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Book Review: Stealing Parker by Miranda Kenneally

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  • Release Date: October 1st 2012
  • Pages: 245
  • Genre: Contemporary
  • Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Synopsis: Parker Shelton pretty much has the perfect life. She’s on her way to becoming valedictorian at Hundred Oaks High, she’s made the all-star softball team, and she has plenty of friends. Then her mother’s scandal rocks their small town and suddenly no one will talk to her.
Now Parker wants a new life.
So she quits softball. Drops twenty pounds. And she figures why kiss one guy when she can kiss three? Or four. Why limit herself to high school boys when the majorly cute new baseball coach seems especially flirty?
But how far is too far before she loses herself completely.

Parker Shelton was always a good Christian girl.With good Christian friends and a clean reputation. That is until her mother comes out as a lesbian and runs away with the church’s secretary. Like the tagline says, one strike– to her facade of a perfect life that is– and she’s out. Parker loses her grip on who she is, to become the person she believes everyone needs her to be.

Stealing Parker is the follow up to Kenneally’s Catching Jordan. Like Catching Jordan this novel is sports-themed however Stealing Parker is less about the sport and more about the characters.

Parker is your average self-conscious snarky teenager. She is so concerned with what everyone thinks and things never seem to turn out the way they should for her. She loses weight, stops playing softball and starts making out with more boys just to confirm to everyone she is not a lesbian like her mom.

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Book Review : The Unnaturalist by Tiffany Trent

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  • Release Date: August 14th 2012
  • Pages: 305
  • Genre: Fantasy/Steampunk
  • Publisher: Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers

Synopsis: Vespa Nyx wants nothing more than to spend the rest of her life cataloging Unnatural creatures in her father’s museum, but as she gets older, the requirement to become a lady and find a husband is looming large. Syrus Reed’s Tinker family has always served and revered the Unnaturals from afar, but when his family is captured to be refinery slaves, he finds that his fate may be bound up with Vespa’s—and with the Unnaturals.As the danger grows, Vespa and Syrus find themselves in a tightening web of deception and intrigue. At stake may be the fate of New London—and the world

I’ve been buzzing about this book since I went to a steampunk event with Tiffany Trent back in April. Naturally, when I saw this book tour on Southern Book Bloggers I couldn’t resist the opportunity to participate.

The Unnaturalist just happens to be the third book I’ve started reading that falls into this genre of  part steampunk part magic. The other two books being The Iron Thorn by Caitlin Kitteredge and Skylark by Meagan Spooner. In these novels, possessing magic is considered taboo and evil ; science order are upheld and rule the land. Each of these books handles the genre differently and The Unnaturalists  takes a more historical alternate universe approach.

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Book Review : Origin by Jessica Khoury

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  • Publication Date: September 4th 2012
  • Pages: 393
  • Genre: Science Fiction 
  • Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin

Pia has grown up in a secret laboratory hidden deep in the Amazon rain forest. She was raised by a team of scientists who have created her to be the start of a new immortal race. But on the night of her seventeenth birthday, Pia discovers a hole in the electric fence that surrounds her sterile home—and sneaks outside the compound for the first time in her life.

Going into Origin I was excited for one big reason; this is a stand-alone novel. Since I started blogging the only non-contemporary stand-alone novel I’ve read is Entwined by Heather Dixon and that was a while ago.

When we are first introduced to the Pia, the immortal girl raised and created by scientist, I couldn’t help getting anxious. I was excited to see how this girl’s unusual story could be told in a single book format. It’s a different experience reading a book knowing there is only one chance to meet and grow with the characters and Origin holds up pretty well.

 Pia’s world is confined to Little Cam, a secret research compound hidden deep in the Amazon jungle. Pia is the first of her kind, an immortal race whose origin (title drop !) is found in the secrets and stories of the elysia flower. When an Ai’oan boy, Eio, from the outside, finds a way to free her from her caged in life, Pia learns the truth about her destiny and the life she thought was hers.

The novel does a good job of crafting this stoic and rational world of the Little Cam compound and how it contrasts with the chaotic and energetic lives of the Ai’oa tribe.  Usually, claustrophobic settings don’t work for me but there was so much description and intricacy to this jungle setting that I didn’t notice how little movement there is.

I was mostly drawn to the supporting characters because they have the most stakes in the plot, even more so than Pia. They have immediate sacrifices, hopes, and aspirations that rely on Pia creating the next generation of immortals. Due to the nature of Pia’s condition (being immortal) at times hard to relate to her because there is no immediacy. This concept is explored in the novel by Pia and is one of the reasons a contrast like Eio is necessary to propel her story forward.

