This meme is hosted by Color Online
All you have to do to participate in this meme is share the titles and images of books you got this week. It's a gorgeous day in Chicago, wonderfully breezy and all I want to do is curl up with a good book. Unfortunately I have to work on three college essays (due the first day of school-ew).
This week I'm highlighting all the books for review I received this week
From Lee & Low
Wolf Mark by Joseph Bruchac
Luke King knows a lot of things. Like four different ways to disarm an enemy before the attacker can take a breath. Like every detail of every book he’s ever read. And Luke knows enough—just enough—about what his father does as a black ops infiltrator to know which questions not to ask. Like why does his family move around so much?
Luke just hopes that this time his family is settled for a while. He’ll finally be able to have a normal life. He’ll be able to ask the girl he likes to take a ride with him on his motorcycle. He’ll hang out with his friends. He’ll be invisible—just as he wants.
But when his dad goes missing, Luke realizes that life will always be different for him. Suddenly he must avoid the kidnappers looking to use him as leverage against his father, while at the same time evading the attention of the school’s mysterious elite clique of Russian hipsters, who seem much too interested in Luke’s own personal secret. Faced with multiple challenges and his emerging paranormal identity, Luke must decide who to trust as he creates his own destiny.
-Three words: Paranormal spy thriller. Who could ask for more? Releases Fall 2011
Galaxy Games: The Challengers by Greg Fishbone
Things are looking up for Tyler Sato (literally!) as he and his friends scan the night sky for a star named for him by his Tokyo cousins in honor of his eleventh birthday. Ordinary stars tend to stay in one place, but Ty’s seems to be streaking directly toward Earth at an alarming rate. Soon the whole world is talking about TY SATO, the doomsday asteroid, and life is turned upside down for Ty Sato, the boy, who would rather be playing hoops in his best friend’s driveway.
Meanwhile, aboard a silver spaceship heading for Earth, M’Frozza, a girl with three eyes and five nose holes, is on a secret mission. M’Frozza is the captain of planet Mrendaria’s Galaxy Games team, and she is desperate to save her world from a dishonorable performance in the biggest sporting event in the universe.
What will happen when Ty meets M’Frozza? Get ready for the most important event in human history—it’ll be off the backboard, around the rim, and out of this world
-I like that Ty cares more about basketball than space, I can relate. I also think the idea of naming a star after someone is cute but it becomes quite funny when that star seems to be causing a controversy. Can't wait to read this one! Releases Fall 2011
Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall
When Lupita sees Mami crying over a pesky mesquite growing in her rose garden, she knows something is wrong. Through the kitchen window, she overhears that Mami has cancer. After an operation, things seem to return to normal for Lupita and her family, and they go on with their lives, going back and forth between attending school, working, and living in the United States and visiting family and friends in Mexico. However, when Mami’s cancer returns, Papi doesn’t know whether he should accompany Mami during her long convalescence at an out of town cancer clinic or stay home to care for Lupita and her seven brothers and sisters. Suddenly, being a high school student, dealing with difficult friends, starring in the school play, even writing, become less important to Lupita than doing whatever it takes to save Mami’s life.
-Contrary to Goodreads claiming this book came out in October 2010 it is finally being released this fall. I did a WoW about it
Tankborn by Karen Sandler
Best friends Kayla and Mishalla know they will be separated when the time comes for their Assignments. They are GENs, Genetically Engineered Non-humans, and in their strict caste system, GENs are at the bottom rung of society. High-status trueborns and working-class lowborns, born naturally of a mother, are free to choose their own lives. But GENs are gestated in a tank, sequestered in slums, and sent to work as slaves as soon as they reach age fifteen.
When Kayla is Assigned to care for Zul Manel, the patriarch of a trueborn family, she finds a host of secrets and surprises—not least of which is her unexpected friendship with Zul's great-grandson. Meanwhile, the children that Mishalla is Assigned to care for are being stolen in the middle of the night. With the help of an intriguing lowborn boy, Mishalla begins to suspect that something horrible is happening to them.
