BLOG TOUR: Pretty in Punxsutawny by Laurie Boyle Crompton

Thanks to FFBC Tours for including me on the Blink Summer Reading Tour.

Pretty In Punxsutawney

by Laurie Boyle Crompton

Publisher: Blink

Release date: January 22, 2019

Genre: Young Adult -- Contemporary, Romance

Summary: A mashup of Groundhog Day and Pretty in Pink, the book stars a senior who is forced to relive the first day at her new school in an endless loop. Andie is convinced she needs true love's kiss to break the curse, but instead discovers how a high school filled with cliques and misfits can find common ground despite everyone's differences.

BOOK LINKS

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36168849-pretty-in-punxsutawney

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2rdEb48

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pretty-in-punxsutawney-laurie-boyle-crompton/1128209537?#/

Book Depository: https://www.bookdepository.com/Pretty-in-Punxsutawney-Laurie-Boyle-Crompton/9780310762164

IndieBound: https://www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=Pretty+in+Punxsutawney

Review: A quick contemporary read that provides ALOT of second-hand embarrassment. Andie lives her life like a teen rom-com as they are her favorite kind of movies. She has just moved to a new town and instantly becomes infatuated with the "popular" guy who she befriends and thinks is going to be her true love and give her first kiss to.

The mom was a quirky character who seemed still stuck in her teenage life and was living vicariously through her daughter. Who the hell calls it a date when the guy who the daughter has an unhealthy obsession with drives her to school on the first day. This mom who is stuck in the '80s with her thrift store bargain dresses and pink leather couch.

I got Pretty in Pink meets Mean Girls. It was cringy throughout and I felt my cheeks getting hot and blushing for this character who is not very smart in choices. The one thing I did hate about this book is how she and Colton acted towards the goth and emo cliques. I hung out with those crowds in high school and I am still very good friends with most of them to this day.

Laurie Boyle Crompton is the YA author of the upcoming PRETTY IN PUNXSUTAWNEY (Blink/HarperCollins 2019) as well as ADRENALINE CRUSH (Macmillan/2014, Square Fish/2016), BLAZE (or Love in the Time of Supervillains), THE REAL PROM QUEENS OF WESTFIELD HIGH and LOVE AND VANDALISM (Sourcebooks/2013, 2014, 2017). Growing up in ‘Pennsyltucky’ in the 1980s, Laurie couldn't wait to escape rural life. After saving up her tips from waitressing at a local greasy spoon at 18 she packed up her acid wash jeans and moved to NY. Where everyone else had stopped wearing acid wash.

She graduated first in her class from St. John’s University with a BA in English and Journalism. Since then she’s written for national magazines like ALLURE, survived a teaching stint at an all-boy high school, and appeared on Good Day New York several times as a Toy Expert. And yes, ‘toy expert’ is an actual profession. Really.

She has lived in places like Orlando, Florida where she and her husband spent all of their spare time and money visiting theme parks before moving to the Cotswolds in England for six months, which was every bit as cool as that sounds. The Cromptons are now back in New York where their two children resent never going to Disney.

Laurie occasionally enjoys hanging out in fields of blooming flowers and also refering to herself in the third person.

Links:

Website: https://www.lboylecrompton.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lbcrompton

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lbcrompton/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laurie.b.crompton

TOUR-WIDE GIVEAWAY

Prize: 5 BLINK Summer Reading Tour Book Bundles (A Touch of Gold, Meet the Sky, No Place Like Here, Pretty In Punxsutawney, and Swing by Kwame Alexander) (USA)

Starts: 7/22/19

Ends: 8/9/19

Direct Link:

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/d9681b86375/?

BLOG TOUR: No Place Like Here by Christina June

Thank you so much to Fantastic Flying Book Club for considering me as a host for the Blink Summer Reading Tour.

No Place Like Here by Christina June

Publisher: BLINK

Release date: May 21, 2019

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Retelling

Synopsis: Ashlyn Zanotti has big plans for the summer. She’s just spent a year at boarding school and can’t wait to get home. But when Ashlyn’s father is arrested for tax evasion and her mother enters a rehab facility for “exhaustion,” a.k.a. depression, her life is turned upside down.

