Lisa's Looking Forward To #31 - September 24th, 2019

Back to joining up with the Waiting on Wednesday Posts, and the Can't Wait Wednesday posts hosted by Wishful Endings.  There are a ton of books out next week that I'm excited for!

From my ARC list for September 24th, 2019:

Sounds like a great fantasy probably, and that cover is beautiful!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

IN THE KINGDOM OF AXARIA, a darkness rises.

Some call it a monster, laying waste to the villagers and their homes.
Some say it is an invulnerable demon summoned from the deepest abysses of the Immortal Realm.
Many soldiers from the royal guard are sent out to hunt it down.

Not one has ever returned.

When Asterin Faelenhart, Princess of Axaria and heir to the throne, discovers that she may hold the key to defeating the mysterious demon terrorizing her kingdom, she vows not to rest until the beast is slain. With the help of her friends and the powers she wields — though has yet to fully understand — Asterin sets out to complete a single task. The task that countless, trained soldiers have failed.

To kill it.

But as they hunt for the demon, they unearth a plot to assassinate the Princess herself instead. Asterin and her companions begin to wonder how much of their lives have been lies, especially when they realize that the center of the web of deceit might very well be themselves. With no one else to turn to, they are forced to decide just how much they are willing to sacrifice to protect the only world they have ever known.

That is, of course… if the demon doesn’t get to them first.

From young author Coco Ma comes a dazzling new tale of adventure, power, and betrayal, weaving together a stunning world of magic with a killer cast in an explosive, unforgettable debut.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE. 
 

Sounds like it could be an emotional read.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Two teens meet after tragedy and learn about love, loss, and letting go

Naima Rodriguez doesn’t want your patronizing sympathy as she grieves her father, her hero—a fallen Marine. She’ll hate you forever if you ask her to open up and remember him “as he was,” though that’s all her loving family wants her to do in order to manage her complex OCD and GAD. She’d rather everyone back the-eff off while she separates her Lucky Charms marshmallows into six, always six, Ziploc bags, while she avoids friends and people and living the life her father so desperately wanted for her.

Dew respectfully requests a little more time to process the sudden loss of his parents. It's causing an avalanche of secret anxieties, so he counts on his trusty voice recorder to convey the things he can’t otherwise say aloud. He could really use a friend to navigate a life swimming with pain and loss and all the lovely moments in between. And then he meets Naima and everything’s changed—just not in the way he, or she, expects.

Candace Ganger's Six Goodbyes We Never Said is no love story. If you ask Naima, it’s not even a like story. But it is a story about love and fear and how sometimes you need a little help to be brave enough to say goodbye.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE.

I loved the idea of The Blair Witch Project, but couldn't watch any of the movie because of the camera-work, so this sounds like my kind of story.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

In the faux-documentary style of The Blair Witch Project comes the campfire story of a missing girl, a vengeful ghost, and the girl who is determined to find her sister--at all costs.

Once a year, the path appears in the forest and Lucy Gallows beckons. Who is brave enough to find her--and who won't make it out of the woods?

It's been exactly one year since Sara's sister, Becca, disappeared, and high school life has far from settled back to normal. With her sister gone, Sara doesn't know whether her former friends no longer like her...or are scared of her, and the days of eating alone at lunch have started to blend together. When a mysterious text message invites Sara and her estranged friends to "play the game" and find local ghost legend Lucy Gallows, Sara is sure this is the only way to find Becca--before she's lost forever. And even though she's hardly spoken with them for a year, Sara finds herself deep in the darkness of the forest, her friends--and their cameras--following her down the path. Together, they will have to draw on all of their strengths to survive. The road is rarely forgiving, and no one will be the same on the other side.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE. 

Finished this and loved it, check out my review HERE.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
 
The storm of the century is about to hit Little Bridge Island, Florida—and it’s sending waves crashing through Sabrina “Bree” Beckham’s love life…

When a massive hurricane severs all power and cell service to Little Bridge Island—as well as its connection to the mainland—twenty-five-year-old Bree Beckham isn’t worried . . . at first. She’s already escaped one storm—her emotionally abusive ex—so a hurricane seems like it will be a piece of cake.

