The Big Dark by Rodman Philbrick Book Review

The Big Dark by Rodman Philbrick
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Release Date: January 5, 2016

A solar flare reverses the Earth's magnetic field, causing electrical outages across the entire planet. Charlie lives in a small rural town in New Hampshire. At first, when everything goes dark, they just assume the power would come back on soon. After all, it is the middle of the winter. But after several days, another snow storm, and too far away from any town to get news, they assume they are on their own. Things would have been fine too if it weren't for the survivalist anti-government gun toting conspiracy nuts that life in a compound outside of town. They make it clear that not only do they think the government is behind the outages, but that they should be running the town. When Charlie realizes that his mother is running out of diabetes medication though, it is soon clear that he is going to have to travel to the next big town to get her the medicine she needs. But the big towns are in even worse shape and no one knows if they are even going to survive the winter let alone what they are going to do about bullies with guns.

This book was so good. Realistic, evenly paced, adrenaline pumping, and thrilling. At first, even though it is the middle of the winter, I wasn't as concerned about the people in this town. They genuinely cared for one another and were used to occasional power outages, although usually they had backup generators. Even so, fireplaces were a thing and these people employed them. Enter the antagonists. These already described yahoos are intent on taking over this town and are not remotely afraid to hurt people in order to do so. The thread that keeps them from stepping over the line is thin and it doesn't take much for them to step over it. Charlie is a reactionary character, in a good way. He is selfless and does what he can to help those around him. Of course, the adult in his life are trying to shield him from adults worries, but Charlie will have none of it.

I don't know what would happen if the electricity suddenly shut off. I imagine some amount of chaos and yet it won't turn into a crazy dystopian world overnight. The biggest concerns would be food and medication. Probably not as big a deal if you live in the country and are used to fending for yourself, but a problem for city dwellers. Wintertime in New York City without power would leave many people starving. Part of me wished that there had been another story, one set somewhere entirely different to see how those people survived, like in the Pfeffer series. A place where they didn't have to worry about freezing to death and could ride bikes to other towns relatively quickly, but had to deal with too many people and not enough food. We would be okay in my home for a few days, but then what? This is what makes this book so good. It makes the reader think. And it may make you a bit concerned if you have some nut-cases living in a compound anywhere near you.

The Last Kids on Earth by Max Brallier Book Review

The Last Kids on Earth by Max Brallier
Illustrations by Douglas Holgate
Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers
Release Date: October 13, 2015

When the monster apocalypse hit town, thirteen-year-old Jack Sullivan was abandoned by his foster family and forced to fend for himself. Moving into the backyard treehouse, Jack has been able to survive even when most of the town has been zombiefied or eaten by monsters. Although he seems to have everything under control, he is relieved when he finds his best friend Quint is still alive. Living off of Oreos and Mountain Dew, the two create a plan to rescue Jack's crush June. While they search for her they run into the school bully, Dirk, who isn't so bad and soon they are a quartet of zombie hunting monster killers, with a fully equipped tree house.

Catching onto the zombie obsession of late, the genre has now made its way down into the middle grade reading level. Of course, the best way to make a story full of the undead age appropriate is to add a bunch of goofy cartoon-like zombies and a lot of kid humor. Jack wasn't the coolest kid when he went to school, but it turns out that he is actually really good at staying alive and killing zombies. For him, it is almost like a game, which he later admits is the only way he could function in this new crazy world without going crazy himself. There are the usual stereotypes. Quint being the obsessed gadget geek and Dirk being the big bad bully turned friend. Even June, who defies the stereotype of damsel in distress isn't anything special. But the story is fun and action packed and that is really what the author was going for here.

My only big complaint concerns the circumstances surrounding Jack and his abandonment. Jack is in foster care and when the monster apocalypse happens, his foster parents jump ship, leaving him behind. As someone who is literally in the process of getting a foster care license, this bothers me greatly. Firstly, because it continues the horrible stereotype that foster parents aren't really parents and don't care about the kids in their care, or at least not like they would for their own children. It also served no purpose to the story. The story could just have easily said that his foster parents had been turned into zombies, or were eaten by monsters, or even (like June's parents) were evacuated and got separated from him. Finally, Jack admits that he is an orphan which in the foster care system may mean that the people he is living with were actually looking to adopt him. I know I know, it's just a goofy middle grade action book, but seriously why do we have to keep treating foster parents like they are horrible selfish people who don't care about kids when most of them are just the opposite. Rant over. Obviously, anything I read from now on that concerns foster care or adoption will be judged just as harshly. I am too close to it to not see it through this lens.

Kids will love this book though. Heck, I liked it even with the foster care issue. There are just too many laugh out loud moments not to like it.

MARTians by Blythe Woolston Book Review

MARTians by Blythe Woolston
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Release Date: October 13, 2015

Zoë Zindleman, has just graduated. Early. She is lucky though, because she has two businesses that are interested in hiring her, both retail giants. She chooses AllMART. Her mother is gone, leaving Zoë behind in their empty abandoned neighborhood, which Zoë must too when she has no way to get to work. So Zoë moves into an abandoned strip mall with other kids who don't want to be complete slaves to AllMART. What happens when someone doesn't obey AllMART though? What happens when you don't toe the company line?

