L-L-L-Little Reviews - Two Way Overdue ARCs

Both of these ARCs are titles that were published in 2018, one June, one September.  They're different kinds of stories, but I thought I'd go ahead and post my reviews of these two together for a little different post this time.  The first is a YA book, the second is an adult romantic contemporary. 

Rabbit and Robot by Andrew Smith:

Genre:  YA science fiction
Release Date: September 25th, 2018
Source:  ARC received and autographed during ALA Annual Convention 2018 which did not influence my opinion
My rating:  5 stars

I realize I've only actually read one other book by Andrew Smith, something I need to rectify, although I guess I did try to read The Alex Crow, and couldn't get into it.  But I loved the first book I read by him, Grasshopper Jungle, and I would say this book reminds me a lot of that one.  The wacky out there science fiction story of a world where everyone is basically controlled by a corporation combined with the angst of teen boys and girls and those unsure exactly of their sexual orientation or at least undergoing gender reassignment makes for a roller coaster of a read.  And not only that, but Smith gets you laughing out loud at so many things, unless it is just that I have the sense of humor of an adolescent still.  There was one character in particular, Parker, that always had me giggling like a middle school boy.  When I read stories like this, with all the craziness and out there bits, I just wonder how in the world does someone's brain work in those ways.  And then I remember that Andrew Smith, the author, is a teacher, so he sees the kind of things that you really can't make up every day at his job.  Highly recommend this one!

And I have to share my picture of meeting the author this past summer!

  
Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
Cager has been transported to the Tennessee, a giant lunar-cruise ship orbiting the moon that his dad owns, by Billy and Rowan to help him shake his Woz addiction. Meanwhile, Earth, in the midst of thirty simultaneous wars, burns to ash beneath them. And as the robots on board become increasingly insane and cannibalistic, and the Earth becomes a toxic wasteland, the boys have to wonder if they’ll be stranded alone in space forever.


The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang:

Genre:  Adult contemporary romance
Series:  The Kiss Quotient #1
Release Date: June 5th, 2018
Source:  ARC received from publisher which did not influence my opinion
My rating:  4 stars

Everybody loved this book. And the synopsis totally made me think I might enjoy it as well.   While it did start out interesting, but different from what I expected, I got stalled out about 40% of the way through the book.  Partly because I had books to read at the time for tours and other things, but it just wasn't keeping my interest.  So I set it down at the beginning of July last year, and didn't pick it up again till this past February.  What happened to get me to pick it back up had nothing to do really with how much everyone else seemed to love it on every other blog.  I found this past fall that one of the other employees at my bookstore was also a huge romance reader like I am, and when I told her I had a copy of this, she asked about borrowing it.  I knew I wouldn't get to it, so I let her.  Unlike me, she devoured it much quicker.  She did tell me though, that the part I had stalled at was right before it really picked up and took off for her.  So, I made it a goal for this year to pick it back up and finish.  And I'm so glad I did!  I read more things that made so much sense to me.  The more I read about people, adults specifically, with mild autism, the more I wonder if maybe I have a mild case, but in my day, that wasn't really ever diagnosed like it is today.  In the end, this was a good book, and I have the ARC of the sequel that I need to read soon as well!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
A heartwarming and refreshing debut novel that proves one thing: there's not enough data in the world to predict what will make your heart tick.

Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases--a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old.

It doesn't help that Stella has Asperger's and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice--with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can't afford to turn down Stella's offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan--from foreplay to more-than-missionary position...

Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses, but crave all of the other things he's making her feel. Their no-nonsense partnership starts making a strange kind of sense. And the pattern that emerges will convince Stella that love is the best kind of logic...
 

Release Blitz: The Downside of Love (The Blue Line Duet #2) by Meghan Quinn

     

This isn’t a story about a love triangle. There is no triangle involved. 

This isn’t a story about an accidental pregnancy. Although having a baby with her . . . I would. 

This isn’t a story about lies and deception, even though at times I’ve lied to myself. 

No, this is my story. 

A story about sacrifice. 

A story about a man who fell in love with the wrong girl. 

A story I wish I never had to tell. 

This is a story about the true meaning of the downside of love.  

