Title: Overpowered
Author: Mark H. Kruger
Book #: Standalone
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publish Date: August 27th 2013
Pages: 432
Format: Hardcover
Date Read: September 21st 2013
Rating: ★★★½ / out of 5
"It's the only way."
"To what?"
"To find out what's really going on in this town."
Summary:
After years of traveling the globe with her mother, never staying in one country for more than a few months, Nica is forced into the once situation she never saw coming: Moving in with her father for the next two years in the small, quiet town of Barrington, Colorado.
But, though the town claims to be the safest in the state, strange things are definitely going on there. When Nica and three of her new friends start experiencing.. changes to their bodies, powers that any normal person should never possess, they begin to uncover the dirty secrets of Bar Tech., the company that "looks over" the town, as well as what they have in mind for the teens.
Review:
This book screams science-nerd: The biohazard symbol on the cover, talk of "green-lights" and exposure to radiation. I really wanted to love this book. Unfortunately, because of the characters, I did not.
__________
Nica has a different voice than those of other YA protagonists I'v read about. Most of them yearn for a life adventure, but are stuck in their small town. For Nica, it's the opposite. She has explored the entire world only to know have to now move to the very quiet, safe little town of Barrington.
I started off liking her, as well as most of the other characters, but as the story progressed I began liking them less. It came to the point where I was no longer interested in any of them personally. They are all just the perfect mixture of pretty and troubled, and your average stereotypical teens. Nothing overly extraordinary about Nica that would make her personality any more tolerable.
I actually lost all respect for her at one point, when she sneaked into Jackson's room and spy on him in the shower, using her power of invisibility.
I knew I should just leave the house immediately, but I couldn't help but sneak a peak at Jackson's naked body. I was an awful person, I know. A peeping Tom. But I was only sixteen and wildly curious. I told myself that I'd just take a quickpeek and then leave. Jackson would never know I was there.
Um, how about no?
If the story wasn't interesting, the characters alone would have made me DNF this book. However, to me, the story was the redeeming point for one reason:
I love radiation.
Just look...
At all..
This glory...
(None of this is what you see in this book, mind you. Cred to Bethesda!)
The story of this book focuses on the biological effects of radiation on these teenagers, who were all exposed to some strange form of it when they were still in the womb and are now being exposed to something similar today. Because of this exposure, they start developing powers. Now, I am taking a Biotechnology class and I am pretty sure that developing powers (no matter how it's done) is impossible after birth. I think that, in order to get any sort of power, it needs to be done with a developing fetus.
Regardless of the credibility, the author provides lots of information, including mention of the the human genome project, supposed effects of the radiation, where the radiation originated from, and such. We also see mention of the CDC and other top secret government agencies, as well as possible government / business conspiracies.
"Our bodies are powered by bioelectric impulses to the brain. The effects of EMR on humans depend both upon the radiation's power and frequency."
"If you must know, I'm conducting a genomic cluster study. Not all the nucleotides within the human genome are parts of our genes. In fact, parts of our DNA don't serve any obvious purpose."
(Hell yeah I do!)
This was what really made me become attached to this book: The story itself, not the characters. I really hope there is a sequel (and there should be because of that ending...) as I cannot wait to see what more we learn about this company, the radiation, and the powers these teens are developing.
Overall, I would really only highly recommend this book to fans of science. I also am not sure if I would recommend this to avid readers, as I know there might be shared complaints about the characters. This is a read where the characters should not be taken seriously, but the story should.
Quotes:
Then she turned to me and proclaimed, "Let's get the hell out of here."
On My Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/600241613
Title: Carrier of the Mark
Author: Leigh Fallon
Book #: 1st of Trilogy
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publish Date: October 4th 2011
Pages: 342
Format: Paperback
Date Read (Throwback) : September 2012
Rating: ★★½ / out of 5
Summary:
Megan has lived in America her whole life, but now is being uprooted and shipped to Ireland. Even with this major change, she feels like things are going smoothly: She makes a friend on the first day and even spots a possible future love interest. Little does she know, the dark mysterious boy she has been going after shares a twisted secret that ties into her own past... and her near future.
