The Friday 56 (33) Splintered by A.G. Howard

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

Synopsis from Goodreads...

Alyssa Gardner hears the whispers of bugs and flowers—precisely the affliction that landed her mother in a mental hospital years before. This family curse stretches back to her ancestor Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alyssa might be crazy, but she manages to keep it together. For now. When her mother’s mental health takes a turn for the worse, Alyssa learns that what she thought was fiction is based in terrifying reality. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. There, Alyssa must pass a series of tests, including draining an ocean of Alice’s tears, waking the slumbering tea party, and subduing a vicious bandersnatch, to fix Alice’s mistakes and save her family. She must also decide whom to trust: Jeb, her gorgeous best friend and secret crush, or the sexy but suspicious Morpheus, her guide through Wonderland, who may have dark motives of his own...

"Several tendrils of dark pink hair have fallen from her upswept do. The strands coil like pink flames over her black tube dress, bringing back what they did to Alison's hair at the asylum."--Splintered by A.G. Howard

What's one of your favorite retellings?

Release Day Launch & Giveaway: Sweet Madness by Trisha Leaver & Lindsay Currie

Today we’re celebrating the release of Sweet Madness (ebook) by Trisha Leaver and Lindsay Currie. Find out more about the book below and don't forget to enter the giveaway at the bottom of the post!

About the book...

Seventeen-year-old Bridget Sullivan is alone in Fall River, a city that sees Irish immigrants as nothing more than a drunken drain on society. To make matters worse, she's taken employment with the city’s most peculiar and gossip-laden family—the Bordens. But Bridget can’t afford to be picky—the pay surpasses any other job Bridget could ever secure and she desperately needs the money to buy her little sister, Cara, passage to the states. It doesn’t hurt that the job location is also close to her beau, Liam. As she enters the disturbing inner workings of the Borden household, Bridget clings to these advantages.

However, what seemed like a straightforward situation soon turns into one that is untenable. Of course Bridget has heard the gossip around town about the Bordens, but what she encounters is far more unsettling. The erratic, paranoid behavior of Mr. Borden, the fearful silence of his wife, and worse still...the nightly whisperings Bridget hears that seem to come from the walls themselves.

When Bridget makes a horrifying discovery in the home, all that she thought she knew about the Bordens is called into question...including if Lizzie is dangerous. And the choice she must make about Lizzie’s character could mean Bridget’s life or death.

Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | IndieBound | BAM | The Book Depository | Powell’s

“This thrilling novel will keep readers on their toes until the last page. Fans of historical fiction and horror will thoroughly enjoy this book.” —VOYA Magazine

“The portrait of the claustrophobic, creepy Borden household and its denizens, Lizzie especially, is grippingly vivid.”— Kirkus

“Engaging historical novel that gives readers another glimpse into the infamous Lizzie Borden.”— YA Book Central

“Dark, creepy and overall fantastically moody; SWEET MADNESS remains firmly entrenched in the Hitchcock side of horror.”— Fangirlish

Trisha Leaver lives on Cape Cod with her husband, three children, and one rather disobedient black lab. She is a chronic daydreamer who prefers the cozy confines of her own imagination to the mundane routine of everyday life. She writes Young Adult Contemporary Fiction, Psychological Horror and Science Fiction and is published with FSG/ Macmillan, Flux/Llewellyn and Merit Press.

Trisha is a member of the SCBWI, The Cape Cod Writers Center, and the YA Scream Queens—a group of nine female authors who are deathly serious about their horror.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Tumblr

Lindsay Currie lives in Chicago, Illinois with one incredibly patient hubby, three amazing kids and a 160 pound lap dog named Sam. She's fond of tea, chocolate and things that go bump in the night. An author of young adult and middle grade fiction, Lindsay is published with Flux/Llewellyn, Merit Press and Spencer Hill Contemporary.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Instagram

To celebrate the ebook release, the authors are giving away a very special swag pack: A custom, exclusive bookmark, an exclusive image of the Borden house taken by photographer Frank C. Grace, and signed bookmarks.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken

Title:The Darkest Minds
Author: Alexandra Bracken
Source/Format: Purchased, ebook (iBooks edition)
More Details: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Fantasy
Publisher/Publication Date: Disney Hyperion, December 12, 2012

Goodreads     Amazon     Barnes & Noble     Book Depository     Audible 

Synopsis from Goodreads...

When Ruby woke up on her tenth birthday, something about her had changed...

