Do you live in Utah? Are you super-excited to see The Hunger Games? Would you like to see it at midnight with a bunch of people who are as excited as you? Then you're in luck!

The Book Bloggers of Utah are organizing a midnight showing of The Hunger Games for Thursday, March 22nd! We'll be at a theatre with reserve seating, so we'll all be able to sit together! You're welcome to bring friends too (I'll be bringing my mother. Together we're a pretty awesome party.).

If you are interested, please e-mail me or Penelope ASAP for more information! We need a final count before February 22nd (the day tickets go on sale).

Here's my e-mail: Squeakybooks@yahoo.com
Here's Penelope's: readingfever@gmail.com

What are you waiting for?! You know you want to come. It's a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see me sob like a baby.

Release Date: September 27th, 2011
Genre:  Um... fiction?
Publisher: Candlewick
Pages: 205
Rating:
Amazon Link*: Click here
Goodreads Page: Click here
Summary:

The monster showed up just after midnight. As they do. But it isn’t the monster Conor’s been expecting. He’s been expecting the one from his nightmare, the nightmare he’s had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments, the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming. . . .

This monster, though, is something different. Something ancient, something wild. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor.
It wants the truth.

Blurb: It's like The Giving Tree gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Review: I have an interesting relationship with this book. I'm still not sure if I love it or hate it. I thought this book was SOOOOOOO boring for the first 100+. I thought it was didactic, and I KNEW there was supposed to be some kind of deep message, but the fact that it wasn't affecting me was really bugging me.

But then... something changed. I don't know what it was. All of a sudden... I loved it. And then I thought it was a cheap shot. And then I thought it was beautiful. And then I wanted to throw it against the wall. And then I was sobbing. And then I decided that I would give this book the worst rating ever.

And here we are.

I think what was the hardest part was that by the time I finished the book and was sobbing, I thought "This isn't fair! I don't like this book, so why is it making me cry so much?!" It made me angry. I had been prepared to hate it. There was so much that made me want to hate it. And then for it to suddenly make me want to love it?! Gah! Emotional turmoil!

It boils down to this: A Monster Calls was not my kind of book. It was a little too dependant on its metaphors, etc. However, I really liked it. Hence the conflict.

The bright side is that it's really short. It only took me a couple hours to read, if that. So whether you love it or hate it, it's not going to take a lot out of your day.



*I am an amazon affiliate. If you purchase this book using my link, I will get a tiny fraction of the purchase, which goes toward contests.

Release Date: February 21st, 2012
Genre:  Romance, Dystopia
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Pages: 368
Rating:
Amazon Link*: Click here
Goodreads Page: Click here
Series: Chemical Garden #2 (Review of #1)
Summary (Spoilers, highlight to view):

Running away brings Rhine and Gabriel right into a trap, in the form of a twisted carnival whose ringmistress keeps watch over a menagerie of girls. Just as Rhine uncovers what plans await her, her fortune turns again. With Gabriel at her side, Rhine travels through an environment as grim as the one she left a year ago - surroundings that mirror her own feelings of fear and hopelessness.


The two are determined to get to Manhattan, to relative safety with Rhine’s twin brother, Rowan. But the road there is long and perilous - and in a world where young women only live to age twenty and young men die at twenty-five, time is precious. Worse still, they can’t seem to elude Rhine’s father-in-law, Vaughn, who is determined to bring Rhine back to the mansion...by any means necessary.

Blurb: There's a reason the girl on the cover looks bored.

Review: I am almost shocked at how boring this book was. I love the first one so much and this one... fell totally flat. It took 275 pages to get ANYWHERE and then the last 70 were one big drug-haze.

I'm trying to figure out what the point of this book was. It wasn't even really a bridge-book, because I don't feel like the author took me anywhere (which is kinda the definition of bridge). I really felt like the characters were just meandering around.

And then there was the DISTURBING stuff. Even more disturbing than the first book. I don't know why Lauren had to do that. It was already plenty disturbing.

