Give it Away, Give it Away, Give it Away Now!

Do you like great books and cute, semi-nerdy book-related items? Of course you do! Want to win some? I hope so, because I happen to have some that need giving away!

There are 6 items up for grabs, pictured below, and entering the drawing to take one of these sweet, sweet items home is easy. There are two ways to enter:

1. Leave a comment with your thoughts on any of my reviews for one entry 

2. Hit me up about guest posting with your own review! Get two entries for each guest review

I hope your typing fingers are ready, because I'm pumped to give some stuff away! Comment or contact me to guest by 6pm on March 23rd to be included!

Punk Rock Writers journal

Signed copy of The Gilded Wolves
by Roshani Chokshi

Signed copy of Crown of Feathers
by Nicki Pau Preto

"This is How We Roll" pencil pouch

"Raised by Books" pencil pouch

Grisha trilogy-inspired bracelet

Somewhere Only We Know - Maurene Goo

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"10 00 p.m.: Lucky is the biggest K-pop star on the scene, and she's just performed her hit song "Heartbeat" in Hong Kong to thousands of adoring fans. She's about to debut on The Tonight Show in America, hopefully a breakout performance for her career. But right now? She's in her fancy hotel, trying to fall asleep but dying for a hamburger.

11 00 p.m.: Jack is sneaking into a fancy hotel, on assignment for his tabloid job that he keeps secret from his parents. On his way out of the hotel, he runs into a girl wearing slippers, a girl who is single-mindedly determined to find a hamburger. She looks kind of familiar. She's very cute. He's maybe curious.

12:00 a.m.: Nothing will ever be the same."

Lucky has just wrapped up a huge tour in Asia and is preparing for the next step, launching her career in America. This next move is one she has been preparing for since she was young, sacrificing typical childhood experiences for dance lessons, singing lessons, and other training required if one is to make it as a performer. She is understandably exhausted and anxious, and after taking her sleeping pills and (shhhh, secret!) anxiety meds, all she wants is a hamburger.

Jack is taking a gap year, interning at the bank where his dad works, and trying to ignore the fact that the life his parents want for him makes him feel suffocated. All he wants is to be a photographer, but since his parents don't approve he has been secretly scratching that itch by moonlighting as a paparazzo. He's on the bus on his way to meet a friend for a drink after scoring some photos for his boss when a young, obviously inebriated Asian-American girl catches his eye. Ever the good guy, Jack takes her under his wing for the night and ends up letting her crash at his apartment that night, since he doesn't know who she is or how to get her home.

Early the following morning, fledgling tabloid reporter Jack discovers that "Fern," the pretty, drunk girl he rescued, is actually Lucky, super famous K-pop star, and he hatches a plan. He is going to spend the day with her, give her the Hong Kong experience, and document it all for his editor to publish when he's done. A story like that will score him a full-time job with the paper...as long as his growing feelings for Lucky don't get in the way.

I have some complicated feelings about this book. I adore Lucky, her drive and her enthusiasm for life, and most of all our shared love of food. Ohhh boy, food...this book made me so hungry. I loved that Jack was taking a gap year and really trying to think about what he wanted to do with his life, and I especially loved that when he finally decided he was ready to fight for it. Transitioning from high school to whatever happens next is hard, and I will take all the YA books that show people making that jump and figuring out where to go next. 

My one big qualm, and the one I find myself circling back to every time I think about this book, is how long Jack was committed to sharing his Lucky story with his editor. I can give him a pass for coming up with the idea. He didn't know Lucky, he was looking out for himself, and I'm not going to fault him for fighting for a career, even if it is one that makes me wrinkle my nose. But the longer the day went on, the harder it was for me to excuse him continuing to take pictures and plot his narrative, especially after the pair realized that they had feelings for each other. Huge spoiler here, so stop reading here if you don't want huge things given away...have you stopped reading? I hope so. He had already passed what would have been the point of no return for me, but the moment where he truly became unforgivable was when he went to his editor and gave him the pictures. Did he take them back after his editor was a gross asshole? Sure. But what the actual fuck? How did it ever go that far?! Hard no, there is no redeeming yourself after that. 

