Books and Sensibility

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YA Science Fiction

A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray

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  • Release Date: November 14th, 2014
  • Pages: 368
  • Genre: Science Fiction
  • Publisher: HarperTeen 

Marguerite Caine’s parents are geniuses. Literally. They’ve invented the Firebird, a device that allows a person to travel into alternate universes. Just as they are about to go public their graduate assistant, Paul Markov steals the technology, kills Maugerite’s father and escapes into another dimension. Now, with the help of their other assistant, Theo, Marguerite is going after Paul to figure out what his plans are and avenge her father’s death.

 I don’t typically read the trendy science fiction YA books, but this cover is so unique and I always liked Gray’s ‘I’m not like the other girls‘ blogpost and I needed to break my contemporary kick.

Jess is always telling me how time travel books can always be hard to understand and as I started this I imagined alternate universe traveling would be even more confusing. I hand waved most of the science stuff, but  basically the book  says that all around us multiple alternate universes exist where different choices have created different timelines. When you travel you are put into the consciousness of yourself in that dimensions and when you leave the version of yourself has no memory of you being there.

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Audiobook Review: Noggin by John Corey Whaley

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  • Narrated by Kirby Heyborne
  • Release Date: April 8th 2014
  • Pages: 356
  • Audiobook Hours: 8 hours 45 minutes
  • Genre: Science Fiction ???
  • Publisher: Antheneum Books for Young Readers (Simon & Schuster)

 

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Book Review: The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

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  • Release Date:  September 2009
  • Pages: 479
  • Genre: Dystopian/Science Fiction
  • Publisher: Candlewick (US)

In his debut YA series, Patrick Ness, takes us to Prentisstown; an isolated settlement where the thoughts of men, boys and animals( known as the Noise) are constantly broadcast  for everyone to hear. Women don’t give off the Noise, but that’s no matter because there are no more women. They were all killed by the virus that created the Noise. Or so 12-year-old Todd Hewitt, the youngest boy in Prentisstown, has been lead to believe. Weeks away from turning thirteen and becoming a man, Todd has to run for his life and discovers nothing is at all what he knew.

I picked up and put down this book a couple of times, I really had a to adjust to the setup. Right from the first page Todd’s dog Manchee is talking to him which was just weird, but I kept coming back because I had heard amazing things about this novel. Then it turned out the meat of this book falls into my least favorite category of YA  fiction, the “kids in the woods” variety. I just can’t get into the survivalist fiction, these stories never do it for me. But the world and questions Ness built into the story kept me so captivated that I was racing to the  the end.

 Also, that cliffhanger.

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Book Review : All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill

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  • Release Date : September 3 2013
  • Genre : Sci-Fi/Thriller
  • Publisher : Hyperion Teen
  • Pages : 368

Synopsis : Imprisoned in the heart of a secret military base, Em has nothing except the voice of the boy in the cell next door and the list of instructions she finds taped inside the drain.
Only Em can complete the final instruction. She’s tried everything to prevent the creation of a time machine that will tear the world apart. She holds the proof: a list she has never seen before, written in her own hand. Each failed attempt in the past has led her to the same terrible present—imprisoned and tortured by a sadistic man called the doctor while war rages outside . . . All Our Yesterdays is a wrenching, brilliantly plotted story of fierce love, unthinkable sacrifice, and the infinite implications of our every choice.

All Our Yesterdays has been on my radar since I heard it was one of the books on the 2013 Book Expo America YA Editor’s Buzz Panel. It was described as “deceptively simple” and  “more than  a standard girl goes back in time to save the world.”

This is a story that starts at the end. Em is a prisoner in
a secret government facility. Her only company is   Finn, the boy in the cell
next to her. Now I know this might sound like Shatter Me byTahereh Mafi but don’t let these first few pages fool you.  Em and Finn have to escape and go back in time to their yesterdays (wink wink nudge nudge) and kill ‘ the doctor”, the man who changed the world for the worst in order to save the future.…

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Head to Head Audiobook Review : Scarlet vs. Prodigy

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Young rulers, fugitives on the run and war on the horizon. The  Legend by Marie Lu and Cinder by Marissa Meyer audio books wow’d the contributors at Book sand Sensibility last year with their intriguing worlds, complex story lines and smart plotting. In 2013, both series debuted their second installments and I’m ready to see how these sequels hold up to their predecessors.

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Book Review: Altered by Jennifer Rush

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  • Genre: Science Fiction
  • Pages: 323
  • Publisher: Little Brown, Books for Young Readers 
  • Release Date: January 1st 2013 

Synopsis: Everything about Anna’s life is a secret. Her father works for the Branch at the helm of its latest project: monitoring and administering treatments to the four genetically altered boys in the lab below their farmhouse. There’s Nick, Cas, Trev . . . and Sam, who’s stolen Anna’s heart. When the Branch decides it’s time to take the boys, Sam stages an escape, killing the agents sent to retrieve them. Now on the run, Anna soon discovers that she and Sam are connected in more ways than either of them expected. And if they’re both going to survive, they must piece together the clues of their past before the Branch catches up to them and steals it all away

Altered isn’t a book I’d usually pick up since I’m more of a contemporary/dystopian reader, but when Jennifer Rush came to a signing near me, I went ahead and bought a copy. One of the first things Jennifer said was that she writes for the boys. And it’s pretty obvious what she means by this once you get into a book.

In  the basement of Anna Mason and her father’s farmhouse, four boys suffering from amnesia are confined to glass cells. The boys are being held there by The Branch, the clandestine organization her father works for.

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