Random Ramblings (16): TBR Overload! SOS!

It's not really cool getting left behind by your reading peers. Yes, we all know that this is not a WHO-HAS-READ-THE-MOST race but it really sucks big time if you can't relate or join in a discussion because, alas, the book they're talking about is still on your to-read list.

There are a million reasons behind this but basically it all boils down to: THERE ARE JUST TOO MANY BOOKS! 

In fact, because our TBR pile is in the hundreds and thousands (and millions? Oh God, I do hope not), you just have no idea what to pick. And because we bloggers and reviewers have reading commitments, what with all the requesting spree we do in Netgalley (guilty!), blog tour, and review requests to attend to, we just do not have the time to work on our ever-growing, distressing TBR.

So I thought of making this post to at least keep track of what books I haven't read yet but should've supposed to read by now and at least help perk up my reading. I hate living under my reading cave and my reading is in serious need of intervention.  I've been experiencing the dreaded reading slump for about a month now and I need help. *gulps*

Since there are so many books that I really want to read, I handpicked the Top 11 in my list.  No throwing of rocks, though. I hurt easily. ;) In no particular order, here they are: 

1. The Fault in Our Stars or any John Green for that matter
2. Angelfall by Susan Ee
3. Divergent by Veronica Roth
4. The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin
5. Blood Red Road by Moira Young
6. Anna Dressed In Blood by Kendra Blake
7. Article 5 by Kristen Simmons
8. The Iron King and the rest of the series by Julie Kagawa
9. The Tiger's Curse and the rest of the series by Colleen Houck
10. The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
11. Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins

So what do you think of the books above? 

Any favorites? What book should I dive in first? 

Recommendations aside from the books mentioned are very much welcome and please do not contain yourself, I love squealing! :D

Follow Friday # 7

Follow Friday is a weekly blog hop hosted by Alison Can Read and Parajunkee that expands your blog following by joint efforts between bloggers. This week's featured bloggers are  Books Galore   and  The Fake Steph Dot Com .

Question of the Week:  

This Sunday in the U.S. is Mother's  Day. In celebration, what are some of your favorite books with strong mother/child relationships? 

There are probably some books I missed out but these 3 came immediately into mind:

Weasley's Egypt family trip with me.
Where was I? Umm, I was the one who
took the picture cause nobody knew
how to work the camera except me. 

1. Molly Weasley and the 7 Weasleys from the Harry Potter series  

Do I really need to explain this? Although, I love my mother dearly with all my heart, Molly is the mother I never had. She's just everything a mother should be. Need any more proof? Look at how her sons and daughter turned out to be.

2. Maggie and Clara Gardner from Unearthly series by Cynthia Hand

Maggie may be secretive about the mechanics of how the visions work, but she's always right there for Clara. Supportive and unyielding, like any mother should be.

Proud mom! 

3. Sally Jackson and Percy Jackson from the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan  

If you fell in love with a god (especially one of the 3 major gods), you would realized that although you love each other deeply, there will come a time when that god must leave you even if he does not want to. Sally realized that and as a single mother raising a demigod, she married a git of a man to protect Percy. I mean c'mon, if you marry someone who has a horrendous, abusive attitude and a terrible smell just to masked the demigod scent of your child to prevent monsters from attacking, you are an amazing mother.

What about you? 

Share your answer down below or link-up with your own FF post. 

Thanks for stopping by! Happy Mother's Day! :)


PSST. Fancy a giveaway? Enter here for a chance to win ONE book from 15 amazing April/May YA releases.  :D

Review: Pretty Crooked by Elisa Ludwig

Read from April 5, 2012
to April 6, 2012

Book: Pretty Crooked by Elisa Ludwig

Publication Date: March 13, 2012

Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books

Number of Pages: 368 pages

Genre/s: Young Adult, Contemporary

Willa’s secret plan seems all too simple: take from the rich kids at Valley Prep and give to the poor ones. 

Yet Willa’s turn as Robin Hood at her ultra-exclusive high school is anything but. Bilking her “friends”-known to everyone as the Glitterati-without them suspecting a thing, is far from easy. Learning how to pick pockets and break into lockers is as difficult as she’d thought it’d be. Delivering care packages to the scholarship girls, who are ostracized just for being from the “wrong” side of town, is way more fun than she’d expected. 

The complication Willa didn’t expect, though, is Aidan Murphy, Valley Prep’s most notorious (and gorgeous) ace-degenerate. His mere existence is distracting Willa from what matters most to her-evening the social playing field between the have and have-nots. There’s no time for crushes and flirting with boys, especially conceited and obnoxious trust-funders like Aidan. 

