Feature & Follow Friday (#14)

If you're new to Feature & Follow Friday, the lovely Rachel @ Parajunkee's View and Alison @ Alison Can Read host this weekly meme so bloggers can hop around and meet new bloggers. The rules are easy. Answer a question each week and follow the featured blogger(s)!

Q: Christmas in July! Someone gives you a gift card for two books (whatever that costs). What two books will you buy? 

 I love this question! 

I'd buy Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson since it's been getting such rave reviews! I want to be won over by someone that's not Wendy and hear Tink's perspective. I'm trying to wait until it comes out in paperback, but I don't think I can!

I'd also pre-order Every Day by David Levithan, which comes out Aug. 28th. It's not technically cheating if you have an Amazon gift card! If you haven't heard of it, a boy named A wakes up every morning in a different person's body without control of who it is. One day, he wakes up in Justin's body and falls in love with his girlfriend. Obviously, he wants to try to stay in the body for more than one day. What a premise! 

So curious to see what you'd pick up and learn about some new books:) 

If you're a new or old follower, don't forget to stop by my 400 Follower Giveaway for a chance at some signed books!

Review: This Is Not A Test

Stats:
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Date of Release: June 19, 2012
Page Count: 322
Unique elements: No chapter numbers (time goes on forever in a zombie apocalypse)
Would appeal to: Anyone who is turned off by zombie novels, it was that good!

Favorite Quotes:

"The way she says it, the way she's beside him--I want to be between them. I want to be in the direct path of their togetherness so I can steal some of the feeling for myself."

"When this is over, society will need entertainment to get past it. We'll make movies about it, hundreds of movies, and in every one of them, we'll be the heroes and the love interests and best friends and winners and we'll watch theses movies until we are so far removed from our own history, we'll forget how it really felt to be here."

"Cary pulls Trace away from the window but Trace is made of the kind of energy people with hope have."

"They also don't tell you about how you can share your deepest secrets with someone, kiss them, and the next hour it's like there's nothing between you because not everything can mean something all the time or you'd be crushed under the weight of it."

"Time has a way of shifting funnily in situations like these. There is not enough of it or there is too much of it and it's always one when you need the other."

I'm trying something new with reviews so they're a little quicker to read. Hopefully no one will miss the Goodreads summaries!

Why you have to read this:
Hate zombies? That's okay. This has dead people walking around trying to munch on anything living, but it's about so much more. It's about survival and how people act in life or death situations.  I mean, with the impending zombie apocalypse that everyone is freaking out about, it could seriously (not really) happen-- 6 teens trapped in their high school who get in fights and need human touch and haunted by the people loved ones left behind. There's whiskey and Never Have I Ever and a gun. There's jealousy and the locking up of boys and a mysterious voice on the radio. Just the faintest touch of Lord of the Flies...there's always a power struggle when a group is trapped together without a leader. But I didn't like LOTF, and I loved this book.

It's evokes gritty, raw emotion. I gasped out loud. I cussed at least once at something I didn't see coming. I felt overwhelming sadness for different types of losses. You've got to admire an author not afraid to explore death because that's what's real.

I read this so fast because it flows so well your eyes flit across the page. The writing is so convincingly teenager that I got lost in the words and became invested in everyone, from Sloane, who tells the story, to Cary, who's done awful things in his past. At points, Sloane's sentences are stream of consciousness, and it's so natural that I recall myself thinking, I would think the exact same things.  I couldn't put it down and would have liked to devour it in one sitting without interruptions.

Trace. He's mean and stubborn and bossy. He will do anything for his sister Grace. I thought the rhyming names would be annoying, but it served to showcase their closeness. Even though he was a jerk and bully to everyone at some point, especially Cary, and I first hated him, I found myself understanding his motives; my hate lessened into plain old dislike and then pity. He was in a situation with too much sorrow. It was nice not to hate him through the whole novel.

