April 2016 ARC Challenge

ARC April is hosted by the lovely ladies over at Read Sleep Repeat and is dedicated to reading all of your pending ARC's (whether they're 2017 ARC's or 2010 ARC's) 

What Is ARC April?

ARC April, like ARC August is all about YOUR personal goal in regards to YOUR ARCs! This was made as a “low pressure” but maximum benefits kind of challenge and I really want to continue that! The only real rule for ARC April is any books you count towards the challenge MUST be an ARC. It can be an e-ARC or physical ARC. It can have a 2017 release date or an overdue date of 2010! As long as it is an ARC we won’t judge you or take that accomplishment lightly.

Why Should You Do ARC April?

Well, apart from the obvious face that you get to FINISH all of your pending ARC's, Shelly and Octavia have an incentive program that you can find out more about here

MY ARC APRIL:

So, I pledge to read in April, all of the ARC's I have (both physical and electronic)

Any other ARC's that I might get over the course of the month will also be included, but only after I (hopefully) finish all of these.

Since April happens to be an entire month Blogaversary giveaways and no reviews, my reviews will be on Goodreads and other retail sites until May, where I'll post some of them here. 



Are you patricipating in ARC April? How many ARC's do you have on your TBR? I'd love to hear from all of you!

Top Ten Five Star Reads of 2016 (Top Ten Tuesday #5)

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish.

Today, we're doing my Top Ten Five Star Rates of 2016! AAAAH! 2016 has been such a good year in terms of reading for me. I've read 37 BOOKS! *Freaks Out*

Also, this Friday is MY SECOND BLOGAVERSARY! I'm so excited for it and also for all the amazing authors that are coming here over the month of April. Now. 

My Top Ten. Before we go ahead, I am warning you, the words 'brilliant' and "It was SO AAAAH" will be used in excess for the ten books after this. Consider yourself warned!

1. Seven Ways We Lie by Riley Redgate: This book was SO great (I mean, obviously, I did give it a five star rating) and while for a bit the seven points of view was a bit too much, it got SO good after I started remembering how everyone was.

2. Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard: This. Book. Was. So. SO. SO. GOOD. It ruined me, and it gave me my worst hangover of 2016. GIVE ME BOOK THREE.

3. The Girl Who Fell by Shannon Parker: THIS BOOK HAD ME BELIEVING IN AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP. I mean it. It was so good, and it had a bout of best friend romance which was SO GOOD. You guys should 10000% read this. (It might kill you, but...)

4. Asking For It by Louise O'Neill: This was the height of emotional torture. It was so real, and so so brutal. It broke my heart, I swear. And yours will probably shatter too.

5. Rebel Of The Sands by Alwyn Hamilton: THIS WAS ABOUT FEMINISM AND MAGIC AND REBELLION and it is an Arabian Nights meets the Wild West with badass women and chemistry. HIGHLY recommended. ALSO THAT COVER. SAVE ME. And give me book two!

6. Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill: ANOTHER LOUISE O'NEILL, you might ask? Well, yes, because she is one of the MOST BRILLIANT writers I've ever read and everything is so real, and so scary and extremely breath taking. YOU NEED TO READ HER BOOKS.

7. The Year We Fell Apart by Emily Martin: A BEST FRIEND
ROMANCE! I LOVE BEST FRIEND ROMANCES! I EVEN LOVED THE ANGST, AND THE SECONDARY CHARACTERS AND, WELL, EVERYTHING.

8. This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp: This was SO adrenaline filled, and dreadful and beautifully written. I sat on the edge of my seat for a few hours straight reading about these fifty four minutes with so many deaths and so many truths.


9. A Study In Charlotte by Brittany Caravallo: THIS IS A STORY ABOUT SHERLOCK AND WATSON'S GREAT GREAT TEENAGE GRAND KIDS. Does is even get better? It was SO good. Well, after you get over the fact that Charlotte is a carbon copy of Sherlock, you will be left fangirling.

10. Dumplin' by Julie Murphy: FAT GIRL NOVELS. YAY! I love novels that tackle issues head on, especially body image, and while this one varied on being open about what you look like and a bit of fat shaming, I still loved it.


Are any of these five star reads to you? What did you think of them? Leave your links down below and I will pop over and check out your lists!


