Tag Archives: YA novels

Review: Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard

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glass swordBack in the complicated world of Mare Barrow.  **Spoilers** She’s been betrayed by Maven. Her dead brother isn’t dead and also has a super cool power.  Cal and Kilorn, two completely different boys who are totally in love with her are now in the same space.  Oh, and Mare now has to deal with the grief of killing people while pushing a revolution into high gear.  Yep, Mare has some things going on in her life.  I’m going to do something different then just a straight review.  I’m going to talk about how I felt reading this book.  If you’ve read any of my previous posts about the first book, Red Queen. Then you know how excited I was. (Also how disappointed that Barnes and Noble didn’t deliver it on timed)  I could go on and on about how much I enjoyed reading it and how it’s just as fast paced as the first.  Less then a chapter in and we are already into our first battle.  The emotional roller coaster I went through with Mare, Cal, Kilorn, Farley and Shade.  One of which I was pretty sure wasn’t going to make it to the end of the book.  (I won’t see who and sadly I was right). I could give you a synopsis of what happen but really, I’m probably spoiled enough of it already.  Just go read it!

As I was getting more and more into the story, I started to notice some disturbing signs.  I was pretty sure that I was not going to like how it ends  I was starting to see the end game and like I alluded to before, someone was going to die.  Someone was going to have face off with someone unpleasant and someone or someones were going to be heartbroken.  So I started to stall.  I figured I would just delay the inevitable. I distracted myself with other things. Since I was on vacation last week it was pretty easy to do.  I told my mom what I was doing and her response. “This is why I read the ending first”. BTW, she totally does and it’s adorable but I can’t do that.  That takes away the surprise! The suspense!  So I read a little bit a time until it was time for me to go home and when you are on a small commuter plane, there really is nothing else to do but read.  I had it finished before I got to Detroit.  It was painful as I thought it would be.  It didn’t play out exactly as I thought it would but yes the character I suspected was going to die, did.  The confrontation I thought was going to happen, did happen but not at all how I thought it did and it lead to one crazy cliffhanger.  And the heartbreaks were all around, myself included.  Readers, why do we do this to ourselves?  Why?  The good news I have time to process everything that happened and get my emotions back in check before the next book comes out.  The bad news (and also good news) is that there are two books to go. But really, is there anything better the agony and the ecstasy of a good book?  Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Quick Review: Deadfall by Anna Carey

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deadfallThe sequel to Blackbird was satisfying as the first book.  Deadfall picks up right where Blackbird ended.  “Sunny” is reunited with Rafe, the boy from the island on the train to New York.  Rafe memories have already come back to him and has made contact with other victims of the hunt in New York. Together they try to connect with the others and figure out how to bring them down.  Things get even more complicated when Ben is sent in to try to bring her back but instead chooses to side her.  The twists and turns go back and forth and we find out deep the game goes and far people will go for the ultimate thrill.  The scariest part is how easy it is for people to look at others people as less then human.  The hunters don’t see these kids as kids but as targets.  To them these are just runaway kids with no futures and no one will miss so it’s totally okay to hunt them for sport.  This novel is also written in second person like the first and lends itself to the urgency and the paranoia of our characters.  In the end our heroine finds out who she is.  Her memories are not fully back but for the first time in a long time she can be herself.  For mystery and action fans, this duology is worth checking out.

Review: Stars Above by Marissa Meyer

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stars above As you may have noticed.  Kate and I haven’t posted much lately.  I’ve been on vacation and had every intention of updating while I was gone but I was too busy enjoying doing nothing but hanging out with my parents and friends that blogging didn’t happen.  Oops.  Let’s try to make up.

Stars Above is a collection of short stories that takes place in the world of Lunar Chronicles.  Most of the them are prequels, giving readers more insight into who the characters were before the action the novels.  In the case of the first story, The Keeper, it fills in the story of how Cinder came to earth and how Michelle Benoit and Scarlett fit into her life before she became a cyborg.  Glitches follows Cinder as she meets her step family for the first time and how she went from the great hope to the just the mechanic.  In the Mechanic we get to read Kai’s first meeting with Cinder from his perspective and the final story, Something Old, Something New takes place a few years after the end of Winter where the whole gang comes back together for the wedding of two them.  I won’t say who because I don’t want to spoil it but you will be happy.  My favorite story was The Little Android. It’s the only story that doesn’t star anyone from the Lunar Chronicles but does feature a cameo by Cinder.  It’s about an Android like Iko that wants to be more then just an android.  She starts to have feelings with a human and buys an escort android body to pass herself as human to get closer to him.  The problem is that the man is in love with someone else.  We get a better view of what life is like for people living in New Beijing before Cinder’s revolution for androids, cyborgs and humans.  It’s a very bittersweet story but beautiful written.  This collection is worth it just for this story alone even if you are not a fan of the Lunar Chronicles.  For the fans, it’s a must read.

