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Book Review : Innocent Darkness by Suzanne Lazear

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  • Release Date : August 8th 2012
  • Genre : Fairytale/Historical
  • Pages : 408
  • Publisher : Flux Books

Synopsis:Be careful what you wish for…In an alternate version of 1901 Los Angeles sixteen-year-old Noli Braddock’s hoyden ways land her in an abusive reform school far from home. On mid-summer’s eve she wishes to be anyplace but that dreadful school. A mysterious man from the Realm of Faerie brings her to the Otherworld, only to reveal that she must be sacrificed to restore his dying world.  Her best friend, V . . . appears to help Noli escape and return to the mortal realm . . . but if she does  the entire Otherworld civilization will perish.

The Huntsman travels to the  mortal world seeking out those special girls with the spark; wild, creative and unbound. The Huntsman whisks these sparky girl away to Otherworld where they are loved, celebrated and
every whim is indulged

 Then they are sacrificed. Blood spilled to keep Otherworld alive.

 And 6 years later the Huntsman hunts again.

 Magnolia “Noli” Braddock is a girl filled with the spark. However, in her upper-middle class neighborhood her willful, rebellious behaviour along with her penchant for mechanical prowess is seen as troublesome and not suitable for young lady.

Noli is sent to Findlay School for Girls, a reform school notorious for producing mindless and proper marriageable girls. She has been taken away from her  home, her mother and her best friend V Darrow. Deep in despair she  learns the hard way why she should never talk to strange Faeries; when she meets Kevighn Silver-Tongue. The Huntsman.

I think alot of the mixed rating for this novel lie in the misleading cover and genre. This novel isn’t  a historical and isn’t a zeppelin/gadget filled Steampunk.  I think the best way to describe this novel is that it is tried and true Fairytale. It is what I expected and what I got. 

We’ve got Faeries, a damsel in distress, princes, queens and true love. The novel has a clever plot with smooth pacing and quite a few plot twist. This novel is also a bit more steamy than most YAs, which I suppose is a reflection of the Victorian-era setting of the novel.

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Audiobook Review: Tempest by Julie Cross

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  • Release Date: January 17th 2012 
  • Pages: 334
  • Audiobook: 10 hours 51 minutes
  • Genre: Science Fiction
  • Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

Synopsis:  The year is 2009.  Nineteen-year-old Jackson Meyer is a normal guy… he’s in college, has a girlfriend… and he can travel back through time. But it’s not like the movies – nothing changes in the present after his jumps, there’s no space-time continuum issues or broken flux capacitors – it’s just harmless fun.That is… until the day strangers burst in on Jackson and his girlfriend, Holly, and during a struggle with Jackson, Holly is fatally shot. In his panic, Jackson jumps back two years to 2007, but this is not like his previous time jumps. Now he’s stuck in 2007 and can’t get back to the future. 

Forget everything you know about time travel. It’s 2009 and  19-year-old Jackson Meyer can travel through time, but it’s nothing too exciting; until the day he gets stuck in the past. 

This book is interesting because it falls more into the New Adult category than Young Adult. Our protagonist, Jackson is a  student at NYU  and falls into the older side of YA protagonists at 19. His girlfriend Holly, an NYU freshman,  doesn’t know he can time travel and is the basic pretty, middle class girl with standards and  modesty about her success. 

I knew this book has lukewarm ratings so I was hoping the audiobook would help me like it more. I found the narrator to be spotty and at times his voice for a character would become inconsistent. Some of his voices were even kind of annoying.  His voice for Holly’s friend Jana was just so ridiculous I couldn’t take it seriously.

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Summer of Sarah Dessen : The Truth About Forever

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A long hot summer. That’s what Macy has to look forward to while her boyfriend, Jason, is away at Brain Camp. Days will be spent at a boring job in the library, evenings will be filled with vocabulary drills for the SATs, and spare time will be passed with her mother, the two of them sharing a silent grief at the traumatic loss of Macy’s father.
But sometimes unexpected things can happen. . . As Macy ventures out of her shell, she begins to wonder, Is it really better to be safe than sorry

Macy Queen’s boyfriend  is the smart and driven Jason Talbot. Macy Queen’s sister had the most beautiful wedding at the Lakeview Inn. Macy Queen’s mother is the businesswoman behind the Wildflower Ridge subdivision.

But what Macy Queen is most know for is watching her father die.

There on the sidewalk as Macy’s father slips away so does life as she knew it . Now nothing but perfection, studying and order will do for her and her now smaller family. This summer is shaping up to be just that; until the chaos that is Wish Catering barrels into her life. Crab cakes, meatballs, a game of Truth and all.

