Title: Roomies
Author: Sara Zarr & Tara Altebrando
Published: December, 2013 by Little, Brown Books
Thanks: Little, Brown Books via NetGalley
Pages: 279
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

It’s time to meet your new roomie.

When East Coast native Elizabeth receives her freshman-year roommate assignment, she shoots off an e-mail to coordinate the basics: television, microwave, mini-fridge. That first note to San Franciscan Lauren sparks a series of e-mails that alters the landscape of each girl’s summer — and raises questions about how two girls who are so different will ever share a dorm room.

As the countdown to college begins, life at home becomes increasingly complex. With family relationships and childhood friendships strained by change, it suddenly seems that the only people Elizabeth and Lauren can rely on are the complicated new boys in their lives . . . and each other. Even though they’ve never met.

National Book Award finalist Sara Zarr and acclaimed author Tara Altebrando join forces for a novel about growing up, leaving home, and getting that one fateful e-mail that assigns your college roommate.

Final Thoughts:
Roomies was fun—something I’d devoured within a day, but it didn’t hit me in the way a certain other new contemporary did. I wasn’t bored, but it’s not going to go down as one of my favourites. Switching back and forth each chapter between the two girls, we quickly get to know their family situations and their blossoming love lives. The romances didn’t do a lot for me, I was more interested in the drama going on between the girls and their back and forth passive-to-actually-aggressive emails throughout the book.

Stacking The Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

Titles link back to Goodreads
• Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (purchased)
• Pretties by Scott Westerfeld (purchased)
• Specials by Scott Westerfeld (purchased)
• The Vampire Diaries: Destiny Rising by L.J. Smith (purchased)
• Popular by Maya Van Wagenen (thanks to Penguin, AU)
• The Break-Up Artist by Philip Siegel (thanks to Harlequin Teen, AU)

It was only two weeks between book hauls this time (not a whole year again, so I think I did pretty well). I’ve been wanting to start Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series for quite a while now, so I gave in and ordered these with the cool black/fluorescent covers. I still need to order my copy of Extras, but I’m saving that for another one down the track. I snatched up this copy of The Vampire Diaries for less than $2 on Booktopia this week, which I’m really happy with. I needed it to round out that trilogy of the seemingly never-ending series. I’ll have to start collecting the next lot with the blue covers soon. I’ve only read the first four that L.J. Smith actually wrote, though. I’m not sure when the ghostwriters took over, but it hasn’t stopped me collecting the books. Maybe I’ll read them one day when the TV show ends and I want another fix.

Popular has been sitting around my room for a couple weeks now. It was a free gift from Felicity at the Penguin Teen Australia blogger/reader meetup in Brisbane on the 7th of April. It doesn’t particularly look like my kind of book, but it’s pretty thin so I might give it a go sometime in between the other bigger books I’ve got scheduled at the moment. Lastly, I got a copy of The Break-Up Artist to review. I’m really looking forward to this one. The blurb sounds like a lot of fun. I’ve been getting into contemporaries more and more lately, so I’m hoping this one clicks with me too.

Here are some of my latest reviews if you want to check them out:
Cross, Julie Tempest #3, Timestorm
de Pierres, Marianne Night Creatures #3, Shine Light
Hodkin, Michelle Mara Dyer #1, The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer
Rowell, Rainbow, Fangirl

That’s it for this time. So, what books have you gotten lately? Let me know in the comments.

Title: Shine Light (Night Creatures #3)
Author: Marianne de Pierres
Published: November, 2012 by Random House
Pages: 229
Rating:  
Purchase: Booktopia

Ixion. The island of ever-night.

If she had a choice, Naif wouldn’t go back. But her friends will die if she doesn’t find a cure for the badges that are slowly killing them, and her brother is there, fighting against the Ripers who hold everyone in thrall. And Naif has knowledge that might save them all.

First she must solve the mystery of Ixion’s eternal night. Then she must convince everyone – rebels and revellers alike – to join her cause. And all the while, she must fight the urge to go to Lenoir – her greatest love, her mortal enemy.

The secrets of Ixion must be revealed. The evils must be stopped. A new dawn will come.

Final Thoughts:
This was such an improvement on Angel Arias. I found the last book harder to get into, but I just breezed through this one. I think it was due in part to the return to the night world of Ixion. A couple years of passed and a bit of the magic has faded, but Shine Light proved to be a worthy successor, drawing me back into the carnival-esque land of church dorms, clubbing, rival gangs and life–stealing monsters. Book two left all of that behind. Perhaps if I had skipped straight from Burn Bright to Shine Light I may have enjoyed this series more than I did.

Title: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer #1)
Author: Michelle Hodkin
Published: March, 2012 by Simon Pulse
Thanks: Simon & Schuster, AU
Pages: 452
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Mara Dyer doesn’t think life can get any stranger. She wakes from a coma in hospital with no memory of how she got there or of the bizarre accident that caused the deaths of her best friends and her boyfriend, yet left her mysteriously unharmed. The doctors suggest that starting over in a new city, a new school, would be good for her and just to let the memories gradually come back on their own.

