A Night of Infinities!

A Novel Fundraising Idea!

Inspired by John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars

Penguin has teamed up with Teenage Cancer Trust to mobilise and inspire the legions of teenage fans for John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars to help raise money for the charity

On 26^th June, with John Green’s support, the publisher is inviting all fans of the book to unite in a ‘Night of Infinities’ and organise fundraising sleepovers nationwide inspired by the book.

The Fault in Our Stars was the UK’s biggest selling novel of 2014 with sales to date exceeding a million copies in the UK alone. The book which tells the story of Hazel and Gus, two extraordinary teenagers, who first meet at a cancer support group has resonated with readers of all ages.

Penguin and Teenage Cancer Trust hope that the younger end of the novel’s fan base will be inspired to help raise money to support the only UK charity dedicated to improving the quality of life and chances of survival for young people with cancer aged between 13 and 24.

John Green comments: "I worked as a student chaplain at a children's hospital about 15 years ago for five months. During that time I started wanting to write about the young people I had met there… It just took a long while for that book to become The Fault in Our Stars. From that experience, I understand the importance of charities such as Teenage Cancer Trust and the work they do in bringing young people together and helping them get the best possible care in the best possible environment. I would be delighted if fans of my book were able to translate that into tangible support for the charity.”

Charli XCX, whose song Boom Clap was released as the first single from the soundtrack album of The Fault in Our Stars film and achieved worldwide chart success, is also supporting this initiative:

“It is incredible how passionately people have responded to the book and the film. I really hope that enthusiasm drives as many people as possible to organise a sleepover and have fun while raising money for Teenage Cancer Trust which does so much for the many young people with cancer like Hazel and Gus in the UK.”

A ‘Night of Infinities’ event pack is now available to download from www.nightofinfinities.co.uk. The pack gives you all the information you need to organise your own sleepover whilst raising money at the Just Giving page www.justgiving.com/nightofinfinities. It also includes a personal thank you letter from John for taking part, tips on how to organise your sleepover (plus advice on staying safe), real-life stories from young cancer patients and lots of fundraising ideas including: making and selling Okay Cake, sponsored Karaoke of songs from the film’s soundtrack as well as nominating friends and family to take facepack selfies.

On the night itself, there will also be live online moments which will connect all the sleepovers nationwide using social media and including a dedicated radio show on W!ZARD Radio Station, the UK’s Most Popular Online Teen Radio Station set up by teen entrepreneur James Gilmore.

About Teenage Cancer Trust

Teenage Cancer Trust is the only UK charity dedicated to improving the quality of life and chances of survival for young people with cancer aged between 13 and 24. Teenage Cancer Trust funds and builds specialist units in NHS hospitals and provides dedicated staff, bringing young people together so they can be treated by teenage cancer experts in the best place for them.

Teenage Cancer Trust also educates young people in schools about cancer to help improve the speed and quality of diagnosis. Teenage Cancer Trust relies on donations to fund its vital work. Help transform the lives of young people with cancer. Visit www.teenagecancertrust.org   Teenage Cancer Trust is a registered charity: 1062559 (England & Wales), SC039757 (Scotland).

I don’t know about you, but I think this sounds like an absolutely wonderful thing to get involved in – go download your pack now!

Sophie

Saint Anything, Sarah Dessen

Pages: 417

Publisher: Penguin

Release Date: 5^th May 2015

Edition: UK paperback, purchased

Other Titles by this Author: That Summer, Someone Like You, Last Chance, Dreamland, This Lullaby, The Truth About Forever, Just Listen, Lock and Key, Along for the Ride, What Happened to Goodbye, The Moon and More

Sydney has always felt invisible.

Peyton, Sydney’s brother, has always been the star of the family, receiving all of the attention and, lately, concern. His reckless behaviour culminates in a shock accident and a jail sentence, which casts Sydney adrift, searching for her place in the family and the world.

Enter the warm, chaotic Chatham family who accept Sydney without question. It’s here that she meets Mac: gentle, watchful and protective, who makes Sydney feel seen, really seen, for the first time.

Sarah Dessen is my very favourite author and I never expect less than perfection from her and Saint Anything was even more than I was expecting. It’s up there with my very favourites of hers.

