Blog Tour Review & Giveaway - Stitch by Samantha Durante

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Paperback: 314 pages
Publisher: Samantha Durante
Publication date: Aug 1st 2012
ISBN13: 9780985804602

First Line - She woke to the sound of heavy boot steps marching down the hall and the familiar pang in her hip bones wrought from too many nights on a rigid metal cot.

Her heart races, her muscles coil, and every impulse in Alessa's body screams at her to run... but yet she's powerless to move.

Still struggling to find her footing after the sudden death of her parents, the last thing college freshman Alessa has the strength to deal with is the inexplicable visceral pull drawing her to a handsome ghostly presence. In between grappling with exams and sorority soirees - and disturbing recurring dreams of being captive in a futuristic prison hell - Alessa is determined to unravel the mystery of the apparition who leaves her breathless. But the terrifying secret she uncovers will find her groping desperately through her nightmares for answers.

Because what Alessa hasn't figured out yet is that she's not really a student, the object of her obsession is no ghost, and her sneaking suspicions that something sinister is lurking behind the walls of her university's idyllic campus are only just scratching the surface...

The opening installment in a twist-laden trilogy, Stitch spans the genres of paranormal romance and dystopian sci-fi to explore the challenges of a society in transition, where morality, vision, and pragmatism collide leaving the average citizen to suffer the results.

OOh, this is a good one! I was lucky enough to be offered a place on the STITCH Blog tour and before I even read the synopsis I was interested...that cover...oh my it looks lovely, doesn't it? Drew me right in. Then I read the blurb and the second box was ticked, it sounded just like the kind of book that appeals to me. I'm in!

I purposely didn't read any reviews for it beforehand though so I had no clue what I was going to get. I went into it expecting Sci-fi because the cover looks a bit 'techy' and the blurb made me think Paranormal/Ghosty/Romance but what I actually got is so much more. Dystopian is the new buzz word right now and that's probably as good a genre as any to slot this into it's but it's not just a one trick pony. This pony has a trick up every sleeve! It's got so much going on in the pages.

It's like being on a Tilt-a-Whirl, one minute you're heading one way and seconds later you've got whiplash from a rapid change in direction and your head is left spinning. Sometimes that irritates me, the constant backwards/forwards/sideways thing and the accompanying POV changes but with STITCH it just sucked me in even more. Unless a POV change is really well done I tire of it easily because I'm attached to certain characters above others, (*whisper* Shhh, don't tell anyone but, - I sometimes....skim-read the bits with characters I don't like. AMG!! Did I say that out loud?!) but here I actually looked forward to the POV changes. I wanted to know what was going on in other people's heads, I wanted/needed to know how they were interpreting things. With this type of book I like to know how everyone is dealing with situations and it helps build the world too.

Through Alessa you realise early on that there's something a bit 'iffy' going on and I was constantly trying to piece together all the little clues alongside her. I'd think I'd got it in one chapter only to find I was way off course by the next. It's frustrating, but in a good way.

What I loved most about it all though, is the one thing I can't talk about. When everything was unravelled and things fell into place I was so excited! It's one of the plots I've always wanted to read about in a book. There's a film out there that uses a similar setting. The storyline's are nothing alike but the setting is one that just seems to appeal to me and sucks me in. I can't say more than that without spoiling the surprise and I hate to be cryptic but I'm afraid you'll just have to read it for yourself to find out what the twist is.

I'll absolutely be reading the next part in the trilogy when it's released and can't wait to see how it all unravels for Alessa and Isaac. I hope I make the cut for that blog tour too!

A blog tour participant list can be found here so check out those other awesome reviews if you get a chance!

As promised you can be in with a chance of winning STITCH in ebook form, just by entering the giveaway below. It's open internationally and the lucky winner will be notified by email. Prizes are sent directly from the author Samantha Durante who you can find at her website

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Review - THOSE THAT WAKE by Jesse Karp

Hardcover ; 336 pages
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication Date: 03/21/2011
ISBN-13- 9780547553115

New York City’s spirit has been crushed. People walk the streets with their heads down, withdrawing from one another and into the cold comfort of technology. Teenagers Mal and Laura have grown up in this reality. They’ve never met. Seemingly, they never will.

