TGIF #23 - Book Olympics

TGIF is a Friday Feature hosted by Ginger at GReads! The point of TGIF is to re-cap on this week’s posts and answer the question of the week!

I LOVE the Olympics. Ususally I'm more interested in Winter than Summer, then I watch almost everything if I have the time to slack off, but for the Summer Olympics I try watching apparatus/artistic gymnastics and anything that involves water, well maybe not synchronized swimming, but I could be held back for synchronized platform diving. A few days ago I watched skeet shooting, and it was kinda awesome.

GOLD goes to: Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire

I cannot stop thinking about this book. I keep picking it up again to re-read certain passages, and I absolutely cannot wait to have it in my hands as a real book on Christmas. ^.^ Plus, I am looking forward to read Walking Disaster, which tells the story from Travis PoV! It'll come out some time next year.

Anyway, this gets the gold medal for Travis and Abby, but also for Shepley and America, heck even for Travis's whole family, who are all very great characters! It's getting it for it's underground fights, an awesome bet, poker, it's entrapping romance as well as it's nice humor.

SILVER goes to: Shadows on the Moon by Zoë Marriott

If you leave out the fantastic paranormal elements, it could almost be a re-telling of Memoirs of a Geisha - love it. This book tells a very special life story, of duty and pride and honor, with a female lead so truly strong as I haven't seen in any other book, especially not in paranormal YA.

I especially love her for not being flawless, and for knowing that pretending, wearing a mask to the outside world is something many of us do, no matter if we like it or not, if we intend it or not, and she is actually using this as a skill. It's twisted in an interesting way, don't you think? However, this is also a story of beauty, both inside and outside, for which it gets another bonus. Thus, the silver medal for the Shadow Bride drama.

BRONZE goes to: Nocturne by Syrie James

This novel has one very special feature which earned it the bronze medal from me: a very bittersweet, unhappy ending. If you want to pick up something that defies main stream vampire romance, this is it. The characters were... pretty normal, which fit very well into this, and I can tell you this was a vampire I can more than live with. Micheal earns a lot of bonus points for making all the right decisions, but also for his broad skill set which has nothing to do with the supernatural but merely with having enough time to learn and perfect it all. Granted, Nicole still had a lot of dump-sheepish for a woman of her age and character, but I still think she found a good balance, so that I do think she is pretty authentic. There isn't that much of a story, but the characters sure make it worth your while, I can only praise!

This week on The Book Rogue:

1. Book Review: Something Like Normal by Trish Doller
2. Giveaway: A New Beginning - Winner announced
3. New TBR July 2012
4. Meme: WoW #17 -- Inbetween by Tara Fuller and Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel
5. Meme: Btt #16 -- Picking and Choosing
6. Meme: TGIF #23 -- Book Olympics