The Friday 56 (99) & Book Beginnings: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. For the full rules, visit the the page HERE

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does or does not say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life...

Beginnings: "I shouldn't have come to this party. I'm not even sure if I belong at this party."

56: "Momma cuts him a quick glare, then turns to me. "So, you think your up for it, Starr?"

Comments: I don't have much to say about this because I literally just started reading it yesterday. I've only read a couple of pages, but I plan on finishing The Hate U Give before the weekend is over.

What are you reading this week?

March Discussion Post: What If The Synopsis Spoils The Book

Spoilers is the topic of my March discussion post. Spoilers, well, it isn’t really a topic that I would normally have a lot to say about. At the end of the day, spoilers are still spoilers no matter which way you put it. My thoughts on this particular subject stemmed from some of the books I’ve recently read. Lately, I’ve gotten a couple of them that have made me think about what happens when and if the synopsis of a book accidentally ruins an integral part of the plot.

Don’t worry, I’m purely sharing my thoughts about this topic, but I will not name or reveal any spoilers pertaining to the books that prompted this post.

As I stated above, this has happened to me on multiple occasions. Usually, I don’t immediately take notice of this until I’ve finished the book and started to write my review—then I finally get that “Aha!” moment. While this doesn’t seem like it can be much of a problem, it does have an impact on me. I’ve noticed that this is especially the case when it’s the first book in a series. That first book is often the deciding factor of whether I want or don’t want to continue on to later books in a series. It doesn’t have to be the most literary thing in the sea, as long as I end up enjoying the story for what it is. However, knowing certain things about the plot can have a couple of different effects.

Let me explain. If the synopsis happens to spoil something important, and I either know or am unconsciously expecting it, then when I actually get to that part it might not have the impact that was intended. I find that this is especially the case when that reveal happens pretty late into the story. Simply put, that element of surprise just isn’t there. While this might not ruin a story—especially, if there’s more surprising twists and development left to the plot—it’s still something to think about.

So, what to do about it?

As a reader, it's hard to say, because it would be impossible to avoid synopses entirely. However, I still dislike when this happens, because I always think, “Would this book have had a lasting impression if I hadn’t been expecting a specific thing to haappen [insert spoiler here]? Would I have reacted differently?” Which always leads me to the same conclusion: possibly.

Has this ever happened to you?

What's New?: Victoria Scott

Today, I’m going to be mentioning a couple of books. The first is Victoria Scott’s new release, Hear the Wolves, which came out yesterday. The second book is Titans, which is now available in paperback. You can find more information about Titans and Hear the Wolves below...

Title: Hear the Wolves

Author: Victoria Scott

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Release Date: March 28, 2017

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

It’s survival of the strongest in a contemporary, girl-versus-wild middle-grade debut from Fire & Flood author Victoria Scott!

Sloan is a hunter...

So she shouldn’t be afraid of anything. But ever since her mom left the family and she lost hearing in one ear in a blizzard, it’s been hard to talk to people, and near-impossible to go anywhere or do anything without her dad or big sister within eyesight — it makes her too scared to be on her own. When they leave her home alone for what should only be two nights, she’s already panicked. Then the snow starts falling and doesn’t stop. One of her neighbors is hurt in an accident. And the few people still left in Rusic need to make it to the river and the boat that’s tied there — their only way to get to a doctor from their isolated Alaska town. But the woods are icy cold, and the wolves are hungry. Sloan and her group are running out of food, out of energy, and out of time. That’s when the wolves start hunting them . . .

Title: Titans

Author: Victoria Scott

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Publication Date: February 23, 2016

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

Ever since the Titans first appeared in her Detroit neighborhood, Astrid Sullivan’s world has revolved around the mechanical horses. She and her best friend have spent countless hours watching them and their jockeys practice on the track. It’s not just the thrill of the race. It’s the engineering of the horses and the way they’re programmed to seem so lifelike. The Titans are everything that fascinates Astrid, and nothing she’ll ever touch. She hates them a little, too. Her dad lost everything betting on the Titans. And the races are a reminder of the gap between the rich jockeys who can afford the expensive machines to ride, and the working class friends and neighbors of Astrid’s who wager on them. But when Astrid’s offered a chance to enter an early model Titan in this year’s derby, well, she decides to risk it all. Because for a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, it’s more than a chance at fame or money. Betting on herself is the only way she can see to hang on to everyone in the world she cares about...

