I’m happy to report that this year’s All Male Review Challenge was a huge success. Over 100 reviews were submitted into the linky collection. I guess we really do love our boys in books!
So, are you ready to meet the winners? We had so many, I almost don’t know where to start!
Prize Pack 1 Winner: Tina
Partials by Dan Wells
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
Zombie Blondes by Brian James
Jenna & Jonah’s Fauxmance by Brendan Halpin and Emily Franklin
Prize Pack 2 Winner: Carrie
Magisterium by Jeff Hirsch
The Last Domino by Adam Meyer
Future Imperfect by K. Ryer Breese
A Bad Day For Voodoo by Jeff Strand (Thanks to Sourcebooks)
Prize Pack 3 Winner: Lili
Ashen Winter (Ashfall, #2) by Mike Mullin
Magisterium by Jeff Hirsch
Doing It by Melvin Burgess
Send by Patty Blount (Thanks to Sourcebooks)
International Prize Pack Winner: Maja
Streamline by Jennifer Lane (e-book. Thanks to Omnific Publishing)
Destiny’s Fire by Trisha Wolfe (e-book. Thanks to Omnific Publishing)
Ember by Carol Oates (e-book. Thanks to Omnific Publishing)
Breaking Point by Jess Bowen (e-book. Thanks to Omnific Publishing)
Read-Along Prize Pack Winner: Ash
Fairy Metal Thunder (Songs of Magic, #1)
Fairy Blues (Songs of Magic, #2)
Fairystruck (Songs of Magic, #3)
Fairyland (Songs of Magic, #4)
Thanks to J.L. Bryan!
All the winners have been contacted and prizes are being distributed.
The mini giveaway winners were:
Jade won a signed copy of Arson by Estevan Vega
Danielle won Nothing Special by Geoff Herbach
Sallie won Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry
On Books and Things, Haley H. won Hold Me Closer Necromancer by Lish McBride
On Supernatural Snark, Molly won Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi
Special thanks to everyone who helped to make this challenge a success, including author J.L. Bryan, Omnific Publishing, and Sourcebooks for donating some awesome books to the prize packs. I’d also like to thank my beautiful cohosts, Danny of Bewitched Bookworms, Meliisa of Books and Things, Jenny of Supernatural Snark, and Jen of In the Closet with a Bibliophile for all their help and support!
I hope you all enjoyed this year’s The All Male Review Challenge. If you have any feedback you’d like to offer, please feel free to leave a comment or send me an e-mail. I’m always looking for ways to improve to make things even better.
I’m off to Authors After Dark in New Orleans for the week! I’m so very excited about this because I’m going to get to meet a lot of awesome authors and bloggers! *squee* Yes, I plan to fangirl all over everyone. My only hope is that I don’t embarrass myself too much.
Quick reminders: If you are looking for My Book Boyfriend, Lesley of My Keeper Shelf has taken over as cohost for the rest of the year.
If you are looking for the Why Buy the Cow? RC, Kelly of Reading the Paranormal will host the reviews link up on her blog for the rest of the year.
A Bad Day for Voodoo
Jeff Strand
Sourcebooks, 251
June 5th 2012
Amazon | Goodreads
When your best friend is just a tiny bit psychotic, you should never actually believe him when he says, “Trust me. This is gonna be awesome.”
Of course, you probably wouldn’t believe a voodoo doll could work either. Or that it could cause someone’s leg to blow clean off with one quick prick. But I’ve seen it. It can happen.
And when there’s suddenly a doll of YOU floating around out there—a doll that could be snatched by a Rottweiler and torn to shreds, or a gang of thugs ready to torch it, or any random family of cannibals (really, do you need the danger here spelled out for you?)—well, you know that’s just gonna be a really bad day …
My Thoughts
Note to self: Never play with voodoo dolls. Yup, I’ve learned my lesson, thanks to Tyler and the bad juju mess he finds himself in simply by having an idiot for a best friend. All I can say now is, thank goodness all my friends are (for the most part) sane.
I’ve never been a fan of stories in which the narrator speaks directly to the reader. That’s always been a little uncomfortable for me, especially when the narrator is a 16 year old boy who assumes I’m reading his story as a substitute for Shakespeare in hopes that I’ll be able to write a decent book report from his misfortunes. But hanging out with Tyler and co. through their ordeal was too fun to be bothered by the narrative style.
As you’ve probably guessed, A Bad Day for Voodoo is a light, clever, and humors story about a boy who hasn’t had the best luck since failing a History quiz he studied really hard for. Life heads towards a downward spiral for Tyler from there. And though there was an abundance of chaotic and sometimes a little horrifying scenes playing out in the story, Tyler always remained comical in some way, which quickly endured him to me.