No details are just handed over to the reader. You learn about Sloane's awful past slowly and through small memories. Without her sister, she is nothing. There's the betrayal of both her father and her sister Lily to contend with, only one of which was expected. I felt her wounds. I felt her need for it all to be over long before the end of the world arrived.

What I wasn't that crazy about:
The ending. It's a little more open than I would have liked. I have so many questions. I am left wanting more. I read the ending four times like more words would actually appear on the page. That is the only thing preventing me from giving this a five star rating. Please, Courtney Summers, save us all this anguish and torment, by creating a sequel!!


I found that Emily @ Emily's Crammed Bookshelf has started a movement. It's worth a shot. Read this-- no, DEVOUR this, because you will--and then tell me you don't want a book #2...
I need more heart achingly real drama, more spot-on character development, more of Rhys, please! He's not the typical dreamy hero, but I did find myself loving his take-charge attitude that wasn't overbearing. And he's so gentle and I was excited to see the one really vulnerable moment he experienced. Help a girl out, Courtney Summers. Actually, help out a crap ton of fans!!!

400 Follower Giveaway - It's All About Magic

<center><a href="http://fansoffiction.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img alt="400 Follower Giveaway" src=" http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/cc401/angelalwayzJen/ButterflyFinal.png" /></a></center>

Time for a giveaway! In honor of The Night Circus, which I just finished, and my fabulous followers, I've decided to host a giveaway all about magic. Okay...some of these are a bit of a stretch.

Up for grabs, ONE of the following (ALL BOOKS SIGNED and NEVER READ! Not because I don't like them, but I have duplicates):
-Bittersweet by Sarah Ockler...because who doesn't think cupcakes aren't magic?
-Don't Expect Magic by Kathy McCullough...a girl with a fairy godmother who's her father!?
-In the Arms of Stone Angels by Jordan Dane...a gripping suspense that will make you feel magical
-My Fair Godmother by Janette Rallison...time-traveling, fairy tales, and prom= magic
-$12 book from The Book Depository

*I'll choose 2 additional winners to pick from the remaining prizes if I get up to 500 followers before the giveaway is over:)

Rules:
-The Book Depository option is available for both US and international followers, however, if you are an international follower, this will be your prize as long as TBD ships to you)
-Leave your Twitter username in comments if you're tweeting about the giveaway, as well as what prize you'd like
-Giveaway closes on July 31 at 12:01 a.m. and winner will have 48 hours to claim their prize before a second winner is chosen

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: The Night Circus

"The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart."

-Goodreads

Stats:

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Release date: September 13, 2011
• Page count: 387
• Unique elements: Designs on pages, the way sections are divided
• Would appeal to: Lovers of magic, fans of Harry Potter, kids at heart!

Favorite Quotes:
"He reads histories and mythologies and fairy tales, wondering why it seems that only girls are ever swept away from their mundane lives on farms by knights or princes or wolves. It strikes him as unfair to not have the same fanciful opportunity himself."

"As the course progresses, when she is not distracted by the astounding quality of the food, Celia makes a game of deciphering the relationships between the guests. Reading the way they interact, intuiting the emotions hidden beneath the laughter and conversation, catching the places that gazes linger."

"There is the softest of sobbing...but it is difficult to pinpoint who it is coming from, or if it is instead a collective sound of mingled sighs and wind and shifting feet."

"It is a different sensation than watching the stars while lying in a field...There are no trees creeping into the edges..."

"'Did Widge tell you that?' Bailey asks, wondering if the thought is so strong that it sits on him, evident and readable."

"Only hours ago, she was certain. Now, sitting in this cave of lightly perfumed silk, what had seemed constant and unquestionable feels as delicate as the steam floating over her tea."

