Top Ten Tuesday: Unique Book Titles

hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

This week's Ten:

Top 10 Unique Book Titles

The Sky Always Hears Me: And the Hills Don't Mind by Kirstin Cronn-Mills

Goodreads / Amazon

The Smell of Other People's Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock

Goodreads / Amazon

Bad Girls With Perfect Faces by Lynn Weingarten

Goodreads / Amazon

The Girl Who Circumvented Fiairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente  & Ana Juan (Illustrator)

Goodreads / Amazon

Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust

Goodreads / Amazon / Review

Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

Goodreads / Amazon

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Anmabel Pitcher

Goodreads / Amazon / Review

The Patron Saint of Butterflies by Cecilia Galante

Goodreads / Amazon

How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford

Goodreads / Amazon

Love (and Other Uses for Duct Tape) (Belle #2) by Carrie Jones

Goodreads /Amazon

Please leave a comment and let me know your picks for unique book titles!!

Endure ~ Carrie Jones (eARC) review

Endure (Need Pixies #4)
Bloomsbury
May 8, 2012
276 pages
add to Goodreads/buy on Book Depository/or Amazon

**Likely contains spoilers for Need, Captivate, and Entice  Books 1-3 of Need Pixies series  [links go to my reviews]**

Picking up just a few days after the end of Entice, Endure is the last book in Carrie Jones' Need Pixie series. The evil pixies that started their all-out attack on Bedford in Entice have not given up. If anything, they've increased their efforts, causing more trouble for Zara.

Not only dose she have to deal with evil pixie kidnapping and torturing teens, Nick is also back from the dead - but without any memory of what happened to him in Valhalla or Zara's rescue of him - and not sure at all how he feels about Zara being pixie. Zara's grandmother is also missing, reeling from their last battle with the pixies and Ms Nix's death.

There's no time for Zara to stop and deal, though, to be properly upset. To be victorious over the evil pixies - and possibly even stop the apocalypse - Zara and her friends are going to need more than they've ever needed before: they're going to need an army.

And Zara's going to have to come to terms with being a pixie queen . . and just how she feels about her king.


Endure starts so close to the end of Entice that it can be hard at first to remember just exactly where the story is - who's doing what, what's just happened, etc - but by the end of the first chapter a lot of refresher notes have been included. Readers might not remember the whole tale, but definitely enough to get back into the story.

How I felt about Endure  is interesting . . . While I never quite clicked with it the way I did with the other books in the series - something kept me from fully engaging with the story, there was a bit of disconnect there for me - I also can't fault the way things wrapped up.

I think most of the time I was waiting for something bigger, some more action (either from the characters in their relationships or interactions with each other) or the typical 'action' action.

I do really appreciate how there was an overall arc from the first book to the last. The story that started with the pixies in the first book got bigger and bigger and was eventually concluded in Endure, the final book. It was also great to see the how the characters grew. Zara especially changed enormously, the obvious being that she was the peace loving, protest-y girl from new to Maine who is now a pixie, but at her core she is still the same person. Yet, we also got to see her struggle with that. That was really fantastic.

So, while I didn't quite click with the book and it's storyline, I did love the characters and their growth. I also appreciated the little things we were reminded of that showed us just how much that had grown (and to tell you now would ruin you discovering them in the end). It makes me want to go back and reread the series all together (and I almost never reread books)!

Also, I still say Issie needs her own book. I adore that girl. (I don't think it's just for her Buffy and Doctor Who-love, either. [Also, kind of loving that Need Pixies has the Norse Gods and now Joss Whedon's Avengers does, too.])


Rating: 7/10



Part of Bloomsbury Blog Tours - thank you to Bridget at Bloomsbury and NetGalley for my egalley for review

After Obsession ~ Carrie Jones & Steven E Wedel (ARC) review

After Obsession
Bloomsbury USA
September 13, 2011
320 pages
Goodreads/Amazon

Both Aimee and Alan have things they might not want everyone to know about them. But when they meet each other after Alan moves to Aimee's Maine town, they can't keep their secrets hidden.

