Me on Let's Revisit a Book! (2)

And we're back with another fun look back at an older YA book to see if I still think it's good or not. Today, or prior to today, I reread Malinda Lo's Adaptation! (There might be a little bleed-through of the second half of the duology, Inheritance, because they do go hand in hand.)

Title: Adaptation
Author: Malinda Lo
Release Date: September 18, 2012
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (Hachette Book Group imprint)

From Goodreads:

Reese can’t remember anything from the time between the accident and the day she woke up almost a month later. She only knows one thing: She’s different now.

Across North America, flocks of birds hurl themselves into airplanes, causing at least a dozen to crash. Thousands of people die. Fearing terrorism, the United States government grounds all flights, and millions of travelers are stranded.

Reese and her debate team partner and longtime crush David are in Arizona when it happens. Everyone knows the world will never be the same. On their drive home to San Francisco, along a stretch of empty highway at night in the middle of Nevada, a bird flies into their headlights. The car flips over. When they wake up in a military hospital, the doctor won’t tell them what happened, where they are—or how they’ve been miraculously healed.

Things become even stranger when Reese returns home. San Francisco feels like a different place with police enforcing curfew, hazmat teams collecting dead birds, and a strange presence that seems to be following her. When Reese unexpectedly collides with the beautiful Amber Gray, her search for the truth is forced in an entirely new direction—and threatens to expose a vast global conspiracy that the government has worked for decades to keep secret.

My revisit conclusion: it's still really good! It's like sci-fi lite, set in the present day with some creeping in of aliens and advanced technology and conspiracy theories and a secretive government (because aren't they all? *winky face*). I do like stories like this, when it's set in the present day and everything's as the reader knows it but there's something that's a little different, something unfamiliar and chaotic in all the mundane.

What books like this seem to be about, to me, is about the unexpected. How sometimes it comes right at us, barreling into us, and we're just left behind to pick up the pieces and move on. But we know something's different, something's changed, and there's no one there to ask why or how or if it can be stopped or how long it's going to last or why us. Why now. And now that it's happened, how do we navigate this familiar but slightly different space when no one's there to guide us? I mean, there are figures there to guide us as best as they can, but it's not 100%. We have to learn on our own, and that can be a frightening prospect when we don't understand what's happened.

So if you haven't read this duology and you're looking for some sci-fi, far less violent and deadly than Independance Day with a fair amount of alien confusion and romance, then give it a chance. It flips back and forth between alien secrets and tension to teenage romance and Reese questioning her sexuality.

I hope you've enjoyed this week of looking back at a couple of slightly older YA books. I'll probably do this again when I get a free week or two. :)

Me on Girl Power Graphic Novels

Hi there! Welcome to one of today's stops in First Second's blog tour all about girl power graphic novels. These are all books that feature different kinds of girls, strong girls and scared girls and powerful girls and intelligent girls and clueless girls, as the main character. Seeing different kinds of heroes, heroines, and other main characters is so important for readers of kids books, no matter their gender. There's no one way to be, everyone is different, and everyone is amazing.

And so, here's a look at some very different young girls that can be found leading the way and falling into trouble in some recent graphic novels. :)

First is Claudette in Giants Beware!, Dragons Beware!, and Monsters Beware! by Jorge Aguirre & Rafael Rosado. Claudette is brash, rough and tumble. She's uncouth, head-strong, and bold. All she thinks about, dreams about, is fighting giants and monsters. All she thinks about is defeating evil and being a hero. Saving those in peril. And, as everyone around her constantly points out, she has no sense of propriety or delicacy. She speaks her mind and rushes too far and too fast into situations. She doesn't listen to sense. She's reckless. Claudette's more of an act first and ask questions later kind of girl, which can be very dangerous. But Claudette is staunchly loyal, to her blacksmith father and her aspiring chef brother Gaston, to her princess in training friend Marie, and to her dog Valiant. When the chips are down, Claudette will rush in with her sword, ready to bash any and all monsters. The entire series is a wonderful mixture of silliness, curious magic, complicated characters, and hard decisions.

Next is Isabel in The City on the Other Side by Mairghred Scott & Robin Robinson. Isabel is a quiet, lonely girl looking for a place of her own. Her life is far from exciting or even interesting, kept safe from dirt smudges and any hint of fun from her posh society mother and her distant artist father. She wonders if they truly love her, care about her, because they seem far more interested in their own lives than spend time with their daughter. But then, on a trip to Carmel to visit her father, Isabel ends up falling through to the fairy world and right into the middle of a war. A war that could impact her world as well. Drawn to a magical necklace, sure that no one back home will miss her, Isabel sets out on an epic quest. She comes into her own on this journey. She takes risks, falls into danger multiple times, and refuses to stop until everyone is saved. This is a girl who's finally found something she can do, finally found something that could be hers, if only for a little while. A girl who's, hopefully, found somewhere to be.

