Cleaning Up My TBR With a Giveaway (US Only) – Down the TBR Hole #58

Posted February 8, 2020 by Lisa Mandina in CUTBR / 12 Comments

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 (or 20 if you keep adding like I do!)
  • Read the synopses of the books
  • Decide: keep it or should it go?

Still trying to figure out the quickest way to do this post, but for now, that’s why I’m late today.

1.Falls the Shadow by Stefanie Gaither:

When Cate Benson was a kid, her sister, Violet, died. Two hours after the funeral, Cate’s family picked up Violet’s replacement. Like nothing had happened. Because Cate’s parents are among those who decided to give their children a sort of immortality—by cloning them at birth—which means this new Violet has the same smile. The same perfect face. Thanks to advancements in mind-uploading technology, she even has all of the same memories as the girl she replaced.

She also might have murdered the most popular girl in school.

At least, that’s what the paparazzi and the anti-cloning protestors want everyone to think: that clones are violent, unpredictable monsters. Cate is used to hearing all that. She’s used to defending her sister, too. But Violet has vanished, and when Cate sets out to find her, she ends up in the line of fire instead. Because Cate is getting dangerously close to secrets that will rock the foundation of everything she thought was true.

In a thrilling debut, Stefanie Gaither takes readers on a nail-biting ride through a future that looks frighteningly similar to our own time and asks: how far are you willing to go to keep your family together?

My thoughts: I love the idea, but don’t know if I’ll ever get to this. Plus, doesn’t sound that original.

Verdict: Toss

2. Bloom by A.P. Kensey:

The power to create… the power to destroy.

Both are at your fingertips.

Chosen individuals have been gifted with extraordinary abilities in order to restore balance to the world—a balance that suffers amidst endless chaos.

Haven Kincaid is almost eighteen. After moving away from her friends before the start of her senior year, she struggles to fit in at her new school. When the boy of her dreams shows interest, she finally has a chance to be normal—but Haven is more different than she realizes. After a tragic loss and a deep betrayal, she is kidnapped by a sinister group that will do anything to extract a deadly ability she can barely control—even if they kill her in the process.

Colton Ross is fresh out of high school. Driven by a desire to escape his abusive father and haunted by the memory of an absent mother, he moves to New York City to start over. When a favor for his friend backfires and he ends up in jail, Colton is bailed out by a mysterious businessman who offers him the chance to strengthen his new-found power and discover the truth about his past—a truth that will set him on a quest for insatiable vengeance.

My thoughts: Yeah, probably not going to get to this.

Verdict: Toss

3. Forged by Jennifer Rush:

Before Anna and Sam, there was Dani and Sam.

There’s one rule that all Branch operatives must live by: No attachments. When Dani O’Brien entered the Branch, she planned to trade her freedom so that her family could have a better life. But joining up with the mysterious organization is more than she bargained for. Branch head Connor watches over her closely–too closely. The training is brutal, the experiments are secret, and the missions promise to be anything but ordinary. The only thing getting Dani through each day is the hope that she’ll run into Sam–a young man, about her age, who wears the world on his shoulders.

Find out how it all began in this short-story prequel to Jennifer Rush’s thrilling and suspenseful Altered series.

My thoughts: So I love this series, and I know some day I want to go back and finish it and all the little novellas that go with it.

Verdict: Keep

4. Reborn by Jennifer Rush:

The Branch is in shambles, but Anna, Sam, Cas, and Nick can’t rest easy. Remnants of the organization lurk unseen, and the flashbacks of their old lives are only getting stronger–especially Nick’s.

Following scattered memories and clues from his Branch file, Nick sets off alone in search of answers–and the girl who haunts his dreams. But the sleepy town where she lives is full of secrets, and Nick soon learns that uncovering their shared past may have deadly consequences.

My thoughts: Like the one before, I need to finish this series, so yeah.

Verdict: Keep

5. Gone by Christine Kersey:

What if everything you knew was suddenly gone?