And both believe that the strange things that have been happening in the town are related to something that's haunting them.

They're both wrong, though. It's Courtney, Alan's cousin and Aimee's best friend whose father recently died, who's truly haunted. Alan and Aimee are going to have to work together - and fast - if they want to save Courtney . . . and maybe even the whole town, including themselves.


Carrie Jones is known for her strong female characters that are anything but damsels in distress and rather than needing a male character to save them, often end up saving (or at least aiding) the male characters instead. In After Obsession Aimee, the female lead is definitely no damsel, but the male lead Alan is able to help her without being chauvinistic or thinking she's some sort of helpless female, either. Alan and Aimee really work together as a team (the even chapters are from his point of view, the odd from hers) and it's great  to see (read).

The events of the novel all take place over a pretty short period short period of time, but neither the novel nor the characters' relationships feel rushed. This is likely because so much (all important) is shown. As a reader it feels like we're seeing just about everything happening to Aimee and Alan. Novels that take place over weeks or months have to be more sparing with what they show so that things develop slower.

As we do see so much (from the characters' family life, to their school experiences, to the abilities/secrets and the Big Bad) it's easy to understand how things develop as quickly as they do. And, of course, there's the conflict, which can always speed things along and/or intensify things.

Once again I love Carrie Jones' writing for it's realness (even when some not so real things are involved!) and how easy it is to connect to her characters . . . and now I'm a fan Steven E Wedel's first YA, too.

9/10

huge thank you to Kate at Bloomsbury for letting me participate in this tour :)

Entice ~ Carrie Jones review + giveaway

Entice (Need Pixies #3)
Bloomsbury USA Children's Books
December 14, 2010
272 pages
Buy/info @ Amazon

**(Spoilers for Need and Captivate, books 1 & 2, found below)**

It's common knowledge Nick and Zara are meant to be together--too bad pixies aren't common--and neither is Bedford, Maine or it's recent goings on.

And to make matters even more complicated, Nick is dead--or mostly dead--and has been taken to Valhalla, an ancient mythical place for warriors and Zara has turned pixie thanks to Astley's pixie kiss, something she asked for in hopes she'll be able to rescue Nick from Valhalla, somewhere humans can't venture.

There's also the evil group of pixies that's been attacking the town. Not the same group that Zara and co. locked in a house in Need but an evil, evil group doing things like attacking school buses.

Bedford and its residents, the teens especially, are soon in near constant danger. The pixies are drawing more than a little attention to themselves.


Zara has to divide her time and attentions between saving the town from the evil pixies and figuring out how--or even if--she can save Nick from Valhalla.

Nick was absent from a lot of this book, but the strength of the other characters made his absence not a gaping one, just a sad one. I absolutely love Carrie Jones for taking Cassidy and moving her from a character that really kind of peripherally annoyed me before and turned her into character I find pretty adorable.

I also really want Issie to have her own book now--one that somehow involves Buffy and awesomeness.

The imagination Carrie Jones showed in Entice was reminiscent of the brilliant ending to Need. I'm going to be finding the copy of Tips of Having a Gay (ex) Boyfriend I own but never read and start it soon--but I'm also really, really going to be hoping for more fantasy books from Jones because the worlds and situations she can come up with are brilliant.

Oh, how I hope there's going to be more of this series--and soon because I'm not quite ready to leave Zara, Issie or anyone else behind just yet, not to mention the ending was pretty open and left me wanting so much more all on its own.

10/10


Here are some amazing links to check out, too: Need Pixies Facebook which has tons of fun stuff like excerpts, videos, links, giveaways and more; Bloomsbury Youtube; and, of course, the Bloomsbury Teens Facebook.



Contest:

Thanks to Bloomsbury who gave me the ARC of this to review, I also have one copy of Entice to give away. It will be like a late Christmas (or general holiday time/back to school) present to yourself since I will be picking the winner in January (once contacted, the winner has 48 hours to reply or I pick a new one).