For me, one of the major strengths of Sarah Dessen’s novels is her characters. Sydney is no exception. They are all so vividly real that I always get to the end of the novel feelings as if I’ve known them for years; it’s as if I could turn around and not be surprised to see them standing next to me. They are complex and flawed and have histories and families and friends and all of the problems they bring. I honestly don’t think there are many authors that flesh out their supporting cast in the way that SD does.

The Chatham’s are such a bright, lively family. I fell in love with them immediately. They actually reminded me a little of the Garretts in Huntley Fitzpatrick’s My Life Next Door; they’re chaotic, messy, a big family and all tangled together by love and loyalty. Layla is so bold and funny and forthright and I clicked with her straight away. She’s that kind of person that you’re just drawn to and I really wish that she existed! And with Layla comes her older brother Mac. Oh, Mac. He’s going to be a legendary Dessen boy; I’d even put him on a level with Wes (The Truth About Forever) – that’s how amazing this guy is. He’s quiet and understanding and he sees Sydney in a way that she’s never felt seen before.

I completely understood Sydney’s feelings of being invisible. I think it’s difficult not to feel invisible at some point during your teenage years and Sarah Dessen pin points the feeling perfectly. It’s heart-breaking to see that not even her parents saw her; they were blinded by her brother, Peyton. There’s something about Sarah Dessen’s characters, emotions and stories that get under my skin like nothing else. Regardless of the heroine and her situation or her personality, I always feel a deep, definite connection with them; each novel represents a part of me.

Sarah Dessen does romance in a way that bowls me over subtly. Mac and Sydney’s friendship slowly simmers into a deep, genuine romance that makes my heart skip in the most delicious way. She always sets a real foundation for every relationship; there’s always more than just physical attraction or coincidence or loneliness involved and it just makes it all the easier to become invested. And on another note, the first time we see Mac he’s wearing an Anger Management radio show t-shirt! I do love the way she ties her novels together like that – it’s nice to catch up with characters I fell in love with years ago.

Saint Anything is distinctly Sarah Dessen and everything that she’s loved for. I worship her.  

Sophie 

Letterbox Love #89

Letterbox Love is a way to show you all of the lovely, lovely books I’ve gotten in the post, bought and everything else over the last week. Summaries are taken from the cover, or Amazon/NetGalley/Goodreads in the case of e-books, unless otherwise stated. Hosted by Narratively Speaking.

For review:

The Wolf Wilder, Katherine Rundell (proof)

Feodora and her mother live in the snow-bound woods of Russia, in a house full of food and fireplaces. Ten minutes away, in a ruined chapel, lives a pack of wolves. Feodora’s mother is a wolf wilder, and Feo is a wolf wilder in training. A wolf wilder is the opposite of an animal tamer: it is a person who teaches tamed animals to fend for themselves, and to fight and to run, and to be wary of humans.

When the simmering resentment of her neighbours turns to murderous hostility, Feo is left with no option but to go on the run. What follows is a story of survival and adventure, trust and tenacity, and the toughness that the love between mothers and daughters inspire. And, of course, wolves.

This sounds beautiful! Thanks Bloomsbury!

Those Girls, Lauren Saft (e-proof)

Some girls will always have your back, and some girls can’t help but stab you in it.

Junior year, the suburbs of Philadelphia. Alex, Mollie and Veronica are those girls. They’re the best of friends and the party girls of the school. But how well does everyone know them – and really, how well do they know one another? Alex is secretly in love with the boy next door and has joined a band – without telling anyone. Mollie suffers from a popular (and possibly sociopathic) boyfriend and a serious mean streak. And Veronica just wants to be loved – literally, figuratively, physically…she’s not particular. Will this be the year that bonds them forever or tears them apart for good?

In a debut novel that is raw, honest, hilarious and thought-provoking, Lauren Saft masterfully conveys what goes on in the mind of a teenage girl and how often even the closest of friends walk the line between love and hate.

This could be spectacularly good, or spectacularly bad, and I’m looking forward to finding out which! Thanks NetGalley and Poppy.

