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Riot Rundown

041317-LoveAndFirstSight-Riot-Rundown

Today’s Riot Rundown is sponsored by Love And First Sight by Josh Sundquist.

In his debut novel, YouTube personality and author of We Should Hang Out Sometime, Josh Sundquist explores the nature of love, trust, and romantic attraction.

On his first day at a new school, blind sixteen-year-old Will Porter accidentally groped a girl on the stairs, sat on another student in the cafeteria, and somehow drove a classmate to tears. High school can only go up from here, right?

As Will starts to find his footing, he develops a crush on a charming, quiet girl named Cecily. Then an unprecedented opportunity arises: an experimental surgery that could give Will eyesight for the first time in his life. But learning to see is more difficult than Will ever imagined, and he soon discovers that the sighted world has been keeping secrets. It turns out Cecily doesn’t meet traditional definitions of beauty–in fact, everything he’d heard about her appearance was a lie engineered by their so-called friends to get the two of them together. Does it matter what Cecily looks like? No, not really. But then why does Will feel so betrayed?

Told with humor and breathtaking poignancy, Love and First Sight is a story about how we relate to each other and the world around us.

Categories
The Stack

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Cage Match is back! Unbound Worlds is pitting science fiction characters against fantasy characters in a battle-to-the-death tournament, and you can win a collection of all 32 books featured in the competition.

Enter now for your chance to win this library of sci-fi and fantasy titles!

Categories
What's Up in YA

Celebrity YA novels, New Books by Printz Authors, 2017 Verse Novels, and More YA News

Hey YA fans!

This week’s edition of “What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Defy The Stars by Claudia Gray.

She’s a soldier.
He’s a machine.
Enemies in an interstellar war, they are forced to work together as they embark on a daring journey through the stars. Their efforts would end the fighting for good, but they’re not without sacrifice. The stakes are even higher than either of them first realized, and the more time they spend together, the more they’re forced to question everything they’d been taught was true.

____________________

Let’s take today and catch up with the world of YA news. Find packed in here some of the recent film announcements, book lists, and more happening in the world of young adult lit.

Before settling in though, I wanted to mention that we launched our rad new Book Riot Insiders program last week. Insiders gives you exclusive content and access to rad book-related news, features, and more. (& for those who go Epic, you’ll get access to an exclusive monthly YA-related book chat session with me via the Insiders forum!). Check it out!

Onward with news!

 

 

  • This list at Bustle of 11 YA books you likely haven’t read is not only terribly white but so weird I had to share it here. Most of these are either award-winning books (!) or they’re books that have been adapted. I’m not sure this is where I’d start with “books you likely haven’t read in YA.”

 

  • Cara Delevigne apparently wrote a YA novel. With another author. No word on whether it’ll get a US publication.

 

  • And I’ll say this is an ambitious undertaking to rank the top YA novels of all time, especially when maybe fewer than half of these titles are actually YA titles. Also, super white.

 

 

  • Film rights for Labyrinth Lost have been acquired. Good.

 

 

  • Jennifer Aniston + Dumplin’…now to ensure we see a fat girl — like a real-world fat girl and not a Hollywood-sized fat girl — as the main character.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • A look at the books — across all age categories — being released this year by former Printz honorees and winners. I love this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for hanging again this week. We’ll be back in your inbox next Monday with even more great YA talk.

Kelly Jensen

currently reading Done Dirt Cheap by Sarah Lemon

Categories
The Goods

Library Week Bundle

This isn’t a rock concert, so it’s totally cool to wear your awesome library card t-shirt TO the library and stock up on books to put in your tote. Bundle a library card tee + tote for just $36 this week!

Categories
Swords and Spaceships

Swords and Spaceships Apr 14

Greetings, Earthlings and galactic visitors! There is absolutely no space-related gossip in today’s newsletter; this time, we’ve got our feet on the ground.