After weeks of toiling in their Assignments, mystifying circumstances enable Kayla and Mishalla to reunite. Together they hatch a plan with their new friends to save the children who are disappearing. Yet can GENs really trust humans? Both girls must put their lives and hearts at risk to crack open a sinister conspiracy, one that may reveal secrets no one is ready to face.
-This book sounds very interesting and possibly controversial. We shall see. Release date: September 28
From Little Brown and Company
Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healey
This is an intriguing YA urban fantasy in the tradition of Holly Black and Wicked Lovely. Set in New Zealand, Ellie's main concerns at her boarding school are hanging out with her best friend Kevin, her crush on the mysterious Mark, and her paper deadline. That is, until a mysterious older woman seems to set her sights on Kevin, who is Maori, and has more than just romantic plans for him. In an effort to save him, Ellie is thrown into the world of Maori lore, and eventually finds herself in an all-out war with mist dwelling Maori fairy people called the patupaiarehe who need human lives to gain immortality.
The strong, fresh voice of the narrator will pull readers in, along with all the deliciously scary details: the serial killer who removes victim's eyes; the mysterious crazy bum who forces a Bible on Ellie telling her she needs it; handsome, mysterious Mark who steals the Bible from her and then casts a forgetting charm on her. All of this culminates in a unique, incredible adventure steeped with mythology, Maori fairies, monsters, betrayal, and an epic battle.
-I've already started reading this book and I like it so far. It's very creepy but not creepy-scary if that makes sense. Although I have a feeling it will eventually scare me....I love the New Zealand setting because I know nothing about this country (as if that's such a surprise. There are so many countries I know nothing about!)
From the author
Act of Grace by Karen Simpson
Why would Grace Johnson, a bright, African-American high school senior, save the life of a Ku Klux Klansman named Jonathan Gilmore?
That question hovers over Grace's hometown of Vigilant, Michigan, and few people, black or white, understand her actions-especially since rumor has it that many years ago, a member of the Gilmore family murdered several African-American residents. And if Grace had her way, she would not reveal the circumstances that led her to make what some deem to be a foolish sacrifice and an act of treason against her race.
The decision to remain silent, however, is not Grace's to make, for the spirit of her ancestors have emerged and insist, in ways Grace cannot ignore, that she bear witness to the violent racial history that continues to divide the town of Vigilant. But when Grace discovers a century-old tale of a bloodsoaked, eye-for-eye vengeance that includes the mysterious death of her own father, she questions whether she has the ability and the will to accept the mind-bending spiritual challenge in front of her.
As Grace reluctantly embarks on the unlikeliest of journeys and into the magical world of the African-American traditions used by her ancestors to fight slavery and oppression, she undergoes a spiritual transformation that leads to the true nature of her calling: to lead Jonathan Gilmore, the town of Vigilant and her own soul on a path toward reconciliation, redemption and true grace.
-I'm really hoping this book doesn't become super religious (since it talks about grace I guess). I've heard some good things about it though so I'm anxious to read it. A blogger I trust called it one of the best books she read this summer. Whoa.
Books to Trade
I MUST make room on my shelves. That means some books have got to go. I've liked many of these books but I simply don't have the room to keep them. We can either trade or you can pay for shipping. Comment or email me if you have any interest. I've read these books and many of them weren't my cup of tea but they could be someone else's.
1. Dead Gorgeous by Malorie Blackman
2. Naughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman (very used copy)
3. Subway Girl by P. J. Converse
4. Legacy: the Becoming by Dew Platt
5. I Am Nuchu by Brenda Stanley
6. Zen Cooper: Woman-Child Ghetto Genius by Angelia Menchen
7. The Adventures of Silli Page by Dew Platt
8. Gateway by Sharon Shinn
9. Between Sisters by Adwoa Badoe
10. Ice Cream Girls by Dorothy Koomson
