Author: Cameron Stracher
Published: January 1, 2011
Pages: 256
Rating: 4/5 Stars
Review:
In a futuristic, dystopian America environmental disaster has occurred and water is the new gold. Countries have dammed their rivers and fresh water cannot be found. This is the world Vera and her brother Will grew up in. Their mother is ill and bedridden, sick from drinking toxic water. Then the meet Kai, a rich kid with a father who drills for water. When Kai is kidnapped and they try to find him, Vera and Will find themselves in danger after being kidnapped by water pirates. Their odyssey through post apocalyptic America weaves a story that is fast paced and well told.
The story grabbed me in the first chapter and the nonstop action carried me along to the end of the book. The dry, parched world was so well developed, you could feel the thirst of the characters. In a world covered with water it is a scary thing to think that the drinkable portion could be taken and used as a commodity. The characters were well developed and you wanted to cheer them on as they fought for their lives. The story was believable to a point, but it is unlikely that someone will be there every time you need help. But that is the fun of fiction so I was willing to overlook this flaw and go with the story. It was a fun, fast read and although the ending was satisfying, I can't wait for the sequel to find out what happens to Vera and Kai in the future.
Rating: A fun, fast paced adventure that you will enjoy
Author: Delphine de Vigan
Published: August 3, 2010
Pages: 256
Rating: 3/5 Stars
Review:
Lou is a precocious, introverted teen with an IQ of 160 living in Paris. Her mother is in a deep depression since the crib death of a younger sibling and her father is just trying to keep the family together. Lou attends school with much older teens and feels lost and out of place. When she begins to research a paper on the homeless she meets Nolween (No), an 18 year old homeless teen who has been neglected most of her life and is lost and alone. Eventually No moves in with Lou and her parents but her alcohol and drug use cannot be cured with their kindness.
The book explores the relationship between these two unlikely friends and how each affects the others lives. One particular quote also shows how the book addresses the problem of homelessness:
"We can send supersonic planes and rockets into space, and identify a criminal from a hair or a tiny flake of skin, and grow a tomato we can keep in the fridge for three weeks without getting a wrinkle, and store millions of pieces of information on a tiny chip. Yet we're capable of letting people die in the street" (p. 72).
This is a harsh look at life on the street interspersed with moments of tenderness. The journey Lou and No go on to explore the world around them felt real and was well done, Their characters were well developed and grew throughout the book. I did feel that the ending was abrupt, but really there is no easy solution to the problem of homelessness, so maybe I was just hoping for a different ending. This book is a good look at how people are changed by those around them, and was an enjoyable if somewhat depressing read.
Rating: An interesting, worthwhile read
There are some great new books coming out this week. One, The Dark and Hollow Places, has been on my wish list ever since I started reading the Forest of Hands and Teeth trilogy. Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions. Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously—and at great risk—documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father's prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives. Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart. The Dark a nd Hollow Places Author: Carrie Ryan Synopsis from Goodreads: There are many things that Annah would like to forget: the look on her sister's face before Annah left her behind in the Forest of Hands and Teeth, her first glimpse of the Horde as they swarmed the Dark City, the sear of the barbed wire that would scar her for life. But most of all, Annah would like to forget the morning Elias left her for the Recruiters. Annah's world stopped that day, and she's been waiting for Elias to come home ever since. Somehow, without him, her life doesn't feel much different than the dead that roam the wasted city around her. Until she meets Catcher, and everything feels alive again. Ten Miles P Author: Frances O'Roark Dowell Synopsis from Goodreads: Janie Gorman wants to be normal. The problem with that: she’s not. She’s smart and creative and a little bit funky. She’s also an unwilling player in her parents’ modern-hippy, let’s-live-on-a-goat-farm experiment (regretfully, instigated by a younger, much more enthusiastic Janie). This, to put it simply, is not helping Janie reach that “normal target.” She has to milk goats every day…and endure her mother’s pseudo celebrity in the homemade-life, crunchy mom blogosphere. Goodbye the days of frozen lasagna and suburban living, hello crazy long bus ride to high school and total isolation--and hovering embarrassments of all kinds. The fresh baked bread is good…the threat of homemade jeans, not so much. It would be nice to go back to that old suburban life…or some grown up, high school version of it, complete with nice, normal boyfriends who wear crew neck sweaters and like social studies. So, what’s wrong with normal? Well, kind of everything. She knows that, of course, why else would she learn bass and join Jam Band, how else would she know to idolize infamous wild-child and high school senior Emma (her best friend Sarah’s older sister), why else would she get arrested while doing a school project on a local freedom school (jail was not part of the assignment). And, why else would she kind of be falling in "like" with a boy named Monster—yes, that is his real name. Janie was going for normal, but she missed her mark by about ten miles…and we mean that as a compliment. Frances O’Roark Dowell’s fierce humor and keen eye make her YA debut literary and wise. In the spirit of John Green and E. Lockhart, Dowell’s relatable, quirky characters and clever, fluid writing prove that growing up gets complicated…and normal is WAY overrated. Wither Author: Lauren DeStefano Synopsis from Goodreads: Thanks to modern science, every human being has become a ticking genetic time bomb—males only live to age twenty-five, and females only live to age twenty. In this bleak landscape, young girls are kidnapped and forced into polygamous marriages to keep the population from dying out. Wither also looks like a great one, and the UPS man just delivered it to my door! Hope you find something to peak your interest.