Review: Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill

Title: Only Ever Yours
Author: Louise O'Neill
Publisher: Quercus
Publication Date: July 2nd 2015
Part of A Series?: Standalone
I Got A Copy Through: I bought it here: Amazon

Blurb Description: In a world in which baby girls are no longer born naturally, women are bred in schools, trained in the arts of pleasing men until they are ready for the outside world. At graduation, the most highly rated girls become “companions”, permitted to live with their husbands and breed sons until they are no longer useful.
For the girls left behind, the future – as a concubine or a teacher – is grim.
Best friends Freida and Isabel are sure they’ll be chosen as companions – they are among the most highly rated girls in their year.
But as the intensity of final year takes hold, Isabel does the unthinkable and starts to put on weight. ..And then, into this sealed female environment, the boys arrive, eager to choose a bride.
Freida must fight for her future – even if it means betraying the only friend, the only love, she has ever known. . . 


‘I am a good girl. I am pretty. I am always happy go lucky.’

It has taken me a really long while to write this review. I’ve attempted it from time to time, but each time, I felt like what I was saying wasn’t enough; I felt like wasn’t saying enough on how necessary it is to read this book and I felt like I wasn’t spreading the message that this book drilled into me well enough.

‘I am pretty. I am a good girl. I always do what I am told.’

Look around you. No, really look. And try to remember the last time when someone told you that, being a girl or even being a part of society, meant you had to do something; you had to be some other version of yourself, that you didn't entirely want to be. Try and remember if you accepted it or not. If you were willing to do something someone else told you, just because they said it was better.

Try an remember when the last time you judged someone by their looks, and remember the last time you were judged based on your skin colour, your weight, you clothing.

Try and remember the last time that boys were let away with ‘Oh, they’re boys’ and girls, such as yourself, shunned for doing the exact same thing that the boys did.

Try and remember the last time you were told that you were ‘supposed’ to do things a certain way.

We live in a world of double standards and unrealistic ideals, and we don’t even realise it, but Louise O’Neill’s books will leave you with a new sense of dread and understanding.

Imagine our world as a school, where women (eves) are genetically modified to look their "best" from a catalogue. Imagine growing up in a place where there is a fat girl buffet, and a thin girl buffet, and if you go to the former, you’re ridiculed. Imagine you’ve grown up your whole life, being ranked on a chart based on what you look like. 

Imagine a world where the girls need to do everything and be everything that man wants her to me, because they’re the better sex.

This, of course, is a dystopian novel but look around you and you will see that EVERY scary thing I just spoke about, WE ACTUALLY DO IT. Intentionally, and unintentionally. It happens here, in this supposedly modern 20th century. And it should shock you, it should disgust you, because it is shocking and disgusting.


Freida is an eve. Designed, prepared, good, obedient, pretty. And her goal is to become a companion and give her husband a hundred sons, so that he may grant her a sliver of freedom, like having her own TV show. Freida is going to make it.

And so are the hundreds of other eves in the program. After all,

‘Only the best will be chosen. And only the men will decide.’
The most real, unsettling novel you will ever read, and I couldn’t recommend it more.



Have you read Louise O'Neill books? If you haven't, YOU SHOULD! (She is on my auto buy list!)

Tell me which book to read next, because I NEED something that good!

Stacking The Shelves #8 - The One With E-Books and an Audiobook

Stacking The Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews

BLOG NEWS: Next Friday (April 1st) is A Thousand Words, A Million Books' SECOND blogaversary! I didn't have a big celebration last year (or at all) so I have a MONTH of authors and giveaways planned for all of you lovelies, so please stop by!

My exams (and with it my senior year of high school) (YAY) also end on April 1st, so it is a HUGE day for me. 6 days to go! YAY!

Now, onto the Stacking Of Shelves...

FOR REVIEW:

From Netgalley:

1. Suffer Love by Ashley Herring Blake:

I got this for the Fantastic Flying Book Club Blog Tour, and I CANNOT wait to start! Ashley is going to be here, on A Thousand Words, A Million Books on April 16th, showing us her extremely cool shelves! YAY!

PRE-ORDER SWAG
PRE-ORDER ALERT: You can pre-order Suffer Love on Amazon, and get AMAZING pre-order swag (Bookmarks and Magnets) as shown in the picture! (It's INT! YAY!)

2. Ink And Bone (The Great Library, #1) by Rachel Caine

THIS IS ABOUT THE GREAT LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA SURVIVING. DID I SAY LIBRARY?

I am BEYOND excited to start this one!

