Showing posts with label Gabrielle Zevin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gabrielle Zevin. Show all posts

Top Ten Tuesday #49: Audiobooks

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme created by The Broke and The Bookish. Each week the girls at B&B think up a fun theme, and participating bloggers post their favorite 10 books in that category. This week's theme is

Top Ten Audiobooks
Today was a freebie topic for Top Ten Tuesday, and I wanted to do something unique, like all the amazing posts I've seen so I decided to focus on audiobooks, which I never liked until last year. I have been planning on a new blog feature called Audio Adventures that I haven't been able to get off the ground yet, but this is a preview of the books I'm planning on featuring when I finally start it up!

 




 

Those are the top audio adaptations I have listened to thus far, but I'm looking for more! Please share your picks for great audiobooks! Also, what did you feature for your freebie TTT? Share your topics, your picks, and your links in the comments!

Review: In the Age of Love and Chocolate by Gabrielle Zevin

Rating: 4 stars
Pub Date: October 29, 2013
Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Genre: young adult
Format/Source: hardcover, borrowed from the library
Status: Final book in the Birthright trilogy


Summary:

All These Things I’ve Done, the first novel in the Birthright series, introduced us to timeless heroine Anya Balanchine, a plucky sixteen year old with the heart of a girl and the responsibilities of a grown woman. Now eighteen, life has been more bitter than sweet for Anya. She has lost her parents and her grandmother, and has spent the better part of her high school years in trouble with the law. Perhaps hardest of all, her decision to open a nightclub with her old nemesis Charles Delacroix has cost Anya her relationship with Win.

Still, it is Anya’s nature to soldier on. She puts the loss of Win behind her and focuses on her work. Against the odds, the nightclub becomes an enormous success, and Anya feels like she is on her way and that nothing will ever go wrong for her again. But after a terrible misjudgment leaves Anya fighting for her life, she is forced to reckon with her choices and to let people help her for the first time in her life. 


In the Age of Love and Chocolate
is the story of growing up and learning what love really is. It showcases the best of Gabrielle Zevin’s writing for young adults: the intricate characterization of Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac and the big-heartedness of Elsewhere. It will make you remember why you loved her writing in the first place.

Top Ten Tuesday #15: Fall 2013 TBR

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme created by The Broke and The Bookish. Each week the girls at B&B think up a fun theme, and participating bloggers post their favorite 10 books in that category. This week's theme is

Top Ten Books on My Fall TBR 
This week's list was pretty easy to write. Why can't they all be this simple and straight-forward?

1. The Fiery Heart by Richelle Mead. After Indigo Spell, if you think I'm leaving the next installment of Richelle's superb Bloodlines series off my fall TBR, you are sadly f-ing mistaken (1:50 for that reference, but watch the whole thing, dang it!). Quite frankly, I needed a whole series of cold showers after reading TIS, and if the buzz I'm hearing about Fiery Heart is indicative of simliar action, I will be spending most of November submerging myself in buckets of ice. Also, it's a great story. Lots of action, mystery, and really, really good relationships. Not just the hot stuff. Richelle writes good friendships and good non-steamy parts of romantic relationships as well.

2. Allegiant by Veronica Roth. Duh. Like all of you don't have this on your list. 'Nuff said.

3. Just One Year by Gayle Forman. Yes, yes, yes. This is sitting on my shelf right now taunting me. 

4. Perfect Ruin by Lauren DeStefano. After the hurt of finishing the Chemical Garden series, I am in in serious need of some DeStefano. Also sitting on my shelf taunting me.

5. Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson. This was the bonus book on my summer TBR list (of which I completed 7 out of 11). Now that it's closer to the pub date, I think it's time to actually read it. My brother in law RAVES about it and constantly peppers me. "Hey, Mary, have you read Steelheart yet?" "Mary, you need to read Steelheart." "Blah blah words blah Brandon Sanderson blah more words blah Steelheart." I read you loud and clear, bro!

