Cleaning Up My TBR With a Giveaway (US Only) – Down the TBR Hole #39

This meme was started by Lost in a Story.  Here is how it works:

• Go to your goodreads to-read shelf.
• Order on ascending date added.
• Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books
• Read the synopses of the books
• Decide: keep it or should it go?

Because I have so many to do, I’m going to try to do this weekly, and do 10 at a time. 

1.   Giant George:  Life with the World’s Biggest Dog by Dave Nasser:

With his big blue eyes
and soulful expression, George was the irresistible runt of the litter.
But Dave and Christie Nasser’s “baby” ended up being almost five feet
tall, seven feet long, and 245 pounds. Eager to play, and boisterous to
the point of causing chaos, this big Great Dane was scared of water,
scared of dogs a fraction of his size and, most of all, scared of being
alone.

GIANT GEORGE is the charming story of how this precocious
puppy won Dave and Christie’s hearts and along the way became a doggie
superstar. In 2010, George was named by Guinness World Records as the
Tallest Dog in the World-ever. He appeared on Oprah, and
even has his own global fan club. But to Dave and Christie, this
extraordinary animal is still their beloved pet, the one who has made
them laugh, made them cry, and continues to make them incredibly happy.

 

My thoughts:
As adorable as this is, I know I won’t have time to read it. 

Verdict:  Toss

2.  Cursed by Jennifer L. Armentrout:

Dying sucks
…and high school senior Ember McWilliams knows firsthand.

After
a fatal car accident, her gifted little sister brought her back. Now
anything Ember touches dies. And that, well, really blows.

Ember
operates on a no-touch policy with all living things–including boys.
When Hayden Cromwell shows up, quoting Oscar Wilde and claiming her
curse is a gift, she thinks he’s a crazed cutie. But when he tells her
he can help control it, she’s more than interested. There’s just one
catch: Ember has to trust Hayden’s adopted father, a man she’s sure has
sinister reasons for collecting children whose abilities even weird her
out. However, she’s willing to do anything to hold her sister’s hand
again. And hell, she’d also like to be able to kiss Hayden. Who
wouldn’t?

But when Ember learns the accident that turned her into
a freak may not’ve been an accident at all, she’s not sure who to
trust. Someone wanted her dead, and the closer she gets to the truth,
the closer she is to losing not only her heart, but her life.

For real this time.

My thoughts: 
I could have sworn I had a copy of this one somewhere. But I don’t.  But I know I will want to read some day, so it’s not going anywhere.

Verdict: Keep 

3.  Skinny by Donna Cooner:

My thoughts:  
While I still think it sounds good, I think we have a copy in my school library, so I will just go grab it from the shelf if I want to read it, probably don’t need to keep it on a list.

Verdict: Toss

4-5.  Shadow Days (Nightshade #0.5) and Treachery (Nightshade #2.5) by Andrea Cremer:

Shadow Days, told from Shay’s perspective, chronicles the days before the start of the New York Times bestselling Nightshade,
when Shay is taken away from the friends he loves and forced to live in
his uncle Bosqu Mar’s mansion, where the gargoyles seem to move, magic
seems real, and nothing is as it should be.

Ansel’s world is falling
apart. The Nightshade pack led by his parents has been violently
destroyed. His sister, Calla, abandoned her little brother, leaving him
to answer for her crimes. And the Haldis pack that would have been his
future is irreparably broken by Calla’s betrayal. Suffering at the hands
of the Keepers, Ansel is losing everything he’s ever loved. The only
chance he has to save himself means an alliance with his tormentors, and
repaying Calla in full for her treachery.
In this novella, find
out why Ansel makes the decisions he does in Andrea Cremer’s “New York
Times” bestselling novel, “Wolfsbane” 

My thoughts:  As much as I wanted to read these novellas that went with this series, since it has been so long since I read them in the first place, I don’t know that I’m really that interested in them anymore.

Verdict: Toss

For the past two
months, Kitty Doe’s life has been a lie. Forced to impersonate the Prime
Minister’s niece, her frustration grows as her trust in her fake fiancé
cracks, her real boyfriend is forbidden and the Blackcoats keep her in
the dark more than ever.

But in the midst of discovering that
her role in the Hart family may not be as coincidental as she thought,
she’s accused of treason and is forced to face her greatest fear:
Elsewhere. A prison where no one can escape.

As one shocking
revelation leads to the next, Kitty learns the hard way that she can
trust no one, not even the people she thought were on her side. With her
back against the wall, Kitty wants to believe she’ll do whatever it
takes to support the rebellion she believes in—but is she prepared to
pay the ultimate price?

My thoughts:
I still need to read the first book in the series, so until I read that and know that I want to read on, there’s no reason to keep this on my list.

Verdict:  Toss

7.  The Great Unexpected by Sharon Creech:

From Newbery Medal
winner and bestselling author Sharon Creech comes a grand, sweeping yarn
that is a celebration of the great and unexpected gifts of love,
friendship, and forgiveness. With a starred review from Kirkus Reviews calling it an “enchanting tale to treasure,” The Great Unexpected captures the heart and the imagination.

Humorous
and heartfelt, this is a story of pairs—of young Naomi and Lizzie, both
orphans in present-day Blackbird Tree, USA, and of Sybil and Nula,
grown-up sisters from faraway Rook’s Orchard, Ireland, who have become
estranged.

