Dare You To by Katie McGarry

Title: Dare You To
Author: Katie McGarry
Publisher: MIRA Ink
Released: May 22nd 2013
Pages: 470 (Kindle)
Buy: Amazon UK / Amazon US
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Ryan lowers his lips to my ear. "Dance with me, Beth."
"No." I whisper the reply. I hate him and I hate myself for wanting him to touch me again...
"I dare you..."

If anyone knew the truth about Beth Risk's home life, they'd send her mother to jail and seventeen-year-old Beth who knows where. So she protects her mom at all costs. Until the day her uncle swoops in and forces Beth to choose between her mom's freedom and her own happiness. That's how Beth finds herself living with an aunt who doesn't want her and going to a school that doesn't understand her. At all. Except for the one guy who shouldn't get her, but does....

Ryan Stone is the town golden boy, a popular baseball star jock-with secrets he can't tell anyone. Not even the friends he shares everything with, including the constant dares to do crazy things. The craziest? Asking out the Skater girl who couldn't be less interested in him.

But what begins as a dare becomes an intense attraction neither Ryan nor Beth expected. Suddenly, the boy with the flawless image risks his dreams-and his life-for the girl he loves, and the girl who won't let anyone get too close is daring herself to want it all.

I really enjoyed Pushing the Limits, but not as much as everyone else. Whilst the hype was thick in the contemporary-romance-lovers community, I found that there was just something missing between me and the characters, despite being able to relate to them. At the end of my review, I'd said that I hadn't put Dare You To on my TBR list just yet, as I was undecided about how it would turn out. As it is, I managed to get my hands on an ARC copy and oh my days - I think I'm in love!

Saving June by Hannah Harrington

Title: Saving June
Author: Hannah Harrington
Publisher: MIRA Ink
Released: May 1st 2011
Pages: 336 (Paperback)
Buy: Amazon UK / Amazon US
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‘If she’d waited less than two weeks, she’d be June who died in June. But I guess my sister didn’t consider that.’

Harper Scott’s older sister has always been the perfect one so when June takes her own life a week before her high school graduation, sixteen-year-old Harper is devastated. Everyone’s sorry, but no one can explain why.

When her divorcing parents decide to split her sister’s ashes into his-and-her urns, Harper takes matters into her own hands. She’ll steal the ashes and drive cross-country with her best friend, Laney, to the one place June always dreamed of going, California.

Enter Jake Tolan. He’s a boy with a bad attitude, a classic-rock obsession and nothing in common with Harper’s sister. But Jake had a connection with June, and when he insists on joining them, Harper’s just desperate enough to let him. With his alternately charming and infuriating demeanour and his belief that music can see you through anything, he might be exactly what she needs.

Except June wasn’t the only one hiding something. Jake’s keeping a secret that has the power to turn Harper’s life upside down again.

I guess it's kind of backwards to read an author's second novel, love it, and go into reading the debut with high expectation - but I did. Speechless took my breath away, and I read countless other reviews saying that they'd picked up speechless because of how utterly amazing Saving June was. I read the synopsis, and I fell in love - I just hoped the book would meet the hype.

Unremembered by Jessica Brody

Title: Unremembered
Author: Jessica Crody
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Released: February 28th 2013
Pages: 303 (Paperback)
Buy: Amazon UK / Amazon US
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A catastrophic plan crash leaves one survivor: a girl with no memory.
Who is she?
Where does she come from?
Nobody knows and no one comes forward to claim her.
Haunted by a looming threat she can't remember and plagued by abilities she doesn't understand, she struggles to recall who she is. But every clue leads to more questions. And she's running out of time to answer them.
Her only hope is a boy who claims they were once in love.
Alone and on the run, who should she trust? And what if she discovers that she is safer with a past that stays unremembered?

The more I think about it, the lower the books rating dips. The concept of Unremembered has been done - over and over and over again. Even so, I still go into these novels with a shred of hope that this time will be different; that this time, the book will be what the synopsis promises. Unfortunately it wasn't, and whilst I enjoyed some bits, the plot overall seemed a bit dead.

