Netgalley Nockout Challenge Sign-Up :D

When I saw this challenge later today, my first thought was: "this challenge was created for me"!!
I just love getting ARCs. When I get approved for one I feel like the best blogger in the world because a publisher had actually visited my blog and found it worthy enough to feature a book!! That's really flattering. My blog isn't big enough for me to receive physical ARCs and I don't have any intention to request them either because I just LOVE reading on my Kindle.
The problem is that recently I got way too many eARCs. And it's not like I don't have anything else to read!!! I thought I'm the only one in this situation... Well, apparently not. So come on, LET'S KNOCKOUT THOSE REVIEW EBOOKS!!! :D


For more info sign up here

Book Review: Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Shatter Me

Author: Tahereh Mafi

Genre: YA dystopian, romance.

Publisher: HarperCollins

Publication Date: November 15th 2011

Goodreads || Amazon

"You can't touch me," I whisper.

I'm lying, is what I don't tell him.

He can touch me, is what I'll never tell him.

But things happen when people touch me.

Strange things.

Bad things.

No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal, but The Reestablishment has plans for her. Plans to use her as a weapon.

But Juliette has plans of her own.

After a lifetime without freedom, she's finally discovering a strength to fight back for the very first time—and to find a future with the one boy she thought she'd lost forever.

When I saw this cover and read the synopsis of this book, I was sure this book is going to be like Divergent - something about a strong girl living in the distant future and a lot of brutal fights. I have nothing against this type of books, I actually enjoy them a lot, but recently I got a bit tired of all these action novels.  I'm more of a romance girl. There's nothing I like better than a good, heart-warming love story.

That's why I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this book was actually romantic. The author has managed to write a dytopian novel in which the romance and the emotions between the two main characters are the main subject. That made me think about the whole genre of dystopia.
I wonder who has decided that a dystopian novel has to be action-packed and nothing more than that? Who says it can't be romantic? Tear-jerking? Filled with love and hatred and all kind of flaring emotions? Who says it can't break your heart into pieces and then glue them together?

From these questions you can probably understand what made this book so great. I couldn't put it down from the very first page. I was sucked into Juliette's world - I saw everything through her eyes. I felt her despair, her terrible childhood memories, her pains and mental scars. The writing style of this book was very unusual, with a lot of repeated words and confused thoughts just scattered on the pages, but it was just perfect for this specific story. I love how I could get a glimpse of what was actually going through Juliette's mind, along with her confusion and thoughts she tired repress.

She acted like a real teenage girl when she met Adam. She recognized Adam as a threat at the beginning, but like a real teenage girl near her crush, she slowly fell for him. He, from his side, made her feel comfortable and loved near him until she let him see her real self. With the help of him, Juliette transformed from a closed up, untrusting, afraid-of-her-own-powers girl, to a strong, self-confident women. The character development of her was amazing and that's why she was a great main character.

I would recommend this book to people who enjoy romantic, emotional stories. This is not the action-packed novel you might expect, and it might not be for everyone, but personally I just loved almost everything about it except for some minor plot issues. I am sure the next book will be even better because of the ending that left me dying for more. Tahereh Mafi is an extremely talented author and I can understand all the hype around her books.

Pros:

• Unique, beautiful writing.
• Great character development.
• A different, new kind of dystopian novels.
• A lot of romance and emotions involved.

Cons:

• The plot was a bit dragging at some points, but other then that nothing major.

Rating:

Blog Tour: The Neptune Project (Book Info + Giveaway)

Title: The Neptune Project

Author: Polly Holyoke

Publisher: Disney/Hyperion Publishing

Publication Date: May 21, 2013

With her weak eyes and useless lungs that often leave her gasping for air, Nere feels more at home swimming with the dolphins her mother studies than she does hanging out with her classmates. Nere has never understood why she is so much more comfortable and confident in the water than on land until the day she learns the shocking truth—she is one of a group of kids who have been genetically altered to survive in the ocean.

These products of the “Neptune Project” are supposed to build a better future under the waves, safe from the terrible famines and wars and that rock the surface world.But there are some big challenges ahead of her: no one ever asked Nere if she wanted to be part of a science experiment; the other Neptune kids aren’t exactly the friendliest bunch, and in order to reach the safe haven of the new Neptune colony, Nere and her fellow mutates must swim across hundreds of miles of dangerous ocean, relying on their wits, their loyal dolphins and one another to evade terrifying undersea creatures and a government that will stop at nothing to capture the Neptune kids … dead or alive.

Fierce battle and daring escapes abound as Nere and her friend race to safety in this action-packed marine adventure.

 

 

About the Author:
Polly Holyoke has been imagining stories since she was in fifth grade. When she isn’t writing, Polly loves reading, camping, skiing, scuba diving and hiking in the desert (where she quite stupidly got herself bitten by a rattlesnake). She lives with three rescue dogs, two spoiled cats and a nice husband who is tolerant about the piles of books all over their house. Her debut middle grade novel, THE NEPTUNE PROJECT, is the story of a young girl leading a group of genetically altered teens fighting to survive in the sea. She is thrilled that this novel will be published by Disney/Hyperion and Puffin Books UK summer, 2013. She thinks the best part about being an author is going to work in her sweatpants and getting paid for daydreaming!

