Blog Tour: Review and Giveaway - Wax by Gina Damico

About the Book:

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Title: WAX

Author: Gina Damico

Pub. Date: August 2, 2016

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Pages: 368

Formats: Hardcover, eBook

Find it: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, Goodreads  

 
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Paraffin, Vermont, is known the world over as home to the Grosholtz Candle Factory. But behind the sunny retail space bursting with overwhelming scents and homemade fudge, seventeen-year-old Poppy Palladino discovers something dark and unsettling: a back room filled with dozens of startlingly life-like wax sculptures, crafted by one very strange old lady. Poppy hightails it home, only to be shocked when one of the figures—a teenage boy who doesn’t seem to know what he is—jumps naked and screaming out of the trunk of her car. She tries to return him to the candle factory, but before she can, a fire destroys the mysterious workshop—and the old woman is nowhere to be seen.

With the help of the wax boy, who answers to the name Dud, Poppy resolves to find out who was behind the fire. But in the course of her investigation, she discovers that things in Paraffin aren’t always as they seem, that the Grosholtz Candle Factory isn’t as pure as its reputation—and that some of the townspeople she’s known her entire life may not be as human as they once were. In fact, they’re starting to look a little . . . waxy. Can Poppy and Dud extinguish the evil that's taking hold of their town before it’s too late?

My Review:

It's been a while since I've read a book by Gina Damico, but I'm happy to say that I immediately remembered why I had loved her Croak series so much.  The characters she writes are snarky and fun.  The dialogue makes me laugh out loud as I'm reading, even when I'm sitting in a crowded fast food restaurant by myself.  The idea behind the story is definitely creepy, and there are definitely those moments that would be great in a horror movie.  But the characters themselves make it more than that, make it more like the self-deprecating style of the Scream movie franchise, well the first two, which were the good ones anyway.  

I definitely identified with the main character, Poppy.  Her love of lists, and when she goes into the office store to get a new notebook?  Oh yeah, that's me.  I love new notebooks, but there is always something more about them than just liking the cover, even then I am a little picky about which ones I buy.  And the reasons don't always make sense to anyone else, but I have them.  The loving, funny family that she comes from, I love for once that a YA character can have one of those types of families.  

A fun tidbit in the story deals with the famous Madame Tussaud, whose wax creations are well-known and emulated even today.  I enjoyed the bit of history added to this aspect of the story, and am intrigued to go do some of my own research just to find out how much of that was true.  Really, the story is overall a fun romp in a small town where you have extremely quirky characters, something I'd say this author excels at from my experience with her books so far.  

 I didn't ever get around to reading her last book, but I know that it is now bumped up on my TBR list as I can't wait to get to know another set of her characters and creative worlds.  

About Gina:

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Gina Damico is the author of Croak, Scorch, and Rogue, the grim-reapers-gone-wild books of the Croak trilogy. She has also dabbled as a tour guide, transcriptionist, theater house manager, scenic artist, movie extra, office troll, retail monkey, yarn hawker and breadmonger. A native of Syracuse, New York, she now lives outside Boston with her husband, two cats, and one dog, and while she has never visited hell in person, she has spent countless waking hours at the Albany Regional Bus Terminal, which is pretty darn close. Visit her website at www.ginadami.co.

Website | Tumblr | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Goodreads  

Giveaway: 

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--> 3 winners will receive a hardcover of WAX! US Only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

--> Tour Schedule:
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Week One:
7/25/2016- Two Chicks on Books- Interview
7/26/2016- Eli to the nth- Review
7/27/2016- BookHounds YA- Guest Post
7/28/2016- Lisa Loves Literature- Review YOU ARE HERE!
7/29/2016- The Cover Contessa- Interview


Week Two:
8/1/2016- Here's to Happy Endings- Review
8/2/2016- Ohana Reads- Guest Post
8/3/2016- A Dream Within A Dream- Review
8/4/2016- YA Book Madness- Interview
8/5/2016- A Gingerly Review- Review

Review: Need by Joelle Charbonneau

First, thanks to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children's Book Group and Netgalley for allowing me to read an e-galley of this.  I got to this a little bit after it was published, as you know I've been behind on my e-galleys, although I'm hoping to get back ahead this month. I enjoyed this author's Testing trilogy, well the first two books, I haven't read the third yet.  But I felt that was a very similar story to The Hunger Games.  This story, Need, is a contemporary story that stands out all on its own.  I really enjoyed it, it was another book that just recently I've had trouble putting down because I needed to know what happened next.  It is also a staff rec for me at the bookstore where I work part time.

