Review: Weightless by Sarah Bannan

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Publication Date: June 2015
Source: Owned 

[ Goodreads ]           [ Book Depository ]

Blurb: 

When 15-year-old Carolyn moves from New Jersey to Alabama with her mother, she rattles the status quo of the junior class at Adams High School. A good student and natural athlete, she’s immediately welcomed by the school’s cliques. She’s even nominated to the homecoming court and begins dating a senior, Shane, whose on again/off again girlfriend Brooke becomes Carolyn’s bitter romantic rival. When a video of Carolyn and Shane making out is sent to everyone, Carolyn goes from golden girl to slut, as Brooke and her best friend Gemma try to restore their popularity. Gossip and bullying hound Carolyn, who becomes increasingly private and isolated. When Shane and Brooke—now back together—confront Carolyn in the student parking lot, injuring her, it’s the last attack she can take.

 This book has been sitting on my shelf for a super long time, I am pretty sure I got it around the time of its release so basically 5 years! I have been trying to knock off some books on my TBR in quarantine so decided it was finally time to read this. 

The book centers on how a small town is rocked by the arrival of a new girl - Carolyn. As the town falls over themselves to first get to know Carolyn because she is the "shiny new toy" then then begin to turn against her just as quickly. 

One thing I found a little jarring about this book was the writing style. The novel is written in the "we". So the reader of the novel is reading from the perspective as the entire town as a collective we. This was very jarring and difficult to get into the writing flow in the beginning but I became more comfortable with it as the story progressed. This was a very interesting take on the novels point of view as it goes to show the reader just how complicit each and every person was in the rise and fall of Carolyn. 

Dept Con 1 | Event chat & Haul

Dept Con 1 was something myself and my friend Cooleen (Youtube Channel) had been looking forward to since it was announced back in August. 

Dept Con is a book convention organised and ran by the Easons and Department 51 (the YA side of Easons) staff  and head children's and YA book buyer Dave O' Callaghan. The convention took place over two days in Smock Alley Theatre. 

The convention featured 26 speakers and authors along with signings, a YA breakfast and plenty of other fun things!

The authors featured at the event included: 

Books I got signed: 

 Over the course of the Con, I mostly tweeted my reaction to all the bookish awesome-ness (@Shannonbookworm) 


Day One: 

On the first day of the event, the con kicked off at 3pm and ended at 10pm.

Panels on the first day included discussions on "The World of YA & How it is Perceived & Represented by Hollywood" which Jenny Downham, Sally Green & Patrick Ness discussed YA adaptations and Patrick Ness' upcoming A Monster Calls adaptation (Review) . 

The next panel was on the topic of "LGBT* in YA Panel" held by James Dawson, Cat Clarke, Deirdre Sullivan and David Maybury . This was one of my favourite panels of the day as I felt that all the topics raised such as representation of LGBT main characters in YA and discussion on whether "Gay YA" was a trend in YA lit (the answer was an obvious no). 


The "Future of YA & Its Audience (Adult readers vs Teens) panel was hosted by Holly Bourne, Sheena Wilkinson and Julia Bell which talked about the new stat released that 55% of YA book buyers are aged between 30 - 44, and whether an author should write with their reader in mind or focus on the story. 

The final panel of day two was a great panel which featured Holly Smale and Louise O'Neill (Review) on the topic of "Death to the patriarchy!" and feminism in YA. I loved this panel and the discussions on abusive relationships being shown as the norm in YA and the representation of women in YA. Such a great panel and a wonderful way to end the first day. 

June New Releases 2015

Here's my round up of some of the titles I'm excited about and looking forward to the release of in the coming month. Some of these books look like great books to kick off your summer reading ! 

 Release Date: June 2nd
[Buy The Book here]

Blurb: 
BEFORE: It was the perfect summer of first kisses, skinny-dipping, and bonfires by the lake. Joy, Tali, Luce, and Zoe knew their final summer at Camp Okahatchee would come to an end, but they swore they’d stay friends.

AFTER: Now, two years later, their bond has faded along with those memories.

THEN: That is, until the fateful flash of a photo booth camera transports the four of them back in time, to the summer they were fifteen—the summer everything changed.

NOW: The girls must recreate the past in order to return to the present. As they live through their second-chance summer, the mystery behind their lost friendship unravels, and a dark secret threatens to tear the girls apart all over again.

ALWAYS: Summers end. But this one will change them forever. 

Release Date: June 2nd 
Series: Sequel to The Perfectionists (Review here)
[Buy The Book here]

Blurb: From Sara Shepard, author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Pretty Little Liars series, comes the shocking sequel to The Perfectionists—with an ending you'll have to read to believe!

Mackenzie, Ava, Caitlin, Julie, and Parker have done some not-so-perfect things. Even though they all talked about killing rich bully Nolan Hotchkiss, they didn't actually go through with it. It's just a coincidence that Nolan died in exactly the way they planned . . . right? Except Nolan wasn't the only one they fantasized about killing. When someone else they named dies, the girls wonder if they're being framed. Or are they about to become the killer's next targets? 

Louise O'Neill & Sarah Bannan Book Signing

Hi readers! 


Last Friday I had the absolute pleasure of attending a Q&A and book signing featuring Sarah Bannan , author of Weightless, and Louise O'Neill, author of the award winning Only Ever Yours. 

Check out Sarah's Twitter page here! 

Check out Louise's Twitter page here!

I was so excited for this event, it was all I could talk about for weeks coming up to it. 

I traveled for 3 hours to get to the signing and went with my lovely friend Eimear (who blogs at An Abundance Of Novels) who is as big a fan of Only Ever Yours as I am. 

I am very excited to begin reading Weightless and am going to do so very soon! It sounds amazing and I've only heard great things. 

The signing was a free event held in Easons Dublin and ran by Easons special YA unit Department 51 . 

The area was well laid out with chairs and a speaker so everyone in the audience could see the stage and clearly hear the Q & A.

 I chatted to two staff members in the Easons, David and Jacqueline, and both were so easy to talk to, friendly and funny. A big shout out to Jacqueline as she was so nice and I loved talking about books with her! 

[Image Source: Cormac Kinsella ] 

The Q & A kicked off with Eason's David O'Callaghan chatting to Louise & Sarah and asking them questions both about their novels, their inspirations and about themselves. 

I really enjoyed the Q&A and I thought David was so funny and asked all of the questions I had been wanting to ask!   

I really liked listening to how well Louise and Sarah spoke and really liked the obvious friendship between them as they complemented each others novels. Both Sarah and Louise were so funny and lovely.