Claire Stevens's Blog, page 42

Giveaway! All The Rage by Courtney Summers

To celebrate today's UK release of Courtney Summers' amazing book, All The Rage, I'm hosting a giveaway of one (1) paperback copy.

I was lucky enough to read an ARC of All The Rage last year (click here to link back to my review) and I have to say it was one of the most powerful books I've read in a long time.  Here's the blurb:

Romy Grey wears her lipstick like armour, ever since the night she was raped by Kellan Turner, the sheriff's son.

Romy refuses to be a victim, but speaking up has cost her everything. No one wants to believe Kellan is not the golden boy they thought he was, and Romy has given up trying to make herself heard.

​But when another girl goes missing after a party, Romy must decide whether the cost of her silence might be more than she can bear.

All The Rage is by no means a fluffy, fun read, but by God, but given our society's predilection for victim-blaming it's got a message that needs to be put out there.

All you need to do to enter is either follow me on Bloglovin' (the widget is at the top right of this page) or tweet the message.  A Bloglovin' follow gets your name put in the hat twice :-)

Oh, and the giveaway is only open in the UK.  Sorry, I just can't afford worldwide postage.

Many thanks to Pan Macmillan who kindly sent me a copy of All The Rage.​a Rafflecopter giveaway

Waiting On Wednesday - Girl Against the Universe by Paula Stokes

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill over at Breaking The Spine and it's a chance for us all to highlight the upcoming releases we're eagerly anticipating.  This week, my Waiting On Wednesday pick is Girl Against the Universe by Paul Stokes.  Here's the blurb:

Maguire is bad luck.

No matter how many charms she buys off the internet or good luck rituals she performs each morning, horrible things happen when Maguire is around. Like that time the rollercoaster jumped off its tracks. Or the time the house next door caught on fire. Or that time her brother, father, and uncle were all killed in a car crash—and Maguire walked away with barely a scratch.

It’s safest for Maguire to hide out in her room, where she can cause less damage and avoid meeting new people who she could hurt. But then she meets Jordy, an aspiring tennis star. Jordy is confident, talented, and lucky, and he’s convinced he can help Maguire break her unlucky streak. Maguire knows that the best thing she can do for Jordy is to stay away. But it turns out staying away is harder than she thought.

Okay, so I know it's really early in the year and I'm literally sitting here with a blanket around my shoulders while sleet smashes against my living room window, but I'm already starting to get my summer reads in order and I think this one's going to be a priority.  I reckon the boy's going to be all, 'Ooh, let's do all the kissing!' and the MC's going to be all, 'No, we can't possibly!' and that's the kind of thing I like to read about at the beach!

What about you?  What's your Waiting On Wednesday pick this week?

Any Other Girl by Rebecca Phillips

Kat likes to flirt.  A lot.  A naturally touchy-feely person, her innate flirtatiousness sometimes gets taken the wrong way.  Like when she flirts with her best friend Shay’s boyfriend at a party.  Deciding to turn over a new, non-flirty leaf, she leaves town to spend the summer at the lake with her parents, aunt and cousin.  When Kat and Harper meet a hot new neighbour, Emmett, and Harper lays claim to him, Kat finds she has to reel in the flirtatiousness in order to not hurt Harper’s feelings, despite the fact she and Emmett are starting to develop feelings for each other.

It took me a little while to warm up to Kat.  I’m all for flirting – yay flirting! – but I do think that flirting with your best friend’s boyfriend is not the most awesome decision if you don’t want your best friend to fall out with you majorly, although I did think her resulting social banishment was a bit harsh. 

Kat was also obsessed with her appearance.  I got that she dressed and acted extra girly so that people wouldn’t think her two dads had done a bad job in raising her, but I’d rather have seen her stick two fingers up to the nay-sayers instead of bowing down to what they thought represented a feminine ideal.  Putting people in boxes according to their gender is something that gives me the squint and I’m not going to start banging my drum for gender neutrality here, but I would have liked Kat more if she’d done the things she enjoyed doing despite what other people thought.  By the end of the book, however, I did start to like her and I was glad she picked up with the hobbies she used to enjoy.

