Review - The Mockingbirds

From Goodreads:

Some schools have honor codes.
Others have handbooks.
Themis Academy has the Mockingbirds.
Themis Academy is a quiet boarding school with an exceptional student body that the administration trusts to always behave the honorable way--the Themis Way. So when Alex is date raped during her junior year, she has two options: stay silent and hope someone helps her, or enlist the Mockingbirds--a secret society of students dedicated to righting the wrongs of their fellow peers.

In this honest, page-turning account of a teen girl's struggle to stand up for herself, debut author Daisy Whitney reminds readers that if you love something or someone--especially yourself--you fight for it.

I knew a little bit about this book going in. I knew it was about date rape, and I knew it made reference to Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, one of my all time favorite books. The author brings an important authenticity to this book because she lived through a similar situation while at college and therefore is able to convey the complex emotions felt by Alex, our MC throughout the story. She also shows how icrucial it is to reach out to others for help when something terrible like this happens. Whether it be family, friends or teachers, it's important to the healing process to talk about it rather than let it devour you from the inside out.


The self-doubt felt by Alex throughout the book is something all of us can relate to and it makes her journey of remembering exactly what happened to her that night all the more haunting.  

The message in this book is a vital one and I think every girl should hear it. Bravo, Daisy Whitney.

Anna And The French Kiss & Giveaway

I've stalked followed Stephanie Perkins through her blog for quite a while. Her posts about HBM (Hot British Men) are legendary. So when her debut, Anna And The French Kiss, came out, I ran as fast as I could to Borders and picked it up.

I read it in two days. It would have been a single sitting if I hadn't fallen asleep against my will a mere fifty pages from the end.

                                                                      From Goodreads:

Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris—until she meets Étienne St. Claire: perfect, Parisian (and English and American, which makes for a swoon-worthy accent), and utterly irresistible. The only problem is that he's taken, and Anna might be, too, if anything comes of her almost-relationship back home.

As winter melts into spring, will a year of romantic near-misses end with the French kiss Anna—and readers—have long awaited?



Words fail me. With this wonderful love story between Anna and Étienne (sounds dreamy, huh? You've NO idea), Steph was able to tap into those high school memories of shy glances and accidental contact that made your palms sweat and heart beat faster. Those moments you would desperately love to have frozen in time so you could revisit them over and over again. 

Did I mention Paris? Descriptions dripping with so much decadence they compelled me to add this city that I've never before really wanted to visit straight to the top of my bucket list. 

This book is, in a word, gorgeous. The best YA romance I can remember reading. EVER.  I loved it so much that I want to give one of you the chance to win it. 

Here's how: 

Just leave me a comment with your email address (+1). No following required although I love to make new friends! Please make sure either The Book Depository or Amazon ships to your location and you're all set!

Extra entries:

GFC Follower +1
Twitter Follower +1 
Network Blog Follower +1
Tweet this contest +1
Blog mention +1
Goodreads Friend  +1


Just leave the appropriate links in your comment and your total number of entries. Contest ends on Monday, January 31st and I'll announce the winner as chosen by random.org on February 1st. 

Even if you don't win it from me, please find a way to get your hands on it. And keep an eye out for Lola And The Boy Next Door due out September 2011.

The Marbury Lens

I "met" Andrew Smith a couple of years ago through a writer's site we both frequented. He had already published his first novel, Ghost Medicine and his second, In The Path Of Falling Objects, was on the way to being published. Still, he always managed to make time for critiques and advice to those of us who were still struggling. By the time The Marbury Lens had been given a release date, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. And let me tell you, it is an exhilarating ride.

From Publisher's Weekly:

In this brutal but highly effective dark fantasy, Smith (In the Path of Falling Objects) tells the story of 16-year-old Jack, who gets drunk at a party and is kidnapped, tortured, and nearly raped by a serial killer. Jack escapes, but when he and his best friend Conner run into the kidnapper the next day, they abduct him in turn and accidentally kill him. Jack is highly traumatized by the experience and refuses to go to police, in part because he and Conner are leaving for England to check out a prep school. When Jack arrives in London, he is accosted by a mysterious stranger who seems to know him and hands him an odd pair of glasses. Looking through them, Jack is transported to the horrendous, postapocalyptic world of Marbury, where he is responsible for two younger boys, and Conner has been transformed into a murderous mutant, further destabilizing Jack's precarious sanity. This bloody and genuinely upsetting book packs an enormous emotional punch. Smith's characters are very well developed and the ruined alternate universe they travel through is both surreal and believable.

This one was hard to put down. I love Jack and pulled for him throughout, even though I didn't expect and would have been disappointed by a happily ever after ending. Every time I thought I had a plot line firmly figured out, I turned out to be completely wrong. How wonderful is that? And that last page you've heard about? Awesome. Questions remain, but I found it very satisfying. I spoke to Andrew the other day and he let me know that the ARCs for his next novel, Stick, should be out in March. My mouth is already watering.

You can catch Andrew on his highly entertaining blog.