I have a burning question for you all: Do you follow authors across genres? This is on my mind because China Mieville has written a political history of Russia and it comes out next month. He’s already a bit of a genre-hopper, with fantasy, hard sci-fi, and more wibbly-wobbly-genre-bendey works like The City and the City under his belt, but nonfiction is much farther afield. It’s not particularly surprising if you know his political leanings and background, but it’s also not quite the same as grabbing, say, an Atwood essay collection. What do you think? Is your interest piqued?

Waaaaay back in our very first ever Swords and Spaceships, I noted that Guy Ritchie’s forthcoming King Arthur movie looks like a glorious mess. The latest trailer just confirms it; I can’t decide if it’s weirder that the elephants from Lord of the Rings movies have shown up, or that the sword apparently gives Arthur powers!? Did Vortigern summon the elephants from Middle Earth with his ill-gotten powers? Did someone enchant the sword? I have questions that can only be answered by seeing it in the theater, because I am a hopeless Arthurian junkie.

We talked about the Hugos, now let’s talk about the Nommo Awards! These are newly on my radar, and I am preetttty excited about them for two reasons: one is that these are mostly authors I’m not already hip to and I cannot wait to start reading them, and the second is that A. Igoni Barrett is on there and I adored his short story collection Love Is Power, Or Something Like That (which is not speculative in nature, but excellent regardless).

What do we talk about when we talk about dragons? Jessica has some thoughts. I have narrowed down my own first dragons to Smaug and/or Eustace (spoiler) from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which made Kazul from Dealing With Dragons an absolute delight.

And, for your regularly scheduled whimsy: Sci-fi mugs! I cannot decide which I need the most, which just means I need all of them. Right?

Let’s talk about your TBR pile; if it doesn’t have these two books on it, please reconsider immediately.

The Regional Office Is Under Attack! by Manuel Gonzales

The Regional Office Is Under Attack! by Manuel Gonzales coverHappy paperback publication week to The Regional Office; what better way to celebrate than to remind you that if you haven’t read this book yet, it is now cheaper to acquire!

I love this book a lot, not least because it meshes robotics and magic and there is just not enough of that in my life. On the one hand we have Rose, a teenage assassin with powers who has been recruited by a conspiracy within the Regional Office. She is a one-woman army and she is coming for the Director. Except that Sarah, a dedicated employee who may also be a cyborg, is standing in her way.

If you were to mash up an episode of Buffy with Die Hard (there are a lot of crawl-spaces in this book, y’all), you’d get something close to the plot. What you wouldn’t get is Gonzales’ delightfully wry and episodic style — in between stellar action sequences, he doles out background story bit by tantalizing bit. It’s an ass-kicking, action-packed novel, with a punch in the feels for good measure.

 

cover of Tender by Sofia SamatarTender by Sofia Samatar

Welcome to the Sofia Samatar Fan Club! I am your local chapter president Jenn Northington and I am delighted to tell you that her new short story collection is SO GREAT!

I am unsurprised; her novels A Stranger in Olondria and Winged Histories are two of my favorite fantasies of the past few years. And this collection is full of gems. Some have a scholarly feel, like “An Account of the Land of Witches” or “Ogres of East Africa”, in which Samatar is cataloguing wonders previously unseen. Some are funny and heartbreaking, like “Walkdog.” All of them are bursting at the seams with magic, and with Samatar’s deliberate and precise use of language. Her style is a moving target — sometimes ornate and sometimes spare, some times casual and sometimes formal — but it’s always deployed with purpose, and the results are spell-binding.

Like I said: president of the fan club, over here. Get this collection on your shelf and into your brain.

Note: The pub date is technically Monday, April 17, but physical copies are available now!


This newsletter is sponsored by Defy The Stars by Claudia Gray.

She’s a soldier.
He’s a machine.
Enemies in an interstellar war, they are forced to work together as they embark on a daring journey through the stars. Their efforts would end the fighting for good, but they’re not without sacrifice. The stakes are even higher than either of them first realized, and the more time they spend together, the more they’re forced to question everything they’d been taught was true.

