Forgive My Fins

author: Tera Lynn Childs

published: June 1st 2010

series: Untitled, but yes!

publisher: HarperTeen

format: hardcover

pages: 293

The following synopsis comes from Tera Lynn Childs's website.

Lily Sanderson has a secret, and it's not that she has a huge crush on gorgeous swimming god Brody Bennett, who makes her heart beat flipper-fast. Unrequited love is hard enough when you're a normal teenage girl, but when you're half human, half mermaid, like Lily, there's no such thing as a simple crush.

Lily's mermaid identity is a secret that can't get out, since she's not just any mermaid—she's a Thalassinian princess. When Lily found out three years ago that her mother was actually a human, she finally realized why she didn't feel quite at home in Thalassinia, and she's been living on land and going to Seaview High School ever since, hoping to find where she truly belongs. Sure, land has its problems—like her obnoxious biker-boy neighbor, Quince Fletcher—but it has that one major perk: Brody. The problem is, mermaids aren't really the casual dating type—the instant they "bond," it's for life.

When Lily's attempt to win Brody's love leads to a tsunami-sized case of mistaken identity, she is in for a tidal wave of relationship drama, and she finds out, quick as a tailfin flick, that happily ever after never sails quite as smoothly as you planned.

My Thoughts:

The Cover: I think the cover is just beautiful. It's full of vibrant colors and the font of the title is really cool; it looks like it belongs to the sea. The title is surrounded by waves and it looks as if the girl is breathing the words onto the cover. It's quite pretty. I like that her lips are blue. It caught my eye when I saw it online and I immediately added it to my 2010-release list!

The Book: Lily Sanderson is a mermaid princess- something I wish I could be. So it's not surprise that I loved this book. She spends her time pursuing the gorgeous Brody, who she believes would make the perfect mermate. He's pretty much the typical hottie that only sees the superficial. Then there's Quince, the neighbor. I love him! He's so funny and so many quips that he just throws out. He's really funny and even though he picks on Lily, it's clear from the beginning (ish) that he really does like her and care for her; they're friends! But Lily doesn't think so. She only sees him as the kid next door that wants to make her life miserable. But he only does it because he cares.

Thalassinia is one awesome kingdom. I had so much fun visiting it with Lily and Tera Lynn Childs made this fantastic place so real and beautiful. It's a well thought out kingdom and has everything they could need. It's an awesome place!

While the book is some-what predictable, it still delivers. I had a fun time reading it and can't wait for the sequel, Fins are Forever!

Also, feel free to add this to your blog page if you would like to become an honorary merfolk!

The one you may see on my page (left, somewhere) is only for Official Splash Team Members, but if you'd like to become one of us, click the picture and read all about it! But there are a limited number of spaces left!

Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

author: Morgan Matson

published: May 4th 2010

publisher: Simon & Schuster

format: hardcover

pages: 343

The following synopsis comes from Goodreads.com

Amy Curry thinks her life sucks. Her mom decides to move from California to Connecticut to start anew--just in time for Amy's senior year. Her dad recently died in a car accident. So Amy embarks on a road trip to escape from it all, driving cross-country from the home she's always known toward her new life. Joining Amy on the road trip is Roger, the son of Amy's mother's old friend. Amy hasn't seen him in years, and she is less than thrilled to be driving across the country with a guy she barely knows. So she's surprised to find that she is developing a crush on him. At the same time, she's coming to terms with her father's death and how to put her own life back together after the accident. Told in traditional narrative as well as scraps from the road--diner napkins, motel receipts, postcards--this is the story of one girl's journey to find herself.

My Thoughts:

The Cover:

The cover accurately portrays Amy & Roger's Epic Detour. From this cover and the title, you can tell that they're going on some kind of adventure. I like that the mountains are the background for the cover. And I really like that they're on the road standing on either side of the yellow lines. That's really cute!

The Book:

This book is full of adventure. I've always wanted to take a road trip and Amy and Roger do it right. This detour of a road trip not only takes them all over the U.S., but they meet people and open up. Both Amy and Roger have some baggage and I don't mean their suitcases. Together they embark on an adventure that helps them sort through the extra baggage and relieve some of the weight. The story is written in such a way, that the reader does not really understand what the extra baggage is until the characters are able to reveal it to each other and even themselves. This definitely adds to the excitement and plot of the story. It is an easy read, but it is not simple. It is full of real issues that these people have to deal with and it's truly an epic read.

This is one of the best road trips I have ever been on!

EDIT: I can't stop thinking about this book. It's amazing. It was so, so incredibly good. I can't even describe it in any other way. It's so great!

