What's New? Stacking the Shelves

STS is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews. Pop on over there to share your new books and ogle what other bloggers got.

For Review: 

Too Cool for (This) School by Kristen Tracy. 285 p. Delacorte Press/ Random House Children's Books, August 6, 2013. 9780385740708.

Publisher synopsis: Lane Cisco loves, loves, loves her life at Rio Chama Middle School—until her offbeat cousin comes for an extended visit and turns everything upside down. With her individual sense of style and nonconformist attitude, Angelina "Mint" Taraval is everything Lane isn't. And instead of branding her a loser the way Lane and her friends expect, people actually want to hang out with her. Including the boys Lane and her best friend, Ava, like. 

When Ava comes up with a plan to ruin Mint, Lane feels stuck. She doesn't want to be mean . . . but she doesn't really want to stick up for her weird cousin either. Why can't things go back to the way they were before Mint arrived? 

Kristen Tracy has written a terrific novel about friendship, family, fitting in, and finding out who you are when no one's looking. 

Texting the Underworld by Ellen Booraem. 319 p. Dial Books for Young Readers/ Penguin Young Readers Group, August 15, 2013. 9780803737044.

Publisher synopsis: Perpetual scaredy-cat Conor O'Neill has the fright of his life when a banshee girl named Ashling shows up in his bedroom. Ashling is—as all banshees are—a harbinger of death, but she's new at this banshee business, and first she insists on going to middle school. As Conor attempts to hide her identity from his teachers, he realizes he's going to have to pay a visit to the underworld if he wants to keep his family safe.

"Got your cell?"
"Yeah . . . . Don't see what good it'll do me."
"I'll text you if anything happens that you should know."
"Text me? Javier, we'll be in the afterlife."
"You never know. Maybe they get a signal."

When You Were Here by Daisy Whitney. 262 p. Little, Brown and Company, June 4, 2013. 9780316209748.

Publisher synopsis: Danny's mother lost her five-year battle with cancer three weeks before his graduation-the one day that she was hanging on to see.

Now Danny is left alone, with only his memories, his dog, and his heart-breaking ex-girlfriend for company. He doesn't know how to figure out what to do with her estate, what to say for his Valedictorian speech, let alone how to live or be happy anymore.

When he gets a letter from his mom's property manager in Tokyo, where she had been going for treatment, it shows a side of a side of his mother he never knew. So, with no other sense of direction, Danny travels to Tokyo to connect with his mother's memory and make sense of her final months, which seemed filled with more joy than Danny ever knew. There, among the cherry blossoms, temples, and crowds, and with the help of an almost-but-definitely-not Harajuku girl, he begins to see how it may not have been ancient magic or mystical treatment that kept his mother going. Perhaps, the secret of how to live lies in how she died.

That's what's new with me. What's new with you?

Happy reading!