Burning Blue by Paul Griffin
Release Date: October 25, 2012
Publisher: Dial
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 288
Summary: How far would you go for love, beauty, and jealousy?
When Nicole Castro, the most beautiful girl in her wealthy New Jersey high school, is splashed with acid on the left side of her perfect face, the whole world takes notice. But quiet loner Jay Nazarro does more than that--he decides to find out who did it. Jay understands how it feels to be treated like a freak, and he also has a secret: He's a brilliant hacker. But the deeper he digs, the more danger he's in--and the more he falls for Nicole. Too bad everyone is turning into a suspect, including Nicole herself.
Award-winning author Paul Griffin has written a high-stakes, soulful mystery about the meaning--and dangers--of love and beauty
My Thoughts: This was a real fast read for me. I was engrossed in the plot very quickly and easily.
We are introduced to Nicole who is popular, nice, everything you could imagine. All the girls want to be her, and all the guys want to be with her. She seems to have everything. Until one day while walking down the hall at school, someone squirts a water bottle at her filled with acid. It gets on half of her face and her hands burning, destroying them.
Nicole goes into the hospital and has to have multiple surgeries and even after that she’s nowhere near as perfect as she used to be. She runs into a boy named Jay during one of her shrink visits. They click. They knew each other a bit before but didn’t run in the same circles and Jay has been homeschooled for a few years because he had his own set of problems.
Jay and Nicole begin to spend time together, as friends. But there is just something there. Jay needs to find out who did this to Nicole. He has to know, so he starts investigating and finds more than he bargained for. With the help of another hacker, they find the person behind it all. Somehow, I wasn’t expecting that. Everyone is a suspect at this point. Her boyfriend, friends, enemies, shrinks, everyone! Nobody is safe.
The culprit is revealed and it’s heartbreaking. Crazy, intense heartbreaking.
What else can I say? This novel was truly unique and even with the deranged storyline I enjoyed reading it. I liked the mystery and I wanted answers! I wanted to know who would hurt Nicole like this! And Jay was a pretty sweet guy. He had a lot going on in his life but he still went out of the way for others. He wanted to make sure this didn’t happen to anyone again, including a second attack on Nicole.
Burning Blue was a great novel.
Overall: I liked getting to know all the characters. I thought the plot was interesting. It kept me guessing up until the end. I felt like it wrapped up nicely. Burning Blue is definitely a mystery contemporary novel you should check out this year!
Cover: Like it! Its very appealing and I could see people picking this up at the bookstore.
What I’d Give It:
Crewel by Gennifer Albin
Release Date: October 16, 2012
Publisher: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 368
Summary: Incapable. Awkward. Artless.
That’s what the other girls whisper behind her back. But sixteen year-old Adelice Lewys has a secret: she wants to fail.
Gifted with the ability to weave time with matter, she’s exactly what the Guild is looking for, and in the world of Arras, being chosen as a Spinster is everything a girl could want. It means privilege, eternal beauty, and being something other than a secretary. It also means the power to embroider the very fabric of life. But if controlling what people eat, where they live and how many children they have is the price of having it all, Adelice isn’t interested.
Not that her feelings matter, because she slipped and wove a moment at testing, and they’re coming for her—tonight.
Now she has one hour to eat her mom’s overcooked pot roast. One hour to listen to her sister’s academy gossip and laugh at her Dad’s stupid jokes. One hour to pretend everything’s okay. And one hour to escape.
Because once you become a Spinster, there’s no turning back.
My Thoughts: What a great novel. Crewel was fast paced, interesting, and awesome!
We are introduced to Adelice who lives with her younger sister and parents. Adelice has been taught all of her life to fake it. She fakes being able not to be a spinster and not know how to weave. All the girls want this gift, it means living in luxury and its a higher calling, but not to Adelice. She knows she’ll have to leave her family behind so she tries her best to pretend to not know how. Until one day, she messes up and accidently weaves. Oh no!
Adelice is whisked away from everything she knows to join the spinsters. Its not all glamour like everyone thinks, and Adelice is smart enough to know this and realize how things are going to be.
Of course, Adelice makes a lot of enemies right away and there are also love interests throughout this novel. Oh yes, I love this. This novel is kind of a mix between dystopia and maybe magic. So much happens, so many twists and turns. It held my attention all the way through. Adelice is such a complicated character, and the things she can do makes it even more neat.
This is one of those you don’t want to write too much about because you don’t want the reader to know much going in.You want them to experience it all by themselves.
Crewel is a bit confusing at first but quickly resolves itself. You understand it, you expect it, it's explained, and you either love or hate it. I loved it.
Awesome characters, awesome plot, awesome guys, and one awesome girl who is tougher than most heroines I read about.
Overall: Loved it! Probably one of the best books I read in August! Please read this novel now! Please tell me if you love or hate it. Which guy did you like most?
Crewel blew me away! I can’t wait to read the second one now!
Cover: Love it! Its so colorful. Adore it!