The romance in Any Other Girl was quite sweet and Emmett seemed nice but I wanted Kat to just tell Harper that she liked him too.  I didn’t like that Harper called dibs on him.  No one has the ‘right’ to anyone else’s feelings and if the situation was reversed and two guys decided between themselves which one of them was going to end up with the girl, I think we’d all be a bit outraged.

For me, Any Other Girl didn’t have the same bite as Faking Perfect did.  It wasn’t a bad story by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasn’t gritty or edgy like Phillips’ previous book.  

Maybe I’m just a twisted cynic, but I like bad things to happen to characters.  Like that little sociopath kid who puts two insects in a jar to see which one will eat the other first, I like to see how characters will react and (hopefully) grow under extreme pressure.  The worst thing Kat had to deal with was fancying a boy that her cousin had a crush on and handling her cousin’s ire when she finds out that Kat started seeing the boy behind her back.

What I did like, however, was that this was a fun read.  Rebecca Phillips’ writing just flows so nicely, it’s no effort to read and I found myself immersed in the story in no time.  It was the literary equivalent of floating on your back in the swimming pool on a warm day: very pleasant and completely effortless.

All in all, this was a pleasant, fluffy summer romance story.  Recommended as a book to take to the beach for fans of Jenny Han.

3 stars
​
I was given a copy of Any Other Girl in exchange for an honest review.  Many thanks to Kensington and Netgalley.

Indie Author Spotlight - Debt by Rachel Dunning

So today I'm shining a spotlight on an indie author who is about to release a new book.  The author's name is Rachel Dunning and her book, Debt, is due for release in March.  And check out the cover!
Goodness me, that's a lot of pectoral muscles!  Let's take a look at the blurb:

The Debt Collector
I pay my debts, and I expect others to.
I was raised in the slums of London, I knew nothing of privilege. My father was murdered when I was seventeen. Morty figured my father's passing meant I would automatically take on dad's debts. I refused.
And I paid for that refusal.
So did my sister.
So now I fight. All I know how to do is fight. The best cash is in the states, so that's where I am now. A big fish called Vito came along offering me a "favor" when I arrived.
Another debt.
I paid for that one too.
I knew Kyla Hensley would be trouble when I met her. But I wanted her. I could see through the falsehood of her wannabe-slutty clothes and her sexy legs. So I chased her.
Besides, trouble is my middle name.

Kyla Hensley
I was brought up in privilege, but I lacked everything else. My father is a business tycoon who buys and sells and doesn't care who gets rolled over in the process.
I never knew my mother, and all I have of her is a photo with a note scrawled on the back in French saying "I'm sorry." The only Female Figure I had growing up is my dad's wife who is a bleach blond with seven boob jobs. We never bonded.
I drink. I party. I meet guys.
But I wasn't always like that.
I've had a string of lovers in the last few years, the worst and most recent of which was Vince Somerset. My best friend Vera was dating a guy called Rory Cansoom who is the opposite of Vince in so many ways, and yet so the same.
She and I hit the road for the summer, getting away from the two college psychos and just trying to have some fun.
But there's a funny thing about trouble, the more you run from it, the more it finds you.
Which is when I met the Debt Collector.
It was only supposed to be sex. He made that clear. I made that clear.
That's all it was supposed to be.
I never expected to fall in love. I never expected to fall so deeply, madly, uncomfortably in love with a man who is wrong, so wrong for me.
And yet...so unbelievably right.
Links:Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01A02LNLC
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01A02LNLC
Amazon Canada: http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01A02LNLC
Amazon Australia: http://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B01A02LNLC

The Year of the Rat by Clare Furniss

 The Year of the Rat is the story of Pearl.  Pearl’s mum has just died in childbirth, leaving Pearl, her dad and The Rat, the charming name Pearl comes up with for her tiny, premature sister.  Over the course of a year, the story shows how Pearl deals (or doesn’t) with the death of her mother and the change in the status quo at home.
 
I feel bad that I didn’t like The Year of the Rat more than I did.  The thing that prevented this book from being a DNF was the author’s writing.  It flowed really well and managed to be thoughtful without being flowery and gripping without being overly dramatic.  I know I’ve only given this book 2.5 stars, but I would still be interested in reading other work by Clare Furniss, based on her writing alone. 
 
The plot was paced quite well over the course of the year after Stella’s death, but the main plot points consisted of Pearl being mean to everyone who tried to help her.  There was a little bit of romance but it seemed to have been included because someone turned to the author and said, ‘You’re writing a YA novel?  Then you have to have romance in it.  It’s the LAW!’  I have no idea why he stuck around, because Pearl was just nothing but mean to him.
 
So.  Pearl.  Pearl wasn’t a very sympathetic character and that was what really affected my enjoyment of the book.  She was just so … whiny.
 
ARGH! *Clamps hands over ears* I know!  I know!  She’s just lost her mum!  You’re entitled to be upset.  God, you’re entitled to be tearing up the walls with grief, and I feel a horrible person for even bringing this up, but to me she didn’t sound like she was grieving, she just sounded narky.  She didn’t sound sad, she didn’t sound angry, or grief-stricken or disbelieving or in denial.  She just sounded like a pissed-off, sulky teenager, who mistakenly thinks the world owes her something. 
 
Pearl was completely oblivious to what her dad might be going through or to the fact that her baby sister was going to grow up without a mum and I really didn’t like her very much.  The overwhelming impression I got was that when her mum was alive, Pearl had been spoilt and was used to being an only child and that now her mum was dead she was furious at the spotlight being shifted from her.
 
***Spoiler Alert***
Seriously, even the scene near the end of the book where Pearl decides to run away from home (with loads of luggage), she doesn’t just slip out into the night like you do if you really mean it; she flounces into the living room and announces, ‘Right.  I’m going.  Bye.’ And then gets nasty when initially no one believes her and then tell her some home truths.
 
Mind you, her mum sounded like a right piece of work as well, so maybe Pearl took after her?  Her mum was, in gaming terms, a vague NPC.  Usually elves or mad people (or, in this case, a ghost) no one really knows why they’re there because they do nothing to move the story along and insist on talking in riddles and half-truths.  I was never really sure whether she was a figment of Pearl’s grief or if she was actually a ghost, but she didn’t really seem to add anything, so I wasn’t bothered either way.
 
I’ll tell you who I did like, though, and that was Pearl’s granny.  She completely calls Pearl out on all her selfish ways and seems to realise that when you’re dealing with a spoilt, immature child, the best thing is to pay them very little notice.  In places it was really only Granny who rescued this book for me because she made me think that maybe the author didn’t really think that Pearl’s attitude was an acceptable
 
All in all this was an okay read, but it was only okay.  I think if Pearl had been a bit less annoying it would have been quite a startling book, but as it was she was too irritating for me to care about her.
 
2.5 stars

Waiting On Wednesday - Never Never Part Three by Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill over at Breaking The Spine and it's a chance for us all to highlight the upcoming releases we're eagerly anticipating.  This week, my Waiting On Wednesday pick is Never Never Part Three by Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher. 

Now usually I try to find a bit of blurb to go with my WoW pick, but I can't seem to find one for Never Never Part Three.  Are the authors worried that they'll give too much away?  Eek - I really can't wait to see how this trilogy of novellas pans out.

I've read the first two parts of Never Never and I've really loved finding out about Charlie and Silas - one of the things I've enjoyed most is finding out about them at the same time as they do, as they work out their pasts from the letters and documents they've left for themselves.  I want to find out exactly what happened between the two families and who is behind the memory-wiping.  What are The Shrimp and her mother doing in all this?

But most of all I want an HEA for Charlie and Silas.  Despite the fact that they have been pretty toxic to each other in the past they do seem to really love each other and maybe the memory wipe will be a good chance for them to start again.

What about you?  What's your Waiting On Wednesday pick this week?

Cover Reveal - The Society by Jodie Andrefski

Jodie Andrefski has today revealed the cover for her upcoming release The Society, due to be published by Entangled Teen on 3rd May.  And here it is! Looks kind of cool, eh?  Here's the blurb:

Welcome to Trinity Academy’s best-kept secret.   The Society.
You’ve been handpicked by the elite of the elite to become a member. But first you’ll have to prove your worth by making it through Hell Week.
Do you have what it takes?
It’s time to find out.

