2019 Most Anticipated Releases

Hey, guys!! 

There are quite a few books that I'm excited about for the next year. I've already preordered quite a few, but I'm sure there are more that will be announced after the New Year. 2019 is shaping up to be an exciting release year. 

The titles that are bolded are the books that I've already preordered. I will be posting again in June or July and updating my anticipated reads for the second half of the year. Stay tuned! 

January

• The Wicked King by Holly Black ~ 8th
• A Curse So Dark & Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer ~29th
• Famous in a Small Town by Emma Mills ~ 15th
• King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo ~ 29th
• Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer ~ 15th
• 99 Percent Mine by Sally Thorne ~ 29th
• Stain by A.G. Howard ~ 15th (preordered for me by my sister for Christmas)

February

• Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon ~ 26th

March

• Children of Virtue and Vengence by Tomi Adeyemi ~ 5th (preordered for me by my boyfriend for Christmas)

April

• The Princess and the Fangirl by Ashley Poston ~ 2nd

May

• We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal ~ 14th
• Again, But Better by Christine Riccio ~ 7th
• The Bride Test by Helen Hoang ~ 7th

June

• Sorcery Of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson ~ 4th
• Find Me Their Bones (Bring Me Their Hearts #2) by Sara Wolf ~ June 4 (no cover yet)

July

• Teen Titans: Raven by Kami Garcia and Gabriel Picolo ~ ND

August

• Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell ~ 27th

September

• The World of Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas ~ 3rd
• The Tyrant's Tomb (The Trials of Apollo #4) by Rick Riordan ~ 24th

October

• Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo ~ 1st (no cover)

Un-Announced Publication

• Wayward Son (Simon Snow #2) by Rainbow Rowell
• Crescent City by Sarah J. Maas
• Tunnel of Bones (Cassidy Blake #2) by Victoria Schwab
• The Circus Rose by Betsy Cornwell

I am so freaking excited for these books. I wish I could just preorder them all now, but my wallet and bank account would hate me so much. You'll probably see these books in my future hauls! Stay tuned!

Which 2019 releases are you the most excited for?

Happy reading and Merry Christmas!

Olivia

~Liv the Book Nerd~

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{Review} Laura & Emma by Kate Greathead

Page Count: 280

Published on: March 13, 2018

Published by: Simon Schuster

Genre(s): Fiction, Contemporary, Realistic Fiction, Chick Lit
Source: Paperback ARC - provided by publisher

Age Rating: YA-Adult

Where To Find It: Goodreads // Amazon

Book Depository: {click here}

My Rating: 2.5 stars

Goodreads synopsis:

A tender, witty debut novel about a single mother raising her daughter among the upper crust of New York City society in the late twentieth century from a nine-time Moth StorySLAM champion.

Laura hails from the Upper East Side of Manhattan, born into old money, drifting aimlessly into her early thirties. One weekend in 1981 she meets Jefferson. The two sleep together. He vanishes. And Laura realizes she’s pregnant.

Enter: Emma.

Despite her progressive values, Laura raises Emma by herself in the same blue-blood world of private schools and summer homes she grew up in, buoyed by a host of indelible characters, including her eccentric mother, who informs her society friends and Emma herself that she was fathered by a Swedish sperm donor; her brother, whose childhood stutter reappears in the presence of their forbidding father; an exceptionally kind male pediatrician; and her overbearing best friend, whose life has followed the Park Avenue script in every way except for childbearing. Meanwhile, the apple falls far from the tree with Emma, who begins to question her environment in a way her mother never could.

