Saturday, July 30, 2011

Wither, Book 1

Title: Wither- Book 1
Series: The Chemical Garden

Author: Lauren DeStefano
Publication: March 22nd, 2011

What if you knew exactly when you would die?
Thanks to modern science, every human being has become a ticking genetic time bomb — males only live to age twenty-five, and females only live to age twenty. In this bleak landscape, young girls are kidnapped and forced into polygamous marriages to keep the population from dying out.

When sixteen-year-old Rhine Ellery is taken by the Gatherers to become a bride, she enters a world of wealth and privilege. Despite her husband Linden's genuine love for her, and a tenuous trust among her sister wives, Rhine has one purpose: to escape — to find her twin brother and go home.

But Rhine has more to contend with than losing her freedom. Linden's eccentric father is bent on finding an antidote to the genetic virus that is getting closer to taking his son, even if it means collecting corpses in order to test his experiments. With the help of Gabriel, a servant Rhine is growing dangerously attracted to, Rhine attempts to break free, in the limited time she has left.


Ashley's Review:




Wither turned out to be a good book for me. For the first half of the book, I felt it was very slow and needed some action to pick it up. Then I realized Wither is just not the thrill seeking type of dystopian as others I have read: The Hunger Games, Uglies, The Forest of Hands and Teeth and Divergent most recently. In my experiences with Dystopians, there is generally a lot of heartache and a massacre of deaths. I am not saying Wither does not have its share of heartache and death, I mean come on it is a dystopian novel, BUT I feel like Lauren DeStefano did a very good job of with developing each character and did not kill off characters just for the sake of killing like some others in this genre. Given the synopsis of the book, it is known all women will meet their death at 21 and men at 25 due to a virus killing off all of humanity.

Wither touches on several topics that can and I am sure have turned certain level of readers away from this series. From kidnapping to polygamist marriages at a very, very young age and not to mention the amount of questions any reader would have when reading this book. The thing is you have to remember that yes messed up things do happen in this book and that’s just it, it’s a book!!! To be able to separate reality from the content in this book/series is very important. If you can’t get past some of the details DeStefano uncovers then this is just not the series for you. It is a definite need to be very open minded when reading Wither, if not you will be disappointed. Yes, Wither is set in the post apocalyptic future, but it very much reminds me of the past in the aspect that women and men get married when they are children in today’s society. My grandmother was married at 16 and had 7 children from the age of 16-23, so the detail of this book does not seem the slightest bit strange to me.

As I said, while reading Wither I felt bored in parts and I don’t mean that in a negative way at all. I was really just expecting a lot more action, but once I realized it just wasn’t one of those types of books I was very intrigued to see where things would go and how they would end. Of course I still have SEVERAL questions of the events that took place and of what to expect in the next addition Fever, but that’s where the fun begins of speculating the different scenarios that will take place. Wither really set the frame work for the next 2 books in The Chemical Garden trilogy and I believe Fever will be excellent. I do hate waiting for the next book though!! The writing really is very good, perfect descriptions and dialog throughout the entire novel.

Friday, July 29, 2011

Sophie Jordan Book Signing Tomorrow 7/30!!



Sophie Jordan-author of Firelight will be in Katy, TX tomorrow signing books and open to a Q&A at 3:30pm.

Vickie Dreiling-Historical Romance author will be with her signing as well...

Katy Budget Books
2450 Fry Rd
Houston, TX 77084
281-578-7770

Don't forget, the second book in Sophie's Firelight trilogy -- Vanish -- will be released September 6th!

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Fever Book Cover Revealed


The 2nd book Fever in The Chemical Garden series is now revealed!! Fever's expected publication date us February 21st 2012. Get ready all you Wither fans!!!

Thursday, July 21, 2011

JZB Sex Scene - Link is Rated R

So, if you are a true Fever Fan, then you have known about this for a while! KMM promised us a sex scene from Barrons' POV, since he won the Alpha Showdown!! Our beloved Barrons beat out some stiff competition (pun intended) including, but not limited to; Curran, Bones, Jace, and even Dimka! So, you wanted it... Here it is!

