Thomas Mackee wants oblivion. Wants to forget parents who leave and friends he used to care about and a string of one-night stands, and favorite uncles being blown to smithereens on their way to work on the other side of the world.

But when his flatmates turn him out of the house, Tom moves in with his single, pregnant aunt, Georgie. And starts working at the Union pup with his former friends. And winds up living with his grieving father again. And remembers how he walked away from Tara Finke two years ago, after his uncle’s death.

In a year when everything’s broken, Tom realizes that his family and friends need him to help put the pieces back together as much as he needs them.

Thomas Mackee feels as if he has nothing left to live for. His family is split apart; he no longer communicates with his closes friends and almost lost everything if not for the compassion of those friends he cut off. For as much as Tom seems to hate the world, the further we go along and find that Tom is struggling with hating himself. After an event that leaves him in hospital, Tom ends up pleading with his Aunt Georgie to let him stay. A decision that eventually puts Tom on the path to who he really wants to be.

Georgie is pregnant. To the man she broke up with for seven years. Who has a son from another relationship. Georgie and Sam have a careful relationship. What it is neither can really decide or talk about. For Georgie and Sam, silence is normal. Until Tom appears and unintentionally creates a channel for communication, and Georgie and Sam might have a chance to finally work out exactly what they mean to each other.

Francesca and Justine work at the Union pub, the pub where Tom’s flatmates stole $2000 from while they were working there. Tom decides that it is up to him to repay the debt. Francesca and Justine knew Tom through high school, and were cast aside when Tom lost his uncle, yet they never stopped caring. Slowly, Francesca and Justine find that they are getting their Tom back, and will do everything they can to help Tom return to who he used to be.

But Tom doesn’t only have his own life to worry about. His father is a former alcoholic whose drinking problem forced Tom’s mum and sister to relocate to Brisbane. His father abandoned Tom to fend for himself, and never once looked back. His favourite uncle was killed in a terrorist bombing attack, the one person Tom relied on for good, true, honest advice. His sort-of ex-girlfriend that he is still in love with is in Same and has moved on, refusing to communicate in any form.

In a life where everything seems so tangled, will Tom be able to work out, what it is he truly wants before it is too late?

The Piper’s Son is the fifth novel from Australian author Melina Marchetta, and is set five years after the events of Saving Francesca. Yet, it is not necessary to have read Saving Francesca to understand the story, as believe it or not, this is the first Marchetta novel that I have read. That may come as a surprise to some who knows Marchetta’s work, but I now know why Marchetta is regarded as one of the best young adult authors in Australia.

The Piper’s Son was one of the most captivating and engaging books I have read this year. I could not get the characters out of my head, constantly wanting to pick up the book and find out what happens next. Through the perspective of Tom and occasional flashes into the mind of Georgie, I’ve discovered two characters that I care about. Tom is troubled and flawed, needing love and acceptance, even if sometimes he shrugs it off and pretends like nothing can tough him. Georgie is that aunt that you wish you have – caring enough to let you stay when you have nowhere else to go and perceptive enough to know that something is wrong, even if you don’t want to talk about it. From the beginning of the novel where nothing goes right for either Tom or Georgie, to the end where you find that maybe, just maybe they can make their lives work in a positive way; you are there with them, each step and failure along the way. Failure that reminds you that they are just a human as anyone else.

Set in a modern day Sydney with references and mentions to recent events from everything to the Lord of the Rings to the London terrorist attacks, Marchetta has created a world that is gritty and instantly believable and recognisable as a world that we belong to.

I highly recommend this to everyone, no matter the style of novel you like to read.

Publication date: March 2010

Pages: 328

Rating::

Teaser quote: He went to the sent box praying that somehow the email got rejected. No such luck. Twenty seconds earlier anabelsbrother sent taramarie a message, now with the words cheers, or see ya, or whenever. But signing off with the word, love.

Hunger for nourishment.
Hunger for touch.
Hunger to belong.

Alluring romance, heart-stopping danger, and sinister intrigue combine in the penultimate volume of Melissa Marr’s New York Times bestselling Wicked Lovely series.

Sorcha is mourning Seth’s absence. She’s the unchanging queen and she isn’t supposed to mourn, but still Sorcha does. She frets for Seth’s safety and agonizes that she cannot see him when he is in the mortal world. So Sorcha sends Devlin, her brother and loyal servant, to Huntsdale to check on him, to stay with him in case he should need anything. Little does she know that upon his arrival in Huntsdale, an event takes place that will change Devlin’s path for the rest of eternity.

When Devlin sees Ani in the club, his heart stops short. He’s seen that face before, and as magnificent and beautiful as she is, he knows things about her past that could break her innocent little heart. Not that knowing that stops him in the slightest. When Ani lays her eyes on Devlin, and decides that she wants him for herself, Devlin realizes that although he’s lived a lifetime of loneliness, his future doesn’t necessarily have to be that way. The only problem is, they can’t really be intimate, if you know what I mean, or they risk the possibility of Ani sucking the life right out of Devlin. Who wants to kill the one they love?

Ani is reckless and restless. That would be the hound in her, though, and is to be expected. She’s got spunk and just the right amount of attitude, but that’s not all she’s got. Even though she doesn’t realize it yet, Ani is special. So special that Bananach – Sorcha’s crazy (and evil) sister – wants her blood all for herself. As we all well know, Melissa Marr doesn’t write happily ever after fairy tales, and things don’t play out smoothly for Ani. Hearts are broken, loves are lost, relationships are forged, bruised and battered, and truths will shatter the Earth from the inside out.

Although I found it a little slow on the uptake, I now see that those chapters were necessary to lay the foundations for what shaped up to be a spectacular, gut-wrenching read. Radiant Shadows is exceptional in every way, and I’ve come to expect nothing less from this phenomenal story-teller. Marr’s characters are deep, tortured, and believable in every possible way. Their faces are burned to the insides of my eyelids, their voices ring out loudly through my ears. It’s as if they’re really my friends, instead of a bunch of fictional people that I obsessively follow in their pursuits.

The Wicked Lovely world is definitely one of my favorite places to visit. Radiant Shadows does not disappoint.

Pages: 340

Publication Date: April 20, 2010

Rating::

Teaser Quote:

“Go upstairs Ani.” Irial swung his feet to the floor. He didn’t glance her way. His attention was all for the Dark King now. “Tell me what you think I should have done differently, Niall. I spent the night talking and giving her a safe place to rest. I gave her the nourishment she can’t find elsewhere without compromising her already absent virtue.”

The Dark King didn’t respond.

When Molly gets kicked out of the Naval Academy, she loses more than just another home, she loses the only two things that truly matter: flying in space and her training partner, Cloe. A dull future seems to await, until a marvellous discovery changes everything.

Her father’s old starship, missing for a decade, turns up halfway across the galaxy. Its retrieval launches Molly and Cole on the adventure of a lifetime, one that will have lasting consequences for themselves and billions of others.

What starts off as a simple quest to reconnect with her past, ends up forging a new future. And the forgotten family she hoped to uncover becomes one she never foresaw: a band of alien misfits and runaways – the crew of the starship Parsona.

Ever looked up into the sky at night and imagined yourself flying around the stars off on some other-worldly adventure? Well, this is Molly’s reality. Or will be. Molly is a navy cadet. And don’t be fooled into thinking the Navy is what we understand the Navy to be. Yes they drive ships, but not the standard H.M.A.S. vessels of today’s waters. Molly and her fellow classmates are learning to pilot starships. Sure they are still in training but running a full visual simulator is darn close to the real thing, right down to the G-force experienced.