But when the cops start investigating the string of burglaries at Valley Prep and the Glitterati begin to seek revenge, could he wind up being the person that Willa trusts most? - Goodreads

I never knew that this was a series. Why does everything has to be in a series these days? I mean, Pretty Crooked could've been a pretty good stand-alone novel if it just went on a little farther and tie its several loose ends. I don't even understand why it has an epilogue. 

But before I got carried away, let me tell you what Pretty Crooked is all about first. Willa is a new student at Valley Prep, a sophisticated, classy school for rich kids. She immediately befriended one of the Gliterati, a nice girl who introduces her to the other girls. After their ridiculously lame discussions, outrageous shopping sprees and bullying, Willa realized she had enough. She decided to pull on a Robin Hood-esque stunt to spread the wealth and change the social standing system. But how long can she get away with it? 

So that's basically the backbone of the story. One girl took it in her hands to stop bullying by stealing. Sounds crazy, right? But Willa has enough ethics behind her not-so-good actions--or so Tre says. I could go on about how the end does not justify the means but I think you'd start glazing off and start staring at me like I'm sprouting leafs or laying eggs or something. 

To be honest, I never knew much about Robin Hood. Yes, I know, shame on me. Robin Hood, just wasn't much of a talk when I was a kid or when I was growing up for that matter. I just knew that he was some kind of a rebel or a hoodlum with a good heart and cause. That's it, never watched any movies, TV series, read any books with any Robin Hood tale on it. 

So what exactly is my point, you say? Well, I do believe this is a problem on my part, but the thing is the plot, the characters, the scenes, the dialogues, just didn't translate to me. It was all flat. It just didn't work. The place, the Gliterati, the mean girls vibe. It was just mildly interesting and it was such a feat that I managed to finished the book. Praised the minimal pages! 

Tre and Aidan for me was the saving grace in this book. There was some layer beneath those muscles, good looks, and their awesome smell. And believe me when I say, I'm not fangirling and fawning over their hawtness when I said that.

If there's any indication how much the Pretty Crooked didn't work for me, I did not even talked about Willa. The Sly Fox. The person this book revolves around into. But I know many people enjoyed this book. So I suggest for you to give it a try and see for yourself. 

Cupid's Verdict:

2 Cupids

An advance copy was provided by the publisher at no cost via Netgalley.

"Waiting On" Wednesday (2): Ashes of Twilight

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases we're eagerly anticipating. 

Book: Ashes of Twilight by Kassy Tayler
Publication Date: November 13, 2012
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffins

Wren MacAvoy works as a coal miner for a domed city that was constructed in the mid-nineteenth century to protect the royal blood line of England when astronomers spotted a comet on a collision course with Earth. Humanity would be saved by the most groundbreaking technology of the time. But after nearly 200 years of life beneath the dome, society has become complacent and the coal is running out.  Plus there are those who wonder, is there life outside the dome or is the world still consumed by fire? When one of Wren's friends escapes the confines of the dome, he is burned alive and put on display as a warning to those seeking to disrupt the dome’s way of life. But Alex’s final words are haunting. “The sky is blue.”

What happens next is a whirlwind of adventure, romance, conspiracy and the struggle to stay alive in a world where nothing is as it seems. Wren unwittingly becomes a catalyst for a revolution that destroys the dome and the only way to survive might be to embrace what the entire society has feared their entire existence. - Goodreads

Ashes of Twilight is classified as a Steampunk. I have not read any novel from the Steampunk genre yet but I am very willing to try one. This book might just be my first. The synopsis really caught my attention because of the promise of adventure which I am hoping is abundant in the novel. Plus, the cover was cool and refreshing.  I cannot wait to find out what that golden bird means.

What are you waiting on?

Leave your link down below so I can check yours out.

PSST. I have a giveaway going on. You might want to head there for a chance to win. I know you want to. ;)

Review: Starters by Lissa Price

Read from April 2, 2012
to April 4, 2012

Book: Starters by Lissa Price

Publication Date: March 13, 2012

Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers

Number of Pages: 368 pages

Genre/s: Young Adult, Dystopia

HER WORLD IS CHANGED FOREVER 

Callie lost her parents when the Spore Wars wiped out everyone between the ages of twenty and sixty. She and her little brother, Tyler, go on the run, living as squatters with their friend Michael and fighting off renegades who would kill them for a cookie. Callie's only hope is Prime Destinations, a disturbing place in Beverly Hills run by a mysterious figure known as the Old Man. 

