First Look at Library of Souls

 

Penguin Random House provided Books-A-Million with Advanced Reader Copies (ARC) of the first 2 chapters of Library of Souls, the newest book in the series Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children. I was skeptical when I received my copy. In my review of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, I recommended that no one should waste their time reading it. I have yet to read Hollow City, the 3rd book in the series. But after reading the excerpt of Library of Souls, I think I'd continue the series. Library of Souls picks up with Jacob, Emma, and Addison trying to avoid being killed by the hollow when Jacob realizes he can control it by speaking in a language quite foreign to him. They must get away and find the other Peculiars. They travel by train car to a comic convention, where they fit in quite nicely I must say. Eventually the board a boat to The Devil's Acre with old man Sharon as their guide. Will Jacob and Emma find their friends? Will Addison find his ymbryne? What will become of the Peculiars? Find out on September 22nd!

Elsewhere

 

Today I found a copy of a book that I read many, many years ago. Elsewhere definitely keeps a place warm in my heart. Now it's been quite a few years since I've read this, so bear with me. This novel is what sparked my interest in reincarnation and made my mother incredibly upset. 

Elsewhere starts with Liz. Liz is the victim of a hit and run and takes some time to process that she is actually dead. She arrives in the afterlife greeted by a grandmother that died before she was born but looks so, so young. The rundown in the afterlife, or Elsewhere if you will, is that after death you begin aging backwards. If you die at 27, you spend 27 years Elsewhere before being shipped down S.S. Nile to be born again and start your new life. Honestly, I don't remember the specifics of this novel, but I know 12 year old me loved it. Hopefully I'll have a chance to re-read this to share with all of you. :)

Triangles

3 friends, 3 different stories, 3 different lives intersect. Andrea and Marissa are sisters, each with their own marriage struggles. Andrea is divorced with a teenage daughter; whereas Marissa has a husband that is never around, a gay son, an a very special daughter with SMA with not much longer to live. Next is Holly, who I think is absolutely addicted to sex. She's gotten tired with her life at home, loving husband and 3 children (one of whom is pregnant) when Holly tries her hand at writing... Not just writing, but writing erotica when she falls "in love" with Bryan from her writing group and she begins "swinging" with him and including him as characters in her novels. When Holly's husband, Jace, finds out he goes to his good friend Andrea, who also happens to be Holly's best friend. But guess what? In all of Jace's despair, he sleeps with Andrea! On the flip side in Marissa's hospital smelling house, Shelby is slowly dying and Christian is finally coming to his senses. Does he like his son's sexuality? Absolutely not. Does he want to be there to make his daughter's last few hours enjoyable? Absolutely. But the tell-all question, does Shelby's death bring Marissa and Christian back together? That's up for the reader to decide!

What I love about this novel is that Ellen Hopkins has written Triangles through the eyes of mothers. Not just any mothers, the mothers of the children in her young adult novel, Tilt. The way she ties all of her novels together never ceases to amaze me. I applaud you! 

Looking for more books by Ellen Hopkins?

 

Middle-Grade:

Closer to Nowhere

What About Will

Teen:

Crank Trilogy

 Flirtin' with the Monster

Rumble

Burned

Smoke

Tricks

Traffick

The You I've Never Known 
People Kill People

Adult Fiction:

Love Lies Beneath
A Sin Such as This

Collateral

 Anthologies:

One Death, Nine Stories

Behind the Song 
Life Inside My Mind

Dreamseller

Brandon Novak, dreamseller, heroin addict. 

This addiction memoir is on of the best memoirs I've read. Instead of telling us about how he wants to get clean but can't, he tells us about how terrible it was when he needed a fix. Within the first 20 pages, he's selling his body to an old, married man just so he can get a little bit of heroin. The reoccurring theme in the book is that he threw away his life. He was a professional skateboarder on the Powell Peralta team! He was given that opportunity by his idol, Bucky Lasek. His childhood friend Bam Margera gave him countless opportunities to clean up and get back to skating but he threw it all away for a quick fix. What I loved about this memoir was the way we learned about Brandon. We hear all of these stories when he begins meeting with his rehabilitation counselor. We know his fears, we know his ambitions, we want him to recover. 

Brandon Novak, at 29 years old was finally clean. 

But July 31, 2015, Novak had a message for recovering addicts: