Review: Crossed

Crossed by Ally Condie

Publisher: Dutton
Publication Date: November 1st 2011
Pages: 367
Copy Type: Hardcover
Source: Bought
Genre: Dystopian, Romance
Sub-Genre: Adventure
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In search of a future that may not exist and faced with the decision of who to share it with, Cassia journeys to the Outer Provinces in pursuit of Ky - taken by the Society to his certain death - only to find that he has escaped, leaving a series of clues in his wake.

Cassia's quest leads her to question much of what she holds dear, even as she finds glimmers of a different life across the border. But as Cassia nears resolve and certainty about her future with Ky, an invitation for rebellion, an unexpected betrayal, and a surprise visit from Xander - who may hold the key to the uprising and, still, to Cassia's heart - change the game once again. Nothing is as expected on the edge of Society, where crosses and double crosses make the path more twisted than ever.

Crossed is the second book in the very popular Matched trilogy. I read Matched a little while after it came out, which was before I had started blogging and loved the book. Matched is a beautifully written romance that is very easy to see in your head.

Corssed is told in two perspectives, Ky's and Cassia's. I felt like I connected with Ky's character much more than I did Cassia's in this story because she really doesn't seem to know what she wants or what she is getting herself into. Ky however has a much stronger minded character and he seems easier to connect with. 
 
The story that the book told was fairly uneventful and seemed to drag out much longer than it should have. Most of the book was the characters traveling and there really wasn't much story to be told for either character.

The romance seemed pretty fake in most of the book. The only time I really felt like the characters where meant to be together was when the see each other for the first time and then afterwards the romance falls apart. It seems like they really had no time to know each other before coming across their obstetricals and now their connection isn't as strong as the characters thought it was. 

The ending was fairly disappointing, it felt a lot like the end of the first book and there really wasn't a whole lot accomplished in the story.    

Review: Shatter Me

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Publisher: Harper
Publication Date: November 15th 2011
Copy Type: Hardcover
Source: Bought
Genre: Romance, Dystopian, Paranormal
Goodreads
Banes and Noble

Juliette hasn't touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal. As long as she doesn't hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don't fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war-- and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she's exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.

In this electrifying debut, Tahereh Mafi presents a world as riveting as The Hunger Games and a superhero story as thrilling as The X-Men. Full of pulse-pounding romance, intoxicating villainy, and high-stakes choices, Shatter Me is a fresh and original dystopian novel—with a paranormal twist—that will leave readers anxiously awaiting its sequel.

SHATTER ME is a book that kept me hooked from the very start. Starting from the first chapter you feel an instant connection to the characters. There is never a dull or predictable moment and its very difficult not to read this book in one sitting. From the moment I got it I spent every available moment gripped to the pages, and when I was not, I was wishing I was reading. 

Juliette enters the book in one of the most unforgettable ways ever. The way Mafi narrates in a first person perspective is beautiful, emotional, and very distinct. One can instantly understand how the main character, Juliette feels through the writings and she seems like a very real person you wish you could just hug and encourage at many points of the book because you become so connected.

Juliette's and her love interest Adam are perfect together is so many ways. The romance is placed in just the perfect parts of the book. Unlike many romance stories today their love is unwavering and does not consist of love triangles. There love is so pure you can't help falling in love with the characters yourself. 

Through out the book lines are crossed out which are lines the Juliette have eliminated from her mind like a filter though they are what she truly feels. I love how they used the crossed out lines to give a feeling of how she views herself and truly thinks that she is a monster until Adam comes and pulls her from the darkness. 

I am truly at a loss of words to review this book with. If I were to sum up this book in one sentence it would probably look something like this: 

THIS BOOK IS TOTALLY REMARKABLE SO YOU NEED TO READ IT NOW!

So yeah... go do that...

 

Review: Uglies

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing  
Publication Date: February 8th 200
Pages: 425
Book Type: Paperback
Book Received by: Bought
Genre: Dystopian
Sub-Genres: Romance, Adventure, Young Adult, Friendships


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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.
 
This is an exciting, well written story with a very powerful hidden meaning that makes you think about popular culture as a whole. 

The story takes place in a future world were everyone gets a surgery to become pretty at the age of 16, leading them to a life of beauty and happiness. Tally can't wait until her birthday when she can finally join her best friends in New Pretty Town. When her new friend Shay shares that she is going to run away to a city were you don't have to turn pretty the government forces her to use her knowledge of where Shay is to find and locate the town so it can once and for all be destroyed. 

One of my favorite parts of this story is the growth of Tally and how she begins to learn the truth of the pretty way of life. I also love the description of the world outside of the Pretty and Ugly towns, such as the town that Tally sets out to find, the Smoke, and the old Rusty towns (The remains of how we live presently) and how the adventure the characters take is presented. 

 

Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

The cover is even prettier in person!

Daughter of Smoke and Bone By Laini Taylor

Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
Publication date: September 27th 2011
Pages: 420
Copy type: Hardcover
Revived by: Bought

Genre: Fantasy
Sub-genres: Romance, Action, Paranormal

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Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages--not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.

