Read and Dream: My Book Life

Top Ten Most Anticipated Novels of 2015

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and The Bookish where we post 10 of our favorite things in each category.

Top Ten Most Anticipated Novels of 2015

It's supposed to be debut novels, but I found that most of the books I'm waiting for this year are sequels and by authors I know and love.

1. P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han

Doesn't quite have a cover yet, but I am literally killing myself waiting for this novel. The sequel to To All the Boys I've Loved Before, I can't wait to read a new novel by Jenny Han.

2. Fairest/Winter

You do not know how excited I am for these books. They are the best fairytale retellings I have ever read and I absolutely love all the characters.

3. Firefight

So pumped for this novel. It's getting phenomenal ratings and actually comes out officially today!!!Give. Me. Now.

4. Vanishing Girls

Another Lauren Oliver novel? Yes please. It's a novel about sisters, and I always love those stories because there is so much drama and interesting plot.

5. The Last Time We Say Goodbye

I've never read a Cynthia Hand novel before, but this one looks worthy. About a girl with an enviable life whose brother commits suicide, I'm prepared with the Kleenex.

6. Stand Off

Ladies and gentleman, it is true. There is a sequel to Winger. Please...can we have a moment of silence just to let this sink in.

7. The Witch Hunter

This, is a debut novel. It looks like an awesome fantasy book, and I can't wait to read it. Witches, pirates, and ghosts, oh my!

8. All the Bright Places

Okay, the blurb is saying this is for fans of The Fault In Our Stars or Eleanor and Park. Done deal. The cover is perfect, the characters sound perfect, I can already tell the book will be perfect. (P.S. Also released today!)

9. Under a Painted Sky

Ooh historical fiction yay! About a Chinese-American struggling to reach her dreams and a runaway slave...I already love it.

10. Carry On

I must admit I'm not a fan of fanfiction...most of the time. In this case, I am totally all over the book. Simon Snow fanfic? Another Rainbow Rowell novel? YUS.

What are you anticipating? Any suggestions on more books to read?

Glory O'Brien's History of the Future Review

Title: Glory O'Brien's History of the Future
Author: A.S. King
Publisher: Little Brown
Genre: Contemporary, Magic Realism

Blurb: (from goodreads) Would you try to change the world if you thought it had no future?

Graduating from high school is a time of limitless possibilities — but not for Glory, who has no plan for what's next. Her mother committed suicide when Glory was only four years old, and she’s never stopped wondering if she will eventually go the same way... until a transformative night when she begins to experience an astonishing new power to see a person’s infinite past and future. From ancient ancestors to many generations forward, Glory is bombarded with visions—and what she sees ahead of her is terrifying.

A tyrannical new leader raises an army. Women’s rights disappear. A violent second civil war breaks out. And young girls vanish daily, sold off or interned in camps. Glory makes it her mission to record everything she sees, hoping her notes will somehow make a difference. She may not see a future for herself, but she’ll do everything in her power to make sure this one doesn't come to pass.

In this masterpiece about freedom, feminism, and destiny, Printz Honor author A.S. King tells the epic story of a girl coping with devastating loss at long last—a girl who has no idea that the future needs her, and that the present needs her even more.

Me: This book was one of a kind. It struck me in a very beautiful and personal way.

The Ups: First, the feminism. It was stated bluntly and very straight-forwardly. King didn't swerve around the topic, and instead that was one of the biggest concepts in the book. I actually got an opportunity to talk to A.S. King briefly about feminism and it was awesome. The little things, like the girl asking the guy out or the hero being a girl in the war (the Sniper) were not accentuated in any way but you could tell the feminist ideas were imbedded into the story.

Another thing that really struck me about this book was the character arc. Glory really became a different person throughout the story. She starts off as not being able to see a future for herself, but during the book ends up making one without even realizing it. It's not often that a character can make such an obvious journey, but I think the thing that made it so powerful was that Glory herself didn't realize she was changing, because she was putting all her thought into the changes that were to come.
I don't think anyone can incorporate magic realism into a story and make it as mature and strong as A.S. King can. Her books with magic realism in them are never immature and always make you question and think.
Another thing that I really liked was the entire concept of destiny and the future. I hadn't really thought about it that much before, but along with Glory I began to think about the world and how everyday decisions change our future.

The Downs: That being said, it wasn't as good as A.S. King's other books. All of her other ones, besides Reality Boy, which I DNF, were amazing and I was actually expecting a lot out of this book, but it didn't meet all those expectations. The general concepts of the book were very admirable and in some terms, very brave but the actual book wasn't that interesting.
The character arc was awesome and wonderfully imbedded, but I didn't connect to the character. It wasn't like I didn't like Glory, she just didn't make me feel for her. I didn't really fully know what she was feeling and often times felt a bit annoyed with her.
The plot was also a bit...slow. It dragged on and on, and the only interesting parts were in the visions Glory saw. There was no action happening. The actual life of Glory happening then didn't have much action or interest, and like I said, since I didn't really connect with Glory, things that happened to her didn't really make me feel the way she did.