This is Idiocracy without the humor. Feed without the deep morality. I know that the author is writing of the dangers of a completely capitalistic society, but there was so much missing in this book. I had so many questions that went unanswered. Why are they graduating all the students early? Are schools becoming redundant? What about all the little kids? Why is Zoë so psychologically distanced from everyone and everything? I know she has a mood stabilizer that that doesn't really explain why she shows little concern for her mom, AnnaMom. Or why her mom just up and leaves for little reason and will never see her daughter again. Do they not have cell phones or communication in this world? Will her mother not ever be allowed to contact her daughter again? Why?

And where are all the people? This is a world in which there are giant Wal-Mart like shopping centers that basically run everything and yet everything in this place felt empty. Empty houses. Empty buses. There is never any mention of traffic and rarely even a mention of customers. Anyone who has ever worked retail knows how infuriating customers can be and yet Zoë rarely comes into contact with one. Who are all the people buying stuff at AllMART if everyone works for AllMART? Are they employees or are there actually other businesses out there that employ people? Who does AnnaMom work for? Why are so many businesses closed down? Abandoned strip mall, kids sleeping in cars, abandoned babies. Where are the parents?  Where are all the damned people? Why are they moving away from the suburbs? Where do they live now? If they are all working for AllMART and its competitor, where are they? 

I get not wanting to explain everything out in detail, but everything in this dystopian world just felt so empty. Empty of logic, empty of meaning, and empty of any kind of hope that these characters will ever get to be more than cogs in a machine.

Love is the Drug by Alaya Dawn Johnson Book Review

Love is the Drug by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
Release Date: September 30, 2014

Emily Bird was raised to not ask questions. She is supposed to be the perfect child. Smart, obedient, and headed for an Ivy-league school. Then one night at a party, Bird meets a man named Roosevelt, a homeland security agent who may be linked to her parents and their secretive jobs. Eight days later she is waking up in a hospital with no memory of that night or the ones in-between. While she was unconscious, she also finds that a deadly flu virus has swept the nation. Roosevelt clearly believes that Bird remembers or knows something she shouldn't, but what is it? The only person Bird can trust is Coffee, a genius outsider who deals drugs to their classmates and is a firm believer in conspiracy theories. Coffee tried to help her that night. As Bird and Coffee dig deeper into what happened, Bird stumbles across one of the biggest government scandals in US history.

I like dystopian. Whether it is set while the pending apocalypse is taking place or far into the future, I am always entertained by the worlds that authors create. What made this story chilling yet entirely boring was that this world is our own. Nothing is different and I dare say, after the Ebola outbreak last year, a little too realistic.

There is a lot of emphasis placed on drugs in this story, with Bird eventually trying some hallucinogens in hopes of regaining her lost memories. What wasn't clear to me was why each chapter began with a drug chemical composition because in the end, none of it mattered. This story wasn't about drugs or at least it shouldn't have been. It was about cover-ups and mistakes. It was about what lengths some people will do to keep a secret and what others will do to find one.

Sadly, the pacing of this story felt very off. Things happened agonizingly slow. Almost a month passes between that one fateful night and Bird attempting to get her memories back and we get to be with her through all of those tortuous weeks. Also, lucky us, we get to watch as she slowly falls in love with Coffee and comes into her new identity that is no longer under her mother's thumb. To be clear this book was not badly written, it had complex characters and culture and paid great attention to detail. Bird's parents oscillate between sympathetic and cruel. Bird herself struggles with her identity not only as a woman, but also a woman of color, and her her place in her family and her family's expectations.

A thumb's up for the setting being somewhere besides New York City or California and two thumbs up for the fact that this is ultimately a light science fiction with a young black woman as it's main protagonist. Not to mention that most of the main characters in this book are people of color. I wish that this was a normal occurrence, but sadly it is not and so I will continue to hold books like this up high, even if I didn't like it, as a great example of what diversity can look like in any genre.

The Battle for WondLa by Tony DiTerlizzi Book Review

The Battle for WondLa by Tony DiTerlizzi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Release Date: May 6, 2014

In this third and final installment of the WondLa trilogy, Eva Nine has gone into hiding. Fearful of both the humans and the aliens hunting her, she is unsure who she can trust. After traveling to the ancient city ruins of New York City, Eva Nine begins to realize that her life and destiny on this future Earth are directly tied to what happens to the people on it, the people she has come to call family. With the help of her new family and a few unlikely allies, Eva sets about to change the destiny of all the species on Orbona and bring peace to a world in desperate need of it.

The WondLa series is a strange and wonderful trilogy. Set on a future Earth with alien species that seem straight out of a fantasy novel, DiTerlizzi weaves together a story full of heart. In this final book, DiTerlizzi seems to dwell a lot on what it truly means to be family and forgiveness through understanding. To be fair, Eva Nine's mother (Muthr) was a robot so it should be no surprise that she would consider an alien species to be her father. However, I truly loved how, despite the fact that she was almost killed by Zin and Cadmus in the first two books, she is able to forgive both of them and actively works with them to restore peace.

