Down the TBR Hole #24

Current TBR shelf: 3886

Last week's TBR shelf: 3892

The rules   

1. Go to your goodreads to-read shelf.
2. Order on ascending date added.
3. Take the first 5 (or 10 (or even more!) if you’re feeling adventurous) books. Of course if you do this weekly, you start where you left off the last time.
4. Read the synopses of the books
5. Decide: keep it or should it go?

 

Wild Roses by Deb Caletti

 

Seventeen-year-old Cassie Morgan lives with a time bomb, a.k.a. her stepfather, Dino Cavalli. To the public, Dino is a world-renowned violin player and composer. To Cassie, he’s an erratic, self-centered bully. And he’s getting worse. Dino no longer sleeps, and he grows increasingly paranoid. Before, Cassie was angry. Now she is afraid.

Enter Ian Waters: a brilliant young violinist, and Dino’s first-ever student. The minute Cassie lays eyes on Ian she knows she’s doomed to fall head-over-heels in love with him.

Cassie thought she understood that love could bring pain, but this union will have consequences she could not have imagined.

 

Still stands from last week that there are other Deb Caletti books that I want to try out first.

Verdict: Remove

Battle Dress by Amy Efaw

 

Andi Davis is looking for an escape from her disorganized, dysfunctional home life, and West Point seems the only logical way out. Andi figures that given everything she has had to put up with at home, West Point will be a breeze. But nothing could have prepared her for the first six weeks of cadet training, better known as Beast. Andi is screamed at, belittled, and worn down during the long, grueling training that is designed to break cadets and then rebuild them into soldiers. The upper class cadets bark orders so fast that her head spins, and the fact that she is one of only two girls in her platoon makes things even more difficult. But Andi decides that anything is better than going home, anything.

 

Part of me wants to keep this one on here because I do really like the sound of a girl at a military academy but realistically I don't see myself picking it up. 

Verdict: Remove

Fly Me to the Moon by Alyson Noel

 

When flight attendant Hailey Lane learns the rest of her trip has been cancelled and she can fly straight home to spend her birthday with her boyfriend Michael, she's thrilled. Her early arrival will allow for some additional date night prep time, a definite bonus as she's convinced Michael is about to propose. But when she walks through the door, the surprise that awaits her is not at all what she expected. And as she grabs her bags and flees the scene one thing is clear-her entire future has just been rerouted. So Hailey does the only thing she can: she sets out on a worldwide trip to fix a broken heart. And thanks to free flight passes and long layovers in exotic locales, she finds herself with more options than she could have ever imagined...

 

This seems like a pretty much generic chick lit type novel and not the type of thing I'm particularly inclined to pick up regularly. Also, I was about 13 when I added this so not sure what I was thinking 😂

Verdict: Remove

Cruel Summer by Alyson Noel

 

Having recently discarded her dorky image--and the best friend that went with it--Colby Cavendish is looking forward to a long hot season of parties, beach BBQ's, and hopefully, more hook-ups with Levi Bonham, the hottest guy in school. But her world comes crashing down when her parents send her away to spend the summer in Greece with her crazy aunt Tally.

Stranded on a boring island with no malls, no cell phone reception, and an aunt who talks to her plants, Colby worries that her new friends have forgotten all about her. But when she meets Yannis, a cute Greek local, everything changes. She experiences something deeper and more intense than a summer fling, and it forces her to see herself, and the life she left behind, in a whole new way.

 

The main character sounds like a total brat and I'm already annoyed at her just from the synopsis...

Verdict: Remove

Laguna Cove by Alyson Noel

 

Moving to sunny Southern Cal feels like punishment to 17-year-old Anne. The hippie-ish school is different from her old one on the East Coast, and the social scene is all about hanging out at the beach and surfing. And then there's Ellie: beautiful, competitive queen of the social scene who takes an instant disliking to Anne. So when Chris--one of Ellie's oldest friends and, oh yeah, the most gorgeous guy in school--reaches out to Anne and offers to teach her how to surf, sparks fly...in more ways than one ...

 

Apparently after reading Evermore when I was 13, I went through a phase of adding every single one of Alyson Noel's books to my TBR. As a 24 year old though this sounds so boring.   

 

Verdict: Remove

 

How to Steal a Car by Pete Hautman

 

Some girls act out by drinking or doing drugs. Some girls act out by sleeping with guys. Some girls act out by starving themselves or cutting themselves. Some girls act out by being a bitch to other girls.

Not Kelleigh. Kelleigh steals cars.

 

I could see myself grabbing this in my school library if I wanted something short when I was a teenager but probably not my thing anymore.

 

Verdict: Remove

 

The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson

 

"Their friendship went so far back, it bordered on the Biblical -- in the beginning, there was Nina and Avery and Mel." So says high school senior Nina Bermudez about herself and her two best friends, nicknamed "The Bermudez Triangle" by a jealous wannabe back on Nina's eleventh birthday. But the threesome faces their first separation when Nina goes away the summer before their senior year. And in ten short weeks, everything changes.

Nina returns home bursting with stories about Steve, the quirky yet adorable eco-warrior she fell for hard while away. But when she asks her best friends about their summer romances, an awkward silence follows.

Nina soon learns the shocking truth when she sees Mel and Avery...kissing. Their friendship is rocked by what feels like the ultimate challenge. But it's only the beginning of a sometimes painful, sometimes funny, always gripping journey as three girls discover who they are and what they really want.

 

Interested but not enough that I desperately need to read it right this second although I am intrigued by the fact that in 2006 publishers were advertising waterproof books! 

 

Verdict: Remove

 

Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta    

 

Taylor is leader of the boarders at the Jellicoe School. She has to keep the upper hand in the territory wars and deal with Jonah Griggs - the enigmatic leader of the cadets, and someone she thought she would never see again.

And now Hannah, the person Taylor had come to rely on, has disappeared. Taylor's only clue is a manuscript about five kids who lived in Jellicoe eighteen years ago. She needs to find out more, but this means confronting her own story, making sense of her strange, recurring dream, and finding her mother - who abandoned her on the Jellicoe Road.

 

This is such a beloved book and one that I think I'll really enjoy. Plus, I really want to read more Australian literature.

 

Verdict: Keep

 

I Love You, Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle

 

Denis Cooverman didn't want to give a typical graduation speech, cherishing memories and embracing challenges and crap. So, instead, he stood up in front of his 512 class-mates and their 3,000 relatives and said some-thing really important:

"I love you, Beth Cooper."

It would have been such a sweet, romantic moment. Except that:

Beth, the head cheerleader, has only the vaguest idea who Denis is.

And Denis, the captain of the debate team, is so far out of her league he is barely even the same species.

And then there's Kevin, Beth's remarkably large boyfriend, in town on furlough from the United States Army.

Complications ensue.

 

This was probably great back in 2007 but I really disliked the film and therefore I have no interest in reading the original material.

Verdict: Remove

Fancy White Trach by Marjetta Geerling

 

Finding love is simple with the One True Love Plan.

If only life were as easy as your sisters. Abby's heard that one before. And it's true. Shelby and Kait aren't exactly prim and proper. Abby is determined not to follow in their footsteps, so she has created the One True Love Plan. The most important part of the plan is Rule #1: Find Someone New. This means finding a guy who hasn't already dated Shelby or Kait. But when Abby starts falling for the possible father of Kait's baby, she has to figure out if some rules are meant to be broken.

This sounds like a mess but not one that's really making me sit up and take notice.

 

Verdict: Remove

 

This Week:

Kept: 1

Removed: 9 

Overall: 

 

Kept: 89

Removed: 154