I'm "Published"

Thanks sooo much to Adele who alerted me to the fact that my review of John Green's Paper Towns had been quoted in the Australian version of the book. The second I heard I ordered a copy from Australia which just arrived today.

The review's an old one, and I had absolutely no idea that it would be quoted in the finished copy of the book! I'm completely ecstatic. It might only be thirteen words, but hey! Thirteen words in a well-known, YA author's book is pretty dang cool.

If you can't read the picture my little quote is;

"...run, to your local bookstore and pick up a copy. It's a must!"
-Liv's Book Reviews

My first real published words out there for the world to see...haha. :)


And for Jocelyn...

Blog-o-versary

On this February 25th, exactly one year ago, Liv's Book Reviews was birthed. 
The first post went something like this...

Hi-
I'm Liv if you haven't guessed that already. I've decided to start blogging on the books I've read but I don't know if it's going to go very far. I am a big reader but not very good at following through on things so we'll see how this goes. :) I'm going to try to post a plot summary and my opinion on every book that I read from now on. I will not be writing on books I have already read unless I reread them. So I hope you enjoy my blog and I will try to get on here as much as possible.
-Liv

Ah...personally, I like the "I'm not very good at following through on things" part. Because here I am, a year later. Proved my little old self wrong, didn't I? :)

I've LOVED blogging throughout this year. I've read more than I would've normally, I think, and I've met a ton of awesome people, bloggers, authors, and random internet friends. 

My blog might be relatively tiny even though it's been around for a while, but to me that's not important at all. I see other bloggers writing about how many page visits they get or how many followers they have, and even with the newer blogs, those numbers are way higher than mine. I used to care a little bit, but not so much anymore. I rarely check. The important thing to me is just getting on to post every now and then. I'm in it for the experience, which, I know, sounds super hokey...but hey. I've met authors and bloggers from all over the world and I've written 100 reviews. If that's not an accomplishment, I don't know what is. 

So thanks to everyone who reads my blog and to all the authors whom I've bugged and bothered. You guys are AWESOME! 

And in honor of this momentous occasion, I'm going to have a little giveaway...you knew it was coming, didn't you?

Prizes:
One book of your choice, under $10, that's available on Amazon
$5 giftcard to Starbucks
Bananagrams (BEST game ever, involving bananas, scrabble tiles, anagram making, and other fantastic literary objectives)
Mix CD (which I don't know if anyone would really want, but I want to make one)

Sound like good stuff to you? :) 

To enter: 
Write me a story, 100 words or less, starting with the words "Liv was looking out the window..." and ending with the words "and that's how it all began."
Leave your story and your email in the comments.
The winner will be chosen by a select group of anonymous judges (parents, friends, 10 year old boy). You have until Wednesday, March 11 to enter.
And yes, flattery will probably help you, seeing as the story your writing is about me and it's my blog's anniversary...SO. Get creative. Make me feel happy. XD

*All credit goes to A.S. King for this marvelous contest idea. I hope you don't hate me for stealing it...

And that's it! Enter away. 

Movie Possibilities?

I know this sounds crazy, but over at the Twilight Lexicon they posted that Twilight's director, Catherine Hardwick is going to possibly direct a movie based off a "buzzy" YA novel called If I Stay. They got their info from Entertainment Weekly...

From the site“Summit Entertainment is trying to make lightning strike twice. The studio behind the Twilight movie series has plans to adapt a buzzy young-adult novel called If I Stay with Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke at the helm…the parties are negotiating and a deal is not yet complete."

And the synopsis for the book: "Choices. Seventeen-year-old Mia is faced with some tough ones: Stay true to her first love— music—even if it means losing her boyfriend and leaving her family and friends behind? Then one February morning Mia goes for a drive with her family, and in an instant, everything changes. Suddenly, all the choices are gone, except one. And it’s the only one that matters."

Woah. The book hasn't even come out yet. But when it does I'm picking up a copy ASAP to see what's so amazing that the movie rights would be bought this early...geez.

Thoughts, anyone?

