The Librarian Writer

Title: Long Lankin Author: Lindsey Barraclough Publisher: Candlewick Publication Date: July 10, 2012 ISBN-13: 978-0763658083 464 pp. ARC provided by publisher I started reading this book just before Halloween, right when I was in the mood for a good scare. Long Lankin by Lindsey Barraclough tells the story of Cora and her sister Mimi. They are sent to live with their crochety Auntie Ida in an isolated English village. There are secrets afoot and a supernatural force that the children unwittingly unleash. The writing is spookily atmospheric about Auntie Ida's crumbling house and the dangerous moors that surround it. The author also goes to great lengths to create the post-war England setting with details about things from cricket games to laundry soap. She alternative chapters between Cora and the village boy she meets, Roger, and sometimes even Ida gets a chapter of her own. Each chapter brings some new insight or twist and it's brilliantly done. My one qu...

Title: Send Me a Sign Author: Tiffany Schmidt Publisher: Walker Childrens Publication Date: October 2, 2012 ISBN-13: 978-0802728401 384 pp. ARC from publisher via Netgalley I chose this title mostly because it was available on Netgalley when I needed something to read. I didn't know anything about it beforehand and I thought I'd give it chapter or two. Well, I read the whole thing. It's a good, solid read by debut author Tiffany Schmidt . Send Me a Sign centers on Mia, a happy, popular girl about to go into her senior year. So when she's diagnosed with leukemia, she's determined to keep her life as normal as possible. Even if that means not telling anyone about her cancer. All Mia succeeds in doing is alienate her friends, including the one friend she does trust enough to tell, cute boy-next-door Gyver. There were times when I wanted to throttle Mia, who is so deep in denial that she makes some seriously misguided choices. But I can also unde...

Title: Butter Author: Erin Jade Lange Publisher: Bloomsbury Publication Date: September 4, 2012 ISBN-13: 978-1599907802 304 pp. ARC from publisher via Netgalley "Butter" is the nickname of a teenage boy who pushes the scale past 400 lbs. He goes to high school in a wealthy suburb of Phoenix where he's invisible. Even though he's there, bigger than life, so to speak, everyone deals with him by pretending he doesn't exist. Until one day, he becomes the center of (unwelcome) attention. And Butter's response is to put up a website called ButtersLastMeal.com where he promises to eat himself to death live on the Internet. Instead of the disgust, or even indifference, he was expecting, Butter finds himself becoming part of the "in" crowd as they take bets on whether or not he goes through with it. This is an amazing debut by Erin Jade Lange, who creates beautifully flawed characters, starting with Butter. Butter has a hilarious voice...

Title: Innocent Darkness Author: Suzanne Lazear Publisher: Flux Publication Date: August 8, 2012 ISBN-13: 978-0738732480 408 pp. ARC from publisher via Netgalley Sometimes you wish a book was as good as its cover. While the cover for Suzanne Lazear's Innocent Darkness is dazzling, the book is less so. Noli is a young mechanically-minded woman living in early 20th century Los Angeles. This is an alternative universe where steampunk is crossed with fairies. The fairy Otherworld needs to sacrifice a girl with Spark once every seven years to survive. The last sacrifice was botched and so the Queen's hunstman, Kevighn Silver, must find an extra-Sparky girl to repair the damage. Noli doesn't realize that her best friend/next-door-neighbor/love interest V is an exiled fae prince who has been protecting her since she is an extra-Sparky girl. When Noli gets into trouble one too many times for her mechanical shenanigans, she gets sent to a school for wayward girls....

"I'm glad I'm off the grid." --> June turned out to be a month of middles. I finished reading Innocent Darkness by Suzanne Lazear (review pending), but mostly got to the middle of other books I’m reading. I did finish A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but that hardly counts because it’s a novella. And now I’m in the middle of The Sign of Four . I’m in the middle of Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. This book is one that I come to every now and then for inspiration rather than something I want to barrel right through. I’m in the middle of Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. I downloaded this title ages ago when I found it was available for free , but never got around to reading it. I did finally get around to transferring it from my computer to my Nook, so hopefully I’ll finish it soon(ish).   Here's a bonus video of Cory talking about Little Brother :

