June 2013 To-Be-Read (TBR)

I got a lot more reading done last month than I thought I would be able to do, but June will probably be a different story.  Since I'm taking summer classes, I'll be having a lot more homework assignments due. In other words, I'm gonna keep my reading goals realistic here and probably only be able to read five books, tops, this month. But hey, it doesn't hurt to dream big, does it? Anyways, without further ado, here's what's on my TBR pile for the month of June:

Hex Hall - by Rachel Hawkins
I just rented this book from the library, and I have to say that I'm extremely excited to start this series. I don't know why it's taken me this long to get into it, but it looks like a very entertaining read. Vampires and witches and ghosts OH MY! But first I must wait til my younger sister finishes reading it. This is what I get for having a shared library with her... (by the way: it took every fiber in my being not to add a "bewitching" or "magical" pun in there. Every. Fiber.)

Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
I am determined to read an Austen book this month. I have Austen fever! If I finish this TBR list before the end of June, I may have to add an extra Jane Austen book to the list for me to read (Persuasion mayhaps?).

Just Listen and The Moon and More - by Sarah Dessen
Sarah Dessen is releasing her novel The Moon and More on June 4th, and I will definitely be purchasing it as soon as it comes out.  And I'm trying to read as many Dessen books as I can because she's doing a signing for her new book release at a local bookstore so I'm not clueless when she talks about her earlier novels (which I heard there will be a trivia session on them for book swag as well. Very exciting!). Side note: how gorgeous is this cover? It has all of my favorite YA book cover elements: lovely colors, a faceless girl, an excellent landscape, and movement. I love it!

Impulse - by Ellen Hopkins
Hopkins' poetic prose is calling my name saying, "read me, Meredith, READ ME!" How am I to resist?! I was pulled in when reading Crank last week and I'm so intrigued to see how more of her stories will play out in her unique style of writing.

The Selection - by Kiera Cass
I've heard so many good reviews about this book, and now that the second book to The Selection series is out, The Elite, I feel even more compelled to pick this one up. My sister read it, the self proclaimed "ice queen," and she loved it. If this novel can make her feel all gooey inside, then I'll be hook-line-and-sinker with this one. I'm easily swooned when it comes to books like The Selection. But it doesn't seem like some chick-lit book where the female protagonist is completely helpless and needs a man to come and save her. No, it seems kind of like the opposite of that tired and overused cliche. Which is another reason why this book looks so good!

Mid-Week Bookish Update

I have mentioned before that I consider book-buying a disease, and I've got the fever. But I've been better about going out and buying books on impulse. Instead I'm making my library card useful and renting a lot of my books recently. Not only that, but I went to my favorite used bookstore, sold a few books from last year's English classes and some others I didn't want anymore, and bought a few books at a great discount.

If you're low on funds but really want to go out and buy a book or just read something new, I highly recommend using your local library or used bookstore to satiate your reading thirst. Or even going to websites like Bookdepository.com (which has free worldwide shipping) or Amazon.com (where I like to get my books used a lot of the time) to get some great deals on books, especially if you're a broke college student like me and you end up spending most of your money on forms of nourishment and textbooks and what not.

Without further ado, here are the books currently in my possession and that I hope to read within the next month. Look for reviews on these in the coming month, too! (Clicking on the title will take you to the goodreads page and the summary for the book).

The Program - by Suzanne Young
I rented this young adult book from the library hoping to read it on my memorial day break (yay for four day weekends woo!) but didn't get a chance to start reading it until yesterday.  It's only just come out, and has a unique premise that I've never come across before. I just hope I can read it all and balance my oncoming onslaught of summer school homework before I have to return it to the library. I've heard very little about this book, what with it being so new, but so far it's really good and I'm quite enjoying it! Oh, and another thing: I've noticed that you get a lot of weird looks when reading a book with a bunch of black, orange, and yellow pills pictured on the back cover while waiting for class to start... Just sayin'.

