Here’s a brief preview of things I’m currently reading and hoping to read soon:
Immortal City by Scott Speer. This comes out in April 2012, and I got an ARC from the publisher, razorbill! I’m enjoying it a lot so far. Here’s the summary from the back:
Jackson Godspeed is the hottest young Angel in a city filled with them. He’s days away from becoming a full Guardian, and people around the world are already competing for the chance to be watched over by him. Everyone’s obsessed with the Angels and the lucky people they protect – everyone except for Madison Montgomery.
Maddy’s the one girl in Angel City who doesn’t breathlessly follow the Angels on TV and gossip blogs. When she meets Jackson, she doesn’t recognize him. But Jackson is instantly captivated by her, and against all odds the two fall in love.
Maddy is swiftly caught up in Jackson’s scene, a world of glamour, paparazzi – and murder. A serial killer is on the loose, leaving dead Angels’ wings for the police to find on the Walk of Fame. Even the Guardians are powerless to protect themselves in the face of this threat … and this time it’s up to Maddy to save Jackson.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I’ve started this and picked it up in eBook fomat because it was billed as one of Amazon’s be st books of the month for this past September. I’m about a third of the way in and I can’t say I’ve fallen in love yet. But I’ll keep reading. It does have a lovely cover.
The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.
True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.
Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.
Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi. I’ve been hearing about this one in the book blogging circles. Haven’t started yet, but definitely excited to–dystopian science fiction is right up my alley. 
Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.
The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.
The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war– and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.
Juliette has to make a choice:
Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.
In this electrifying debut, Tahereh Mafi presents a world as riveting as The Hunger Games and a superhero story as thrilling as The X-Men. Full of pulse-pounding romance, intoxicating villainy, and high-stakes choices, Shatter Me is a fresh and original dystopian novel with a paranormal twist that will leave readers anxiously awaiting its sequel.
Another thing I’d like to note is that up until about this fall, I was strictly a dead-trees book kind of girl. I never bought an eBook reader, mostly because the books themselves were too pricey at an average of $10/book, and my local library system doesn’t have the most awesome eBook stash yet. I also just didn’t have the money in the first place to shell out for a Kindle or Nook or, god forbid, a $400 iPad. But the thing is, I’ve had a smartphone for ages–several different kinds of phones, actually. And silly me didn’t realize that you can get free eReaders on your smartphone as apps. Which, in my mind, defeats the point of buying a super expensive reader like the Kindle or Nook. I already carry my phone with me EVERYWHERE (why load myself up with yet another gadget?) and I can read things on it without having to pay $200 or somesuch for the device. The apps (including Kindle) are free for smartphones! I like Aldiko, personally, since it can handle books in .epub format, which my library has a lot of. And it looks pretty 🙂
I can legitimately say that at least 70% of the books I’ve read in the past 2 months have been in eBook format on my phone. So convenient.
Shelf Worn 