Title: The Little Woods Author: McCormick Templeman Publisher: Schwartz & Wade Publication Date: July 10, 2012 ISBN-13: 978-0375869433 336 pp. ARC from publisher via Netgalley I was looking forward to a good YA mystery when I chose The Little Woods by McCormick Templeman. The protagonist, Cally Wood, decides to go to hoity-toity boarding school St. Bede's Academy because her sister disappeared there years before. Maybe Cally's looking for closure. Maybe she's looking for answers. She's definitely going to find trouble. Cally has a great voice that pulled me in right away. Snark is de rigueur for YA novels these days, but Cally's voice wasn't just snark. There was real wit in her observations about the school, her new classmates, and herself. But that, unfortunately, isn't enough to carry the novel. The actual mystery is predictable and while I kept hoping for some creepy suspense to crawl in from the woods, it didn't materialize. ...

Title: Something Like Normal Author: Trish Doller Publisher: Bloomsbury   Publication Date: June 19, 2012 ISBN-13: 978-1599908441 224 pp. ARC from publisher via Netgalley Every once in awhile, I'll read a book that's so damn good, I wish I'd written it. Last year, that book was Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys. This year, it's Something Like Normal by Trish Doller . Something Like Normal centers on Travis, a 19-year-old Marine who's on leave from a tour in Afghanistan. He comes home to Florida to face a family that's falling apart, a girl who hates his guts, and post-traumatic stress from the ambush that killed his best friend. Travis has a voice that's dead-on for a young guy who has lived through more than his years should allow. He's sarcastic, mad, sad, and as funny as hell. He's tries to do the right thing, but doesn't always succeed. He's one of the most well-rounded male characters I've read in YA literat...

"No one better touch my cells!" Oh, April, why have you flown by so quickly? It seems as though I was just settling into you and now we must say good-bye. I did get a good amount reading in, though. I read A Breath of Eyre by Eve Marie Mont and Something Like Normal by Trish Doller (review pending). I even finished reading Peter Pan (remember, Project Gutenberg is a goldmine for free public domain ebooks). And I like to mix up my fiction reading with some nonfiction. I finally started reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (all writers should read this) and I'm about halfway through The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot . I love me some good science books, especially when they're so amazingly written like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks . I'm constantly interrupting my husband as I read to tell him what I've just learned. Plus there's the heartbreaking human story behind it all. Can't wait to finish reading it! The...

Title: A Breath of Eyre Author: Eve Marie Mont   Publisher: KTeen   Publication Date: March 27, 2012   ISBN-13: 978-0758269485 352 pp. Purchased ebook via bn.com I was totally excited about Eve Marie Mont's debut YA novel, A Breath of Eyre . Jane Eyre is one of my favorite novels, but I'm okay with taking liberties with it. Jasper Fforde has a ton of fun riffing on it in The Eyre Affair . A Breath of Eyre is getting a lot of love with positive reviews, including a starred review from Kirkus. But I got to tell you, I didn't feel the love so much. Emma is a quiet, lonely girl at an exclusive prep school. She's the scholarship kid, so she keeps under the radar to steer clear of the mean girls. Her mother died when she was young, and she feels disconnected from her father and step-mother. She crushes on her English teacher and thinks cute boy Gray, whom she has known since she was little, is equally out of reach. She doesn't have any friends except ...

Title: Welcome, Caller, This Is Chloe Author: Shelley Coriell Publisher: Amulet Books Publication Date: May 1, 2012 ISBN-13: 978-1419701917 320 pp.   ARC from publisher via Netgalley --> When I chose Welcome, Caller, This Is Chloe , I thought it would a fun piece of fluff about a girl who worked at her high school radio station. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the novel is so much more than that. Chloe is a gregarious, popular girl at her school and her humorous voice comes through the narration in pitch-perfect style. But Chloe isn’t having a good time right now.  Her two BFFs have turned their backs on her for a perceived slight and they’ve gone so far as to spread a terrible rumor about her. Her junior year project has been rejected and she’s forced to help the struggling radio station with promotions. And Chloe’s family life is a war zone as her independent grandmother refuses any help, even though her Parkinson’s disease is get...