Something alarming enough to make her parents lock her in the garage and call the police. Something that gets her sent to Thurmond, a brutal government “rehabilitation camp.” She might have survived the mysterious disease that’s killed most of America’s children, but she and the others have emerged with something far worse: frightening abilities they cannot control.

Now sixteen, Ruby is one of the dangerous ones.

When the truth comes out, Ruby barely escapes Thurmond with her life. Now she’s on the run, desperate to find the one safe haven left for kids like her—East River. She joins a group of kids who escaped their own camp. Liam, their brave leader, is falling hard for Ruby. But no matter how much she aches for him, Ruby can’t risk getting close. Not after what happened to her parents.

When they arrive at East River, nothing is as it seems, least of all its mysterious leader. But there are other forces at work, people who will stop at nothing to use Ruby in their fight against the government. Ruby will be faced with a terrible choice, one that may mean giving up her only chance at a life worth living

For a while I had no idea what I wanted to read next but in the end I decided to go with The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken. I know I’ve had it for at least a year so I finally decided to just give it a try. And actually, I was really surprised by how much liked it.

For one thing, the concept was something I could easily get into, with a mysterious disease (IAAN, "Idiopathic Adolescent Acute Neurodegeneration") targeting kids exclusively, and ended up giving some of them strange abilities—it was basically a story about kids trying to survive in a world that was determined—if not obsessively so—to destroy them.Things quickly turned into a wide spread case of paranoia, and those unfortunate enough to develop abilities were sent to camps. That's where the story picked up, and these camps were absolutely terrible to read about. However, they did fit with the concept of the story and I thought that Bracken did a good job of handling it. So I definitely enjoyed the details put into developing the story, setting, and characters.

I found the characters  interesting because of the friendship/relationship dynamics that developed across the span of the story—and I liked seeing how well the secondary characters were developed with as much personality and faults as the main character. I enjoyed seeing how Liam, Zu, Chubs, and Ruby interacted with one another. So, of course, Zu and Ruby's friendship was definitely one of my favorite parts of The Darkest Mind's. Although some of Ruby’s decisions/actions had me scratching my head or just outright confused for the most part she was a pretty good main character. And with everything she went through I could understand why she was so reserved.

So while I had no idea what to expect going into The Darkest Minds, I was really surprised by how much I ended up enjoying it. And I would be interested in checking out more books by Alexandra Bracken.

The Friday 56 (32) The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken

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

Synopsis from Goodreads...

When Ruby woke up on her tenth birthday, something about her had changed...

Something alarming enough to make her parents lock her in the garage and call the police. Something that gets her sent to Thurmond, a brutal government “rehabilitation camp.” She might have survived the mysterious disease that’s killed most of America’s children, but she and the others have emerged with something far worse: frightening abilities they cannot control. Now sixteen, Ruby is one of the dangerous ones. When the truth comes out, Ruby barely escapes Thurmond with her life. Now she’s on the run, desperate to find the one safe haven left for kids like her—East River. She joins a group of kids who escaped their own camp. Liam, their brave leader, is falling hard for Ruby. But no matter how much she aches for him, Ruby can’t risk getting close. Not after what happened to her parents. When they arrive at East River, nothing is as it seems, least of all its mysterious leader. But there are other forces at work, people who will stop at nothing to use Ruby in their fight against the government. Ruby will be faced with a terrible choice, one that may mean giving up her only chance at a life worth living...

"The Grinch cast one look at me, his top lip peeling back in annoyance, before waving the doctor forward. She blew out a sigh and set her clipboard down on my lap."--The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken



What are you planning to read this weekend?

Musing Mondays (35) Should it be a Movie or TV Show?

Musing Mondays is a weekly meme hosted by Jenn at A Daily Rhythm, that asks you to muse about something book related each week.

My Musings for the Week...

This week for Musing Mondays I want to talk about movies and TV shows. This post will not about any specific books, so it’s going to be short.

So a while ago, I finally watched Jupiter Ascending (You can see my review HERE), and I didn’t like it. I got the story, but to me it felt completely unfinished. After posting my review, I thought about it a little more, and I definitely saw the potential the movie had. However, I think that it would have done better if it wasn’t a movie at all, but a TV show with a wider platform and more time to develop the world and work out all of the details. I think that the same could be applied to certain books with world building that might take longer to set up.

I want to know what you think: Would some books/movies do better as a TV show?