Heather Reviews: Every Exquisite Thing by Matthew Quick (Spoilers)

Title:  Every Exquisite Thing
Author:  Matthew Quick
Released:  2016
Publisher:  Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

From the bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook comes a heartfelt and unexpected novel in the vein of The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Nanette O’Hare is an unassuming teen who has played the role of dutiful daughter, hard-working student, and star athlete for as long as she can remember. But when a beloved teacher gives her his worn copy of The Bubblegum Reaper—the mysterious, out-of-print cult-classic—the rebel within Nanette awakens.

As she befriends the reclusive author, falls in love with a young but troubled poet, and attempts to insert her true self into the world with wild abandon, Nanette learns the hard way that sometimes rebellion comes at a high price.

A celebration of the self and the formidable power of story, Every Exquisite Thing is Matthew Quick at his finest..

Heather Reviews: Heartless by Marissa Meyer

Title:  Heartless
Author:  Marissa Meyer
Released:  2016
Publisher:  Feiwel & Friends

Long before she was the terror of Wonderland—the infamous Queen of Hearts—she was just a girl who wanted to fall in love.

Catherine may be one of the most desired girls in Wonderland, and a favorite of the unmarried King of Hearts, but her interests lie elsewhere. A talented baker, all she wants is to open a shop with her best friend. But according to her mother, such a goal is unthinkable for the young woman who could be the next queen.

Then Cath meets Jest, the handsome and mysterious court joker. For the first time, she feels the pull of true attraction. At the risk of offending the king and infuriating her parents, she and Jest enter into an intense, secret courtship. Cath is determined to define her own destiny and fall in love on her terms. But in a land thriving with magic, madness, and monsters, fate has other plans.

In her first stand-alone teen novel, the New York Times-bestselling author dazzles us with a prequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Heather Reviews: Bookishly Ever After by Isabel Bandeira

Title:  Bookishly Ever After (Ever After #1)
Author:  Isabel Bandeira
Released:  2016
Publisher:  Spencer Hill Contemporary

In a perfect world, sixteen-year-old Phoebe Martins’ life would be a book. Preferably one filled with magic and a hot paranormal love interest. Unfortunately, her life probably wouldn’t even qualify for a quiet contemporary.

Everything changes when Phoebe learns that Dev, the hottest guy in the clarinet section, might actually have a crush on her. So, Phoebe turns to the heroines in her favorite books for advice on a personality overhaul. Becoming as awesome as her book characters isn’t as easy as it sounds and when another girl nets Dev for herself right from under Phoebe’s nose, she’s crushed.

Then, to up the suckage, she gets assigned as his co-counselor at a sixth grade camp and has to spend an entire week tied to the hip with the one guy on the planet she wanted to avoid. Can she make it through the potential danger of romantic bonfires and nature walks without Dev figuring out she’s still not over him, or will her counseling career end in emotional disaster? Can she ever go back to her happy world of fictional boys after falling for the real thing?

Heather Reviews: Made You Up by Francesca Zappia

Title:  Made You Up
Author:  Francesca Zappia
Released:  2015
Publisher:  Greenwillow Book

Reality, it turns out, is often not what you perceive it to be—sometimes, there really is someone out to get you. Made You Up tells the story of Alex, a high school senior unable to tell the difference between real life and delusion. This is a compelling and provoking literary debut that will appeal to fans of Wes Anderson, Silver Linings Playbook, and Liar.

Alex fights a daily battle to figure out the difference between reality and delusion. Armed with a take-no-prisoners attitude, her camera, a Magic 8-Ball, and her only ally (her little sister), Alex wages a war against her schizophrenia, determined to stay sane long enough to get into college. She’s pretty optimistic about her chances until classes begin, and she runs into Miles. Didn’t she imagine him? Before she knows it, Alex is making friends, going to parties, falling in love, and experiencing all the usual rites of passage for teenagers. But Alex is used to being crazy. She’s not prepared for normal.

Funny, provoking, and ultimately moving, this debut novel featuring the quintessential unreliable narrator will have readers turning the pages and trying to figure out what is real and what is made up.

Monthly Releases: August 2016

As of August 2014, Monthly Releases is a way for Heather and Kaniesha to spotlight their anticipated books for the upcoming month instead of the weekly Waiting on Wednesdays.

