state of the arc #7

State of the ARC is a monthly meme hosted by Avalinah's Books. It's a way to track your reading progress and see how fellow book bloggers are doing as well.

The rules for State of the ARC are quite simple; I couldn't put them any better than Evelina already has:

• Mention that you’re linking up with State of the ARC @ AvalinahsBooks, which is a fun way to share our ARC progress, challenges, wins, woes and mishaps.
• Include the link to this post, or the current State of the ARC post. You can use my State of the ARC image too.
• Don’t forget to visit all the other people in the link-up and comment.
• And most importantly – have fun!

sunday post #29

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

It was a very quiet week after a steamy weekend last week! The online screening link for a film I was meant to review never arrived, I felt somewhat unmotivated to start a new book, and it's still freaking hot outside. I filled my free time catching up on my Netflix queue a little and making progress with my writing, instead. I've also been baking a lot! On the way home last weekend we stopped at a peach farm—Texas peaches are unparalleled, sorry Georgia—and brought back about twenty pounds. While cobbler is my favorite dessert to make with peaches (or almost any other fruit), I've tried my hand at small-batch canning for the first time too. It will be a little bit before we know how it turned out but I enjoyed trying something other than the quick pickling recipes I usually stick to.

book review: the cheerleaders by kara thomas

The Cheerleaders by Kara Thomas
Delacorte Press, 384 pp.
Published July 31, 2018

DISCLAIMER: I received a free physical ARC of this title from the publisher for review consideration. This did not inform or influence my opinion in any way.

There are no more cheerleaders in the town of Sunnybrook.

First there was the car accident—two girls gone after hitting a tree on a rainy night. Not long after, the murders happened. Those two girls were killed by the man next door. The police shot him, so no one will ever know why he did it. Monica’s sister was the last cheerleader to die. After her suicide, Sunnybrook High disbanded the cheer squad. No one wanted to be reminded of the girls they lost.

That was five years ago. Now the faculty and students at Sunnybrook High want to remember the lost cheerleaders. But for Monica, it’s not that easy. She just wants to forget. Only, Monica’s world is starting to unravel. There are the letters in her stepdad’s desk, an unearthed, years-old cell phone, a strange new friend at school. . . . Whatever happened five years ago isn’t over. Some people in town know more than they’re saying. And somehow Monica is at the center of it all.

There are no more cheerleaders in Sunnybrook, but that doesn’t mean anyone else is safe.

2019 releases i can't wait to read!

Do I still have upcoming 2018 releases on my TBR? Yes. Do I still have a mound of backlist titles crying out to be read? Absolutely. Is any of that going to keep me from getting overly excited and pre-ordering a couple dozen new books coming out next year? Heck no! 2019 is already shaping up to have some stellar books by both familiar and debut authors. Some of the titles I'm most anticipating I learned about purely by accident: a liked tweet in my timeline or a friend adding it to their shelves on Goodreads. Rather than hoping y'all have a similar happy accident of fate, I'm going to proudly shout out some of the titles I can't wait to buy next year!

I've grouped my top picks into new stand-alones and series starters, or sequels to existing series. In the interest of fairness (and, let's be honest, because I would need blood pressure medication to deal with the stress of trying to rank them by level of anticipation) they're listed in simple alphabetic order. Every title links to Goodreads, to conveniently add each and every single one to your TBR. Let's get started, and get hype for 2019!

*Note that all release dates are approximate and came from Goodreads. They may have changed from the time I posted this list to when you're reading it!

tagged: liebster award

Danielle @ Books, Vertigo, and Tea nominated me for the Liebster Award last month. If you follow my blog then you've surely already heard of Danielle and kept up with the beautiful assortment of reviews and discussions she posts every week. She's been so kind and supportive of me from practically the moment I started blogging; if you aren't already, go give her a follow!

The Rules:

• Thank the blogger who nominated you, provide a link to their blog and display the award.
• Answer 11 questions they asked you.
• Come up with your own 11 questions
• Tag 11 bloggers and don’t forget to tell them.

book review: contagion by erin bowman

Contagion by Erin Bowman
HarperTeen, 432 pp.
Published July 24, 2018

DISCLAIMER: I received a free physical ARC of this title from the publisher for review consideration. This did not inform or influence my opinion in any way.

