2011 Debut Author Challenge: 3/12

The third annual Debut Author Challenge hosted by The Story Siren.

2011 Debut Author Challenge: To read at least twelve novels from debut Young Adult or Middle Grade Authors.

This is book 3/12

Vesper (Deviants #1) by Jeff Sampson

Goodreads summary:
Emily Webb is a geek. And she’s happy that way. Content hiding under hoodies and curling up to watch old horror flicks, she’s never been the kind of girl who sneaks out for midnight parties. And she’s definitely not the kind of girl who starts fights or flirts with other girls’ boyfriends. Until one night Emily finds herself doing exactly that...the same night one of her classmates—also named Emily—is found mysteriously murdered.
The thing is, Emily doesn’t know why she’s doing any of this. By day, she’s the same old boring Emily, but by night, she turns into a thrill seeker. With every nightfall, Emily gets wilder until it’s no longer just her personality that changes. Her body can do things it never could before: Emily is now strong, fast, and utterly fearless. And soon Emily realizes that she’s not just coming out of her shell... there’s something much bigger going on. Is she bewitched by the soul of the other, murdered Emily? Or is Emily Webb becoming something else entirely— something not human?
As Emily hunts for answers, she finds out that she’s not the only one this is happening to—some of her classmates are changing as well. Who is turning these teens into monsters—and how many people will they kill to get what they want?

My thoughts: 5/5

The story is told through flashback but not completely (sequels!) which didn't diminish the story at all.
I enjoyed Emily's character – at first, she was a stay-at-home, movie watching geek till one night she became what was later referred to as a Deviant by the Vesper Company.
By day she returns to her normal self but at the same time each night she changed into a less inhibited side of herself.
I don't know if it's science or paranormal but it's a mystery I'm looking forward to finding out.
It’s fast paced and fun and leaves the reader guessing and turning the page.
I highly recommend it.

Mini Challenge - Name Your Star

Princess Bookie, is hosting Contest Craze as I mentioned in an earlier post found HERE

Today's Mini Challenge is Name Your Star!
Imagine You Just Won A Contest Consisting Of A Date (Dinner and a Movie) with a TV or Movie Character. (Cartoon characters are exempt.)

Mission:
- Write A Blog Post Telling Who You Would Choose
- Explain Why You Choose Them
- Be Creative In Your Post (maybe include a picture of said person or what you would order for dinner).

My character choice is Karl Agathon AKA Helo from Battlestar Galactica.



I could list all his wonderful qualities such as his sense of righting any injustice or how he loved someone whole-heartedly even if others didn't agree or understand.
But... just look at him! Isn't that reason enough? MEOW!

Dystopian February: Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Dystopian February Kick-Off 2011 is hosted by Presenting Lenore


Delirium (Delirium #1) by Lauren Oliver

Summary from Goodreads:
Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing. They didn’t understand that once love -- the deliria -- blooms in your blood, there is no escaping its hold. Things are different now. Scientists are able to eradicate love, and the governments demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Holoway has always looked forward to the day when she’ll be cured. A life without love is a life without pain: safe, measured, predictable, and happy.
But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena does the unthinkable: She falls in love.

My thoughts:
I give it a 5/5.

The first book in a dystopian trilogy, Delirium starts off strong and maintains that intensity throughout the rest of the book.

I enjoyed all the epigraphs at the start of each chapter that dealt with the beliefs of the society.

A society that believes love is a disease, Amor Deliria Nervosa.
The Government has a cure and every 18-year-old must undergo the procedure to eradicate it.
Lena Holoway, albeit nervous, is counting the days to her own cure. A cure against the infection her own mother succumbed to and the reason Lena believes she lost her.
Then she meets Alex, who bears the mark of the cured but doesn't act like the others.

The story continues to keep the reader in suspense on how they will be together especially since love is against the law.