But in a standard-procedure simulator test, something seems to go wrong. For Molly and her pilot Cole fail and fail miserably. And as much as they try to convince their superiors otherwise, no-one believes them. For Molly and Cole’s simulator was tampered with. Every procedure runs fine, except the ability to arm and fire weapons. Without weapons, they have almost a no-chance at survival. Cole suspects sabotage. With both of them for examination, it will be Molly that the blame is laid at. Particular since Cole was technically ‘killed’ early into the simulator run and it is so much easier to blame the girl.

For Molly, this means expulsion. No more training, and no more hope of becoming a Naval officer. Resigned to a life at a normal high school, everything suddenly seems less for Molly. If loss of her only home, her connection to her past and her best friend that she can’t stop thinking about wasn’t enough, Molly is an outcast in her new school, merely because she is different. That is, until she gets an opportunity of a lifetime. Her father’s ship has been found. And as the legal owner, Molly is the only one who can go and collect it.

And a seemingly straightforward mission is the start of a whole new adventure that even Molly couldn’t begin to fathom…

Molly Fyde and the Parson Rescue is debut novel from Hugh Howey and the first in the Molly Fyde series. The thing that grabbed me from the first page of this novel was the believability in writing and character. The plot just flowed effortlessly, from describing the complexities of hyperspace, simulation flying and other world social structure to the simple dialogue between two best friends struggling to find what they mean to each other. There aren’t many authors who can get you completely lost in a story, but Howey was one of them. For me, I just wanted to know what would happen next, what the next twist in the story would be. As a credit to the author, I never saw the ending that was coming. It makes you easily want to read the next book in the series as soon as you can.

The characters of Molly and Cole were another highlight to the novel. Reading from Molly’s point of view as she struggled through countless personal and emotional challenges left me caring about what happened to her. The history and connection between Molly and Cole as a pair was believable, and the tension that built up added to the story, instead of taking away from it as so many teen-romances can be known to do. That being said, Molly does have her fair share of moments where I just wanted to knock some sense into her and tell her to get over the small dramatics that really seemed unnecessary.

All in all though, a highly engaging read that I would recommend for anyone who is or was a fan of space adventure.

Pages: 258

Publication Date: 2009

Rating::

Teaser quote: By the time they arrived at the Palan system, he must’ve had eighteen hours of uninterrupted rest. No bathroom breaks. No food. No flirting. Molly couldn’t understand how he contained himself. Even from the last.

As if being a purrfect cheerleader isn’t enough responsibility! Tessa Crimson’s the sweet and spunky leader of the SOS (Society of Smitten Kittens), a cheer squad–turned–spy society dedicated to bringing dastardly boyfriends to justice, one cheater at a time. Boyfriend-busting wouldn’t be so bad . . . except that so far, every suspect on the Naughty List has been proven 100% guilty!

When Tessa’s own boyfriend shows up on the List, she turns her sleuthing skills on him. Is Aiden just as naughty as all the rest, or will Tessa’s sneaky ways end in catastrophe?

The Naughty List. Is your boyfriend on it?

Meet the Smitten Kittens. Sounds kind of sexy, huh? Alluring in that mysterious way. If you knew what they were doing, though, sexy wouldn’t even come into it. In fact, the Smitten Kittens are all about busting cheating boyfriends from doing the sexy with people other than their other half. The male adolescent population of Washington High is more than a little naughty, it seems.

The squad – which double as a cheer squad by day – have high tech spy equipment and have a well organized system of spying on the boys at their school. They take requests from girlfriends who suspect their boyfriends are cheating, and investigate till the allegations are either cleared, or confirmed. Unfortunately, they’ve never had the opportunity to clear anyone’s name because every single suspect has been found guilty. Every single one.

Tessa is the only girl left on the squad who actually has a boyfriend. Over time, the others all dumped theirs because they were caught cheating. Then, Tessa’s boyfriend’s name shows up on the list, and with a one hundred percent confirmed cheating rate so far, it isn’t looking good for Tessa and Aiden. But maybe he’s innocent, he seems like a nice guy, after all. Could he be the first boyfriend to ever be cleared of all charges?

Initially, I couldn’t decide exactly how I felt about this book, or for whom exactly the target audience might be. Tessa comes across as a good, wholesome character. She doesn’t curse, and always corrects those around her that do. She uses expressions like strawberry smoothie, for example, instead of actual curse words. She’s an excellent friend to her fellow squad members, a great student, and an all-round shiny, happy girl. At first I thought this was going to be a clean and wholesome novel for younger readers, but then I discovered that Tessa sleeps with her boyfriend and sneaks around in the middle of the night, lying to her parents and Aiden about what she’s doing, and spies on people till dawn. And Tessa is the only one that doesn’t curse; it seems the book is littered with swear words and over active adolescent hormonal activity. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, either, I’m just saying that Tessa’s character confused me.

I found myself trying to decode the messages that came attached to Tessa’s character. By creating a character like Tessa, is Suzanne Young is attempting to send a message that teen sex is okay? After all, Tessa is a really nice girl that is seemingly good in every other way. Does the fact that she’s sexually active make her a bad role model for teen girls? I really couldn’t decide. I’m inclined to say no, but I felt uncomfortable making that judgement alone. What I did like about Tessa is that, especially at the beginning, she is committed to Aiden and although she is well aware of her sexual allure and uses that on Aiden a lot, she doesn’t really flounce it around in front of everyone else. She isn’t promiscuous and she obviously has a lot of self-respect, which I think is important when setting up a potential role model for teens today.

The whole book left me feeling a little uneasy, which I suppose is actually a good thing because I thought about it for hours after I finished it, trying to figure out whether I liked it, how to categorize it, what the underlying messages were. While there was obviously a formula that went into the plot, it seemed there was a lack of formula that went into creating the characters, setting, tone, etc. I found this quite refreshing and I think others will too.

I think this book would be a great jumping point for book clubs and discussion circles that wanted to talk and debate the issue of teen sex and teen relationships.

Pages: 239

Publication Date: Febraury 2010

Rating::

Teaser Quote: Cassandra was less than thrilled to see the glossy eight by tens of Marcus and Red Heels. It nearly broke my heart, especially when I considered her recently departed virginity. All of it left me feeling, well, bummed.

A serial killer on the loose.
A girl with a morbid ability.
And a boy who would never let anything happen to her.

Violet Ambrose can find the dead. Or at least, those who have been murdered. She can sense the echoes they leave behind… and the imprints they leave on their killers. As if that weren’t enough to deal with during her junior year, she also has a sudden, inexplicable, and consuming crush on her best friend since childhood, Jay Heaton.

Now a serial killer has begun terrorizing Violet’s small town… and she realizes she might be the only person who can stop him.

Fill with suspense, a gripping romance, and deadly consequences, The Body Finder is an impressive debut novel that’s impossible to put down.

Violet has known that she was different since she was eight years old. That was when she discovered her first murdered body, although at the time, she had no idea that it was the start of a supernatural ability for finding the dead. It’s the kind of thing that can’t be explained by normal or natural circumstances and Violet knows that she needs to keep this to herself. Her family knows, and so does Jay – her best friend – but she’s managed to keep it from everyone else.

She’s in her junior year now and there is a lot going on. Over the past few months, Jay seemed to transform from regular old Jay into an irresistible chick magnet, and it’s driving Violet bananas. She knows she shouldn’t care so much; he’s just her best friend after all. But the more attention Jay receives from her classmates, the more Violet realizes that she doesn’t think of him that way anymore. It seems that Violet has jumped on the Jay-loving bandwagon, too, and she wants him all for herself. But Violet knows her feelings are irrational and sets about pushing them aside. He’s been her friend for far too long…

Then, as if Fate was mocking her in the cruellest way possible, Violet gets the distraction she’s looking for. Teenage girls (girls that she knows) start going missing. When Violet stumbles across the first body, she knows it was murder. The echo left behind is a direct indication that it was so. Then another turns up, and another. When the police have little luck uncovering even a hint of a clue that points to the killer, Violet realizes she might be the only one capable of actually finding him. It’s dangerous, sure, but she can’t just sit by and do nothing.