Eva Nine is such a great heroine, intelligent and always seeking answers. She is willing to put her life on the line. Of course, she is a child, and sometimes her trust is misplace and her decisions are not always wise, but DiTerlizzi gives her a great cast of supporting characters to help her along the way.

This is one of those books that does not lend itself well to audio as the illustrations are necessary to completely understanding the story. It isn't that DiTerlizzi does a bad job of description, but with so much alienness, the illustrations become integral to the storytelling. I originally listened to the first book and ended up rereading it afterward because there were a lot of things I missed, like the fact that Eva's mother's title is spelled Muthr.

All in all, a nice ending to the trilogy that left me satisfied and content.

The Problem With Dystopian: Defying Logic

Fantasy and Science Fiction often go hand in hand as far as a genre is concerned. For some, the two are interchangeable words, for what is science fiction but a fantasy, albeit one rooted in some kind of science. For me, dystopian books fall right in-between. Often set in the future, but dark fantasies that take one piece of society and twist it to its darkest extreme. I will never grow tired of dystopian sci-fi. I have loved it since the moment I picked up a book by H.M. Hoover when I was twelve. However, over the years I have read some truly terrible dystopian fiction. Books that I felt were so lacking in any redeemable qualities that I wouldn't even blog about them. (although they do spawn posts like this) The reason the "bad ones" don't work though, isn't because people are tired of them or because they are dark and twisted, but rather because they have one thing in common--they do not follow an internal logic. 

Like with any world building, it is imperative that your world, whether it be fantasy or reality, have consistent rules and logic. In almost every fantasy book I have read, magic has rules and boundaries that allow the reader to understand the world and the limits of the people within. I have read very few fantasy books where I felt like the author wasn't following a consistent internal logic. However, that is not the case with Dystopian. I have pinpointed this problem down to something very simple that it is almost ridiculous. What is the one thing that all dystopian books have in common? 

They are supposed to be our future, a dark and twisted one, but our future nonetheless. 

The breakdown appears to happen when authors forget about all the things we currently have in our world that would not disappear easily and would not result in humanity returning to some kind of stone age. Although I understand there are extenuating circumstances, let me point out a couple of "modern" inventions that would not simply disappear should the gas prices start soaring, or the moon gets closer to the earth, or the government moved most of the population into bubble cities.


1. Solar Powered Anything In the book Empty the teen characters spend a good portion of the book running around trying to charge their cellphones due to rolling blackouts. Let me first point out that there are people all around the world, living in areas without electricity 90% of the time, who manage to have and keep their cellphones charged. It is absolutely ridiculous that none of these teens would have a single solar-powered charger of some sort. Here's the thing though, we have a ton of solar powered things. Solar powered lights, phone chargers, backpacks, houses, fans, birdbaths, wind turbines, watches, calculators, and even airplanes. Sure, these things have to be manufactured, but I still have my solar powered calculator from twenty years ago, so at the very least, I don't think bankers are going to have to go back to using abacuses.

2. Tools It is believed that the axe was used as early as the Neolithic period ending in 4,0000 to 2,0000 BC. In ancient Egypt, unframed saws were documented as early as the Early Dynastic Period around 3,100 to 2,686 BC. Blacksmithing is just as old a profession. Yet, I am constantly reading books in which the characters are living in shacks or dilapidated towns after the fall of civilization. Suddenly people can't figure out how to build proper houses or fix the ones they have. Our American ancestors marched across American and built places like San Francisco and Seattle and Denver in just a few decades. Sure San Francisco's streets were unbelievably muddy as it took a bit to figure out how to fix that mess, but if you keep things up, a house can last a good century or more. The people who can't figure out how build themselves a proper shelter, those are the people who would die off. The survivors in your dystopian world are going to be tough and smart and will actually know how to use an axe.

In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead in what is now San Francisco. Sixteen years later in 1851, this is what San Francisco looked like.  

3. Windmills When William Kamkwamba was a teenager, he created a functioning windmill that powered some electrical appliances in his family's home using materials from a local scrapyard. Since then, he has also built a solar-powered water pump that supplies drinking water in his village and two other windmills that have given his entire village power. He did all this with one book and ingenuity. As long as we have an atmosphere there will always be wind and wind can be harnessed to create electricity. So what if the government shut off the power? This doesn't mean that your characters suddenly go back to being cavemen with no way to take care of themselves beyond scavenging. I get that there is a certain period of anarchy that may happen after the decline of civilization, but we have seen civilizations fall throughout history and those people eventually settled down, rebuilt, and started a new world for themselves.  

4. Science Okay, so it isn't exactly an invention, but it counts because thanks to modern science we understand and can create things like medicine, anesthesia, telephones, electricity, light, airplanes, surgery, photography, cars, trains. Not to mention all the other countless things that we have learned over the past 150 years. Now, unless every single book was burned or destroyed and all the scientists, doctors, and inventors died at once, there is no way that all this knowledge would suddenly disappear. Sure, it may resemble more of a third-world country when it comes to medicine, but we wouldn't go back to an era when we think mercury can cure people, that bloodletting works, or using dirty tools to operate on people is in any way safe. 

