We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Buy the book:

Amazon / Barnes & Noble / The Book Depository

Author's:

Website / Twitter / Tumblr / Goodreads

Published May 13th, 2014

My rating: 5 stars

Book summary:

"A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth."

      Everyone needs to read We Were Liars. I usually end my reviews with "who should read this book" part, but I'll skip everything and tell you on the beginning that you do not want to miss this gem. My first E. Lockhart novel was unforgettable experience. I just hope that I won't be disappointed with her older books because I plan to read them all. 

     Four kids, complicated family and island. Did you read Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta? If your answer is yes, continue reading. If your answer is no, find the book and read it. Were you one of those readers who read all spoilers and ended up feeling left out of this whole hype surrounding the book? If you are, here is what you need to do --- We Were Liars by E. Lockhart should be read:

• In one sitting under your favorite blanket.
• Turn off your phone, go offline.
• Do not read reviews or comments.
• Do not ask people what they thought about it before you read it.
• Tell your boyfriend, husband, kids, friends and  siblings to leave you alone. 
• You might need coffee, tea or hot chocolate. Preferably, all three.
• Make sure you have some paper and pen at hand, you'll need it. 
• If you read it during workdays, take the next day off - you'll need some alone time after you finish it. 

      Lyrical writing is becoming my favorite. I always avoided novels in verse or too lyrical prose because it was hard for me to get into the story, but lately I feel drawn to that type of writing. This book is definitely one of those I plan to re-read many times. I hope you will like it as much as I did.

 Happy reading,

***Copy of the book provided by publisher, Delacorte Press, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.***

*Book read during Bout of Books read-a-thon.*

Sunday Post (#7)

Hello all. Well, as some of you know Sundays are always reserved for Sunday Post which is a meme created by lovely Kim @Caffeinated Book Reviews!

Good morning everyone. It's time for another Sunday update. Sadly, our country was hit by the biggest floods in history, a disaster happened in many parts of the country. Both my and Glass' city were in dramatic situations and many other cities were in much bigger danger. Situation is calming down today, but damages are too big. Or that's what we thought before all the hell broke loose again. The north-east of the country was in major danger and thousands left their homes. The worst is that there are victims too. Good thing in all this is that people were united everyone helped. Let's hope that once water goes back people's homes will be safe.

Due to these events we weren't able to be active on the blog that much, but thank you all who commented and all who worried about us. You're great friends. 

Now onto happenings on the blog for the past and next week. 

• NetGalley Wellness Challenge 2014 - Are You In or Out?
• All Lined Up by Cora Carmack (release day launch)
• Waiting on Wednesday (#95)
• Assured Destruction by Michael F. Stewart (review)
• Script Kiddie by Michael F. Stewart (blog tour)
• What I Though Was True by Huntley Fitzpatrick (review)

• We Were  Liars by E. Lockhart (review)
• Whisper To Me by Christina Lee (review)
• Waiting on Wednesday (#96)
• Played by Liz Fichera (ARC review)
• The Lost by Sarah Beth Durst (ARC review)
• Take Me On by Katie McGarry (joined ARC review)

Tanja's haul 

Thank you: NetGalley, Algonquin Books, St. Martin's Press and Candace Blog Tours

Until the next time, 

What I Thought Was True by Huntley Fitzpatrick

Buy the book: Amazon / B&N / TBD
Author's: Website / Twitter / Facebook

My rating: 3 stars

Book summary:

"From the author of My Life Next Door comes a swoony summertime romance full of expectation and regret, humor and hard questions.
Gwen Castle's Biggest Mistake Ever, Cassidy Somers, is slumming it as a yard boy on her Nantucket-esque island this summer. He's a rich kid from across the bridge in Stony Bay, and she hails from a family of fishermen and housecleaners who keep the island's summer people happy. Gwen worries a life of cleaning houses will be her fate too, but just when it looks like she'll never escape her past—or the island—Gwen's dad gives her some shocking advice. Sparks fly and secret histories unspool as Gwen spends a gorgeous, restless summer struggling to resolve what she thought was true—about the place she lives, the people she loves, and even herself—with what really is."

      Two years ago one of the biggest young adult  contemporary surprises for me was Huntley Fitzpatrick's debut novel, My Life Next Door. I was so amazed with this story that I tried to make all my friends read it, I raved and raved and raved about it. No one should be surprised that her new novel, What I Thought Was True, was on the top of my 2014 wishlist. Unfortunately, tale about Gwen and Cass was nowhere near awesomeness of Samantha and Jase. 