#Bookreaderproblems

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The Glass Sword came out yesterday.  I preordered my copy over a month ago thinking I would get it by today because that is what I was told to expect it.  Well, it wasn’t shipped until yesterday and I’m not supposed to get it until Friday.  FRIDAY! I finished Deadfall on my commute home last night.  So what do I read now?  This is my dilemma. Do I read something new and run the risk of not finishing it by the time Glass Sword gets here? And then do I finish reading the new book or do I start Glass Sword because that’s what I really want to read? I’ve never been a fan of stopping and starting books.  I like to read them all the way through.  It’s part of why I mostly only read one back at a time, though I have done the two books before. So my other option is to read something I’ve already read before.  It won’t be that hard for me to stop in the middle if I don’t finish because I’ll know how it ends.  That would make the most sense but then I’ll lose my momentum on my book challenge.  Not that my challenge is all that difficult since I know I can read 65 books in a year but I do hate to lose.  Do you have this problem?  What do I do?

Review: Blackbird by Anna Carey

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blackbird I admit that I have had this book sitting on my Nook for awhile now.  It was one of those it’s on sale impulse buys.  I read Anna Carey’s her Eve series.  It was great until the last book.  I was really frustrated with how Eve spends the entire series running away from getting pregnant to only get pregnant anyway. So I bought this book but held off reading it and really only decided to read it because it’s not that long.  Only about 186 pages on the Nook.  It’s completely different from Eve.  Instead of of being another dystopian novel, it’s a contemporary novel.  Our heroine wakes on a LA subway track with no memory of who she is or how she got there.  All she has on her is a bookbag, money, a fresh shirt and a notebook that instructs her to stay away from the police and call this number.  She does and arrives at the appointed office to find that it’s empty and the safe is open with money missing.  She’s been set up and forced to be on the run.  She quickly realizes that she’s being followed and some of them want to kill her.  She turns for help to Ben.  A boy she caught selling pot on her first day.  The two set out to try to figure out who she is and what is going on.  Why are people trying to kill her?  Who is orchestrating it?  Who is she? Is there anyone one looking for her?

The intriguing thing about this book is that it’s written in the second person.  I’m not sure I’ve read a book written in that voice before.  In short stories yes but not a novel.  It lends it well to the narrative.  It really adds to the uncertainty and paranoia of our character. However it took a while for me to get used to it.  “Sunny” as she calls herself since she doesn’t remember her name is resourceful.  She has small snippets of her past but she doesn’t know if they are real or not or how they relate to what is going on with her.  She finds that she knows how to do things that suggest that maybe she wasn’t all that innocent as she would like.  She knows how to pick locks and how to evade people who are following her.  She also knows how to fight.  This makes her a little uneasy about herself.  I like her, she’s quick on her feet and smart.  She comes to the same conclusion of what is going on the same time I did but her story isn’t over yet.  We have one book to go to find out more about the people who are hunting her and if she finally be able to out run them or take them down.

Review: Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

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nimonaSo It may surprise you or at least my friends who read this blog but this was the first graphic novel I’ve ever read.  Yeah, I know.  I talk a good game.  Kate and I watched the Saturday morning cartoons of X-Men and Spider-Man when were kids and, well, I pay attention.  I listened to my friends and customers when they talked about various superheroes.  I’ve pretty much seen all the movies.  I’ve read various articles and critiques.  I love Agent Carter.  So I’ve paid attention and have been able to piece together this and that, enough that when I talk about comic characters and movies, I’ve come off as I know what I’m talking about.  I’m a total fraud and I know it.  I’m trying to fix that.

Nimona isn’t your typical superhero story.  Actually she a villain’s sidekick.  One day she shows up at Lord Blackheart’s place telling him she is going to be his sidekick and help him take over the kingdom and finally defeat his nemesis, Sir Goldenloin and the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics.  Blackheart is resistant at first since there are rules but Nimona will not take no and once she shows him her shape-shifting abilities, he gives her a chance.  At first, she’s a little bit too enthusiastic and dives in head first but eventually she and Blackheart find the perfect working relationship.  After their first mission into the Institution, they come across the Institution’s questionable plans and it makes you ask who are the heroes and who are the villains.

There are many things I liked about this book.  One is Nimona.  She’s spunky, funny, loyal, brave, vulnerable, angry, lonely, friendly.  She’s all those things and more.  She clearly hasn’t had an easy upbringing.  Her ability has made her an outsider, a monster, but really she is just a little girl looking for somewhere to belong. Lord Blackheart is a smart, curious man who feels he has been wronged and then took up the role he thought he was expected to play.  He is really the first to see Nimona for who she really is.  The world is not black and white.  There is both good and bad and all of us.  I was really taken with the story.  The artwork was very nice.  I liked the medieval aesthetic with a modern twist.  Nimona is drawn as a sorta emo girl with pink and purple half shaven hair.  She’s round not thin.  She’s real.  I was really touched by the story.  It wasn’t just good versus evil or what does it mean to be good and evil but also finding our place in the world.  Hoping to be judged on who they actually are and not what they are perceived to be.  Isn’t that what we all ultimately want?  I truly loved this book and I can say my first foray into graphic novels has been a success.