Ramblings, Books Received, and Week to Come 07JUL13

Softball:
I imagine you might be tired of me talking about softball (does this season never end, you might wonder?) but somehow, despite losing our last two games, we have made the playoffs! We'll play this Tuesday and if we beat the team who crushed the team that crushed us the week before, then we get to play one more. Yeah...I'm not super optimistic about us winning but I'm excited we get at least one more game before breaking until the end of August. I'm also happy because everyone has a pretty good attitude about winning/losing-we're just glad to have the chance to run around and have fun! I especially appreciate our coach's commitment to keeping everyone safe and healthy-that gives me more confidence in going out on the field.

Books Received: Lots of goodies from Penguin who sent me four books-two I definitely want to check out, two I'm not certain about.

Brotherhood by AB Westrick-the setting grabbed me here, being Reconstruction-era. I've only ever read one other novel set during that period so it's ripe to have a bold author place his or her stamp on it. Plus the cover's kind of cool, right?
QB1 by Mike Lupica-this was compared to my beloved "Friday Night Lights" so that's kind of all I needed to know.

I'm less certain about these two; what do you all think?

Atlantis Rising by TA Barron
Russian Roulette by Anthony Horowitz

Blogging:
I've been pretty good about reading but less good at commenting and writing posts. This holiday allowed me a chance to catch up a bit but I don't think I'll ever get ahead like I could in college. I just have too much with working full-time, working out, and trying to have a bit of a social life. However I did plan out my review schedule through September 21 and I have a ton of exciting books to get to. On Friday, I finally shared my favorite reads of 2013 so far and I can't wait to see what will join that list by the end of the year.

Week to Come: A busy week of 2013 YA releases, across all genres, ending with Adult Review Saturday
Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg
The Elite by Keira Cass
The Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle by Christopher Healy
The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence
Forevermore by Cindy Miles
Battleship by Dorothy Ours

And if you've read this far, be sure to come back later for my GIVEAWAY-the chance to win one of Louise Rozett's "Almost" series!