Weekly Reads: Release

I have had Release on my TBR pile for over a year. In fact I think I had an ARC of the title, and just never got around to reading it, which stinks because I really enjoy Patrick Ness' books. This is another book that I wanted to make my way through before the Printz Award was announced in early February. I was reading a book every 2 to 3 days to try to get all the ones done I wanted.  I enjoyed this book, but it wasn't my favorite Patrick Ness book. There were two different storylines throughout the book that melded together at the end, but it still felt somewhat disjointed. I was really invested in Adam's story, and didn't care much for the additional storyline that wove through it. Still a worthwhile read.

My rating: 3.5 stars

Summary from goodreads:

Inspired by Mrs Dalloway and Judy Blume's Forever, Release is one day in the life of Adam Thorn, 17. It's a big day. Things go wrong. It's intense, and all the while, weirdness approaches...

Adam Thorn is having what will turn out to be the most unsettling, difficult day of his life, with relationships fracturing, a harrowing incident at work, and a showdown between this gay teen and his preacher father that changes everything. It's a day of confrontation, running, sex, love, heartbreak, and maybe, just maybe, hope. He won't come out of it unchanged. And all the while, lurking at the edges of the story, something extraordinary and unsettling is on a collision course.

Weekly Reads: We Are the Ants

I had heard quite a bit of buzz about We Are the Ants and I was so excited to get my hands on the book. And it did NOT disappoint. I think this book has such a strong chance at recognition from the Printz committee. I've been recommending it left and right at the library.

My rating: 5 stars

Summary from goodreads:

There are a few things Henry Denton knows, and a few things he doesn’t.

Henry knows that his mom is struggling to keep the family together, and coping by chain-smoking cigarettes. He knows that his older brother is a college dropout with a pregnant girlfriend. He knows that he is slowly losing his grandmother to Alzheimer’s. And he knows that his boyfriend committed suicide last year.

What Henry doesn’t know is why the aliens chose to abduct him when he was thirteen, and he doesn’t know why they continue to steal him from his bed and take him aboard their ship. He doesn’t know why the world is going to end or why the aliens have offered him the opportunity to avert the impending disaster by pressing a big red button.

But they have. And they’ve only given him 144 days to make up his mind.

The question is whether Henry thinks the world is worth saving. That is, until he meets Diego Vega, an artist with a secret past who forces Henry to question his beliefs, his place in the universe, and whether any of it really matters. But before Henry can save the world, he’s got to figure out how to save himself, and the aliens haven’t given him a button for that.

Weekly Reads: The Impossible Knife of Memory

The Impossible Knife of Memory is the newest book by Laurie Halse Anderson. I'd previously read Wintergirls and have had Speak on my list TBR forever. Halse Anderson has a way of drawing you in to her characters like no one else can. And when they hurt, you absolutely ache for them. I'm writing this with dried tears still on my cheeks. This book will leave you emotionally drained in only a way a truly excellent story can.

My rating: 4 stars.

Summary from goodreads:

For the past five years, Hayley Kincaid and her father, Andy, have been on the road, never staying long in one place as he struggles to escape the demons that have tortured him since his return from Iraq. Now they are back in the town where he grew up so Hayley can attend school. Perhaps, for the first time, Hayley can have a normal life, put aside her own painful memories, even have a relationship with Finn, the hot guy who obviously likes her but is hiding secrets of his own.

Will being back home help Andy’s PTSD, or will his terrible memories drag him to the edge of hell, and drugs push him over? The Impossible Knife of Memory is Laurie Halse Anderson at her finest: compelling, surprising, and impossible to put down.