Character Interview- Consuela from Luminous by Dawn Metcalf

Today, I have the opportunity to share with you all an interview that I did with the main character of Dawn Metcalf’s lovely novel Luminous. So, I hope you enjoy the answers that Consuela has to offer!

1. If you could undo everything that has happened to you, would you?

No. Even if I didn't know what I know now, I'd still say no. I'd like to pretend that it's because I want to dedicate myself to others or take a stand for all that's good in the world, but the truth is that the moment I crossed over, I felt complete. And I didn't need anyone else to tell me that. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

2. How do you feel about your story being out there in the world?

It's a little scary, honestly. Sort of like Peter Parker coming out as Spiderman on the big screen, LOL! I don't want people to look at me differently or act differently around me, but I like the idea that people know there's something special about them and that there's someone out there looking after all of us when we really need it most.

3. What is your favorite skin?

That'd be spoilery! But I do have a special place in my heart for the very first one that I made: my skin of air. It's less like flying and more like riding around the sky. You can see air moving and feel it, like the wind doesn't stop on your face, but blows right through you. It sounds like you're nothing, but it's more like you're everything. It's hard to describe, but that was when I first felt part of something bigger than me.

4. Which member of the Flow is your favorite?

Giovanni Russo. Call him "V". Besides the fact that he can walk through mirrors (how cool is that?), he's really all about helping people. Even when he doesn't feel like he deserves it, when he knows that he is the one that has to do it, he does one hundred percent. I admire that. He's selfless and strong and sweet. I just wish he'd let other people help him sometimes.
And did I mention he's hot? Tall, dark, handsome, speaks Italian, and cut... Yeah. He's hot.

5. Is there anything you would like to add?

You know the phrase, "Don't judge a book by it's cover"? Well, one thing I really got was that no one is what you think they are just by looking at them. Underneath, there's a whole other person, a whole other story, and until you get to know it, you're just making up stuff about them based on nothing at all. The people who share their true selves with you are the ones you'll never, ever forget.

But I Love Him by Amanda Grace

Tonight was so much worse than anything before it. Tonight he didn't stop after the first slap.

At the beginning of senior year, Ann was a smiling, straight-A student and track star with friends and a future. Then she met a haunted young man named Connor. Only she can heal his emotional scars; only he could make her feel so loved — and needed. Ann can't recall the pivotal moment it all changed, when she surrendered everything to be with him, but by graduation, her life has become a dangerous high wire act. Just one mistake could trigger Connor's rage, a senseless storm of cruel words and violence damaging everything — and everyone — in its path.

This evocative slideshow of flashbacks reveals a heartbreaking story of love gone terribly wrong.

 

Woah. Amanda Grace is the pseudonym of Mandy Hubbard. I read Mandy/Amanda’s first novel and it was ok. It was really girly, which isn’t normally my thing. So of course I was expecting a girly story when I picked up But I Love Him. I was way way wrong. But I Love Him was this addicting, raw, amazing novel that I couldn’t put down.

I am in love with the fact that this story is written in reverse-chronological order. It makes the story just that more interesting and mysterious. Though at times it confused me, I think that the was Ann’s story was told improved it a great deal. Even at the start of the first page, I understood Ann. A lot of the times it’s hard to understand people in abusive relationships and why they stay in those relationships- but here, I got it. I also liked that Connor was well rounded. We know why he does the things he does and we know what influenced him to be that way. By no means does that give him an excuse to abuse Ann, but it helps readers to understand the character. Every character in here was incredibly well developed. They were all clear and well-rounded, as well as written well.

But I Love Him is not an easy book to read. If you have a hard time reading novels that deal with hard subjects, this isn’t the book for you. However, if you are ok with reading those sort of novels- you need to rush out to your local indie bookshop and buy a copy. Amanda Grace did a phenomenal job writing this novel and I honestly can’t get enough of it. But I Love Him is an amazing edition to the young adult literature world. I cannot recommend it enough!

FTC- Library.

Character Interview: Brielle from A Season of Eden by Jennifer Laurens

As a part of the Teen Scene Book Tours, I had the opportunity to interview one of the characters in A Season of Eden by Jennifer Laurens.

1. Now that you've read Eden's story, what do you think of Mr. Christian and Eden's relationship with each other? Read it? I knew about it a lot earlier than this. But, seriously, I sensed something HUGE was happening because Eden and I have been friends FOREVER. She finally told me after graduation. After she and James and connected again and things were starting to warm up again. I guess she wanted to be sure before she told me and I don't blame her. She's always had enviable control about guys.

2. If you could change anything about your high school experience, what would you change? OMG I wouldn't have been so whiney and needy. Like, what was I thinking???