Would you?

But Violet is just a girl and her serial killer is a skilled hunter. In the game of cat and mouse, who normally wins…?

Jay is a lovable character and it’s easy to understand why the girls are falling all over him. He’s very protective of Violet, he’s handsome – he’s the ultimate package really. Although I couldn’t pin point one particular characteristic that may cause a bit of a fangirl frenzy among readers, I think his loyalty and how much he cares about Violet is going to win him many points with the ladies. While he may not top the Fave Male Characters Of All Time list, he’s not exactly forgettable, either.

Violet seems like a regular teen with regular teen problems. There are so many strong female characters around in YA Lit at the moment that are so supernaturally charged they can’t possibly resemble regular teens. Although she does possess a supernatural ability, Violet strikes me as pretty normal. She experiences regular teen emotions and she’s dealing with regular teen problems on top of the whole murder mystery thing. Overall, The Body Finder feels much more like a teen mystery than a supernatural story.

I was a little creeped out by the pages that were written in the point-of-view of the murderer. Being inside someone’s head that is obviously as messed up as he is gives me the heebee jeebees. It goes to show that you just can’t trust anyone these days…

This one has romance, murder, suspense, mystery, and a whole lot more. All in all, The Body Finder has a little something for everyone and is bound to be a hit with readers or any age.

Pages: 327

Publication date: 2010

Rating::

Teaser quote: “But he was bigger and stronger and his hands reached up behind her to the back of her head, ignoring her denials and pinning her in place. When his mouth finally landed on hers, the combination of his alcohol soaked breath and his brutish unrestrained actions made her quiver sickly beneath him …… she felt like she was going to puke.”

Special Announcement:

yaReads is participating in Kimberly Derting’s promotional blog tour for The Body Finder. Tune back in on Feburary 11 - that’s two days from now, folks - for more Kimberly Derting goodness!

As part of our Book of the Month promotion for February, and thanks to HarperTeen, we’ve got five copies of Carolyn Mackler’s fantastic new novel, Tangled, on offer for giveaway.

Blurb from Amazon:

Paradise wasn’t supposed to suck.

Not the state of being, but a resort in the Caribbean.

Jena, Dakota, Skye, and Owen are all there for different reasons, but at Paradise their lives become tangled together in ways none of them can predict. Paradise will change them all.

It will change Jena, whose first brush with romance takes her that much closer to having a life, and not just reading about those infinitely cooler and more exciting.

It will change Dakota, who needs the devastating truth about his past to make him realize that he doesn’t have to be a jerk just because people think he’s one.

It will change Skye, a heartbreakingly beautiful actress, who must come to terms with the fact that for once she has to stop playing a role or face the consequences.

And it will change Owen, who has never risked anything before and who will take the leap from his online life to a real one all because of a girl he met at Paradise. . . .

From confused to confident and back again, one thing’s certain: Four months after it all begins, none of them will ever be the same.

All you need to do is leave your details in the comments field below. Competition open to US residents only and closes on February 28, 2010.

The truth changes everything.

Dear Leonardo,

Truth is important in art, don’t you think?

Truth is important full stop.

Matt

It’s Matt Hudson’s fifteenth birthday and all he wants is some art lessons. Instead, he gets a card from his dead mother. How can someone who died ten years ago send you a card?

Simple answer – they can’t.

This awful truth changes Matt’s life forever.

On the morning of your fifteenth birthday you think it would be a happy situation and a reason to celebrate. Not for Matt Hudson. For Matt, it’s the 10^th reminder that his mother isn’t here to wish him a happy birthday, that it’s just him and his father, Dave, who will probably not even remember and will make up for it with pizza for dinner.

Or that’s how Matt thought it would go.

He wasn’t expecting a card. Especially a card from his mother that is supposed to be dead. Suddenly Matt’s world is turned upside down. Was it just his imagination? Someone’s idea of a practical joke? For Matt can find no record of her anywhere. Relatives refuse to talk about her, no records of any kind linked to the name and a search on Google doesn’t even bring up anything with her name. After all, Zara Templeton isn’t exactly a common name.

Except for a bible found in his Dad’s draw with her name on it, Zara has all but disappeared.

Yet as Matt digs deeper, there are records of Zara. Except she calls herself Zora now. There are mentions of her as an artist. Matt even sees one of her paintings and knows for sure that this has to be his mother. For where else would he have got his talent and interest in art except from his mother?

As Matt discovers more, the anger in him builds. Anger at being lied to for 10 years of his life. Anger at events that took his mother out of his life, but above all, anger at his father for pretending like nothing is wrong, that he hasn’t just created one big lie. For what could make a father lie to his son about his mother?

Dave had his reasons. For Zora would abandon Matt as a child – leave him in shopping centers and home alone for days on end. Zora suffers from bipolar. And she refuses to take medication on the basis that it limits her creative ability.

At first Matt doesn’t believe him. And as events get more and more out of control, risking everything and everyone he loves, Matt comes to realise that maybe his father was right. But will Matt understand before he loses the one person who has stuck by him through thick and thin?

Letters to Leonardo is the moving story of how one family comes to terms with the biggest changes in their life and how it affects both them and those around them. Dee White’s debut novel is oddly compelling and real. The voice of Matt is so strong and true that you feel the confusion and the indecision that Matt feels, and his struggle to understand and deal with the events that has unfolded in his life. White provides an inside into a topic that isn’t often spoken about in ways that can be identified with and understood.

Pages: 246

Publication date: 2009

Rating::

Teaser quote: You were little. It was for your own good. I had to protect you…

What happens when your life doesn’t go according to plan?

Ryden Malby had a plan. Step One: Do will in high school, thereby achieving Step Two: Get a college scholarship. Step Three: Limit her beer intake in order to keep said scholarship (which wasn’t always easy). Now that she’s finally graduated, it’s time for Step Four: Move into a gorgeous loft apartment and land her dream job at the city’s best publishing house. So far, Ryden’s been three-for-three, but she’s about to stumble on Step Four…

When Jessica Bard, Ryden’s college nemesis – the prettiest, smartest, most ambitious girl at school – steals her perfect job, Ryden’s forced to move back to her childhood home. Stuck with her eccentric family – a stubborn do-it-yourself dad, an overly thrifty mom, a politically incorrect grandma, a very odd little brother – and a growing stack of rejected job applications, Ryden starts to feel like she’s going nowhere. The only upside is spending time with her best friend, Adam – and running into her hot next-door neighbour, David. But if Ryden’s going to survive life as a post grad, it may be time to come up with a new plan…

Ryden Malby seems to be on the up. College scholarship, best friend that she has known forever, and promising prospects at top publishing firm Happerman and Browning. It’s The Plan after all. Moving away from home and an eccentric family that Ryden wishes she weren’t related too is all Ryden has ever wanted. It’s graduation day, and if she can get through the ceremony without some form of disaster, tomorrow will be the start of her new life.

And to being with, everything seems to be going great. Until Adam, her best friend who is driving her to look at the gorgeous loft apartment and to her interview crashes. From there everything seems to fall apart. Being beat out for the dream job but perfect, valedictorian college classmate Jessica, being denied the keys to the apartment, Ryden is forced back to the last place she ever wants to be – home.

