Waiting On Wednesday: Penguin Summer 2017 Catalog

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill of Breaking The Spine in which upcoming, eagerly anticipated releases are highlighted on the blog.

This week, I've chosen to feature a few picks from the Penguin Summer 2017 Catalog:

The Library of Fates by Aditi Khorana
Date: July 18, 2017

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No one is entirely certain what brings the Emperor Sikander to Shalingar. Until now, the idyllic kingdom has been immune to his many violent conquests. To keep the visit friendly, Princess Amrita has offered herself as his bride, sacrificing everything—family, her childhood love, and her freedom—to save her people. But her offer isn't enough.
The unthinkable happens, and Amrita finds herself a fugitive, utterly alone but for an oracle named Thala, who was kept by Sikander as a slave and managed to escape amid the chaos of a palace under siege. With nothing and no one else to turn to, Amrita and Thala are forced to rely on each other. But while Amrita feels responsible for her kingdom and sets out to warn her people, the newly free Thala has no such ties. She encourages Amrita to go on a quest to find the fabled Library of All Things, where it is possible for each of them to reverse their fates. To go back to before Sikander took everything from them.
Stripped of all that she loves, caught between her rosy past and an unknown future, will Amrita be able to restore what was lost, or does another life—and another love—await?

Indian folklore + a master library + beautiful cover = consider me intrigued! The Library of Fates seems to have a great mix of familiar storytelling elements that I know and love and completely new-to-me elements, as well.

Warcross by Marie Lu
Date: September 12, 2017

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For the millions who log in every day, Warcross isn’t just a game—it’s a way of life. The obsession started ten years ago and its fan base now spans the globe, some eager to escape from reality and others hoping to make a profit. Struggling to make ends meet, teenage hacker Emika Chen works as a bounty hunter, tracking down players who bet on the game illegally. But the bounty hunting world is a competitive one, and survival has not been easy. Needing to make some quick cash, Emika takes a risk and hacks into the opening game of the international Warcross Championships—only to accidentally glitch herself into the action and become an overnight sensation.
Convinced she’s going to be arrested, Emika is shocked when instead she gets a call from the game’s creator, the elusive young billionaire Hideo Tanaka, with an irresistible offer. He needs a spy on the inside of this year’s tournament in order to uncover a security problem . . . and he wants Emika for the job. With no time to lose, Emika’s whisked off to Tokyo and thrust into a world of fame and fortune that she’s only dreamed of. But soon her investigation uncovers a sinister plot, with major consequences for the entire Warcross empire.

The synopsis of Warcross is SO similar to Ready Player One (a book I loved). But I do hope it'll have enough added originality to stand on its own right because it could be really great!

Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore
Date: September 19, 2017

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Jane has lived an ordinary life, raised by her aunt Magnolia—an adjunct professor and deep sea photographer. Jane counted on Magnolia to make the world feel expansive and to turn life into an adventure. But Aunt Magnolia was lost a few months ago in Antarctica on one of her expeditions.
Now, with no direction, a year out of high school, and obsessed with making umbrellas that look like her own dreams (but mostly just mourning her aunt), she is easily swept away by Kiran Thrash—a glamorous, capricious acquaintance who shows up and asks Jane to accompany her to a gala at her family's island mansion called Tu Reviens.
Jane remembers her aunt telling her: "If anyone ever invites to you to Tu Reviens, promise me that you'll go." With nothing but a trunkful of umbrella parts to her name, Jane ventures out to the Thrash estate. Then her story takes a turn, or rather, five turns. What Jane doesn't know is that Tu Reviens will offer her choices that can ultimately determine the course of her untethered life. But at Tu Reviens, every choice comes with a reward, or a price.

Kind of a cryptic synopsis here, but I am curious nonetheless. Admittedly, I have not read Graceling yet (please don't hate me), but I am fully aware of how much people love Kristin Cashore's books - so perhaps Jane, Unlimited will become my first of hers.


How about you? Are you waiting on any of these Penguin Summer 2017 reads? Are there any upcoming books from the Penguin Summer 2017 Catalog that I didn't include here that you feel I should add to my list?

Waiting On Wednesday: Penguin Spring 2017 Catalog

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill of Breaking The Spine in which upcoming, eagerly anticipated releases are highlighted on the blog.

