BEA-Yootiful! 2015

WOOO, IT'S BEA TIME!!!

El Blogo's been pretty quiet lately, and sadly, it's going to be quiet for a little while longer, because life has gotten quite a bit LOUDER! For those of you who don't know, Book Expo America is this week, and I'm in New York City, getting ready to attend my third BEA. I should feel like an old pro, and in some ways, I do, but this year they're apparently changing LOTS of things, so it's going to be interesting to figure it out. But I get to see TONS of blogger and publishing friends, enjoy this BEA-yootiful weather, eat lots of food, and most of all, get LOTS of books.

If the Books on My Shelves Were People

This is less a discussion and more some fun nonsense sparked from a conversation I had with Sana on Twitter:

@artsymusings omg "If Books Were People/Had Personalities" I want to write this post now

— Gillian Berry (@mizgillianberry) May 17, 2015

I asked if a book could be your best friend (because Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda basically is) and Sana said OF COURSE because The Dream Thievesis her best friend. Which started me thinking what if books really WERE your best friend? Or just people you knew? What would the personality of each book be if it were a person?

So I decided to pretend all my books are people. Because I'm not already too attached to them.

Unreviewed Reads: Simon vs. a Middle School Princess

Man, am I so TERRIBLY behind on reviews! Let's do this fast and dirty. (Edit: ended up being neither fast nor dirty. I'm not great at the whole "mini review" concept. I had planned to knock out like ten books here, damn it! Sigh.)

How to Deal When Your Favorite Books and Shows Get Pushed Back

You know that feeling. You have the date marked on your calendar from the moment you finish the previous book. Winter by Marissa Meyer! Cress came out in January of 2014, so Winter is due in January of 2015! And omg Blue Lily, Lily Blue was SOSOSO GOOD and it came out in October 2014 so The Raven King will drop into my life like a glorious, life-destroying asteroid (meteorite??) in October 2015 omg can i SURVIVE THE WAIT??? And GAH, The 100, aka the greatest way your soul will ever be crushed, last obliterated my heart in March 2015, but that's okay, because The CW's new season begins in October 2015! not that long.

Yeah.

Nope.

Review: The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

Review: The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh
Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes and Noble | The Book Depository
Series: Yes, #1 in The Wrath and the Dawn series
Release date: May 12th, 2015
Publisher: Putnam (Penguin)
Length: 304 pages
Source: ARC from ALAMW15
Rating: In my top five reads of the year. Romantic, magical, dark, and dangerous. ALL THE THINGS.



A sumptuous and epically told love story inspired by A Thousand and One Nights

Every dawn brings horror to a different family in a land ruled by a killer. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, takes a new bride each night only to have her executed at sunrise. So it is a suspicious surprise when sixteen-year-old Shahrzad volunteers to marry Khalid. But she does so with a clever plan to stay alive and exact revenge on the Caliph for the murder of her best friend and countless other girls. Shazi's wit and will, indeed, get her through to the dawn that no others have seen, but with a catch . . . she’s falling in love with the very boy who killed her dearest friend.

She discovers that the murderous boy-king is not all that he seems and neither are the deaths of so many girls. Shazi is determined to uncover the reason for the murders and to break the cycle once and for all.


You. GUYS. THIS BOOK. IT'S JUST... 



I've been looking forward to it so much that I basically (gently, kindly, respectfully) harassed a very generous Penguin booth official at ALA Midwinter for an ARC of this, because I knew I had to have a twisted, magical, romantic retelling of 1001 Nights in my life. The cover, the concept, the everything of it-- I had to have it. I brought the book with me to vacation in Mexico and let my friend Christina read it. When she started gasping and whimpering and squeeing at about...oh, I don't know, page thirty or so, I realized I was going to have to start it the moment she finished.

I was obsessed with this book.

Unpopular Opinions Tag

I saw Bekka and Christina do this thing so I DECIDED TO DO THIS THING because if all my friends jumped off a cliff I would also definitely jump off a cliff

Review: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Review: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
Goodreads
Release date: May 5th, 2015
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Length: 304 pages
Source: ARC from the publisher
Rating: Better than the first Throne of Glass *throws down gauntlet* I SAID IT. It's like if Cruel Beauty and Throne of Glass had a baby and that baby grew up to write Fifty Shades of Grimm and I don't even know what I'm saying anymore.



A thrilling, seductive new series from New York Times bestselling author Sarah J. Maas, blending Beauty and the Beast with faerie lore.

When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a beast-like creature arrives to demand retribution for it. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin—one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled their world.

As she dwells on his estate, her feelings for Tamlin transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie and warning she's been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But an ancient, wicked shadow grows over the faerie lands, and Feyre must find a way to stop it . . . or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.

Perfect for fans of Kristin Cashore and George R. R. Martin, this first book in a sexy and action-packed new series is impossible to put down!


A Court of Faerie and Tale
There are two things I love dearly in this world (well, more than two, but these are two of them): fairy tale-related things, and Sarah J. Maas books. Sarah was kind enough to mash these things up for me (THANKS, SARAH) by retelling my all-time favorite fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast. Of course, she did it in typical Sarah fashion, which means it's dark, bloody, sensual, and completely, one hundred percent seductive. I read this book in a passioned frenzy, which means I'm really not the most objective of reviewers right now, because most of what I can remember from it is OMGOMGOMG. SQUEE.

Book Haul, or the One in Which My Shelves Overfloweth

It's a been while, so this is going to be a doozy. Buckle in, kids.