Release Date: October 1st, 2013
Age Group: Young Adult
Publisher: Walker Books for Young Readers
Source: Publisher through NetGalley
Overall: 5 Monkeys
Interest: Romance, Simone Elkeles
Categories: Contemporary, Sports, Romance, Stand-Alone, Family Issues
Goodreads / Amazon
/ Simone Elkeles's Website
Read in September 2013
Summary:After getting kicked out of boarding school, bad boy Derek Fitzpatrick has no choice but to live with his ditzy stepmother while his military dad is deployed. Things quickly go from bad to worse when he finds out she plans to move them back to her childhood home in Illinois. Derek’s counting the days before he can be on his own, and the last thing he needs is to get involved with someone else’s family drama.
Ashtyn Parker knows one thing for certain--people you care about leave without a backward glance. A football scholarship would finally give her the chance to leave. So she pours everything into winning a state championship, until her boyfriend and star quarterback betrays them all by joining their rival team. Ashtyn needs a new game plan, but it requires trusting Derek—someone she barely knows, someone born to break the rules. Is she willing to put her heart on the line to try and win it all?
My Thoughts:Simone has done it again! This woman can really make you fall for her characters! There are so many things I loved about this book, I'll just list them for you:
1. A strong female MC. Ashtyn is such a good and independent (American) football player that her teammates choose
her over her boyfriend to be the team's captain. When she first meets Derek, she brandishes a pitchfork at him to protect herself. She can take care of herself and she lets everyone know it.
2. The bad boy with a soft heart. Admit it. You love them. I love them. We all do. Derek has the Elkeles stamp all over him: hard exterior, but really loving heart. I just wanted to hug him all the time.
3. A really cool set of secondary characters. I mean, how great are Ashtyn's boy friends? Her relationship with them is amazing. She's one of them, but she can be a girly girl, too. And I just LOVED them whenever they stepped up to protect her. Those are real friends.
4. A greatly built story that has actual meaning, as opposed to just being there for the sake of giving the characters an environment to meet and fall in love. Derek has lost his mother, his father is overseas with the Navy and his stepmother is a 25-year-old girl with a little son and a baby on the way. Ashtyn's mum is MIA, her father barely gives her the time of day (but for ACTUAL reasons, not just to be out of her way!) and her sister's coming back home after seven years of having no contact with her. These are the conditions in which Derek and Ashtyn meet, and they shape up their story in a beautiful, beautiful way.
5. Sports in a Contemporary book! I don't understand squat about American football, I just think about it like I would rugby, but Simone really made me like the sport! I usually avoid Contemps with sports, but since this was an Elkeles book, there was just no way I was going to miss reading it.
Yes, your heart will twinge a little in pain, but trust me, it'll live. This is just a really lovely book meant to be read when you want to feel a little bit of loving.
Pre-order the book now through the links listed above.
Happy reading,
Ella
These are my favorite reads from 2011 – not all of these titles were published in 2011, and some aren’t “Juv/YA” titles per se, but no matter! Castle Waiting, Vol. 2, by Linda Medley. Pub. 2010. The art and writing are as funny and clever as in Vol. 1 (see my previous review). I actually [...]
* EXPLORING OUR WORLD * Donna Jo Napoli. The Crossing. Illus. Jim Madsen. New York: Atheneum, 2011. Napoli retells the story of Lewis and Clark from the viewpoint of Sacajawea’s son, who was a baby at the time. Gorgeous mellow-toned digital scenes (I could have sworn they were hand-painted) match the soothing rhythm of the [...]
Brian Selznick. Wonderstruck. New York: Scholastic, 2011. 608 pages. A former wishlist book, inspired by the Waking Brain Cells review. See also the BookPage review of The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which also describes Selznick’s early career and the inspiration for the novel’s unique style and structure. He had me at the first David Bowie [...]
The Coven (Sweep, #2), by Cate Tiernan on GoodreadsRelease Date: March 22nd, 2007 (1st published on 2001)
Age Group: Young Adult
Publisher: Puffin
Overall: 5 Monkeys
Interest: Series
Categories: Paranormal, Witchcraft, Religions, Wicca, Family Issues
Other Titles Reviewed in TCM: Book of Shadows (Sweep, #1)Challenge: 100 Books in a Year Read in March 2011Summary from Goodreads:Cal, now Morgan's boyfriend, helps her accept the truth: Wicca is in Morgan's blood. As Morgan learns more about Wicca, she realizes that she needs to find out more about her parentage. The answers are there, but she doesn't know how to find them.
My Opinion:Another great Sweep book!
In this one, Morgan learns more about herself and her heritage, about why she's such a strong witch. Her character is beautifully written, a shy and insecure girl who turns into a powerful witch when in circles.
I loved the relationship between the characters; Cal, Morgan, Bree, Selene, they were all amazing. Morgan's friends are completely believable, Cate does an amazing job of giving each of them their own personality, and that is a hard thing to do!
There's so much going on, it keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire time! Definitely a book worth reading!
It's such a short/quick read, that I don't have much else to say, because I don't want to ruin it for those of you who want to read it.
You can now buy bind-ups of these books, they come three books per bind-up, meaning the first three books, that were first published individually, are now one bind-up, and so on.
Book of Shadows (Sweep, #1), by Cate Tiernan on GoodreadsRelease Date: March 22nd, 2007
Publisher: Puffin
Age Group: Young Adult
Categories: Paranormal, Witchcraft, Religions, Wicca, Family Issues,
Source:Web
Overall: 5 MonkeysRead on January 2011
Summary from Goodreads: Morgan thinks witchcraft is laughable when her best friend Bree drags her to a meeting of the Cirrus Coven. But during a cermony led by Cal, Morgan's long-time crush, Morgan feels a shock. Suddenly everything looks brighter, clearer. Morgan doesn't want to get involved with witchcraft-but she feels like witchcraft is choosing her.
My Opinion: This is an old book, that was first released back in 2001, but it's like reading about today or last year. Nothing much has changed since then, "high-school-wise", in terms of cliques and such.
BoS is like reading a diary of a girl who makes the transition from Catholic (or Protestant, it didn't say or I don't remember) to Wicca, the witches' religion. And by Witchcraft, I don't mean devil-worshipping or pinning needles into a voodoo doll. I mean, a completely tolerant and nature-focused religion. I know about it because I've been reading about Wicca for a year now. So when you hear the words Wicca, Witchcraft and witch all in one conversation, don't jump to the conclusion, "Oh, so she/he's gone dark and from now on will be wearing black and listening to satanist rock bands," because that couldn't be more off the point.
But this isn't a lesson on Wicca or Paganism, or History, for that matter.
Morgan (conveniently named that, since Morgana was a powerful witch in the Arturian era) is a sixteen year old girl. Simple, the my-best-friend-is-prettier-than-me type, who knows nothing about witches... until Cal comes along.
Cal is your typical hot new boy in school, but there's something else about him. He's a witch (not a wizard -that's in Harry Potter only, people!- nor a warlock -that's in Charmed!-, but a witch. In Wicca, there's no distinction between male and female when speaking of witches.)
Thanks so much for mentioning Waking Brain Cells!
My pleasure! Thank you for reviewing such awesome books!