Simon & Schuster Teen Preview Night

I love my local bookstore (Chapters Burlington), I really do. They put on awesome events like this one where book geeks (in this case, YA book geeks) get together to listen to people from publishing companies promote their recent releases. I went to the Harper Collins/HarperTeen one back in the spring, and just like that one, came away with a ton of books to add to my "to-read" pile. They're beneficial for me as a teacher because I scope out new and fresh titles for my classroom, plus I do some research and see what books on the table the kids in the audience flock to after the talk is over. Of course, like everything in YA lit recently, paranormal romance is all over the place...I feel sorry for avid reader boys, but there's lots of steampunk out now that they can read instead of kissy-face vampires. Between the representatives summarizing the books and giving their input, plus people in the audience who've happened to read the book as well agreeing/disagreeing with them, everyone's bound to find something they like, and in my case, several.

I bought what you see in the photo above, all of which should appear in the "Currently Reading" list to your right. Even though I won't finish the pile for a little while, they will all be read....unless they're insanely horrible, which I doubt ^^; And yes, that is an ARC for Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick, courtesy of Simon & Schuster and my Chapters store (my first ARC, squee!). That will be read starting immediately after finishing this post. Although I had my reservations about Hush, Hush (the first installment) when I read it a year ago, I still liked the story despite the teacher in me that wants to tell girls to never ever date a boy like Patch. But I figure since I have a healthy real-life relationship I can read about fictional bad boys all I want...I just won't tell my students that I secretly enjoy my two dimensional bad boys ^_~

On a side note, I remember after reading Hush, Hush and finding out that the author had a contest (back a year ago) to name a new character in this book. Obviously she didn't take my suggestion, but looking at the Crescendo acknowledgements in the ARC, I LOVE the name she did choose (not telling till review time).