Sure, some parts of the story dragged on for longer than necessary and most of the characters were a bit too spoofy for my taste. Still, I really enjoyed the satire and sarcasms used; it made the reading fast and flow-y. A Bad Day for Voodoo may not be the type of story you take seriously, and that’s okay because it’s not meant be one, but it’s still a great read.
Read for The All Male Review Challenge
Surprise! Thanks to Sourcebooks and their support of The All Male Review Challenge, I have a guest post by author Geoff Herbach and giveaway to share with you today!
TOP TEN THINGS TO BRING ON A ROAD TRIP
I am always woefully unprepared when I hit the road. Generally I gain a lot of weight from eating truck stop crap and also have to buy supplies along the way, because I’m not a good planner. So, if I were to think about it ahead of time, rather than taking off half-cocked, these are the ten items I would make sure I had:
- A cooler for my beer. Just kidding. I’d bring a cooler for yogurt and health drinks and for lettuce. I’d also bring some almonds for heart health and some delicious fruit to tide me over until I can hit the next organic co-op along the way.
- Stretchy pants. After agonizing over how much I don’t like vegetables, I will need to have stretchy pants, because I will likely freak out after a day, and then I’ll eat pizza and sub sandwiches and many bacon cheeseburgers. If I’m in the south, I will eat cheese grits. My jeans will burst and I’ll need stretchy pants.
- A harmonica. I’ll use this when I’m singing the fat man blues.
- Several phone chargers. I spill coffee on everything electronic when I’m road tripping. Phone chargers fizzle fast. I’ll likely need a new phone or two, but that’s a risk I’ll take (won’t buy in advance, due to expense).
- A paper map. Electronics die when you spill coffee. Paper just looks gross. You can still read a map through coffee stains.
- A Frisbee. My muscles get all knotted up. Nothing feels better than chasing a Frisbee through the winds of some foreign place (if my heart can take it after all the bacon).
- Mad libs. These are funny for three minutes. The best three minutes of your trip will be spent creating a dirty mad lib.
- A friend or two. My friend Sam and I went on a two-month book tour a few years ago. We took lots of hilarious pictures in crazy places – like at crazy Niagra Falls – which made the trip seem fun!
- Underpants. Remember, you will want a change of underpants at some point.
- A notebook. The truth about road trips is that much time is spent suffering, confused, wishing you were home. I love that. I would rather suffer than be bored. You get to know yourself when you’re uncomfortable. Bring a notebook so you can keep track of your beautiful monkey thoughts.
That sounds about right.
Geoff Herbach
facebook | goodreads | twitter | website
Nothing Special
Geoff Herbach
Sourcebooks Fire, 290 pages
May 1st 2012
Felton Reinstein thought he had it all-a great girlfriend, an athletic scholarship in the bag, and football friends he could totally count on. Wrong Like an elephant storming a house of cards, it all comes crashing down. And it’s Felton’s fault. Turns out his little brother has taken an impromptu road trip to Florida (aka desperate flight from all the talented people) to make a bid for stardom (aka fronting a hotel rock band with escapees from a retirement community).
What’s a big brother to do but help pick up the pieces, even if it means giving up all the status, all the glory and once again facing a life of nothing special.
Thanks to Sourcebooks, I have a copy of Nothing Special to give away! Giveaway is open to US mailing addresses only.
- If you’d like to enter this giveaway, just say ENTER ME in the comments.
- Open to U.S. mailing addresses only.
- Retweet for extra entry, leave RT link in a separate comment box.
- Ends 07/16 at 11:59 pm CST.
- Winner will be selected using random.org and announced on this post when giveaway is over.
He may have not wanted the title, but Noah Hutchins of Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry has quickly become America’s favorite bad boy. And the fact that he’s smoking hot doesn’t hurt either. But there’s more to Noah than one would suspect, and today, I’ve got him here to answer a few questions to set the record straight.
Hi Noah! Thanks for being here today. It’s a real pleasure to have you stop by. To get things started, can you describe yourself in 5 words or less?
Rebel, loner, brother, fearless, untrusting
What do you consider your best quality to be? What about your worst?
I’m loyal. That has to be my best quality. When I say I’m going to do something, I do it and I stick by the people I love. Family means everything to me.
As for my worst…Echo would say I’m too blunt and I am. I say what I mean. Mean what I say. And I have a tendency not to filter.
Your dating policy before Echo was “Meet me in the back seat of my car, then hit the road.” Any regrets about that?
Yeah. I was on autopilot for a long time and I stopped thinking about how my behavior affected anyone else. Being with Echo helped me see a lot of things differently.