Facing countless months of un-employment when she can’t even keep a job at her own father’s luggage store, Ryden feels that nothing will ever be right again. A small light in that future however is David – her older and hotter next-door neighbour. Scoring her a small job as an assistant on the set of the commercials that he directs, Ryden finally feels like she has some to talk to. That is, until she messes up again, angering Adam to the point that he decides to take the offer of a law course in New York. Completely on the opposite side of the continent to Ryden, and it seems no amount of apologies will get Adam to talk to Ryden.

In a world with plans go off track, Ryden must work out exactly what it is she wants, and what she is willing to give up to get it.

Post Grad by Emily Cassel is adapted from the screenplay of recent movie release of the same name, starring Alexis Bledel. I haven’t seen the movie from which the novel was adapted, but I have it on good authority that it was a fun, easy film to watch. Shame that the same can’t be said from the novel. I found the plot weak and that the characters lacked development over the course of the events. Nothing ever happened for a reason, things just happened. With an entirely predictable ending, there was nothing in this book that really got me caring about what actually happened to Ryden.

The most notable parts of the book were Ryden’s eccentric family. They at least, made it interesting to read – their bizarre and somewhat random acts breaking up the monotony of the rest of the plot.

To me, Post Grad was a concept that had a lot of potential, but was poorly executed in terms of plot and character development.

Pages: 243

Publication date: America 2009, Australia 2010

Rating::

Teaser quote: If you ever truly want to be stared at, try driving down Wilshire Boulevard in your mother’s pink Le Baron with an enormous, half-shattered coffin strapped to the roof.

Paradise wasn’t supposed to suck.

Not the state of being, but a resort in the Caribbean.

Jena, Dakota, Skye, and Owen are all there for different reasons, but at Paradise their lives become tangled together in ways none of them can predict. Paradise will change them all.

It will change Jena, whose first brush with romance takes her that much closer to having a life, and not just reading about those infinitely cooler and more exciting.

It will change Dakota, who needs the devastating truth about his past to make him realize that he doesn’t have to be a jerk just because people think he’s one.

It will change Skye, a heartbreakingly beautiful actress, who must come to terms with the fact that for once she has to stop playing a role or face the consequences.

And it will change Owen, who has never risked anything before and who will take the leap from his online life to a real one all because of a girl he met at Paradise. . . .

From confused to confident and back again, one thing’s certain: Four months after it all begins, none of them will ever be the same.

Jena is one of those girls that talks way too much when she’s nervous. Babble, babble, babble. At least that’s how she sees herself, anyway. When her mom announces that she and Jena are accompanying her friend Luce and her daughter Skye on vacation to the Caribbean, Jena’s nerves hit boiling point. Spend an entire week with Skye, prancing around in a bathing suit? Please god, no! Skye is beautiful, popular, and a successful teen actor. Her life is oh-so-glamorous compared to Jena’s, and Jena can’t help but feel like a spazz in her presence. Who wants to spend an entire vacation stressing about being in someone else’s shadow like that?

Enter Dakota. He’s also on vacation in the Caribbean with his family and he notices Jena. She’s hot (his words, not mine) and she looks just like the distraction he needs right now. Much to Jena’s surprise, they end up hooking up, but that’s because he hasn’t met Skye yet. Dakota can be a real jerk sometimes, and his vacation in the Caribbean proves no exception.

Cue Skye here. She knows it is wrong, but when she sees Dakota with Jena, Skye knows all it will take is for her to bat her eyelids in his direction and he’ll come a wandering. And he does. It’s cruel, yes, but it makes Skye feel good, even if it is only for a moment or two. As if Jena didn’t already feel lousy enough about who she was … did Skye really have to stoop that low?

This is where Owen comes in. Owen is Dakota’s brother. Deemed a wimp by his brother and his father, Owen’s social life is non-existent. He lives for his blog and the anonymity that having an online profile provides. Where Dakota is athletic and built, Owen is asthmatic and a weedy computer geek. Dakota has picked on Owen all his life and let’s just say that Owen – like Jena – has some self – esteem issues of his own.

If you ask me, Skye isn’t really such an awful person. She’s just got issues. She’s got a charmed life – all the money, beauty, and material possessions anyone could ever hope for – but she’s still not happy. And it’s not because she’s a spoiled brat (although she certainly exhibits traits that would attest to that now and then), it’s because she’s depressed. Money and stuff can’t cure depression and I love how Mackler touches on this within Skye’s journey.

Unfortunately, Dakota does not have the same excuse. He’s not mentally ill, he’s just a jerk. In his defense, though, he’s had a bit of a hard life – but that’s no excuse, if you ask me. What we learn from Dakota, though, is that people can change, and that, my friends, is one of the most important lessons in life.

I loved Owen and Jena. To me, they represent forgiveness and second chances. Even though they are both treated badly by Skye and Dakota, when push comes to shove, they are able to forgive, forget, and make amends. The world needs more people like Owen and Jena.

The thing I loved about this book the most of all is that it demonstrates that the world is full of all kinds of people. Different colors, races, sporting abilities and intellectuality, and those differences are just that, differences. We’re all just people inside and we all deserve to be loved and treated with respect, regardless of where we come from, what we do for a living, or what we look like. Although it may be subtle, Mackler drives this message home, with each character coming to realize this in their own special way.

A mix up of male and female narration, Tangled provides examples of a variety of adolescent troubles. With just a splash of romance and a whole lot of angst, Tangled is bound to be a hit with both male and female readers alike. This one is a rare gem in a pool of glass beads.

I’ve been a fan of Carolyn Mackler’s work for a long while now, and Tangled does not disappoint!

Pages: 310

Publication Date: 2010 (available now)

Rating::

Teaser quote: Lube the conversation? This guy was definitely not from Earth.

A friend. A father. A kingdom. Which would you sacrifice?

Meet fifteen-year-old Wynter Moorehawke – Protector Lady, qualified girl apprentice in a man’s trade, former King’s Cat Keeper who returns home after a five-year sojourn in the bleak Northlands. All has changed in her absence.

Wynter is forced to make a terrible choice: stay and bow to the King’s will, or abandon her ailing father and join her friend Razi and the mysterious Christopher Garron in their efforts to restore the fragile kingdom to its former stability.

But this changed kingdom is a dangerous place, where all resistance is brutally suppressed and the trio constantly risk assassination, torture or imprisonment…

At last, something in the YA fantasy genre that doesn’t need vampires or werewolves, magic or the paranormal to make an interesting read. The Poison Throne is debut novel from Irish author Celine Kiernan is one novel that I couldn’t put down.

Born to the commoners class, girl apprentice in the ‘man’s’ trade of carpentry and friend to the sons of the King, Wynter is no ordinary girl. For five years Wynter and her father had been confined to the Northlands, cut off from everything they know. So when they finally are ordered to return to the South, Wynter can’t wait to see her friends again, to live the life that she knows best.

Yet as they travel south, not all is as it seems. And when they arrive at the castle itself things are defiantly not the way they should be. What was once the most prosperous, fair, just and right kingdom seems to be descending into chaos and destruction – King Jonathon at the heart. The once benevolent ruler seems to have completely abandoned the people, no longer listening to their wishes, letting the state run into disarray and himself to be consumed by madness.

So it would seem.

In a court where one wrong step could have you fighting for your life, Wynter must navigate the difficult waters as the only daughter of the Protector Lord. Particularly when that Lord is your father and is deathly ill, so ill that even moving around the castle can become so difficult that he must rely of others to assist him.

