Saturday, May 18, 2013

Sunday Blessings #51


 

Sunday Blessings is weekly meme here on Coffee, Books and Me, featuring the stuffs I got this week and the summary of what happened in the blog for the week plus a quick look of what I’ve read this week, and the books I plan to read the next week :) This is inspired by In My Mailbox by The Story Siren and The Sunday Post by Kimba from The Caffeinated Book Reviewer.

This week I got...


For review:
Losing It by Cora Carmack
If I Should Die by Amy Plum
From Ashes by Molly McAdams
Taking Chances by Molly McAdams
Reboot by Tintera

Bought:
Hopeless by Colleen Hoover
The Elite by kiera Cass
Love? Maybe by Hepler
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella
Time Between Us by Tamarra Stone
Unbreakable by Elizabeth Norris
Icons by Margaret Stohl
The 5th wave by Rick Yancey
Invisibility by Andrea Cremer and David Levithan

E-ARC for review
Dance of the Red Death by Bethany  Griffin

Monday

Tuesday

Thursday

Read this week:
Only two books! And still reading the third one... 
The two books are:
Taste by katr Evangelista
And Click to aubscrdb
That’s me this week. :)

Share yours on the comments below! Would love to check out your mailbox too! :)

Thursday, May 16, 2013

LM Augustine’s Click to Subscribe blog tour [review+giveaway]


Hi guys! I’m so thrilled to be part of Click to Subscribe blog tour. This tour is hosted by Sel from Bookcase to Heaven.

Click to Subscribe is LM Augustine’s first novel, which is kind of unbelievable, with the amount of love I have for the book, and the expertise I saw in the way it was written. Anyway, he is surely one of my new fave authors! :)

For my tour stop, I have my review of Click to Subscribe below, plus a giveaway! 

enjoy!

 Title: Click to Subscribe
Author: LM Augustine
252 pages 
Published May 9th 2013.
Buy links: Amazon | Amazon UK | Amazon CA | B&N | Smashwords


1,135,789. That’s how many subscribers sixteen-year-old West Ryder has on his web vlog series. But he only has eyes for one of them. 

As one of the internet’s most prestigious video bloggers, West talks about high school relationships under the name “Sam Green.” As far as he knows, no one from school, not even his best friend, Cat, has seen his videos. But the highlight of the whole thing is Harper Knight, who comments every day at exactly 2:02 in the afternoon. He doesn’t know anything about her aside from the occasional deep philosophical messaging on why pizza tastes so delicious, but as stupid as it sounds, he might be falling for her. So when they finally agree to meet in real life, West’s hope for romance seems more and more in reach. But that all changes as soon as he arrives at their meeting spot and sees Cat walking toward him, wearing the same “I <3 green="" sam="" t-shirt="">

To his alarm, West realizes he is falling in love with the best friend who has always been a sister to him.


     Best friend turned lovers kind of stories always make me feel giddy in a way no other kind of story does, and Click to Subscribe definitely belongs to that rank. It’s sweet and short (not really super short) and easy to read, it just has that quality of perfect bittersweetness that will make you continue reading it until you reach the last page. I was definitely swooning and giggling all that time, I swear I looked like an idiot if you just saw me laughing and squealing by myself. haha. Thinking about it embarrasses me,lol.



     Anyway, Click to Subscribe reminds me of Jennifer E. Smith’s This is What Happy Looks Like, for the mere fact of the internet thing, but other than that Click to Subscribe is originally its own. I don’t know how pseudo-intelligent and smart sarcasm conversations in between characters just appeals to me but it does. And I like how West and Cat (the main characters in this book) have those kinds of witty conversations. It’s just funny. And hilarious. And it makes me want to have those kinds of conversations with someone equally smart and witty. Life would definitely rock and endless talks like that would make my days worthwhile. It’s the kind of conversations that lift up the spirits even if you’re facing the biggest baddest problem ever and you’re in your lowest of the low. It perfectly reflects the phrase “ray of light in my darkness”, or something like that.

     Oh and the characters! I liked West as the narrator. His mind is very much what I expect a teenage boy’s is. he is actually thoughtful and smart. And honest. And he is actually vulnerable. There were times you just would like to bump his head, but I actually understood where he is coming from. And oh wow, Cat! what a girl! She is just so brave! She is sooo gutsy! I admire that girl, if only I can be like her. She basically threw herself in front of a train! Dude. wow.

    This novel will make you swoon and laugh and giggle and cry. Well, at least I did. It’s touching and entertaining.

     L.M. Augustine captured my heart and his writing is just badass and entertaining I will want to read more of his works. Kind of reminds me of John Green’s books too. :)



a Rafflecopter giveaway


Author Bio:

L.M. Augustine is a YA romance author who is obsessed with writing about dorky teenagers, love, and happy endings. He currently lives in New England, where he spends far too much time reading books and screaming at his computer, and he believes that the solution to the world’s problems can be found in chocolate cake. Click To Subscribe is his first novel, but it won’t be his last.