Website  |  Twitter 

 

Giveaway:

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Blog Tour: How to be Almost Famous in Ten Days by Kathleen S. Allen (Synopsis+Excerpt)

How to Be Almost Famous in Ten Days  by Kathleen S. Allen

 

Publication date: March 15th 2013
Genre: YA Contemporary

Seventeen-year-old Cassie Cee feels invisible because she’s a double-digit size. She finds a book in a secondhand bookstore that she hopes will change her life. Her best friend’s brother wants to make vlogs about how she is following the ten rules she found in the book, why she is doing it, and how she feels about being invisible for his school project. She agrees, but only if he promises no one but his college advisor will see the vlogs. He promises, but a friend of his posts them online and they go viral. When one of the “famous rules” puts her best friend, Rachel in a dangerous situation, Cassie makes one last vlog and Chuck posts it online. But emails begin arriving from other girls who have felt invisible, and she realizes she has to own up to being “the real Cassie Cee.”

 

 

 

 

I was supposed to review this book but I didn't have time to do it!! I promise I'll read and review it properly as soon as I can!!

 

 

GIVEAWAY!!!!

 

Blog Tour: Dancers and Divas by Kathy Petrakis (Review + Giveaway)

 



 Book 1: Passion and Pain

Goodreads || Amazon

Contains mature content - recommended for ages 15+ 

Does passion and desire guarantee success? Can friends really be trusted? Can true love be found beneath lust and deceit? 

These are questions tenacious street dancer Elena Martinez faces as she struggles to compete against the most talented students at New York’s top Performing Arts High School. Along with her best friend, the carefree and mischievous Sebastien Duval, they are determined to make center stage. 

But the singing diva Letitia has other plans. Beautiful, talented and popular, her desire for revenge could ruin everything for Elena and Sebastien. Now, they must fight against prejudice, treachery and deceit as Letitia sets out to destroy Elena’s friendships, her romance, her dignity and her dreams. Can Elena win the battle for true love, happiness and success?

My Review:

Wow. This book was so good. It has exceeded my highest expectations. I finished it more than a week ago and I'm still quite shocked at how great and amazing it was.

Performing arts are one of my greatest loves and my dream. I just love watching people perform singing, dancing and acting and I always dream to be as great as they are...

That's why I felt like this book was written for me!! It was about an average girl, my age, practically living my dream.

Elena Martinez, a high school Freshman and Sophomore during the book, is very talented in the performing arts. She studies in a special school for arts in New York and there she meets other kids just like her. Some of them are nice and friendly, and other, like Letitia, are evil and all they want to do is ruin her life. This book describes Elena's life in high school - her friends, her enemies, her first love and her first heartbreak.

Elena was definitely my favorite character of the book. I loved reading about her passion for dancing, singing and acting. She was very sensitive and emotional and has managed to show her feelings while performing. That was why she was so great at what she was doing.

I loved reading about her each time reaching a small goal in the way to become what she wanted most - a professional dancer. Even when she was going through lot, she never gave up and was always strong and determined to succeed. A lot of things happened to her in this book and I really felt sorry for her, especially at the end, but I loved how she has managed to overcome everything and learn from every situation.

I loved the romance in this book. It was actually the best part. Elena had her first boyfriend and her first true love ever and it was so great to read about what she felt towards Jay. They made a beautiful couple at the beginning, but Jay's intentions about her weren't clear during the whole book. I couldn't be sure if he was good for her or not, but what I did know was that he wasn't the best match for her.

Elena's best friend was a guy she knew since she was 12 - Sebatien. He was the best match, and I wanted to slap her the whole book and yell at her because she couldn't see that!!! Sebastien was so miserable and I couldn't help loving him and wishing I knew him in real life.

This book made me feel all sorts of emotions in such an intensity! I cried and laughed, I felt joy and desperation, I felt love and utter hatred. I was inside the book, living the story. It felt amazing and I just couldn't put the book down, couldn't get enough of it. I almost cried at the end only because it was over.

I recommend you all to read this book. It is and indie read, but be sure it is much better than most published books out there. I haven't started the second book yet, but I'll do it very soon because I can't wait to get more of this beautifully written story and characters. It is, undoubtedly, an all-time favorite of mine.

Rating:

Book Two: Bittersweet

Goodreads || Amazon

Can secrets stay hidden forever? Can people really change? Are some mistakes unforgivable?

As Elena and Sebastian embark on a fresh start, will Letitia keep his secret, or will she use it to destroy them?
As Veronika falls in love, Frankie is out of rehab and trying to make amends, but will it last for either of them?
Meanwhile, as Anya is torn between loyalty to her Nana and love for Darius, could Darius fall for the new temptress, Rosa? With her stunning looks, her powerful, sensual dancing and her desire to seduce, she has everyone nervous but what secret is she hiding?
Continue the roller-coaster journey with your favorite characters as they try to survive junior year at the country’s top performing arts school. 