     Last week you could read Tanja's review for this book (if you missed it, you can find it here) and I have to agree with almost everything she wrote. It was not a bad book, but I expected much more. The best part of the story was humor - I laughed so hard at some parts, especially all scenes with old Mrs. Ellington and steamy romances. Setting is beautiful - island and sea, summer and sand. 
       I had really hard time relating to characters, Gwen for the most part. I think that my main issue was with how the story was narrated, because in the first half of the book you get partial snippets to the previous events and non of those make her look "good". It's like she is begging you to hate her. Second half of the book - after everything that happen during school year is revealed, is much better and story picks up. 

      What I Thought Was True could be described as a novel with the identity crisis - it is labeled as young adult novel, but there are a lot of things that make it feel more like new adult. That is probably one of the reasons for all mixed feelings in reviews I read around blogosphere. In one moment it's like you are reading Sarah Dessen or Summer series by Jenny Han and then suddenly you have a feeling as if you picked up a novel by J. Lynn, Jessica Sorensen, J.A. Redmerski or Fisher Amelie. 

      I maybe didn't like Huntley Fitzpatrick's second book as much as I did first, but I am still a big fan of her writing and I can not wait to see what will she write next.

Happy reading,

Blog Tour: Assured Destruction by Michael F. Stewart

Hello all. Today it's my turn to host Assured Destruction tour and in my post you'll find my review for the second book in series, Script Kiddie, and also you'll have a chance to enter the giveaway! But first a bit about the whole series. 

Buy the book at 

Amazon / Barnes & Noble 

Book summary: 

Teenage hacker, Janus Rose, doesn’t care about the moral choices of living multiple lives online, until the real life consequences of her actions enslave her to the local PD’s High Tech Crime Unit, forcing her to become the very creature hackers hate, a spook.
 Jan owes the world nothing. Her father left without a word. #BIGSECRET Her mother has progressive Multiple Sclerosis. And Jan juggles the need to complete homework with the need to keep pizza on the table, running the family computer recycling business. Living in an industrial park with crappy Feng Shui, Jan’s pretty sure that the only one she can depend on is herself. Maybe. And yet, just because she knows how to code, people seem to think they can depend on her to save their butts and solve their crimes. Jan does take short cuts. She skirts the shadows of what’s right and wrong. But she has to; if she’s not multitasking then she fails out of school, or the family loses the business, or someone dies ...
 It’s a brave new world. Welcome to ASSURED DESTRUCTION.

All books in the series 

Review for Script Kiddie

            Like you could see from my review, which was posted yesterday, Assured Destruction is a series very appealing to me. Being in the world of coding and hacking is a true experience and while I did have some issues with Jan in the first book, Script Kiddie changed some things.

           After being pulled through hell and back Jan still feels consequences of everything that happened in Assured Destruction. She now has to balance her work for the police with school, business and helping her mother, which turns out to be impossible. As Jan is someone who doesn't give up and fights even when battle seems to be over she puts all her strength into discovering the crime and with all that helping one of her friends. With new hacking world opened to her she is on the role.

          I said in my review yesterday that while I admired Jan's abilities as hacker still outside that world she never was that close to me. Gladly, that changed in this book as Jan is more involved in the world around her and now she is able to do good things with her knowledge. I felt closer to her as she felt more human and I was happy to discover some things about her. Another thing is that this book was such a fast read without drags and unnecessary moments, which made my reading much faster. Still there are moments when I felt like too much things are happening at once, but it's good thing that author knew how to wrap-up this story.

         All in all, everything in this series is improving, from characters, writing to the emotional part (which still is not perfect, but much better than in the first book). I cannot wait to see how things end up in With Zombies!

Rating: 4 stars. 

About the author

After crewing ships in the Antarctic and the Baltic Sea and some fun in venture capital, Michael anchored himself (happily) to a marriage and a boatload of kids. Now he injects his adventurous spirit into his writing with brief respites for research into the jungles of Sumatra and Guatemala, the ruins of Egypt and Tik’al, paddling the Zambezi and diving whatever cave or ocean reef will have him. He is a member of the International Thriller Writers and SF Canada, and the author of the Assured Destruction series, 24 Bones, The Sand Dragon, Hurakan, Ruination and several award winning graphic novels for young adults. His most recent project, The Terminals, has been optioned for television by Sudden Storm Entertainment.

Michael lives in Ottawa, Canada with his wife and four daughters. He tries very hard to keep life an adventure both on and off the page. Please come find me on Goodreads.