*deep breath*

So...yeah. I was not rooting for Lucky and Jack to end up together. That being said, I did not want to put this book down. The characters were well-developed, the writing was fast-paced and fun, and I enjoyed the story. You should probably read it...just maybe don't root for Jack. ;)

A Series of Brief Reviews - Part 2

I started a new job in the middle of November...new system, new type of librarian, so much new! I then promptly, two weeks later, got sick. And have been sick ever since. So...that's fun.

While the silver lining to having been sick for over two months now means plenty of time to sit around and read while I lack the energy to do much else, the obvious downside is...well...I lack the energy to do much else. Even, sadly, review books.

I am in the middle of reading an ARC of Maurene Goo's upcoming book, Somewhere Only We Know, so a full review is in the works. Until then, hopefully this will tide you (all my many readers) over.

Becoming - Michelle Obama

Look...real talk? I don't understand anyone who dislikes Michelle Obama. You don't have to love her the way I do, but straight up not liking her? Seems impossible. The woman is incredible. So is her book. Read it.

Little Paris Bookshop - Nina George

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz so boring. I gave it a hundred pages, then gave up. DNF.

Track - Jason Reynolds

Alright, I actually read Ghost quite some time ago, after I got it as my Summer Reading prize, and I loved it. Then I had to wait forever to get the audiobook for Patina, and now I can finally say that I have read (er...read/listened to) the entire quartet, Ghost, Patina, Sunny, and Lu. And shock of all shocks, they are amazing. It's Jason Reynolds, was there ever any doubt? 

I have to give a special shout-out to Sunny, my personal fave and an anthem to all the weird kids out there. I loved Sunny so much, and he is the character little weirdos deserve to read about and see themselves in. You guys, this book. It's perfect. I love the entire Track series, but Sunny's story is my favorite. The narrative is shared in the form of Sunny's diary (do NOT call it a journal. It is a DIARY.), and at first although I loved Sunny as a character, I didn't know if I would enjoy the format, but oh my god. It was so perfect. I listened to the audio, and the narrator just...WAS Sunny. Guy Lockard brought to life the way Sunny manipulates sounds and his unique and wonderful quirks, and my love for his narration only grew when I found out that he and Jason Reynolds grew up together. Listen to the audiobook, and do yourselves a favor and listen to Jason Reynolds and Guy Lockard talk about Sunny and the rest of the track series after. So beautiful.

Furiously Happy - Jenny Lawson

If you have ever struggled with your mental health and felt alone, feel alone no longer. Thank you, Jenny, for opening this dialogue, reassuring us that it's ok to be fucked up, and reminding us not to compare ourselves to the shiny people. I didn't realize how much I needed this book until I started reading it and couldn't put it down.

American Panda - Gloria Chao

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"At seventeen, Mei should be in high school, but skipping fourth grade was part of her parents' master plan. Now a freshman at MIT, she is on track to fulfill the rest of this predetermined future: become a doctor, marry a preapproved Taiwanese Ivy Leaguer, produce a litter of babies.

With everything her parents have sacrificed to make her cushy life a reality, Mei can't bring herself to tell them the truth--that she (1) hates germs, (2) falls asleep in biology lectures, and (3) has a crush on her classmate Darren Takahashi, who is decidedly not Taiwanese.

But when Mei reconnects with her brother, Xing, who is estranged from the family for dating the wrong woman, Mei starts to wonder if all the secrets are truly worth it. Can she find a way to be herself, whoever that is, before her web of lies unravels?"
I can't get over how much this book made me feel. I expected it to be good, but I did not expect it to stir up so many different emotions. I both couldn't put it down and had to take a break between chapters to sort through everything, so most of my day yesterday was a weird yo-yo of me reading a chapter, closing the book and holding it while I sat there and felt things, and then opening the book back up.