Review:
I must say what really drew me into this book was the cover and the blurb. This was before I decided that I am absolutely sick of books where one character feels "inexplicably drawn" to another character. From this point on, I declare myself to stray far away from books like that. And I have a good reason to, too.
__________
This book has an elemental powers theme. I went crazy over that idea. I love when people have powers based on the four elements. Why, one of my top-favorite books of all time is the Akasha series by Terra Harmony.
That was really the only thing I enjoyed about this book, though. I liked seeing Megan, Adam, and his siblings practice with their powers over the elements of fire, earth, water and air. Those scenes where awesome!
But to be honest, I felt like those were the only good parts. All of the other scenes, moments and conversations didn't really stand out and none of what else happened in the book was memorable to the point where I would be thinking about multiple parts of the book in the future.
The worst part of this book: The insta-love. The book had a really bad case of it. The "I-need-to-barf-out-all-this-sappiness" kind. I mean, that one scene where Megan and Adam meet for the first time, and instantly they are wrapped in each others arms confessing their undying love for each other.
Honestly, if you take the romance part out, what you find is a girl struggling to accept her fate and discovering who she really is and the power she holds- Now, that sounds more like it.
Overall, I would recommend this book to.. anyone who has a stomach for insta-love and loves elemental powers!
On My Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/481028708
Title: The Dream Theives
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Book #: 2nd of Series
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Publish Date: September 13th 2013
Pages: 416
Format: Kindle Edition
Date Read : August 31st 2012
Rating: ★★★★★ / out of 5
Note:
I just have to say that the synopsis for this book is more what I was expecting to see with the first book, except that the first book (who's summary hints at romance) has no romance, while this book (who's summary does not hint at any romance) has romance. Do I think that makes sense? No. Do I really care? No. I still love this series, regardless.
Summary:
Now that the ley lines around Cabeswater have been woken, nothing for Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Adam will be the same. Ronan, for one, is falling more and more deeply into his dreams, and his dreams are intruding more and more into waking life. Meanwhile, some very sinister people are looking for some of the same pieces of the Cabeswater puzzle that Gansey is after...
(Synopsis taken from Goodreads)
Review: I received a free copy of this book for review.
Wow. Just wow.
This second installment in The Raven Cycle series is everything I wanted and more: More action. More character development. More secrets uncovered. More lines being drawn and unlikely alliances being made. More Gansey and Ronan and Adam and Noah and Blue and Mara and Calla and Persephone. And, also, some Mr. Gray.
And that last chapter, are you kidding me? No way. How am I supposed to wait a year for the sequel after that?
Here is just a little insight to these wonderful characters:
Blue brought a pitcher of iced tea to the table. "What's that?"
"Jane!" Gansey said joyfully.
Adam said, "It's a wizard in a box."
"It will do your homework," Noah added.
"And it's been dating your girlfriend," Ronan finished.
Blue scowled. "Are you all drunk?"
If you want to know anything else about this book, just read my quotes!
Overall, read this series. That's all I can say.
Quotes:
Sometimes, some rare times, a secret stays undiscovered because it is something too big for the mind to hold. It is too strange, too vast, too terrifying to contemplate.
Theoretically, Blue Sargent was probably going to kill one of these boys.
"Jane!" The shout came from across the hill. It was directed toward Blue, although Jane was not her real name. "Hurry up!"
Cues the song "That's Not My Name" by The Ting Tings
Anyway, if fate thought it could tell her who to fall for, fate had another thing coming.
Adam Parrish, gaunt and fair; Noah Czerny, smudgy and slouching; and Ronan Lynch, ferocious and dark.
"Har."
"They also told me the future," added Gansey, turning to Blue.
"Don't look at me," she said shortly. Her lack of psychic talents was legendary.