After receiving a distress call from a drill team on a distant planet, a skeleton crew is sent into deep space to perform a standard search-and-rescue mission.

When they arrive, they find the planet littered with the remains of the project—including its members’ dead bodies. As they try to piece together what could have possibly decimated an entire project, they discover that some things are best left buried—and some monsters are only too ready to awaken.

sunday post #28

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

Oof, it's hot! With highs touching 110°F (40°C and up!) I've only grudgingly ventured outside to run errands or scoop up packages from the front porch. All my avoidance has come to naught, though: today I'll be making a day trip into the country to visit my parents and some family friends. We try to get together about once a month, but I get the feeling the outdoor portion of this visit will be truncated 😅 Fair warning, comment replies may not come until tomorrow when I'm rehydrated and properly refrigerated once more!

arc august 2018

Since starting my book blog I've noticed my reading habits have shifted strongly in favor of advance reading copies, or ARCs, instead of backlist books. While it's always exciting and a privilege to read books before their release date, it can sometimes put a time crunch on my reading habits! ARCs are promotional copies meant to generate buzz around an upcoming release and I always feel I should do my best to read and review any advance copies I receive in time for its publication.

This conflicts with my tendency to request oodles of ARCs all coming out around the same time—oops. That's why ARC August, hosted by Read, Sleep, Repeat, is the perfect monthly challenge for me!

book review: sanctuary by caryn lix

Sanctuary by Caryn Lix
Simon Pulse, 480 pp.
Published July 24, 2018

DISCLAIMER: I received a free physical ARC of this title from the publisher for review consideration. This did not inform or influence my opinion in any way.

Kenzie holds one truth above all: the company is everything.

As a citizen of Omnistellar Concepts, the most powerful corporation in the solar system, Kenzie has trained her entire life for one goal: to become an elite guard on Sanctuary, Omnistellar’s space prison for superpowered teens too dangerous for Earth. As a junior guard, she’s excited to prove herself to her company—and that means sacrificing anything that won’t propel her forward.

But then a routine drill goes sideways and Kenzie is taken hostage by rioting prisoners.

At first, she’s confident her commanding officer—who also happens to be her mother—will stop at nothing to secure her freedom. Yet it soon becomes clear that her mother is more concerned with sticking to Omnistellar protocol than she is with getting Kenzie out safely.

As Kenzie forms her own plan to escape, she doesn’t realize there’s a more sinister threat looming, something ancient and evil that has clawed its way into Sanctuary from the vacuum of space. And Kenzie might have to team up with her captors to survive—all while beginning to suspect there’s a darker side to the Omnistellar she knows.

bookshelves tour: part 2

About a month ago I moved a third bookshelf into my room. With glass doors on the top shelves and cabinets at the bottom, I could finally move some of my collectible titles into safer storage and reorganize my other two shelves! It took a little time to decide exactly how I wanted things to look and, finally, I decided on function over form. (How can you bear to break up a series just to make a rainbow?? HOW?!?)

While they may not go in Roy G. Biv order there is still an abundance of pretty books to see! Size constraints mean that some shelves are still mismatched from where I'd truly like them to be; on the bright side, however, books are no longer stacked on my floor—or on top of one another in the shelves, either!

Over the course of the summer I'm going to do little tours of each of my three bookcases. This week you'll get to see the classics and adult fiction that I most enjoy, including fantasy, science fiction, and mystery novels!

book review: fawkes by nadine brandes

Fawkes by Nadine Brandes
Thomas Nelson, 448 pp.
Published July 10, 2018

DISCLAIMER: I received a free physical ARC of this title from the publisher for review consideration. This did not inform or influence my opinion in any way.

Thomas Fawkes is turning to stone, and the only cure to the Stone Plague is to join his father’s plot to assassinate the king of England.

