I'm back!

After a LONG hiatus from this blog - including a semester-long sabbatical - I'm back, and going to try my best to get some recent posts up here. I didn't read as much as I thought I would on my break, but a few of my recent favourites are:

• The Maze Runner (bk 1) and The Scorch Trials (bk 2) by James Dasher...I am SO looking forward to book 3, The Death Cure - due out October 11th...and I promise I'll have a copy for Rez right away. SO, if you haven't read book 1 or 2 yet, you've got all summer! The series is right up there with the Hunger Games trilogy...awesome!
  
  
• Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins ~ okay, so the title sounds a bit corny, but I loved this book. For her last year of high school, Anna gets sent to a boarding school in Paris for American students. Yes, it's a romance story...but so much more. I almost didn't read it, but I'd seen so many great reviews by other bloggers, librarians, and teens that I decided to give it a chance...and I'm so glad I did...you should too!
  
  
• Pink by Lili Wilkinson ~ I've started reviewing books for VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates) and this was one of the recent titles I reviewed...and I LOVED it. It reminds me a bit of John Green books (he's one of my all-time favourite authors) - honest, really smart, funny, real. Here's part of what I wrote: "Australian author Lili Wilkinson takes a witty, refreshing look at high school and adolescence that obliterates stereotypes along the way. The novel is in turn laugh-out-loud funny, endearing, and heartbreaking as Ava repeatedly steps into teenage social landmines - with unexpected results."
  
  
• The Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi ~ this year's Printz award winning book (the award for best YA novel of the year)...for good reason. It's going on my list of favourite dystopian novels (Maze Runner, Hunger Games, City of Ember, The Giver, Gone, Unwind...just to name a few!). I read this one in a day!
  
  
• Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver ~ I JUST finished this one...about half an hour ago. Needed some time to recover from reading it...but this is the book that inspired me to put up a post, it was THAT good. Before chapter one even starts, you know Samantha dies. She and her friends are in a car crash and she doesn't make it. Then Chapter 1 begins with a description of her day, leading up to the crash. I'm not going to lie - she's not a very likeable person. In fact, she's the kind of teenager that makes other teenagers' (and adults') lives miserable. But then the book gets interesting...because Samantha re-lives that same day over and over again...and piece by piece, she (and you) get a better sense of the big picture as she's forced to take another look at her life and the lives around her. Honestly, one of the best books I've read in a long while. It's on the Teens' Top Ten nominees list for this year, and I'll be shocked if it doesn't make it up in the top 5.
  

So, there you go...some reading ideas to get you started for the summer. I'm going to start working my way through the Teens Top Ten nominees...and I'll let you know what I think. Happy reading!