Waiting On Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine! 

This week I am focusing on a historical fiction by one of my favorite historical writers! 

Deeanne Gist has written many historical fictions with definite crossover appeal... this one looks so good! 

Look for it May 5th!

From the bestselling author of It Happened at the Fair and Fair Play comes a compelling historical novel about a progressive “New Woman”—the girl behind Tiffany’s chapel—and the love that threatens it all.
As preparations for the 1893 World’s Fair set Chicago and the nation on fire, Louis Tiffany—heir to the exclusive Fifth Avenue jewelry empire—seizes the opportunity to unveil his state-of-the-art, stained glass, mosaic chapel, the likes of which the world has never seen.
But when Louis’s dream is threatened by a glassworkers’ strike months before the Fair opens, he turns to an unforeseen source for help: the female students at the New York Art Institute. Eager for adventure, the young women pick up their skirts, move to boarding houses, take up steel cutters, and assume new identities as the “Tiffany Girls.”
Tiffany Girls is the heartwarming story of the impetuous Flossie Jayne, a beautiful, budding artist who is handpicked by Louis to help complete the Tiffany chapel. Though excited to live in a boarding house when most women stayed home, she quickly finds the world is less welcoming than anticipated. From a Casanova male, to an unconventional married couple, and a condescending singing master, she takes on a colorful cast of characters to transform the boarding house into a home while racing to complete the Tiffany chapel and make a name for herself in the art world.
As challenges mount, her ambitions become threatened from an unexpected quarter: her own heart. Who will claim victory? Her dreams or the captivating boarder next door?

 What are you guys waiting for this week?

Top Ten Tuesday - Bookish Quotes!

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the Broke and the Bookish! 

Here are some of my favorite quotes from books! 

Little known fact, Eeyore is my spirit animal. 

I could write a book about my love for Anne Shirley. 

Who doesn't love Shel Silverstein? 

Sarah Dessen can't not be on this list. 

When I first read Alice in Wonderland I thought it was insane. Then it began to grow on me and I have begun to appreciate the crazy. 

Harry Potter had to be on this list as well. I'm still in Dumbledore's Army. 

Stephen King's On Writing is where I go for writing advice. If you like to write and need to get kicked into shape -- read On Writing. It is so fantastic. 

We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach

Title: We All Looked Up
Author: Tommy Wallach
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1481418777

Four high school seniors put their hopes, hearts, and humanity on the line as an asteroid hurtles toward Earth in this contemporary novel.
They always say that high school is the best time of your life.
Peter, the star basketball player at his school, is worried “they” might actually be right. Meanwhile Eliza can’t wait to escape Seattle—and her reputation—and perfect-on-paper Anita wonders if admission to Princeton is worth the price of abandoning her real dreams. Andy, for his part, doesn’t understand all the fuss about college and career—the future can wait.
Or can it? Because it turns out the future is hurtling through space with the potential to wipe out life on Earth. As these four seniors—along with the rest of the planet—wait to see what damage an asteroid will cause, they must abandon all thoughts of the future and decide how they’re going to spend what remains of the present.

The hardest reviews to write are the ones where you feel in the middle, and for WE ALL LOOKED UP, that's exactly how I feel. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't love it either. The book started off strong and then lost it somewhere towards the middle for me.

I wasn't really indebted into the characters very much, and at some point I realized I was reading to find out what happened with the asteroid. I wanted to know the fate of the planet... not really the fate of the characters.

For me, I felt that the characters were kind of too crazy. I couldn't relate to them personally because they seemed so much the opposite of myself that I couldn't put myself in their shoes, and the decisions they made often irritated me more than anything.

I really wanted to love this book because I've heard so many good things, but it ultimately fell kind of flat for me.

I will say that the author's writing was good and I can definitely see where he was going with the decisions that he made, and the character development he portrayed - it was just lost on me personally.

