Current TBR shelf: 3503
Last week's TBR shelf: 3513
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?
Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
'R' is a zombie. He has no name, no memories and no pulse, but he has dreams. He is a little different from his fellow Dead.
Amongst the ruins of an abandoned city, R meets a girl. Her name is Julie and she is the opposite of everything he knows - warm and bright and very much alive, she is a blast of colour in a dreary grey landscape. For reasons he can't understand, R chooses to save Julie instead of eating her, and a tense yet strangely tender relationship begins.
This has never happened before. It breaks the rules and defies logic, but R is no longer content with life in the grave. He wants to breathe again, he wants to live, and Julie wants to help him. But their grim, rotting world won't be changed without a fight...
I remember that this got a film adaptation years ago and I do own a copy, a free mass market papaerback I got in a magazine. I don't think I'll end up reading it though as I HATE mass market paperbacks, they're just awkward to read. Maybe I'll borrow a copy from the library but who knows?
Verdict: Remove
Dead Connection by Charlie Price
Murray, a loner who communes with the dead in the town cemetery, hears the voice of a murdered cheerleader and tries to convince the adults that he knows what happened to her. But who believes him? He's a loser. Can he even believe in himself? Also comes Pearl, the daughter of the cemetery caretaker, who befriends Murray and tries to enter his world. Together they may prove the astonishing possibility that Nikki is closer than anyone thinks.
I like the sound of being able to communicate with ghosts in a cemetery but it also seems like it's going to be a bang average book in terms of execution and writing.
Verdict: Remove
Boot Camp by Todd Strasser
In the middle of the night Garrett is taken from his home to Harmony Lake, a boot camp for troubled teens. Maybe some kids deserve to be sent there, but Garrett knows he doesn't. Subjected to brutal physical and psychological abuse, he tries to fight back, but the battle is futile. He won't be allowed to leave until he's admitted his "mistakes" and conformed to Harmony Lake's standards of behavior. And there's no way to fake it. Beaten, humiliated, and stripped of his pride, Garrett's spirit is slowly ebbing away. Then he hears whispers of an escape plot. It's incredibly risky -- if he's caught, the consequences will be unthinkable -- but it may be his only way out.
I don't know much about behavior modification programs and what they entail so I think this could be an interesting look into the brutality of them.
Verdict: Keep
Bonechiller by Graham McNamee
WELCOME TO NOWHERE.
Danny's dad takes a job as caretaker at a marina on the shore of a vast, frozen lake in Harvest Cove, a tiny town tucked away in Canada's Big Empty. If you're looking for somewhere to hide, this is it.
It's the worst winter in years. One night, running in the dark, Danny is attacked by a creature so strange and terrifying he tries to convince himself he was hallucinating. Then he learns about Native American legends of a monster that's haunted the lake for a thousand years. And that every generation, in the coldest winters, kids have disappeared into the night. People think they ran away.
Danny knows better. Because now the beast is after him.
This sounds creepy and atmospheric and I like the sound of the Native American legends being weaved into the story.
Verdict: Keep
The Strangler by William Landay
For the three Daley brothers, sons of a Boston cop, crime is the family business. They are simply on different sides of it. Joe is the eldest, a tough-talking cop whose gambling habits—fast women, slow horses—drag him down into the city’s gangland. Michael is the middle son; a Harvard-educated lawyer working for an ambitious attorney general, he finds himself assigned to the embattled Strangler task force. And Ricky, the devil-may-care youngest son, floats above the fray as an expert burglar—until the Strangler strikes too close to home.
As Joe’s mob debts close in around him . . . and Michael becomes snarled in a murder investigation gone very wrong . . . and Ricky is hunted by both sides of the law, the three brothers—and the women who love them—are forced to take sides. Now each must look deeper into a killer’s murderous rage, into their family’s own lethal secrets, and into the one death that has changed them forever.
Whilst I do like the sound of this one - historical mystery thriller based on a true story aka right up my alley - I think right now I'm more intrigued by Defending Jacob by this author.
Verdict: Remove
The Brothers Torres by Coert Voorhees
Frankie Towers has always looked up to his older brother, Steve, and with good reason. Steve is a popular senior who always gets what he wants: girls, a soccer scholarship, and--lately--street cred. Frankie, on the other hand, spends his time shooting off fireworks with his best friend Zach, working at his parents' restaurant, and obsessing about his longtime crush, Rebecca Sanchez.
Frankie has reservations about Steve's crusade to win the respect of the local cholos. He doesn't think about them, though, until he gets into a fist fight John Dalton the richest, preppiest kid in his New Mexican high school, and longtime nemesis of Steve. After the fight, Steve takes Frankie under his wing and Frankie's social currency begins to rise. The cholos who used to ignore him start to recognize him; he even lands a date to Homecoming with Rebecca.
The situation with Dalton continues to simmer, and after another incident Steve is bent on retaliating. Frankie starts to think that his brother is taking this respect thing too far. He may have to choose between respecting his brother and respecting himself.
I always feel bad for removing books like this cause there's nothing especially wrong with them it's just I know I'll never get round to reading them cause there's isn't that pull.
Verdict: Remove
Big Fat Manifesto by Susan Vaught
Jamie is a senior in high school and, like so many kids in that year, doing too much--including trying to change the world--and fighting for her rights as a very fat girl. And not quietly: she's writing a column every week in the paper with her thoughts and fears and gripes. As her column raises all kinds of questions, so too, must she find her own private way in her world, with love popping up in an unexpected place, and satisfaction in her size losing ground to real frustration.
Apparently you either love this book or hate it. I think that the actual plot of revolving around a fat girl and her experience with her weight will be interesting but a few nit-picky things people have mentioned in reviews means that this will probably only be one I'd check out of the library.
Verdict: Remove
The Last Exit to Normal by Michael Harmon
It’s true: After 17-year-old Ben’s father announces he’s gay and the family splits apart, Ben does everything he can to tick him off: skip school, smoke pot, skateboard nonstop, get arrested. But he never thinks he’ll end up yanked out of his city life and plunked down into a small Montana town with his dad and Edward, The Boyfriend. As if it’s not painful enough living in a hick town with spiked hair, a skateboard habit, and two dads, he soon realizes something’s not quite right with Billy, the boy next door. He’s hiding a secret about his family, and Ben is determined to uncover it and set things right.
This sounds like it could be a fun LGBTQ+ book although it already looks and feels very late 2000's!
Verdict: Keep
Tales of the Madman Underground by John Barnes
Wednesday, September 5, 1973: The first day of Karl Shoemaker's senior year in stifling Lightsburg, Ohio. For years, Karl's been part of what he calls "the Madman Underground" - a group of kids forced (for no apparent reason) to attend group therapy during school hours. Karl has decided that senior year is going to be different. He is going to get out of the Madman Underground for good. He is going to act - and be - Normal. But Normal, of course, is relative. Karl has five after-school jobs, one dead father, one seriously unhinged drunk mother . . . and a huge attitude. Welcome to a gritty, uncensored rollercoaster ride, narrated by the singular Karl Shoemaker.
For a YA contemporary/historical, this book is long! 532 pages long! Saying that the rave reviews have me very intrigued.
Verdict: Keep
Fat Cat by Robin Brande
An experiment so bold, anyone might think it was a little crazy...
Catherine Locke is smart, ambitious, and--okay, not the slimmest girl around. But she's always cared more about her brain than her body. So far that's gotten her where she wanted: into the most advanced, competitive science class at her high school, where she'll once again face her fiercest rival, Matt McKinney.
The guy who once broke her heart.
If Cat's plan works, she'll win it all: a huge improvement in her body and her lifestyle, first prize at the science fair, admission to the college of her choice, and best of all, revenge on Matt McKinney.
But as every scientist knows, even the best experiments can go wildly out of control...
I was a little worried that this was going to be a book about a fat girl losing weight for the wrong reasons but from people I follow, it seems like this is a lot more positive and witty then I first thought.
Verdict: Keep
This Week:
Kept: 5
Removed: 5
Overall:
Kept: 243
Removed: 536
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