The Almost King, Lucy Saxon (paperback)

Runaway

Deserter

Adventurer

Dreamer

Aleks Vasin wants to be a hero in Sibrene’s famous army. But Rensav barracks is no place for heroes, let alone a 17-year-old dreamer. It’s brutal, corrupt and violent. Ithout money or powerful friends, Aleks won’t survive. In a bid for freedom, he heads far, far north, to the great city of Syvana, where skyships roam the heavens a boy who doesn’t want to be found can stay hidden – until he meets a girl, and an inventor, and then danger finds him…

Thanks Bloomsbury! Now I know how much people loved Take Back the Skies so I’ll definitely be giving this a shot – apparently it can be read as a standalone.

Won:

Sookie Stackhouse boxset 1-10 & 13, Charlaine Harris (PB and HB)

Sookie Stackhouse is a cocktail waitress in a little bar in Bon Temps, a small town deep in Louisiana. She’s funny and pretty and well-mannered, but she doesn’t have that many close friends – mind you, that’s not so surprising when you consider how few people appreciate her abilities as a mind reader. It’s not a quality that has the guys beating down her door – well, unless they’re vampires or werewolves or the like…but they’re not just supernatural freaks, some of them are friends, even family…

I won this glorious lot in an Instagram giveaway from Gollancz – thank you! It’s a gorgeous boxset and I’m really looking forward to sinking my teeth in (pun intended).

Bought:

All Played Out, Cora Carmack (e-book)

First person in her family to go to college? CHECK

Straight A’s? CHECK

On track to graduate early? CHECK

Social life?..yeah, about that…

With just a few weeks until she graduates, Antonella DeLuca’s beginning to worry that she hasn’t had the full college experience. (Okay. Scratch that. She knows she hasn’t had the full college experience…).

So Nell does what a smart, dedicated girl like herself does best. She makes a “to-do” list of normal college activities.

Item #1? Hook up with a jock.

Rusk University wide receiver Mateo Torres practically wrote the playbook for normal college living. When he’s not on the field, he excels at partying, girls, and more partying. As long as he keeps things light and easy, it’s impossible to get hurt…again. But something about the quiet, shy, sexy-as-hell Nell gets under his skin, and when he learns about her list, he makes it his mission to help hr complete it.

Torres is the definition of confident (and sexy. And wild), and he opens up a side of Nell that she’s never known. But as they begin to check of each crazy, exciting, normal item, Nell finds that her frivolous list leads to more than she bargained for. And while Torres is used to taking risks on the field, he has to decide if he’s willing to take the chance when it’s more than just a game.

Together they will have to decide if what they have is just part of the experiment or a chance at something real.

I really do enjoy Cora Carmack’s books – a guilty pleasure!

Stray, Rachel Vincent (e-book)

The difference between the movies and reality?

In real life, I was the monster. Faythe Sanders looks like a normal student, but she's hiding a dark secret: she is a werecat, a powerful supernatural predator. Yet headstrong, independent Faythe resents her power, heading to college to escape her family and her overprotective ex, Marc. 

That is until a stray - a dangerous werecat without a pride or territory - catches her scent. With two werecat girls already missing, Faythe is summoned home for her own protection. But Faythe will do whatever it takes to find her kidnapped kin. She has claws - and she's not afraid to use them. 

I've wanted to read this for years so I grabbed it when the series went on Kindle Daily Deal yesterday.    

Sophie

99 Days, Katie Cotugno

Pages: 372

Publisher: Quercus

Release Date: 7^th May 2015

Edition: UK paperback, purchased

Other Titles by this Author: How to Love

Last year, Molly Barlow did something terrible. Then, her mother wrote a bestselling book about it. And so, everyone in their hometown found out that Molly cheated on her childhood sweetheart, the love of her life, her best friend, with his brother.

And now, Molly has ninety-nine days to endure before she can escape to college.

99 days of being the most hated person in town.

99 days to heal the hurt she’s caused.

99 days to figure out what she wants and who she loves.

Katie Cotugno’s debut, How to Love, was my favourite book of 2013 so I was rather nervous about starting 99 Days. But it was just as full of life, flawed and lovable characters and a difficult, sticky love story.

