Since July is now over, I'm going to be archiving this page in a post so that I can make a new page for December 2010 releases.

Click on the books for more info!




Other
by Karen Kincy
July 1st, 2010



Bruiser
by Neal Shusterman
July 1st, 2010



The Grimm Legacy
by Polly Shulman
July 8th, 2010



The Education of Bet
by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
July 12th, 2010



Mieradome
by Kate o'Hegarty
July 16th, 2010



Linger
by Maggie Stiefvater
July 20th, 2010



The Poison Diaries
by Maryrose Wood
July 20th, 2010

Welcome to the 7-31-10 edition of In My Mailbox. Please enjoy.

Don't worry. My voice only lasts the first 30 seconds.

~ Phil



CLICK HERE TO ENTER TO WIN INSIDE OUT

CLICK HERE TO BE PART OF BIRTHDAY BASH
 

So it's been nearly a year since the last plotrospection post, but I was just reading it and it made me really want to do another. So here we go, on a similar vein as last time, today's discussion is...



Now that's just me. That's why I want to open this up for discussion. How do you feel about LAFS (Love at first sight)? Remember, we are discussing how this works in novels. You're welcome to discuss real-life examples, but I'd prefer if we stuck to books (why? *points up* Squeaky Books).

Also, be nice. :) Don't think I need to bother saying that.

Release Date: July 1st, 2010
Genre: Supernatural
Pages: 336
Rating:
Goodreads Page: Click here
Summary:

Tennyson:
Don't get me started on the Bruiser. He was voted "Most Likely to Get the Death Penalty" by the entire school. He's the kid no one knows, no one talks to, and everyone hears disturbing rumors about. So why is my sister, BrontË, dating him? One of these days she's going to take in the wrong stray dog, and it's not going to end well.

Bronte:
My brother has no right to talk about Brewster that way—no right to threaten him. There's a reason why Brewster can't have friends—why he can't care about too many people. Because when he cares about you, things start to happen. Impossible things that can't be explained. I know, because they're happening to me.

Review: Neal Shusterman is such a versatile writer! He can write INTENSE books like Unwind, mysterious books like Everlost, and touching books like Bruiser.

While this story does have a paranormal/supernatural element to it, it is very much a book about human relationships. What makes us love people? What makes us act out? How far will you go to save someone you love? Even though it wasn't quite gripping enough to be called a "Squeaky" book, it is certainly a fabulous read.

I love watching how the characters change when Bruiser is around or absent. Bronte is a good person, and Bruiser makes her even better. But Tennyson is an entirely different story. You'll have to read it to find out more.

Touching, heartwrenching, and beautifully written, Bruiser is not a story I'll be forgetting anytime soon.

'nuff said.

Hey guys! I'm home (well, at my grandmother's actually) and recovering very well! No pain & no drugs. It's AWESOME! Thanks for all your well-wishes!
So, pretty soon my birthday is coming up, and I'd really like to do something BIG like I did when I first started blogging (Click here) only A LOT simpler, but with hopefully more prizes and giveaways.

I'm looking for other book bloggers who are willing to help! There are two basic things you could do:

1) Host a contest

• This just means that you host a giveaway on your blog in association with the contest.
• I'd LOVE it if you'd donate swag/books for a contest, but if you don't, that's fine. You can still host a contest, I'll just provide the prizes.
• The more that people donate, the more contests we can have!

2) Swap guest posts.

• Instead of just writing a guest post, I thought it would be cool to swap posts! Meaning I write one, and you write one, and then we post each others on our blogs.
• Yes, I will provide the topic (unless you want to)

If there's anything else you can think of doing I'd LOVE to know! Please fill out the form below, and I'll contact the participating bloggers. The extravaganza will run August 22nd through September 22 (my birthday!). It's a great chance to earn followers and have a blast during the doldrums of the first weeks of school.

Thanks guys!

Release Date: September 21st, 2010
Genre: Faerie/Paranormal/Teen-angst
Pages: 352
Rating: ZERO FLOWERS
Goodreads Page: Click here
Summary: (from ARC)

Though he lives in the small town of Gentry, Mackie comes from a world of tunnels and black murky water, a world of living dead girls ruled by a little tattooed princess. He is a Replacement-- left in the crib of a human baby sixteen years ago. Now, because of fatal allergies to iron, blood, and consecrated ground, Mackie is slowly dying in the human world.

