Waiting on Wednesday

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. It spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. ^_^

I have two to provide this week too ^_^ that I’m highly anticipating!

 The Pledge by Kimberly Derting to be published November 15th 2011. 


Words are the most dangerous weapon of all.

In the violent country of Ludania, the classes are strictly divided by the language they speak. The smallest transgression, like looking a member of a higher class in the eye while they are speaking their native tongue, results in immediate execution. Seventeen-year-old Charlaina has always been able to understand the languages of all classes, and she’s spent her life trying to hide her secret. The only place she can really be free is the drug-fueled underground clubs where people go to shake off the oppressive rules of the world they live in. It's there that she meets a beautiful and mysterious boy named Max who speaks a language she's never heard before . . . and her secret is almost exposed.

Charlie is intensely attracted to Max, even though she can’t be sure where his real loyalties lie. As the emergency drills give way to real crisis and the violence escalates, it becomes clear that Charlie is the key to something much bigger: her country’s only chance for freedom from the terrible power of a deadly regime.

 And the second choice of the day is:

Article 5 by Kristen Simmons to be published on Valentines Day next year. 

New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC have been abandoned.

The Bill of Rights has been revoked, and replaced with the Moral Statutes.

There are no more police — instead, there are soldiers. There are no more fines for bad behavior — instead, there are arrests, trials, and maybe worse. People who get arrested don’t usually come back.

17-year-old Ember Miller is old enough to remember that things weren’t always this way. Living with her rebellious single mother, it’s hard to forget that people weren’t always arrested for reading the wrong books or staying out after dark. That life in the United States used to be different.

In the three years since the war ended, Ember has perfected the art of keeping a low profile. She knows how to get the things she needs, like food stamps and hand-me-down clothes, and how to pass the random home inspections by the Federal Bureau of Reformation. Her life is as close to peaceful as circumstances allow. That is, until her mother is arrested for noncompliance with Article 5 of the Moral Statutes. And what’s worse, one of the arresting officers is none other than Chase Jennings…the only boy Ember has ever loved.

New books are so awesome! I wonder what I'll dig up next week. ^_^

Writing, Writing

So I'm writing a novel. Ha. Name me a dedicated book lover that doesn't dream of doing so. Anyway, I thought for the fun of it, to post like a back of the book blurb or the in the inside of the book jacket. ^_^ It's a work in progress, I'm partial to comments and constructive criticism. 

Her teachers were the Archangels.  Her guards the seraphim.  She wanted nothing more than to be normal. To go to school with other kids, to make friends, to LIVE, but every year she was denied. Her home was a cage. She did nothing without someone. Every six months they moved. Every six months the seraphim grew more agitated. Whatever was chasing them was getting closer with each move.

What they didn’t tell her...

The archangels taught so she could protect herself if the seraphim failed. The seraphim guarded against a darkness that she’d never known... her father. She held something he wanted. Something it took the Choir of Seraphim a thousand years to safely transfer from one to the other. With each passing year it grew more hers then his. To keep it, she had to survive until her eighteenth birthday. Once she reached majority it was hers forever. This was the final year and he’s finally found her. 

Wow that's a lot of words looking at it this way. Hm... wonder if I should cut it down...

Book Review: Love Story

Love Story

Author: Jennifer Echols

Publish Date: July 19th 2011

Publisher: MTV Books

She's writing about him. He’s writing about her. And everybody is reading between the lines..

For Erin Blackwell, majoring in creative writing at the New York City college of her dreams is more than a chance to fulfill her ambitions--it's her ticket away from the tragic memories that shadow her family's racehorse farm in Kentucky. But when she refuses to major in business and take over the farm herself someday, her grandmother gives Erin's college tuition and promised inheritance to their maddeningly handsome stable boy, Hunter Allen. Now Erin has to win an internship and work late nights at a coffee shop to make her own dreams a reality. She should despise Hunter . . . so why does he sneak into her thoughts as the hero of her latest writing assignment?

Then, on the day she's sharing that assignment with her class, Hunter walks in. He's joining her class. And after he reads about himself in her story, her private fantasies about him must be painfully clear. She only hopes to persuade him not to reveal her secret to everyone else. But Hunter devises his own creative revenge, writing sexy stories that drive the whole class wild with curiosity and fill Erin's heart with longing. Now she's not just imagining what might have been. She's writing a whole new ending for her romance with Hunter . . . except this story could come true. (From GoodReads)

Everyone loves a New York City romance right? It’s not like it’s been done before in several million different versions. There’s not many more ways to describe the city or it’s plethora of its inhabitants... is there?

The story is traveling through college in the eyes of Erin, a Kentucky raised English major. She’s struggling, though completely by choice. The price people pay for pride is well known and I do admire her for sticking with her goals and not letting anything or anyone decide for her what she is or isn’t going to do. Although to be poor enough to measure a cell phone bill by how many packs of ramen I could get from that money is a bit harsh. There’s poor and then there’s disturbingly poor. (For the record she says a cell phone would cost 200 packs of ramen. O_o I hope to never eat that much ramen in my lifetime let alone a month.) She has had a lot of jobs in five months, not by choice but rather by necessities. Her life is hard, but not nearly as hard as it could be considering how hard she’s working. Count your blessings so to speak and she does for the most part. 

Enter shining white knight Hunter. Whom, I actually don’t overly like. He’s too... close to perfect to be a likeable character for me. He’s pretty and charming and gets along with everyone... except our heroine of course since at every opportunity they’re fighting about her inheritance, or rather, lack thereof. He’s a curious mix of hot and cold depending on situation that is maddening. Either you do or you don’t and he’s obviously torn enough over something (I won’t tell) to not know exactly what he wants. Yet.

The story is an entertaining toss of he said she said. It’s done in such a unique way I don’t notice the chapters rolling by as I change pages. What Erin says and how Hunter counters is the most unique dance of boy likes girl that I’ve ever read. 

The story ends rather abruptly. I feel as if there’s a chapter or two missing. While I understand why it just stopped the way it did, I don’t like it. There’s not any closure to the ending, or even any definite idea if anything is actually resolved I’d have liked a confrontation with Erin’s grandmother, or at the very least a complete resolution between Hunter and Erin. The characters are left in the middle of repairing the damage and we’re left without knowing if it does completely resolve. 

My Rating: