Most Exciting Titles Found at ALA Midwinter, Take II!

Today, I'm once again featuring a few titles from ALA that you should be getting REALLY EXCITED for if you aren't already! My favorite thing about ALA isn't the ARCs themselves, honestly. It's listening to the publishing representatives talk about the books. They're so excited about them! They make ME excited for books I otherwise might not have heard of or cared about after reading the flap. For example, LIV, FOREVER, which I'll feature below. Just watching them light up and get so enthusiastic is amazing. I love sharing the love of reading and good books like this, and I adore the environment of ALA. It's so much less frantic than BEA, and you can really take your time and talk to people. You can find out their marketing campaign, if a picture book is finally going to be available in paperback or boardbook, making it more accessible to more people, etc.

Yesterday, I stood in line to meet Gabrielle Zevin (And I didn't introduce myself because I didn't think she'd know me, and she said I was familiar and then I mentioned my blog and she knew me! I love her even more!!!). I was between a teacher and a librarian. We all loved books and kids/teens and getting those kids/teens to read. We talked about how good ALL THESE THINGS I'VE DONE is. The librarian mentioned wanting more strong female friendship stories. I recommended THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL by Soman Chainani, and someone behind us chimed in on its amazingness as well. I love that sharing, nurturing nature. The environment is amazing!

You can walk around and just see people that you talk to online. Authors, agents, publicists, etc. It's amazing to put faces to names! My favorite run-ins were with authors Soman Chainani and Ellen Oh (So happy to introduce myself!) and agent Jennifer Laughran (So intimidated! I didn't tell her I wanted to someday shoot her a query, though, because that's not why she was there--or why I was there, you know? I just said I followed her and chatted on Twitter! It was fun to see her interact with one of her authors, Jaclyn Dolamore, when they were both standing at the Disney Hyperion booth during a surprise galley drop! So supportive! Makes me want her even more as an agent. You want someone who will support you and thinks you get better with each new book!)

These are actually my favorite things about the conference. So please don't read this week's posts thinking it's only about ARCs and stuff. I'm not planning to show you every single book I took away from ALA. My intents are not to make anyone jealous. I just want to share the books I'm most excited about. You follow me because you think I have good taste in books, right? (I hope!) So if I'm excited about something, you probably should be, too! ^.~

With allll that said...

Here are the titles that excited me the most about ALA Day II!

(And here's yesterday's post with titles that you should mark TBR!)

THE STORIED LIFE OF A.J. Fikry: I don't know anything about this book, TBR. I hadn't heard of it before ALA. But Gabrielle Zevin wrote it. And I LOVE Gabrielle Zevin. I was shocked to walk by and see her signing ARCs. I knew Workman would have ARCs. (And then I forgot because I lost my paper with what I wanted to look for...), but I had no clue that she'd be signing! She had a pretty consistent line, too, which made me really happy! I was so excited that she recognized me, too (Maybe only after I mentioned how I videotaped how much I loved her cover when she asked if I still read "real" books or only "digital" ones nowadays? How can I NOT read real books when they look as gorgeous as hers!)

So excited to meet Gabrielle Zevin!!!

ELEANOR AND PARK by Rainbow Rowell: I really enjoyed reading this book last year. It was, in fact, one of my final reviews of the year...and one of my most in-depth, too. FANGIRL was my last review of the year. Macmillan had a huge signing with Rainbow Rowell, and you could choose a signed copy of E&P or Fangirl! I chose E&P, and Kat chose FANGIRL. Kat hasn't read either book yet, and I think she'll be most drawn to FANGIRL because of the Harry Potter Elements. PLUS, Rainbow Rowell signed her book as "Magi-KAT" which is amazing and epic and made me love her even more!

The illustrious Rainbow Rowell!

