Letting Go of Gravity Release Day Blitz & Giveaway

I am so excited that Letting Go of Gravity by Meg Leder is available now for everyone to read! I absolutely enjoyed this book and I hope you get a chance to read it too! Check out my review here. If you haven't had a chance to read Meg's other wonderful YA contemporary, Museum of a Heartbreak, definitely check it out since it's one of my favorite books!

Thank you to Rockstar Book Tours for organizing this wonderful release blitz. This blitz also includes a giveaway for 3 finished copies of the book, courtesy of Simon Pulse and Rockstar Book Tours. So if you’d like a chance to win, enter in the Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post.

Title: Letting Go of Gravity
Author: Meg Leder
Pub. Date: July 17, 2018
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Formats: Hardcover, eBook
Pages: 432
Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, B&N, iBooks, TBD

Synopsis:

Twins Parker and Charlie are polar opposites.
Where Charlie is fearless, Parker is careful.
Charlie is confident while Parker aims to please.
Charlie is outgoing and outspoken; Parker is introverted and reserved.
And of course, there’s the one other major difference: Charlie got leukemia. Parker didn’t.

But now that Charlie is officially in remission, life couldn’t be going better for Parker. She’s landed a prestigious summer internship at the hospital and is headed to Harvard in the fall to study pediatric oncology—which is why the anxiety she’s felt since her Harvard acceptance is so unsettling. And it doesn’t help that her relationship with Charlie has been on the rocks since his diagnosis.

Enter Finn, a boy who’s been leaving strange graffiti messages all over town. Parker can’t stop thinking about those messages, or about Finn, who makes her feel free for the first time: free to doubt, free to make mistakes, and free to confront the truth that Parker has been hiding from for a long time.

That she keeps trying to save Charlie, when the person who really needs saving is herself.

ACCLAIMED PRAISE

A gorgeous, sad, funny, and wise book about letting go and finding your place in the world. Meg Leder has written a story about a brother and sister that will break your heart and have you whispering 'I got you' long after you've closed the book." –Kathleen Glasgow, New York Times bestselling author of Girl in Pieces

“For readers who love and appreciate a good coming-of-age story, a realistic romance, and a novel where every character gets to be a hero.” –Kirkus

“A poignant and carefully crafted story…. A compelling coming-of-age novel sure to appeal to those who love realistic fiction.” –School Library Journal

“Effectively shows how illness affects families and how a person can get stuck acting out a persona and end up knowing very little about herself.” –Publishers Weekly

ABOUT MEG LEDER

Meg Leder is the author of Letting Go of Gravity and The Museum of Heartbreak, and the coauthor of books including The Happy Book and The Book of Me. A former bookseller and teacher, she currently works as a book editor in New York City. She spends her free time reading, looking for street art, and people watching. She lives in Brooklyn with her cat Tim Riggins.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Goodreads

GIVEAWAY

3 winners will win a finished copy of LETTING GO OF GRAVITY, US Only. Nicole's Novel Reads is not responsible for books lost or damaged in the mail. Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Letting Go of Gravity by Meg Leder

Title: Letting Go of Gravity
Author: Meg Leder
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication date: July 17, 2018
Pages: 432
Source/format: e-ARC//Publisher

Rating: ☆☆☆☆1/2

Synopsis (from goodreads.com):  Twins Parker and Charlie are polar opposites.

Where Charlie is fearless, Parker is careful.

Charlie is confident while Parker aims to please.

Charlie is outgoing and outspoken; Parker is introverted and reserved.

And of course, there’s the one other major difference: Charlie got leukemia. Parker didn’t.

But now that Charlie is officially in remission, life couldn’t be going better for Parker. She’s landed a prestigious summer internship at the hospital and is headed to Harvard in the fall to study pediatric oncology—which is why the anxiety she’s felt since her Harvard acceptance is so unsettling. And it doesn’t help that her relationship with Charlie has been on the rocks since his diagnosis.

Enter Finn, a boy who’s been leaving strange graffiti messages all over town. Parker can’t stop thinking about those messages, or about Finn, who makes her feel free for the first time: free to doubt, free to make mistakes, and free to confront the truth that Parker has been hiding from for a long time.

That she keeps trying to save Charlie, when the person who really needs saving is herself.

M Y  T H O U G H T S 

"What would it be like to do something not because you had to, but just because you wanted to?"

Letting Go of Gravity starts with a story of a gravity girl and a helium girl that grandma used to tell twins Charlie McCullough and Parker McCullough. This story represented Charlie who wants to fly and Parker who won't let go.

Parker is Harvard bound and she's the valedictorian of her class. After learning Charlie has Leukemia, Parker wants to be a pediatric oncologist. She has a prestigious internship for the summer at a local hospital. Charlie, on the other hand, has to repeat senior year again due to missing school when he was in the hospital for Leukemia. He is currently in remission. However, the sibling relationship between Charlie and Parker has been strained ever since the twins started arguing over everything.

