Buy Across the Universe on Amazon

A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder.

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone-one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship-tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn’t do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed’s hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there’s only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

(No, this is not this book’s current North American mass market cover. But I like it. :))

What would you do if our planet got so down in the dumps that our political leaders were willing to send cryogenically frozen people to a supposedly habitable planet 300 years away? Would you choose to give up the sky, or the snow, or the grass for a fleeting hope that could possibly betray you?

And if you did? What would happen if you bet all your cards on that one hope– only to be woken up 50 years early? If you sacrificed everything– everything– only to find not a new planet, but a metal cage, lying political leaders, and– this is the worst part– fake rain? What then?

Across the Universe isn’t just a book. It’s a question. The question is: “What if?” And the answer lies only in the pages of this novel.

Although the plot involves the mystery of a murder whose culprit was easily identifiable, I could not put Across the Universe down. When Beth Revis means science fiction, she means science fiction. There’s no aliens, there’s no super powers, there’s no inhumanly strong hot guys. Sure, there’s a spaceship– but this book’s science is not limited to that. Across the Universe‘s twists and turns made me gasp and think”Damn, I never would’ve thought of that.” And I’m a science geek.

Godspeed’s world is beautifully painted. Each member of its society, from the Shippers to the Feeders to the Greys, fascinated me. The forced utopia of this world eliminates all causes of discord; there is no difference, because the ship is mono-ethnic. There’s a strong political leader, because Godspeed is run by the Elder/Eldest notion, which is to say that the eldest member of each generation becomes its political leader. Never mind the fact that the the current political leader only holds the generations together by lies.

And what a righteous political leader Eldest is. But is he evil for lying to his people, if he believes that that is the only way to keep Godspeed peaceful?

Elder, Eldest’s heir, is not rebellious at all, as the book’s description would lead you to believe. Sure, he asks questions, and sure, he finds their answers– but that’s mostly to impress Amy.  I mean, he’s a great guy– he’s just not my favourite person. And his name is Elder. Elder. That really doesn’t help any warm, fuzzy feelings for him.

Amy, although whiny and childlike on surface, is a strong character. She adapts to her novel situation and refuses to accept Godspeed’s not-so-great societal situation without getting some answers beforehand. I loved the chapters from her point of view because she makes comparisons on the differences between life on Godspeed and life on Earth.  One of my favourite parts of Across the Universe involves Amy and Elder discussing an important historical document, and Elder having all of its facts wrong. It really makes you wonder about the biases of our history textbooks, and how much we really know…

Another one of my favourite characters is Harley, Elder’s best friend. Harley is an artist, he’s open-minded, and he’s sarcastic. *Sigh* That is such a great combination.

Of course, Harley isn’t Across the Universe‘s romantic lead. Elder is. And as much as it pains me to say it, I quite enjoyed the romantic plot. Unlike the book’s cover would lead you to believe, Across the Universe is not a hot and heavy romance– it’s not a spray tan. It’s natural (for the most part). It’s slow, and sweet, and realistic. It’s unsatisfying in the way that the ending of this book does not grace you with pretty little details, but beckons you to read the sequel. This romance is absolutely lovely. (Although it would have been better with Harley.  I’m just saying.)

Across the Universe has a split point of view, switching between chapters from Amy’s and Elder’s perspective. Despite the fact that this is a difficult task for an author, Revis accomplishes it masterfully. Even those of you who do not typically appreciate split points of view will agree that it is beautiful and necessary.

As I mentioned before, the mysterious murderer wasn’t mysterious in the least. I identified his identity within the first few chapters. But this is basically this book’s only negative point.

Oh, and I want to show you an exert from a chapter from Elder’s point of view. It’s the epitome of one of this book’s underlying messages.

“That’s not the sun there, it’s an internal confinement fusion container, a solar lamp providing both light and warmth to the Feeder Level, as well as the fuel for the ships’s internal function. It flashes once–warning us that the night is approaching– and then the tinted shield slides over the container. The world is dark now. We call it sunset, a word leftover from Sol-Earth, but this sunset is nothing more than turning off the light. There is no red-yellow-orange-gold in this sunset.”

Across the Universe merits 4.8/5 stars. For fans of science-fiction, sarcastic artists, and questions. Not for fans who can’t cope with the science behind *ahem* hormones.

