A Kiss in Time by Alex Flinn

Princess Talia of Euphrasia was given many fairy gifts at birth including beauty, intelligence, and charm, but she was also given a curse. Before her sixteenth birthday she would prick herself on a spindle and fall asleep until her true love kissed her. Naturally her parents don’t want this to happen to their precious daughter and they annihilate all spindles from their tiny country. Alas though, regardless of their precautions Talia still manages to find a spindle on the eve of her sixteenth birthday and falls into a deep sleep.

Three hundred years later, Jack and his friend Travis are on a month long summer tour of Europe and are honestly sick and tired of visiting museum after museum. One morning they get up with the intention of finding a beach, but end up finding Euphrasia, frozen in time. While exploring Jack stumbles upon Talia, beautiful as ever and he can’t help but kiss her. And that’s the mistake he made.

Talia wakes up, as does the kingdom, believing that Jack is her true love, after all he did wake her, and having a hard time coming to terms that three hundred years have passed. Nonetheless she is eager to start her new life with Jack, even though he has no interest in marrying her, as he is still only seventeen. Wanting to explore the world Talia sneaks off with Jack and they return to Jack’s home in Miami, where Talia learns what it is like to be a “normal” teenager in the 21^st century!

This book is too cute! While it is very fluffy, the story is heartwarming and fun, which makes the story very likeable. I loved how Alex Flinn took a normal fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty, and transformed it into a modern day love story.

At the beginning the characters were quite underdeveloped and just seemed to be there with no personality and lacking direction. As the story progressed though they became much more real and the story became so much better. Jack had to deal with a lot especially his parents not believing and accepting him. They pushed him to do things just to pad his college application even though he hated doing them and nothing he wanted was good enough for his parents. This is definitely an issue that real teens face and I commend Alex Flinn for working that issue, and how sometimes teens misinterpret it, because it really shows that you really can do what you want to do. In Talia’s case she was very whiny at the beginning, but as she got to know Jack more she became more of a real character and much more appealing to the audience.

Overall this book is a light read that would satisfy a craving for a good fairy tale and of course a little romance. It was fun to see the author connect two different time periods and join two very different families together.

Anila’s Journey by Mary Finn

When Anila Tandy’s guardians, the Hickeys, decide to leave Calcutta they beg her to accompany them, but she stubbornly refuses to come so that just in case her long gone father returns as he promised many years ago she’ll be there. Miss Hickey then sets her up with everything she’ll need to survive by herself.  Most importantly Miss Hickey finds Anila a job as a bird painter on an expedition up the Ganges River. As the days go by and she discovers new birds, she also reflects on her past. How life was like when her mother was still alive and her father still around, or remembering the stories her mother used to tell. Along the journey Anila finds herself and grows up.

Anila’s Journey was a very well written historical fiction. The re-creation of historical India was fascinating and I enjoyed learning more about the older Indian culture. I thought that it was really interesting how Mary Finn alternated the chapters by telling what Anila was experiencing at the present and then stories about Anila’s past and then bringing them together in the end. Anila was an interesting character who really grew up through the story and became her true self. I loved all of the culture references and felt like I learned quite a bit. At times the book got dry and I found that it was hard to keep reading, but then it would get better over time. Overall I liked the book.

Band Geeked Out by Josie Bloss

Its trumpet goddess Ellie Snow’s senior year of high school and she’s facing the dreaded college decisions. She can’t seem to choose between her mom’s alma matter Worthington, an all-girls school out East with no marching band, or the local state school where her two best friends are going and who has one of the best marching band programs. Not only is marching band a huge considering factor, but also Ellie’s sweet and adorable sophomore boyfriend Connor, whom she really loves.

Ellie’s life is thrown out of sync though when she goes to visit the all-girls school where she is instantly drawn to her tour guide Alex. Her and Alex quickly develop a close friendship and now Ellie is strongly considering Worthington, even if that means changing all of her plans for the future. Her plans especially change when her and Alex’s relationship changes and Ellie starts to wonder if there is more to their friendship than meets the eye.

More confused than ever, Ellie must make the toughest decision of her life: to stay with what she knows or to go out on a limb and try something new. Regardless of her decision though Ellie’s life has changed forever whether she knows it or not and now she just has to learn how to live through it.

Well I can’t say that I was absolutely enamored by this book. I felt like the plot was a little weak and Ellie got a little weird, but there was still a really great cute factor to the book which reminded me a lot of BAND GEEK LOVE, but not as good.

As I mentioned before Ellie got really weird in the book. While I understand that she had to make a lot of hard decisions and was really confused, I really couldn’t connect with her and really disagreed with some of the decisions that she did make. Also her whole relationship status with Connor and Alex was a little off beat as well, which  for me was the major issue with the whole book.

As for the plot it was well constructed, but just not as interesting as BAND GEEK LOVE’s and I just couldn’t help comparing the two.  Josie Bloss did do an excellent job creating a real world dilemma and trying her best to solve it. While I was conflicted with some decisions that she made, Ellie was certainly smart in making her college decisions, which I think is a great thing to portray in a YA books as so many students find this process confusing. If they see how a literary figure handles the situation then they will hopefully be able to shed some light onto how they might be able to make the best decision for themselves.