3. Do you wish Eden would have told you about her "thing" with Mr. Christian? Why or why not?

I would like to have known all along,sure, but she wanted to protect them and she has respect for him, you know? It's cool she kept it secret. I never could have.

4. How do you feel about being a character in a book? What are you talking about?

5. Is there anything you would like to add?

If anyone needs their hair done, I'm AWESOME. Just graduated from beauty school so CALL ME!

The Absolute Value of Mike by Kathryn Erskine

Mike tries so hard to please his father, but the only language his dad seems to speak is calculus. And for a boy with a math learning disability, nothing could be more difficult. When his dad sends him to live with distant relatives in rural Pennsylvania for the summer to work on an engineering project, Mike figures this is his big chance to buckle down and prove himself. But when he gets there, nothing is what he thought it would be. The project has nothing at all to do with engineering, and he finds himself working alongside his wacky eighty-something- year-old aunt, a homeless man, and a punk rock girl as part of a town-wide project to adopt a boy from Romania. Mike may not learn anything about engineering, but what he does learn is far more valuable.

When I first received The Absolute Value of Mike I admit, I wasn’t planning on reading it. The cover made the book seem childish and uninteresting to me. You can imagine my surprise that when I did read it, I couldn’t put it down- I read it in one day. I haven’t read Kathryn Erskine’s first book, Mockingbird,  but if I recall correctly, it was talked about a lot.

The Absolute Value of Mike was a surprise to me because it featured a younger main character (I believe he was 14) and it is hilarious, but it is still really deep. I felt horrible for Mike, his father is always distracted and his mother isn’t around anymore. He was a really strong character and had to basically raise himself, and I admire that. His “distant relatives” were amazing as well. The crazy town mixed in with all of those things made The Absolute Value of Nothing a slam dunk on my list of books.

Kathryn Erskine has a way of writing that sounds a little bit like middle grade novels, but descends past that into being more influential and deep. This novel was really addicting and really amazing, and I can’t wait to read more of Kathryn Erskine’s books! I highly recommend The Absolute Value of Mike.

FTC- Publisher.

Wildefire Giveaway

So I am back again with the third and final giveaway for Karsten Knights amazing novel, Wildefire. This time though, instead of winning an ARC- one winner will get a final copy! Here is the summary of Wildefire-

Every flame begins with a spark.
Ashline Wilde is having a rough sophomore year. She’s struggling to find her place as the only Polynesian girl in school, her boyfriend just cheated on her, and now her runaway sister, Eve, has decided to barge back into her life. When Eve’s violent behavior escalates and she does the unthinkable, Ash transfers to a remote private school nestled in California’s redwoods, hoping to put the tragedy behind her. But her fresh start at Blackwood Academy doesn’t go as planned. Just as Ash is beginning to enjoy the perks of her new school—being captain of the tennis team, a steamy romance with a hot, local park ranger—Ash discovers that a group of gods and goddesses have mysteriously enrolled at Blackwood…and she’s one of them. To make matters worse, Eve has resurfaced to haunt Ash, and she’s got some strange abilities of her own. With a war between the gods looming over campus, Ash must master the new fire smoldering within before she clashes with her sister one more time… And when warm and cold fronts collide, there’s guaranteed to be a storm.

Once again, to enter all you have to do is fill out the form below. The giveaway will end on June 21st. There are no ways to get extra entries, but I would appreciate it if you facebooked, blogged, or tweeted about this giveaway. I also appreciate if you follow Zoe’s Book Reviews, but you don’t have to.

Without further to do, here is the giveaway form-

My Life, The Theater, and Other Tragedies by Allen Zadoff

High school sophomore Adam Zeigler, who lost his father to a sudden accident two years ago, thinks the best way to live life is behind the spotlight. As a member of the theater crew, he believes he's achieved it all when he wins the coveted job of spotlight operator. But that was before a young actress, Summer, appeared in his view. Instantly smitten, Adam is determined to win her over. But to do so, he'll have to defy his best friend and break the golden rule of his school: techies and actors don't mix.

Set against the backdrop of a high school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Zadoff's latest is a bromance, a love story, and theater story in one. The politics of love and high school collide as Adam struggles to find the courage to step out of the shadows and into the light.

This novel was adorable, hilarious, and addicting. This is the first novel I’ve read by Allen Zadoff, though I’ve heard marvelous things about his first YA book Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can’t Have. I was both nervous and excited to start this novel. I was nervous because it seemed a little dorky and generally not my kind of thing. I was excited to read it because while the plot seems dorky, it also has potential to be written really well. Suffice to say, I shouldn’t have been nervous because Allen Zadoff did an amazing job with this story.

