Top Ten Tuesday

This week's topic is:

Top Ten Books when you need something light & fun

Georgia Nicolson (series) - Louise Rennison (my review)

Babe in Boyland - Jody Gehrman (my review)

Scott Pilgrim (series) - Bryan Lee O'Malley (my review)

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks - E. Lockhart (my review)

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place (series) - Maryrose Wood (my review)

43 Old Cemetery Road (series) - Kate & Sarah Klise (my review)

Anna and the French Kiss - Stephanie Perkins (my review)

The DUFF - Kody Keplinger (my review)

Sparks - S.J. Adams (my review)

Bloodthirsty - Flynn Meaney (my review)

The Broke and the Bookish is a group of college aged and twenty somethings that have an unhealthy obsession with reading and would spend every last penny on books even if it meant skipping a few meals. We are the people  who lurk in the library, buy handbags based on how many books can be stashed in them, and who refer to characters in books as if they are personal friends.

We sought after other bookish college students to share in our love for reading and were brought together by the College Students group on Goodreads that was created in September 2008. Our desire to share great books with each other in and our tendency to be opinionated and passionate about all things book related naturally led to the birth of The Broke and the Bookish in June 2010.

Review: The Boy Recession - Flynn Meaney

Where I got it: ARC from publisher for review
Rating: 3 stars  
Cover Rating: 4 stars (Cute and fitting!)
Genre: Young Adult
Publication Date: August 7, 2012
Publisher: Poppy
Page Count: 246 p.
Buy it: Book Depository / Amazon
Add it: Goodreads

When all the jocks transfer to a different school. Julius P. Heil High finds itself in a bit of a boy recessions. The poor teen girls, aren't really sure what to do. They end up finding the misfits a not so bad replacement for their absent sex gods. Hunter can't believe that this is actually working in Eugene's favor. How can these girls really be interested in him, when before they wouldn't have spoken two words? Kelly is mostly upset that not only is it a boy recession but budget cuts that plague the school. That means no more band. Then Hunter suggests that they do peer band and teach third graders how to play instruments. Kelly jumps at the chance to have band back. She also doesn't mind spending some time with Hunter. She's not the only one who wants some face time with him. A boy has become a hot commodity at Julius P. Heil, and Hunter is in high demand in lots of places. Kelly doesn't want to lose him to the heard, but some girls play for keeps and will stop at nothing to sink their teeth into the boys that are left. Hunter is just going with the flow, even when the flow takes him places he doesn't particularly enjoy.

This was a cute book. There were quite a few funny moments in the book. I love how blown out of proportion the boy recession is. Everything is extra dramatic, but not quite over the top. Kelly and Hunter were sort of outside looking in at all the madness. They each had a friend who was ensnared in the hysteria. Luckily, both Kelly and Hunter managed to keep a cool head while things around them were chaos.

This was a fun concept, and a great setting. A small town losing most of it's football team, including it's coach would definitely be a big deal in a small town like this one. People also would notice when a handful of attractive guys left. In a city, there would hardly be a wrinkle.

Hunter had a lot of surprising qualities about him which were nice to see as the story progresses. When we first meet him, he is the very definition of slacker. Not that he is not a slacker at the end, but maybe less of one. He ends up with a lot on his plate. Kelly was an agreeable character. She won't stand out in my mind at all, but she fit into the story nicely and I didn't feel irritated by her, so that was good.  Diva though, I couldn't stand. She was psychotic. Completely in her own world that could not be interrupted by logical thought or other people's wants and needs. I'm glad I didn't have to put up with her for too long.

This was another fun read by Flynn Meaney. I think I still enjoyed Bloodthirsty more, but this one had me laughing too. I can't wait to see what she has in store for us next.

First Line:
"'When are you gonna get off your lazy ass and get a job?' Eugene asks me."

Favorite Lines:
"The kid went down so hard, I'm telling you. According to Chung, who was right there next to them, there was this crunch sound, like what you hear when you sit on a bag of pretzels. That was Eugene's collarbone."

Teaser Tuesday #70

This week's Teaser Tuesday is from The Boy Recession by Flynn Meaney. I really enjoyed Bloodthirsty (my review) so I'm quite excited to read this one. The premise is: It's all about supply and demand when a high school deals with the sudden exodus of male students.
(page 111)
"I'm not sure what other people expect from Hunter. I mean, no one's ever heard him sing before.'"