Steel Lily by Megan Curd

Title: Steel Lily
Author: Megan Curd
Publisher: Self
Release: August 20th 2013
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Avery Pike is a commodity. No, more than a commodity. Her existence is guarded at all costs.
She’s a water Elementalist, the strongest of her dwindling kind. She creates steam to provide energy to fuel Dome Four: the only thing standing between humanity and an earth ravaged by World War III. No steam, no Dome. No Dome, no life.
Or so she thinks.
That is, until a mysterious man offers her a way out of having to donate steam. A way to escape the corrupt government of Dome Four. While the offer seems too good to be true, Avery is intrigued.
But when she arrives to her new home, she realizes the grass isn’t any less dead on this side of the fence. Instead, the lies are just hidden better...which means digging deeper.
When Avery enlists the help of her friends to uncover the truth, it may make her wonder if she was better off being a government tool than searching for freedom.
Some secrets are better left concealed, but humankind was never meant to live in a cage. And when you can control the most sought after resource, you can learn to control anything…including the fate of your world.

I read the Steel Lily synopsis and fell in love. So when the author approached me about it in exchange for an honest review, how could I resist? Steampunk is a genre I've wanted to try in a while, and I have to say that Steel Lily was the best introduction book I could have ever imagined.

Fracture by Megan Miranda

Title: Fracture
Author: Megan Miranda
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Released: January 5th 2012
Pages: 261 (Paperback)
Buy: Amazon UK / Amazon US
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Eleven minutes passed before Delaney Maxwell was pulled from the icy waters of a Maine lake by her best friend Decker Phillips. By then her heart had stopped beating. Her brain had stopped working. She was dead. And yet she somehow defied medical precedent to come back seemingly fine
-despite the scans that showed significant brain damage. Everyone wants Delaney to be all right, but she knows she's far from normal. Pulled by strange sensations she can't control or explain, Delaney finds herself drawn to the dying. Is her altered brain now predicting death, or causing it? Then Delaney meets Troy Varga, who recently emerged from a coma with similar abilities. At first she's reassured to find someone who understands the strangeness of her new existence, but Delaney soon discovers that Troy's motives aren't quite what she thought. Is their gift a miracle, a freak of nature-or something much more frightening?

I've had Fracture on my TBR list for a long time, but after I read an ARC of Hysteria, I knew I had to get my hands on a copy asap. Hysteria blew me and my expectations away, and with a promising synopsis, I had high hopes for Fracture. Did it meet them? Well, I'm not entirely sure.

Insomnia by J. R. Johansson

Title: Insomnia

Author: J. R. Johansson

Publisher: Flux

Released: June 1st 2013

Pages: 351 (eBook)

Buy: Amazon UK / Amazon US

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Her eyes saved his life.
Her dreams released his darkness.

After four years of sleeplessness, high school junior Parker Chipp can't take much more. Every night, instead of sleeping, he enters the dreams of the last person he's made eye contact with. If he doesn't sleep soon, Parker will die.

Then he meets Mia. Her dreams, calm and beautifully uncomplicated, allow him blissful rest that is utterly addictive. But what starts out as a chance meeting turns into an obsession; Parker's furious desire for what he needs pushes him to extremes he never thought he'd go. And when someone begins to terrorizing Mia with twisted death threats, Parker's memory blackouts leave him doubting his own innocence.

Follow Friday (#24)

Feature & Follow Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read where you meet and follow different bloggers.

Question of the Week: Today’s is the US’ Independence Day. Share your favorite book with a war in it, or an overthrow of the government.

I'm pretty sure the majority of the hop will pick this one, but The Hunger Games still has to be my ultimate favourite. However, I also love Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly, Divergent by Veronica Roth, and Delirium by Lauren Oliver.

So what are your favourite taking-over-the-government reads? Let me know in the comments below, and don't forget to check out the 2nd blogaversary giveaway!

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Title: Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Author: Laini Taylor
Publisher: Hodder
Released: September 27th 2011
Pages: 418 (Hardback)
Buy: Amazon UK / Amazon US
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"Errand requiring immediate attention. Come."
The note was on vellum, pierced by the talons of the almost-crow that delivered it. Karou read the message. 'He never says please', she sighed, but she gathered up her things.
When Brimstone called, she always came."