"Or helped him tell the future," Gansey went on, which did not particularly make sense, but indicated that he was trying to unirritate her. Blue's short temper and her ability to make other people's psychic talents strong were also legendary.
The Camaro's air-conditioning had only two settings: on and broken.
Gansey's phone chirruped. He read the message before letting it drop next to the gearshift with a strangled cry. Abruptly melancholy, he lolled his head in dismay against the seat. Adam gestured for Ronan to pick up the phone, but Ronan despised phones above almost every other object in the world.
"- Noah doesn't count," Ronan replied.
Noah said, "Hey."
"You're dead. You don't weigh anything!"
Ronan slumped in his seat, all the fight sucked out of him. "You never want to have an fun, old man."
"That's not fun," Gansey said, putting on his turn signal. "That's trouble."
Back then, it had surprised Ronan; he hadn't realized yet that Gansey could persuade even the sun to pause and give him the time.
"Ronan, there's no reason for that," Gansey said sternly, as if Ronan had hurled a toy on the floor.
"No shit, Sherlock. But there it is."
It didn't help that Nino's clientele was mostly Aglionby boys, who often thought rudeness was a louder sort of flirting.
"Bye. Will you be home for dinner? I'm making midlife crisis."
"Oh," Blue said, "I guess I'll have a slice. If you're making it already."
"We don't know," Gansey said, around his straw. "Why is the tea so good here?"
"I spit in it. Let me see this thing."
Blue, feeling oddly warm around the cheeks, told Gansey, "I don't need you to stand up for me. Don't you"- this was directed at Ronan- "think I'll let you talk to me like that. Especially not because you're mad I'm right."
"How sweet, man." Ronan lifted one higher, like spaghetti. "It goes with everything."
He slapped a palm on Ronan's shaved head and rubbed it. Ronan looked ready to bite him.
Only the mountains looked out of place, blue ghosts on every horizon.
Blue Sargent was pretty in a way that was physically painful to him. He was attracted to her like a heart attack.
What do you want, Adam?
To feel awake when my eyes are open.
"You be careful, Adam Parrish. 'Cause one day you might get what you asked for. There might be girls in Henrietta who'll let you talk to them like that, but I'm not one of them."
"Adam thinks he saw an apparition at his place."
Ronan eyed Noah. "I'm seeing an apparition right now."
Noah made a rude gesture, a hilariously unthreatening act coming from him, like a growl from a kitten.
Blue was a fanciful but sensible thing, like a platypus, or one of those sandwiches that had been cut into circles for a fancy tea party.
Maura watched Gansey carefully. Blue suspected this was not because of anything Gansey was saying, but because she was waiting for him to take a drink of whatever horrid potion she had sleeping in that cup in front of him.
"I'm nearly drunk enough to be transcendent," Calla said after a space. She was not the only psychic drinking, but she was the closest one to transcendence.
Gansey, dangling his arm outside, patted the side of the car as if it were a horse. "That'll do, Pig. That'll do."
Ronan told Gansey what he thought of this plan, very precisely, with a lot of compound words that even Adam hadn't heard before.
But in everything Gansey didn't say, in every feeling he didn't paint on his face, he was shouting:
It's gone.
"Jane, how do you feel about doing something slightly illegal and definitely distasteful.?" Gansey asked.
She left the door hanging open as she retreated into the house, calling, "Mom! I'm going with the boys to... do... something!"
"WHAT SORT OF SOMETHING?" This was Maura, from inside the house.
"SOMETHING DISTASTEFUL!" Blue roared back. "What are we doing, by the way?"
"Well," Gansey said slowly, as thunder rumbled once more, "the illegal part is that we're going to Ronan's family's property, which he is not allowed to do."
Ronan flashed his teeth at her. "And the distasteful part is that we're burying a body."
"It looks like another country," Blue said.
It was another country. It was a country for the young, a country where you died before you got old.