When one of the strangers--beautiful, haunted Akiva--fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

This is a beautiful, unique tale of fantasy and self-discovery that really can't be compared to any other book out there.

Karou is a teenage girl from Prague who runs errands for a very peculiar bunch, part animal part humans who send her to get teeth from people all over the world, though the refuse to tell her why she is getting the teeth or what they do with them. But after she gets attacked by a winged angel on an errand and she gets kicked out of the creatures' shop all of the doorways to their shop are burned and she's left alone.

Karou is the kind of girl who can fight fer herself and doesn't need someone to rush in ad rescue her all the time. I love how she takes part in this fantasy other-world and the story is about her discovery of the world and where she comes from. 

I liked the beginning and middle of the book a lot more then the end (I'm avoiding spoilers) because there is a section that tells the story of a character other than Karou and I liked Karou a lot more than the other character.

Reincarnation. Yes, it's in this book. I love reincarnation, and how it is used in this book is completely unexpected and beautifully used.  

I recommend this book to all Young Adult and Fantasy fans. 

 

 

Review: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer By Michelle Hodkin

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Date Published: September 27th 2011
Pages: 452
Copy Type: Hardcover
Copy Received by: Bought
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Synopsis


Mara Dyer doesn't think life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.
It can.
She believes there must be more to the accident she can't remember that killed her friends and left her mysteriously unharmed.
There is.
She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love.
She's wrong.

Review


The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer is a very Unique and realistically written story about a girl who wakes up in the hospital to be told that she had been the only survivor in an accident that killed her best friends, and two others. To get away she and her family move to Florida and she tries to make a fresh start in at her new school.The problem is that the after the accident she has begun seeing things she couldn't have been seeing, and that's only the beginning of her unraveling. 


My favorite character in the entire book is Noah, who is one of Mara's only friends after moving. He's the one who keep Mara sane, and he seems to have a very noticeable personality in the story.


The character of Jamie seems much to brief in the story and there was no conclusion to what happened to him in the end. 


The way this story was written really does reflect how the main character, Mara is going crazy. It is carefully written so at some points the reader couldn't figure out the difference between what was real and was was false. 


The ending of the story was very hard to follow plot wise. There were many points that were hard to understand and difficult to figure out what was going on for several minutes and there was little explanation for some events. 


The wrap of the story was rushed and also confusing though did reflect on the stability of Mara's sanity.

Review: Lola and the Boy Next Door

Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins

Publisher: Dutton
Publication Date: September 29th 2011
Pages: 338
My Copy: Hardcover, Purchased
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Teaser

Budding designer Lola Nolan doesn’t believe in fashion . . . she believes in costume. The more expressive the outfit -- more sparkly, more fun, more wild -- the better. But even though Lola’s style is outrageous, she’s a devoted daughter and friend with some big plans for the future. And everything is pretty perfect (right down to her hot rocker boyfriend) until the dreaded Bell twins, Calliope and Cricket, return to the neighborhood.

When Cricket -- a gifted inventor -- steps out from his twin sister’s shadow and back into Lola’s life, she must finally reconcile a lifetime of feelings for the boy next door.

Review

You really can't can't find anything as beautiful and free spirited as Stephanie Perkins' companion novels Anna and the French Kiss and Lola and the Boy Next Door.

Lola wants nothing more than to never have to see the Bell family ever again, but when they move next door again, she can't help but begin to feel her feelings for Cricket Bell all over again. And she wishes she could still hate him. But then she begins to doubt her feelings for her current boyfriends and things become even more difficult.

Gay Parents. I love it. Andy and Nathan, Lola's dads just seem so perfect and cute. You really don't see Gay parents is books and it's a very nice change, and the explanation for both of the parents is very well thought out and makes a lot of sense.

Anna and St. Clair make several appearances in this books as Lola's friends and advisory throughout the story. The book being in Lola's point of view gives an outsiders look on Anna and St. Clair, and seeing them from the outside is very different than it is from Anna's point of view in Anna and the French Kiss.

The one thing I wish would have been different in the book is that there would have been just more in the story. Cricket and Lola don't really do much other than talk in the book and I think it would have been a little bit better if they had done more together in the middle of the story.

In whole Stephanie Perkins books are some of my all time favorite and if you have not yet read Anna and the French Kiss it is a must read.

Review: Forever

Forever by Maggie Stiefvater

Teaser from Barnes and Noble

In Maggie Stiefvater's SHIVER, Grace and Sam found each other. In LINGER, they fought to be together. Now, in FOREVER, the stakes are even higher than before. Wolves are being hunted. Lives are being threatened. And love is harder and harder to hold on to as death comes closing in.

First Reaction:

I bought my copy of Forever at a Maggie Stiefvater signing, which I have to say made the book a little less exciting when I acctully began to read it because I already had an idea of some of the events that were going to take place in the book. I had high hopes that this book would make up for the fact that I gave Linger three and a half stars after giving five to shiver, and I'm not fully satisfied.

