It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by The Book Date.

Read In July:

• Tokyo Ghoul, Vol. 4 by Sui Ishida – 4 Stars
• Rat Queens, Vol. 1: Sass & Sorcery by Kurtis J. Wiebe (Writer), Roc Upchurch (Illustrator) – 5 Stars
• God Emperor of Dune (Dune #4) by Frank Herbert – 3 Stars
• The Wind by Edward Willett – 4 Stars
• New Girl by Harper Bliss – 3 Stars
• The Girl from the Blood Coven by Brian Moreland – 2 Stars
• Death Note: Black Edition, Vol. 1 (Death Note #1-2) by Tsugumi Ohba, Yuki Kowalsky (translator), Takeshi Obata (Illustrator) – 4 Stars
• Day of the Wolf by Charles G. West – 3 Stars
• The Magician’s Nephew (The Chronicles of Narnia) by C.S. Lewis – 3 Stars
• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (The Chronicles of Narnia) by C.S. Lewis – 4 Stars
• The Horse and His Boy (The Chronicles of Narnia) by C.S. Lewis – 1 Star
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Harry Potter #1) by J.K. Rowling – 5 Stars
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter #2) by J.K. Rowling – 5 Stars
• Crank (Crank #1) by Ellen Hopkins – 3 Stars
• Confess by Colleen Hoover – 3 Stars
• Putting Makeup on the Fat Boy by Bil Wright – 2 Stars
• The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower #1) by Stephen King – 3 Stars
• Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Harry Potter #8) by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, Jack Thorne – 4 Stars
• Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell – 3 Stars
• Grand Escape (Strain of Resistance 0.5) by Michelle Bryan – 3 Stars

Currently Reading:

The Alpha Drive (The Alpha Drive #1) by Kristen Martin

Synopsis: It’s the year 2055 and an anarchist organization has taken control with the aim to create a world-class society. Half of humankind is unknowingly living in an alternate reality called Dormance . . . and there are no plans to wake them up.

Sixteen-year-old introvert Emery Parker is one such dormant. An academic scholar who avoids ruffling feathers at all costs, Emery finds herself being transferred to a boarding school on the outskirts of Arizona. Little does she know, a family secret has the power to change the course of the future. When she’s approached with an opportunity to free the dormants, she sees no other choice but to accept, even though failure could mean having her memory wiped clean.

But when tech-savvy Torin Porter reaches out to her from the other side, Emery begins to question everything she was told about Dormance. If her family’s secret falls into the wrong hands, the world as she knows it will be faced with irreversible consequences. Now Emery must play both sides to uncover the truth about her family’s past or risk leaving mankind to live in an unconscious reality.

Stacking The Shelves

Stacking The Shelves is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.

Won From Goodreads:

• The Alpha Drive (The Alpha Drive #1) by Kristen Martin
• Dark Mafia Prince (A Dangerous Royals Romance #1) by Annika Martin

I Bought: 

• The Fireman by Joe Hill
• The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike #2) by Robert Galbraith

Library:

• Confess by Colleen Hoover
• Crank (Crank #1) by Ellen Hopkins
• Putting Makeup on the Fat Boy by Bil Wright

Waiting on Wednesday: How to Hang a Witch

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, and spotlights upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating. This week I picked: 

How to Hang a Witch (How to Hang a Witch #1) by Adriana Mather

Details: Hardcover, 368 pages
Expected publication: July 26th 2016 by Knopf Books for Young Readers
Buy it: Book Depository

Summary: For fans of Conversion and Mean Girls, comes a debut novel where the trials of high school start to feel like a modern day witch hunt for a teen with all the wrong connections to Salem’s past.

Salem, Massachusetts is the site of the infamous witch trials and the new home of Samantha Mather. Recently transplanted from New York City, Sam and her stepmother are not exactly welcomed with open arms. Sam is the descendant of Cotton Mather, one of the men responsible for those trials and almost immediately, she becomes the enemy of a group of girls who call themselves The Descendants. And guess who their ancestors were?
If dealing with that weren’t enough, Sam also comes face to face with a real live (well technically dead) ghost. A handsome, angry ghost who wants Sam to stop touching his stuff. But soon Sam discovers she is at the center of a centuries old curse affecting anyone with ties to the trials. Sam must come to terms with the ghost and find a way to work with the Descendants to stop a deadly cycle that has been going on since the first accused witch was hanged. If any town should have learned its lesson, it’s Salem. But history may be about to repeat itself.

#TBRTakedown 4.0 TBR

June 20th – 26th @TBRTAKEDOWN

I haven’t been reading much lately and it’s driving me crazy.This is one of my favorite read-a-thons and I participate every single time. Hopefully this will get me reading again. I don’t expect to complete all the challenges. Honestly, if I can get two books read, I will be happy. Here are the books I picked out…

Challenges/TBR:

1. TBR over a year [longest] – The Final Descent by Rick Yancey
2. Sequel – God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert
3. First book in a series – Rat Queens Vol. 1: Sass & Sorcery by Kurtis J. Wiebe (Writer), Roc Upchurch (Illustrator)
4. Out of comfort zone [whatever that means for you] – Day of the Wolf by Charles G. West – Currently Reading
5. Most Recent Book Haul – The Tudor Throne by Brandy Purdy

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by The Book Date.