Silent wars leave the most carnage. The wars that are never declared, but are carried out in dark alleys with masks and hidden knives. Wars where color power alters the natural rhythm of 17th century London. And when the king calls for peace, no one listens until he finally calls for death.

But what if death finds him first?

Keepers think the Igniters caused the plague. Igniters think the Keepers did it. But all Thomas knows is that the Stone Plague infecting his eye is spreading. And if he doesn’t do something soon, he’ll be a lifeless statue. So when his Keeper father, Guy Fawkes, invites him to join the Gunpowder Plot—claiming it will put an end to the plague—Thomas is in.

The plan: use 36 barrels of gunpowder to blow up the Igniter King.

The problem: Doing so will destroy the family of the girl Thomas loves. But backing out of the plot will send his father and the other plotters to the gallows. To save one, Thomas will lose the other.

No matter Thomas’s choice, one thing is clear: once the decision is made and the color masks have been put on, there’s no turning back.

sunday post #27

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

Thanks to everyone who voted in my jury duty book poll! Thankfully, I was never assigned to a courtroom, which meant that I got to wait in the large holding room for a few hours before being dismissed in time for lunch. While I got a lot of reading done, I also wound up sitting next to a teacher from my old high school—small world! We caught up on who was still teaching there and who had moved on to other schools, plus a little bit of gossip I wouldn't have gotten to hear as a student.

I caught up on recent movie releases, too, and finally saw Sicario: Day of the Soldado. Y'all, it was awful. Everyone made such dumb decisions and it was all for pretty much nothing by the end. Taylor Sheridan is such a talented screenwriter that I was surprised he delivered such a huge miss. Hopefully it's just a blip on the radar and not a sign of things to come!

tagged: mid-year book freak out

Last week I made an enormous post with all of my reviews for the first half of the year (and if you haven't scrolled through it yet, you should!). While it was a nice sum-up, I didn't offer much in the way of comparison or reflection, which is why I'm so happy Sim @ Flipping Thru the Pages tagged me in the Mid-Year Book Freak Out Tag! It may be a little bit past the halfway point, but don't worry: I'm only including books I've read through the end of June!

book review: sea witch by sarah henning

Sea Witch by Sarah Henning
Katherine Tegen Books, 368 pp.
Published July 31, 2018

DISCLAIMER: I received a free physical ARC of this title from the publisher for review consideration. This did not inform or influence my opinion in any way.

Ever since her best friend, Anna, drowned, Evie has been an outcast in her small fishing town. A freak. A curse. A witch.

A girl with an uncanny resemblance to Anna appears offshore and, though the girl denies it, Evie is convinced that her best friend actually survived. That her own magic wasn’t so powerless after all. And, as the two girls catch the eyes—and hearts—of two charming princes, Evie believes that she might finally have a chance at her own happily ever after.

But her new friend has secrets of her own. She can’t stay in Havnestad, or on two legs, unless Evie finds a way to help her. Now Evie will do anything to save her friend’s humanity, along with her prince’s heart—harnessing the power of her magic, her ocean, and her love until she discovers, too late, the truth of her bargain.

The rise of Hans Christian Andersen’s iconic villainess is a heart-wrenching story of friendship, betrayal, and a girl pushed beyond her limits—to become a monster.

down the tbr hole #22

As my Goodreads to-read shelf creeps closer to 500 books, I've been eyeing it with a growing feeling of apprehension. It would take forever to get through so many...and that's not counting all of the new books I hear about along the way. Thankfully I discovered Lost In A Story's series (by way of Boston Book Reader) at the beginning of the year and it sounds like a great way to trim down my TBR.

The guidelines, per Lost In A Story, are simple:

• Go to your Goodreads to-read shelf
• Order on ascending date added
• Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books
• Read the synopses of the books
• Decide: keep it or should it go?

I'll be going through 10 books every week, meaning it should take me almost the whole year to reach the end! If you'd like to do this yourself, be sure to visit Lost In A Story's original post and let her (and me!) know you'll be joining in the fun.

book review: the cruel prince

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 370 pp.
Published January 2, 2018

Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.

To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences.