This week, I've chosen to feature a few picks from the Penguin Spring 2017 Catalog:

Given to the Sea by Mindy McGinnis
Date: April 11, 2017

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Khosa is Given to the Sea, a girl born to be fed to the water, her flesh preventing a wave like the one that destroyed the Kingdom of Stille in days of old. But before she’s allowed to dance – an uncontrollable twitching of the limbs that will carry her to the shore in a frenzy – she must produce an heir. Yet the thought of human touch sends shudders down her spine that not even the sound of the tide can match.
Vincent is third in line to inherit his throne, royalty in a kingdom where the old linger and the young inherit only boredom. When Khosa arrives without an heir he knows his father will ensure she fulfills her duty, at whatever cost. Torn between protecting the throne he will someday fill, and the girl whose fate is tied to its very existence, Vincent’s loyalty is at odds with his heart.
Dara and Donil are the last of the Indiri, a native race whose dwindling magic grows weaker as the island country fades. Animals cease to bear young, creatures of the sea take to the land, and the Pietra – fierce fighters who destroyed the Indiri a generation before – are now marching from their stony shores for the twin’s adopted homeland, Stille.
Witt leads the Pietra, their army the only family he has ever known. The stone shores harbor a secret, a growing threat that will envelop the entire land – and he will conquer every speck of soil to ensure the survival of his people.
The tides are turning in Stille, where royals scheme, Pietrans march, and the rising sea calls for its Given.

I kind of don't know what to make of the premise of Given to the Sea... but I am undeniably intrigued by Khosa's strange affliction. I'll have to keep an eye out for early reviews to see how Given to the Sea is being received!

Alex & Eliza by Melissa de la Cruz
Date: April 11, 2017

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1777. Albany, New York.
As battle cries of the American Revolution echo in the distance, servants flutter about preparing for one of New York society’s biggest events: the Schuylers’ grand ball. Descended from two of the oldest and most distinguished bloodlines in New York, the Schuylers are proud to be one of their fledgling country’s founding families, and even prouder still of their three daughters—Angelica, with her razor-sharp wit; Peggy, with her dazzling looks; and Eliza, whose beauty and charm rival that of both her sisters, though she’d rather be aiding the colonists’ cause than dressing up for some silly ball.
Still, she can barely contain her excitement when she hears of the arrival of one Alexander Hamilton, a mysterious, rakish young colonel and General George Washington’s right-hand man. Though Alex has arrived as the bearer of bad news for the Schuylers, he can’t believe his luck—as an orphan, and a bastard one at that—to be in such esteemed company. And when Alex and Eliza meet that fateful night, so begins an epic love story that would forever change the course of American history.

Sadly, I have not yet had the fortune of witnessing the wildly popular musical Hamilton. However, I can't help but be curious about the upcoming Alex & Eliza, which is hoping no doubt to capitalize on Hamilton's popularity. Again, I'll be on the lookout for early reviews!

Flame in the Mist by Renee Ahdieh
Date: May 16, 2017

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The daughter of a prominent samurai, Mariko has long known her place—she may be an accomplished alchemist, whose cunning rivals that of her brother Kenshin, but because she is not a boy, her future has always been out of her hands. At just seventeen years old, Mariko is promised to Minamoto Raiden, the son of the emperor's favorite consort—a political marriage that will elevate her family's standing. But en route to the imperial city of Inako, Mariko narrowly escapes a bloody ambush by a dangerous gang of bandits known as the Black Clan, who she learns has been hired to kill her before she reaches the palace.
Dressed as a peasant boy, Mariko sets out to infiltrate the ranks of the Black Clan, determined to track down the person responsible for the target on her back. But she's quickly captured and taken to the Black Clan’s secret hideout, where she meets their leader, the rebel ronin Takeda Ranmaru, and his second-in-command, his best friend Okami. Still believing her to be a boy, Ranmaru and Okami eventually warm to Mariko, impressed by her intellect and ingenuity. As Mariko gets closer to the Black Clan, she uncovers a dark history of secrets, of betrayal and murder, which will force her to question everything she's ever known.

Beautiful cover + inspired by Mulan = GIMME!! And it helps that I've heard good things about Renee Ahdieh's prior series, The Wrath and the Dawn. So surely Flame in the Mist is bound to be amazing, right?!


How about you? Are you waiting on any of these Penguin Spring 2017 reads? Are there any upcoming books from the Penguin Spring 2017 Catalog that I didn't include here that you feel I should add to my list?

Waiting On Wednesday: Penguin Summer 2016 Catalog

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill of Breaking The Spine in which upcoming, eagerly anticipated releases are highlighted on the blog.