Razi, the bastard son and illegitimate heir of the king is desperate to continue his doctor’s training yet is being forced into the position of crown prince. A position that not only does Razi not want, but that the people will not accept him in. Especially when the true heir Alberon is still alive despite Jonathon’s every effort to erase him from history. Alberon who used to be Wynter’s best friend and the beloved son of the King.

Wynter is thrown into the midst of a battle for power. A battle that could see one of her two best friends dead. Or both if she isn’t careful. And only two things are certain. Alberon must be found, or the lives of more than just her best friends and father could be in danger…

The Poison Throne is by far, one of the best young adult fantasy books I have read in a long time. From the beginning, Kiernan has created a world so complete and rich, that it automatically pulls you into the story. Atmospheric and intriguing, The Poison Throne evokes and enchanting and convincing alternate universe. A universe full of love, treachery, jealousy, tenderness, war, wisdom and court life. High fantasy at its best, The Poison Throne is an engaging and dynamic read that left me wanting for more, even after the last page.

Pages: 468

Publication date: Ireland 2008, Australia 2009

Rating::

Teaser quote: Slowly Christopher lowered himself to the ground and lifted his strange knife from his belt. Wynter immediately unsheathed her dagger and crouched, ready to fight or flee…

In keeping with our Book of the Month promotion here for January, featured authors of the new supernatural hit, Beautiful Creatures, Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl, chose a Young Adult book and penned a joint guest review for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!

Rampant by Diana Peterfreund

Description from Goodreads:

Forget everything you ever knew about unicorns . . .

Real unicorns are venomous, man-eating monsters with huge fangs and razor-sharp horns. Fortunately, they’ve been extinct for a hundred and fifty years.

Or not.

Astrid had always scoffed at her eccentric mother’s stories about killer unicorns. But when one of the monsters attacks her boyfriend—thereby ruining any chance of him taking her to the prom—Astrid finds herself headed to Rome to train as a unicorn hunter at the ancient cloisters the hunters have used for centuries.
However, at the cloisters all is not what it seems. Outside, the unicorns wait to attack. And within, Astrid faces other, unexpected threats: from the crumbling, bone-covered walls that vibrate with a terrible power to the hidden agendas of her fellow hunters to—perhaps most dangerously of all—her growing attraction to a handsome art student . . . an attraction that could jeopardize everything.

From Margie:

There is a special shelf in our office – and by that I mean our hearts – for books that Kami and I feel the same way about. We don’t always agree. I tilt towards high fantasy and Kami to the urban supernatural. Because I read as fast as I drink Diet Cokes, I approach bookstores as an all you can eat buffet. Because Kami not only writes books but raises two small children and teaches reading, she’s pickier, more of an a la carte reader.

But, when the stars align, we’ll agree on a book that we trade back and forth, recommend and fight over, and alternately claim to have discovered for ourselves. This year, we felt that way about Rampant, so when YA Reads asked us to do a joint review, it leapt off our Special Collections shelf.

There will be the reader, like myself, who hears the words “Killer Unicorns” and says, “I’m in.” It sounds like a parody, but Peterfreund’s take on the mythical beast is straight and deadly serious. The result is an entirely girl-powered mythology of her own, that builds more into what I would consider an Epic than a Series.

Peterfreund’s Astrid, the virginal killer unicorn slayer, is heir to the empty throne in her unicorn-slaying convent qua dorm – with the most kickass bloodline and the most powerful warrior-jitzu that Rome has seen in years. But she’s heir to more than that. On the YA supernatural shelf, Astrid is the heir to the empty throne that Buffy Summers has left waiting after seven long seasons of absolute dominion. Though many will claim the crown, there is only one Slayer in any generation (If you don’t count The Dushku, because really, who does?) and I’m not sure if it’s Astrid or Diana, but between them, the throne is empty no longer.

I recommend this book (as I do) for every teen - or grown-up teen - girl you know, because as it turns out, we’re all a little Slayer on the inside.

From Kami:

When Margie handed me Rampant and said, “You HAVE to read this book,” I started that night. I can’t speed read like M, but I finished it fast because I literally couldn’t put it down. Rampant was the perfect storm for me – urban fantasy with a totally original premise, a completely developed universe, and, most importantly, a strong female protagonist that embraces her power. The fact is, I’m a writer, but I’m also a teacher, and I believe the books children and teens read shape their identities and influence them profoundly.  I won’t hand one of my teen students a book in which a girl defines herself in terms of a boy. Or worse, is willing to give up who she is for a boy.

I’m tired of reading about girls spending all their time pining for a boy. I want to see her face unicorns the size of elephants and slay them. I want to see her walk away from a guy who hasn’t earned the right to be with her. I want to read about a girl with supernatural powers, who isn’t afraid to use them. Because as a teacher, I watch girls hide their intelligence and skill, their capabilities and talents, all the time. Just so they can be more appealing to a boy.

How do we change this? If you’re Diana Peterfreund, you write a book with a strong female heroine, and you let her slay some pretty badass unicorns. Will this solve the problem, and make every girl feel empowered to be herself and slay her own beasts? No. But it will make SOME girls brave enough to try.

And if a book can do that, it should have a place on every girl’s Special Collections self. Or in her purse, with her wooden stake.

You can keep up with Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl at www.BeautifulCreaturestheBook.com.

Join the BEAUTIFUL CREATURES US fansite at www.CasterGirls.com.

In promotion of her new book, Beautiful, author Cindy Martinusen-Coloma is cruising the Internet on a bit of a blog tour and we thought we’d get on the bandwagon. We posted a review of Beautiful two days ago and now we’re excited to bring you an outstanding interview with Cindy herself. Grab a cup of coffee, find a comfy spot on the couch and enjoy!

**Spoiler Warning**

At the end, are Ellie and Ryan back together? Although that was never explicitly said, it sure seems like they might be…

Well…what do you think? Sometimes in my books, I leave certain things to the readers’ imaginations when the book warrants that kind of ending. This book was about Ellie’s journey of losing her identity and discovering the real essence of who she is and can be. Her sister Megan is on a similar reluctant quest but in a different way. The romantic storylines are definitely part of their journeys, but both girls have a lot of self-discovery and inner explorations to do and their boy relationships only complicate that. It’s as they start finding their way that love opens up as more of a reality.

Ryan was so in love with Ellie, but she didn’t let herself really see more of who he was – the underneath layers. Part of that was because she was hiding a lot herself, and she couldn’t even look at herself very well. It was all about performance. Ellie also wasn’t going beneath the exterior of Ryan – writing him off as just a good-looking jock who was a lot of fun. Ryan is so much more than that.

With Ellie finally discovering many truths, it brings the hope for something to grow romantically. Ryan perhaps? ☺

If Will had said he wanted to date Ellie, do you think she would have given it a go with him?

Ellie and Will’s friendship certainly developed into something more. And in fact, she did go out with him on a number of occasions. But an official date, I think her personal demons would have made her too afraid to be seen in public like that.

To me, it seemed that Ellie didn’t really grieve or even think too much about the fact that Stasia didn’t even live – what was that all about?

That’s an interesting take because I viewed Ellie as not being able to get over Stasia’s death at all. She really struggled with knowing how to cope with it, and so, she often stuffed it away as best she could. But the guilt was always there beneath the surface. I’ve seen during times of trauma, it takes a long time to process and grieve fully because there’s just the moment-by-moment need to survive. Ellie is in that mode after the accident, trying to heal, trying to cope with her new life, haunted by the guilt over being alive, bitter over what’s happened to her, etc. Her grieving of Stasia is mixed up in all of that. From times of grief in my own life and in friends’, I’ve seen how trauma brings about a new state of being compared to what is normal. It takes a long time to sort through that.