Victoria Scott is the acclaimed author of FIRE & FLOOD, SALT & STONE, TITANS, HEAR THE WOLVES, the DANTE WALKER trilogy, and VIOLET GRENADE (May 2017). She is published by Scholastic and Entangled Teen, and is represented by Sara Crowe. Her latest novel, TITANS, received two starred reviews, and FIRE & FLOOD is a 2017 Spirit of Texas Reading Program selection. Victoria’s novels are sold in fourteen different countries, and she loves receiving reader emails from at home, and across the world...

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Musing Mondays (68) Random Weekly Questions

Rules: 

• Musing Mondays is a weekly meme hosted by Ambrosia at The Purple Booker that asks you to muse about something book related each week. 

My musings for the week...

(Random weekly question from March 13th) Do you post book reviews right after you finish the book? Or do you wait a while so you can fully digest it before posting a review?

I don’t post reviews right after I finish a book. Lately, I’m finding more often than not, that I need a little extra time to think about what I want to say about the book. Even then, that’s not the sole reason why I don’t immediately post reviews. My main reason is that I typically put them on the blog on Wednesdays, and even with that in mind the review isn’t going to appear until about a week—give or take a few days—after I’ve mentioned the book for The Friday 56. That’s due to how I have things scheduled. The same thing kind of applies to ARC’s. Except, I will post the reviews closer to release date which has little to nothing to do with how I regularly schedule posts.

(Random weekly question from February 27th) Have you ever accidentally destroyed a book? Such as accidentally dropped it in the tub, or run it over with a bike? How about accidentally on purpose or simply purposefully?

I don’t recall ever intentionally destroying a book, but some of my most read, well-loved favorites have tattered covers and dog-eared pages. But that’s a small price I’m willing to pay for getting to reread all of my favorite scenes over and over again. After all, what’s the point of having so many books if I’m not willing to just enjoy them?

(Random weekly question from March 20th) What do think of fairy tales in general? The book versions and their movie counter parts?

Well, in general, I do like fairy tales and have specific favorites that I always go back to. There are some that I don’t like as much, but that’s just a personal preference of mine. I’m not really that picky when it comes to the movie and/or book version, because more often than not, there’s going to be aspects about both that I really enjoyed or don't like as much. Although, I will say that it’s always fun to see those characters come to life on the screen. This question reminds me about how much I actually enjoy movies based on fairy tales. I’m mostly in it for the magic, scenery, story, and the atmosphere that those things create.

Other Musings...

After I've gotten through some other stuff I need to do, I'm going to finally read The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Hopefully, that'll be sometime this week. Anyway, this is one of my most anticipated 2017 new releases, and I’m really looking forward to reading it.

Synopsis from Goodreads…

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil's name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does or does not say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life...

 What are you reading this week?

Music Monday (19) Rag'n'Bone Man, La'Porsha Renae + Upcoming Music

   Rules:

• Music Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Lauren Stoolfire at Always Me that asks you to share one or two songs that you've recently enjoyed. For the rules, visit the page HERE 

Breana: Originally, I only had one song to share this week, but my co-blogger, Andrea, mentioned an album that's coming out soon. More on that later. First, I'm going to start with Human by Rag’n’Bone Man. I’ll admit that I only recently heard about this song, and that’s because a video game trailer happened to be the ad I got stuck watching—which turned out to be the best ad ever, because I love this song so much! There is something so addictive about Human. I can’t tell if it’s just the lyrics, vocals, or the beat. I suspect that it’s a combination of all three. I recommend giving it a listen.

Okay, remember how I mentioned that album? Well, now I'm going to talk about it. La'Porsha Renae's Already All Ready album is going to come out in about 4 days from now. I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am for this album. But for now, you can check out her What Is Love song.

Are there any albums you're looking forward to? If so, tell me in the comments down below.

