ARC Review: Play Me Backwards by Adam Selzer

Title: Play Me Backwards
Author: Adam Selzer
Publication: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
Expected Release Date: August 26th 2014
Pre-order or buy on: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | iBooks

SYNOPSIS:

A committed slacker enlists the help of his best friend (who may or may not be the devil) to get his act together in this novel filled with humor, awkwardness, and honesty, ideal for fans of The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Leon Harris isn't exceptional and he isn't popular. He's the kind of guy that peaked in middle school, when once upon a time he was in the gifted program and on the fast track to Ivy League glory.

Now, a high school senior, he's a complete slacker who spends his time hanging out in a third-rate ice cream parlor with his best friend, Stan, a guy who (jokingly, Leon thinks) claims to be Satan. Committed to his sloth, Leon panics when he finds out that Anna, the love of his life aka middle school girlfriend, might be moving back to town.

Determined to get his act together, Leon asks Stan for help. Stan gives him a few seemingly random and mysterious assignments. Date a popular girl. Listen to Moby-Dick, the audiobook. Find the elusive white grape slushee. Join the yearbook committee.

As each task brings Leon one step away from slacker city and one step closer to Anna, he starts to wonder if maybe he shouldn't have promised Stan his soul after all.

Misfit Review: 

Very much at the beginning, I was hesitant to read this novel being that it tackles topics such as Satan and demonic worship, however, once I began reading it, I couldn't quite get the thought out of my head! I was hooked! Play Me Backwards got me reading forward!

"I first met the dark lord when I was nine."

So the story starts with Leon as he narrates how he met Stan, who he believes is actually Satan. Stan is a genius and knows his way to things and somehow Leon respects him. After Anna leaves to study in England, Leon becomes a total slacker, not caring about his grades or his life. Then the news about Anna visiting starts to burn and everyone is curious whether Leon and her would get back together. This is where all the weird stuf starts to happen as Stan asks Leon for different missions and Leon couldn't decline because he's the dark lord. But he has to keep up a nice impression before Anna comes back home.

"Stan always makes it sound like people in hell have a pretty good time when they aren't being stabbed in the ass with pitchforks."

Play Me Backwards is a book full of dark humor edging on rude but it works in such an awesome way that everything that's going on, from the sex to the simple things such as hanging out in the basement of the Ice Cave seems incredibly fascinating to me. It's not a story that blows your mind like dystopian novels or singles out the idea  of boy meets girl and they fall in love with each other. This coming of age novel brings forth the notion that we are all pretty much like Leon, learning to accept mistakes and moving forward with life. He deals with the quirky people in his life and trying to navigate through it without exerting so much effort.

"Your ninth grade girlfriend is coming back to the States, and you're afraid she won't like you anymore now that aren't listening to opera."

I really really loved this novel for it's simplicity and it's complexity. It's a book full of awkward, weird and out of this world situations, courtesy of Stan, my love, my heart breaks and soars for him. Like please, Adam Selzer, find one for me! HAHAHA! It's mix of humor, interesting and serious situations was molded up into this amazing novel, I'm actually left laughing every time I turn a freaking page, like, is it even possible? I also really had a good time laughing at Leon while he has fun with Paige yet he couldn't stop thinking about Anna. What a douche! HAHAHA!

The book seems to be character driven, it may be for the better or worse, but it does pay a lot of attention to what the characters are doing, and that's what's so great about it. From the first page, I was already sucked in by the power of Stan and Leon, and that already says something.

"Maybe I was a pretty good catch, by certain very low standards."

I keep on tweeting Adam Selzer before that he's a genius. I just feel bad that I haven't posted my review out of sheer speechlessness and feels. The book grabs you and allows you to gravitate towards its characters without making you think of too complicated stuff outside of the story. It just wants you to focus on it, really. Which brings me back to the fact that ADAM SELZER IS A GENIUS!

