Me on This Week's Book Haul (8)

Sorry about the lack of reviews this past week. I needed a break and I had no review buffer. Well, I had a couple unposted reviews, but you guys know me. The earliest before the release date that I'll post a review is about 2 weeks. I wasn't about to post reviews in mid-June for books coming out in August.

Earlier today was Richelle Mead's signing in Burnaby for The Golden Lily. An event recap post will go up either tomorrow or on Monday. All the bloggers were there. Well, no. Some of the bloggers were there. ;) I'd hoped to pick up a copy of This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers but they didn't have any.

I've been in such a slump lately, and it's bugging the *#@^ out of me. Like, I have books to read, and I have books to read to review, but it takes me a bit to get into them. *sigh* I'm going to the library on Monday, maybe I'll find some good stuff. Give me some recs, people. YA and maybe some MG and graphic novels and even some manga.

And, if you're at ALA this weekend or happen to have an extra, I'll like/love you forever and pay you back if you've got a spare ARC of The Raven Boys. If not, no worries. :)

Bought:
The Golden Lily by Richelle Mead (bought at the event so it's all signed and pretty, and I got my copy of Vampire Academy signed)

Received:
The Girl with Borrowed Wings by Rinsai Rossetti (from Penguin Canada/Razorbill) (When it arrived, I wasn't sure why it was sent, then I realized that the Razorbill site has that 'Get It First' page where you can request an advance copy and people are randomly picked to get their choice and this was the book I picked.)

To review: Spark, Endlessly, The Goddess Legacy, Touched, Scarlett Dedd, The Blood Keeper, Blackwood, Shift, Unspoken, Yesterday, Velveteen, Romeo Redeemed, Meant to Be, Tune and Altered. :)

Me on This Week's Book Haul (7)

Almost all the books I got this week came on Wednesday. If there's a Wednesday when I don't get books, the other people in my house (meaning, my family) think something's wrong.

Is it summer yet? Last year was crap, so it already feels more like summer than last year, but considering I live in the Pacific Northwest, summer isn't always that awe-inspiring. There's usually one really hot week where the humidity spikes a bit, then it mostly sunny and some random rain. Or there's last year when it was mostly cloudy and rainy until August for a week or two.

So, because I don't have a lot of summer releases and because I've got a lot of books to read that I haven't been in the mood to read, next week will be a bit of a hiatus. I might be around on Twitter, but there won't be any new reviews.

I hear ALA is happening soon and then ComicCon. There's been talk of maybe going to the midwinter conference in late January. Seattle's only 2 and a half hours away, it's doable. And it seems like it would be the only chance for me to go to something like ALA or BEA for the next few years (unless I find a willing proxy who's ok with picking up an ARC or two for me).

I updated the 'books/ARCs available to a good home' list and added a few titles I wouldn't mind reading. It's just a suggestion.

Next weekend is the Richelle Mead signing. It makes me wonder what I should do with my ARC. I've got published copies of the Vampire Academy books (one signed that I won) but ARCs of the Bloodlines series. So. Hmmm. Should I get the ARC signed but take my finished copy of Vampire Academy as well? Do you want my ARC? Will you trade for it? Like, for an ARC of The Raven Boys? (Or can I bribe someone going to ALA to see if they can get me an ARC of The Raven Boys? Or can I just borrow it? I'm totally okay with borrowing it. Odds are if you let me borrow it, I'll read it the day it comes then send it right back.)

Received:
Crewel by Gennifer Albin (from Kathy who picked it up for me at BEA and got it signed, so excited about this one)
Altered by Jennifer Rush (from Hachette Book Group Canada) (my first ARC for 2013, if the release date doesn't change)
The Blood Keeper by Tessa Gratton (from Random House through NetGalley)
Meant to Be by Lauren Morrill (from Random House through NetGalley)

Bought:
Ghost Flower by Michele Jaffe

To review list: Never Enough, Spark, Endlessly, The Goddess Legacy, Touched, Scarlett Dedd, The Blood Keeper, Blackwood, Shift, Unspoken, Yesterday, Velveteen, Romeo Redeemed, Meant to Be, Tune and Altered. :)

Me on This Week's Book Haul (6)

Did I get books this week???? Why, yes I did. Hooray for stop-gap measures. ;)

If you know me, you'll know that I do this volunteer spot for a week in August at the Vancouver Public Library. I'm doing it again this year. :) It looks a little different than last year, but then last year was a little different than the year before.

