I attended BookExpo America 2014. (Wow, doesn’t that feel like ages ago?) However, I’m sad to report that there are SO many books from BEA that I haven’t even read yet! I picked up 19 books in total and there are still 11 that I haven’t read! Isn’t that horrible?
Hopefully you guys can help me decide if there are any in this pile that are still worth picking up!
The Wedding Contract by H.M. Ward
After I get the witch at the front desk to hand me my room key, I head for the shower. I was supposed to shoot my best friend’s wedding alone, and I couldn’t wait to escape New York and Nick Ferro.
Yeah, he’s beautiful, sexy, and completely charming, but he’s stealing my clients. He’s done so much damage that I’m going to be lucky if I can keep my studio open for a couple of weeks. This wedding means everything to me, and I refuse to let a spoiled brat with a shiny new MBA put me out of business. Screw that.
But then I find myself wearing nothing but a smile when the person I hate most walks through the hotel room door. Nick Ferro. Two adversaries, shooting one wedding and sharing one room for one week. What could possibly go wrong?
Now that I’m mentioning this book, I actually find myself thinking, “Why the hell haven’t you read this yet??” This seems like the kind of book I’d really enjoy right now. Photography, romance, weddings… I want in on this! Must read!
The Walled City by Ryan Graudin
730. That’s how many days I’ve been trapped.
18. That’s how many days I have left to find a way out.DAI, trying to escape a haunting past, traffics drugs for the most ruthless kingpin in the Walled City. But in order to find the key to his freedom, he needs help from someone with the power to be invisible….
JIN hides under the radar, afraid the wild street gangs will discover her biggest secret: Jin passes as a boy to stay safe. Still, every chance she gets, she searches for her lost sister….
MEI YEE has been trapped in a brothel for the past two years, dreaming of getting out while watching the girls who try fail one by one. She’s about to give up, when one day she sees an unexpected face at her window…..
In this innovative and adrenaline-fueled novel, they all come together in a desperate attempt to escape a lawless labyrinth before the clock runs out.
If I’m being honest, I don’t think I was ever that excited about this book. It’s one of the books I grabbed because it was there and I was miiiiildly interested.
Have you read this book? Should I give it a chance?
Stone Cold Touch by Jennifer L. Armentrout (The Dark Elements #2)
Every touch has its price
Layla Shaw is trying to pick up the pieces of her shattered life—no easy task for a seventeen-year-old who’s pretty sure things can’t get worse. Her impossibly gorgeous best friend, Zayne, is forever off-limits thanks to the mysterious powers of her soul-stealing kiss. The Warden clan that has always protected her is suddenly keeping dangerous secrets. And she can barely think about Roth, the wickedly hot demon prince who understood her in ways no one else could.
But sometimes rock bottom is only the beginning. Because suddenly Layla’s powers begin to evolve, and she’s offered a tantalizing taste of what has always been forbidden. Then, when she least expects it, Roth returns, bringing news that could change her world forever. She’s finally getting what she always wanted, but with hell literally breaking loose and the body count adding up, the price may be higher than Layla is willing to pay…
Do you ever think, “Why, oh WHY did I get that book??” For me, that’s Stone Cold Touch. The main reason is that I haven’t read book one. I think when I picked it up I didn’t realize it was the second book in a series. I don’t think I’ll ever read this. *sigh*
Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth
The amazing power and truth of the Rapunzel fairy tale comes alive for the first time in this breathtaking tale of desire, black magic and the redemptive power of love.
French novelist Charlotte-Rose de la Force has been banished from the court of Versailles by the Sun King, Louis XIV, after a series of scandalous love affairs. At the convent, she is comforted by an old nun, Sœur Seraphina, who tells her the tale of a young girl who, a hundred years earlier, is sold by her parents for a handful of bitter greens…
After Margherita’s father steals parsley from the walled garden of the courtesan Selena Leonelli, he is threatened with having both hands cut off, unless he and his wife relinquish their precious little girl. Selena is the famous red-haired muse of the artist Tiziano, first painted by him in 1512 and still inspiring him at the time of his death. She is at the center of Renaissance life in Venice, a world of beauty and danger, seduction and betrayal, love and superstition.
Locked away in a tower, Margherita sings in the hope that someone will hear her. One day, a young man does.
Award-winning author Kate Forsyth braids together the stories of Margherita, Selena, and Charlotte-Rose, the woman who penned Rapunzel as we now know it, to create what is a sumptuous historical novel, an enchanting fairy tale retelling, and a loving tribute to the imagination of one remarkable woman.
Bitter Greens is one of those books I grabbed on a total whim. This year I was pretty good at only grabbing books I REALLY wanted, but all that went out the window with Bitter Greens. I just snatched it. Fairy tales, pretty cover… I didn’t think about it much, I was just kind of like MINE MINE MINE.