Beastly - The Movie

A while back, I read Beastly by Alex Flinn. (before I had a blog) In March of 2011 the movie based on this book will be released and I am very much looking forward to seeing this film.

The book is a modern take on the classic Beauty and the Beast which is one of my favorites. So, I suddenly thought about checking in on the movie and came across the poster which looks AWESOME!

It stars Vanessa Hudgens, Alex Pettyfer, and Neil Patrick Harris. (I love Neil, Alex is extremely good looking and therefore great for the part though I have not seen him in anything, and Vanessa. . . well, I'll just have to see how she does in this film before I make any comment.)

I'm going to write a review of the book in honor of the release of the movie. I don't know when I'll do this review. But here is the poster!

Reading With Tequila Giveaway!

Reading with Tequila is doing an incredible giveaway! Check it out here. This awesome giveaway is in honor of reaching 750 followers and as the number increases before the deadline for the contest, more books and winners will be added! This is an amazing chance to win some great books! SO be sure to check it out, fill out the form, post about it, and tweet about it!

Please click the link and enter and follow! It's too great an opportunity to miss!

How to Say Goodbye in Robot

author: Natalie Standiford

published: October 1st 2009

publisher: Scholastic Press

format: hardcover

pages: 276

The following synopsis comes from Goodreads.com

New to town, Beatrice is expecting her new best friend to be one of the girls she meets on the first day. But instead, the alphabet conspires to seat her next to Jonah, aka Ghost Boy, a quiet loner who hasn't made a new friend since third grade. Something about him, though, gets to Bea, and soon they form an unexpected friendship. It's not romance, exactly - but it's definitely love. Still, Bea can't quite dispel Jonah's gloom and doom - and as she finds out his family history, she understands why. Can Bea help Jonah? Or is he destined to vanish?

My Thoughts:

The Cover:

I absolutely love this cover. It caught my attention immediately; it's not often you see a bright, hot pink cover. And the phone dangling on the side? That just piqued my interest even more. I soon read a review by Maggie Stiefvater on the book and I finally got my hands on it. My favorite part about the cover is not actually the cover itself. It's how the cover makes its way inside the book. The monthly dividers inside the book are on HOT pink paper. It looks awesome! And a few pages in the beginning and one in the end are black. They look so cool! It's not a typical thing in books and it is way awesome! The phone also relates to the book. Which is cool.

The Book:

Amazing. How to Say Goodbye in Robot is about a girl, Bea, who is forced into a new school where she meets outcast Jonah, or Ghost Boy. Jonah hasn't had friends in a really long time and he lets her into his world very easily and Bea becomes closer to him than she has ever been to another person. Even family.

I have never read a book like this before. It is utterly original and completely touching. I became addicted to this book from the first page and when I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about Ghost Boy and Robot Girl. Wondering where they would go and how the book would end. It was fantastic. I highly recommend this to everyone, especially someone looking for a different, honest, unpredictable story about realistic teenagers.

The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove

author: Lauren Kate

published: November 12th 2009

publisher: Penguin Books

format: paperback

pages: 235

The following synopsis comes from the back of the book!

What she wanted:

Natalie Hargrove wants one thing and one thing only- to be her high school's Palmetto Princess. Among the Southern Belles, a.k.a. Bambies, competing for the crown, she's by far the most beautiful, and the most deserving. Or so she thinks.

The catch:

Her boyfriend, Mike King, is on the brink of losing Palmetto Prince to Nat's nasty nemesis Justin Balmer. And let's just say Natalie and Justin have a history so shady it could wither flowers. Sure, Natalie could share the throne with Justin-over her dead body.

The trick:

So Nat convinces Mike to help her play a naughty little prank on Justin . . . just to make him look bad. Little do they know, their plan is about to go terribly, terribly wrong.

The fatal flaw:

Natalie and Mike desperately try to cover up what happened to Justin. But blackmail and buried desire, dark secrets and even darker deeds slowly begin to tear them apart. Because as it turns out, fate is the one thing more twisted than Natalie Hargrove.

My Thoughts:

The Cover:

This time, the cover is not what caught my interest. I had read Fallen by Lauren Kate and when I saw on her website that she had another novel, I decided to read it. The cover did not make me want to read it, but the synopsis did. The cover is not the type of cover I would pick out in a store and want to read, although it does make me wonder what the story is about. And then the title, The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove definitely piqued my interest. The text on the cover looks really nice. I really like that the cover people used the two different fonts.

The Book:

Natalie Hargrove is the type of girl that I hate. She seems to have everything. The hot boyfriend, looks, popularity, and money, among other things. But she also has that, higher than thou attitude. She KNOWS that she's gorgeous and popular and she uses that and she treats people badly because she feels that she can. I usually don't even like to READ about this kind of girl. But Lauren Kate's writing of this story put me on Natalie's side. I was routing for her throughout the novel.

