My New Treasures #21

My New Treasures is a weekly feature here at Paperback Treasures to showcase all the books I received over the previous week. I do not take credit for this idea.

For review:

Afterparty by Ann Redisch Stampler (Add to Goodreads | Purchase from Amazon)

Bought:

Brooklyn, Burning by Steve Brezenoff (Add to Goodreads | Purchase from Amazon)

Personal Effects by EM Kokie (Add to Goodreads | Purchase from Amazon)

34 Pieces of You by Carmen Rodrigues (Add to Goodreads | Purchase from Amazon)

Truly, Madly, Deadly by Hannah Jayne (Add to Goodreads | Purchase from Amazon)

Things I Can't Forget by Miranda Kenneally (Add to Goodreads | Purchase from Amazon)

Ask the Passengers by AS King (Add to Goodreads | Purchase from Amazon)

Six Months Later by Natalie Richards (Add to Goodreads | Purchase from Amazon)

A Midsummer's Nightmare by Kody Keplinger (Add to Goodreads | Purchase from Amazon)

Anywhere But Here by Tanya Lloyd Kyi (Add to Goodreads | Purchase from Amazon)

Review: Love? Maybe. by Heather Hepler

Title: Love? Maybe.

Author: Heather Hepler

Publisher: Speak

Release date: January 1st 2012

Pages: 288

Genre: Young Adult contemporary romance

Source: Bought
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Just because Piper's birthday is on Valentine's Day does not mean she's a romantic. In fact, after watching her father and then her stepfather leave, she's pretty sure she doesn't believe in love at all. Then her friends concoct a plan to find them all Valentine's dates, and somehow Piper finds herself with the most popular guy in school. But true love never follows a plan, and a string of heartfelt gifts from a secret admirer has Piper wondering if she might be with the wrong guy.

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Yes, it's cheesy. And yes, it's predictable. And no, I would not want to be seen in public reading this book (that cover! ARGH). But honestly, who cares? Love? Maybe. is well-done in its clichedness, and I enjoyed reading it, and that's all that matters.

Even though this book seems very much like straight-up romance, it doesn't have the typical romance-feel to it. Rather than one love story, it's a bunch of smaller ones, even if Piper's takes the main focus. Piper's mom and her friends Claire and Jillian each have their own story, and I love how they all work together. The secondary characters are well-developed and add a lot to the novel.

Piper, though, is what makes this book awesome. She's not your typical YA heroine. She's cynical, but not in a hopeless, unrealistic way; her feelings are very relatable. I don't even know how to describe her; I just loved her so much. She's a little oblivious, but I didn't mind, because I guess that's the point. And yes, the romance is completely predictable, but when it's well-done, with fun quirks and details like the ones in Love? Maybe., I don't mind predictable romances at all.

And of course, the candy. Piper works in a candy store, and a large part of the book is set there. I don't think I need to explain why that makes this book awesome.

Love? Maybe. is in no way deep or meaningful, and it's a story that's been done a million times before. But the writing is clever and fun, and the characters are fully-developed and unique, making this book stand out from all those cutesy romances. If you're looking for a quick, entertaining read, you should definitely give Love? Maybe. a try.

New Releases November 2013

New Releases:

The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

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Release date: November 5th 2013

Seventeen-year-old Cassie is a natural at reading people. Piecing together the tiniest details, she can tell you who you are and what you want. But it’s not a skill that she’s ever taken seriously. That is, until the FBI come knocking: they’ve begun a classified program that uses exceptional teenagers to crack infamous cold cases, and they need Cassie.
What Cassie doesn’t realize is that there’s more at risk than a few unsolved homicides— especially when she’s sent to live with a group of teens whose gifts are as unusual as her own.
Sarcastic, privileged Michael has a knack for reading emotions, which he uses to get inside Cassie’s head—and under her skin. Brooding Dean shares Cassie’s gift for profiling, but keeps her at arm’s length.
Soon, it becomes clear that no one in the Naturals program is what they seem. And when a new killer strikes, danger looms closer than Cassie could ever have imagined. Caught in a lethal game of cat and mouse with a killer, the Naturals are going to have to use all of their gifts just to survive.