I don’t know if I’ll read this one… Just reading over the synopsis, I’m not SUPER intrigued, you know? Have you read it?
I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
A brilliant, luminous story of first love, family, loss, and betrayal for fans of John Green, David Levithan, and Rainbow Rowell
Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways . . . until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else—an even more unpredictable new force in her life. The early years are Noah’s story to tell. The later years are Jude’s. What the twins don’t realize is that they each have only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world.
This radiant novel from the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing—often all at once.
WHY DID I PICK YOU UP??? PLEASE TELL ME! WHY?!?!
Before even entering BEA on day one, I knew I wasn’t going to get this book. A few people were really excited about it and had talked about it a lot, and that’s awesome! But… I just knew this wasn’t a “me” book, you know? It didn’t interest me. I could tell from the synopsis that it wasn’t a book I was going to read.
Then… day one of BEA. The doors open, I go up the escalator, and the first pile of books I see? I’ll Give You the Sun. All thought and logic went out the window at the first sight of FREE BOOKS. I picked one up. Regretted it about 15 seconds later. WHYYYY?!?!
(And then why did I not just give it away? Logic, why have you abandoned me?)
This Shattered World (Starbound #2) by Amie Kaufman and Megan Spooner
The second installment in the epic Starbound trilogy introduces a new pair of star-crossed lovers on two sides of a bloody war.
Jubilee Chase and Flynn Cormac should never have met.
Lee is captain of the forces sent to Avon to crush the terraformed planet’s rebellious colonists, but she has her own reasons for hating the insurgents.
Rebellion is in Flynn’s blood. Terraforming corporations make their fortune by recruiting colonists to make the inhospitable planets livable, with the promise of a better life for their children. But they never fulfilled their promise on Avon, and decades later, Flynn is leading the rebellion.
Desperate for any advantage in a bloody and unrelentingly war, Flynn does the only thing that makes sense when he and Lee cross paths: he returns to base with her as prisoner. But as his fellow rebels prepare to execute this tough-talking girl with nerves of steel, Flynn makes another choice that will change him forever. He and Lee escape the rebel base together, caught between two sides of a senseless war.
Other than the whole View Spoiler » thing, I really liked These Broken Stars. But so far I just haven’t felt a strong urge to get started on This Shattered World. Bleh.
Zodiac by Romina Russell
At the dawn of time, there were 13 Houses in the Zodiac Galaxy. Now only 12 remain…
Rhoma Grace is a 16-year-old student from House Cancer with an unusual way of reading the stars. While her classmates use measurements to make accurate astrological predictions, Rho can’t solve for ‘x’ to save her life—so instead, she looks up at the night sky and makes up stories.
When a violent blast strikes the moons of Cancer, sending its ocean planet off-kilter and killing thousands of citizens—including its beloved Guardian—Rho is more surprised than anyone when she is named the House’s new leader. But, a true Cancrian who loves her home fiercely and will protect her people no matter what, Rho accepts.
Then, when more Houses fall victim to freak weather catastrophes, Rho starts seeing a pattern in the stars. She suspects Ophiuchus—the exiled 13th Guardian of Zodiac legend—has returned to exact his revenge across the Galaxy. Now Rho—along with Hysan Dax, a young envoy from House Libra, and Mathias, her guide and a member of her Royal Guard—must travel through the Zodiac to warn the other Guardians.
But who will believe anything this young novice says? Whom can Rho trust in a universe defined by differences? And how can she convince twelve worlds to unite as one Zodiac?
What happened here? Zodiac sounds cool. Now I kind of want to read it!
Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer
If life were fair, Jam Gallahue would still be at home in New Jersey with her sweet British boyfriend, Reeve Maxfield. She’d be watching old comedy sketches with him. She’d be kissing him in the library stacks.
She certainly wouldn’t be at The Wooden Barn, a therapeutic boarding school in rural Vermont, living with a weird roommate, and signed up for an exclusive, mysterious class called Special Topics in English.
But life isn’t fair, and Reeve Maxfield is dead.
Until a journal-writing assignment leads Jam to Belzhar, where the untainted past is restored, and Jam can feel Reeve’s arms around her once again. But there are hidden truths on Jam’s path to reclaim her loss.
From New York Times bestselling author Meg Wolitzer comes a breathtaking and surprising story about first love, deep sorrow, and the power of acceptance.
A lot of people I know gave this book two/three stars, and that just left me uninspired and unmotivated. I don’t think I’ll ever read this one. 🙁
I’m Glad I Did by Cynthia Weil
Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and songwriting legend Cynthia Weil’s extraordinary YA debut opens the secretive doors of the Brill Building-the hit factory that changed history. Part Mad Men, part Grace of my Heart, part murder mystery, I’m Glad I Did is a coming-of-age story at an unforgettable cultural tipping point: the summer of 1963.
