unRequired Reading! (& giveaway)

Hyperion came up with an awesome idea this year - unRequired Reading: It's Your Choice This Summer. I like to read (I know, shocking), but I must say that I get annoyed with required reading lists. Somehow, being unrequired makes all of these books featured more inviting! Check out the titles featured in the unRequired reading list for this summer. Then, scroll down for a giveaway!

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Girl Wonder by Alexa Martin

As if transferring senior year weren't hard enough, Charlotte Locke has been bumped to lower level classes at her new school. With no friends, a terrible math SAT score, and looming college application deadlines, the future is starting to seem like an oncoming train for which she has no ticket.

Then Amanda enters her orbit like a hot-pink meteor, offering Charlotte a ticket to something else: popularity. Amanda is fearless, beautiful, brilliant, and rich. As her new side kick, Charlotte is brought into the elite clique of the debate team—and closer to Neal, Amanda's equally brilliant friend and the most perfect boy Charlotte has ever seen.

But just when senior year is looking up, Charlotte’s life starts to crumble. The more things heat up between Charlotte and Neal, the more Neal wants to hide their relationship. Is he ashamed? Meanwhile, Amanda is starting to act strangely competitive, and she's keeping a secret Charlotte doesn't want to know.

Talented newcomer Alexa Martin delivers a poignant story of first love, jealousy and friendship, where the ups and downs of senior year have never been so complicated. What else can Charlotte do but throw her hands up and ride?

Mercy by Rebecca Lim

A fallen angel haunted by her past. Yearning for her immortal beloved. Forever searching for answers.Who will show her Mercy?

Mercy has lost herself. She can’t count how many times she’s “woken up” in a new body, and assumed a new life, only to move on again and again. During the day she survives in the human world on instinct and at night her dreams are haunted by him. Mercy’s heart would know him anywhere. But her memory refuses to cooperate.

But this time is different. When Mercy wakes up she meets Ryan, an eighteen year old reeling from the loss of his twin sister who was kidnapped two years ago. Everyone else has given up hope, but Ryan believes his sister is still alive. Using a power she doesn’t fully comprehend, Mercy realizes that Ryan is right. His sister is alive and together they can find her. For the first time since she can remember, Mercy has a purpose; she can help. So she doesn’t understand why the man in her dreams cautions her not to interfere. But as Ryan and Mercy come closer to solving the dark mystery of his sister’s disappearance, danger looms just one step behind.

Will Mercy be able to harness her true self and extraordinary power in time?

The first in a dazzling new series, Mercy masterfully weaves romance, mystery and the supernatural into a spell-binding tale.

The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab

The Near Witch is only an old story told to frighten children. 

If the wind calls at night, you must not listen. The wind is lonely, and always looking for company. 

And there are no strangers in the town of Near.

These are the truths that Lexi has heard all her life.

But when an actual stranger—a boy who seems to fade like smoke—appears outside her home on the moor at night, she knows that at least one of these sayings is no longer true.

The next night, the children of Near start disappearing from their beds, and the mysterious boy falls under suspicion. Still, he insists on helping Lexi search for them. Something tells her she can trust him.

As the hunt for the children intensifies, so does Lexi’s need to know—about the witch that just might be more than a bedtime story, about the wind that seems to speak through the walls at night, and about the history of this nameless boy.

Part fairy tale, part love story, Victoria Schwab’s debut novel is entirely original yet achingly familiar: a song you heard long ago, a whisper carried by the wind, and a dream you won’t soon forget.

Also featuring:

Putting Makeup on Dead People by Jen Violi 

Queen of the Dead: A Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade

From Bad To Cursed by Katie Alender

Uncommon Criminals: A Heist Society Novel

Sharks & Boys by Kristen Tracy

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But wait! It just got better... with a giveaway of course! I have a deck of unRequired Reading cards and an unRequired water bottle to give away to one lucky follower! I have a deck of cards for myself, and I am loving them! I really wanted the water bottle too, but I am giving it away (yes, I know, I'm so nice).  What are they you say? Well, take a look at the (not so great) pictures! I promise, the swag themselves are beautiful.

 This is the the image on the water bottle. (I couldn't find a picture of the actual water bottle, and I failed at doing so myself... so this is the picture you get. )

 The offical picture of the unRequired Reading cards . Here's a little about them:

Authors and titles that will trump your summer reading list. Shuffle through the deck and you'll find everything from the walking dead to the mean girls next door, from fallen angels to adorable art thieves, these books are the winning reads to stack your deck!

Here is the unofficial picture, taken by your's truely! I took it on my blackberry, so the quality kind of stinks. I promise that there are a full 52 cards in the winner's deck (54 counting jokers). This is me trying to be artstic and only showing a few. 

Aren't you just DYING to enter? Well, wait no longer. HERE is the form to enter the giveaway, below are the rules.

Rules

• Must be 13 years or older to enter
• Comments are appreciated but you must fill out the form to be entered
• Winner is chosen via Random.org and will have 48 hours to respond by email before a new winner is chosen
• Giveaway ends Thursday June 30, 2011 at midnight EST
• US ONLY! (Sorry international folks)