Book Blogger Confessions #3

Book Blogger Confessions is a new meme hosted by All-Consuming Books and For What It's Worth. You can find out all about it here. 

Every second week there is one topic that has something to do with book-blogging that you can discuss on your blog.

This week's topic is:

Let's talk about a positive aspect of blogging! How has blogging influenced your real life in a positive way? (not related to books or reading) Have you learned to be organized or are you more social now for example?

One way that blogging has affected the rest of my life is confidence. I know, this is going to sound super-corny, but blogging helped me figure out who I am. Before I started blogging, I read, and that was my only real interest. I mean, I had other interests and hobbies, but nothing I'm really passionate about, like reading. I'm a senior in high school, was a junior when I started blogging, so it's the time when you start thinking about what you want to do with your life. Since reading was what I was passionate about, I thought I'd try writing - maybe that would be the direction I wanted to go. I tried writing, but, well, it didn't really work. I just couldn't see myself as a writer.

When I started book-blogging, I found out how much fun it is to talk about books. I figured out that I could do something bookish without being a writer - there are lots of bookish jobs out there! I now know I want to go into publishing, and I don't think I would have figured it out without blogging. Knowing what I want to do with my life has made me more confident in who I am.

Blogging also made me more confident in stating my opinion. I write reviews - some of them good, some of them bad. Not everyone agrees with me, and that's fine. When I started blogging, I felt really bad giving a book lots of people have loved a bad review. But by now, I've gotten used to it - different people have differente opinions, and that's never going to change. I've gotten used to not always agreeing with everyone else, and that's made me more confident in giving my opinion in real life.

Another aspect of my life blogging has improved is time-management. I've gotten a much better handle on being productive and efficient. I've figured out when to waste time on Twitter and when to step back and do whatever I have to do - be it something blog-related or something from real life, like homework.

So that's the way blogging has influenced my "real life"! What about you?

In My Mailbox #48

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren where you can talk about the books you bought or received this week.

NetGalley:

Before You Go by James Preller
(Amazon | Goodreads)

The summer before his senior year, Jude (yes, he’s named after the Beatles song) gets his first job, falls in love for the first time, and starts to break away from his parents. Jude’s house is kept dark; no one talks much—it’s been that way since his little sister drowned in a swimming pool when Jude was supposed to be watching her. He was watching her. He looked away for just a moment. He was only nine years old. And he’s never truly grieved for her, or for the emotional deaths of his parents, who refuse to talk about what happened. Seven years later, Jude is finally, finally starting to live. Really live. And then life spins out of control. Again.
Acclaimed author James Preller explores life, death, love, faith, and resilience in a story that will grip readers from the book’s dramatic first few pages to its emotional end.

Before You Go sounds right up my alley - I'm so excited to read it!



The Night She Disappeared by April Henry
(Amazon | Goodreads)

Gabie drives a Mini Cooper. She also works part time as a delivery girl at Pete’s Pizza. One night, Kayla—another delivery girl—goes missing. To her horror, Gabie learns that the supposed kidnapper had asked if the girl in the Mini Cooper was working that night. Gabie can’t move beyond the fact that Kayla’s fate was really meant for her, and she becomes obsessed with finding Kayla. She teams up with Drew, who also works at Pete’s. Together, they set out to prove that Kayla isn’t dead—and to find her before she is.

I don't know why, but I've been really into mysteries lately, so The Night She Disappeared should be a good read for me right now!

All These Lives by Sarah Wylie
(Amazon | Goodreads)

Sixteen-year-old Dani is convinced she has nine lives. As a child she twice walked away from situations where she should have died. But Dani’s twin, Jena, isn’t so lucky. She has cancer and might not even be able to keep her one life. Dani’s father is in denial. Her mother is trying to hold it together and prove everything’s normal. And Jena is wasting away.

To cope, Dani sets out to rid herself of all her extra lives. Maybe they’ll be released into the universe and someone who wants to live more than she does will get one. Someone like Jena. But just when Dani finds herself at the breaking point, she’s faced with a startling realization. Maybe she doesn’t have nine lives after all. Maybe she really only ever had one.

