Waiting on Wednesday (51)

Waiting on Wednesday is an amazing weekly topic that is brought to you by Jill @ Breaking the Spine.

Thousand Words by Jennifer Brown

May 21, 2013

Ashleigh's boyfriend, Kaleb, is about to leave for college, and Ashleigh is worried that he'll forget about her while he's away. So at a legendary end-of-summer pool party, Ashleigh's friends suggest she text him a picture of herself -- sans swimsuit -- to take with him. Before she can talk herself out of it, Ashleigh strides off to the bathroom, snaps a photo in the full-length mirror, and hits "send."
But when Kaleb and Ashleigh go through a bad breakup, Kaleb takes revenge by forwarding the text to his baseball team. Soon the photo has gone viral, attracting the attention of the school board, the local police, and the media. As her friends and family try to distance themselves from the scandal, Ashleigh feels completely alone -- until she meets Mack while serving her court-ordered community service. Not only does Mack offer a fresh chance at friendship, but he's the one person in town who received the text of Ashleigh's photo -- and didn't look.

Waiting on Wednesday (50)

Waiting on Wednesday is an amazing weekly topic that is brought to you by Jill @ Breaking the Spine.

This is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith

April 2, 2013

If fate sent you an email, would you answer?
In This is What Happy Looks Like, Jennifer E. Smith's new YA novel, perfect strangers Graham Larkin and Ellie O'Neill meet—albeit virtually—when Graham accidentally sends Ellie an email about his pet pig, Wilbur. In the tradition of romantic movies like "You've Got Mail" and "Sleepless in Seattle," the two 17-year-olds strike up an email relationship, even though they live on opposite sides of the country and don't even know each other's first names.
Through a series of funny and poignant messages, Graham and Ellie make a true connection, sharing intimate details about their lives, hopes and fears. But they don't tell each other everything; Graham doesn't know the major secret hidden in Ellie's family tree, and Ellie is innocently unaware that Graham is actually a world-famous teen actor living in Los Angeles.
When the location for the shoot of Graham's new film falls through, he sees an opportunity to take their relationship from online to in-person, managing to get the production relocated to picturesque Henley, Maine, where Ellie lives. But can a star as famous as Graham have a real relationship with an ordinary girl like Ellie? And why does Ellie's mom want her to avoid the media's spotlight at all costs?

Waiting on Wednesday (49)

Waiting on Wednesday is an amazing weekly topic that is brought to you by Jill @ Breaking the Spine.

Golden by Jessi Kirby

May 14, 2013

Seventeen-year-old Parker Frost may be a distant relative of Robert Frost, but she has never taken the road less traveled. Valedictorian and quintessential good girl, she’s about to graduate high school without ever having kissed her crush or broken the rules. So when fate drops a mystery in her lap—one that might be the key to uncovering the truth behind a town tragedy, she decides to take a chance.

Waiting on Wednesday (48)

Waiting on Wednesday is an amazing weekly topic that is brought to you by Jill @ Breaking the Spine.

Just One Day by Gayle Forman

January 8, 2013

A breathtaking journey toward self-discovery and true love, from the author of If I Stay

When sheltered American good girl Allyson "LuLu" Healey first meets laid-back Dutch actor Willem De Ruiter at an underground performance of Twelfth Night in England, there’s an undeniable spark. After just one day together, that spark bursts into a flame, or so it seems to Allyson, until the following morning, when she wakes up after a whirlwind day in Paris to discover that Willem has left. Over the next year, Allyson embarks on a journey to come to terms with the narrow confines of her life, and through Shakespeare, travel, and a quest for her almost-true-love, to break free of those confines.

League of Strays by L.B. Schulman

When Charlotte Brody, a lonely 17-year-old student at a new school, receives an invitation to join The League of Strays, she's intrigued by the group's promise of "instant friendship." The League does provide companionship--and even a love interest--but Charlotte grows increasingly uncomfortable with its sinister mission to seek revenge against the bullies of Kennedy High. When escalating acts of vengeance threaten to hurl her down a path of remorse, Charlotte must choose between her new friends and the direction of a future she's never fully considered.

Much like one of the main characters in this book, League of Strays was addicting. I loved the mere idea of the League of Strays. I think it's super original and enables a lot of readers to relate to the book, and it's characters. The different personalities represented in the League made it so readers will able to relate to the characters on a more intimate level. Whether you're the recluse, the band geek, or any other stereotypical outsider- you'll be able to relate to this novel. However, I did have some problems with it.

I said that the book was addicting like one of the characters. While the book is a good kind of addicting, the character isn't. As you can tell from the book cover, Kade is a bit creepy. It really upset me how completely oblivious Charlotte was to who Kade actually was. When he first showed up in the book, I could already make a correct prediction of what would happen at the end of the novel. Charlotte's guillableness really bothered me. This brings me to Kade. I couldn't stand him at all. I understand how he enchants other people and I get why he is the way he is- but I just wasn't his number one fan. The characters also didn't really act the age that they were supposed to be, but that didn't bother me as much as the other things.

After I read League of Strays, I went on goodreads and browsed some of the reviews there- both the positive and negative ones. One of the most common problems that people have with league of Strays is one particular scene. There's a scene that involves the members of the group setting up one of their bullies into a situation that makes him look gay infront of his teammates. The bully ends up getting into a fight with one of the teammates because of what the teammate saw. People have a problem with this because they believe that the author is saying that the harsh behavior of lgbt people is ok. While I completely understand where the people on Goodreads are coming from, and part of me really hates that this scene is in the book, I don't think that that is what the author is trying to convey in the scene. I think this scene, along with others in the book, display things that go on in many high schools today. I liked that about League of Strays- what happened to the members of the group were real problems that teens face.

My problems with the book aside, I really do think that this is a good story. It's a book that should be out in the YA market. The characters are in no way the characters that teens should look up to- their revenge schemes are horrible. But the book is refreshingly real and the characters do what so many people want to do to their old bullies. L.B. Schulman is definently an author I'm looking forward to reading again.

FTC- ALA/Amulet books