Current TBR shelf: 3861
Last week's TBR shelf: 3865
The rules
- Go to your goodreads to-read shelf.
- Order on ascending date added.
- 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.
- Read the synopses of the books
- Decide: keep it or should it go?
Restoring Harmony by Joelle Anthony
The year is 2041. Sixteen-year-old Molly McClure has lived a relatively quiet life on an isolated farming island in Canada, but when her family fears the worst may have happened to her grandparents in the US, Molly must brave the dangerous, chaotic world left after global economic collapse. One of massive oil shortages, rampant crime, and abandoned cities. Molly is relieved to find her grandparents alive in their Portland suburb, but they are financially ruined and practically starving. What should have been a quick trip turns into a full-fledged rescue mission. And when Molly witnesses something the local crime bosses wishes she hadn't, Molly's only way home may be to beat them at their own game. Luckily, there's a handsome stranger who's willing to help.
Dystopian isn't a genre I typically reach for but a lot of people have described it as engaging and easy to read so that for me sounds like the perfect book in this genre.
Verdict: Keep
Nothing by Janne Teller
When Pierre-Anthon realizes there is no meaning to life, the seventh-grader leaves his classroom, climbs a tree, and stays there. His classmates cannot make him come down, not even by pelting him with rocks. So to prove to Pierre-Anthon that life has meaning, the children decide to give up things of importance. The pile starts with the superficial—a fishing rod, a new pair of shoes. But as the sacrifices become more extreme, the students grow increasingly desperate to get Pierre-Anthon down, to justify their belief in meaning. Sure to prompt intense thought and discussion, Nothing—already a treasured work overseas—is not to be missed.
This sounds like such an interesting and thought provoking read, not sure I've ever heard of a similar premise before so definitely one I want to pick up.
Verdict: Keep
Blue Bloods Series #1-3 by Melissa De La Cruz
When the Mayflower set sail in 1620, it carried on board the men and women who would shape America: Miles Standish; John Alden; Constance Hopkins. But some among the Pilgrims were not pure of heart; they were not escaping religious persecution. Indeed, they were not even human. They were vampires. The vampires assimilated quickly into the New World. Rising to levels of enormous power, wealth, and influence, they were the celebrated blue bloods of American society.
The Blue Bloods vowed that their immortal status would remain a closely guarded secret. And they kept that secret for centuries. But now, in New York City, the secret is seeping out. Schuyler Van Alen is a sophomore at a prestigious private school. She prefers baggy, vintage clothes instead of the Prada and pearls worn by her classmates, and she lives with her reclusive grandmother in a dilapated mansion. Schuyler is a loner...and happy that way. Suddenly, when she turns fifteen, there is a visible mosaic of blue veins on her arm. She starts to crave raw food and she is having flashbacks to ancient times. Then a popular girl from her school is found dead... drained of all her blood. Schuyler doesn't know what to think, but she wants to find out the secrets the Blue Bloods are keeping. But is she herself in danger?
I don't care about vampires in the YA paranormal romance genre 🤷 plus, this is a seven book long series and I am not committing for that long on a book that I don't think I'll even enjoy.
Verdict: Remove
Exit Strategy by Ryan Potter
Looming above Zach Ramsey's hometown of Blaine are the smokestacks of the truck assembly plant, the greasy lifeblood of this Detroit suburb. Surrounded by drunks, broken marriages, and factory rats living in fear of the pink slip, Zach is getting the hell out of town after graduation. But first, he's going to enjoy the summer before senior year.
Getting smashed with his best friend Tank and falling in love for the first time, Zach's having a blast until he uncovers dark secrets that shake his faith in everyone--including Tank, a wrestler whose violent mood swings betray a shocking habit.
As he gets pulled deeper into an ugly scandal, Zach is faced with the toughest decision of his life--one that will prove just what kind of adult he's destined to be.
It's only got 70 reviews since it's release in 2010 and even then the average is only 3 stars. The premise doesn't interest me massively so overall one I'm gonna skip.
Verdict: Remove
Intertwined (Intertwined #1) by Gena Showalter
Most sixteen-year-olds have friends. Aden Stone has four human souls living inside him:
One can time travel.
One can raise the dead.
