Dark Eyes (Dark Eyes #1) by William Richter

January 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Dark Eyes by William Richter
Release Date: March 15, 2012
Publisher: Razorbill
Source: Digital Copy
Rating: ★★★★☆
Buy It: Amazon
Wally was adopted from a Russian orphanage as a child and grew up in a wealthy New York City family. At fifteen, her obsessive need to rebel led her to life on the streets.Now the sixteen-year-old is beautiful and hardened, and she’s just stumbled across the possibility of discovering who she really is. She’ll stop at nothing to find her birth mother before Klesko – her darkeyed father – finds her. Because Klesko will stop at nothing to reclaim the fortune Wally’s mother stole from him long ago. Even if that means murdering his own blood. But Wally’s had her own killer training, and she’s hungry for justice.

Review
I was pleasantly surprised when I picked up this book.  I feel like a broken record when I say this but I was interested in this novel because of its Eastern European roots.  I just can’t help myself when Russia is involved!  Enter Wally who is living on the streets in New York along with three of her friends.  This was something new for me to read about.  They squat in abandoned buildings and sell stolen goods to make cash.  A little bit Lisbeth Salander but not quite – lacking the photographic memory and the overall intelligence factor – but that same general feeling is what Richter was going for, I think.  The storyline was also similar to that of Lisbeth’s in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo as far as her father goes – he’s a very, very bad man and of course he wants to kill her.

The most difficult part to follow, for me, in the novel is the connections that everyone has to each other and one person in particular – although I won’t give away their name because they’re pretty important and I don’t want to tip anyone off.  For the most part, though, all the threads fall into place fairly well and while you can understand them, you won’t be able to guess half of what’s going to happen – TRUST ME.  I thought I had most of it figured out a quarter of the way in and nope, totally went a different way.  Not only does she have her evil father out to kill her but she’s trying to find out who her mother is since she was adopted from Russia at such a young age.  Plus she’s living on the street and she’s not some kind of awesome assassin or anything, she’s just a regular teenage girl.

In the end, while this is in the vein of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Dark Eyes is its own novel.  It has its own demographic and plotline.  It’s like saying that Divergent and Delirium are both dystopians and are both similar in that they’re fighting the establishment but they – ahem – diverge from there.  Dark Eyes also has a sequel coming out called Tiger that’s going to focus on Wally’s long-lost brother, Tiger, that I’m really excited about.  He was super mysterious in the book so this one might be even more interesting.

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Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger

October 9, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger
Release Date: October 2, 2012
Publisher: Aladdin
Source: Personal Copy
Rating: ★★★★★
Buy It: Amazon
Twelve-year-old Sophie Foster has a secret. She’s a Telepath—someone who hears the thoughts of everyone around her. It’s a talent she’s never known how to explain.Everything changes the day she meets Fitz, a mysterious boy who appears out of nowhere and also reads minds. She discovers there’s a place she does belong, and that staying with her family will place her in grave danger. In the blink of an eye, Sophie is forced to leave behind everything and start a new life in a place that is vastly different from anything she has ever known.

Sophie has new rules to learn and new skills to master, and not everyone is thrilled that she has come “home.” There are secrets buried deep in Sophie’s memory—secrets about who she really is and why she was hidden among humans—that other people desperately want. Would even kill for.

In this page-turning debut, Shannon Messenger creates a riveting story where one girl must figure out why she is the key to her brand-new world, before the wrong person finds the answer first.

Review

I would love to blame Tina for the fact I’m reviewing a “middle school” book, but Tina isn’t at fault. The author of this book is. That’s right, I’m blaming the author Shannon Messenger. It’s okay, I can, I’m friends with the author. Friends in the sense I bother her via email and twitter. But that won’t skew the review. I recently became friends with Messenger via snark, Saved by the Bell, and mocking of each other. I’ve read her blog for awhile now and quietly kept to myself, one day I wasn’t quiet anymore, commented and we quickly bantered back and forth and amazingly I haven’t scared her yet! (YAY!) It’s probably for the best Shannon doesn’t live closer to me because we would eat all the In-N-Out Cheeseburgers and she would get no work done. But as awesome as Messenger is, her book is even more awesome.