Overall: A very brave book with great concepts, but lacking in action.

Rating: 4 kisses!

Lies We Tell Ourselves Review

Title: Lies We Tell Ourselves
Author: Robin Talley
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Genre: Historical Fiction, GLBT

Blurb: In 1959 Virginia, the lives of two girls on opposite sides of the battle for civil rights will be changed forever.

Sarah Dunbar is one of the first black students to attend the previously all-white Jefferson High School. An honors student at her old school, she is put into remedial classes, spit on and tormented daily.

Linda Hairston is the daughter of one of the town's most vocal opponents of school integration. She has been taught all her life that the races should be kept "separate but equal."

Forced to work together on a school project, Sarah and Linda must confront harsh truths about race, power and how they really feel about one another.

Boldly realistic and emotionally compelling, Lies We Tell Ourselves is a brave and stunning novel about finding truth amid the lies, and finding your voice even when others are determined to silence it.

Me: A hastily chosen novel that ended up being incredibly provocative and powerful.

The Ups: I honestly picked up this novel because I loved the feeling of the cover. Yup, something as shallow as that. And I got super excited to bring it on my trip to Korea, since I knew I wouldn't be able to bring many books. (Love from Korea btw)
The book started off as any other school integration novel, strong in historical facts and hooking in characters. I really loved Sarah Dunbar as one of the main characters. She seemed very clever, honest, and strong-willed, a perfect girl to fight. But what made her even better was she didn't know it. She had her doubts and her flaws. The character arc she had was so interesting as well. She gained immense strength and a sense of self throughout the book
The other African American students with her, like Ruth, Paulie, Ennis and Chuck were amazing as well. I felt an immense connection to them and throughout the entire story I was asking myself, could I have done what they did? And I don't think I ever could've. They are so brave, so beautiful, and in the writing I could feel their struggle and the unfairness of it all. I wondered at the beginning. Could a white author living in modern times fully express the character of a black teenage girl in the 60's and make it genuine? I have to say Robin Talley has succeeded.
I started off reading this thinking it would just be a powerful story of the integration fight. And even at the beginning the book had strong potential and had already established connection with me as a reader. I then realized that the two main girls were feeling romantic feelings for each other and the story dived into a new area of depth.
There was just so much to block these girls from being themselves. Sarah was only seen as her color, and Linda had been raised to think a certain way about blacks and not dare think otherwise. Both of them, feeling things for each other in a world where interracial marriage was considered a crime and where for most the concept of two females loving each other hadn't even occurred to them
The book was just so brave and about such brave people. It really made me think about how fortunate we are now, but also about everything we still had to work for.

The Downs: That being said, there were certain things that bothered me about this book. First of all, Linda bothered me as a character. She was the opposite of understanding, and had a lot of bias. Even when she was falling for Sarah she refused to let her former thoughts go. I understand that that was how she was brought up, but after a while it started to really bother that me that after everything that happened, Linda was, even in the end, a racist.
I also felt like the romance was a bit ridiculous. I obviously could not connect to the romance as well as some people, because I am not GLBT. But the fact that these two could feel these things by arguing and debating and not anything else was weird. I didn't feel like the relationship was genuine.

Overall: A very powerful story that is pulled by strong characters and a sense of finding yourself.

Rating: 4 kisses!

Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award!

Hey guys! I was nominated by the amazing Claire @Bookworm Reviews to do this tag, and am super excited to do it! Thank you so much, Claire :)

Rules of the tag itself:

Thank your nominator and link back to them

Put the award picture on your post and/or blog

Answer the ten questions your nominator asked

Nominate 10 (you can nominate less or more) bloggers and ask them 10 questions

So here we go...

1. Introduce yourself! Bullet five random facts we don't know about you.

I am absolutely obsessed with the band Queen. Favorite song by them? Probably Too Much Love Will Kill You or Under Pressure
I am really involved in theatre, and find a passion in directing
I was born on April Fool's day....I know...it's pretty sad.
I am totally in love with anything Harry Potter, I'm sure many of you can relate :)
Les Miserables is my all-time favorite musical and I've yet to see it live but it is a life goal.