The story is told through several different viewpoints, all students at a high school in Wisconsin.  There is a website that has popped up, called NEED.  It is offering students an opportunity to ask for what they need if they do something that the website asks them to do.  Now I love the first thing that shows up on the website:

WANT:  A DESIRE TO POSSESS OR DO SOMETHING. A WISH.
NEED:  SOMETHING REQUIRED BECAUSE IT IS ESSENTIAL.  SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT THAT  YOU CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT.
WHAT DO YOU NEED?

To me that totally set up the story.  The first people who get in on the website only have to invite a certain number of friends to join in order to get their "need" granted.  The first requests are things like iphones, money, tickets to concerts, etc.  But one of the main characters, Kaylee, what she asks for is really a need.  Her younger brother needs a kidney or he might die.  But so far she's found no one who is a match for him.  Their father left when he got sick, and so she doesn't know if he will be a match.  She does what she is required, invites other people to join.  Soon, once everyone at the high school has been invited, the requests from the website become different.  They don't seem like anything big.  Leaving a note at someone's house. Delivering a box of cookies to someone's house and just leaving them on the porch.  Digging a hole in someone's yard and putting a doll in it like a grave.  But soon these little errands don't seem so innocent.  The girl who gets the cookies is allergic to peanuts, and there are peanuts in the cookies.  The grave dug is in Kaylee's yard, and she knows it refers to her brother.  Someone's dogs are killed. Fires are set.  Pills are exchanged that cause someone to not get the medicine they need.  People are kidnapped.  When Kaylee figures out that the website is what caused the hole to be dug in her yard, she tries to alert the police to the website. But it goes down and they can't see what has happened. 

After Kaylee begins to look bad, it comes back up, with a promise of her need not being granted if she does something like that again. See one thing I forgot to tell you, it's kinda like fight club, one of the rules is you don't talk about it.  When someone that Kaylee cares about is kidnapped, she starts to worry about figuring out who is really running this site, and getting all the craziness stopped.  Other kids on the site will play a part too.  One of them is enjoying the things he is being asked to do because he enjoys hurting people.  One enjoys it because he knows that is something he wants to do some day, and is smart enough to try to figure out exactly what is going on and work the system to his benefit.  In the end Kaylee will not only be faced with potential death, but find things out about her family and best friend that will devastate her, even while they do  explain a lot of what has happened.

And while I started suspecting who we find out is orchestrating it all at one point, the reason they are doing it is a good twist, one I didn't guess.  I really liked this book a lot better than I liked the Testing trilogy.  It is was so unique and really a great story.  I definitely recommend it!

