Waiting on Wednesday – Week 136

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. It’s to spotlight upcoming books that I’m DYING to get my hands on!

This week’s WoW is:

Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone

If you could read my mind, you wouldn't be smiling.

Samantha McAllister looks just like the rest of the popular girls in her junior class. But hidden beneath the straightened hair and expertly applied makeup is a secret that her friends would never understand: Sam has Purely-Obsessional OCD and is consumed by a stream of dark thoughts and worries that she can't turn off. 

Second-guessing every move, thought, and word makes daily life a struggle, and it doesn't help that her lifelong friends will turn toxic at the first sign of a wrong outfit, wrong lunch, or wrong crush. Yet Sam knows she'd be truly crazy to leave the protection of the most popular girls in school. So when Sam meets Caroline, she has to keep her new friend with a refreshing sense of humor and no style a secret, right up there with Sam's weekly visits to her psychiatrist.

Caroline introduces Sam to the Poet's Corner, a hidden room and a tight-knit group of misfits who have been ignored by the school at large. Sam is drawn to them immediately, especially a guitar-playing guy with a talent for verse, and starts to discover a whole new side of herself. Slowly, she begins to feel more "normal" than she ever has as part of the popular crowd . . . until she finds a new reason to question her sanity and all she holds dear.

June 16, 2015 ● Goodreads

I love the cover. It’s simple, but still looks absolutely gorgeous. I haven’t read Tamara Ireland Stone’s Time Between Us series, but I can’t wait to read that one either. This one sounds particularly interesting and should be an fabulous read. Can’t wait!

What are you waiting on?

Kiss of Broken Glass by Madeleine Kuderick

Kiss of Broken Glass by Madeleine Kuderick

Release Date: September 9, 2014
Publisher: HarperTeen
Rated: YA 14+
Format: Hardback
Source: Publisher
Buy: Amazon ● The Book Depository
Goodreads ● Website

In the next seventy-two hours, Kenna may lose everything—her friends, her freedom, and maybe even herself. One kiss of the blade was all it took to get her sent to the psych ward for seventy-two hours. There she will face her addiction to cutting, though the outcome is far from certain.

When fifteen-year-old Kenna is found cutting herself in the school bathroom, she is sent to a facility for mandatory psychiatric watch. There, Kenna meets other kids like her—her roommate, Donya, who’s there for her fifth time; the birdlike Skylar; and Jag, a boy cute enough to make her forget her problems . . . for a moment.

Of course, when I first saw this book, I was drawn to the cover immediately. THAT TYPOGRAPHY. THAT GLASS. THAT EVERYTHING. When I got the chance to review this book, I swooped at it. I mean, come on, THAT COVER. However, I didn’t know that it was a novel in verse. I haven’t read one in ages, and I love novels written in verse because not only are they really fast to read, but also has a lyrical quality that prose sometimes doesn’t. I took literature in high school, but sometimes I don’t get poetry, but thankfully novels in verse is something that I actually understand. Anyway, Kiss of Broken Glass was an emotional roller coaster. It’s based on the author’s life (her daughter’s experience) and so knowing that it brings to light the shocking reality that this does happen, and it the fact that it happens quite often and even to those at a young age. It’s really sad to read about it for sure, especially since I don’t really know anyone who has gone through the experience, but it’s definitely an eye-opener that I needed to read.

This book really reminded me of Ellen Hopkins’s style of writing. For those of you who don’t know, she writes about teens with problems who find each other at rehab centers, much like how Kenna finds Donya, Skylar and Jag, all in verse. However, the problem I find with verse is that sometimes you can’t get into the character’s head because the words are fleeting and the pace is a lot faster. Descriptions aren’t also in depth, and there’s more interpretation from the reader’s side. However, I could feel like I got Kenna’s character just because there would be certain sections of the novel when it would focus on her character’s feelings.

The characters in this book were great, but other than Kenna, I don’t feel like we as readers get much of a chance to get to know them more. True, the timespan of this book is SUPER short (short book, short timeline), but even then, it would have been nice to learn a teeny bit more about the other characters. Jag especially. Skylar is probably the character other than Kenna that I got to know about, but for a “love interest,” Jag barely had a role. Very little character interaction, I must say. However, maybe that was the point and I just missed it. These experiences are fleeting and short, but the impression they leave on you can last forever. Kenna’s time at the facility was super short but during that 72 hour period, she learned so much more about herself from observing and interacting (a little bit) with those around her.

Kiss of Broken Glass was gorgeous, rhapsodic, and moving– a breathtaking eye-opener that I couldn’t stop reading. Kuderick’s words have the ebb and flow of waves, both smooth and powerful, sucking you into the depths of what truly lies beneath the surface. I look forward to reading more from her in the future.

▪ ▪ ▪ Thank you so much to Alice at HarperCollins 360 for sending me a copy for review! ▪ ▪ ▪

If you like this, try...

• Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson ● Goodreads
• Impulse by Ellen Hopkins ● Goodreads
• Clean by Amy Reed ● Goodreads

Damaged by Amy Reed

Damaged by Amy Reed

Release Date: October 14, 2014
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Rated: YA 15+
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
Buy: Amazon ● The Book Depository
Goodreads ● Website

Two teens must come to terms with their friend’s death—and her afterlife—in this gritty and realistic novel from the author of Beautiful, Clean, Crazy, and Over You.