Same Difference by Siobhan Vivian

Sometimes a girl just needs a change...
The last thing sixteen-year-old Emily wants is to pool hop and tan her way through another summer in Cherry Hill. Now that her best friend has a boyfriend, everything feels...different in a way Emily doesn't quite understand. So when offered a spot at a prestigious art program in Philadelphia, Emily jumps at the chance to leave her hometown for a few hours a day.
But it takes more than a change of scenery and a new group of friends to discover yourself. As Emily bounces between a suburb where everyone tries to fit in and a city where everyone wants to be unique, she struggles to find her own identity. And while the rules may change, the pressures remain the same. Friendships can be hard to navigate. Boys are both deeply mysterious and utterly predictable. And the line between right and wrong is always a little blurry. 
(Summary from inside cover of ARC)

How can you not love Siobhan Vivian? Seriously. I follow both her personal blog and The Longstockings (not to sound creeper-ish), and everything she writes is just so alive and enjoyable. That being said, Same Difference was pretty dang good. 

So you know how Sarah Dessen has a kind of trademarked romantic style/plot concept that's present in all of her books? Well for Siobhan, she's got a friendship style. In A Little Friendly Advice, her first book, she focused on the dynamics of the relationships between a group of girls. They were going through a difficult stage in their lives and in their friendship, and they all grew from it and became better people because of their experiences. In Same Difference it's the same sort of troubled friendship plot line but it's different enough that it feels fresh and unique.

In this book, the main character is going through a huge stage of self-discovery. She has to decide whether she wants to become a crazy artsy girl with the help of her new "friend" Fiona or whether she wants to stick with her roots and live a plain dreary life in Cherry Hill. But the book was so much more than that one little decision. 

In the beginning, Emily had no idea who she was or who she wanted to be. Throughout the book she learned how to make new friends, create beautiful art, and still stay true to who she was at her core. She even got to have a little forbidden romance.

And that's the part that didn't work for me - the romance. Yates was Emily's teacher's assistant. He was two years older than her and didn't have much of a personality. Truthfully, they didn't have much, if any chemistry at all. It was just so flat. They were able to sit and draw pictures of each other but they weren't able to have a meaningful, colorful conversation. And the fact that he didn't see through Emily and Fiona's fake friendship doesn't do much for him. 

Also, I didn't really get why Emily was dumb enough to stick with Fiona for the whole entire story. Fiona made her feel like crap and she was so caught up in her own stupid views that she couldn't take a minute to look around at the rest of the world. Emily seemed like a very bright, and genuine girl and the fact that she was sucked into Fiona's antics for almost the whole story was sort of a let-down.

But other than that, the book was good. The setting was extremely vivid, the conversations were true to life, and all the art lingo seemed really well researched and thought out to me. 

And Emily was a very teen-like girl. She made some of the same dumb decisions that I would have if I was in her shoes and yet she still followed her heart. I liked how in the end she learned how to get the best out of both worlds - art land and suburbia. Also, I was super happy that she didn't ditch Meg. Because Meg was sooo cute. As was the fact that Emily's little sister was starting to get all artsy and defiant at the end of the book; she was following in her sister's footsteps. Aw!

There were just so many cute and fun little moments in this book that made me smile. It's such a great feel-good read.

My only advice to Siobhan Vivian would be to steer away from the romance in the future and focus more on the friendships. That's her strong point, I think. Although I do hope that there are some romantic moments in her next book because I want to see what she cooks up next. :) 

I love Siobhan and I loved this book. Read it. 

(Thank you to Sharon for the book. All the way from The Strand in NYC. You're amazing)

OH! And this is my 100th review...sorta cool, eh? :) The big one zero zero. 

Booking Through Thursday/Saturday #22: Storage

On Saturday

“How do you arrange your books on your shelves? Is it by author, by genre, or you just put it where it falls on?”

posted some pictures of my bookshelves a week or two ago if you want to go check that out.
My little book arranging method is that I stick all my general fiction ones in alphabetical order according to the authors last name. Then I put all my kid books at the end in any order. On my bottom shelf I have the random piles of books I have yet to read. I don't like to put them on my shelf unless I've read them and liked them. And those piles are totally random and not ordered at all. So when I pick a book to read next, I just go find whatever looks good to me. :)

I Love You More Than...


I love Barack
my blog
Twitter
Target
Zeke loves food
my book collection
flannel pants fresh out of the dryer
(some of my faves that have been posted)

And my own submission? 
I love you more than V.C. Andrews loves incest. 
In homage to the V.C. Andrews challenge. 
Oh yeah...

Want a cute tote bag to fill in your favorite saying on? clicky I know I'm getting one...

