Book Review: The Fixer

Title: The Fixer

Series: The Fixer

Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Format: Hardcover, 372 pages

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Children's

Publication Date: July 7, 2015

Source: Won from Bloomsbury's Twitter Account

Add it to Goodreads

This thriller YA is Scandal meets Veronica Mars.

Sixteen-year-old Tess Kendrick has spent her entire life on her grandfather's ranch. But when her estranged sister Ivy uproots her to D.C., Tess is thrown into a world that revolves around politics and power. She also starts at Hardwicke Academy, the D.C. school for the children of the rich and powerful, where she unwittingly becomes a fixer for the high school set, fixing teens’ problems the way her sister fixes their parents’ problems.

And when a conspiracy surfaces that involves the family member of one of Tess's classmates, love triangles and unbelievable family secrets come to light and life gets even more interesting—and complicated—for Tess.

Perfect for fans of Pretty Little Liars and Heist Society, readers will be clamoring for this compelling teen drama with a political twist.

Blog Tour: The Last Good Day of the Year + GIVEAWAY

Hey, everyone, and welcome to my stop on the blog tour for The Last Good Day of the Year by Jessica Warman. I'm thrilled to have Jessica on my blog today because I read and absolutely loved her latest book. So sit back, relax, and enjoy this guest post from Jessica on life in small towns.

Title: The Last Good Day of the Year

Author: Jessica Warman

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens

Publication Date: May 19, 2015 
My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

A new powerful thriller from the globally-embraced author of Between.

Ten years ago, in the early hours of New Year’s Day, seven-year-old Samantha and her next door neighbor, Remy, watched as a man broke into Sam’s home and took her younger sister, Turtle, from her sleeping bag. Remy and Sam, too afraid to intervene at the time, later identified the man as Sam’s sister Gretchen’s much older ex-boyfriend, Steven, who was sent to prison for Turtle’s murder.

Now, Sam’s shattered family is returning to her childhood home in an effort to heal. As long-buried memories begin to surface, Sam wonders if she and Remy accurately registered everything they saw. The more they re-examine the events of that fateful night, the more questions they discover about what really happened to Turtle.

Master storyteller Jessica Warman keeps readers guessing in this arresting page-turner.

Guest Post Featuring Jessica Warman

Erin: Jessica, I see that the book is about a murder in a small town. I also live in a small town. It's one square mile, and I literally have no clue how many people live there, but it's more than you think would fit in such a small area. Regardless, everyone knows everyone, and everyone knows everything. How do you feel about life in small towns?

 
Jessica Warman:

I grew up in a small town; the internet tells me it currently has 845 residents.  You know how people talk about spending all day, every day outside in the summer as kids?  It was like that.  There was a penny candy store down the street from my house.  The owner was an elderly woman named Amy; the store was called Amy’s Candy, and none of the kids ever made fun of Amy or stole from her as far as I knew, because our mothers would have heard about it before we got home.   My friends and I made daily bicycle trips to Amy’s for dip-its, jawbreakers, and  those fake candy cigarettes.  It was as wholesome and innocent as it sounds, and then as I got older, the shine began to peel away little by little.  People in small communities will try so hard to seem good, perfect, pious, etc.  It’s hard to blame them when there’s so much scrutiny – because when the nearest city is an hour away, and even the nearest Wal-Mart is a 30 minute drive, there’s nothing else to do besides talk about your friends and neighbors.

Now that I’m older, I realize things weren’t as wholesome as they seemed.  But boy, they sure did seem that way.  And that impression, the illusion of innocence, is what makes it great fun to poke at the façade of small-town life and let the nastiness ooze from the cracks.  Ugliness sometimes bubbles up from the places you’d least expect.  That’s what makes the reveal so delicious – like opening a fresh pack of candy cigarettes from Amy’s Candy and finding a severed finger.  So wrong, yet so great.   

Erin: Oh, wow! It seems like we had a similar upbringing - there was a candy store down the hill from me, and it was a big deal when all the neighborhood parents let all of us kids go down there together. We'd bring back enough candy and jumbo Freeze Pops to last us until our next trip, but it never lasted more than two or three days.

But... I live in the suburbs - a small borough  north of Pittsburgh. Even though the Interstate was two minutes away, it felt like we lived in our own little world, in our own little town. Now I'm older, and I see more and more of the flaws, but I still love my hometown. It was a wonderful place to grow up, and I had a great childhood, unlike Sam.

Jessica Warman is the author of Breathless, which received three starred reviews and was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, and Where the Truth Lies. The idea for Between came from an incident in her childhood, when a local boy went missing after a party on a yacht (he was eventually found, alive).

a Rafflecopter giveaway

A Book Farewell

I'm sure that it's happened to all of us. We're told by friends and fellow book bloggers to read a book. They say that it's stellar and that they think you'll enjoy it. So you buy it. Why not add another beautiful book to your collection, right?

Wrong.

