Real brilliant

VIA «Symbol of illusory love»

VIA «The National Ornament»

VIA «The Antiques»

VIA «The Shirts»

According to the Assyrian website www.ankawa.com, ISIS is planning to destroy the walls of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire and one of the most important archaeological sites in Iraq. Nineveh was sacked in 612 B.C. when the Assyrian Empire was overthrown.

Residents of the Bab Nergal area of Mosul said ISIS has informed them that it will blow up the walls of Nineveh with the start of operations to liberate Mosul by the Iraqi army.

In the last month ISIS has seized the content of the cultural museum in Mosul as well as destroyed Assyrian monuments in the city, which ISIS claims "distort Islam."

Assyrians are the the only indigenous people of Iraq, going back to 4750 B.C. In 2003, just before the U.S. invasion, there were 1.5 million Assyrians living in Iraq. Today there are about 500,000 remaining. A sustained, low grade genocide (report) perpetrated by Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds drove hundreds of thousands of Assyrians into exile in Syria, Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon.

On August 7 of 2014, ISIS moved into the Nineveh Plain, the last stronghold of Assyrians in Iraq, forcing nearly 200,000 Assyrians to flee their homes and villages, where they now live as refugees in the Dohuk and Arbel areas.

Source: AINA News [January 02, 2015]

VIA «Some Embroidery»

The ring, which depicts a bull-leaping scene, was initially dismissed as fake before its authenticity was established by a team of Culture Ministry experts.

The scene depicted on the 15th century BC artifact also includes a lion and a tree.

Source: Kathimerini [January 12, 2015]

Today's guest is Gemma Halliday, author of the soon to be released Deadly Cool. She's here today to share with us some insider info on her cover. Not gonna lie — I'm kinda diggin those eyes!:)

How much input did you get into your cover?

My publisher was really great about including me in the cover choices. They asked tons of great questions about the characters, the setting, the plot, etc. Unfortunately, I'm not super visually creative, so I mostly let them do their thing. I figured as long as they understood the feel of the book, they'd know far better than I would what sort of cover would catch readers' attention.

Do you like the way it turned out?

I absolutely love it! It's sort of eerie and cool at the same time. The girl on the front is gorgeous and perfectly fits the visual look of the character in the story that she represents. (She's the murder victim, by the way.)

How well do you think the cover fits your story?

Very well. I think it really conveys the dynamics of social status and the "beautiful people" at my character's high school, as well as serving up a hint of mystery, too. Plus I absolutely adore how they used the ear buds as part of the title. Those play very prominently into the story.

Are those blue eyes real?: P

I wish I knew! They look so vibrant, right? I've already had one parent write to me saying that her daughter wanted to get blue contacts after reading the book.

If there is one thing you could change about your cover, what would it be?

I honestly wouldn’t change anything! I really love it and have had several people comment on how striking it is. I guess if there was just *one tiny* element in my story that I feel the cover doesn’t portray, I'd say it's humor. Even though this is a murder mystery, there is a lot of humor in the story. However, like I said, I really am in love with it and am beyond pleased with the art department!

Thank you so much for stopping by Gemma! I love how thrilled you are with the cover! It's pretty awesome and definitely eye-catching! Kudos to the art department!

I like mini-reviews. I don't do them terribly often, partly because I talk/type too much to be consistent with 'mini' anything, but I also have a lot of books that I would love to spotlight during Just Contemporary, so I'm chearing and doing three.:)

These three books are completely different from each other, and have pretty much nothing in common besides being Contemporary and books that Ashley very much enjoyed and since those are the 'requirements' for posts in November, I'm totally doing it!

It is not even kind of a secret that I love Lisa Schroeder. Like, a lot. I've read all her books, I've loved all her books and I talk about her all the time. But I was a tiny bit nervous to read It's Raining Cupcakes because it's very different from her other books. Not only is it MG, but it's also written in prose, not verse. But, it was a Lisa book and I wanted to read it, so I did. And it was seriously so charming and delightful and just so much fun.
At first I thought it was just going to be a light fluffy book about cupcakes and baking, but there was quite a bit more to the story, which surprised me. Isabel want to enter a baking contest that will get the winner sent to New York. She has always dreamed about going places and this would be an absolute dream come true for her. But her best friend, Sophie, who always seems to get whatever she wants is going to enter too. And Isabel has some great ideas for recipes to send, but her mom, who has just opened up a cupcake shop wants her to submit a cupcake recipe because it would be great publicity. And Mom is heavy on the guilt trip, and Mom is (in Ashley's opinion) depressed (although it's hard to nail down exactly what she is, or how to explain it) and Isabel needs to decide where her priorities lie. And that's something that's hard for a 12 year old to learn, and in this instance, while I totally understood where the mom was coming from, I was also really upset at how selfish I felt she was.
So, this is yet another win from Lisa Schroeder. It's completely and totally different in style, feel, and tone than her other novels but it's definitely worth a read.