Did everyone see the new cover of Tahereh Mafi's Shatter Me? It's gorgeous. And I will totally admit that while the first cover was nice, I didn't totally get it. Looking at the new cover, I realize that this isn't a 'girl in a dress on the cover' series. Isn't it pretty? I'll so be getting a copy when it comes out in October.

Kathy tweeted me Tuesday night to let me know she was able to get a copy of Gennifer Albin's Crewel for me at BEA. Then she told me Genn signed it. Awwww. Last year BEA sucked because I was at home still hobbling around in the air cast. This year it sucked because I won't be in New York until September. (My mom bought the tennis tickets, so we're actually going.)

So, while I'm off in New York for that first week of September, I'll probably have some scheduled reviews go up, but I won't be taking my laptop with me. Hopefully, there will be Wi-Fi at a bunch of places so I won't be totally cut off from Twitter and e-mail (like, not just at the hotel).

Received:
The Goddess Legacy by Aimée Carter (from Harlequin through NetGalley)

Borrowed from the library:
Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan
The Savage Grace by Bree Despain
In the Arms of Stone Angels by Jordan Dane
The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross

To review: Never Enough, Spark, Endlessly, The Goddess Legacy, Touched, Scarlett Dedd, Blackwood, Shift, Unspoken, Yesterday, Velveteen, Romeo Redeemed and Tune. :)

Me on This Week's Book(less) Haul (5)

 If I hadn't gotten a declined e-mail from NetGalley on Friday, I'd have gotten 1 book to review this week. And I'll totally say what book it was for, it was the short story collection The Curiosities by Maggie Stiefvater, Brenna Yovanoff, and Tessa Gratton. *sigh* Be warned, I might get punchy in this week's post.

Reviews of two debuts went up this week, Catherine Knutsson's Shadows Cast By Stars and Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone, if you're interested in either of those titles. Note to authors: no more "shadow" in your book's title. I think "shadow" is 2012's most popular word in the title of a YA novel.

The lack of books in these posts comes from me not requesting, but it's the age old problem of never knowing what to request. It's a mix of guessing how far in advance to ask and if it was a title that the Canadian office was lucky enough to get copies of. I want to know what you've been requesting, people (especially those in Canada). Most of the time I ask I'm too late or they weren't sent any from the US. What month should I be looking at? August? September? October? I'd kill for an ARC of The Raven Boys or What's Left of Me or The Friday Society. (This is why I wish I was going to BEA. ALA in January is sounding rather interesting these days.)

Oh, week leading up to BEA, I hate you almost as much as the week of BEA. If I'd known months ago that my mom wanted to go to NYC, I would've suggested we go now and work in a day or two of BEA as opposed to September to see some tennis. Oh, well. :)

*sigh* I guess it's one of those weird depressive weeks or something. :)

EDIT: This post is now a bit misleading. I was out this afternoon, stopped at a bookstore, and picked up an on sale early copy of Shadows Cast By Stars. :)

To review: Soulbound, Never Enough, Spark, Endlessly, Glitch, Touched, Scarlett Dedd, Blackwood, Shift, Unspoken, Yesterday, Velveteen, Romeo Redeemed and Tune. :)

Me on This Week's Book(less) Haul (4)

Hello, again. It's been another week of fairly nice weather. Which is nice, it's better than last year. Last summer was so cool and sometimes rainy. So far, it's been warmer this time around. *knock on wood*

No books this week. *sad face* Well, it's for the best, you know. I really need to put a dent in my review stack. And I did, sort of, after reading Shadow and Bone and Shadows Cast By Stars during the week. Look for reviews of these books Tuesday and Friday. :) (Reviews are auto-posted around 6am my time/9am East Coast time, if you're curious.)

