Lisa’s Looking Forward To #52 – March 10th, 2020

Posted March 4, 2020 by Lisa Mandina in LLFT / 14 Comments

Once again I’ll be joining up with the Can’t Wait Wednesday posts hosted by Wishful Endings.  Still a lot of books this week, eight I think!

From my ARC list for March 10th, 2020:

Sounds like a good friendship type of story.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

You can’t rewrite the past, but you can always choose to start again.

It’s been twenty-seven days since Cleo and Layla’s friendship imploded.

Nearly a month since Cleo realized they’ll never be besties again.

Now, Cleo wants to erase every memory, good or bad, that tethers her to her ex–best friend. But pretending Layla doesn’t exist isn’t as easy as Cleo hoped, especially after she’s assigned to be Layla’s tutor. Despite budding new friendships with other classmates—and a raging crush on a gorgeous boy named Dom—Cleo’s turbulent past with Layla comes back to haunt them both.

Alternating between time lines of Then and Now, When You Were Everything blends past and present into an emotional story about the beauty of self-forgiveness, the promise of new beginnings, and the courage it takes to remain open to love.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

I was lucky enough to get an ARC of this one at AASL back in November. I started it yesterday! It is an anthology, which you know I don’t usually get through, but I’m hoping to with this one!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Sixteen tales by bestselling and award-winning authors that explore the Black experience through fantasy, science fiction, and magic.

Evoking Beyoncé’s Lemonade for a teen audience, these authors who are truly Octavia Butler’s heirs, have woven worlds to create a stunning narrative that centers Black women and gender nonconforming individuals. A Phoenix First Must Burn will take you on a journey from folktales retold to futuristic societies and everything in between. Filled with stories of love and betrayal, strength and resistance, this collection contains an array of complex and true-to-life characters in which you cannot help but see yourself reflected. Witches and scientists, sisters and lovers, priestesses and rebels: the heroines of A Phoenix First Must Burn shine brightly. You will never forget them.

Authors include Elizabeth Acevedo, Amerie, Dhonielle Clayton, Jalissa Corrie, Somaiya Daud, Charlotte Davis, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Justina Ireland, Danny Lore, L.L. McKinney, Danielle Paige, Rebecca Roanhorse, Karen Strong, Ashley Woodfolk, and Ibi Zoboi.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

This sounds like a definitely interesting new story about the Holocaust.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Inspired by true events, David Safier’s 28 Days: A Novel of Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto is a harrowing historical YA that chronicles the brutality of the Holocaust.

Warsaw, 1942. Sixteen-year old Mira smuggles food into the Ghetto to keep herself and her family alive. When she discovers that the entire Ghetto is to be “liquidated”—killed or “resettled” to concentration camps—she desperately tries to find a way to save her family.

She meets a group of young people who are planning the unthinkable: an uprising against the occupying forces. Mira joins the resistance fighters who, with minimal supplies and weapons, end up holding out for twenty-eight days, longer than anyone had thought possible.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

I always love stories about circus performers. But as I’ve said in the past, I wonder how much of this type of story teens today actually are interested in, since there aren’t really a lot of circuses anymore. Even with The Greatest Showman movie, how much really do they think about it? It’s not like when I was a kid and we went every year when the circus came to town.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

The Greatest Showman meets This Is Us by way of Sarah Dessen in this heart-wrenching, hopeful contemporary novel about a multiracial teen who risks it all to follow her dreams by joining the circus, from the critically acclaimed author of Starfish.

Harley Milano has dreamed of becoming a trapeze artist for as long as she can remember. With parents who run a famous circus in Las Vegas, she spends almost every night in the big top watching their lead aerialist perform, wishing with all her heart and soul that she would be up there herself one day.

After a huge fight with her parents, who continue to insist she go to school instead, Harley leaves home, betrays her family, and joins the rival traveling circus Maison du Mystère. There, she is thrust into a world that is both brutal and beautiful, where she learns the value of hard work, passion, and collaboration. At the same time, Harley must come to terms with the truth of her family and her past—and reckon with the sacrifices she made and the people she hurt in order to follow her dreams.

From award-winning author Akemi Dawn Bowman comes a luminous, unforgettable examination of love, loyalty, and the hard choices we must make to find where we truly belong.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

This one sounds like it could be a big one! Plus, the author is the creator of a tv show, so that always helps. It sounds like a unique story possibly.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

From the creator of the hit TV series The Bold Type comes an empowering and heartfelt novel about a future female president’s senior year of high school.

