Snowflakes and Spider Silk

Title: The Darkest Minds Author:  Alexandra Bracken Genre: Young Adult, science fiction, dystopia My rating: 4 of 5 stars Goodreads Summary : When Ruby woke up on her tenth birthday, something about her had changed. Something alarming enough to make her parents lock her in the garage and call the police. Something that gets her sent to Thurmond, a brutal government “rehabilitation camp.” She might have survived the mysterious disease that’s killed most of America’s children, but she and the others have emerged with something far worse: frightening abilities they cannot control. Now sixteen, Ruby is one of the dangerous ones. When the truth comes out, Ruby barely escapes Thurmond with her life. Now she’s on the run, desperate to find the one safe haven left for kids like her—East River. She joins a group of kids who escaped their own camp. Liam, their brave leader, is falling hard for Ruby. But no matter how much she aches for him, Ruby can’t risk getting close. No...

Title: A White Room Author:  Stephanie Carroll Genre: Historical fiction, young adult My rating: 3 of 5 stars Goodreads summary: At the close of the Victorian Era, society still expected middle-class women to be “the angels of the house,” even as a select few strived to become something more. In this time of change, Emeline Evans dreamed of becoming a nurse. But when her father dies unexpectedly, Emeline sacrifices her ambitions and rescues her family from destitution by marrying John Dorr, a reserved lawyer who can provide for her family. John moves Emeline to the remote Missouri town of Labellum and into an unusual house where her sorrow and uneasiness edge toward madness. Furniture twists and turns before her eyes, people stare out at her from empty rooms, and the house itself conspires against her. The doctor diagnoses hysteria, but the treatment merely reinforces the house’s grip on her mind. Emeline only finds solace after pursuing an opportunity to serve t...

Hello lovely blog readers, I am on vacation for the next two weeks and don't really have access to the internet, so I won't be posting anything for a while. I will resume the usual reviews and memes in a few weeks! I have some exciting things lined up for the next few months, so stay tuned :)

I've been trying out all sorts of things with my blog redesign project - downloading backgrounds from other websites, meddling with my HTML, trying to make my own backgrounds and headers... this is a lot more work than I thought, and I have yet to come up with a cohesive design that I am happy with. Here are the some designs I have tried out for my blog.: I like the simplicity of this one, and although the header doesn't totally fit the theme of my blog, at least it's clean. One thing I used in both designs is the little snowflakes in the sidebar. You can see them better in the next screenshot. I tried to make my own background here, and I'm having issues with the alignment and sizing. I need to make a header to go along with this, so this design isn't final. I do like that the way the sidebar is individual boxes though. I tried copying the widget CSS from this template to the one above, and blogger was not too happy about that! and finally, the ...

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Breaking the Spine , where bloggers pick a book that hasn't been published yet that they are excited to read. (This will probably be my last week of Waiting on Wednesday, since I'm running out of books I'm waiting for! I'll probably start doing Top 10 Tuesday instead) This week, I'm looking forward to reading the third (and now penultimate instead of final) book of Neal Shusterman's Unwind series. Title: UnSouled Author: Neal Shusterman Publishing date: November 7, 2013 Goodreads Summary: The story that began with Unwind continues. Connor and Lev are on the run after the destruction of the Graveyard, the last safe haven for AWOL Unwinds. But for the first time, they’re not just running away from something. This time, they’re running toward answers, in the form of a woman Proactive Citizenry has tried to erase from history itself. If they can find her, and learn why the shadowy figures behi...

Title:  The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Author:  Mary Ann Shaffer Genre: Historical fiction, epistolary My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars Goodreads Summary: “ I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.” January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb…. As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island—bo...

Title:  Fire Country Author:  David Estes Genre: Science fiction, dystopia, young adult My rating: 4 of 5 stars Goodreads summary: In a changed world where the sky bleeds red, winter is hotter than hell and full of sandstorms, and summer's even hotter with raging fires that roam the desert-like country, the Heaters manage to survive, barely. Due to toxic air, life expectancies are so low the only way the tribe can survive is by forcing women to procreate when they turn sixteen and every three years thereafter. It is their duty as Bearers. Fifteen-year-old Siena is a Youngling, soon to be a Bearer, when she starts hearing rumors of another tribe of all women, called the Wild Ones. They are known to kidnap Youngling girls before the Call, the ceremony in which Bearers are given a husband with whom to bear children with. As the desert sands run out on her life's hourglass, Siena must uncover the truth about the Wild Ones while untangling the web of lies and ...