In general, Karou has managed to keep her two lives in balance. On the one hand, she's a seventeen-year-old art student in Prague; on the other, errand-girl to a monstrous creature who is the closest thing she has to family. Raised half in our world, half in 'Elsewhere', she has never understood Brimstone's dark work - buying teeth from hunters and murderers - nor how she came into his keeping. She is a secret even to herself, plagued by the sensation that she isn't whole.

Now the doors to Elsewhere are closing, and Karou must choose between the safety of her human life and the dangers of a war-ravaged world that may hold the answers she has always sought.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone was released ages ago, but try as I might, I never seemed to be able to get a copy of it - well, until now. This book is one of the most highly anticipated releases of this decade, and two years later, the hype surrounding it is still thick. Going into it, I wasn't sure exactly what to expect - but what I got was far better than anything I could have dreamt of.

Waiting on Wednesday (#29)

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

Acid by Emma Pass

Title: Acid
Author: Emma Pass
Publisher: Random House
Released: April 25th 2013
Pages: 448 (eBook)
Buy: Amazon UK / Amazon US
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2113. In Jenna Strong’s world, ACID – the most brutal, controlling police force in history – rule supreme. No throwaway comment or muttered dissent goes unnoticed – or unpunished. And it was ACID agents who locked Jenna away for life, for a bloody crime she struggles to remember.

The only female inmate in a violent high-security prison, Jenna has learned to survive by any means necessary. And when a mysterious rebel group breaks her out, she must use her strength, speed and skill to stay one step ahead of ACID – and to uncover the truth about what really happened on that dark night two years ago.

I have to admit, it's the cover of Acid that first caught my eye. I love me some badass heroines, so as soon as I saw the girl on the cover, I knew it had to be added to my TBR list. But when I suddenly got a review copy of it? Lets just say I was over the moon with joy. Although the book didn't keep me up at all hours, it was addictive; the plot was thick with incredible twists, and I always wanted to know what was going to happen next.

Book of the Month: June

It's been a long month, especially for me as I've just done a bunch of exams for my GCSEs. Surprisingly, I still managed to read quite a few different books. Some were disappointing, but most were brilliant. Despite me loving A Monster Calls and A Game of Thrones, the winner this month is clear: Crown of Midnight, you beaut, you.

I adored Throne of Glass - the synopsis drew me in, and Maas delivered on her promises. I waited ages for Crown of Midnight to come out, so when I got my hands on an ARC? I was kind of screaming the house down. I started it immediately, and although at first I was a bit worried, it soon turned into the story I
knew and loved.

An assassin’s loyalties are always in doubt.
But her heart never wavers.

After a year of hard labor in the Salt Mines of Endovier, eighteen-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien has won the king's contest to become the new royal assassin. Yet Celaena is far from loyal to the crown – a secret she hides from even her most intimate confidantes.

Keeping up the deadly charade—while pretending to do the king's bidding—will test her in frightening new ways, especially when she's given a task that could jeopardize everything she's come to care for. And there are far more dangerous forces gathering on the horizon -- forces that threaten to destroy her entire world, and will surely force Celaena to make a choice. 

Where do the assassin’s loyalties lie, and who is she most willing to fight for?

It is released August 27th, so go and pre-order yourself one asap! You don't want to be missing this.

Two-Year Blogaversary Giveaway

(gorgeous button made by Eloise Gardner)

I have to admit, it feels a bit crazy to think that I've been running this blog for two years now - it doesn't feel like it at all! To thank everyone who has followed Project Read and Review these last couple of years, I've decided to host another giveaway. The twist? This one is going to be bigger and better than them all!

Rules (the usual spiel):

1. The giveaway will be running from July 1st 2013 until September 1st 2013. It will begin and end at midnight GB.
2. This is an international giveaway - no matter where you are, you can be in with a chance of winning!
3. Initially, there will be one winner. However, if I reach 200 followers on Bloglovin', I'll add another one; if I reach 300, then there will be three winners, and so on.
4. The prize is one book from the options below per person.
5. The winner will be chosen randomly on Rafflecopter.
6. I will announce who has won on September 1st 2013, and will send the book/s out shortly after. If the winner/s don't respond within two weeks, I will choose another winner.
7. Pretty obvious, but no cheating. I will be checking every entry, and any cheaters will be found and disqualified.