5. Bicycles I get it. Gas is getting kind of expensive. However, does anyone really believe that people would be driving around if gas was $30 a gallon? By the time gas prices rose that high, people will have already switched over to smarter forms of transport. You would see bicycles everywhere. Public transportation, especially hydrogen powered buses like they have in Boston, would become extremely popular. People would move in closer to one another in order to be nearer to goods and services. More and more cities would convert to becoming more bicycle friendly. How do I know? Because it is already happening. Washington D.C. has been looking for alternative public transportation for decades now. Look at pictures of other countries where bicycles and mopeds are the main form of transportation. That is what a city would look like, not a bunch of kids scrounging their dollars in order to get gas to drive across town for a party. No, you would see a huge pile of kids on bikes heading to that party, perhaps wearing some glowsticks.



And what if the book you are writing doesn't have one or all of these things? Fine. That's okay. But it better make sense. Tell me why? Why is that banker using an abacus instead of a calculator? Is it so far in the future that all those solar powered calculators broke and no one knows how to make one anymore? If medicine isn't available it needs to make sense. That is the bottom line here. If this is our world, only in the future, then it is important for the reader to know why these things that already exist aren't being used or at the very least, why they have been forgotten

Taken by Erin Bowman Book Review

Taken by Erin Bowman
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: April 16, 2013

It happens on your eighteenth birthday. They call it the Heist. The ground shakes, the wind howls, and blinding light comes from the heavens, and then they are gone. When Gray's older brother Blain is taken by the Heist, Gray feels like a piece of him is missing. Then he finds part of a letter written by his deceased mother, one that promises secrets and Gray knows he must find the answers. However, the answers even when found are shrouded in secrecy. How are you supposed to trust and protect the ones you love, when everything you have ever been told is a lie?

Let's start with the good. Taken is very well-paced, with very little down time between action scenes. I was never bored and found myself finishing the entire book in one sitting. (despite having a lot of issues with it) There was no muddle in the middle and the consequences for these characters was huge.

That said, Gray Weathersby is one of the most unlikable characters I have read in a long time. If he was unlikable due to an anti-hero status then perhaps this would be okay, but I am pretty sure I, the reader am supposed to like this asshat. Pardon my language. This guy hits girls who say things he doesn't like, he rarely thinks anything through and allows himself to be fully ruled by his emotions, he is stubborn, rude, and has a tendency to trust all the wrong people and distrust the right ones. I was completely done with him though when he grabbed a man who had stolen an extra gallon of water and despite the man begging and pleading for his life, Gray refuses to let him go. The result is the man being executed before their eyes. Of course, there is guilt associated with this but my question is why? Why did it matter to Gray in the slightest? Why should he even care that some random dude stole some water? This isn't his city, these aren't his people, and he has never shown one inkling of caring about whether rules and laws are obeyed. His affections towards women are fickle at best and despite declaring himself multiple times to only want one love forever, he is very quick to move on the minute he meets someone else.

The plot itself was extremely transparent. At first, I thought that my guessing the plot points was the author allowing the reader to know something before the character. I don't want to figure out the twists and turns chapters before the character does though. I am on this journey with this character, I want to learn as he learns, rather than anticipating a plot twist that I already figured out three chapters before. It doesn't make much of a twist if you know what's going to happen. The sad part is that on its face there is great premise and mystery to the story. The Heist, the wall, domed cities, civil wars, a machine that can burn you to a crisp, an elder who may be in on the plot, other towns just like theirs. However, the answers to these mysteries were incredibly mundane. I was expecting the Heist to be teleporters or special machines made to scare people, to find out it was only a helicopter was extremely disappointing. That was how it all felt for me. Disappointing. Oh and don't even get me started with the random character who conveniently shows up in the end to suddenly save them.

Oh, and the love triangle. About 2/3 of the way through the book there is a sudden love triangle that is probably one of the worst I have ever read. Not only because of the aforementioned fact that Gray spends the first 2/3 pining over Emma and telling her how he believes some people should be together forever, but also because the other girl he "falls" for is probably the very opposite (read: not a good match) of Emma. Now we add in the fact that during any scene where Gray is thinking about girls he sounds like...well, a girl. He knows Emma is alive. He is completely aware that not only did she follow him over the wall, but that she loves him, and that it is his fault she is imprisoned, and yet he easily allows himself to fall in love with this other girl. I guess they are a good match in the respect that they like to fight, are ruled by their emotions, and are equally rude. However, Gray doesn't need someone exactly like himself.

In the end, Gray is a horrible operative and no rebel should allow him to go on any missions because the minute he gets a feeling or acts impulsively, he is going to get everyone killed. Not a big deal for him, since he is so good at just moving on, but it could devastate everything the rebels have worked for. Not to worry, I'm sure in what is sure to be a trilogy, the rebels will win and Gray will get some girl.

