The Librarian Writer

Title: Winger Author: Andrew Smith Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers Publication Date: May 14, 2013 ISBN-13: 978-1442444928 448 pp. ARC provided by publisher This book should come with a disclaimer. Something like WARNING: May cause spontaneous laughter. May also cause uncontrollable weeping. Winger by Andrew Smith starts off as a boarding school romp about a 14-year-old genius who plays rugby and dreams about dating his best friend, Annie, who seems out of his league because she's two years older. Ryan Dean (that's his first name) narrates the story of his junior year at a fancypants private school in the Pacific Northwest. His rugby nickname is Winger and though he call himself a skinny-ass bitch, he never backs down from a fight. He is hilarious in his accounts of life at school and they're often punctuated by the comics he draws. What could have been a delightfully fun story about Ryan Dean and his pursuit of Annie and surviv...

Title: The Theory of Everything Author: Kari Luna Publisher: Philomel Publication Date: July 11, 2013 ISBN-13: 978-0399256264 320 pp. ARC provided by publisher via NetGalley With a cover like this, you hope that the book will be as fun as it promises. Thankfully, The Theory of Everything by Kari Luna delivers on that promise. Sophie Sophia is a fourteen year old girl who moves into a new town with her mom. Again. Ever since Sophie's genius physicist dad disappeared, Sophie has been having hallucinations, or "episodes", where hearts roll off of sleeves or the school cafeteria becomes a Ramones rock video. Then Sophie meets Walt, her shaman panda, who is supposed to help guide her. Guide her to what, Sophie isn't sure, but she hopes it's her dad. Along the way, Sophie befriends Finny, who becomes her gay BFF, and cute boy Drew, who holds out a hope of normalcy for Sophie. The Theory of Everything is cute, quirky, and a mixed tape of BIG IDE...

Title: The Lord of Opium Author: Nancy Farmer Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers Publication Date: September 3, 2012 ISBN-13: 978-1442482548 432 pp. ARC provided by publisher I'm back from my summer hiatus and so happy to be able to review this book for you! I'm a huge fan of The House of Scorpion , which I listened to on audio , and am thrilled that Nancy Farmer is continuing Matt's story. I don't think it's much of a secret now that Matt is actually the clone of an evil drug lord known as El Patron and Matt was raised to be his organ donor. El Patron dies at the end of The House of Scorpion and Matt becomes the new Lord of Opium.   The Lord of Opium literally starts the next day after The House of Scorpion ends. If you haven't read The House of Scorpion , you can follow along well enough, but I highly suggest reading The House of Scorpion first. It's a different type of storytelling because it starts when Matt is very y...

It's summertime and the living is ... busy. Between work, family obligations, and you know, life ... I'll be taking the summer off from the blog. Expect me back sometime in August with more book reviews, writing tips, and library stuff. Have a great summer!

Title: Rapture Practice Author: Aaron Hartzler Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Publication Date: April 9, 2013 ISBN-13: 978-0316094658 400 pp. ARC provided by publisher Aaron Hartzler is a good kid. He loves Jesus. He honors his mother and father. He doesn't go to movies or listen to rock music. He believes with all his heart that Jesus will return in the Second Coming and the faithful will fly up to heaven to meet Him in the Rapture. And then Aaron becomes a teenager. Rapture Practice is a memoir by Aaron Hartzler , the son of a preacher man, who learns that belief needs to come from yourself and not from your parents. I get Aaron Hartzler. I grew up in a Catholic family that switched to evangelical Christian when I was 12. My parents weren't as strict as Aaron's. We went to movies. We owned a television. But we prayed in restaurants before eating our meals. There was a big family meeting when my parents wanted to throw out my comic...

"I better start hoarding peanut butter." And so summer begins! Again, I haven't had much time to do much reading, but I have started Rapture Practice by Aaron Hartzler, and that has been so much fun. On the audiobook side, I listened to The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. It's a fantastic audiobook and a good, creepy story about a girl who's the daughter of a psychic and a group of boys at a private school who are looking for the tomb of an ancient king. And it's one of the Sync audiobooks this summer, so you can listen to it for free! The other audiobook I listened to was The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker. It's an end-of-the-world story where the end isn't a bang, but a whimper. The year Julia turns 12, the Earth starts slowing on its axis. The days and nights become longer. Birds die off. Crops fail. Suicide cults form. But the story centers on Julia's perspective as a girl on the brink of adolescence, living in a suburb...

I mentioned Sync in a previous blog post , but it's been a while and it certainly bears repeating. Especially this year, because Sync is offering an amazing collection of audiobooks. For free. Sync gives people a chance to experience audiobooks and pairs classic literature with a current YA release. A new pair is released once a week throughout summer. Just sign up and you can be downloading free audiobooks all summer long. Sync will even send you a text or email reminder when the new audiobooks are available. How easy is that? (And did I mention it is FREE!?!) The first pair --  Of Poseidon by Anna Banks, read by Rebecca Gibel and The Tempest by William Shakespeare, read by a Full Cast -- releases on May 30, 2013 and will available for download through June 5, 2013. You can see the full schedule of Sync audiobooks here . Happy listening!