26.4.09

In My Mailbox ( 4/20 to 4/25)

I am "stealing" this from The Story Siren. If you want to find out more about it click here. Anyway, these are books I got this week at the bookstore, library, and in the mail, of course. All summaries are from either Barnes and Noble, Amazon or Goodreads.

The Received:

Post Grad by Emily Cassel ( ARC/ June 2009/ St. Martin's Griffin)

What happens when your life doesn’t go according to plan?

Ryden Malby had a plan. Step One: do well in high school, thereby achieving Step Two: get a kick-butt college scholarship. Step Three – limit her beer pong in order to keep said scholarship – wasn’t always easy. Now that she’s finally graduated, it’s time for Step Four: moving to LA to land her dream job at the city’s best publishing house. So far, Ryden’s three-for-three, but she’s about to stumble on Step Four….

When Jessica Bard, Ryden’s college nemesis—the prettiest, smartest, most ambitious girl at school—steals her perfect job, Ryden’s forced to move back to her childhood home in the Valley. Stuck with her eccentric family – a karate-obsessed dad, a politically incorrect grandma, a spoiled-brat little brother – and a growing stack of rejected job applications, Ryden starts to feel like she’s going nowhere. The only upside is spending time with her best friend Adam—and running into her hot next-door neighbor David. But if Ryden’s going to survive life as a post-grad, it may be time to come up with a new plan…

Dork Diaries: Tales from a Not So Fabulous Life by Rachel Renee Russell

Dork Diaries follows eighth grader Nikki Maxwell as she chronicles through text and sketches her move to a snooty new school; her epic battle wither her mom for an iPhone; her enthusiasm for drawing and art; and a love/hate fascination with the new school's queen bee, a girl named Mackenzie, who becomes Nikki's rival a school wide art competition. Nikki writes about friendships, crushes, popularity, and family with a unique and fresh voice that still conveys a universal authenticity. Nikki's sketches throughout her diary and add humor and spunk to the book, a surefire hit with tween girls.

With this I also got " Nikki Maxwell's Purse" , from the author, filled with Tic Tacs, Orbit Gum, perfume, nail polish and other similar items. Isn't that a cool marketing idea? I'll have to upload a picture of it when I post my review! :)

How To Buy A Love Of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson ( Hardcover/ May 2009/ Dutton)

To Carley Wells, words are the enemy: the countless SAT lists from her tutor, the “fifty-seven pounds overweight” assessment from her personal trainer, and most of all, the “confidential” Getting To Know You assignment from her insane English teacher (whose literary terminology lessons include “Backstory is Afterbirth” and “Setting is Nobody’s Slut”). When he tells her parents that she’s answered “What is your favorite book?” with “Never met one I liked,” they become determined to fix what he calls her “intellectual impoverishment.” They will commission a book to be written for Carley that she’ll have to love—one that will impress her teacher and the whole town of Fox Glen with their family’s devotion to the arts. They will be patrons—the Medicis of Long Island. They will buy their daughter The Love Of Reading.

Impossible though it is for Carley to imagine ever loving words, she is in love with a young bibliophile who cares about them more than anything. Anything, that is, but a good bottle of scotch. Hunter Cay, Carley’s best friend and Fox Glen’s resident golden boy, is becoming a stranger to her as he drowns himself in F. Scott Fitzgerald, booze, and Vicodin.

When the Wellses move writer Bree McEnroy—author of a failed meta-novel about Odysseus’s voyages through the Internet—into their mansion to write Carley’s book, Carley’s sole interest in the project is its potential to distract Hunter from drinking and give them something to share. Instead, as Hunter’s behavior becomes erratic and dangerous, she finds herself drawn into the fictional world Bree has created and begins to understand for the first time the power of stories—those we read, those we want to believe in, and most of all, those we tell ourselves about ourselves. Stories powerful enough to destroy a person.

Or save her.



