Summerlost by Ally Condie

Disclaimer: This is a promotional post. Promotion hosted by Word Spelunking and Penguin Kids. A free copy of Summerlost was provided in exchange for promotion and a review.

Original Title: Summerlost
Author: Ally Condie
Edition: Hardcover, 272 pages.
Release Date: March 29, 2016
Publisher: Dutton Books for Young Readers
Links: Excerpt, Goodreads, Penguin Random House, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound

Description: A tender and compelling contemporary novel for young readers about facing loss and finding friendship, from Ally Condie, international bestselling author of the Matched series.

“Kids are awesome. And they are diverse. There are children with different abilities and backgrounds and experiences, and every one of them deserves to find themselves in children’s literature and to know that they matter.” –Ally Condie, on Summerlost

Sometimes it takes a new friend to bring you home. It’s the first real summer since the accident that killed Cedar’s father and younger brother, Ben. Cedar and what’s left of her family are returning to the town of Iron Creek for the summer. They’re just settling into their new house when a boy named Leo, dressed in costume, rides by on his bike. Intrigued, Cedar follows him to the renowned Summerlost theatre festival. Soon, she not only has a new friend in Leo and a job working concessions at the festival, she finds herself surrounded by mystery. The mystery of the tragic, too-short life of the Hollywood actress who haunts the halls of Summerlost. And the mystery of the strange gifts that keep appearing for Cedar.

Infused with emotion and rich with understanding, Summerlost is the touching new novel from Ally Condie, the international bestselling author of the Matched series that highlights the strength of family and personal resilience in the face of tragedy.

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Top Ten Books I Don’t Gush About Enough!

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and Bookish. This week I present to you a list of ten books and series that I loved, but I don’t talk about nearly enough! Have you read any of these novels? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

10.) The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Catcher in the Rye

“…the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.”

Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with “cynical adolescent.” Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he’s been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation.

Rating: 5/5
Comment: I’m not a huge fan of classics, so I was a bit skeptical going into The Catcher in the Rye, but I absolutely fell in love with Holden Caulfield. He’s a poster boy for the misanthropic, angst ridden youth of the world, which means he’s a character I could fully relate to when I read it.

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Book Review: Kindred Spirits

Kindred Spirits

  • Original Title: Kindred Spirits by Rainbow Rowell
  • Edition: Mass Market Paperback, 96 pages
  • Published: February 25, 2016 by Macmillians Kids UK
  • Characters: Elena, Gabe, Troy
  • Rating: 4/5
  • Goodreads

Description: If you broke Elena’s heart, Star Wars would spill out. So when she decides to queue outside her local cinema to see the new movie, she’s expecting a celebration with crowds of people who love Han, Luke and Leia just as much as she does. What she’s not expecting is to be last in a line of only three people; to have to pee into a collectible Star Wars soda cup behind a dumpster or to meet that unlikely someone who just might truly understand the way she feels.

Kindred Spirits was super, super short but a lot of emotion was packed in. I’m amazed at how much happened, and how these characters evolved, in such a short amount of time. Technically, no, nothing actually happened because our three main characters are just camped outside of a movie theater for four days, but the relationships that they build with each other and their dialogue is amazing. I love how Elena and Gabe’s friendship takes shape in just a few pages. Plus, it really gives insight into how we perceive others without really knowing them sometimes. I’m more than guilty of assuming how other people feel about me and what that, in turn, means about them. It’s a vicious reality.

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Disney Book Tag • Rainbow Rowell Edition

SPOILERS AHEAD!

DO NOT CONTINUE READING IF YOU HAVE NOT READ ALL OF HER NOVELS!

In addition to being a nerd, I’m a Disney fangirl! When I saw the Disney Book Tag post that Alexa over at did, I knew that me and this tag were a match made in heaven. Like Alexa, I’m also going to challenge myself using only books and characters by one author, and who else would I choose but the wonderful and amazing, Rainbow Rowell.

THE LITTLE MERMAID • A character who is out of their element.

In Carry On, Simon Snow is the main protagonist–The Chosen One. However, much like the fictional wizard he was based on, Simon grew up surrounded with humans and clueless about his past and destiny. He has absolutely no control of his magic and even less understanding of the world he gets thrust into when The Mage finds him in an orphanage and brings him to Watford School of Magicks.

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ARC Review: Where You’ll Find Me

Where You'll Find

  • Original Title: Where You’ll Find Me by Natasha Friend
  • Edition: Advance Reader’s Edition Paperback, 266 pages
  • Published: March 8, 2016 by Farrar Straus Giroux
  • Characters: Anna Collette, Frances Collette, Marnie Collette, David Collette, Shawna the Eyebrow Plucker, Sarabeth the Irish Stepper
  • Rating: 4/5
  • Goodreads

Description: In this powerful and buoyant YA novel, a thirteen-year-old girl learns to navigate the shifting loyalties of friendships in middle school and deals with challenges at home.

The beginning of the eighth grade is not what Anna thought it would be. Her lifelong best friend has ditched her for the cool kids, and her mom is in the hospital after a suicide attempt. Anna finds herself where she least expects to: living with her dad, his young new wife, and their baby, and starting a new year at school without a best friend. With help from some unlikely sources, including a crazy girl-band talent show act, Anna learns that sometimes you find what you need to pull you through in the most unlikely places.


I received this Advance Reader’s Edition as a prize from Alexa Loves Books.

Okay, I don’t typically enjoy middle grade books because the writing is usually too simplistic, so I wasn’t necessarily thrilled about this book when I read the synopsis and saw that Anna was only 13 years old, but surprisingly, I really, really enjoyed this story! The main protagonist, Anna Collette, is mature for her age but not unbelievably so. She reminds me a lot of myself at her age, a little more mature than the people around me, intelligent but unmotivated and distracted, and sarcastic as f**k (that last bit hasn’t changed much). Additionally, I was very close to Anna’s age when my mom was also diagnosed with bipolar disorder, so I have that personal text-to-self connection to Anna and I truly relate to her struggle. I think Natasha Friend did an excellent job representing what it feels like to be that age and process those emotions. There’s a few paragraphs in the advanced reader’s edition that compare her mother to a burner control knob. It sounds silly out of context, but I thought that the comparison was very powerful and accurate…

If my mother had a burner control knob, I could set her however I wanted. If, say, she started staying up too late, watching QVC and ordering a bunch of wine glass necklaces, I could turn her down to 6. If I found her in the bathtub with a washcloth over her face, listening to Anatevka on her boom box, I’d turn her up to 4. Talking too fast? Down a notch. Monotone voice? Up a notch.

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