BOUGHT:

From Audible:

1. The Wrath and The Dawn by Renee Adieh: I'm approzimately 20% into
this audio, and it is SO SO SO SO GOOD.

*Grabby hands for The Rose and The Dagger*

That's all for this week, fellow amazing bookworms.



What'd you get this week? What did you read this week/ this month? 

Do you have an Audible recommendations? I'm fluctuating waiting between for The Rose and the Dagger, waiting for The Burning Glass or something else...

Link me up below and I will pop by your FAB Blogs and stare (and comment) at your awesome hauls.

Review: House Of Windows by Alexia Casale

Title: House Of Windows
Author: Alexia Casale
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Publication Date: August 6th 2015
Part of A Series?: No - Standalone
I Got A Copy Through: Guardian Children's Books
Buy Links: Amazon

Blurb Description:'The body is a house of many windows: there we all sit, showing ourselves and crying on the passers-by to come and love us.' Robert Louis Stevenson
Nick hates it when people call him a genius. Sure, he's going to Cambridge University aged 15, but he says that's just because he works hard. And, secretly, he only works hard to get some kind of attention from his workaholic father.
Not that his strategy is working.
When he arrives at Cambridge, he finds the work hard and socialising even harder. Until, that is, he starts to cox for the college rowing crew and all hell breaks loose... 

 “It’s always better to accomplish something than nothing, but coming of age is about more than learning who you are inside: it’s as much about who you are in relation to others – and who you want to be.”

To be quite honest, I thought this was going to be a novel about a socially awkward boy, who gets in with the wrong crew, messes up completely (through pranks and alcohol) and then realises that he was pretending to be someone he wasn’t.

And that was the blurb’s fault, as well as my own, so for little more than the first quarter, I found myself waiting and waiting for the pranks and the drinking and the irresponsibility to come, and once it didn’t, I found myself a bit disappointed. And then I let go of that notion, and decided to just absorb what I was getting…

“No matter how hard we try, no one ever sees inside us. It’s who we are on the outside that leaves a mark of the world, and so, in a way, all we ever are is the person we show the world.”

I realise I haven’t told you what it’s about, and I’m not going to (because I can’t) but I am going to say that it is a story, one that you will LOVE to no end, and hopefully that will be enough to convince you to read it.

While it was, admittedly a bit slow paced, I couldn’t help but falling completely in love with this
book! Cambridge was so beautifully described I pictured heaven on Earth each time descriptions came around. As Nick got Inducted and Matriculated, I felt like I was being too. Everything had just the right amount of description, the characters just the right amount of complex to be completely lifelike and the world filled with just enough problems to feel both desperate and utterly hopeful.
Alexia Casale, you have captured life itself in your gorgeous book.

House of Windows is a beautiful, BEAUTIFUL coming of age novel about a boy. I won’t say that he is a genius, or that he is socially awkward, or lonely, because to truly get Nick, you need to read entire masterfully crafted book, created by the author of The Bone Dragon. House of Windows is one of those non-explosive books where you look up, and you’ve been readi
ng for three hours straight and you didn’t even realise it; it’s one of those books that silently grips you, and gets you so caught up in the completely real seeming fictional characters, you’ll find it EXTREMELY hard to believe that they’re not.

So, I’m going to just have to call it a coming of age novel about a brilliant boy, written by a master whose words will haunt you long after it’s over.

And tell you to read it, because you have to. 10000000 Stars.

What is your favorite coming of age novel? Who is your favorite socially awkward character?

Nick is certainly at the top of my list, along with Audrey from Sophie Kinsella's Finding Audrey!

Waiting On Wednesday #2 - Warrior Witch by Danielle Jensen

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted over at Breaking The Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week, or rather EVERY WEEK since December, when I read this book's predecessor, I'VE BEEN NEEDING IT. SO BAD. 


You can see what I'm talking (okay, freaking out) about through my reviews of 

Stolen Songbird (Book One) and 
Hidden Huntress (Book Two)



Title: Warrior Witch (The Malediction Trilogy #3) 
Author: Danielle L Jensen
Publisher: Angry Robot
Publication Date: May 3rd 2016
Part of A Series?: Yes, Book 3/3 of the Malediction Trilogy
Buy Link: Amazon


Blurb Description: The thrilling conclusion to the breakout Malediction Trilogy by Goodreads Choice finalist Danielle L. Jensen. 
Cécile and Tristan have accomplished the impossible, but their greatest challenge remains: defeating the evil they have unleashed upon the world.
As they scramble for a way to protect the people of the Isle and liberate the trolls from their tyrant king, Cécile and Tristan must battle those who’d see them dead. To win, they will risk everything. And everyone.
But it might not be enough. Both Cécile and Tristan have debts, and they will be forced to pay them at a cost far greater than they had ever imagined.

