Books are covering almost every available space, even the new bookshelves are almost full so I thought it was a great time to ask the very important question – what to do with the books you no longer have room for?

This post was inspired by a letter (I know snail mail is still in use for non-bookish deliveries ) I recently received from the charity shop, Sue Ryder. It told that for my donations (last year, which mostly consisted of books, DVDs and CDs) raised just over £45 – I was in shock (I knew it was two bags for life full of stuff but to raise £45 was a lot more than I expected).

Actually, donating to the charity shop was the fourth stop on my book clear out – I started by giving away proofs and ARCs to any blogger that wanted them (I’ve kept any that no-one wanted). Then my sister had a rummage through them – our bookish tastes are generally very different – she’s far more likely to be seen reading the classics than me – but she gave four or five of them a go (and now wants to read Pandemonium (she has good taste ))!

The third stop was my old school library, now due to limited space they only take books that are on the Accelerated Reader Program (which I think is a fab scheme by the way) which left me with an ample amount to take to the charity shop

What do you do with your books when space becomes an issue?

Author: Julianna Baggott

Publisher: Headline (2nd February 2012)

Pages: 448

ISBN: 978-0755385485

From Amazon
We know you are here, our brothers and sisters. We will, one day, emerge from the Dome to join you in peace. For now, we watch from afar.

Pressia Belze has lived outside of the Dome ever since the detonations. Struggling for survival she dreams of life inside the safety of the Dome with the ‘Pure’.

Partridge, himself a Pure, knows that life inside the Dome, under the strict control of the leaders’ regime, isn’t as perfect as others think.

Bound by a history that neither can clearly remember, Pressia and Partridge are destined to forge a new world.

Review
I’ve said it on this blog before that I love dystopia’s and pure does fit into the dystopia category but I didn’t love it in the same way that I’ve loved others. There’s something quite different about Pure, for me it didn’t feel as fast paced as most dystopia’s but there is a lot going on and a lot to take in and this did make it a little bit confusing keeping track of all of the characters. On a number of times I thought I was reading about one character for it only to be a different one.

That being said there’s something to be said for the way Pure is handled, I can’t complain on the writing front, it’s a beautifully written book with so much depth and detail, it’s clear that a hell of lot of thought has gone into this world. And the writing has that addictive quality right from the begging that made me want to continue reading.

The society in Pure has been split into two as a result of the detonations, those who live in the Dome live in peace and safety while those who live outside it (the Wrenches) have felt the force of the impact and have found there bodies fused with whatever was nearby, a doll’s head, a fan, dust, birds – I’m sure you get the picture.

The start of the story reminded me a little of Inside Out, the idea of the grass being greener on the other side, there was someone inside the dome trying to get out and someone on the outside who wanted to get in, seeing it as a heavenly place. But the story takes some interesting twists which completely blow this comparison out of the water and it becomes a (in places) quite gruesome story.

Ultimately Pure is a story of friendship and family loyalty, the friendships and relationships we see are a pleasure to read about and I loved how the relationships in the story formed slowly (there was no insta-love here). I loved how Pressia discovered more about herself as the characters she met slowly revealed more about who she really was and I absolutely adored the relationship between Pressia and Bradwell.

Pure isn’t by any means a perfect book and it probably won’t be for you if you want something which is fast paced and quick to read but if you’re prepared to take your time with it and give it your full concentration then Pure is a very special book indeed.

Thanks to Headline for sending me a copy to review

Each week Have You Heard? will sum up random and probably completely unrelated news, cover reveals and book trailers that I think are interesting (you may as you wish completely disagree )

Department 19 & The Name of the Star For £1

Yes you read correctly, the story of a secret government department set up to protect us against vampires who have awesome weapons like T-Bones, Department 19 by Will Hill and the staggeringly good story of a new Jack the Ripper in modern day London, The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson will be sold for £1 each in Waterstones very soon.

Though they’re not official World Book Day titles It’s Waterstones way of getting YA involved in the celebrations. I knew there was a reason Waterstones are my favourite bookshop!

