{Blog Tour} Spotlight + Giveaway: Proxy - Alex London

Title: Proxy (Proxy #1)
Author: Alex London
Release Date: June 18th 2013

Publisher: Philomel
Age Group: Young Adult

Goodreads | Amazon | The Book Depository | National Bookstore

Knox was born into one of the City’s wealthiest families. A Patron, he has everything a boy could possibly want—the latest tech, the coolest clothes, and a Proxy to take all his punishments. When Knox breaks a vase, Syd is beaten. When Knox plays a practical joke, Syd is forced to haul rocks. And when Knox crashes a car, killing one of his friends, Syd is branded and sentenced to death.

Syd is a Proxy. His life is not his own.

Then again, neither is Knox’s. Knox and Syd have more in common than either would guess. So when Knox and Syd realize that the only way to beat the system is to save each other, they flee. Yet Knox’s father is no ordinary Patron, and Syd is no ordinary Proxy. The ensuing cross-country chase will uncover a secret society of rebels, test both boys’ resolve, and shine a blinding light onto a world of those who owe and those who pay. Some debts, it turns out, cannot be repaid.

Giveaway!

{Blog Tour} Book Review: The Girl from the Well - Rin Chupeco

Title: Girl from the Well

Author: Rin Chupeco
Release Date: August 5th 2014

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Age Group: Young Adult
Source: NetGalley
Goodreads | Amazon | The Book Depository

You may think me biased, being murdered myself. But my state of being has nothing to do with the curiosity toward my own species, if we can be called such. We do not go gentle, as your poet encourages, into that good night.

A dead girl walks the streets.

She hunts murderers. Child killers, much like the man who threw her body down a well three hundred years ago.

And when a strange boy bearing stranger tattoos moves into the neighborhood so, she discovers, does something else. And soon both will be drawn into the world of eerie doll rituals and dark Shinto exorcisms that will take them from American suburbia to the remote valleys and shrines of Aomori, Japan.

Because the boy has a terrifying secret - one that would just kill to get out.

Three things made this book go straight to my TBR list: first is the perfect, creeptastic cover; second is the fact that the author is a fellow Filipina; and lastly, the title which reminds me of The Ring, AKA my favorite Japanese horror movie. The eerie atmosphere is set right off of page one, and even with the summary, I had little idea of what to expect from this story. It took its unexpected turns that kept me engrossed right until the last page.

On the onset of the book we are introduced to our quite-morally-confused ghost narrator who will later be known as Okiku. She is very much like the well-known Sadako, with the long black hair and creepy preferred haunting position, but instead of releasing a killer video unto humanity, Okiku hunts those who have murdered children to make up for her own death hundreds of years ago. Unfortunately, her avenging nature, although unique, takes the creepies down a notch.

Okiku has always distanced her ghostly emotions from the killers she hunts and even from the lost spirits that she helps, but something about fifteen-year-old Tark draws her to him. But before you think this is another case of  "ooh he looks so shiny and mesmerizing", this is actually "ooh he looks like he's got a demon riding on his back". (Not a spoiler, I swear.) Tark has carried a dark, heavy burden in him his entire life, but not even him knows exactly what it is. Having a deranged mother who's tried to kill him a handful of times certainly doesn't help, either. But when he and his workaholic father move into the same town as his cousin, Callie, the darkness making the boy suffer is no longer unnoticeable, and with unexpected help from Okiku, their journey to help Tark takes them to Japan, the place where it all started.

Although it failed to give me the number of chills I'd expected it to provide, that doesn't mean The Girl from the Well isn't easy to read in one sitting, because that's exactly what I did. It wasn't as scary as I would have liked but nonetheless, I can still recommend it to everyone looking for a different kind of read.

MY FAVORTIE PART is the unconventional and satisfying ending.

RATING:

Cover Reveal + Giveaway: Amour Amour - Krista & Becca Ritchie

Today, I have a beautiful new cover to share with you guys! It's for a standalone novel written by two of my fave NA authors (they're twins, which is another point for awesome), and without further ado...

{A Reader's Digest} July Recap!

Oh, July, what an exhausting and hectic month you were! I applied for a job on the 11th, signed a contract that very same day, and a week later I was in training. I'm a tech support rep in a call center and the account we'll handle is quite complex (for those of you in the US, if you have AT&T U-verse, you might be speaking to me in the near future! ;D), so the hours don't just take a toll on my body, but also on my brain. So. Many. Terms. And acronyms! *dies* But it's been fun because of my wavemates, despite a bit of drama. 

Anyway! I still go to college despite having a nine-hour job, so you can imagine how tired I get, therefore the horrible blogging rut I am in at the moment. Although I try to read every time my eyes aren't threatening to droop shut, it's not enough. Can you believe that I haven't finished a book in more than two weeks?! Jesus. I've somehow adjusted, and I'll try to finish Hollow City tomorrow. I swear I will.

Bloggy Stuff

I didn't realize I read 9 books this July! I seriously thought the number was around 4 o.o Okay, so one of them's a novella and one is a graphic novel, but I still count that as a victory! And that brings me up to 65/100 books this year. I doubt I'll be upping that goal, but we'll see. Lola and the Boy Next Door and Along for the Ride are two books that require re-reading before I'll be able to review them; they're that good <3

Reviews posted in July: More Than Music | Boomerang | Minutes Before Sunset | Perfected | Reboot | Teaching Roman

And the other stuff that went up on the blog: The Books & the Art {4} | A Bookish Day: Me and the Happily Ever After | Stacking the Shelves {26} | The Books & the Art {6}

Books to watch out for in August

I am particularly excited about Opposition because it's the last book of the Lux series (although I doubt I'll pick it up any time soon because I still don't want to leave Katy and Daemon and the rest of the gang T_T), and Girl from the Well because it was written by a fellow Filipino and it's about Sadako? A retelling of The Ring? I'm not sure, but I want it.

Discuss!

Talk to me about the books mentioned above or give me tips to better manage my time! Because I hate neglecting my blog :c