He hires teens to rent their bodies to Enders—seniors who want to be young again. Callie, desperate for the money that will keep her, Tyler, and Michael alive, agrees to be a donor. But the neurochip they place in Callie's head malfunctions and she wakes up in the life of her renter, living in her mansion, driving her cars, and going out with a senator's grandson. It feels almost like a fairy tale, until Callie discovers that her renter intends to do more than party—and that Prime Destinations' plans are more evil than Callie could ever have imagined. - Goodreads

Excerpt: "Did Cinderella ever consider fessing up to the prince, that night she was enjoying herself in the fancy ball gown? Did she even think of telling him, oh, by the way, Prince, the coach isn’t mine, I’m really a filthy little barefoot servant on borrowed time? No. She took her moment. And then went quietly away after midnight."

I think it's important to note my previous reading history before I landed myself into the world of Starters. I read How To Kill A Rock Star by Tiffany DeBartolo which totally rocked my socks off and Partials by Dan Wells which was now enlisted as one of the best dystopians I've read this year. The thing is,  although those two books are from different genres (the former is contemporary BTW), they are both masters in the art of plot twist. 

Definitely, I'm on my reading high and I was expecting a lot from Starters. Unfortunately, it was in a lack of a better word, just OK. And yes, I need to explain that but I think I'd let this out of the bag first.

I just don't get it. 

If you have read the synopsis, it sounded so awesome, and I'm so optimistic that aside from delivering something new and wow-zah in the dystopian genre, Starters would be mindblowingly good. The concept was indeed original and the basic question was, "Would you in exchange of a big fat check (totally got that from **HIMYM, sorry where was I?) allow others to rent your body?" 

You see, in Callie's world, unclaimed minors are scrounging for money and a place to stay. The streets are dangerous and children kill for food even for a single cookie. The Marshals are everywhere and if you're not street smart and a runner-extraordinaire you could end up in an institution. They don't have parents anymore and being an unclaimed minor is the worst thing that you could ever be. The Enders is on the complete opposite side of the scope, they are wealthy, they live luxurious life and they could buy anything, even your body. And yup, I forgot that this was all after the war, the so-called Spore Wars, wherein the only vaccinated people, the younger and the older ones lived. 

Sounds tragic, right? It was. I was hooked from the first page. I think I didn't care for a character any faster than I did with Callie and Tyler. I could see the devotion of Callie to his little brother. His sick and she's the only one that's there. She's the grown-up now and she has to do the surviving for both of them. So she went to Prime Destination (in short, Prime--meh) and signed for a three rentals meaning three Enders get to use her body and she's done. However, by her third and last rental everything fishy starts to unfold.

Cue for the fun stuff to start. But you know what, I got lost. Somewhere when everything was supposed to be happening, I was confounded. I tried to be as gripped as I was but I just couldn't. So I did other things. Worst decision ever. Not only that made me more detached from everything, the world started to lose its attraction. 

But let's be more objective.

There are great points to Starters. The protagonist, Callie was relatable and endearing. She always thinks of others especially her little brother, Tyler. As I said, the concept was original. The pacing was great from the start. The villain was creepy. The Old Man was really something. Starters indeed has its moments, because if Tyler and Callie's and other unclaimed minors didn't break your heart, then Sara from the Institution would.

However, its great points also somehow become it's not so great points. Callie while relatable and endearing at first, became somewhat dreary to me in the long run. She was a survivor, yes. She has his brothers best interest at heart, yes. But why, is she so invincible? Why is she holding a gun every second and lose it everytime she closes her eyes. OK, that's totally off the point, but yes, why don't she have any concussion or limp from all the bumping and falling she gets from all her escapade. 

What my point really is, before you ask what's this got to do with anything, this little point along with some others just made it so unrealistic for me. I think my brows were so close to hitting the ceiling as I turn pages and pages, and I keep seeing Callie as a bad version of Angelina Jolie in Salt. 

I do think this all boils down to the concept of "body renting". Who in their right minds, especially older adults in their 150s-200s wants to use another body for fun? Are old people really like that? Do they fantasize to be young again so that they could party harder and be more attractive? Then those who undergo the renting gets to have a chip in their brains, and then the Enders get to used their body? If the technology was that advanced, then why weren't they able to vaccinate everyone so that nobody would die?

And to be honest, I just don't really understand this body renting business, how it works, how the real body is in some other place sleeping, while the Enders whose using the body is in the club sipping drinks or flirting. Why can someone alter the chip but not take it out? How the hell can you alter the chip without taking it out? Why did it not explode if you somehow did manage to alter it without taking out? I have questions, so many questions. 

I don't know. I still don't know what I feel about Starters even after all those griping and questioning. It wasn't really that bad. I think it just didn't work for me. Am I excited to read the sequel? Not really but I will read it, I swear. Like I said, I have so many questions and there's only one way to find out, read the sequel and hope for the best.

Cupid's Verdict:

3 Cupids

An advance copy was provided by the publisher at no cost via Netgalley.

**I was referring to How I Met Your Mother, a hit comedy TV series on CBS.