Once was Lost by Sara Zarr

Once Was Lost  is the story of Samara Taylor, who's having quite a rough time lately: being the daughter of the most popular pastor in her little desert town she feels like she's constantly under the microscope, her mother was just arrested for DUI and sent to rehab, her family's finances can be described as broke and there is a heat wave over the town that seems like it will never break. 

Then, on a day like any other, a girl from Sam's small town is kidnapped throwing the town into turmoil and putting more strain on Sam's already shaken faith. 

For me is hard to talk about Sara Zarr's books, they always make me uncomfortable and unsettled, and I don't mean it in a bad way, more like they make me think about things I rather not think about sometimes.

That being said, I do believe Once was Lost is the book by her that I've enjoyed the most so far, as a person who has gone through a couple of crisis of faith in the past, I could identify with Sam much more than I could with the girls from Zarr's other two books. And I found easier to get into the story thanks to the brisk pace of it. 

Grade:

Book Gossip #22

Fresh news!

Ally Carter just announced via her Twitter that her upcoming book Heist Society will be turned into a movie by Warner Bros! I'm happy though I have not read the book yet, I did read BookChic's review of it and he made it sound awesome.

Plus, I do lover her Gallagher Girls books. 

You can see more info about it in these articles by The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. Plus in Ally Carter's blog.

Cover Love #1 - Keys to the Repository

You guys know how much I love my covers! so I've decided to start Cover Love as an extension of Book Gossip (where I usually posted the covers I came across) so it'll be more focused.

This time I bring you, courtesy of Melissa De La Cruz's blog, the preliminary cover for Keys to the Repository:

Pretty nice, huh? I love how they keep the theme of the Blue Blood's covers with the keys in silhouette in the bottom part, where they usually put a city's skyline.

See ya next time,

Books Read in January

So, I'm doing the 100+ Reading Challenge and the 2010 YA Reading Challenge and here is my tally for January! So I don't write everything twice, the ones read for the YA challenge have which number are they next to the review link and are in cursive.

1. Secrets of My Hollywood Life: On Location by Jen Canolita (review) *YA1*
2. To Desire a Devil by Elizabeth Hoyt (review)
3. Bed of Roses by Nora Roberts (review)
4. Runaway by Meg Cabot (ARC) (review) *YA2*
5. Killer by Sara Shepard (review) *YA3*
6. Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy by Ally Carter (review) *YA4*
7. The Spy Master's Lady by Joana Bourne (review)
8. Morning Comes Softly by Debbie Macomber (review)

That's it for this month! we'll see what February brings.

Changes, changes and more changes!

Hey there!

So, I've been thinking long and hard about the blog and where I want to go with it and finally decided to expand the blog to include all of my passions, so we are changing our name to A Girl, Books and Other Things, I was going to change the address too but then I realized it would be more confusing and even more hassle for everyone. 

So, we are starting fresh! Well, sort of, the book review format won't change but we'll just talk about more stuff now and then. 

Hope you stick with me for the duration.

 

Love,