Told in vignettes that mine the profound from the mundane, with meditations on everything from sex and death to insomnia and the catharsis of crying on the subway, a textured portrait emerges of a woman struggling to understand herself, her daughter, and the changing landscape of New York City in the eighties and nineties.

~~~

Hey, guys!

This book was sent to me by Simon & Schuster for an honest review. All thoughts, opinions, and feelings are my own. 

      I read this book a couple weeks ago in the midst of midterms madness and my crazy school schedule. This book follows a single mother as she raises her daughter among the upper tier New York elite throughout the 1980s and early to mid-1990s. This book was pitched to me as something similar to the show Gilmore Girls. Of course, I was intrigued. I love stories that center on family and parental relationships. However, as you can see from my low rating, I wasn't too impressed with how this book turned out. 

      Overall, this book was fairly entertaining. I really enjoyed the vignette format that the story was told in, but I really didn't enjoy the overall story as much as I would have hoped. I think that the story and the overall premise was fairly entertaining and if I had had the time to read this book when I wasn't swamped, I would have read the book in a day or even in one sitting. The vignette format made it a very quick read and I really liked the format overall. The characters, however, were not that great. 

      Though the premise of these characters stories were really intriguing I feel like all of the characters lack substance. I didn't connect to any of the characters, I had a hard time empathizing with them, and I just feel like they were blah characters. I wanted to like them, I kept reading because I was hoping to like them...but I just don't. They were boring and hard to love. The relationships in this book were just so forced and I never felt like Laura had a genuine relationship with anyone she encountered...even with her daughter. She tried, but I never felt like she really tried. 

     Not only do I feel like the characters lack substance, I feel like there was nothing resolved in this book. I usually like a good family-drama novel, but this one just was so unsatifying. The endig just lacked everything, there were no satisfactory character or relationship arks, the conflicts that had been building between the family members were never resolved, and I ended up just not liking Emma or Laura. I'm all for an open, artsy ending, but this book was just not my cup of tea. I did not like it. 

      I've probably ranted enough. I don't think that this book is something that I'll read again. It's not my type of book (although I wish it was). I think the main reason that I still read YA is because I've never really related to adult characters. As a 20-year-old who grew up with fantastical fantasy stories and character-driven YA books, I find it harder to connect to more adult protagonists. Laura was just not my girl. If you love adult novels with family angst and drama then you might like this. 


Happy reading, guys!
Olivia

~LivTheBookNerd~

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Hello, Sunshine by Laura Dave

Page Count: 256

Published on: July 11, 2017

Published by: Simon Schuster

Genre(s): Fiction, Women's Fiction (Chick Lit), Contemporary, Adult, Mystery, Drama

Source: Paperback ARC from publisher

Age Rating: New Adult/Adult

Where To Find It: Goodreads // Amazon

Book Depository: {click here}

Twitter: @lauradave

My Rating: 4 stars

Goodreads synopsis:

From Laura Dave—the author of the “addictive” (Us Weekly), “winning” (Publishers Weekly) and critically acclaimed bestseller Eight Hundred Grapes—comes a new novel about the secrets we keep…even from ourselves.

Sunshine Mackenzie truly is living the dream. A lifestyle guru for the modern age, Sunshine is beloved by millions of people who tune into her YouTube cooking show, and millions more scour her website for recipes, wisdom, and her enticing suggestions for how to curate a perfect life. She boasts a series of #1 New York Times bestselling cookbooks, a devoted architect husband, and a reputation for sincerity and kindness—Sunshine seems to have it all. But she’s hiding who she really is. And when her secret is revealed, her fall from grace is catastrophic. What Sunshine does in the ashes of destruction will save her in more ways than she can imagine.

In our modern world, where celebrity is a careful construct, Laura Dave’s compelling, enticing novel explores the devastating effect of the secrets we keep in public…and in private. Hello, Sunshine is a fresh, provocative look at a woman teetering between a scrupulously assembled life and the redemptive power of revealing the truth.

~~~

This book was sent to me from the publisher for an honest review. This does not affect my review at all. 

Hey, guys!

      I was contacted by Simon Schuster to read and review Laura Dave's newest novel (WHICH COMES OUT TODAY!). I was automatically intrigued by the synopsis of this book. YouTube star? Cooking? Drama? Secrets? This sounds like a great novel! Of course, I accepted the review request and I anxiously waited for my copy to come in the mail. This book was compelling and addicting from page one. I really could not put it down! The main character had such a complex and drama-filled story that I just had to know more. It didn't matter that I didn't like her one bit! 

     This book was such a lovely read. It sucked me in and wouldn't let me go. Laura Dave has such a great writing style. Her characters are so complex and she manages to create such interesting backstories within a fairly short book. 250-ish pages isn't very long, but with Dave's writing it seemed much longer (I mean this in the best way. I didn't want this story to end).