AVAILABLE NOW

GOODREADS: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40193307-the-downside-of-love

AMAZON | Amazon UK | Amazon CA | Amazon AU

    

 

Start with book 1:

        

Tucked away at the base of the Rocky Mountains lived a little boy with one singular dream: leave this broken and battered home and become someone. 

Be somebody’s hero. 

That boy was me—Colby Brooks. Except I’m not that same little boy anymore. 

My dreams might still be the same, but my reality isn’t. 

 I’m smarter. Stronger. A man. 

And I learned a long damn time ago, the only way to achieve my dreams was to avoid distractions—at any cost. 

Focus. Resolve. Determination. 

But all it took was one single night. One night and my entire life…changed. 

 One night had me colliding head first with the biggest distraction of my life; Rory Oaks. 

Smart. Charming. Beautiful. 

Rory changed everything. 

Quickly, my one-track mind started to bend. 

Each kiss faded decade-long dreams. 

And with one single incident, I fly off course. 

GOODREADS: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40193273-the-upside-of-falling   

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon CA | Amazon AU   

                    

Born in New York and raised in Southern California, Meghan has grown into a sassy, peanut butter eating, blonde haired swearing, animal hoarding lady. She is known to bust out and dance if “It’s Raining Men” starts beating through the air and heaven forbid you get a margarita in her, protect your legs because they may be humped. 

Once she started commuting for an hour and twenty minutes every day to work for three years, she began to have conversations play in her head, real life, deep male voices and dainty lady coos kind of conversations. Perturbed and confused, she decided to either see a therapist about the hot and steamy voices running through her head or start writing them down. She decided to go with the cheaper option and started writing… enter her first novel, Caught Looking. 

Now you can find the spicy, most definitely on the border of lunacy, kind of crazy lady residing in Colorado with the love of her life and her five, furry four legged children, hiking a trail or hiding behind shelves at grocery stores, wondering what kind of lube the nervous stranger will bring home to his wife. Oh and she loves a good boob squeeze!  

Facebook | Follow on Goodreads | Website | Amazon Author Page | Instagram | Follow on BookBub  

  

Blog Tour: Review with Giveaway - The Nowhere Girls by Amy Reed

Book info:

Title:  The Nowhere Girls  
Author:  Amy Reed
Genre:  YA Contemporary
Publisher:  Simon Pulse
Release Date:  October 10th, 2017
Source:  E-galley received from publisher for honest review


Synopsis:
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Three misfits come together to avenge the rape of a fellow classmate and in the process trigger a change in the misogynist culture at their high school transforming the lives of everyone around them in this searing and timely story.

Who are the Nowhere Girls?

They’re every girl. But they start with just three:

Grace Salter is the new girl in town, whose family was run out of their former community after her southern Baptist preacher mom turned into a radical liberal after falling off a horse and bumping her head.

Rosina Suarez is the queer punk girl in a conservative Mexican immigrant family, who dreams of a life playing music instead of babysitting her gaggle of cousins and waitressing at her uncle’s restaurant.

Erin Delillo is obsessed with two things: marine biology and Star Trek: The Next Generation, but they aren’t enough to distract her from her suspicion that she may in fact be an android.

When Grace learns that Lucy Moynihan, the former occupant of her new home, was run out of town for having accused the popular guys at school of gang rape, she’s incensed that Lucy never had justice. For their own personal reasons, Rosina and Erin feel equally deeply about Lucy’s tragedy, so they form an anonymous group of girls at Prescott High to resist the sexist culture at their school, which includes boycotting sex of any kind with the male students.

Told in alternating perspectives, this groundbreaking novel is an indictment of rape culture and explores with bold honesty the deepest questions about teen girls and sexuality.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28096541-the-nowhere-girls

Buy Links:
Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Book Depository

Kobo

iBooks

IndieBound

My Review:
My review:  4 stars

I tend to gravitate toward these types of stories because of my own similar past experiences.  This book definitely held up and made me feel all the things that this type of story should.  Some people may call that a trigger, and in fact, for one of the characters who had also had a similar experience did get "triggered" by the talk and experiences of other girls in the story.  But what I really liked about this was how there were so many different characters.  I like how they could come together in some ways, but I also felt it was very realistic in that there are some people who either cannot get over their own feelings and opinions to see the other side, or who may begin to understand, until something little happens that causes them to feel foolish, and they strike out in their own hurt or embarrassment.  In that way, this did not end up becoming one of those really sappy perfect endings, where everyone holds hands and becomes best friends.  

