Review: Dark Companion

Title: Dark Companion 

Author: Marta Acosta

Publisher: Tor/Macmillan

Publication Date: July 3, 2012

Cover Art: 5/5

Goodreads:

When foster teen Jane Williams is invited to attend elite Birch Grove Academy for Girls and escape her violent urban neighborhood, she thinks the offer is too good to be true. She's even offered her own living quarters, the groundskeeper's cottage in the center of the birch grove.

Something's not quite right about the school -- or is it Jane? She thinks she sees things in the birch grove at night. She's also beginning to suspect that the elegant headmistress and her sons are hiding secrets. Lucky is the gorgeous, golden son who is especially attentive to Jane, and Jack is the sardonic puzzling brother.

The school with its talented teachers and bright students is a dream for a science and math geek like Jane. She also loves her new friends, including hilarious poetry-spouting rich girl, Mary Violet. But the longer Jane stays at Birch Grove, the more questions she has about the disappearance of another scholarship girl and a missing faculty member. 

Jane discovers one secret about Birch Grove, which only leads to more mysteries. What is she willing to sacrifice in order to stay at this school...and be bound to Birch Grove forever?

My review:

Jane has no memories after being in an accident. She grew up in foster care until the age of 16 when she is granted a scholarship for Birch Grove, a private school for girls complete with it's own cottage! Jane settles in well at Birch Grove, she has made friends and everything seems good. She meets the handsome Lucian or Lucky and his slacker brother Jacob aka Jack. But things are not quite what they appear at Birch Grove.

I loved the characters, Jane was a strong character, I liked how she grew within the story. Jack was my favorite, he was so funny. Mary Violet was another great character. I disliked Lucky, he was selfish and arrogent.

The cover caught my attention, like every book. It was a little slow at first. I really enjoyed trying to unravel the mystery.

Thank you to Tor/Macmillian and NetGalley for sending me a copy of this book for review!!

3 & 1/2 /5 Stars

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Winners of the 'Clear you'r shelf' giveawy

There was over 1000 entries! Wow! Thank you to all who entered, but there can only be three winners.

Congrats to...

Kiery picked the 'ARC' package, she was ok with me saying what was in the package.

- an ARC of Everneath by Brodi Ashton  

&

- an ARC of Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl 

Bridget H. picked the 'Purple' package was also fine with me telling the names

- Destined by P. C. Cast & Kristin Cast

&

- Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl 

sarah v.'s 'Loved Books' was...

One book was guessed correctly, it was 

-The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins 

&

-Dark Parties by Sarah Grant

Congrats again to the winners!

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Summer Reading 2012 Ginormous INT Giveaway Extravaganza!

12 Prize Packs-3 Books Each!

Some awesome books that I've been wanting to read.

Click HERE!

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Top Ten 6/19/12

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Top Ten Tuesday: Books On The Summer TBR List!

The Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare 

 Article 5 by Kristen Simmons

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Mass 

The Treachery of Beautiful Things  by Ruth Frances Long

Flirting in Italian by Lauren Henderson 

Wake by Amanda Hocking 

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater 

What's Left of Me by  Kat Zhang

 

This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers

The Chosen Ones by Tiffany Truitt

What books are you looking forward to reading this Summer?

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Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB @ Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab you'r current read

Open the book to a random page

Share with us two (2) "teasers" sentences form that page

Be careful not to include spoilers! (make sure what you share doesn't give away too much! You don't want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title of the book so other TT participants can add the book to their TBR pile if they'd like   

Today my teaser comes from...

So he had come here to talk to Jane, the friend.

I sighed. "I like you for you, Lucky."

"Maybe once you really know me, you won't like me.

Would you like me no matter what?"

~Dark Companion by Marta Acosta

-page 131

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100 Follower Giveaway

Megan @ Unearthly Reviews is having a giveaway. 

Click HERE!

And don't forget my 'Clear You'r Shelf' giveaway has 3 more days left!

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'Clear You'r Shelf' Giveaway Hop (US)

Hi there! "Clear You'r Shelf" Giveaway Blog Hop (June 15th - 20th) is hosted by I Am A Reader, Not a Writer. 