Dystopian February: XVI by Julia Karr

Dystopian February Kick-Off 2011 is hosted by Presenting Lenore


XVI by Julia Karr


Summary from Goodreads:
Nina Oberon's life is pretty normal: she hangs out with her best friend, Sandy, and their crew, goes to school, plays with her little sister, Dee. But Nina is 15. And like all girls she'll receive a Governing Council-ordered tattoo on her 16th birthday. XVI. Those three letters will be branded on her wrist, announcing to all the world—even the most predatory of men—that she is ready for sex. Considered easy prey by some, portrayed by the Media as sluts who ask for attacks, becoming a "sex-teen" is Nina's worst fear. That is, until right before her birthday, when Nina's mom is brutally attacked. With her dying breaths, she reveals to Nina a shocking truth about her past—one that destroys everything Nina thought she knew. Now, alone but for her sister, Nina must try to discover who she really is, all the while staying one step ahead of her mother's killer.

My thoughts:
I give it a 3/5.
The plot simply didn't live up to its description.

The synopsis made it sound like it would be about Nina dealing with her upcoming 16th (or sex-teen) birthday and being tattooed and what that would mean for her by having her choices being forcibly taken away and where men held all the power and women were subjugated to their whims.
I expected to learn more about the consequences of losing her rights along the lines of The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood but it never really went anywhere with it.

Instead it deals more with her mother's secrets and Nina's struggle with her mother’s abusive ex-boyfriend and his threats.

The story was rather repetitive and I could not fully engage with the main character or her plight.
It didn't end on a cliff-hanger but I was left wanting more.
Hopefully with the sequel, "The Sisterhood" and the spin-off, "Cinderella Girl" - I will find the story I was hoping to read.

2011 Debut Author Challenge: 2/12

The third annual Debut Author Challenge hosted by The Story Siren.

2011 Debut Author Challenge: To read at least twelve novels from debut Young Adult or Middle Grade Authors.

This is book 2/12

The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher

Goodreads summary:
Vera and her brother, Will, live in the shadow of the Great Panic, in a country that has collapsed from environmental catastrophe. Water is hoarded by governments, rivers are dammed, and clouds are sucked from the sky. But then Vera befriends Kai, who seems to have limitless access to fresh water. When Kai suddenly disappears, Vera and Will set off on a dangerous journey in search of him-pursued by pirates, a paramilitary group, and greedy corporations.
Timely and eerily familiar, acclaimed author Cameron Stracher makes a stunning YA debut that's impossible to forget.

My thoughts: 5/5
I love the cover; it's very eye-catching. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

It starts off slow giving the reader a chance to know and care about what happens to the main characters; Vera, Will, and Kai - something a lot of books fail to do - but it quickly becomes very fast-paced and full of perils. Even the minor characters are interesting as you learn if they are friend or foe.

Be sure to read it with a tall glass of ice water handy, it can be a very dry read. (No, I couldn't resist that one either!)

2011 Debut Author Challenge: 1/12

The third annual Debut Author Challenge hosted by The Story Siren.

2011 Debut Author Challenge: To read at least twelve novels from debut Young Adult or Middle Grade Authors.

This is book 1/12

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Goodreads summary:
Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.
Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone-one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship-tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next.
Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

The book comes with a reversible cover with a map of the ship:
The end flap has a picture of Amy while she was frozen and how Elder first saw her:


My thoughts: 5/5
This isn't an easy to read book; it leaves you feeling disturbed yet hopeful.
The plot has plenty of twists and it twists the reader along with it.
It is truly an emotional ride, especially with Amy's and Elder's alternating POV and their on-going trails as they cope when secrets start to unfold within the confines of the ship.



The people onboard are supervised by Eldest and his protégé, Elder. The people are organized into three groups; Keepers, Shippers, and Feeders as indicated by the levels of the ship. All live in harmony until their lives are disrupted when someone new and different awakens.

Explore the ship, Godspeed - HERE

I highly recommend "Across the Universe" by Beth Revis to anyone who likes sci-fi and futuristic stories.