After escaping to Arizona for a year at boarding school, Molly is back in Star Lake for her last summer before college. And she’s got a lot of baggage and a lot of resentment. Two years ago, Molly slept with the older brother of her childhood sweetheart and all was revealed when her mum wrote a bestselling romance novel about it and then opened up about the story’s origin in People magazine. The slut-shaming that Molly received was enough to make my stomach turn. Such double standards. Even Gabe himself admitted that she was getting attacked while he was barely scathed.

Molly faced her old school friends, total strangers and her former best friend calling her a ‘slut’ or a ‘dirty whore’ and it was awful. It took Molly until the end of the novel to finally realise that yes, she had done wrong, but the Donnelly brothers were equally wrong in their actions over the past two years. She took ownership of her actions and she fought back and I was so pleased to see it that I almost fist-pumped. Molly took her story back for herself and it really made the ending. Some avenues were closed to Molly, Gabe and Patrick and the summer is over, but there’s still a possibility for Molly and the Donnelly brother she truly loves. Maybe.

Katie Cotugno writes about love in all its difficult, contrary, confusing intensity. The strain that the novel and interview put on Molly’s relationship with her mum, the necessity of friendships, the tangles of first love and second love, the distinction between loving someone and being in love with someone. Every incarnation is blisteringly real and I couldn’t help but get involved with these characters.

I adore Katie Cotugno’s writing, characters and gritty love stories. She’s earned herself a spot on my auto-buy list and I can’t wait to fall in love with whatever she writes next.

Sophie 

Reading Classics After Education

During my English Literature degree I had a strange relationship with classics. I loved studying them and talking about them, but actually reading them, not so much. Then once I was out of education my attitude towards them began to change. I started to want to read them, to understand the numerous pop culture references that stemmed from works in the canon and the watch adaptations with less guilt and more knowledge. Collecting different editions of classics and modern classics has become a little of an obsession, but more than anything I’ve noticed how different reading classics now is too bad when I was at school, college or university.

The lack of pressure really does wonders for me. Though I have vowed to read a classic each month this year – and I’ve stuck to it so far! – there isn’t the same burden to read on a deadline and with the intention to pull it apart. It completely transforms the experience for me. I can leisurely read a few chapters a day while reading other novels alongside it; it doesn’t matter if it takes me two weeks. Before I had a chunky, difficult classic a week for three or four different university modules but now it’s under my own steam.  

As I mentioned before, I also really enjoy collecting the beautiful editions. My personal favourites that I’m collecting are the Penguin Modern Classics, Penguin Clothbound Classics, Little Black Classics and Penguin English Library – Penguin really do have the monopoly on the classics market. No more do I have to suffer the bulky, ugly Norton Critical Editions or the traditional black classics that Penguin are probably most famous for. I get to have rows of gorgeous spines lining my shelves instead. Also, I don’t have to deface them! I sincerely hated highlighting, notating and underlining whole chunks of text and I was really glad to leave that behind.

But I miss studying them. I miss learning the context: the theories, the social implications, the historical surroundings, the religious connotations and the author’s biographical weight on the novel. Knowing those things as you read really enhance the experience for me. They make me think in a way that I never would have otherwise and everybody reads into it differently. The difference in opinion brought a discussion alive. Reading is so subjective and that isn’t more apparent that when you’re sitting in a degree seminar with a room of people with different backgrounds and experiences. I want my scope to still be expanded beyond my own reading.

Lots of the things that you’re taught are hidden. You have to have bounds of knowledge and have been taught the way to read to find hidden subtext in an overarching theme, a soliloquy, a character, a tone, a phrase, a symbol or an author’s intention. And not everyone takes on the teaching in the same way so you’re not going to get everything – and I really don’t want to miss anything! That element that I miss could be pivotal. It could completely change my reading of the entire novel and I MISSED IT.

I want the best of both worlds when it comes to classics. I want to read in a relaxed, self-projected environment but I want to be taught all of the things that I miss when reading myself. I miss the extras. I miss having conversations.

Do read classics differently to when you were at school/university? Did you get put off classics completely in education? Do you miss studying them?

Sophie