The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams ( ARC/ May 2009/ St. Martin's Griffin)

Thirteen-year-old Kyra has grown up in an isolated polygamous community without questioning her father’s three wives and her twenty brothers and sisters. Or at least without questioning them much—if you don’t count her secret visits to the Mobile Library on Wheels to read forbidden books, or her meetings with the boy she hopes to choose for herself instead of having a man chosen for her. But when the Prophet decrees that Kyra must marry her 60-year-old uncle—who already has six wives—Kyra must make a desperate choice in the face of violence and her own fears of losing her family.



After by Amy Efaw ( ARC/ August 2009/Viking)

Who would do something so terrible?

Certainly not someone like Devon—straight-A student, soccer player with Olympic dreams, more mature than her own mother. But desperation and panic drove her to do what most people can’t even imagine. Now Devon ’s in a juvenile detention center charged with attempted murder. If she’s tried as an adult, she faces life in prison. Does Devon deserve that punishment? Your answer depends on whether you believe her story.



The Borrowed:



Jane’s big sister, Lizzie, has always been the center of attention. No one ever pays attention to boring, plain Jane. But when Jane’s twelfth birthday marks the beginning of Lizzie’s fi nal descent into a fatal eating disorder, Jane discovers that the only thing harder than living in her big sister’s shadow is living without her.

In the wake of tragedy, Jane learns to look through her camera lens and frame life differently, embracing her broken family and understanding that every girl has her season to blossom. Spare and vulnerable prose marks this beautiful debut that is at once heartbreaking and uplifting.

Side Note:
Yes, that is Alexis Bledel on the cover of Post Grad. She's staring in the movie addation of it. You can find out more about it here.

28 comments:

  1. Is that Alexis Bledel on the cover of PostGrad, or just a lookalike?
    How To Buy A Love Of Reading lookis good - have you seen the trailer for it? Very funny.

    xo
    Steph
    http://heyteenager.blogspot.com

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  2. Great books! After sounds really good. =)

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  3. LOVE after's cover its so powerful!!! nice.

    happy reading!

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  4. Great haul! And Steph, it's really Alexis Bledel. I think I read it aout the cover from Pop Culture Junkie.

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  5. wants AFTER!!! I keep forgetting who's in Chosen One tour ughhh!!!

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  6. AFTER! I'm so jealous you got the copy. And The Chosen One too.

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  7. Great week. The Chosen One looks great!!

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  8. What Steph said. Is that Alexis Bledel?

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  9. Wow, you got some great books! Hope you enjoy them.

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  10. What an awesome book week! lots of great books! Happy reading!

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  11. Definitely going to add some of these to the wishlist!! Great week! :)

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  12. I really want to read Post Grad. And I love the cover! (Rory!)

    I look forward to your review :)

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  13. You had a great week with such awesome books. Post Grad does look like Rory is on the cover, too cute. After sounds amazing and the cover is also very eye catching

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  14. The cover of 'Post Grad' is really cute! Doesn't the girl look like Rory of Gilmore Girls?

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  15. For everyone asking about Post Grad's cover, it is Alexis Bledel (i.e. Rory from Gilmore Girls, Lena from Sisterhood). They're making a movie out of it which is coming out this year, I think.

    Very jealous of several of these books- Post Grad, After, Chosen One.

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  16. I was just about to ask if that was Alexis, I remember seeing this book on To Pine for on the Story Siren. The Chosen One looks really good! Great week!

    --Amber

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  17. That purse idea is so awesome. I want it!!! I'm a dork, it works. :)


    The Chosen One and After sounds amazing!!!


    -Lauren

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  18. I really want the Chosen one! Great week!

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  19. Great books! I am dying to read After!

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  20. Love the cover of Post Grad! Alexis rocks!

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  21. How to buy looks really intriguing. The Chosen One looks really good too as does Jane in Bloom and After.

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  22. I want to read the chosen one!

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  23. Some of those books sound really, really good and I am so adding The Chosen One and After to my list.

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  24. The After looks so good. I truly want that!

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