It’s also worth noting that this novel is based entirely on the Science Fiction genre. It is based on the question of”what if” you could live forever. It stands out because it doesn’t focus on society or a big brother like in most Speculative and Dystopians

Origin is a refreshing change to the current YA landscape and I certainly hope it starts a trend of more stand-a-lones. This novel is perfect for those suffering from series fatigue and looking for a science fiction novel with a twist of romance.

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Book Review: Carnival of Secrets by Melissa Marr

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  • Release Date: September 4th 2012
  • Pages: 306 pages
  • Publisher: HarperCollins
  • Genre: Fantasy

Synopsis: In a city of daimons, rigid class lines separate the powerful from the power-hungry. And at the heart of The City is the Carnival of Souls, where both murder and pleasure are offered up for sale. Once in a generation, the carnival hosts a deadly competition that allows every daimon a chance to join the ruling elite. Without the competition, Aya and Kaleb would both face bleak futures–if for different reasons. For each of them, fighting to the death is the only way to try to live.
All Mallory knows of The City is that her father–and every other witch there–fled it for a life in exile in the human world. Instead of a typical teenage life full of friends and maybe even a little romance, Mallory scans quiet streets for threats, hides herself away, and trains to be lethal. She knows it’s only a matter of time until a daimon finds her and her father, so she readies herself for the inevitable. While Mallory possesses little knowledge of The City, every inhabitant of The City knows of her. There are plans for Mallory, and soon she, too, will be drawn into the decadence and danger that is the Carnival of Souls

So, remember those articles where moral guardians condemned some YA novels for being too dark ? Well, this probably would have been one of the books they targeted.

Carnival of Secrets is a gritty,violent, and vaguely sex obsessed fantasy novel from best-selling author Melissa Marr


In The City, daimons live in a strict Caste system ruled by their leader, Marchosias. At the center of The City is the Carnival of Souls, a marketplace where  one goes to trade money for favors from the black masked assassins or red masked prostitutes among other things.

The only way out of the Caste you were born into is to enter Marchosias Competition and compete in a series of fights to the death to earn a spot in the ruling class.

Kaleb is a cur, a member of the lowest caste and winning the competition is his only way at a life of more than assassin or prostitute. He believes his path to victory is clear until he crosses paths with Aya, the first ruling class girl to enter The Competition and Mallory, Marchosia’s only child who lives hidden in the human world unaware of her lineage. 

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Audiobook Reivew : Pure By Julianna Baggott

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  • Publication Date : Feburary 8th 2012
  • Genre : Post-Apocalyptic 
  • Pages : 431
  • Audiobook Length : 14 hours 9 minutes
  • Publisher : Grand Central Publishing (Imprint Hachette Book Group)

 . . . Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost-how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. . .There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked. Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge [feels] . . . Different. He thinks about loss . . . that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. . . When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.

Pure is the ultimate survivalist story

I started reading the galley of this book a few months ago and  found its  vivid descriptions and imagery a little dark; or as Kat said on Twitter “It makes The Hunger Games look like a Disney film.” However, I’m glad I gave this book a second change.

Pure is one of the best post-apocalyptic novels I’ve read all year. It mixes what YA survivalist novels like Eve by Anna Carey and Under The Never Sky by Veronica Rossi  have done, but in such a uniquely dark and unbound way. It takes the story of the protected “insider” meets the savage “outside world” and turns it completely on its head.

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Audio Book Review : This Dark Endeavour by Kenneth Oppel

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  • Release Date: August 23, 2011
  • Page Number: 304 pages
  • Audiobook Hours: 8 hours 7 minutes
  • Genre: Historical/Fantasy
  • Publisher: Simon & Shuster for Young Readers

Synopsis: Victor and Konrad are the twin brothers Frankenstein. They are nearly inseparable. Growing up, their lives are filled with imaginary adventures… until the day their adventures turn all too real. They stumble upon The Dark Library, and secret books of alchemy and ancient remedies are discovered. Father forbids that they ever enter the room again, but this only peaks Victor’s curiosity more. When Konrad falls gravely ill, Victor is not be satisfied with the various doctors his parents have called in to help. He is drawn back to The Dark Library where he uncovers an ancient formula for the Elixir of Life. Elizabeth, Henry, and Victor immediately set out to find assistance in a man who was once known for his alchemical works to help create the formula

This Dark Endeavor is a man before the myth story of the boy who will become famous for creating the most notorious monster of all time.

 I went into this audiobook with only a fleeting knowledge of the novel Frankenstein  written by Mary Shelley. While you don’t have to read the classic novel to understand this book it may help you make some connections.

16-year-old Victor Frankenstein and his twin brother, Konrad  lead a life of privilege in their father’s estate in Geneva. But when Konrad falls ill, Victor finds himself on a dark journey to save his brother using forbidden methods he doesn’t fully understand. To me this book can be best described as steampunk meets alchemy meets Downton Abbey. Which seems totally weird, but in this book it works.

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