ARC August Update: Week One

Hey, everyone! We're just under a week into the Fifth Annual ARC August, hosted by Read.Sleep.Repeat.

I don't know about you, but this is my favorite reading event of the year... well this and ARC April... because I can just motivate myself to read ALL THE ARCS. And if they don't work for me, I move on. 

Today, I'm here to bring you my first of five ARC August Updates. For the most part, you'll be seeing these updates on Sundays, except for the last one, which will be posted on August 31. In these posts, I'll just give you little updates on what ARCs I've been reading, how I've been feeling about the challenge, and how I'm staying on task. Alright... let's get to it, shall we?

ARC Review: What Goes Up

Title: What Goes Up

Author: Katie Kennedy

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens

Publication Date: July 18, 2017

Source: Bloomsbury for Review Consideration

Action-packed and wildly funny, this near-future sci-fi features three teens on an inter-dimensional mission to save the world.

Rosa and Eddie are among hundreds of teens applying to NASA’s mysterious Multi-World Agency. After rounds of crazy-competitive testing they are appointed to Team 3, along with an alternate, just in case Eddie screws up (as everyone expects he will). What they don’t expect is that aliens will arrive from another dimension, and look just like us. And no one could even imagine that Team 3 would be the only hope of saving our world from their Earth-destroying plans. The teens steal the spacecraft (it would be great if they knew how to fly it) and head to Earth2, where the aliens’ world and people are just like ours. With a few notable exceptions.

There, the teens will find more than their alternate selves: they'll face existential questions and high-stakes adventure, with comedy that's out of this world.

Cat Jordan's Newest Novel: Eight Days on Planet Earth

Hey, little Hardcover Lovers! Today, I wanted to let you know about an upcoming book that I'm so excited for!

Some of you may recall that I read and reviewed Cat Jordan's The Leaving Season last year, and that I loved it! Well today, I wanted to let you know that you'll be able to get your hands in Cat's sophomore novel, Eight Days on Planet Earth, in November.

Title: Eight Days on Planet Earth

Author: Cat Jordan

Publisher: HarperTeen

Publication Date: November 7, 2017

How long does it take to travel 13 light-years to Earth?
How long does it take to fall in love? 

To the universe, eight days is a mere blip—but to Matty Jones, it may be just enough time to change his life. 

On the hot summer day Matty’s dad leaves for good, a strange girl suddenly appears in the empty field next to the Jones farm—the very field in rural Pennsylvania where a spaceship supposedly landed fifty years ago. She is uniquely beautiful, sweet, and smart, and she tells Matty she’s waiting for her spaceship to return to pick her up.
Of course she is.

Matty has heard all the impossible UFO stories for all of his seventeen years: the conspiracy theories, the wild rumors, the crazy belief in life beyond the stars. As a kid, he searched the skies with his dad and studied the constellations. But all that is behind him now. Dad’s gone and Matty’s stuck.
But now there is Priya. The self-proclaimed alien girl. She must be crazy or high, right?

As Matty unravels the mystery of Priya, he realizes there is far more to her than he first imagined.
And if he can learn to believe in what he can’t see: the universe, aliens…love…then maybe the impossible is possible, after all.

Blog Tour: The Inevitiable Collision of Birdie & Bash

Title: The Inevitable Collision of Birdie & Bash

Author: Candace Ganger

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Publication Date: July 25, 2017

Source: E-ARC Provided by Publisher

Birdie never meant to be at the party. Bash should have been long gone. But when they meet, a collision course is set off they may never recover from.

Sebastian Alvaréz is just trying to hold the pieces together: to not flunk out, to keep his sort-of-best friend Wild Kyle from doing something really bad, and to see his beloved Ma through chemo. But when he meets Birdie Paxton, a near-Valedictorian who doesn’t realize she’s smoking hot in her science pun T-shirt, at a party, an undeniable attraction sparks. And suddenly he’s not worried about anything. But before they are able to exchange numbers, they are pulled apart. A horrifying tragedy soon links Birdie and Bash together—but neither knows it. When they finally reconnect, and are starting to fall—hard—the events of the tragedy unfold, changing both their lives in ways they can never undo. Told in alternating perspectives, The Inevitable Collision of Birdie & Bash by Candace Ganger is a beautiful, complex, and ultimately hopeful teen novel that will move you to the very last page.

ARC August 2017: Sign Up and Books I Want to Read

It's that time of the year again... no, I don't mean the end of summer! I mean it's time for ARC August!

Zodiac Reread Campaign: Wandering Star Review and Disney Princess Sorting

Title: Wandering Star (Zodiac #2)

Series: Zodiac

Author: Romina Russell

Publisher: Razorbill

Publication Date: December 8, 2015
Source: ARC from Penguin Teen

A breathtaking sci-fi space saga inspired by astrology that will stun fans of the Illuminae Files and Starbound series.

Orphaned, disgraced, and stripped of her title, Rho is ready to live life quietly, as an aid worker in the Cancrian refugee camp on House Capricorn.

But news has spread that the Marad--an unbalanced terrorist group determined to overturn harmony in the Galaxy--could strike any House at any moment.

Then, unwelcome nightmare that he is, Ochus appears to Rho, bearing a cryptic message that leaves her with no choice but to fight.

Now Rho must embark on a high-stakes journey through an all-new set of Houses, where she discovers that there's much more to her Galaxy--and to herself--than she could have ever imagined.