Stories with Samantha

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is: Home is where the bodies are buried. Darkly humorous and heart-wrenchingly beautiful, Jennifer Longo’s YA debut about a girl stuck living in a cemetery will change the way you look at life, death, and love. Leigh sells graves for her family-owned cemetery because her father is too lazy to look farther than the dinner table when searching for employees. Working the literal graveyard shift, she meets two kinds of customers: Pre-Need:  They know what’s up. They bought their graves a long time ago, before they needed them. At Need:  They are in shock, mourning a loved one’s unexpected death. Leigh avoids sponging their agony by focusing on things like guessing the headstone choice (mostly granite). Sarcastic and smart, Leigh should be able to stand up to her

Top Ten Tuesday  is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because we are particularly fond of lists at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists! John Green The Fault in Our Stars, Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns, An Abundance of Katherines     J.K. Rowling All Harry Potter books! Stephanie Meyer Twlight books, The Host Ellen Hopkins Perfect, Crash, Burn, Fallout, Tricks, Impulse Lauren Oliver Delirium series, Before I Fall Lauren DeStefano Chemical Gardens trilogy, Perfect Ruin Marisa Meyer Cinder, Scarlet, Cress Tahereh Mafi Shatter Me trilogy Veronica Roth Divergent series Stephanie Perkins Anna and Lola!

Looking For Alaska by John Green Published by Penguin on December 28, 2006 Genre: Realistic                                                                                             Pages: 256 Format: Paperback Source: Bought Buy This Book Before. Miles “Pudge” Halter is done with his safe life at home. His whole life has been one big non-event, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave “the Great Perhaps” even more (Francois Rabelais, poet). He heads off to the sometimes crazy and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young. She is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart. Then. . . . After. Nothing is ever the same. MY THOUGHTS:       John Green can do no wrong. Every

To This Day by Shane Koyczan Series: none Published by Annick Press Ltd on July 17, 2014 Pages 72 Format EBook Source Netgalley Goodreads   •  B&N In February 2013, Shane Koyczan's passionate anti-bullying poem "To This Day" electrified the world. An animated video of the lyric narrative went viral, racking up over 12 million hits to date and inspiring an international movement against bullying in schools. Shane later performed the piece to sustained applause on the stage of the 2013 annual TED Conference. Now this extraordinary work has been adapted into an equally moving and visually arresting book. Thirty international artists, as diverse as they are talented, have been inspired to create exceptional art to accompany "To This Day." Each page is a vibrant collage of images, colors and words that will resonate powerfully with anyone who has experienced bullying themselves, whether as a victim, observer, or participant. Born of Shane's ow

Perfect by Ellen Hopkins Series: Impulse Published by Simon and Schuster on Sept 11, 2013 Pages 622 Format Paperback Source Bought Goodreads   •   B&N      Everyone has something, someone, somewhere else that they’d rather be. For four high-school seniors, their goals of perfection are just as different as the paths they take to get there. Cara’s parents’ unrealistic expectations have already sent her twin brother Conner spiraling toward suicide. For her, perfect means rejecting their ideals to take a chance on a new kind of love. Kendra covets the perfect face and body—no matter what surgeries and drugs she needs to get there. To score his perfect home run—on the field and off—Sean will sacrifice more than he can ever win back. And Andre realizes that to follow his heart and achieve his perfect performance, he’ll be living a life his ancestors would never understand. Everyone wants to be perfect, but when perfection loses its meaning, how far will you go? What woul

Dissonance by Erica O'Rourke Series: Dissonance Published by Simon and Schuster on July 22, 2014 Pages 496 Format ARC Source: Publisher Goodreads   •  Buy This Book Delancy Sullivan has always known there’s more to reality than what people see. Every time someone makes a choice, a new, parallel world branches off from the existing one. Eating breakfast or skipping it, turning left instead of right, sneaking out instead of staying in bed ~ all of these choices create an alternate universe in which an echo self takes the road not travelled and makes the opposite decision. As a Walker, someone who can navigate between these worlds, Del’s job is to keep all of the dimensions in harmony. Normally, Del can hear the dissonant frequency that each world emits as clear as a bell. But when a training session in an off-key world goes horribly wrong, she is forbidden from Walking by the Council. But Del’s not big on following the rules and she secretly starts to investigate th

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is: From the glittering streets of Manhattan to the moonlit rooftops of Paris, falling in love is easy for hopeless dreamer Isla and introspective artist Josh. But as they begin their senior year in France, Isla and Josh are quickly forced to confront the heartbreaking reality that happily-ever-afters aren’t always forever. Their romantic journey is skillfully intertwined with those of beloved couples Anna and Étienne and Lola and Cricket, whose paths are destined to collide in a sweeping finale certain to please fans old and new. I absolutely LOVED Anna and the French Kiss & Lola and the Boy Next Door, so I really cannot wait to dig into this one. What're you waiting on this Wednesday? 

Eleanor  by Johnny Worthen Series: The Unseen Published by: Jolly Fish Press on July 1, 2014                                       Pages: 356 Format: ARC Source: Author Buy This Book   •   Goodreads       It was a gamble for Eleanor to rejoin humanity, but she was driven to it. She’d been too successful forgetting. The last vestiges of her family hung by a thread in her transformed brain and drove her to be reckless. Ten years later, Eleanor hides in plain sight. She is an average girl getting average grades in a small Wyoming town: poor but happy, lonely but loved. Her mother, Tabitha, is there for her and that’s all she’s ever needed. But now her mother is sick and David has returned. The only friend she’d ever had, the only other person who knows her secret, is back. And Eleanor again becomes reckless.        Eleanor is a modest girl, unremarkable but extraordinary, young but old, malleable but fixed. She is scared and confused. She is a liar and a thief. Eleanor is n