But Mara’s new start is anything but comforting. She sees the faces of her dead friends everywhere, and when she suddenly begins to see other people’s deaths right before they happen, Mara wonders whether she’s going crazy! And if dealing with all this wasn’t enough, Noah Shaw, the most beautiful boy she has ever seen can’t seem to leave her alone… but as her life unravels around her, Mara can’t help but wonder if Noah has another agenda altogether…

Final Thoughts:
I went into this book with an open mind. I really tried to like it, but there were just so many obstacles that kept getting in my way. With clichés all over the place, it became increasingly clear what kind of book I was in store for. Mara is another one of those characters that thinks she’s pretty smart, but isn’t. Her internal dialogue grated on me early on. Listening to her rationalise her choices to herself, all I could think was, ‘this guy is a douche, you know he’s a douche, you’ve said so yourself. Oh, Mara, why?’

Title: Fangirl
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Published: April, 2014 by Pan Macmillan, AU
Pages: 461
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Cath and Wren are identical twins, and until recently they did absolutely everything together. Now they’re off to university and Wren’s decided she doesn’t want to be one half of a pair any more – she wants to dance, meet boys, go to parties and let loose. It’s not so easy for Cath. She’s horribly shy and has always buried herself in the fan fiction she writes, where she always knows exactly what to say and can write a romance far more intense than anything she’s experienced in real life.

Without Wren Cath is completely on her own and totally outside her comfort zone. She’s got a surly room-mate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words… And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

Now Cath has to decide whether she’s ready to open her heart to new people and new experiences, and she’s realizing that there’s more to learn about love than she ever thought possible…

Final Thoughts:
Honestly, I hadn’t even heard of this book before last week. I missed all of the hype, randomly picking up my copy of Fangirl while browsing my local bookstore. Finding out later that it was apparently the new bible of YA upped my expectations, but I can safely say that it delivered on them. I was left clutching the book for hours, never wanting it to end. With an abundance of disdain towards socialising and her passionate fanfic enthusiasm, Cath is one protagonist that you just can’t help but love. If I could live inside this book, I would.

Title: Timestorm (Tempest #3)
Author: Julie Cross
Published: January, 2014 by St. Martin’s Griffin
Pages: 358
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

The battle between the Tempest division and Eyewall comes to a shocking conclusion in this final installment of the Tempest trilogy, where the need for survival stretches the boundaries of history, both past and future, and the world Jackson once knew is a place forever marked by the detrimental effects of time travel.

As Jackson recovers from his brush with death, he’s surrounded not only by the people he loves most—his dad, Courtney, and Holly—he’s also amongst a few of the original time travelers. As he learns more about their life and how this world began, it becomes apparent that they need to put a stop to Thomas and Doctor Ludwig’s experimenting at Eyewall Headquarters. What starts out as an escape plan becomes a war between time and humanity, between freewill and peace. It’s the battle Jackson was born to fight and he’s not about to back down. Not for anything. Not for anyone.

Final Thoughts:
What was with that ending? No, I’m not going to give it away, but seriously…I didn’t like it. Timestorm was all over the place for me. There were moments where I was in love with the book, where it managed just the right balance of time-traveller stuff and the romance, but at other times, the book had a tendency to drag. It was the final book, so I expected a back and forth battle between the series-long antagonist, Thomas, and our hero, Jackson, but unfortunately that played out as more of a side issue to the Jackson/Holly love saga.

Stacking The Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

Titles link back to Goodreads
• Disruption by Jessica Shirvington (purchased)
• The Cracks In The Kingdom by Jaclyn Moriarty (thanks to Pan Macmillan, AU)
• Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (purchased)
• Collision Course by Shannon Curtis (purchased)
• Second Chances by Ros Baxter (purchased)
• Forbidden Affair by Amy Andrews (purchased)
• Stormswept by Shannon Curtis (purchased)

It’s been freaking ages since I’ve done one of these. About a year. I’ve bought books since then, but these are just the ones I’ve picked up in the last couple of weeks. Thanks to Pan Macmillan for surprisingly me with a copy of Jaclyn Moriarty’s new book. I had barely finished reading A Corner Of White when this one rocked up in my PO Box, taunting me, trying to jump ahead in my tbr list. The rest are all from my regular trips to my local Big W’s book section. They’re probably the only one of the three Australia discount department stores chains I’ve found that still stocks a semi-decent range of YA. At least where I live.

I’m hearing good things about Disruption, so I’d like to check it out before it becomes another one of the unread books collecting dust on my shelves. Fangirl, I haven’t heard much about, but I did a quick Goodreads check in-store on my phone and all looked good so I added it to my shopping pile. And yes, you are seeing right, I did buy all four of the Bold And The Beautiful tv-show tie-in romance novels. $6 each, and based on my favourite scheming, angst-riddled soap, there really was no other choice.

That’s it for this time. Hopefully, it isn’t another year before my next book haul.
So, what books have you gotten lately? Let me know in the comments.