Author's 

Website / Facebook / Twitter 

Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Until the next time, 

Assured Destruction by Michael F. Stewart

Buy the book at

Amazon

Author's

Website / Facebook / Twitter

Book summary: 

You can learn a lot about someone looking through their hard drive...
Sixteen-year-old Jan Rose knows that nothing is ever truly deleted. At least, not from the hard drives she scours to create the online identities she calls the Shadownet.
Hobby? Art form? Sad, pathetic plea to garner friendship, even virtually? Sure, Jan is guilty on all counts. Maybe she’s even addicted to it. It’s an exploration. Everyone has something to hide. The Shadownet’s hard drives are Jan’s secrets. They're stolen from her family’s computer recycling business Assured Destruction. If the police found out, Jan’s family would lose its livelihood. 
When the real people behind Shadownet’s hard drives endure vicious cyber attacks, Jan realizes she is responsible. She doesn’t know who is targeting these people or why but as her life collapses Jan must use all her tech savvy to bring the perpetrators to justice before she becomes the next victim.

          Here is the thing. We all have some dream personalities we want to be and professions or things we want to learn so when you think about that one of mine is actually hacking. I have no idea why but I always wanted to learn that. I generally am good with technology and all that but hacking is a world I'd love to discover. So Assured Destruction always appealed to me and it was high time to get to it.

           Like I said Jan is someone whose abilities I wish to have. She is one with computer, networking and programming and I admired her easiness while coding and creating new characters. Even though her addiction was sometimes hard to understand still with her mother's disability and everything she has to deal with it was a place where she could be herself. Despite her skills soon she realizes that this world is much bigger and cruel and that virtual and real world often don't have boundaries.

          Jan is a character who I liked while seeing her in front of computer as I could understand her then, only problem for me is when outside of virtual world I couldn't connect with her. There were many gaps in her life which disabled me of understanding her views and attitude towards others. Also too many gaps in her feelings so I never knew which guy is she thinking of and this kind of love triangle didn't help me with it.

         But all in all, it was an interesting world to be in for a while and I will be seeing Jan soon again.

Rating: 3 stars.

*If you check back tomorrow, you'll have a chance to see my review for the second book in this series, Script Kiddie! 

Until the next time,

Waiting on Wednesday (#95)

You know the story. This is a meme created by Breaking the Spine and every week we pick books we're waiting for. Here are our picks for this week.

Glass' pick

Daren Ackwood is a bad boy with a mysterious past-He's the kind of guy who knows he can get any girl he wants. Kayla doesn't do bad boys-in any sense of the word. They have a tendency to leave scars and dust trails in their wake, and Kayla isn't running short on either. So when Daren rolls up to her father's funeral in his shiny sports car, Kayla knows she needs to keep her distance during her brief stay in this tiny God-forsaken town. She's here to take care of her father's will, nothing more. The trouble is, Daren doesn't see it that way. And he usually gets his way.

Expected publication: June 3rd, 2014

Tanja's pick

Meda Melange has officially hung up her monstrous mantle and planted her feet firmly on the holy and righteous path of a Crusader-in-training. Or, at least, she’s willing to give it a shot. It helps that the Crusaders are the only thing standing between her and the demon hordes who want her dead.

The problem is, the only people less convinced than Meda of her new-found role as Good Girl are the very Crusaders she’s trying to join. So when a devilishly handsome half-demon boy offers escape, how’s a girl supposed to say “no?”

After all, everyone knows a good girl’s greatest weakness is a bad boy.

Expected publication: August 5th, 2014

We'd love to see your picks so feel free to link them in comments!

Until the next time,

(Release Day Launch) All Lined Up by Cora Carmack

We are thrilled that Cora Carmack's highly anticipated ALL LINED UP is finally here!! ALL LINED UP is a New Adult contemporary romance novel being published by HarperCollins’ William Morrow Impulse imprint and is a part of Cora Carmack’s Rusk University Series!!

ALL LINED UP Synopsis:  

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Cora Carmack follows up her trio of hits—Losing It, Faking It, and Finding It—with this thrilling first novel in an explosive series bursting with the Texas flavor, edge, and steamy romance of Friday Night Lights. In Texas, two things are cherished above all else—football and gossip. My life has always been ruled by both. Dallas Cole loathes football. That's what happens when you spend your whole childhood coming in second to a sport. College is her time to step out of the bleachers, and put the playing field (and the players) in her past. But life doesn't always go as planned. As if going to the same college as her football star ex wasn’t bad enough, her father, a Texas high school coaching phenom, has decided to make the jump to college ball… as the new head coach at Rusk University. Dallas finds herself in the shadows of her father and football all over again. Carson McClain is determined to go from second-string quarterback to the starting line-up. He needs the scholarship and the future that football provides. But when a beautiful redhead literally falls into his life, his focus is more than tested. It's obliterated. Dallas doesn't know Carson is on the team. Carson doesn't know that Dallas is his new coach's daughter. And neither of them know how to walk away from the attraction they feel.