This week, I've chosen to feature a few picks from the Penguin Summer 2016 Catalog:

Thornghost by Tone Almjhell
Date: August 16, 2016

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Something strange is happening to the woods and water around Niklas Summerhill’s home: Animals are dying, Niklas’s grandmother doesn’t seem like herself, and his uncle is suddenly lost in grief over his sister, Niklas’s mother, who died seven years ago. When Niklas discovers an ancient key, he and his talking lynx companion, Secret, leave home behind to travel to a different realm. But this realm, populated by animals, is in danger as well: A tribe of evil trolls is wreaking havoc, a mysterious enemy called the Sparrow King is bringing his wrath down upon the animals, and the Rosa Toraquata, the root that connects this realm to Niklas’s own, has developed a dark twist that is infecting the land. Can Niklas and Secret save the animal realm—and their own?

I am always SUCH a sucker for any story featuring an animal companion. So when I heard about Thornghost, a story about a boy with a talking lynx companion?? YES PLEASE!!

Furthermore by Tahereh Mafi
Date: August 30, 2016

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There are only three things that matter to twelve-year-old Alice Alexis Queensmeadow: Mother, who wouldn’t miss her; magic and color, which seem to elude her; and Father, who always loved her. The day Father disappears from Ferenwood he takes nothing but a ruler with him. But it’s been almost three years since then, and Alice is determined to find him. She loves her father even more than she loves adventure, and she’s about to embark on one to find the other.
But bringing Father home is no small matter. In order to find him she’ll have to travel through the mythical, dangerous land of Furthermore, where down can be up, paper is alive, and left can be both right and very, very wrong. Her only companion is a boy named Oliver whose own magical ability is based in lies and deceit—and with a liar by her side in land where nothing is as it seems, it will take all of Alice's wits (and every limb she's got) to find Father and return home to Ferenwood in one piece. On her quest to find Father Alice must first find herself—and hold fast to the magic of love in the face of loss.

So, the Shatter Me Trilogy didn't really work for me because of all the love triangle melodrama, but I think Tahereh Mafi does have quite a talent for writing. So I'm curious about her fantasy MG debut, Furthermore, which I hope is considerably less focused on the romance aspect.

The Reader by Traci Chee
Date: September 13, 2016

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Sefia knows what it means to survive. After her father is brutally murdered, she flees into the wilderness with her aunt Nin, who teaches her to hunt, track, and steal. But when Nin is kidnapped, leaving Sefia completely alone, none of her survival skills can help her discover where Nin’s been taken, or if she’s even alive. The only clue to both her aunt’s disappearance and her father’s murder is the odd rectangular object her father left behind, an object she comes to realize is a book—a marvelous item unheard of in her otherwise illiterate society. With the help of this book, and the aid of a mysterious stranger with dark secrets of his own, Sefia sets out to rescue her aunt and find out what really happened the day her father was killed—and punish the people responsible.

I think we can all appreciate a story about a marvellous book that saves the day! Throw in some assassins and pirates and we can be sure The Reader will be an intriguing read!


How about you? Are you waiting on any of these Penguin Summer 2016 reads? Are there any upcoming books from the Penguin Summer 2016 Catalog that I didn't include here that you feel I should add to my list?

Waiting On Wednesday: Penguin Spring 2016 Catalog

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill of Breaking The Spine in which upcoming, eagerly anticipated releases are highlighted on the blog.

This week, I've chosen to feature a few picks from the Penguin Spring 2016 Catalog:

Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke
Date: March 22, 2016

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Every story needs a hero.
Every story needs a villain.
Every story needs a secret.
Wink is the odd, mysterious neighbor girl, wild red hair and freckles. Poppy is the blond bully and the beautiful, manipulative high school queen bee. Midnight is the sweet, uncertain boy caught between them. Wink. Poppy. Midnight. Two girls. One boy. Three voices that burst onto the page in short, sharp, bewitching chapters, and spiral swiftly and inexorably toward something terrible or tricky or tremendous.
What really happened?
Someone knows.
Someone is lying.

Let's all just take a moment to admire this breathtaking cover. The illustrations and typography alone are enough to get me to read Wink Poppy Midnight. But it should be pointed out that the synopsis is plenty intriguing as well!