The Friday 56 (98) & Book Beginnings: The Crooked Sixpence by Jennifer Bell

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. For the full rules, visit the the page HERE

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

Welcome to a world where nothing is quite as it seems…

When their grandmother Sylvie is rushed to the hospital, Ivy Sparrow and her annoying big brother Seb cannot imagine what adventure lies in store. Soon their house is ransacked by unknown intruders, and a very strange policeman turns up on the scene, determined to apprehend them . . . with a toilet brush. Ivy and Seb make their escape only to find themselves in a completely uncommon world, a secret underground city called Lundinor where ordinary objects have amazing powers. There are belts that enable the wearer to fly, yo-yos that turn into weapons, buttons with healing properties, and other enchanted objects capable of very unusual feats. But the forces of evil are closing in fast, and when Ivy and Seb learn that their family is connected to one of the greatest uncommon treasures of all time, they must race to unearth the treasure and get to the bottom of a family secret . . .before it’s too late...

Beginnings: "Ivy rocked forward as the ambulance turned a corner. Everything inside rattled."

56: "The man raised a fist toward the roof of the cavern. "Broke three signs this week!" he shouted."

Comments: The Cooked Sixpence is my current read. Since I first heard about this book back in January, its been on my TBR list. So far, the story is pretty good.

What are you reading this week?

Review: The Wrath & The Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

Title: The Wrath & the Dawn
Author: Renee Ahdieh
Source/Format: Borrowed from the Library; Hardcover
More Details: Young Adult; Fantasy
Publisher/Publication Date: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers; May 12, 2015
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Synopsis from Goodreads...

One Life to One Dawn...

In a land ruled by a murderous boy-king, each dawn brings heartache to a new family. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, is a monster. Each night he takes a new bride only to have a silk cord wrapped around her throat come morning. When sixteen-year-old Shahrzad's dearest friend falls victim to Khalid, Shahrzad vows vengeance and volunteers to be his next bride. Shahrzad is determined not only to stay alive, but to end the caliph's reign of terror once and for all. Night after night, Shahrzad beguiles Khalid, weaving stories that enchant, ensuring her survival, though she knows each dawn could be her last. But something she never expected begins to happen: Khalid is nothing like what she'd imagined him to be. This monster is a boy with a tormented heart. Incredibly, Shahrzad finds herself falling in love. How is this possible? It's an unforgivable betrayal. Still, Shahrzad has come to understand all is not as it seems in this palace of marble and stone. She resolves to uncover whatever secrets lurk and, despite her love, be ready to take Khalid's life as retribution for the many lives he's stolen. Can their love survive this world of stories and secrets?

Inspired by A Thousand and One Nights, The Wrath and the Dawn is a sumptuous and enthralling read from beginning to end...

Lately, I’ve had a string of books that I was really looking forward to, but they just ended up being okay for me. The same can be said about The Wrath & The Dawn by Renee Ahdieh. There was nothing particularly bad about the story I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. 

After reading The Star-Touched Queen I was like “yes, give me more fantasy books that don’t clearly have medieval-like themes.” So, of course I was kind of excited to see what Ahdieh could do with a story like A Thousand and One Nights. I wanted to know what kinds of twists there would be, and how Shahrzad would be portrayed.

Hmm. I read this book relatively quickly, but had to take a couple of days before I decided on what rating I wanted to put up on even Goodreads. Like I stated above, The Wrath & The Dawn wasn’t a bad story. There were some things that I genuinely liked about the book, especially the stories that Shahrzad told to Khalid and Ahdieh’s writing. However, I felt like there was something missing from the whole reading experience. My main problem with this one was that as I was reading the story, I didn’t feel much. I didn’t have much of an emotional response to the story or the situations the characters happened to be in outside of a few scenes. That’s what made writing this kind of hard. Now that I’ve gone back and looked at the synopsis while setting up this blog post, I’ve kind of realized that it tells a lot about the actual story. I just wish that it didn’t do that, because as these things were actually happening in the book, I was already kind of unconsciously expecting them.

Okay, with that out of the way, I’m going to talk about some of the others things I liked. It mainly included the setting and a few of the side characters. The descriptions of the scenery were pretty close to amazing. While much of the story revolved around Shahrzad, the parts where more of the society outside of royal life was shown were some of my favorite scenes. Now, there were a handful of side characters that kind of made the story. At times, I was more interested in what they were doing instead of Shahrzad.

So, I don’t know. I might read the last book in this duology, but I don’t really know when that’ll actually happen.

Music Monday (18) Victoria Monet & FKJ

   Rules:

• Music Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Lauren Stoolfire at Always Me that asks you to share one or two songs that you've recently enjoyed. For the rules, visit the page HERE 

Breana: My picks this week are We Are People and Good Times X Trouble by Victoria Monet. This past Saturday I happened to be listening to google music when I heard Victoria Monet’s song, We Are People. I instantly loved it! Since then, I’ve listened to her Nightmares & Lullaby EP’s, Act 1 & 2. I found it kind of hard to narrow down which two songs I wanted to mention for Music Monday, because those EP’s are gold. Eventually, I decided on We Are People and Good Times X Trouble because they are truly lovely songs.

First up is We Are People. I’ve listened to this song more than a dozen times by now. I love everything about it.

Good Times X Trouble is the second song I listened to after I stopped playing We Are People on repeat. This is another good one, but really, I recommend giving both EP’s a listen. There are other great songs worth mentioning like Backyard, Cupid, and Mad Generation.

Adri: This week I've been lovin' Skyline by FKJ (If you look under the youtube about page for FKJ it stands for French Kiwi Juice). I had no words when I first heard the song. I just don't know, it's hard to describe. I just love it.

Recently, have you  discovered any new musicians? If so, leave your recommendations in the comments down below.

Weekend Tidbits {#10} So Much Stuff

Today, I have so much stuff to go over, hence the title of the post. It seemed only fitting since most of what I’m going to mention today is not specifically book related, and wouldn’t be a fit for Musing Monday.

Recently there has been a handful of trailer releases that have gotten me really excited for the sequels I’ve been waiting years for, which got me thinking about some of the other movies I’m waiting for.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Let me just start this off by saying: Baby Groot!!! Obviously, I’m really looking forward to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. It’s been a couple of years since Guardians of the Galaxy came out, and it’s still my favorite Marvel movie. After the end of the first movie, I really want to see where the story goes.

Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Men Tell No Tale: It has been six years—SIX YEARS—since the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie. That’s a long time to wait, but from the look of the trailer, all that time seems to be worth it. This also appears to be the return of Will Turner and the Flying Dutchman, which is a decision I can totally get behind. I’m beyond excited for Dead Men Tell No Tales. I'm not going to lie, when I saw the “final adventure” part from the trailer, I was worried that this was going to be the last movie in the franchise. Thankfully, it isn’t. P.S. I still miss Tia Dalma. She will forever be my favorite character from Pirates of the Caribbean.

Wonder Woman & Justice League: I’m kind of curious to see how these movies turn out. Marvel is great, but I also like some of the stuff from DC too. My hopes are really high for Wonder Woman. Just from the trailers, it looks like it’s going to put some context to the picture of Wonder Woman from Batman V Superman. Then there’s Justice League, which is going to have The Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman! I’m really looking forward to seeing those three characters as more than just cameo appearances.

Recently, I picked up two of the new Beauty and the Beast Funko Pops. I got Cogsworth and Mrs. Pots with Chip. I have to admit that these are probably three of my favorite funkos mainly because of the design of the characters. The colors are incredibly nice, and Cogswoth’s whole design is just awesome.

And last, but certainly not least, I have a recipe I want to share. This is one of my favorites. I’ve made it multiple ways, and can confirm that it turns out great each and every time. Do you need a recipe for flaky biscuits, you know, the ones with all those layers? I have found my go-to recipe:

Dessert Now Dinner Later Foolproof Flaky Biscuits 

I use this one whenever I make biscuits, and I’ve made it a number of ways. I’ve used regular milk, almond milk, wheat flour, or a combination of wheat & unbleached, or wheat & all-purpose. It just works great. The ones pictured below were made with half whole wheat & half all-purpose flour, and buttermilk.