Sixteen-year-old Morgan Campbell runs away from home and when she returns the next day her world is turned upside-down. Not only is her family missing, but another family is living in her house and claims to have lived there for weeks. As Morgan desperately works to figure out what has happened, she finds society has become obsessed with weight in a way she has never seen before. The more she searches for answers, the more she begins to wonder if she has somehow ended up in another world—a world she doesn’t want to be a part of.

Can she survive in this world until she can get home?

Gone does not contain any profanity or sexual content and is appropriate for all ages.

My thoughts: Doesn’t sound that unique

Verdict: Toss

6. Planet Urth by Jennifer Martucci:

More than two hundred years into the future, human beings are an endangered species. The planet has been battered by war, its inhabitants plagued by disease and death. Few humans survived and remained unaffected. Most changed dramatically and evolved into something else entirely. Irrevocable alterations caused by chemical warfare have created a new species. North America is in ruins and has been overtaken. Humanity has fallen at the hands of mutants known as Urthmen.
Seventeen year-old Avery is alive and unchanged. But she has not been immune to the harshness of the new world. She has lived on the run for much of her life, in terror.
After losing her father, Avery is the sole guardian of her eight-year-old sister, June. Avery is now charged with June’s safety as well as her own, a nearly impossible task.
Forced to hide deep in the forest and away from the cities overrun by Urthmen, Avery and her sister are constantly hunted. Danger awaits them at every turn. They fear they are the only human beings left, that they are the last of their kind.
But are they truly alone?
Find out in this raw and rousing first installment of the Planet Urth series.

My thoughts: As much as the spelling in the title amuses me, don’t think I’ll probably read this one.

Verdict: Toss

7. The Line by Teri Hall:

An invisible, uncrossable physical barrier encloses the United States. The Line is the part of the border that lopped off part of the country, dooming the inhabitants to an unknown fate when the enemy used a banned weapon. It’s said that bizarre creatures and superhumans live on the other side, in Away. Nobody except tough old Ms. Moore would ever live next to the Line.

Nobody but Rachel and her mother, who went to live there after Rachel’s dad died in the last war. It’s a safe, quiet life. Until Rachel finds a mysterious recorded message that can only have come from Away. The voice is asking for help.

Who sent the message? Why is her mother so protective? And to what lengths is Rachel willing to go in order to do what she thinks is right?

My thoughts: so that cover looks familiar to me. But not sure I’ll get to this one either.

Verdict: Toss

8. Hawthorne by Sarah Ballance:

After a terrifying encounter with the unexplained, it takes ten years and the news of her grandmother’s passing for Emma Grace Hawthorne to return to her childhood home. She seeks peace in saying a proper goodbye, but what she finds is an old love, a sordid family history, and a wrong only she can right.

Living in the shadow of Hawthorne Manor, Noah Garrett has never forgotten about Emma Grace. In a house full of secrets, his search for missing documents reveals a truth that can cost him everything. What he finds gave Emma the freedom to walk away from the mansion, her heart free and clear, but at what price to Noah?

My thoughts: Doesn’t sound that original.

Verdict: Toss

9. Sleep Donation by Karen Russell:

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Swamplandia!, and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, an imaginative and haunting novella about an insomnia epidemic set in the near future.

A crisis has swept America. Hundreds of thousands have lost the ability to sleep. Enter the Slumber Corps, an organization that urges healthy dreamers to donate sleep to an insomniac. Under the wealthy and enigmatic Storch brothers the Corps’ reach has grown, with outposts in every major US city. Trish Edgewater, whose sister Dori was one of the first victims of the lethal insomnia, has spent the past seven years recruiting for the Corps. But Trish’s faith in the organization and in her own motives begins to falter when she is confronted by “Baby A,” the first universal sleep donor, and the mysterious “Donor Y.”

Sleep Donation explores a world facing the end of sleep as we know it, where “Night Worlds” offer black market remedies to the desperate and sleep deprived, and where even the act of making a gift is not as simple as it appears.

My thoughts: Kind of sounds good, but don’t know that I’ll get to it.