I thought it was interesting that, in addition to Ellie’s story, you chose to follow Megan’s as well. What was your motivation for this?

I like paring two opposite characters and weaving their stories together. For these two sisters, they are so different that they really don’t understand each other. When a crisis event occurs, it’s their love and sisterhood that makes them move beyond their differences to start discovering the unique qualities that they couldn’t see before. We all do this – judge someone and put them into categories. I’ve become really close with people that I initially thought were too different from me to become my friends. It’s easy to miss out on really amazing people who bring fresh perspective and a unique viewpoint to our lives because we judge a person like a book by it’s cover.

If you wanted readers to take one thing from Ellie’s story, what would that be?

That our lives don’t have meaning because of what we do (our accomplishments, our style, our careers, our attitudes) but we have and find meaning because we are unique creations, loved by God, with a magnificent ability to love others and to discover who God really is.

Find more information about Cindy and her writing at www.cindycoloma.com

Her friends once thought she was perfect. Now she must face the mirror–and herself–to discover what true beauty is.

Ellie Summerfield has everything a girl could want–she’s beautiful, she’s Senior Class President, has a calendar full of social engagements, volunteer commitments, and church activities. In short, she’s perfect, according to most of the students at West Redding High School. But something is bothering Ellie, like a loose string on a dress she can feel but can’t see. Does she really love her boyfriend, Ryan? Who are her true friends? And is she really happy in her picture-perfect life?

Then in the course of a few minutes, the loose string in Ellie’s life completely unravels. Forever changed, she must face herself as she discovers what it really means to be beautiful.

Ellie is that girl. You know the one I mean: the one with the hot boyfriend; the one with the flawless grades; the one that everyone admires; the one that is most likely to succeed in life. There’s one in every school, and although you’d love to hate her, there just isn’t anything about her to hate.

But then something happens, something bad. Ellie and her friend Stasia are involved in a car accident. Ellie suffers a lot of injuries and winds up in the hospital with severe burns to one side of her body.

Stasia doesn’t even make it out of the car alive.

The doctors assure Ellie, that after a few years and a whole lot of surgery, that she’ll recover and the scarring will almost definitely disappear. But a few years is a long time to walk through life looking like a mutant, and suddenly Ellie decides there is plenty about herself that’s worthy of hating.

In a fit of depression, she cuts herself off from her friends. Every single one of them, including her boyfriend, Ryan. She’s no longer beautiful, so what’s even the point?

Ellie spirals further and further into a pool of depression and self-pity until one day, an old friend from way back in her past, someone that she sees as imperfect and flawed in his own way, walks back into her life.

Will has always had a crush on Ellie, even when they were little kids, and nothing has changed now. Just because her face isn’t the same as it used to be, doesn’t make her any less beautiful, in his eyes. For Will, beauty isn’t something that’s just on the outside. For Will, beauty comes from within.

Will he be able to save Ellie before she hits the bottom of the barrel? You’ll have to read for yourself to find out.

Although Ellie’s horrible self-pity was hard to endure, it was not unrealistic. As a character, I found the way she responded to the events and issues thrown at her to be very believable. I felt sorry for Ryan and her friends when Ellie simply cast them aside, but I never once thought that she was being unfair, or that her character was unrealistic.
Of all the characters within Beautiful, I admired Will and Ryan the most. Although Ellie pushed Ryan away with everything she had, he never stopped loving her, and just like Will, believed that her beauty went far deeper than the scars on her face.

A solid read that I’m sure the girls will love.

Pages: 266

Publication Date: 2009

Rating::

She doesn’t see dead people, but…

She senses when someone near her is about to die. And when that happens, a force beyond her control compels her to scream bloody murder. Literally.

Kaylee just wants to enjoy having caught the attention of the hottest guy in school. But a normal date is hard to come by when Nash seems to know more about her need to scream than she does. And when classmates start dropping dead for no apparent reason, only Kaylee knows who’ll be next…

Kaylee has spent her adolescence riding on the coat tails of her best friend, Emma. Emma is one of those beautiful, cool and popular types, and although Kaylee doesn’t quite make the cut, the fact that she’s Emma’s best friend means that she’s been accepted by most of the cliques around school. But Emma’s the one that gets all the attention, Kaylee’s usually just along for the ride. So when Nash, one of the cutest boys in school, starts paying attention to her, Kaylee can’t believe her luck.

But Kaylee has a secret. She can sense when someone is about to die. It’s all consuming and comes in the form of something resembling a panic attack. When she starts flipping out in front of Nash at a club one night, she thinks her chances with him are shot.

Nash sees something in Kaylee that he’s never seen in many people before. He sees who she is for real and it doesn’t bother him in the slightest. In fact, he actually likes the creepiness that comes along with Kaylee. Nash thinks that together, he and Kaylee could be amazing – in more ways than the obvious.

Kaylee doesn’t understand why she can sense immanent death, and the last time she tried to tell someone about it, she ended up in the loony bin, all drugged up and the center of one kooky psychological study. After she got out of the hospital, she knew that she had to keep her secret to herself. Then girls start dying all around her and Kaylee knows enough about her ability to identify their deaths as anything but coincidence. She’s not so sure she can keep her secret to herself for much longer. There is something about Nash that makes her want to trust him, makes her want to confide in him. When she does, Kaylee almost doesn’t believe what he tells her.

Almost.

Kaylee’s character development throughout the story is solid and believable, and her reactions to Nash’s news about what, and who, she is hits the nail right on the head. Nash is dynamic, and something tells me that he’s going to be paramount to the popularity of this series, but I have a feeling that we are yet to see just how powerful, how strong Kaylee is. I suspect she’s going to grow into one heck of an amazing role model for young readers everywhere.

With the right amount of romance and supernatural action all mashed together, Vincent’s prose is simple and easy to read, making My Soul to Take an easily digested treat.

My Soul to Take is a supernatural feast. I have a feeling that readers, both young and old, are going to love this series.

Pages: 279

Publication Date: 2009

Rating::

Teaser Quote: I froze in the middle of my fuzzy purple rug, horrified by the very thought of standing between a reaper and his intended harvest. “Nash, he was doing us a favor.” But they both ignored me…

My Soul to Save has also been voted by our loyal forum members as our bookclub read for the month of February. We’ll be kicking off discussions from February 1, 2010. Click here to join in the fun.

Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl’s debut novel, Beautiful Creatures, is our Book of the Month during January. The authors took some time our of their busy schedules to answer some questions about their story and their beloved characters. Enjoy.

*Author photo credit: Alex Hoerner

What is it like co-authoring a book? Does this process ever get complicated or confusing at any stage?

Margie: You know, since this is our debut novel, we really don’t know any other way to do it. The most complicated part is definitely juggling our schedules so we can work. The easiest part is the writing. We’ve been friends longer than writing partners, so we can finish each other’s sentences – and that’s how we write, too.

Kami: We can fight like sisters, but it’s always about the mundane – the schedule – how cold our office is – why there is no ice for the Diet Coke. We’ve never disagreed about the story. And this year has been so overwhelming for us in so many ways, I can’t imagine going through it alone.

When you write, do you get together and write, or do you writing individually and then come together and edit?

Margie: We work separately. If we are in the same room, we’re still separated by my enormous earphones. Music vs. no music – we can’t write in the same airspace!

Kami: But we edit together, hashing out huge, color-coded whiteboards that plot all the character arcs, magic developments, and story beats. Our office is in Margie’s house, and it’s like the war room.

Was focalizing the story through Ethan’s POV a conscious decision, or did it just kind of happen?

Margie: We knew Lena was our mystery, and our supernatural. We wanted a strong female character with power, and we wanted to follow Ethan as he found his way into her story.