Then there's Avani in Star Scouts and The League of Lasers by Mike Lawrence. Avani is new to town, lonely because she doesn't have any friends and annoyed because her father signed her up for Flower Scouts where all the other girls do is talk about boys and makeup. She's bored, waiting for something she's interested in. And then she's mistakenly abducted by an alien. And so Avani joins Mabel and her Star Scout troop, made up of other aliens, and begins to lead a secret life of robotics and teleportation and weird space camp. Avani's like any kid who moves to a new town, she's looking for something familiar in a new place, and she sort of finds it with Mabel. She's met other kids who like doing interesting (to her) activities. But there's something that comes across in the first book, and that's that Avani can be rather bossy. After she finds the Star Scouts, when they compete against other groups at camp, she needs help from the others. But she's pushy in that she only wants the help that will make sure she wins. Both books are good looks at how friendship isn't easy, how everyone is different and that's okay, how strong personalities will butt heads over and over again. How it's okay to be wrong, about something or someone. How it's a lot more fun when you try to get along instead of argue all the time. Avani isn't perfect, but she's learning how to be a good friend.

If you're a middle grade reader, if you're a kid looking for new comics to read, maybe check out these, as well as Gigi D.G.'s Cucumber Quest and Scarlett Hart: Monster Hunter by Marcus Sedgwick & Thomas Taylor. There's no one way for a young girl to be a young girl. You can want to fight monsters, you can want to be a princess, you can be quiet and studious, you can be loud and active. You can be smart, athletic, quiet, lonely, short, tall, thin, fat. You can have caring parents, you can be an orphan, you can have a single parent trying their best. You can be anything you want. Just be you.

Thanks so much to Gina at First Second Books for sending me physical copies and e-galleys of all of the above mentioned books (especially when we thought they were lost in the mail, they weren't!). You can definitely check out First Second on Twitter or Tumblr, or at your local library or bookstore. Happy reading!

Me on Some Favourite Things (5)

Hi there! It's been a while since I did one of these posts, but I was in need of a filler because of health reasons, so here we go! It'll mostly be a big post on recommending webcomics this time around. ;)

First up, let's just start with all the ones I always recommend. Gunnerkrigg Court, Check, Please!, Monster Pulse, Les Normaux. They're all a little different and most have a fantasy element to them.

First, there's Gourmet Hound by Leehama (who also does the currently on hiatus Flowerpot). It's the story of Lucy, a super friendly and helpful young woman looking to recapture something from when she was a child, visiting a favourite restaurant with her grandmother before she passed away. The staff at Dimanche has changed, that familiar taste and feel is gone, and Lucy's wondering if she can find that "perfect taste" again. Luckily, because of her uncanny sense of smell and bizarre sudden strength, she happens up on a café run by two former Dimance chefs. This comic is a fun slice of life story with complicated characters and bright artwork. Everyone's a little quirky, everyone's got their secrets, and you can't help but cheer Lucy on as she embarks on this seemingly impossible mission.

Next is Heartstopper by Alice Oseman, author of Solitaire and Radio Silence. This is the story of Nick and Charlie, two teen boys at an all-boys British school and their growing friendship and romance. It's sweet and sad, all about love and acceptance and mental illness and figuring out who you are and who you want to be. There's something so wonderfully charming about this comic, both from the story of Nick and Charlie and from Alice's art style. It'll make you laugh and cry and feel loads of warm feelings.

And last is Postcards in Braille by Constanza Yovaniniz. This is all about Sigma and his friends, little moments in their lives and their friendships as they navigate being newly graduated from college and working (Sigma) and being themselves (so much Rho). Along for the journey is Sigma's girlfriend Xi, Sigma's former roommate and best friend Rho, and after a little while Rho's coworker Aleph and Xi's work partner Omicron. What's awesome is Sigma and his being blind, how it's treated with such respect and seen as something so normal and commonplace. And the little bits on what he does to keep track of things in his apartment and the tech that helping his with his programming at work. There's even a comic page all about Sigma's cane and spreading awareness so seeing people can actually be supportive if they ever come across someone with visual impairment. I love how a lot of this comic is about friends who don't necessarily like the same things (looking at you, Dog and Fries) but still get along and are super supportive. Like Coni says on a page's description, friendship works in weird ways. There's something so meaningful in every page, and now that it's complete, it's definitely a comic I find myself going back to every so often.

