Giveaway + The Blog Most Likely To...

I'm super excited today to be a part of a fun campaign put together by the team at Penguin Teen to help celebrate The Boy Most Likely To, the upcoming release from author Huntley Fitzpatrick. I fell madly in love with Huntley on page one of her debut novel, My Life Next Door (you can read my full gushing review here), and I now attempt to wait patiently for anything and everything she writes. Something at which I fail miserably.

Penguin has asked those participating to play with the title of Huntley's newest book, changing it to The Blog Most Likely To and then choosing a superlative we think best fits us. Confession: I am terrible at things like this. When I have to be creative on the spot I completely freeze up and my mind goes utterly blank. The Blog Most Likely To Love Reading? The Blog Most Likely to Write Reviews? The Blog Most Likely To Have An Embarrassing Number of Book Boyfriends? (That last one is actually pretty good, I wish I'd thought of it prior to putting together this whole post ;-)

After thinking long and hard though, I finally came up with one that fits me pretty well. And so I give you the superlative for Supernatural Snark:

Yep. That sums me up pretty darn well. I CAN'T HELP IT, OKAY? A pretty cover will have me opening my wallet and grabbing my credit card faster than you can blink and I'm not ashamed of it. Below are just a handful of covers that made knowing anything about the story completely irrelevant because I needed them in my life regardless.

THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA

THAT TYPE! *dies* Trying to make an eight word title flow well and maintain legibility at a small size is no insignificant design challenge, and I just love how all the words fit together like a gorgeously eerie jigsaw puzzle. *pets type*

HALF BAD

I love covers that take me a minute to make out what exactly I'm looking at, and when I do, bring a giddy grin to my face. Yes to creepy red smoke faces. (I actually think this is dye in water rather than smoke, but it doesn't even matter. It's gorgeous.) Yes to the way the word "bad" fills the spaces between the word "half". Yes to everything.

THE REPLACEMENT

Hello there, nightmare-inducing cover. A bold, simplistic image will grab my attention faster than a busy design every single time, and this cover to me is striking for all it implies without having to work too hard. I'm not sure if I should be scared for whatever might be in the pram as it could be impaled at any second, or scared of it because it's the spawn of something that thought knives and scissors would work well as a mobile.

FORBIDDEN WISH

I wanted to end with a cover for an upcoming book since the above have all been out for a while, and when I saw the cover for The Forbidden Wish today I nearly died of want. IT'S SO PRETTY! I would pay a hefty price to wish this book into my hands immediately. Damn you February 2016, for being so very far away. *shakes fist*

Those are just a few of the books that made their way onto my list of must-haves based on their cover alone, and there will undoubtedly be many more to come. Sucker for a pretty face, party of one ;-)

I'd love to know what superlatives you guys would assign yourselves, so let me know in the comments! And don't forget to to mark your calendars for THE BOY MOST LIKELY TO, releasing August 18th from Dial.

THE BOY MOST LIKELY TO

Tim Mason was The Boy Most Likely To find the liquor cabinet blindfolded, need a liver transplant, and drive his car into a house

Alice Garrett was The Girl Most Likely To . . . well, not date her little brother’s baggage-burdened best friend, for starters.

For Tim, it wouldn’t be smart to fall for Alice. For Alice, nothing could be scarier than falling for Tim. But Tim has never been known for making the smart choice, and Alice is starting to wonder if the “smart” choice is always the right one. When these two crash into each other, they crash hard.

Then the unexpected consequences of Tim’s wild days come back to shock him. He finds himself in a situation that isn’t all it appears to be, that he never could have predicted . . . but maybe should have.

And Alice is caught in the middle.

Told in Tim’s and Alice’s distinctive, disarming, entirely compelling voices, this novel is for readers of The Spectacular Now, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, and Paper Towns.