I’ll keep you posted,

Buy Shattered Souls on Amazon

Lenzi hears voices. She also sees visions–gravestones, floods, a gorgeous guy with steel gray eyes. She knows she must be going crazy, just like her dad did. Her boyfriend, Zak, can’t do anything to help, and the voices just keep getting louder, the visions more intense. But when Lenzi meets Alden, the boy from her dreams, everything makes sense.

Sort of.

He tells Lenzi that she’s a reincarnated Speaker–someone who can talk to lost souls and help them move on–and that he has been her Protector for centuries. But instead of embracing her abilities, Lenzi struggles between her life as the girlfriend of a sexy musician and the life she is destined to lead with Alden. Yet time is running out; a malevolent spirit has been trying to destroy Lenzi for ages, and he will surely kill her if she doesn’t make a decision soon.

Her choices are clear: Destiny or normalcy. Alden or Zak. Life or death.

Whew.

Shattered Souls is intense. Very intense. Just so wonderfully, wonderfully intense.

Shall I be more articulate?

Shattered Souls contains three types of paranormal characters. Firstly, there’s the Hindered. These are dead souls who can’t move on due to their unfinished business. Yes, you’ve heard this before. I’m not done yet. Speakers are the people who can talk to these Hindered. They help them resolve whatever business they’ve left behind. Oh, and then there’s the Protectors. They– you guessed it!– protect their Speakers from the malignant Hindered.

Mary Lindsey has created a magnificently riveting, action-filled plot that captures her readers’ attention. Shattered Souls contains no dull moment. There’s a healthy dose of tension, a two-dozen or so events that just keep coming at you, a great climax, and just enough suspense. Intense is the word. Once I got through the first half of the book– the plot building up all the way– I could not put it down. When I was forced to stop reading, even for a few seconds, this novel dominated my thoughts. Yeah. It’s that intense.

You may be asking yourself why I’ve rated this book two point six out of five stars after hearing me preach on its intensity for the last seven minutes. The truth is, no matter how scintillating Shattered Souls proved to be, it had some issues. Serious issues. And I could not write an honest review without dealing with these.

First of all, Lenzi is an egocentric trollop. Not the greatest combination, right? When she discovers that she is charged with the responsibility of helping dead souls move on so the planet is not overrun with them, she freaks and immediately refuses to take the job. Now, this is understandable. If I found out that I had to talk to crazy, raving dead people to make minimum wage, I would be pretty freaking angry, too. But the fact that she denies her role for a sizable part of the novel really peeves me off. That is not acceptable– it’s selfish.

Oh, and I have I even mentioned the love triangle? No? I’ll get to the two love interests later, but, needless to say, being so consumed with her amorous indecision, Lenzi cheats on her boyfriend. ‘Cause that’s respectable, huh?

The next angle of this love triangle is, coincidentally, also a complete dolt. Zak’s character is absolutely intolerable. I mean, he ditches Lenzi at a cemetery on her birthday, tries to make out with her at her father’s grave, and frequently gets stone-drunk– all of this within the first 40 pages of the novel. The first forty pages! Can you even imagine what he’s like within the first fifty? And all the while, Lenzi is swooning over him. Swooning. I’m sorry, honey, but alcoholism, unreliability and assholishness just aren’t that attractive of qualities to readers. Why don’t you try, say, decency?

One would think that Shattered Souls’ other love interest would be an outstandingly great guy. He’s not. Alden is kind and smart and humble– but he keeps important information from Lenzi because she “couldn’t take it”. Look, Mary Lindsey, Lenzi may be an utterly sleazy protagonist, and she may whine until I’m on the verge of tears, but she should not be portrayed as weak. She can talk to freaking crazy dead people! I think that she can take a little information– especially if it’s direly important. Alden’s secrecy may have been supposed to come off as noble, but, ultimately, it worked against the pair and just made him seem really, really stupid.

There’s something else that I may have neglected to mention: Alden, being Lenzi’s Protector, is turned on by her fear. (Yes, you heard me right.) Just see for yourself.

He fidgeted and then ran his hands through his hair. “Okay. Your fear is a turn-on. Protectors are stimulated when their Speakers are afraid. It’s what makes it possible to put you in harm’s way. Otherwise, our instinct to protect would trump everything and we’d never allow you to do your job, which is to put yourself in danger in order to resolve the issues that keep the Hindered Earth-bound.”

Well, that certainly wasn’t what I expected. “Get out! You’re turned on to by fear?”

“And pain to some extent.” He winked and pulled his hand away.

I turned on the sofa to face him. “That’s totally sick.”