Verdict: Toss

10. Colony Z: The Island by Luke Shephard:

Volume 1 of the Colony Z series – Now on Sale!

When the Undead have taken over America, one group of survivors find safety by escaping to a remote, unsettled island.

There they work to rebuild society, while trying to survive whatever it is that is after them.

Alone and isolated, their relative peace and safety is shattered when a group of Others shows up on their island and their leaders must make life-altering choices in the blink of an eye.

This is only the beginning. This is their story.

My thoughts: Yeah, again, are the undead zombies? Because as I’ve mentioned, I don’t read that much that is zombie, I almost prefer movies for that.

Verdict: Toss

11. Beyond by Maureen A. Miller:

It is the day after Aimee Patterson’s high school graduation. College beckons, as does her dream of becoming an engineer. On an early evening walk, her cocker spaniel charges into the woods on the other side of the pond. Aimee trails after him, and in the stillness of that forest the unthinkable happens. She becomes paralyzed and watches in horror as her hands vanish before her eyes.

Waking to the sound of voices, Aimee realizes that she has been kidnapped. Little does she know how far away from home she is, though. In an attempt to flee her captors, she launches from their confines only to freeze at the view outside the window. The sky is black and filled with stars, and in the distance is a familiar blue globe. The planet Earth.

A group of humans forced to flee their planet after an epidemic destroyed their civilization now travel the galaxies in search of an antidote. Retrieving samples of plant life from every solar system, on this occasion Aimee was accidentally seized instead.

Aimee must learn to avoid the advances of an awkward young scientist who seems intent on dissecting her, as her own fascination turns to the exotic young warrior, Zak. Having fallen in love with Zak, she is now torn with the decision to return to Earth or live beyond the stars.

My thoughts: I’m also very picky about alien stories, even alien abduction stories.

Verdict: Toss

12. Parasite Deep by Shane McKenzie:

Something is very wrong with the creatures of the deep. Their bodies encrusted with strange barnacles, the shells opening and closing like clicking, winking eyes. Black tentacles flail out of them, scooping the meat from their prey. The host, be it a whale or a shark or a dolphin or a tuna…or a human, become mad once infested, the only thing on their mind… tearing any living thing apart, feed the parasite.

Stuck in the middle of a sea of nightmares, surrounded by massive, murderous beasts, with their insane uncle just as much of a threat, two brothers and their friends fight to survive before the hungry sea tears them apart.

My thoughts: This used to be about all that I read, and I loved them! And this does sound good. But I also don’t know where to get a copy or when I’d get to it, so I’ll get rid of it for now.

Verdict: Toss

13. Nil by Lynne Matson:

On the mysterious island of Nil, the rules are set. You have one year. Exactly 365 days–to escape, or you die.

Seventeen-year-old Charley doesn’t know the rules. She doesn’t even know where she is. The last thing she remembers is blacking out, and when she wakes up, she’s lying naked in an empty rock field.

Lost and alone, Charley finds no sign of other people until she meets Thad, the gorgeous leader of a clan of teenage refugees. Soon Charley learns that leaving the island is harder than she thought . . . and so is falling in love. With Thad’s time running out, Charley realizes that to save their future, Charley must first save him. And on an island rife with dangers, their greatest threat is time.

My thoughts: So I’m not sure about this one. But we do have it in my school collection if I decide I do want to read it.

Verdict: Toss

14. Salvage by Alexandra Duncan:

Ava, a teenage girl living aboard the male-dominated deep space merchant ship Parastrata, faces betrayal, banishment, and death. Taking her fate into her own hands, she flees to the Gyre, a floating continent of garbage and scrap in the Pacific Ocean, in this thrilling, surprising, and thought-provoking debut novel that will appeal to fans of Across the Universe, by Beth Revis, and The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood. Internationally bestselling author Stephanie Perkins called it “brilliant, feminist science fiction.”

