Weekly Wrap-up: March 10-16

I read a lot of books that I don't review here for one reason or another, the foremost being lack of time, so my new weekly meme is Saturday Weekly Wrap-up, where I'll summarize what I've read and what I am currently reading that week.

Completed:
Goliath (Leviathan #3) by Scott Westerfeld - 5 stars. This trilogy was fantastic. Part historical fiction, part steampunk, and all adventure. I hope to do a review of it as a whole.

Rereads:
Boy Meets Girl and Every Boy's Got One (Boy #2 & 3) by Meg Cabot - 5 stars for both. I love this adorable adult chick lit companion series and read it about once a year.

Currently reading:
Requiem (Delirium #3) by Lauren Oliver
Shadowhunters and Downworlders edited by Cassandra Clare

New to my bookshelf this week:
The Fine Art of Truth or Dare by Melissa Jensen
Pretty Crooked (Pretty Crooked #1) by Elisa Ludwig
The Innocents (The Innocents #1) by Lili Peloquin

Listmania Monday: Gingers

At some point, blonds stopped being the butt of all hair-related jokes and gingers became the, well, red-headed stepchildren that everybody mocks mercilessly. However, redheads seem to be having a sudden resurgence in popularity with such representatives as Emma Stone, Isla Fisher, Prince Harry, Eddie Redmayne, Ariel, and Merida. As such, many ya authors are getting in on this red-hot ginger action and providing awesome redhaired characters for us to love. Who's your favorite? (If you said Fred Weasley, you are my favorite. Also, dibs!) As always, please let me know who I've left off!

Review: Everbound by Brodi Ashton

Rating: 5 stars
Pub Date: January 22, 2013
Publisher: Balzer + Bray (an imprint of HarperCollins Children's)
Genre: young adult, fantasy (mythology), romance
Format/Source: Hardcover, my own copy
Status: Book 2 of the Everneath trilogy

Summary:

Nikki Beckett could only watch as her boyfriend, Jack, sacrificed himself to save her, taking her place in the Tunnels of the Everneath for eternity — a debt that should’ve been hers. She’s living a borrowed life, and she doesn’t know what to do with the guilt. And every night Jack appears in her dreams, lost and confused and wasting away.

Desperate for answers, Nikki turns to Cole, the immortal bad boy who wants to make her his queen — and the one person least likely to help. But his heart has been touched by everything about Nikki, and he agrees to assist her in the only way he can: by taking her to the Everneath himself.

Nikki and Cole descend into the Everneath, only to discover that their journey will be more difficult than they’d anticipated — and more deadly. But Nikki vows to stop at nothing to save Jack — even if it means making an incredible sacrifice of her own.

In this enthralling sequel to Everneath, Brodi Ashton tests the bonds of destiny and explores the lengths we’ll go to for the ones we love.

Review:

Wow. Just...wow. A lot of people like to complain about sequels, describing this phenomenon as the "second book syndrome" as if it's the author's fault and not the fact that 1. as readers, our expectations are usually ridiculously high and 2. obviously in a trilogy or other more-than-just-two-books series, there's no way the author can give us a happily-ever-after kind of ending...yet. So I've decided to go into reading second books with a more positive attitude...and I gotta say this more open perspective has been paying off for the past two months as I've been treated to some real winners like Prodigy and Through the Ever Night. Now, I liked Everneath and I liked Neverfall so I had a feeling I'd like Everbound. I just wasn't sure how much. However, Brodi Ashton blew my expectations away with Everbound. Seriously, this was a great read. 

Retro Review: Forever by Judy Blume

RATING: 4/5 stars
PUB DATE: June 3, 2005 (first pub 1975)
PUBLISHER: Pan Children's
GENRE: young adult, classic contemporary, realistic, romance
FORMAT: Hardcover, borrowed from the library

Forever is one of those books where I didn't enjoy it so much as recognize its significance in the world of young adult literature, which is what really earned it those 4 stars. And, as most of you know, this book was originally published in 1975. So why am I reviewing it? Well, every so oftem, there are books so good, so interesting, or so important to the young adult genre that I'm going to review them regardless of when they were published. These reviews I will call my "Retro Reviews" and I'm going to make that a Thursday meme (but not a weekly one). Anywho, Forever seriously blew the lid off the sex-in-ya discussion, which is why it's still so relevant to both literature and real life for teens today.

Birthday Bonanza Giveaway

GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED

Check HERE for open giveaways

So first of all, let me apologize for not being around so much and my lack of posting during February. My work schedule and family business has been CRAZY so unfortunately, my new blog had to take a bit of a backseat. :( I'm hoping that's not going to happen again, and I'm trying to take some actions to safeguard against that.

Now, in lieu of my weekly Listmania post, I thought I'd so something much cooler and more fun. See, tomorrow, March 5 is my 25th birthday! It's kind of the end of an era and the beginning of another. That's why I thought I'd do another giveaway! Two of my favorite authors are having book birthdays tomorrow: Lauren Oliver is finishing up the Delirium trilogy with Requiem and Claudia Gray is publishing the first book in her long-awaited new series Spellcaster. End of one series, beginning of another. Perfect books to give away on my quarter-of-a-century.

Discussion Day: Coincidence...or fate? Similarities in the books we read

In lieu of  list for today, I wanted to start a discussion about one of the weirdest and coolest occurrences in my reading experience: similarities between the books inread. Now, when I say this, I'm not talking about going on a specific reading kick, like going through a I'm-only-reading-[insert author here]'s-books-until-I-finish-them-all phase or getting sucked into one genre. We've all been down both roads. What I'm talking about is my reading Kiersten White's Mind Games immediately followed by Emily Giffin's Where We Belong and realizing both are set in Chicago AND St. Louis. Coinkydink? Could be because I had no idea going into them plus they're in completely different genres: one is a sci-fi-ish thriller of a ya novel, the other an adult contemporary chick lit. And that's not all. I actually became aware of this odd phenomenon last sumer when I read three novels in a row set in New Orleans without knowing ahead of time, followed by two novels featuring a character named Cam. Weird, huh? Yeah, I think so. Anyone else have an experience similar to mine?

Listmania Monday: No Love Triangles!

Everybody loves a good love triangle, especially really really good ones like Will-Tessa-Jem or Dimitri-Rose-Adrian. Okay, sometimes we pretend to love the triangle when we really just love declaring a team. But don't you sometimes feel like love triangles are all you read? I do. Have no fear, friends, because I've made up a list of plain old love segments (lines from point A to point B. How's that for dragging up middle school math? :P) for when you want a relationship filled with drama and tears...but just between two participants. Teams need not apply! Like all my lists, this one is far from complete as I can really only use books I've read. Let me know what I'm leaving off! When you guys comment, you give me recommendations, for which I'm always greatful!

Public Service Announcement: I do try to keep my posts fairly spoiler-free, however, in this post, this break line actually covers up actual spoiler-y material. If you don't want to know if your series is going to end up love-triangle-y, you may not want to continue after the break. Some series that you didn't imagine would become a triangle change. See: Twilight. I have no problem using that as my example as it was 1. originally written as a stand-alone novel and therefore the Jacob/Bella nonsense was not actually intended and 2. Hello. The movies. Everybody on the planet has an opinion about Team Edward or Team Jacob. I'm pretty sure the pope has fielded that question at some point. But I digress. Seriously. Some sequels brought the triangle with a BANG! out of left field. If you're not sure you want to know, don't keep reading.