I haven't really fallen for the book trap many times, but I have. You buy a book (or an entire series) because people assure you that it'll be the next book you'll fall in love with. Then you read it, and you're upset because you feel like you could have spent that money on something else.

Today, I will tell you the tale of my latest adventure in book selling. I'm sure many of you have thought about it or have even done it. It is sad to let go of something you purchased, but when it's all done, you have a few extra bucks.

Me... I'm not really one to list my own books up for sale on Ebay or the Amazon Marketplace. It's just not for me. I feel like it would be too much of a hassle to make a few dollars. Instead, I usually donate or sell my used books to Half Price Books.

There have been times when I have been offered very, very little, so I take the books back home and wait for another day. But yesterday, I needed to clear some space from my shelves. I took a few failed recommendations and some books that I've had sitting around since some college classes.

Alright... so the books I just had to get rid of that made me upset:

The whole Matched trilogy was a bust. I'm really not sure how anyone liked them because nothing happened. I was even unfriended on Goodreads by the person who recommended them to me! You can see my review of the whole series here. I couldn't have them wasting space in my house any longer.

I'm just glad to be rid of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. This was a thrift store find from my grandma, and she let me borrow it after she read and hated it. I tried to read it, and was disgusted, so I put it down. I felt guilty about it, so I finally read and finished it. It read like a really bad Lifetime movie. I finally called my grandma to see if she needed it back, and she said no, so I sold it.

 

The last of the books that I really just needed to get rid of is Rebel Belle by Rachel Hawkins. I didn't like the narrator at all, so I hated the book. I felt like way too much was being pushed on me and I was more confused by her lack of explanation of things in the book.

 

After unloading all of my books, I only made $11.25, but in the end, it was worth it. I was never going to read the books again, and now I have some money that I can put towards new books that I hope I'll enjoy. 

I've had one really successful offer from Half Price Books, but that was when I sold the whole Mortal Instruments series back to them for more than I paid. Yeah.

What about you? Do any of you take advantage of selling books you disliked? Do you donate them or let them sit on your shelves? Let me know in the comments.

Top Ten Tuesday (3)

Top Ten Tuesday (TTT) is a weekly meme hosted by the ladies over at The Broke and Bookish. Each week, there is a different topic, and it's answered in the form of a top ten list because they love compiling lists. Who doesn't, right?

This week, the top ten list is all about books you aren't sure you want to read. Me, I have plenty of them. I've heard good and bad about some. I've heard good about some but hated other books by the author, so I'm on the fence about quite a few books. It's a pretty easy thing for me to do, and a lot of my books on my "To Read" Goodreads shelf are books I'm not quite sure about.

1. A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin - I'd been undecided about this one for a while because I wasn't so sure I would like the fantasy aspect of it. Then the TV show came out and, it was super popular. I can't go a day without hearing about it or seeing something about it on the Internet. I'm kind of lucky because I don't get HBO so I don't know of anything that has happened or will happen, but I'm still undecided because I'm afraid it'll be too much fantasy for me. I'm also afraid that people will think I'm only reading it now because of the TV show. But really... the only fantasy I've ever really read is Harry Potter and The Queen of the Tearling.
2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson - My grandma sent this series up to my house years ago because she thought I'd like them. She loves them and raves about them all the time. I'm not really a big fan of crime books, but I'm afraid that my grandma will be upset if I read them and don't like them. She asks me like every month if I've started them, and I tell her no. I just feel really bad about disappointing my grandma.
3. Looking for Alaska by John Green - I've been told to try this one by a few people, and it seems like everyone and their mother has read it. I see it everywhere from bookstores to places like Marshall's and TJMaxx. My only problem is that I hated pretty much everything about The Fault in Our Stars from the writing style to the plot to the characters. I'm afraid that if I try to read Green again, the same thing will happen.
4. Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen - I've never read anything by Sarah Dessen, but my sister has and has loved every single book of hers. This probably comes from my time when I wasn't reading YA, but the fear has stuck around since then. She even came to my hometown not too long ago, and I told my sister about it but it was too late to sign up to see her. I'm sure if I give her books a chance, I'll like them. I'm just afraid that I waited too long.
5. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan - I've seen how popular the Percy Jackson books have become, but I just don't know how I feel about them. I felt this way about the Harry Potter books for thirteen years before eventually reading them, so I feel like I might love the Percy Jackson books. I just feel like it's too late now to read them now.
6. Say What You Will by Carrie McGovern - Okay, so I know eventually I'll read this book because I own it, but I can't get past the comparison to The Fault in Our Stars. That is what makes me think I'll hate this book, but it sits on my shelves and waits for the day that I will open it.
7. Hungry by H.A. Swain - When I first saw this book on a book website, I thought it seemed interesting. Then I saw way too many negative reviews for my own liking, so I decided against it. Something about it just makes me want to prove the negative reviews wrong.
8. The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith - Again, I thought the book seemed sweet but I saw a lot of negative reviews. This might be a book I read if and only if I borrow it from a library or get a copy of it from someone.
9. Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson - I was challenged to read this book this month for a PIFM challenge because someone went to the wrong shelf on Goodreads when the moderator didn't post my PIFM shelf. I've had it on my shelves on the website since my YA literature professor mentioned it, but I never really wanted to read it after reading Speak.
10. This Star Won't Go Out: The Life and Words of Esther Grace Earl by Esther Grace Earl - Please don't take this as me being a horrible person because I'm on the fence about this book. It is not because I hated The Fault in Our Stars. I'm afraid to see what this courageous young woman went through because I can develop thyroid cancer at any time with my already defunct thyroid. I'm curious, but I'm afraid of what could happen to me if cancer decides to attack my thyroid.