Salvage by Alexandra Duncan Book Review

Salvage by Alexandra Duncan
Publisher: Greenwillow
Release Date: April 1, 2014

Ava has lived her entire life aboard the deep space merchant ship the Parastrata. Rigidly patriarchal, Ava's future is bound by her Captain father's whims. Therefore, when Ava is told she is going to be married off to a man on another ship, she is overjoyed to discover it is the ship where Luck, a kind young man who once offered to teach her how to read, lives. When he meets her at the dock, Ava is beyond excited that she is to be married to Luck. However, the minds of men are fickle and in a series of horrible mistakes, Ava finds herself facing a death sentence. Taking her own life in her hands, Ava flees the only life she has ever known and heads planetside. However, life on Earth is not easy for a girl who has spent her entire life locked inside a space ship.

This book was like the FLDS (Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints) meeting up with Firefly. On board the Parastrata, life is run by the men. Polygamous marriages are the norm, especially to underage girls. A girl could be beaten or even killed for stepping out of line, and the line can be as simple as looking another man in the eye. Women have very specific jobs they are allowed to do and their education is extremely limited. To add a sci-fi twist to this already twisted tale, women are never allowed to walk in normal Earth gravity, which means that if any of them should go down to Earth it is very likely that they would die. Ava is lucky in that she meets a kind person who helps take care of her, but even then, Ava spends weeks getting her landlegs under her. They also speak in a way that reminded me of Firefly, with this almost country accent and phrases that set them apart from other people they met. It is a closed off society that leaves Ava with massive amounts of culture shock.

I absolutely loved Ava. She is clearly smart and capable from the very beginning although it is clear that she is always one step away from breaking a rule. Her confusion at being cast out, abandoned, and given a death sentence stir within her a desperate want to live. No, she does not understand the ways of life outside her ship, but she wants to live and that is enough. Ava escapes to Earth, she finds another family, she finds kindness like she has never known, she learns to fly a ship and discovers some of the deep terrible secrets of her own family and culture.

There was a bit of a love triangle and for the first time in my life I will say that this one worked. Ava, in the beginning, is a girl just doing what she thinks is right. Luck, the boy she is in love with, feels so right. At the time. However, with her escape Ava is unsure whether Luck lives or not and even as she begins a new life on Earth, there is still that pull on her heart. When she meets another boy Rushil, the friendship doesn't become romantic right away. She doesn't meet him and immediately feel pitter pattering on her heart. She is suspicious and cautious. Each thing he says or does she analyses and a part of her still hopes to find Luck. That made sense, which in turn made the love triangle okay too.

I loved the world building in this novel. So many complex societies and cultures, so many wonderful flavors of life and language. There are some great "reveals" that felt so true to the story without feeling trite. Ava learns and grows so much throughout her journey and in the end she achieves the very thing she didn't even know she desired--Freedom.

The Living by Matt de la Pena Book Review

The Living by Matt de la Pena
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Release: November 12, 2013

Shy took a summer job on a luxury cruise liner to earn some extra money to help his mom and sister out. It will be hard work, but Shy doesn't mind so much, after all there will be free food and maybe even a few hot girls. Then the Big One hits. An earthquake that takes out most of the west cost of the States and creates a tsunami that the cruise ship cannot hope to survive. Shy's life goes from worrying about getting the girl, to surviving when there is no hope of rescue.

That sounds like a rather promising premise, right? There is even this odd mystery where, in the first chapter, Shy is unable to stop a passenger from committing suicide, one that is somehow linked to him in more ways than he can understand.  With such an opening, I was surprised and bored to find that nothing much happened for sixteen more chapters. Sixteen chapters where Shy swoons over a girl who happens to be engaged, worries about someone following him, pines after said girl, meets some snotty teenagers, swoons some more, and we are introduced to a few of his friends.  There is some setup and world building, but nothing that I couldn't have gotten through a few flashbacks or just two or three chapters. Obviously, I am a little biased toward romance being in my action books though, so take that for what it is worth.

By the time the tsunami arrived, I was just dying for some kind of action. The book delivered in this aspect. A lot of people die. There are more tsunamis and sharks and very little in the way of provisions. I liked this full on survival mode part of the book and what's more, I liked Shy at this point too.

Then there is this third part that I don't want to spoil, but I will say this: I absolutely hate it when a character knows something and instead of bringing these people who are clearly on your side into the circle of trust, you just leave them hanging. There is a character in this book, who although I think is supposed to be good, is directly responsible for over 70 people losing their lives. The reason he is responsible is because he knew they were going to be killed and did not think it was necessary to tell a single person that their lives were in danger. Not a single one. This is either a setup for a really twisted and untrustworthy character or lazy writing. Considering I just started a book in which this happens, I am leaning towards lazy writing. Writers--please please please--if you have a character who has some solid information like say, someone is trying to kill you, let the other characters know. Let the other characters try to survive in a way that is believable for their character, but don't keep it a secret as a plot device because it is absolutely ridiculous. I will be checking my book shortly to make sure that I never do this.