Read Last Week:

• Dark Ages: 2020 (Dark Ages #1) by J.D. Dutra – 1 Star
• The Assistants by Camille Perri – 3 Stars

Currently Reading:

God Emperor of Dune (Dune #4) by Frank Herbert

Synopsis: Centuries have passed on Dune, and the planet is green with life. Leto, the son of Dune’s savior, is still alive but far from human, and the fate of all humanity hangs on his awesome sacrifice…

Stacking the Shelves: Yard Sale & I Got A Surprise Edition

Stacking The Shelves is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.

Last Saturday was the day that my town does their yard sales. I usually don’t get up and go, but this year my dad wanted to go around and see if he could find anything interesting. He unfortunately didn’t find anything that he wanted, but I did and he was awesome enough to buy them for me. Which is crazy. My dad usually gets a bit annoyed whenever I bring home books. He is always saying I have too many. So the fact that he was not only willing to buy me books, but he bought me 15 of them, is just amazing! Only 14 of them really matter because I actually already own the one book, but I had to get it to get a deal. It was weird. They would only give us the deal if we bought 6 books, but everything was either the 20th+ book in a series or was a book I already owned. So we ended up just grabbing one I already have and I will probably give it to my mom. Anyways, here are the 14 books I got.

So after I finished this post, my mom told me she had a surprise for me. It’s at the bottom after all the yard sale books. I love it.

Yard Sale Haul:

• The Tudor Throne by Brandy Purdy
• The Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots by Carolly Erickson
• The Unfaithful Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII’s Fifth Wife by Carolly Erickson

• The Spanish Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon by Carolly Erickson
• Rival to the Queen by Carolly Erickson
• The Favored Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII’s Third Wife by Carolly Erickson

• White Oleander by Janet Fitch
• The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules (Pensionärsligan #1) by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg, Rod Bradbury (Translator)
• Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
• Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

• The Orenda by Joseph Boyden
• Women in Love (Brangwen Family #2) by D.H. Lawrence
• Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
• From Ink Lake: Canadian Stories Selected by Michael Ondaatje

Surprise From My Mom:

Doctor Who: 12 Doctors, 12 Stories

To celebrate the arrival of Peter Capaldi on to our screens as the newly regenerated Doctor, this collection of Doctor Who short stories, each written by a different author, now includes an extra, brand-new twelfth adventure as part of the 12 Doctors, 12 Stories paperback anthology. Offering the perfect addition to the top-selling series, the twelfth story, “Lights Out,” has been penned by self-professed Doctor Who fan and best-selling female sci-fi writer Holly Black.

Stories Included:

A Big Hand For The Doctor by Eoin Colfer, starring One (William Hartnell).

The Nameless City by Michael Scott, starring Two (Patrick Troughton).

The Spear of Destiny by Marcus Sedgwick, starring Three (Jon Pertwee).

The Roots of Evil by Philip Reeve, starring Four (Tom Baker).

Tip of the Tongue by Patrick Ness, starring Five (Peter Davidson).

Something Borrowed by Richelle Mead, starring Six (Colin Baker).

Spore by Alex Scarrow, starring Eight (Paul McCann).

The Beast of Babylon by Charlie Higson, starring Nine (Christopher Eccleston).

The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage by Derek Landy, starring Ten (David Tennant).

Nothing O’Clock by Neil Gaiman, starring Eleven (Matt Smith).

Lights Out by Holly Black, starring Twelve (Peter Capaldi).

 

Review: Strain of Resistance

Strain of Resistance (Strain of Resistance #1) by Michelle Bryan

Publication Date: March 1st 2016
Details: Paperback, 262 pages
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781530475360
Source: I received a copy from the author.

Michelle Bryan:
Website | Goodreads | Twitter

Buy Strain of Resistance:
Amazon | Book Depository

SUMMARY

Bixby was 12 years old when the world ended. A mysterious mist had blanketed the earth, turning most of the world’s population into blood-sucking monsters. The remaining survivors plummeted to the bottom of the food chain. Now, eight brutal years later, these survivors face another challenge-a new threat is turning the tide of war between humans and the infected. This threat may very well spell doom for the last vestige of humanity. In a race against time, Bixby and her crew battle to stop the decimation of the human race at the hands of these new mutations. They are the last strain of resistance.

REVIEW

I received a copy of Strain of Resistance from the author for an honest review and I am so glad I did. It was awesome!

I’m not sure what I was expecting when I picked this one up to start reading it. I was hoping I would enjoy it, but for some reason I wasn’t expecting to really like it. I think I’ve just been let down by so many books this year, that I didn’t go into this one with high expectations. So needless to say, I was blown away.

Strain of Resistance was such a fun read. There is so much action and I don’t even know how many times I laughed out loud. I couldn’t put it down and flew through it in a day. I actually got slightly annoyed anytime I had to put the book down for a bit and I couldn’t wait to pick it back up again.

The only negative thing I can say about this book, and the reason I had to give it four stars instead of five, is there are a lot of typos. Other than that, this book was incredible and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Just before writing this I saw that there is a prequel, Grand Escape. I don’t normally read e-books because they give me migraines, but I might need to buy that one and give it a read. I also hope there will be a book two soon because of that ending. I need more.

4 OUT OF 5 STARS