Mundie Moms

Monday, May 5, 2014

After The End by Amy Plum, Blog Tour: Book Review & Giveaway


Welcome to the AFTER THE END blog tour. I'm thrilled to be apart of the celebration for Amy Plum's upcoming release, and share my thoughts on Amy's book.

About the Book


By: Amy Plum
Published by: Harper Teen
To Be Released on: May 6, 2014 - TOMORROW
Source: arc from publisher to review
Rating: 4 Stars - I Enjoyed It!
Pre-Order from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound
Find out more about the book


World War III has left the world ravaged by nuclear radiation. A lucky few escaped to the Alaskan wilderness.
They′e survived for the last thirty years by living off the land, being one with nature, and hiding from whoever else might still be out there.
At least, this is what Juneau has been told her entire life.
When Juneau returns from a hunting trip to discover that everyone in her clan has vanished, she sets off to find them. Leaving the boundaries of their land for the very first time, she learns something horrifying: There never was a war. Cities were never destroyed. The world is intact.
Everything was a lie.
Now Juneau is adrift in a modern-day world she never knew existed. But while she′s trying to find a way to rescue her friends and family, someone else is looking for her. Someone who knows the extraordinary truth about the secrets of her past.

An intriguing read with an exciting story line, plenty of action and the right amount of mystery and suspense that kept me hooked and left me wanting more in the end. After The End has a little bit of everything, and I enjoyed the journey Amy Plum took me with her characters Juneau and Miles.

Written in dual points of views, After The End uncovers a story of secrets, and danger as Juneau and Miles become entangled into each other's lives. Everything that happens in this story uncovers lies, and secrets. Nothing about the life Juneau has lived is what it seems. I loved that Amy kept me in the dark along side both of her characters as she cleverly unravels the truth about what's really going on. Juneau's grown up in the wilderness of Alaska. It's just her, and her clan. As a hunter, Juneau and her people live off the land, and are lead to believe WWWIII has happened. It's not until Juneau returns from a hunting trip to an empty village, that everything she was lead to be believe starts to unravel.

Juneau is a tough girl. She's someone who was raised in the wilderness and taught the survival skills needed to survive. I was completely intrigued with her clan, and the bits and pieces I learned about them. They grew up being told of war, and the destruction of the world. Taught to fear anyone other than those in their clan, Juneau gets a hard dose of reality when she goes in search of her missing clean, and finds that the world hasn't been destroyed. Now she not only has to figure out what's going on in the world around her, she has to find her clan, and figure out why she's been lied to and deceived. To make matters worse, people are after her.

I liked that Amy didn't make it easy for Juneau. Nothing in this story was easy to figure or quickly pieced together. Juneau had to work through all the deception and the confusion about what in the heck is going on. Through out the entire story Juneau is trying to come to terms with everything she's been raised to believe, what really happened, and where her clan is at. It's during this time of self discovery and seeking the truth that I felt for Juneau. Luckily she has her survival skills to get her through her adventure/journey/being on the run. Without them, I'm not sure how well off she'd be, both figuratively and emotionally.

Without giving anything away, I liked getting to know Miles. Unlike Juneau whom I liked from the get go, he took a little longer for me to like him. I felt there was more reasoning behind him finding Juneau, after all, he's not the only one who's after her. Once Juneau and Miles end up on the road together, their travels are anything but normal. Like Juneau, this was also a story about self discovery for Miles. Miles didn't grow up in a remote part of Alaska like Juneau did, but in a sense he grew up learning his own survival skills with all that he's had to deal with, with his own family.

I liked how believable Amy made Miles and Juneau's road trip together. Both of them think the other is crazy, and given that one was lead to believe the world ended some 20 years ago, and the other has lived a normal life, the unexpected would be normal. It's during this part of the story I loved having the dual points of views. I liked being able to understand and see what the other was really thinking, and why they made the choices they did. When these two have to rely on each other to outrun whomever is after them, their two worlds collide and they both learn to trust in each other, and slowly but surely they both start to uncover the secrets and lies they find themselves embedded in.

After The End is definitely unlike any other YA book I've recently read. It was a good, entertaining read. Amy's storyline flowed well. She introduced me to characters that intrigued and surprised me. The story was engaging. I was hooked from the moment I started reading it, and I wanted more when I finished it. When Miles and Juneau are first on the run, they're dueling point of views offer the right amount of humor this story need. I'm looking forward to reading more about Juneau and Miles in the next installment.

About Amy Plum




Amy Plum is the author of DIE FOR ME, a YA series set in Paris. The first three books—DIE FOR ME, UNTIL I DIE, and IF I SHOULD DIE—are international bestsellers, and have been translated into eleven different languages. The fourth book is an eNovella, entitled DIE FOR HER. The first book of Amy’s new series, AFTER THE END, releases in May 2014.
Amy grew up in Birmingham, Alabama before venturing further afield to Chicago, Paris, London and New York. An art historian by training, she can be found on most days either daydreaming or writing (or both) in a Parisian café.
Visit her on:  Blog | Twitter | Facebook | GoodReads

The Giveaway



Each stop on the tour will be hosting a giveaway! We're giving away:
- 13 SIGNED After The End books
- 6 iPhone After the End shells. 
*This is open Internationally* 
To enter, please be sure to fill out the form featured on each stop along the tour. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The first 300 people who pre-order AFTER THE END and show proof of their pre-order will receive one of these limited edition After The End water bottles. *see below*



Please be sure to send your mailing address and receipt to katieloumercier@gmail.com

The Blog Tour
Be sure to follow the entire After The End blog tour! Trust me, you don't want to miss this Truth or Dare themed tour stops! Authors like Beth Revis, Kimberly Derting, Josephine Angelini & more will be on the tour. As Amy mentioned in her recent newsletter, the truth-or-dare theme is particularly relevant to AFTER THE END, since Juneau's oracle has said she has to tell the truth or she won't find her clan.