On My Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/702194583
Title: The Raven Boys
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Book #: 1st of Series
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Publish Date: September 18th 2012
Pages: 409
Format: Hardcover
Date Read: August 25th 2013
Rating: ★★★★★ / out of 5
And they were loud and triumphant and kings of Henrietta, because they found the ley line and because it was starting, it was starting.
Note:
Before you decide whether or not you want to read this, I strongly believe that the published summary so poorly depicts this book and what it is actually about. From the summary, there is a large focus on "love" and romance when, in fact, no romantic relationship really develops in this first book of the series. There is hand holding, but that is it, and it only happens at the most 3 times and is more for comfort than romantic feelings.
This story is not at all about "Blue finding true love and discovering that it is not impossible to do so" but rather Blue getting caught up in adventures and magic that will change her life forever. She does not fall in love. There is no "l-word" used. The story is so much more than that.
I decided to write my own summary which I feel does the book (and it's story) more justice:
Summary:
In Henrietta, Virginia, Blue lives a very strange life in a house full of psychics- being the only one without an ability except to amplify the abilities of magical things around her. She longs for something more, even though a heavy fate hangs over her head, taunting her: Someone she meets this year will either be her true love, or she will be his killer.
Even more foreboding (and off limits) are the Raven Boys from Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has never wanted anything to do with them and their rich, stuck-up selves. But then Blue's life becomes entwined in the lives of four Raven boys: Gansey, Adam, Ronan and Noah. They are nothing like the Aglionby boys she expected them to be and she soon find herself being included into the groups dynamic and very unlikely friendships ensue.
As Blue joins the boys on their quest for magic, she learns the possibility that there is something very secret and old buried in Henrietta. And Blue, Gansey, Ronan, Adam and Noah are not the only ones looking for it and that someone will stop at nothing to get there first.
Review:
Honestly, I am still having a hard time believing that the author who wrote this amazingly developed story, wrote Shiver.
As I stated in the note I made at the beginning of this review, I was very unhappy with the book's provided synopsis. I have a feeling they wrote it that way in order to appeal more to fans of Shiver. However, after reading the stories, you realize it just doesn't work that way. It is obvious that the plot of Shiver revolves around the romance, right from the start of reading the book. The plot of The Raven Boys, on the other hand, does hint at a romance at the beginning, but quickly develops into something different with no heavy focus on romance whatsoever.
__________
I don't really have much to say about the story other than the fact that it is nothing like I expected it to be after reading Shiver. If this is how Maggie's writing has improved, I will gladly read anything else she writes from now on.
The dynamic between the characters was perfect, and they are truly wonderful to read about. They are each so well developed, individualized and so obviously different from each other that it sometimes makes you wonder how they can get along so well. But that's the magic (no pun intended) of it.
Yes, there is magic, a hunt for Glendower, friendship and a foreshadowing of death, romance and even more action in the next book.
Overall, this book is a real stunner, with great characters and a plot that leaves you reeling. If you were not a fan of Shiver because you thought the romance was cheesy and unrealistic, I would very highly recommend this book.
Quotes:
The way Gansey saw it was this: If you have a special knack for finding things, it meant you owed the world to look.
"Fate," Blue replied, glowering at her mother, "is a very weighty word to throw around before breakfast."
"Everyone else," said Maura, "had breakfast a very long time ago."
Ronan's expression was still incendiary. His code of honor left no room for infidelity, for casual relationships. It wasn't that he didn't condone them; he couldn't understand them.
One day, she would live someplace where she could stand outside her house and see only stars, no streetlights, where she could feel as close as she ever got to sharing her mother's gift. When she looked at the stars, something tugged at her, something that urged her to see more than stars, to make sense of the chaotic firmament, to pull an image from it.
And just like that, Blue was done. She was, as Neeve pointed out, a sensible girl.
"What if I implement a no-pets policy at the apartment?"
"Well, hell, man," Ronan replied, with a savage smile, "you can't just throw out Noah like that."