The cover for this one is gorgeous, and I love the whole idea for the story!


What did you get in your mailbox this week?

Review: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

Title: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Author: Jesse Andrews
Publisher: Abrams, Harry N., Inc.
Release date: March 1st 2012
Pages: 288
Genre: Contemporary YA
Source: NetGalley - thank you to Harry Abrams and NetGalley for providing a free eGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Find ou more: Amazon | Goodreads


Goodreads description:

Up until senior year, Greg has maintained social total social invisibility. He only has one friend, Earl, and together they spend their time - when not plaing video games and avoiding Earl's terrifying brothers - making movies, their own versions of Coppolaa and Herzog classics. Greg would be the first one to tell you his movies are f*@$ing terrible, but he and Earl don't make them for other people. Until Rachel.
Rachel has leukemia, and Greg's mom gets the genius idea that Greg should befriend her. Against his better judgement and despite his extreme awkwardness, he does. When Rachel decides to stop treatment, Greg and Earl make her a movie, and Greg must abandon invisibility and make a stand.
It's a hilarious, outrageous, and truthful look at death and high school by a prodigiously talented debut author.

First sentence:

So in order to understand everything that happened, you have to start from the premise that high school sucks.

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars


I had a feeling this book was going to be good. I hadn't heard much about it, but the cover and title are amazing, and the premise is great too. And I was right - Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is hilarious!


Really, hilarious is the only way to describe this book. I was laughing out loud on almost every page, and there were scenes where I literally could not stop laughing. My family is used to me laughing while reading (and crying and screaming and just reacting way too strongly to books), but they still regularly came in to check whether I'd gone crazy while I was reading Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, because, well, sitting alone in your room and laughing hysterically does not count as normal behaviour. It's impossible not to while reading Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, though.


Greg is a great character. He's quirky and his sense of humor is unique. His insight on high school life and the way he tries to stay invisible is hilarious. I can't even explain what makes him so funny, there's just something about his self-deprecating style and his crazy ideas and his unique way of thinking. If you want to know how funny he is, you should check out the author's website - the entire book is written like those four paragraphs on the home page. Only better.


An even more funny character is Earl. Earl is unlike anyone I've ever read about. I don't even want to say too much about him because no way can my descriptions even come close to Greg's, but the paragraphs describing Earl and his family life are probably the ones that had me laughing the most.


For the first half of the book or so, there's no real plot, just Greg describing his life and Earl and everyoyne around them in that hilarious way of his. And while that sounds boring, it totally isn't. It reads quickly and is one of the most entertaining stories I've ever read.


The second half of the book is when stuff starts happening. You'd think it'd be the other way around, but I actually didn't like that part as much as I liked reading about Greg's everyday life. Since it's about Rachel's leukemia, the plot gets more serious, and I just don't think the style fits the serious content as well as it fits Greg's everyday life. I was kind of disappointed by the whole making-a-film-for-Rachel storyline - the description says "Greg must abandon invisibility and take a stand," but that's not really the way it happens in the book. I don't want to say too much and spoil it for anyone, but Greg and Earl don't decide to make a movie for Rachel and show it to the world; the world decides that for them. Therefore, the character development I was hoping for is lacking, and I enjoyed the second part of the book less than the first one.


One more thing I appreciated: Earl and Greg remake a German movie, so there's some German in the book, and except for one tiny mistake, the German is actually correct! I'm often annoyed by how authors use foreign languages and make simple mistakes - really, how hard can it be to get a native speaker to check whether what you wrote is correct? - and I'm glad that's not the case in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.


Despite the problems I had with some parts of the plot, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a great book. It's not the most deep or meaningful story you'll ever read, but, well, that's kind of the point. Read Me and Earl and the Dying Girl if you're looking for a hilarious story with quirky characters. (But don't read it where anyone can hear/see you, unless you want to end up in a mental hospital. You will be laughing so much people will think you're crazy.)