The Last Star (The 5th Wave #3) by Rick Yancey
Date: May 24, 2016

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We’re here, then we’re gone, and that was true before they came. That’s always been true. The Others didn’t invent death; they just perfected it. Gave death a face to put back in our face, because they knew that was the only way to crush us. It won’t end on any continent or ocean, no mountain or plain, jungle or desert. It will end where it began, where it had been from the beginning, on the battlefield of the last beating human heart.
Master storyteller Rick Yancey invokes triumph, loss, and unrelenting action as the fate of the planet is decided in the conclusion to this epic series.

I still need to catch up and read book 2, The Infinite Sea, in this series before the last book, The Last Star, comes out, but I can still remember how INTENSE The 5th Wave was. Rick Yancey is without a doubt one of my all-time favourite authors!

Lotus and Thorn by Sara Wilson Etienne
Date: June 14, 2016

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Ravaged by a plague known as Red Death, the planet Gabriel, a former colony of Earth, is a barren wasteland. Since being abandoned by Earth 500 years ago, resources are scarce and life is cheap. To stay alive, the survivors, the Citizens, scavenge the remains of a now dead city, trading for food with the resource-rich Curadores, the only other survivors on Gabriel. Every old computer, every piece of wire, every scrap of metal counts. To steal is the ultimate sin. So when tough-as-nails seventeen-year-old Leica is caught doing just that, she’s exiled and left to the mercy of Gabriel’s unforgiving desert for the rest of her life.
While in exile, Leica discovers a mysterious shuttle, which may not only lead her home, but even more impossible—reestablish contact with Earth. Then Red Death rears its head again, killing her entire work crew, leaving Leica all alone until a handsome Curador offers her refuge in the Dome—the only place on Gabriel untouched by Red Death, where a decadent and sultry life awaits. But there’s a catch: Leica can only enter the Dome as his concubine—his Kisaeng. When a rogue group of Citizens see their chance for revolution in Leica’s good fortune, she finds herself unraveling a deadly mystery with chilling answers to the true origin of Red Death and the reason Earth really abandoned them so long ago.

Oooh intriguing, no?? This synopsis hints at so many mysterious happenings that I can't help but want to read Lotus and Thorn right away!


How about you? Are you waiting on any of these Penguin Spring 2016 reads? Are there any upcoming books from the Penguin Spring 2016 Catalog that I didn't include here that you feel I should add to my list?

Waiting On Wednesday: Penguin Winter 2016 Catalog

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill of Breaking The Spine in which upcoming, eagerly anticipated releases are highlighted on the blog.

This week, I've chosen to feature a few picks from the Penguin Winter 2016 Catalog:

The Dark Days Club by Alison Goodman
Date: January 26, 2016

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London, April 1812. On the eve of eighteen-year-old Lady Helen Wrexhall’s presentation to the queen, one of her family’s housemaids disappears-and Helen is drawn into the shadows of Regency London. There, she meets Lord Carlston, one of the few who can stop the perpetrators: a cabal of demons infiltrating every level of society. Dare she ask for his help, when his reputation is almost as black as his lingering eyes? And will her intelligence and headstrong curiosity wind up leading them into a death trap?

I've never read Alison Goodman's Eon duology, but I've heard nothing but great things. So you bet I'm excited to read her upcoming Regency Era novel, The Dark Days Club, about a stylish Lady who is also a demon-hunter!

Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton
Date: March 8, 2016

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She’s more gunpowder than girl—and the fate of the desert lies in her hands.
Mortals rule the desert nation of Miraji, but mystical beasts still roam the wild and barren wastes, and rumor has it that somewhere, djinni still practice their magic. But there's nothing mystical or magical about Dustwalk, the dead-end town that Amani can't wait to escape from.
Destined to wind up "wed or dead," Amani’s counting on her sharpshooting skills to get her out of Dustwalk. When she meets Jin, a mysterious and devastatingly handsome foreigner, in a shooting contest, she figures he’s the perfect escape route. But in all her years spent dreaming of leaving home, she never imagined she'd gallop away on a mythical horse, fleeing the murderous Sultan's army, with a fugitive who's wanted for treason. And she'd never have predicted she'd fall in love with him...or that he'd help her unlock the powerful truth of who she really is.

Admittedly, I wanted to read Rebel of the Sands as soon as I saw that drop-dead-gorgeous cover, but I recently got around to actually reading the synopsis and that sounds mighty good too. Who could resist a sharpshooter heroine and a desert setting with mystical beasts?!