Categories
The Goods 2

Join Book Riot Insiders and Party with the Book Nerds!

*confetti cannons* It’s here! By popular demand, you can now get behind-the-scenes access and exclusive goodness by signing up for a monthly or annual subscription to Book Riot Insiders. Check out the subscription levels and pick your perks today!

Categories
Riot Rundown

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Today’s Riot Rundown is sponsored by Carina Press.

From New York Times and #1 ebook bestselling author Alexa Riley. Ryan Justice may be her boss, but nothing will stop him from making her his. Paige Turner is trying to outrun her past. Her need for Ryan got in the way of revenge, took her off course. Redirected her focus. Before she knew it, he’d made his way into her life. Into her heart. True love doesn’t let secrets as big as these stay buried. And when the truth about Paige’s father is finally exposed, Ryan will do anything to fix everything. Paige has always been his—and his alone.

Categories
Letterhead

BRI PR – 04-12-17

News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 12, 2017
Contact: Jenn Northington
jenn@riotnewmedia.com

BOOK RIOT ANNOUNCES INSIDERS, AN EXCLUSIVE NEW SUBSCRIBER PROGRAM
Subscriptions are now available with behind-the-scenes access, extras, deals, and more

(Brooklyn, NY) – Book Riot announced on Wednesday their new Insiders program, which will allow subscribers exclusive access to features including a curated new releases calendar, a subscribers-only forum, a podcast dedicated to the Read Harder challenge, a glimpse at operations behind-the-scene, and special deals to the Book Riot store.

“This is a project we’ve had on our minds for some time, and we’re delighted to launch it,” said editorial operations manager Jenn Northington. “Our community is full of incredible people, and we’re excited to have another way for them to interact with us and each other, as well as get some great perks!”

The perks in question are organized around common feature requests from Book Riot’s readers. For example, while there is already a thriving Goodreads group for the 2017 Read Harder Challenge, which encourages participants to step outside their usual reading comfort zones, the dedicated podcast will provide curated picks from Book Riot contributors Josh Corman and S. Zainab Williams. The New Releases Index will give subscribers an interactive, customizable way to track upcoming books, and the subscribers-only forum will give Insiders a place to compare reading notes, chat with Book Riot staff and contributors, and get personalized book recommendations.

“Book Riot is what it is today because of the passionate community of book lovers who have come together online and in person to celebrate the power of reading,” said Rebecca Schinsky, executive director of product and e-commerce. “We’re always looking for new ways to connect with readers–and to connect readers with each other–and Book Riot Insiders allows us to do that while also providing new content, tools, and digital gathering places to enrich readers’ lives.”

Readers can subscribe starting at $3 per month or $29 per year; the full list of levels and features is available at https://insiders.bookriot.com.

About Riot New Media Group, Inc:
Riot New Media Group, founded in 2011, creates communities dedicated to the idea that content around fandoms should be just as diverse as the fans are. So sometimes we are serious and sometimes we’re silly. Some of our contributors are pros. Many of them aren’t. We like a good list just as much as we like a good review, and we believe that there are smart, funny, and informative things to say about both. RNMG reaches 12MM monthly unique visitors through Book Riot, Book Riot Comics, and the Riot Ad Network.

Book Riot Insiders: insiders.bookriot.com
On Facebook: www.facebook.com/bookriot
On Twitter: @BookRiot
On Instagram: @BookRiot
On Tumblr: bookriot.tumblr.com

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Categories
Insiders

Level Up With Book Riot Insiders

Looking for a way to get even more Riot-y in your reading life? We’re delighted to unveil Book Riot Insiders! We’ve got three tiers for subscribers, starting as low as $3/month, with perks galore; come join us.

Animated GIF about Insiders program

 

Categories
The Goods

When In Doubt pre-order

You don’t need an acceptance letter from Hogwarts to rock your house colors with pride. For one week ONLY, pre-order your limited-edition When In Doubt tee and cross your heart with Hermione’s best advice.