Meg Leder gives a glimpse how a serious illness can impact loved ones. Parker is scared bout Charlie getting sick again and possibly dying. There are a couple of scenes in the book where Parker has a panic attack about whether she can handle what life throws at her. Fortunately, her best friend Em always supports here and is always there for her. When Em moves to college, Parker befriends Ruby Collie from Float and reconnects with former childhood classmate Finn Casper.

I found it refreshing when Parker decides not to attend her internship. Just because she is the valedictorian, she is far from perfect. She can make mistakes or change her mind about stuff and her anxiety takes a form of its own. When she doesn't want to be a doctor anymore, it wasn't until she talks to Finn that she decides she needs to follow her heart. She decides to take Finn's suggestion and applies to a job at Trina's Ceramics. Parker can finally breathe and it feels like a weight is lifted off her shoulders at her new job. Creativity runs in Parker's veins even if she doesn't know it. Finn finds solace in street art as he paints amazing messages around the city. Parker and Finn starts to connect with what makes them happy.

Leder writes with sincerity. Her book is realistic and she knows how teens think to how they act to what they say. The pressure that society has on them can be unbearable and sometimes it's hard to convey what they think and feel to adults. Parker finds meaningful friendships with Ruby and Finn. She needs friends who knows what she was going through. By the end of the book, Parker finds her wings to fly!

Although the novel is fairly long for a contemporary, Letting Go of Gravity is emotionally gripping and relatable. The novel addresses how someone copes with a loved one being ill, how to manage anxiety and how one gains the strength to be honest not only with themselves but with the world. If you enjoy reading books such as The Museum of Heartbreak, The Start of Me and You and Emmy & Oliver, you will love Letting Go of Gravity.

The Museum of Heartbreak by Meg Leder

Title: The Museum of Heartbreak
Author: Meg Leder
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication date: June 7, 2016
Pages: 256
Source/format: Purchased//Hardcover

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆ 

Synopsis (from goodreads.com):

In this ode to all the things we gain and lose and gain again, seventeen-year-old Penelope Marx curates her own mini-museum to deal with all the heartbreaks of love, friendship, and growing up.

Welcome to the Museum of Heartbreak.

Well, actually, to Penelope Marx’s personal museum. The one she creates after coming face to face with the devastating, lonely-making butt-kicking phenomenon known as heartbreak.

Heartbreak comes in all forms: There’s Keats, the charmingly handsome new guy who couldn’t be more perfect for her. There’s possibly the worst person in the world, Cherisse, whose mission in life is to make Penelope miserable. There’s Penelope’s increasingly distant best friend Audrey. And then there’s Penelope’s other best friend, the equal-parts-infuriating-and-yet-somehow-amazing Eph, who has been all kinds of confusing lately.

But sometimes the biggest heartbreak of all is learning to let go of that wondrous time before you ever knew things could be broken.

M Y  T H O U G H T S

Sixteen-year-old Penelope (Pen) Madeira Marx is the curator of the Museum of Heartbreak of the United States of America. She is a romantic waiting to fall in love. When Pen's friends Audrey and Eph have been expanding their social circles beyond their social triangle, Pen has been feeling quite left out. After meeting Grace and Miles, she realizes that she doesn't always have to do thing with her friends all the time. However, Pen seems not to be able to let go.

Meg Leder writes a genuine book about first crushes, friendship and finding one self. I found myself smiling a lot throughout the whole book because it's so light, fluffy and happy. I feel like I am sitting on cloud nine. Leder takes her readers on a trip around New York City. I recognize a lot of places from McNally Jackson Books to the American Museum of Natural History. Pen is relatable and all the characters in the novel are believable. Nothing is over the top and I can see every event happening in a high school setting.

Pen goes through multiple types of heartbreak throughout the book. Heartbreak is defined by absence, loneliness and heightens nostalgia. It's a physical phenomenon, it comes it all shapes and sizes and the biggest heartbreak of it all is letting go.

Each chapter has a sketch of an item from the Museum of Heartbreak. Next to the drawing, there is description of the item and how she obtained the item along with a catalog number. This is a very creative way to title each chapter since each artifact of the museum has significance in Pen's life. Karina Granda did a fantastic job with the cover art. A curation of everything mentioned in the book is summarized through artifacts like pieces of a puzzle.

I also appreciate the pop culture and literary references within the novel such as mentions of Watchmen, J.D Salinger, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Anne of Green Gables, Wuthering Heights, Oscar Wilde and the Dead Poet's Society.

This novel is written in a first person POV except for the last chapter which is sort of out of place since it's written in second person POV. However, the second person POV is the reader being a character from the novel.

The Museum of Heartbreak is a quirky and delightful read full of nostalgia and innocence. From dinosaurs to dark chocolate Kit-Kats, Pen realizes sometimes the best of things are right in front of her. Sometimes heartbreak is necessary before finding the truth and happiness.