Waiting on Wednesday #6 - Swim the Fly by Don Calame

Fifteen-year-old Matt Gratton and his two best friends, Coop and Sean, always set themselves a summertime goal. This year's? To see a real-live naked girl for the first time — quite a challenge, given that none of the guys has the nerve to even ask a girl out on a date. But catching a girl in the buff starts to look easy compared to Matt's other summertime aspiration: to swim the 100-yard butterfly (the hardest stroke known to God or man) as a way to impress Kelly West, the sizzling new star of the swim team.
(summary from Amazon)

Bad cover. Funny story line. 
Plus, I'm a swimmer so I like that aspect of it. 
And seriously? A book that focuses around seeing a naked girl has got to be at least sorta good, right? Right. 

Released April 14, 2009

Right Behind You by Gail Giles

What I know:
On his seventh birthday, I set Bobby Clarke on fire.
I was nine.
Kip McFarland is living with a painful secret. The ghosts of his past are screaming out for justice, and he has to tell someone. But how can he tell anyone that he really is - or was - a murderer?
Star swimmer, loyal friend, and good-looking, too. "Perfect" - that's how Kip's friends describe his life. But no one knows that he's got a past. No one knows that he's seen what nightmares are made of, or that he spent four long years in a juvenile ward. No one knows that his best friends were hardened criminals. His new friends don't even know his real name. 
What do you do when your past catches up with you again and again? When the person you're most afraid of, the person you'd move all over the country to escape...is yourself?
(Summary from jacket flap)

The first person I heard about this book from was Ely. And I have to give her eternal thanks for recommending it. But why has no one else read this? It came out in 2007...not that long ago. If you haven't read this, let me just start out by saying, you should. It's amazing.

The novel focuses on Kip/Wade. After his mom dies from cancer (before the book starts), he and his dad are left to live by themselves in the Alaskan bush. Kip is home schooled, he doesn't have a ton of contact with other kids, his dad isn't getting along that well financially, etc. He's a bitter guy. So when Bobby Clarke stops by to show off the fancy-looking baseball glove he got for his birthday, Kip sloshes gasoline on him and lights him on fire. Afterwards, Kip goes into a coma, doesn't talk for months, and is placed in a home for the young and mentally unstable. 

It was such a great, dramatic beginning for the story. I was immediately hooked. It's not everyday that you read a book about a child murderer. It's really far out of the ordinary. 

The plot twists and writing style sort of follow the lines of "shock and awe". You get all this drama, trauma, and craziness thrown in your face and you have to make of it what you will. The good part about that is that it's done in a very classy and smooth way. The events in Wade's*** life after the "incident" are all very believable and true to the real-world. Maybe the specific event that this book is based around has never happened (at least I think it hasn't), but if it did, I wouldn't find it hard to believe that what happened in this book would happen in that circumstance.

The characters, relationships, and writing add to the awesomeness even more. Wade grew and transformed throughout the book. He learned to love himself, his dad, his stepmom, and the world he lived in. I am in total awe of Gail Giles for being able to write this book through a guy's point of view and pull it off so convincingly. It worked really well.

Plus, the message of the story is really deep and intellectual.

""Here's how it goes. The ghost has the truth set out in front of him in a bowl, all ready for him to eat. And he's screaming for it, he's so hungry. But the only thing he has to eat it with is a long spoon. His arms are too short for him to get the truth into the spoon and then into his mouth. So he finds another ghost with the same problem and they sit across from each other and..."
"Feed each other," I whispered."

Yeah. That's DEEP. With all the context surrounding that passage, I got shivers when I read it.

Also, I am super glad I read this book at this point in time because for the application to get into Honors English next year, you have to write an essay on how the author of a book you read recently used a literary element to demonstrate their views on human nature. This book couldn't fit more perfectly. 

So thank you soooo much to Ely for recommending this. And please, please, please read this if you haven't already. Definitely one of the best books I've read this year, hands down.


***Yes, I'm aware that the name switched. Kip=before murder, Wade=after murder.

The Day of Love

Happy Valentine's Day

In honor of the day of love, I have a little poll for you.

In almost every book, movie, or song, there's some romantic element, right? It's not interesting unless there's crushes, kissing, flirting, and infatuation. 
Even in the best action books, there's that kind of stuff. Readers thrive on it. 
So my question for you is...



And enjoy eating your chocolate kisses and chalky hearts. :)

Booking Through Thursday/Saturday #21: Authors Talking

On Saturday
Do you read any author’s blogs? If so, are you looking for information on their next project? On the author personally? Something else?