Although there is an intriguing mystery although one that was pretty obvious, I found the romance cloying, the pacing to be all over the place, and characters who were sometimes good and sometimes overly secretive to the point of frustration. I probably won't be rushing to read the next one.

Where the Rock Splits the Sky by Philip Webb Book Review

Where the Rock Splits the Sky by Philip Webb
Publisher: Chicken House
Release Date: March 25, 2014


When the aliens arrived, two decades back, they stopped the earth on its axis and destroyed the moon. Humanity calls them Visitors, but it is clear that they are anything but friendly. Megan has only ever known this version of Earth with its perpetual daylight and harsh realities. With her mother dead and father lost in the mysterious Zone, she has grown used to taking care of herself. However, when some Visitors arrive wearing the skins and likenesses of an infamous gang, Megan along with her horse Cisco and friend Luis, head into the Zone to find her father. The Zone is a place where science and physics hold little meaning, a point that is driven home when they run into a floating city and meet up with Kelly, a girl who had only now appeared after disappearing twenty years ago. Megan, driven by some instinctual understanding of the Zone, must lead the trio deep into the heart of the Zone in order to find her father, but the chances of them making it out alive are almost zero.

From the beginning, I had a difficult time placing the time period and geography of this book. The characters act and talk like Texan cowpokes from the eighteenth century, but with the mention (although no evidence) of  electronics, I was highly skeptical of the setting. I admit that I am not a Texan, but it very much felt like an amalgamation of every bad Texan stereotype I have ever heard. The geography was confusing in regards to the Zone. I desperately wanted some sort of map. More than that, I wanted to understand how this world, this new American, truly functions. Why are these people living like frontier pilgrims if they still have things like electricity and running water? Obviously, if electronics don't work in the Zone, then a tracker would own a horse, but if you were an everyday citizen, why not own a car? 

Perhaps the most interesting character in this story for me was that of Kelly. Rough and tumble, not afraid of anything, Kelly is found floating in a city that disappeared twenty years before with no memory of the time in-between. All the people she knows and loves are gone, probably dead. Her desperation for answers, the mystery of her lost decades, and eventual revelations made her my favorite character in the book. Megan just felt a little too one-note, with such a fixed mission that she became not only predictable but kind of boring. A huge plus, there is only the vaguest semblance of a love story. Downside, that tiny bit was completely unnecessary and kind of out of the blue. Is it really necessary to have romance in every young adult book? As a writer, I sadly already know the answer to that.

I have always said that a book is about a journey. You can have an incredible ending, but if the journey to the end is plodding, cliche, or full of tropes, that journey is quickly mired down with problems. This novel began with a lot of great questions that demanded answers: Why did the aliens come? What do they want? Why are they dragging Earth and its Sun through the universe? Where are they going? How is that even possible? What happened to all the missing people? How were they being kept on ice for so long? Why did Kelly's town just reappear suddenly after all this time? What exactly is this alien technology? Some of these questions were answered, most not so much. Despite there being a muddled middle, it would have been worth it had most of those questions been answered, but they weren't, which means that this book didn't work for me. Sci-fi is great because it asks questions, but you have to actually answer them.

A Year in Review 2013

Books That Made Me Laugh Out Loud:

Winger by Andrew Smith

A Big Guy Took My Ball by Mo Willems

Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great by Bob Shea

New-To-Me Series That On One Hand I'm Glad To Have Found, But On The Other, I'm Seriously Horrified That I'd Missed Out On Until Now:

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Legend by Marie Lu

Sequel Happiness:

Shades of Earth by Beth Revis

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Impulse by Steven Gould

Book That Made Me Crave Food:

Fat Angie by E.E. Charlton-Trujillo

Most Enjoyable Bad Book:

Breath by Sarah Crossan

Forgettable Plot Saved By a Fresh, Honest Voice: 

Splintered by A.G. Howard

Book(s) I Was Most Surprised By:

Homesick by Kate Klise

The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson

Made of Pure Awesome:

Codename Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

This Girl is Different by JJ Johnson

Fallout by Todd Strasser

Best Book Hidden Under the Worst Cover:

Below by Meg McKinlay

Impulse by Steven Gould

More Adorable Than Sparkling Puppies:

Robomop by Sean Taylor and Edel Rodriguez

Dream Animals by Emily Winfield Martin

YA Book Most Likely to be Loved By Adults More Than Actual YAs:

One + One = Blue by MJ Auch

Janie Face to Face by Caroline Cooney

Best Vampire Book for Twilight Haters:

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

Biggest Disappointment: 

Fire by Kristin Cashore

Mister Max: The Book of Lost Things by Cynthia Voigt

The Eye of Minds by James Dashner

Books that Invoked Irrationally Violent Emotions in me:

Juvie by Steve Watkins

Fallout by Todd Strasser

Books I Loved For Their Imperfect Heroines:

Codename Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Fat Angie by E.E. Charlton-Trujillo

Best Book For Wimpy Kid Lovers:

I Even Funnier: A Middle School Story (I Funny) by James Patterson & Chris Grabenstein

Surprise Attack of Jabba the Puppett by Tom Angleberger

Favorite Roadtrip Book:

Viva Jacquelina! By L.A. Meyer

Best Action/Adventure Book:

W.A.R.P. The Reluctant Assassin by Eoin Colfer

The Hostage Prince by Jane Yolen & Adam Stemple

Books that were weird just to be weird:

The Dark Unwinding by Sharon Cameron

Sci-fi's that made me think there is still a future for this genre (future, get it):

Impulse by Steven Gould

Earthfall by Mark Walden

All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill

Books I lent out to people multiple times:

The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Worst Book of the Year:

Time Fetch by Amy Herrick

Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block

Inhuman by Kat Falls Book Review

Inhuman by Kat Falls

America has been ravaged by a disease that has left the eastern half of the country uninhabitable. Protected by a wall in the west, sixteen-year-old Lane lives with her father, never having known the destruction of the disease that killed millions. When her father goes missing, Lillie learns that her father is a 'Fetch', someone who illegally travels into the east to collect items that were left behind like personal artifacts, heirlooms, and artwork. And Lane must find him or face execution. However, things have changed in the eighteen years since the wall went up, the virus that killed so many has weakened, and instead of killing its victims it mutates them into half-human half-animal variations that would boggle the mind. As Lane travels through the east she learns that her kindness, strength, and training are both a blessing and a curse and not everyone is what they seem.

This is a purely plot-driven book. The plot is set from the first few chapters. The disease, her father's sordid work in the east, and a time frame of 5 days to travel to Chicago and return with Lane's father and a family heirloom. It is this time frame that draws the story forward, rather than anything the characters say or do. This is not to suggest that a plot-driven book is bad, in fact as far as plots and story lines go, this one is quite intriguing and helps keep the pacing rolling along at a good speed. I found the idea of people who can be transformed into animals and may at any time go mad, to be very intriguing as is the question of what it truly means to be human.

What happens in plot-driven stories though is that the characters are thrown around like a pinball within the plot, ricocheting from one moment to the next and the reader is left scrabbling for scraps of characterization wherever we can find it. And as is apparently the standard in Young Adult novels, there is the usual love triangle. I am all for the rouge like character, in fact some of my favorite characters in novels have been rogues, however Falls made her rogue so unlovable and unlikable that all I could think was that if Lane ended up dating/loving/liking this guy, I would just be done with the story. I understand having a rough life and such, but Rafe had very little redeemable qualities and I would have disappointed if the author had gone in that direction.

All that to say, as far as plot-driven books are concerned, this was a fun quick read. I look forward to the second, with some hope as to more controlled characterization and some fun revelations.

Legend by Marie Lu Book Review

Legend by Marie Lu

Day is a wanted criminal. On the run, Day spends most of his time thinking of schemes to bug the Republic, while keeping his true identity secret. Never far from his thoughts though is his family, who struggle under an oppressive regime. When his youngest brother contracts a new deadly plague, Day desperately breaks into a hospital in order to find a cure, but instead winds up with more than he bargained for. Believing her brother to have been murdered by Day, June chases him down, scenting him out as she has been taught. Yet, Day is not what she expected and the questions he asks, about their society and their lives create a world that June is unsure of.

I have had a fascination with North Korea for a long time, especially in regards to the people who live in a continual state of lies and brainwashing. And don't mistake brainwashing for something as simple as trying to teach children your own agenda. This is an entire society that literally functions off lies. From education to God to how the outside world is, this kind of society exists in a bubble. Having read countless interviews with the people who leave such a world behind, they often have a very difficult time adjusting to life outside. In South Korea, North Koreans are seen as burdensome, often needing government assistance when it comes to education, employment, health care, and mental health care. Of course, what would you be like if you discovered that the president of your country really isn't a god, that your “enemy” countries are actually friendly, that there are rich and poor, that you do not have to rat out your neighbor or live in fear, that no one will send you to a labor camp simply because you did not cry loud enough at a state funeral.

This is the world of Legend. As with a few books I have read lately, chiefly You'll Like it Here (Everybody Does) and Divergent, this is an area of fascination. World's cut off from society and unaware of the outside world. A world that, from the reader's point of view, is so obviously unhinged. The difference for me was that in You'll Like it Here (Everybody Does), the characters were simply bystanders to this strange place. In Divergent, the characters were a part, but were too reactionary and did not see a reason for change, believing their way of life to be perfect. Legend's characters were instigators. Even June, who believes her world to be rosier than reality, is still a character who seeks out truth, if only to satisfy her own curiosity. Day knows there is a better life to be had outside of the Republic, but refuses to join the Patriots for reasons that I imagine would be pointed out in book 2, Prodigy.

This isn't to say that there aren't a few problems with the book, but honestly, after having just finished the angst ridden Insurgent, the world building alone made this books ten times better for me. True, Day and June have almost indistinguishable characterization and abilities, but I think I would rather that than the lovesick Tris any day. Besides, at least the characters in Legend know there is an outside world even if what they have been taught about it is a lie. The Divergent Tris, for all her supposed curiosity, never once even considered a world outside her doors. Weird.