If you've read this book, what did you think?

Interview with Ann Redisch Stampler (Where It Began Blog Tour)

Today we have Ann Redisch Stampler here for an author interview! This post is part of The Teen Book Scene's blog tour for Where It Began by Ann Redisch Stampler. You can find out all about the tour here. Make sure to visit all the other stops if you'd like to know more about Where It Began!



1. The cover for Where It Began is gorgeous! What did you imagine it would look like? Is it similar to the actual cover, or did you imagine something completely different?

Thank you, I love the cover, too! Initially, I was envisioning a cover that emphasized the car wreck and the wreck of Gabby’s carefully constructed life. A smoke and flames kind of thing. But I realized very quickly that this cover was beautiful and perfect.

I want to add that my love for this cover isn’t just aesthetic. As I think about it, Where It Began is about what grows out of everything that Gabby goes through, how she makes it past the wreckage. And this is very much that kind of a cover, with a pensive, intelligent girl, maybe a bit shell-shocked, looking inward but also toward the future.

2. I've read you started out with picture books. What made you want to give YA a shot?

You know, I still write picture books! I have an Afghani folk tale, The Wooden Sword, coming out six days before Where It Began. I love picture books, especially richly illustrated folk tales and fairy tales. But that doesn’t answer your question.

I was an English major. I have always loved novels.

I started writing in a serious way when my kids were very small, when I was reading a lot of picture books, and I was kind of in love with them. But I always had bits and pieces of novels kicking around that I wanted to write but never felt able to write. This went on for years.

And then my youngest child left for college and I went, whoa, that was fast! Suddenly, I had much less of a sense of obligation in terms of having a somewhat regular, orderly domestic life (my poor husband) and I just hid out in my den and wrote.

3. How do you go about choosing names for your characters?

I don’t really have a process for it. My characters tend to come to me first; I visualize them walking around; and then I just kind of know what their names should be.

Although sometimes I do have to change names. For example, as I read through the first ARC, I realized that I had two very minor characters (neither one appears in the story, but other people talk about them) named Caitlyn within a few pages of each other. Whoops!

4. What's the best writing advice you ever received?

I keep repeating it all over town, but it’s Jane Yolen’s “butt in chair.” You can have the most brilliant idea and the most astonishing command of the English language ever, but you still have to sit down and do it.

5. Without spoiling anything, can you tell us what was your favorite scene to write in Where It Began?

It’s the Big Revelation Scene. If you’ve read the book, you know exactly what I’m talking about. I love the bit that leads up to it, when the tension is building, and then something else happens, which was enormously fun to write because I love the adult character involved so much, and then they’re up the stairs and wham!

Thanks for the great interview answers, Ann!


Visit Ann on her website, blog, Twitter and Facebook, and keep your eye out for Where It Began, which will be released March 6th.

Where It Began by Ann Redisch Stampler
(Amazon | Goodreads)

Gabby Gardiner wakes up in a hospital bed looking like a cautionary ad for drunk driving and lacking a single memory of the accident that landed her there. What she can remember, in frank and sardonic detail, is the year leading up to the accident.
As she takes us through her transformation from invisible girl to on-trend Girl Who Dates Billy Nash (aka Most Desirable Boy Ever), she is left wondering: Why is Billy suddenly distancing himself from her? What do her classmates know that Gabby herself does not? Who exactly was in the car that night? And why is Gabby left alone to take the fall?
Putting the pieces together will take every ounce of Gabby's strength. As she peels back the layers of her life, she begins to realize that her climb up the status ladder has been as intoxicating as it has been morally complex...and that nothing about her life is what she has imagined it to be.