I was going to read Timepiece after The Golden Lily, but the e-galley expired and Egmont archived the title on NetGalley. *head-desk* First time this has happened to me, too. It kind of sucks. It's half my fault for not checking the archive date.

There's a thing authors do on Twitter and in blog posts that I like, and that is saying what they're favourite TV shows and movies and songs are. :) You all know that Kathleen Peacock, author of Hemlock, got me to watch the anime Fruits Basket, which got me to read all 23 volumes of the manga, which got me into reading manga (am currently enjoying the English translation of Dawn of the Arcana, it's like Game of Thrones-lite). Well, earlier in the week, Natalie Whipple, author of the 2013 debut Transparent (find it on Goodreads here), was asking for anime and other TV reccomendations because she's up at all hours with her new baby. She then proceeded to list some of her faves in terms of anime. I think it was through Natalie that I discovered one show which led me to discover Crunchyroll and get addicted to watching anime streaming online. I suggested one of the new Spring shows I've been watching called Tsuritama (it's not based off a novel or manga, as far as I know). It's rather odd, rather quirky. I didn't think it would be all that interesting, since it's plugged as a slice of life show about 4 guys who fish, but there's some mystery and intrigue going on. Plus there's some aliens and a duck named Tapioca. And it's brightly coloured, which makes it pretty to watch. :) I'm also surprised I'm enjoying a new anime about basketball. I don't even like basketball.

BEA happens soon. *pausing for jealous face* While I'm outrageously jealous of the people who go to BEA and ALA and ComicCon, I'm grateful for the people I know that go who let me borrow the ARCs they get. And grateful for the people that offer to send me an ARC or two, I owe Kathy big hugs for saying she'd pick up one for me. Plus I imagine everyone out here will want to go through Alita's stack when she gets back. :) The jealousy makes me consider going to ALA Midwinter next January in Seattle.

Since I didn't get books this week, here's a picture of the stack of books I currently have to read. E-galleys aren't pictured, but I've got about 12 or 13 of those to read. Anything you see here that I don't have listed to review that you want to see a review of? Say so in comments.

To review: Flirting in Italian, Soulbound, Never Enough, Spark, Endlessly, Innocent Darkness, Glitch, Touched, Scarlett Dedd, Blackwood, Shift, Unspoken, Yesterday, Velveteen, Romeo Redeemed and Tune. :)

Me on This Week's Book Haul (3)

Calling it a book haul seems like lying. It's only 1 book. *sigh* What's smaller than a haul? An armful? A handful?

There was a blogger meet-up dinner this week, but because of people's busy schedules it was only me, Alita, and Jenny. Oh, well. It was still nice to see them. :)

I was still in a semi-reading slump, but then I finished an e-galley and put another book on hold. Then I read Shadow and Bone Friday evening. *head-desk* If that's all it took, I'm going to hurt someone.

I saw Richelle Mead's coming up to Vancouver as part of the release tour for The Golden Lily near the end of June. I wasn't surprised, it's not like we're that far from Seattle. I'll probably get a finished copy as well as one of Bloodlines and get those signed. :) (I also figure there'll be another blogger meet-up that day like the one this past week, if any bloggers or local authors are interested in hanging out before or after.) Are there any fun book signings happening near you guys soon?? This one is looking like the earliest one for where I live.

So, I've got this thing about reading the book before watching the TV/movie version (not always but often) and it sort of translated over to manga and anime as well. Mostly because I watched Fruits Basket (thanks to Kathleen Peacock) then was totally bored for the first few volumes when I read the manga. There's one series I started reading, then discovered there'd been an anime made years ago, and I told myself I'd read the manga first before watching it. Then I watched the first 2 episodes (they took place over volume 1 (which I've read)). Then I totally caved and watched the rest and flipped out when weird stuff kept happening. *sigh* It's my own fault, really. If I'd read the second volume first before watching the corresponding anime episodes, things would've been different.

Borrowed:
Shadows Cast By Stars by Catherine Knutsson (Before the blogger meet-up dinner, I asked if anyone had an ARC I could borrow. Then Jenny handed me this when I arrived and said she just got it the day before.)