Really, it is possible. Almost every email to Tina during the period of me reading this book involves me yelling at Tina “YOU NEED TO READ KEEPER NOW.” The book is about a girl named Sophie, who’s 12 and in high school. Right?! I didn’t enjoy high school when I had to go through it I can’t picture having to go through it at the age of 12. But Sophie has a secret, Sophie is a Telepath. Has been since the age of 5 and no one knows. However one day a boy name Fitz appears and tells her that she isn’t alone. That he, too, can read minds, but he isn’t from here.

He’s from another world, a world that knows nothing about where she’s from. An ATM? An iPod? They know nothing about this technology. It is an amazing world that Messenger built because it is nothing like the United States in 2012. She had to create a whole new world, that is similar to the world we live in and yet nothing like it at all, all at the same time. Also, Messenger’s world building? Amazing. She thought of everything, down to the smallest detail which is much appreciated as a reader.

Once in the “new world,” Sophie is taken in by a family made up of Grady and Edaline, who have their own background issues, that get explained Messenger makes them, and family such an important part of this story to the point I may have shed a tear or two (okay many) various times in the story because I wanted to reach in and grab certain characters and tell them it would be okay, even though, to be honest, I had no idea myself if everyone would be okay. I only hoped.

Sophie is also extremely realistic. She has a stuffed blue elephant, who she can’t live without and is one of the few things she takes from her current life before going to her new life. She freaks out, she doesn’t fit in, she’s an extremely realistic 12 year old girl. And then there are the boys in her life. The first boy in her life is Fitz. He’s literally the first boy in her new life, he is a fellow telepath who’s parents help her become accustomed to her new world. Then there is Dex, who ends up being her BFF, he hates Fitz with a passion and doesn’t trust him, but trusts Sophie. Last there is the ‘bad’ boy, Keefe. Oh Keefe, he’s snarky, sarcastic, and he ditches class but he really likes Sophie and enjoys mocking Sophie. This is probably one of the reasons I relate to Keefe. I’m not saying that I ditched class, I didn’t. I was the annoying one who was on time and never missed a day (yes, I hate me, too.) But the snark and the mocking? That’s all me. My one friend jokes that if I’m nice to you, you should watch out, I love by being mean. Which is why I relate to Keefe and the snark.

And yes, there is already Team Dex, Team Keefe, and Team Fitz, shockingly I am Team Sophie. Yes, Team Sophie! Girl power! Sophie isn’t a weakling. She handles the fact that her world is legitimately turned upside down quite well. If I was taken away from the only family I ever knew, I’d lose it. And while Sophie did lose it, she had an amazing path to self-discovery throughout this whole book.

I finished this book and wanted to re-read it right away. Lately that rarely happens to me and a book. This book ends on a perfect note and yet leaves me wanting more. Thankfully this is going to be a trilogy. And, Messenger has another series coming out next year! I’d throw confetti in the air if that would be responsible, and I wouldn’t have to clean it up.

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I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You by Ally Carter

December 27, 2011 by Leave a Comment
I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You by Ally Carter
Release Date: April 1, 2007
Publisher: Hyperion
Source: Personal Copy
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Buy It: Amazon
The Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women is a fairly typical all-girls school, that is, if every school taught advanced martial arts in PE, the latest in chemical warfare in science; and students received extra credit for breaking CIA codes computer class. So in truth, Gallagher Academy might claim to be a school for geniuses, but its really a school for spies. Cammie Morgan is a second generation Gallagher Girl, and by her sophomore year she’s already fluent in fourteen languages and capable of killing a man in seven different ways (three of which involve a piece of uncooked spaghetti.) But the one thing the Gallagher Academy hasn’t prepared her for is what to do when she falls for an ordinary boy who thinks she’s an ordinary girl. Sure, she can tap his phone, hack into his computer, and track him through a mall without his ever being the wiser, but can she have a regular relationship with a regular boy who can never know the truth about her? Cammie may be an elite spy in training, but in her sophomore year, shes beginning her most dangerous mission; she’s falling in love.