Kaniesha's:
  

Of the three, I'm definitely looking forward to The Beauty of Darkness the most! I haven't read the book previous to The Ghostly Echoes - I forget the title - wait! Beastly Bones! - but I do have the book on my bookcase somewhere. BUUUUUUUT I will have The Beauty of Darkness soon! I am so excited for it, holy heck.

Heather's:


You know me; I rarely have many releases.  Just my luck, these two are coming out on the same day!  I'm sad to see the end of the Demon Road trilogy, but Landy has just announced more Skulduggery Pleasant.  And I will absolutely be savoring The Witch's Vacuum Cleaner.

Heather Post: #BloggerSRP Results!

Time to review how this challenge went for me!

Heather Does: the Blogger Summer Reading Program!

Hello~  It is indeed me~  No time for that, there's a post to be made!

I'm a pretty avid reader of Reading With A Vengeance and saw that she and Bekka from Pretty Deadly Reviews are hosting a giveaway/challenge called the Blogger Summer Reading Program.  I debated entering, mostly because of how ... empty this blog has been the past year, but ultimately decided that I would indeed like to enter.  I feel like this will push me to practice better reading habits and get more reviewing done.

What is my goal?  To read at least one new (to me)* book per week.  "At least" because I believe I will be able to do more but if I can't, due to various life commitments or exercise routines, then I will not be so hard on myself.

That's it for this post!  Hopefully those of you reading will join in because I've never actually done a challenge like this and would love to see some familiar faces!  ^______^




*Edited to clarify my goal.  It would be difficult for me to get my hands on newly published books, so I'll be trying to make a dent in my to-read shelf.

Welcome Back, Kotter! Er -- Heather. Yeah, that's the one...

Ello ello~

So, yeah, I've been gone a long time as well, just as Kaniesha said.  However my absence was for a completely different reason:  I spent the majority of my time last year losing weight.  And I'm currently down 70lbs and still going!

It didn't leave a lot of time for reading mostly because I was extremely unhealthy in my exercise habits and worked out for five hours a day, making my old ankle injury worse and giving myself a very painful heel spur in my right foot.  D'oh.

I didn't have a lot of time to read but I still tried my best and ended the year with 65 books finished.  It was not a personal best and made me disappointed in myself, but also taught me that I need to just chill with my "I need to outdo myself!"-ness; there's no need to top myself every year.

As Kaniesha said, we really hope to get back to blogging because we've been buddy reading and talking about books and planning for posts, we just never really got around to make time for them.  And, again, I've been active posting more reviews on Goodreads, they're just reviews of books I've already read and were written on my personal book blog.  We're still just as passionate about reading and discussing books with the book community, we just hope this year we'll be making time for posting about them.

Kaniesha's Post: Half Year Mark!

As I sort of promised in my welcome back post, I really want to get the blog caught up with all the things I've read so far this year! (The images below are random selections).

Welcome back Kaniesha!

Hello everyone! As our very few followers may have noticed - the two of us (Heather and I) have been very inactive over a year now. We weren't too active before that so it's kind of disappointing that we disappeared entirely without a notice. We didn't actually fall off the planet though - we've been semi active on Twitter and our personal Goodreads accounts which you can find on the front of our blog.

Now when I say "Welcome back" ...I may not mean we're going to be returning to being complete/full book bloggers, whichever way you personally look at it. I'm hoping to make a return to in depth reviewing, but I've got two jobs right now and my Netgalley is SO clogged up with old books that I'm afraid to try again. ..but I will. I definitely will because my love for books has not diminished at all and YA is still amazing. I've read so many good books this year that I hope to be able to talk about some more. Heather and I have also been reading books together we're looking forward to reviewing together in the near future as well!

I hope that the community has been doing well since I've been away. I am entirely sure there are new blogs out there that I've got to discover, old blogs I've got to discover, new content, new books and I'm excited to try again. and I hope that everyone is doing well in their personal lives as well. I did mention that I've got two jobs - which is fantastic considering where I was two years ago, even if it's still not the best place I could be. I am making progress and I hope to make progress with Deux Lectrices with Heather too!

I've been rambling for a few paragraphs now - so I'll give my farewells! Thank you for reading, I hope (really, really do!) that you're as excited as I am. Please, please push/tweet me if you see the blog slowing down back into inactivity. I don't want to see it happen again (but being a full time blogger might NOT be for me. Maybe more small hiatuses..?). Thank you, thank you, thank you. Look forward to more posts :D