Overprotected by Jennifer Laurens is a book that really surprised me. I've always been pretty upfront about the fact that I don't generally read books that are very romance heavy, but I won a copy of this from the author and it just really appealed to me for some reason, so I picked it up and I just loved it! It was exactly what I was in the mood for (how great is it when that happens?!) and it just made me happy. I don't know that I would have liked it so much if I had read it at any other time, but as it stands, I seriously enjoyed it.
It's very definitely a romance novel for teens and the romance is the most important part of the story. But it didn't really bother me this time around. It was a fun book with interesting characters (even if I probably wouldn't want to know a single one of the IRL) and the 'danger' that Ashlyn's father perceives her to be in is just real enough to be believable. But I will say that Ashlyn's dad is a major creeper. He didn't really feel like an overprotective father to me. He felt more like a jealous and possessive lover/ex-boyfriend which seriously igged me out. He's obsessed with her, with keeping her close and making sure that she belongs to him. Seriously — CREEPY!
I will also say that I was initially worried about Colin and Ashlyn falling for each other, because how could you want to be with someone that is not only okay with creeper dad keeping you totally locked up, but being the one who enables the locking up. But Daddy misleads Colin and he is not aware of the full extent of his job until he gets there. He thought he was going to be more bodyguard, less prison guard, which made me feel better about their situation.
I honestly wasn't expecting to like this one as much as I did, but it was the perfect book at exactly the right moment and I had a lot of fun reading it.

Choker by Elizabeth Woods is the most different and the heaviest of these three novels. It's a Contemporary story but it is also a bit of a thriller type. (which are also Contemporary, but seem to get their own genre... Greedy, aren't they). In Choker, Cara is kind of an awkward loner. She hasn't had any really good friends since she moved away from her best friend in 5th grade (or thereabouts) and now she is either ignored or teased by the other kids at school. It's tough being that kid. There's nothing necessarily wrong with her, she's just that shy, quiet kid that no one really talks to. But then her old best friend shows up in her room. Some bad stuff was happening at home and she's run away and come to Cara for a safe haven. They don't tell Cara's parents because Zoe is very probably in some real trouble and doesn't want anyone to know where she is. And then some seriously weird and freaky stuff starts happening.

I was surprised by this book because a lot of it caught me off guard. I wasn't expecting the story to go where it did, and watching the dynamic between Cara and Zoe was very unsettling. Zoe is not a very nice person and although she's the best friend Cara ever had, even Cara is starting to get weirded out by her. Cara is a character that I think people can, at least initially, relate to. She's an outsider with a crush on one of the cutest boys in school, no one notices her and when they do finally start paying attention to her, it's to be mocking and cruel. My heart went out to her, but she definitely makes a bunch of bad decisions.

And then the ending. I kept waiting for something to happen and I thought I knew what it would be. And then, it wasn't. At all. And maybe I should have seen it coming, but I totally didn't and it was definitely one of those, like, whoa moments for me.

If you are looking for something a little out of the norm, this is one that is definitely worth looking into. It's not going to be for everyone, and I get that. But I for one was most definitely a fan.

I've been meaning to get this post up for a while now, but as I've mentioned before, I've been insanely busy lately and my real life doesn't seem to want to allow my blogging life to be a *thing*. Ahem...

Anyway — This is going to become a regular feature here each Saturday. (Yes, I am well aware that today is Monday, but bear with me...)

Each Saturday I'm going to put up a linky where ANYONE can link ANY post dealing with Contemporary YA. It can be a review, author interview/guest post, a giveaway, opinion post, anything, as long as it is related to Contemporary YA.

You do NOT have to be a participant in the Just Contemporary Reading Challenge to use this linky. I want everyone to link up their posts! So tell your friends, tweet about it & get linking. I would love to have a huge linky each week with all the awesome Contemporary happenings online.

Feel free to link retroactively too! Please only add each post to one linky, but the post does not have to be written this week to be added.:)

AND — I will guarantee a read and a comment from me to every single person who links up using this linky system. And, I'll tweet about it and do all that I can to spread the word.

Contemporary is a genre that I wish got more love and attention, so let's get linking!!:)

I haven't been really interested in a fantasy series since I read Harry Potter, but when I heard a description of The Lightning Thief, the first book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, on Books on the Nightstand I knew I had to check it out. Something about a 12-year-old with Greek gods just screamed amazing to me. Percy Jackson is a troubled kid, he keeps bouncing around from school to school. He has ADHD and he is dyslexic, which makes school kind of tough, and he misses his amazing mom and worries about his horrid stepdad. What Percy doesn't know is that there is a really good explanation for all of his problems.

This book does not waste any time getting to the action. From the first page you get a very clear picture of who Percy is and how this book is going to play out, which wasn't really necessary for me but I think it is probably pretty important for younger readers. Percy is easy to relate to, I didn't have any behavior problems or anything growing up, but I was kind of antisocial and Percy is forced into that because he switches schools so much. I think I would have liked him when I was younger and I know I like him now. Percy's rebellious strike is easy to admire too; I think most of us wish we could be a little more rebellious.

Percy is actually very funny too. One of my favorite quotes is (tiny spoiler, although I'm sure you have figured it out by now) "...most people might think that's just really bad luck; when you're a half-blood, you understand that some divine force really is trying to mess up your day" (168). The humor is pretty evergreen, but some of the references Riordan makes in the story are already dating the book. Hilary Duff is mentioned two or three times, and I'm not sure if kids are really into Hilary Duff anymore. I know one of the first graders I tutor didn't know who she was so you can see that this reference is already floating away.

I didn't feel the characterization in this book was as strong as it was in Harry Potter, and there were a few similarities between the two books that didn't really feel like coincidences to me, but I think both Rowling and Riordan are just "stealing" from older heroes and it just so happens that some of the cooler things from hero myths are used by both of them. But overall Percy is a lovable character and I definitely want to complete the series as soon as possible.

This book earned an A.

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