Book giveaway: Uglies+Pretties or Wintergirls -- winner picks!

It's giveaway time again! The votes are in, and it was pretty close between two of the options. My solution? 2 winners!

Winner #1 gets his/her choice of (1) Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson, or (2) Uglies and Pretties by Scott Westerfield. Winner #2 gets the "leftovers." (If you can call anything written by LHA or SW "leftovers" with a straight face!)

Now, for a quick Q&A:
Q: "But Jess," you say. "I want to read Uglies, but I totally already have Wintergirls. What happens if I get second choice, and that first place winner bitch takes Uglies? Can I beat him/her over the head with my Wintergirls?"
A: Violence, while amusing (and a video will certainly be requested), is not necessary. I have other books you can choose from if the dreadful above-scenario happens to you. So enter away!


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UGLIES SYNOPSIS:

Everybody gets to be supermodel gorgeous. What could be wrong with that?

Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license -- for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there.

But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world -- and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

My (brief) review:
I didn't love Uglies, but I liked it. A lot. It was a great thrill ride, with a little bit of a love story thrown in for good measure. That said, sci-fi isn't really my thing, so the futuristic society was hard for me to get into at first. I'm also not big on third person, but there were enough interesting things happening to keep me reading. Westerfield knows how to build the suspense and keep you clinging to your seat. While it doesn't make my list of favorites-I-would-read-again-and-again, I'd still recommend it to others.

(I'm not going to post a synopsis of Pretties, because it gives away too much of what happens in Uglies. So if you win them, don't read the back of it until you finish Uglies!)



WINTERGIRLS SYNOPSIS:
Dead girl walking, the boys say in the halls.

Tell us your secret, the girls whisper, one toilet to another.

I am that girl.

I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through.

I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame.

Lia and Cassie are best friends, wintergirls frozen in matchstick bodies, competitors in a deadly contest to see who can be the skinniest. But what comes after size zero and size double-zero? When Cassie succumbs to the demons within, Lia feels she is being haunted by her friends restless spirit.

In her most emotionally wrenching, lyrically written book since the multiple-award-winning Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson explores Lia's descent into the powerful vortex of anorexia, and her painful path toward recovery.

My (brief) review:
Wintergirls is ... WOW. That's all I can say. The imagery is powerful, the language even more so. LH Anderson knows how to take you inside the mind of a teenage girl struggling with anorexia, and the scary thing is, she keeps you there. If you've never read anything by LH Anderson, this is the book you must read.

HOW TO ENTER:
+1 Leave a comment on this post. If you don't have a blogger profile, be sure to leave an email address, too, or I won't be able to contact you.

+4 if you already follow/subscribe to my blog
+2 for becoming a follower/subscriber to my blog

+2 for posting a link to this contest somewhere on the Internet (sidebar, Myspace, Twitter, etc.)--be sure to leave me a link here if you post one.
+4 for posting an actual blog about this giveaway--leave me the link.

+1 for telling me why you can't wait to read either Uglies/Pretties or Wintergirls.

+1 for letting me know who referred you.
+1 for every person who says you referred them here.

+5 for telling us all about your first kiss, or at least the first one you remember. (If it helps, pretend we're sitting around a campfire and you just picked "truth.")

Open To: US and Canada residents only.

Ends: Friday, September 11, at midnight, central time.