It’s a big week for dystopians! New releases include highly anticipated titles like The 5th Wave, Icons, and The End Games. Guys, HUGE cover reveals this week. We had the Aussie cover for Seventeen & Gone by Nova Ren Suma, which is just as chilling as the US cover; the cover for the first book in Simone Elkeles’ newest series, Wild Cards; the cover of Veronica Roth’s final book in her Divergent series, Allegiant; and Cuddlebuggery’s fav of the week: Once We Were by Kat Zhang! Don’t worry. I won’t tell if you go out and BUY ALL THE BOOKS. Who says you can never have too many anyway?

Hot New Titles is Cuddlebuggery’s weekly post for YA releases and cover reveals. Don’t forget you can follow us on Facebook for all the cover reveals throughout the week and more fun. Clicking the covers takes you to the book’s GoodReads page.

Where to even begin with piece of “literature”. The blurb painted the word picture that this would be a horror re-envisioning of Shakespeare’s best known comedy. I quote, “Get ready for laughter to turn into screams in R.L. Stine’s re-imagining of Shakespeare’s classic romantic comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.

Yeah, this is utter BS. I’m sorry, but it is. The only way in which this waste of a tree even vaguely resembles Shakespeare’s work is in the title, the character ‘Puckerman,’ who is neither Sprite nor Fairy but rather just a lunatic, and the fact that it culminates on midsummer’s eve (which is apparently the longest night of the year, because obviously that makes total fucking sense).

For this yarn Stine, the supposed master of horror (whomever gave him that title has never, ever read a work of true horror I swear), has attempted to engage the YA audience. Although I swear the reading of this feels more middle grade to me, but hey, maybe I think teenagers are more intelligent than Stine does, because this book sure as shit dumbs everything down.

Nameless is a bit like billowing, amazing clouds on a warm sunny day.  It’s nice.  Just really nice, you know?  Sure, it doesn’t move fast and clouds aren’t the most gripping things to look at, but it was just really nice.   God I really liked Nameless and I really like clouds.  They’re so magical.

Unless they’re giving you goatse.  Don’t look that up if you don’t know what it is btw.

Nameless wasn’t a perfect novel, but it was an enjoyable novel. I feel like most of the things it set out to do, it accomplished.

Things like creating, nurturing and building the relationship between Nico and Cami.  Book, candle, Nico *cue heart melt* (you’d get it if you read the book).  There felt like a depth of years to their relationship and that’s a hard thing to manufacture in a few hundred pages.

Nameless was a pretty ambitious story, which worked out for me because I’m a pretty ambitious reader, but it’s not going to float everyone’s boats. 

The OCD of Picking a Book

It’s only natural my “attention to detail”, as I like to call it, has passed onto one of my greatest loves: books.

From an early age my parents have told me I’m an extremely picky eater – food could never be too sweet or too salty. Then there’s my problem with buying clothes. I always check that there’s no loose stitching. Buying knitwear is a nightmare because if the wool has been “hooked” out of the knitting I can’t buy it. Also, I have to check that pants are sewn straight!

Assuming ceteris paribus (all other things being equal) – that is, the rating on Goodreads, the reviews people give, the amount of knowledge I have about the book – this is what drives me to pick a book from the shelf:

The Cover

Whoever said don’t judge a book by its cover is so wrong, I’m sorry.

A Review of Every YA (Contemporary) Book I’ve Ever Read

Wow.  Double Ue. Owh.  Double Ue.  Owh Em Gee, Guys.

Don’t you just love it how every contemporary novel these days is so dayum different?  Today’s review is of Every Young Adult (Contemporary) I have Ever Read – clearly my favourite so far!

This book was an amazing examination of bullying/slut shaming/dark romance.  All the feels I was given by this insanely original premise set the wings of my heart alight and made me soar through the sky of life lessons that I will probably soon forget.

The main character was so sassy/reminds me of myself as a teen/too stupid to live, whilst being damaged and complex.  Her life story and what she suffers through is just really sad though.  This book is about how she manages to find herself/deal with her past/grow as a person whilst gaining the love of her (short) life.