The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle by Janet Fox
Date: March 15, 2016

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Something is not right at Rookskill Castle, a rundown Scottish manor shrouded in mystery. The castle is a temporary boarding school for children escaping the Blitz, but soon it’s clear there is something terribly wrong. There are clues hinting that a spy is in the house, and there are undeniable signs of a sinister magic. When the children in the castle’s temporary boarding school begin disappearing one by one, it’s a race against the clock for twelve-year-old Kat Bateson, her two younger siblings, and their new best friend.

Hogwarts will always be the ultimate magical Scottish boarding school, but that doesn't mean there's no room for another one in fiction. I am very curious to read about the magical Scottish boarding school in The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle!


How about you? Are you waiting on any of these Penguin Winter 2016 reads? Are there any upcoming books from the Penguin Winter 2016 Catalog that I didn't include here that you feel I should add to my list?

Series Review: Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

Publisher: Razorbill
Published: 2007-2010
Pages: 2,692
Source: Gifted
Rating: 3 Stars

Synopsis for Vampire Academy, Book 1:
Lissa Dragomir is a Moroi princess: a mortal vampire with a rare gift for harnessing the earth's magic. She must be protected at all times from Strigoi; the fiercest vampires - the ones who never die. The powerful blend of human and vampire blood that flows through Rose Hathaway, Lissa's best friend, makes her a dhampir. Rose is dedicated to a dangerous life of protecting Lissa from the Strigoi, who are hell-bent on making Lissa one of them.
After two years of freedom, Rose and Lissa are caught and dragged back to St. Vladimir's Academy, a school for vampire royalty and their guardians-to-be, hidden in the deep forests of Montana. But inside the iron gates, life is even more fraught with danger... and the Strigoi are always close by.
Rose and Lissa must navigate their dangerous world, confront the temptations of forbidden love, and never once let their guard down, lest the evil undead make Lissa one of them forever...

In short: The Vampire Academy Series by Richelle Mead was an easy and entertaining read, though I would have preferred it to be much higher stakes (no pun intended).

Despite not loving the first Vampire Academy book when I read it two years ago, there was a definite addicting feeling to the story and the promise of more exciting plot-wise action to come, and so I kept reading and have now finished the entire series two years later. I had been hopefully expecting the subsequent books in the series to move away from the largely trivial plot of the first book and delve into a deeper, higher stakes storyline for the rest of the series. And thankfully, it does. Though not to the extent that I had hoped.

I guess what I expect from long over-reaching speculative fiction series like this one, is an epic high stakes plot in which the safety and lives of many are threatened and the hero/heroine has to find a way to vanquish the bad guy despite bad odds. Instead, what I got with the Vampire Academy Series was conflicts that revolve around a very small community of people involving royal vampires and their guardians. The conflicts always seemed so minor to hinge an entire six-book series on and a lot of the time I found myself wondering, "And I should care about this why?"

Thankfully, Richelle Mead did manage to make me care enough about the characters for me to care about where the story was going, at least somewhat. The major conflict of the series revolved around the fate of Rose and Dimitri's relationship and though I much prefer non-romance-centric plots, I did like these characters enough to feel invested in their romance. I do think that perhaps this plot line could have been handled better though, as it was largely played out come the fifth book, Spirit Bound, leaving the final book, Last Sacrifice, rather anti-climactic.

I have no regrets for seeing the series through to the end, however. Overall, despite the often trivial nature of the plot and the poor execution of the storyline, the Vampire Academy Series is a pretty entertaining read. Richelle Mead's writing often comes off as very amateurish and unimpressive to me, and yet at the same time it is this simplistic writing style that makes the series so easily readable. I would have preferred a much higher stakes version of the series, like the other speculative fiction series that I love, but at least it made for an easy and entertaining read.

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Review: Hold Me Closer: The Tiny Cooper Story by David Levithan

Publisher: Penguin
Published: March 17, 2015
Pages: 208
Source: Gifted from Penguin Canada
Rating: 3.5 Stars

It’s Tiny Cooper’s turn in the spotlight in this companion novel to New York Times bestseller Will Grayson, Will Grayson.
Jazz hands at the ready! Tiny Cooper (“the world’s largest person who is also really, really gay”) stole readers’ hearts when he was introduced to the world in the New York Times bestselling book Will Grayson, Will Grayson, co-authored by John Green and David Levithan. Now Tiny finally gets to tell his story—from his fabulous birth and childhood to his quest for true love and his infamous parade of ex-boyfriends—the way he always intended: as a musical! Filled with honesty, humor, and “big, lively, belty” musical numbers, the novel is told through the full script of the musical first introduced in Will Grayson, Will Grayson.

