Heading in a new direction + a reveal

Hello guys! I know, I know, where the hell have I been? Well, I'm not gonna lie. When I haven't been working nearly all day everyday, I've been vegging out on my couch, avoiding my blogging responsibilities. But I have some news. Some exciting news (Look, I think it's exciting at least...).

I'm rebooting my blog. 

And by reboot, I mean I'm essentially dumping Lily's Reads. I've created a brand new blog, with a brand new name, and heading in what is for me, a brand new direction. And I couldn't be more excited!

The blog isn't quite ready to debut yet, though. When it is, (hopefully sometime in mid-July) I'll let you all know right here, and I hope you'll continue to follow me on my bookish journey.

Now for the reveal.

Wait, I thought the new blog was the reveal?

Umm, sorry. I wanted to give you the exciting news before I hit you with this. It's not anything bad, it's just something that some people might get upset about. But with my decision to head in a new direction, I wanted to be as truthful with you all as I can be, and I can't do that with telling you my real name.

Yeah. Lily isn't my name. My name is Jada.

Why have you been lying to us all this time?!?!

I KNOW I KNOW! I'M SORRY!

I genuinely feel awful about this. But when I first started blogging (long before Lily's Reads came into being) I was a youngin' concerned with keeping my identity from the creepy creeps of the internet. So I decided to take the name of one of my favorite characters from one of my favorite books, The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving.

So, no more secrets. We can still be friends, right? Right??

I'll just give you some time.

xox

*Review* Locke and Key by Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez

Locke & Key by Joe Hill,
illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez
Publisher: IDW, 2008- 2012

Genre: Graphic Novel, Fantasy

Source: Scribd/ e-book 

Rating: 4/5

Amazon || B&N || BAM || Goodreads

Goodreads Synopsis
 Locke & Key tells of Keyhouse, an unlikely New England mansion, with fantastic doors that transform all who dare to walk through them. Home to a hate-filled and relentless creature that will not rest until it forces open the most terrible door of them all...

Although I don't read them nearly enough, I really and truly love graphic novels, and this series is by far one of the best I've ever read. I literally forced myself to stay awake because I wanted to know what happened next. And anyone who knows me knows that's not a thing that happens often because I really love sleep, especially when I'm at college, which is where I was when I read this series. So, in short, this series is fabulous.

Seriously. I know this review is a little light on the review part of things, but that's because I don't have any actual words for this series. Just go pick it up. I promise on my un-dead cat's immortal soul that you won't regret it.

Until next time,
xox

*DNF Review* Those Girls by Lauren Saft

Those Girls by Lauren Saft
Publisher: Poppy: Little, Brown and Company
Release Date: June 9, 2015

Genre: YA, Contemporary 

Source: NetGalley/Publisher

Rating: 2/5

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Goodreads Synopsis
 Some girls will always have your back, and some girls can't help but stab you in it.

Junior year, the suburbs of Philadelphia. Alex, Mollie and Veronica are those girls: they're the best of friends and the party girls of the school. But how well does everybody know them--and really, how well do they know one another? Alex is secretly in love with the boy next door and has joined a band--without telling anyone. Mollie suffers from a popular (and possibly sociopathic) boyfriend, as well as a serious mean streak. And Veronica just wants to be loved--literally, figuratively, physically....she's not particular. Will this be the year that bonds them forever....or tears them apart for good? 

Lauren Saft masterfully conveys what goes on in the mind of a teenage girl, and her debut novel is raw, honest, hilarious, and thought-provoking, with a healthy dose of heart.

There's really nothing I hate more than DNFing a book, but sometimes I just have to, and unfortunately, this is one of those books.

Let me begin by saying that I didn't hate this book. I thought it was okay, to a point. What killed this book for me was the excessive 'mean girls' cliche, and the repetetiveness of the storyline. After awhile, it just felt like the book kept repeating itself, same bitchy girls, same asshole boys, different party. After a while, reather than being amused by the awful dynamic of friendship amoung the three female protags, I became annoyed and finally wanted to just slap them all and tell them to grow the fuck up. There's only so much bitching about boys and shitty friends I can take, in books and in real life, before I start to tune out.

I do wish the author would have explored some subjects she presented in this book a little further (although, I did only get through about 50%, so maybe she did in the last half), such as the one character's eating disorder. I feel like it could have been a great way to discuss a serious illness, instead of just tacking it on as an accessory.

I don't really know what else to say about this book other than you'll either love it or hate it.

Until next time,
xox

Waiting on Wednesday -- Delicate Monsters

Delicate Monsters by Stephanie Kuehn
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Release Date: June 9, 2015

Genre: YA, Contemporary, Thiriller 

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Goodreads Synopsis:
From the Morris-Award winning author of Charm & Strange, comes a twisted and haunting tale about three teens uncovering dark secrets and even darker truths about themselves.

When nearly killing a classmate gets seventeen-year-old Sadie Su kicked out of her third boarding school in four years, she returns to her family’s California vineyard estate. Here, she’s meant to stay out of trouble. Here, she’s meant to do a lot of things. But it’s hard. She’s bored. And when Sadie’s bored, the only thing she likes is trouble.

Emerson Tate’s a poor boy living in a rich town, with his widowed mother and strange, haunted little brother. All he wants his senior year is to play basketball and make something happen with the girl of his dreams. That’s why Emerson’s not happy Sadie’s back. An old childhood friend, she knows his worst secrets. The things he longs to forget. The things she won’t ever let him.

Haunted is a good word for fifteen-year-old Miles Tate. Miles can see the future, after all. And he knows his vision of tragic violence at his school will come true, because his visions always do. That’s what he tells the new girl in town. The one who listens to him. The one who recognizes the darkness in his past. 