Pirouette by Robyn Ravati

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Release date: November 8th 2013

Identical twins Hannah and Simone meet at summer dance school Simone was raised to be a dancer, but she hates performing. Hannah loves nothing more than dance, but her adoptive parents think it's just a hobby. When the two girls meet at Candance summer camp, they realize they're identical twins. Then they decide to switch places for the three weeks of camp. As the girls learn about each other, a new plan develops. Since Hannah and Simone are from the same city but live in different suburbs, they decide to swap places at home. Yet fooling their friends and family is more challenging than either girl expected, and they're both burdened by the weight of their lies. How long can Hannah and Simone keep pretending? What will happen when the truth is revealed?

Sometimes Never, Sometimes Always by Elissa Janine Hoole
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Release date: November 8th 2013

Cassandra fears rocking the family boat. Instead, she sinks it. Assigned by her English teacher to write a poem that reveals her true self, Cassandra Randall is stuck. Her family's religion is so overbearing, she can NEVER write about who she truly is. So Cass does what any self-respecting high school girl would do: she secretly begins writing a tarot-inspired advice blog. When Drew Godfrey, an awkward outcast with unwashed hair, writes to her, the situation spirals into what the school calls "a cyberbullying crisis" and what the church calls "sorcery." Cass wants to be the kind of person who sticks up for the persecuted, who protects the victims the way she tries to protect her brother from the homophobes in her church. But what if she's just another bully? What will it take for her to step up and tell the truth?

Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher
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Release date: November 12th 2013

Zoe has an unconventional pen pal-Mr. Stuart Harris, a Texas Death Row inmate and convicted murderer. But then again, Zoe has an unconventional story to tell. A story about how she fell for two boys, betrayed one of them, and killed the other. Hidden away in her backyard shed in the middle of the night with a jam sandwich in one hand and a pen in the other, Zoe gives a voice to her heart and her fears after months of silence. Mr. Harris may never respond to Zoe's letters, but at least somebody will know her story-somebody who knows what it's like to kill a person you love. Only through her unusual confession can Zoe hope to atone for her mistakes that have torn lives apart, and work to put her own life back together again. 

Loud Awake and Lost by Adele Griffin
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Release date: November 12th 2013

LOUD. There was an accident. Ember knows at least that much. She was driving. The car was totaled. She suffered back injuries and brain trauma. But she is alive. That's the only thing left she can cling to.
AWAKE. Eight months later, Ember feels broken. The pieces of her former self no longer fit together. She can't even remember the six weeks of her life leading up to the accident. Where was she going? Who was she with? And what happened during those six weeks that her friends and family won't talk about? 
LOST. One by one, Ember discovers the answers to these questions, like a twisted game of dominos. And little by little, the person she used to be slips further and further away. 

The F-It List by Julie Halpern
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Release date: November 12th 2013

Alex’s father recently died in a car accident. And on the night of his funeral, her best friend Becca slept with Alex’s boyfriend. So things aren’t great. Alex steps away from her friendship with Becca and focuses on her family. But when Alex finally decides to forgive Becca, she finds out something that will change her world again--Becca has cancer. So what do you do when your best friend has cancer? You help her shave her head. And then you take her bucket list and try to fulfill it on her behalf. Because if that’s all you can do to help your ailing friend--you do it. 

New in paperback:

My Beautiful Failure by Janet Ruth Young

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Release date: November 11th 2013

The haunting account of a teen boy who volunteers at a suicide hotline---and falls for a troubled caller.
Billy is a sophomore in high school, and twice a week, he volunteers at Listeners, a suicide hotline. Jenney is an “incoming,” a caller, a girl on the brink.
As her life spirals out of control, Jenney’s calls become more desperate, more frequent. Billy, struggling with a deteriorating relationship with his depressed father, is the only one who understands. Through her pain, he sees hope. Through her tears, he feels her heart. And through her despair, he finds love. But is that enough?

The Almost Truth by Eileen Cook

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Release date: November 12th 2013

Sadie can’t wait to get away from her backwards small town, her delusional mom, her jailbird dad, and the tiny trailer where she was raised…even though leaving those things behind also means leaving Brendan. Sadie wants a better life, and she has been working steadily toward it, one con at a time.
But when Sadie’s mother wipes out Sadie’s savings, her escape plan is suddenly gone. She needs to come up with a lot of cash—and fast—or she’ll be stuck in this town forever.
With Brendan’s help, she devises a plan—the ultimate con—to get the money. But the more lies Sadie spins, the more she starts falling for her own hoax…and perhaps for the wrong boy. Sadie wanted to change her life, but she wasn't prepared to have it flipped upside down by her own deception. With her future at stake and her heart on the line, suddenly it seems like she has a lot more than just money to lose... 

What November releases are you most excited about? 