Find L.M. on Twitter | FacebookGoodreads | Blog

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Rebecca Berto’s Drowning in You blog tour [excerpt+giveaway]

Hi guys!
Welcome to today’s Drowning to You blog tour stop here on the blog. HOsted by Giselle from Xpresso Book tours:)
Find an excerpt below, plus don’t forget to enter the giveaway! (open INTERNATIONALLY)

enjoy. :)


Drowning In You by Rebecca Berto
Publication date: April 12th 2013 
Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance
Purchase: 


Synopsis:Secretly crushing
Crushed by a tragedy
Charlee May’s been crushing on Dexter Hollingworth since she was fifteen. Five years later, a horrific skiing disaster at Mason’s Ski Lift Resort leaves her millionaire dad critically injured and her mom dead at the hands of Dexter operating the lifts. Charlee is suddenly the sole caretaker for her little brother while their world falls apart. 
Dexter couldn’t be more different from Charlee. He’s tattooed, avoids exclusive relationships and his Dad has a fair share of illegal dealings. With Dexter’s reputation, almost everyone believes he planned the Mason’s skiing disaster.
And after all these years he’s still crushing on Charlee May, the girl who’s too good for him.
When this cruel twist of fate ties Charlee’s family and Dexter’s reputation together, Charlee and Dexter wonder if their feelings are reciprocated, while Dexter discovers his dad is trying to steal the May’s millionaire fortune. 
But like an addiction, one look, one touch, one taste—they’re hooked no matter the consequences.


Charlee

Dad and I look at each other at the same time and I need to speak first or else I’ll cop it, I know I will, and I need to explain that I was just being silly and I’m doing the best I can to be nice for Darcy.
However, getting in first, Dad says, “I’m never getting out of here.”
He doesn’t rub my shoulders or pull me to the bed so he can lean in, trembling with the effort, to kiss my forehead like he used to before a bedtime story. There’s no contact, no connection. 
I want my mom. I don’t want to be Darcy’s mom. 
There, I thought it. Did you hear that, Dad? I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready because Mom shouldn’t be dead and you’re not dead yet. You hear me?
He just says, “Charlee? You hear that?”
I bop my head up, left, down. It started as an I-don’t-know but I’m not sure what I did in the end. My brain didn’t compute his message. Refuses to compute it.
“Oh, Charlee.” Dad sighs a ragged breath. 
This shouldn’t have happened. My best friend Rosa’s dad isn’t like this, so why should mine be? My dad’s not even fifty and hers is fifty-five! Dad winces as he tries to push himself up in bed and it’s so feeble that I can’t watch the same man who used to pin me down and tickle me ‘til I had cramps of pain from laughing struggle like this. I can’t watch, so instead his grunts pierce my ears because I close my eyes. I clench my fists by my thighs until he stops making those God-awful sounds and…
And would you look at that! My father is sitting upright.
“My liver now isn’t—”
“Dad!” Darcy hooks his arm around the doorjamb and skids to a stop inside. He puts his hand to his chest and says, “She’s coming right now.”
“Okay, okay. Come here. Whoa, did she give you coffee?”
“No, I just came here as quick as I could, Dad. I promise she said she’ll come real soon.”
“You’ve done great. Come sit down.”
Darcy, smiling and satisfied with what he’s achieved for Dad, trots over to his chair and sits on the edge. He pulls out his handheld game from his pocket and starts jamming buttons. Then, apparently remembering something, pulls out his cell from his other pocket and starts texting.
Dad’s eyes say come here so I scoot closer.
“He’s a smart ki—” Dad starts, but footsteps are approaching our door. He says, “No tomfoolery with him. You tell him straight up, Charlee. You’re Melissa now and I am —”
“Walter!” someone says from the door.
It’s Lisa. She’s my favorite, because she sometimes has a sour candy for Darcy to suck on, and she always says how Dad’s improving, giving him smiles and pats on the back.
As Mom to Dexter, Lisa has the same shocking blue eyes as he does. She wiggles her hips at the door, fingering her pocket. She has a somewhat round face, whereas Dexter’s is square and bulging with veins and all that sexy stuff I could only dream of touching, but Lisa Hollingworth is cute, in a Mom way. I bet if Dexter never opened that potty mouth I used to hear while I ogled him from the sidelines of the football field he’d look like a Mama’s Boy, too. But when he opens that mouth, his voice is sex oozing from those luscious lips.
“Watermelon,” she says to Darcy.
Darcy drops his electronics on his chair as if they are plastic toys from a McDonald’s Happy Meal and grabs the twenty-cent candy from her. Shame, really. That kid doesn’t know value. But there’s something comforting in that; Darcy is still learning, and I guess I can still tell him our Dad is going to be fine.