But can Miles stop the violence? Or has the future already been written? Maybe tragedy is his destiny. Maybe it’s all of theirs.

I LOVED Charm & Strange, so I'm super pumped for this new book! Definitely on the top of my to-buy list!

Until next time,
xox


Waiting on Wednesday is a fabulous feature hosted by Breaking the Spine where we feature our most anticipated upcoming releases.

*Review* The Singular & Extraordinary Tale of Mirror & Goliath by Ishbelle Bee

The Singular & Extraordinary Tale of Mirror & Goliath by Ishbelle Bee
Publisher: Angry Robot Books
Release Date: June 30, 2015

Genre: YA, Fantasy, Steampunk 

Source: Netgalley/Publisher

Rating: 2.5/5

Amazon || B&N || BAM || Goodreads

Goodreads Synopsis
 1888. A little girl called Mirror and her shape-shifting guardian Goliath Honeyflower are washed up on the shores of Victorian England. Something has been wrong with Mirror since the day her grandfather locked her inside a mysterious clock that was painted all over with ladybirds. Mirror does not know what she is, but she knows she is no longer human.
John Loveheart, meanwhile, was not born wicked. But after the sinister death of his parents, he was taken by Mr Fingers, the demon lord of the underworld. Some say he is mad. John would be inclined to agree.
Now Mr Fingers is determined to find the little girl called Mirror, whose flesh he intends to eat, and whose soul is the key to his eternal reign. And John Loveheart has been called by his otherworldly father to help him track Mirror down…

I wish so much I could like this book more. The writing is beautiful, and reminds me so much of all the wonderful fairy-tales of my childhood, but it just lacked something. 

I don't know. Maybe it's just me, but I wish certain scenes were fleshed out a bit more. Things seemed to happen too quickly, and with no real, believable explanation, often leaving me confused as to what just happened.

Also, I couldn't quite get a grip on the characters themselves. I felt disconnected from them, and felt disoriented because this. I wasn't sure how old Mirror was, which was a huge problem for me, because at times I thought she was very young, like six or seven, but then her actions would make me think she was much older. This age thing also gave me problems when it came to Mr. Loveheart. I wasn't sure if he was a grown man or a child.

Even though there were several things I didn't like about this book, I didn't completely hate it. The story overall was really very lovely, and, as I said above, the writing is beautiful and poetic and is more than worth picking this book up.

Until next time,
xox

*Review* Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight

Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date: February 1, 2013

Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller  

Source: Purchased from Amazon Kindle 

Rating: 4/5

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Goodreads Synopsis
 A stunning debut novel in which a single mother reconstructs her teenaged daughter's life, sifting through her emails, texts, and social media to piece together the shocking truth about the last days of her life.

Litigation lawyer and harried single mother Kate Baron is stunned when her daughter's exclusive private school in Park Slope, Brooklyn, calls with disturbing news: her intelligent, high-achieving fifteen-year-old daughter, Amelia, has been caught cheating.

Kate can't believe that Amelia, an ambitious, levelheaded girl who's never been in trouble would do something like that. But by the time she arrives at Grace Hall, Kate's faced with far more devastating news. Amelia is dead.

Seemingly unable to cope with what she'd done, a despondent Amelia has jumped from the school's roof in an act of "spontaneous" suicide. At least that's the story Grace Hall and the police tell Kate. And overwhelmed as she is by her own guilt and shattered by grief, it is the story that Kate believes until she gets the anonymous text: 

She didn't jump.

Sifting through Amelia's emails, text messages, social media postings, and cell phone logs, Kate is determined to learn the heartbreaking truth about why Amelia was on Grace Hall's roof that day-and why she died.

Told in alternating voices, Reconstructing Amelia is a story of secrets and lies, of love and betrayal, of trusted friends and vicious bullies. It's about how well a parent ever really knows a child and how far one mother will go to vindicate the memory of a daughter whose life she could not save.

I didn't know what to to expect going into this book, but I fell into it immediately. This book grabbed me from the first page, and kept me in it's grip until the end. There were so many secrets and twists that it was a little difficult keeping things straight, but for the most part, I really enjoyed this book and was unable to put it down.

It was really interesting to get not only Kate's perspective on Amelia's death, but also Amelia's. You literally get Amelia's death from her own eyes, and although it's a little odd, it at least gives the reader some sense of definiteness concerning her death.

My only issue with this book was Amelia's response to the Maggies. I don't know. I guess I just felt like her reasons for joining them in the first place and not leaving when she had the chance were weak. Granted, she is a teenager trying to fit in, but I don't know. I just didn't like it.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys a fast-paced mystery.

Until next time,
xox

Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon Opening Meme

Hey guys! I'm late getting things up on the blog, but definitely follow me on Twitter and Instagram for more up-to-the-minute updates! Username lilysreads for both!!

Head on over to 24hourreadathon.com for hourly fun and join in the #readathon hashtag on Twitter for even more excitement!!

Anyway, without further ado, the opening meme!!

1. I'm reading from the slightly chilly US! :D

2. Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight

3. I've got some yummy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies staring at me right now!

4. I'm finishing up my second year of college and still have absolutely no clue what career path I want to take, I procrastinate EVERYTHING (I swear I'm not proud of this fact!), and I'm obsessed with chocolate and coffee!

5. I'll definitely be chatting with other readers more on blogs, Twitter, and Instagram! It's so much more fun cheering on others!

Alrighty guys, I'm off to read some more! Good luck and happy reading!

Until next time,
xox