CEFS is a blog and podcast. Established in 2013, we are now a serialized site, with new content generally published monthly. We hope you enjoy!
Apparently, I am the target demographic for ABC Family--who knew? Between the show I'm spotlighting today, The Fosters, and my new binge-watching addition, Switched at Birth, I am a fan of the network, apparently.
Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. Basically, this is my way of making Tuesday a little more awesome. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @FullShelves and I'll help spread the word.
View all of the past recommendations over here.
The uncertainty of my own experience is crushing. I am drowning in an infinite sea. Sinking slowly, the weight of the lightless depths forcing me down, forcing the air from my lungs, squeezing the blood from my heart.
Night Broken, the eighth book in Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series, places Mercy in a precarious and dangerous situation.
Danger lurks as a threat to herself, her marriage and her pack.
You've all probably at least heard of the Mercy Thomson series, but for the few that haven't, here's the scoop: Mercy is both human coyote. She’s a shape shifter married to Adam, alpha male and leader of the Tri-Cities werewolf pack in Washington. A coyote and a wolf falling in love and marrying stands out as unique. They share a commitment to honor one another and their pack. They are both primal beings and human beings.
You can find the first part of this conversation over here, and the second right here--we highly recommend listening to them in order. In this episode, we chat about books, but we spend the bulk of our time talking about television and women's representation, and Justin Timberlake and the 50 Shades of Grey movie trailer.
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If you've not read Courtney's books, two are now available in a nifty bind-up that will have a Justin Timberlake song frolicking in your head for days, What Goes Around.
If you enjoy the Clear Eyes, Full Shelves podcast, you can say thank you by enrolling in a free trial of Audible (I've been a subscriber for a year now and love it) or by clicking here the next time you're shopping on Amazon. This helps support the hosting and production costs of the podcast.
We certainly appreciate all the support, tweets, shares and all-around enthusiasm we've received for the podcast!
(As a side-note, take a moment to enjoy these gorgeous covers. There are illustrations at the start and end of each chapter as well as quotes from other writers/books at the start of each chapter.)
For an avid reader, it is sort of perfect when someone finds words to replicate their exact feelings about the joys of reading and books. How many times have we spent late nights caught up in a book that refuses to let us go until we reach the end? How many days have we spent happily in the company of worlds, characters and stories about people and places we have never met, never been to and possibly never will? (Especially in the cases of fantasy literature) And how many times have we wished that those worlds could be real so we too could be a part of them?
Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. Basically, this is my way of making Tuesday a little more awesome. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @FullShelves and I'll help spread the word.
View all of the past recommendations over here.
I was so excited to read Stephanie Perkins long-anticipated new novel, which didn't disappoint me in the least (I do think it'll be a love it or hate it story for folks, though--Keertana wrote a fantastic review that resonated with me in terms of why I'm in the love it camp). I was also lucky enough to read a way early copy of Liza Palmer's 2015 novel, Girl Before a Mirror, which is absolutely stellar. I think it'll be a bit polarizing, but in a good way. There are a lot of layers to dig into and I can't wait for it to be in the world so I can talk to people about it!
I also wrapped up reading The Dust Chronicles series by Maureen McGowan, which I really liked (read that series if you liked Divergent, The Darkest Minds or Legend--it's got all the action-y bits that fans of those books will love, and some good social issues things as well). And on the series front, I read the second book in Chuck Wendig's rad YA series, Blightborn.
Enough chat! On to our recommendations!
You can find the first part of this conversation over here--we highly recommend listening to them in order. In this episode, we chat about books, but we spend the bulk of our time talking about television and women's representation in media and the sticky issue of loving something that's at the same time imperfect and problematic.
I thought I'd round up a few of my recent graphic novel reads for folks who may be dipping their toes into this format as well.
At this point, everyone has watched Freaks & Geeks (is it bragging to say that I watched it when it aired?), but have you watched Judd Apatow's follow-up college-set comedy Undeclared?
{Note: This post contains spoilers for I'll Be There. You've been warned.}
Could something be an anchor if it wasn’t weighing you down?
Was it possible to be anchored to the sky?
Because that was how it felt to be with Emily: airborne. But with his feet on the ground.
Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @FullShelves and I'll help spread the word.
View all of the past recommendations over here.
I also finally read Chuck Wendig's Under the Empyrean and and am retroactively mad that I waited so long to get to it--I'm currently listening to the audio of the sequel and it's even better, if you can believe that. I've been hitting my local library (have I ever mentioned that my house is on the same street as the library?) pretty hard and discovered a fun older Meg Cabot novel that's a great example of the epistolary format, if that's your jam, Boy Meets Girl.
In other news, Sandra finally fixed her enormous oversight in never having read A Northern Light, and has rave after rave for the new Michael Koryta novel, Those Who Wish Me dead. And, Laura listened to the fabulous audio edition of The Coldest Girl in Coldtown--be sure to snag that if you're an audiobooker.
Onward to the recommendations!
Our lives are made up of choices. Big ones, small ones, strung together by the thin air of good intentions; a line of dominos, ready to fall.
Like in Dangerous Girls, Haas takes readers on a time-shifting journey, shifting between the present and the events leading up to a tragedy. In this case, three teenagers--narrator Chloe, her boyfriend Ethan and his brother Oliver--enter an empty home but only two emerge from that house as it burns to the ground.
The reader is left wondering which brother survived the fire? Whose at fault? Was it self-defense? An accident? Or something more insidious?
Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. Basically, this is my way of making Tuesday a little more awesome. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @FullShelves and I'll help spread the word.
View all of the past recommendations over here.
This is the first of what will be three parts of this conversation with Courtney, who we could have talked to all day if we hadn't gotten super-hungry. Look for the other episodes trickling out on iTunes and here on the blog in the coming weeks. (Pro-tip, subscribing on iTunes means that you get episodes a day or two before everyone else.)
If you're old enough to remember the 90s, then you definitely remember the great Tonya Harding versus Nancy Kerrigan debacle. Living in the same county as Tonya and skating that the same rink as she practiced (which was right in the middle of the big mall in the area), this was THE STORY of the mid-1990s for me.