Read it on KMM's website: http://www.karenmoning.com/kmm/jzbscene.html

Vote for the August BotM!

Go to our Goodreads group (and join if you haven't already!! Tsk tsk!) and vote for the august BotM!





Poll

51880
What do you want the August Book of the Month to be?


Enclave (Razorland, #1)

Succubus Blues (Georgina Kincaid, #1)

Blood Red Road

Gone (Gone, #1)

Forgive My Fins (Fins, #1)

If I Stay (If I Stay, #1)

Fangs For The Memories (Young Brothers, #1)

Nightshade (Nightshade, #1)

Glass Houses (The Morganville Vampires, #1)

The Vampire Stalker

Firelight (Firelight, #1)

Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse, #1)

Promise (Soul Savers, #1)

Demons Not Included (Night Tracker, #1)

The Body Finder (The Body Finder, #1)



Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Hunger Games Movie Poster!!!!



As if the anticipation of the movie was not killing us already...we now have the movie poster to put us on the edge of our seats even more!!! It is absolutely perfect if you ask me...and have I mentioned that I am probably one of the biggest Hunger Games fans out there! If not...def pretty dang close! :) Seriously though this movie poster is soooo legit!!!



I cannot wait to get some more of the girl on fire and of course my beloved Peeta!!!

Friday, July 15, 2011

100 Followers Giveaway Week!

We Have 100 Followers!

In celebration of our achievement, I am feeling friendly!! So, I've decided to begin the 100 Followers Giveaway Week tradition!

What is this you ask? Did I hear "Giveaway Week??" Yes, you did! Starting on Monday, July 25th, we will be giving away 1 prize each day for 1 week! All you have to do is comment below, and make sure you are a member of our Goodreads group and our Blog! I will randomly select 7 winners, 1 each day, from the comments below!

So what are the prizes?? How about a grab bag of great gifts! We have several books, bookmarks, and other things all wrapped up into a Goodreads Goodybag. Each winner will recieve their prize in the month of August, as shipping times vary.

We will hold this giveaway every time we hit another hundred members! So tell your friends to join!!

Good Luck & Happy Reading!!!

What: 100 Followers Giveaway Week
When: Sign up now thru July 30th. Winners will be selected July 25th thru July 31st.
Prize:  Goodreads Goodybag
For: Open Internationally

Monday, July 11, 2011

July Monthly Puzzler - Round 2, Clue #2

Your second clue for Round 2 is:

I'm an entrepreneur.


What the heck is this?! It's a clue for the Monthly Puzzler Contest! Find out more and how you can participate here!

Monthly Puzzler

(You must be a member of our Blog and our Goodreads Group to participate. Join us on Goodreads)

Friday, July 8, 2011

July Books of the Month and more!!!!



The votes are in for our July Books of the Month! Every month we read 3-4 books varying from Young Adult to Adult. This month our winners for our Young Adult reads are Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini and Unearthly by Cynthia Hand. We have 2 Adult reads this month, Dead Witch Walking (The Rachel Morgan Series #1) by Kim Harrison and Some Girls Bite by Chloe Neill. Join in and read along with us. We take a poll on our Goodreads group every month for the upcoming Month's BotM and we are open to suggestions/recommendations!!

To become a member of our group on Goodreads follow this link!

http://www.goodreads.come/group/show/4448

If you have some suggestions for the August reads, add them here!

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/581148-botm-suggestions-august-2011

We are just finishing up our Classic Challenge with A Midsummer's Night Dream. A new poll will be going up this weekend for our next Classic Challenge beginning 7/15/11. If you have any suggestions for what we should read next let us know!

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/528966-classics-challenge

If you haven't joined our Facebook group join here!

http://www.facebook.com/groups/100299426727231?ap=1

Happy Reading y'all!! Have a great weekend!!!