The cherry on top? Ashlyn’s father sends her to work with a cousin she doesn’t even know at a rustic team-building retreat center in the middle of nowhere. A self-proclaimed “indoor girl,” not even Ash’s habit of leaving breadcrumb quotes—inspirational sayings she scribbles everywhere—can help her cope.

With a dangerously careless camp manager doling out grunt work, an overbearing father trying to control her even from prison, and more than a little boy drama to struggle with, the summer is full of challenges. And Ashlyn must make the toughest decision of her life: keep quiet and follow her dad’s marching orders or find the courage to finally stand up to her father to have any hope of finding her way back home. 

Review: As someone who reads all day and can't stand heat waves, I am thankful that this book was short, fast and cute. It was a great summer read about a girl who just wants to survive, be seen and be heard. Ashlyn was a little annoying at a time with her flirtations and the love triangle took me back to high school where I was being two-timed by a guy. It did not sit well, but I found myself smiling at times because she was taking risks and it made me smile. I felt like her proud mom which is obviously better than her actual mom. 

BOOK LINKS

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37856233-no-place-like-here

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2LHHUnK

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/no-place-like-here-christina-june/1128931453?ean=9780310766926#/

Book Depository: https://www.bookdepository.com/No-Place-Like-Here-Christina-June/9780310766926?ref=grid-view&qid=1557882248351&sr=1-1

IndieBound: https://www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=No+Place+Like+Here

Christina June writes young adult contemporary fiction when she’s not writing college recommendation letters during her day job as a school counselor. She loves the little moments in life that help someone discover who they’re meant to become – whether it’s her students or her characters. Christina is a voracious reader, loves to travel, and hopes to one day be bicoastal – the east coast of the US and the east coast of Scotland. She lives just outside Washington DC with her husband and daughter.

She is the author of IT STARTED WITH GOODBYE, EVERYWHERE YOU WANT TO BE, and the forthcoming NO PLACE LIKE HERE.

Website: https://christinajune.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christinajuneya/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13987227.Christina_June

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/christinajuneya/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christinajuneya/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/christinajuneya/

TOUR-WIDE GIVEAWAY

Prize: 5 BLINK Summer Reading Tour Book Bundles (A Touch of Gold, Meet the Sky, No Place Like Here, Pretty In Punxsutawney, and Swing by Kwame Alexander) (USA)

Starts: 7/22/19

Ends: 8/9/19

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/d9681b86375/?

Review: Final Draft by Riley Redgate

I have no idea how to feel about this book. I think it was an ok read. I really enjoyed the character's writing personality and how passionate she was about her writing and storytelling, but it seemed to me that the author wanted to tell two different stories in one book and then just gave up along the way. The pacing was super slow and it is under 300 pages. I figured I would fly through this in a day or two and it took me 5 days to read this. I was bored most of the time and the characters were confusing and annoying.

We follow Laila through her senior year of high school, mostly her creative writing class. She is obsessed with this sci-fi show called The Rest and she writes sci-fi. It doesn't tell us in the book if she is creating her own stories, or if she is writing fan fiction. The only person she shows her work to is her creative writing teacher who suddenly gets killed off and the substitute teacher that gets brought in is an award-winning author who definitely has no place in a classroom. She does not do well to teach the class anything about the writing craft and she does not critique the student's work, automatically failing every student including Laila. 

This is an LGTBQIA+ novel.

Review: Curses & Smoke by Vicky Alvear Shecter

A few years ago Epic Reads put out an infographic that listed YA books through the beginning of time or ancient times to modern day. I had already read the first novel listed on the list, which was Sphinx's Princess and this was the second book listed. It takes place in Pompeii, months before Mt. Vesuvius erupts.

It is a historical romance between a rich Roman girl and a slave. This is the second book that I have read this month that had this trope and I am not mad one bit. This book is told from Lucia and Tages' perspectives. Lucia is concerned about the consistent tremblings underneath her feet and animal behavior and weather changes. Tages or Tag he just wants to become a Gladiator to become a freed man.

Lucia is betrothed to an older man and is doing everything she can to get out of the marriage. She and Tag reunite and plan to run away when the mountain erupts. The ending is not what I was expecting and I enjoyed all of the historical facts that the author included in the end.