Play Me Backwards takes you into this realm of trust, friendship and comedic relief that you would remember till you leave this world. You might even meet Stan sometime. But seriously, don't. HAHA! *winks*

About The Author:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Adam Selzer's first book was HOW TO GET SUSPENDED AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE (now available in a "Now With More Swearing") edition, his next one is PLAY ME BACKWARDS (for satanic young adults), and his best known is probably I KISSED A ZOMBIE AND I LIKED IT, a Twilight satire that was not marketed as a satire.

He also writes the SMART ALECK'S GUIDE series and has published a bunch of Chicago history/ghostlore books. 

You can also find him under the name SJ Adams, the name he used for SPARKS: THE EPIC, COMPLETELY TRUE BLUE (ALMOST) HOLY QUEST OF DEBBIE, which one a Stonewall honor and made the YALSA popular paperback list.

{BLOG TOUR} Excerpt: Black Ice by Becca Fitzpatrick

Title: Black Ice
Author: Becca Fitzpatrick
Publication: October 7th 2014, Simon and Schuster for Young Readers
Buy on: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | iBooks | Kobo

SYNOPSIS:

Sometimes danger is hard to see… until it’s too late.

Britt Pfeiffer has trained to backpack the Teton Range, but she isn’t prepared when her ex-boyfriend, who still haunts her every thought, wants to join her. Before Britt can explore her feelings for Calvin, an unexpected blizzard forces her to seek shelter in a remote cabin, accepting the hospitality of its two very handsome occupants—but these men are fugitives, and they take her hostage. In exchange for her life, Britt agrees to guide the men off the mountain. As they set off, Britt knows she must stay alive long enough for Calvin to find her. The task is made even more complicated when Britt finds chilling evidence of a series of murders that have taken place there… and in uncovering this, she may become the killer’s next target.

But nothing is as it seems in the mountains, and everyone is keeping secrets, including Mason, one of her kidnappers. His kindness is confusing Britt. Is he an enemy? Or an ally?

READ AN EXCERPT

About The Author:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Becca Fitzpatrick grew up reading Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden with a flashlight under the covers. She graduated college with a degree in health, which she promptly abandoned for storytelling. When not writing, she’s most likely prowling sale racks for reject shoes, running, or watching crime dramas on TV. She is the author of the bestselling HUSH, HUSH Saga. Her new book BLACK ICE arrives in bookstores everywhere October 7, 2014.







Follow the tour for more excerpts and reviews by clicking the banner! Thanks Misfit Booknerds!

ARC Review: Random by Tom Leveen

Title: Random
Author: Tom Leveen
Publication: Simon and Schuster Books For Young Readers
Format: e-ARC, 221 pages
Source: Edelweiss (Thanks so much to the publisher!)
Buy it on: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | iBooks | Kobo

SYNOPSIS:

Who's the real victim here? This tense and gripping exploration of cyberbullying and teen suicide is perfect for fans of Before I Fall and Thirteen Reasons Why.

Late at night Tori receives a random phone call. It's a wrong number. But the caller seems to want to talk, so she stays on the line.
He asks for a single thing—one reason not to kill himself.

The request plunges her into confusion. Because if this random caller actually does what he plans, he'll be the second person connected to Tori to take his own life. And the first just might land her in jail. After her Facebook page became Exhibit A in a tragic national news story about cyberbullying, Tori can't help but suspect the caller is a fraud. But what if he’s not? Her words alone may hold the power of life or death.

With the clock ticking, Tori has little time to save a stranger—and maybe redeem herself—leading to a startling conclusion that changes everything…

Misfit Review: 

As you may have noticed, it took sometime before I got back into blogging again. Some of you might think that it was because of school, but it was actually because I was depressed. I'll talk about that in another post. But yeah, I had no motivation to read and Random was a book that I was almost finished with but was too depressed to continue reading. And I should tell you, it's not a book you should read whilst on one.

"The complete randomness of it was the whole point."