Oh, Lenzi, darling. Let’s get some things straight, shall we? Fear and pain being a turn-on is not ‘totally sick’. It is wrong, and disgusting, and just not okay. It does not make him ‘hot’ or ‘romantic’ or ‘attractive’. It makes him sociopathic and sadistic. And that is not sexy in any way of the word. Any way of the word. Did you hear that, YA authors? Psychotic does not equal enticing. It equals scary.

Lastly, I found this book to be a bit cliché. Is that just me? The ever-typical love triangle is overbearing, and a lot of the dialogue just seems so posed.  After about the third “I can sense that your soul is troubled by this.” one-liner, I was rolling my eyes. And laughing. (And not with the characters, if you know what I mean.)

Finally, Shattered Souls is intense. So, if a page-turner is what you’re looking for, great. Read this book. You’ll love it. But if you care about what’s more than just a scratch below the surface of a novel, you will be horrified. You will be repelled. And you will be laughing and forehead-smacking at its stupidity. 2.6/5 stars.

I’ll keep you posted,

Buy Unwind on Amazon

In a society where unwanted teens are salvaged for their body parts, three runaways fight the system that would “unwind” them Connor’s parents want to be rid of him because he’s a troublemaker. Risa has no parents and is being unwound to cut orphanage costs. Lev’s unwinding has been planned since his birth, as part of his family’s strict religion. Brought together by chance, and kept together by desperation, these three unlikely companions make a harrowing cross-country journey, knowing their lives hang in the balance. If they can survive until their eighteenth birthday, they can’t be harmed — but when every piece of them, from their hands to their hearts, are wanted by a world gone mad, eighteen seems far, far away.

In Unwind, Boston Globe/Horn Book Award winner Neal Shusterman challenges readers’ ideas about life — not just where life begins, and where it ends, but what it truly means to be alive.

Picture abortion. Not literally, I mean. Just… picture the concept.

Now picture retroactive abortion. Picture abortion that occurs thirteen to seventeen years after the child is born. Picture abortion that isn’t death, exactly, but isn’t the continuity of life either. Picture abortion that’s not killing an unborn child, but rather taking a child who is already alive, and chopping them up into tiny little pieces. Picture abortion that is transforming teenagers into unwilling donors for organ transplants.

Picture unwinding.

Are you sufficiently creeped out?

Welcome to this dystopian US of A! We have recently perfected the art of grafting, so every foreign body part can be successfully transplanted into somebody else! Isn’t that great? Especially since unwinding has come into effect. See, now we’re hitting two birds with the same stone: we get rid of our annoying teenagers, and we have organ donors! Dang, we are smart!

Connor is your classic high school bad boy. Risa is a state ward–and a victim of budget cuts. Lev is a martyr who hopes to die for an abhorrent cause. They’re all unwinds, destined to become mere body parts of someone else’s body. However, one can only imagine how such a group might… postpone their unwinding. But can they avoid it altogether?

Unwind‘s major selling point is its creep factor; its premise is just so unimaginably horrible. Just think about it for a moment. Socially accepted, retroactive abortion is not something I would ever have thought of– and it’s not something that most would like to think about for a prolonged period of time. But Shusterman forces you to think about it. No, he forces you to think. Would we, as humans, ever be capable of such horrors? Could something like unwinding ever be government approved? And if it were, would it ever become a thoughtless process, one that is socially acceptable?

Of course, you must answer these questions for yourself, but I think Unwind‘s following quote pretty much answers them for you.

“You can’t change laws without first changing human nature.”
-Nurse Greta

“You can’t change human nature without first changing the law.”
-Nurse Yvonne”

Some people think the whole unwinding idea is far fetched and improbable giving humanity’s, you know, humanity. But the truth is that people often make life-changing decisions during heightened emotional moments. Of course, they regret their decisions, but at that point it’s kind of too late. Especially if they’ve already signed, say, an unwinding order.

One of the best parts of Unwind is actually Humphrey Dunfee; a fairy tale told among children and teenagers. Humphrey was a boy whose parents signed the unwinding order, and immediately regretted it. Obviously, there was nothing they could do, and soon Humphrey was unwound. His parents went crazy and became obsessed with finding the people who had received every bit of Humphrey’s brain, every one of his blood cells, every strand of his hair. They never could piece him back together again…

Connor is your typical high school bad boy. He gets into fights, had remarkably bad grades before he ran away, demonstrates rebellious behaviour, and so on. Despite this, I liked Connor. I mean, bad boys are great– but to a certain extent. Connor, thankfully, stayed within my bad boy limit. He learned to think before he acted, he used his fight swagger for the greater good, and he applied various strategic maneuvers during battle, such as the “Nice socks”. His theory behind this is that if someone actually looks down at their socks, he has won a small victory, at least. I like it. Oh, and just a warning: Connor has mood swings. Serious mood swings. But they’re worth it.