And that's it! I hope you enjoyed this new list of webcomics to check out. There's something I love so much about webcomics as a way of telling stories, the visual medium plus the compelling story plus the page by page reveal. And the little side stories and Q&A posts that some artists do are always fun, little peeks behind the curtain that readers appreciate. Thanks for stopping by!

Blog Tour: Renegades

Hi there! Welcome to one of today's stops on the blog tour for Marissa Meyer's newest book, Renegades!

It's all about superheroes, about good and evil and the spaces in between. About what pushes us to help or to hinder. About what makes a hero, what makes a villain. To celebrate Renegades, enjoy this post that has both my review and a question answered by the wonderful Marissa Meyer herself. :)

Blog Tour: Timekeeper

Hello there! Welcome to today's tour stop for the paperback release of Tara Sim's wonderful Timekeeper!

Title: Timekeeper
Author: Tara Sim
Release Date: October 31, 2017 (paperback copy)
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Canadian distributor: Thomas Allen & Son

Two o'clock was missing.

In an alternate Victorian world controlled by clock towers, a damaged clock can fracture time—and a destroyed one can stop it completely.

It's a truth that seventeen-year-old clock mechanic Danny Hart knows all too well; his father has been trapped in a Stopped town east of London for three years. Though Danny is a prodigy who can repair not only clockwork, but the very fabric of time, his fixation with staging a rescue is quickly becoming a concern to his superiors.

And so they assign him to Enfield, a town where the tower seems to be forever plagued with problems. Danny's new apprentice both annoys and intrigues him, and though the boy is eager to work, he maintains a secretive distance. Danny soon discovers why: he is the tower's clock spirit, a mythical being that oversees Enfield's time. Though the boys are drawn together by their loneliness, Danny knows falling in love with a clock spirit is forbidden, and means risking everything he's fought to achieve.

But when a series of bombings at nearby towers threaten to Stop more cities, Danny must race to prevent Enfield from becoming the next target or he'll not only lose his father, but the boy he loves, forever.

The stunning first novel in a new trilogy by debut author Tara Sim, Timekeeper is perfect for fans of Cassandra Clare and Victoria Schwab.

Get Your Copy Today! Indigo - Amazon.ca - Amazon.com

As this is a tour for Timekeeper's paperback release, it's a good chance to remember some of the nice things I said last year when the hardcover came out. For those interested, the full review can be found here.

Timekeeper is intriguing, enthralling, mysterious, and more than a little somber. It's a story about lonely souls and missing hours, of hope and love and selfishness... I was intrigued by the world-building here, by the need for advancement in clock mechanisms because of the changes to time. Because of time being something slightly tangible, something that can be reined in and controlled... I also liked how the author altered other parts of history, like this world's views of homosexuality. Danny isn't ridiculed or hated, but it's the default of most he comes across that, when they ask if he's seeing anyone, they assume he'd date a girl... As I read this I was struck by a sweet, melancholy tone that carried me along, rising and falling as Danny worked on the clock tower in Enfield and uncovered more and more behind the bombings and the Stopped towns. At times I chuckled and at times I wanted to cry. There were some interesting pokes and prods at a deeper mystery going on, one Danny brushes up against near the end, so I'm curious as to where the second book will go and what will be revealed.

To celebrate Timekeeper's paperback release, here's an excerpt from the eagerly anticipated (and not just by me!) sequel, Chainbreaker!

Daphne remained silent. She was painfully aware of standing between these two men—two sides of a war, two sides of her birth. There was a strangeness to her skin just then, as if it weren’t actually hers. She wanted to scratch at it, see if it would flake off and reveal something truer. Something in-between, something like a mark, that would determine what to say, what to think, what she was.

Also to celebrate, Thomas Allen & Son is holding a giveaway, the prize being a paperback copy of Timekeeper! Quick note that this giveaway is Canada only and ends on October 31. The full rules can be found in the widget.

Click here to enter!

Tara Sim can typically be found wandering the wilds of the Bay Area in California. When she’s not
chasing cats or lurking in bookstores, she writes books about magic, clocks, and explosives. Timekeeper is her debut novel. Follow her on Twitter at @EachStarAWorld, and check out her website for fun Timekeeper extras!

Tara's website - Twitter - Facebook - Instagram - Goodreads

Thanks so so much to Thomas Allen & Son for arranging the blog tour and the giveaway. And thank you so much to Tara Sim for the sweetness that is Danny and Colton and Timekeeper. :)

Blog Tour: The Winnowing

Hi all! It's time for a blog tour post! Vikki VanSickle is a Toronto resident, a children's and middle grade book author, a publicist with Penguin Random House Canada, and a lover of children's lit. To celebrate the recent release of hew new book The Winnowing, a curious coming of age mixed with intrigue and strange dreams, Vikki's here to talk about combining genres and how hard it can be to summarize a book like hers. :)

THE TROUBLE WITH GENRE

Despite having a number of books under my belt and spent years working in the children's book industry, when it comes to my own books I always struggle with the elevator pitch. The stakes seem impossibly high—you have one minute (or 144 characters) to hook someone on this book you've spent all this time and energy on—GO!