Review

I’ve had this book on my bookshelf for awhile now, but you know how it is books get moved around and you lose place of them. But recently I rediscovered this book. The book was a little more middle school than young adult than I was expecting; however, I was still drawn in to the story that Ally Carter told.

Cammie is a student at Gallagher Academy, a school that claims to be for geniuses, but instead is for spies. Cammie’s mother is also headmaster of this school which makes her life harder than it already is. Her father died mysteriously and although the family has moved on her relationship is still strained with her mother. But at the same time she is a teenage girl, she isn’t going to tell her mother everything no matter how close their relationship is. This isn’t the Gilmore Girls relationship.

The Gallagher Academy is in a small town and is known as “the school.” One day on assignment Cammie meets a boy. Something that is almost unknown at Gallagher Academy not counting the professors who the girls have known for years. However, not wanting to tell the boy about “the school.” She tells him that she is homeschooled and spins a whole web of lies to him to try to make him like her, even though it wouldn’t be liking her for her. It would be liking her for a fake version of her. Cammie is so excited about liking a guy and having him like her she just continues to push through with this plan.

There is more to this book however than just boys and parents, at the heart of the book there is Cammie and how she grows and changes and her friendships around her evolve with that fact.

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Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi

December 16, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi
Release Date: January 3, 2012
Publisher: HarperCollins
Source: NetGalley
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Buy It: Amazon
Aria is a teenager in the enclosed city of Reverie. Like all Dwellers, she spends her time with friends in virtual environments, called Realms, accessed through an eyepiece called a Smarteye. Aria enjoys the Realms and the easy life in Reverie. When she is forced out of the pod for a crime she did not commit, she believes her death is imminent. The outside world is known as The Death Shop, with danger in every direction.As an Outsider, Perry has always known hunger, vicious predators, and violent energy storms from the swirling electrified atmosphere called the Aether. A bit of an outcast even among his hunting tribe, Perry withstands these daily tests with his exceptional abilities, as he is gifted with powerful senses that enable him to scent danger, food and even human emotions.They come together reluctantly, for Aria must depend on Perry, whom she considers a barbarian, to help her get back to Reverie, while Perry needs Aria to help unravel the mystery of his beloved nephew’s abduction by the Dwellers. Together they embark on a journey challenged as much by their prejudices as by encounters with cannibals and wolves. But to their surprise, Aria and Perry forge an unlikely love – one that will forever change the fate of all who live UNDER THE NEVER SKY.

Review
This book will plague me for a long time, I can tell you, and not in a good way.  I can’t even begin to describe my feelings on this book because I’m not sure that I know.  The first third of this book was absolutely TORTUROUS and I don’t use all caps lightly because I know how annoying it gets online.  But I’m not kidding when I say I seriously almost gave up on this book in the beginning.  There are a lot of things that went wrong in the beginning but then the story and writing turned around, there was an obvious shift, and it was hard to adjust.  The last part of the book was very good though and I fell in love with the characters but it’s hard to make up for the first part.

The story follows two main characters: Aria, a Dweller inside one of the many pods that humans have taken to, and Perry a Savage that lives in the real world.  Normally, I get aggravated with alternating POVs but this story was told in the third person and the POV didn’t actually shift, which ended up being a redeeming quality.  We are able to learn a lot of the universe that Rossi created by following the two different characters.  It was discombobulating, at first, because they were in such different worlds but eventually it became nice to get their different views on what was currently happening in the book.