Random starts with Tori Hershberger frantic about the next day's trial. She is to be seen in court after what happened with her "friend" Kevin Cooper. She was one of those deemed guilty of Kevin's suicide and Tori is nervous that things won't go well for her. But as she tries to go to sleep, she receives a phone call from a guy named Andy saying that he dialed a random number and wants to kill himself because he has no more reason to live. It's up to Tori to negotiate with Andy into not killing himself because she doesn't want to be blamed for another death.

"Nice, he says."See, that's what I meant. There's nobody anywhere who givesa shit about anybody else. That is exactly my point. This isn't about me, Tori. It's about everybody. Everybody screwing everybody else over and--god, fuck this!"

The story was started nicely, cryptic yet loose. Andy felt like the guy I would rather not talk to because he was so aggressive and demanding. But in any way, I liked that he brought some charm into the story with his dark humor and common sense. He made the story shine. Tori on the other hand was just incredibly annoying to me, which may be what Leveen was trying to achieve with her character but also may be for the fact that she's so gullible and naive. 16 year olds. You sometimes can't blame them for not getting the whole picture. Tori, however, was determined to not let Andy die and I liked that about her though Andy did have a point that she may be doing it only for herself but I noticed a sort of attachment that she had with Andy in the couple of hours that they talked.

I really, really loved the theme of the story which is online bullying. There's this video by Ryan Higa on Youtube that I watched which talked about cyber bullying and how one should not feel anything about it. You can easily just shut it off, deactivate your social media accounts and it's okay. But if you are bullied outside of the virtual world, it does indeed take a toll on you. Kevin was being harassed online by some jocks and popular girls and Tori wanted to be part of something bigger in her senior year which lead her to tease her friend in the process of getting a nod from those people. It made me sick. But teenagers do succumb to peer pressure and Tori was a symbol of the negativity that high school has which is the awful bantering and the discrimination. The harder part of it was that Kevin was going through a difficult time because he was already diagnosed with depression.

But Kevin Cooper had had enough.

Which brings me to my point how difficult it was to read it at the time that I just wasn't okay with myself. It was okay to take in jokes but it was much harder to stomach it in when you can't seem to get that it was actually a "joke". And Tori in her denial and innocent state believes that she had done nothing wrong and that she is innocent. Andy makes it a point for her to see the bigger picture and go face facts. Again, kudos to Leveen for such an upfront yet caring character like Andy. Though there were times I felt like I wouldn't like him, I actually did. Oh yeah! Jack! Jack is the true hero of this story by the way. LOL.

I felt in the first parts like the story was dragged a bit too long with Tori and Andy on the phone, Tori pleading, etc. But then it allowed for different emotions and twists to open up. The twists are the ones to look forward to. I kind of had a OMG moment around a few pages to the end and I liked it.

I chose the simplest. "Bye, Kevin."

Tom Leveen allowed me to be frustrated and hateful of his characters but also made me realize that the struggle is real and that it is okay to hate them as long as there is a reason behind it. It's my feeling. He brought out such diverse characters, with polarizing personalities that made the story work. I honestly thought I'd hate the story mid-way but it definitely delivered. His style is not so ordinary, with Facebook posts and comments part of the story but it also plays around subtlety and hard-hitting moments that you would see in any book about suicide. His characters just made it so worth it!

Random is a book that teaches that even when we do have the freedom to say anything we like, there's always a casualty that comes with it. And it may be something you have to pay for.

About the Author:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Tom Leveen has 22 years of theatre experience as an actor and director. He was the Artistic Director and a co-founder of two companies: Chyro Arts Venue, an all-ages nonprofit visual and performing venue; and Is What It Is Theatre, a community theatre that operated for 13 seasons. Tom lives with is wife and son in the Phoenix area. PARTY was his first novel, followed by ZERO (a 2013 YALSA Best Book) and MANICPIXIEDREAMGIRL, all with Random House. His fourth novel, SICK, a YA horror, will be released in Fall 2013 from Abrams/Amulet.


Remember to check out my review archives which has all the books I've reviewed as well as some of the books you'd expect I will review very soon! This will help you check out book reviews easier. :) YAAAAY! For all the love and support, thank you Misfit Booknerds for everything!