LIV, FOREVER by Amy Talkington: This is a book I may have never looked twice at if an amazing SOHO publicist hadn't promoted it to us the day before. We'd been walking by their booth during a signing for a book that neither of us took, even though the publicist was so enthusiastic about it! I asked her about YA titles and she mentioned that they'd have LIV, FOREVER the next day along with author Amy Talkington for a signing! It's about a foster girl who's really artistic, but can never afford the supplies to nurture her talent. She gets a special art scholarship and finally has everything she needs...and then she's murdered. And comes back as a ghost that no one can see, which reminded her of the movie Ghost...

THE KISS OF DECEPTION by Mary E. Pearson: The cover for this one was revealed just a week or two ago! It's gorgeous and amazing...it will make readers covet it! I already wanted it because how could I not want to read a book about princesses and assassins? But that cover reveal made me want it even more.

THE GOOD LUCK OF RIGHT NOW by Matthew Quick: We were exhausted when Matthew Quick was signing yesterday and just wanted to go home. We didn't want to stand in line! I haven't read THE SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK or FORGIVE ME, LEONARD PEACOCK yet, but I've heard fabulous things about the author and his new book is intriguing. In some ways, it reminds me of Daisy Whitney's recent release WHEN YOU WERE HERE because it's about a guy looking for lost clues and messages after his mother passes away.

THE HERE AND NOW by Ann Brashares: I adore Ann Brashares! She wrote The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series and I'm still waiting for a sequel to MY NAME IS MEMORY. Her latest offering is dystopian, I believe, but the summary makes it sound like so much more. It reminds me of a book I used to love, VIOLET EYES by Nicole Luiken, and it has the forbidden love aspect of Lauren Oliver's Delirium Trilogy. This one could be big!

And HarperCollins! Can we just talk about HarperCollins for a moment?

They've always been one of my favorite publishers, and they have SO MANY amazing books on the horizon.

I was in sheer awe of just how many titles they were giving away at ALA. We went by there first in the morning and they had SO MANY TITLES piled up. We didn't take them all, of course, just the ones we knew we'd want to read and share! 

We kept swinging back toward Harper all weekend and constantly seeing something new! Plus, everyone working the booth was so great if you really wanted something specific and it wasn't out for a while.

The next five books are my favorite Harper titles coming soon! 

(And a couple were featured yesterday, too!)

SIDE EFFECTS MAY VARY by Julie Murphy: This one only went on my radar recently. It's blurbed by Printz Winner John Corey Whaley and recommended for fans of John Green and Rainbow Rowell. Enough said...I need this book in my life, and I need to share it with every teen who enjoys those authors.

THE VANISHING SEASON by Jodi Lynn Anderson: I'm not sure about this one. The genre isn't one I read, but I LOVED reading the author's last book, TIGER LILY. I'm definitely intrigued and already know she can write. So I'm willing to step outside my comfort zone on this one! Plus, I love the cover!

THE TAKING by Kimberly Derting: I haven't read her series The Body Finder but I adore her Pledge trilogy! (I've reviewed all three! 1, 2, 3!) This series has an amazing cover and sounds amazing. I was really excited to be given a copy of this when I asked, because I really want to read and help promote it!

TALKER 25 by Joshua McCune: Kat loves dragons, and I knew TALKER 25 had something to do with them. Kat asked for this, and we were each given a copy (And then more were put out for everyone! I loved it when someone would ask for something and a handful would go onto the table for everyone!). Looking at the summary, I'm suddenly very excited for this one. Before, I was hovering at average, because dragon books are very hit or miss for me. But this one sounds SO GOOD. It's fantasy and dystopian mixed together. How can you go wrong with that?

SEA OF SHADOWS by Kelley Armstrong: HarperCollins once again makes a Cover Home Run! Love it so much! I just recently r&r my first Armstrong book, OMENS. I was intrigued to read more fantasy from her (I'm not a huge paranormal fan, which is what most of her books are), and SEA OF SHADOWS appeals to me. Plus, it's blurbed as being "Perfect for fans of GRACELING and GAME OF THRONES." High fantasy? Always for me, YES, PLEASE!

Which of these will you be adding to your TBR?