Wow! I said it out loud when I finished reading. This book, with its complicated interwoven storylines, must have taken immense planning, yet Erin Morgenstern has sewn it so effortlessly together. Most of that is thanks to her gorgeous story-telling. This lady can write and I'm already looking forward to her next novel! Her sentences fit the time period--no contractions, and her vocabulary ROCKS! I didn't know a lot of the words, but that didn't distract me. Some sentences were so powerfully compelling or uniquely stated that I read them four times before moving on ("far-flung friends" is my new favorite phrase). See if you notice a pattern with some of the chapter headings.

As for the story...who doesn't like the circus? This is even better than an ordinary circus. Anything you could ever dream awaits attendees in the multitude of black and white tents. It appears out of nowhere, stays an indetermined amount of time, and leaves in the night without notice, traveling to an unannounced location. From the tantalizing smell of carmel and delicious chocolate mice with licorice tails to the air of mystery given off by the large clock at the entrance of Le Cirque des Reves, the circus is one I fully hope someone tries to replicate. After each particular tent was described, for example, the Cloud Maze or the Ice Garden, I could imagine it perfectly. And all of these tents that are popping up are part of a giant game started when Marco and Celia were children; they are merely pawns in an ancient dispute, seared red scars on their fingers from binding rings. The only instructions they truly understand are that there must be a winner, even though they don't know they're opponent or the rules of the game.   

The details transform this book from good to brilliant. Morgenstern takes her time describing little things-- the color of a scarf, the see-through hand of a father, the broken wing of a paper raven. A love of books is definitely instilled in both Marco and Celia, so if you like ink, Shakespeare, poetry, or libraries, you will love the ways all of them are incorporated. I loved the relationship between Marco and Celia, even though it took time to develop. The dialogue between them is honest and flows so naturally. Not all romances are heated and fast and many YA books describe. I think it's also important to mention how fleshed out the minor characters were. I fell in love with the eccentric clockmaker and the lavish man who threw midnight dinner parties (names witheld so you can find out who they are yourself!). I appreciated the fact that there is a character not loved back...in fact, perhaps more than one, depending on your interpretation of events. The best thing about this circus is that they aren't seen as misfits, neither to the circus performers or the attendees, because each person appears to have been born of magic, from the barely moving statues to the acrobats to the twins who perform with their kittens.

The author was also fabulous at providing tiny hints of what was to come. I guessed one event before it occurred, partly thanks to my college psychology class, but many other events I didn't see coming. Penelope, or Poppet, was actually my favorite character, as she was genuinely well-meaning and sweet. More than one romance unfolds along the course of the story!

This would normally get a five star rating, however, the beginning was very hard for me to get into. I found the jumping around of time periods confusing and often looked back to see how much time had passed. I became fully immersed and interested in the story at about page 100. That was my single and only disappointment in the novel. Please don't let that fact scare you, as I know it'll be different for each reader. The black and white stripes in the inside cover made me dizzy when I'd get a glimpse of them, but I absolutely loved the black and white theme throughout. It made the tents and their contents that much more vibrant.

It was more than worth sticking out the slow start. I got extremely teary eyed at the end because I became so attached to the characters, but even more than that, the circus as a whole. It could be argued that Le Cirque des Reves is a character in itself. I will tell everyone I know about this book. Although it contains magic from start to finish, some real and some learned, it IS magic itself! What a fabulous fantasy world to escape to. I would happily purchase the author's imagination from her if it were up for sale (creepy, but not untrue).  

June 2012 TBR Pile Reading Challenge Wrapup and Giveaway

I cannot believe how fast the month of June has come and gone! Hope you all are making some progress on the challenge! This has been my most productive month so far for this challenge! School's out and I've been able to stay up all night reading if I wanted to! Here's what I finished (reviews of all except TAOJF to come):

• If you haven't read Simone Elkeles' Perfect Chemistry novels, YOU ARE MISSING OUT! The best love stories I've read in so long. I finished all three in under 36 hours.

The wrapup challenge for June is a sentence writing challenge. You'll need to create a creative sentence using one word from each of the lists I've provided below.
The theme: camping. Usually at this time I'm floating the river and pitching a tent with good friends.