  Amazon Barnes and Noble    

Excerpt:

There’s only one thing in the world I despise more than football, and he’s making his way down the stairs toward me. My eyes flit around me like I’m scanning a battlefield instead of a blowout:fraternity banners, litter of red Solo cups, and a freshman pledge dragging around a trash bag playing reluctant maid. Part of me wants to keep doing that, to pretend like I didn’t hear him. But I can’t. If I ignore him, it will only prove to him that he still bothers me. I face him as he steps off the last stair, crossing his arms over his broad chest and grinning at me. Levi. My ex. He leans his hip against the banister of the grand staircase, and I spy not one but two girls sitting halfway up the stairs, obviously upset that they’ve lost his attention. Behind me I hear someone shout, “Ready. Aim. Fire!” and I know the beer guns are back in play. “Alcohol and bad decisions, Levi? Can’t say I’m surprised to find you smack-dab in the middle of that.” He kicks off from the banister, swaggering a few steps closer. His dark hair and eyes are as striking as always. I’d fallen for him so hard my freshman year of high school: doodling our names together in my spiral, watching him play from the bleachers, wearing that monstrous mum he gave me for homecoming, beaming on his elbow at his junior prom. The memory of all that just makes me nauseated now. But as Stella always says, hindsight is a pretentious, know-it-all bitch. “You come here to make some bad decisions?” He moves closer, his voice pitching lower. Intimate. His gaze drifts down my body with an arrogant familiarity. “Because you know I can help you with that.” Levi Abrams has been the cause of enough bad decisions for a lifetime. Stella steps in, her voice colder than I’ve ever heard it. “I’m fairly certain she’d rather sandpaper her own skin off.” I nod and plaster on the fakest smile in my arsenal. “And then take a bath in lemon juice.” Levi smiles back, and I’m pretty sure the bastard is enjoying this. He’s bigger than when I last saw him. Bulked up. I guess that’s the difference between high school and college ball. But it’s not just muscles… he reaches out a hand like he’s going to touch my hair, and as I jerk back, even his hands seem bigger than I remember. A man’s hands, rather than those of the boy I knew. Or maybe his head got so big that his inflated ego overflowed to other parts of his body. Also a possibility. I knew Levi was here when I chose Rusk University—hard not to when he’s the starting quarterback—but I didn’t think I’d ever have to see him. Since Dad wouldn’t let me leave Texas, and only a handful of universities here actually have a true dance major, Rusk was the best option out of the schools to which I was allowed to apply. Levi lets his hand fall away and turns to leave, but then stops to say over his shoulder, “You don’t have to pretend to hate me so much, you know. I’m here. You’re here. We could start fresh, D.” Why does no one get that it’s impossible to have a fresh start when nothing has really changed? God, I knew that better than anybody because no matter how many new coaching jobs Dad took, every school ended up the same. Levi is still a douche-bag who only cares about himself. Dad still approaches parenting like I’m a member of his team. And I… I’m still stuck. In my father’s shadow. In Texas. In this lame state school with a joke of a dance program. And now I’m stuck at my first frat party with the ex who broke my heart. Yay college. 

 

  
Cora Carmack Bio: Cora Carmack is a twenty-something writer who likes to write about twenty-something characters. She's done a multitude of things in her life-- boring jobs (like working retail), Fun jobs (like working in a theatre), stressful jobs (like teaching), and dream jobs (like writing). She enjoys placing her characters in the most awkward situations possible, and then trying to help them get a boyfriend out of it. Awkward people need love, too. Her first book, LOSING IT, is a New York Times and USA Today bestseller.        

Website ** Twitter ** Facebook ** Author Goodreads ** Novel Goodreads

GIVEAWAY:

There is a Rafflecopter giveaway for a $25 gift cards to the book retailer of the winner’s choice! There will be 3 individual winners-US only. Go on link below to enter.

All Lined Up Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

NetGalley Wellness Challenge 2014 - Are You In Or Out?

      Last year NetGalley had its first Wellness Challenge and whole thing provoked a lot of different opinions - some members applauded to the idea while others questioned meaning of "NetGalley Wellness" and implications about "healthy reader". 

