Hey guys! I hope you all had an amazing Christmas. I can’t believe this is the last day of Blogmas. I am so sad to be done. I saw that Riveted was doing the 25 Reads of Christmas again. So that meant everyday leading up to Christmas a different book was free to read for one day. They ended up doing this last year. Last year I had a lot more free time so I could read more. This year I ended up being really busy and was working so I didn’t have much free time. So I decided I would talk about books I read, started and wanted to read. So let’s dive in.
Read
Stay Sweet By Siobhan Vivian
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Pages: 368 pages
Published: April 24th 2018
Publisher: Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers
Plot: A summer read about first love, feminism, and ice cream.
Summer in Sand Lake isn’t complete without a trip to Meade Creamery—the local ice cream stand founded in 1944 by Molly Meade who started making ice cream to cheer up her lovesick girlfriends while all the boys were away at war. Since then, the stand has been owned and managed exclusively by local girls, who inevitably become the best of friends. Seventeen-year-old Amelia and her best friend Cate have worked at the stand every summer for the past three years, and Amelia is “Head Girl” at the stand this summer. When Molly passes away before Amelia even has her first day in charge, Amelia isn’t sure that the stand can go on. That is, until Molly’s grandnephew Grady arrives and asks Amelia to stay on to help continue the business…but Grady’s got some changes in mind…
Did I finish the book in a day?: Yes, I did.
My Thoughts: I really was not a fan of this book. I felt like it could have been enjoyable but so much to it I did not like. I also wasn’t a big fan of the friendship aspect. I felt the one friend wasn’t a very good friend. There was just a lot to it that I found very un-enjoyable.
For Everyone By Jason Reynolds
Genre: Poetry and Young Adult
Pages: 112 pages
Published: April 10th 2018
Publisher: Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
Plot: Originally performed at the Kennedy Center for the unveiling of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, and later as a tribute to Walter Dean Myers, this stirring and inspirational poem is New York Times bestselling author and National Book Award finalist Jason Reynolds’s rallying cry to the dreamers of the world.
For Every One is just that: for every one. For every one person. For every one dream. But especially for every one kid. The kids who dream of being better than they are. Kids who dream of doing more than they almost dare to dream. Kids who are like Jason Reynolds, a self-professed dreamer. Jason does not claim to know how to make dreams come true; he has, in fact, been fighting on the front line of his own battle to make his own dreams a reality. He expected to make it when he was sixteen. Then eighteen. Then twenty-five. Now, some of those expectations have been realized. But others, the most important ones, lay ahead, and a lot of them involve kids, how to inspire them. All the kids who are scared to dream, or don’t know how to dream, or don’t dare to dream because they’ve NEVER seen a dream come true. Jason wants kids to know that dreams take time. They involve countless struggles. But no matter how many times a dreamer gets beat down, the drive and the passion and the hope never fully extinguish—because just having the dream is the start you need, or you won’t get anywhere anyway, and that is when you have to take a leap of faith.
A pitch perfect graduation, baby, or love my kid gift.
Did I finish the book in a day?: Yes, I did.
My Thoughts: I really didn’t enjoy this. I felt like it was very gimmicky. I would be reading one of the poems and there would be a couple of lines on one page and then it would continue on to the next and I just wish it was all on one page. I just am not a big fan of the modern day poetry.
Thunderhead By Neal Shusterman
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Fantasy
Pages: 504 pages
Published: January 9th 2018
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Plot: Rowan has gone rogue, and has taken it upon himself to put the Scythedom through a trial by fire. Literally. In the year since Winter Conclave, he has gone off-grid, and has been striking out against corrupt scythes—not only in MidMerica, but across the entire continent. He is a dark folk hero now—“Scythe Lucifer”—a vigilante taking down corrupt scythes in flames.
Citra, now a junior scythe under Scythe Curie, sees the corruption and wants to help change it from the inside out, but is thwarted at every turn, and threatened by the “new order” scythes. Realizing she cannot do this alone—or even with the help of Scythe Curie and Faraday, she does the unthinkable, and risks being “deadish” so she can communicate with the Thunderhead—the only being on earth wise enough to solve the dire problems of a perfect world. But will it help solve those problems, or simply watch as perfection goes into decline?
Did I finish the book in a day?: No, I did not.
My Thoughts: So I started this book before this was going on. I wanted to try to finish the rest of it the day it was going to be free but I didn’t get to. Even though I started this before I finished before the 25 days ended so I thought I would count it. I ended up really loving this book. It was such a good read. I felt so much happened during this book it was crazy. I can’t wait for the next one.
Started
Dry By Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Fiction
Pages: 390 pages
Published: October 2nd 2018
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Plot: When the California drought escalates to catastrophic proportions, one teen is forced to make life and death decisions for her family in this harrowing story of survival from New York Times bestselling author Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman.
The drought—or the Tap-Out, as everyone calls it—has been going on for a while now. Everyone’s lives have become an endless list of don’ts: don’t water the lawn, don’t fill up your pool, don’t take long showers.
Until the taps run dry.
Suddenly, Alyssa’s quiet suburban street spirals into a warzone of desperation; neighbors and families turned against each other on the hunt for water. And when her parents don’t return and her life—and the life of her brother—is threatened, Alyssa has to make impossible choices if she’s going to survive.