Wish Catering is–in one word–  chaos. Run by the frazzled and very pregnant owner Delia; along with boy-crazy Kristy, monotone Monica, Bert and the mysteriously artistic Wes.

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When You Were Mine by Rebecca Serle

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“What if the greatest love story ever told was the wrong one?” 

― Rebecca Serle, When You Were Mine

  • Release Date: May 1st  2012
  • Genre: Contemporary
  • Pages: 334
  • Publisher: Simon Pulse


Synopsis: What’s in a name, Shakespeare? I’ll tell you: Everything.
Rosaline knows that she and Rob are destined to be together. Rose has been waiting for years for Rob to kiss her—and when he finally does, it’s perfect. But then Juliet moves back to town. Juliet, who used to be Rose’s best friend. Juliet, who now inexplicably hates her. Juliet, who is gorgeous, vindictive, and a little bit crazy… and who has set her sights on Rob. He doesn’t even stand a chance.

So, I love the concept of this novel. A modern re-telling of Romeo and Juliet, but from the perspective of Rosaline. I remember studying Romeo and Juliet in high school and when our teacher was talking about Rosaline I remember thinking, wait what ? There was a girl Romeo liked before Juliet ? Roalisne is an unseen  character in the play so Serle had a lot to play with in developing her.

The character of Rosaline Caplet in this book was a blurry character to me, she didn’t seem to have any shape. She just existed, there was nothing special about her and I couldn’t get a feel for her personality. She does gain some definition through the book with her relationship with the character Len, but I just could not connect with her.

There seems to be two schools of reviewers who have read this; those who loved Rose’s  friends and others who don’t. I found Charlie and Olivia to be annoying girls obsessed with boys and popularity. They are also kind of the mean girls I didn’t understand why they were friends with Rose, who seems nothing like them. It seems like in real life they would have drifted apart.

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Book Review: Pushing The Limits by Katie McGarry

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  • Release Date: July 31st 2012
  • Genre: Contemporary/ Coming-of-Age
  • Pages: 384
  • Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Synopsis: No one knows what happened the night Echo Emerson went from popular girl with jock boyfriend to gossiped-about outsider with “freaky” scars on her arms. Even Echo can’t remember the whole truth of that horrible night. All she knows is that she wants everything to go back to normal. But when Noah Hutchins, the smoking-hot, girl-using loner in the black leather jacket, explodes into her life with his tough attitude and surprising understanding, Echo’s world shifts in ways she could never have imagined. They should have nothing in common. And with the secrets they both keep, being together is pretty much impossible.Yet the crazy attraction between them refuses to go away. And Echo has to ask herself just how far they can push the limits and what she’ll risk for the one guy who might teach her how to love again.

Yay, my first Harlequin (okay, Harlequin Teen ) novel !

Echo Emerson is trying to honor her dead brother, as she recovers from a violent encounter with her bipolar mother that left her with plenty of scars, but no memory.

Noah Hutchins wants nothing more than to be a family again with the brothers he was separated from in the foster care system, but he just can’t seem to stop screwing up.

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Book Review: Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver (Delirium #2)

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“In a world without love, this is what people are too each other: values, benefits, and liabilities, numbers, and data. We weigh, and the soul is ground to dust.” 

― Lauren Oliver, Pandemonium

 

  • Release Date: February 28th 2012
  • Genre: Dystopian
  • Publisher: Harper Teen
  • Pages: 375

Synopsis: I’m pushing aside the memory of my nightmare, pushing aside thoughts of Alex, pushing aside thoughts of Hana and my old school, push, push, push, like Raven taught me to do.The old life is dead.But the old Lena is dead too.I buried her.I left her beyond a fence,behind a wall of smoke and flame.Lauren Oliver delivers an electrifying follow-up to her acclaimed New York Times bestseller, Delirium. This riveting, brilliant novel crackles with the fire of fierce defiance, forbidden romance, and the sparks of a revolution about to ignite.

Sequel reviews are always hard for me but, here we go. It was a bit of a shock going from listening to the audio book of Delirium to reading the print copy of Pandemonium. I was finally seeing names and places on the page instead of just hearing them. I had to remind myself our protagonist was Lay-na and no Lean-a and there are In-val-ids not In-val-eds

That said, Pandemonium is pretty much nothing like Delirium, in fact, it feels like a different series entirely.

Pandemonium is erratic with a  faster paced and more passionate story than Delirium. Whereas Delirium is a discovery story, Pandemonium is one about a journey. This book embodies the kids in the woods phenomenon seen in a lot of post-apocalyptic/dystopian fiction. This idea where it’s mostly the teens and young adults that leave civilization to fight the status quo.

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