Waiting On: Fated by Alyson Noel (with a fun promotion!)

Hey Remarkable Readers,
It's obviously not Wednesday but, I'd still love to share a book that I'm waiting on with you!  A few months ago, I heard about Fated by Alyson Noel and really wanted to check it out!  I've been looking forward to it's May 22nd release for a while now.  That being said, I was excited when I received an email about a fun promotion from St. Martin's Press!  Currently, they're having a promotion where anyone who preorders Fated and sends in their necessary information, will receive a free pair of earrings similar to the ones on the cover!  I thought this would be fun to share with you all :)  I cannot wait to read Fated, so check out the summary below!
To Get the Free Earings and preorder: Click Here!

The first book in a magnificent new series about a girl who can navigate between the worlds of the living and the dead by #1 New York Times bestselling author Alyson Noël.                            Lately strange things have been happening to Daire Santos. Animals follow her, crows mock her, and glowing people appear out of nowhere. Worried that Daire is having a nervous breakdown, her mother packs her off to stay in the dusty plains of Enchantment, New Mexico with a grandmother she’s never met. There she crosses paths with Dace, a gorgeous guy with unearthly blue eyes who she’s encountered before...but only in her dreams. And she’ll get to know her grandmother—a woman who recognizes Daire’s bizarre episodes for what they are. A call to her true destiny as a Soul Seeker, one who can navigate between the worlds of the living and the dead. Her grandmother immediately begins teaching her to harness her powers—but it’s an art that must be mastered quickly. Because Dace’s brother is an evil shape-shifter who’s out to steal her powers. Now Daire must embrace her fate as a Soul Seeker and find out if Dace is one guy she’s meant to be with...or if he’s allied with the enemy she’s destined to destroy.

What do you think?  Will you be looking forward to the release of Fated?

Catching Up: What I'm Reading.

Hey Remarkable Readers,
It seems that a bit or catching up is necessary. I haven't been blogging much because since spring break, school's been full speed ahead. I'm determined to get my blogging consistency back, though!  I haven't been doing too many IMMs just because I haven't been receiving too many things so, I'll probably just be posting a collective IMM of everything I've received since the last one.  Anyways, today I wanted to just let you know what I'm reading at the moment. I'm currently reading Torn by Amanda Hocking and A Seperate Piece by John Knowles. The second book is for my English class. I'm enjoying Torn so far and I'm excited to finish it so that I can read Ascend, the final installment of the Trylle Trilogy. Also, the last book I finished was Slide by Jill Hathway. I really enjoyed this book so look for a review soon!   My guest reviewer, Mrs. M has also just finished two nonfiction books, so look for those reviews, too!  If you have any suggestions for future posts, let me know in the comments!  Otherwise, What are you currently reading?  How do you balance reading or blogging with other activities?

Explorer: The Mystery Boxes by Kazu Kibuishi

Genre: Young Adult/Middle Grade-Graphic Novel
Source: Finished Copy from Publisher
Series: No, Standalone

Challenge: Free Reads

Seven clever stories answer one simple question: what’s in the box?
Funny, fantastic, spooky, and suspenseful, each of these unique and beautifully illustrated 
short graphic works revolves around a central theme: a mysterious box and the marvels—or mayhem—inside. Artists include middle school favorites Kazu Kibuishi, Raina Telgemeier (Smile), and Dave Roman (Astronaut Academy), as well as Jason Caffoe, Stuart Livingston, Johane Matte, Rad Sechrist (all contributors to the groundbreaking comics anthology series Flight), and upcoming artist Emily Carroll.

    I recieved this book in the mail as a surprise.  I had never heard of it before and had never recieved anything from this publisher before, so I was excited to recieve it.  After flipping through the book, I noticed that it was a graphic novel which made me even more excited!  I had never read a graphic novel before so, for my first graphic novel, I enjoyed it!
    All the illustrations were fun and creative and I enjoyed looking at them.  Pictures are always a fun way to tell a story.  I was able to finish the entire book in less than 40 minutes, which was great because I haven't had much time to read lately.  It was a nice light read.  One thing that I didn't really enjoy about the book was that it was an anthology, so each story was really short.  Once I started getting to know the characters, the story would end.  I felt like the stories should've been a bit longer and allowed for more character development.  I also thought that some of the loose ends in the stories weren't tied up in the end.
     Overall, I enjoyed this book.  The graphics were fun to look at and the stories were all unique.  I didn't appreciate the shortness of some of the tales but, I still enjoyed all of them.  This is great to pick up on a rainy day.  You should be able to finish it in less than an hour :)


Final Grade:

The Independent Book Blogger Awards

Hey Remarkable Readers!