I loved getting to know Mei and being able to see the similarities and differences between her culture and upbringing and my own, and I loved even more that Mei got to do the same thing after observing her friends' relationships with their families in comparison with her own. This story wasn't just Mei learning how to be true to herself, it was her realizing that what she had experienced as Taiwanese culture was only one interpretation of that culture, and that there were lots of ways to respect her parents' customs while still being who she was.

Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts) - L.C. Rosen

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"My first time getting it in the butt was kind of weird. I think it's going to be weird for everyone's first time, though.

Meet Jack Rothman. He's seventeen and loves partying, makeup and boys - sometimes all at the same time. His sex life makes him the hot topic for the high school gossip machine. But who cares? Like Jack always says, 'it could be worse'.

He doesn't actually expect that to come true.

But after Jack starts writing an online sex advice column, the mysterious love letters he's been getting take a turn for the creepy. Jack's secret admirer knows everything: where he's hanging out, who he's sleeping with, who his mum is dating. They claim they love Jack, but not his unashamedly queer lifestyle. They need him to curb his sexuality, or they'll force him.

As the pressure mounts, Jack must unmask his stalker before their obsession becomes genuinely dangerous..."

There is a dearth of sex-positive books out there for young people, especially with LGBTQ* representation, so I give this book a resounding "yes, please!" I am endlessly glad that Rosen showed his first ninety-nine pages to friends and that those friends talked them into continuing to write Jack's story, because the world needs more books like this and more characters like Jack and his friends.

"I know lots of kids want to be famous, and yeah, I like attention, but I'd much prefer it for things I do--like dress amazing and say witty things--than who I do."

Jack is infamous around his high school. Rumors fly after every party--the book starts with a trio of girls discussing his alleged "fourgy" in a hot tub over the weekend, for instance. Most of these rumors aren't true, but that hasn't stopped people from believing everything they hear before, and it certainly won't in Jack's case. Fortunately, Jack's best friend started a website after being kicked off the school newspaper, and she comes up with the perfect way to harness Jack's reputation as a sexpert...a write-in advice column for students.

When Jenna first pitches him the idea, Jack is hesitant. He commits to writing one column, but doesn't plan to let her plan go any further than that. Much to his surprise, though, his fellow students respond well to the column, and he finds himself enjoying writing for the website. The only downside  to his new "sexlebrity" status is that mysterious pink notes have begun appearing in his locker, and they've quickly gone from intriguing to straight-up creepy.

"It could be worse." He tells his friends after finally admitting to them how disturbing the notes have become. Jenna won't let him dismiss things that easily, though. "That might be true, but that doesn't mean it's not bad. That doesn't mean you don't try to stop it from being bad."

As tension escalated and Jack and his friends went through plan after failed plan to unmask his stalker and get them to leave him home, I found it harder and harder to put this book down. I loved Jack from the first page, and it tore at my heart to see him doubt himself, toning his fashion down and retreating inward as he struggled with what to do and how to keep his friends and family safe. This would have been a solid 5-star read for me if it had been twenty pages longer. My one big gripe with the book is the rushed ending. I was reading an electronic version, and I couldn't believe it when I got to the end...at first I thought maybe my download hadn't completed properly and I was missing the last chapter or something. Everything was just a little too abrupt and anticlimactic, which was a let down after being so riveted through the entire book. That aside, though, incredible. More like this, please!

Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe - Melissa de la Cruz

My rating: ⭐

From the cover:

"Darcy Fitzwilliam is 29, beautiful, successful, and brilliant. She dates hedge funders and basketball stars and is never without her three cellphones—one for work, one for play, and one to throw at her assistant (just kidding). Darcy’s never fallen in love, never has time for anyone else’s drama, and never goes home for Christmas if she can help it. But when her mother falls ill, she comes home to Pemberley, Ohio, to spend the season with her family.

Her parents throw their annual Christmas bash, where she meets one Luke Bennet, the smart, sardonic slacker son of their neighbor. Luke is 32-years-old and has never left home. He’s a carpenter and makes beautiful furniture, and is content with his simple life. He comes from a family of five brothers, each one less ambitious than the other. When Darcy and Luke fall into bed after too many eggnogs, Darcy thinks it’s just another one night stand. But why can’t she stop thinking of Luke? What is it about him? And can she fall in love, or will her pride and his prejudice against big-city girls stand in their way?"