But animal-loving Bree does become alarmed when she realizes how many islanders have been cut off from their beloved pets. Now it’s up to her to save as many of Little Bridge’s cats and dogs as she can . . . but to do so, she’s going to need help—help she has no choice but to accept from her boss’s sexy nephew, Drew Hartwell, the Mermaid Café’s most notorious heartbreaker.

But when Bree starts falling for Drew, just as Little Bridge’s power is restored and her penitent ex shows up, she has to ask herself if her island fling was only a result of the stormy weather, or if it could last during clear skies too.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE. 

I like the other books I've read by this author, and this one sounds good too!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Meri Beckley lives in a world without lies. When she turns on the news, she hears only the facts. When she swipes the pages of her online textbooks, she reads only the truth. When she looks at the peaceful Chicago streets, she feels the pride everyone in the country feels about the era of unprecedented hope and prosperity over which the government presides.

But when Meri’s mother is killed, Meri suddenly has questions that no one else seems to be asking. And when she tries to uncover her mother’s state of mind in her last weeks, she finds herself drawn into a secret world full of facts she’s never heard and a history she didn’t know existed.

Suddenly, Meri is faced with a choice between accepting the “truth” she has been taught or embracing a world the government doesn’t want anyone to see—a world where words have the power to change the course of a country, and the wrong word can get Meri killed.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE. 

I've got an ARC of this one and hope to read in the next week.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Simmering in Patagonian myth, The Tenth Girl is a gothic psychological thriller with a haunting twist.

At the very southern tip of South America looms an isolated finishing school. Legend has it that the land will curse those who settle there. But for Mavi—a bold Buenos Aires native fleeing the military regime that took her mother—it offers an escape to a new life as a young teacher to Argentina’s elite girls.

Mavi tries to embrace the strangeness of the imposing house—despite warnings not to roam at night, threats from an enigmatic young man, and rumors of mysterious Others. But one of Mavi’s ten students is missing, and when students and teachers alike begin to behave as if possessed, the forces haunting this unholy cliff will no longer be ignored.

One of these spirits holds a secret that could unravel Mavi's existence. In order to survive she must solve a cosmic mystery—and then fight for her life.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE.  

This one sounds really spooky!  Plus, that cover!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Seventeen-year-old Aderyn ("Ryn") only cares about two things: her family, and her family's graveyard. And right now, both are in dire straits. Since the death of their parents, Ryn and her siblings have been scraping together a meager existence as gravediggers in the remote village of Colbren, which sits at the foot of a harsh and deadly mountain range that was once home to the fae. The problem with being a gravedigger in Colbren, though, is that the dead don't always stay dead.

The risen corpses are known as "bone houses," and legend says that they're the result of a decades-old curse. When Ellis, an apprentice mapmaker with a mysterious past, arrives in town, the bone houses attack with new ferocity. What is it that draws them near? And more importantly, how can they be stopped for good?

Together, Ellis and Ryn embark on a journey that will take them deep into the heart of the mountains, where they will have to face both the curse and the long-hidden truths about themselves.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE.

I love this author, and I have the ARC of the first book waiting to be read still, so I didn't bother to request this one.  Need to read the other first!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

The stunning finale of the epic fantasy duology from New York Times bestselling author Beth Revis.

Alchemy student turned necromancer Nedra Brysstain has made a life-changing decision to embrace the darkness--but can the boy who loves her bring her back to the light before she pays the ultimate price?

Lunar Island is trying to heal. The necromantic plague that ravaged the land has been eradicated, and Emperor Auguste, the young and charming leader of the Allyrian Empire, has a plan: rid the island of necromancy once and for all. Though Greggori "Grey" Astor wants what's best for his people, he knows that allying himself with Auguste threatens the one person he loves most: necromancer Nedra Brysstain. Feeling like he already failed to save Nedra once, Grey becomes determined to help the Emperor rebuild Lunar Island while still keeping Nedra safe from harm.

Back at the quarantine hospital, Nedra's army of revenants are growing increasingly inhuman by the day. Wracked with guilt for imprisoning their souls, Nedra vows to discover a way to free the dead while still keeping her sister by her side.