The main character, Adam was layered! And I don’t been layered like clothes. Not only is he a painfully shy member of the theater crew, but he is also this nice, caring, great guy. Summer was written really well, also. Though there was awhile where I thought that she was going to be portrayed as a manic-pixie-dream-girl-type**. She slowly moved past that towards the end, which redeemed her character for me.

I like that this book has to do with theater because I love theater. I don’t love acting and I don’t love working on stage sets, but I like seeing theater and talking about theater- so the fact that most of the novel takes place in a theater, was really alluring to me. There are a lot of ways to make or break books where theater is a strong influence. You can over do the theater and make the novel to happy and too Glee-esque. Don’t get me wrong, I love Glee, but I don’t think it can be translated into a novel well. Allen Zadoff didn’t over do the theater, though. He balanced it with Adam’s familial, personal, and stage guy problems.

My Life, The Theater, and Other Tragedies was an addicting and heartfelt novel that I couldn’t put down. I highly recommend reading it!

FTC- Publisher.

** (For those who don’t know, a manic-pixie-dream-girl is a term that is used to describe (definition taken off of wikipedia)- MPDGs are usually static characters who have eccentric personality quirks and are unabashedly girlish. They invariably serve as the romantic interest for a (often brooding or depressed) leading male protagonist.

Summer and Blog Posts

So I am officially on summer vacation from school, now (yay). That means that I will have time to read and sleep and sleep and sleep and blog! I’ve been out of school since Wednesday and I feel horrible about not posting anything. I do have my reasons, though.

First of all, I didn’t really start summer until Friday (I had other schoolish things to do on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday). I hadn’t really read anything until Saturday, because Friday I spent most of the day sleeping and planning blog things (interviews and giveaways!).

I’m not posting a review right now and I haven’t been posting them because I’ve been trying to build up a bulk of reviews to write. To explain that, I kind of have to tell you a little bit about how my review writing and post scheduling process works.

1. I have a planner that is specifically for Zoe’s Book Reviews and book events and such. To my knowledge, little to no bloggers besides myself have a blog planner. I do it because I can be really unorganized and I like being organized, so it helps me with that. It also helps me when I’m looking for days where I need to schedule blog posts.

2. Truthfully, nearly everything I post on here I’ve pre-scheduled. So for instance, I just wrote a review that will be going up on here June 19th. I do this because I know there will be days or weeks when I just don’t feel like posting- and I don’t want the blog to suffer because of my moodiness.

3. I like to build up a bulk of already-read books that I still need to write reviews of. I have all of the books on a pile on my desk and let it build up until I feel the need to write more reviews. Like right now, I need to write and post reviews but there aren’t that many books in the pile- so I will probably wait until Monday or early Tuesday morning to write reviews. I do this because even if I don’t read or work on blog stuff every day, I have at least one day a week where I only read/schedule posts. So come Monday or Tuesday, I will be a frantic organized mess of a person who will be scheduling reviews for approximately the next week and a half to two weeks.

4. I’ve mentioned this in nearly every other number, but I love pre-scheduling posts. It is my savior. In my review pile right now, I have a book that I’ve read that comes out in August- but I don’t have to wait until August to type up the post and post it on the release day. I can go through blogger and write the review now and schedule it to post at midnight on the release day or whenever I want. For instance, I believe I have a review schedule to post at midnight on April 17th of next year. I wrote the review last month.

 

All of these tie together to the reason I haven’t posted a review in the past few days. It is simply because of the way I write reviews. As much as some people may disagree with how I don’t review a book right after I read it- that is what I do. I like writing reviews after books build up because it gives me time to really think about each individual book, and it lets my opinion ferment more. It also allows me more time to set up interviews with authors and such.

So, even though I haven’t been posting tons of reviews the past week- I haven’t forgotten about you lovely and amazing people. I’ve been reading like mad and I promise that I will be posting more review in the near future.

xoxo,

Zoe

Waiting on Wednesday

 

This was started by Jill at Breaking the Spine

Juliet Immortal by Stacey Jay
Coming August 9th from Delacorte Books for Young Readers

The most tragic love story in history . . .
Juliet Capulet didn't take her own life. She was murdered by the person she trusted most, her new husband, Romeo Montague, a sacrifice made to ensure his own immortality. But Romeo didn't anticipate that Juliet would be granted eternital life, as well, and would become an agent for the Ambassadors of Light.
For 700 years, Juliet has struggled to preserve romantic love and the lives of the innocent, while Romeo has fought for the dark side, seeking to destroy the human heart. Until now.

Have I mentioned how much I love Stacey Jay? You guys, Stacey Jay is an amazing author and I’ve loved all of her books. So, I really cannot wait for Juliet Immortal to come out!

What are you waiting on, this week?