In short: Hold Me Closer: The Tiny Cooper Story by David Levithan is a brilliant musical script that would be highly entertaining as a musical theatre performance.

If you've read Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan then odds are, you fell in love with Tiny Cooper. The not-so-tiny Tiny Cooper is the link between the two Will Graysons of the novel and acts as a bit of a life coach for the two Wills as they struggle to find their truths and gain the confidence in their selves that Tiny already has in leaps and bounds. Unlike most LGBT teen characters, Tiny already knows who he is and is happy and proud to be big and gay. Hold Me Closer is Tiny's life story in musical form.

I'm kind of in awe that the musical that we only saw glimpses of in Will Grayson, Will Grayson has been completely fleshed out here in Hold Me Closer in multiple acts and scenes, and full musical numbers and soliloquies by David Levithan. I mean, of course I knew he was a very talented and prolific novelist who writes great characters and very quotable prose, but who knew that he had the ability to write a consummate musical production, complete with music index and stage directions in his wheelhouse? I should have known better because David Levithan has yet to disappoint me.

Impressive as this complete musical theatre script is, musicals are meant to be seen as a performance, not read without any melody. Perhaps someone with more musical talent than I could fill in the gaps and add tunes to the lyrics of the songs, but I was left simply to read it. I have no doubt however, that Hold Me Closer would make for a brilliant audiobook or a highly entertaining musical theatre performance! Hold Me Closer: The Tiny Cooper Story is not only amusing, but I think also very inspiring. I recommend it, but I also highly recommend reading Will Grayson, Will Grayson first!

Other Reviews:
52 Book Minimum
So Many Books, So Little Time
Where the writer comes to write

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Ratings by Publisher

Not sure if anyone else will have an interest in this, but recently I was curious (and clearly procrastinating on writing my thesis) about what my average rating per publisher would be. In my mind, I have my favourite publishers that are always coming out with books that I WANT NEED - but if I was to calculate the average of the ratings I've given books by these publishers, would they end up with a higher overall rating than the other publishers? Surprisingly, no. The publisher that I was expecting to be my highest average rated publisher was actually my least well rated publisher overall. And the publisher that had the highest overall rating was a pleasant surprise because I wasn't expecting it to rank so high. Anyways, I thought I would share the results of my findings in case anyone else was interested:

Note: My focus here is on the major publishing houses because I had a greater sample size to work with. For a lot of the smaller independent publishing houses, I had only read a few books from each of them and so I was unable to perform thorough analyses. If you're interested though, out of the smaller publishing houses, Candlewick Press came out on top with a solid 5 out of 5 average rating - all down to my love of Patrick Ness.

Penguin

Overall Average Rating: 4.13

Penguin is part of Penguin Random House now, but most of my ratings on this blog are from the time when Penguin and Random House were separate entities so I will be treating them as separate here as well. When separated from Random House, Penguin has my overall highest rating! I was a little surprised by this, but pleasantly so. When looking at my highest rated books from Penguin over the years, most of them are contemporary, which is even more surprising considering I wouldn't consider that my favourite genre at all. Then again, Stephanie Perkins, John Green, and Gayle Forman are all based out of Penguin and I've loved all of their books so far, so maybe it's not so surprising after all.

Hachette Book Group

Overall Average Rating: 4.09

Hachette Book Group was my second overall highest rated publisher. This makes sense to me as I know that some of my most favourite books have come from them over the years. Namely, the Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy by Laini Taylor and Queen Jo's three adult books The Casual Vacancy, The Cuckoo's Calling, and The Silkworm.

Macmillan

Overall Average Rating: 4.05

Macmillan has a pretty high overall rating and of course it would, being the home of The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer and The Grisha by Leigh Bardugo - definite faves!!

Random House

Overall Average Rating: 3.83

When separated from Penguin, Random House has a relatively low overall rating. Then again, Random House has also published two of my most heartbreakingly favourite books of all time: The Road by Cormac McCarthy and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, so they're still in my good books.

Simon & Schuster

Overall Average Rating: 3.81

Simon & Schuster Publishers is the second least overall rated publisher. It's too bad because once upon a time, I used to think this publisher was the bees knees, until I hit a string of duds from them which has made me a bit more wary of them. Simon & Schuster is the publisher of one of my all-time favourite series, the amazingly well written The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey. Without the inclusion of this series, my overall rating for Simon & Schuster would be quite a bit lower.