      I didn't participate in 2013 Challenge, and I have to admit that I was and still am among those who are not convinced into motives of such a challenge, but there is no doubt that some things posted on Recipes for Success were quite helpful, especially all information about what you, as a blogger and reviewer, should post on your NetGalley biography and reading about publisher's thoughts about writing reviews.

      This year I decided to be less doubtful and sign Netgalley Wellness Challenge 2014 pledge  -it doesn't  hurt that there will be " a $100 gift certificate to the book retailer of your choice to 5 random members".

Let's discuss!

      NetGalley decided to focus on "book talking" skills -  creating a buzz and spreading a word about upcoming releases among reading community. And submitting reviews, of course. Well, is it me or all this looks like trying to make readers do marketing and promotion? You can write a reviews as long as they are creating positive buzz that will result in people buying books? Does this mean that if I submit reviews regularly, but they are mostly negative that publishers will start to decline my requests?

      I have no delusions about why authors and publishers are mostly using NetGalley and other similar websites - give ARCs to bloggers and reviewers and you get the best promotion. Readers are happy that they got early copies of books they want to read. They don't look for anything else in exchange. Just free, advanced copies of books. Yey! (If that's not case with you, I'd love to hear your thoughts.) And then all those bloggers and Goodreads users do this other thing - great thing for publishers and authors -  

we brag with our book haul. 

Waiting on Wednesday, Stacking the Shelves, Sunday Post, In my Mailbox... Sometimes we don't even get to read all ARCs we get, but only mentioning titles in weekly meme posts creates a buzz. I remember all the times I saw same book on dozen WOW posts. And later on Sunday Posts. Of course I want to see what the big deal is about.

What will I do/read?

      I have a ton review copies I need to read, but I'll focus on few titles that I really am interested into. I'll try to read them all and submit my reviews, but as always I plan to be honest. If I end up hating some of them, I will tell you that. Loudly. My Twitter feed will probably be main media for all observations and thoughts about reviewing and "buzzing", so if you don't follow me, do it now. (Please!)

Did you sign Netgalley Wellness Challenge pledge? Love or hate challenges? Do you manage to read and review all books you request? 

Share!

Sunday Post (#6)

Hello all. Well, as some of you know Sundays are always reserved for Sunday Post which is a meme created by lovely Kim @Caffeinated Book Reviews!

Another quite busy week for both of us. We both had some family visits and weather was lovely so we didn't have time to read a lot. Hopefully we'll fix that next week. We have also joined NetGalley challenge this year and soon we'll post more. 

Other news on the blog - we've got the winner of our blogoversary giveaway and it's actually Kim. Yap, the same one :) She picked a book and it's on its way to her. Hopefully it'll arrive soon. Now, let's move onto our plans for the next week.

• Arms of Anu by Christina Mercer (review)
• Melt by Selene Castrovilla (cover reveal)
• What I Thought Was True by Huntley Fitzpatrick (review)
• Waiting On Wednesday (#94)
• Push by Claire Wallis (ARC Review)
• Curse of Granville Fortune by Kelly Hashway (cover reveal)
• Life by Committee by Corey Ann Haydu (ARC Review)

• NetGalley Wellness Challenge 2014 - Are You In or Out?
• All Lined Up by Cora Carmack (release day launch)
• Waiting on Wednesday (#95)
• Assured Destruction by Michael F. Stewart (review)
• Script Kiddie by Michael F. Stewart (blog tour)
• What I Though Was True by Huntley Fitzpatrick (review)

Glass' haul 

Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira (bought)

Requiem by Lauren Oliver (from the library)

Thank you: Herlequin, Intermix and Simon Pulse

Tanja's haul 

Thank you Herlequin 

Until the next time, 

Bout of Books 10 - Glass Is So In!

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 12th and runs through Sunday, May 18th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 10 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

      I wasn't even thinking about this until I saw all #boutofbooks pictures on Instagram. I did what any other normal "too curious for their own good" person would do - I googled it. My reaction - let's do this.
I have so many books on my TBR pile that I don't even know where to start, but for my first read-a-thon I decided to clean out ARC shelf.

 My goals?

Take Me On by Katie McGarry

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Played by Liz Fichera

Whisper To Me by Christina Lee

***

Twitter chats (at least one) 

      I really hope that there will be no surprises next week and that I'll manage to read all books. You can follow my progress on Twitter and Instagram - I'll post my updates frequently - an of course in this post. I will add what I did at the end of every day.

      If you are participating, please don't be shy - send me tweets and comment on my pictures on Instagram. I'll be stalking you all next week *insert evil laugh* .

Good luck, everyone, and remember - have fun!

Love,