But, still reeling from the trauma of the plague, the people of Lunar Island are looking for someone to blame, and Grey can only protect Nedra for so long. And when Nedra and Grey are thrust into a battle with an even more terrifying adversary, Nedra will be pushed to the darkest depths of her necromantic powers. But can Grey let her go that far?

 Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE.

So besides how cool it is that the author of this graduated from the high school where I am a librarian now, I do need to read this sequel to her first book.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
Still reeling from her recent battle (and grounded until she graduates) Alice must cross the Veil to rescue her friends and stop the Black Knight once and for all. But the deeper she ventures into Wonderland, the more topsy-turvy everything becomes. It’s not until she’s at her wits end that she realizes—Wonderland is trying to save her.

There’s a new player on the board; a poet capable of using Nightmares to not only influence the living but raise the dead. This Poet is looking to claim the Black Queen’s power—and Alice's budding abilities—as their own.

Dreams have never been so dark in Wonderland, and if there is any hope of defeating this mystery poet’s magic, Alice must confront the worst in herself, in the people she loves, and in the very nature of fear itself.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE. 

So it takes place in Kansas City, where I live, so that's cool.  I have an ARC of this and hope to read and post a review in the next week or so!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
By day, seventeen-year-old Kiera Johnson is an honors student, a math tutor, and one of the only Black kids at Jefferson Academy. But at home, she joins hundreds of thousands of Black gamers who duel worldwide as Nubian personas in the secret multiplayer online role-playing card game, SLAY. No one knows Kiera is the game developer, not her friends, her family, not even her boyfriend, Malcolm, who believes video games are partially responsible for the "downfall of the Black man."

But when a teen in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute in the SLAY world, news of the game reaches mainstream media, and SLAY is labeled a racist, exclusionist, violent hub for thugs and criminals. Even worse, an anonymous troll infiltrates the game, threatening to sue Kiera for "anti-white discrimination."

Driven to save the only world in which she can be herself, Kiera must preserve her secret identity and harness what it means to be unapologetically Black in a world intimidated by Blackness. But can she protect her game without losing herself in the process?

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE.  



  
Final Thoughts:
Two more than last week, but several I have ARCs of already.  Have you read any of these yet?  Are they on your TBR?  And hey, while you're here, you should go try to win some of my ARCs from Cleaning Up My TBR Post HERE. The US only giveaway is open till Friday at midnight, there are even some 2019 ARCs that can be one of your two choices. 

Waiting on Wednesday: A World Without You by Beth Revis

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine where we spotlight upcoming releases that we're eagerly awaiting.  This week I've picked a standalone by an author that is another favorite of mine. Hmm, do I say that every week?  Well, since I do love authors, they are my rock stars, I guess it only makes sense.  This one sounds like a twisty story that maybe can't be quite placed as either a science fiction, or maybe it's just a drama type of story.  I guess we won't know until we read it!  Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Seventeen-year-old Bo has always had delusions that he can travel through time. When he was ten, Bo claimed to have witnessed the Titanic hit an iceberg, and at fifteen, he found himself on a Civil War battlefield, horrified by the bodies surrounding him. So when his concerned parents send him to a school for troubled youth, Bo assumes he knows the truth: that he’s actually attending Berkshire Academy, a school for kids who, like Bo, have "superpowers."

At Berkshire, Bo falls in love with Sofia, a quiet girl with a tragic past and the superpower of invisibility. Sofia helps Bo open up in a way he never has before. In turn, Bo provides comfort to Sofia, who lost her mother and two sisters at a very young age.

But even the strength of their love isn’t enough to help Sofia escape her deep depression. After she commits suicide, Bo is convinced that she's not actually dead. He believes that she's stuck somewhere in time — that he somehow left her in the past, and now it's his job to save her.

So, what do you think, it sounds like either it is really about kids with superpowers, or maybe they're actually in a school for kids who are troubled, and they are just actually troubled mentally.  I don't know, can't tell for sure. But I'm very eager to read it and find out just what is going on. And I know the author's writing will make it a fascinating read!

What book are you eagerly awaiting this week? Do you think you'll add this one to your TBR?