Other realistic parts of the story, besides what the girls went through, and how they dealt with each other, was the fact that authority figures aren't always going to do what should really be done.  They will often do what is expected of them, or what they think needs to be done based on their own personal experiences.  Such as the principal in the story.  A woman, yet a woman who let the pressures put on her by the men in charge, cause her to not be what she should have been.  Part of it again was the whole small town mentality. But even then, I don't want to say that all small towns are like that.  

I will admit that at first I had a bit of trouble getting into the story.  There were so many different characters, not just the three major ones, Erin, Grace, and Rosina, but every so often there was a chapter where you would get the thoughts or happenings from other girls' points of view.  Some of the girls we got their names, and then got to see them later on as the Nowhere Girls began to come together, others we didn't get their  names, but their stories fit in, and made you see just how life really is.  Just how the environment is in the world today.  But where I mentioned that not all small towns are that way?  And how not all the girls really sided as they should have, not all the guys are bad.  In fact one of them that we get to know, Otis.  I really, really liked him.  And even though I said that all the different characters were part of making it hard to start, by the end, I loved how the Nowhere Girls included all different types.  

Again, based on my own personal experiences, there were parts that as I felt my own connection to what was happening, it was depressing to realize how true it was.  But in the end, bringing all of it out, the girls realizing how important it was to support each other, and not feed into judging each other, that is where I'd like to see the world go.  

Definitely a book I'll want to order to put in my school library to make available for my students.


About the Author:

Amy Reed was born and raised in and around Seattle, where she attended a total of eight schools by the time she was eighteen. Constant moving taught her to be restless and being an only child made her imagination do funny things. After a brief stint at Reed College (no relation), she moved to San Francisco and spent the next several years serving coffee and getting into trouble. She eventually graduated from film school, promptly decided she wanted nothing to do with filmmaking, returned to her original and impractical love of writing, and earned her MFA from New College of California. Her short work has been published in journals such as Kitchen Sink, Contrary, and Fiction. Amy currently lives in Oakland with her husband and two cats, and has accepted that Northern California has replaced the Pacific Northwest as her home. She is no longer restless. Find out more at amyreedfiction.com.

BEAUTIFUL is her first novel.

Website:  http://www.amyreedfiction.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2871046.Amy_Reed

Twitter: https://twitter.com/amyreedfiction

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amy.reed.14   

Tour Schedule:

 

• 1 copy of THE NOWHERE GIRLS (US ONLY)

   
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Review: Summer on the Short Bus by Bethany Crandell

This is another book that I was lucky to get from a publisher's booth at BEA, in fact it was the same one, Running Press Teens.  Again I saw it sitting on the counter, and had seen it around the blogosphere, so asked if there was any chance I could have a copy of it.  And they happily obliged me.  And as I just finished it, and loved it, I'm so glad I spoke up and asked for it!

Now, the reviews I've seen on Goodreads are almost all either love it or hate it. And while I can kind of see the haters' side, I just don't understand why they couldn't get past their issues and love it.  But hey, as I say all the time, it is a good thing there are so many books out there, because there are so many different people with different tastes and issues.  Maybe it is my experience as a classroom teacher, and knowing the truth about how kids will act that helped me be able to see past the things people complained about.  I don't know.  Although one of those bad reviews did strike a tiny chord with me, and I'll mention that at the end of my review.

