Book Review | Open Road Summer | Emery Lord

Jun 27

Book cover Open Road Summer Emery LordTitle: Open Road Summer
Author: Emery Lord (web | twitter)
Genre: Contemporary YA
Amazon | Goodreads | B&N
Publisher: Walker Childrens
Release date: April 15, 2014
Source: ARC from the publisher via NetGalley (Thanks, Walker Childrens!)

After breaking up with her bad-news boyfriend, Reagan O’Neill is ready to leave her rebellious ways behind. . . and her best friend, country superstar Lilah Montgomery, is nursing a broken heart of her own. Fortunately, Lilah’s 24-city tour is about to kick off, offering a perfect opportunity for a girls-only summer of break-up ballads and healing hearts. But when Matt Finch joins the tour as its opening act, his boy-next-door charm proves difficult for Reagan to resist, despite her vow to live a drama-free existence. This summer, Reagan and Lilah will navigate the ups and downs of fame and friendship as they come to see that giving your heart to the right person is always a risk worth taking. A fresh new voice in contemporary romance, Emery Lord’s gorgeous writing hits all the right notes.

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Book Review | Love Letters to the Dead | Ava Dellaira

May 16

book cover Love Letters to the Dead Ava DellairaTitle: Love Letters to the Dead
Author: Ava Dellaira (web | twitter)
Genre: Contemporary YA, epistolary
Amazon | Goodreads | B&N
Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Release date: April 1, 2014
Source: ARC from the publisher via NetGalley (Thanks, FSG!)

It begins as an assignment for English class: Write a letter to a dead person. Laurel chooses Kurt Cobain because her sister, May, loved him. And he died young, just like May did. Soon, Laurel has a notebook full of letters to people like Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Amelia Earhart, Heath Ledger, and more; though she never gives a single one of them to her teacher. She writes about starting high school, navigating new friendships, falling in love for the first time, learning to live with her splintering family. And, finally, about the abuse she suffered while May was supposed to be looking out for her. Only then, once Laurel has written down the truth about what happened to herself, can she truly begin to accept what happened to May. And only when Laurel has begun to see her sister as the person she was; lovely and amazing and deeply flawed; can she begin to discover her own path.

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Waiting on Wednesday (51): Stray

May 7

Waiting on Wednesday

Stray by Elissa Sussman

Book cover Stray Elisa Sussman

Princess Aislynn knows all about the curse. Its magic is a part of her, like her awkward nose and thin fingers. It’s also something she can’t control. And girls who can’t control their abilities have a tendency to disappear. So for her own protection, Aislynn is sworn into the Order of Fairy Godmothers where she must spend the rest of her life chaste and devoted to serving another royal family.

Tasked with tending to the sweet, but sheltered Princess Linnea, Aislynn also finds a reluctant friend in the palace gardener, Thackery, who makes no secret of his disdain for her former life. The more time they spend together, though, the more she begins to doubt the rules she has observed so obediently. As Aislynn’s feelings threaten to undo the sacred vows she has taken, she risks not only her own life but Linnea’s as well. With the princess engaged to a devoted follower of The Path, there are some who would do anything to keep Aislynn from straying.

WUTTTT STRAY sounds fantastic. I’m always going to be stoked to read books about magic. Fantasies with magic? Doesn’t get any better. But this? A girl with magic who is sworn to serve the Order of FAIRY GODMOTHERS?! SHUT THE FRONT DOOR. But I’m also very intrigued by these forbidden feelings with the gardener. And what is The Path?? Sounds cultish and ominous, aka EXCELLENT.

STRAY comes out October 7, 2014 from Greenwilow

Stray

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Waiting on Wednesday (34): The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender

Sep 25

Waiting on Wednesday

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

Book cover for The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

 

Magical realism, lyrical prose, and the pain and passion of human love haunt this hypnotic generational saga.

Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender. Ava—in all other ways a normal girl—is born with the wings of a bird. In a quest to understand her peculiar disposition and a growing desire to fit in with her peers, sixteen-year old Ava ventures into the wider world, ill-prepared for what she might discover and naïve to the twisted motives of others. Others like the pious Nathaniel Sorrows, who mistakes Ava for an angel and whose obsession with her grows until the night of the Summer Solstice celebration. That night, the skies open up, rain and feathers fill the air, and Ava’s quest and her family’s saga build to a devastating crescendo. First-time author Leslye Walton has constructed a layered and unforgettable mythology of what it means to be born with hearts that are tragically, exquisitely human.

WHOA. This debut sounds like it’s going to ROCK MY SOCKS RIGHT OFF MY FEET. Read that synopsis again and count the awesome things. It’s ok. I’ll wait. *waits and hums and daydreams about Ichabod Crane from the Sleepy Hollow TV show* So, did you see all the awesome things?! Magical realism, a girl who LITERALLY has wings, teenage angst, trouble with love, a boy who thinks said girl with feathers is an angel–I can’t deal. Like, I am ready to read this book NOW NOW NOW. Plus, I’m very much looking forward to the fact that THE STRANGE AND BEAUTIFUL SORROWS OF AVA LAVENDER  is Leslye Walton‘s debut, and that even the SYNOPSIS sounds pretty. That is some kind of good sign, I think.

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender is coming out on March 25, 2014 from Candlewick PressGoodreads

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