Samantha Evans knows she’d never get an invite to rush the Society—not after her dad went to jail for insider trading. But after years of relentless bullying at the hands of the Society’s queen bee, Jessica, she’s ready to take down Jessica and the Society one peg at a time from the inside out.

All it’ll take is a bit of computer hacking, a few fake invitations, some eager rushees…and Sam will get her revenge.

Let the games begin.

Add to Goodreads
 
Buy Links:
Amazon│Barnes & Noble│iTunes│Kobo│Amazon UK│Amazon CA│The Book Depository│Books a Million
 
About the Author
Jodie Andrefski has been passionate about reading ever since she was a little girl, when she used to climb trees to escape with a favorite book. She now lives and writes in a small town in Pennsylvania with her teenage daughter. Though still an avid reader, she now prefers a comfy chair over the crook of a tree. An unapologetic coffee fiend, she's even happier if her java comes with pie. Jodie often draws on her background in education and mental health counseling to bring real world experience to her writing. She is a firm believer in the magic of a first kiss, and insists that you should never, ever give up on your dreams.
 
Author Links:
Website│Twitter│Facebook│Goodreads
 
Cover Reveal Organized by:
YA Bound Book Tours

The Giver by Lois Lowry

So The Giver has been on my TBR list for ages.  Like really ages.  It’s one of the original YA dystopias and while I thought The Giver was okay, it didn’t rock my world.  Like so many other books, just because someone did it first, it doesn’t necessarily follow that they did it best (*coughs* Lord of the Rings *cough*).
 
The Giver shows us a dystopian society where there’s no hunger, pain or suffering.  Everything is provided for citizens of the community and no one wants for anything.  When twelve year old Jonas is selected to be the next Receiver of Memory, he discovers that maybe the community isn’t as perfect as it seems.
 
So firstly, I think I should point out that Lois Lowry is obviously a really talented writer.  Her skill with words just shines off the pages - the narrative of this book is so calm and lyrical, it made it a very easy read.  The worldbuilding is also very good.  You get a real sense of the calm, ordered (and bland) community.  I also liked the message behind it - without suffering, can we ever really know joy - which is a really interesting conversation to start up with younger children (although I think Pixar explored this theme better in Inside Out!)
 
I think the main problem I had was that this dystopia wasn’t very ... dystopish (it’s a word, okay?)  The citizens don’t have much autonomy over their lives - all the big decisions like career and family are made for them and don’t get me wrong, totalitarianism is a bad thing.  Obviously.  But it’s only really in the last few chapters that anything chilling is really revealed (* * * spoiler alert * * *  It turns out that when the characters in the book are ‘released’, it actually means they are euthanized, which although is pretty awful doesn’t come across as truly terrifying because no one seems to be dreading it very much.  Everyone looks at being released as a good thing and I think for something to be truly dystopish you need to have all the citizens living in terror, hiding from the government, that sort of thing.)
 
In fact, I went through the first few chapters wondering whether in this reality the dystopian schtick would be that people are in serious danger of being bored to death.  Everything seemed so bland, so dull.  In the mornings, people sit around the breakfast table discussing what their dreams were the night before.  I can honestly think of nothing more tedious than listening to variations on a theme of something’s chasing me/I’m falling into a pit/I’ve gone to school with no trousers on while I’m trying to eat my cornflakes.
 
And actually in a way I was right.  It turns out that the society is deliberately bland in order to keep people living peacefully and free of stress, but this doesn’t make things very interesting or thrilling for the reader.  It just doesn’t.  Lois Lowry has a lovely way of writing and she’s obviously very talented, but this just wasn’t exciting enough for me.
 
Maybe the author was assuming that we all had the same ideals as her.  I can see that if you come from a very privileged background the community in The Giver would seem quite nightmarish, but if you come from a background of neglect and hunger then I think you’d find having all your basic needs met and a guaranteed job to be pretty bloody nice, actually!
 
