Recent Reads: Love You, Hate You, Miss You / Shiver

Book: Love You Hate You Miss You by Elizabeth Scott
Book Count: 28

After a horrific car accident leaves Amy's best friend Julia dead, Amy's parents send her to rehab where a therapist there asks her to keep a journal. In it, she writes letters to Julia, counting the days since Julia's death. Through these letters, Amy remembers Julia for who she was, and who she doesn't remember her being.

As always, Elizabeth Scott's writing is compelling and emotional. Another great read.

Book: Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
Book Count: 29

So I heard a little about this book on Twitter, from agents who found it to be amazing. I saw it at the bookstore. The cover was interesting, but didn't tell me anything. Then I read the inside jacket. OMG. I had to get it.

Grace has watched the wolves who live in the woods around her home since she was a little girl. One wolf in particular, with yellow eyes, seems to always be there, watching her back. Her wolf. He is there every winter, watching, protecting. One day Grace meets Sam. A boy with yellow eyes and she knows he is her wolf. But as the winter approaches, Sam must fight the shiver to keep from losing himself and Grace forever.

So good. If you haven't read this one yet, go get it. Read it. Really.

Recent Reads: 100 Dogs / Lost It / Stealing Heaven

Book: Dust of 100 Dogs by A.S. King

Book Count: 22

The premise: Karma can be a bitch, literally. It is the story of infamous teenage pirate Emer Morrissey who is cursed just before she's murdered, to live the life of 100 dogs before she is reborn as a human. The kicker? All her memories remain intact.

Interesting take on curses and reincarnation.

Book: Lost It by Kristen Tracy

Book Count: 23

The story of Tess Whistle and how her junior year turned bizarro with the drop of a blond Jesus Christ portrait. Her parents up and leave for some wilderness camp to "find themselves," her outspoken, lottery-winning, sexy underwear buying grandmother comes to stay with her, her best friend is trying to build a bomb to blow up a poodle and it's all enough to make her think everything is losing it.

A recommendation from my 17-year-old sister, I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was an overall amusing and humorous read.

Book: Stealing Heaven by Elizabeth Scott

Book Count: 24

Can I just start by saying I love Elizabeth Scott?

Danielle is funny and snarky and even as an 18-year-old silver thief, accomplice to her mother, she's completely real. When Danielle's mother cases out the town of Heaven for their next heist, Danielle didn't expect it to be any different from any other job. Heaven is completely different from any other place she's ever been and suddenly Danielle decides the life she's always known isn't the life she actually wants.

Danielle's story is simple on one side, crazy complicated on the other, but despite it all, she felt real to me and that was what made this one of my new faves.

Recent Reads: 3 More!

Book: Sweethearts by Sara Zarr

Book Count: 21

Loved this book. It felt more real than anything I've read in a long time, and that's not to say I haven't enjoyed my recent readings. Maybe it had something to do with the Salt Lake setting, I don't know. The story of Jennifer/Jenna's and Cameron's friendship and how they changed as they grew up just felt deeper. And I knew the ending wasn't what I expected, but I thought it was the perfect ending, because sometimes things don't work out exactly the way we plan, or the way we want them to.

Book: The Girl She Used to Be by David Cristofano

Book Count: 22

Okay, so this is the book I won from The Knight Agency blog. It's signed and everything. One of my newer treasures. The story is about a woman who has been in the witness protection program for the last 20 of her 26 years. She's changed so many times she isn't entirely positive what her hair color is anymore. But when the U.S. Marshall in charge of her cases "loses" her and she stumbles into the man she's spent almost her entire life hiding from, she doesn't know who the good guy is anymore. A compelling first novel and a great read

Book: Doing It by Melvin Burgess

Book Count: 23

Uh, I think the title says it all.

Still really hoping to get to 100 books by the end of the year . . . I've still got 163 days left to read 77 new books. I can totally do this *crosses fingers, chanting to the tune of the Little Engine That Could* I can do this, I can do this, I can do this . . .

Any and all book recommends are totally accepted! Keep in mind, it isn't that I'm not keeping up and reading constantly, I am, I'm just only counting the NEW books I'm reading. My repeat-recent reads: Diary of a Crush trilogy by Sarra Manning, When It Happens by Susane Colasanti, Wake by Lisa McMann, Harry Potter (#1 - with my 4-year old P), just to name a few.

