Ninety Second Novel: The Shadows We Know by Heart

Hello, my fellow bookworms! Welcome to Ninety Second Novel! With this sporadic feature, I'll be using booktube as a way to review a book before I can actually review it. In other words, if I happen to read a book earlier than I can post my review for it, then I'll be using this feature to tell you about it. Look at it as a preview review, perhaps? For the feature, I'll be talking about whatever book(s) I read, but in ninety seconds or less!

My Big Fat Reading Mistake

I mean, I really should know better. It's not like I haven't read a series before, and it's not like I don't watch TV. And yet, I still keep making this reading mistake. (Though in all honesty I probably make a lot of reading mistakes, but let's just focus on this one.) Okay, so maybe it isn't exactly a mistake, but it's a bothersome occurrence that keeps happening and a position I'm repeatedly putting myself in. But what, you may be wondering, is my big fat reading mistake? (It does not, unfortunately, have anything to do with delicious Greek food.) Why, let me tell you.

Review: Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley

Title: Graffiti Moon

Author: Cath Crowley

Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers

Publishing Date: February 14, 2012

Pages/Format: 260, Hardcover
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Senior year is over, and Lucy has the perfect way to celebrate: tonight, she's going to find Shadow, the mysterious graffiti artist whose work appears all over the city. He's out there somewhere—spraying color, spraying birds and blue sky on the night—and Lucy knows a guy who paints like Shadow is someone she could fall for. Really fall for. Instead, Lucy's stuck at a party with Ed, the guy she's managed to avoid since the most awkward date of her life. But when Ed tells her he knows where to find Shadow, they're suddenly on an all-night search around the city. And what Lucy can't see is the one thing that's right before her eyes. 

Book in One Word: Well...

The Weekly Forecast (16)

Welcome to a weekly feature of sorts here on Beauty and the Bookshelf: The Weekly Forecast! I've been reworking the blog a bit, trying to post more and be consistent, but also to post more than reviews and the same two memes every week (assuming I even post anything during a week). Then I thought of The Weekly Forecast, a way to recap what I did on the blog the week before, and then to forecast what will be on the blog the coming week. The latter could be helpful because it keeps me in check, kind of: if I tell you I'm going to post a review this week then now I basically have to post a review this week. But first: let me tell you what happened on the blog last week.

I usually explain why I didn't get all my intended posts up, but you know what? This week was Thanksgiving and I'm not going to worry about it. (But oh my gosh, that black sheep discussion post is never going to happen.)

Waiting on Wednesday (179)

is a weekly feature hosted by Breaking the Spine that 

showcases upcoming releases people are very much anticipating.

I've been yearning for this book ever since I saw the cover reveal and promptly flooded my house with drool. Thank gosh it's only two months until the pub date, because I want it now. I just hope the final cover is waterproof.

Top Ten Tuesday (179)

is a weekly feature created by The Broke and the Bookish.

This Tuesday's theme is...

Review: A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

Title: A Torch Against the Night

Author: Sabaa Tahir

Publisher: Razorbill

Publishing Date: August 30, 2016

Pages/Format: 452, Hardcover
Add on Goodreads!

Elias and Laia are running for their lives. After the events of the Fourth Trial, Martial soldiers hunt the two fugitives as they flee the city of Serra and undertake a perilous journey through the heart of the Empire.

Laia is determined to break into Kauf—the Empire’s most secure and dangerous prison—to save her brother, who is the key to the Scholars’ survival. And Elias is determined to help Laia succeed, even if it means giving up his last chance at freedom.

But dark forces, human and otherworldly, work against Laia and Elias. The pair must fight every step of the way to outsmart their enemies: the bloodthirsty Emperor Marcus, the merciless Commandant, the sadistic Warden of Kauf, and, most heartbreaking of all, Helene—Elias’s former friend and the Empire’s newest Blood Shrike.

Bound to Marcus’s will, Helene faces a torturous mission of her own—one that might destroy her: find the traitor Elias Veturius and the Scholar slave who helped him escape…and kill them both.

Book in One Word: Ehhh

The Weekly Forecast (15)

Welcome to a weekly feature of sorts here on Beauty and the Bookshelf: The Weekly Forecast! I've been reworking the blog a bit, trying to post more and be consistent, but also to post more than reviews and the same two memes every week (assuming I even post anything during a week). Then I thought of The Weekly Forecast, a way to recap what I did on the blog the week before, and then to forecast what will be on the blog the coming week. The latter could be helpful because it keeps me in check, kind of: if I tell you I'm going to post a review this week then now I basically have to post a review this week. But first: let me tell you what happened on the blog last week.