Mackie would give anything to live among us, to practice on his bass or spend time with an oddly intriguing girl called Tate. But when Tate's baby sister goes missing, Mackie is drawn irrevocably into the underworld of Gentry, known as Mayhem. He must face the dark creatures of the Slag Heaps and find his rightful place, in our world, or theirs.

Review: I have never given a book zero stars on my blog before. I don't usually like to review books that I have such strong negative feelings for. But there has been a lot of hype for this book around the blogosphere, and I just wouldn't feel right if I didn't give you guys my two cents. I'm going to try to be nice, I have nothing against the author. She's published, which is a lot more than I can say.

In regards to the book-- The premise was so interesting! A faerie trying to live in our world with all the downsides of being a faerie. It's cool, right?

I also really liked Mackie's sister Emma. She was the only person actually willing to do something about the chaos that was Gentry and Mackie's life. His parents... I was glad that they kept Mackie and didn't treat him like a freak, but they still bothered me. For reasons to be explained.

The entire book was extremely vague. No one in the town of Gentry ever talks about ANYTHING. They all know that there are strange things going on, but no one does anything about it. Even Mackie's best friend never questions his weird behavior. I recognize that there was probably a deep meaning behind this. But I just couldn't find it. I just found it extremely annoying, and it made the characters seem very two dimensional. So many questions were left unanswered that just made me so frustrated.

Also, the profanity. This book is described as "Edward Scissorhands meets The Catcher in the Rye." This probably should have tipped me off, since I couldn't stand TCitR. This book had so much profanity, and underage drinking, and immorality. *sigh* I just don't want to read books that gritty. I can handle some grit, but not to that level.

Anyway. Lots of people love this book, including plenty of people whose opinions I really respect. But just be aware when you pick it up that it is very edgy.

I hope I wasn't mean. I didn't want to attack the author or book in any way. Every book has its place, even if it's not on my shelf.

Oh. My. Goodness.

This event has probably be the GREATEST single-giveaway for my blog. Seriously.

171 entries into the contest

42 followers gained. And following wasn't a requirement!!

Are you guys trying to kill me with overwhelming joy?! I love you guys. Seriously.

Okay. Now that our little love-fest is done, let's announce the winner, eh?

THE WINNER (as chosen by Random.org) IS...


Which is NICOLE! There were two Nicoles who entered. This is the Nicole who's email is @aim.com

I'll be e-mailing you after I get home from my surgery. Or, you can e-mail me first if you'd like!

I think I've learned from this giveaway that the simplest contests to enter are the best. Eh? Good to know.

Thanks everyone!

It's 3 am. I'm awake. This is wrong.

Going in for surgery in 2 hours. Hopefully. Blah. I don't even get to sleep during the surgery.

Flurgh.

Here's hoping I have enough brain power to read.

Oh. And the winner of WEREling will go up at 12:07 pm MST today. You can check back then.

Hopefully I'll be sleeping.

Because getting up at 3 am is wrong.

So wrong.

Tada! Another Vlog! I like making these. This one isn't as good, 'cause I had to cut it down to match the song. Sorry if some of the signs go too fast or too slow. My computer was rebelling and kept being too jittery for me to edit as accurately as I wanted. Hope you like it!





Featured Schtuff:
Sapphique, by Catherine Fisher
Bruiser, by Neal Shusterman
The Replacement, by Brenna Yovanoff
Dark Divine SWAG!
Jenna Fox, Pour Toujours (Jenna Fox, for always), by Mary E. Pearson

Howdy peeps! Have you heard of the Got Books? Event? Basically, 108 blogs are holding a giveaway from the 23rd to the 24th! Including me! To see a list of all the blogs participating, click here.

This is just gonna be a little giveaway, since I have something stewing for my birthday. Ends 7/24 at 11:59pm. Winner will be announced on 7/26

What can you win? WEREling by Steve Feasey. Here's a GoodReads summary:

Fourteen-year-old Trey Laporte is not a kid anymore. Not after the day he wakes up in agony—retina-splitting, vomit-inducing agony. His clothes are torn. His room is trashed.
Enter Lucien Charron, the mysterious, long-lost “uncle” with freakish fire-flecked eyes and skin that blisters in the sun. Suddenly, Trey finds himself living in a luxury penthouse at the heart of a strange and sinister empire built on the powers of the Netherworld—vampires, demons, sorcerers, and djinn.
And there is a girl—Alexa Charron—who is half vampire, half human, and insanely pretty, with powers all of her own. Trey is falling for her.
Trey is training night and day to control the newly discovered power lurking inside him. Now, demons are closing in on every side, and the most psychopathic bloodsucker to rock the Netherworld wants to destroy him. Above all, he must face one terrifying question: Is he a boy . . . or is he a beast?

