Waiting On Wednesday {4}

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

Transcendence by Shay Savage

Publication Date: February 14, 2014 

I had to pick this one because it sounds so strange but interesting. I think this is one of those books that is either going to be great or its going to suck. Lucky for us, the early reviews seem promising. It's a ... are you ready for this... caveman romance. Seriously!

Synopsis from Goodreads: 

It’s said that women and men are from two different planets when it comes to communication, but how can they overcome the obstacles of prehistoric times when one of them simply doesn’t have the ability to comprehend language?

Ehd’s a caveman living on his own in a harsh wilderness. He’s strong and intelligent, but completely alone. When he finds a beautiful young woman in his pit trap, it’s obvious to him that she is meant to be his mate. He doesn’t know where she came from; she’s wearing some pretty odd clothing, and she makes a lot of noises with her mouth that give him a headache. Still, he’s determined to fulfill his purpose in life – provide for her, protect her, and put a baby in her.

Elizabeth doesn’t know where she is or exactly how she got there. She’s confused and distressed by her predicament, and there’s a caveman hauling her back to his cavehome. She’s not at all interested in Ehd’s primitive advances, and she just can’t seem to get him to listen. No matter what she tries, getting her point across to this primitive, but beautiful, man is a constant – and often hilarious – struggle. 

With only each other for company, they must rely on one another to fight the dangers of the wild and prepare for the winter months. As they struggle to coexist, theirs becomes a love story that transcends language and time. 

Ruby Red (Precious Stone Trilogy #1) : Review

Ruby Red (Precious Stones Trilogy #1) by Kerstin Gier

My rating: ★★★★★

The Gist:
A novel about a girl who unexpectedly discovers that she has the ability to travel through time.

The Nitty Gritty:
In Gwen's family, the time travel gene is passed down through the female line. Everyone thought that her cousin, Charlotte would be the bearer of this gene so they trained Charlotte her entire life for time travel while Gwen was left to live her life as she willed. While everyone waits for Charlotte to travel for her first time, Gwen travels back to an unfamiliar time period and realizes that she has the gene instead. She is quickly introduced into this world of time travel, which is filled with mystery, only to discover that she may be playing a smaller part in a bigger event.

The Characters:
Gwen- protagonist with a very likeable personality. I can't really pinpoint a specific reason but I really liked Gwen's character.
Gideon de Villiers- male protagonist. I'm assuming that he is meant to be the Gwen's romantic interest, she is in fact crushing on him, but I'm not yet rooting for the two of them. Gideon is also a time traveler, in the de Villiers' family the gene is passed through the male line.
Count Saint Germain- potential antagonist. This guy gives me the creeps. He seems like he's up to something. Actually, he most definitely up to something. He's a time traveler, ancestor of Gideon, and first to actually study and document time traveling in the two families.

The Ending:
I loved the plot twist! I didn't see it coming until later on but it was still good. 

The Overall Opinion:
This book basically set up the world and the story for the next two books. There wasn't any grand plot line or anything like that. It pretty much just introduced us to the main characters and some of the dark and mysterious things that are going to be central to the plot of future books. It really just introduces things for the sake of posing potential questions that will be answered in the remainder of the series. I think it might be better to think of this book as a prequel to the next book rather than the first part of the series (do you get what I'm trying to say?) I still enjoyed it though. It was a quick and fun read. I'd never read a time travel novel before and I would consider this a good introduction to the YA time travel genre. There wasn't much romance going on in this book which is fine because there are other things happening. I can't really come up with any negatives. I'm not quite obsessing about it nor was I suffering from a book hangover but I enjoyed the story and that's all you can really ask for, right? Everything else is just a plus.

BookTube and Me and The Beginnings of a Love-Hate Affair

About a month ago, I discovered the world of BookTube. For those who don't know, BookTube is a community on YouTube where book lovers, like you and me, make videos about books. They talk about books. The haul books. They review books. They do everything based on books. I don't know how it took me so long to even discover it but I have discovered it. I basically spent the last month of my YouTube quota watching videos about books. I have now watched hours and hours of videos. My TBR has increased by about 60 or so books and I have started off my New Year's goal of starting my book collection/library with a bang.

Here's the thing, I don't know why but there is just something about watching people show you their books that is addicting. On top of that, I'm one of those people who totally falls for the hype around a book and so if I hear multiple BookTubers talk about a certain book, I will want to read it. Yup. That is why I managed to add around 60 books to my Goodreads TBR shelf in one month.

Another thing is that BookTubers do a lot of haul videos in which they show you all the books that they bought in that month and in these haul videos you will often hear about the different places that they bought these books and it seems that nearly every single one of these haul videos talks about a website called BookOutlet.com. It's a place where you can buy books for "read-iculously cheap." There's also Abe Books, Better World Books, and Book Depository. The first sells used books, the second sells used and new and also donates a book for each book bought and raises money for literacy and has free shipping and the third sells brand new books with free worldwide shipping. Discovering these sites was both good and bad. The good thing is that now I have several ways of buying books, often for cheaper and I don't have to drive anywhere to do it. I can just be lazy and sit in a chair in front of my laptop or lie in bed with my laptop and do my book shopping in the comfort of my own home. The bad thing is that often the books are cheaper. Its harder to control yourself and say no to a book that you've wanted to read when it's cheap. I mean, $4 for a copy of Cinder by Marissa Meyer which everyone talks about and has been sitting in TBR forever!? Yes. Please. I will take that. Buying these books that are oh so tempting is oh so difficult to resist. I know because I'm speaking from experience. I bought a LOT of books this month. I completely blame it on BookTube. I bought more books this month than I've bought in any month in my entire life.

I bought a grand total of... let me do the math... 16 books in the month of January. I might be developing a new addiction, potentially unhealthy (definitely unhealthy for my wallet), and I don't even care.

 

Leo knows how I feel :D

In my defense, they were all books that I've been wanting to read for a long time or books that I've already read and loved.

I'm pretty sure my book collection has doubled. (Not really, but lets pretend for the sake of dramatic effect.)

Because I have so many new books, 13 of which I haven't read yet, I will probably not be buying any books in the month of February. But who knows? Never say never, right?

Also, due to the excessive amounts of books in my TBR I have put myself on a book adding ban on Goodreads through the month of February. I've been on this ban for a few days now and I'm already finding in difficult to stick with it. We'll see how I do in another 25 days. Maybe, in the meantime, I can move some books out of that shelf.

What are your book related addictions and weaknesses?

Good February reading to all!