As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

sunday post #26

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

I'm happy to report that the bunny's birthday (aka, the Fourth of July) went splendidly! He got to nosh on some homemade strawberry cupcakes and dig through a big bag of presents filled with tissue paper to rip and tear. At the end of the week my mom and I went to see Incredibles 2. I'm sorry to say it, but I was a little underwhelmed? The scene with Jack Jack and a raccoon was pure gold though.

This coming week will have a little hiccup in my usual routine thanks to jury duty on Tuesday. Yay—not! I plan to put up a little poll on my Twitter (@darkmaterialss) tonight or tomorrow to help me decide which books I should take with me to stave off the soul-crushing boredom. Please stop by and vote!

book review: the essex serpent

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
Serpent's Tail, 416 pp.
Published May 27, 2016

Set in Victorian London and an Essex village in the 1890's, and enlivened by the debates on scientific and medical discovery which defined the era, The Essex Serpent has at its heart the story of two extraordinary people who fall for each other, but not in the usual way.

They are Cora Seaborne and Will Ransome. Cora is a well-to-do London widow who moves to the Essex parish of Aldwinter, and Will is the local vicar. They meet as their village is engulfed by rumours that the mythical Essex Serpent, once said to roam the marshes claiming human lives, has returned. Cora, a keen amateur naturalist is enthralled, convinced the beast may be a real undiscovered species. But Will sees his parishioners' agitation as a moral panic, a deviation from true faith. Although they can agree on absolutely nothing, as the seasons turn around them in this quiet corner of England, they find themselves inexorably drawn together and torn apart.

Told with exquisite grace and intelligence, this novel is most of all a celebration of love, and the many different guises it can take.

2018 mid-year review

Happy Fourth of July to my fellow American readers...and happy Wednesday to those of you overseas! (You're more than halfway through the week—yay!) For this mid-week holiday I thought something fluffy and filled with pretty book covers would be a welcome treat, so I'm looking back over all of the books I've read and reviewed so far this year. The first half of 2018 has seen some amazing new and new-to-me books. While there are some duds sprinkled throughout the months, it's been such fun discovering new favorites to add to my shelves and discuss with friends!

For some additional context, these are my basic reading stats so far this year:

Goodreads Challenge: 64 out of 50 books completed

Total pages read: 24,183 pp.

Pages per day: 134 pp.

Average rating: 3.52 (out of 5)

For every title that has a review posted I've included a link, excerpt, and the star rating. For those that haven't been published (or written...) yet, I've copied my preliminary Goodreads blurb instead. I've also noted my 5-star reviews with a little star beside each title if you're most interested in the greatest hits! Please feel free to explore, discover, and enjoy ♥♥

book review: spinning silver

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
Del Rey, 448 pp.
Published July 10, 2018

DISCLAIMER: I received a free finished copy of this book from Del Rey for review purposes.

Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders... but her father isn't a very good one. Free to lend and reluctant to collect, he has loaned out most of his wife's dowry and left the family on the edge of poverty--until Miryem steps in. Hardening her heart against her fellow villagers' pleas, she sets out to collect what is owed--and finds herself more than up to the task. When her grandfather loans her a pouch of silver pennies, she brings it back full of gold.

But having the reputation of being able to change silver to gold can be more trouble than it's worth--especially when her fate becomes tangled with the cold creatures that haunt the wood, and whose king has learned of her reputation and wants to exploit it for reasons Miryem cannot understand.

sunday post #25

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

The days continue to be long and hot, with very little to report. It's hard to get motivating into leaving the house and running around when the temperatures are sweltering. I did remember to pick up a couple of new citronella candles when I ran errands this week, though, which should make evening reading sessions in the backyard possible, nay—pleasant! In addition to my usual book review schedule I screened a couple of upcoming movies as well, including the excellent Leave No Trace. The Fourth of July holiday has me extra wary of movie theaters, but I also really want to see Incredibles 2 and Sicardio: Day of the Soldado, so it looks like I'll be leaving the cool, dark shelter of my room for the cool, dark shelter of a cinema soon!