Me on Waiting on Wednesday (368)

Waiting on Wednesday is a bunch of weekly fun hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. :)

Title: Save the Date
Author: Morgan Matson
Release Date: June 5, 2018
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

From Goodreads:

Charlie Grant’s older sister is getting married this weekend at their family home, and Charlie can’t wait—for the first time in years, all four of her older siblings will be under one roof. Charlie is desperate for one last perfect weekend, before the house is sold and everything changes. The house will be filled with jokes and games and laughs again. Making decisions about things like what college to attend and reuniting with longstanding crush Jesse Foster—all that can wait. She wants to focus on making the weekend perfect.

The only problem? The weekend is shaping up to be an absolute disaster.

There’s the unexpected dog with a penchant for howling, house alarm that won’t stop going off, and a papergirl with a grudge.

There are the relatives who aren’t speaking, the (awful) girl her favorite brother brought home unannounced, and a missing tuxedo.

Not to mention the neighbor who seems to be bent on sabotage and a storm that is bent on drenching everything. The justice of the peace is missing. The band will only play covers. The guests are all crazy. And the wedding planner’s nephew is unexpectedly, distractingly…cute.

Over the course of three ridiculously chaotic days, Charlie will learn more than she ever expected about the family she thought she knew by heart. And she’ll realize that sometimes, trying to keep everything like it was in the past means missing out on the future.

This sounds like a hysterical mess, something a little like the movie Sixteen Candles but more to do with the older sister's wedding and a little more family drama. You guys know me and contemporary stories, that it takes a fair amount, but I're read Morgan Matson books before and enjoyed them. And seemingly simple set-ups like a family wedding aren't plots I come across often, so I'll be looking forward to reading this when it's out.

Me on Tess of the Road

Title: Tess of the Road
Author: Rachel Hartman
Release Date: February 27, 2018
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers

In the medieval kingdom of Goredd, women are expected to be ladies, men are their protectors, and dragons get to be whomever they want. Tess, stubbornly, is a troublemaker. You can't make a scene at your sister's wedding and break a relative's nose with one punch (no matter how pompous he is) and not suffer the consequences. As her family plans to send her to a nunnery, Tess yanks on her boots and sets out on a journey across the Southlands, alone and pretending to be a boy. Where Tess is headed is a mystery, even to her. So when she runs into an old friend, it's a stroke of luck. This friend is a quigutl--a subspecies of dragon--who gives her both a purpose and protection on the road. But Tess is guarding a troubling secret. Her tumultuous past is a heavy burden to carry, and the memories she's tried to forget threaten to expose her to the world in more ways than one.

Tess of the Road is indescribable, unfortunately, but I will make an attempt. This is the story of a young woman hiding from her memories and ready to run from her future in order to be herself, a young woman who discovers herself along the road of epic journey, bizarre kidnapping, family troubles, construction, and exploration. A story of drunks and dreams and the moments in which one discovers their vocation.

Tess is a young woman made up of secrets, memories, and many things she'd like to forget. Like the dark parts of her past. Like her ways of getting into trouble, of not keeping quiet. Like how she got drunk at her sister's wedding and later punched her sort of brother-in-law in the nose. She's curious and gruff, intelligent and unforgiving. Stubborn. Unwilling to bow down. She's the kind of young woman who will venture out on her own, old friend Pathka the quigutl at her side on their own journey, to see what the world will show her. But what will the world show her? Where will it take her? What will it make her remember?

With this being my first Rachel Hartman book, I don't know that this is what I expected. Knowing her previous two books were connected to this one, I expected a few things. A medieval fantasy land. Possible dragons. Some post-war peace times. Maybe some magic. Maybe some dragons. I didn't expect a wholly uncooperative heroine and her internal struggle to dismantle all the religion and shame that was pushed at her when she was a child. I didn't expect a classic fantasy 'journey down the road disguised as a boy' that would dissect and deconstruct rape culture. I will never be able to describe this book accurately, because the second I finished I simultaneously wondered what in the world I'd just read and why more books weren't like this. Why more fantasy books about young girls and women weren't about them owning their mistakes, their dreams, and their bodies. From what I've read, this book is rather different from its predecessors. It's rather character-driven, Tess walking her way down the road, meeting people and discovering herself. It's certainly something I would suggest to those looking for something familiar yet utterly different from any other fantasy novel.

(I received an e-galley of this title to review from Random House Books for Young Readers through NetGalley.)