Me on Some Favourite Things (2)

And we're back with a random list of fun things post because I've been reading in weird spurts and I've also been a bit choosy with what I'm reading lately. So here are a few more things I've been enjoying lately, be they TV or movies or games or Kickstarter or anything else!

Travelogue. Every couple of months I read through this short comic of Aatmaja Pandya's and fall in love all over again. In love with the colour palette and the art style, slightly rough and pencil crayon-esque. In love with the characters, with Nana and Emerene and Adi. And Princess the goat. In love with the bursts of magic that appear as these three make their way across their world. There are so many questions I have about this comic, about its world and the magic system, about who or what Nana is, but for once I'm perfectly happy to have my questions go unanswered. As much as I want to know more, I'm perfectly happy not knowing. This comic is gorgeous and sweet and oh so magical. And I always want to snuggle Nana so hard. So fluffy!

Speaking of webcomics, one I found a little while ago that I quickly fell in love with is Lizzie's Thunderbird. It's set in a hard desert fantasy world, where every year farmers and ranchers wait for the mythical Thunderbird to come and bring the rain. But this year, she's late and is shot down. In comes Molly Donelly, rough and tumble and good with a gun, who finds a baby thunderbird under attack by a pack of werewolves headed up by the white werewolf that killed her father. And so starts her journey with the baby bird, off to find its mother and find out who wants to take down a god. All the characters have sass and spirit, the setting is dusty but full of splashes of colour. I can't wait to see where the story will go next.

So with streams and podcasts of Dungeons & Dragons becoming more and more popular, here's my rec for them in a certain way. Watching or listening to D&D streams is a great resource when it comes to world-building and character creation and motivation. These are epic worlds that are constantly created, edited, ruined, re-built. There are shifts in power, mysterious groups operating in back alleys, huge dragons coming down and destroying whole empires. It's interesting to see how massive world-building can get. For character creation and motivation, it's fun to watch. The players all have a background set up, anything from a few notes to tens of pages of info, but then comes the playing of the game and the interaction and they have to think quickly on how their character would react. It's part pre-planned and part improv. If you're looking for story crafting resources, then check out some streams like Critical Role or High Rollers.

And that's what I've been interested in lately! What about you? What've you been watching or reading lately that you think other people should check out?

Me on Some Favourite Things (1)

Hi there. :)

Today, instead of the standard Friday review, here's a quick list of some things I've enjoyed recently. Basically, the pop culture and other things I consume on a regular basis when I'm not reading.

First, some webcomics. Check Please! is a wonderful webcomic created by Ngozi Ukazu. It follows the college life of Eric 'Bitty' Bittle, a sweet Southern boy who loves to cook and has headed up to the northeast to play some college hockey. Things don't go quite to plan, mostly because Bitty's a bit (read: VERY) scared of being hit, but it's okay. His teammates, while looking like idiots, are actually the best. This comic does so much, talks about anxiety and expectations, fears and hopes. Friendship. I won't say too much about what happens plot-wise, some big things have happened during Bitty's first few years at Samwell, but when you read it you might know why I'm being a little hush-hush.

Gunnerkrigg Court is epic. Done by Tom Siddell, it follows the adventures and events that happen to Antimony Carver when she's sent to school at a place called Gunnerkrigg Court. What follows is an enchanting and sometimes heartbreaking story, rich with fantasy and science. The characters are deeply flawed and human, the settings are lush and dark and extremely dangerous. The current chapter is making me very very nervous.

Now to anime. I could recommend Yuri!!! on Ice, which has wonderful charm and deals with performance and aging and anxiety so well, but I won't. Instead, I'll recommend Haikyu!!, which is smart and so much fun. It follows the antics and matches of the boys volleyball club of Karasuno High School, particularly first year members Hinata and Kageyama. I like this series because there's no magic here, not really. Maybe some players' skill levels are a little impossible, but this is all about hard work and practice, about confidence, about victory and defeat and how you can never let one define you. Just play your game. It's free to watch over at Crunchyroll, region permitting (first person click here for a quick trial). The manga is also currently being published in English, for those looking to get into sports manga.

