Tom Upton's Blog

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Young love has never been this complicated.

Travis MacDuff is an ordinary teenager. His only concern is making his school’s football team, until he meets his new neighbor, a peculiar girl who leads him on a bizarre journey that threatens their lives as well as all life on the planet.

Just Plain Weird is a story about destiny and the triumph of young love over everything.

Originally posted on Worn Pages and Ink:

My apologize for posting this so late! It’s my busy week and Funky Cover Friday slipped my mind until now. But I have a good one for you today. This week, I’m absolutely enthralled with the cover for Claudia Gray’s A Thousand Pieces of You. I can’t wait to get my hands on this book, not only because it sounds like a fascinating story, but because it’s beautiful to look at. I’m drawn to unique watercolour images. The watercolour background turns this cover into a work of art. The contrast between the modern grey city above, and the colourful, “old world,” Russian city below, is eye-catching, but also gives you reason to stop, to think, and to interpret. It’s such a stark contrast. Visually it’s stunning and it builds up the anticipation for the story within. According to Goodreads, A Thousand Pieces of You is “Every Day meets Cloud…

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Originally posted on Books For Thought:

In the spirit of Halloween, here’s a fun tag created by Katytastic on YouTube. Basically, these are some good Halloween books to take a look at involving some scary creatures.

Vampires

Not really scary vampires, but I loved the stories anyways!

Werewolves

Easily my favourite werewolves!

Ghosts

Love this series! It involves all sorts of creatures of the night. This one in particular is about lots of ghosts!

Zombies

I’ve just started getting into zombie books. They can easily go wrong. This one went very right,

Angels

Loved this book! It’s lots of fun!

Dragons

Because who doesn’t love a good dragon book right?

Fairies

There are a couple books I would have chosen over this one but I didn’t want to give anything away! You know what it is if you’ve read them!

What are your favourites? Let me know below!

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Originally posted on YA? Why Not?:

Firebug by Lish McBride

September 23, 2014

Henry Holt & Co.

Hardcover, 336 pgs

What it’s about:

Ava is a firebug. She can start fires with her mind, making her deadly assassin and valuable commodity to the head of the local Coterie. Think magical mafia here, led by one psycho vampire named Venus. Ava hates her job (killing is not fun), hates the Coterie (she was forced into an unbreakable blood pact), and most of all she hates Venus (Venus killed her mother), so when Venus puts a contract out on a friend of Ava’s, the firebug surprises everyone by refusing to accept the job. Now she and her friends are in a world of trouble as Venus and her army of lethal lapdogs hunt them down. Can Ava keep her friends and family safe or will Venus win again?

Why you might like it:

You will most definitely love…

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Originally posted on Liv's Imaginarium :

Northern Lights to put it simply, is a lovely novel with interesting characters and a far more interesting world. From the minute I started reading I was drawn to this Steam punk-world with Christian influences.

Our hero is a young orphaned girl by the name of Lyra who was raised in Oxford by scholars. In short time we realize she is quite important to the fate of this world. That and other strange things, kidnapped children, Church mysteries, witches, armored bears, this thing called ‘dust’ and perhaps the most interesting thing of all: daemons.

I loved the concept of Daemons. Constant animal companions who are tied to each of the humans in the world. Basically they are the external self of a human being, their emotion, their soul. And before each human reaches puberty a daemon can change their shape whenever. But once they grow older they take a fixed shape.

This…

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Originally posted on The Pilotin:

 “Your twenties are a time to be selfish, because your selfish acts now, as long as positive in nature, lead  you to being able to perform great deeds of selflessness one day.”

I’ve learned a lot about the art of growing up in the past couple months. It’s exactly 2:50 in the morning and I sit on my bedroom floor admidst pillows and candlelight. Slighlty melodramatic? Of course, I am fully aware. But somehow at the same time, completely necessary. You see, you can’t always choose when inspiration comes to you. –when need meditation (literally) wakes you from slumber and calls you to pick up a pen and write. When it’s in the early hours of the morning and although you will still have to fufill the day’s tasks ahead, personal reflection takes precedence over slumber.

And what are you to do when inspiration calls?

Answer, of course.

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Originally posted on Life Is A Journey:

Today I am sitting on a new perch. My daughter and I are having coffee at Ground Zero. She likes this area of Madison so I thought it would be fun for her to try a new coffee-house over here. Today she turns 15 years old. We are enjoying some mom and daughter time. :) Our road has been kind of rocky lately. The teen years are not always kind and she has had her share of ups and downs. Together we are trying to find our way through them. Right now I am trying to savor the last years of her childhood. When I get frustrated I try to remind myself that someday I will not have her here everyday and that usually helps me calm down. Lilly is my youngest and so I am experiencing her milestones knowing that I will never be here again.

Lilly

Lilly did…

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Originally posted on "We know not what we may be.":

Title: Lies My Girlfriend Told Me

Author: Julie Ann Peters

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Publication Date: June 10, 2014

Goodreads / Author’s website / Author’s twitter

I picked up Lies My Girlfriend Told Me because of – you guessed it – the font on the front cover. I’ll admit that I didn’t even read the blurb before I started to read the book.

So to begin, so you know what we’re getting into, here is a brief summary from the author’s website:

When Alix’s girlfriend Swanee dies of sudden cardiac arrest, Alix is inconsolable with grief. She slips away from Swanee’s service to her room, fully expecting the whole ordeal to be an extravagant hoax. But the only thing Alix finds is the bag from the hospital where Swanee was taken. She still can’t believe Swanee is gone, and when Swanee’s cell pings a text message, Alix…

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Originally posted on The 100 Greatest Books Challenge:

Over here at “The 100 Greatest Books Challenge,” we love all books. (By “we,” I really mean me, all by my lonely self—”we” just sounds cooler, like there’s a whole professional task-force taking shifts on a 24/7 Classic Literature reading schedule.)

At least, I love all kinds of books. And while there are particular titles that I predict will never make it onto my reading list (East of Eden comes to mind; also Twilight, the eye roll heard ’round the world), there’s no genre or style or author I would outright refuse to read. I don’t have any sweeping literary prejudices equivalent to some people’s generalized hostility toward, say, country music.

Other readers, apparently, do—and they’re entitled to their opinion, like all of us. But the line between “having an opinion” and “declaring yours is the only acceptable opinion” is not so fine that it’s invisible, and it’s across this…

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Originally posted on :

Somehow it’s August already, even though it feels like I was only just making the July release list! There are so. many. books. this month, so this Stock Your Shelves is going to be just some of the highlights: a mix of nonfiction, YA, literary fiction, and historical fiction. So here you are, some of my most anticipated books this August, since there’s no way to include EVERYTHING I’m excited to see this month!

Bad Feminist: Essaysby Roxane Gay (August 5) A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay.

Looking For Jack Kerouacby Barbara Shoup (August 12) In 1964, Paul Carpetti discovers Jack Kerouac’s On the Road while on a school trip to New York and begins to question the life he faces after high school. Then he meets a volatile, charismatic Kerouac devotee determined to hit…

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