Me on This Week's Book Week (297)

This Week's Book Week is rather similar to Stacking the Shelves hosted by Tynga's Reviews only with far more rambling and a less witty title. ;)

Hi all!

Sorry about the lack of Friday post. It was another weird headache week where I couldn't focus, plus there was a bunch of snow that dumped on us right at the end of the week. And I didn't make it to the library to look at books. Maybe next week.

Reviews going up this week will feature Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman (Tuesday) and Inkmistress by Audrey Coulthurst (Friday). :)

Me on Waiting on Wednesday (367)

Waiting on Wednesday is a bunch of weekly fun hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. :)

Title: Bruja Born
Author: Zoraida Córdova
Release Date: June 5, 2018
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

From Goodreads:

Three sisters. One spell. Countless dead.

Lula Mortiz feels like an outsider. Her sister's newfound Encantrix powers have wounded her in ways that Lula's bruja healing powers can't fix, and she longs for the comfort her family once brought her. Thank the Deos for Maks, her sweet, steady boyfriend who sees the beauty within her and brings light to her life.

Then a bus crash turns Lula's world upside down. Her classmates are all dead, including Maks. But Lula was born to heal, to fix. She can bring Maks back, even if it means seeking help from her sisters and defying Death herself. But magic that defies the laws of the deos is dangerous. Unpredictable. And when the dust settles, Maks isn't the only one who's been brought back...

Oooooooo. I love the sound of this, just like with Labyrinth Lost. It sounds deep and dangerous and magical and very much steeped in a culture rich in history and meaning. This sounds like it's going to be a massive punch to the heart.

Me on Heart of Iron

Title: Heart of Iron
Author: Ashley Poston
Release Date: February 27, 2018
Publisher: Balzer + Bray (HarperCollins imprint)

Seventeen-year-old Ana is a scoundrel by nurture and an outlaw by nature. Found as a child drifting through space with a sentient android called D09, Ana was saved by a fearsome space captain and the grizzled crew she now calls family. But D09—one of the last remaining illegal Metals—has been glitching, and Ana will stop at nothing to find a way to fix him. Ana's desperate effort to save D09 leads her on a quest to steal the coordinates to a lost ship that could offer all the answers. But at the last moment, a spoiled Ironblood boy beats Ana to her prize. He has his own reasons for taking the coordinates, and he doesn't care what he'll sacrifice to keep them. When everything goes wrong, she and the Ironblood end up as fugitives on the run. Now their entire kingdom is after them—and the coordinates—and not everyone wants them captured alive. What they find in a lost corner of the universe will change all their lives—and unearth dangerous secrets. But when a darkness from Ana's past returns, she must face an impossible choice: does she protect a kingdom that wants her dead or save the Metal boy she loves?

Heart of Iron is a book of secrets hidden among the stars, a book of fire and iron and blood. Of plots and plans, treason and murder. It's a book about one girl's search for a way to save her friend and the ghosts she uncovers, the darkness that unfolds.

Ana is rough and brash, an orphaned girl found with a Metal guardian in an escape pod, face scarred and memories lost. She has no family but the one that took her in, the pirate captain and her crew that helped Ana and D09, raised her and trained her. Cared for her. And she'll do anything for them, even if that means searching for ways to fix the glitching D09, who knows he doesn't have much time left before the glitches shut him down permanently. Robb is a Valerio, an Ironblood. One of the elite. And he's searching for someone. He's desperate to find his missing father, searching for the location of a lost fleetship. Desperate to answer questions he's had since he was a child. Desperate to get away from his plotting mother and evil brother. But then a dirty pirate girl and a Metal trying to take the coordinates from him. But then they follow him. But then he ends up on a pirate ship on a journey to the lost fleetship. On a journey toward the hard truth.

I was rather intrigued by this book. It moved a bit slowly at times, setting up for surprises and action in the later half of the story, but all the setting up needed to happen. I was curious how it would go, the author taking the idea of the lost Romanov princess from the early 1900's, putting it in deep space in the far future, and adding some deep dark galactic mystery to it. The different view points were a good choice. In a story like this, with players deep in their plans but a little shallow in others, seeing more than one side provides depth and characterization. The determined Ana, the glitching D09, the Ironblood elite Robb, the roguish pilot Jax. They all have their strengths and their flaws, and those flaws are often manipulated as they all try to stay alive. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for the next book after that ending, and I would recommend this to fans of Defy the Stars.

(I downloaded an e-galley of this title from HarperCollins through Edelweiss.)