Thanks to poor time management (and having utter writer's block for a discussion post), this was not my best week for blogging or reading.

Review: An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

Title: An Ember in the Ashes

Author: Sabaa Tahir

Publisher: Razorbill

Publishing Date: April 28, 2015

Pages/Format: 446, Hardcover
Add on Goodreads!

Laia is a slave.

Elias is a soldier.

Neither is free.

Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.

It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who do.

But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy.

There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself. 

Book in One Word: Like

My Blogging Secret

Up until a few months ago I really struggled with blogging. It wasn't just that I wasn't posting often, or that my posts were the same things over and over again. It's that I felt like my posts lacked substance and content, that they were missing that something that made people want to come read them. Sure, my blog is mine and doesn't have to be for others, but it's not like I want to put all this time and effort into a show for an empty room. But then I got this idea for a certain kind of blog post, and now?

Review: The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

Title: The Bone Season

Authors: Samantha Shannon

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA

Publishing Date: August 20, 2013

Pages/Format: 466, Hardcover
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The year is 2059. Nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working in the criminal underworld of Scion London, based at Seven Dials, employed by a man named Jaxon Hall. Her job: to scout for information by breaking into people's minds. For Paige is a dreamwalker, a clairvoyant and, in the world of Scion, she commits treason simply by breathing.

It is raining the day her life changes for ever. Attacked, drugged and kidnapped, Paige is transported to Oxford – a city kept secret for two hundred years, controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. Paige is assigned to Warden, a Rephaite with mysterious motives. He is her master. Her trainer. Her natural enemy. But if Paige wants to regain her freedom she must allow herself to be nurtured in this prison where she is meant to die.

The Bone Season introduces a compelling heroine and also introduces an extraordinary young writer, with huge ambition and a teeming imagination. Samantha Shannon has created a bold new reality in this riveting debut.

Book in One Word: Off-Season

The Weekly Forecast (14)

Welcome to a weekly feature of sorts here on Beauty and the Bookshelf: The Weekly Forecast! I've been reworking the blog a bit, trying to post more and be consistent, but also to post more than reviews and the same two memes every week (assuming I even post anything during a week). Then I thought of The Weekly Forecast, a way to recap what I did on the blog the week before, and then to forecast what will be on the blog the coming week. The latter could be helpful because it keeps me in check, kind of: if I tell you I'm going to post a review this week then now I basically have to post a review this week. But first: let me tell you what happened on the blog last week.

I started a new job this week--five days a week, full time--and I wasn't sure how that'd effect my blogging. It actually worked out okay and I managed to get all my posts up, which was pleasing! My reading time, on the other hand (though in my defense, I couldn't really get into anything, either)...

Review: The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

Title: The Things They Carried

Authors: Tim O'Brien

Publisher: Mariner Books

Publishing Date: March 1, 1990

Pages/Format: 233, Paperback
Add on Goodreads!

They carried malaria tablets, love letters, 28-pound mine detectors, dope, illustrated bibles, each other. And if they made it home alive, they carried unrelenting images of a nightmarish war that history is only beginning to absorb. Since its first publication, The Things They Carried has become an unparalleled Vietnam testament, a classic work of American literature, and a profound study of men at war that illuminates the capacity, and the limits, of the human heart and soul.

The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three.

Book in One Word: Carrying

Ninety Second Novel: By Your Side

Hello, my fellow bookworms! Welcome to Ninety Second Novel! With this sporadic feature, I'll be using booktube as a way to review a book before I can actually review it. In other words, if I happen to read a book earlier than I can post my review for it, then I'll be using this feature to tell you about it. Look at it as a preview review, perhaps? For the feature, I'll be talking about whatever book(s) I read, but in ninety seconds or less!

Waiting on Wednesday (178)

is a weekly feature hosted by Breaking the Spine that 
showcases upcoming releases people are very much anticipating.

Aspects of this book that seem unappealing: NOT A DAMN THING. That freaking cool oh-my-gosh cover. That super epic title. That fucking amazing premise. Here's the down-low: this is, by far, one of my most anticipated books of 2017, and I WANT IT NOW.

Top Ten Tuesday (178)

is a weekly feature created by The Broke and the Bookish.

This Tuesday's theme is...

Review: Bad Blood by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Title: Bad Blood

Authors: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Publishing Date: November 1, 2016

Pages/Format: 384, Hardcover
Add on Goodreads!