2011 Debut Author Challenge

It's time for the third annual Debut Author Challenge hosted by The Story Siren.

This will be my first year participating and my booklist will depend on which books I can get on loan from my local library.

• The objective of the DAC is to read at least twelve novels from Young Adult or Middle Grade Authors. (While twelve is the minimum there is no maximum limit.)

• Books must be a Young Adult or Middle Grade novel.

• This must be the authors debut with a release date in 2011.

• The challenge runs from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2011.

The Scorch Trials by James Dashner

The Dystopian Reading Challenge is hosted by Bart's Bookshelf
October 1, 2010 through December 19th 2010.

This is book 5/5 in the reading Dystopian challenge:
The Scorch Trials (Maze Runner #2) by James Dashner


Summary from Goodreads:
The Maze was only the beginning...

Solving the Maze was supposed to be the end. No more puzzles. No more Variables. And no more running. Thomas was sure that escape meant he and the Gladers would get their lives back. But no one really knew what sort of life they were going back to.
In the Maze, life was easy. They had food, and shelter, and safety... until Teresa triggered the end. In the world outside the Maze, however, the end was triggered long ago.
Burned by sun flares and baked by a new, brutal climate, much of the earth is a wasteland. Government has disintegrated--and with it, order--and now Cranks, people covered in festering wounds and driven to murderous insanity by the infectious disease known as the Flare, roam the crumbling cities hunting for their next victim... and meal.
The Gladers are far from done running. Instead of freedom, they find themselves faced with another trial. They must cross the Scorch, the most burned-out section of the world, and arrive at a safe haven in two weeks. And WICKED has made sure to adjust the variables and stack the odds against them.

Thomas can only wonder--does he hold the secret of freedom somewhere in his mind? Or will he forever be at the mercy of WICKED?

I loved The Maze Runner so I was surprised to find I like this one more.

The Scorch Trials starts where The Maze Runner ended and just when Thomas and the Gladers start to think they are safe, more creepy things start happening in a fast-paced and thrilling way.

The new setting brings it own challenges/variables and new characters are introduced that pushed the story further and faster instead of dragging it along.

A Crack in the Sky by Mark Peter Hughes

The Dystopian Reading Challenge is hosted by Bart's Bookshelf
October 1, 2010 through December 19th 2010.

This is book 4/5 in the reading Dystopian challenge:
A Crack in the Sky (Greenhouse Chronicles) by Mark Peter Hughes



Summary from Goodreads:
Thirteen-year-old Eli Papadopoulos is worried. Even though he’s a member of the most powerful family in the world. Even though his grandfather founded InfiniCorp, the massive corporation that runs everything in the bustling dome-cities. Even though InfiniCorp ads and billboards are plastered everywhere, proclaiming:

DON'T WORRY! INFINICORP IS TAKING CARE OF EVERYTHING!

Recently, Eli noticed that there’s something wrong with the artificial sky. It keeps shorting out, displaying strange colors and random images. And though the Department of Cool and Comfortable Air is working overtime, the dome-city is hotter than it’s ever been.
Eli has been raised to believe that the dome-cities are safe, that the important thing is to keep working and consuming, and that everyone is secure and comfortable in InfiniCorp’s capable hands.
But now he begins asking questions.
All of a sudden, operatives from a dangerous band of terrorists keep contacting him. The Friends of Gustavo—or Foggers—want to tear down everything InfiniCorp has created. They promise Eli that they have the truth he seeks—if he’s brave enough to handle it.
Eli isn’t convinced. And he’s about to find out that in the dome-cities, being a Papadopoulos isn’t enough to save a rule-breaker like him from being sent far away to learn right-thinking. In his new home, the Tower, Eli meets Tabitha, once at the top of her Internship class, now a forgotten slave. Together, and with help from Eli’s beloved pet mongoose, Marilyn, they just might be able to escape . . . and try to make a life for themselves in the scorched wilderness outside the domes.