This is the first time I'm participating in a blog hop! I'm excited and a little scared (I know that's silly) but I'm afraid that I'll do something wrong. I know I already did, when signing up I didn't say whether this if for the US or IN. This is US only, sorry, I am a poor college student!

While I have had giveaways on my blog before, they were ebooks, this time I'm giving away printed copies. 

All of the books are USED but not ABUSED!  

I'm very picky with my books, whenever I let my family or friends borrow my books I send a bookmark with them because I hate it when people bend pages or 'dog-ear' them! They are in good or great shape. Only light shelf wear. All books are YA (Young Adult). 

Now for the good stuff, the prizes!  

I have three (3) packages that I'm begging you to take, and each has two (2) books and a signed bookmark in each package.

There will three (3) winners!

The only catch is that I'm not going to tell the names of the books, but instead give you clues. The packages are each named.  

Package #1 

'The Purple' Package 

- Something purple on the cover of each book, it could be pictures, shapes or letters, just something purple on them

- One book is a 2009 PB (paper back) with 563 paged book the other is 2011 HC (hard cover) with 325 pages

  - The 2011 book is brand new, never even opened.   

Package #2 

'ARC' Package   

- One book is a 2010 ARC  the other is 2012 ARC! 

- The 2012 is a debut author
- Little Brown and Company published one and the other is a HarperCollins release

Package #3

'L♥ved Books' Package

- This one is easy, both books are books that I loved! One book is a PB (paper back) and the other is a HC (hard cover)

- One was released in 2011 and has 313 pages the other was a 2008 release with 374 pages

- Both books are dystopian

a Rafflecopter giveaway


I hope I didn't forget anything!


Click HERE to visit other blogs participating in the hop! 

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Third Sentence Thursday #14

Third Sentence Thursday is a weekly meme that Heather @ Proud Book Nerd hosts.

How to play along... 

1. Take the book you are currently reading and post the third sentence,

2. Share you'r thoughts on the sentence.

3. Post a link to you'r blog in the link list (Leave it in the comments if you don't have a blog)

4. Visit the other blogs to check out their third sentence. 

Here's mine:

"...We can't accidentally flatten cities or bring down a plague..."

When The Sea is Rising Red by Cat Hellisen

~ page 36

Not much there to really tell yet, I'm still early in the book.

Don't forget the giveaway hop starts the 15th (tomorrow)! I'm going to be joining so visit back to enter to win 1 of 3 packages! Each package has 2 books in it! (=

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The Time Will Come #24

The Time Will Come is a weekly meme hosted by Jodi @ Books for Company, which spotlights books that have been on you'r shelves for a long time.

Want to join? Sounds good. 

-Pick a book that you have been meaning to read

-Do a post telling us about the book  

-Link the post in the linky 

-Visit other blogs  

This weeks book is... 

I bought this book, it sounds like it would be really good but I just have not got around to it. I love books about faeries, and it seems like everyone likes this because I see a lot of people gave it five stars on Goodreads.

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Title: The Raft

Author: S.A. Bodeen

Publisher: Feiwel & Friends 

Publication Date: August 21st 2012 

Cover: 4/5

Goodreads:

Robie is an experienced traveler. She’s taken the flight from Honolulu to the Midway Atoll, a group of Pacific islands where her parents live, many times. When she has to get to Midway in a hurry after a visit with her aunt in Hawaii, she gets on the next cargo flight at the last minute. She knows the pilot, but on this flight, there’s a new co-pilot named Max. All systems are go until a storm hits during the flight. The only passenger, Robie doesn’t panic until the engine suddenly cuts out and Max shouts at her to put on a life jacket. They are over miles of Pacific Ocean. She sees Max struggle with a raft. 

And then . . . she’s in the water. Fighting for her life. Max pulls her onto the raft, and that’s when the real terror begins. They have no water. Their only food is a bag of Skittles. There are sharks. There is an island. But there’s no sign of help on the way.

Review:

Lucky. It's what Robie Mitchell is considered but she doesn't feel very lucky when she finds herself living a nightmare, stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a flimsy raft!  With an unconscious co-pilot her only company, and a bag of Skittles for food! 