I did enjoy the world building as it represented a society which crumbled in the face of disaster, which is something I feel would actually happen in the face of this kind of disaster.

Ultimately, if you're interested in books where the characters experience extreme transformations in the face of the apocalypse, this book is for you.

Waiting on Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine! 

Neil Gaiman’s Stardust meets John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars in this fantasy about a girl caught between two worlds…two races…and two destinies.
Aza Ray is drowning in thin air. 
Since she was a baby, Aza has suffered from a mysterious lung disease that makes it ever harder for her to breathe, to speak—to live. 
So when Aza catches a glimpse of a ship in the sky, her family chalks it up to a cruel side effect of her medication. But Aza doesn’t think this is a hallucination. She can hear someone on the ship calling her name.
Only her best friend, Jason, listens. Jason, who’s always been there. Jason, for whom she might have more-than-friendly feelings. But before Aza can consider that thrilling idea, something goes terribly wrong. Aza is lost to our world—and found, by another. Magonia. 
Above the clouds, in a land of trading ships, Aza is not the weak and dying thing she was. In Magonia, she can breathe for the first time. Better, she has immense power—and as she navigates her new life, she discovers that war is coming. Magonia and Earth are on the cusp of a reckoning. And in Aza’s hands lies the fate of the whole of humanity—including the boy who loves her. Where do her loyalties lie?

This one sounds so good!  

What are you guys waiting on this week? 

Top Ten Tuesday: Books Recently Added to My To Be Read List

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish! 

This week's Top Ten Tuesday is all about books that have recently been added to my To Be Read pile... as if that wasn't already large enough. 

Here they are, some new, some old. 

Emmy & Oliver by Robin Benway

Rook by Sharon Cameron

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

City Love by Susane Colasanti

99 Days by Katie Cotugna

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

The Luck Uglies: Fork Tongue Charmers by Paul Durham

The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy

Finding Mr. Brightside by Jay Clark

What are some of your recent additions? 

Let's Talk: Game of Thrones: is the Show "Spoiling" it?

From time to time I feel the need to discuss things. 

This is where I do it. 

If you have comments, join in! It's like a dinner party in the virtual world without the dinner or the party! 

This discussion is going to focus on the world of Game of Thrones. I read the books, have watched the show, and while they aren't my favorite thing since sliced bread I do enjoy them. 

There has been some controversy as of late because the upcoming season of Game of Thrones (season 5) is going to start spoiling the books. G.R.R. Martin's next series installment is not due out until 2016... and of course, the show must go on. 

This has upset many people... but interestingly enough not G.R.R. Martin. The author of this mega series does not seem to mind if people know where he's going without him going there. 

According to The Verge he had this to say about it:

"This whole concept of spoilers is one that I've never gotten," he says. "Yes, there's a pleasure when you're reading a book, or watching a television show — What will happen next? Who will win? Who will lose? But that is by no means the only reason to watch a movie or a television show. It's not the only reason to read a book."

I thought this explanation was very interesting, but people are upset and actually refusing to watch the show to protect themselves from spoilers. 

What do you guys think? 

Will you guys be checking out the new series, or are you going to commit and wait for the books? 

I haven't made up my mind yet... though I do think it's odd the author is okay with the spoilers when you consider this series has been ten years in the works with no end in sight. 

To spoil or not to spoil? That is the question... 

Waiting on Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine. 

Abram and Juliette know each other. They’ve lived down the street from each other their whole lives. But they don’t really know each other—at least, not until Juliette’s mom and Abram’s dad have a torrid affair that culminates in a deadly car crash. Sharing the same subdivision is uncomfortable, to say the least. They don’t speak.
Fast-forward to the neighborhood pharmacy, a few months later. Abram decides to say hello. Then he decides to invite her to Taco Bell. To her surprise as well as his, she agrees. And the real love story begins.

This is a title that I just found out about over the weekend so I'm making it count! 

Look for it THIS WEEK! 

What are you guys waiting on?