Impulse - by Ellen Hopkins
I bought this one from the used bookstore, and after reading and being completely pulled in by Hopkins' infamous New York Times Bestseller, Crank, I wanted to see what other books she had to offer. I wasn't really mentally ready to read the sequel to Crank, which is Glass, with it being such a heavy topic (guess what! it involves more meth! A very light read, I'm sure). Don't get me wrong, I though Crank was an amazing, beautifully written book, but I thought I'd take a break and venture into a different subject matter such as mental health (much more cheery, I know. I'm a regular ol' ball of sunshine). And yeah, there is kind of a darker theme among my more recent reads, but I've just really been in the mood to read darker genre/themed books. You know how you'll get into a funk and want to eat Mexican food everyday or read a fluffy chick-lit book everyday, well I'm in a "darker book" themed funk right now. But hopefully that will change into a "classics" themed funk when I read the other book I got from the used bookstore, which is....


Tender is the Night - by F. Scott Fitzgerald
This is another book I found stashed away and on a dusty shelf of the used bookstore I went to this week. I, like so many others, went to see The Great Gatsby in theaters the other week, and I've been bitten by the 20's era bug. This novel is a semi-autobiographical account of Fitzgerald's life, which from what I've heard is very intriguing as well as sort of on the sad side. I also would love to read more classics this summer, and that brings me to my next used bookstore find:

Sleeping Murder - by Agatha Christie
For the longest time, I've been addicted to PBS's Masterpiece Mystery series. It features mostly BBC productions such as Sherlock, as well as my favorites, Agatha Christie's Poirot and Agatha Christie's Miss Marple. Agatha Christie is known as the queen of mystery, and has sold more mystery books than anyone else.  She's had loads of amazing crime thrillers published, this one being the last before her death, featuring Marple and Poirot, and sadly I have yet to read a single one. I know, it's blasphemous, especially since I claim to be a huge fan of hers when if fact I'm just a fan of the Masterpiece adaptations. Which is exactly why I bought one of her books, to see if I'll enjoy the books as much as I've loved the adaptations.

Northanger Abbey - by Jane Austen
One of my favorite movies is the 2005 adaptation of Austen's Pride and Prejudice (you know, the one with Keira Knightly), and sadly that is the only book by Austen that I've read. And thanks to my recent viewing of the movie The Jane Austen Book Club, I have Austen fever. The movie was amazing and heartfelt and now I just really want to dive into one of her books again. I loved P&P (as I so lovingly call it), and I'm probably the only one of my female bibliophilic friends who hasn't read all of Austen's works. It's weird, but I'm slightly ashamed by that fact. And I own the giant leatherbound Barnes & Noble book with all of Austen's novels in it, so it's not about whether I or not I have the books to start with. I just haven't been in the mood to read them, which is everything when it comes to choosing which book to read next.

I probably won't even end up sticking to this list verbatim for the next month, because as I just said, I've found that whatever mood you're in when you're in between books is usually the deciding factor as to which book you'll pick up next. So we'll see where the wind blows me this coming month.

I bid you all adieu and bon voyage on all of y'all's reading adventures! Hopefully you'll stick to your "To-Be-Read" pile a little better than I do. If you have any suggestions for what I should add to my TBR pile, let me know in the comments section below, and happy reading!

13 Reasons Why

Title: Thirteen Reasons Why
Author: Jay Asher
Pages: 288 (paperback)
Publication: June 2011
Summary: You can't stop the future. You can't rewind the past. The only way to learn the secret. . . is to press play.

Clay Jensen doesn't want anything to do with the tapes Hannah Baker made. Hannah is dead. Her secrets should be buried with her. 

Then Hannah's voice tells Clay that his name is on her tapes-- and that he is, in some way, responsible for her death.

All through the night, Clay keeps listening. He follows Hannah's recorded words throughout his small town. . .

. . .and what he discovers changes his life forever.

My Thoughts: You know that theory called the butterfly effect? How everything you do and everything that happens, even the beating of a butterflies wings, has an effect on the future. Every gesture, glance, moment of eye contact, or seemingly innocent action can be a build up to one of these "13 Reasons Why" Hannah Baker killed herself, it seems.

Let me just tell you right now that I really enjoyed this novel. It completely lived up to the hype it's been given and even drove me to tears at one point. Hearing Hannah's account on a set of cassette tapes of how she started down the road of depression and who influenced her to start down that path in the first place was haunting, but I loved it. It wasn't just one event or person she encountered that made her say "Hey you know what, why live?" It was an accumulation of those people and interactions and events as well as having to live with her own increasingly suicidal thoughts. I felt like this part of the story was accurate on a lot of levels, too, and I'm sure a lot of other people who have struggled with depression can relate to Hannah Baker's tale.

