Stacking the Shelves & #WeekReview 5/16/15

Stacking the Shelves hosted by Tynga's Reviews is meant for sharing books you are adding to your shelves. They can be physical, virtual and/or ARCs. They all count if you've got your grubby paws on them. :)

Oh you readers... guess what all has been happening this week?! Laini Taylor has THREE MORE books coming and a gift paperback set right in time for the holidays at the end of this year. Woohoo!

That's some of the best news ever! So excited about these books. Although it just added another book to my must read pile for 2016. Don't miss out on the special Twitter event this June so we can get to read a never-before-written chapter from Eretz. Just tag tweets of your favorite quotes with #UnlockLainiTaylor and after 613 hashtags have been reached, we'll get it. 

Hope you have had a good book week too! My haul is relatively small compared to what I usually get lately. Check these books out though... I haven't read a lot of these so that's good for me. Any of you know which I should read first?

BOUGHT BOOKS:

Vicious by V. E. Schwab ~ Omigoodness this book... you all... this book is sooooooo good! 

Summary: Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong. Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end? 

In Vicious, V. E. Schwab brings to life a gritty comic-book-style world in vivid prose: a world where gaining superpowers doesn’t automatically lead to heroism, and a time when allegiances are called into question.

The Prestige by Christopher Priest ~ Have you seen this movie?! Yeah, Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman together dominating the screen as dueling magicians. There's a price to their tricks though. Ouch! However, you can read this book and feel like it is totally different in ways that the movie will not have spoiled you even though I feel the The Prestige film did a good job capturing the moodiness of the book.

Summary: In 1878, two young stage magicians clash in the dark during the course of a fraudulent séance. From this moment on, their lives become webs of deceit and revelation as they vie to outwit and expose one another. Their rivalry will take them to the peaks of their careers, but with terrible consequences. In the course of pursuing each other's ruin, they will deploy all the deception their magicians' craft can command--the highest misdirection and the darkest science.

Blood will be spilled, but it will not be enough. In the end, their legacy will pass on for generations...to descendants who must, for their sanity's sake, untangle the puzzle left to them.

                                   

Look at those two pretties up above. I purchased those from Amazon for the Kindle this week too. Every time I saw them on Amazon, I just wanted to pet their pretty covers. So yeah... I do not have physical copies but am excited to read these steampunkish magician stories. There's a third book I believe that is green. Yeah... these books totally feed my sorting like things fetish. Get you own copies HERE. 

PHYSICAL ARCs:

LOCK & MORI by Heather W. Petty ~ Oh I have read this book... twice now and just, you all what can I even say about this incarnation of Sherlock and Moriarty without gushing. Really... nothing! It's all ramblings of a very pleased Sherlockian, however, I did post a bit to Goodreads just so my support was out there in words. Also, I hopefully will be interviewing Heather Petty for Fangirlish and having a guest post show up here closer to the release date. You can pre-order this brilliant book now though. 

Summary: In modern-day London, two brilliant high school students—one Sherlock Holmes and a Miss James “Mori” Moriarty—meet. A murder will bring them together. The truth very well might drive them apart. Before they were mortal enemies, they were much more…

Life Unaware by Cole Gibson ~ Oh this book needs traction, readers. Please go out and purchase one for your teen, for a local library, high school or middle school. Such a good, important read and also, Cole is a great role model of a person who's a little bit punkish and a whole lotta of kind and understanding. 

Summary: Regan Flay has been talking about you.

Regan Flay is on the cusp of achieving her control-freak mother's "plan" for high school success?cheerleading, student council, the Honor Society--until her life gets turned horribly, horribly upside down. Every bitchy text. Every bitchy email. Every lie, manipulation, and insult she's ever said have been printed out and taped to all the lockers in school.

Now Regan has gone from popular princess to total pariah.

The only person who even speaks to her is her former best friend's hot but socially miscreant brother, Nolan Letner. Nolan thinks he knows what Regan's going through, but what nobody knows is that Regan isn't really Little Miss Perfect. In fact, she's barely holding it together under her mom's pressure. But the consequences of Regan's fall from grace are only just beginning. Once the chain reaction starts, no one will remain untouched... Especially Regan Flay.

Trouble is a Friend of Mine by Stephanie Trombly ~ This book looks adorable and I cannot resist whenever anyone says oh... this character is a lot like Sherlock. Yep... I'm a sucker. Anyone read this one yet? I am looking froward to it because it sounds delightfully romantic in all the awkward ways that I adore.

Summary: Sherlock meets Veronica Mars meets Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in this story of a wisecracking girl who meets a weird but brilliant boy and their roller-coaster of a semester that’s one part awkward, three parts thrilling, and five parts awesome

When Philip Digby first shows up on her doorstep, Zoe Webster is not impressed. He's rude and he treats her like a book he's already read and knows the ending to. But before she knows it, Digby--annoying, brilliant and somehow attractive?--has dragged her into a series of hilarious and dangerous situations all related to an investigation into the kidnapping of a local teenage girl. A kidnapping that may be connected to the tragic disappearance of his own sister eight years ago.

When it comes to Digby, Zoe just can't say no. Digby gets her, even though she barely gets herself. But is Digby a hero, or is his manic quest an indication of a desperate attempt to repair his broken family and exercise his own obsessive compulsive tendencies?

A romance where the leading man is decidedly unromantic, a crime novel where catching the crook isn't the only hook, a friendship story where they aren't even sure they like each other--this is a contemporary debut with razor-sharp dialogue, ridiculously funny action, and the most charismatic dynamic duo you've ever met. 

Book Reviews:

What Remains by Helene Dunbar

Lying Out Loud by Kody Keplinger

"Waiting On" Wednesdays:

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

We Are The Ants by Shaun Hutchinson

Chats on Twitter:

w/Lisa Basso

w/Hillary Monahan

w/Scott Westerfeld

w/Lindsay N. Currie

w/foreverliterary

w/Heather Petty

w/Susan Ee

w/LissaPrice