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Saturday, May 26, 2018

Fresh Batch (May 27th – June 2nd)

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Fresh Batch, posted weekly, keeps you up to date on the hottest releases of the upcoming week.

Flavor of the week:

LIFEL1K3
Jay Kristoff
Series: Lifelike #1
Publication date: May 29th 2018
by Knopf Books for Young Readers

Goodreads Purchase

On a floating junkyard beneath a radiation sky, a deadly secret lies buried in the scrap.

Eve isn’t looking for secrets—she’s too busy looking over her shoulder. The robot gladiator she’s just spent six months building has been reduced to a smoking wreck, and the only thing keeping her Grandpa from the grave was the fistful of credits she just lost to the bookies. To top it off, she’s discovered she can destroy electronics with the power of her mind, and the puritanical Brotherhood are building a coffin her size. If she’s ever had a worse day, Eve can’t remember it.

But when Eve discovers the ruins of an android boy named Ezekiel in the scrap pile she calls home, her entire world comes crashing down. With her best friend Lemon Fresh and her robotic conscience, Cricket, in tow, she and Ezekiel will trek across deserts of irradiated glass, infiltrate towering megacities and scour the graveyard of humanity’s greatest folly to save the ones Eve loves, and learn the dark secrets of her past.

Even if those secrets were better off staying buried.


Other releases this week:
* In no particular order *




The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware [Purchase]
Listen to Your Heart by Kasie West [Purchase]
All the Little Lights by Jamie McGuire [Purchase]
Lies You Never Told Me by Jennifer Donaldson [Purchase]


I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain by Will Walton [Purchase]
Bright Burns the Night (Dark Breaks the Dawn Duology #2) by Sara B. Larson [Purchase]
The Universe Is Expanding and So Am I (Virginia Shreves #2) by Carolyn Mackler [Purchase]
The Disappearance of Sloane Sullivan by Gia Cribbs [Purchase]


Give Me Some Truth by Eric Gansworth [Purchase]
Legendary (Caraval #2) by Stephanie Garber [Purchase]
Screenshot by Donna Cooner [Purchase]
Questions I Want to Ask You by Michelle Falkoff [Purchase]


Stand Beautiful: A story of brokenness, beauty and embracing it all by Chloe Howard with Margot Starbuck [Purchase]
Demon Hunters: Ascension: Book 2 by Olivia Chase [Purchase]
Holly Jolly Summer by Tiffany Stewart [Purchase]
Summer Skin by Kirsty Eagar [Purchase]


The Slave Prince by Jeyna Grace [Purchase]
Tenth Grade Angst by Bruce Ingram [Purchase]
Love and Lechery at Albert Hall: Pina and Katie and the Stalker of Albert Hall by Dolores Maggiore [Purchase]
The Three Hares: Bloodline by Geoffrey Simpson [Purchase]


Blank by Sabrina R.G. Raven [Purchase]


What are you excited for the most this week?

Find previous Fresh Batch posts here!

 

Great Secondary Characters but Unimpressive Hero: Hot Asset by Lauren Layne

Posted by on 05/24/2018 • 0 Comments

Lauren Layne has slowly become one of those romance authors I can count on to deliver a book that will sweep me up by my feet. Her characters tend to have good chemistry, great banter and just generally good personalities. When I read the premise for Hot Asset, I was immediately intrigued but overall, the book wasn’t what I had come to expect from Lauren Layne.

It started off really rough with me wanting to DNF a chapter or two in but I persisted and slowly became more attached to the secondary characters and the general world Layne had built. I finished the book on a much stronger note than I had begun it although I am still not sure if I even really liked it??

My biggest issue with…

A Guide on How to Determine the Audience of a Book: A Discussion

Posted by on 05/22/2018 • 2 Comments

How do we define the various demographics books are published for? Publishing is split into Adult publishing and Children’s publishing but what determines who a book is published for? This is something I’ve thought about for a long time (especially since my primary focus in undergrad was on Children’s lit) but it recently came up on Twitter and I thought it was worth talking about. 

I think the first answer that always comes at point is the age of the main character but a number of books that would be YA/MG based on the age of the character are often published as Adult. For example, The Girl With All the Gifts. A non-literary example of this is Stranger Things – a show with younger characters that is aimed at an older audience.

Fresh Batch (May 20th – 26th)

Fresh Batch (May 20th – 26th)

Posted by on 05/19/2018 • 1 Comment

Fresh Batch, posted weekly, keeps you up to date on the hottest releases of the upcoming week.

Flavor of the week:

Aftermath Kelley Armstrong Publication date: May 22nd 2018by Crown Books for Young Readers

Goodreads Purchase

Three years after losing her brother Luka in a school shooting, Skye Gilchrist is moving home. But there’s no sympathy for Skye and her family because Luka wasn’t a victim; he was a shooter.

Jesse Mandal knows all too well that the scars of the past don’t heal easily. The shooting cost Jesse his brother and his best friend–Skye.

Ripped apart by tragedy, Jesse and Skye can’t resist reopening the mysteries of their past. But old wounds hide darker secrets. And the closer Skye and Jesse get to…

A Good Exploration of Grief: What We Leave Behind by Allison McGhee

Posted by on 05/18/2018 • 3 Comments

I wasn’t entirely sure what I expected when I started What I Leave Behind and while I haven’t made my mind about the actual content of the book, I was pleasantly surprised by the format?? I am not even sure if there a word to describe the style but the story is told in these short snapshots into Will’s mind that are somehow able to paint a bigger picture even though less words are used.

So. What I Leave Behind is the story of Will. It’s been three years since his father committed suicide and he is still processing the trauma while trying to recreate his father’s infamous cornbread. When his friend is raped, he decides that he needs to do something. His need to do something starts to…

Lackluster Poolside Read: Airports, Exes and Other Things I’m Over by Shani Petroff

Posted by on 05/17/2018 • 0 Comments

I love a good travel story. I specifically love a good travel story involving airports and things going horribly wrong. Partially because I travel relatively often and because I have a couple of bad travel stories in my own pocket. I don’t think this is really a trend in YA though and it NEEDS TO BE. Jessica Brody’s The Chaos of Standing Still was basically everything I wanted in such a story and I was hoping Airports, Exes and Other Things I am Over would deliver on a similar scale. It didn’t.

The book feels like it’s missing something honestly. It starts with Sari walking in on her boyfriend and his ex kissing. She runs away, doesn’t talk to him and spends an entire week and a half brooding over…

Jason Reynolds Mini Reviews

Posted by on 05/15/2018 • 2 Comments

April was basically the month of Jason Reynolds books. We got not one but TWO NEW RELEASES but THE GREAT and since I wasn’t doing that great last month and sucked at reviewing, I FINALLY got around to talking about these great books. Ratings haven’t been included since I cannot make up my mind and regardless, Jason Reynolds writes great books.

For Every One Jason Reynolds

GOODREADS | PURCHASE

Originally performed at the Kennedy Center for the unveiling of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, and later as a tribute to Walter Dean Myers, this stirring and inspirational poem is New York Times bestselling author and National Book Award finalist Jason Reynolds’s rallying cry to the dreamers of the world.  

     

I don’t think…