HarperCollins

Overall Average Rating: 3.80

HarperCollins Publishers was my lowest overall rated publisher. Definitely a shocker because I swear HarperCollins books are always the ones that I get MOST excited about. I often have a hard time narrowing down my top choices when I do my quarterly HarperCollins Waiting on Wednesday Catalogue feature. Maybe it's BECAUSE my HarperCollins TBR is always the biggest and I read the most from them that I end up with a few more duds, whereas I am more selective when it comes to the other publishers? I don't know.


I would be interested to hear what you think about this! Have you ever broken down your average ratings by publisher before? Which publisher would you expect to come out on top? I was surprised with my results!

Review: Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins

Publisher: Dutton
Published: August 14, 2014
Pages: 339
Source: Bought
Rating: 5 Stars

From the glittering streets of Manhattan to the moonlit rooftops of Paris, falling in love is easy for hopeless dreamer Isla and introspective artist Josh. But as they begin their senior year in France, Isla and Josh are quickly forced to confront the heartbreaking reality that happily-ever-afters aren’t always forever.

Their romantic journey is skillfully intertwined with those of beloved couples Anna and Étienne and Lola and Cricket, whose paths are destined to collide in a sweeping finale certain to please fans old and new.

In short: Every emotion and feeling that was incited in me while reading Isla and the Happily Ever After was felt strongly and sincerely, and I LOVED it for that reason.

Ohhh the complete and overjoyed happiness this book brought me!! I mean, all of Stephanie Perkins' books have brought me happiness and swoons and squees and feels, but I think it's possible that Isla and the Happily Ever After tops them all (though it has been quite a while since I read Anna and the French Kiss so I might not be remembering correctly). Isla left me in a puddle of feels and happy tears when I finished it in the middle of the night and I loved every moment of it.

One of the things I love most about Stephanie's characters is there is at least one aspect in each of her leading ladies that you can identify with. But I think Isla is the girl that I relate to most. She's shy and has low self-esteem and she doesn't know what she wants to do with her life. She prefers to read about adventures than go on them. Josh is her opposite in many ways and yet they connected and played off each other perfectly. I LOVED them together.

Of course it's no surprise that Stephanie Perkins got the romance right. She proved as much in Anna and the French Kiss and Lola and the Boy Next Door. But I was reminded again - and more powerfully than ever - that Stephanie Perkins has a way of pinpointing and recreating the feelings and the ups and downs of first love like no other author that I can think of. The intense giddiness, the unwanted insecurities, the extreme elation, the bitter and unreasonable feelings of jealousy, etc. - every heightened emotion you go through when experiencing your first love is there (or at least the ones that I went through...). Stephanie Perkins handles first love beautifully and meticulously.

Every emotion and feeling that was incited in me while reading Isla and the Happily Ever After was felt strongly and sincerely, and I am totally CRAZY about this book for that reason. I am unbelievably bummed that this trilogy of Stephanie's has come to an end, but I am also unbelievably ecstatic that Isla and the Happily Ever After was everything I was hoping it would be and that we got to see Anna, St. Clair, Lola, and Cricket one last time (because I love them to death). I look forward to reading whatever Stephanie Perkins writes next!

Previously, my reviews of Anna and the French Kiss and Lola and the Boy Next Door.

Other Reviews:
A Girl, Books and Other Things
Pirate Penguin's Reads
Shooting Stars Mag

Author Links:
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Goodreads

Review: Just One Day and Just One Year by Gayle Forman

Publisher: Penguin
Published: January 8/October 10, 2013
Pages: 369/336
Source: Borrowed
Rating: 5 Stars

When sheltered American good girl Allyson "LuLu" Healey first meets laid-back Dutch actor Willem De Ruiter at an underground performance of Twelfth Night in England, there’s an undeniable spark. After just one day together, that spark bursts into a flame, or so it seems to Allyson, until the following morning, when she wakes up after a whirlwind day in Paris to discover that Willem has left. Over the next year, Allyson embarks on a journey to come to terms with the narrow confines of her life, and through Shakespeare, travel, and a quest for her almost-true-love, to break free of those confines.

In short: Just One Day resonated SO deeply with me that my love for Gayle Forman has reached a whole new level.