Kami: We also knew we were doing something less typical in YA, by allowing the reader to experience insecurity, first love, and fear through the eyes of a guy. To see what guys are thinking about girls, for once.We also fell in love with Ethan, the guy we never dated in high school…

As two female authors, was it difficult to write a romance-centered story from a male point of view?

Margie: Not really. We have six brothers between us. Also, there is so much already out there that is written from a teen girl’s perspective, it might have been harder to find our own voice if we hadn’t written from Ethan’s POV.

Kami: Sometimes it’s easier to write from a perspective that is definitely not your own. And Ethan is a great guy. He’s easy to write, because we love him so much.

Did you have prior knowledge/personal interest in magic and witchcraft, or was this something you had to research for Beautiful Creatures?

Margie: Just a lifetime of reading Diana Wynne Jones and high fantasy! I can’t imagine writing a book that didn’t have some sort of magic in it. Ever since I first read Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising series in third grade, I have been living in a fantasy world. And yes, I can still recite the poem from the front of that book.

Kami: We are both huge fantasy readers, so magic and magical lore has always been swimming around in our minds. I don’t consider the magic in BC witchcraft, per say. But I have always been interested in the way religions from Africa and the West Indies influenced Southern culture. I’m so superstitious that I might as well be Amma.

When it comes to naming your characters, what kind of process do you go through?

Margie: We have raided our family genealogy for generations, to begin with… But we also do lots of research on the meaning of the names.

Kami: We used French-Creole names for Lena’s family, and traditional or more obscure Southern names for the folks in Gatlin.

A little birdy told us that Beautiful Creatures has just been optioned by Warner Bros and is set to be made into a film. Can you confirm or deny this?

Margie: Was the little birdy named Variety? ☺

Kami: Yes. We are so thrilled that Warner Brothers optioned the film for a supremely talented writer/director, Richard LaGravenese, and a hugely capable producer, Erwin Stoff.

How much input/control will the two of you have (if any at all)?

Margie: When Richard and Erwin came into the picture, we knew we could trust them. Their track records speak for themselves.

Kami: And we knew Warner Brothers would be the perfect home for Beautiful Creatures. Really, we couldn’t be happier. We’ll stick to writing and leave the rest to them.

What’s in your to-be-read list at the moment?

Margie: I am just finishing a draft of a work in progress, the newest middle grade book by my old friend, Pseudonymous Bosch. He’s the Roald Dahl of my generation, I adore him.

Kami: I am completely in love with the draft of Holly Black’s WHITE CAT, which I’m reading for the second time. Her new Curse Workers series is going to be huge! And I just finished her short story collection, POISON EATERS.

What are your all time fave YA novels?

Margie: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee. In case you couldn’t tell…

Kami: Well, she took my favorite. After TKM, it would be THE OUTSIDERS by S.E. Hinton & FREAK THE MIGHTY by Rodman Philbrick.

Is it true that this series is set to be a five-book series?

Margie: We are just finishing our sequel now.

Kami: It comes out this same time next year. We are really excited about it!

Can you tell us anything about the next instalment?

Margie: Mortal danger. True love. Broken hearts.

Kami: Ethan and Lena are up against unbelievable odds. And there’s sweet tea.

You can keep up with Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl at www.BeautifulCreaturestheBook.com.

Join the BEAUTIFUL CREATURES US fansite at www.CasterGirls.com.

Visit Little, Brown’s Beautiful Creatures website at
www.SomeLovesAreCursed.com.

In case you’ve forgotten, we’ve been featuring Lili St Crow’s Betrayals as our Book of the Month in December. To close off the promo, Lili sat down and penned a review of Sarah Dessen’s Dreamland for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!

Dreamland by Sarah Dessen

The first Sarah Dessen book I ever read was Dreamland, and it is to Dessen I owe my reintroduction to the young adult genre. When I was of the age to be marketed to as a “young adult”, I found most of the offerings insipid to say the least, and downright patronizing at worst. I’m glad to say that the genre seems to have undergone something of a revolution in the last five to seven years, and Dessen holds a special place in my heart as the person who introduced me to a new breed of YA books.

Dreamland is about Caitlin O’Koren, a younger sister whose older sister Cass leaves home without a word on Caitlin’s birthday. The reason for her sister’s flight is beautifully shown but never spelled out: their mother’s almost frantic insistence on living her life through one of her children. Both O’Koren parents are flawed but not overly so, doing the best they can.

Caitlin, after living her entire life in Cass’s shadow, suddenly finds herself the focus of her mother’s ambitions. She’s now a stand-in instead of a postscript, and when she meets the appropriately dangerous-seeming Rogerson Briscoe, she makes the first of many abortive attempts at freedom. Unfortunately, Rogerson is a problem in and of himself. He has serious anger-management issues, a bad home life, and is exactly the wrong boyfriend for a vulnerable, uncertain girl.

Unfortunately, many real-life stories start out this way and end tragically.

When I was young enough to be a target audience for YA, the subject of teen dating violence—like so many other subjects—was taboo. I think what grabbed my attention most in Dreamland was Dessen’s unflinching but gentle look at the realities of such a situation. Rogerson is not a villain, he’s a messed-up kid. Caitlin is spoiled, yes, but she’s also loyal to her friends and trying to shoulder her family’s burden as well as she can. Caitlin’s mother is so devastated by her older daughter’s disappearance that her younger daughter becomes a figurehead to her, and Mr. O’Koren is uncomfortable with anything even relating to “girl talk” and prefers concrete action over emotional messes. All these things conspire to make an abyss Caitlin falls into, one she can’t extract herself from without help. She’s not completely a victim, and Rogerson is not completely evil.

I remember finishing Dreamland for the first time and feeling as if Dessen had reached into some of my most secret memories. The shame Caitlin feels, her need to “protect” Rogerson and cover things up, the pressure of her family’s loss, all these things felt familiar. It felt like someone was speaking the truth, and I do not remember the young adult books of my young adulthood ever giving me that frisson. Instead, I graduated early to the “adult” section of the library and didn’t look back—until Dessen.
Dreamland is not perfect. For one thing, the pacing is uneven and Caitlin’s therapy is not given nearly enough room. For another, all Dessen’s heroines start out (even if they haven’t always been) as upper-middle-class. Money is rarely an issue for the kids in her books, and it seems a shame that a writer of Dessen’s talents hasn’t explored that angle. Rogerson Biscoe screams “trouble” so loud, and Caitlin is such a sleepwalker, that occasionally the adult me wanted to shake both of them—as well as Caitlin’s mother. Still, the very strength of my emotional response tells me that these are well-crafted characters. If they weren’t, I wouldn’t have fallen so hard into the world of the book, nor would I reread it with my heart in my mouth each time.

I’ve read most, if not all, of Dessen’s other young adult books, and been entertained each time. Dreamland, however, remains something special. Every time I read it, it’s like the author—and Caitlin herself—are speaking directly to me. Which is a feeling to treasure, whether one is seventeen or seventy. Dessen opened up the new world of the young adult genre for me, and I’m glad to note that books for younger readers are not the clichéd swill that was the only thing on offer when I was significantly younger than I am now. Each time I see a new Dessen book, I feel a thrill and reach for my bank card.

And that, as a reader, is the highest compliment I can give.

“We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck.”

So says Titus, a teenager whose ability to read, write, and even think for himself has been almost completely obliterated by his “feed,” a transmitter implanted directly into his brain. Feeds are a crucial part of life for Titus and his friends. After all, how else would they know where to party on the moon, how to get bargains at Weatherbee & Crotch, or how to accessorize the mysterious lesions everyone’s been getting? But then Titus meets Violet, a girl who cares about what’s happening to the world and challenges everything Titus and his friends hold dear. A girl who decides to fight the feed.