Mark Grist On Girls Who Read

I couldn’t resist not sharing this video, I’ve seen it on a few YA blogs in the past week so if you haven’t yet seen it.. here it is

Lauren Oliver Competition

Who loves Lauren Oliver’s writing? Me! Who’s excited about Pandemonium? Me! Who’s missed out on the eBook Hana which accompanies the Delirium series because they refuse to read books on an eReader? Me! (lol)

Well for anyone who is like me I bring amazing news, Hodder have had five copies of the Hana eBook bound into a real life bound manuscript!!

Want to enter? Thought so – here’s how…

All you have to do is answer the following question:
What is the first name of the main (female) character in Delirium?

Just send your answer to competition@hodder.co.uk, putting HANA in the subject line.

Full terms and conditions at
www.hodder.co.uk/terms.aspx

Oh and if you’re not yet following Delirium on Facebook why not – here’s the link!

Good luck!

The Language Of Flowers Trailer

I can’t do these posts without a trailer or two and this first one is amazing, though it’s actually the book that really interests me, I had no idea that flowers could be used to communicate and that different flowers have different meanings. It sounds like something I could easily obsess over (trying to find out what different flowers mean) and I hear many have several interpretations – it sounds fascinating.

And now for the gorgeous trailer:

The Rising Teaser Trailer

And now for another trailer (well, teaser trailer) – this one is a return to the top of the post really as we go back to Will Hill for the teaser trailer for Department 19: The Rising:

Thought For The Day Hollow Pike Style

Consider this one as a final thought for the day (thought for the post, thought for the minute … I could go on ). This post was written by James Dawson as part of the Hollow Pike blog tour and it’s so honest and thoughtful. He says it was the most difficult of the blog tour posts to write and I’m really not surprised (tears are threatening here).

If you haven’t read It Gets Better which was posted on Wondrous Reads earlier this week – you really should go and read it now – it deserves to be read by ALL!

I am so excited to be the first stop on the Beat the Band blog tour, I absolutley loved Beat the Band (review here) and so I’m thrilled that today we get to read about the 10 songs you should listen to whilst reading the book.

At the bottom of this post is a Spotify plasylist so you don’t have to worry about digging the songs out if you want to give them a listen.

Over to Don…

10 Songs To Play Whilst Reading Beat The Band

This will be a fairly easy blog to write as I took great care in choosing the names of the chapters in this book. Each one is a song title that correlates to what’s going on in the novel at that time. The difficulty here will be narrowing the list down to only ten as there are sixty-two (shortish) chapters in the novel.

Well, that, and not giving too much of the story away.

But here goes:

1) BORN TO RUN by Bruce Springsteen
The title of the first chapter of the book where Coop is trying to convince Matt and Sean that this is the semester they will all be running the bases. They’ve finally seen a real-live naked woman and now it’s time for them to take the next step. Or so Coop hopes.

2) TOXIC by Britney Spears
This is a bit of a guilty pleasure song for me. I’m not the biggest Britney fan in the world but there’s something very catchy about this one. Beyond that, though, the title is perfect for the chapter where Coop learns not only that he will have to work with “Hot Dog” Helen Harrick—the school pariah—on a Health Class contraception project all semester long, but just how toxic this is going to be to his life at school.

3) ROCK AND ROLL BAND by Boston
Coop is desperate to figure out a way to save his reputation. If he can’t get his health teacher to switch his project partner then he’ll have to resort to desperate measures. By becoming a rock star. And so, he signs him and his pals up to play in the school’s Battle of the Bands. Unfortunatley, they can barely play their instruments.

4) PARANOID ANDROID by Radiohead
Of course, you can’t enter the Battle of the Bands without a demo CD. And since Matt and Sean aren’t yet on board with the band plan, Coop has to come up with some other means of getting something to hand into the music teacher. With the help of his less-than-ethical dad, Coop manages to “record” a demo that might just pass as a high school rock band recording. Now, though, he has to muster the courage to actually hand the thing in.

5) SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT by Nirvana
Coop does not want to be seen in the library working with Helen and so he concocts the mother of all plans to keep her a safe distance away.

6) ICKY THUMP by The White Stripes
In which Coop, Matt and Sean realize that their band totally sucks and there is no way in hell they are going to be able to play in the Battle of the Bands in less than three months.

7) I GOTTA FEELING by The Black Eyed Peas
Coop catches Helen running on the track in a tight white tank top and tiny jogging shorts. He’s absolutely horrified to realize that… his nether regions really like what they see.

8 ) FLUORESCENT ADOLESCENT by Arctic Monkeys
The boys try to spruce up their rock-and-roll image to interesting results.

9) WON’T GET FOOLED AGAIN by The Who
As Coop desperately scrambles to extricate himself from the Hot Dog Helen situation he attempts to extract some key information from Helen’s mom that just might help him in his cause.

10) BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE by Talking Heads
In a bid to impress the boys, Coop’s dad tries to show his skill with pyrotechnics.

Spotify Playlist

I didn’t honestly didn’t realise that the chapter titles were song titles – how slow am I? Anyhoo, the Spotify playlist is below, if you have Spotify it should open it up, otherwise you can download Spotify from Spotify.com.

Beat the Band Spotify Playlist

Further Information

Thanks you so much to Don for writing this post and for allowing me to part of the blog tour, if you want more of Don check out the links below

• Website: www.doncalame.com
• Twitter: @DonCalame

Author: Don Calame

Publisher: Templar Publishing (1st February 2012)

Pages: 427

ISBN: 978-1848770577

From Amazon
‘Who gets more girls than a rock god? No one.’ In the hotly-awaited sequel to the hysterical Swim the Fly, Coop finds himself partnered with social outcast ‘Hot Dog’ Helen for a class project on safe sex. Desperate to find a way of saving his rep, Coop decides that winning the school Battle of the Bands contest is the perfect solution. Surely the small fact that neither he nor his best friends, Sean and Matt, can actually play an instrument will stop them achieving rock-and-roll awesomeness –

Review
Lucky for me I didn’t have to wait long to read Beat the Band as I only read and loved the fabulous Swim the Fly earlier this year. The story is set a few weeks after Swim the Fly finishes but rather than it be a sequel I would agree with Don when he calls it more of a companion book.

Sure, the story is a continuation from the last one and the characters are instantly recogniseable, the traits that defined Coop, Sean and Matt are still very much there. Many people described Swim the Fly as the book form of The Inbetweeners – I would argue that the start of Beat the Band is even more like that show, mainly I think because it’s told from Coop’s point of view.

This was a great change for me as we got to know Coop a little better and saw that underneath the outer shell, underneath all the barvado is a someone who does have the same human feelings as everyone else. Don’t get me wrong on the outside he’s still the same guy but in this book he shows us another side, he shows us he can be compassionate and thoughtful.

Talking of Coop I can’t not mention his Dad, he was an amazing adult character in the book even if he did look like he was trying to relive his youth. He provided so much entertainment value and caused a portion of the problems that the boys had to deal with throughout the story. Coop’s sister, Angela also made a return which was nice to show she was still there, but she was much more of a background character this time around.

I can’t not mention Helen, she’s took everything that was thrown at her in her stride, doing her best to not let anything get her down and she really is the star of the story, showing an inner strength that I don’t think I possess despite how much crap she has to put up with. By the end I am in so much awe of her it’s unbelievable!

I thoroughly enjoyed Beat the Band, it was just as funny and fast paced as Swim the Fly but also had a message concealed within its pages that I think deserves to be read.