*You can add words in between the choices, but make sure you keep them in order!

List 1                           List 2                          List 3  
tent                              hole                            bear
raft                               cold                            eagle
canteen                       limp                            raccoon
fire wood                     moonlight                   squirrel
cooler                          Dr. Pepper                 puppy
thermos                       bathroom                   snake
sleeping bag                small                          fish

Here's my sentence:
I ended up sticking my sleeping bag on the germ-filled bathroom floor in fear that the raccoon from hell would reappear to nibble our toes.

What can you win? Your choice of a book from The Book Depository, $12 or less.

Rules:

• You must be signed up for the 2012 TBR Pile Reading Challenge. Click here to sign up.
• Participating in the mini-challenge will get you two extra entries. Leave your sentence in the comments section.
• You cannot link up reviews you've linked from previous months.
• You must paste the URL of your review in the Rafflecopter form AND the Mr. Linky's Widget box.
• Did you write more than one review this month? Each review, up to seven, can be linked up separately, which also gives you additional entries.
• Open internationally as long as The Book Depository ships to you.
• You can enter until 12:01 a.m. on July 31st.

To fill out the linky, under "Your name" put Title Author (Your blog name)
Ex: The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson (FansofFiction)

Good luck on the mini-challenge and have fun reading each other's reviews:) I know comments are always appreciated!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: The List

"An intense look at the rules of high school attraction -- and the price that's paid for them.

It happens every year. A list is posted, and one girl from each grade is chosen as the prettiest, and another is chosen as the ugliest. Nobody knows who makes the list. It almost doesn't matter. The damage is done the minute it goes up.

This is the story of eight girls, freshman to senior, "pretty" and "ugly." And it's also the story of how we see ourselves, and how other people see us, and the tangled connection of the two."
-Goodreads


Stats:

• Publisher: Push (Scholastic)
• Release date: April 1, 2012
• Page count: 332
• Would appeal to: Fans of Mean Girls

Favorite Quotes:
"Sarah's steps are comically laborious-- flat-footed trudges, punctuated by tortured sighs, the toes of her sneakers dragging across the linoleum floor."

"With that, the potential for a little summer fling, a chance to try out love with a boy for a few weeks, turned into a bigger, more exciting possibility."

"Fern dabs at her mouth with a paper napkin and then lets the wad of thin paper drop onto her plate, where it blooms red with the juices from her steak."

"It is as if the night, an amazing memory that she could have looked back on forever, has already been ripped out of her diary."

Everyone who is or has been a teen will find something to relate to in this book. The premise is actually genius because it investigates the cruel hierarcy of every high school I know of. In the story, a list comes out each year, the prettiest and ugliest girl of each grade named and plastered around campus. I've never actually seen this happen at school, but judgments happen on a daily basis. This is an excellent example of how one person's (or a group's) opinions can change someone's reputation in a heartbeat.

All the girls have different situations. You have a not-so-smart beauty, a muscular swimmer trying to hold on to her first love, a pretty girl with a heart of ice, a home schooled girl rising in the ranks, a punk with attitude, a girl with a harmful secret, someone who's been on the list all four years, and then the shoo-in for homecoming queen. No matter how much each person thinks she's got her act together, the list creates complications, even for the prettiest ones.

At first I thought I'd get confused with following eight different stories. I kept my thumb at the page with the list and flipped back a few times. But the stories were so unique that by the second time I read each, I had them straight in my head.

I was so immersed in each girl's drama that I forgot to guess who was responsible for making the list. It was a nice surprise. And this book has one of the best endings I've seen in a long time. It was like the cherry on top of a peanut butter hot fudge sundae and will stick with me as a perfect, clever resolution.

Written with an effortlessly mature voice but still cutting to the core of serious social issues, Siobhan Vivian's The List kept me interested from start to finish. This would be a great mandatory read for 9th or 10th grade as part of an anti-bullying campaign.