Teaser Tuesday is brought to us by Should be Reading.

Rules:
1) Grab your current read
2) Open to a random page
3) Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
4) BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
5) Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

In My Mailbox #131

In My Mailbox brought to you by The Story Siren

For Review: Thanks Hyperion and Little, Brown

The Innocents - Francesca Segal

Newly engaged and unthinkingly self-satisfied, twenty-eight-year-old Adam Newman is the prize catch of Temple Fortune, a small, tight-knit Jewish suburb of London. He has been dating Rachel Gilbert since they were both sixteen and now, to the relief and happiness of the entire Gilbert family, they are finally to marry. To Adam, Rachel embodies the highest values of Temple Fortune; she is innocent, conventional, and entirely secure in her community—a place in which everyone still knows the whereabouts of their nursery school classmates. Marrying Rachel will cement Adam’s role in a warm, inclusive family he loves. But as the vast machinery of the wedding gathers momentum, Adam feels the first faint touches of claustrophobia, and when Rachel’s younger cousin Ellie Schneider moves home from New York, she unsettles Adam more than he’d care to admit. Ellie—beautiful, vulnerable, and fiercely independent—offers a liberation that he hadn’t known existed: a freedom from the loving interference and frustrating parochialism of North West London. Adam finds himself questioning everything, suddenly torn between security and exhilaration, tradition and independence. What might he be missing by staying close to home? 


The Boy Recession - Flynn Meaney

I loved Bloodthirsty and can't wait to start this one. 

Down-to-earth Kelly is always the friend and never the girlfriend. But as her junior year of high school starts, Kelly is determined to finally reveal her true feelings for her long-time crush and good friend Hunter - that is, until the Boy Recession hits. Over the past summer, an overwhelming number of male students have left Kelly and Hunter's small high school class. Some were sent to private school and others moved away. Whatever the case, the sudden population shift has left the already small Julius P. Heil High in desperate shape. The football coach is recruiting chess champs for his team, the principal's importing male exchange students to balance out school dances,and Hunter is about to become an unexpected heartthrob. Content with his role as the guitar-strumming, class-skipping slacker, Hunter is unprepared to be the center of attention. Desperate coaches are recruiting him for sports teams, and the drama teacher casts him in the lead role of the school musical. Even the Spandexers, powerful popular girls in tight pants, are noticing Hunter in a new light - with a little work, he could have potential. He might even be boyfriend material... In order to stand out from the crowd and win Hunter's heart, Kelly needs a "stimulus package" in the form of cougar lessons from a senior girl who dates hot freshman boys and advice on the male mind from her Cosmo-addicted best friend, Aviva. As if dating wasn't hard enough without a four-to-one ratio!

Bought: some bookish type video games

Alan Wake

Alice: Madness Returns

if you are looking for some fantastic video games I would highly recommend these. :)

That's what I got this week. What did you all get?

Review: Bloodthirsty - Flynn Meaney

Where I got it: Library
Rating: 5 stars 
Cover Rating: 4 stars (This one is much better than the original one they had. It's very cute and quirky.)
Genre: Young Adult  
Publication Date: October 5, 2010 
Publisher: Poppy 
Page Count: 234 p.

Finbar Frame can never get a girl. He knows it's because he's so pale (allergic to the sun), scrawny and nerdy. When a girl approaches him on the subway though, she ends up changing his life. She seems to be in love with the idea of vampires. She finds them swoon-worthy. Finbar notices that this is the case with many of his female schoolmates and then he knows how he will get girls. Finbar Frame will become a vampire. 

This was a very fun novel, with many laugh-out-loud moments. I loved Finbar and all his lack of self confidence. This lack of self confidence goes away though when he pretends to be a vampire, because all the things he hated about himself are the very things that make him vampire-esque. I also liked how awkward his brother was, even though everyone fawned over him. I think Finbar and his brother were more similar than they realized. This was a great light read that deals with the issue of being yourself. Finbar was a great character (and a great name) and he really represented insecure teen males quite perfectly. Definitely check out this debut novel, it was well worth it for the laughs.  

First Line:

"'Turn me,' Jenny demanded, looking up at me, her eyes so intense they could have bored me into the brick wall behind me." 

Favorite Line:
"While I was often moody and irritated and prone to shutting myself in my closet, displaying many signs of a future serial killer, Luke was always moving, smiling, always happy, always busy."