6. In the Age of Love and Chocolate by Gabrielle Zevin. Oh, this series. It's phenomenal. It's cool and original. It's about love and family and chocolate for heaven's sake! Also, cute boys. Read my Waiting on Wednesday post on it for more info.

7. Timepiece by Myra McEntire. Hourglass was really cool, and I've heard that although it's way different (hello, different pov!), Timepiece is even better. I mean, Caleb. That is all.

9. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Genevieve Tucholke. I've heard absolutely wonderful things about this from people whose bookish opinions I fully trust. Not just wonderful things. Raving. Consider me sold. Plus, it seems really different. I think a little gothic lit could do me some good. I've been playing between contemporary and contemporary paranormal for a while now, and I want to delve into something deeper. See what I did there? :P

10. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. Did you even read Eleanor & Park?! Of course you did. It was spectacular. SOLD. I think Fangirl is one of those novels, like Gayle Forman's Just One Day, that is true new adult lit. Sure, the smutty NA stuff can be entertaining, but smut is not the only reason NA should exist. I have a feeling this is going to hit me hard, and I'll love every moment.

Bonus books aka the I-have-to-read-these-in-the-next-couple-months-or-I'll-hate-myself-for-being-a-total-failure-of-a-fangirl-slash-blogger-slash-reviewer: The Elite by Kiera Cass. School Spirits by Rachel Hawkins. The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. White Cat by Holly Black. Life After Theft by Aprilynne Pike. nantucket Blue by Leila Howland.

Waiting on Wednesday: In the Age of Love and Chocolate


Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases.


In the Age of Love and Chocolate (Birthright #3)
by Gabrielle Zevin
Coming October 29, 2013
Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Summary:
All These Things I’ve Done, the first novel in the Birthright series, introduced us to timeless heroine Anya Balanchine, a plucky sixteen year old with the heart of a girl and the responsibilities of a grown woman. Now eighteen, life has been more bitter than sweet for Anya. She has lost her parents and her grandmother, and has spent the better part of her high school years in trouble with the law. Perhaps hardest of all, her decision to open a nightclub with her old nemesis Charles Delacroix has cost Anya her relationship with Win.

Still, it is Anya’s nature to soldier on. She puts the loss of Win behind her and focuses on her work. Against the odds, the nightclub becomes an enormous success, and Anya feels like she is on her way and that nothing will ever go wrong for her again. But after a terrible misjudgment leaves Anya fighting for her life, she is forced to reckon with her choices and to let people help her for the first time in her life. 


In the Age of Love and Chocolate is the story of growing up and learning what love really is. It showcases the best of Gabrielle Zevin’s writing for young adults: the intricate characterization of Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac and the big-heartedness of Elsewhere. It will make you remember why you loved her writing in the first place.

Why I want it:
I originally picked up All These Things I've Done because I was doing a reading challenge and required a book with a mostly white cover. I love it when little happenstances introduce me to amazing books! The Birthright series describes this really cool-but-also-incredibly-dangerous, somewhat-dystopian future where things like coffee and chocolate are illegal. Oh, man. I know so many writers who would rather go to jail than have to give up their caffeine fixes! This series is original and thrilling as it details Anya's determination to first keep her immediate family together and then she expands to attempt to keep her father's empire together. This is the ultimate game of who-can-you-trust because seeming allies turn out to be enemies and antagonists prove to be helpful. Plus, there is a boy, and he is awesome and quirky and charming and kind, but everything and everyone is dead-set against Anya and Win being together. Will it finally happen in the finale? Gosh, I hope so!

Why I think you should want it:
-Horrific imagining of a future without chocolate and coffee? Food for thought.
-Really awesome protagonist who feels like she can't do anything, but does it all anyway.
-Family loyalty....by just about everybody. Good luck finding who isn't. :D
-Mobs, spies, thieves, would-be-assasinations = super thrilling read.
-Cute boys. 'Nuff said.

So if you haven't checked out All These Things I've Done and Because It Is My Blood, I highly encourage you to do so. You've basically got two months so hop to it!