My biggest issue with the beginning of the novel is that it was too much like a futuristic Lord of the Flies, which is my second least favorite book of all time (the first being The Grapes of Wrath.)  The beginning sees a few teenagers leaving their ultra-controlled world and basically going crazy and turning against each other in a very violent way.  I’ve read my fair share of violence, not a lot but enough, to be pretty upset with what I was reading.  It wasn’t necessarily graphic, but it was depicted in such a way that made my stomach turn.  The more violence there was, the more I weary I became of the book.  At first I thought it was my prejudice against the book it reminded me of, so I powered through it.  It had to get better, right?  Sort of.  The main characters were extremely difficult to connect with in the beginning because they seriously lacked emotions.  Both Perry and Aria were like popsicles just moving through the plot.  I wasn’t enjoying the plot or the characters – why was I reading?  Because I love dystopians and I knew it had to get better.

And it did get better, to an extent.  The plot picked up and the characters became relatable.  I actually became fairly invested in Aria and Perry at the end, but I could not shake how much I disliked the beginning of the novel.  The book ended in such a way that left the characters ambiguously happy so I think I’ll be content with this book and not continue with the series or else I might become more frustrated.  At the end of the day, I had to remember that Rossi chose to write their story in such a way and I didn’t like it.  Along with the larger issues that it seems the series will deal with, it’s not something that I would continue reading.  It’s definitely a bit different from other dystopian novels I’ve read recently.  Will some people like it?  Obviously they will.  Did I?  Not really.  This will be one of those books that people will either love or hate, I think, so I really can’t tell you if you should read it or not.  I’m kind of stuck in my feelings of confusion so I’m going to post this review and not think about it anymore.

I should note that I gave this three stars because Rossi is a very good writer and I would read something by her in the future, but I was not fan of this particular novel.

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Quest for the Scorpion’s Jewel by Amy Green

June 28, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Quest for the Scorpion’s Jewel by Amy Green
Release Date: July 28, 2011
Source: NetGalley
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Buy It: Amazon
The Amarias Adventures™ begin when 15-year-old Jesse befriends a band of young warriors and risks his life to find a cure for their poisoned leader, Parvel. Though Jesse has a crippled leg, he is asked to join the remaining warriors–part of an elite fighting force known as the Youth Guard–on their mission for the king. Facing danger at every turn, Jesse, Rae and Silas journey over treacherous mountains and across a scorching desert. To make matters worse, an unknown enemy seeks to end their quest before it has even begun. Where is Parvel’s God when they need Him most? And with so little information to guide them, how will they ever complete their mission and find the Scorpion’s Jewel? Will they even escape with their lives?

Review
This is the first ARC I have ever received and I was so psyched about it until I realized that there’s an underlying Christian message.  There was nothing on the request page that made me think it was a Christian novel (obviously I managed to skip the “Parvel’s God” part in the summary :| ) and of course there’s nothing wrong with Christian novels, but I wasn’t expecting it AT ALL.  So what I’m going to do is just briefly touch on the Jesus imagery and focus more on the quest itself.

We start off meeting Demetri, the embattled captain of some desert “city.”  He’s a tortured soul who was running from something that had to do with his brother.  We learn during the introduction that the King of the land assembles a Youth Guard every year for show.  He sends them on “missions” and then pays others to kill them off.  The YG is made up of intelligent, strong teenagers who could one day challenge the king’s throne.  Demetri is tasked to kill a band of Guards when it passes through his territory.

Cut to Jesse, a fifteen-year-old living with his aunt and uncle at an inn.  He walks with a limp from an accident that happened when he was a child and his relatives are neglectful and abusive.  His parents are gone.  As stated in the summary, YG members show up at the inn, Parvel gravely wounded.  Jesse takes them to a man named Kayne, who saves Parvel, but insists he can’t be moved.  Jesse is recruited into this particular YG.

WARNING: HERE BE SPOILERS

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