When Kinsey’s best friend Camille dies in a car accident while she was behind the wheel, she shuts down completely, deciding that numbness is far better than mourning. She wants to be left alone during the last few weeks of high school, but Camille’s mysterious boyfriend Hunter, who was also in the car that night, has a different idea.

Despite all of Kinsey’s efforts, she can’t shake Camille, who begins haunting her in dreams. Sleep deprived and on the verge of losing it, she agrees to run away with Hunter to San Francisco. As the pair tries to escape both the ghost of Camille and their own deep fears, Kinsey questions how real her perception of her friendship with Camille was, and whether her former friend’s ghost is actually now haunting her. Hunter, meanwhile, falls into a spiral of alcoholism, anger, and self-loathing.

Ultimately, Kinsey and Hunter must come to terms with what they’ve lost and accept that they can’t outrun pain.

I knew I had to get my hands on this one after reading Amy Reed’s fantastic novel Clean. The cover on the ARC I received was different – it featured a guy, and so I was a little sad that it got replaced with the image of the girl because not too many guys are the main subject of the cover when it comes to YA fiction. Anyway, I really enjoyed this one. Amy Reed’s writing is compelling and while harsh, it’s got a lyrical quality to it. She’s clearly not afraid of being brutally honest when it comes to telling a story and gets right into the nitty-gritty, deep-down stuff that we tend to hide or what characters don’t show in many books. That’s what I particularly enjoyed about Damaged and overall it was a great read. 

I really loved Clean, so I knew that this one was going to get a similar reaction from me. I didn’t like it as much as Clean, but it was really different from it as well, so I don’t think I can compare the two in terms of subject matter. Sure, this does deal with addiction – not getting past the death of a friend, alcoholism, and such. HOWEVER, unlike the rehab setting that was in Clean, the two characters Kinsey and Hunter take a road trip. I don’t have anything against road trips, but honestly, it’s such a cliché in YA nowadays that it does get annoying. I mean the same thing happens again and again and again. Boy and girl take a road trip, starting with nothing but the need to get away from it all. The relationship at this point is pretty platonic and they often have a character who is missing/dead/etc. who is the reason why they need to get away from where they currently are. Make a few side-stops, showing the touristy-side of a road trip at some not-so-well-known landmarks. They start to fall in love. Something happens, they separate, angry at each other. In the end... who knows, they either stick together or separate  it’s a toss-up. I’m not saying that all road trip books are like this, but they tend to have a similar pattern. Damaged followed some of this (I’m not gonna say what) and so yes, the story’s frame was a little cliché, but the other parts were better than I’d expected.

When it came down to Kinsey and Hunter, I seriously couldn’t connect to them. Normally this would annoy me with a book, but I honestly thought that it worked this time. Taking more of an observing role rather than getting into the characters and their emotions made more sense for this one because of the experiences the both of them have had. But I did feel time to time annoyed with the characters because of their actions and their tendency to quickly get mad at each other and shut down completely. The Camille “ghost” parts of the story were the best. I seriously thought that these were the moments when we could possibly connect to Kinsey’s character because she’s more vulnerable and we can see past the mask she wears most of the time. 

Both a smooth and rocky road, Damaged was an interesting blend of ghost story meets contemporary road trip. Dark and haunting, Reed scores again with her latest novel. Can’t wait to read more from her!

▪ ▪ ▪ Thank you so much to Kelsey at Simon & Schuster for sending a copy for review! ▪ ▪ ▪

If you like this, try...

• Saving June by Hannah Harrington ● Goodreads
• Just Like Fate by Cat Patrick & Suzanne Young ● Goodreads

Waiting on Wednesday – Week 135

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. It’s to spotlight upcoming reads I’m DYING to get my hands on!

This week’s WoW is:

Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke by Anne Blankman

**WARNING: contains spoilers from book 1**

The girl known as Gretchen Whitestone has a secret: She used to be part of Adolf Hitler’s inner circle. More than a year after she made an enemy of her old family friend and fled Munich, she lives with a kindly English family, posing as an ordinary German immigrant, and is preparing to graduate from high school. Her love, Daniel Cohen, is a reporter in town. For the first time in her life, Gretchen is content.

But then, Daniel gets a telegram that sends him back to Germany, and Gretchen’s world turns upside-down. And when she receives word that Daniel is wanted for murder, she has to face the danger she thought she’d escaped-and return to her homeland.

Gretchen must do everything she can to avoid capture and recognition, even though saving Daniel will mean consorting with her former friends, the Nazi elite. And as they work to clear Daniel’s name, Gretchen and Daniel discover a deadly conspiracy stretching from the slums of Berlin to the Reichstag itself. Can they dig up the explosive truth and get out in time-or will Hitler discover them first?

April 21, 2015 ● Goodreads

Prisoner of Night and Fog (read my review HERE) was one of the best books I’d read in 2014. I’m SO looking forward to this one! I love everything about this series: the setting, the characters, the twists...the history is absolutely fascinating. I just downloaded this from Edelweiss, so hopefully I’ll get to it soon :D

What are you waiting on?