This blog meme is hosted by Book Date. It is a place to meet up and share what you have been, are and about to be reading over the week. It’s a great post to organize yourself. It’s an opportunity to visit and comment, and er… add to that ever growing TBR pile!
What I just finished:
This weekend I finished You Say It First by Katie Cotugno.
What I’m currently reading:
I’m currently reading Legend (Legend #1) by Marie Lu.
What I’m reading next:
Next I will be reading Stay Gold by Tobly McSmith.
What are you guys reading this week? Have you read any of these books?
The meme that dares to ask what book has been in your bed this morning? Come share what book you’ve spent time curled up reading in bed, or which book you wish you had time to read today! This meme is hosted by Midnight Book Girl.
This Sunday I’m reading You Say It First by Katie Cotugno.
Goodreads Synopsis:
Meg has her entire life set up perfectly: her boyfriend Mason is sweet and supportive, she and her best friend Emily plan to head to Cornell together in the fall, and she even finds time to clock shifts phonebanking at a voter registration call center in her Philadelphia suburb. But everything changes when one of those calls connects her to a stranger from small-town Ohio, who gets under her skin from the moment he picks up the phone.
Colby is stuck in a rut, reeling from a family tragedy and working a dead-end job—unsure what his future holds, or if he even cares. The last thing he has time for is some privileged rich girl preaching the sanctity of the political process. So he says the worst thing he can think of and hangs up.
But things don’t end there.…
That night on the phone winds up being the first in a series of candid, sometimes heated, always surprising conversations that lead to a long-distance friendship and then—slowly—to something more. Across state lines and phone lines, Meg and Colby form a once-in-a-lifetime connection. But in the end, are they just too different to make it work?
You Say It First is a propulsive, layered novel about how sometimes the person who has the least in common with us can be the one who changes us most.
Title: How to Hack a Heartbreak Author: Kristin Rockaway Genre: Romance, Contemporary Publisher: Graydon House Source: Publisher via NetGalley Format: Ebook Release Date: July 30, 2019 Rating: ★★★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
Swipe right for love. Swipe left for disaster.
By day, Mel Strickland is an underemployed helpdesk tech at a startup incubator, Hatch, where she helps entitled brogrammers—”Hatchlings”—who can’t even fix their own laptops, but are apparently the next wave of startup geniuses. And by night, she goes on bad dates with misbehaving dudes she’s matched with on the ubiquitous dating app, Fluttr.
But after one dick pic too many, Mel has had it. Using her brilliant coding skills, she designs an app of her own, one that allows users to log harrassers and abusers in online dating space. It’s called JerkAlert, and it goes viral overnight.
Mel is suddenly in way over her head. Worse still, her almost-boyfriend, the dreamy Alex Hernandez—the only non-douchey guy at Hatch—has no idea she’s the brains behind the app. Soon, Mel is faced with a terrible choice: one that could destroy her career, love life, and friendships, or change her life forever.
Review:
Melanie Strickland works at the help desk for a company that works with startup companies. She is surrounded with men who don’t think she knows how to do her job. Even when she’s not at work, she encounters horrible men on the popular dating app, Fluttr. Melanie decides to make her own website to alert women to the disgusting men on Fluttr, so she creates JerkAlert. However, the start up entrepreneur who she starts dating, Alex, appears on her website. Melanie has to hide her identity as the founder of JerkAlert while also navigating her own relationship with Alex.
This story tackles sexism in the workplace. Melanie was treated horribly by the men in her office, and her male supervisors didn’t see a problem with it. It was actually upsetting to read at times, because the things they did and said were so inappropriate.
Even though Melanie had to deal with sexist men, she turned her life around. She worked very hard to push past the limitations that men put on her in the digital coding world just because she was a woman.
I really enjoyed this story.
Thank you Graydon House Books for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
What to read next:
Love at First Like by Hannah Orenstein
Get a Life, Chloe Brown (The Brown Sisters #1) by Talia Hibbert
Have you read How to Hack a Heartbreak? What did you think of it?
Title: The Gryphon’s Lair (Royal Guide to Monster Slaying #2) Author: Kelley Armstrong Genre: Middle Grade, Fantasy Publisher: Puffin Books Source: Publisher via NetGalley Format: Ebook Release Date: June 2, 2020 Rating: ★★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
Rowan is now the Royal Monster Hunter, and her twin brother, Rhydd, is destined to be king. But her mother’s cousin Heward is still determined that his children be the ones to inherit the titles, and will stop at nothing to show that Rowan and Rhydd are too immature to properly lead. After the gryphon that Rowan captured in Book One gives birth but then dies, Rowan is left with a baby gryphon she knows she cannot keep. And it grows faster than anyone can imagine . . .
In order to save face after an accident involving the troublesome gryphon, Rowan, with the help of her friends Dain and Alianor, along with an entourage of monstrous companions, must make a journey to the mountains to release the gryphon back into the wild. What starts off as a simple enough task soon becomes a dangerous quest, as the group encounters numerous rare and deadly monsters along the way, including wyverns and ceffyl-dwrs. Nothing is easy when you’re a “monster magnet” like Rowan.
Can she prove herself worthy of the title of Royal Monster Hunter? Find out in this exciting second book in the Royal Guide to Monster Slaying duology!