New Releases March 2012

New releases:

Freshman Year & Other Unnatural Disasters by Meredith Zeitlin
(Amazon | Goodreads)

Release date: March 1st 2012

Kelsey Finkelstein is fourteen and FRUSTRATED. Every time she tries to live up to her awesome potential, her plans are foiled – by her impossible parents, her annoying little sister, and life in general. But with her first day of high school coming up, Kelsey is positive that things are going to change. Enlisting the help of her three best friends — sweet and quiet Em, theatrical Cass, and wild JoJo — Kelsey gets ready to rebrand herself and make the kind of mark she knows is her destiny.
Things start out great - her arch-nemesis has moved across the country, giving Kelsey the perfect opportunity to stand out on the soccer team and finally catch the eye of her long-time crush. But soon enough, an evil junior’s thirst for revenge, a mysterious photographer, and a series of other catastrophes make it clear that just because KELSEY has a plan for greatness… it doesn’t mean the rest of the world is in on it.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
(Amazon | Goodreads)


Release date: March 1st 2012

Up until senior year, Greg has maintained social total social invisibility. He only has one friend, Earl, and together they spend their time - when not plaing video games and avoiding Earl's terrifying brothers - making movies, their own versions of Coppolaa and Herzog classics. Greg would be the first one to tell you his movies are f*@$ing terrible, but he and Earl don't make them for other people. Until Rachel.


Rachel has leukemia, and Greg's mom gets the genius idea that Greg should befriend her. Against his better judgement and despite his extreme awkwardness, he does. When Rachel decides to stop treatment, Greg and Earl make her a movie, and Greg must abandon invisibility and make a stand. It's a hilarious, outrageous, and truthful look at death and high school by a prodigiously talented debut author.

Where It Began by Ann Redisch Stampler
(Amazon | Goodreads)

Release date: March 6th 2012

Gabby Gardiner wakes up in a hospital bed looking like a cautionary ad for drunk driving and lacking a single memory of the accident that landed her there. What she can remember, in frank and sardonic detail, is the year leading up to the accident.
As she takes us through her transformation from invisible girl to on-trend Girl Who Dates Billy Nash (aka Most Desirable Boy Ever), she is left wondering: Why is Billy suddenly distancing himself from her? What do her classmates know that Gabby herself does not? Who exactly was in the car that night? And why is Gabby left alone to take the fall?
Putting the pieces together will take every ounce of Gabby's strength. As she peels back the layers of her life, she begins to realize that her climb up the status ladder has been as intoxicating as it has been morally complex...and that nothing about her life is what she has imagined it to be.

Pieces of Us by Margie Gelbwasser
(Amazon | Goodreads)

Release date: March 8th 2012

At home in Philly, Alex is angry. Angry at the dad who offed himself rather than stay around; angry at the mom who goes from one guy to the next without a thought for her family. Alex may be a player and a bully, but his little brother Kyle will do anything for his approval.
At home in the suburbs, Katie is Miss Popularity, the golden girl that everyone expects too much of, the one who will always be the prettiest and best in her parents eyes, and everyone else’s. Her shy little sister Julie just wants a bit of the attention that Katie gets so easily.
But during their summers at lake houses in Upstate New York, all four teens have a chance to leave their old identities behind. They can be anything here.
Here, no one knows the truly disturbing nature of Kyle and Alex’s dysfunctional relationship. No one knows that the girl Katie pretends to be is a lie. Julie never worries that Kyle is only spending time with her to get to her prettier sister. And the secrets that are threatening to destroy each of them seem are safe. But secrets have a way of getting out…

The Girl Who Could Silence the Wind by Meg Medina
(Amazon | Goodreads)


Release date: March 13th 2012

Sixteen-year-old Sonia Ocampo was born on the night of the worst storm Tres Montes had ever seen. And when the winds mercifully stopped, an unshakable belief in the girl's protective powers began. All her life, Sonia has been asked to pray for sick mothers or missing sons, as worried parents and friends press silver milagros in her hands. Sonia knows she has no special powers, but how can she disappoint those who look to her for solace? Still, her conscience is heavy, so when she gets a chance to travel to the city and work in the home of a wealthy woman, she seizes it. At first, Sonia feels freedom in being treated like all the other girls. But when news arrives that her beloved brother has disappeared while looking for work, she learns to her sorrow that she can never truly leave the past or her family behind. With deeply realized characters, a keen sense of place, a hint of magical realism, and a flush of young romance, Meg Medina tells the tale of a strongwilled, warmhearted girl who dares to face life's harsh truths as she finds her real power.

Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard
(Amazon | Goodreads)


Release date: March 13th 2012

It all begins with a stupid question: Are you a Global Vagabond?
No, but 18-year-old Bria Sandoval wants to be. In a quest for independence, her neglected art, and no-strings-attached hookups, she signs up for a guided tour of Central America—the wrong one. Middle-aged tourists with fanny packs are hardly the key to self-rediscovery. When Bria meets Rowan, devoted backpacker and dive instructor, and his outspokenly humanitarian sister Starling, she seizes the chance to ditch her group and join them off the beaten path.
Bria's a good girl trying to go bad. Rowan's a bad boy trying to stay good. As they travel across a panorama of Mayan villages, remote Belizean islands, and hostels plagued with jungle beasties, they discover what they've got in common: both seek to leave behind the old versions of themselves. And the secret to escaping the past, Rowan’s found, is to keep moving forward.
But Bria comes to realize she can't run forever, no matter what Rowan says. If she ever wants the courage to fall for someone worthwhile, she has to start looking back.

Pretty Crooked by Elisa Ludwig
(Amazon | Goodreads)


Release date: March 13th 2012

Willa's secret plan seems all too simple: take from the rich kids at Valley Prep and give to the poor ones.
Yet Willa’s turn as Robin Hood at her ultra-exclusive high school is anything but. Bilking her “friends”—known to everyone as the Glitterati—without them suspecting a thing is far from easy. Learning how to pick pockets and break into lockers is as difficult as she’d thought it’d be. Delivering care packages to the scholarship girls, who are ostracized just for being from the “wrong” side of town, is way more fun than she’d expected.
The complication Willa didn’t expect, though, is Aidan Murphy, Valley Prep’s most notorious (and gorgeous) ace-degenerate. His mere existence is distracting Willa from what matters most to her: evening the social playing field between the haves and have-nots. There’s no time for crushes and flirting with boys, especially conceited and obnoxious trust-funders like Aidan.
But when the cops start investigating the string of thefts at Valley Prep and the Glitterati begin to seek revenge, could Aidan wind up being the person that Willa trusts most?

The Difference Between You and Me by Madeleine George
(Amazon | Goodreads)

Release date: March 15th 2012

Jesse cuts her own hair with a Swiss Army knife. She wears big green fisherman's boots. She's the founding (and only) member of NOLAW, the National Organization to Liberate All Weirdos. Emily wears sweaters with faux pearl buttons. She's vice president of the student council. She has a boyfriend.
These two girls have nothing in common, except the passionate "private time" they share every Tuesday afternoon. Jesse wishes their relationship could be out in the open, but Emily feels she has too much to lose. When they find themselves on opposite sides of a heated school conflict, they each have to decide what's more important: what you believe in, or the one you love?

When You Open Your Eyes by Cecily Conway
(Amazon | Goodreads)

Release date: March 20th 2012

Tessa is in love with Lucien, the son of a European diplomat. He's French and sexy and artistic. With him, she realizes how naive and American she is, and just how alive she can feel.
But Tessa’s father forbids her to see Lucien. So they meet in secret, which makes their relationship feel all the more exciting.
The harder Tessa falls for Lucien, the more volatile he becomes. Suddenly it’s not just their relationship that’s breaking the rules—Lucien knows no boundaries. And Tessa must figure out how far she’ll go for Lucien…before there is no turning back.

Life is But a Dream by Brian James
(Amazon | Goodreads)


Release date: March 27th 2012

Alec and Sabrina are crazy in love. Problem is: Sabrina’s really crazy. Sabrina, an artist, is diagnosed with schizophrenia, and her parents check her into the Wellness Center. There she meets Alec, who is convinced it's the world that's crazy, not the two of them. They are meant to be together; they are special. But when Alec starts to convince Sabrina that her treatment will wipe out everything that makes her creative, she worries that she'll lose hold of her dreams and herself. Should she listen to her doctor? Her decision may have fatal consequences.

