Harmony Book Reviews

I recieved all of these from a publistic at Scholastic. I was expecting Same Difference but the rest were all a surprised. I’ve been looking forward to Destroy all Cars and A Map of the Known World for a while now so I was happy to see them in the package. I can’t wait to get started on them!

These both came from the authors. They both look really good and hopefully I’ll get to read them soon.

My grandma is, once again, determined to get a bunch of book by one author (she has this thing where she has to read every book an author has written before reading another author) but she refuses to pay more than a couple dollars each. She won’t use Amazon ($3 shipping is too much!) and both Powell’s and Alibris don’t have enough on decent shipping.

I figured that many of you buy your books online. If you buy them used, where do you get them? I need a place where the shipping isn’t outrageous.

Title: Paisley Hanover Acts Out

Author:Cameron Tuttle

Grade: A

Good If… You’re looking for a fun, hilarious read with great characters.

Summary: (Taken from Amazon)

Always one of the popular kids, sophomore Paisley Hanover gets a rude awakening when she’s booted out of yearbook and into the badlands of drama class. Out of her element but only momentarily out of ideas, Paisley takes action—and an unexpected liking to her drama buddies. The result? An undercover crusade that could bring down the popularity pecking order, and Paisley along with it.

This is the story of how Paisley Hanover gets wise, gets bold, and gets into a hilarious mess of trouble. With a package as fresh and clever as Paisley herself— including a cool slipcase, a fabulous novel, and Paisley’s notebook of embarrassingly funny ideas and doodles—it’s the start of a series that embraces the “Un” in UnUsual.

My Thoughts: When I first picked this up, I hadn’t seen any reviews and figured it would be a mediocre attempt at portraying high school life. As usual, I was completely wrong.

At the beginning of the novel, Paisley seems like your average high school student that runs with the in-crowd. In just a few chapters, you see a different side of her. A side that disagrees with the things her “friends” do but goes along with it just because she wants to be liked. But after hanging out with certain members of the “un-crowd”, Paisley decides it’s time to make a change in the way her school works, and that’s when her character becomes someone most of us aspire to be like. She steps up, does what she thinks is right, and sticks up for the people who need.

I found myself laughing hysterically at certain points in this novel (this was definitely a bad choice to read during the PSSA’s at school) and I just couldn’t put it down. Not only was Paisley a fun character to read about, the other characters, even the ones who didn’t have big roles, were unique and I can guarantee you won’t ever find such a random crowd in any other books.

There’s not much more for me to say about this other than I really enjoyed it and if you’ve been thinking about picking it up, now if the time to do so. (I hear the final copy has some really cool packaging!) I’m anxiously awaiting the sequel.

I only recieved two books this week. One was The Miles Between by Mary E. Pearson, which I had no clue was coming and I didn’t even know that she had a new book coming so when I got it I kinda freaked out. The other book I recieved was another copy of Also Known as Harper which I had recieved a few weeks back.

The past two weeks have been pretty slow for me but here’s what I got:

I recieved Fade from the publicist and The Bean Trees was recommended to me by my English teacher. She says she used to teach it to her seniors but she thinks I’ll enjoy it. I’m super-excited to read both of these.

Both of these came from the authors. Slob looks really good and I sampled a couple pages of it it because I couldn’t stop myself and now I can’t wait to read it all the way through.

—

On a side note, what do you think of the new site background?

Since I’ve done everything but disappear completely lately, I figured it’s time to make some changes to my blog when I get back completely (which will be within the next week or so), I want to know what suggestions you guys had. What do you like? What would you change? What do you want to see more of? Less of? Did you enjoy the Author of the Month feature? Blogger interviews?

Let me know either by commenting on this post or emailing me at harmonybookreviews[at]yahoo[dot]com.

To celebrate the paperback release of her novel Wish You Were Here, Catherine Clark has agreed to give away three copies! It’s been a while since I read this one but let me tell you – it was great!

To win of these copies:

-Leave a comment telling me about the favorite roadtrip you’ve been on or your dream roadtrip (+1)

-Post about this contest and link me in a separate post (+1)

I was looking at a couple book tours and I got wondering – does anyone know of any authors coming to PA anytime? I’d love to go to a signing but all the good ones seem to be hours away. So if you know of any, let me know!

I didn’t have time to post last week so I’m going to be posting about all of the books I got these past two weeks. Since I got sixteen, plus a couple from the library, I’m not going to post pictures of them all. Anyway, I recieved:

I recieved The President’s Daughter, as well as the next three in the series (White House Autumn, Long Live the Queen, and Long May She Reign) from a contest. I haven’t started on these yet but I’m really excited to start on them. Exposed came from another reviewer.

These four also came from a reviewer I was doing a swap with. I haven’t read any of them yet but they all look really good.

So Friday night, I come home and there’s this huge box and another package on the table. I run to my room and squeal as I’m opening. Inside there’s Something, Maybe by Elizabeth Scott, The Genie Scheme by Kimberly K. Jones, If I Grow Up by Todd Strasser, Shine, Coconut Moon by Neesha Meminger, Anything but Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin, Standing for Socks by Elissa Brent Weissman, When the Black Girl Sings by Bil Wright, and Paradise Lost by Kate Brian.  The only one of these I’ve read is Paradise Lost, which was amazing (see my previous post) but I’m really excited to read all of these, especially Something, Maybe since this will be my first time experiencing Scott’s writing.

I also got How to Hook a Hottie by Tina Ferraro, Bound by Donna Jo Napoli, How Starbucks Saved my Life by Michael Gates Gill and Bloody Jack by L.A. Meyer from the library.

I’d say I had a pretty good two weeks. Now I just need to read all of these!