Review:
Rowan is training to be the royal monster hunter in her kingdom. She caught a gryphon in the previous book, and it was allowed to live because it was pregnant. Now the gryphon is having her baby, but the mother dies due to complications. The baby gryphon grows quickly and thinks that Rowan is her mother. When the gryphon goes to extreme lengths to protect Rowan, the kingdom decides that the gryphon has to be killed. Rowan convinces them to let her move the gryphon somewhere else. On Rowan’s new adventure through the country, she meets even more creatures than last time.
I really enjoyed this series. I just found out that this is the final book in this series. I would have liked to see more of Rowan as she gets older. She had to face some more mature issues in this book, such as potential suitors for her and her brother. I love how Rowan is such a strong female character. She heads right into danger to do the right thing, rather than what everyone thinks she should do. She is confident and independent.
I felt like some of the fight scenes were too long. They lasted for a couple of chapters, sometimes, and they became repetitive. One thing that could have made the fights more entertaining is if there were illustrations to go along with them. There are some illustrations of the monsters at the end of the book, but I think the story could have been enhanced with illustrations throughout the book.
This is a great middle grade book.
Thank you Penguin Random House Canada for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Find any sentence, (or few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
Post it. And share your link.
It’s that simple.
Today I’m reading How to Hack a Heartbreak by Kristin Rockaway.
Here is my line from location 56% in my e-ARC:
“There you have it fools. Put your fears of eating beaver butt discharge to rest. Though the article said you can buy it on Etsy if you’re so inclined.”
Title: Half Life Author: Lillian Clark Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers Source: Publisher via NetGalley Format: Ebook, Paperback Release Date: June 9, 2020 Rating: ★★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
An overachiever enrolls in an experimental clone study to prove that two (of her own) heads are better than one in this fast-paced, near-future adventure that’s Black Mirror meets Becky Albertalli.
There aren’t enough hours in the day for Lucille–perfectionist, overachiever–to do everything she has to do, and there certainly aren’t enough hours to hang out with friends, fall in love, get in trouble–all the teenage things she knows she should want to be doing instead of preparing for a flawless future. So when she sees an ad for Life2: Do more. Be more, she’s intrigued.
The company is looking for beta testers to enroll in an experimental clone program, and in the aftermath of a series of disappointments, Lucille is feeling reckless enough to jump in. At first, it’s perfect: her clone, Lucy, is exactly what she needed to make her life manageable and have time for a social life. But it doesn’t take long for Lucy to become more Lucy and less Lucille, and Lucille is forced to stop looking at Lucy as a reflection and start seeing her as a window–a glimpse at someone else living her own life, but better. Lucy does what she really wants to, not what she thinks she should want to, and Lucille is left wondering how much she was even a part of the perfect life she’d constructed for herself. Lucille wanted Lucy to help her relationships with everyone else, but how can she do that without first rectifying her relationship with herself?
Review:
Lucille is a perfectionist. She has perfect grades, but she wasn’t accepted into the intern program she applied to for the summer. On top of that, her parents are getting divorced and her best friend has a new best friend. When Lucille gets an email about an exciting opportunity that is just for her, she decides to take a chance. The opportunity is to have a clone made of her. After the clone is made, she will have to join Lucille in her life to prove that they are the same. However, Lucille’s parents and friends don’t know that she is having a clone made. Lucille thinks this will be a great chance to do more things in life to be more perfect, but life with her clone isn’t as easy as she predicted.
I love stories about clones. When I was in middle school, I loved the novel Cloning Miranda. More recently, I was obsessed with the TV show Orphan Black. The idea is fascinating to me, and a little scary. I’ve heard of programs where you can have your dog cloned, so cloning humans doesn’t seem too futuristic anymore.
At the beginning of the book, I found Lucille annoying. She was very self-involved and pushed everyone away. When her clone was introduced to the story, she was a great contrast to Lucille. I was so glad that I kept reading, because the story became fast paced and suspenseful.
This is a great story!
Thank you Penguin Random House Canada for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
What to read next:
Cloning Miranda by Carol Matas
She, Myself, and I by Emma Young
About the Author:
Lillian Clark, a graduate of the University of Wyoming, grew up riding horses, climbing trees, and going on grand imaginary adventures in the small-town West. She’s worked as a lifeguard, a camp counselor, and a Zamboni driver, but found her eternal love working as a bookseller at an independent bookstore. Now living in Teton Valley, Idaho with her husband, son, and two giant dogs, she spends her time reading almost anything and writing books for teens.
TBR Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly Faye Reads, where you post a title from your shelf or e-reader and find out what others think about it.
My pick this week is Legend (Legend #1) by Marie Lu.
Goodreads Synopsis:
What was once the western United States is now home to the Republic, a nation perpetually at war with its neighbors. Born into an elite family in one of the Republic’s wealthiest districts, fifteen-year-old June is a prodigy being groomed for success in the Republic’s highest military circles. Born into the slums, fifteen-year-old Day is the country’s most wanted criminal. But his motives may not be as malicious as they seem.
From very different worlds, June and Day have no reason to cross paths—until the day June’s brother, Metias, is murdered and Day becomes the prime suspect. Caught in the ultimate game of cat and mouse, Day is in a race for his family’s survival, while June seeks to avenge Metias’s death. But in a shocking turn of events, the two uncover the truth of what has really brought them together, and the sinister lengths their country will go to keep its secrets.
Have you read this book? What did you think of it?