I have a lot of authors on my feed reader but I follow only a few really diligently; Sarah Dessen, Melissa Walker, Lisa Schroeder, John Green, Siobhan Vivian, Meg Cabot, Elizabeth Scott, and Scott Westerfeld. 
Those are my select few because (a) their posts are short, sweet, and to the point, (b) they've written books I love, and (c) their posts are actually interesting. I'm a hard girl to please. :P
I don't really like super long and rambling posts about the author's lives...but in a certain context I'll read it.
Mostly I'm just looking for some insight on the person who wrote the book and in some cases info about their upcoming releases. Reading an author's blog is normally the first place you find out about stuff like that and I like to be in the know. Also, some of the authors are just plain charming and I read their blogs because I like them! 
So I guess it all depends...I have many motivations. :)

Envy by Anna Godbersen

Jealous whispers. Old rivalries. New betrayals.
Two months after Elizabeth Holland's dramatic homecoming, Manhattan eagerly awaits her return to the pinnacle of society. When Elizabeth refuses to rejoin her sister Diana's side, however, those watching New York's favorite family begin to suspect that all is not as it seems behind the stately doors of No. 17 Gramercy Park South.
Farther uptown, Henry and Penelope Schoonmaker are the city's most celebrated couple. But despite the glittering diamond ring on Penelope's finger, the newlyweds share little more than scorn for each other. And while the newspapers call Penelope's social-climbing best friend, Carolina Broad, an heiress, her fortune - and her fame - are naything but secure, expecially now that one of society's darlings is slipping tales to the eager press.
Manhattan's most envied residents appear to have everything they desire: Wealth. Beauty. Happiness. But sometimes the most practiced smiles hide the most scandalous secrets...
(Summary from jacket flap)

I love fluffy books. I've read almost all of Meg Cabot's stuff. The Twilight series kept me glued to the pages (well, the first one did...but that's another story). And those Simon Pulse RoCom books? Mhmm. Delish. I have no problem with reading books just for the juice. I really don't think that a book has to have some deep intellectual meaning in order to be worth something. Everyone needs to be able to appreciate a good sugar story.

So you know, if you haven't read a good fluff book in a while, then I have a little something to say to you. First of all, what is your problem?! Second of all, go pick up The Luxe. Please. This series is some of the best chick lit/fluff out there. Who doesn't love reading about rich New York socialites living at the start of the twentieth century? Not only does that time period include gorgeous dresses, sumptuous dinners, and fashionable pale skin, it also offers scandal, lost love, and full body swim suits. Ahhh.

And you know...I don’t think I’m going to say much about this book. I don’t want to over-analyze, and in the process ruin, my guilty pleasures.

SO. For my little opinion bit:

Envy was a bit slow in parts; there was too much talk about dresses and houses for my taste. I get that the characters are wealthy and extravagant but by the 300th page, I didn’t need to hear about how one person’s hair was perfectly coiffed and how their dress accentuated their miniscule waist beautifully. Because waists and hair do's were mentioned entirely too much. It was just the balance of what was focused on that was a little bit off. I’d have liked for the focus to have been more on the drama.

Other than that, it was good. I love the setting of The Luxe series. It’s the thing that makes these books work. New York City. Pretty girls, unreachable boys, social-climbers. It’s totally ideal. And the lavish descriptions and imagery brings it all to life. It’s over the top in a good way.

AND the little twists the story took were fantastic. 

[SPOILERS] The whole entire book, Penelope and Henry were still married but you keep getting these little sides where Henry and Diana are trying to figure out their relationship. And then Penelope gets all this dirt on Henry so he can't really get out of his marriage. So of course the fix to all of this is for Henry to have sex with Penelope and walk out half naked onto the balcony where Diana sees. So then Diana goes and gets laid by Penelope's brother. And THEN Elizabeth finds out she's having Will's kid and so she needs to cover it up by getting married fast and the ideal choice, Teddy, went off to war so she has a boring and unfitting marriage to her father's former advisor guy. Then Henry, needing to feel all masculine and such goes off to war too, leaving Penelope sort of. When Diana hears about it she cuts off all her hair and at the end of the book she's leaving to pose as a guy in the army. [END SPOILERS] 

Whew. Needed to get all that out. The twists are awesome. 

It’s one of the only series in which I like the shiny, exaggerated, and obnoxious.

It’s delicious.

So yeah, maybe there were little faults and missteps in this book, but you know what? I still loved it. You can’t not love The Luxe.