Re-releases/new in paperback:

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

(Amazon | Goodreads)

Release date: March 1st 2012

Mara Dyer believes life can’t get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there. It can.
She believes there must be more to the accident she can’t remember that killed her friends and left her strangely unharmed. There is.
She doesn’t believe that after everything she’s been
through, she can fall in love. She’s wrong.

Bunheads by Sophie Flack
(Amazon | Goodreads)

Release date: March 1st 2012

As a dancer with the ultra-prestigious Manhattan Ballet Company, nineteen-year-old Hannah Ward juggles intense rehearsals, dazzling performances and complicated backstage relationships. Up until now, Hannah has happily devoted her entire life to ballet.
But when she meets a handsome musician named Jacob, Hannah's universe begins to change, and she must decide if she wants to compete against the other "bunheads" in the company for a star soloist spot or strike out on her own in the real world. Does she dare give up the gilded confines of the ballet for the freedoms of everyday life?

Like Mandarin by Kirsten Hubbard

(Amazon | Goodreads)

Release date: March 13th 2012

It's hard finding beauty in the badlands of Washokey, Wyoming, but 14-year-old Grace Carpenter knows it's not her mother's pageant obsessions, or the cowboy dances adored by her small-town classmates. True beauty is wild-girl Mandarin Ramey: 17, shameless and utterly carefree. Grace would give anything to be like Mandarin.
When they're united for a project, they form an unlikely, explosive friendship, packed with nights spent skinny-dipping in the canal, liberating the town's animal-head trophies, and searching for someplace magic. Grace plays along when Mandarin suggests they run away together. Blame it on the crazy-making wildwinds plaguing their badlands town.
Because all too soon, Grace discovers Mandarin's unique beauty hides a girl who's troubled, broken, and even dangerous. And no matter how hard Grace fights to keep the magic, no friendship can withstand betrayal.

Girl, Stolen by April Henry

(Amazon | Goodreads)

Release date: March 13th 2012

Sixteen year-old Cheyenne Wilder is sleeping in the back of a car while her mom fills her prescription at the pharmacy. Before Cheyenne realizes what's happening, their car is being stolen--with her inside! Griffin hadn’t meant to kidnap Cheyenne, all he needed to do was steal a car for the others. But once Griffin's dad finds out that Cheyenne’s father is the president of a powerful corporation, everything changes—now there’s a reason to keep her. What Griffin doesn’t know is that Cheyenne is not only sick with pneumonia, she is blind. How will Cheyenne survive this nightmare, and if she does, at what price?

Slide by Jill Hathaway

(Amazon | Goodreads)

Release date: March 27th 2012

Vee Bell is certain of one irrefutable truth—her sister’s friend Sophie didn’t kill herself. She was murdered. Vee knows this because she was there. Everyone believes Vee is narcoleptic, but she doesn’t actually fall asleep during these episodes: When she passes out, she slides into somebody else’s mind and experiences the world through that person’s eyes. She’s slid into her sister as she cheated on a math test, into a teacher sneaking a drink before class. She learned the worst about a supposed “friend” when she slid into her during a school dance. But nothing could have prepared Vee for what happens one October night when she slides into the mind of someone holding a bloody knife, standing over Sophie’s slashed body. Vee desperately wishes she could share her secret, but who would believe her? It sounds so crazy that she can’t bring herself to tell her best friend, Rollins, let alone the police. Even if she could confide in Rollins, he has been acting off lately, more distant, especially now that she’s been spending more time with Zane. Enmeshed in a terrifying web of secrets, lies, and danger and with no one to turn to, Vee must find a way to unmask the killer before he or she strikes again.

These are this month's releases I'm anticipating. What March releases are you most excited for?