While visiting Aunt Jillian, unexpectedly she's called away, Robie makes the choice to go home. The cargo plane that she catches has a weight limit but Robie didn't get that memo. The plane starts to go down Robie and Max are the only ones that got out alive.

Robie was a little whiny. The characters in this book are very sleepy, there's a lot of sleeping in this book, lol.

I really like survival stories like this. The story moved fast, maybe a little too fast, rushed a little. 

 ~spoiler~ 

    If you have not read the book, please don't read the following! I posted it in white font, please highlight it to read. :)

The end of the book was a little confusing for me, I kept asking myself "Was Max really there or had she gone crazy and imaged he was?" 

~end spoiler~

Thank you to Feiwel & Friends and NetGalley! 

4/5 Stars

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WWW Wednesday *June 6*

  

 

Hosted by MizB @ Should Be Reading

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?

• What did you recently finish reading?

• What do you think you’ll read next?

 I've decided to do W.W.W. Wednesdays

-I've seen this feature before, and really liked it, the only problem for me is that I read so slow, and I don't know if I can have a whole book finished in a week. (I know I'm a really so reader ':}), but I'll give it a shot!-

What are you currently reading?

Graceling by Kristin Cashore 

What do you recently finish reading

Glitch by Heather Anastasiu

What do you think you'll read next?

Dark Companion by Marta Acosta

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Title:  Monument 14

Author: Emmy Laybourne

Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

Publication Date: June 5, 2012

Cover: 4/5

Goodreads:

Your mother hollers that you’re going to miss the bus. She can see it coming down the street. You don’t stop and hug her and tell her you love her. You don’t thank her for being a good, kind, patient mother. Of course not—you launch yourself down the stairs and make a run for the corner.

Only, if it’s the last time you’ll ever see your mother, you sort of start to wish you’d stopped and did those things. Maybe even missed the bus.

But the bus was barreling down our street, so I ran.

Fourteen kids. One superstore. A million things that go wrong. 

In Emmy Laybourne’s action-packed debut novel, six high school kids (some popular, some not), two eighth graders (one a tech genius), and six little kids trapped together in a chain superstore build a refuge for themselves inside. While outside, a series of escalating disasters, beginning with a monster hailstorm and ending with a chemical weapons spill, seems to be tearing the world—as they know it—apart.



Review:

I can never get enough apocalyptic stories, when I saw this book on NetGalley I jumped at the chance to read it. 

From page one the book grabbed my attention and held it. I liked the idea of being trapped in a superstore (honestly, who wouldn't want to be stuck in Wal-mart if something catastrophic happened? I know I would!). 

I liked the different characters in the book.

What a great ending, I really want to know what happens in book 2!
Recommended for readers 15+.

Thank you to Feiwel & Friends and NetGalley for my e-galley!

4/5 Stars

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Title: All These Lives

Author: Sarah Wylie

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Publication Date: June 5, 2012

Cover: 4/5

Goodreads:

Sixteen-year-old Dani is convinced she has nine lives. As a child she twice walked away from situations where she should have died. But Dani’s twin, Jena, isn’t so lucky.  She has cancer and might not even be able to keep her one life. Dani’s father is in denial. Her mother is trying to hold it together and prove everything’s normal.  And Jena is wasting away.  To cope, Dani sets out to rid herself of all her extra lives.  Maybe they’ll be released into the universe and someone who wants to live more than she does will get one.  Someone like Jena.  But just when Dani finds herself at the breaking point, she’s faced with a startling realization.  Maybe she doesn’t have nine lives after all.  Maybe she really only ever had one.

Review:

Dani believes she has nine lives. Why? Because she has been in more accidents that should of killed her, but she's lived.  

Normally I wouldn't like a main character like Dani. She was such a bully. Her snarky, hurtful way she deals with people really made me dislike her. Maybe that's her way of dealing with her twin sister's illness.
But I might be the same way if my sister was diagnosed with cancer.  

I liked Sarah's writing, it seemed effortless, everything flowed well. You really feel for the characters.

Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley!

3/5 Stars

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