The prologue and epilogue are written as if they are talking to YOU. I love that, I think it helps the reader understand Nat more.

This story is nothing like I've ever experienced. As far as I am aware, my high school was not like this at all! It was fun to see into a society like that of Palmetto, especially through the eyes of the character Natalie. She was not always a part of this group and that could be a contributing factor to why I don't hate her completely. I think Natalie is a character that I hate to love. She puts so much into how her other people perceive her. Appearance and popularity are the most important things to her, which I, personally, just don't get.

It was really fun to see into this type of world, a world I will never belong in! But by reading it from Nat's point of view, I did belong, if only for a little while.

It was definitely worth reading.

A New Beautiful Darkness Cover?

Over on Castergirls.com, they have posted about a NEW cover for Beautiful Darkness, the sequel to Beautiful Creatures! Now, at first I was angry. But after comparing them, I've decided I like this new one more.

So, here, for your viewing pleasure, is the NEW Beautiful Darkness cover:

This is the old cover:

So, here are the reasons I like the new cover (above) more than the old cover (left).

The text color on the old cover is darker and I think the lighter just looks better with the black. Now, this could just have something to do with the screen or whatever. The lighter color stands out more and looks less flat, even though it is.

I am not a huge fan of the "sparkles" in the sky. To be honest, they look sort of lame here. Maybe if they were done differently. Maybe they'd look better on the actual cover, in person than they do on a computer version.

However, I am a HUGE fan of the gate. I think it's pretty and just really cool. The steps on the new cover are creepy and fill the background which looks really nice. It looks more real as well. The gate across the bottom with stars or sparkles in the sky just looks fake. It's awkward. There is too much empty space in the old one. Sometimes it's okay, but here I don't like it.

I feel that the steps look better with the Beautiful Creatures cover (right). The trees take up almost the entire background and fill up a lot of space. The space is also filled in the new cover with the steps. Overall, I am very happy with the new cover and really hope this one sticks.

Beautiful Darkness is set for

release on October 26th 2010!

The Snowball Effect

author: Holly Nicole Hoxter

published: March 23rd 2010

publisher: HarperTeen

format: Hardcover

pages: 368 pages

genre: fiction

The following synopsis comes from Holly's website.

Lainey Pike can tell you everything you need to know about the people in her family just by letting you know how they died. Her reckless stepfather drove his motorcycle off the highway and caused the biggest traffic jam in years. Her long-suffering grandmother lived through cancer and a heart attack before finally succumbing to a stroke. And Lainey's mother--well, Lainey's mother hanged herself in the basement just days after Lainey's high school graduation.

Now Lainey's five-year-old brother is an orphan, and her estranged older sister is moving back home to be his guardian. Meanwhile, Lainey's boyfriend is thinking about having a family of their own, and her best friends are always asking the wrong sorts of questions and giving advice Lainey doesn't want to hear. As she tries to pull away from everything familiar, Lainey meets an intriguing new guy who, through a series of Slurpees, burgers, and snowballs, helps her to make peace with a parent she never understood.

My Thoughts:

The Cover:

I think this cover is adorable! It is definitely eye catching and I think most people have stacked cups before. So, that made me curious to what it was about. And it's clear from the title that things aren't going well and just "snowball" out of control. I think the cover shows that well. The stack is falling over. It would've been easy to have some winter scene on the cover, but this is original. I haven't seen a cover like it before.

The Book:

I don't usually go for books about a teenager with serious problems. I'd rather read about fictional series problems, like an entire world is at risk if she doesn't help them out. I think I prefer not to read about "real-life" situations. Lainey's mother died and that's something I don't even want to think about. The Snowball Effect was different, or at least not what I expected a book like this to be.

The book, despite its serious content, it made me laugh out loud. It has both drama and comedy, which I believe is important in any good novel. Too much of one thing gets old. This book was surprisingly funny. My favorite scenes involve crayons. ;)

Holly made me understand the characters, particularly Lainey, and I really cared about them. I wanted everything to work out from the beginning. Now, I suppose that's normal, but these characters were all so lovely and I eagerly made my way through it to find out what happens to them.

This is a great debut and I can't wait to see what else Holly Nicole Hoxter has in store!

Winter's Passage

Winter's Passage is a free novella from Julie Kagawa. It's only available as an eBook and I suggest downloading it here.

The Iron King is the first in the Iron Fey series. It's fantastic!

I highly recommend it to faerie lovers everywhere.

It takes place after The Iron King so you probably shouldn't read it until you read The Iron King.

The next novel in the series is The Iron Daughter which will be released August of this year! :D