     This year, Goodreads is hosting (along with the help of a few other organizations) an event called "The Independent Book Blogger Awards" (IBBA).  What is this event, you ask?  Tons of Book Bloggers get to sign up and then the readers (you) vote for your favorite blogs in each of four categories: Adult Fiction, Adult Nonfiction, Young Adult and Children’s, and Publishing Industry.  There are several different rounds of voting but, in the end, four bloggers win.  What do they win, you ask?  A trip to BEA, the world's largest publishing conference!  Anyways, I've signed myself up for this lovely little competition and I'd love if you'd go vote for Jessie's Remarkable Reads and your other favorite blogs!  Just click the little widget below or on the sidebar to vote for me!  Help to spread the word, too!  Thanks!

Vote for this blog for the Independent Book Blogger Awards!
Vote

UK vs. US (vs. ARC) : The Hunt by Andrew Fukuda

Hey Remarkable Readers,

Left to Right: US, UK, ARC

I was thinking it was time for another UK vs. US competition!  The winner of the last cover showdown was the US!  I tweeted you all asking for suggestions for covers.  Thanks to @rocapri for suggesting The Hunt by Andrew Fukuda!  Personally, if I had to choose between UK and US, I'd definetely pick US.  I feel like the guy on the front of the UK cover isn't relevant and doesn't reveal anything about the story.  I'm really not a big fan of the US cover either, I actually prefer the ARC cover!  I feel like it's a lot more mysterious and relates to the summary more.  

Don’t Sweat.  Don’t Laugh.  Don’t draw attention to yourself.  And most of all, whatever you do, do not fall in love with one of them. 
  
Gene is different from everyone else around him.  He can’t run with lightning speed, sunlight doesn’t hurt him and he doesn’t have an unquenchable lust for blood.  Gene is a human, and he knows the rules.  Keep the truth a secret.  It’s the only way to stay alive in a world of night—a world where humans are considered a delicacy and hunted for their blood. 
  
When he’s chosen for a once in a lifetime opportunity to hunt the last remaining humans, Gene’s carefully constructed life begins to crumble around him.  He’s thrust into the path of a girl who makes him feel things he never thought possible—and into a ruthless pack of hunters whose suspicions about his true nature are growing. Now that Gene has finally found something worth fighting for, his need to survive is stronger than ever—but is it worth the cost of his humanity? 

What do you like best?  Why?

IMM

Hey Remarkable Readers!
I feel like it's been forever since my last In My Mailbox but, I haven't really gotten much in the mail lately.  I'm perfectly fine like this, though because I'm working on catching up on all those review books!  Here's what I've gotten in the past few weeks:

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Ascend by Amanda Hocking

Some Swag for The Vicious Deep by Zoraida Cordova (Not Pictured) 

Thanks to St. Martin's for the finished copy of Ascend!  I can't wait to read it and finish off the series!  What did you get in your mailbox?

Embrace Blog Tour: Where Are You From?

Hey Remarkable Readers,Today I'm hosting Jessica Shirvington for the blog tour of Embrace!  She'll be talking about the role of location in her books!  I'm currently reading her book, so look for a review soon!  Scroll down for her post and to check out a giveaway! :)

Where Are You From?

By Jessica Shirvington

In my first draft of EMBRACE (there were eight!), I didn’t set the city. I was in two minds the entire time. I suppose I was drawing on all the places I have been around the world. Although I now live in Sydney, when I started to write EMBRACE, my family and I had just moved back from six years living in London. And prior to that, I’d spent quite a lot of time travelling to many cities around the world – so much so, that when I was writing scenes in EMBRACE, I found myself thinking of different cities around the world and never being able to truly decided which one most suited Violet’s world.

In my second and third and fourth drafts, I chose different cities (I’ll never tell) from around the world and set Violet’s story there. But each time, it felt forced.

I wanted her to live in a city, as opposed to some small town where all these major apocalyptic events just miraculously found her. To be believable she had to be in a metropolitan environment, but which one?

In the end, the answer was … any of them, and none of them. It wasn’t that the cities I chose didn’t work; it was that in my mind I’d amalgamated them into what I needed for her story to work for me. So I made the decision to give that option to all of my readers and simply called her city, the City. 

It isn’t the ‘done thing’ usually, but I believe for this story, it works. I want readers to be able to put this story where they know. If they live in a city, it can be there, if they live in a rural area, then it isn’t a stretch for them to imagine a city nearby. It is an element of control that I wanted to give to the reader.

That said, I like a little control myself … and I discovered that by giving this open setting for Violet’s hometown, it also opened up the possibility to use other locations around the world that would really pop off the page. 

In ENTICED (the sequel, out in September!), Violet and her friends find themselves travelling to Jordan – on a quest to the place of Moses’ death – Mount Nebo. In EMBLAZE (book 3, out March 2013) they travel to the island of Santorini in Greece, which is small and stunning, and holds terrors that none of them are prepared for.

Each book I take the characters somewhere new and as I write the series, I have discovered how very important this is to me. I want my characters to go to the world, to find the problems and be part of the solution, rather than the fight always, and too conveniently, finding them.

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