My Thoughts: So I was really interested in this book. I feel like there was a part I ended up zoning out and I didn’t know what was happening. So I ended up just deciding I would pick this up at some other time. Plus I was reading Thunderhead and I really wanted to read only one Neal Shusterman book. I am excited to pick up Dry while I wait for the third Arc of Scythe book to come out.
Wanted To Read
Strange Grace By Tessa Gratton
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, Romance
Pages: 389 pages
Published: September 18th 2018
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Plot: Once, a witch made a pact with a devil. The legend says they loved each other, but can the story be trusted at all?
Long ago, a village made a bargain with the devil: to ensure their prosperity, when the Slaughter Moon rises, the village must sacrifice a young man into the depths of the Devil’s Forest.
Only this year, the Slaughter Moon has risen early.
Bound by duty, secrets, and the love they share for one another, Mairwen, a spirited witch; Rhun, the expected saint; and Arthur, a restless outcast, will each have a role to play as the devil demands a body to fill the bargain. But the devil these friends find is not the one they expect, and the lies they uncover will turn their town—and their hearts—inside out.
From Twinkle, with Love By Sandhya Menon
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Pages: 330 pages
Published: September 18th 2018
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Plot: An aspiring teen filmmaker finds her voice and falls in love in this delightful romantic comedy from the New York Times bestselling author of When Dimple Met Rishi.
Aspiring filmmaker and wallflower Twinkle Mehra has stories she wants to tell and universes she wants to explore, if only the world would listen. So when fellow film geek Sahil Roy approaches her to direct a movie for the upcoming Summer Festival, Twinkle is all over it. The chance to publicly showcase her voice as a director? Dream come true. The fact that it gets her closer to her longtime crush, Neil Roy-a.k.a. Sahil’s twin brother? Dream come true x 2.
When mystery man N begins emailing her, Twinkle is sure it’s Neil, finally ready to begin their happily-ever-after. The only slightly inconvenient problem is that, in the course of movie-making, she’s fallen madly in love with the irresistibly adorkable Sahil.
Twinkle soon realizes that resistance is futile: The romance she’s got is not the one she’s scripted. But will it be enough?
Told through the letters Twinkle writes to her favorite female filmmakers, From Twinkle, with Love navigates big truths about friendship, family, and the unexpected places love can find you.
A Heart in a Body in the World By Deb Caletti
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Fiction, Realistic Fiction
Pages: 358 pages
Published: September 18th 2018
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Plot: When everything has been taken from you, what else is there to do but run?
So that’s what Annabelle does—she runs from Seattle to Washington, DC, through mountain passes and suburban landscapes, from long lonely roads to college towns. She’s not ready to think about the why yet, just the how—muscles burning, heart pumping, feet pounding the earth. But no matter how hard she tries, she can’t outrun the tragedy from the past year, or the person—The Taker—that haunts her.
Followed by Grandpa Ed in his RV and backed by her brother and two friends (her self-appointed publicity team), Annabelle becomes a reluctant activist as people connect her journey to the trauma from her past. Her cross-country run gains media attention and she is cheered on as she crosses state borders, and is even thrown a block party and given gifts. The support would be nice, if Annabelle could escape the guilt and the shame from what happened back home. They say it isn’t her fault, but she can’t feel the truth of that.
Through welcome and unwelcome distractions, she just keeps running, to the destination that awaits her. There, she’ll finally face what lies behind her—the miles and love and loss…and what is to come.
Summer Bird Blue By Akemi Dawn Bowman
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Lgbt, Fiction
Pages: 375 pages
Published: September 11th 2018
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Plot: Rumi Seto spends a lot of time worrying she doesn’t have the answers to everything. What to eat, where to go, whom to love. But there is one thing she is absolutely sure of—she wants to spend the rest of her life writing music with her younger sister, Lea.
Then Lea dies in a car accident, and her mother sends her away to live with her aunt in Hawaii while she deals with her own grief. Now thousands of miles from home, Rumi struggles to navigate the loss of her sister, being abandoned by her mother, and the absence of music in her life. With the help of the “boys next door”—a teenage surfer named Kai, who smiles too much and doesn’t take anything seriously, and an eighty-year-old named George Watanabe, who succumbed to his own grief years ago—Rumi attempts to find her way back to her music, to write the song she and Lea never had the chance to finish.
American Panda By Gloria Chao
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Fiction, Realist Fiction
Pages: 311 pages
Published: February 6th 2018
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Plot: At seventeen, Mei should be in high school, but skipping fourth grade was part of her parents’ master plan. Now a freshman at MIT, she is on track to fulfill the rest of this predetermined future: become a doctor, marry a preapproved Taiwanese Ivy Leaguer, produce a litter of babies.
With everything her parents have sacrificed to make her cushy life a reality, Mei can’t bring herself to tell them the truth–that she (1) hates germs, (2) falls asleep in biology lectures, and (3) has a crush on her classmate Darren Takahashi, who is decidedly not Taiwanese.
But when Mei reconnects with her brother, Xing, who is estranged from the family for dating the wrong woman, Mei starts to wonder if all the secrets are truly worth it. Can she find a way to be herself, whoever that is, before her web of lies unravels?
Have you guys read any of the 25 Reads of December? If so what did you think of them?
Bookish In Bed 
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