Bookish Anticipation #17

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.

Return to Me by Justina Chen Headley
(Amazon | Goodreads)


Release date: January 15th 2012

Three months before Rebecca Muir is set to begin college, her father reveals a secret that tears the family apart: he is leaving them.
In an instant, Rebecca’s life crumbles—she has to rely on her mother now, when her whole life she’s been her father’s girl; she’s not sure she can trust her high school boyfriend; and her carefully planned-out life suddenly feels all wrong.
Reb’s journey takes her across the country and back, and is for anyone who has experienced uncertainty or betrayal. This book will inspire readers to overcome life’s challenges and come out triumphant on the other side.

The Wrap-Up List by Steven Arntson
(Amazon | Goodreads)


Release date: January 8th 2012

In this modern-day suburban town, one percent of all fatalities come about in the most peculiar way. Deaths—eight-foot-tall, silver-gray creatures—send a letter (“Dear So-and-So, your days are numbered”) to whomever is chosen for a departure, telling them to wrap up their lives and do the things they always wanted to do before they have to “depart.” When sixteen-year-old Gabriela receives her notice, she is, of course devastated. Will she kiss her crush Sylvester before it’s too late?

The S-Word by Chelsea Pitcher
(Amazon | Goodreads)


Release date: January 8th 2013

Lizzie wasn’t the first student at Verity High School to kill herself this year. But the difference is, she didn’t go quietly.
First it was SLUT scribbled all over the school’s lockers. But one week after Lizzie Hart takes her own life, SUICIDE SLUT replaces it—in Lizzie’s own looping scrawl. Photocopies of her diary show up in the hands of her classmates. And her best friend, Angie, is enraged.
Angie stopped talking to Lizzie on prom night, when she caught Lizzie in bed with her boyfriend. Too heartbroken to ask for an explanation or to intervene when Lizzie got branded Queen of the Sluts and was cruelly bullied by her classmates, Angie left her best friend to the mercy of the school, with tragic results.
But with this new slur, Angie’s guilt transforms into anger that someone is still targeting Lizzie even after her death. Using clues from Lizzie’s diary and aided by the magnetic, mysterious Jesse, Angie begins relentlessly investigating who, exactly, made Lizzie feel life was no longer worth living. And while she might claim she simply wants to punish Lizzie’s tormentors, her anguish over abandoning and then losing her best friend drives Angie deeper into the dark, twisted side of Verity High—and she might not be able to pull herself back out.

All the Broken Pieces by Cindi Madsen! 
(Amazon | Goodreads)

Release date: December 11th 2012

Liv comes out of a coma with no memory of her past and two distinct, warring voices inside her head. Nothing, not even her reflection, seems familiar. As she stumbles through her junior year, the voices get louder, insisting she please the popular group while simultaneously despising them. But when Liv starts hanging around with Spencer, whose own mysterious past also has him on the fringe, life feels complete for the first time in, well, as long as she can remember.
Liv knows the details of the car accident that put her in the coma, but as the voices invade her dreams, and her dreams start feeling like memories, she and Spencer seek out answers. Yet the deeper they dig, the less things make sense. Can Liv rebuild the pieces of her broken past, when it means questioning not just who she is, but what she is?

Survivng High School by M. Doty
(Amazon | Goodreads)


Release date: September 4th 2012

Freshman Emily Kessler needs perfect grades, a rigorous training schedule, and record-breaking swim times. She survives by limiting her fun to lunch with her best friend Tina and the rare Friday-night sleepover. But when she starts to fall for Twin Branches High's heartthrob, and secrets about her sister, Sara, start to surface, Emily begins to question the strict path her life is on. Maybe there is more to high school than just studying and swimming. But if she breaks a few rules, will she survive the consequences?

If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch
(Amazon | Goodreads)


Release date: April 2nd 2013

A broken-down camper at the Obed Scenic and Wild River National Park - dubbed the Hundred Acre Wood - is the only home fifteen-year-old Carey has ever known.
Sure, coping with a bipolar mother on meth is no picnic, but beneath the sun-dazzled canopies of Hickory and Walnut, Carey's violin transports her from their bare-bones existence in the same way her little sister, Jenessa, finds comfort in her stash of second-hand Pooh books.
Life is dependable that way, until Mama goes into town for supplies and vanishes off the face of Tennessee, sending social services in her wake with a one-way ticket back to their father - a stranger in an even stranger world.

17 & Gone by Nova Ren Suma
(Amazon | Goodreads)


Release date: March 21st 2013

Seventeen-year-old Lauren is having visions of girls who have gone missing. And all these girls have just one thing in common—they are 17 and gone without a trace. As Lauren struggles to shake these waking nightmares, impossible questions demand urgent answers: Why are the girls speaking to Lauren? How can she help them? And . . . is she next? As Lauren searches for clues, everything begins to unravel, and when a brush with death lands her in the hospital, a shocking truth emerges, changing everything.

Chasing the Skip by Janci Patterson
(Amazon | Goodreads)


Release date: October 2nd 2012

Ricki's dad has never been there for her. He's a bounty hunter who spends his time chasing parole evaders—also known as "skips"—all over the country. But now since Ricki's mom ran off, Ricki finds herself an unwilling passenger in a front-row seat to her father's dangerous lifestyle.
Ricki's feelings get even more confused when her dad starts chasing seventeen-year-old Ian Burnham. She finds herself unavoidably attracted to the dark-eyed felon who seems eager to get acquainted. But Ricki thinks she's ever in control—the perfect manipulator. Little does she know that Ian isn't playing their game by her rules.

Crash by Lisa McMann
(Amazon | Goodreads)


Release date: January 8th 2013

Jules lives with her family above their restaurant, which means she smells like pizza most of the time and drives their double-meatball-shaped food truck to school. It’s not a recipe for popularity, but she can handle that.
What she can’t handle is the vision. Over and over, Jules sees a careening truck hit a building and explode... and nine body bags in the snow.
She has no idea why this is happening to her or if she’s going crazy. It hardly matters, because the visions are everywhere--on billboards, television screens, windows--and she’s the only one who can see them.
But it’s not until the vision starts coming more frequently, and revealing more clues, that Jules knows what she has to do. Because now she can see the face in one of the body bags, and it's someone she knows. Someone she’s been in love with for as long as she can remember.

I know, I know - so many non-contemps on this list! I don't know what's going on with me, either. They just sound so good! Anyways, what upcoming releases are you anticipating?