And you feel so bad for Clay, our narrator, because he's received these cassettes as one of the "reasons why." He seems like such a nice guy and even he has no idea why he's on this list at the beginning. My heart broke for him. And he has to listen to these stories about people he sees on a day to day basis, learn their dirty secrets, and now he can't look at them the same way ever again.

This isn't to say that Hannah wasn't a flawed human being. No, she certainly is, and she acknowledges that, which makes you like her even more (I can't stand a Mary Sue, can you?). Clay is also flawed, although it may not seem like it in the beginning. But this novel doesn't end as a sob story. It's intention is to make you think about your actions towards others and how you treat them, in my opinion. It built up hope in me which is why I loved it.
My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Crank

Title: Crank
Author: Ellen Hopkins
Pages: 537

Series: Crank (#1)
Summary: In Crank, Ellen Hopkins chronicles the turbulent and often disturbing relationship between Kristina, a character based on her own daughter, and the "monster," the highly addictive drug crystal meth, or "crank." Kristina is introduced to the drug while visiting her largely absent and ne'er-do-well father. While under the influence of the monster, Kristina discovers her sexy alter-ego, Bree: "there is no perfect daughter, / no gifted high school junior, / no Kristina Georgia Snow. / There is only Bree." Bree will do all the things good girl Kristina won't, including attracting the attention of dangerous boys who can provide her with a steady flow of crank.

My Thoughts: Ellen Hopkins brilliantly paints a story about a how a seemingly put-together, perfectly normal teenage girl became a meth addict. Hopkins' pacing and tone were amazing through out the entirety of her novel and her words haunted me. What's even more chill-inducing is that this story is loosely based on Hopkins' own daughter and her fight with and addiction to the "monster."

This was quite a serious (yet very quick) read and completely written in prose. Meth addiction is a terrifyingly brutal thing, and Hopkins brings this theme to fruition with enough graphic details to make you hope for better in people and their choices as well as steal you clear of the stuff. I had heard a lot of different reviews about this book, but I was pleasantly surprised when I ended up enjoying this roller coaster of a ride that the author takes you on. Hopkins has completely pulled me in with her writing style and her words, so yeah I will definitely be reading the sequel to this novel, Glass.
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Title: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares
Authors: Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Pages: 260 (hardcover)
Summary: “I’ve left some clues for you.
If you want them, turn the page.
If you don’t, put the book back on the shelf, please.”

So begins the latest whirlwind romance from the bestselling authors of Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Lily has left a red notebook full of challenges on a favorite bookstore shelf, waiting for just the right guy to come along and accept its dares. But is Dash that right guy? Or are Dash and Lily only destined to trade dares, dreams, and desires in the notebook they pass back and forth at locations across New York? Could their in-person selves possibly connect as well as their notebook versions? Or will they be a comic mismatch of disastrous proportions?

Rachel Cohn and David Levithan have written a love story that will have readers perusing bookstore shelves, looking and longing for a love (and a red notebook) of their own.

My Thoughts: My favorite parts of this book were when Dash and Lily wrote in their book of dares, went and did the dares, or tried to figure out who they were writing to was. The scenes like where Dash would go to a party just to be told something by someone of little importance to the plot line (in my opinion) that maybe one of his other friends could've pointed out felt a little slow and boring to me. I loved the little clues Dash would leave Lily and vice versa. They challenged each other to go outside their comfort zones and to better themselves as people.

This novel is very much a wintery read, but honestly the wit and unique story line transcend the seasonality of this book. And Levithan and Cohn bring New York City to life through the adventures if Dash and Lily. I had high expectations for this book, and it fell slightly short, but I wasn't too upset about that. Also, although some of it wasn't very believable (catching babies midair, seeing everyone in your acquaintance by chance around one of the biggest cities in the world, a boy who uses the word "heretofore") and the main characters were slightly pretentious, the novel tries to inspire the reader to step outside their box and try something new, and succeeds in doing so.
My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Chopsticks

Title: Chopsticks
Authors: Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral (illustrator)
Pages: 272
Format: Graphic Novel (sort of?)
Summary:  After her mother died, Glory retreated into herself and her music. Her single father raised her as a piano prodigy, with a rigid schedule and the goal of playing sold-out shows across the globe. Now, as a teenager, Glory has disappeared. As we flash back to the events leading up to her disappearance, we see a girl on the precipice of disaster. Brilliant and lonely, Glory is drawn to an artistic new boy, Frank, who moves in next door. The farther she falls, the deeper she spirals into madness. Before long, Glory is unable to play anything but the song "Chopsticks."