Young Naomi Deane is brimming with curiosity and her
best friend, Lizzie Scatterding, could talk the ears off a cornfield.
Naomi has a knack for being around when trouble happens. She knows all
the peculiar people in town—like Crazy Cora and Witch Wiggins. But then,
one day, a boy drops out of a tree. Just like that. A strangely
charming Finn boy. And then the Dingle Dangle man appears, asking all
kinds of questions. Curious surprises are revealed—three locked trunks, a
pair of rooks, a crooked bridge, and that boy—and soon Naomi and Lizzie
find their lives changed forever.

As two worlds are woven
together, Creech reveals that hearts can be mended and that there is
indeed a gossamer thread that connects us all.

My thoughts:
I don’t read a lot of middle grade books these days, so I’ll probably skip this one.

Verdict: Toss

8.  Wool (Silo #1) by Hugh Howey:

An epic story of life, love and survival at all odds and one of the most-talked and anticipated books of the year.

In
a ruined and hostile landscape, in a future few have been unlucky
enough to survive, a community exists in a giant underground silo.

Inside, men and women live an enclosed life full of rules and regulations, of secrets and lies.

To
live, you must follow the rules. But some don’t. These are the
dangerous ones; these are the people who dare to hope and dream, and who
infect others with their optimism.

Their punishment is simple and deadly. They are allowed outside.

Jules is one of these people. She may well be the last.

My thoughts:  
I still really think I want to read this one.  I hear a lot of good things about it.

Verdict:  Keep – for now

 9.  Black City by Elizabeth Richards:

A dark and tender post-apocalyptic love story set in the aftermath of a bloody war.

In
a city where humans and Darklings are now separated by a high wall and
tensions between the two races still simmer after a terrible war,
sixteen-year-old Ash Fisher, a half-blood Darkling, and Natalie
Buchanan, a human and the daughter of the Emissary, meet and do the
unthinkable—they fall in love. Bonded by a mysterious connection that
causes Ash’s long-dormant heart to beat, Ash and Natalie first deny and
then struggle to fight their forbidden feelings for each other, knowing
if they’re caught, they’ll be executed—but their feelings are too
strong.

When Ash and Natalie then find themselves at the center
of a deadly conspiracy that threatens to pull the humans and Darklings
back into war, they must make hard choices that could result in both
their deaths.

My thoughts:
Eh, kind of good, but not anything new really. 

Verdict:  Toss

10.  No Shelter by T.S. Welti:

When the environment is
ravaged by rising sea levels and monstrous storms, America is divided
and survival becomes more precious than love.

When
seventeen-year-old Nada and Isaac stumble upon a handsome stranger in
the woods, their cozy alliance and romance begin to unravel. This
stranger promises Nada the impossible in exchange for helping him rescue
his sister from a prison in the last corner of civilization in the
western United States. But this rescue operation is wrought with
complications, including the fact that the girl they are supposed to
save is the ex-President’s daughter. This mission puts everyone’s life
at risk, especially Isaac–the one person who has always been there for
Nada. Now Nada and her small tribe must choose between a somewhat
comfortable existence in the mountains and the chance at a life free of
fear and starvation.
 

My thoughts:
Doesn’t sound that original to me, so I’ll probably skip.

Verdict: Toss

11.  Click by Lisa Becker:

Fast approaching her
30th birthday and finding herself not married, not dating, and without
even a prospect or a house full of cats, Renee Greene, the heroine of
Click: An Online Love Story, reluctantly joins her best guy pal on a
journey to find love online in Los Angeles. The story unfolds through a
series of emails between Renee and her best friends (anal-compulsive
Mark, the overly-judgmental Ashley and the over-sexed Shelley) as well
as the gentlemen suitors she meets online. From the guy who starts every
story with “My buddies and I were out drinking one night,” to the
egotistical “B” celebrity looking for someone to stroke his ego, Renee
endures her share of hilarious and heinous cyber dates. Fraught with
BCC’s, FWD’s and inadvertent Reply to All’s, readers will root for Renee
to “click” with the right man.

My thoughts:
So, I have since read a few books by this author that I really liked, several years after I actually added this to my TBR list on Goodreads. But I think I still want to try this at some time!

Verdict:  Keep

Final Thoughts:
So I actually did 11 off my list this week, and I’m only keeping 3 of them, so that is good.

Once again you can see that I may have dropped some, but you can also see how many I’ve added during the week as well because I’m also pointing out how many books are on my Want to Read list on Goodreads each week.  This week, after taking these 8 off, I have 3,147 books listed now, and last week I ended with 3,149.  So I improved!  A tiny bit.

Have
you read any
of these?  Would you suggest I keep any I’m tossing?  And if you’re
inspired to do this on your blog, please feel free to join in and share a
link in the comments, since it will also get you an extra
entry into my giveaway at
the bottom of this post.      
 

Giveaway:
Once
again this is a US only giveaway, unless you are International and see a
book here you really want and would be willing to pay for the
difference in the shipping through Paypal or some other way.  You get to pick any two books from the pictures
below, as
long as they don’t get traded away, or picked by last week’s winner,
and I will pick a surprise book from the piles to add to your choice. 
As I mentioned above, unpacking is finding a lot of books to get rid of, so you have even more to pick from this week!  Here are your choices:   

2018 ARCs:

2017 ARCs:

And here are the older ones I’ve cleaned out as I unpack:

2010-2013 ARCs:

2014 ARCs:

2015-2016 ARCs:

Once again I’m going to let you pick two, along with me throwing in a surprise third book!  Just enter the Rafflecopter below.   Disclaimer:  Unfortunately, while I’ve only had it happen once, I’m going to have to make a statement like other giveaways I’ve seen on blogs that I am not responsible for lost mail.

a Rafflecopter giveaway