Ava, CJ, Jordan, and Martha (listed in alphabetical order out of fairness) have been friends since kindergarten. Now they’re in their senior year, facing their biggest fears about growing up and growing apart. But there’s more than just college on the horizon. One of these girls is destined to become the president of the United States. The mystery, of course, is which girl gets the gig.

Is it Ava, the picture-perfect artist who’s secretly struggling to figure out where she belongs? Or could it be CJ, the one who’s got everything figured out…except how to fix her terrible SAT scores? Maybe it’s Jordan, the group’s resident journalist, who knows she’s ready for more than their small Ohio suburb can offer. And don’t overlook Martha, who will have to overcome all the obstacles that stand in the way of her dreams.

This is the story of four best friends who have one another’s backs through every new love, breakup, stumble, and success–proving that great friendships can help young women achieve anything…even a seat in the Oval Office.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

Speaking of the circus. I would love to read this as well!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

In a series of interwoven fictionalized stories, Deborah Noyes gives voice to the marginalized women in P. T. Barnum’s family — and the talented entertainers he built his entertainment empire on.

Much has been written about P. T. Barnum — legendary showman, entrepreneur, marketing genius, and one of the most famous nineteenth-century personalities. For those who lived in Barnum’s shadow, however, life was complex. P. T. Barnum’s two families — his family at home, including his two wives and his daughters, and his family at work, including Little People, a giantess, an opera singer, and many sideshow entertainers — suffered greatly from his cruelty and exploitation. Yet, at the same time, some of his performers, such as General Tom Thumb (Charles Stratton), became wealthy celebrities who were admired and feted by presidents and royalty. In this collection of interlinked stories illustrated with archival photographs, Deborah Noyes digs deep into what is known about the people in Barnum’s orbit and imagines their personal lives, putting front and center the complicated joy and pain of what it meant to be one of Barnum’s “creatures.”

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

Okay, I love stuff about the Titanic and this one just sounds spooky! I’ve seen some blogs post some reviews, but I haven’t had a chance to read any yet.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Someone, or something, is haunting the Titanic.

This is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the passengers of the ship from the moment they set sail: mysterious disappearances, sudden deaths. Now suspended in an eerie, unsettling twilight zone during the four days of the liner’s illustrious maiden voyage, a number of the passengers – including millionaires Madeleine Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim, the maid Annie Hebbley and Mark Fletcher – are convinced that something sinister is going on . . . And then, as the world knows, disaster strikes.

Years later and the world is at war. And a survivor of that fateful night, Annie, is working as a nurse on the sixth voyage of the Titanic’s sister ship, the Britannic, now refitted as a hospital ship. Plagued by the demons of her doomed first and near fatal journey across the Atlantic, Annie comes across an unconscious soldier she recognises while doing her rounds. It is the young man Mark. And she is convinced that he did not – could not – have survived the sinking of the Titanic . . .

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

A unique story about World War II, the side we don’t always read about.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

A brilliant historical YA that asks: how do you choose between survival and doing the right thing?

The arrival of the Soviet army in Germany at the end of World War II sends sixteen-year-old Katja and her family into turmoil. The fighting has stopped, but German society is in collapse, resulting in tremendous hardship. With their father gone and few resources available to them, Katja and her sister are forced to flee their home, reassured by their mother that if they can just reach a distant friend in a town far away, things will get better. But their harrowing journey brings danger and violence, and Katja needs to summon all her strength to build a new life, just as she’s questioning everything she thought she knew about her country.

Katja’s bravery and defiance help her deal with the emotional and societal upheaval. But how can she stay true to herself and protect the people she loves when each decision has such far-reaching consequences?

Acclaimed writer Michelle Barker’s second novel explores the chaos and destruction of the Second World War from a perspective rarely examined in YA fiction—the implications of the Soviet occupation on a German population grappling with the horrors of Nazism and its aftermath.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

Final Thoughts:

Quite a few good ones this coming week as well! Are any of these on your TBR, or have you already read them? If so, which do you recommend? And hey, while you’re here, you should go try to win some of my ARCs from Cleaning Up My TBR Post HERE. The US only giveaway is open till Friday at midnight.

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14 responses to “Lisa’s Looking Forward To #52 – March 10th, 2020

    • Lisa Mandina

      Same, even though books like 28 Days always seem to make me cry, I can’t get enough of them. Thanks for visiting!

    • Lisa Mandina

      I just wonder about the circus thing because I don’t seem to see any of my students checking those books out, even the newer ones. But who knows! Thanks for visiting!

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