Ava is the captain’s daughter. This allows her limited freedom and a certain status in the Parastrata’s rigid society—but it doesn’t mean she can read or write or even withstand the forces of gravity. When Ava learns she is to be traded in marriage to another merchant ship, she hopes for the best. After all, she is the captain’s daughter. But instead, betrayal, banishment, and a brush with love and death are her destiny, and Ava stows away on a mail sloop bound for Earth in order to escape both her past and her future. The gravity almost kills her. Gradually recuperating in a stranger’s floating cabin on the Gyre, a huge mass of scrap and garbage in the Pacific Ocean, Ava begins to learn the true meaning of family and home and trust—and she begins to nourish her own strength and soul. This sweeping and harrowing novel explores themes of choice, agency, rebellion, and family, and after a tidal wave destroys the Gyre and all those who live there, ultimately sends its main character on a thrilling journey to Mumbai, the beating heart of Alexandra Duncan’s post–climate change Earth. An Andre Norton Award nominee.

My thoughts: While this kind of sounds good, and is compared to a favorite of mine, Across the Universe by Beth Revis, we do have this series in my library at school as well.

Verdict: Toss

15. RecruitZ by Karice Bolton:

Have you tasted fear? I have. It’s bitter and lingers in your mouth long after the moment has passed. That fear kept me alive during the apocalypse. I never stopped moving, and I never gave up hope.

The outbreak is over and vaccinations have been administered, but I’m tasting that fear again. Why? Because the undead have returned, and this time there’s no stopping them or the people who control them. But I refuse to give up.

The outbreak might be over, but the nightmare is just beginning.

My thoughts: Again, another zombie series.

Verdict: Toss

16: How to Fake a Moon Landing: Exposing the Myths of Science Denial by Darryl Cunningham:

Is hydro-fracking safe? Is climate change real? Did the moon landing actually happen? How about evolution: fact or fiction? Author-illustrator Darryl Cunningham looks at these and other hot-button science topics and presents a fact-based, visual assessment of current thinking and research on eight different issues everybody’s arguing about. His lively storytelling approach incorporates comics, photographs, and diagrams to create substantive but easily accessible reportage. Cunningham’s distinctive illustrative style shows how information is manipulated by all sides; his easy-to-follow narratives allow readers to draw their own fact-based conclusions. A graphic milestone of investigative journalism!

My thoughts: So this one sounds like a good book, definitely one that goes along perfectly with today’s fake news topics.

Verdict: Keep – and maybe look into getting for my students!

17. Perennial by Ryan Potter:

Perennial is all around you.

On the morning of the first day of senior year, Alix Keener awakens from a vivid, terrifying dream in which a ghostly boy warns her: Perennial is all around you. Shaking off the dream—and the cryptic message—is just what Alix doesn’t need as she starts a new life in Beaconsfield, the posh Detroit suburb she and her dad recently moved to after her mom’s death.

Alix manages to ignore the mysterious message until one of her new classmates, the alluring Lewis Wilde, mentions it — he knows something about Perennial, and hints that it has to do with a boy who died in Alix’s bedroom. Suddenly wracked by waking visions, Alix finds herself teaming up with Lewis to uncover the truth.

Alix’s developing psychic abilities become more powerful, but reality becomes increasingly unclear. Alix wants to trust Lewis, but a shadowy person named Vagabond hints that Alix’s trust may be misplaced. As things become more dangerous and complex, Alix must choose whether to use her burgeoning psychic powers or risk losing everything that matters to her.

My thoughts: Eh, sounds like something I’m not interested in anymore.

Verdict: Toss

18. Only Everything by Kieran Scott:

Sometimes the gods can be so unreasonable.

Like Zeus, the king, who thinks the proper reaction to finding me kissing a mortal is to threaten my boyfriend Orion’s life, banish me to Earth, and force me to inspire true love between three couples without my powers. I know! Elders! I’m Eros, a.k.a. Cupid. The Goddess of Love. Until this morning, anyway.