The main character is Cricket Montgomery.  And basically Cricket is a spoiled brat.  A rich girl who is in trouble with her father, and now gets sent to work at a summer camp for special needs kids, instead of getting to go to Hawaii with her best friend as planned.  She gets there and is immediately repulsed by the woman in charge, Rainbow.  Not to mention there is something weird about how this woman seems to know things about her that only someone in her real life would know.  Then she meets the other counselors.  And they all seem pretty nice, although the other female, who will be her bunkmate, is a little rude with her at first.  And then there is Quinn, the co-counselor that looks like a movie star.  Zac Efron to be exact.  (Which I'm totally down with that hottie!)  At first she seems to only be able to talk to Quinn.  She is freaked out that she has two of the campers that are basically paired with her.  Meredith, who is in a wheelchair, and Claire, who I believe has Down's Syndrome.  She's never really been around kids like that, and you can tell from the way she acts, and even talks about them.  But she tries not to be that way around the kids, or the other counselors.  Especially Quinn who she is trying to impress.  But one day when she goes to the top of a nearby tower to try to get cell phone signal, she is overheard saying some rude things, and must deal with that.  Of course the longer she is there, the more she gets to know and like the kids, and even becomes a better person herself.

One thing that people complained about is that the author mentions this novel is in no way politically correct.  And it isn't.  Sadly, it was definitely realistic.  While it did use the words we are not supposed to use when talking about these types of kids, they are the words that kids do use, every day.  Like it or not, it's reality.  And one post said that Cricket only changed to prove it to the boy she was in love with.  I didn't feel that way.  Yeah, she definitely wanted him to see that she wasn't the way he thought, but I didn't get the feeling that was all it was at the end.  She really had grown to like her campers. 

I have to say again that I just LOVED this!  It had me smiling at the really sarcastic bits.  I was really disappointed in some things, but still was glad to see how things changed for Cricket.  Oh yeah, one other complaint was about overweight people being picked on.  I can see the point the reviewer was making, and as an overweight person myself at the moment, I would feel bad.  Except, once again, it's reality.  Nice, or not nice, it is real.  And there was one line about being a lesbian that I'm not sure would be appropriate in this day and age of PC, but AGAIN, this book is real.  Really, really, really, real.  That's how kids are, those are the things they say and do.  Maybe one day we'll all be perfect humans and not pick on people or use words that hurt people's feelings.  I doubt it, but it's a nice dream.  For now, I'm going to continue to enjoy books that I find realistic, and that make me laugh. 

Review: Viral Nation by Shaunta Grimes

I won this book during the Debut Authors blog hop from Sandy at Magical Manuscripts.  I finally got around to it this past month.  This is a very interesting dystopian story.  And one of the big selling points is that it has an autistic main character.  I also like that it uses a service dog that she has to help her with dealing with things that normally overwhelm or upset an autistic person.  It was neat to be reading about it as the local news was running a story about service dogs and autism.

The main character is Clover.  She lives in a world that has been devastated by a virus.  It was sweeping through the population when Clover was born.  Fortunately the Company found a vaccine, in the future.  But now they control everything.  The whole country is split up into walled cities to protect the citizens.  Inside the walls they get their vaccines every day.  And their allowed to get the food and other supplies they need based on a lottery type system.  One that even includes a bit of gambling to try to increase the worth of the wages they get.  Clover's mother died when she was a baby, her father killed her to try to save her from the virus, all this before the vaccine became available.  When it did, his whole family was saved.  But then he went and worked for the executioners, the people who kill those that information from the future shows they will commit a crime.  In that part it reminds me of Minority Report.  Since he's away, has to stay in the military/Company barracks, Clover and her brother West are watched over by a neighbor.  One who now is getting elderly, and West and Clover kind of look after her as well.  When West finished school, he went to work on the Farms. But what he hopes to do, now that Clover is almost done with school, and should be accepted into the Waverly-Stead Academy where she'll stay in a dorm, he hopes to go work for the Company.  But all of that becomes a lost cause when Clover is refused admittance to the Academy, supposedly because of her service dog.

It seems handy that the person in charge of the school just happens to have a letter recommending her for a job at the Company.  Working with the Time Mariners, the team that travels to the future.  She finds out on one of her missions that her brother's name is going to come up as a killer.  And when she gets back, she goes to try to figure out how to save West.  In doing this, they end up contacting one of the men who started the Company, the man who first went to the future and found the vaccine.  And they find allies in other kids that came from the Foster City.  They soon realize that they must be a part of the rebellion, to find out just what the vaccine actually does, and what the Company really wants from the people like Clover that seem to be hired often for the Time Mariners.