Review: Walking The Nile by Levison Wood

I have watched this documentary 3 or 4 times. I absolutely LOVE it. Levison Wood is just an awesome explorer who takes a lot of risks. The humor that is in the show, there is only a little bit in the book. The book has what the documentary didn't show. The book also goes more into the depth of each countries history and how he felt being in the exact locations. 

It goes into the histories of the countries and how parts and "real" sources of the Nile River were founded. It talks about the Rwandan genocide, the war in the Congo, the civil wars that took place in South Sudan and the ongoing revolutions in Egypt.

He also goes fully into account of Matt Powers' death. Matt's death was shown in the documentary but not in full detail and not how much of a disaster they were in trying to get him to a safe place while he was dying.

This book will teach you all about Africa. Make you giggle about crocodiles. Teach you about the native African tribes. How politics, religion, and blood can start and amp up wars. 

A Long Awaited Book Haul

July TBR

I realize that I did not put up a June TBR last month and my life was all over the place in June. I was overwhelmed with everything and I just wanted to finally relax after a stressful school year. I am in the middle of my third book as I am writing this and the books shown are not in the order that I am going to read them except the first two, which I have finished. Some of these I wanted to read last month for a book club pick and a read-a-thon. I also have two blog tours going up at the end of the month. I also can't stay away from the non-fiction it seems.

Review: The Last Namsara by Kristen Ciccarelli

I watch so many Fairy Loot unboxings and can still remember when this was one of the books in their box. It had beautiful silver foiling and I had to have it. Now they have a fairy trove on their website which has leftovers from their boxes and this book is on there, along with others that I want because of the sprayed edges. So the fairy trove is now a TBR for me...lol. This was the first one and I absolutely loved it, now I can justify buying this book from Fairy Loot.

This is a fantasy that is based around dragons and ancient stories that can kill you. We follow Asha or "Iskari" as she is known to her people. She is the dragon hunter. Her father is the king who made her the dragon hunter. When she was 8 years old, her mother died by telling the ancient stories. The ancient stories were seen as poisonous and they were deemed a criminal offense if anyone was caught telling the stories. Asha began telling the stories out loud and caught the attention of the main dragon. He wanted her to always tell him the stories until she refused. He burned the town and her and she was punished.

It's a story of heartbreak, betrayal, rebellion, and finally, love.

Review: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!! This review is going up on the best day possible and I am glad that I finished this book in time... THANK YOU AUDIBLE!

Like many people, I became obsessed with the Broadway show Hamilton. Every time I would write a blog post, I would listen to the soundtrack on Spotify. I knew I wanted to read this book eventually, and kept putting it off by the number of pages. I knew it was a nonfiction that I wanted to have marked as read on my Goodreads shelf and say yes, I read this hunk of a book.

It's basically the biography of Alexander Hamilton. From his parents' origins and how they met and how Alexander and his brother eventually became orphans. It talks about slavery on the Caribbean islands and Hamilton being a shipping clerk and eventually going to America.

Most of the time while reading this, I was thinking about the musical. Some parts had to be left out of the musical for obvious reasons that it was so repetitive and often times while reading, it would go into the backstory for John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington, and Aaron Burr.

I did do a reading vlog while reading this and I will be linking it in a separate post. I bring up some facts that if Alexander Hamilton were alive today, he would freaking LOVE twitter.

June Wrap Up

June was something else. It flew by, and as I am writing this, I just ordered the girls new workbooks for the upcoming school year that starts NEXT MONTH!!!!!!!! What the actual hell. I only read 9 books in June and to be honest, it was not fun most of the time. I felt super rushed with everything and felt like the only things that needed to be done were done. I didn't have any time to myself it seems. Also, I started reading Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow on June 24th and I just finished that today and it was good but so damn exhausting. I had to listen to the audiobook to help get me through it because I was not able to renew it again because of my stupid library system only has one copy. My library system has over 15 libraries. Anyways, I am going to stop complaining and show ya'll the books I got to before the massive 800-page book about Hamilton.

1, The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan

2. Screen Queens by Lori Goldstein

3. Charlie & Frog: The Boney Hand by Karen Kane

4. The Light, Houston, Texas by Joe M. Solomon

5. You by Caroline Kepnes

6. This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

7. Stand Off by Andrew Smith

8. Unicorn Vs. Goblins by Dana Simpson

9. Endangered by Eliot Schrefer