JJ Greene, a gifted 16-year-old songwriter, defies her lawyer parents by secretly applying for a job in the famed Brill Building-the epicenter of songwriting for a new genre called rock-n-roll. But their warnings about the evils of the music industry prove far darker than she imagined when she finds herself at the heart of a cover-up that involves hidden identity, theft, and possibly murder.
I never planned to pick this one up. I heard about it during one of the panels and thought it sounded interesting. Maybe by the time the panel ended I just lost the excitement for it. Who knows!
Black Ice by Becca Fitzpatrick
Sometimes danger is hard to see… until it’s too late.
Britt Pfeiffer has trained to backpack the Teton Range, but she isn’t prepared when her ex-boyfriend, who still haunts her every thought, wants to join her. Before Britt can explore her feelings for Calvin, an unexpected blizzard forces her to seek shelter in a remote cabin, accepting the hospitality of its two very handsome occupants—but these men are fugitives, and they take her hostage.
In exchange for her life, Britt agrees to guide the men off the mountain. As they set off, Britt knows she must stay alive long enough for Calvin to find her. The task is made even more complicated when Britt finds chilling evidence of a series of murders that have taken place there… and in uncovering this, she may become the killer’s next target.
But nothing is as it seems in the mountains, and everyone is keeping secrets, including Mason, one of her kidnappers. His kindness is confusing Britt. Is he an enemy? Or an ally?
I knew Black Ice was going to be a hit or miss book, but I picked it up anyway. And oh maaan.. It has gotten some really ranty/snarky reviews from some of my close blogger friends. I think I’m afraid to even try to read it. 😛
Since You’ve Been Gone by Morgan Matson
The Pre-Sloane Emily didn’t go to parties, she barely talked to guys, she didn’t do anything crazy. Enter Sloane, social tornado and the best kind of best friend—the one who yanks you out of your shell.
But right before what should have been an epic summer, Sloane just… disappears. No note. No calls. No texts. No Sloane. There’s just a random to-do list. On it, thirteen Sloane-selected-definitely-bizarre-tasks that Emily would never try… unless they could lead back to her best friend.
Apple Picking at Night? Okay, easy enough.
Dance until Dawn? Sure. Why not?
Kiss a Stranger? Wait… what?
Getting through Sloane’s list would mean a lot of firsts. But Emily has this whole unexpected summer ahead of her, and the help of Frank Porter (totally unexpected) to check things off. Who knows what she’ll find?
Go Skinny Dipping? Um…
I have a confession to make. I actually started Since You’ve Been Gone at one point… and I didn’t finish it. I only got like 15 or 20 pages in. BUT! I don’t think it was because of the book. I was in kind of a slump at the time and NOTHING was grabbing me. So I think Since You’ve Been Gone just fell victim to that. But the fact that I put it down at all (even if it wasn’t the book’s fault) has made me afraid of picking it up again.
I should REALLY give it a proper chance though because it seems like everyone just adores this book!
Have you read any of these books?
I’d love it if you’d share your thoughts! Tell me if any of these are worth reading or if I should permanently put them aside.
And how about your BEA haul?
For all you BEA14 attendees: how many books did you pick up from BookExpo America and how many have you yet to read?
And what about BEA15?
I’M SO EXCITED FOR BEA 2015!!! I’ve actually already booked my flights so I’m definitely going! Is there anyone else out there who will be attending BEA15?
I just wish I could go to BEA but I don’t have the funds for such travel. 🙁 I have Black Ice but I haven’t tried it and it’s the only one out all those I have heard off.
Aww 🙁
I hope you like Black Ice if you decide to give it a try!
The first book of the Dark Elementals series was actually pretty great. You should try it.
Thanks, maybe I will! 🙂
For me Since You’ve Been Gone was kind of slow to get into, but once you get into it it’s really good. I liked it a lot- I’d say it’s worth reading.
Thanks a lot! I probably would love it if I just got into it… I just need to give it another chance!
I think I might go again. I was debating waiting until it comes to Chicago the following year since I won’t have to pay for hotel or air fare for that but I think I want to go. Only for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday though.
You totally should!!
And yeah, I totally agree about Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. There’s no way in hell I’m going to BookCon again X_X
I haven’t read any of these, but half of them are on my TBR. The Walled City is actually sitting on my tablet right now. I plan on reading it next week during Thanksgiving break.
I’m actually really jealous of the books you got from BEA. I probably won’t be able to go to a convention until I start college. Just a little longer… *sigh*
Ohh I can’t wait to see what you think of The Walled City!