5 e-book copies to be given INTERNATIONALLY! :)


Monday, May 13, 2013

[Book Review]: The Archived by Victoria Schwab

Title: The Archived
Series: the Archived #1
Author: Victoria Schwab
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Published on: January 22, 2013
Source: own copy (HB)

Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books.
Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures that only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.
Da first brought Mackenzie Bishop here four years ago, when she was twelve years old, frightened but determined to prove herself. Now Da is dead, and Mac has grown into what he once was, a ruthless Keeper, tasked with stopping often—violent Histories from waking up and getting out. Because of her job, she lies to the people she loves, and she knows fear for what it is: a useful tool for staying alive.
Being a Keeper isn’t just dangerous—it’s a constant reminder of those Mac has lost. Da’s death was hard enough, but now her little brother is gone too. Mac starts to wonder about the boundary between living and dying, sleeping and waking. In the Archive, the dead must never be disturbed. And yet, someone is deliberately altering Histories, erasing essential chapters. Unless Mac can piece together what remains, the Archive itself might crumble and fall.
In this haunting, richly imagined novel, Victoria Schwab reveals the thin lines between past and present, love and pain, trust and deceit, unbearable loss and hard-won redemption.


     Never in my life have I imagined this thought question: what if memories of every person who ever lived in this world are stored in a certain place, like a library, only not in a form of a book, but their actual bodies? Creepy and haunting idea, I know.

 When I first read about the summary of this book (last year), I was curious and crazed with 
the idea of the plot. It was original and certainly unique from the usual themes I've read from other paranormal books. And then I read lots of good and rave reviews, and i just knew i had to read it! I got it in ebook at first, when it finally came out (as that way's faster) but then i had so many ebooks and books to read at hand... Then it just got shoved in the way. But now! I finally figured out a way to schedule and lineup my books to-read, and finally! I knew I had to finally read the Archived, because I just bought the hardcopy, and i shouldn't really waste my money,lol.

     But all those thoughts came to a stop when I started reading the Archived. I was so busy this week with paperworks and lots of numbers, then I got sick..but but but I'm finally finished with the book and I am so astounded by the story. It was just so full of secrets and lies and mystery and add all those to the creepy ambience of the setting. Everything was so put together, and the new 'innovative' concepts that Victoria Schwab brought me in to is not hard to understand and grasp. 

     Mackenzie is a Keeper, and her job is to return "Histories" back whenever they woke up (for reasons such as minor disturbances, light 'sleepers', etc) and roam around the "Narrow", which is the space between the Archive and the real world outside. "Histories" are the perfect copies of people who already passed away. In short, every dead people's memories are well kept, in a place called the "Archive", and not in papers but in perfect copies of their bodies when they were still alive. 

     When the book started , Mac is already a keeper and she's been doing it for 4 years now. What makes the "now" the center of the story is because "now", she has more reasons to want to wake up a History, her recently dead brother, Ben. Plus, there are all these mysterious blackouts and weird disturbances in the Archive. Something wrong is definitely happening, and the curious one in her is just too smart (or not smart) to let it go.

     The sequence of events just rounded me about, I didn't expect the events only transpired in days and not in months. I loved every bit of it and I was always on the edge of my seat. Loved loved it! Can't wait for the Undone (#2) :)



Sunday, May 12, 2013

Sunday Blessings #50



 

Sunday Blessings is weekly meme here on Coffee, Books and Me, featuring the stuffs I got this week and the summary of what happened in the blog for the week plus a quick look of what I’ve read this week, and the books I plan to read the next week :) This is inspired by In My Mailbox by The Story Siren and The Sunday Post by Kimba from The Caffeinated Book Reviewer.

This week I got...

bookmarks from Alma Katsu, Chelsea Pitcher and 

The Taker by Alma Katsu
The REckoning (#2) by Alma Katsu
and look, I have a note from the author! sweeeeet! :)

Canary by Rachele Alpine





via Netgalley:
Ink by Amanda Sun

The S-word by Chelsea Pitcher 
(I was part of the tour too! i Just dl-ed the e-galley late,lol)

via Edelweiss:

Just like Fate by Cat Patrick and Suzanne Young

*Thanks to Author Alma Katsu, Medallion Press, Simon & Schuster, Harlequin Teen and Chelsea Pitcher! :)

So excited to read these books! But of course I have to put them on my looong list of To-read books.

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday


Read THIS WEEK:

The Archived by Victoria Schwab
The Year of the Great Seventh by Teresa Orts
Click to Subscribe by LM Augustine


TO-READ NEXT WEEK




Taste by Kate Evangelista
Where’d You go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple
Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner
Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
Wicked Kiss by Michelle Rowen (eARC)
Born of Illusion by Teri Brown (eARC)

That’s me this week. :)

Share yours on the comments below! Would love to check out your mailbox too! :)

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