Deep Blue by Jennifer Donnelly, Blog Tour: Read An Exclusive Excerpt


Hello & welcome to today's DEEP BLUE blog tour. I'm so thrilled to share with y'all an exclusive sneak peak into Jennifer Donnelly's DEEP BLUE! First, here's a little bit about the book:


ABOUT THE BOOK
The first in a series of epic tales set in the depths of the ocean, where six mermaids seek to protect and save their hidden world.

Deep in the ocean, in a world not so different from our own, live the merpeople. Their communities are spread throughout the oceans, seas, and freshwaters all over the globe.

When Serafina, a mermaid of the Mediterranean Sea, awakens on the morning of her betrothal, her biggest worry should be winning the love of handsome Prince Mahdi. And yet Sera finds herself haunted by strange dreams that foretell the return of an ancient evil. Her dark premonitions are confirmed when an assassin’s arrow poisons Sera's mother.

Now, Serafina must embark on a quest to find the assassin’s master and prevent a war between the Mer nations. Led only by her shadowy dreams, Sera searches for five other mermaid heroines who are scattered across the six seas. Together, they will form an unbreakable bond of sisterhood and uncover a conspiracy that threatens their world’s very existence.

Read an exclusive excerpt



ABOUT THE AUTHOR



Jennifer Donnelly is an award-winning author of both adult and young adult books, including Deep Blue, the first book in the Waterfire Saga. For adults she has written a trilogy of best-selling books that includes The Tea RoseThe Winter Rose, and The Wild Rose. Her first young adult novel, A Northern Light, received many accolades, among them the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a Carnegie Medal in the UK, and a Michael L. Printz Honor. Her second young adult novel, Revolution, was named a Best Book of 2010 by Kirkus Reviews and School Library Journal, and the audiobook received a 2011 American Library Association Odyssey Honor. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley.

Find out more about the series:

  • Visit the Waterfire Saga website
  • Visit Jennifer Donnelly at her official website
  •  Follow Hyperion Teen on Twitter and Tumblr  
 



Marvelous Middle Grade Monday: Everblaze by Shannon Messenger


This is a weekly feature I used to be so great at posting here on Mundie Moms, which featured my recent Middle Grade reads, or spotlighted an upcoming MG read. While I may have slacked off a bit on here on the blog, I've been more faithful at posting it over here on Mundie Kids. I'm working on becoming more faithful at posting here on the blog as well. 

Check out today's MMGM feature on Mundie Kids, which features Shannon Messenger's
EVERBLAZE, the third book in her The Keeper of the Lost Cities series.


Head over to HERE to find out more about the book and when it's hitting shelves. I can not wait for this book to be out! This series is fabulous and one I highly recommend picking up!


Mundane Monday #210- Jace & Clary from City of Lost Souls

Happy Mundane Monday! 
Only a few more weeks till City of Heavenly Fire is out! 
Enjoy this CoLS snippet featuring Jace & Clary. 


A snippet from City of Lost Souls *spoilers*

"Read to me," She said suddenly.
He blinked down at her. "What?"
She was looking past him, at the books on his nightstand. 
"It's a lot to process," she said. "What Sebastian said, what happened last night, everything. I need to sleep, but I'm too keyed up. When I was young and I couldn't sleep, my mother used to read to me to relax me."
"And I remind you of your mother now? I have got to look into a manlier cologne."
"No, it's just-I thought it would be nice."

He scooted back against the pillows, reaching for the stack of books by the bed. "Anything particular you want to hear?" With a flourish he picked up the book on top of the stack. It looked old, leather-bound, the title stamped in gold on the front. A Tale of Two Cities. "Dickens is always promising...."

"I've read that before. For school," Clary recalled. She scooted up on the pillows beside Jace. "But I don't remember any of it, so I wouldn't mind hearing it again." 

"Excellent. I've been told I have a lovely, melodic reading voice." He flipped the book open to the front page, where the title was printed in ornate script. Across from it was a long dedication, the ink faded now and barley legible, though Clary could make out the signature: With hope at last, William Herondale

- City of Lost Souls, pages 385-386

City of Lost Souls Read-A-Long: Chapter 4


Hello & welcome to day #4 of our City of Lost Souls Read-A-Long. You can find out more about the read along and find the schedule here. There is no right or wrong way to participate. Your comments can be as long or as short as you'd like them to be. 

Today's discussion is about the Chapter 4: And Immortality
  • WTH Alec!?! This is where I start to lose my patience with Alec. I don't get why he would sneak behind Magnus's back to find answers in how to either change Magnus or change himself to become immortal. What do you make of Alec's choice in meeting with Camille?
  • Maia and Jordan. I have to admit, part of me still doesn't want to like Jordan, but another part of me does. I'm hoping these two can work it out, though I'm glad Maia stood her ground and was honest in telling Jordan want she thought. What are your thoughts on their relationship?
  • It's mentioned in this chapter that maybe Jace doesn't want to be found. Do you think that's the case? Why?
Please DO NOT POST SPOILERS. There's some fans who are joining the read-a-long who are reading Clockwork Prince for the first time. 

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