Fill out the form to enter! open to US residents only.

Comment with a question you want answered when you read a dystopian.

a) What happened to force them into this awkward society?
b) What stopped the people from revolting?

You DO NOT have to be a follower (but I'd love it if you were!).

Contest open to US citizens only (or if you have a US mailing address)

Contest Closes 8/1/10 at 11:59pm MST, winner will be announced on 8/2/10

Release Date: November 2nd, 2010
Genre: Mystery/Sci-fi
Pages: 456 (ARC) Rumored 304 final copy
Rating:

Goodreads Page: Click here
Summary:

Tory Brennan, niece of acclaimed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan (of the Bones novels and hit TV show), is the leader of a ragtag band of teenage "sci-philes" who live on a secluded island off the coast of South Carolina. When the group rescues a dog caged for medical testing on a nearby island, they are exposed to an experimental strain of canine parvovirus that changes their lives forever.

As the friends discover their heightened senses and animal-quick reflexes, they must combine their scientific curiosity with their newfound physical gifts to solve a cold-case murder that has suddenly become very hot if they can stay alive long enough to catch the killer's scent.

Fortunately, they are now more than friends they're a pack. They are Virals

Review: This summary is deceiving. The ARC version of this book is 456 pages long. Nearly 500 pages! And the "viral" part of the book doesn't kick in until about 300 pages. For the first 300 pages, it's just a bunch of kids being detectives in your typical "the kids are right, but the adults don't listen" kind of story. Now, GoodReads and Amazon say that the final version is going to be 302-304 pages long. Dunno how they're gonna manage that. Bigger pages?

Anyway, don't get your hopes up for this book in terms of sci-fi. It was there, but not until over half-way through the book, and it was a stretch.

In short, this book was a weird combination of Nancy Drew, the Animorphs, and Scooby Doo.

My biggest problem with this book is that I could clearly tell this was an adult author struggling to find out how to write for a YA audience. Personally, I believe that YA books are/should be written just like adult books, except they have younger characters. There's no need to dumb down the writing style for teens. We get it. Honestly. The mature themes and profanity should be less extreme than most adult books, but most of this comes just from the younger age of the character.

Reichs did the exact opposite. She really dumbed down the writing style (so... much... repetition... and... dramatic... punctuation...) and left in quite a bit of profanity. I could tell she was a really good writer, but a YA editor just needed to set her straight. It read like MG, but had profanity like an upper YA.

All in all, disappointing. I had such high hopes.

I have MORE covers to show you! Y'all know how much I ADORE Carrie Ryan's The Forest of Hands and Teeth series, right? Well, the cover for the third book was just released, both US and UK. Naturally, I'll be getting the UK one so that it matches all my others. And, from what I've seen so far, the UK one comes out BEFORE the US one. Something tells me that can't be right, but I hope it is. Anyway, what do you think?

So... they weren't able to take me for sugery today. I got up at 3:30, arrived there at 5 AM, and just sat there for 3 hours. Then they final told me that they'd forgotten me and sent me home. *sigh* Well, at least I ave happy news to share with you guys:

I want to thank you all sososososo much for voting for The Lost Saint cover mock-up that I posted about earlier. Guess what! I won! Guess what else! I won twice. There were two winners, one that got the popular vote, and one that Bree chose as "Most like the actual cover." I didn't think I stood a chance at the popular vote, y'all proved me wrong! Even if you guys didn't vote for me('cause I didn't tell you which one was mine), I'm still really grateful to those of you who voted. Anyway, here's the cover I made.


What thinkest thou?



ADDED:

Heh. I turned mine blue just for fun:

Hola peoples. Quick update, I'm gonna be out for surgery tomorrow morning (At 5am UGH!) and I have to stay there for nearly two days. So... I didn't schedule any posts, because I'm cool like that. You probably wouldn't even notice I was gone for a whole day & a half-- I've been gone for a lot longer before-- but I'm telling you anyway. Because sometimes I like telling you guys personal things. Makes my blog feel more homey.