A different type of dystopian in a way, but still has a lot of the same details and storylines.  The time travel methodology is an interesting one.  Especially that they can only travel exactly 2 years into the future at any time.  And even with what we do learn, there is still much more to know, due to a surprising death or two at the end of the book, and some plot twists.  I'll keep my eyes out for the 2nd one to find out more.  And I'll be donating my copy to the high school library where I work in order to get the kids interested as well!

While you're here, don't forget to go enter my 1900 follower giveaway for up to $19 worth of books from the book depository or an Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC for that amount.  It ends tomorrow at midnight!

Ashen Winter (Ashfall #2) by Mike Mullin

I finally got around to reading this!  Not that I didn't want to, just the size of it I think kept me from picking it up when I had sooooooo many other books to read.  Not that I don't still have a ton, I just decided with our late March snow last weekend that a book like this was the right way to go.  Once I picked it up, it was a quick read, well as quick as I could get through an over 500 page book while teaching every day this week! Not to mention it seemed I had something to do every night this week and I didn't have a lot of nights that I was just sitting around reading.  Until last night, when I finished the last 100-150 pages.  Once I started it I really just wanted to sit and read and find out what happened next, and then after that, and then next, and how would it all end?  And it was another good book.
Okay, so if you read the first book, Ashfall, you know that there was a supervolcano explosion, in Yellowstone National Park.  From that explosion there were major changes.  It threw dust and ashes up into the air, and basically created winter.  It got colder as the sun was blocked out, plants began to die as they had no sunlight and the ash just cover them.  Our main character in this book is again Alex.  He and his new girlfriend Darla, although after all they've been through she is more than just a "girlfriend", found their way at the end of the first book to his uncle's house, where his parents and younger sister were supposed to be.  Only once they got there, they found his parents were gone, they had left to try to find him.  For awhile they stayed and worked on the farm.  The farm did okay because they were able to grow kale, which was good because kale had a lot of vitamin C, which many people need in this time of ashen winter.  In fact the seeds are so valuable, they can use them as money for things that need.  Help from a doctor, information, etc.
The farm gets attacked, and Alex recognizes one of the guns as one that was owned by his father.  So he and Darla follow after these men, called flensers, to find out where they got the gun.  Flensers, a disgusting new group of people, many different groups actually, that eat people.  They are cannibals.  They find out that the gun was traded to this group from a FEMA camp.  Well Alex and Darla remember what it was like to be in one of those camps.  Alex insists on going to find his parents.  He takes many packets of kale seeds.  They also remembered from crossing the river before that there had been a whole barge of wheat grains.  So they, Alex anyway, decides to try to go by there first to get some of the wheat so that they can plant that as well as the kale.  Unfortunately when they reach the barge it is now swarming with the military.  Alex insists that they try to get some wheat from the guard shack.  But the heist goes wrong, and Darla gets shot when they're on a bridge, and she falls off the bridge onto the top of a truck.  And now, Alex must find Darla too.
So he is now looking for not only his parents, but Darla too.  And when or if he finds his parents, will they want to help him find Darla?  Along the way he meets a girl named Alyssa and her autistic brother Ben, and rescues them from one of the Flenser groups.  But will they be able to fit in and  help Alex as well?

Such a good book.  You're on pins and needles all the way.  It's a great apocalyptic survival story, reminded me in some places of The Walking Dead in how much you got involved with the characters.  The author does such a great job with Alex's Tae Kwan Do skills.  And his portrayal of Ben, the autistic character is right on from my experience of the few autistic students I've had in the past.  You can see the way they do have their quirks, and you even smile at points where you can feel Alex's exasperation, but also Alex's learning patience with Ben, and even coming to be able to be a part of Ben's life.  I do love how Ben calls Alyssa his "sister unit".  A great read.  Lots of action, great characters, and even some sadness and heartbreak.  But now, I have to wait until 2014 to read the third book.  *Sad Face*  On a kind of interesting note, the first book in the series was the first e-galley I ever read from Netgalley.  I got an ARC of this one at BEA 2012.
Oh yeah, and I have to include my picture with the author from BEA last summer.  He is such a neat guy!  And you can tell how much he appreciates teachers from just talking to him, and mentioning that I was a teacher got him talking to me for quite a while!