Risa is a combination of street smarts and book smarts. Having been a state ward all of her life, which is to say that she was a sort of orphan, she has learned a couple of tricks. Risa’s pretty cool. I can’t say that I can relate to her all that well– her situation is just so unique– but I really enjoyed being in her head. Her withering glares and unconventional ideas are fun to read about.

Lev is a tithe. What is a tithe, you might ask? Well, have you ever heard of the concept of giving 10% of everything to the church? In Unwind, some extremely religious families take that quite seriously. And Lev is the youngest kid in a ten-child family…

At first, Lev is happy to be a tithe. It’s his duty, it’s his destiny, it’s the only thing he has ever known for certain all his life. But when Lev accidentally goes AWOL, his whole world is thrown upside down, and he doesn’t know what to believe anymore. Lev is really easy to relate to and sympathize with. I mean, he’s a 13 year old kid who’s been taught that dying for the greater good is a privilege. He wants to be unwound. It’s horrible. But his trains of thoughts are also strangely riveting.

The ending of this book freaked me out. I can’t really say anything more about it without spoiling the book for you guys, but the chapter about Roland– it’s freaky. Be prepared.

Unwind is 4.1/5 star dystopian. Not only will it make you think and question and scream, but this book’s message is true and important. It deserves to be read.

I’ll keep you posted,

Good luck to you all!

I’ll keep you posted,

Buy The Fault in Our Stars on Amazon

Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten.

Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning-author John Green’s most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.

(Please excuse these disturbingly profound and insightful thoughts on The Fault in Our Stars, as I’ve just finished reading said book, which was equally profound and insightful.)

This is not a book about cancer.

Well, that’s not quite true. This is a book about the ways of the world. Illness– cancer– comes with that, I suppose.

In any case, before reading this book, or its review, for that matter, you must know that it is irrelevant, and does not pretend to be anything more. Yeah, you heard me. Irrelevant. This book is just so completely irrelevant. So keep that in mind.

First of all, I am going to talk about this book’s merit. I have never experienced the tragedy of one of my close friends dying of cancer, and do not have cancer, myself. Maybe I would not have experienced this book in the same way had this been different. However, I can sincerely recommend this book to you if you share in my ignorance of most things cancer-related. In fact, if you are as unfamiliar with cancer as I am, you must read this book. No, seriously. Read it. Read this book. *menacing face*

So, Hazel is not your typical female protagonist. She is well read, smart, and witty. She is not in school, but she values her education enough to have obtained a GED, and she takes college classes. She is not beautiful, or even cute; she blatantly admits to having a pudgy face due to steroids. Oh, and that brings me to my last point on Hazel Lancaster: she’s dying.

And maybe it is because she has been terminal since her cancer diagnosis at age 13, or maybe it’s just Hazel, but this girl has some opinions. She has opinions on the kind of things that even I don’t have opinions on– and I am not a complaisant person. Yes, The Fault in our Stars assails very, very important matters, such as people conditioning themselves to beauty, the irrevocable fact that oblivion will one day consume our world , and the heinous exclusivity of breakfast foods. I mean, come on, people. Bacon and eggs should be acceptable lunch foods, too! It would be unfair to limit them to the word ‘breakfeasty’!

As for August Waters, let me just say: wow. Just wow. He’s bright and freaking hilarious and he admits his flaws– and plays up his qualities. Having had cancer (He has now been NEC (No Evidence of Cancer) for some time), he is also incredibly deep. I mean, he buys cigarettes, but doesn’t smoke. Why, you might ask? Some sort of metaphor; putting the killing thing into your mouth but never actually giving it the power to kill you.

I’ll give you a couple of Augustus Waters teasers (although one or two snippets of his incredible wit could never measure up to actuality) :

“All salvation is temporary,” Augustus shot back. “I bought them a minute. Maybe that’s the minute that buys them an hour, which is the hour that buys them a year. No one’s gonna buy them forever, Hazel Grace, but my life bought them a minute. And that’s not nothing.”

“Why? Why would you even like me? Haven’t you put yourself through enough of this?” I asked, thinking of Caroline Mathers.

