Lisa’s Looking Forward To #106 – April 27th, 2021

Posted April 21, 2021 by Lisa Mandina in LLFT / 18 Comments

Lisa’s Looking Forward To #106 – April 27th, 2021

Once again I’ll be joining up with the Can’t Wait Wednesday posts hosted by Wishful Endings.

This one sounds really good! Plus I love the cover.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Five Feet Apart meets Tell Me Three Things in this YA contemporary novel about two sisters, one summer, and a diagnosis that changes everything.

Abby needs to escape a life that she no longer recognizes as her own. Her old life–the one where she was a high school volleyball star with a textbook-perfect future–has been ripped away. Abby and her sister, Brooke, have received a letter from their estranged dad informing them he has Huntington’s disease, a fatal, degenerative disorder that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. And when the sisters agree to genetic testing, one of them tests positive.

Fleeing to Catalina Island for the summer, Abby is relieved to be in a place where no one knows her tragic history. But when she meets aspiring documentary filmmaker Ben–tall, outdoorsy, easygoing, with eyes that don’t miss a thing–she’s thrown off her game. Ben’s the kind of guy who loves to figure out people’s stories. What if he learns hers?

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

This one I am lucky enough to have an ARC of and should be reading it later this week, and posting a review next week.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

An exciting debut contemporary young adult novel perfect for fans of Rainbow Rowell and Mary H. K. Choi 

Grace Welles had resigned herself to the particular loneliness of being fifteen and stuck at a third-tier boarding school in the swamps of Florida, when she accidentally saves the new kid in her class from being beat up. With a single aim of a slingshot, the monotonous mathematics of her life are obliterated forever…because now there is this boy she never asked for. Wade Scholfield.

With Wade, Grace discovers a new way to exist. School rules are optional, life is bizarrely perfect, and conversations about wormholes can lead to make-out sessions that disrupt any logical stream of thoughts. 

So why does Grace crush Wade’s heart into a million tiny pieces? And what are her options when she finally realizes that 1. The universe doesn’t revolve around her, and 2. Wade has been hiding a dark secret. Is Grace the only person unhinged enough to save him?

Acidly funny and compulsively readable, Mercedes Helnwein’s debut novel Slingshot is a story about two people finding each other and then screwing it all up. See also: soulmate, friendship, stupidity, sex, bad poetry, and all the indignities of being in love for the first time.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

This is a true story that has always fascinated me, but I have yet to actually read a book on them.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

From the author of The Miracle & Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets and The Borden Murders comes the absorbing and compulsively readable story of Violet and Daisy Hilton, conjoined twins who were the sensation of the US sideshow circuits in the 1920s and 1930s.

Violet and Daisy. They were as sweet and pretty as their names would suggest, the pair of them as alike as two flower buds on a single stem. They were also joined, back-to-back, at the base of their spine. 

Freaks, monsters — that’s what conjoined twins were called in 1908. And so their mother abandoned Violet and Daisy to the care of her midwife, who immediately put the babies on exhibition in the back room of her pub, embarking on a course of blatant exploitation that would range from the Brighton seashore to Australian amusement parks, American sideshows, and eventually to the most phenomenal success in vaudeville’s history.

But Violet and Daisy were more than just an exhibit, of course. They were two distinct individuals with remarkably harmonious personalities: Violet thoughtful yet candid, Daisy impulsive and easygoing. Above all, they were sisters. 

In a story packed to the brim with questions about individuality, identity, and exploitation, Sarah Miller delivers an engrossing, compassionate portrait of two sisters whose bonds were so sacred that nothing — not even death — would compel Violet and Daisy to break them.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

Now I had actually planned to have this read and post a review earlier this week. But then I accidentally left the book sitting on my desk at work over the weekend, and so I didn’t get to finish it. I am currently reading it and hope to post a review this weekend!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Teen Wolf meets Emergency Contact in this sharply observed, hilarious, and heartwarming debut young adult novel about friendship and the hairy side of chronic illness. 

Priya worked hard to pursue her premed dreams at Stanford, but a diagnosis of chronic Lyme disease during her sophomore year sends her back to her loving but overbearing family in New Jersey—and leaves her wondering if she’ll ever be able to return to the way things were. Thankfully she has her online pen pal, Brigid, and the rest of the members of “oof ouch my bones,” a virtual support group that meets on Discord to crack jokes and vent about their own chronic illnesses.

When Brigid suddenly goes offline, Priya does something out of character: she steals the family car and drives to Pennsylvania to check on Brigid. Priya isn’t sure what to expect, but it isn’t the horrifying creature that’s shut in the basement. With Brigid nowhere to be found, Priya begins to puzzle together an impossible but obvious truth: the creature might be a werewolf—and the werewolf might be Brigid. As Brigid’s unique condition worsens, their friendship will be deepened and challenged in unexpected ways, forcing them to reckon with their own ideas of what it means to be normal. 

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

Final thoughts:

Only four this week, not as many as last week. Have you read any of these yet? What new books are you eagerly awaiting this week?

And while you’re here, make sure to go enter into my monthly giveaway HERE. Not only do I have that giveaway going on, but thanks to an awesome box an author sent me, I’ve decided to do a giveaway of her books HERE. And the more entries on that one, the more books I’ll give away!

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18 responses to “Lisa’s Looking Forward To #106 – April 27th, 2021

  1. Fade into the Bright was such a hit for me. The tears and the joy. I liked Lycanthropy too, though I cannot understand why the author made a few of the choices she did. It was a fun buddy story with a great focus on people with chronic illnesses. Hope you enjoy them all!

    • Lisa Mandina

      I’m still in the middle of Lycanthropy, and it’s good so far. I’ll be interested to see if I can tell what your issues were as I read it. Thanks for visiting!

  2. Violet and Daisy sounds really interesting. I don’t know too much about their story, admittedly. I am really interested in Slingshot and Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses. These all sound good! I hope you are enjoying your week!

    • Lisa Mandina

      Just finished Slingshot last night, it was a very interesting book! Yeah, the exploitation part would probably make me mad, but it still would intrigue me to read about their lives. Thanks for stopping by!

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