Have you read this trilogy? Do you have any fantasy recommendations for me? What is you WoW pick?

I love all of your comments, so leave me a link and I will drop by your AMAZING blogs as well:)

Review: Rebel Of The Sands by Alwyn Hamilton

Title: Rebel Of The Sands
Author: Alwyn Hamilton
Publisher: Faber & Faber (UK)
Publication Date: February 4th 2016
Part of A Series?: Yes! (Book One of A Planned Trilogy)
I Got A Copy Through: Guardian Children's Books

Blurb Description:"Tell me that and we'll go. Right now. Save ourselves and leave this place to burn. Tell me that's how you want your story to go and we'll write it straight across the sand."
Dustwalk is an unforgiving, dead-end town. It's not the place to be poor or orphaned or female. And yet Amani Al'Hiza must call it 'home'.
Amani wants to escape and see the world she's heard about in campfire stories.
Then a foreigner with no name turns up, and with him she has the chance to run. 
But the desert plains are full of dangerous magic. The Sultan's army is on the rise and Amani is soon caught at the heart of a fearless rebellion...
An epic story of swirling desert sands, love, magic and revolution.

When I first looked at the cover of Rebel of the Sands, I knew that it was a book I had to have. I didn’t care what it was about, this was cover love at first sight. My love only deepened when I actually read what the book was about: ‘A Sharpshooter. A Dreamer. A damn good liar.’ and I had chills running down my back!

To be quite honest, I don’t think my words can quite capture the essence of what this book has in store for you when you pick it up (because you REALLY should) so I’m going to try and capture it from some of the many lines that were so awesome, I HAD to re-read them over and over.
‘I didn’t seem to mind proving myself dumb if it meant proving someone else wrong.’

You know badass heroines, right? We all love them. There’s Katniss Everdeen and Celaena Sardothien and Mare Barrow. Here’s the thing though, how many of said actually SAID they were badass, because Amani does. And Amani is AWESOME!

She’s a fearless dreamer with perfect aim and a will to live, and I assure you, you will LOVE her.

‘No one could see me, a girl with a stolen gun, shooting until my fingers were sore and my aim was good enough that I could’ve knocked a shot glass out of a drunk’s shaky fingers.’

The book opens with Amani trying to get out of the bleak existence she can’t help but detest. She’s meant for greater things; she’s meant for places where your gender doesn’t make you lose respect, where it’s okay to not be ashamed to have been born a girl. (SHE SAYS THIS, YES.)

*FREAKS OUT* *BOWS HEAD IN RESPECT*

I loved that in the middle of an Arabian Night’s story, we had FEMINISM, and equality and non-discrimination. These were really life issues that every girl in the world faces – East or West – and Alwyn handled it all brilliantly.

‘I was a desert girl. I thought I knew heat.I was wrong.’

But, of course, a book is NOT complete without the smoldering boy who gets our heroine completely! Although in most novels, she just falls right into his arms without much thought and he does almost all of the work. SO NOT THE CASE! Amani, even if she was wrong, wasn’t afraid of doing what she needed to get what she wanted, even if it meant hurting him. And the CHEMISTRY! *Swoons* *Finds Ointment for Burns*
‘These ideas could make men shout for rebellion even when it meant they would hang for it.’
The blurb promises you rebellion and love and magic, and IT DOES NOT DISAPPOINT! From the stories of Djinn to Ghouls to Skinwalkers, to the passion between Jin and Amani and through all the characters with their dangerous powers and powerful personalities, this book will grip you and never let go.
I guess I just need to end with: ‘Red Queen meets The Hunger Games in this masterful Arabian Nights setting, leaving readers spellbound.’

What do you guys think of that cover? Who is your favourite Badass Heroine? 

Let me know what you think - I love hearing from ALL of you, and I will also be sure to stop by your FANTASTIC blogs!

Stacking The Shelves #7 - The One Where I Leave Books Unopened

Stacking The Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews

HELLO LOVELIES!

I've had exams (BOO) for the last few months but I have just two left (YAY!) and I shall be free for forever. Well, until uni, but who cares?

I just picked out 24 BOOKS from my shelves to give away to all of you LOVELY people. It's my second blogaversary on APRIL 1st  and it's going to be a month of Authors, Giveaways and Books!