Review: The Adoration of Jenna Fox

"Who is Jenna Fox? Seventeen-year-old Jenna has been told that is her name. She has just awoken from a coma, they tell her, and she is still recovering from a terrible accident in which she was involved a year ago. But what happened before that? Jenna doesn't remember her life. Or does she? And are the memories really hers?

This fascinating novel represents a stunning new direction for acclaimed author Mary Pearson. Set in a near future America, it takes readers on an unforgettable journey through questions of bio-medical ethics and the nature of humanity. Mary Pearson's vividly drawn characters and masterful writing soar to a new level of sophistication." -Goodreads

Stats:

• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
• Release date: April 29, 2008
• Page count: 265
• Unique elements: Gray pages contain almost verse format of protagonist's thoughts, subheadings rather than chapters
• Would appeal to: Anyone named Jenna (I mean, that's why I picked it up!), futuristic thinkers, those who enjoy unraveling a mystery

Favorite Quotes:

"Mother says the Cotswold cottage we live in needs lots of restoration...One restoration is not that different from another, she says. Fixing me and the Cotswold are her new careers."

"There is something about her eyes. Eyes don't breathe. I know that much. But hers look breathless."

"A choir of pink-cheeked boys lift their voices as a priest seems to pull the music from their throats with the urging of his hands...It feels like it is shaking something inside of me, something that aches."

"I don't care if the mustard goes down well or not...She knew she couldn't stop me, and the little click of power that ran through me did go down well."

"I slide my arms around his back and hold him, strumming the knots of the spine and the blade of his shoulder, weighing the events that have made us both who we are now."

"She holds her arms out to me, and I slip through space like a feather on a current of wind, effortlessly carried by the force that is Claire."

"There are no keys flying through the air. No hot glimpses of a night that still escapes me but has changed me forever...But fresh words that somehow crawl through my scalp until I feel I may be mad."

So I tried to narrow down these quotes more, but I couldn't. Mary E. Pearson impressed me with the way she builds a sentence.

Although I had high hopes for the novel, I was disappointed.

The premise is intriguing. Girl loses her memory after being in a coma for a year. Suspicious acting parents and a sudden move from Boston before Jenna wakes up. No one answers questions, and  grandma seems pissed she even woke up.

I think a lot of my disappointment was because I figured out the plot pretty early on. That's not to say there wasn't at least one surprise along the way. And the plotting for this, how it's revealed in bits as Jenna realizes things, must have been a lengthy process. I feel if the author would have given a few less hints early on, the startling realization about what happened to Jenna would have been more impactful.

Something though, kept me turning the pages. I read the majority of the book on a cruise and an airplane, and I wished for the feeling that made me want to run out and buy The Fox Chronicles, book #2, but it just wasn't there. If anyone's read the second book, let me know what you thought!

As far as characters go, I found Jenna's mom Claire annoying and overbearing (but who wouldn't be upon almost losing a daughter?). I liked Jenna's grandmother towards the middle of the book but it was hard at first since she was so cold to Jenna. However, when the secret is revealed, you understand why Lily is this way. The school Jenna attends has a good variety of characters. I appreciated the spot-on descriptions of Dane having empty eyes, as he is a little creepy. It was interesting how Jenna noticed facial expressions so well after she woke up. It reminds me of the TV show Lie to Me. A pair of eyes and a mouth can give away the tiniest of details if you know what to look for. Jenna didn't have to try at it, she just had intuition.

The other bit I liked was how Jenna looked up the definitions of simple words right after her coma. It gives off the sense of beginning all over. It also reminds us how many definitions one word can have (or that the English language is crazy confusing!). I did enjoy the ending (the last three pages) and thought it rounded out the novel. I can see how another book could be easily written, but this could also be a stand alone.

The science aspects were believable even though I had to move on without understanding all of it (not a science person!). This is a scary portrait of what our future could hold as far as science and medicine are concerned.

If you do pick up this book, read the interview with the author at the end. It will give you a lot of insight as to why she wrote the story.