2. What's your biggest bookish pet peeve?
When people dog-ear the pages. ARGGGHHGHGHH! It annoys me so much. Personally though, I hate when I'll have to stop reading and I can't find a bookmark, Oh the struggle.
3. Tell us about a character you love to hate.
Ginny Weasley. I honestly have no idea why, but something about her irks me. Is it because I'm jealous of her thing with Harry? Maybe....
4. Do you DNF books? Why or why not?
Yes. Most of the time I try not to, just for the sake of ranting about how bad it was on here. But ther have definitely been books where I have just given up because I've had other ones that were much better waiting on my bookshelf.
5. Love triangles v. insta-love v. forbidden love. Which is the worst?
Insta-love. Love triangles aren't much further behind, but then I think about Marius and Cosette and Eponine and I realize that some of them are okay. Insta-love, I feel like, is very overly expressed to where it doesn't feel real and just seems cheesy and makes me want to stab my eyes out.
6. A book ship that just doesn't work for you.
Ronmione? Is that the ship? I always pictured Harry and Hermione together, and still do to this day. Even J.K. Rowling said she'd pictured it for a while. Don't get me wrong, I love Ron, but....:(
7. Grab the book closest to you, turn to page 47, and type a quote from the second paragraph.
Book closest to me: Girls in Pants, Third Summer of the Sisterhood. (The coincidence...) Quote: "Life's too short not to try for something you want."
8. Has a book ever made you cry? If yes, what book?
Yes. I don't cry much during books or movies, because really, I don't cry much in general. But I definitely shed some tears during Champion and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. (Fred Weasley...)
9. Make a soundtrack of three or more songs to correspond with events happening in the most recent book you've read.
Well, I'm reading Les Miserables and I don't think it's that hard to pair a soundtrack with that because they made a musical out of it so...I guess it would be The Impossible Knife of Memory.

21 guns by Green Day basically just sums up the feeling of the entire book,
Human by Christina Perri
The Winner Takes it All by ABBA

All three of them are such beautiful songs

10. If you could live in any book setting, which would you choose?
HOGWARTS. This isn't even a question. Well...maybe if Voldemort was still there I wouldn't, but just the magical world in general? Please Please Please.

Okay, so those are my answers.

And here are the 10 questions for my nominees:
1) Name the three most recent books you've read.
2) Who is your favorite book ship?
3) Where do you get suggestions on what books to read? (goodreads, friends, randomly, etc.)
4) Any types of books you avoid? (genres, popular books, really long ones, etc.)
5) What is the book character you relate most to? If you can't think of one, who is one you look up to?
6) Favorite book to movie conversion? Why?
7) You're having a party, and you can invite 5 authors (dead or living). Who would you invite?
8) Choose a book that has yet to be turned into a movie? Who would you cast in which parts?
9) Do you judge a book by it's cover? (Be honest...)Why or why not?
10) Name a few books on your TBR list.

There you go! Have fun!
Here are my nominations:
Isabel @Wrandom Writings
Rebekah @Ramblings From The Back Closet
Emma @ Dilemma
Lilly @ Passive Aggressive and Pensive
Mrs. Kimberly Fritch @ Recovering Luddite
Jenn @Jenn Renee Read

Reading Les Miserables

So yeah, I haven't posted in a while. My apologies...:( There's no excuse for that, I know, but if anything I wanted to post something about the current book I am reading (and have been for a week). So... welcome to the joyful life of reading Les Miserables.

You've probably all heard about this acclaimed musical, movie, and possibly book. If you haven't, you need to go watch the musical RIGHT now. (the movie wasn't too good) Also, I recommend watching the 25th anniversary concert DVD edition, because personally, that was my favorite. :)

But today's blog post isn't about the movie or the musical, although I could rant about either of them for hours. It's about how I've been reading this book, what I've already learned from the book, and what I look forward to.

Like you can already tell, I've watched the musical and the movie both, and I think that really helps me understand the book better. For once, I am suggesting that you watch the movie/musical before you read the book, because yes, the book is better, and yes, the movie/musical leaves out so much, but it gives the general plot and feeling of the book, and knowing what that was before I started reading was really helpful. It feels like I was given the bones, and now I am putting on the meat, and I think that especially for lengthy classics like Les Mis, watching the visual versions might help understand the story better.

I am on page 504 at the current moment,. so about 40%-ish. I am surprisingly loving the book! People look at me like I'm crazy when I carry around this 1200 page wonder, but it's pretty awesome how fast-paced and enthralling this book is. Again like I said, reading the book knowing the general plot and characters really gets me through the book better. I'll admit, some parts are absolutely ridiculously pointless and long. Like the entire 5-6 ish chapters about Napoleon and the battle of Waterloo and all the military tactics used. I almost died.

But I'm already amazed by the connections I've made with the characters and all the life questions that this book asks. There are just so many lessons imbedded into the book. It makes me question and makes me think, but I somehow am still loving and enjoying this beautiful novel.

Now if I can finish it by the end of this week...

What books are you reading right now? Anything special about them? Have you read Les Miserables before?