Giveaways!!

Enter to win some amazing prizes, courtesy of the author! :) Good luck to you all!Go here for full contest terms and conditions.

Book Review: The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

Title: The 5th Wave

Author: Rick Yancey

Genre: YA post-apocalyptic, aliens.

Publisher: Putnam Juvenile

Publication Date: May 7th

Goodreads || Amazon

The Passage meets Ender’s Game in an epic new series from award-winning author Rick Yancey.

After the 1st wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one.

Now, it’s the dawn of the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth’s last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie’s only hope for rescuing her brother—or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up.

After reading so many five-star reviews for this one, I was expecting it to be amazing, one of the best books of the year. I tried sooo hard to love it the way I expected, but unfortunately I just couldn't. The best I can say about this book is that if was good.

I'll start with what I did enjoy in the book, which was the idea. The author had a really great idea for a post-apocalyptic world, one I've never read before. He took the whole aliens genre into a new level, that's for sure. When someone says an alien, people imagine a green creature that travel in a spaceship and can't do much harm... well, not anymore!!! In this book aliens are extremely smart, are a thousand years ahead of us in technology and are dangerous, vicious creatures. Their plan was to wipe out the entire human population, and they did that in such a systematic way that that I was truly creeped out. They knew how people think and attacked them in their weaknesses, which made me think about some of the human natures, like finding comfort in groups, giving in to desperation, easily trusting.

I think that what made me disappointed with this book was mainly the writing. This book was written in a really weird way. I think it was supposed to resemble speech,  with a lot of speech-like sentences, but it didn't really work. All the fighting and action scenes were hard to follow because of that. I had to re-read parts a lot of times.

The alternating POVs bothered me. I usually like getting different perspectives on the plot, but here it was done in a very confusing and hard-to-follow way. I didn't have time to really connect to any of the characters.

Talking about the characters, I had some issues with them, too. Cassie was okay. She was very brave and strong, just like I like main characters to be, but I just didn't really CARE about her. I can't explain why, really. She just felt too distant and didn't really pass as a teenage girl in the way she thought and spoke.

I liked the other main character better than her (I can't tell you who that is, because it's a spoiler) and that's why I enjoyed his parts better. His life story was described in a way that made me feel for him and unlike Cassie he really changed and matured during the book, .

The other characters were pretty unimportant, which was also not so good. I always enjoy great supporting characters, but in this book there weren't any.

The book started to get really good only 70% through. Finally I got some answers and everything became less confusing. That's when I started to really enjoy the book. Even the writing got better. This book gained one more star from me only because of the last 30%.

As I said, despite its flaws, this book was good and I don't get me wrong, I did enjoy it. I can see the potential it has to be something phenomenal and I really hope its sequels will be much better.

I don't think it deserves all the hype, but I do recommend you to read it and see for yourselves.

Pros:

• Great, intriguing idea.
• The last 30% were awesome.

Cons:

• Quirky writing.
• The action scenes are hard to follow.
• The main characters were hard to relate to.
• Shallow supporting characters.

Rating:

Blog Tour: Holding On and Letting Go by Lucy Kelly

Hi guys!! This is my tour stop for the amazing book Holding On and Letting Go. I'm currently reading it and I will review it as soon as I finish (:

Holding On and Letting Go

Author: Lucy Kelly

Release date: March 2013

Tour organized by: Irresistible Reads Book Tours


Get the Book:

Amazon , Barnes and Noble , Goodreads

Book Description:

Is there a way to describe the ties that bind us together? What happens when one of those ties is unexpectedly severed? Can everything else remain the same? Will the other ties hold strong?

Two years after her little brother's death, sixteen year old Emerson Caulfield returns to a home that she spent the last two years missing. In theory, everything should be the same. Her best friend, Matt, still lives next door. Her house is in the exact same condition as they left it. The scenery and hallways haven't changed, yet for Emerson, everything is completely different. The place may be the same, but Emerson is most certainly not. She returns home hurt, angry, and miles away from the girl she once was.

The 60,000 word novel alternates between the perspectives of Emerson, who is struggling to keep breathing on a daily basis, and Matt, who wants to have his old best friend back so badly that he is willing to overlook the fact that she has completely changed. Though their friendship and relationship is a major part of the story, it takes backseat to the unique bonds between siblings, what happens when your worst enemy is in fact yourself, and the hardships that come with growing up and changing.

About the Author

I'm not really going to write a biography. Though I am supportive of the high schools and colleges I have attended, it's probably not actually the most interesting stuff about me. I'm going to do a list of five really random things instead for now.

1) I like making lists. It's weird, and I never actually scratch things off of the list.
2) I sing and dance in the car like a maniac.

3) For the first six years of my life, I truly believed a shark lived under my bed. I watched Jaws at too young of an age.
4) Without a doubt, I am a night person. I am enormously grumpy when first woken up in the morning.
5) When I was younger, I read almost every Nancy Drew book, both new and old. I had a notebook, and I would take notes to see if I could figure out who the "bad guy" was before Nancy did. We probably tied.

Social Links:
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Giveaway:

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