It feels strange to rec something called Assassination Classroom, but I will. It's about the class of rejects, Class 3-E at Kunugigaoka Junior High, and their mission to kill their teacher, the super dangerous and super powerful super-creature Koro-Sensei that just blasted the moon into a crescent. This show is like a weird punch to the heart. It's a murder fantasy comedy, yes, but the things it says about teaching, about learning and developing skill, about sharpening those skills and making sure you can make good use of all that you're good at, can get you hard and fast. The manga, again, is currently being published in English.

As for TV, I don't watch much anymore! Because it's been Christmas and New Year's, I've watched a lot of hockey recently, and a bunch of Food Network shows, but then I just end up hungry when I'm about to go to bed. I've been meaning to watch some things on Netflix, things like Stranger Things and The OA and the Sense 8 Christmas episode, but I just haven't yet. Soon.

Hopefully you enjoyed this, were interested in a couple of things. I'm not sure when I'll do another of these, maybe once a month when I'm struggling to get through a book or I have a sudden gap. And add in the comments something you've been enjoying recently, a new TV show or some new music that's come out. What are you interested in right now?

Day 1 - Canadian YA Lit Event 2015

Hello! It's May, which means it's time for the Canadian YA Lit Event! It's back! :)

I hope you're all looking forward to two weeks of reviews of Canadian-authored YA books and Q&A's with Canadian authors, because that's what I have lined up. It's about 50/50 this year with reviews and Q&A's.

Me on 3 Years of Me on Books

So... we've come back around to this date again. But is this the right date??

If we go by when my first review went up here (which I was going to link to then decided not to because it's terrible), then Me on Books' birthday is October 23rd. But on September 15, I got an e-mail from Tumblr saying the Me on Books Tumblr page (which I don't really use) turned 3 on that day. That could mean a few things, like I was fiddling around with this blog for a good month before I posted something, or that Tumblr made a mistake, or that I lost my mind at some point.

All are possible. ;)

I'm so happy to have met and talked with so many bloggers and reviewers and authors over the past 3 years. All the BC/Vancouver bloggers are awesome (Caitlin, Nafiza, Alita, Jenny, Ariella, and Aly), and I'd love to meet the Ontario bloggers one day (Michele, Jenn, Liz, Sara, Christa, Melissa, Angel, Brenna, Amanda, Audrey, Kathy, Ciara, Emilie, Jessica, and Meaghan). Maybe I should start a Kickstarter campaign where everyone who donates gets a postcard from me in Toronto. ;)

And so, like with past birthdays (meaning last year because I ignored when Me on Books turned 1), I'm giving away a present! :) If Book Depository ships free to where you live, feel free to enter. And, as always, a second winner will be added if we break 100 entries.

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Me on This Week's Book Week (28)

This Week's Book Week is just like Stacking the Shelves featured by Tynga's Reviews only with a different name that I came up with. I'm terrible at names.

I registered for ALA Midwinter this week. *panic* Wow. Well, it's in Seattle, and who knows when I'll ever be near something like this again. I honestly see this as being the only one big conference/convention that I go to in the next few years. I know where I'm staying (thanks to Caitlin for letting me piggy-back on her hotel plans with her co-bloggers and friends) but I'm not yet sure how I'm getting there. I'll probably end up taking the train or a bus. (If you know my train story from my trip to Portland, you know how exciting it could get. If you don't, basically on the way back our train broke for an hour then just outside of Seattle a drunk teenager got hit by our train and died and we had to take a bus back home.)

I completed NaNoWriMo on Monday. *dead* I'm not done the draft as a whole, but the same thing happened last year when I hit 50k words and then stopped. Oops. Hopefully I'll finish the first draft and then let it sit. There's also a story idea from a couple of years ago that I want to pick up again sitting around in my files, that might be what I work on next.

Somehow, during NaNo, I read 3 books in a week and wrote up 5 reviews over 2 nights. Weird. It was nice to be on a roll after not being on a roll for a long time. It was also nice because it means all my reviews are written for December. There won't be any reviews or posts during the week of the 23rd because of Christmas and my birthday. It's looking like there'll be a post on the 19th, perhaps the 21st, then another TWBW (because the horrible temp name has stuck) on the 30th that will cover Christmas and my birthday.

This also means I'm now reading a bunch of 2013 releases. It's like looking into the future. ;)

Holy freaking crap, it's December. Where did the year go??

Received to review:
Wicked Kiss by Michelle Rowen (from Harlequin through NetGalley)

Borrowed:
Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi (from Caitlin but I picked it up from Miriam)

Borrowed from the library:
The Lost Girl by Sangu Mandanna
What's Left of Me by Kat Zhang

Me on This Week's Book Week (23)

This Week's Book Week is like Stacking the Shelves hosted by Tynga's Reviews only named by me when I was at a loss for a title. It seems to have stuck. It's the same sort of meme, but with more rambling about how my week was.