Now I’m stuck on Earth with no clue how to function as a human, and I can’t even conjure up my magical bow and arrows to help me do my job. I’ve already met this amazing guy—Charlie, a new kid in school like me—but matching him up isn’t as easy as I thought. Turns out opposites don’t attract, nearly identicals don’t attract, and giving a guy what he seems to want is just one big disaster. My sweet new friend Katrina might work, but she’s got more complications than Medusa’s hair, and a live-in boyfriend with a serious mean streak. Probably not the best idea to go there.

If I don’t make a match, I may never see Orion again. I have so much to lose, and only everything to gain.

My thoughts: Eh, can’t decide. Kind of sounds different, but don’t know that I’m interested in it anymore.

Verdict: Toss

19. The Beautiful-Ugly by James Snyder:

The moment she felt her consciousness seeping back inside her, she knew where she was. She didn’t have to look. Or listen. No one had to come whisper in her ear. She could smell it that far out, returning…

When sixteen-year-old Connelly Pierce wakes up inside an unknown psychiatric hospital, with both her wrists slashed, she begins the arduous task of piecing together the events of her life that led her there. Her own cognitive behavioral therapy (as she had learned so well from them). Starting with the sudden death of her mother and father when she was six, and the only world she knew disappeared, literally, overnight. That’s when, with no known or, at least, close relatives, she and her nine-year-old brother Eric find themselves cast into the nightmare quagmire of government child protection agencies, and Connelly begins her incredible, fourteen-year journey—her odyssey—into her own brave new world. A world, she realizes, she must not only quickly adapt, but fight back as well, if she hopes to survive.

My thoughts: Hmm, not sure. Cool cover though!

Verdict: Toss

20. To Bear an Iron Key by Jackie Morse Kessler:

This richly-imagined universe from an acclaimed fixture of YA storytelling introduces a the young witch Bromwyn, a strong heroine who wields great power.

Five years ago, Bromwyn refused a gift from the powerful fairy king. Tonight, on Midsummer, that decision comes back to haunt her. When her best friend Rusty picks the wrong pocket, he and Bromwyn are all that stand between their village and the rampaging fairies who have pushed through the World Door.

If they cannot outwit the fairy king and queen before the World Door closes at sunrise, the friends will lose everything–their village, Bromwyn’s magic, and Rusty’s life.

My thoughts: So, I love this author, and even if I don’t read a ton of fantasy, I really want to keep this on my list to possibly read one day.

Verdict: Keep

Final Thoughts:

As I mentioned above, still learning how to get this done quickly and easily on WordPress, so that’s why I’m so late! At least I’m only keep 4 this week.

Last week I had 3,075 books left on my Goodreads TBR. I’m tossing 16 this week, leaving me at 3,072 on Goodreads, and as usual, I’ve added to my Goodreads, but at least the number did go down!

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. You can pick only one from the 2019 pile, and one from the 2020 pile, the other should be from one of the others. Here are your choices:

2020 ARCs:

2019 ARCs

2012-2015 ARCs:

Finished copies: I also found some finished copies of books that I either have already read or won’t get to, so thought I’d throw them in for the giveaway as well!

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
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12 responses to “Cleaning Up My TBR With a Giveaway (US Only) – Down the TBR Hole #58

  1. John Smith

    Hi! Just checking that you received my email reply yesterday! I guess you haven’t had a chance to cross out the two choices I selected. Thanks again!

    • Lisa Mandina

      The pictures each week are still from the week before, I just haven’t had a chance to fix them. But when there is a winner picked from this week, I will have the updated pictures for them by that time. But yes, I got your email! And your choices will be on the way later this week! Thanks again for being a follower!

    • Lisa Mandina

      I had the goal to read that series, but the first two books did not blow me away, so I just don’t think I’ll get to it. So I’m going to just go ahead and pass the books on! Thanks for visiting!

  2. Danielle Hammelef

    I remember reading Salvage when it first came out and really enjoying it. I honestly don’t remember much about it, other than it was my first book like it. Now I have to look into Across the Universe series. Ah, my TBR grows again.

    • Lisa Mandina

      If I do decide I want to read Salvage, I do have it in the library here, so it would be an easy one to pick up! Thanks for visiting!

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