And let me just say that Splendor had better be seriously amazing because the cliffhanger at the end of this book was killer. 

Bits 'n Pieces - Lisa McMann

Lisa McMann is the author of the YA novels Wake and Fade. Wake is a New York Times bestselling book.
It's sequel, Fade was released yesterday, February 10th. 
To read my review of Wake go heeere. And don't laugh. I wrote it a while ago when my writing was even worse than it is now. :P
Also, go check out Lisa's site for some fun info about the books. You can read Lisa's blog here

This or that:
Rain or shine? 
Shine! There is no rain in Arizona where I live.
iPod or mp3 player? 
Eep, I have neither.
Movies or TV? 
Tough one. TV
City or country? 
City
Mountains or beaches? 
Beaches (love the mountains, but I miss water!)
Dots or stripes? 
Stripes.
Dogs or cats? 
Both.
Cooking or eating out? 
Eating out, but I also love to cook.
Coffee or tea? 
Neither. Diet Coke.
Books or magazines? 
Books!

Favorites:
Book- 
eep! I can't answer this question. All of them.
Book store- 
Changing Hands in Tempe, AZ
Movie- 
Love, Actually
Music artist- 
Ack! I can't answer this either.
Website- 
Facebook
Designer- 
Vera Wang
Coffee chain- 
I prefer the indie hole-in-the-wall type
Color- 
Charcoal gray

Have you ever:
Lived abroad? 
No
Gotten a tattoo? 
Yes
Stayed up for the midnight release of a movie or book? 
Yes - book, No - movie (except maybe in college)
Disliked your job? 
Um...yes. But not the writing job.
Cried during a movie? 
Dozens of times.
Sang karaoke? 
Not officially.

Questions:
If you were on a desert island, what 5 things would you bring with you?
a boat, a high power transmitter, throwing stars, my computer, and some
food.
What’s on the list of things you have to do during your life?
clean the house...oh, wait. Good things? Travel around the world.
If you could have one super power what would it be?
I know what it wouldn't be -- getting sucked into other people's dreams.
What’s your perfect music playlist?
I have one on my myspace page -- Teen Troves made it for me. :)
What’s the one food you could eat day after day and not get sick of?
Peanut butter.
If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Greece
What moment in history do you wish you could’ve experienced?
The first woman voting.
What does your dream library look like?
Like the one in the Harry Potter movies 
When you walk into a bookstore, where do you head first?
The bathroom. Er... to the teen books, of course!
If everyone had to read one book, what would you have it be?
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Thank you so much Lisa! And if you haven't read Wake or Fade yet, I highly suggest you do. Wake is fantastic and based on all the fan girly reviews of Fade out there, I'm guessing that it, too, is just as fantastic. :)

Bookshelves

Thought I'd join in on the bookshelf sharing fun. :) Here's mine. I have all the books I've finished in alphabetical order by author's last name (yeah...OCD, I know) and then all the books I haven't read including library books are shoved onto the bottom shelf, however they'll fit. It's kind of bursting right now and I don't even have very many books. I definitely to get a second shelf even if it's tiny. So I can satiate all of my organizational needs. 
Oh and the weird looking versions of books (Audrey, Wait, Twilight, and New Moon) are Swedish versions. Just so ya know.
What do you think of my humble collection? 
(and I think you can possibly click on the pictures to make them bigger)

Skinned by Robin Wasserman

Some miracles come with a price.
Lia Kahn was perfect: rich, beautiful, popular - until the accident that nearly killed her. Now she has been downloaded into a new body that only looks human. Lia will never feel pain again, she will never age, and she can't ever truly die. But she is also rejected by her friends, betrayed by her boyfriend, and alienated by her old life.
Forced to the fringes of society, Lia join others like her. But they are looked at as freaks. They are hated...and feared. They are everything but human, and according to most people, this is the ultimate crime - for which they must pay the ultimate price.
(Summary from jacket flap)

Um. Okay. This book was good. I kept reading, the plot moved, the characters were fine. But there was a problem. 

Futuristic fiction is one of my favorite genres. I love reading about what authors think or dream the future's going to be like. I've read the Uglies series and I Was A Teenage Popsicle which both fit solidly into that classification. Reading Skinned, I felt like it was just a copy of both of those books together. 

In IWATP, the girl if frozen because she's sick and there's no cure. She's given new life through a cure twenty or so years into the future and is thrown into society. Everyone thinks she's a freak and she has to find new friends and reinvent her life. 