"Maybe I should learn archery..." Here we are at March already. Wow. Let's take a moment for the end of the first quarter of 2012. *moment* Alrighty, then. March was a big reading month for me, mostly due to The Hunger Games . I read the first book last year, but I plowed through Catching Fire and Mockingjay this month before I saw the movie. (I intended to write a blog post about the movie last week, but it was a totes cray-cray week. Short review: I had some problems with it, but I mostly liked it.) Also in March, I read and reviewed Someone Else's Life by Katie Dale . I recently finished Welcome Caller, This Is Chloe by Shelley Coriell (review pending). That seems like a lot of reading to me. I've got A Breath of Eyre by Eve Marie Mont and Something Like Normal by Trish Doller queued up on the nook and rarin' to go. And with that, I'll leave you with this video of the original The Hunger Games book trailer :

Title: Someone Else's Life Author: Katie Dale Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers Publication Date: February 14, 2012 ISBN-13: 978-0385740654 464 pp. ARC from publisher via Netgalley I was really intrigued by this book. The basic plot starts with Rosie, a young woman in England, who watches her mother Trudie slowly die from Huntington's disease. What's worse for Rosie is that Huntington's disease is hereditary and she has a 50/50 chance of getting it. Except a secret is finally revealed ... Rosie is not Trudie's daughter. She was switched at birth with a girl named Holly. Rosie tracks down her real family in the United States, but the repercussions, especially for Holly, are life-altering. I liked Rosie, a lot. She was believable in all her fears and doubts and missteps. I did not, however, like Holly. Holly has every right to be freaked out and miserable, but she comes off as unstable. There were certain scenes where her actions and/or r...

"This Mr. Dickens has a promising future." February may have been a short month (even with the extra day), but I got some good reading in! I read and reviewed Cinder by Marissa Meyer for the 2012 Debut Author Challenge. Lots of fun, that one. In other reading news, Charles Dickens' 200th birthday was February 7 and I finally finished Bleak House ! Yes! (Four years and 881 pages later.) Much like Desmond on Lost , my goal is to read all of Dickens' books before I die. (Except I have already read Our Mutual Friend . Hey, I was an English major.) Next on my Dickens bucket list is The Old Curiosity Shop . Don't know when I'm going to start it, definitely don't know when I'll finish it, but I will. And I'll more than likely get it from Project Gutenberg . Never heard of Project Gutenberg? Well, they are completely made of awesome. They have nearly 40,000 public domain works available for FREE. As in FREE. These are downloadable books ava...

Title : Cinder Author : Marissa Meyer Publisher : Feiwel & Friends Publication Date : January 3, 2012 ISBN-13 : 978-0312641894 400 pp. Reading copy via local library With one of the most eye-catching covers in awhile, coupled with an awesome concept, Cinder was high on my list of must-reads for 2012. I'm happy to report that it's just as fun as I thought it would be. Cinder takes the Cinderella story and makes it a fractured fairy tale by setting it in a far-flung future. In that world, Cinder is a cyborg mechanic living in New Beijing while a plague sweeps Earth. The only hope of a cure comes from a kingdom on the moon that's run by an evil queen. The queen wants to marry Prince Kai to form an alliance that will eventually make her the ruler of both the moon and Earth. Prince Kai desperately wants to help his people, but after he meets Cinder, he can't stop thinking about her. The fun of the book is seeing how Marissa Meyer plays with the trappin...

"This tesseract stuff is blowing my mind." And so it begins ... Another year of new books! Yay! Last year I did monthly updates of the Debut Author Challenge books that I read, and I want to do that again this year. But I also want to add any other reading news that I may have to share, so I'm making these entries the more encompassing "Reader's Corner" rather just "Debut Author Challenge." But I will start with January's debut author book ... I missed my chance to get Cinder from Netgalley (can I blame the holidays?), and just got a copy from the library a couple of days ago. So my inaugural debut novel for 2012 ended up being Pretty Crooked by Elisa Ludwig. And it was a pretty good way to start the year. As I mentioned in my review, there's a big discrepancy between the number of ARC pages and the number of pages listed on Amazon. So there will be an update after the book is released. In other book news, I wanted to shar...

