New Crayons & The Winner!

New Crayons was created by the wonderful susan at Color Online (an amazing blog, do check it out!)

But before I share my new books, I need to announce the winner of my Choices & Monsoon Summer giveaway!

And the winner is....

Valerie!

Yay Valerie! I'l be emailing you shortly. Thanks to all who entered and I'll be posting about my Halloween giveaway later today!

Now for the books I got this week

The Great Call of China by Cynthia Liu

Chinese-born Cece was adopted when she was two years old by her American parents. Living in Texas, she’s bored of her ho-hum high school and dull job. So when she learns about the S.A.S.S. program to Xi’an, China, she jumps at the chance. She’ll be able to learn about her passion—anthropology—and it will give her the opportunity to explore her roots. But when she arrives, she receives quite a culture shock. And the closer she comes to finding out about her birth parents, the more apprehensive she gets. Enter Will, the cute guy she first meets on the plane. He and Cece really connect during the program. But can he help her get accustomed to a culture she should already know about, or will she leave China without the answers she’s been looking for?

-I've wanted this book for a while because I like the S.A.S.S. series, but the main characters are usually white so I was excited to find a poc as the main character. Also it's autographed! (but I didn't get to meet Ms. Liu, it was already autographed when I bought it) From Barnes & Noble

Karma for Beginners by Jessica Blank

Fourteen-year-old Tessa has never had a normal life. Her mother, a frustrated hippie with awful taste in men, has seen to that. But when her mom pulls her out of school to live at an ashram in the Catskills, Tessa goes from being a freak among normal people to being an outcast among freaks. Freaks who worship an orange robe-wearing guru. And while her mom is buzzing with spiritual energy, and finding a little too much favor with the guru, all Tessa feels are weird vibes.

Unless she's with Colin, the gorgeous boy who fixes trucks for the ashram. The connection they share is the most spiritual thing Tessa has ever felt. But he's older-like illegally older-and Tessa's taking dangerous risks to spend time with him. Soon her life is blooming into a psychedelic web of secrets and lies and it's clear that something's about to give way. When it does, will she have anyone to hold on to? Will she even know herself?

-To be honest, I'm not so sure about this book. I originally thought ashram as in India spiritual center, but then I realized the Catskills is in New York. So I may or may not review this, since the main character isn't a poc nor is it by a poc author. I will review it though if it talks a lot about Hinduism.

Sent to me by Ms. Lyn Miller-Lachmann. Thanks!

That's what I got this week. What did you get?