorenza (who has an All-The-Boys-Like-You Fairy) seems like a great idea. But when Charlie unexpectedly gets her heart’s desire, it isn’t at all what she thought it would be like, and she’ll have resort to extraordinary measures to ditch her fairy. The question is: will Charlie herself survive the fairy ditching experiment? From the author of the acclaimed Magic or Madness trilogy, this is a delightful story of fairies, friendships, and figuring out how to make your own magic.

slammed 2

Slammed

Following the unexpected death of her father, 18-year-old Layken is forced to be the rock for both her mother and younger brother. Outwardly, she appears resilient and tenacious, but inwardly, she’s losing hope. Enter Will Cooper: The attractive, 21-year-old new neighbor with an intriguing passion for slam poetry and a unique sense of humor. Within days of their introduction, Will and Layken form an intense emotional connection, leaving Layken with a renewed sense of hope.

Not long after an intense, heart-stopping first date, they are slammed to the core when a shocking revelation forces their new relationship to a sudden halt. Daily interactions become impossibly painful as they struggle to find a balance between the feelings that pull them together, and the secret that keeps them apart.

night of the howling dogs 2

Night of the Howling Dogs

DYLAN’S SCOUT TROOP goes camping in Halape, a remote spot below the volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii. The only thing wrong with the weekend on a beautiful, peaceful beach is Louie, a tough older boy. Louie and Dylan just can’t get along. That night an earthquake rocks the camp, and then a wave rushes in, sweeping everyone and everything before it. Dylan and Louie must team up on a dangerous rescue mission. The next hours are an amazing story of survival and the true meaning of leadership.

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Bloodlines

Sydney is an alchemist, one of a group of humans who dabble in magic and serve to bridge the worlds of human and vampires. They protect vampire secrets – and human lives. When Sydney is torn from her bed in the middle of the night, at first she thinks she’s still being punished for her complicated alliance with dhampir Rose Hathaway. But what unfolds is far worse. Jill Dragomir – the sister of Moroi Queen Lissa Dragomir – is in mortal danger, and the Moroi must send her into hiding. To avoid a civil war, Sydney is called upon to act as Jill’s guardian and protector, posing as her roommate in the last place anyone would think to look for vampire royalty – a human boarding school in Palm Springs, California. But instead of finding safety at Amberwood Prep, Sydney discovers the drama is only just beginning…

Which book would you like to read?

 Voting has closed. Check back next month for more fun! :)