Review: Sixteenth Summer by Michelle Dalton

Title: Sixteenth Summer
Author: Michelle Dalton
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Release date: May 3rd 2011
Pages: 283
Genre: Young Adult contemporary romance
Source: Bought
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Anna is dreading another tourist-filled summer on Dune Island that follows the same routine: beach, ice cream, friends, repeat. That is, until she locks eyes with Will, the gorgeous and sweet guy visiting from New York. Soon, her summer is filled with flirtatious fun as Anna falls head over heels in love. But with every perfect afternoon, sweet kiss, and walk on the beach, Anna can’t ignore that the days are quickly growing shorter, and Will has to leave at the end of August. Anna’s never felt anything like this before, but when forever isn’t even a possibility, one summer doesn’t feel worth the promise of her heart breaking…

My rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Straight-up romances are a hard sell for me. I do like romance, but I usually prefer it as a secondary storyline, with something else taking the main focus. I just have too many pet peeves about romance to enjoy books that focus only on a love story. I keep reading YA romances, though, because when there is one that doesn't use any of my pet peeves, I enjoy it all the more. Sadly, though, that was not Sixteenth Summer for me - while there were parts of it that I enjoyed, there were just too many cliches and little things that frustrated me about the novel.

The romance frustrated me throughout the novel. Anna and Will's relationship starts in a love-at-first-sight kind of way, which always bugs me. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's insta-love, because they do take some time getting to know each other. But the whole getting-to-know-each-other thing didn't work for me because I thought the characters by themselves were lacking; they exemplified the places they came from, but there wasn't all that much else to their personalities. Their relationship seemed more about the things they did than an actual emotional connection - the things they did were fun tor read about, since they're part of the great beach-town atmosphere of the novel, but they weren't enough to warrant the emotions and the drama. And the drama these two have is so completely unnecessary - I wanted to shake Anna and tell her to stop being so stupid throughout the entire novel. That made it hard for me to care enough about either character or their relationship.

But even if I didn't like the romance all that much, the setting saved the book for me. I love books set at the beach, and Sixteenth Summer conveys the beach theme perfectly; I loved the whole island-y, beach-town atmosphere, along with all the little quirks and events. I especially liked the scenes set at Anna's parents' ice cream place - if you're not craving ice cream by the end of this book, there is something wrong with you. The secondary characters are great, too; I loved reading about Anna's friends Sam and Caroline, as their relationship provided a nice contrast to Anna and Will's.

So, really, the romance was the only part of the novel I didn't enjoy. But with a romance novel, that's a pretty big part, which is why I can't say I liked the book all that much. If you're someone with better tolerance for cheesy romance stories, though, I can see how Sixteenth Summer could be a cute, entertaining read for you, so I don't discourage you from giving it a try.

Bookish Anticipation #29

Bookish Anticipation is a feature I do every once in a while to spotlight future releases I'm excited for. It was inspired by Breaking the Spine's Waiting on Wednesday. You can check out more of my Bookish Anticipation posts here.

Nearly Gone by Elle Cosimano

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Release date: March 25th 2014 

Nearly Boswell knows how to keep secrets. Living in a DC trailer park, she knows better than to share anything that would make her a target with her classmates. Like her mother's job as an exotic dancer, her obsession with the personal ads, and especially the emotions she can taste when she brushes against someone's skin. But when a serial killer goes on a killing spree and starts attacking students, leaving cryptic ads in the newspaper that only Nearly can decipher, she confides in the one person she shouldn't trust: the new guy at school—a reformed bad boy working undercover for the police, doing surveillance. . . on her.
Nearly might be the one person who can put all the clues together, and if she doesn't figure it all out soon—she'll be next.

Side Effects May Vary by Julie Murphy

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Release date: March 18th 2014

What if you’d been living your life as if you were dying—only to find out that you had your whole future ahead of you?
When sixteen-year-old Alice is diagnosed with leukemia, her prognosis is grim. To maximize the time she does have, she vows to spend her final months righting wrongs—however she sees fit. She convinces her friend Harvey, whom she knows has always had feelings for her, to help her with a crazy bucket list that’s as much about revenge (humiliating her ex-boyfriend and getting back at her arch nemesis) as it is about hope (doing something unexpectedly kind for a stranger and reliving some childhood memories). But just when Alice’s scores are settled, she goes into remission.
Now Alice is forced to face the consequences of all that she’s said and done, as well as her true feelings for Harvey. But has she done irreparable damage to the people around her, and to the one person who matters most?