In the Uglies, everyone's beautiful, there's an outcast society for all the people who don't want to be like everyone else, there's denied love, etc. 

In Skinned, the girl dies, is given a new body, and is even more beautiful and perfect than everybody else. She is rejected by her friends and by society. She has a guy fall in love with her whose feelings she doesn't return, she goes and joins an outcast society. Sound familiar? Exactly. ALL of the little story elements in Skinned could be connected back to those two books I read. I was looking for something new and original and unique. A new perspective on the future world. It's sort of different from IWATP and Uglies but not by much. There just wasn't anything too special about this book. I felt like I was just rereading. 

But I guess I can't say that all of that ruined the book for me. Being an avid fan of futuristic fiction, I couldn't denounce Skinned just because of it's unoriginality. And there were a few bright points for me. Lia's character was pretty good. She had really relatable thoughts and struggles and worries, so as she grew and found out more about herself and her new life, I felt more connected and drawn to her. 

The part about her new body and her adjustment to that was really well described and cool. If people ever learn to transfer brains to new synthetic bodies in the real future, I think I'd be a little in awe but also terrified. The whole idea of not being in my own body and not having the sensations I have now is a weird thought. 

The best part of the book for me was Auden's little betrayal/brain fart at the end of the book made for a great cliff hanger so I'm holding out hope that the next book in this planned treasury will surpass Skinned on the originality scale but hopefully not copy "The Smoke" from the Uglies what with all of the outcast society stuff that Lia's now a part of. 

So I did enjoy it. Relatively. I'm a sucker for the future. 

I'd recommend Skinned in hopes that Crashed will be better. And also because I think Lia's pretty sweet. Just be warned that if you've read Uglies or IWATP you'll find a ton of stuff similar and unoriginal.

Read my Bits 'n Pieces interview with Robin Wasserman here.

Booking Through Thursday/Saturday #20: Too Much Information?

On Saturday

Have you ever been put off an author’s books after reading a biography of them? Or the reverse - a biography has made you love an author more?

Most of the time, learning more about an author is a good thing for me. I love getting to know more about the people who wrote books that I've read and loved. I feel more connected to the book if I know who wrote it and where it's coming from. I read a lot of author blogs because of that. I just get more into what I read the more I know and care about it.
On the other hand, there have been times where I've vowed never to read a book after learning about the author. Maybe not their biography in particular but their behavior or their reaction to negative reviews or how they've responded to me via email. I emailed an author once and she was completely horrible, in my opinion. Just rude and cynical. Like she didn't deem me worthy of her time. I never read her book. 
So for me, an author's image needs to be positive in order for me to read their book. I don't enjoy reading books written by rude or negative people. It's not my kind of thing. I want the whole package to be good; book and author together.

Waiting on Wednesday #5 - Anything But Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin

Jason Blake is an autistic 12-year-old living in a neurotypical world.Most days it's just a matter of time before something goes wrong. But Jason finds a glimmer of understanding when he comes across PhoenixBird, who posts stories to the same online site as he does.

Jason can be himself when he writes and he thinks that PhoneixBird-her name is Rebecca-could be his first real friend. But as desperate as Jason is to met her, he's terrified that if they do meet, Rebecca wil only see his autism and not who Jason really is.

By acclaimed writer Nora Raleigh Baskin, this is the breathtaking depiction of an autistic boy's struggles-and a story for anyone who has ever worried about fitting in.

Sounds like it could be pretty decent, eh? I like books that deal with issues not often tackled. So if this is pulled off, I think it'll be great. 
Mostly I just picked it for the cover. :P It's an AWESOME cover.

EDIT: March 24, 2009 = release date. :)

Dust of 100 Dogs...Get Excited

Soooo. The Dust of 100 Dogs by A.S. King is being released today. The few people that were lucky enough to read it early, said it was amazing. And not just simply amazing, but extremely amazing. Which is why I am going out to snag myself a copy today. I need to see where all this wonderful excitement is coming from.
AND. To make this even better, Steph is running a fantastically huge release contest for D100D over on her blog. There's over $300 in books and gift cards (including $10 to Amazon, from me) up for grabs and all you have to do is go buy the book and send Steph the proof that you purchased it. What could be easier?
I recommend you go out and buy this book ASAP so that not only can you have a chance at taking home that prize pot, you also get to read a great book in the process.
Check back here later in the month for a review! :)