Thanks to Templar for sending me a copy to review

Author: Gideon Defoe

Publisher: Bloomsbury (5th January 2012)

Pages: 192

ISBN: 978-1408824955

From Amazon
Just make sure we’ve got plenty of hams on board. I didn’t really enjoy our last adventure much because we ran out of hams about halfway through. And what’s my motto? I like ham! It is 1837, and for the luxuriantly bearded Pirate Captain and his rag-tag pirate crew, life on the high seas has gotten a little dull. With nothing to do but twiddle their hooks and lounge aimlessly on tropical beaches, the Captain decides it’s time they had an adventure. A surprisingly successful boat raid leads them to the young Charles Darwin, in desperate need of their help. And so the pirates set forth for London in a bid to save the scientist from the evil machinations of a diabolical Bishop. There they encounter grisly murder, vanishing ladies, the Elephant Man – and have an exciting trip to the zoo.

Review
Aarrghh! Anyone heard of a new film coming out soon made by the wonderful people at Aardman Animations? Pirates… In An Adventure With Scientists is the book that started it all.

Full of adventure and all manner of funness (here I go making up words again hehe) really sums up what this book is about. In no way does it take itself too seriously (scratch that, it doesn’t take itself seriously at all) – it’s a funny read from start to finish.

I love a good pirate story and Pirates… In An Adventure With Scientists is like no other pirate story ever (in a good way). The story takes place on the high seas with a bunch of less than intelligent pirates and follows them on a barking mad adventure. At it’s heart is Pirate Captain, a captain who identifies his crew by colours and other identifying features and is easily misled, I loved him).

It features everything you would expect from a pirate story (plus quite a few things you wouldn’t ), I won’t go into them as it will spoil the story but lets just say if you love pirates and comedy you can’t go far wrong.

At just under 200 pages it’s a very quick read – I managed to read it in one day which is something of a record for me. But in those 200 pages is a story which is full of laughs, fun and scientists – I can completely see why Aardman were attracted to it – it’s so them!

You’ll also learn something too as scattered throughout the text are footnotes which point out bits of the plot that are fact or elaborates or certain themes which were fascinating.

I don’t think I need to say anything more apart from I am now dying to see the film even more than I was! And for those who want to get a feel for what the story is like here’s the film trailer:

Thanks to Bloomsbury Books for sending me a copy to review

I’ve realised recently that I don’t do a lot of features on Books 4 Teens any more so I’m taking steps to address this today (well actually, there’s something that I’ve been planning for a few weeks, but that’s not due to start for a few more weeks – but it will crop up in the Have You Heard post on the 25th February )

Each week Have You Heard will sum up random and probably completely unrelated news, cover reveals and book trailers that I think are interesting (you may as you wish completely disagree )

The Diary of the Apocalypse

The Diary of the Apocalypse is a brand new blog from Barry Hutchinson which is acting as a prequel to his new book The 13th Horseman (don’t you think the cover for this is striking?)

The blog takes the form of a diary from Pestilence’s point of view, he’s one of the horseman of the impending Apocalypse yet he lives in a shed(!) with Famine and Death!!!

I recommend you start from the beginning and read your way through the posts, just try not to catch that nasty rash!

The Other Life Trailer

Last week I reviewed and hosted part of the blog tour for The Other Life, yet I’ve only recently seen the trailer for The Other Life and so now I can share it with you

Daylight Saving Trailer

Talking of book trailers, the trailer for Daylight Saving is amazing…

I just can’t get over how good Walker’s trailers are – I don’t think I’ve seen one which I’ve disliked.

Open Door at Strange Chemistry

You may, or may not know about Angry Robot’s new YA imprint, Strange Chemistry but for any aspiring writers out there you might be interested to know that they will soon have an open door for untenanted submissions. Here’s what they say:

UNAGENTED AUTHORS are able to send in their novels for consideration. We’ll read everything we’re sent and you *might* end up published through Strange Chemistry!

Exciting, no?

Now – don’t go rushing to email your manuscript in before you check out the webpage http://strangechemistrybooks.com/opendoor/ Absolutely everything you need is there and I do advise you read through this carefully. Especially note that the Open Door period is between 16th April and 30th April – you’ve got plenty of time to neaten up your magnus opus in preparation to sending it in.

2nd Blogoversary Winner

On the 28th January Books 4 Teens was 2 years old and to celebrate I ran a little giveaway to win a £10 Amazon Gift Voucher and a copy of Footloose by Rudy Josephs.