I loved If I Stay and Where She Went by Gayle Forman. I wasn't BLOWN AWAY by them like some people are, but I really did love Gayle Forman's beautiful prose and expert handling of the emotionally intense subject matter. Now, Just One Day on the other hand - WOAH. Just One Day resonated SO deeply with me that at times it was like Gayle was plucking thoughts and feelings that I've had in my life right from my head and putting them down in words, albeit much more eloquently and meaningfully than I could ever manage to in my head. I never quite felt that way with If I Stay, as much as I did love it.

It wasn't immediate love when I first began Just One Day. Of course I fell right into Gayle Forman's effortless writing and genuine characters right away, but it wasn't until I was most of the way through the book that I realized where the story and character arcs were going and how much it meant to me that Gayle was taking the route much less traveled. I had thought Just One Day was going to be another book about a girl "finding herself" in Europe with the help of a cute boy. But in reality, that cute boy is MIA for the rest of the book after the beginning. And then the girl does something remarkable: she "finds herself" on her own/with help from some good friends and WITHOUT the help of the cute boy, and she realizes she's made of tougher stuff.

I wasn't as in love with Just One Year as I was with Just One Day just simply because Willem's story wasn't as relatable to me as Allyson's. But the final moment of Just One Year got me GOOD because I can never resist a good coming-full-circle ending and this one was just perfection. I was already appreciative of Gayle Forman's writing from If I Stay, but Just One Day has taken me to a whole new level of LOVE for this woman and her profoundly meaningful stories. Just so much love.

Other Reviews:
Artsy Musings of a Bibliophile
Reading In Winter
YA Book Queen

Author Links:
Website
Twitter
Facebook
Goodreads

Waiting On Wednesday: Penguin Spring 2015 Catalog

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill of Breaking The Spine in which upcoming, eagerly anticipated releases are highlighted on the blog.

This week, I've chosen to feature a few picks from the Penguin Spring 2015 Catalog:

An Ember In The Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
Date: April 28, 2015

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LAIA is a Scholar living under the iron-fisted rule of the Martial Empire. When her brother is arrested for treason, Laia goes undercover as a slave at the empire’s greatest military academy in exchange for assistance from rebel Scholars who claim that they will help to save her brother from execution.
ELIAS is the academy’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias is considering deserting the military, but before he can, he’s ordered to participate in a ruthless contest to choose the next Martial emperor.
When Laia and Elias’s paths cross at the academy, they find that their destinies are more intertwined than either could have imagined and that their choices will change the future of the empire itself.

What's this, a new YA fantasy to sink my teeth into despite the plethora of other YA fantasies that I already have on-the-go currently? Sign me up! Heh, no really, I can never resist these kinds of reads. And An Ember in the Ashes sounds fantastic!

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
Date: May 5, 2015

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When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a beast-like creature arrives to demand retribution for it. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin—one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled their world.
As she dwells on his estate, her feelings for Tamlin transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie and warning she's been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But an ancient, wicked shadow grows over the faerie lands, and Feyre must find a way to stop it . . . or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.

Note: Bloomsbury titles are distributed by Penguin in Canada.

EEEEP ACOTAR!! NEW SARAH J. MAAS!! EVERYONE FREAK OUT!! Or that seems to be everyone's attitude over this one anyway, heh. Already the early reviews for A Court of Thorns and Roses have been pretty stellar, so I really can't wait to get my hands on a copy of my own!

The Wrath And The Dawn by Renee Ahdieh
Date: May 12, 2015

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Every dawn brings horror to a different family in a land ruled by a killer. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, takes a new bride each night only to have her executed at sunrise. So it is a suspicious surprise when sixteen-year-old Shahrzad volunteers to marry Khalid. But she does so with a clever plan to stay alive and exact revenge on the Caliph for the murder of her best friend and countless other girls. Shazi's wit and will, indeed, get her through to the dawn that no others have seen, but with a catch . . . she’s falling in love with the very boy who killed her dearest friend.
She discovers that the murderous boy-king is not all that he seems and neither are the deaths of so many girls. Shazi is determined to uncover the reason for the murders and to break the cycle once and for all.

Ooh, a One Thousand and One Nights retelling! And another one with a bunch of extremely positive early reviews. And that cover! SO curious about The Wrath and the Dawn and I'm really hoping it lives up to my expectations!


How about you? Are you waiting on any of these Penguin Spring 2015 reads? Are there any upcoming books from the Penguin Spring 2015 Catalog that I didn't include here that you feel I should add to my list?