Goodreads • Amazon • B&N

GIVEAWAY

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: Landry Park

LANDRY PARK
Landry Park #1
Bethany Hagen
Young Adult/Dystopian
384 pages
Dial
Available February 4th
Source: ARC from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
In a fragmented future United States ruled by the lavish gentry, seventeen-year-old Madeline Landry dreams of going to the university. Unfortunately, gentry decorum and her domineering father won't allow that. Madeline must marry, like a good Landry woman, and run the family estate. But her world is turned upside down when she discovers the devastating consequences her lifestyle is having on those less fortunate. As Madeline begins to question everything she has ever learned, she finds herself increasingly drawn to handsome, beguiling David Dana. Soon, rumors of war and rebellion start to spread, and Madeline finds herself and David at the center of it all. Ultimately, she must make a choice between duty - her family and the estate she loves dearly - and desire.

MY THOUGHTS
Landry Park is a story that seamlessly combines the progress of the future with the pageantry of the past, creating a glittering yet horrifying world where societal status is the sole determining factor of human worth. It's so very easy for us as readers to cast judgment on the gentry as a whole, calling them monsters and despicable excuses for human beings for the way they ignore the suffering of the Rootless, but yet we do so from the comfort of our homes, luxuriating in amenities we know so many people in our own world don't have access to or can't afford. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of Ms. Hagen's darkly jeweled society is the way it highlights the human ability to rationalize, the gentry so superiorly claiming the life their ancestors have built for them is one better and brighter than it was previously, when in fact the move has been a lateral one rather than an upward one, forward progress made on the broken backs of society's dispensable just as it had been before.

While the moral and ethical questions the battle between the gentry and the Rootless raises as we read are fascinating, where this book falters a bit is with the characters themselves. Madeline is a young woman we want desperately to like, someone who seems to disagree with her father in many of his political views and his treatment of the Rootless, but whenever a moment arises to put her thoughts into action, she does so in the most timid way possible, allowing her father, David and anyone else to run roughshod over her. She's like an infant dragon for majority of the book, coughing and sputtering smoke without ever learning how to breathe fire, always saying she wants to get to the bottom of certain things but giving up quickly and easily when answers don't immediately present themselves. She does finally take a stand at the end, leaving us hoping the Madeline we'll find in the next installment will be in full possession of her teeth, claws and that ever-elusive fire.

The romance leaves a bit to be desired mainly because David proves to be as much of a challenge as Madeline, leaving us constantly wondering what either of them sees in the other. In the beginning, he repeatedly refers to himself as charming, something often confirmed by Madeline when she finds she can't stop thinking about him, but sadly that charm gets lost in translation for us as readers, David coming across simply as condescending and somewhat incapable of picking a single mood and sticking with it. He's seemingly interested in Madeline one minute only to throw her family name and all that it means in her face the next, something that might have created an intriguing antagonistic element to their relationship save for Madeline's aforementioned timidity. Her quiet nature causes her to shrink back when we want nothing more than for her to leap forward and give him a much deserved what-for, finding ourselves a touch frustrated when instead she quickly gets past her confusion over David's less-than attractive moments the very next time she sees him.

Overall, the picture painted by Ms. Hagen is beautifully grotesque, forcing into sharp relief just how easily chaos results from order when gripped tight in an iron fist, and revealing to us in detail just how much blood decorates the walls of the esteemed Landry Park. Though the characters do cause us to stumble at times and the plot itself is more slow and steady than action-packed, we still can't help but be curious about what's to come for Madeline, David and everyone else after the dust of violence finally begins to settle.

Rating: 3.5/5
 

Find Bethany:

Website • Twitter • Goodreads • Amazon

This book was sent to me by the publisher free of charge for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.

Review: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA
Between #1
April Genevieve Tucholke
Paranormal Young Adult
368 pages
Dial
Available August 15th
Source: ARC from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
You stop fearing the devil when you’re holding his hand…

Nothing much exciting rolls through Violet White’s sleepy, seaside town…until River West comes along. River rents the guesthouse behind Violet’s crumbling estate, and as eerie, grim things start to happen, Violet begins to wonder about the boy living in her backyard. Is River just a crooked-smiling liar with pretty eyes and a mysterious past? Or could he be something more? Violet’s grandmother always warned her about the Devil, but she never said he could be a dark-haired boy who takes naps in the sun, who likes coffee, who kisses you in a cemetery...who makes you want to kiss back. Violet’s already so knee-deep in love, she can’t see straight. And that’s just how River likes it.