Gus didn’t answer. He just held on to me, his fingers strong against my left arm. “We gotta do something about this frigging swing set,” he said. “I’m telling you, it’s ninety percent of the problem.”

*Sigh*

Based on this, you can obviously determine that the romance between these two characters is beautiful. (Yes, that’s the right word.) It’s not spray tan romance, or lust, or even based on outward appearance in any way. There are just two people who understand each other, and they suit each other perfectly. It’s the kind of couple that you see, and you think “Wow. They just fit. They’d be crazy not to love each other.” (Of course, I might fit with Augustus Waters, too. It’s a possibility.)

Basically, The Fault in our Stars made me laugh and cry and scream more times than I can count on two hands. It’s just that kind of book. At one point, I actually cried so much and for such a prolonged period of time that my sister went and got me a wipe for my mascara. My sister is two. Yeah, it was that bad.

But don’t let that scare you away. The Fault in Our Stars is pure awe. It is just magnificent. Amazing. Wonderful. As stated previously, it is not a book about cancer. It is a book about life. And there cannot be life without death. In some cases, that death just comes prematurely.

Five stars. The Fault in our Stars is an emotional whirlwind, an epic, and an infinity of questions and possibilities compacted into 313 pages of laughter and tears. And there’s no way that that combination could exist without it being rated 5 stars.

I’ll keep you posted,

I’m going to keep this review short and sweet. Or, rather, short and not-so-sweet.

Here are my basic thoughts on this book:

-The main character, Jacob, is stupid.

-The premise is interesting. The way it’s carried out is stupid.

-The author is stupid.

-The author’s name is stupid.

For some odd reason, I thought that Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, a book featuring an orphanage who’s orphans are dead (or are they?), would be thrilling. Mysterious. Addictive.

This is not the case. In fact, it is so far from the case that the case is barely visible on this vast horizon of sheer stupidity. Actually, when I finished the book– oh, wait. I didn’t finish it. I could not finish it. Right.

All that you really need to know is that this book sucks. Don’t read it. If you are truly attracted to Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, as I was, by its cool photos, flip through the novel in the store. And then wipe your hands on your pants and run like hell in the other direction. Or just check out what is, in my opinion, the book’s best photo.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children earns 1/5 stars. Quite frankly, I would rate it 0.9, but the book trailer was (deceivingly) terrifyingly amazing, and the premise was good.

I’ll keep you posted,

Doesn’t Incarnate have a really unique premise? Doesn’t it sound like an addictive page turner? Doesn’t it sound amazing? Yeah, well, it’s not. At all.

I mean, the cover is beautiful. The imagery is lovely. The way Meadows writes is just lyrical. But that’s really hard to enjoy when the setting is so mysterious, the main character is utterly self-deprecating, and the plot is completely focused on a romance that is just awkward to begin with.

Incarnate takes place in Range, which is a country in a fantasy world which is loosely based on our own. Range encompasses one city, called Heart, which inhabits the great majority of the million souls. Ana has lived on the outskirts of Heart for most of her life, but to discover the purpose of her existence, she must travel to the city, so this is where most of Incarnate takes place.

For the most part, I loved this world. I loved that the walls surrounding the city had a heartbeat; that’s why the city is named Heart. I loved the mysterious, door-less temple in Heart’s centre. I loved the acid-spouting dragons and the sylph, who are shadow creatures that burn to the touch. I loved the market days and the masquerade parties and the amazing, floor-to-ceiling-books library that Meadows described.

What really irked me about the setting is the mystery of the rest of the world. As I mentioned before, Range is just a country in an original, fantastical world. But Meadows never describes any part of the rest of this world. Reading Incarnate, I had so many questions.  Is Range the only country whose souls are continually reincarnated? Does the rest of the world even consider its people to have souls? What about dragons? Do they attack the rest of the world, as well? None of these questions are answered.

Next, the characters.  Ana is not a very likable protagonist. Because of her troublesome background, which is to say that she originates from an oppressive environment with an emotionally abusive mother, she is very self-degrading. Now, I’m a fairly empathetic person. If characters come from homes where their mothers tell them they’re worthless, I will sympathize with them. I will comfort them mentally. I will feel sorry for them. But when it gets to the point of every other sentence of a novel being something like: “I’m nothing. Nobody cares. I don’t deserve friends.”, I will not sympathize. I will bang my head against a wall and hope the author kills off the character in order for a new protagonist to take her place.