No books this week. Well, no books that you'll care about. I doubt you're interested when I feed my newfound manga habit. For me, 2011 was the year of e-books, and it looks like 2012 is the year of anime and manga. What will 2013 be the year of, I wonder. ;)

Me on Books is 2 years old. I hope it won't suffer from the terrible twos or anything. There's a giveaway going on right now for another couple of weeks, so make sure to enter to win a 2012 YA debut of your choice. There's a free entry option, because why not, so if that's how you want to enter, you can. :) If it hits 150 entries, I'll add another winner.

So, my brain's been rejecting reading e-galleys. It's not their fault, it's my brain and how it won't connect to it like a paper book. I've got a few to read, but after that I might have to hold off requesting any e-galleys until next year. Unless it's a book I really want to read. I feel bad, more publishers are moving towards e-galleys, but if I end up not liking a book because of the font size on the screen and I can't make it bigger or smaller because it's a PDF and not an ePDF, it's not fair to the author or the book.

There's an event next Saturday in North Van that I'm going to with a bunch of local authors (and one we're borrowing from the Seattle area). There might be a write-up the week after, so keep a look out. ;) I'm rather excited, there'll be some BC authors I haven't met yet but know through their books and Twitter.

Hope you guys got some great books this week. :)

Me on Two Years of Me on Books

As of tomorrow, it'll be two years since I started review blogging.

It feels weird. But fun. :)

Hugs to all the bloggers and authors I've met and talked to online and traded books with. You guys are all awesome. :)

To celebrate, I'm holding a giveaway. If you win, you'll get the 2012 YA debut novel of your choice (as long as Book Depository ships free to where you live). :)

If there are more than 150 entries, I'll add a second winner. :)

Thanks for stopping by. Here's to another year of blogging and amazing books. :)

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Book Trailer Reveal - The Right & the Real

As a bit of early extra fun for the Canadian YA Lit event starting on the 1st, I've got something cool to show you from author Joëlle Anthony.

Joëlle's the author of two YA books. Last year, I read her debut Restoring Harmony and found it very intriguing. If you haven't read it, it's about sixteen-year-old Molly who lives on a small farming island on the BC coast in the year 2041 after massive oil shortages and a global economic collapse. She heads down to Portland to bring her grandparents back to Canada, but what should've been a short trip turns into a massive rescue mission and an encounter with more than a few shady characters.

Her new book, The Right & the Real, sounds rather compelling. Here's the description from Goodreads, and Joëlle's brand new book trailer in honour of her birthday. :) Happy birthday, Joëlle.

The Right & the Real: Kicked out for refusing to join a cult, 17-year-old Jamie must find a way to survive on her own. Jamie should have known something was off about the church of the Right and the Real from the start, especially when the Teacher claimed he wasn’t just an ordinary spiritual leader, but Jesus Christ, himself. But she was too taken by Josh, the eldest son of one of the church’s disciples, and his all-American good looks. Josh is the most popular boy at school too, and the first boy outside the drama geeks to give Jamie a second look. But getting her Dad involved in a cult was not part of the plan when she started dating Josh. Neither was her dad’s marriage to the fanatic Mira, or getting kicked out, or seeing Josh in secret because the church has deemed her persona non grata. Jamie’s life has completely fallen apart. Finding her way back won’t be easy, but when her Dad gets himself into serious trouble, will Jamie be ready to rescue him, and maybe even forgive him?

Me on Top Ten Tuesday (2)

Top Ten Tuesday is a bunch of weekly fun hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. :)

This week's topic is "Top 10 Books I'd Recommend to Someone Who Doesn't Read X." I'll make it YA, since that's what I review here. And I'm going to try and mix it up a bit, give examples of the different types of YA novels. :) This might as well be a list for my sister, who reads (she likes chick lit, like Sophie Kinsella and some Nora Roberts), but not YA. I've slowly been trying to get her to read it, and the ones she actually reads (instead of skipping to the end) are few and far between.

1. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi. Dystopian with a bit of paranormal/X-Men type abilities. Juliette can't touch anyone or she'll kill them, draining the life out of them. The world outside her cell is dying, grey and bleak, cracked and dried up. Then Adam gets tossed into her cell and she's forced to confront the outside world, a world that pushed her to the brink of sanity. This was, in my opinion, the best book of 2011. It was all about identity and potential and the need to survive and fight, plus some really hot kissing scenes.

2. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. Contemporary romance. Sweet and funny, it's a bit less about the romance and more about Anna figuring out who she is while in Paris for a year and figuring out that sometimes the perfect boy is really flawed, and that he might be perfect. Same goes for Lola and the Boy Next Door.