I don't know how many installments the author plans but this is only the beginning and it still reads like he threw every dystopian trope in a pot, stirred and served it up.
Well except for Marilyn; the telepathic, deus ex machina AKA mongoose, whose POV covers a few chapters. That's new.

I'll read the sequels simply to find out where this story leads but this has been my least favorite book I've read for the challenge.

The Blending Time by Michael Kinch

The Dystopian Reading Challenge is hosted by Bart's Bookshelf
October 1, 2010 through December 19th 2010.

This is book 3/5 in the reading Dystopian challenge:
The Blending Time by Michael Kinch



Summary from Goodreads:
Congratulations on turning age seventeen. You are now ready for placement by the Council government.
For kids in the year 2054, turning seventeen means they’re ripe for Global Alliance work assignments that range from backbreaking drudgery to deadly canal labor. Trying to survive in a desiccated world that’s been ravaged by plagues, AIDS III, and environmental disasters, three “s’teeners” from very different backgrounds think they’ve gotten lucky. Jaym, Reya, and D’Shay are chosen to be among thousands of blenders whose task is to help repopulate Africa after a solar flare left its people sterile.
But the continent itself—roiling with civil war and mercenaries intent on crushing the blending program at any cost—poses the gravest danger of all. Separated, the three friends struggle to escape horrific situations, somehow reunite, and reach a camp in the mountains that promises salvation from the harsh and threatening world.

We are introduced to the three main characters; Jaym, Reya, and D’Shay and their diverse backgrounds. At the age of seventeen, known as s’teeners, they are issued mandatory work assignments. They meet and become friends as they travel by cargo boat to Africa to blend (breed) with the population that were left sterile from a chromosomal difficulty due to a solar flare. Naturally, this does not go over well with many of the local people. They are separated and left to fend for themselves until they escape and can get back together.

Although the premise sounds promising I found it a little flat but interesting.

The Blending Time is Michael Kinch's debut novel and it ended so abruptly that I checked to see if there would be a sequel at his website and yes, he is currently working on the next book, with a possibly for a trilogy.

His website also has photos from the time the author lived in Africa and where the idea for The Blending Time originated, including a photo of people making watering cans like the ones D'Shay works on.

The Compound by S. A. Godeen

The Dystopian Reading Challenge is hosted by Bart's Bookshelf
October 1, 2010 through December 19th 2010.

This is book 2/5 in the reading Dystopian challenge:
The Compound by S. A. Godeen


Summary from Amazon:
Eli, the 15-year-old son of a billionaire techno-preneur, has spent the last six years with his family in the massive underground shelter his father has built, knowing that nuclear war has destroyed the world he knows—and killed his grandmother and his twin brother, who couldn't reach the compound in time. With nine years to go before the air outside will be safe to breathe again, the food supply shows signs of running out, but Eli's father has a solution—provided they jettison all morals and ethics. Repulsed and already suspicious, Eli begins investigating his father's claims, and sets up a family death match against a man who grows increasingly irrational and sinister but no less powerful. As far-fetched as the premise may be, Bodeen keeps Eli's actions true to life and uses clues planted fairly and in plain sight. The audience will feel the pressure closing in on them as they, like the characters, race through hairpin turns in the plot toward a breathless climax.

The Compound is a fast paced book that keeps the suspense going making it hard to put down but it does have its flaws.

On his 15th birthday Eli suddenly gets curious and starts to inspect the compound more closely and begins to questions his father's motives - this would have read better if his suspicions grew slowly over the six years in the compound.

His father had planned for every contingency yet somehow most of the food supplies are becoming contaminated. The cows dying, the wrong light bulbs for the hydroponics, etc., but his father even has a backup plan for that with the "supplements".

What is the true purpose of the compound and what are his father's intentions and why won't he let them leave?