March 22:
Between Shades of Gray
Author: Ruta Sepetys
Synopsis from Goodreads:
But Catcher has his own secrets. Dark, terrifying truths that link him to a past Annah has longed to forget, and to a future too deadly to consider. And now it's up to Annah: can she continue to live in a world covered in the blood of the living? Or is death the only escape from the Return's destruction?
ast Normal
When sixteen-year-old Rhine Ellery is taken by the Gatherers to become a bride, she enters a world of wealth and privilege. Despite her husband Linden's genuine love for her, and a tenuous trust among her sister wives, Rhine has one purpose: to escape—to find her twin brother and go home.
But Rhine has more to contend with than losing her freedom. Linden's eccentric father is bent on finding an antidote to the genetic virus that is getting closer to taking his son, even if it means collecting corpses in order to test his experiments. With the help of Gabriel, a servant Rhine is growing dangerously attracted to, Rhine attempts to break free, in the limited time she has left.
Author:
Andrea Cremer
Published: October 19, 2010
Pages: 528
Rating: 3/5 Stars
In Aspen, Colorado there are three factions of supernatural beings living among the mortal population:
1) The Keepers: a group of witches and warlocks
2) The Guardians: werewolves who are sworn to protect the Keepers, They shift from human to wolf form and can heal with their blood
3) The Searchers: another group of witches/warlocks who are have been fighting against the Keepers for centuries.
There are two packs of werewolves: the Nighshades and the Banes and they are due to merge with the marriage of the alphas on their 18th birthdays. Their union has been planned by the Keepers since their birth, it is their destiny and cannot be changed. They patrol and protect the Keepers from attack. In return for protection the Keepers provide everything the Guardians need, from housing, to clothing to education.
Calla is the alpha female of the Nightshades. While on patrol Calla encounters an injured male hiker and cannot bring herself to let him die, so she heals him with her blood, something that is forbidden by the Keepers. The next day he arrives at her school and is introduced as the nephew of one of the powerful Keepers. He recognizes her but agrees to keep the healing a secret, and their relationship begins to develop, setting up a love triangle between Calla, Shay and Ren, the alpha male of the Bain pack. As Calla tries to fight against her desires for Shay she begins to question why the Keepers control every aspect of their lives. As she researches the history of the pack and the Keepers she realizes that everything she has been told is a lie and she has to decide to continue on the path dictated by the Keepers or to break free and follow her heart.
This was a long book. I don't mind longer books, in fact I enjoy them because it usually means there will be more depth to the story. But that was not the case here. The characters were one dimensional and poorly developed. There was nothing that made them interesting and so much time was spent on the love triangle, it was well, boring. Fortunately the author redeemed herself in the last third of the book when the action picked up and the story took off at a fast pace. It made reading the whole book worthwhile. And it made me want to know what happens next. So I will pickup the sequel when it arrives in a couple of months. This is a worthwhile read if you can stick with it through the slower parts of the book.
Rating: A fun read especially when you get to the last third of the book
Enter my giveaway for The Blizzard by Marty Martins. Comment on this post to enter.
Kristi at The Story Siren hosts In My Mailbox each week. I have had a great week as far as new books go. Unfortunately my local Borders is closing,but on the bright side it is a great time to get some things I have been wanting to read. I have also received several great things in the mail, and some new Netgalley reads as well. Now I just need time to read them all!
These things actually arrived in my mailbox:
Here are my Borders finds:
Finally my Netgalley reads:
Here is what you can find on my blog in the coming week:
I will be reviewing the following books:
Nightshade by Andrea Cremer
The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher
No and Me by Delphine de Vigan
On Tuesday In Book News will let you know what books will be released over the next seven days. Hope you will stop by.
Enter my giveaway for The Blizzard by Marty Martins. Comment on this post to enter.
Follow Friday is a blog hop sponsored by Parajunkee's View. The question this week is:
How did you come up with your blog name?
I tried to come up with something that had to do with books and clever too. I tried lots of things and guess what? They were already taken! Finally I came up with Between the Bookcovers (but my husband keeps confusing it with between the sheets!). Anyway, that is my story. Thanks for stopping by, I hope you have a great weekend!
Enter my giveaway for The Blizzard by Marty Martins. Comment on this post to enter.
Author: James Dashner
Published: October 6, 2009
Pages: 400
Rating: 2/5 Stars
My Review:
Thomas wakes up to find that he has arrived in a strange place called the Glade, a and he has no memory of his past life. The Glade is a dystopic self sufficient colony without adults in the middle of a maze with lots of boys and weird monsters. This is the setting for The Maze Runner. The kids in The Glade have tried for two years to find a way out of The Glade without success. Every day several boys run through the maze trying to find a way out, every night the walls in the maze move. The day after Thomas arrives a girl also arrives, an event because there had never been a girl in The Glade before. The book explores how Thomas reacts to his situation in The Glade, what his relationship with the new girl is, and if there is a way out of the maze.
I am a huge fan of dystopian fiction and I was really looking forward to The Maze Runner. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I was disappointed. The characters in the book were not well developed and there was nothing to make me care about what happened to them. Even when they died, I felt nothing for them. The premise of the story sounded good, but after hearing about the maze that could not be solved over and over again, I didn't really care if they found a way out or not. What was meant to be an adventure with building tension was a boring story that I found difficult to get through. The use of words unique to The Glade didn't make any sense. I think that if an author uses unique words or languages, there should be a reason for it. As used the words made no sense and were distracting. Finally, the end was abrupt and obviously a set up for the sequel, but I think books should have some sort of a stopping point, not just a cut off that leaves the reader hanging. There was nothing here that made me want to seek out the next book in the trilogy.
I will note that my opinion of this book is in the minority. Many other reviewers love the story and have given it very positive reviews. I encourage you to read other opinions and decide for yourself if this is a book that will appeal to you.
My Rating: A disappointment