3. Delirium by Lauren Oliver. A little dystopian lite plus romance. Yes, controlling society, but it

4. Once Every Never by Lesley Livingston. A mix of contemporary and historical, time travel for pop culture nerds. Average (Canadian) teenager Clare heads off to England for the summer with her friend and ends up able to travel back to the time of Boudicca and the Celts. (My sister actually liked this one.)

5. The Space Between by Brenna Yovanoff. Dark fantasy/paranormal plus romance. Daphne is the daughter of Lucifer and Lilith, living in Pandemonium. She heads to Earth to find her brother and searches for his last charge, a broken and bleeding human boy named Truman. If Shatter Me was my #1 of 2011, this was my very very very close #2. Heart-wrenching and breathtaking, all about discovering your purpose in life, about fighting your way back from the edge even if the fall left you broken and twisted, about good and evil and the grey areas, and most of all, about love. What is the space between the dark and the light? This book is about the area where the lines are blurred

6. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Straight-up dystopian. No magical powers, just dismal and dark and brutal and teenagers fighting to the death.

7. Blood Red Road by Moira Young. A little more post-apocalyptic than dystopian, but still just as brutal and dangerous. It's written in dialect, so be warned, but once you get used to it it's an amazing story. Saba's searching for her kidnapped brother and encounters some unique and dangerous people along the way. Like Jack. (What is it about girls in YA books meeting guys that rub them the wrong way but he's totally into her? I'm not saying it sucks, but it happens quite a lot.)

8. Across the Universe by Beth Revis. Science fiction. Honest science fiction. Traveling through space hundreds of years in the future science fiction. And there's the huge mystery of where they are and who's killing the people in sleep stasis.

9. Forgotten by Cat Patrick. Half mystery, a little paranormal, a little romance. London remembers the future but not the past. Every morning at 4:33AM, her memory resets, everything from the day before gone. Then Luke moves to town.

10. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Contemporary, some romance thrown in. This book is quite possibly John Green's best. A book about cancer kids and the harsh reality. It's not all make-a-wish and Disneyland, sometimes it's about the suffering, the honest pain and isolation, the need to live in the infinite numbers between 0 and 1 and love as hard as you can for as long and your body will let you live. This book was raw and emotional. Everyone needs to read this book. It's mid-January and I'm wondering if any book in 2012 will top it.

Other suggestions, for braver souls and those who will honestly read anything, include Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves, Harmonic Feedback by Tara Kelly, Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor, Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake, White Cat by Holly Black, Matched by Ally Condie, and Divergent by Veronica Roth. :)

Me on A Possible Canadian YA Lit Event

Yesterday, I was talking to Kathy at A Glass of Wine on Twitter and she mentioned she had an idea for a blog event where it was just all Canadian authors. So I started thinking and figured this would be a good idea.

Now comes the planning and the asking of authors and possibly involving publishers.

 My initial idea is that it would be 1 week or 2 weeks, maybe in April or May, and every day would have a different post, either a review or a guest post or an interview, on a different Canadian author and their book(s). I'm not sure about giveaways. They're fun, they increase blog publicity and readership, but shipping can get a little pricey. (This might be where I'd contact publishers, see if they're willing to give anything away.) Another option is for this to be a once a month feature.

It sounds like fun. Canadian YA authors are out there, but they're not as well known for a number of different reasons. I love that there are currently 3 books on my list of books I'd punch a lion in the face for written by Canadians. And they all come out in the next 6 months. And that I've already read another that came out a couple weeks ago.

The thing is... I've never hosted something like this. I don't really know how to go about it, apart from contacting authors to see if they'd be interested or contacting publishers to see if they or their authors would be interested.

So... yeah.

I'd like this not to be just be reviewing books for a whole two weeks, because that would be boring. I want you to be entertained. So, pretty much what I'd like from you is any tips or suggestions on how I'd go about this, as well as any authors you'd like to hear from or any books you'd like featured. It's possible that, because I love having you all as readers, I'll have a giveaway that'll go on during the whole event but only for one or two books.

I hope you like this idea. I think it would be rather fun. :) And let me know if you'd like to join in, either in reviewing or writing a post on your thoughts on YA in Canada. You can get in touch with me here in comments, on Twitter (@-mention or DM), or through e-mail (if you know my e-mail).

(And the pictures are recent and upcoming books by Canadian authors. :) Any surprises??)