When Cassie Hobbes joined the FBI's Naturals program, she had one goal: uncover the truth about her mother's murder. But now, everything Cassie thought she knew about what happened that night has been called into question. Her mother is alive, and the people holding her captive are more powerful—and dangerous—than anything the Naturals have faced so far. 

As Cassie and the team work to uncover the secrets of a group that has been killing in secret for generations, they find themselves racing a ticking clock.

New victims. New betrayals. New secrets.

When the bodies begin piling up, it soon becomes apparent that this time, the Naturals aren't just hunting serial killers.

Book in One Word: MOOORE

The Weekly Forecast (13)

Welcome to a weekly feature of sorts here on Beauty and the Bookshelf: The Weekly Forecast! I've been reworking the blog a bit, trying to post more and be consistent, but also to post more than reviews and the same two memes every week (assuming I even post anything during a week). Then I thought of The Weekly Forecast, a way to recap what I did on the blog the week before, and then to forecast what will be on the blog the coming week. The latter could be helpful because it keeps me in check, kind of: if I tell you I'm going to post a review this week then now I basically have to post a review this week. But first: let me tell you what happened on the blog last week.

I missed a post basically because I chose to read instead, so VALID EXCUSE.

Review: The Way Back to You by Michelle Andreani + Mindi Scott

Title: The Way Back to You

Authors: Michelle Andreani and Mindi Scott

Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books

Publishing Date: May 3, 2016

Pages/Format: 384, ARC
Add on Goodreads!

In this witty, heart-tugging novel, two teens take a spontaneous road trip across the Southwest to meet three strangers who received the life-saving organs of their late best friend—charting a journey of loss, hope, and love along the way.

Six months ago, Ashlyn Montiel died in a bike accident.

Her best friend Cloudy is keeping it together, at least on the outside. Cloudy’s insides are a different story: tangled, confused, heartbroken. 

Kyle is falling apart, and everyone can tell. Ashlyn was his girlfriend, and when she died, a part of him went with her. Maybe the only part he cares about anymore.

As the two people who loved Ashlyn best, Cloudy and Kyle should be able to lean on each other. But after a terrible mistake last year, they're barely speaking. So when Cloudy discovers that Ashlyn’s organs were donated after her death and the Montiel family has been in touch with three of the recipients, she does something a little bit crazy and a lot of out character: she steals the letters and convinces Kyle to go on a winter break road trip with her, from Oregon to California to Arizona to Nevada. Maybe if they see the recipients—the people whose lives were saved by Ashlyn’s death—the world will open up again. Or maybe it will be a huge mistake. 

With hundreds of miles in front of them, a stowaway kitten, and a list of people who are alive because of Ashlyn, Cloudy and Kyle just may find their way to back to her...and to each other.

Book in One Word: LIIIIIIIIIIIKE

October Rewind

I did a good chunk of reading and blogging this month (and because of all that I'm behind on all of my TV shows), which pleases me. Buuut I'm starting a full-time job in November and I might have to take the amount of reading and blogging I get done down a notch. I'm hoping to balance it all, but I'll have to wait and see.

Review: This Is Our Story by Ashley Elston

Title: This Is Our Story

Author: Ashley Elston

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Publishing Date: November 15, 2016

Pages/Format: 320, ARC
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No one knows what happened that morning at River Point. Five boys went hunting. Four came back. The boys won’t say who fired the shot that killed their friend; the evidence shows it could have been any one of them. 

Kate Marino’s senior year internship at the District Attorney’s Office isn’t exactly glamorous—more like an excuse to leave school early that looks good on college applications. Then the DA hands her boss, Mr. Stone, the biggest case her small town of Belle Terre has ever seen. The River Point Boys are all anyone can talk about. Despite their damning toxicology reports the morning of the accident, the DA wants the boys’ case swept under the rug. He owes his political office to their powerful families.

Kate won’t let that happen. Digging up secrets without revealing her own is a dangerous line to walk; Kate has her own reasons for seeking justice for Grant. As she and Stone investigate—the ageing prosecutor relying on Kate to see and hear what he cannot—she realizes that nothing about the case—or the boys—is what it seems. Grant wasn’t who she thought he was, and neither is Stone’s prime suspect. As Kate gets dangerously close to the truth, it becomes clear that the early morning accident might not have been an accident at all—and if Kate doesn’t uncover the true killer, more than one life could be on the line…including her own.

Book in One Word: YES