The winner has now been informed and the prizes are in the post so now all that’s left to do is say the winner is:

C. Gordon

Google Friend Connect

As we all know Google has depreciated the Google Friend Connect API and as a result is waving goodbye to all non-blogger blogs on the 1st March 2012. In preparation for this as of today I am adding in a networked blogs widget thingy instead – look it’s just below the Google Friend Connect thingy in the sidebar

I know it won’t fill the hole that GFC leaves but it’s better than nothing, right?

Author: John Barrowman and Carole E. Barrowman

Publisher: Buster Books (2nd February 2012)

Pages: 334

ISBN: 978-1907151644

From Amazon
Lots of twins have a special connection – being able to finish each other’s sentences; sensing what the other is thinking; perhaps even knowing when the other is in trouble or in pain – but for 12-year-old twins, Matt and Emily Calder, the connection is beyond special. Together, the twins have extraordinary powers. They are able to bring art to life, or enter paintings at will. Their abilities are sought by villains trying to access the terrors of Hollow Earth – a place where all the demons, devils and creatures ever imagined lie trapped for eternity. The twins flee with their mother to the security of an island, off the west coast of Scotland, where their grandfather has certain protective powers of his own. But too much is at stake, and the twins aren’t safe there either. The villains will stop at nothing to find Hollow Earth and harness the powers within…

Review
Doesn’t the idea sound amazing? To have the power to draw things and bring those things into being (or as the book calls them animate them). Imagine all the scrapes you could get out of by drawing a means of escape or the fun you could have! Of course this not being normal it all has to be done in secret – what’s the use in a super power when you can’t show anyone

But there’s more to it than that, there’s a legend or myth or whatever you want to call it which says that there is a place called Hollow Earth, a place where all manner of monsters and demons lie in wait to be drawn and animated into our world and it’s this mysterious place that will put the twins in great danger!

If you know anything about this book you’ll know it’s been written by all round good egg, John Barrowman and his sister Carole E. Barrowman. Now I love virtually everything John turns his hand to and I’ve read both of his autobiographies who were written again by John and Carole and they were interesting and unputodownable reads so I was really interested to see if the chemistry that came from those books transferred into a fictional world. And largely it did.

The writing was engaging and fast paced, for the amount of pages there is an awful lot of story in there. if you follow this blog you may know that I love stories which switch points of view – enabling us to not only see the story from one person but from all sides (or as many as needed) and this is something that Hollow Earth uses to great effect.

Perhaps surprisingly my favourite character was Zach, he doesn’t have these fascinating abilities that the twins have and he can’t hear so has to rely on lipreading. He’s a whiz with the computer and gets the twins out of a tight spot or two. I have to applaud John and Carole for including a character with a disability and for not making a big deal over it and even more importantly for showing they can be just as brave if not more so than those without disabilities.

It wasn’t without it’s faults though, one problem I did have is more of a personal thing – the length of the chapters, they were all very short – most are no longer than 6 pages and many are shorter. To me this made it feel very stop starty, I like short chapters but I like them mixed in with longer ones Not only this but I found that some parts of the story were told twice (once shown and then later told).

Overall, Hollow Earth was a fairly enjoyable read – there’s a lot going on and a lot to take in and the idea in itself is enough to keep reading to see what the twins and Zach will do next.

Thanks to Buster Books for sending me a copy to review

Author: Luisa Plaja

Publisher: Corgi Childrens (2nd February 2012)

Pages: 278

ISBN: 978-0552560979

From Amazon
Lex Murphy’s group of friends have all dated, hated, ignored and lusted after each other for the last few years. If only there was a way of matching people perfectly to avoid all the unrequited love, dumping and drama!

Then Lex’s friend George is give a mysterious Sims-like game by his software-testing dad which involves building character profiles in the categories of Life, Looks and Love. Lex and George populate the game with avatars for all their mates, making a few ‘wishful thinking’ adjustments to the settings – and find that the next day these tinkerings have come true! But how long can this new calm, loved-up atmosphere continue…?