The Other Side of the Island by Allegra Goodman

The Dystopian Reading Challenge is hosted by Bart's Bookshelf
October 1, 2010 through December 19th 2010.

This is book 1/5 in the reading Dystopian challenge:

The Other Side of the Island by Allegra Goodman

Goodreads summary:
From New York Times bestselling author Allegra Goodman comes a post apocalyptic novel about love, loss, and the power of human choice.

Honor and her parents have been reassigned to live on Island 365 in the Tranquil Sea. Life is peaceful there—the color of the sky is regulated by Earth Mother, a corporation that controls New Weather, and it almost never rains. Everyone fits into their rightful and predictable place...

Except Honor. She doesn’t fit in, but then she meets Helix, a boy with a big heart and a keen sense for the world around them. Slowly, Honor and Helix begin to uncover a terrible truth about life on the Island: Sooner or later, those who are unpredictable disappear . . . and they don’t ever come back.

The way it was written, the style of 'voice' used to tell the story reminded me of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. As if this all took place in the past and this was the telling of the way things used to be.

I thought it was interesting the way songs and sayings from our time was incorporated and recycled into propaganda by the Corporation and Earth Mother. "Your plan to come, Enclosure done-on earth as it is in heaven...
And lead us not into Inaccuracy, but deliver us from lies."

Plus, any story dealing with weather is censored, such as the Wizard of Oz and changing Dorothy's last name to Hale instead of Gale and she dreamed her way to Oz not swept away by a tornado.

My favorite character would have to be Octavio, the tree octopus.
Learn more HERE.

Princess Bookie: Mini Challenge #3- Contest Craze

Princess Bookie Mini Challenge Consists Of:
Book Synopsis

Mission:
- Write A Blog Post Containing A Book Synopsis Of A Book You Wish Would Be Written.
- Example: If you really loved Before I Fall, you would write a synopsis for Before I Fall #2 .
- Not allowed to write a synopsis for a book that has a sequel already planned so do your research!

Prize:
Surprise ARC Prize Pack

I wrote a post called, Please sir, I want some more so it was easy to make my choice on what book I wish would be written.
Simone Elkeles' "How to Ruin" series.
How to Ruin A Summer Vacation(#1)
How to Ruin My Teenage Life (#2)
How to Ruin Your Boyfriend's Reputation (#3)

How to Ruin Our Happily Ever After (#4)

After Avi serves his time in the Israeli army, he returns to Chicago where Amy lives and proposes. Of course, she's thrilled and immediately says yes but she begins to have misgivings when she learns he wants to live on the moshav back in Israel, especially after all the mishaps from her first visit.
Can love conquer all and do sheep hold a grudge?


Also from a Q&A on Simone Elkeles website:
Q: Will there be a fourth book in the How To Ruin series?
A: I don’t think I’ll be writing another How to Ruin book, although I loved writing Amy and Avi’s adventures together. They are such fun characters to write! Right now I want to work on other projects. Ultimately, however, it’s up to my publisher to decide whether or not they want a fourth book in the How to Ruin series. I never say never, but right now there are no plans for a fourth book.

Bart's Bookshelf: The YA Dsytopian Reading Challenge

The Dystopian Reading Challenge is hosted by Bart's Bookshelf
October 1, 2010 through December 19th 2010.

Level 1: Is the ‘taster’ level. This is for people who just want to join in with no other commitment than to read just the one young adult dystopian novel, between the 1st October and 19th December.

Level 2: Is for those wanting a little bit more of a challenge, but still have some wriggle-room to participate as real life permits, requirement for this level is just two to four, young adult dystopian novels, between the 1st October and 19th December.


Level 3: Is for the dystopian die-hards! Minimum requirement for this level is five young adult dystopian novels, between the 1st October and 19th December. There is, however no maximum cap, you can keep reading for as many books as you like!

If you would like to take part in the challenge, visit Bart's Bookshelf to sign up and for more information!