Archive | May 2014

Book Review: The Maze Runner by James Dashner

‘”If you ain’t scared, you ain’t human.”

When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his name. He’s surrounded by strangers–boys whose memories are also gone.

Outside the towering stone walls that surround the Glade is a limitless, ever-changing maze. It’s the only way out–and no one’s ever made it through alive.

Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying.’

I. Loved. This. BOOK.

The language – fantastic.

The setting – aMAZing (haha)

The characters – brilliant

The creatures – I seriously need a visual, but the sounds – oh how the described sounds makes me want to hide!

The fact that you never really understand what’s going on – GIVE ME MORE NOW.

Written with a tone that shoves the reader head first into something I can’t really describe, this is YA writing at the best! The mystery that hangs in the air is intoxicating and the harsh realities of the characters and their fates is heartbreaking. How I haven’t read this sooner? Biggest mistake of my reading life.

My only hope is that the rest of the books in this series hold up the same. I am very excited to keep reading Dashner!

Book Haul: April/May

May28

I haven’t done a book haul in a bit. I haven’t been on a buying kick for a few months due to work and the internship, but then, loads of authors came to town!

Best decision ever!

Now my bookshelves are organized according:

signed/read

signed/not read

not signed/read

not signed/not read

I have a lot of reading to do.

Here’s what I snagged this month and where they are on my shelves…

The Circle by Dave Eggers – Signed/Not Read

Where’d You Go Bernadatte? By Maria Semple – Signed/Not Read

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn – Signed/Read

The One by Keira Cass – Signed/Not Read

Miss Peregrine’s Home of Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs – Not Signed/Read

Hollow City by Ransom Riggs – Not Signed/Not Read

Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris – Signed/Read

The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore – Signed/Not Read

Midnight Crossroad by Charlaine Harris – Signed/Not Read

Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor – Signed/Not Read

No more library books until I get through this haul! (We’ll see how long that lasts….)

Responsibility

May26

Split, Croatia. 2010.

Book Review: Split Second by Kasie West

May23

*Note – This is the second book in the Pivot Point Series – may contain spoilers

For my review on Pivot Point

“Life can change in a split second.

Addie hardly recognizes her life since her parents divorced. Her boyfriend used her. Her best friend betrayed her. She can’t believe this is the future she chose. On top of that, her ability is acting up. She’s always been able to Search the future when presented with a choice. Now she can manipulate and slow down time, too . . . but not without a price.

When Addie’s dad invites her to spend her winter break with him, she jumps at the chance to escape into the Norm world of Dallas, Texas. There she meets the handsome and achingly familiar Trevor. He’s a virtual stranger to her, so why does her heart do a funny flip every time she sees him? But after witnessing secrets that were supposed to stay hidden, Trevor quickly seems more suspicious of Addie than interested in her. And she has an inexplicable desire to change that.

Meanwhile, her best friend, Laila, has a secret of her own: she can restore Addie’s memories . . . once she learns how. But there are powerful people who don’t want to see this happen. Desperate, Laila tries to manipulate Connor, a brooding bad boy from school—but he seems to be the only boy in the Compound immune to her charms. And the only one who can help her.

As Addie and Laila frantically attempt to retrieve the lost memories, Addie must piece together a world she thought she knew before she loses the love she nearly forgot . . . and a future that could change everything.”

I loved Pivot Point, adored it! I was bummed when I learned that another book was being added to make it a two book series – I thought it ended in a excellent way.

I wish I could say I was wrong. The style of Addie’s two different points of view was unique and exciting. I feel slightly let down by having it go to a two different characters point of view. The pace is slow going too. It picks up, but I wasn’t as enchanted as before.

Still, I’m glad there’s only two books in this series. Addie and us the readers, get the closure we need. It is interesting to see how Addie goes about living her life outside of the compound, again, and getting more information about the inside government of it was clever. The direction this book went was probably the best it could go. I don’t know if it’s silly, but I just wish there was more to the book?

West’s writing is nevertheless engaging and her characters are still full of secrets even when us readers are being taken again on a second ride with Addie. I highly recommend reading West’s work, and I look forward to branching out to her other books, but I have to end by saying Pivot Point was better, but Split Second is ok too.

Freshly Published: May

May21

Oh my goodness what a month for new YA books!

Ok, I’m going to do something a bit different this month. A new format! It’s going to go like this: First I’ll cover stand alone books, then series debut’s and last, continued series without summaries (don’t want to spoil anything!). Let me know how you find this format!

Stand Alone

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

(don’t you just wish that was a G?)

A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart.

Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

Series Debut’s

Dangerous Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

From the world of Beautiful Creatures–a dangerous new tale of love and magic.

Ridley Duchannes is nobody’s heroine. She’s a Dark Caster, a Siren. She can make you do things. Anything. You can’t trust her, or yourself when she’s around. And she’ll be the first to tell you to stay away-especially if you’re going to do something as stupid as fall in love with her.

Lucky for Ridley, her wannabe rocker boyfriend, Wesley “Link” Lincoln, never listens to anyone. Link doesn’t care if Rid’s no good for him, and he takes her along when he leaves small-town Gatlin to follow his rock-star dream. He teams up with a ragtag group of Dark Casters, and when the band scores a gig at a hot Underground club, it looks like all of Link’s dreams are about to come true.

But New York City is a dangerous place for both Casters and Mortals, and soon Ridley realizes that Link’s bandmates are keeping secrets. With bad-boy club owner Lennox Gates on her heels, Rid is determined to find out the truth. What she discovers is worse than she could have imagined: Link has a price on his head that no Caster or Mortal can ever pay. With their lives on the line, what’s a Siren to do?

Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthors of the Beautiful Creatures novels, are back to cast another magical spell. Their signature blend of mystery, suspense, and romance, with a healthy dose of wit and danger, will pull fans in and leave them begging for more.

After the End by Amy Plum

She’s searching for answers to her past. They’re hunting her to save their future.

World War III has left the world ravaged by nuclear radiation. A lucky few escaped to the Alaskan wilderness. They’ve survived for the last thirty years by living off the land, being one with nature, and hiding from whoever else might still be out there.

At least, this is what Juneau has been told her entire life.

When Juneau returns from a hunting trip to discover that everyone in her clan has vanished, she sets off to find them. Leaving the boundaries of their land for the very first time, she learns something horrifying: There never was a war. Cities were never destroyed. The world is intact. Everything was a lie.

Now Juneau is adrift in a modern-day world she never knew existed. But while she’s trying to find a way to rescue her friends and family, someone else is looking for her. Someone who knows the extraordinary truth about the secrets of her past.

Continued Series

The One by Keira Cass

The Selection #3

(I’M SO EXCITED! MY SIGNED FIRST EDITION IS CURRENTLY BEING HELD CAPTIVE IN THE OFFICE POST ROOM! ARRRGGGGG!)

Seriously, just SWOON over that cover!

Take me On by Katie McGarry

Pushing the Limits #4

I am loving this series, and I was surprised to learn that McGarry continued it. More like thrilled really, her writing is awesome and I love how the series gives other characters their own story but in the same ‘framework’. This should be just as good as the others.