MY THOUGHTS
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea is the very definition of an atmospheric read, rich in texture where the sin of satin and the temptation of velvet make a bed of bliss for us to revel in, teased with both comfort and passion and wrapped up in a cocoon of feeling we're unwilling to share with anyone who exists outside the world Ms. Tucholke has created. This is a story that evokes a reaction not easy to put into words, one that inspires vagueness and encourages us to dance circles around any specifics – much the way River so expertly conducts his symphony of lies and half-truths – hopeful a piece of this story will remain ours alone if we don't attempt to give too much of it away.

Violet is someone whose mind and heart we don't necessarily delve deeply into despite all the time we spend with her, but she's by no means a shallow character, instead she's like a stunning gift wrapped in unassuming paper – easily overlooked by those wanting something bright and beautiful to jump out and grab their attention, but so worth the reward for those who stop and take the time to see what they can find under the seemingly reserved, lonely exterior. She's ever quiet and watchful, not someone prone to loud outbursts or drastic emotional fluctuations, rather she takes her hits on the chin or walks away to gather her thoughts before she decides how to respond to a particular situation, and we can't help but appreciate her utter lack of drama. She's not a pushover though, often directing a well-aimed cutting remark back at whomever came at her first, giving us just a few glimpses of spark before she returns to quietly smoldering embers.

River is just one of the many fascinating aspects of this tale, his character that of a broken mirror; cracked and shattered in so many places his image is repeated and distorted over and over again until we can't be sure if any of the visages we see are the person he actually is. Our minds churn frantically as we try and place him in a box bearing the label “love interest”, but with every page he puts up a bigger and bigger fight, refusing to bend or contort himself to fit where we so desperately want him to. We keep trying to pour white into his sea of endless black, hoping against hope to turn parts of him gray, knowing that in those murky areas lies a chance at redemption – a chance at being the young man the romantic in us so wants him to be – but his blackness is strong and nearly overpowers any light we try to breathe into him. He is a dangerous and strikingly addicting challenge, daring us to try and find something in him he's extraordinarily good at convincing us simply isn't there.
 
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea is absolutely gorgeous, a tale that weaves in and out of our fingers like smoke, tempting us with light caresses to reach out and grab it but disappearing just as we close our fingers, making us work that much harder and invest that much more of ourselves before showing us some of its secrets. Haunting, eerie, and darkly decadent, this debut should not be missed.

Rating: 4.5/5

Find April:

Website • Twitter • Goodreads • Amazon

This book was sent to me by the publisher  free of charge for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.

Waiting on Wednesday: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking The Spine and is a fun way to see what books other bloggers just can't wait to get their hands on!

BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA

Between #1

April Genevieve Tucholke

Paranormal Young Adult

August 15th, 2013

Dial/Penguin

From Goodreads:
You stop fearing the devil when you’re holding his hand…

Nothing much exciting rolls through Violet White’s sleepy, seaside town…until River West comes along. River rents the guesthouse behind Violet’s crumbling estate, and as eerie, grim things start to happen, Violet begins to wonder about the boy living in her backyard. Is River just a crooked-smiling liar with pretty eyes and a mysterious past? Or could he be something more? Violet’s grandmother always warned her about the Devil, but she never said he could be a dark-haired boy who takes naps in the sun, who likes coffee, who kisses you in a cemetery...who makes you want to kiss back. Violet’s already so knee-deep in love, she can’t see straight. And that’s just how River likes it.

Blending faded decadence and the thrilling dread of gothic horror, April Genevieve Tucholke weaves a dreamy, twisting contemporary romance, as gorgeously told as it is terrifying—a debut to watch.

Confession: I added this book to my TBR list based on the cover alone. I didn't even read the blurb before I hit the button on Goodreads that said "want to read" because any book that has a cover like this–all dark and beautiful and with a stunning type treatment (obsessed with fonts, party of one *points at self*)–is one I have to read. Luckily for me, the blurb makes this book sound as brilliant as its cover is gorgeous, and I've decided August is entirely too far away. This book needs to be released in early February at the absolute latest. I'm writing a letter to Penguin with my request ;-)