In My Mailbox / 9 Books

thanks to Alea and The Story Siren for IMM :)

RD = Release Date (just in case you're curious)

hola! hello how are you this fine day? remember to come back next weekend for IMM because it will be HUGE! I'll end up posting on Sunday though. I wonder how many books I'll get 30? 40? I got these many books at the same event last time.

Trades:

Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles <--was on my tbr list forever! Thanks for the trade Jess from Lost In A Book.
RD: 2008

A fresh, urban twist on the classic tale of star-crossed lovers.

When Brittany Ellis walks into chemistry class on the first day of senior year, she has no clue that her carefully created “perfect” life is about to unravel before her eyes. She’s forced to be lab partners with Alex Fuentes, a gang member from the other side of town, and he is about to threaten everything she's worked so hard for—her flawless reputation, her relationship with her boyfriend, and the secret that her home life is anything but perfect. Alex is a bad boy and he knows it. So when he makes a bet with his friends to lure Brittany into his life, he thinks nothing of it. But soon Alex realizes Brittany is a real person with real problems, and suddenly the bet he made in arrogance turns into something much more.

In a passionate story about looking beneath the surface, Simone Elkeles breaks through the stereotypes and barriers that threaten to keep Brittany and Alex apart.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (yes he recently wrote Wild Things which I've been wanting to read forever!)

RD: 2001

Well, this was when Bill was sighing a lot. He had decided that after our parents died he just didn't want any more fighting between what was left of us. He was twenty-four, Beth was twenty-three, I was twenty-one, Toph was eight, and all of us were so tried already, from that winter. So when something world come up, any little thing, some bill to pay or decision to make, he would just sigh, his eyes tired, his mouth in a sorry kind of smile. But Beth and I...Jesus, we were fighting with everyone, anyone, each other, with strangers at bars, anywhere -- we were angry people wanting to exact revenge. We came to California and we wanted everything, would take what was ours, anything within reach. And I decided that little Toph and I, he with his backward hat and long hair, living together in our little house in Berkeley, would be world-destroyers. We inherited each other and, we felt, a responsibility to reinvent everything, to scoff and re-create and drive fast while singing loudly and pounding the windows. It was a hopeless sort of exhilaration, a kind of arrogance born of fatalism, I guess, of the feeling that if you could lose a couple of parents in a month, then basically anything could happen, at any time -- all bullets bear your name, all cars are there to crush you, any balcony could give way; more disaster seemed only logical. And then, as in Dorothy's dream, all these people I grew up with were there, too, some of them orphans also, most but not all of us believing that what we had been given was extraordinary, that it was time to tear or break down, ruin, remake, take and devour. This was San Francisco, you know, and everyone had some dumb idea -- I mean, wicca? -- and no one there would tell you yours was doomed. Thus the public nudity, and this ridiculous magazine, and the Real World tryout, all this need, most of it disguised by sneering, but all driven by a hyper-awareness of this window, I guess, a few years when your muscles are taut, coiled up and vibrating. But what to do with the energy? I mean, when we drive, Toph and I, and we drive past people, standing on top of all these hills, part of me wants to stop the car and turn up the radio and have us all dance in formation, and part of me wants to run them all over.




Won:


Thanks again (for the following three wins) Jani from YA Addict! 
Some Girls Are by Courtney Summmers <--I love her writing! I recently read Cracked Up To Be and I enjoyed reading it quite a bit. Curiouser and curiouser about this author! Check out her site btw she's extremely entertaining. 

Climbing to the top of the social ladder is hard—falling from it is even harder. Regina Afton used to be a member of the Fearsome Fivesome, an all-girl clique both feared and revered by the students at Hallowell High... until vicious rumors about her and her best friend's boyfriend start going around. Now Regina's been "frozen out" and her ex-best friends are out for revenge. If Regina was guilty, it would be one thing, but the rumors are far from the terrifying truth and the bullying is getting more intense by the day. She takes solace in the company of Michael Hayden, a misfit with a tragic past who she herself used to bully. Friendship doesn't come easily for these onetime enemies, and as Regina works hard to make amends for her past, she realizes Michael could be more than just a friend... if threats from the Fearsome Foursome don't break them both first.

Tensions grow and the abuse worsens as the final days of senior year march toward an explosive conclusion in this dark new tale from the author of Cracked Up To Be.


The Girls by Tucker Shaw
RD: 2010

Meet Mary: She’s beautiful, and her ski-star boyfriend is cheating on her.

 

Meet Crystal: She’s a townie, and she’s cheating with Mary’s boyfriend.

 

Meet Sylvia: She’s nasty, and she’s got something up her Prada-designed sleeve.

 

Meet Amber: She’s a flake, she’s the barista at the hottest coffee shop in Aspen, and she serves up gossip even hotter than grande skim lattes.

 

Meet Peggy: She’s Mary’s best friend, and she has no idea how to cope with all these girls.

 

A modern retelling of the classic play The Women (which featured not one male in the cast), The Girls is a quick-witted, stylish comedy about friendship, love, and most important, gossip! An elite Aspen prep school sets the stage for jealousy and intrigue as the lives of many girls tangle into a wickedly fun mess (in which no boys ever appear).

What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell

RD: 2008

Evie slowly finds herself caught in a complicated web of lies in this brilliant mystery that won the 2008 National Book Award for Young People's Literature.


Won this one over at Debbie's Book Bag, thanks again!!

Here Burns My Candle by Liz Curtis Higgs
RD: 2010

A mother who cannot face her future.

A daughter who cannot escape her past.

Lady Elisabeth Kerr is a keeper of secrets. A Highlander by birth and a Lowlander by marriage, she turns to the auld ways, desperate to conceal a generations-old scandal that taints her family's name.

Her husband, Lord Donald, has secrets of his own, well hidden from the household, yet whispered among the town gossips. Elisabeth cannot--must not--discover the truth, or all will be ruined.

His mother, the dowager Lady Marjory, hides gold beneath her floor and guilt inside her heart. Though her two abiding passions are maintaining her place in society and coddling her grown sons, Marjory's many regrets, buried in Greyfriars Churchyard, continue to plague her.

One by one the Kerr family secrets begin to surface, even as bonny Prince Charlie and his rebel army ride into Edinburgh in September 1745, intent on capturing the crown. 

A timeless..

Gifts from a friend! She is super duper btw!

Burned by Ellen Hopkins --read it in approx. 5 hrs. Golly gee it is amazing! I love how EH completely shocked me with a certain sad event. It seemed to come out of nowhere, but that's how life is and I loved how she managed to make it seem just like that.
RD: 2007

Raised in a stern, abusive Mormon household, a teenage girl starts to question her religion and struggles to find her destiny.

Her father is abusive, her mother is submissive, and her church looks the other way. Confused and angry, Pattyn Von Stratten acts out and is sent to live with an aunt on a Nevada ranch. She finds the love and acceptance she craves, with disturbing consequences.

Impulse by Ellen Hopkins --currently reading it ;)

RD: 2008

Three teens who have attempted suicide meet in a psychiatric hospital, battle their demons, and begin to heal.

The handsome son of wealthy parents, Connor has everything anyone could want—except his family’s love and affection. Jailed for years after killing his mother’s child-molesting boyfriend, Tony is confused about his sexuality. Manic-depressive Vanessa cuts herself. All three stories intertwine in a brutally honest story about pain and resilience.

For Review:

Still Missing by Chevy Stevens
RD: July 6, 2010

On the day she was abducted, Annie O’Sullivan, a thirty-two-year-old realtor, had three goals — sell a house, forget about a recent argument with her mother, and be on time for dinner with her ever-patient boyfriend. The open house is slow, but when her last visitor pulls up in a van as she's about to leave, Annie thinks it just might be her lucky day after all.

Interwoven with the story of the year Annie spent as the captive of a psychopath in a remote mountain cabin, which unfolds through sessions with her psychiatrist, is a second narrative recounting events following her escape — her struggle to piece her shattered life back together and the ongoing police investigation into the identity of her captor.

The truth doesn’t always set you free.

Still Missing is that rare debut find – a shocking, visceral, brutal, and beautifully crafted novel.