Currently on the night table:

Love You Hate You Miss You by Elizabeth Scott

Fishing On the Edge by Mike Iaconelli

The Dust of 100 Dogs by A.S. King

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Lost It by Kristin Tracy

Stealing Heaven by Elizabeth Scott

On list to pick up SOON:

Blue Moon by Alyson Noel

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Graceling by Kristin Cashores

North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley

Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen

Tithe by Holly Black

A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Just to name a few ....

Recent Reads: A Couple More!

Something, Maybe by Elizabeth Scott

Book Count: 19

Most teenagers think their parents are embarrassing, but Hannah knows hers take the cake. Her mom is a sometimes employed TV starlet who runs her own website while in her underwear. Her dad is rich, old, manipulative and is always surrounded by girls with fake boobs for his reality show. When Hannah is finally noticed by her longtime crush, it turns out being in love with someone and being in love with the idea of them is totally different.

I was cracking up through the whole thing. While some of the characters were a little extreme, the emotions felt so real. This was an awesome read!

The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Scott

Book Count: 20

So I bought this book a while back and couldn't get into it. I'm not sure what it was about it, but it just wasn't for me. However, with the recent stories of a group in Florida trying to get this book banned, it piqued my curiosity. So I forced myself through the same pages I could barely make it past and once through those, I actually did enjoy the story.

Three girl friends, one goes away on a summer education trip, the other two stay back, getting summer jobs and end up falling for each other.

There's a lot of self discovery in this story and once I finished the book I thought to myself, why on Earth is that stupid group in Florida trying to ban this book? There's absolutely no reason for it at all. Unless they're homophobic, but that's a whole other topic. So, yeah. Maybe not one of my faves of all time, but it was an enjoyable read once I was able to get a bit more into it.

Side note:

So now I'm 1/5 of the way through my 100 books to read by the end of the year goal and we're halfway through the year. I have a few other books on my to read pile already, but I'm definitely taking suggestions. The ones I've had have been awesome to date!

I still think I can totally get to my goal for the year, but I need your help finding some more "research" material to pick up. Any recommendations?

Recent Reads: L & K, I<3U, Glass

Yes, yes, yet another, let's play catch up, post. I read far faster than I can put up RR posts, so I'm just going to keep doing my best to keep up with these and sometimes the posts will be multiples.

I can't help it. There are way too many good books out there that I want to share about!

Book: Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen

Book Count: 13

The story of a girl who finds out what home and love really are.

In Lock and Key Ruby is discovered living in a house where her mother abandoned her. She's still underage, so instead of finding herself in foster care, Ruby is sent to live with her much older estranged sister and her husband.

Once Ruby's moved in, she befriends the cute neighbor guy, works on rebuilding a relationship with her sister and finds out that one of the hardest parts of letting people in, is letting people go.

Great book. Great Read. Go get it! It's Sarah Dessen. You can't really go wrong here.

Book: I Heart You You Haunt Me by Lisa Schroeder

Book Count: 14

Boy and girl meet. Boy and girl fall in love. Boy dies. Girl can't let go. Neither can boy.

Yep, that's about it. Yanno, with some more detail and stuff. Her dead boyfriend's ghost comes back to be with her because she can't let go of the guilt, blaming herself for his death, so she can't let him go. But how do you have a "real" relationship with a ghost?

I really thought the premise of this was great, but the execution was a bit off for me. It just felt like there wasn't enough. For a book written in free pose, much like Ellen Hopkins's novels, this book felt a thin. The characters were not developed enough for me. For me, I guess the easiest way to put it is: I didn't feel what she was feeling.

If it didn't only take me about 45 minutes to read, I probably wouldn't have finished it. The premise got me. The actual story lost me.

Book: Glass

Book Count: 15

Ahh, yes, another Ellen Hopkins book. Issues galore. This is the sequel to Crank and what a sequel it is. As usual, written lyrically and in free pose, Glass sucks you back into Kristina's world. Now seventeen with a baby, the lure of an even stronger form of meth calls out to her.

In this sequel Ellen Hopkins deals even more with the ramifications of an addicts actions on their families and it is heartwrenching. Especially when there are children involved. She doesn't gloss over the story, which makes it more real and more difficult to read. The difficulty does not lie in the writing, but in the actual story and how harsh reality is.

This is the second part in a based on real life story that Ms. Hopkins's family has faced. As you read this book, you can tell there's more to the words than in some of her other works. There's more behind the story and it breaks your heart just a little bit more.

Maybe not something to read if you're having a downer day, but definitely a good book.

That's it for now. Happy Reading!