I'm a sucker for Pride and Prejudice remakes, so I was excited to read this when it popped up on my radar. Alas, that excitement was short-lived. From the first page, the writing was cringeworthy. Right off the bat, for instance, she describes her approximately 45-year-old driver as having a "grandfatherly" twinkle in his eye and then, sentences later, rejoices over being wrinkle free at the ripe old age of twenty-nine and not looking a day over twenty-four. Exhibit B, my personal favorite example of the lackluster writing, can be found in the descriptions of four of the men in Darcy's life, found mere pages apart from each other.

"Chris had always been handsome, but now, as he approached her, he looked more picture perfect than ever before, a tan, toned, chiseled specimen of a man who looked like he had walked straight out of a Ralph Lauren catalog and into the Fitzwilliam Christmas party."

"If Chris Mayfair was catalog model handsome, Bingley was movie star handsome. He had undeniably sculpted good looks, but unlike Chris, those looks came with character and personality, quirks and asymmetries that made his face just as lovable and unique as it was handsome." (Don't even get me started on making his first name Bingley, good lord.)

"If Chris Mayfair was catalog handsome and Bingley was movie star handsome, then Luke was real-life-person handsome. He had dimples and dark brown eyes and his hair was never anything short of unruly."

"If Chris Mayfair was catalog handsome and Bingley Charles was movie star handsome and Luke Bennet was real-life-person handsome, then Carl Donovan was simply nice-looking."

How does an editor not see this in a book and take it out? Sweet Jesus, come on, that's so bad. And as if the juvenile writing style weren't enough, the story was all over the place and Darcy was flighty, insecure, and judgmental. Every interaction between her and another person featured an inner monologue detailing the other person's flaws and all the ways in which Darcy was better than them, yet inexplicably everyone seemed to think the sun rose and set with her. There was nothing about her I could find to like, from her shoehorned-in name brand impractical outfits down to her hate-love of Gilmore Girls, the show which she describes both as "saccharine, tediously dull" and "quick and witty."

I was sending pictures of particularly awful passages to my sister as I read, and she finally asked how old the author was because she thought the book was written by a teenager trying to imagine what it would be like to be a successful adult. That was exactly the vibe I got from this book, and if it weren't such a quick read and hadn't become entertaining in its awfulness, I would have DNFed after the first couple chapters. Perhaps the biggest letdown was that were it not for the names and inclusion of "Pride and Prejudice" in the title, I never would have pieced together that this was supposed to be a retelling of Jane Austen's classic. If this is what Melissa de la Cruz considers a reimagining of Pride and Prejudice, she may need to revisit the original.

Little and Lion - Brandy Colbert

My rating: ⭐⭐

From the cover:

"When Suzette comes home to Los Angeles from her boarding school in New England, she isn't sure if she'll ever want to go back. L.A. is where her friends and family are (along with her crush, Emil). And her stepbrother, Lionel, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, needs her emotional support.

But as she settles into her old life, Suzette finds herself falling for someone new...the same girl her brother is in love with. When Lionel's disorder spirals out of control, Suzette is forced to confront her past mistakes and find a way to help her brother before he hurts himself--or worse."

There was a lot to look forward to going into this book...diverse books, characters of different races and backgrounds, LGBT (particularly B!) representation, frank discussion of mental illness...but not a lot that I ended up loving, sadly. The synopsis wrote checks that the actual content couldn't cash. As a disclaimer, I do think that the meh-ness of this book for me was partially due to the fact that I listened to the audiobook and was not in love with the reader. However, I also felt that the pacing of the book was slow and that way too much time was spent hashing and rehashing the same small issues, rather than developing the story. The beginning was intriguing, but then it went nowhere. Readers (or listeners, in this case) shouldn't have to slog through 90% of a book before something actually happens, and even when things finally DID come to a head, the drama of it all fell flat for me. I give this an A+ for concept but a C- for execution.