Waiting on Wednesday: A Tyranny of Petticoats by Multiple Authors

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine where we spotlight upcoming releases that we're eagerly awaiting.  My choice this week is a book full of stories by some of my favorite authors:  Beth Revis, Marie Lu, Andrea Cremer, Marissa Meyer, and Elizabeth Wein to name a few.  At first when I saw this, I was afraid it might be a steampunk book, but that is not all it is, although there may be some of those stories, not sure.  When I heard it was going to have both historical fiction and fantasy, I was immediately back on board and excited!  Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

From an impressive sisterhood of YA writers comes an edge-of-your-seat anthology of historical fiction and fantasy featuring a diverse array of daring heroines.Criss-cross America — on dogsleds and ships, stagecoaches and trains — from pirate ships off the coast of the Carolinas to the peace, love, and protests of 1960s Chicago. Join fifteen of today’s most talented writers of young adult literature on a thrill ride through history with American girls charting their own course. They are monsters and mediums, bodyguards and barkeeps, screenwriters and schoolteachers, heiresses and hobos. They're making their own way in often-hostile lands, using every weapon in their arsenals, facing down murderers and marriage proposals. And they all have a story to tell.


So, what do you think? Does it not sound like a bunch of awesome stories about awesome strong girls?  I just can't wait! 

Review: The Body Electric by Beth Revis

First, thanks to Netgalley and Scripturient Books for allowing  me to read an e-galley of this.  It actually got it after the book had been released, but I was very excited to see it.  I am a huge fan of the author, Beth Revis, as I loved her Across the Universe series.  And this one sounded right up my alley as well.  Another science fiction story.

The main character is Ella.  She and her mom work at a Spa type place that offers something only to the extremely rich called Reveries.  Reveries are something where they can hook into your brain and make you experience a really good memory.  It is something Ella's mom came up with, but hasn't wanted to turn it over to the government to make money. She wants to keep it as something nice to help people.  Ella's mother is also dying from a disease that is incurable.  When her mom first got sick, Ella's dad who was working on artificial intelligence, figured out a way to add nanobots that would help her stay healthy longer.  In fact, in this day and age, in part thanks to Ella's father, every person has nanobots that help to keep them from getting sick among other things like that.  Ella's father was killed in a terrorist attack though, and now it is just her and her mom, as well as the main owner of the Spa, Ms. White.  Ella is doing her internship at the spa so that she can be close to her mother. As the nanobots aren't going to keep her mom alive forever.

One day when her mom takes a bit of a turn for the worse, Ella goes for a walk.  To where her father's grave is. Although in this day and age, no one is buried anymore.  Instead they are cremated. But if you are someone rich, or important, like Ella's father, they will do something like plant a tree for them with a monument/gravestone.  And when Ella gets to her father's, she sees a young man standing there, as if he too is talking to her dad the way she plans to.  She doesn't recognized the boy, who says his name is Jack Tyler, but he seems to think they once had a past.  And he leaves her a cryptic message, that when other things besides her mother's sickness start to go wrong, she turns to that message for help.  She has been enlisted by the ruler of their country to use the reverie to try to see inside a Representative's brain.  One who they hear has been approached by a terrorist group.  And they hope Ella can get the information out of his head.

But as I said, things will go wrong.  There are androids/robots in this world, but no one has been able to figure out how to make them think for themselves yet.  Ella's father had been working on that before he died, but all his notes and work were lost in the explosion.  And as more and more goes wrong, Ella begins to wonder just who is really on her side.  Her friend who is on the moon at the military base for her internship seems to be not who she once was. This Jack Tyler may have worked with her father, and she even wonders if her father might not have been the man she thought he was.  She will have to determine if she really wants to help the government, or if the terrorists are really terrorists.

Such a great story.  The love story was okay because she didn't remember him even if he remembered her, so she was able to develop real feelings.  And there was at least one twist at the end that I wasn't expecting, so it was a great ending.  No cliffhanger, or love triangle, I highly recommend this for a great sci-fi read.  Very Isaac Asimov is what I thought as I read it.

