Day 9 of 25 Days of Christmas Reviews: My True Love Gave to Me edited by Stephanie Perkins

My True Love Gave to Me by Various YA authors

Published: October 14, 2014

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Format: via NetGalley

Rating: 5/5

Synopsis

If you love holiday stories, holiday movies, made-for-TV-holiday specials, holiday episodes of your favorite sitcoms and, especially, if you love holiday anthologies, you’re going to fall in love with MY TRUE LOVE GAVE TO ME: TWELVE HOLIDAY STORIES by twelve bestselling young adult writers, edited by international bestselling author Stephanie Perkins.

My Thoughts

Oh where do I start? I’ve always been a sucker for anthologies this one in particular is one of the best. Where else can you get a roundup of some the best YA authors around in one place? Some shorts were heart felt and touching while others were just plain cute I couldn’t stand it! The book contains the following stories…

1 Midnights by Rainbow Rowell

2 The Lady and the Fox by Kelly Link

3 Angels in the Snow by Matt De La Pena

4 Polaris is Where You’ll Find Me by Jenny Han

5 It’s a Yuletide Miracle, Charlie Brown by Stephanie Perkins

7 Krampuslauf by Holly Black

8 What the Hell Have You Done, Sophie Roth? by Gayle Forman

9 Beer Buckets and Baby Jesus by Myra McEntire

10 Welcome to Christmas, CA by Kiersten White

11 Star of Bethlehem by Ally Carter

12 The Girl Who Woke the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

While I enjoyed all the stories for different reasons, my personal faves where…

Midnights by Rainbow Rowell this one focuses on best friends throughout the years on New Year’s Eve. We see how they meet and how the friendship grows into something more. I love these two together and when they finally kiss it’s just plain amazing. I was gitty and rooting for these two, classic romance by Rainbow Rowell.

Polaris is Where You’ll Find Me by Jenny Han Omg this is just the cutest thing I ever read! Focusing on a human living in an elf world who is in love with someone everyone else tells her it will never work out with. Sometimes the heart wants what it wants despite logic or anything else.

Some reads are realistic while others aren’t each one will make you look at the holidays differently. There is at least one story that will touch your soul no doubt about it. So do yourself a HUGE holiday favor and grab this book, you’re bound to have a simply wonderful Christmastime reading this awesome book.

Late to the Game [6] If I Stay/Where She Went by Gayle Forman

Late to the Game is a series I do featuring books that everybody and their mommy have read…except me. The thing is 99% of the time I have these books but they have just been pushed back on my TBR pile. This won’t be a review of sorts seeing how everyone already knows the basics of the story but more of what I felt and how it affected me. I’ve dedicated this feature to try to put a dent in my pile and also to see if they live up to the hype…good and/or bad.

      

If I Stay/Where She Went by Gayle Forman

Publisher: Dutton Juvenile

Format: purchased

Rating: 5/5

Synopsis [If I Stay]

On a day that started like any other. Mia had everything: a loving family, a gorgeous, admiring boyfriend, and a bright future full of music and full of choices. In an instant, almost all of that is taken from her. Caught between life and death, between a happy past and an unknowable future, Mia spends one critical day contemplating the only decision she has left. It is the most important decision she'll ever make.

Simultaneously tragic and hopeful, this is a romantic, riveting, and ultimately uplifting story about memory, music, living, dying, and loving.

Synopsis [Where She Went]

It's been three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life. And three years he's spent wondering why. When their paths cross again in New York City, Adam and Mia are brought back together for one life-changing night.

Adam finally has the opportunity to ask Mia the questions that have been haunting him. But will a few hours in this magical city be enough to lay their past to rest, for good - or can you really have a second chance at first love?

My Thoughts

Talk about heart wrenching! If I Stay will pull at your heart strings like no other book I swear. It’s a story of strength and a love that’s like no other. I dare you read this and NOT feel something….anything! Where She Went picks up a few years later and is told by Adam’s view point. 

Mia and Adam’s love is like no other I’ve read. The love is so grand and powerful that you completely forget that they are very young. It will stand the test of time because you know it’s real, it’s meant to be, it’s simply something that can’t be denied.

When I read that it was being made into a movie I was like NO!! Let’s be honest film hasn’t been too kindly to novels. However after seeing that Chloe Grace Moretz was cast as Mia I was convinced this would be awesome, she is one of my faves she can’t really do wrong in my eyes. Plus after seeing the trailers…OMG I was done. If I can ball my eyes out in a 2 minute trailer I will be a wreck once I see the whole film. While the film looks like it will be true to the book and awesome I HIGHLY encourage anyone who hasn’t to read the books now before the movie comes out, you won’t be disappointed although you may be kicking yourself that it took you so long to read it to begin with.

   

WoW [84]

Waiting on Wednesday [WoW] is a weekly event hosted by Jill @ Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating.

I Was Here by Gayle Forman

Expected Publication: January 27, 2015

Publisher: Viking Juvenile

Synopsis...

Cody and Meg were inseparable.

Two peas in a pod.

Until . . . they weren’t anymore.

When her best friend Meg drinks a bottle of industrial-strength cleaner alone in a motel room, Cody is understandably shocked and devastated. She and Meg shared everything—so how was there no warning? But when Cody travels to Meg’s college town to pack up the belongings left behind, she discovers that there’s a lot that Meg never told her. About her old roommates, the sort of people Cody never would have met in her dead-end small town in Washington. About Ben McAllister, the boy with a guitar and a sneer, who broke Meg’s heart. And about an encrypted computer file that Cody can’t open—until she does, and suddenly everything Cody thought she knew about her best friend’s death gets thrown into question.

Why I Can’t Wait…

I’m a huge Gayle Forman fan so this one is a given!

Feel free to link me to yours.

***Please click here to enter my giveaway of A Pinch of Ooh La La by Renee Swindle. 

Review: If I Stay by Gayle Forman

If I Stay [If I Stay #1] by Gayle Forman

Published: April 2009
Publisher: Speak
Format: Kindle E-Copy
Challenges: 2013 TBR Pile & E-Book
Rating: 5/5

 A critically acclaimed novel that will change the way you look at life, love, and family. In the blink of an eye everything changes. Seventeen ­year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall what happened afterwards, watching her own damaged body being taken from the wreck. Little by little she struggles to put together the pieces- to figure out what she has lost, what she has left, and the very difficult choice she must make. Heart wrenchingly beautiful, Mia's story will stay with you for a long, long time. [Goodreads]

My Thoughts

AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why on earth have I waited this long to read this book??!! From the first page I was hooked. I loved the story of Mia and her relationships with her family and especially Adam. The moment I realized she was in the accident I wanted to cry. Ok so I did cry several times throughout the book.

The writing was so realistic and beautiful it took my breath away. Now I know why everyone loves Gayle Forman’s writing so much. The way she writes through Mia’s voice was heartbreaking. Struggling with what choice to make was gut wrenching. Needless to say I’m now an official fan and will buy any and everything she writes.

I can’t wait to read Where She Went, which is the second book in the series. I read the sample via my Kindle and man oh man I was hooked again. Seeing how it’s told through the voice of Adam I so excited to see what happens! This is one series and author I just can’t get enough of.