manda-rae's Haul

Stacking the Shelves consists of books we received in the last week, hosted by Tynga's reviews.

I've had a busy week at work.  But I'm still reading, which is good!

For Review:

• Black City by Elizabeth Richards
• Amazon | Book Depository | Goodreads
• This book sounded so intriguing.  Vampires in a weird dystopian setting?  Sign me up.  Plus,  what's up with the cover?  It's stunning.  Thanks goes to Grace from Books of Love who set up this ARC Tour.

manda-rae's Past Week

Reviews:

• Dreamless by Josephine Angelini
• Diminishing Paige by Robert Shields

Memes:

• Top Ten Books That Make You Think
• Waiting on Wednesday: Everbound by Brodi Ashton

Giveaway:

• Chastity by R Rodriguez (ends today)

Diminishing Paige by Robert Shields

Genre:  Adult Contemporary

Robert Shields' website
Amazon | Goodreads

Description (taken from Goodreads):

She leaned over and kissed him on the mouth totally catching him by surprise. Her warm lips erased any symptoms of being cold on the bridge, yet she froze him in place. It was wonderful, but it was over in a flash and he thought, "I never kissed her back."

A fool knows the price of everything and the value of nothing is the romantic theme between Paige Wheeler and Storm Lancaster. The intelligent high school expellees serendipitously meet at a garage sale and end up approaching sex in an awkward text book fashion. They start viewing the relationship through the lens of economics as if sex was a commodity.

As they grow closer together, Paige’s promiscuous past comes to light that haunts her, which leads to complications in their relationship. Storm’s ineptness in handling the pressures of a relationship from previously attending an all-boys school causes problems while Paige finds some amusement in his immaturity. Her sterilized view of sex creates consternation for Storm over their rapport.

At their new school, they make a mutual friend in Jamal. The trio engages in pranks as their friendship with him develops. Storm’s proclivity as an adolescent male leads to poor decisions with Paige as Jamal, often the voice of reason and conscience is ignored to the detriment of the couple.

Emotions spin out of control after a frolicking camping trip with Paige’s old high-school buddies and the sexual economics experiment explodes.

The tagline: A fool knows the price of everything and the value of nothing is the perfect tagline for this book.  Meet Paige, the cliche "it" girl who has everything.  She's the kind of mean girl you love to hate because she's got the looks and she somehow manages to snag guys left and right.  However, deep down, she's just as insecure as the next girl.  Meet Storm, your average joe just trying to fit in and survive high school.  With a chance meeting, they become friends and deal with life, relationships, sex, and emotions in an odd way.  This book has a few twists and turns, some expected and some not expected.

In the beginning, I was put off by Paige.  I mean, what kind of girl out there is so straight-forward and confident enough to talk about sex with mere acquaintances?  It's almost as if it's how guys wish girls would attack the subject but girls just don't (i'm generalizing, I know).  But she really grew on me because she is a girl with issues.  And even though I don't have her confidence at all, I feel I can relate to her struggles in life. And her fascination with economics is a little weird, but it worked.  While reading this book, I felt like I got an economics lesson without the pain of learning economics.

On the other end of the relationship, we see Storm: a guy who's very inexperienced with relationships.  And it seems that Paige kind of educates him on relationships and sexual matters while he tends to bring Paige back down to everyday life.  So somehow, these two work well together.  And as their relationship grew, their characters grew on me as well.

This short story is a contemporary tale that weaves economics into everyday relationships.  And it's something I'd recommend to more mature audiences looking for a good afternoon contemporary.

Thanks goes to Robert Shields for providing me a review copy.

Waiting on Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly post hosted by Breaking the Spine, and it spotlights upcoming books that we as readers are anxiously awaiting...

Everbound by Brodi Ashton
Genre:  YA Mythology
Everneath Series, Book 2
Brodi Ashton's website
Expected publication date:  January 22, 2013
Amazon | Book Depository | Goodreads

Description (taken from Goodreads):

Two months ago, the Tunnels of the underworld came for Nikki Beckett. That night, Nikki's boyfriend, Jack, made the ultimate sacrifice. All Nikki wants is to save Jack before it's too late. All Cole wants is to find his queen - and he thinks Nikki is the one. Both determined, both desperate, Nikki and Cole form a tense alliance, leading them on a dangerous journey to The Heart of The Everneath.

I really enjoyed Everneath.  And even though I have a fond attachment for Cole, Jack stole my heart in Everneath.  So, of course I'm looking forward to what happens next in this series.

Dont forget to check out my giveaway for 

Chastity by R Rodriguez (ends 9/15)

Top Ten Books That Make You Think

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly post hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week's post is Top Ten Books That Make You Think.

Books that make me think?  That shouldn't be too hard.  I'll have to leave comments about what the books make me think about.

Books that make me think of, well, books:

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Libyrinth by Pearl White

Books that make me think of how much I would not survive in a dystopian setting:

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Divergent by Veronica Roth

XVI by Julia Karr

Books that make me think of death (and life):

Chastity by R Rodriguez

If I Stay by Gayle Forman

Books that make me think of Greek Gods:

Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini

Everneath by Brodi Ashton

Dont forget to check out my giveaway for 

Chastity by R Rodriguez (ends 9/15)

Dreamless by Josephine Angelini

Genre:  YA Mythology

Starcrossed Series, Book 2

Josephine Angelini's website

Amazon | Book Depository | Goodreads

Note:  As always with second books in a series, it can spoil the first one for you.  So reader beware.  Although when I'm undecided on a series, I always find the second book reviews tend to help sway me...

Description (taken from Josephine Angelini's website):

Can true love be forgotten?

As the only Scion who can descend into the Underworld, Helen Hamilton has been given a nearly impossible task. By night she wanders through Hades, trying to stop the endless cycle of revenge that has cursed her family. By day she struggles to overcome the fatigue that is rapidly eroding her sanity. Without Lucas by her side, Helen is not sure she has the strength to go on.

Just as Helen is pushed to her breaking point, a mysterious new Scion comes to her rescue. Funny and brave, Orion shields her from the dangers of the Underworld. But time is running out—a ruthless foe plots against them, and the Furies' cry for blood is growing louder.

As the ancient Greek world collides with the mortal one, Helen's sheltered life on Nantucket descends into chaos. But the hardest task of all will be forgetting Lucas Delos.

Ooh, mythology and fantasy, how I love thee.  I absolutely loved Starcrossed; it was one of my favorites last year.  And while the second one was good, I feel it left me with some questions.

As most series go, this book does have a slight love triangle going on once Helen meets Orion.  Who am I kidding though?  This love triangle wouldn't even exist if it weren't for the incest part keeping Lucas and Helen from each other.  Did I mention that I'm sick of reading about incest in tons of books? Or how characters believe they're related and they're really not?  Yes, I'm sick of all of it...  Anyways, back to the love triangle.  It's not really that bad of a triangle because Lucas, hands down, wins Helen's love.

We've got some Underworld happenings, some pesky gods, and some furies pissing the Scions off.  Sidenote here, I liked reading about Morpheus' character.  He has a small role in the book, but I somehow loved his character.  Back to the story, Helen has to somehow release the Scion curse while maintaining her sanity.  In the end, the plot is fairly simple, but there were some things I did not catch onto until they happened.  So, indeed, I still loved the story.  I just want my questions answered, dang it.

So will I be anxiously awaiting the third one?  You bet ya.  And I'd recommend all mythology lovers pick this series up.

Challenges:  Sensational Seconds, YA Mythology, and Young Adult Reading Challeges