When I first saw Feed mentioned in Maggie Stiefvater’s ‘Top Twelve Books of 2009’, I knew that I had to read this novel. (For those who don’t know, Maggie is the author of Shiver) What gripped me from the first page of this novel is the sense of grim reality. This isn’t a novel where everything is carefully scripted, it’s honest and raw. Dialogue and thought coming from a place that strikes me as real. Through every thought of Titus I got a sense of being completely in over my head, struggling to find meaning of events taking place. Which, I believe, is exactly the response author M. T. Anderson was looking for.

Feed opens with a group of friends on spring break who have decided to take off to the moon to find entertainment. But the moon isn’t exactly what they expected. They run into Violet, who for all appearances is as average and normal as the rest of them. Except for the fact she was home-schooled and needs to live a little. Yet everything doesn’t run smoothly on the moon. For Titus and his friends become the subjects of a hacker, resulting in their feeds being disconnected, leaving them shut off from the world. Imagine having the internet permanently accessible to you, then suddenly it’s gone. Yet this internet is the basis of everything. Communication, human contact. The world.

All too soon – or not soon enough depending on your point of view – the technicians of FeedTech have fixed the problem and Titus, Violet and their friends can continue on with their normal life as American consumers. However one member of this group doesn’t have it as easy as the rest. Even before the hack, Violet was about defying the feed. About not conforming to society. Testing the boundaries to see how far she can push. And her limit may have just arrived, for her feed hasn’t recovered the same as everyone else’s. Slowly, Violet is losing control of her most basic functions and without the money to fund repairs, Violet and Titus know that she only has a short amount of time to live.

With not enough time to do anything, Violet tries to do everything. Yet underneath it all there is still her belief in fighting the system. Her belief that there is something more out there than the average American. But can she communicate this to Titus in a way he can understand before it’s too late?

I’ve always measure novels in terms of how well I can get lost in the story. Feed is one that had me completely lost in the story. Anderson wove a story that was so compelling and so real. This isn’t a fantasy or alternate universe with different rules. It’s a grim look at a future possible reality. The ‘feeds’ which is the subject matter of a large portion of the novel is a highly advanced internet interface which is installed in your brain – it takes over everything from breathing and moving and completely removes the necessity of reading. It categories and records everything you do, building a profile of you used by American corporations. It is a place that we could very well be heading. A scary and controlling place. And through this, we have Violet who is fighting for a better world, a world where youth don’t live in ignorance of what is happening outside of their suburb, where youth remember the history of the past and what the world used to be like. It is Violet who made this novel all the more real, as she tries to break from society.

This is just one of those novels that needs to be read. At the core, one girls emotional and physical struggle to change the world, seen through the eyes of one that struggles and fails to break free of the constraints of society.

A warning to younger readers, frequent coarse language does occur.

Pages: 300

Publication date: 2004

Rating::

Oaths sworn…loyalties tested…forces collide.

It’s been only months since Eragon first uttered “brisingr”, an ancient-language term for fire. Since then, he’s not only learned to create magic with words – he’s been challenged to his very core. Following the colossal battle against the Empire’s warriors on the Burning Plains, Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, have narrowly escaped with their lives. Still, there is more adventure at hand for the Rider and his dragon, as Eragon finds himself bound by a tangle of promises he may not be able to keep.

When unrest claims the rebels and danger strikes from every corner, Eragon must make choices – choices that will take him across the Empire and beyond, choices that may lead to unimagined sacrifice.

Eragon is the greatest hope to rid the land of tyranny. Can this once simple farm boy unite the rebel forces and defeat the king?

Murtagh is defeated – for now. But not after revealing the information the rocks Eragon to his core and changes everything he knew and thought was right in his life. Struggling with the true identify of his mother and rejecting that of his father, Eragon is trying to find where he truly belongs. After having his entire being affected by the Ageti Blodhren ceremony of the elves, Eragon is starting to feel the binds of the oaths that he has made – oaths to each race and the individual people of Alagaesia.

First, is the oath to his cousin Roran. Roran’s betrothed is being held hostage by the Ra’zac – servants of Galbatorix, they spread fear in their opponents making them a deadly enemy in battle. And for this battle, it is impossible for Eragon and Saphira to be together. For it is in the caves of the Ra’za, caves too small for Saphira to fit through. Eragon and Roran are on their own. And when further complications arise, Eragon is making the first of his decisions that will affect the entire Empire.

Then there is the oath to Elva, the blessed-yet-cursed child that Eragon has promised to help. Yet when it comes to the ancient language, nothing is a simple as it seems. The more Eragon learns, the more he beings to realise how hard it is to remove the cures he placed on Elva. One wrong pronunciation and it could become a lot worse.

Then there is the problem of his un-finished education and the promise to return to Ellesmera to complete this. Yet can Eragon really afford the time to travel across the Empire when the Varden need him now more than ever?

For it is Ellesmera that holds the key to the next stage of the battle against Galbatorix. For Ellesmera holds the only elf with the knowledge on how to forge a Rider’s sword. A sword Eragon is in need of after Za’roc was taken from him by Murtagh on the plains. For only a Rider’s sword can face another of its kind and only a Rider’s sword can withstand the pressure of magic. Yet this seemingly simple process is complicated further by more oaths and promises, some that Eragon himself doesn’t yet know the cost of.

As Eragon, Saphira, Arya and the Varden hurdle closer to the battle that will decide the fate of the world, each side begins to face the costs of what has be promised.

In Brisingr, I feel Paolini has outdone himself. This is by far the best of the series. The characters all come leaps and bounds, with the multiple viewpoints woven simultaneously into a smooth plot that gives you an understanding of each and every race that make up Alagaesia. One of the biggest things I noticed in Brisingr was the development of the characters and the relationship between these characters. You could see just how much each character was standing for and just how much they would lose if they failed.

Personally, I’m a sucker for romance in any for, and the continuing developments between Eragon and Arya had me happy in this novel. There still isn’t a relationship between these two, yet the strength and development of the friendship that Paolini developed between Eragon and Arya was so believable and strong, that it had me smiling at many stages in this novel. Not to mention the ending that had me tear up at one stage, due to the pure and raw emotion in the scene.

Once again, I would recommend Brisingr to any lover of epic adventure fantasy novels, and with one instalment left to go, I will be looking forward to the release date for the last novel in the Inheritance Cycle as much as the next reader.

Pages: 763

Publication Date: 2008

Rating::

Melissa Marr, author of the popular Wicked Lovely series, is spreading a little Christmas cheer on her blogs right now and has posted a couple of chapters from Radiant Shadows, the fourth novel in the Wicked Lovely series.

Click here if you want to take a look.

Radiant Shadows is scheduled for release in 2010.

Note: Some people would rather wait for the book’s release. If you do chose to read the chapters, please refrain from making comments about the plot or characters which may spoil other readers.

We are discussing Radiant Shadows over on our forum, though, and if you decide to read the chapters and want to talk about them somewhere, click here to to join the conversation.

The cover of Holly Black’s new novel, White Cat, now officially has a cover. Take a look:

Pretty spesh, huh? Here’s the blurb as it appears on the back of the cover:

Cassel comes from a family of curse workers—people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they’re all criminals. Many become mobsters and con artists. But not Cassel. He hasn’t got magic, so he’s an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail—he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.

Holly Black has created a gripping tale of mobsters and dark magic where a single touch can bring love—or death–and your dreams might be more real than your memories.

White Cat is scheduled for release on May 4, 2010.