The Way the Light Bends Blog Tour (Guest Post!)

The Way the Light Bends by Cordelia Jensen
Series: n/a

Genre: YA Contemporary

Publication: March 27th 2018 by Philomel Books
Format: ARC (thank you, Penguin!)

Goodreads

Virtual twins Linc and Holly were once extremely close. But while artistic, creative Linc is her parents’ daughter biologically, it’s smart, popular Holly, adopted from Ghana as a baby, who exemplifies the family’s high-achieving model of academic success.

Linc is desperate to pursue photography, to find a place of belonging, and for her family to accept her for who she is, despite her surgeon mother’s constant disapproval and her growing distance from Holly. So when she comes up with a plan to use her photography interests and skills to do better in school–via a project based on Seneca Village, a long-gone village in the space that now holds Central Park, where all inhabitants, regardless of race, lived together harmoniously–Linc is excited and determined to prove that her differences are assets, that she has what it takes to make her mother proud. But when a long-buried family secret comes to light, Linc must decide whether her mother’s love is worth obtaining.

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Interview with Gloria Chao, author of American Panda!

Hi everyone! Today, I have the pleasure of having the wonderful Gloria Chao on my blog! Gloria wrote her debut novel, AMERICAN PANDA, which I absolutely adored! Here’s a bit about the book, and be sure to read on for the interview!

American Panda by Gloria Chao
Series: n/a

Genre: YA Contemporary

Publication:  February 6th 2018 by Simon Pulse
Length: 320 pages

Format: ARC (thank you, Simon!)

Goodreads

An incisive, laugh-out-loud contemporary debut about a Taiwanese-American teen whose parents want her to be a doctor and marry a Taiwanese Ivy Leaguer despite her squeamishness with germs and crush on a Japanese classmate.

At seventeen, Mei should be in high school, but skipping fourth grade was part of her parents’ master plan. Now a freshman at MIT, she is on track to fulfill the rest of this predetermined future: become a doctor, marry a preapproved Taiwanese Ivy Leaguer, produce a litter of babies.

With everything her parents have sacrificed to make her cushy life a reality, Mei can’t bring herself to tell them the truth–that she (1) hates germs, (2) falls asleep in biology lectures, and (3) has a crush on her classmate Darren Takahashi, who is decidedly not Taiwanese.

But when Mei reconnects with her brother, Xing, who is estranged from the family for dating the wrong woman, Mei starts to wonder if all the secrets are truly worth it. Can she find a way to be herself, whoever that is, before her web of lies unravels?

Eight Days on Planet Earth by Cat Jordan | Guest Post

 

Eight Days on Planet Earth by Cat Jordan
Series: n/a

Genre: YA Contemporary, Romance

Publication: November 7th 2017 by HarperTeen
Length: 352 pages

Goodreads

How long does it take to travel 13 light-years to Earth?
How long does it take to fall in love?

To the universe, eight days is a mere blip—but to Matty Jones, it may be just enough time to change his life.

On the hot summer day Matty’s dad leaves for good, a strange girl suddenly appears in the empty field next to the Jones farm—the very field in rural Pennsylvania where a spaceship supposedly landed fifty years ago. She is uniquely beautiful, sweet, and smart, and she tells Matty she’s waiting for her spaceship to return to pick her up.

Of course she is.

Matty has heard all the impossible UFO stories for all of his seventeen years: the conspiracy theories, the wild rumors, the crazy belief in life beyond the stars. As a kid, he searched the skies with his dad and studied the constellations. But all that is behind him now. Dad’s gone and Matty’s stuck.

But now there is Priya. The self-proclaimed alien girl. She must be crazy or high, right?

As Matty unravels the mystery of Priya, he realizes there is far more to her than he first imagined.
And if he can learn to believe in what he can’t see: the universe, aliens…love…then maybe the impossible is possible, after all.

Crystal Blade Blog Tour (Guest Post + Giveaway!)

I’m so thrilled to be on the blog tour for CRYSTAL BLADE! I really enjoyed BURNING GLASS, and I can’t wait to pick up my own copy of the sequel!

Crystal Blade by Kathryn Purdie
Series: Burning Glass #2

Genre: YA Fantasy

Publication: August 15th 2017 by Katherine Tegen Books
Length: 384 pages

Goodreads

The peace is unsustainable.

Sonya and Anton may have brought about a revolution, but can they protect their homeland—and their love—with so many forces threatening to tear them apart?