Ink Is Thicker than Water by Amy Spalding
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Release date: March 12th 2014

For Kellie Brooks, family has always been a tough word to define. Combine her hippie mom and tattooist stepdad, her adopted overachieving sister, her younger half brother, and her tough-love dad, and average Kellie’s the one stuck in the middle, overlooked and impermanent. When Kellie’s sister finally meets her birth mother and her best friend starts hanging with a cooler crowd, the feeling only grows stronger.
But then she reconnects with Oliver, the sweet and sensitive college guy she had a near hookup with last year. Oliver is intense and attractive, and she’s sure he’s totally out of her league. But as she discovers that maybe intensity isn’t always a good thing, it’s yet another relationship she feels is spiraling out of her control.
It’ll take a new role on the school newspaper and a new job at her mom’s tattoo shop for Kellie to realize that defining herself both outside and within her family is what can finally allow her to feel permanent, just like a tattoo.

What I Thought Was True by Huntley Fitzpatrick
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Release date: March 12th 2014

From the author of My Life Next Door comes a swoony summertime romance full of expectation and regret, humor and hard questions.
Gwen Castle's Biggest Mistake Ever, Cassidy Somers, is slumming it as a yard boy on her Nantucket-esque island this summer. He's a rich kid from across the bridge in Stony Bay, and she hails from a family of fishermen and housecleaners who keep the island's summer people happy. Gwen worries a life of cleaning houses will be her fate too, but just when it looks like she'll never escape her past—or the island—Gwen's dad gives her some shocking advice. Sparks fly and secret histories unspool as Gwen spends a gorgeous, restless summer struggling to resolve what she thought was true—about the place she lives, the people she loves, and even herself—with what really is.

Dear Killer by Katherine Ewell
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Release date: April 1st 2014

Rule One—Nothing is right, nothing is wrong.
Rule Two—Be careful.
Rule Three—Fight using your legs whenever possible, because they’re the strongest part of your body. Your arms are the weakest.
Rule Four—Hit to kill. The first blow should be the last, if at all possible.
Rule Five—The letters are the law.
Kit takes her role as London’s notorious “Perfect Killer” seriously. The letters and cash that come to her via a secret mailbox are not a game; choosing who to kill is not an impulse decision. Every letter she receives begins with “Dear Killer,” and every time Kit murders, she leaves a letter with the dead body. Her moral nihilism and thus her murders are a way of life—the only way of life she has ever known.
But when a letter appears in the mailbox that will have the power to topple Kit’s convictions as perfectly as she commits her murders, she must make a decision: follow the only rules she has ever known, or challenge Rule One, and go from there.

The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E Smith
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Release date: April 15th 2014

Lucy and Owen meet somewhere between the tenth and eleventh floors of a New York City apartment building, on an elevator rendered useless by a citywide blackout. After they're rescued, they spend a single night together, wandering the darkened streets and marveling at the rare appearance of stars above Manhattan. But once the power is restored, so is reality. Lucy soon moves to Edinburgh with her parents, while Owen heads out west with his father.
Lucy and Owen's relationship plays out across the globe as they stay in touch through postcards, occasional e-mails, and -- finally -- a reunion in the city where they first met.

The Museum of Intangible Things by Wendy Wunder
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Release date: April 10th 2014

Hannah and Zoe haven’t had much in their lives, but they’ve always had each other. So when Zoe tells Hannah she needs to get out of their down-and-out New Jersey town, they pile into Hannah’s beat-up old Le Mans and head west, putting everything—their deadbeat parents, their disappointing love lives, their inevitable enrollment at community college—behind them.
As they chase storms and make new friends, Zoe tells Hannah she wants more for her. She wants her to live bigger, dream grander, aim higher. And so Zoe begins teaching Hannah all about life’s intangible things, concepts sadly missing from her existence—things like audacity, insouciance, karma, and even happiness.

Ask Again Later by Liz Czukas
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Release date: March 11th 2014

Despite what her name might suggest, Heart has zero interest in complicated romance. So when her brilliant plan to go to prom with a group of friends is disrupted by two surprise invites, Heart knows there's only one drama-free solution: flip a coin.
Heads: The jock. He might spend all night staring at his ex or throw up in the limo, but how bad can her brother's best friend really be?
Tails: The theater geek...with a secret. What could be better than a guy who shares all Heart's interests--even if he wants to share all his feelings?
Heart's simple coin flip has somehow given her the chance to live out both dates. But where her prom night ends up might be the most surprising thing of all...