I will admit that a couple of things have really slowed down my reading this summer.
First of all, Stranger Things on Netflix completely captivated me. I binged on that really hard this week.
Secondly, I am playing Pokemon Go. I adore this game, but my very favorite thing is that my son will ask me to drive him and his friends around to play. When your 18 year old, about to go to college son wants you to go out and play a game with him, you go out and play that game!
Anyway, I am going to focus on some reading this weekend. These are the two books I am currently reading. I am participating in a blog tour for
The Secret Sea in August. I like the alternate reality aspect of this book. I also received
The Gallery in the mail and this cover is so gorgeous I bumped it to the top of my TBR. I love the feel of this book in my hands.
(I am also going to Star Trek this weekend, can't wait!!)
What are you reading this weekend?
3 peanut butter cookies.
Cover Love: YES! I love this cover, it is darling. It makes me think of summer camps and lakes and fireflies and fun. Wonderful cover!
Why I Wanted to Read This:I was lucky enough to receive a copy of this in the mail and after I read
A Tangle of Knots I knew I had to read this one. While it's not quite a sequel, it should definitely be read after A Tangle of Knots. Here is the synopsis from GoodReads:
In this companion to A Tangle of Knots, it's summertime and everyone is heading off to camp. For Talented kids, the place to be is Camp Atropos, where they can sing songs by the campfire, practice for the Talent show, and take some nice long dips in the lake. But what the kids don't know is that they've been gathered for a reason--one that the camp's director wants to keep hidden at all costs.
Meanwhile, a Talent jar that has been dropped to the bottom of the lake has sprung a leak, and strange things have begun to happen. Dozens of seemingly empty jars have been washing up on the shoreline, Talents have been swapped, and memories have been ripped from one camper's head and placed into another. And no one knows why.
Romance?: Nope.
My Thoughts:While I enjoyed this read, I didn't like it as much as
A Tangle of Knots. Part of the reason is that in
Knots, the Talents that people had were kind of normal things. Things that a lot of people might be good at, just enhanced for different people. I enjoyed that idea a lot. It's not like people were superheroes, they were just enhanced. The Talents that some of these kids had in
Jars were more...powerful. Not all of them, some of them were normal, but they just seemed more impressive. I didn't really like that change.
This was also a darker book. The campers were in real danger in this book and a lot of the campers were desperate about their Talents or lack of Talents. The camp director was one of the most desperate and the desperation leads her to doing some pretty awful things. I didn't feel like anyone was in true danger, and I hoped everything would be tied up nicely, but I was antsy while reading a lot of this book.
However, I liked the setting a lot. I always wanted to go to a summer camp like this one, on a lake. I always went to sports camp that were hot and dusty, not on a lake. I liked most of the kids in this book and how they worked together to figure out what was going on and how to fix it. And I did like being back in the same world as
A Tangle of Knots. It's really fun and there is a lot of possibilities. Also, I love how easily the author writes other points of view. She can slip in and out of characters so smoothly the story just flows!
To Sum Up: Love this world and these are two awesome middle grade books. I will be book talking them a lot in the fall and recommending them for a lot of my 6th grade readers!
Last week I got a fun pack of middle grade books from HarperCollins. There were a few in here that had escaped my attention so it was nice to see them in person!
I have but haven't read the first Ivy Pocket. The covers are amazing, a little bit of goth and whimsy mixed. And they look like such fun reads. I need to read the first one soon! I put them both on my last book order of the year.
This one also is the second book in a series. The Backyard Witch is such a fun character, can't wait to see what is happening with her in this story!
Eleven and Holding by Mary Penney: This is a middle grade book that had escaped my attention before I got it in the mail. It looks so good and like it would be such a good addition to any library. I might not be able to read this one yet because of emotions, but I will hopefully sometime this summer. Ordered it for the fall for my library.
5 Times Revenge by Lindsay ElandAnother one that had escaped my attention until now! Looks like such a fun middle school romp, can't wait to give it a try!
I got some awesome books in the mail from Simon & Schuster in September. I have ordered most of them for my library (I want to read through more of
The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch to see if it's appropriate before for my middle school library).
A Nearer Moon and
This Side of Wild are already really popular. How gorgeous is the cover for A Nearer Moon?! I have heard awesome things about
The Nest--supposedly really creepy. And Kenneth Oppel is always a favorite of mine.
Thanks so much for the books Simon & Schuster! Always good to discover something new for mine and my student's enjoyment!
I have a lot of added to the list or book haul posting to do. I need to catch up from September and October. To start, though I am going to work my way back. Last week I checked out
In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware and
Blood and Salt by Kim Liggett from my public library. Both look like spooky, intriguing reads and both have gotten a lot of positive reviews. Hopefully I will get time to read them before they are due!
I was sent
Uprooted by Lynne Reid Banks from HarperCollins. This looks like an interesting story about World War 2 from a Canadian's point of view. Plus, Lynne Reid Banks is an excellent writer.