BLOG NEWS: Valerie is no longer going to be blogging with me *sheds tears* and this is because she's a super smart chem major and has realized that it needs to be her first priority to produce Felix Felicis and other such serums. DUH. Which I completely understand, so GOODBYE VALERIE! I shall see you in the Daily Mail soon.

Now, onto the actual Stacking Of Shelves:

For Review:

From Gallery Books:
1. The Map Of Bones by Francesca Haig

From Entangled Teen:
1. True Born by L.E.Sterling
2. The Society by Jodie Andrefski

From Guardian Children's Books:
1. Movers by Meghan McIsaac

Bought:

1. A Darker Shade Of Magic by V.E.Schwab  (PAPERBACK)

YES! YES, IT'S STILL IN THE BOX.

I have exams.

And I am TRYING to be sincere about this (and the books to come after) as a post-exams gift to myself, but my resolve is shattering.

Help Me.

Review: Asking For It by Louise O' Neill

Title: Asking For It
Author: Louise O'Neill
Publisher: Quercus Publishing
Publication Date: September 3rd 2015
Part of A Series?: A Standalone
I Got A Copy Through: I bought it!
Blurb Description: It's the beginning of the summer in a small town in Ireland. Emma O'Donovan is eighteen years old, beautiful, happy, confident. One night, there's a party. Everyone is there. All eyes are on Emma. 
The next morning, she wakes on the front porch of her house. She can't remember what happened, she doesn't know how she got there. She doesn't know why she's in pain. But everyone else does.  Photographs taken at the party show, in explicit detail, what happened to Emma that night. But sometimes people don't want to believe what is right in front of them, especially when the truth concerns the town's heroes... 

 "What did she expect?”

I have a story to tell you. I went for an excursion with my batch mates last October. We were told to carry polo shirts and loose jeans, but I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on polos because I never would wear them otherwise, and so I decided to carry normal (and pretty baggy) round neck t-shirts like the “I Love NY” tourist ones and did a lot of the other girls because well, it was an adventure camp and those tees are just more comfortable.

On the second day, as we got down for breakfast the teachers that accompanied us on the trip made
all the boys exit the room, and asked the girls to stand in a line, like we were in a police line-up. They walked past all the girls and back again to the front. After we had all individually been subjected to the judging looks on their faces, they addressed us as a group, informing us that our full length jeans and our t-shirts that covered everything up to the base of our necks was not appropriate to wear out in society. They made us cover our already covered necks with scarves, tuck them inside our jackets and zip them up. Day after day, we were subjected to the same ridicule, and yet we did nothing. Except feel flustered, and angry, and wronged. And we did nothing and said nothing.

It wasn’t a big deal, but we were pretty mad – I was pretty mad. There was nothing wrong with the way we were dressing, but there we were anyway, being subjected to the same thing as girls anywhere else in the world. Judgement. And it was terrible.

The word comes automatically. No. No. No. No. It’s all I say these days. It’s as if I’m making up for the time when I couldn’t say it. When I wasn’t given the chance to say it.
No.”

And this was only one of the small reasons why Asking For It struck such a chord within me; one of the reasons why I understood this so much better.       
      
Emma O’ Donovan is the pretty girl. The one you see walking around in clothes too short, the one who is always perfect. She’s just one all the girls want to be and all the boys want to be with. And then one summer night, there’s a party. And Emma is trying to be anything but herself; just a little more out there, and there’s drugs and drinks and boys.

And after that night, her life is never the same again.

This is the rawest book on rape that I have ever read. I stayed up until two in the night, and then cried. Because this is the realest book any girl will ever get to read – the one that every girl should read. Whether what happened to Emma unfortunately happens to another girl or even if it doesn’t, everyone goes through what she does in some way or another – big or small – during the course of their lives, and Louise O’ Neill writes about it in the most... Well. She just does. And it will break your heart.

Because we don’t talk about rape, or abuse, or slut shaming, or anything that would make our lives difficult and we just don’t deal with it. Our families, our friends and even ourselves, we don’t. We don’t think it’s right to be open about it, we don’t feel free to talk about it the 21st century. We want to forget, we want to pretend it never happened and the world supports us when we supress ourselves.

It’s like Louise’s afterword. We need to talk. The world needs to talk. And what’s right and what’s wrong, about blaming the victim, about questioning the victim and most importantly, consent. 

Points For: EVERYTHING.