But nothing is what it seems, and Glory's reality is not reality at all. In this stunningly moving novel told in photographs, pictures, and words, it's up to the reader to decide what is real, what is imagined, and what has been madness all along....

My Thoughts: I read this novel within a couple of hours (this is a feat because I'm actually quite a slow reader). This is a love story between Glory and Frank told through a series of photographs, news articles, IM, and letters, essentially. A very touching account of young love, Chopsticks as a whole is so beautiful even when words aren't enough. I found the most touching parts of this story to be when there weren't any written words on the page, just significant images of items or of Frank and Glory together. Very simplistic and an easy read, Chopsticks succeeds in conveying a deep, heartfelt coming of age love story in as few words as possible.
My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Unfinished Book Series

Inspired by one of my favorite book bloggers', The Readables, blog post of the same title (which can be found HERE), I have a new found determination to finish book series that I started some time ago. Especially with so many book series ending this year (I'm looking at you Divergent series), I've gotten behind on my to-be-read list. However, this year it shall be done. I can do this. Reading challenge accepted!

Delirium series by Lauren Oliver
Why the wait?: busyness and then I kind of forgot about it on my shelf
All of the books of this trilogy have been released, and I own them all, but I always seem to want to read something else instead of these books. It's not like they're bad, I actually really liked Delirium, but after I read it I had final exams and papers that I needed to focus my energy on. 

Divergent series by Veronica Roth
Why the wait?: the final installment, Allegiant, doesn't come out until October.
I'm not behind on this series, but the third book to this series is probably one of my most anticipated book releases for this year. I loved Divergent, and really enjoyed the second book of the series Insurgent, as well. This trilogy has to be one of my favorites, by far.

The Caster Chronicles by Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia
Why the wait?: I'm OCD and wanted to wait until I could buy the rest of the series in paperback to match the books I already owned.
It's sort of a vain excuse, I know. And I wanted to wait until I owned the entire series because The Caster Chronicles is one of those series where where you're done with one book, you feel the need to start the next. By the way, this is another one of my favorite series. I'm in love with the southern-Gothic feel of Stohl and Garcia's writing. It's absolutely spellbinding.

The Wolves of Mercy Falls series by Maggie Stiefvater
Why the wait?: I couldn't find the second book of the series anywhere until last year.
The first book, Shiver, was a great YA paranormal romance book, but it wasn't the kind of book that made me want to run to the bookstore and pick up the second one, Linger, immediately.  I completely forgot I even owned this series until the other day when I was cleaning my bookshelf and looking for books to sell. I vaguely remember what happened in the first book, and I've started the second already, but I don't know. I'm not sucked in yet like how I was when I first read Shiver.  I'm pushing through, though, so I can finally finish the series and depending on whether or not I love the rest of the books, I may end up selling those, too.

Maze Runner series by James Dashner
Why the wait?: Once again, I'm OCD and was waiting for the third book to come out in paperback
I just like for all of my books to match on the shelf, okay? I can't help it. It's more aesthetically pleasing that way.  And I'm still waiting for the prequel to the series, The Kill Order, to hit the shelves in paperback edition.

Matched series by Ally Condie
Why the wait?: When I finished the second novel of this series, Crossed, I fell into a sort of reading slump and I haven't picked up the last installment of the series, Reached, because of that.
This series is one of the few that I have signed by the author. I hadn't even finished reading the first book of the series, Matched, when I went to the signing, but I had heard great things about Condie's work.  So I picked up the series, started reading Matched, got my books signed, and then the reading slump hit when I was halfway through Crossed. It wasn't due to Condie's books, but more due to the fact that I had midterms around the same time.


Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead
Why the wait?: I'd heard mixed reviews about this series, but my younger sister raves about it so I decided to pick it up.
I read the first book of this series, Vampire Academy, on an 8 hour drive to Florida last year. In the beginning I was ambivalent towards the plot line and the characters, but then the story picked up and I actually ended up really enjoying it. But I heard the second book, Frostbite, is hard to get through. However the series is supposed to get better as you go along, just as soon as you get past Frostbite. So I'll be looking forward to that when I attempt to finish the series this summer.