Enter Sam. Sam is the first person who reassures Ana that she is not some evil, soul-less creature, but rather a new soul. He takes Ana in, and cares for her. He buys her things. He’s very hospitable, really. Sam is round character, because he has so many aspects to his personality. I really rather liked Sam, actually.

I’m going to mention Incarnate’s other characters– oh, wait. I have nothing to say. These characters basically don’t exist.  This really upsets me. I feel like they could have been so much more, they had so much potential, but Meadows limits them, she doesn’t allow them to develop, opting to focus on the romance between Sam and Ana.

Ana and Sam’s romance was actually really hard for me to grasp. I just couldn’t relate to it. I’m blaming this on Meadows’ interpretation of reincarnation. In Incarnate, each soul can be born as male or female in different lifetimes. This means that Sam, the love interest in this book, has been a girl many times before. This just made reading the book really awkward, especially during scenes that consist pretty much of the following dialogue:

SAM: So, I’ve got some girl stuff in the bathroom if you need it.

ANA: What? Do you just keep all this stuff around in case a girl comes to stay awhile?

SAM: No, it’s mine.

ANA: Oh, okay.

Can you say uncomfortable?

Speaking of the romance between Sam and Ana, I feel as though it really restricted the development of the plot.  When I picked up this book, I was hoping for a storyline based on a road to self-discovery. I was hoping for a journey that ended with some sort of enlightenment. I was hoping for a good plot.

Instead, what I do get stuck with? A girl who promises that she’s on this path to discover the purpose of her existence, but then completely forgets her goal as she falls for a guy who’s, like, three thousand years older than her. Yep. That’s determination, right there.

And what’s worst? During Incarnate, Sam mentions that he and Ana share the same birthday. The next day, Ana find out that Sam’s birthday is actually two weeks before hers. Later on, Ana notices that Sam sneaks out at night, after he believes that she is asleep. Does she confront him about any of these things? No. Does she even call him out on any of these things? No. Does she completely forget that he lied to her and is going behind he back? Yes, yes, she does.

Finally, Meadows had a unique, interesting, amazing concept. And she could have taken this and ran with it, and developed it, and made it into something marvelous. Instead, she chose to kill the plot and her readers by bestowing us with *cringe* Ana. And that’s just so disappointing. Incarnate gets 2/5 stars.

I’ll keep you posted,

Hello, everyone!

I want you all to know that I could not find the proper widget to randomly select a winner. So I decided to do it the old fashioned way. Yep. It took about an hour, but I cut out 108 usernames and drew one out of a hat. Next time, we’ll be doing this differently. ;)

But to get on with this,

The winner is…

*Drumroll, please.*

Charliesheenwannabe2!

Congrats, Charlie! You have won an audio copy of Cinder, by Marissa Meyer! You have 48 hours to claim your prize, so email me at whatyareading@gmail.com before 8:00 PM (ET), Thursday March 8th.

I’ll keep you posted,

Hi, everyone!

Spring break is coming up! *excited* Looking for something to read during the week off? Well, I’ve got some ideas…. like an audiobook of Cinder by Marissa Meyer, courtesy of MacMillan Audio! Yay! Read Cinder‘s review here.

Here’s what you have to do to enter:

Register as a user for my site. (To do this, look at the top right corner of your screen. See where it says register? Yeah, click that.)

If you already have registered and do not want to enter this giveaway, send me an email (that’s at whatyareading@gmail.com) with ‘no giveaway’ as  the subject.  If you do not email me, I am going to assume that you want free stuff. Who doesn’t?

You have 1 week to enter– that is, until Monday, March 5th at 7:00 PM (ET). If you win this giveaway, you will have 24 hours to claim you prize.

Good luck to you all!

I’ll keep you posted,

(Hey, guys! This is also posted on Strange Chemistry’s site! Go check them out!)

The strongest female protagonist that I’ve encountered in some time is Katsa from Graceling. I know that many of you find her extremely hard to relate to, but that’s not the case for me. I love that she can never put her intense emotions aside. I love that she’s not poised or proper. I even love that she punches people in the face without thinking of the consequences. Basically, I love Katsa because she never censors herself. She never pretends to be someone she’s not, she never filters what’s on her mind before speaking, she never goes along with an idea if she disagrees with it. Katsa is just this really passionate person who never, ever holds back– and that’s what makes her so strong.

Who do you think is the strongest female protagonist in YA? Leave a comment and join the discussion.

I’ll keep you posted,