The empire has fallen, Valko faces trial, and Sonya is finally free from her fate as Sovereign Auraseer. But Sonya’s expanding abilities are just as unstable as the new government of Riaznin—and her relationship with Anton. Not only can she feel the emotions of others but, unlike other Auraseers, she’s learned to make others feel her emotions as well. And Sonya isn’t immune to dark temptations.

Now, as Sonya fights to contain her own darkness, she senses a new evil lurking in the shadows of the palace. Someone from Sonya’s past has returned. And that someone won’t be satisfied until Sonya pays for the mistakes she’s made.

5 Ways to Have a Productive Hiatus // Guest Post

Today, I’m going to talk about the book blogger’s greatest problem.

(No, not the TBR.)

(No, not staring at all the beautiful book merch on bookstagram, although I have a giveaway for you all … keep reading!)

*drumroll* The blog hiatus.

BUT. There’s no reason to be afraid of your blog randomly dying after hiatus — it’s not a character in a [insert preferred murderous author]’s books! In fact, here are 5 steps to turn your hiatus into an opportunity for a clean slate and a better blog.

What I’d Like to See More In YA | Guest Post by @DiannaLGunn

5 Things I want to see more of in YA

I’m not the most well read person in the world but I do read somewhere between 20 & 30 books a year, most of them YA. I also interview authors every week on my blog, a great many of them YA authors(although less so recently). And because that obviously isn’t enough of a commitment to books, I also manage a group steampunk blog where we interview authors and review books, a large portion of them YA novels.

The YA novels I’ve read are wildly imaginative, often set in truly fantastical lands with detailed worldbuilding and innovative magic/science systems. But in some ways they are all very much the same, and while I love the archetypes and tropes they use, I want more variety in my reading.

How we achieve that variety is a long, painful conversation about the publishing world I don’t want to have here (and, frankly, I’d rather not have it at all but I’ll have to eventually) so I’m just going to talk about what I’d like to see more of in the YA landscape:

How to Choose Your Next Read | Guest Post by Emily @enchntdrose

Greetings, weblings!  Thanks to Ali for letting me do a guest post – let’s get started!

So while I’ve got you all here reading in rapt attention, eyes glued to the screen in excitement to see what this new, mysterious person has to say, I want to take this opportunity to write a discussion post about a question that often plagues me: how do you decide what to read next?

My current method of choosing my next read looks a bit like this:

An Epic End to a Series + Giveaway! | Guest Post by Amanda @fifthmusketeer

Hi everyone! My name is Amanda, and I’m thrilled to do this guest post for Arctic Books! I blog here: To Live A Thousand Lives, and funnily enough, Ali and I found each other’s blogs through my own giveaway a few months ago.

The Raven King is the fourth and final book in The Raven Cycle, and if you haven’t read this series, you should invest in it! The writing is gorgeous, the characters are amazing, and once you start you’ll want to binge-read to the end. If you follow the author or have checked out the Goodreads summaries, you’ll know this is a hard series to pin down to one genre or one plot, but the basic premise is this: Blue (the un-psychic daughter of a psychic) finds herself drawn into a quest to find a dead Welsh king named Glendower and thus gain one favor.

Would You Ever Sell Your Blog? | Guest Post by Lauren @ShootingStarMag

I’ve been blogging on the same website since 2007, but in that time, I have seen one or two blogs that I read and loved offer up their blog for sale. Now, for book bloggers, this probably sounds really weird because I don’t think we’ve had anyone sell their blog before. For other blogs, it makes sense. If there is a blog that does a lot of product reviews and giveaways, it might not be about the person behind the blog – but rather, what they can offer viewers. If that’s the case, then a blog with a fairly good following might be able to sell their blog to someone else if they decide they no longer want to or have the time to run their blog.

This got me thinking about book bloggers and other type of “niche” blogs. Have you ever thought about selling your blog, even jokingly? Maybe you were burnt out and not sure you wanted to keep it running but you hated the idea of your blog just floating around on the internet with no new content or views. Would you let someone else run your blog for you? I know the idea of selling your blog is likely to make a lot of people upset, and I get what you mean. I’m not sure I could ever sell my blog off. It’s my hours of work, and no matter what I’m posting or reviewing, it’s still very personal to me.

How to Book Convention | Guest Post by Liv @Grangerliv

In April, I attended my first book festival ever. I attended the North Texas Teen Book Festival in Irving, Texas. After the weekend, I have learned several tips and tricks that I will be using next time I go to a convention. I’m going to be sharing them with you today to save you some time at your next bookish event!

1. Be Comfortable

Wear clothes and shoes that are comfortable. I wore black jeans, a black tank top, and red converse. You’ll be standing and sitting a lot and wearing a really fancy dress and heels may not be super comfortable.