"Being a shit in Latin isn't the way to get an A," Gansey said.
Ronan's smile was golden. "It was last year."
"Ah," he said, giving the light bulb a jerk. "Can we leave this anonymous?"
Maura said, "Were psychics, not strippers."
Maura whirled toward Blue. "Blue, if you ever see that man again, you just walk the other way."
"No," Calla corrected. "Kick him in the nuts. Then run the other way."
The poor are sad they're poor, Adam had once mused, and turns out the rich are sad they're rich.
And Ronan had said, Hey, I'm rich, and it doesn't bother me.
Success meant nothing to Adam if he hadn't done it for himself.
Gansey and Adam shared some sort of private conversation with their eyes. It was the sort of thing Blue was used to transpiring between her mother and Persephone or Calla, and she hadn't thought anyone else really capable of it. It also make her feel strangely jealous; she wanted something like that, a bond enough to transcend words.
Something inside him felt like the night, hungry and wanting and black.
Ronan was right. Things felt bigger. He may not have found the line, or the heart of the line, but something was happening, something was starting.
Today, Blue thought, is the day I stop listening to the future and start living it instead
"Because I'm not pretty. Not in the way that Aglionby boys seem to like."
"I go to Aglionby," Adam said.
Adam did not seem to go to Aglionby like other boys went to Aglionby.
"I think you're pretty," he said.
"While I was sitting outside with one of my half aunts."
This seemed to satisfy Ronan as well, because he asked, "What's the other half of her?"
"God, Ronan," Adam said. "Enough."
They also ate a lot of cheap food from convenience stores; this was Blue's fault.
Noah had decided immediately that he would do anything for Blue, a fact that would have needled Adam if it had been anyone other than Noah.
"We have to be back in three hours," Ronan said. "I just fed Chainsaw, but she'll need it again."
"This," Gansey replied, "is precisely why I didn't want to have a baby with you."
"You're always cold, though, Noah," she said.
"I know," he replied, bleak.
Adam wasn't certain what came first with Blue- her treating the boys as friends, or them all becoming friends. And it was a sort of strange magic that it felt like she's always been hunting for Glendower with them.
"I'm sorry. I should've told you I was going to do what you didn't want me to do."
Maura said, "That was not as satisfying as I imagined it would be."
"I'm just warning you, watch for the devil. When there's a god, there's always a legion of devils."
Gansey wished that he could be him, because Adam was so very real and true in a way Gansey couldn't ever seem to be. But Gansey's words had somehow become unwitting weapons, and he didn't trust himself to not accidentally discharge them again.
She tried to imagine being Gansey, seeing the warehouse for the first time, deciding it would be a great place to live, but she couldn't picture it. No more than she could imagine looking at the Pig and deciding it was a great car to drive, or Ronan and thinking he was a good friend to have. But somehow, it worked, because she loved the apartment, and Ronan was starting to grow on her, and the car...
Well, the car she could live without.
She asked, "Okay, wait, so why is Ronan at the library?"
"Cramming," Noah said. "For an exam on Monday."
It was the nicest thing Blue had ever heard of Ronan doing.
"Blue. My name's Blue Sargent."
"Blair?"
"Blue."
"Blaize?"
Blue sighed. "Jane."
"Oh, Jane! I thought you were saying Blue for some reason."
Ronan, stilled weighed down with the luggage, headed across the floor toward Noah's room, saying "Ha. Ha. Ha." in time with his footsteps. It was the kind of laughing that came from being the only person laughing.
Being Adam Parish was a complicated thing, a wonder of muscles and organs, synapses and nerves. He was a miracle of moving parts, a study in surviving. The most important thing to Adam Parish, though, had always been free will, the ability to be his own master.
"Well," said Ronan, "I hope he likes it. I've pulled a muscle."
Gansey scoffed, "Doing what? You were standing watch."
"Opening my hood."
On My Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/702120811