Me on A Call for 2011's Underrated Books

I used to have a bigger post here, but then I saw the S&S Galley Grab link for Denise Jensen's Never Enough and it gave me a flimsy excuse to have an IMM post this weekend. It'll be up tomorrow. For now, I have this. :)

The main reason behind this post is there are a bunch of books that I've read this year that I think a bunch of people should read. Books like Amplified or Imaginary Girls or Ripple or Lola and the Boy Next Door or Shatter Me or Daughter of Smoke & Bone or Legend or The Space Between or Blood Magic or Sweet Venom. They haven't necessarily gotten lots of publicity or lots of reviews or lots of book-gushing. I was at Chapters on Friday, where a huge wall of bookshelves is filled with YA books (which is awesome) and there was one copy of Daughter of Smoke & Bone and one paperback of Anna and the French Kiss (a book that I honestly didn't see in a Chapters until 2 or 3 months after the release date and had to order online after Christmas so it was technically a 2011 read for me; oh, Canada, sometimes you don't get mid-list books on the shelves on the release date and it makes me sad).

I want you, wonderful blog readers, to think of your favourite one or two or three books of 2011 (meaning published in 2011 and December of 2010) that you think deserves way more publicity and readers and book-gushing and write a few sentences on that book's awesomeness. Then, you e-mail it to me at leroberts.26(at)gmail[dot]com, along with your name and blog/Twitter username/Tumblr/way for people to find you online, and I will post yours and everyone else's blurb in an Underrated Books of 2011 post on December 29th.

Just in time for the new year. :)

Me on 2012 Debut Author Challenge

Well, I've decided to participate in the Debut Authors Challenge for 2012. Yay me. :) More info can be found over at The Story Siren's 2012 Debut Author Challenge Info post. Mad props to Kristi for putting this on for the 4th year.

The rules say at least 12 books; this is more than 12. I expect I'll be adding as the year goes on. I'd love to read them all, but if I read at least 12 of them I'll be happy. :) All of these books can be found on Goodreads. I've also added the release date (or a good estimate, I apologize if any are wrong, I'll update when I can) and the publisher (instead of the imprint). Plus I've added some covers to make it look interesting. ;)

Incarnate by Jodi Meadows (January 31; HarperCollins) READ
Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood (February 7; Penguin) READ
Crewel by Gennifer Albin (October 18; Macmillan) READ
Immortal City by Scott Speer (April 3; Penguin) READ
Hemlock by Kathleen Peacock (May 8; HarperCollins) READ
Velveteen by Daniel Marks (October 9; Random House) READ
False Memory by Dan Krokos (August 14; Disney-Hyperion)
The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls by Claire Legrand (August 28; S&S)
Croak by Gina Damico (March 30; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) READ
Everneath by Brodi Ashton (January 3; HarperCollins)
Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi (January 3; HarperCollins) READ
Above by Leah Bobet (April 1; Scholastic) READ
Article 5 by Kristin Simmons (January 31; Tor) READ
Struck by Jennifer Bosworth (May 3; Macmillan) READ
When the Sea is Rising Red by Cat Hellisen (February 28; Macmillan) READ
The Vicious Deep by Zoraida Cordova (May 1; Sourcebooks) READ
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo (June 5; Macmillan) READ
Storm by Brigid Kemmerer (April 24; Kensington)
The Selection by Kiera Cass (April 24; HarperCollins)
Defiance by C.J. Redwine (Fall; HarperCollins)
Glitch by Heather Anastasiu (August 7; Macmillan) READ
Innocent Darkness by Suzanne Lazear (August 8; Flux) READ
What's Left of Me by Kat Zhang (September 19; HarperCollins)
Illuminate by Aimee Agresti (March 6; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) READ
Time Between Us by Tamara Ireland Stone (October 9; Disney-Hyperion)
Touching the Surface by Kimberly Sabatini (September 4; S&S)
Skylark by Megan Spooner (Fall; Carolrhoda Lab)
Venom by Fiona Paul (October 30; Penguin)
Black City by Elizabeth Richards (Fall; Penguin) READ
Something Like Normal by Trish Doller (June 19; Bloomsbury)
Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry (April; Harlequin)
Through to You by Emily Hainsworth (November 20; HarperCollins) READ
Someone Else's Life by Katie Dale (February 14; Random House CA) READ
Way to Go by Tom Ryan (April 1; Orca Book Publishers)
Starters by Lissa Price (March 13; Random House) READ
The Girl with Borrowed Wings by Rinsai Rossetti (July 19; Penguin) READ

Wow. That's a lot of books, and it's nowhere near the amount of actual YA debuts for 2012. I hope I can read all of these, one way or another. ;) I hope I can keep from reading the ones I have until January so they count.

(Also, if you happen know which authors are Canadian, besides Kathleen Peacock and Leah Bobet, that'd be awesome. I need to read more YA written by Canadians.)