ARC Review: Mister Teacher Person

Title: Mister Teacher Person

Series: Squirrel Hill High

Author: J.M. Varner

Published by J.M. Varner

Publication Date: August 12, 2014

Source: eARC from Author

Stacy King, star reporter for television news station KPGH, has made it. Successful in high school. Successful in college. Her face is now seen by tens of thousands every day throughout Squirrel Hill and the entire Pittsburgh area. 

But her latest assignment, returning to Squirrel Hill High for a profile piece on English teacher Mr. Payne (who has himself recently disappeared from the halls of the high school) puts her back in touch with a past she thought she’d left behind. 

And on her journey to discover what happened to Mr. Payne, startling revelations about her own past at Squirrel Hill High are brought to light.

My Review

Mister Teacher Person is a great book for teenagers because it's entertaining and it teaches readers a very valuable lesson about Internet safety and etiquette. If you are a parent and you want your kids to learn just how their actions can cause harm to another person, you should have them read this book.

Mister Teacher Person is a Squirrel Hill High novel written by J.M Varner. I have not read the previous book in the set of novels, Digital Me, but that did not leave me confused about anything in this book. To my knowledge, a reader can read this book without having read Varner's first book in the series.

I really enjoyed this book because it's not your typical YA or Middle Grade novel because it's actually narrated by an adult but geared at kids. The storyline is interesting, and I'm sure that any curious kid would want to see how everything in the Mr. Payne story unravels. It is a good way to introduce kids to mystery books if they have not yet read one.

I also really liked the Stacy King story. She is a young reporter who goes back to her high school for a job as a reporter. I connected with her because I recently went back to my own high school for a work opportunity. I felt the same wave of nostalgia going back, so it was really nice to finally see a character who I could really understand. Yes, she had good memories at Squirrel Hill High, but she also had some bad ones, and going back helps her overcome the bad memories and she is able to rediscover herself. I recently felt the same way when I encountered some places in my high school where I had some bad memories, so I'm really glad that I was able to meet and get to know this particular character.

I don't want to spoil anything, but there is definitely plot in here that I'm sure all people will understand; what you post on the Internet is permanent, and it can really hurt a person. In this book, you'll see how the actions of just a few people were able to harm a really great person. I'm glad that people are finally starting to put this message in media and books because it is very important.  I hope that many teens will pick up this book and learn how to be a better person while online.

I would recommend this book for preteens and teens eleven and older.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (2)

It's Monday, everyone! I hope you all had an amazing weekend. I did. My birthday was yesterday, so I treated myself to some new books.

"It's Monday! What are You Reading" is a weekly meme created and hosted by BookJourney. On Monday, all you have to do is share some of the books that you are reading.

As of today, I am still reading The Epic of Clair by E.C. Hansen, but I am going to take a hiatus on it until the release date gets a little closer. It's not that I don't want to read it; I just want to make sure that it's fresh in my mind when I review it.

For those of you interested in The Epic of Clair, it is an epic poem. The book is about "an anxious girl who runs literary messages for witches in a post-carbon Twin cities."

It seemed really interesting, so I entered to win it on Goodreads, and I won. I'll be sure to post my review on here.



I'm also reading another ARC right now. This one is called Mister Teacher Person by J.M. Varner. It will be available for purchase later this month.

He sent me the link to it on Goodreads, so I will be posting a review of it as soon as I finish it. It is a part of Mr. Varner's Squirrel Hill High books. The book is about recent college graduate, Stacy King, who gets her dream job as a news reporter for Pittsburgh's KPGH. She did a profile piece on a student teacher during the previous school year, so she's back at Squirrel Hill High to
get more information on him, but he's missing! Being back at her alma mater brings back memories of herself, and she'll soon discover who she really is.

Fun fact: He and I were in some college classes together, and we recently reconnected on Goodreads when I found that he had added his books to my Pittsburgh Listopia.



I'm also going to start reading Scarlet by Marissa Meyer today. It is part a series read for the All About YA group I'm a moderator for on Goodreads. The link to the group is on the left hand side of this blog.

So what are you reading this week? Let me know in the comments or leave a link to your "It's Monday" post, and I'll check it out. Happy reading!