Review: Shades of Earth (Across the Universe #3) by Beth Revis

I FINALLY picked this one up and read it.  I've actually owned a copy since I purchased it last May at the RT Convention so that I could get it autographed.  Finishing this will also get me an entry in my 2014 Prequels and Sequels Challenge, although I think I have a short story/e-novella to read to actually complete the whole thing.  Here are the links to my reviews of the first two books:  Across the Universe and A Million Suns.  Let me say, this was a great ending.  For awhile I was afraid it might end up with the same kind of disappointment as I had with Allegiant, but instead it ended up more like Into the Still Blue, a realistic, but pretty happy ending.  Obviously if you haven't read the rest of the series, and especially not book 2, you probably should stop reading at the end of this paragraph, knowing that I was very happy with this book, and will definitely recommend it, and the whole series.

So, if you remember at the end of the 2nd book, there was the really big cliffhanger.  They had been finding out that the ship probably wasn't going to last much longer, with what they had left, not to mention the explosion caused damage to the engine, which could cause other problems. And now that they knew the planet they had been traveling towards, Centauri-Earth, was right outside the ship, they had to make the decision to go.  Not everyone on the ship wanted to go to the planet, they felt safe on the ship, the only place that had ever been their home.  So Amy, Elder, about half of the people left on the ship, and all the cryogenically frozen people were in the shuttle and headed towards the planet.  From the information that Orion had left in the clues for Elder and Amy, they knew that there were "monsters" on the planet.  And on their way to land, they did hit something, and it did knock them a bit off course, but they still landed just fine.
But when they first try to leave the ship, they see one of the monsters, and Elder is even attacked by one.  Fortunately Amy is able to grab a gun and shoot it, and then get Elder back in and shut the shuttle back up to be safe.  As this is going on, the people that were frozen have been unfrozen, including Amy's parents.  But there still seems to be a divide between the frozen, or Earthborn, and Elder's people, or shipborn as they are called.  And when Amy's father, Captain Martin, is unfrozen, he finds he is now in charge because of the two that Orion had killed.  And when he takes over, he reminds Elder of Eldest, or even Orion.  And Orion's warnings were that the frozen people would make the shipborn either slaves or soldiers, and it seems as if it may be that way.  Not only that, but it seems Captain Martin may be hiding something.  While Amy's mother and the other scientists are just thrilled with all there is to see and study on the planet, it seems that maybe there was a colony of humans that landed here before them.  Not only that, the monsters may not be the only thing they have to worry about.  What happened to that first colony?  There are signs of a possible alien race, and they may be defending their own planet.

In the end it all comes down to fighting for what the original mission was, fighting against these aliens or whatever is fighting them on the planet, or finding out how they can make this new planet their own.

Again, I just loved this story, and what a great ending to the trilogy!  And below is my picture with the author on the day I got this book!

After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

This is an ARC I received last summer at BEA, and I got to meet Ellen Datlow, one of the editors!

I started reading it in February, put it in my master bathroom, for when I took bubble baths.  And then I finished the last few stories on Saturday finally.  It's not that it was bad, it just was only for reading at certain times.  Actually there were many stories I did like, and many that were okay, and a few that I didn't like.  These are stories basically told to show what happens right after the big event that causes the dystopian or apocalyptic stories that we read.  I guess it makes sense that stories by authors I'd already read and loved would be some of my favorites.  To make this a positive review, I'm going to talk about a few of my favorites in this anthology.

First is After the Cure by Carrie Ryan.  Ryan's books are zombie stories, The Forest of Hands and Teeth, The Dead Tossed Waves, The Dark and Hollow Places.  And this story takes place after they figure a cure for the zombies, so I would assume after the other books maybe?  It is the story of a girl who was cured.  She comes back and they give her father's house house, which is located outside of town.  That's a good thing, as people are still not trusting of the cured.  For example, school.  She's still about 16, so when she goes back to high school, she is put in segregated classes along with the other "cured".  We get a look into what caused it, as the main character sees on tv video footage of it as it all began.  She does have a boy named James who befriends her, he knew her before.  He's one of few that give her a chance.  All alone in her cabin in the woods, she can feel the uncured when they run around at night, and she has the strong urge to join them.  It's about her struggle with that, fitting in, and how she decides to deal with those urges and move on with her "normal" life.  I got to meet Carrie Ryan at Romantic Times Convention this past weekend!