(You're thinking: Yeah. 'cause talking about surgery is real homey.)

It's nothing big. They're just worried about reactions to the pain meds, hence the overnight stay. I'm not allowed any technology (Living without my iPhone may kill me) but I am allowed books. So I'm thinking of this as an enforced read-a-thon. I bought some sweet books to bring! Which takes me into the IMM part of this post!

I decided to do my first vlog, with no talking. Just book showing. Tee hee.






And here's for all you non vlog-watchers.

Books:

The Not So Great Depression by Amy Goldman Koss
The Wager by Donna Jo Napoli
Wereling by Steve Feasey
Perchance to Dream by Lisa Mantchev
The Queen's Daughter by Susan Coventry
Passing Strange by Daniel Waters (Click Here to join the tour!)
Speak & Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
Epitaph Road by David Patneaude

Tada!

Release Date: November 25th, 2010 (Possibly September 30th)
Genre: Twisted Fairy Tale
Rating:

Goodreads Page: Click here
Summary:

Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?

His son, that’s who.

Ever since his father’s arrest for the murder of Little Red Riding Hood, teen wolf Henry Whelp has kept a low profile in a Home for Wayward Wolves . . . until a murder at the Home leads Henry to believe his father may have been framed. Now, with the help of his kleptomaniac roommate, Jack, and a daring she-wolf named Fiona, Henry will have to venture deep into the heart of Dust City: a rundown, gritty metropolis where fairydust is craved by everyone—and controlled by a dangerous mob of Water Nixies and their crime boss leader, Skinner. Can Henry solve the mystery of his family’s sinister past? Or, like his father before him, is he destined for life as a big bad wolf?

Review: You may have noticed the odd release date. That's cause GoodReads and the ARC said November. But Amazon says September. Which is true? I have no idea. Either way, it's still quite a ways off. But I'm the ONLY person who's reviewed it on GoodReads, so I figured I'd let you know about it now.

This story was so original! Never before have I read a twisted fairy tale like this. Think New York City inhabited by fairy tale creatures. The hominids (human-like creatures) HATE the animalia. I loved exploring this new world and trying to solve what happened to the fairies! There were subtle fairy-tale reference that made the book lover in me smile.

The only reason this wasn't a five-flower book was because of a couple things. 1) Profanity. There was some slight. There wasn't a ton, but it wasn't necessary. 2) Unhappy. I didn't like the ending. It made me sad. But I guess fairy tales often have sad endings.

But these things only brought it down 1/2 a flower. Not a big jump.

I really, really liked it. I've never read anything like it before.

Okay. So the general vibe I'm getting is that you'd like reviews of more popular books closer to the release date. BUT you'd like reviews of the more-uknown books sooner so that you can hear about them.

Am I getting this right?

I'm surprised at how unpopular the poll was. There was only one vote. And it was mine. Tee hee. I like comments better anyway. LOTS better.

And the winner is...

Thank you all for your kind words yesterday. I really love all of you guys, and if I'm not following your blogs, please let me know. I want to be.

I love how many new followers I got when I put up my Bree Despain contest! And it wasn't even a requirement. You guys are so awesome.

I'll post the winner of the contest after I get done with work, but first, I want y'alls opinion on something.

I was talking with my friend Y yesterday (you know who you are) and we talked about when to post reviews. I was worried about posting reviews too early, but she said that she likes to here about them as soon as I read them so she can put them on her list of things to look forward to.

What do you guys think? Post reviews as I read them? Or post closer to publication date? There's a poll in the sidebar to make voting easier.

That's why there haven't been many reviews lately. I've been reading, but they're all books that come out in November!

Conundrum.

Wow! Three years I've been book blogging. Three years right to this very minute!  THREE YEARS!!! That's insane! I feel like I was so young when I started.

Thank you to all of those who have stuck around with me along this journey. I love you guys.

All right, guys! It's nearly mid-July, which means it's time to start thinking about who will be Squeaky's AUGUST AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT! This will be the first time I do this, I'm really excited.

Do you guys have anyone you'd like to nominate? Preferably someone newer to the book-world or someone who had a book recently published. You're also welcome to nominate someone who's book will be published in August and you just want to know more about it!

PLEASE comment with possible authors. And remember, there will be a giveaway associated with whoever you nominate. Prizes! Hurrah!