But that doesn't compare to how slow and meaningless I found it. I guess... maybe there's hidden meaning in the slowness? Maybe we were supposed to find character depth here? I didn't. All I found was a very, very long story for only being 368 pages. It totally threw off my holiday reading. Someone said it was their favorite book of the year (I forget who). I'd really like to know why.



*I am an amazon affiliate. If you purchase this book using my link, I will get a tiny fraction of the purchase, which goes toward contests.

*sigh* I've done it again. Here are a couple books that I waited too long to write a review and I've forgotten too much to be able to write a full review. And I feel EXTRA bad because they're both from authors I LOVE! So I'll do some mini-style that will hopefully still show you how awesome both books are.

Drink, Slay, Love, Sarah Beth Durst
(Goodreads | Amazon)

I have deduced that Sarah has the ability to take any topic and make it awesome. Pearl, our vampire-turned-daywalker main character, has one of the freshest voices I've had the pleasure of reading. The story is gripping, the humor is legit, and the characters are likeable and hateable. What more could you ask from a book?

Frost, Wendy Delsol
(Goodreads | Amazon)

I love this series. The first one was spectacular, and this one was good, but not quite as good. The only thing I didn't like was the MAJOR sequel-phase happening between Kat and Jack. But I did LOVE how much lore was brought into this story. Wendy has a true gift for making a book feel like both contemporary fiction, and fantasy. And the lore that she uses is so unique and fun! There was also plenty of mystery to go along with the action and romance. All around great.

Release Date: January 3rd, 2012
Genre:  Romance, Fantasy
Publisher: Philomel
Pages: 406
Rating:
Amazon Link*: Click here
Goodreads Page: Click here
Series: Nightshade #3 (Review of #1, #2)
Summary (Spoilers, highlight to view):

Calla has always welcomed war. But now that the final battle is upon her, there’s more at stake than fighting. There’s saving Ren, even if it incurs Shay’s wrath. There’s keeping Ansel safe, even if he’s been branded a traitor. There’s proving herself as the pack’s alpha, facing unnamable horrors, and ridding the world of the Keepers’ magic once and for all. And then there’s deciding what to do when the war ends. If Calla makes it out alive, that is.

Blurb: I don't think this series could have ended any better, even if it means some people are unhappy.

Review: Ah, the end of a series. Always so hard to read, and I imagine hard to write. Especially when  you've created a pretty killer love triangle. I'm team Ren, by the way. I think Shay is a whiny baby.

Speaking of whiny babies, let's talk about the things I DIDN'T like first. There's really only one: Calla. It really bothered me how unfaithful she was, to EITHER guy. She's always thinking about having sex with one of them, and then feeling bad about it, and then lusting after the other. It drove me BONKERS. And Shay was still a whiny baby.

Also, I feel like ther was A LOT crammed into this book. Calla and Shay are looking for things (very horcrux-like actually) and it takes them, what? maybe 3 days to find all of them? A chapter for each? I would have MUCH rather had another book in this series that took a little longer to work this part out, rather than cramming it all into this book.

But what makes this book AWESOME is the different relationships and the ending. There's a whole lot of love happening in this book-- platonic, romantic, and familial-- and it was all pretty awesome. And the ending... hm. To be honest, I had to give myself time to think about whether I loved or hated the ending. I decided on love (though hate is just under the surface). She ended it in such a way that really made me think. And I liked that. I can't say much for fear of spoilers, but let's just say that I think almost everyone (in the book at least) ends up where they should be.

So even though I didn't like Calla, she was balanced by her other characters. And Shay actually did become a little less whiny. All of the negatives in this book were far outweighed by the positives. Sometimes there's a danger of getting invested in a series and then loving it UNTIL the last book, and then you feel like you've wasted your time. Not so with this series. It started out awesome, and it ends awesome. Not perfect, but still pretty awesome.

Did I mention awesome?



*I am an amazon affiliate. If you purchase this book using my link, I will get a tiny fraction of the purchase, which goes toward contests.