Overall I was a bit disappointed, but still enjoyed the book. Josie Bloss is a new and fresh author who I expect will produce some great novels in the future. 

In My Mailbox (IV)

In My Mailbox was started by the wonderful Story Siren with inspiration from Alea!

So, this week I got one wonderful book from Steph Su...THANKS!!

Nina was beautiful, artistic, wild . . . and adored by her younger sister, Ellie. But one day, without any warning, Nina disappeared.

Two years later, Ellie can't stop thinking about her sister. Although everyone else has given up hope that Nina will return, Elile just knows her sister is out there, somewhere. If only Ellie had a clue where to look.

And then she gets one, in the form of a mysterious drawing tucked into the pages of a book. Determined to find her sister, Ellie takes off on a crazy, sexy, cross-country road trip with the only person who believes she's got a chance -- her hot, adventurous new crush.

Along the way, Ellie finds a few things she wasn't planning on. Like love. Mysteries. Lies. And something far ore shocking -- the truth

Now you know what I got, so tell me what you got!

Also don't forget to enter my contests to win a prize pack of 5 YA books or a copy of Being Nikki and Airhead!

Because I am Furniture by Thalia Chaltas

Anke lives everyday within an abusive home dealing with her father hurting everyone in her family but her. She feels worthless, like a piece of furniture, because she does not get a speck of attention from her father, even if it might be negative. Not being able to tell anyone she just floats on through life.

Then she makes the volleyball team, where you learn to speak up and call “MINE’ for a ball and really speak up for yourself. Her confidence quickly starts building on the court and she is making herself heard. She even starts to develop close relationships with others and even starts sparking the interest of boys.

Although she is becoming less invisible at school, she still continues to be like a dining room chair at home, invisible to the eye of anyone in her family. As the abusiveness gets worse a thought sparks in her brain that maybe if she just used her volleyball voice, she might be heard for once and hopefully put an end to this tragedy.

Over the course of her story, Anke not only grows taller and older, but wiser as well and truly becomes her own person, with a commanding voice.

This book is extremely interesting and very well written. It was written through poems and it caused the story to just float by. I was most impressed with the fact that Thalia Chaltas took a common theme in young adult literature and wrote about in a completely different perspective, the side of watching the abuse and in a way wanting it. The emotion that she was able to encompass through her lyrical prose was chilling and really made you think about both sides of the situation.

The characters in the book I felt were a little underdeveloped. While you really got to know Anke, it felt like she had no variance in her life as she talked about the same things over and over again. It made it a little dull and hard to actually imagine the story. Other then that though the book was well written and interesting.

Overall this was a great debut book that fans of Lisa Schroder’s novels will really enjoy. I look forward to reading future works of Ms. Chaltas’ as they are sure to be promising.

Airhead and Being Nikki Contest!!!!

As I am sure many of you are aware, the brilliant Meg Cabot started a new series last year about a girl named Emerson Watts. In a couple of weeks the second book, Being Nikki, will be out. I was lucky enough to somehow receive TWO copies, so that leaves one copy for all you blog readers to win!

If that isn't incentive enough, (and for all of you who have not had the pleasure of reading the first book in the series Airhead) I have THREE copies to give away.

So the prizes are as listed:

1st place: An ARC of BEING NIKKI and a final copy of AIRHEAD

2nd/3rd place: A copy of Airhead

All you have to do is leave a comment by May 5th at midnight to be entered. Entries are limited to U.S. residents only. Please include a way for me to contact you.

Also if you post about the contest on your blog, myspace, facebook, etc. let me know and I'll give you an additional 2 entries.

Teen Inc. by Stefan Petrucha

 Jaiden Beale wishes he lived an ordinary life, but when you are the child of a corporation, yes as in a business, it’s a little hard. See when Jaiden was just a few weeks old his parents were killed in an explosion that was caused by a faulty valve made by NECorp, who is the same company that “adopts” him.

Now in middle school, Jaiden just wants to fit in, but that’s a little hard when you have a whole team of people trying to make decisions for you. When he finally finds the perfect girl to date (after many meetings where he gets shown a slideshow of possible girls that don’t appeal to him at all) his plans for a study date get immediately foiled. After enough persuasion though Jaiden is able to convince his guardians to let him use the company house and have the girl over. As soon as she steps in the house though, he wishes he had never pushed so hard. In short the date was a disaster and Jaiden is furious with the corporation.

Now he has to face how to grow up in a nonconventional environment and maybe, just maybe have somewhat of a normal teenage life. And maybe there is a chance for him to make up with the perfect girl and work things out.

Well the book started out really well and I was really excited about the concept, but by the end of the third chapter it started to go down hill. The plot didn’t really move much and the story became so predictable that I didn’t really want to continue.  I thought that Jaiden’s character became very whiny and unenjoyable, and he I felt like he kept talking abut the same thing over and over again. While I didn’t like the story, I thought that the author’s writing style was really good. He made the book feel real and provided enough detail to answer my questions, but not too much that it was a bore. Overall I was disappointed with the book, but think it may work out better for a younger audience.