The Shade of the Moon (The Last Survivors #4) by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Before I begin, I have to say thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Edelweiss for allowing me to read an e-galley of this book.  I had been looking forward to this book since I heard there was going to be another book in what I had called the Life As We Knew It series.  I remember reading the first book when it won the very first year of the Truman Book Award in Missouri, and really loving it!  So much that I read it with my students for a few years.  Until The Lightning Thief was a nominee, and then that book became my read along, until The Hunger Games, and so on.  And then the 2nd book in the series, The Dead and the Gone, came out, and I loved that, and even sometimes, if we had time, read that with my students as well.  It was such a great look at the story from a different point of view, as well as a different environment. When the 3rd one came out later, This World We Live In, it too had a very interesting story and pulled the different characters from the two books together.  Actually, as I've only read the 3rd one once, there were some things I didn't quite remember as I read this 4th one.  So I will probably have to go back and read through it again now.  I had some trouble reading this book, and I'll explain why after I finish telling you about the story.
So basically it's about two years or so since the last book, and four years since the meteor struck the moon, knocking it closer to the Earth, and messing life up for everyone.  Jon is living with his step-mom Lisa and younger brother Gabe, in an Enclave city, using the passes that were supposed to be for Alex, Julie, and his older brother.  But Carlos was still working as a guard, and Alex left, giving the passes to Lisa and Jon's father.  Then Julie died at  the end of the last book, (something I kind of, but didn't really remember, so need to go back and re-read).  So when Jon's dad also died, the passes were given to Lisa, Gabe, and the rest of the family chose Jon, as they always had, because he was the youngest and they figured he had the best chance to go on and do something.  Jon had always kind of been taken care of, given the most food when they were living alone as a family in their house, not made to do as much work.  And now, he still has it better than the rest of his family.  He gets to live in an Enclave.  Everyone else, his mom Laura, his sister Miranda and her husband Alex, they live in what people call a "grub" town.  It's where the "worker" people live.  Alex drives a bus for the "Clavers", as the people where Jon live are called.  Miranda works in the greenhouses, and is pregnant now.  His mom teaches at the high school for the grub kids.  In the Enclave, Lisa works finding places for the domestics, grubs who clean and cook and take care of the children in the Enclave.  They live with their families until the weekend when they get to go home for a night or two.  The kids here will go to school, then to a college type of school where they will learn the things needed to help keep the society going.  But they are treated as if they are special, and better than the grubs.  They even treat the grubs really bad.  Jon doesn't think much of it at first, it is just the way it is.  Even though the rest of his family lives in a filthy apartment, with roaches, and barely enough food to eat.  And he lives with someone that cooks and cleans for him.  A new girl moves to town, Sarah, and he is instantly interested in her.  But is told by his friends he can't be friends with her, because her father is the reason one of them's grandfather lost their job.  So he sneaks around in secret to be with her.  From Sarah, Jon learns to begin to question more the whole Claver vs. Grub issues.  Things hit a head when at a soccer game that Jon is playing in the grub town where his family lives, a student dies on the field.  And then a riot breaks out, and soon the guards are killing grubs that get in the way.  Things get really bad, to where his family soon begins fearing for their lives, and it is a justified fear.  They decide to get out of town.  To a town that Jon's older brother Matt knows of where it is different, where everyone is treated equally, and works together to help the town and people.  But along the way there are many obstacles, and trying to overcome them, Jon finally comes to terms with what kind of a person he wants to be.
Now, writing a review of this is hard.  The first half of the book being told by Jon, well, it is really hard to like him.  While from what I remember of him mostly from the first book, he was just the annoying younger brother, and so while he might have been irritating, I didn't like or dislike him.  But in this book, you can see just how spoiled he has been, and how he really needs something to bring him back to reality.  And I even posted on Goodreads at the halfway point that something needed to happen in the 2nd half to make me like both Jon, and really kind of the book.  The romance between Jon and Sarah was a bit rushed I think.  I know that in times like they're living, maybe romance does move quicker, but we weren't really given what we needed in the writing to maybe see it.  This book, unlike the others in the series that were more apocalyptic type stories, is similar to a dystopian story.  You've got your new society with the rules to help get life back to normal, but there are good and bad things about it.  And if you are in the good part, the clavers, then you like it, and you feel that the grubs wouldn't have anything if it wasn't for the clavers, so you think this is just the best way.  So maybe that is why I struggled with it as well.  I was so used to the more survival type of story from the first books.  And also part of my issue may have been from how long it has been since I read the 3rd one.  The end of the story really ties it up well, and gets more back to what I expected from these stories.  So, I'm glad that I didn't give up halfway through, because the ending really saved it for me.  You'll need to read it yourself and decide what you think, but I think that if you've read the rest of the series, you can either just stop, and not go on, or you can also read this, and get further with the characters.  I feel it could also be open to another book.  I don't know if it is something that would happen. But it is definitely left open in my opinion.  Oh yeah, one final thing.  I wondered why Jon was playing soccer instead of baseball like he had in the first book.  It's not really explained, it's just that all the teams play soccer.  Jon still talks about liking baseball, so that isn't completely gone.  And probably soccer makes a more dramatic sport to play than baseball, so that is why it was chosen for the story.