Title : Pretty Crooked Author : Elisa Ludwig Publisher : Katherine Tegen Books Publication Date : March 13, 2012 ISBN-13 : 978-0062066060 236 pp. ARC from publisher via Netgalley What's weird is that as I'm writing this book review at a coffeehouse, two young white women are talking about their time in private school and how two Latino kids (the only two in the school!) spoke Spanish together in the cafeteria and how stigmatizing that was. So Elisa Ludwig seems to have tapped into a certain private school zeitgeist in her debut novel (the first in a series), Pretty Crooked . Willa Fox is the newbie at ultra-rich Valley Prep. After years of moving around the country with her bohemian mom, a big sale of her mom's artwork gives them the cash to live it up in fancy schmancy Paradise Valley, Arizona. Willa starts hanging out with the all-powerful Glitterati and moons over cute boy Aidan. Except all is not well in her shiny new world. First of all, Willa learns...

Title : How Lamar's Bad Prank Won a Bubba-Sized Trophy Author : Crystal Allen Publisher : Blazer + Bray Publication Date : February 22, 2011 ISBN-10 : 0061992720 288 pp. Reading copy via local library I started reading Lamar's Bad Prank during the summer but got distracted by, you know, life. But I'm glad I picked up Lamar's story again because it's a flat-out great read. --> Lamar is a 13-year-old bowling fanatic living in a working class neighborhood in Indiana. His older brother Xavier is a basketball phenom and in his basketball crazy town, Lamar doesn't get any respect for being the King of Striker's, the local bowling alley. But Bubba Sanders, Lamar's bowling hero, is coming to Striker's on the Fourth of July and Lamar is planning on having the best summer ever. Of course it all goes horribly wrong. Lamar's history with pulling pranks hinders his wooing of a local girl. Lamar begins hanging out with Billy Jenks...

As promised, here's my list of books that I'm picking for the 2012 Debut Author Challenge . This list is not binding. As the year progresses, I will switch out titles based on availability and mood.  My completely unscientific criteria for picking a title is simple: Early buzz Availability from Netgalley Intriguing title I met the author at the SCBWI conference this summer January : Cinder by Marissa Meyer (Early buzz! Available from Netgalley!) February : Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen (Available from Netgalley!) March : Pretty Crooked by Elisa Ludwig (I met the author at the SCBWI conference this summer! Available from Netgalley!) April : A Breath of Eyre by Eve Marie Mont (Intriguing title! Available from Netgalley!) After April, I don't know yet what's available from Netgalley, so I'm going with title alone. May : What She Left Behind by Tracy Bilen (sounds like it might be a ghost story) June : Something Like Normal by Trish Doller (soun...

Wow, the year's almost over and the 2011 Debut Author Challenge will soon be completed. It's been a great year of reading and next week I'll share my completely unscientific choices for the 2012 Debut Author Challenge . (Of course I'm doing it again. I'm hooked.) Last month I read and reviewed The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin. In other reading news, I also managed to finish Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell and I'm almost done reading Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Montgomery. I'll admit it ... I never read Anne of Green Gables before, although I adore the miniseries starring Megan Follows. The book is just as charming as I thought it'd be. Bonus Video : Anne of Green Gables trailer What classic novel haven't you read (yet) ? What debut book did you read this year that you think will become a classic? (I'm putting my money on Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys.)

Title: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer Author: Michelle Hodkin Publisher: Simon & Schuster Publication Date: September 27, 2011 ISBN-13: 978-1442421769 446 pp. Reading copy via local library This book had a lot of buzz pre-publication and I can see why. Way cool cover. Intriguing premise of is-she/isn't-she crazy. And it almost delivers.  It kind of bums me that I didn't L-O-V-E it like I thought I would, but it's still a good read. Mara Dyer (not her real name as we learn in a prologue) wakes up in the hospital after an accident has killed her best friend Rachel, frenemy Claire, and boyfriend Jude. Mara has no memory of the accident and starts seeing Claire and Jude. Mara tries to convince herself that she has post-traumatic stress disorder and these sightings are merely hallucinations. Mara also convinces her family that what she really needs is to get away from places that remind her of her friends, so the whole family moves to Florida. There she enters...