      Hello, Sunshine follows the lifestyle mogul and internet chef, Sunshine Mackenzie. Sunshine has everything! A loving, hunky architect husband, multiple #1 NYT best selling cookbooks, a great reputation, and a new cooking show with the Food Network in the works! In reality, Sunshine isn't the golden girl that she reveals online...she has secrets..lots of secrets that she doesn't want revealed to the world. When those secrets are revealed, her "perfect" world comes crumbling down and she doesn't know what to do. In this novel, Sunshine Mackenzie has to figure out who she is. 

      I really enjoyed this book. I thought the characters that Laura Dave created were really interesting, though not all were very likable. The main character, Sunshine, was definitely not the greatest. This doesn't mean that she was a bad character, she was just not a great person. Sunshine is very cringe-y sometimes and it's hard to feel much sympathy for someone who basically ruined her own life. The other characters, were also tragically realistic as well. There weren't too many people that I genuinely liked all the time. I don't think that was an issue though, because all of the character had their own REAL issues that they dealt with on a daily basis. The one character that I absolutely loved was Sunshine's nce, Sammy. She was just such a cute kid. She was so smart and snarky. She reminded me of my sister Reagan. A character who is like my sister is a huge win for me. 

      I felt like all of the side characters had really interesting stories and backstories. There was never a time where I thought a character should have been omitted from the story. Each side character helped the main character's story progress or added another interesting quality to the story. I loved how Laura Dave wrote these characters. It was so fun to read. 

     I also don't think that this book is driven by a strict plot line. This book is very character oriented, which I loved. It also wasn't driven by any kind of romance. It was all about Sunshine's story and her journey to finding herself again. If you're looking for a women's fiction story without the unrealistic romantic relationships and interesting characters around every corner, than this book is definitely for you. 

       Sunshine's story was so compelling and her character arc throughout the book was fantastically done. Dave wrote her change in such a real way. Sunshine had to go through denial, forgiveness, and growth to get to where she was at the end of the book. This book is a great beach read, car read...well, it's just a great summer read! I recommend it to anyone who is looking for an interesting contemporary read. I'm definitely going to have to pick up Dave's other popular novel, Eight Hundred Grapes. It sounds so interesting. If it's anything like Hello, Sunshine then I will be more than pleased. 

Other Awesome Contemporaries:

Me Before You (Me Before You #1) by Jojo Moyes

Maybe Someday by Colleen Hoover

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson

Anna & the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Eliza & Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia

I hope you enjoyed this review! 
Happy reading!
Olivia 

~LivTheBookNerd~

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{Cover Reveal} Monstrous Ties ( by Shina James

"You’re this beautiful creature who wandered over to our land at the wrong time and I would not and could not let you die. Not just for my own selfish reasons, but for Stylot, and because of this addicting and extraordinary aura that follows you. You may not realize it, but you draw people in, Amelia. Unfortunately for you, the people aren’t always good. But I am. If you stay here with me, I will never leave you no matter what. I will take care of you and show you how special you are every day, forever,” Joleus whispers."

Amelia Waters has accepted her destiny and is determined to find Aaron no matter what it takes. As she treks forward on her quest, she embarks on a gloomy, foul-smelling creation that is very similar to a dream she once had. The moment she sets foot on the ground she runs for her life as horrific creatures pour out of every dark shadow. With her life in grave danger, Amelia finds it difficult to stay hopeful on finding Aaron, until an ever changing ally opens her eyes and helps her see that there is more to the creation than she thinks and that it involves a dark force from the past. When Amelia learns that she has the power to save every lost soul, she makes it her mission to destroy the creation along with its creator. But her ever ready task comes with a colossal cost she’s not ready for. Just when she assumes the worst is over, she is sidelined by yet another obstacle that stops her in her tracks. When a trusted friend goes missing Amelia frantically searches for him and lands in a magical kingdom. It is there that she meets Joleus, a Greek God look-a-like. When things take a strange turn, Amelia is left with life-altering choices and uncontrollable feelings. She is suddenly unsure how to move forward as Joleus offers a heartfelt alternative to her treacherous life. But when an enemy hunts her down, she is immersed in a deadly battle—one that leads her to the mind-blowing truth that she’s wanted all along.  

~~~

In the sequel to Like A Dream by Shina James, Amelia embarks on a quest in order to find Aaron...No matter what.

Review of Like A Dream coming soon!

Happy reading!

Olivia

~LivTheBookNerd~

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