Angieville

My first reaction to hearing about Grave Mercy  was that I liked the cover and its mixture of historical figure and modern font. At the same time, I dismissed it somewhat in my mind, sort of preemptively lowering expectations. I adore historical fiction. We have a long history together (pardon the pun). However, I sometimes wind up feeling as though the YA historicals I read have been watered down, so to speak. But the hype surrounding this one has been so adamant (check out all those stars rolling in), that I went ahead with the huddled masses yearning to read free and requested in on NetGalley . Author Robin LaFevers has quite a few middle grade books under her belt, including two separate series.  Grave Mercy   seems to be her first full-fledged YA novel, and it is the first in the His Fair Assassin trilogy. If you're not currently in the mood for a trilogy, it does look as though this one will follow different characters in each installment. Having read i...

For the past few months, I've been a member of an international book group called the YAckers. The YAckers is an invitation only YA book club that utilizes Facebook as its base of operation. Our motto? Saving the world (and defenseless tortured bunnies) from shitty books.  Obviously this book group and I were Meant To Be. Each month, the Keeper of the Book *moment of silence for the dread Keeper* is drawn by random number generator (because we're fancy), and that person is responsible for choosing a book and leading the discussion in our Super Secret Hideout. The discussion is then compiled and posted on our of our blogs. These are very . . . frank . . . discussions of the books. They are not reviews, but rather our gut responses. As my pal Sya says, if you are easily offended, have a heart condition, or are heavily pregnant, you might want to move along. As luck would have it, February was my month to be Keeper, and the book we read was The Fault in Our Stars . Cause the...

Too pretty (and exciting) not to share, this is the just-revealed cover of Sarah Rees Brennan 's upcoming Unspoken . First in a new trilogy -- the Lynburn Legacy-- Unspoken features, and I quote: Sarah Rees Brennan brings Gothic romance kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century with a funny, modern heroine who can take care of herself, an angry, beautiful boy who needs to be saved, and the mysterious forces that bring them together and tear them apart. For the love of all this is holy, GET ME THIS BOOK NOW.

As Leila said in her post , I have conflicting feelings about the upcoming film adaptation of Ender's Game . My nervousness exists on several levels. I'm almost apoplectically excited, and I'm simultaneously terrified they'll botch the job. But these cast pictures sure do give a person reason to hope. Petra, Alai, Bean! Whaddya think?

I've never read any Sophie Kinsella before. It's true. I'm not sure if it was the titles of her Shopaholic series that put me off, or if they were merely big at a time when I wasn't reading much chick lit at all, but one way or another I was never tempted to pick them up. After that. I likely relegated her name to that series alone and never investigated any further. Silly me. But. I began seeing reviews of her latest, I've Got Your Number ,  popping up here and there. Ari's review over at Emily and Her Little Pink Notes in particular caught my eye (as her reviews are wont to do). So (and this is becoming a familiar refrain), when it popped up on NetGalley I just went right ahead and hit request. As far as covers go, I'm liking this one. I love the silhouettes, the text bubbles, and the font. More importantly, I think the cover overall accurately gives the reader a sense of what she will find inside--a phenomenon that seems to me to be becoming rarer t...

I don't know about you guys, but I'm kind of bouncing on my chair right now. Ilona Andrews  has  revealed the cover for Gunmetal Magic --the upcoming novel in the Kate Daniels world featuring Andrea! Andrea (and Raphael) kind of rock, so the fact that she gets her own book is splendiferous in the extreme. Coverwise, I love how Andrea looks. She's got the take no prisoners/I'm the small package good things come in attitude down pat. And I always love when we get a little magic-frayed Atlanta in the background.  Gunmetal Magic   is due out July 31st, and I simply won't be happy until it's in my hands.

Apropos of absolutely nothing except that I can't stop giggling over this hilarious startup video, I give you your Wednesday giggles (via DH and the Dollar Shave Club ). 

I know this is an almost unpardonably early review. But honestly, I waited on it as long as I possibly could before the effort of holding it in caused me some sort of bodily harm. I've been anxiously looking forward to For Darkness Shows the Stars  for going on two years now, and the day an ARC showed up on my doorstep was just a very good day indeed . When a book you've been dying to read finally falls into your lap, do you ever just hold onto it and savor the possibilities? I do. I did with this one for a little while. Don't get me wrong, sometimes I just tear into it immediately. But sometimes I don't. Because sometimes dreaming about it while you're actually holding it in your hands is special, too. So I savored and I dreamt and I started reading and . . . I was gone. My first reaction to finishing it was a sense of complete satisfaction mingled with sadness that it was over. My second was thinking that I cannot wait to see  For Darkness Shows the Stars  work ...

Retro Friday is a weekly meme hosted here at Angieville and focuses on reviewing books from the past. This can be an old favorite, an under-the-radar book you think deserves more attention, something woefully out of print, etc. Everyone is welcome to join in at any time! I felt like something light today for this edition of Retro Friday. It's been awhile. Quite honestly, life is abundantly busy these days. And while my reading hasn't slowed down, I tend to hibernate with an old favorite when real life gets real. So I may have been forgoing some of the new stuff in favor of doing a little re-reading a la Megan Whalen Turner these days. I also made time to re-read one of my favorite Kristan Higgins books on account of it being repackaged and re-released this week in a glossy new edition to match her others. Catch of the Day was originally published in 2007 and was Higgins' second book. I had already read a handful of her books before finding Catch of the Day , and I ...