One can possess another human.
One can tell the future.
Everyone thinks he’s crazy, which is why he’s spent his entire life shuffled between mental institutions and juvie. All of that is about to change, however. For months Aden has been having visions of a beautiful girl—a girl who carries centuries-old secrets. A girl who will either save him or destroy him.
Together they’ll enter a dark world of intrigue and danger... but not everyone will come out alive.
More vampires but still not particularly interested.
Verdict: Remove
Back Home by Julia Keller
BACK HOME is the story of 13-year-old Rachel Ann "Brownie" Browning, whose family faces a tragic loss. Her father has just returned from the war in Iraq. He has suffered a traumatic brain injury--and is no longer the father she knew.
Keller's powerful and affecting novel explores important territory--the challenges faced by families of returning soldiers across America, many thousands of whom have suffered traumatic brain injuries.
I do like the sound of the synopsis but it's one I'd have to hunt down probably and realistically that's probably not gonna happen.
Verdict: Remove
Genesis by Bernard Beckett
Anax thinks she knows history. Her grueling all-day Examination has just begun, and if she passes, she’ll be admitted into the Academy—the elite governing institution of her utopian society. But Anax is about to discover that for all her learning, the history she’s been taught isn’t the whole story. And the Academy isn’t what she believes it to be. In this brilliant novel of dazzling ingenuity, Anax’s examination leads us into a future where we are confronted with unresolved questions raised by science and philosophy. Centuries old, these questions have gained new urgency in the face of rapidly developing technology. What is consciousness? What makes us human? If artificial intelligence were developed to a high enough capability, what special status could humanity still claim?
Another dystopian but so many people on Goodreads have raved about this book in their reviews so now I'm very intrigued by what makes this book so great.
Verdict: Keep
Tomorrow, When the War Began (Tomrrow #1) by John Marsden
When Ellie and her friends return from a camping trip in the Australian bush, they find things hideously wrong — their families are gone. Gradually they begin to comprehend that their country has been invaded and everyone in their town has been taken prisoner. As the reality of the situation hits them, they must make a decision — run and hide, give themselves up and be with their families, or fight back.
I've actually already read this book, and enjoyed it, Goodreads has just done that thing where it doesn't recognise when you've added different editions.
Verdict: Remove
Alice Liddell Hargreaves’s life has been a richly woven tapestry: As a young woman, wife, mother, and widow, she’s experienced intense passion, great privilege, and greater tragedy. But as she nears her eighty-first birthday, she knows that, to the world around her, she is and will always be only “Alice.” Her life was permanently dog-eared at one fateful moment in her tenth year–the golden summer day she urged a grown-up friend to write down one of his fanciful stories.
That story, a wild tale of rabbits, queens, and a precocious young child, becomes a sensation the world over. Its author, a shy, stuttering Oxford professor, does more than immortalize Alice–he changes her life forever. But even he cannot stop time, as much as he might like to. And as Alice’s childhood slips away, a peacetime of glittering balls and royal romances gives way to the urgent tide of war.
For Alice, the stakes could not be higher, for she is the mother of three grown sons, soldiers all. Yet even as she stands to lose everything she treasures, one part of her will always be the determined, undaunted Alice of the story, who discovered that life beyond the rabbit hole was an astonishing journey.
I love Alice in Wonderland and whilst not quite a retelling, this book takes aspects of the fictional story and blends it with the real life events, something which I haven't read before.
Verdict: Keep
How to Take the Ex Out of Ex-Boyfriend by Janette Rallison
Sixteen-year-old Giovanna Petrizzo finds it hard enough to fit in. Three years since her family moved to Texas, she's still the newcomer compared to everyone around her. It doesn't help matters when her twin brother, Dante, takes on the mayor's son by running for class president. The least she could expect, though, would be for her boyfriend, Jesse, to support their cause. But Jesse's apparent defection triggers Giovanna's rash emotional side, and before she knows it, she's turned Jesse from the boy of her dreams to the ex-boyfriend she dreams of winning back.
Typical YA contemporary romance that I don't feel is a must-read for me anymore.
Verdict: Remove
This Week:
Kept: 4
Removed: 9
Overall:
Kept: 101
Removed: 184
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