To review: Timepiece, The Golden Lily, Flirting in Italian, Soulbound, Never Enough, Spark, Endlessly, Innocent Darkness, Glitch, Touched, Scarlett Dedd, Blackwood, Shift, Unspoken, Yesterday, Velveteen, Romeo Redeemed and Tune. :)

Me on This Week's Book Haul (2)

It's been nice up here in my corner of BC. Like, sunny and no rain. It was nice. :) Of course, that meant working out in the yard clearing out some dead crap. So much dead crap. And we had this blackberry vine that went nuts grew all over with its very very very prickly vines and through a big shrub. What a jerk.

Meeting up with some of the local YA bloggers for dinner this week. Yay. :) I think someone made the joke that we need to get in our BEA requests before Alita goes. ;) Honestly, she can bring back whatever she wants, but I know we'll all want to go through them.

I finally finished a book this week. *flops over* Something is wrong with my brain.

Didn't get a lot of books this week. Well, considering how big my pile is with ARCs that have summer release dates, I should really get through those before buying any more or borrowing any more.

Bought:
City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare (not sure when I'm going to read it, though)

To review: Shadow and Bone, Timepiece, The Golden Lily, Flirting in Italian, Soulbound, Never Enough, Spark, Endlessly, Innocent Darkness, Glitch, Touched, Scarlett Dedd, Blackwood, Shift, Unspoken, Yesterday, Velveteen, Romeo Redeemed and Tune. :)

Me on This Week's Book Haul

Let's see how this goes. :)

Hope you've been enjoying the Canadian YA lit blog event, if you're at all interested. Don't forget about the giveaway. :) There'll be another happening this week.

My to-read pile (of books I have as opposed to books I want to read but don't have) has gotten out of control. Out of the 27 books in the pile, there are 13 paper books and 14 e-galleys, 19 of them are review books, 5 are books I bought (1 of those being a paperback buy of a previously read & reviewed hardcover), 2 are books I won, 7 don't come out until September or later, and 1 is a paperback finished copy I got to review back in January (some are counted twice for different reasons, it's not my crappy math skills, and I'll have you know I took honours math in high school ;)). My brain hurts. I sort of have an order, mostly in terms of release dates, but sometimes you just read what you want to. This is proved by all the manga I read when I should've been reading review books. Stupid manga, why are you so funny with pretty artwork?? *sigh* I think I might take a few days and read what I want to

I went to the bookstore on Tuesday (not the big one but the smaller indie one in the mall up the street). I was looking through their YA section and overheard about half a dozen calls to customers saying their reserved copy if Insurgent was available, which lead to me talking to the (super nice) woman about books and reviewing and so on. And I gave her my card, which made me look rather professional. :)

I had some BEA angst this week. *sigh* My big 4 covets of BEA would have to be Gennifer Albin's Crewel, Maggie Steifvater's The Raven Boys, Kat Zhang's What's Left of Me, and Jessica Khoury's Origin.

 Received:
Velveteen by Daniel Marks (to review from Random House through NetGalley)
Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan (to review from Random House through NetGalley)
Flirting in Italian by Lauren Henderson (to review from Random House through NetGalley) (I re-requested this one as a test, and suddenly Random House approved me for everything I'd requested previously but hadn't been approved for. Hence the 4 e-galleys.)
Touched by Cyn Balog (to review from Random House through NetGalley)
Endlessly by Kiersten White (to review from HarperCollins Canada)

Bought:
Insurgent by Veronica Roth (I caved. It was the last copy at the bookstore that wasn't reserved.)
Hold Me Closer, Necromancer (paperback) by Lish McBride
Silence by Michelle Sagara (*pointing at book* Canadian author, people)

Won:
Masque of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin (won from Kathy at A Glass of Wine from her blogoversary giveaway)

Borrowed from the library:
Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi (let's see if I can read this again, but considering it's due back in 2 weeks and my stack is big, possibly not)

To review: Shadow and Bone, Timepiece, The Golden Lily, Flirting in Italian, Soulbound, Never Enough, Spark, Endlessly, Innocent Darkness, Glitch, Touched, Scarlett Dedd, Blackwood, Shift, Unspoken, Yesterday, Velveteen, Romeo Redeemed and Tune. *dead* ;)