Review
Kiss, Date, Love, Hate made me kick myself – I’ve been meaning to read a book by Luisa for ages (and ages and ages) and now I have, I just have to go out and buy her others.

The story is based off a game not too dissimilar from The Sims but with a key difference – the changes you make in the game world have effects in the real world leading to some very interesting developments.

While reading, the story seems to be a fairly light and fun tale with a rather quirky idea behind it but the ending hits you right between the eyes suddenly spinning the last 200 odd pages on it’s head. Everything you’ve read takes on a new appearance.

Luisa’s characters are so full of life that I felt like they could start walking off the page and start talking to me. George sounds like my kind of guy and I loved his friendship with Lex, it showed that they really cared for each other and remained friends despite what has happened in there lives.

I seem to be doing this a lot lately (maybe I should have an honorable mentions section in my reviews) but I have to point out that I loved Trenchie (or Mr. Trench) he had this BOOMING voice which so reminds me of a teacher from my old school – it’s almost like my teacher has jumped head first into Luisa’s world and seems totally at home .

Instead of being structured with chapters Kiss, Date, Love, Hate is structured into three parts, something which I didn’t immediately spot. It wasn’t a problem though – if I needed to do something I could use the paragraph breaks to stop, though to be fair finding a place to stop was only a problem in work at all other times I just kept reading

Overall, Kiss, Date, Love, Hate is a fast paced, addictive read written by an amazingly talented writer and I will be seeking out Luisa’s earlier books post haste!

Thanks to Corgi for sending me a copy to review

Author: James Treadwell

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton (2nd February 2012)

Pages: 436

ISBN: 978-1444728460

From Amazon
For centuries it has been locked away
Lost beneath the sea
Warded from earth, air, water, fire, spirits, thought and sight.

But now magic is rising to the world once more.

And a boy called Gavin, who thinks only that he is a city kid with parents who hate him, and knows only that he sees things no one else will believe, is boarding a train, alone, to Cornwall.

No one will be there to meet him.

Review
Don’t be misled by the title Advent is not about Christmas … at all, well okay maybe a little reference near the end. It’s actually a story that is in a way based on the Faust legend or the bear bones of the legend anyway.

For those who don’t know the legend I did a little post about it the other day but the short version is a deal with the devil – selling a soul for something in return. In the case of the legend (and the retelling of it that I’m most familiar with – the play, Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe) the main character is after more knowledge.

Advent doesn’t really play up the relationship to the legend much, in fact if I hadn’t read the press release or the author note at the end I’m not sure I would have spotted it. There is a link but the story is told in such an unusual way that made it for me at least quite hard to spot.

I found Advent to be quite an odd book and I found it to almost be a book of two halves, the first half is split between the present day and 1537 and whilst the present day bits were interesting, intriguing and generally a very pleasant read, I found myself constantly confused and losing my place in the parts set in 1537. I understood enough to get a grip on what’s happening but I’m not sure if I was able to take it all in. It took me ages to get the link between the past and present which didn’t really help!

After roughly the half way point though and especially the last 100 pages things improved drastically, the number of visits to the past almost disappeared, it’s also roughly at this point that I started to get the link between Advent and the Faust legend and I most certainly got it by the end.

It was almost like the way of telling the story had changed by that point. Not only had we almost completely got rid of the one thing that was grating on me but also we got to hear the story from Horace, the journalists and the magic person’s point of view (I’m not revealing there name as it’s something I think best found out for yourself).

I’m not saying there was nothing I didn’t like about the first part, I loved how we met Gavin and how Gavin met Hester (one of my favourite characters), it provided a beautiful introduction to the world without having to spell it out and genuinely intrigued me but past that bit it was Marina who kept me reading and hoping it got better. She seemed like a ray of innocent light set against the darkness of the book and I was always looking forward to the bits where the story returned to her.

Overall, like I said above, Advent was a book of two halves – I loved half and was left scratching my head at the other. It’s generally a good book, well written but I would have liked a little bit less of the past.

Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton for sending me a copy to review