But on the same day Mal learns his brother has disappeared, Laura discovers her parents have forgotten her. Both begin a search for their families that leads them to the same truth: someone or something has wiped the teens from the memories of every person they have ever known. Thrown together, Mal and Laura must find common ground as they attempt to reclaim their pasts.

I read this as a review galley and had no idea what to expect. The cover is gloomy and depressing and judging by cover alone it looked like it was right up my street. There wasn't a lot to go on, but the blurb led me to believe it might be on the dystopian side so I jumped at the chance to give it a go. This is a debut title from Mr Karp so I went into it with an open mind and no high hopes...

It's the kind of book that makes you take a step back and think. It seems to be a cautionary tale and I couldn't help but compare the world I was reading about and our own that I live in. How many gadgets and electronic devices do you use on a daily basis? How quickly would you fall apart without them? Yeah. Me too.

This is a very hard book to pigeon-hole. It's a dystopian, dark fantasy, horror story with liberal doses of science fiction and weirdness thrown in.

From literally the first few pages I was grabbed by the scruff of the neck and flung into the story. As mentioned above I am the slowest reader. Usually. I read this whole book, all 300+ pages of it, in a few hours and could not put it down.

I'm a huge dystopian fan, and I liked that this book had that feel to it. In fact, I thought it was purely dystopian at the beginning. As I read on though, things started to take on a menacing air and the horror started to seep in. However, it's not scary blood and gore type horror it's more of a sinister background horror that you only see glimpses of.

The character development is great and I really felt the terror that was bubbling just underneath the surface for each person as their story unfolded. I really felt like I knew these people. I cared about what happened to them and had my fingers crossed that things would work out for them. Likewise the world building is full and realised. I got a real feel for how hopeless and lost everything was. It all seemed dark and grey and dismal but by seeing it through the eyes of Mal, Laura, Mike and Remak I was hopeful that solutions were just on the horizon if only they could piece together the puzzle. Their characters grew right before my eyes and even Mike (who I wasn't that fond of for most of the story) developed a depth of character that I hadn't seen in the beginning.

I was left guessing all the way through the story. Some new piece of info would be shared and I would think "Ah ha! That's what's behind it all. I bet I know what's coming...." Only to be foiled by another piece of info and taken back to square one.

Now then, the ending, the conclusion and the reveal of all... I have no clue what the hell happened there at the end. Not. A. Clue. It all sort of whooshed over my head and I had a hard time understanding what was said, far less what was happening. I think that has more to do with me than with the story though. The ending is really, really complex and to stop and re-read passages over and over again until I got it would have torn me out of the story so I just trusted that Mr Karp knew what he was on about and took things on trust. (*whispers* In truth though Jesse, I was completed confused there at the end). Better just to surrender to it and let things unfold.

The only little niggle I have with any of it was that it felt a little preachy at the end. A little bit... The internet and all things globally interactive seem to put us in a great position to interact with each other and broaden our horizons, but actually the world is shrinking and we're becoming even more isolated than when we started. Carry on the way we're going in this age of the internet and all hell will break loose. I get it.

This title is billed for ages 12+ but I think it may hold more appeal for a slightly older audience.

Dystopia Reading CHallenge 2011

I've got my paranormal and time travel challenges for 2011 sorted, but wanted to find an apocalyptic challenge somewhere too... The closest I could find was the Dystopian challenge hosted by bareadingchallenges and it's close enough. I might have to just challenge myself to get some of the 'end of the world/last man standing' stuff off my TBR pile and into the 'finished' heap.

Meanwhile, the dystopian challenge is as follows:

Starts one minute past midnight, 1st of January 2011 and end the 31st of December 2011.

Challenge Levels

1. Asocial– Choose 5 books to read
2. Contagion – Choose 15 books to read
3. Soldier – Choose 30 books to read
4. Drone – Choose 50 books to read
5. Conditioned – Choose 75 books to read

For extra hard challenges

1. Brainwashed – Choose 76-125 books to read
2. Totalitarian – Choose 126-200 books to read
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Since I've got my work cut out with my other challenge commitments, I'm going for ASOCIAL = 5

1. Gone - Michael Grant

2. Wither - Lauren DeStefano

3. Awaken - Katie Kacvinsky

4. The Traveler - John Twelve Hawks

5. Inside Out - Maria V Snyder

As reference, this is the dystopian list given on goodreads...