My second favorite was The Other Elder by Beth Revis.  She is the author of the Across the Universe series.  I liked this one too as it gave us a bit of background on the Elders from the stories.  We learn even more about how they are raised, and more about what life is like for the Feeder level.  They talk about the rules the Elder must follow, and we see when one Eldest leaves, and an Elder takes his place.  This Elder sees video of what the ship was like before the Feeder level people became the way they are as we learn in the series.  When I got to meet Beth Revis at the RT Convention this past weekend, I asked her what I wondered the whole time I read this story, is the Elder in this the one in the full length novels?  And she wouldn't tell me!  Such a (wonderfully) maddening author!

The third story that really stood out to me was Faint Heart by Sarah Rees Brennan.  This was a story about a dystopian society, that in order to prevent the crime and violence, they must give the young, angry, disadvantaged men who were the cause of these things something to fight for, and eliminate the ones that didn't win.  So they had a bit of a real Survivor/minotaur and the maze task to complete.  And what did they win?  Why they would win the hand of the most beautiful woman in the kingdom, the princess.  How did they know she was the most beautiful?  Well, they created her.  All unmarried men must compete to win her hand, unless they were able to be pardoned somehow, usually the upper level men.  And so every time it was time to have a new princess, they created the exact same woman, again and again.  I loved this story, and while we don't really know who will win her, mainly because she decided to fight for herself to be free, it left you hanging, but in a good way!  I'd love the author to keep writing this one.  I also got to meet Sarah Rees Brennan at the convention, and I just fell in love with her!  Besides her Irish accent, my favorite accent in the whole world, she was just such a perky, funny person.  

The last story that I really liked and am going to talk about is Rust With Wings by Steven Gould.  I really liked one of his novels called Wildside.  This is a very sci-fi story.  We don't know exactly where they come from, no real background given.  But there are bugs that eat metal.  Any metal, and just destroy it, cars, buildings, even metal inside people's bodies, pacemakers, fillings, braces, etc.  The family is trying to escape them, and must figure a way to get away and even to hide the father who has a pacemaker I believe.  I liked this story, and would love to read more of it.  What's weird is that the bugs are staying in the southwest area of America, for some reason they don't travel outside of that area.  So again, lots of questions and things that could definitely make for a longer story.

I won't list the ones that I didn't like, I'll leave you to decide which ones you like on your own!

In My Mailbox April 21st, 2013

I will participate in In My Mailbox this week since it may be the last one for awhile that The Story Siren is hosting due to her probably having her baby soon!  I got to meet Kristi at BEA 2012 last year very briefly, and so wish her happiness with this new part in her life!  Anyway, my post probably matched the title "Stacking the Shelves" better this week, because these books didn't technically come in my mailbox.  My sister brought them back from NYC with her last weekend for me to borrow.  She had run out of things to read, and now with us living so far apart, she can't count on just coming over to my house to raid my shelves.  So a couple times I'd get a call from her while she was shopping in Barnes and Noble for some ideas of books.  I'm happy to say that she was pretty  happy with my suggestions, and that a couple of them were books I've been wanting to read, so now I get to reap the benefits and borrow her books for a change! She's also decided she needs to start shopping more at The Strand, so she can get some good deals on books, not always have to pay full price.  Anyway, I only have 3 books to share this week, so let's get on with it.

First is Holly's Inbox by Holly Denham.  I've wanted to read this for awhile since my friend Charlotte at Charlotte's Web of Books told me how funny it was.  My sister bought it based on me telling her this, and she said it was a quick but good read.

And the other book she brought for me is one I've also heard good things about, plus it is going to be coming out as a movie later this year, Austenland by Shannon Hale.  

I also found a free pdf download of As They Slip Away, an Across the Universe novella by Beth Revis.  So that was exciting!  

Only 3 books, but as I'm still way behind, and will be behind on my TBR pile forever, it's not like I'm hurting for books.  I've requested a few from Netgalley that I'm still waiting to hear back on.  And then there are some that I'm downloading and having issues getting them to show up on my Nook.  I can read them on my laptop, but I don't want to, I want them on my Nook.

Why NASA rocks!

I normally prefer not to blog more than one time a day, I feel it might be annoying to my followers, but I completely forgot about the awesome contest author Beth Revis was hosting until today.  And I only have one more day to enter!