Speaking of cars, your best friend Isaiah has a passion for working on them. What are some of your passions?
I like cooking which is good since I flip burgers for a living. But I love architecture—the different style of buildings. And I love to build things.
You and Echo have come a long way, and together, you two have created your own brand of normal. What has that been like so far?
Amazing. For a long time, all I wanted was a home and I defined it in terms of my brothers, four walls, and a roof. But being with Echo, that’s home and that’s given me a peace I never knew existed.
Now the question on every girl’s mind: Boxers or briefs?
*Noah chuckles and leans back in his seat*
Boxers.
*fangirl squee* I knew it!!! Thanks for the interview Noah. I hope you and Echo have a very Happy 4th of July.
My Noah is being played by actor Austin Stowell! Noah is actually described as having long, dark hair that hangs over his eyes, but this is my version of him after he finishes high school. He gets a hair cut, and it makes his hair looks a bit lighter. 
Texas sized hugs to author Katie McGarry for getting me this interview with Noah. If you haven’t yet, you can enter my giveaway of Pushing the Limits here.
My Book Boyfriend is a weekly meme. To find out more, check out the introduction post. To show off your fictional boyfriend, link your MBB post below. DIRECT links only.
Time to kick off the special posts and mini giveaways for The All Male Review Challenge, and to do this, I have the perfect treat for you.
For the challenge, I recently read Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry! I loved the characters and the story so much, that I just had to get Katie over here to sharing about writing from a guy’s perceptive. Please welcome Katie, then check out the awesome giveaway at the end of the post!
Pushing the Limits is told through the alternating POVs of Echo and Noah. Why did you decide to take this approach to telling their story?
A love story has two sides and I really wanted the reader to see how their love progresses in both of their eyes. For instance, the moment Echo thinks everything between them is lost is the moment Noah realizes he doesn’t want to lose her.
What was the most challenging part of writing from a male’s POV?
I sometimes get to “girly” in his thoughts. Thankfully, my husband is a devoted beta reader of mine and tells me if I’ve strayed too far from a male’s trail of thought.
What surprised you the most when you developed Noah’s character?
His devotion to Echo. When I originally plotted the story, I thought Noah would be more devoted to his brothers and Noah shocked me with his true, undying love of Echo.
Pushing the Limits is a very emotionally intense story. What was the most difficult scene to write? What was your favorite scene?
There are several scenes that were very difficult to write or were my favorites.
I’d have to say that the hospital scene between Noah and Echo was a difficult scene to write. There were so many emotions converging into that short scene and I had to rewrite it several times in order to nail the correct emotion I wanted to convey.
As for my favorite, I’m a huge fan of the scene where Echo and Noah play pool. Their banter was very fun to write and I love how the two of them really lay it on the line as to whether or not they will attempt to trust the other.
I’m in love with the cover of Pushing the Limits. I think it reflects the romantic tension between Echo and Noah perfectly. Did you have any input on the cover design?
I was asked to describe what Noah and Echo looked like, but other than that, I had no input. I’m also absolutely in love with the cover.
Pushing the Limits is your debut novel. But there has to be more! What do you have coming up next?
I’m currently working on the companion novel to Pushing the Limits, Dare You To. Dare You To follows the story of Beth, a secondary character from Pushing the Limits.
Katie McGarry
facebook | goodreads | twitter | website
Pushing the Limits
Katie McGarry
Harlequin Teen, 384 pages
July 31st 2012
So wrong for each other…and yet so right.
No one knows what happened the night Echo Emerson went from popular girl with jock boyfriend to gossiped-about outsider with “freaky” scars on her arms. Even Echo can’t remember the whole truth of that horrible night. All she knows is that she wants everything to go back to normal. But when Noah Hutchins, the smoking-hot, girl-using loner in the black leather jacket, explodes into her life with his tough attitude and surprising understanding, Echo’s world shifts in ways she could never have imagined. They should have nothing in common. And with the secrets they both keep, being together is pretty much impossible.
Yet the crazy attraction between them refuses to go away. And Echo has to ask herself just how far they can push the limits and what she’ll risk for the one guy who might teach her how to love again.
Pushing the Limits releases July 31st. I’m giving away one pre-order copy of this book. Open to anywhere The Book Depository ships. Fill out the Rafflecopter to enter.
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Special thanks to author Katie McGarry for the awesome interview. Come back tomorrow for a special character interview with bad boy Noah of Pushing the Limits. And remember, The All Male Review Giveaway Hop is still going on! And there is still more to win coming up so keep following the challenge. Complete schedule here: The All Male Review Challenge.