You’ll love BEA if/when you get the chance to go. 😉
I (should) be there. I’ve booked a hotel with a good cancellation policy just in case, but my plan is to go. And after reading your BEA14 wrap up post I want to go even more! The galley drops are amazing! And some of those author signings? Swoon! OK, I’ll stop now. I just got all fangirly and that is so not me.
Awesome! Maybe I’ll see you there. 🙂 It’s absolutely incredible.. the books, the authors, the bloggers.. It’s like Disneyland for book lovers.
I’d love to go to BEA, but… it’s way too far away for me to be going. Right now at least. *sigh* Hotel rooms, flights, transportation, food, yeah… I’m going to try to go in 2016 though when it moves to Chicago. That’s much closer. 🙂
Wow, you know, you could still give I’ll Give You The Sun and Belzhar away 😉 I’m sure “someone” would appreciate them. Haha.
I totally don’t blame you for picking up I’ll Give You The Sun since it was the first stack of free books you saw. I would’ve been the same way.
I own Since You’ve Been Gone, which I was crazy about since it first came out, but still haven’t gotten around to reading it. I’m interested in reading the Starbound novels, The Walled City, which I got an E-ARC of, but it expired before I was able to read it, and of course, the two I mentioned above.
Aw 🙁 2016 isn’t too far away though! Hopefully you make it to that one. 🙂
Yeah I should give the books away. Maybe I’ll just offer them up for free if the person pays for shipping. 😛
Some of the books you mentioned I’m actually quite excited for!! I really enjoyed These Broken Stars, and so I can’t wait for the sequel. I’ve seen a few people reading it early and so far people have loved it! I’m also pretty excited to read Since You’ve Been Gone, since SO many of my friends have read and loved it. I hope you can get around to them soon!! I found Zodiac on Goodreads last week and dang, does that book sound good. Can’t wait to see what you think.
I’m so jealous that you’re going to BEA 2015!! I think I have finals during that time, so alas, can’t miss those. I am crossing my fingers for RT though, which is far closer to me. So we’ll see!
Lovely post. <3
Yeah I think I’ve been in a bit of a slump lately so nothing is exciting me. 🙁 I hate that! Especially because a lot of these books sound awesome and tons of people love them.
Grr, finals always ruin everything!! 😛 I hope you can make it to RT. 🙂
I’m reallllly hoping to make it to BEA15 next year, but my work calendar is looking a little crazy that week. I’m going to try my very best to make it happen because I know I will be heart-broken if I don’t go. Finger crossed!!
There are so many books from BEA that I haven’t read yet either. I have read some, too. I am debating if I really want to go next year. I mean, while I was there I was really excited, but afterwards, I’m wondering if it was worth it. Or I guess, I’m wondering if it is really worth it for me to go again.
I have that same, “Was it worth it?” feeling 6 months after BEA when I realize that I haven’t even read half (or more) of the books I picked up there.
But honestly, for me it’s mostly about meeting people and the atmosphere. Yes it’s nice to get books, but I can get those at any time. I really love connecting with other bloggers and just being in that environment.
I would love to go to BEA but I live in Europe and travelling to the US is quite expensive. You should definitively read Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer.
Thanks for the suggestion! 🙂
I really liked Since You’ve Been Gone … not my favourite Morgan Matson, but still super good. And I hated, HATED Black Ice …
I’ve stopped accepting review books lately since I just never read them … I’m way too much of a mood reader.
I’m totally a mood reader too. That’s actually why I love BEA. You get ARCs but without the feeling of obligation since you don’t have to send feedback/reviews back to the publisher. (Since it’s not a formal request, it’s just a free physical book.)
I haven’t read any of these books, but I know that I’ll never read Belzhar and Black Ice because I’ve read / heard so many mixed reviews on it. There’s so many books to read that I only want to read those that has 4+ stars on Goodreads right now.
Oh, I hope you read and love Bitter Greens. I was so surprised with how beautifully done it was and now Kate Forsyth’s books are on auto-buy for me.
Thanks for the recommendation! It’s nice to find someone who’s read the book, because I don’t think many book bloggers have. 🙂
I love all of Morgan Matson’s books and pretty much her as a person (not to mention her taste in music is impeccable) so I might be a tiny bit biased saying you should def read Since You’ve Been Gone. Yesterday, you should have read it yesterday. Seriously though, it took me longer to get into SYBG than it did her other books, BUT this might have also been because of a slump because it’s right on par with her other books. It’s absolutely fantastic. I am however sad to hear about Belzhar because man does that thing sound amazing.
I’ve just finished reading Zodiac and it is really good! It’s my most favourite book of the year and I would love to read your review. 🙂
P/S: The author has submitted the draft of Book 2 to the publisher and hopefully I’m able to receive the ARC soon!