If you've read her book series that started with Across the Universe, 2nd was A Million Suns - which had a wicked cliffhanger that I am dying to get my hands on the last book to figure it out, and that 3rd book is Shades of Earth, you know she must be a fan of space and of course so it naturally follows, NASA.

I, too, have been a huge fan of NASA, and it has been ever since I was a little girl.  I think my love of all things to do with space started with my maternal grandfather.  He was really into Astronomy and had a really nice telescope.  When we would go to his house to visit, he would talk about all that stuff, and I'm sure I hung on every word.  I still have the magazines called Odyssey that I read as a kid.  I even had a pen pal from the magazine for the longest time.  And she actually moved to my town when I was probably a teenager, I remember having a sleepover, but then her moving away again.  I think.  That was a long time ago.  I probably still have all my letters from back then too!  The movie Space Camp was out when I was in middle or high school, and I remember Bubblicious Bubble Gum had one of those contests that you had to send in the wrappers and you would be entered to win a trip to the real Space Camp.  I didn't win the trip, but in my first big contest win ever, I won some astronaut food packets!  I probably have those somewhere still too.  I'm a bit of a packrat, not only with books as I've mentioned before, but also with things that are sentimental to me.

Now as a science teacher I have an even greater respect for NASA.  The amount of resources that they provide, completely FREE of charge, for me to use in my classroom is amazing.  And when it seems that the budget keeps getting cut, not to mention how much I feel was taken away with losing the shuttle program.  As I discuss with my students when we study space, NASA and the space program has been responsible for so many things that we take for granted today.  I love having my students see how large the NASA budget is.  But then, showing them the comparison of that to the total amount of money the US spends, they are often amazed at what a small percentage NASA really gets.

Space has always been one of my favorite topics.  I am a science teacher, and love that space is part of my curriculum.  In fact, with the rest of what I teach the year, it is my favorite subject!  I love that with my Honors Class, I get to see some really creative projects with their assignments.  And it is the one time of the year that I have trouble getting through with what my plans are for the day because students have so many questions they want to ask.  And even though it may go away from the specific part of space we're talking about, they're always on topic and so interested!

Tell me, what do you think of NASA?  Of space even?  Would you be willing to go into space?  I think of writing a novel about such a story, but can't ever get myself started.  Maybe some day.  If I can just finish the other novel I have gotten the farthest on, I can make myself move on and start that one.  But for now, I'm going to just continue enjoying the wonderful stories told by Beth Revis and other awesome authors like her. And if you'd like to get in on the contest in the last few days of the month, follow this link:  The Month of NASA with Beth Revis.

And last but not least, while you're here, you can now follow me with Bloglovin.

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Why I Love YA

While it's not really so strange these days for a woman of my age to be a fan of YA books, I do still sometimes have to explain it to people when they ask what I've read that is good lately, and I really can only tell them about YA books.  As a middle school teacher, reading the same books as my students is important, just to know what is going on in their world.  Plus, when I went back to school and got my Master's Degree in Library Science, I had to start getting more involved in this age group.  I also had awesome librarians that pointed me to some great series, and got me stuck back in the YA world.  I would have to say that Twilight and Harry Potter really got me back into this age level.  Along with my involvement with the Missouri Association of School Librarians and their book awards.  I must admit that really there are so many good books in YA.  There are new, fresh story ideas.  And often they are so much better than what is available as adult books.

Another thing, since this is November, is why I am thankful for YA.  First, I love what books like the Twilight series have done for books.  Say what you will about the series if you don't like it, the number of people coming in and reading went up thanks to them.  Even the girls and older women who wouldn't normally be big readers seemed to flock to the bookstore, inhaling the series, and then asking us for similar types of reads.  I think Twilight led more people to the Sookie Stackhouse series, and probably even helped get it a show on HBO.  I'm also thankful for all the awesome people I've met because of this foray into the YA world.  Such neat authors that are so willing to talk to their fans, awesome fellow bloggers that I've met online and also at times in person.  And I think my knowledge of this type of book has really helped me with certain students.  Some of my favorite moments as a teacher have been seeing kids who fought every step of the way to get reading at school, seeing them fall in love with a book, The Lightning Thief, Twilight, The Maze Runner, etc.  