I do have some expectations for book 2, first and foremost being expansive world building that was sorely lacking in this rather small volume, but rest assured, I will be reading that second book. Very soon.

Insurgent Book Review

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

In book two of the Divergent series, we begin right where the last book left off. War is looming. Each faction is being forced to choose a side and haunted by horrors they have seen. Tris Prior is ragged with grief and guilt, mourning her parents, friends, and her very faction. But Tris wants answers. Why did this happen? What was the secret her parents died for? And how can they stop this war before everything falls apart?

I am warning everyone now, there will be a lot of spoilers here. I finished this book three days ago and the more I think about this book, the more problems I have with it. Originally, if I had written this post three days ago, I would have given this book 4 stars despite the major teen-angst. However, I think my star rating may have dropped down to 2 1/2 stars.

As with most teen series these days, the second (and third) begin right where the last one left off. There is little to no recap for those of you who didn't read the book back to back. Thank goodness there is wikipedia and goodreads for those who don't remember all these different characters and factions and politics. However, if there was a character that you connected with in Divergent, do not expect to have the same connection with them in Insurgent because they all change so much.

Insurgent reminded me of Harry Potter #5, riddled with teen angst and one massive death wish. Tris goes from being a hero to a complete head case with more issues than Rolling Stone. There was a heavy focus on Tris and Four's relationship, which, as you can imagine, was grating. Why does it matter that these two love one another when their entire world is falling apart? Four shows his love for Tris over and over again and yet she fights it, ruins it, flaunts it, and then tosses it away.

And what does she toss it away for? Information. In a mind boggling twist of fate, Tris finds herself siding with Marcus, Four's abusive father, in a covert operation to find the one piece of information that forced the Erudite to mind control the entire city. Marcus, a known liar, abuser, and manipulator, somehow convinces the ever-logical Tris that she should trust him and not tell Four a thing, because for some reason Four is now completely untrustworthy, even after sacrificing himself to save her life. Then, Roth drags out the secret until the very end, and I can promise you this, it wasn't that world changing.

Here is a big issue I have had with these books. How can you possibly separate human nature into only five categories? Five? I mean, I have always had issues with Astrology and blood typing, but at least there are more categories than five. No wonder the Erudite rebelled. You stick all the smart people together in one room and I promise, they are going to eventually have a problem. For that matter, the Dauntless are a terrible faction. A group of trigger-happy, undisciplined, extreme sports fanatics who are almost worthless as far as security is concerned. What a terrible way to build a society. Especially one that isn't very old. Someone did not plan this very well at all.

I don't know what is going to happen in the final installment, but I can only hope that Tris is now over her self-deprecating  death wish and can move on into this new factionless world where she will actually have to be a hero rather than just react when bad situations are thrown her way. Please Tris, don't be another reactionary character like Katniss Everdeen. Please.

Divergent Book Review

Divergent by Veronia Roth

Beatrice Prior lives in a world split into five factions, each one dedicated to upholding and cultivating a particular virtue. The honest Candor, selfless Abnegation, brave Dauntless, peaceful Amity, and intelligent Erudite have been living together in virtual harmony for as long as anyone can remember. Beatrice, who has grown up in Abnegation is thrown for a loop when her test results show that she is Divergent, a term that is so secret that not even she is supposed to know what this means. Despite her fierce love for her family, when the time comes for her to choose which faction she belongs in, Beatrice chooses the brave Dauntless. But not all is at it seems, and Tris (formerly Beatrice) must learn that true bravery requires the use of all the factions, especially if she is going to survive.

My co-workers have been buzzing about this book for quite a while. The books are sold by the truckload. I wasn't resisting reading it, but despite the buzz, no one was actually buzzing about what the book was about, just that Hunger Games fans would love it. This is both a plus and a minus for me. One the one hand, I enjoyed the first book of Hunger Games and really do love dystopian sci-fi. Check out my fan-girl rants about The Maze Runner if you have any question about that. On the other hand, Hunger Games has become the 'it' thing, and every writer is trying to do it with varying levels of success. Because of this I both excited and wary of books that are touted as a you-will-love-this-book-because-you-loved-that-book.

I liked Divergent. Didn't love, but I liked it. The pacing and plot were quick and interesting. Tris is an understandably conflicted character who I expect is going to have some real psychological damage in the  sequel. The love story wasn't too heavy handed although I always find it curious when characters fall for each other without knowing a thing about the other person. I wonder what will hold their relationship together once they get past the difficult times and just have to live? It is possible that I consider these things more now that I am married, but it is no secret that I am highly suspicious of the romance elements in any book.

My favorite part about this book is that it kept me guessing. I didn't know what was going to happen or how the story would unfold. For someone who reads as much as I do, this is rather important because I get bored when I can guess exactly what will happen in a story. (Currently trying to finish The Dark Unwinding and I think it is terrible because I know exactly how things are going to turn out.) It was nice to have characters who were truly tough and unlike Hunger Games had chosen to be part of a group in which they were expected to be. The conflict with the characters was in the competition, but the competition, even when life in death, made the Tris and her friends seem more human. It also made their tormentors more human as well.