Details: Ends January 3, noon eastern
Open to those with a US mailing address that is not a PO Box
1 entry for your name/tallying points; bonus entries for the other stuff;
enter only one time per person
Prize will be shipped by the publisher.
Fill out the form to enter.

H E R E

Captivate ~ Carrie Jones review

Captivate (Need Pixies #2)
Bloomsbury USA
January 5, 2010
288 pages
buy/info @ Amazon

*Review + Giveaway of Entice is coming momentarily*
(Contains spoilers for the first book in the Need Pixies series, Need--my review)

The evil pixies--including Zara's biological father--might be locked up and barricaded in the house in the middle of the woods, but Zara and her friends know this isn't likely to be the end of their pixie troubles.

Of course, they're right, too. Soon a new pixie is in town--Astley. A new king who wants Zara as his own, Astley claims to be one of the good guys, but his arrival brings even more trouble to Zara, Nick and their friends. And to Zara and Nick's relationship.

Once again Zara and Nick are fighting to keep both themselves and their relationship alive.


Like Need, Captivate is a quick read that grabs you from the beginning and pulls you in until the amazing end. This series has, possibly, my favorite cast of characters of any YA series out there; Devyn, Nick, Issie (who has my undying love for her Buffy referencing), and Betty really add to the story and are lovable, quirky, well developed characters that I can't live without.


Things really expand in Captivate --more characters are added, the setting isn't as limited to the school and Zara's house as I remember Need being. It was fun to get more of the pixie world (and it seems there's going to be even more in Entice) while not forgetting about the original characters and their lives.

Captivate does leave you hanging like crazy with its ending, though. Be thankful that Entice is already out and consider buying it whenever you buy Captivate!!

8/10

Need ~ Carrie Jones review

Need (Need Pixies #1)
Bloomsbury USA Children's Books
December 8, 2009
338 pages
Buy/Info @ Amazon


After her stepfather dies, on their kitchen floor, right in front of her, Zara has trouble dealing. Her mother gets so worried about her that she sends Zara to Maine to live with her stepfather's mother. The transition from warm, sunny Charleston to snowy--already in October!--Maine is challenging at first for Zara.

Not only is she dealing with the death of the only father she's ever known and getting used to freezing temperatures and snow, but there's a mysterious guy she keeps seeing--one that she first saw at the airport in Charleston.

The friends she soon makes, Issie, Devyn, and Nick help her investigate this mysterious character and just who--or what he might be.


I doubt it's spoilery to say this series has pixies in it, but it should be mentioned for the review. I do like that the whole story isn't pixies!pixies!pixes right from page one. Zara's introduction to her new school and the characters takes is well done and introduces the story well, it sets everything up and establishes all of the relationships so that when the 'supernatural' is brought in you already like the characters.

I really enjoy books that have a plot that the progresses and develops and characters that are well rounded and developed with supernatural elements woven in (which is not to say that the supernatural is not a large part of this novel).

As with almost every book that has a 'new student' character, Need seemed to have Zara's start at the school be very, very easy for her based on my experiences--but that's fiction.

I really liked Gram and Issie especially, they were both great side characters and I hope they're featured a lot in the next books.

While this book has been compared a lot to Twilight and I suppose I can see that, I don't really think it's much like that novel at all. They do both have teen girls who are sent from a warm state to a colder state by their mothers and start a new school and there's a mysterious male character, but that's about all.

I think Need is much better than Twilight--I read Captivate much, much faster than I've so far managed to read New Moon!

Need also has one of my favorite endings of any of the books I've read lately. I was worrying that it was ending soon, that it would wrap up too quickly, but then I just loved the ending.


**Audio book note: Some of this I read and some of it I listened to the audiobook. I really do suggest the audiobook if you have access to it. The narrator does a great job and it's a lot of fun to be able to listen to the accents of the different characters, too. **


9/10