One slightly startling thing did happen, though: I was about 20% through the book (on my Kindle) and it all suddenly went a bit Operation Yewtree.  The children in The Giver have to complete a certain number of community service hours and Jonas helps out at the local old folks’ home, where helps the residents in their bath.  So you have a scene where twelve year old kids are bathing naked adults.  Nothing untoward happened and I’ve been struggling to pinpoint exactly why I disliked it, and I think it’s because it was portrayed as a really normal thing to do.  Sorry, but I don’t think any child (bearing in mind that this book is aimed at children aged ten and up) should be presented with a scene where bathing naked adults is portrayed as okay.  Grooming, much?
 
I think ultimately my expectations for this book skewed my enjoyment.  I was expecting to be thrilled; I was mildly entertained.  I think this stems from the fact that YA can be such a broad definition.  In my local library, Louis Sachar books are labelled as YA, but so is Monsters by Emerald Fennell.  Louis Sachar boks are suitable for nine-year-olds, but there is no way I’d let a young kid anywhere near Emerald Fennell’s unholy combination of swearing, sociopaths and serial killers (although it was a brilliant book).
 
The Giver, for me, was an okay book but I think if it had been labelled as middle grade I’d have had different expectations and possibly either not have picked it up to begin with or read it with a different viewpoint.
 
2 stars

Never Never Part Two by Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher

Never Never Part Two is the second part of this gripping series that tells the story of Silas and Charlie, two high school seniors who suddenly have no memory of who they are or what their lives are like.  Gradually, they try to piece together the missing memories, but they end up uncovering a whole bunch of stuff they weren’t expecting.
 
I was really looking forward to reading this instalment after the cliffhanger at the end of part one and while I definitely enjoyed it, the pace did seem to slow down a bit.  It was still interesting and totally readable,
 
There’s a whole bunch more investigation in this book, mostly led by Silas, and because of the whole memory-loss thing, it takes him quite a while to find anything out!  Charlie manages to get herself into a right old predicament that opens up a whole new can of worms and makes me wonder where on earth the authors will be going with this new plot strand.
 
Charlie isn’t in this novella so much and the story is mostly told from Silas’s POV.  That’s fine, but I really enjoyed Charlie’s POV from the previous book.  I admire an author (or authors) who has the guts to write a protagonist who actually isn’t a very nice person and yet still manages to make you care about them.  The lack of Charlie wasn’t really a dealbreaker, but I’m hoping she’s going to be in the final instalment a lot more.
 
So, while this was a good instalment and I was glad I read it, it didn’t have quite the gut-punching impact of the first book.  I’m still going to read the final part, though, because I’m dying to find out what the big reveal is!
 
4 stars

Waiting On Wednesday - Morning Star by Pierce Brown

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill over at Breaking The Spine and it's a chance for us all to highlight the upcoming releases we're eagerly anticipating.  This week, my Waiting On Wednesday pick is Morning Star by Pierce Brown.  Here's the blurb:

Born a lowly Red in the mines of Mars, Darrow lost his beloved wife to the treacherous Gold overlords. Vowing to fight for the future that his wife believed in, Darrow joins a secret revolutionary group and is remade into a Gold so that he can infiltrate the ruling class and bring them down from the inside. Now, after years of hiding amongst the Golds, Darrow is finally ready to declare open revolution and throw off the chains of oppression. Nothing in Darrow’s world has been easily won, and this final fight will be the most harrowing of all. 

​Okay, I have no idea who Darrow is.  No idea who his wife is.  Don't know what a Gold is (although I'm guessing from the blurb that they're the baddies).  And the reason I don't know any of this is because I haven't read the first two books in the series.

So why have I chosen this as my Waiting On Wednesday pick?  About a year ago, I bought Red Rising on someone's recommendation, someone who has a very (spookily) similar taste in books to me.  I started reading it, was soon gripped, but then I found out it was the first in a series.

I hate stating a series before all the books are out.  Hate it, hate it, hate it.  Quite apart from the anxious hanging-on to see what's going to happen next, I end up forgetting who's betrayed whom, which characters I'm shipping and all the little plot twists that suddenly become so important two books down the line.

Seriously, Pierce Brown.  I've been waiting on this book for over a year, just so I can read the first damn book in the series.  Don't let me down.  (No pressure).

What about you?  What's your Waiting On Wednesday pick this week?