Cinder Audiobook Sample

I've been asked to give you a sample of the audiobook for Cinder by Marissa Meyer.  I just reviewed this book last week on my blog so you can find it below.  I'm so excited to partake of this book, it's such a favorite of mine!

Enjoy the audioclip!

The Best Book You're Not Reading (1)

This is a meme started by me.  If anyone else would like to partake of this, I say go right ahead, because I want to know what gems I haven't read either!  This will be a weekly meme by me posted on Monday's.  I want to say thank to Lisa Mantchev for instilling this idea in my head.  She wrote on her facebook that she hates correcting people who call her a New York Times best-selling author.  Well you know what?  Her book deserves to be a NY Times best seller!  So Lisa is my first The Best Book You're Not Reading!

First of all, this cover is just absolutely gorgeous. It's whimsical, magical and it has the coolest looking heroine and fairies.  Plus they sorta kick butt in the book too! I had so much fun reading this book.  It takes Shakespeare, turns it on it's head and throw in a mystery or two or three and you have a fantastic book!  Beatrice lives in the Theatre Illuminata.  Her friends are characters in some of Shakespeare's biggest plays!

Lisa creates a mystical world inside the theatre while outside life is moving along.  You get that sense although Bertie is sheltered, she knows what the world outside is like.  But what I like most about this story is the romance.  It's a tiny little flame that is smoldering.  Nate is the swashbuckling hero that is also Bertie's best friend.  Ariel, is an earth spirit who causes Bertie's knees to weaken.

The fairies are there as your comic relief and they definitely, albeit annoyingly, to Bertie command it!  The world is Bertie's stage, yet she's afraid to leave the world she has grown to love, but as she gets older, she must make her way in the world and forge her own destiny.

Eyes like Stars was first published in 2009 by Feiwel & Friends. It currently ranks on Amazon at #481,662.  It is a series. Perchance to Dream was published in 2010 and So Silver Bright was published in 2011. The cover artist is Jason Chan.  

I need to thank Lori from Pure Imagination for creating the button!  She is an amazing person and created something that I could not do.  Lori, I can't thank you enough.

Scholastic Book Fair Part 3

So yesterday was our annual trek to the much loved book fair at Lily's school.  In fact I was excited because they had so many great books to choose from even on the YA front!

One of my most favorite purchases this year was the middle grade novel by Kim Harrington, Slueth or Dare: Partners in Crime. In fact there were four copies and I purchased two!  I got one for my local library because the librarian loves Kim Harrington books and it's a great add to the collection.  Can I just tell you the cover of this book is completely darling in person.

Following Lily's trend of buying 'celebrity' books.  All written by Riley Brooks, we got a Selena Gomez and Victoria Justice book.  I'm curious about Riley Brooks because she doesn't really interview the stars as she culls information from other locations and interviews.  I find you don't really learn much from these books, but Lily likes them, so they get purchased.



The last book was a generic Spongebob book.  Which we cannot seem to find.  You see right after the book fair, we headed to library and think it's possible Lily left it there.  We'll check later today.

Book Review: Cinder, Marissa Meyer

Reading Level:     Young Adult 

Hardcover:          390 Pages 

Publisher:           Feiwel & Friends, Jan 3, 2012

Parasols:             5

Cinder was one of those stories that I went into not knowing too much about it.  I knew that it was a fractured fairytale and followed the Cinderella template.  But it was much more than that.  So much more that that.

Cinder is half-cyborg, who lives with a step family who despises her.  She works as a mechanic and makes menial money to bring home to her horrid stepmother.  She also has two stepsisters, one who is vain, conceited and terrible, and another one who understands her.  Everything changes when a strange, handsome young man comes in to her shop to fix his android.  He happens to be Prince Kaito of New Bejing.

Throughout the world, a disease is killing people, Letumosis.  When the king perishes to the disease, Prince Kai is now in charge of the new world, and many people want to see him get married.  However, he has threats coming from another planet who may or may not have the vaccine to save the population.  Once the Envoy from the planet Lunar shows up, all hell breaks loose and Cinder will find herself the center of a galactic war.

I read this book back and in November of last year, and really wish I'd written down my thoughts then.  I really enjoyed this book a lot and am looking forward to reading more from Marissa.  I'm very excited to see how she translates fairytales into this series.  I understand this is a quartet so we have a few years to go.  I really like how the whole Cinderella theme wasn't shoved down my throat.  It wasn't a direct rip-off, she added a lot of elements, but allowed the story to be the focal part.  Cinder was a great character.  You could tell she just wanted to do her job and not have to deal with the nastiness that she was subjected to by her stepmother, Adri.  a completely horrible person.  Cinder was brought to the family by Adri's husband and he died leaving her with a half-person, who's history was a mystery.  Cinder knew that Adri blamed her for her husband's death and could never think of her as her child.

But that also gave Cinder her tick.  The relationship between Prince Kai and Cinder is sweet and slow.  Cinder seems a bit oblivious that Kai could show any interest in her, especially when she tries to so hard to keep her cyborg parts secret.  

I highly, highly recommend this book and hope that people will enjoy it as much as I did.  I'm a big fan and can't wait for the sequel.  This is my first 5 parasol review of the year! The thing about reading books early is you have to wait forever for the next one!  But I will be first in line to buy the sequel when it's out.

Busy Day in the YA world!!!

Well today was awards day at ALAMW12  in Dallas, TX.

The big award, The Michael L. Printz award went to:

Where Things Come Back

By John Corey Whaley

Published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing

Fellow Honors:

Why We Broke Up, written by Daniel Handler, art by Maira Kalman and published by Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

The Returning, written by Christine Hinwood and published by Dial Books, an imprint of Penguin Group Young Readers Group USA.

Jasper Jones, written by Craig Silvey and published by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

The Scorpio Races, written by Maggie Stiefvater and published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic, Inc.

Where Things Come Back

By John Corey Whaley 

Also won the William C. Morris award for best debut.