Now, if you too love YA, you need to look at the image in this post, and click the link to go visit an awesome author, Beth Revis, author of the Across the Universe series.  She is offering all the books you see in the image.  Books I would love to win to read, and share with my students at school.  So while I want to publicize her giveaway, I'm also hoping to win myself!  So go now, what are you waiting for?

A Million Suns by Beth Revis

I think it was winter of 2010 when I first saw Across the Universe by Beth Revis on a display at the bookstore where I work part time.  The cover was so great, but the title made me think it had something to do with the movie by that same title from a few years ago.  A movie I wasn't a fan of.  But then, the cover kept drawing me back, and finally I picked it up and read what it was about and was hooked.  It seems there isn't much space science fiction for teens other than Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.  And I do like that type of science fiction.  Especially the basis of the story.
You may have also noticed several posts from me lately saying that I've been disappointed, or that 2nd books in series just haven't been quite as good as the first.  In A Million Suns' case, that is sooooo not true!  This book was extremely good.  We had a mystery to solve, Orion, an Elder who went crazy and started killing the scientists and other people who were cryo-frozen, is now frozen himself, but has left a mystery for Amy.  Amy has to hide.  Now that Elder, who is now Eldest whether he likes it or not, took all the people on the ship off of the Phydus drug that kept them all calm and peaceful, they distrust Amy and think of her as a cause for all their current problems, lack of food, finding out that they haven't reached, and may not reach Centauri-Earth in their lifetime because of engine problems. 
Elder has a rebellion on his hand, in part led by one of his once best friends, Barti.  In the midst of trying to solve all the problems with this, along with trying to help Amy solve Orion's puzzle, Elder goes outside the spaceship based on one of Orion's clues, and WOW!!!!  What he finds is amazing!  I literally gasped at what he found outside the ship.  I won't spoil it for you, you need to read and be surprised just like I was.  But once again, I say this is a great sequel, doesn't disappoint at all, such a great 2nd installment to a series.  I am so ready to read the 3rd one now!  If only I could some way get the ARC of the 3rd book, that would probably make my year!  I've not read either of the two so far that way, but would love this time. 
Great, great, GREAT! book.  Go out and read A Million Suns as soon as you can!  And if you haven't read the first one, Across the Universe, yet, do that quickly.

Epic Giveaway by author Beth Revis!

You have got to go enter this contest! Not only are there a ton of prizes available, as explained in the video below, but she is donating $1 per entry (up to 1000 entries) to charity!

I'm thankful for Nancy Drew

I'm a huge fan of Beth Revis, I loved her debut novel Across the Universe. She is having this awesome contest in honor of Thanksgiving by asking fans to post about their favorite titles and the winner will receive all 19 of the signed books listed, as well as some awesome swag!
So I decided to do this, as hard as it will be to pick just one book.
One of my first choices would have been the author's first choice, the Narnia series. Like her, this was a series that I read over and over. I still have my copies of the books, and they are tattered and dog-eared, showing how much I read them and loved them. To me, a book that is loved isn't all pristine and perfectly new looking.
But I didn't want to be copying, so instead, I chose the book series that I really see as my entry into being the avid, obsessed reader that I am today. I remember one weekend, I think I was in about 3rd or 4th grade probably, we were at the JCPenney's outlet store across the Missouri-Kansas state line. We went there probably once a month looking for good deals. I remember stopping with my mom in front of a display of these yellow books. I don't remember the whole experience, but I think my dad went on with my brother while my mom and I stopped and looked. For some reason, she bought me a large number of them. I think at least 10 were bought at that time. I took them home, and devoured them. And soon bought almost all of them. I am missing a few, but still consider buying them at the bookstore I work at just to complete my set. I don't know what it is about them, but I loved stepping into the world. I loved the mystery, Nancy and her friends Bess and tomboy George. Her boyfriend Ned. It was like hanging out with friends. From this book I moved on to probably Narnia next, or maybe A Wrinkle in Time, another series I got sucked into and loved. But I am thankful that this series got me started on the path to loving reading the way I do now.