Monthly Archives:: March 2018

Saturday, March 17, 2018

Fresh Batch (March 18th – 24th)

Posted by Giselle • 0 Comments

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

Flavor of the week:

The Astonishing Color of After
Emily X.R. Pan
Publication date: March 20th 2018
by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Goodreads Purchase

Leigh Chen Sanders is absolutely certain about one thing: When her mother died by suicide, she turned into a bird.

Leigh, who is half Asian and half white, travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time. There, she is determined to find her mother, the bird. In her search, she winds up chasing after ghosts, uncovering family secrets, and forging a new relationship with her grandparents. And as she grieves, she must try to reconcile the fact that on the same day she kissed her best friend and longtime secret crush, Axel, her mother was taking her own life.

Alternating between real and magic, past and present, friendship and romance, hope and despair, The Astonishing Color of After is a novel about finding oneself through family history, art, grief, and love.

Other releases this week:
* In no particular order *

– Tyler Johnson Was Here by Jay Coles [Purchase]
– The Heart Forger (The Bone Witch #2) by Rin Chupeco [Purchase]
– Orphan Monster Spy by Matt Killeen [Purchase]
– Miles Away from You by A.B. Rutledge [Purchase]

– Losing Leah by Tiffany King [Purchase]
– Tiger’s Dream (The Tiger Saga #5) by Colleen Houck [Purchase]
– Paris Syndrome by Lisa Walker [Purchase]
– Ginger Kid: Mostly True Tales from a Former Nerd by Steve Hofstetter [Purchase]

– 59 Hours by Johnny Kovatch [Purchase]
– Along the Indigo by Elsie Chapman [Purchase]
– Here So Far Away by Hadley Dyer [Purchase]
– Burro Hills by Julia Lynn Rubin [Purchase]

What’s catching your eye this week?

Find previous Fresh Batch posts here!

Cute but Needs Work: How the Cowboy Was Won by Lori Wilde

Posted by Rashika on 03/16/2018 • 0 Comments

When one of my mutuals pointed out How the Cowboy Was Won was an Emma retelling, I was all aboard. I adore Jane Austen novels and I especially adore retellings of them. I don’t think I’ve seen many literary Emma retellings so it’s amusing that this year, there are two on my TBR!

So. Anyway. I have a complicated relationship with this book. There are parts of it I really liked but there were a bunch of things that rubbed me the wrong way and I haven’t seen many reviews talking about some of the things that bothered me which makes me more inclined to be critical. I want issues to be talked about. SO. ANYWAY. I am going to start with the good stuff first and break this review down…

The Book I Wish I Had When I Was in Middle School: Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi

Posted by Rashika on 03/14/2018 • 7 Comments

I never read Rick Riordan’s books. The short story is that there was no real reason to why I didn’t pick the books up. The longer (and a little pointless) story is that when The Lightning Thief first came out, it had a completely different cover then what it has now. I was in the middle school and our librarian told us all about it. I grew older but it stayed in the corner of my mind, I was in eternal search of the book with the white cover and never realized until a year ago (seriously!!!) that that book was the same one written by Rick Riordan that was so beloved now. Anyway, long pointless story short, I am weird and specific about what I read.

So I missed Rick…

Fresh Batch (March 11th – 17th)

Posted by Giselle on 03/10/2018 • 1 Comment

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

Flavor of the week:

Sometimes I Lie Alice Feeney Publication date: March 13th 2018by Flatiron Books

Goodreads Purchase

My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me: 1. I’m in a coma. 2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore. 3. Sometimes I lie.

Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and…

The Intersectional Feminist Anthology We Need: The Radical Element edited by Jessica Spotswood

Posted by Rashika on 03/09/2018 • 0 Comments

There was once a time when while reviewing an anthology, I would review every single story within it. I don’t do that anymore because 1. I am lazy but 2. I don’t think anyone really wants to read a review of EVERY SINGLE short story in an anthology because thats a lot to read and most people will pick an anthology up even if it has a couple mediocre short stories. Also, like, I do want to say I am definitely appreciative of the people who do review every single story and you guys are great. ANYWAY. The Radical Element is chockfull of some of the best YA writers right now and it ups the ante from A Tyranny of Petticoats. Tyranny certainly won my heart in 2016 but we still needed a…

All Five Stars: The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

Posted by Rashika on 03/08/2018 • 4 Comments

I am a finnick-y asshole when it comes to rating books 5 stars which isn’t necessarily because I don’t love books but I want to reserve that 5 stars for a book that is something that I am going to remember for a long time after I close the last page shut. The Poet X is just one of those books you are gonna come out of feeling something. I don’t share the same identities as the main character and yet the way Xiomara navigates her diaspora completely moved me. The way her story was told made me feel seen and validated.

The Poet X is told in verse and yet it tells an overarching story that I am not sure prose could have done justice to. Acevedo is incredibly talented to…

Can You Read Too Many Books?

Posted by Rashika on 03/06/2018 • 8 Comments

I feel like the question that is the title of this post is super loaded but I don’t know how else to really get into a question that I’ve been contemplating for a while. Which all starts with this, GOODREADS CHALLENGES.

Some people love challenging themselves to read more every year and other people don’t want to set a number for how much they are gonna read, lest they ruin it. I am somewhere in the middle? I’ve taken to setting challenges as 1 book a year for the past two years but like, here is the thing. I can set it to 1 to make myself feel good but I’ll always have another ambitious goal where I wanna read like 5,000,000 books.

The most books I’ve ever read…