Possible spoilers for those who have not read Shiver and Linger

Characters:

Grace: Grace is now a girl who turns wolf in the cold and human in the summer after getting bitten by Cold at the end of Linger because she was about to die from a failed "cure". She is in love with Sam and wants nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with him, but wolf hunting and the fact that she is a wolf is making that harder and harder.

Sam: Sam used to be a wolf until he got a cure that kept him human. He is in love with Grace and also wants to be with her Forever.

Cole: Cole used to be part of a popular band but now becomes a wolf in the winter and human in the summer. As a kid he was the son of a Scientist and began to follow in his fathers footsteps until he chose the band over science and is trying to figure out how the wolf body works to cure the pack.

Isabel: A friend of Grace, Sam, and Cole who knows about the wolves after her brother became one than died trying to cure himself.  

Review:
Like all of the books, there was nothing wrong with the writing or details, my big problem was the ending. Once I reread the last line a bunch of times trying to figure out what had happened all I can think is "Really Maggie?" The book has no solid ending leaving you wonder what happened to the characters and if I hadn't known this was the last book I would have thought there was another it was so vague.

Liked it... but not great.

Review: Linger

Linger By Maggie Stiefvater

Teaser from Barnes and Noble

Once Grace and Sam have found each other, they know they must fight to stay together. For Sam, this means a reckoning with his werewolf past. For Grace, it means facing a future that is less and less certain.
the loss.
Into their world comes a new wolf named Cole, whose past is full of hurt and danger. He is wrestling with his own demons, embracing the life of a wolf while denying the ties of a human.
the linger.
For Grace, Sam, and Cole, life is a constant struggle between two forces--wolf and human--with love baring its two sides as well. It is harrowing and euphoric, freeing and entrapping, enticing and alarming. As their world falls apart, love is what lingers. But will it be enough?

First Reaction: I came into this book right after reading the first book, Shiver with really high hopes that it would be as good as the second. But truly, the first half of the book I didn’t enjoy as much as I hoped. It was very slow and didn’t seem to have a real plot. I really didn’t see a plot at all actually. It seemed more of a ramble of what was happening without suspense or anything gripping. I did overall enjoy the book after reading the end, but I was disappointed with the beginning.  

Warning: Possible spoilers for those who have not read Shiver

Characters:

Sam: Sam used to be a wolf that shifted to a human when it was warm and to a wolf when it was cold, but that changed when he got sick and got a high fever, making him stay human. Sam is in love with Grace, who he has known ever since he and his wolf family attacked her in the forest, but he made them stop and he saved her.

Grace: Grace was bitten by the wolf pack when she was very little, and was saved by Sam who for years later watches her from the woods by her house. She never shifted though, because right after getting bitten she was locked in a hot car to cook for several hours, for some reason keeping her from shifting. When she and same find a cure for him as well they fall in love. But then Grace gets sick, and it’s not just a normal cold.

Cole: A new wolf in the pack who wants nothing more than to get away from his past rock star life. But some reason he can’t keep himself a wolf. And that’s one thing he can’t stand.

Isabel: Grace’s friend who’s brother used to be a wolf until he died trying to cure himself from being a wolf. She can’t seem to get anywhere in her family life now, he mother is almost always drunk and her father is now on a wolf killing spree in the backyard.

Review:

I truly didn’t find the beginning of this book as good as shiver. It seemed to be lacking a plot up to the middle of the book. I wished that there had been more structure, but what happens in the end it totally unexpected and worth it. Though the overall writing is strong and clear.

Review: Shiver

Is it getting cold in here? Oh! Nope it's just this chillingly Awesome Book!

Shiver by Maggie Steifvater

Teaser from Author's Website

For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf—her wolf—is a chilling presence she can’t seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. 

First Reaction:
Years and years ago I picked up a copy of this book at a book store (this had to be 2009) and from the back description I truly was not drawn.
How much I regret that choice. Now within weeks of the last book coming out I am sucked in, yet in a way I'm glad that I only came across them now so that the story is stiff fresh in my mind when I grab a copy of Forever!

Characters:
Grace: Six years ago Grace was attacked by wolves which lived in the woods near her Minnesota home. She thought she was going to die when they began biting her but then she realized one wasn't biting her, one wolf stared at her with his bright yellow eyes and then forced the other wolves to stop. Now ever since Grace has seen the wolf outside in the winter in the woods.
Sam: A half man, half wolf who fell for his angel, Grace while he was supposed to be attacking, eating her. But just in time his saves her and one day he meets her as a human, and she knows who he is.

Review 
No matter if your Team Edward, Team Jacob, or Team Who Cares, any paranormal fan will adore this book. I loved that the text was blue (its really cool!) and that the next book, Linger's text is green (even cooler!) Ocasionaly I felt that the writing was a bit over descriptive, or tended to overlook possibilities that I caught that could change the outcome of the book or seemed a bit off, but in general it was a wonderful love story.