Books and Ladders: diverse reads 2017

Showing posts with label diverse reads 2017. Show all posts

17 Jan 2017

ARC #Review: HISTORY IS ALL YOU LEFT ME by Adam Silvera

Jamie @ Books and Ladders 17 January 2 Comments

HISTORY IS ALL YOU LEFT ME

Author: Adam Silvera
Series: N/A
Source: ARC via B&N
Publisher: Soho Teen
Publication Date: January 17, 2017
Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Summary:
When Griffin’s first love and ex-boyfriend, Theo, dies in a drowning accident, his universe implodes. Even though Theo had moved to California for college and started seeing Jackson, Griffin never doubted Theo would come back to him when the time was right. But now, the future he’s been imagining for himself has gone far off course.

To make things worse, the only person who truly understands his heartache is Jackson. But no matter how much they open up to each other, Griffin’s downward spiral continues. He’s losing himself in his obsessive compulsions and destructive choices, and the secrets he’s been keeping are tearing him apart.

If Griffin is ever to rebuild his future, he must first confront his history, every last heartbreaking piece in the puzzle of his life.

Purchase:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book and chose to review it. This in no way impacts my opinion.

I feel like this is one of those books that is hard to not like but at the same time I wasn't over the moon about it? I liked the plot, the pacing, the way the story was told via flashbacks, but I wasn't a fan of the characters at all. I'm definitely in the minority even though I definitely enjoyed it because I don't think this is one that I would recommend to everyone like I do with some other books. It does make me more interested in reading MORE HAPPY THAN NOT because I liked the writing style and the overall storytelling which I hope will translate into every book that Silvera writes.

9 Jan 2017

#Review: FLYING LESSONS AND OTHER STORIES edited by Ellen Oh

Jamie @ Books and Ladders 09 January 0 Comments

FLYING LESSONS AND OTHER STORIES

Author: edited by Ellen Oh
Series: N/A
Source: Purchased from Amazon
Publisher: Crown Books For Young Readers
Publication Date: January 3, 2017
Rating: 3.75/5 stars

Summary:
Whether it is basketball dreams, family fiascos, first crushes, or new neighborhoods, this bold anthology—written by the best children’s authors—celebrates the uniqueness and universality in all of us.

In a partnership with We Need Diverse Books, industry giants Kwame Alexander, Soman Chainani, Matt de la Peña, Tim Federle, Grace Lin, Meg Medina, Walter Dean Myers, Tim Tingle, and Jacqueline Woodson join newcomer Kelly J. Baptist in a story collection that is as humorous as it is heartfelt. This impressive group of authors has earned among them every major award in children’s publishing and popularity as New York Times bestsellers.

From these distinguished authors come ten distinct and vibrant stories.

Purchase:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD

This was such a good anthology of stories and they were all diverse which makes them that much better. I have a love-hate relationship with anthologies in general because I feel like short stories sometimes try to do too much with the little bit of room they have and some of the stories fell prey to that. But I think this anthology is great and has some really fantastic short stories that everyone should read in it. I highly recommend it and am glad that I started my reading year off with this!

4 Jan 2017

#DiverseReads2017 TBR!

Jamie @ Books and Ladders 04 January 2 Comments

If you don't already know, the lovely Mishma from Chasing Faerytales and Shelly from Read.Sleep.Repeat. are hosting a 2017 Reading Challenge to increase everyone's diverse reading. I am so happy and excited to say that I will be participating in this reading challenge and am officially announcing my TBR. The end of 2016 was hectic with the #12DaysOfDiversity readathon so I am only doing this now because time got away from me.

This challenge has optional themed months that I will TRY to participate in, but it might end up just being a free for all for me. My goal is 50 books out of the 104 I am challenging myself to read this year, but I am hoping to do more. I am trying to read books I own before buying new ones and I was a Bad Person and did not think about diversity prior to now so I will be relying on library and gifts and my pre-orders to get me through the year.

The girls have put together a temporary/to be added to recommendation list that you can check out. All of them are divided by month/theme so you can either follow along with the theme or just read whatever you want.

I'm only listing the monthly books I hope to read + any others that I know I have and/or have pre-ordered and will be updating my Reading Challenge progress both for this and my reading challenge at the end of every month so you can see what I actually ended up reading and what I "plan" to read in the next month.