It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? 1/20/20

January 20, 2020ACourtofCoffeeandBooks 4 Comments

Happy Monday!

This week is going to be a short reading week because I’ll be on the road. All three of us are heading to my hometown of Philadelphia for ALA Midwinter.

Are you attending ALA this year?

I’ll be reading a book that Macmillan sent me this week.

What are you reading?

Squad- Mariah MacCarthy

This darkly comic debut novel by an award-winning playwright is like Mean Girls meets Heathers with a splash of Bring it On.

Jenna Watson is a cheerleader. But it’s not some Hollywood crap. Cheerleaders are not every guy’s fantasy; they are not the “popular girls” or the “mean girls” of Marsen High School. They’re too busy for that. They’re literally just some human females trying to live their lives and do a perfect toe touch. But that all changed after Raejean stopped talking to Jenna and started hanging out with Meghan Finnegan. Jenna stopped getting invited out with the rest of the squad and she couldn’t tell if it was on purpose or if it was all in her head.

At times heartbreaking, at others hilarious, Squad follows Jenna through her attempts to get revenge on Raejean and invent a new post-cheer life for herself through LARPING (live-action role-playing) and a relationship with a trans guy that feels like love—but isn’t. In the end, Jenna discovers that who she is is not defined by which squad she’s in.

First Line Friday 1/10/20 We Used To Be Friends- Amy Spalding

January 10, 2020ACourtofCoffeeandBooks Leave a comment

Two best friends grow up—and grow apart—in this innovative contemporary YA novel

Told in dual timelines—half of the chapters moving forward in time and half moving backward—We Used to Be Friends explores the most traumatic breakup of all: that of childhood besties. At the start of their senior year in high school, James (a girl with a boy’s name) and Kat are inseparable, but by graduation, they’re no longer friends. James prepares to head off to college as she reflects on the dissolution of her friendship with Kat while, in alternating chapters, Kat thinks about being newly in love with her first girlfriend and having a future that feels wide open. Over the course of senior year, Kat wants nothing more than James to continue to be her steady rock, as James worries that everything she believes about love and her future is a lie when her high-school sweetheart parents announce they’re getting a divorce. Funny, honest, and full of heart, We Used to Be Friends tells of the pains of growing up and growing apart.

“By the time you realize that you’re thirsty, it’s too late. You’re already dehydrated. Therefore, it stands to reason that if you feel the end coming, you’re already there.”

Stacy’s Favorite Books of 2019

January 8, 2020ACourtofCoffeeandBooks 4 Comments

It’s that time of year again where I give you my absolute favorite books of 2019. Hopefully, there are some new books on here that you’ll love just as much as I did.

What were your favorites of 2019?

sword 1

*Click on the book cover to read the synopsis on Goodreads*

Books that almost made the list:

*The Fever King- Victoria Lee

*Enchant- Micalea Smeltzer

*Birthday- Meredith Russo

*Unpregnant- Jenni Hendriks

*The Chain- Adrian McKinty

stacy

Top Ten Tuesday 12/24/19

December 24, 2019ACourtofCoffeeandBooks 7 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

This weeks topic is: Books I Hope to Find Under My Tree

(Click on the image of the book to read the synopsis on Goodreads)

Nevernight- Jay Kristoff

Ninth House- Leigh Bardugo- Target Edition

The Starless Sea- Erin Morgenstern- U.K. Edition

Normal People- Sally Rooney

Regretting You- Colleen Hoover

These Witches Don’t Burn- Isabel Sterling

Scream With Me: The Enduring Legacy of The Misfits- Tom Bejgrowicz

The Ocean at the End of the Lane- Neil Gaiman

The Deathless Girls- Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Betty Bites Back: Stories to Scare the Patriarchy- Mindy McGinnis

Mini Review Call Down the Hawk- Maggie Stiefvater

December 18, 2019ACourtofCoffeeandBooks 4 Comments

The dreamers walk among us . . . and so do the dreamed. Those who dream cannot stop dreaming – they can only try to control it. Those who are dreamed cannot have their own lives – they will sleep forever if their dreamers die.

And then there are those who are drawn to the dreamers. To use them. To trap them. To kill them before their dreams destroy us all.

Ronan Lynch is a dreamer. He can pull both curiosities and catastrophes out of his dreams and into his compromised reality.

Jordan Hennessy is a thief. The closer she comes to the dream object she is after, the more inextricably she becomes tied to it.

Carmen Farooq-Lane is a hunter. Her brother was a dreamer . . . and a killer. She has seen what dreaming can do to a person. And she has seen the damage that dreamers can do. But that is nothing compared to the destruction that is about to be unleashed. . . .

My Review:

“You are made of dreams and this world is not for you.”

This was the first book that I’ve ever read by Maggie, even though I own a few of her books. But this was the one that caught my attention first. I’m really confused as to why it took me so long to pick one up because this was amazing and her imagination is wild.

From the start, you know that you’ve never read anything quite like this before but you’re hooked. The imagery is laid before you in such a gorgeous way that you find yourself trapped in the beautifulness that is this book. Maggie twists her words in this dark and mesmerizing way that it enters your mind and settles itself in for the long haul. Your dreams will never be the same again.

“Does any part of you still look at the sky and hurt?”

First Line Friday12/13/19 Belle Révolte- Linsey Miller

December 13, 2019ACourtofCoffeeandBooks 2 Comments

Emilie des Marais is more at home holding scalpels than embroidery needles and is desperate to escape her noble roots to serve her country as a physician. But society dictates a noble lady cannot perform such gruesome wor.

Annette Boucher, overlooked and overworked by her family, wants more from life than her humble beginnings and is desperate to be trained in magic. So when a strange noble girl offers Annette the chance of a lifetime, she accepts.

Emilie and Annette swap lives—Annette attends finishing school as a noble lady to be trained in the ways of divination, while Emilie enrolls to be a physician’s assistant, using her natural magical talent to save lives.

But when their nation instigates a frivolous war, Emilie and Annette must work together to help the rebellion end a war that is based on lies.

“My Mother did not shackle me despite my last escape attempt.”

It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? 12/9/19

December 9, 2019ACourtofCoffeeandBooks 2 Comments

This week I’m going to be reading some arcs that I’ve received in the mail and a book for the library book club.

What are you reading?

Echoes Between Us- Katie McGarry

Echoes Between Us is bestselling author Katie McGarry’s breakout teen contemporary novel about a girl with everything to lose and the boy who will do anything to save her.

Veronica sees ghosts. More specifically, her mother’s ghost. The afterimages of blinding migraines caused by the brain tumor that keeps her on the fringes and consumes her whole life haunt her, even as she wonders if it’s something more…

Golden boy Sawyer is handsome and popular, a state champion swimmer, but his adrenaline addiction draws him to Veronica.

A girl with nothing to live for and a boy with everything to lose–can they conquer their demons together?

Infinity Son- Adam Silvera

Balancing epic and intensely personal stakes, bestselling author Adam Silvera’s Infinity Son is a gritty, fast-paced adventure about two brothers caught up in a magical war generations in the making.

Growing up in New York, brothers Emil and Brighton always idolized the Spell Walkers—a vigilante group sworn to rid the world of specters. While the Spell Walkers and other celestials are born with powers, specters take them, violently stealing the essence of endangered magical creatures.

Brighton wishes he had a power so he could join the fray. Emil just wants the fighting to stop. The cycle of violence has taken a toll, making it harder for anyone with a power to live peacefully and openly. In this climate of fear, a gang of specters has been growing bolder by the day.

Then, in a brawl after a protest, Emil manifests a power of his own—one that puts him right at the heart of the conflict and sets him up to be the heroic Spell Walker Brighton always wanted to be.

Brotherhood, love, and loyalty will be put to the test, and no one will escape the fight unscathed.

All the Bright Places- Jennifer Niven

The Fault in Our Stars meets Eleanor and Park in this exhilarating and heart-wrenching love story about a girl who learns to live from a boy who intends to die.

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Elle Fanning!

Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.

Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.

When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.

This is an intense, gripping novel perfect for fans of Jay Asher, Rainbow Rowell, John Green, Gayle Forman, and Jenny Downham from a talented new voice in YA, Jennifer Niven.

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