What I'd Give It:
This Is Not A Drill by Beck McDowell
Release Date: October 25, 2012
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 224
Summary: When high school seniors—and former couple—Emery and Jake find themselves held hostage in a first grade classroom, they must do all they can to protect the kids. Brian Stutts, a U.S. soldier suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after serving in Iraq, pulls out his gun to convince the teacher to hand over the son he’s not allowed to check out because of a custody battle. The situation turns deadly when a security guard appears at the door and Stutts impulsively opens fire. When the teacher is carried from the room, the children's fate is in the hands of Emery and Jake. While Jake searches for a way to communicate with the policemen surrounding the building, Emery, fighting her shyness, fear, and POTS symptoms, tries to reach out to the soldier. She gains a new understanding of what he faced in Iraq, and discovers remarkable strength in his small son.
My Thoughts: This Is Not A Drill was a pretty intense novel. It deals with a very serious subject and is very emotional.
We are introduced to Emery and Jake who had a rough breakup. Jake made some mistakes and Emery hasn’t forgiven him, and she plans on not forgiving him.
They are paired together to teach students at a elementary school. Just had to be karma that they get put together and have to work together as partners.
One day while at the elementary school, one of the children’s dad Brian comes in demanding to take his son out. The teacher encourages him to sit down and talk this out, but he refuses to listen. Brian has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from serving in Iraq and he is always on high alert to his surroundings. He takes the kids hostage and won’t let anyone go. Brian has gotten himself in quite the ordeal and he doesn’t know how to stop it or change things.
Gosh, this book was pretty frustrating for me. I liked it, but I felt like I was reliving the story over and over again because we are basically just getting to know him and what he went through. It was hard to stay focused because I just wanted him to let everyone go.
I get it, I do. He just wanted to take his child home and be able too. His wife had been having problems with him and was wanting a divorce. Brian is going through a lot after coming back. But I can understand why he can't take poor Patrick with him.
I loved seeing things from Jake and Emery’s point of view. This Is Not A Drill switched back and forth so we could see things from each side. We could get into the characters heads and know what they were thinking. I also liked seeing all the different sides of the children. Each one was so unique.
The ending, ouch. Can’t help but want things to end differently.
I liked this novel, I did. I just didn’t like it as much as I had hoped.
Overall: Probably more of a 3.5 cupcake novel for me. I did like it a bit more than a 3 but not quite as much as a 4. It’s always hard to rate these kind of books. This Is Not A Drill is an interesting look at how this could all go down. And I was so proud of both Emery and Jake for being so brave.
Cover: Like it. Think it fits perfectly, even the school desk. Very nice cover.
What I'd Give It:
Send Me A Sign by Tiffany Schmidt
Release Date: October 2, 2012
Publisher: Walker Childrens
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 384
Summary: Mia is always looking for signs. A sign that she should get serious with her soccer-captain boyfriend. A sign that she’ll get the grades to make it into an Ivy-league school. One sign she didn’t expect to look for was: “Will I survive cancer?” It’s a question her friends would never understand, prompting Mia to keep her illness a secret. The only one who knows is her lifelong best friend, Gyver, who is poised to be so much more. Mia is determined to survive, but when you have so much going your way, there is so much more to lose. From debut author Tiffany Schmidt comes a heart-wrenching and ultimately uplifting story of one girl’s search for signs of life in the face of death.
My Thoughts: Wow, what a novel! This one was awesome! Even though Mia was sick, it was still a thought provoking novel.
I usually hate cancer novels, who doesn’t? We hate cancer, it's bad, and hard to read about.
We are introduced to Mia who believes in horoscopes, lyrics in songs, and mostly everything else that can be told through fortunes or signs.
Mia is enjoying her summer days with her best friends, when she gets some really bad news. Mia has cancer. Mia doesn’t tell anyone except her parents (of course they know), her doctors, and her best friend and boy next door Gyver.
Mia’s life had started to become pretty good before this. She had the attention of the school popular boy Ryan, best friends, school, the idea of college, cheer-leading, just about everything a girl could want.
She decides not to tell her friends and spends most of the summer in the hospital while she tells her friends she is elsewhere.
Mia goes through the treatments with Gyver by her side. Man, where can I get me one of these Gyvers? Gyver was such a sweet boy. For some reason, I kept picturing him in my head as the blond headed kid from Jane By Design Billy. No idea why. That is how I seen him in my head.
Mia gets out of the hospital and tries to go back to her old life. She’s dating Ryan and hanging out with her best friends, until they start to get suspicious that something is happening but Mia wants to keep it a secret so she loses some of those friendships along the way for a bit.
Send Me A Sign is a great debut. Yes, it's sad but it’s also really addicting. I stayed up until 4 in the morning to finish this one. Once I started reading, I had to know what was going to happen.
There were times I wanted to slap Mia because I wanted her to be more open and accept that she needed to be, but she was scared and she had a hard time coping.
Send Me A Sign is a novel everyone should read. Even if you end up wiping tears away from your eyes a few times, it's one you can connect with on so many levels and plus there is a cute sweet boy in it!
Overall: Loved this one. One of the best debuts I’ve read this year. I felt so bad for Mia but I also wanted her to overcome this and get stronger! And I loved how she interacted with Gyver. Such a sweet yet heartbreaking novel.
Great characters, great plot, what more to ask for?
Cover: Love it! It’s so pretty yet makes me want to cry!
What I'd Give It:
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