Me on Waiting on Wednesday (117)

Waiting on Wednesday is a bunch of weekly fun hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. :)

Title: The Night Itself
Author: Zoë Marriott
Release Date: July 4, 2013
Publisher: Walker Books

From Goodreads:

A breathtaking new urban fantasy trilogy from the critically acclaimed, award winning author of The Swan Kingdom and Shadows on the Moon.

When fifteen year old Mio Yamato furtively sneaks the katana - an ancestral Japanese sword - out of its hiding place in her parent's attic to help liven up her Christmas party costume, she has no idea of the darkness she is about to unleash on modern day London, or the family secrets that she is going to uncover.

The paralysing paranoia that descends on her before she gets to her friend's party is her first clue. The vivid and terrifying visions that nearly get her killed are a pretty good warning too.

The giant nine-tailed cat demon that comes after the sword and tries to rip her throat out? Overkill.

Seconds away from becoming kitty-food, Mio is saved by Shinobu, a mysterious warrior boy. But it's already too late. Mio has ruptured the veil between the mortal realm and the Underworld, and now the gods and monsters of ancient Japan stalk the streets of London, searching for her and the sword.

With the help of her best friend Jack, a fox spirit named Hikaru - and the devoted protection of the bewitchingly familiar Shinobu - Mio attempts to discover the true nature of the sword and its connection to the Yamato family. Because if she doesn't learn how to control the katana's incredible powers, she's in danger of being overwhelmed by them. And if she can't keep the sword safe from the terrible creatures who want it for their own, she'll lose not only her own life... but the love of a lifetime.

I want this book. It sounds interesting, filled with Japanese culture and London's geography. The cover is stunning, the simple and striking colours and artwork. :)

Me on Unremembered

Title: Unremembered
Author: Jessica Brody
Release Date: March 5, 2013
Publisher: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux (Macmillan imprint)

When a flight goes down over the Pacific Ocean, no one expected to find survivors. Which is why the sixteen-year-old girl they find floating among the wreckage, alive, is making headlines. Even more strange is her lack of injuries and lack of memories boarding the plane. And her lack of memories period. No one knows how she survived, why she wasn't on the manifest, why there's no record of her fingerprints anywhere. Crippled by a world she doesn't know, plagued by abilities she doesn't understand, haunted by a looming threat she can't remember, the girl struggles to piece together her forgotten past and discover who she really is, but every clue beings more questions and she's running out of time. Her only hope might be a strangely alluring boy who claims to know her from before the crash. Who claims they were in love. But can she really trust him? And will he be able to protect her from the people who made her forget?

Unremembered is a complicated search for the truth, a search for memories, a search to discover someone's true identity. Lost, confused, alone, the girl struggles to find out who she really is while wondering if anyone is really telling her the truth. A slightly over-the-top love story veiled by secrets and science, this might interest some but struggled to hold my attention emotionally.

The girl is alone. Her memories are gone. She knows nothing, quite literally nothing, nothing beyond what her brain automatically processes when she looks out in the world (like complex math). The boy who knows her is as much a mystery as she is, only no one seems to know he exists. He knows her, he wants to help her, he cares about her, but she is lost in a sea of emptiness and missing memories.

Memories are curious things. How deep are they settled in our minds? How ingrained can a touch or scent or sight be to keep us from forgetting it? If we lose our memories, are we still the same person? Or do we become different people? When we've forgotten everything, how can we trust anything that's said to us? We have no way of knowing whether it's true or not, or whether those people have our best interests at heart.

An intriguing mix of romance, thriller, and science-fiction that will surely interest some readers. For me, this is one of those books where I can't definitely say whether or not I liked it. The story pulled at me, I wanted to discover the truth behind the girl, behind her amnesia, behind those chasing her, but I felt no emotional connection to the girl herself. Without her memories, she's lacking, almost always confused or frightened or clueless or angry. Of course, this semi-lack of a personality stems from her having no memories as well as the way she was raised. This kind of heroine is hard to like, I spent some time waiting for her to grow a spine and fight back instead of questioning everything and running when her instincts take over.

That being said, I'm sure this will appear to those who enjoy epic love stories that stretch out across time and space, books like Fallen, The Eternal Ones, and My Name is Memory.

(I acquired an advance copy at ALA Midwinter.)

Me on This Week's Book Week (40)

This Week's Book Week is like Stacking the Shelves hosted by Tynga's Reviews only it's a little goofier. ;)

On Monday evening, we had a sort of Vancouver blogger meet-up, even though I just saw Caitlin and Nafiza at ALAMW. But I saw Alita and Jenny, who I hadn't seen in a while so that was nice. :) And we met a couple of girls who work at Raincoast Books, Melissa and Megan. Raincoast is a book distributor, they handle distribution for publishers who don't have a Canadian office or branch, publishers like Macmillan and Tor and Chronicle Books and Sourcebooks. It was so nice to meet them. Unlike the Toronto blogger girls (who are all adorable), we don't have a lot of meet-ups or publisher events to go to, so it was nice to hang out with new book people. And they brought us books. :) Of course, there was a fair amount of us saying, "I picked it up at ALA," when books were unpacked, like with Absent by Katie Williams (witty high school ghost story and Nobody's Secret by Michaela MacColl (15 year old Emily Dickinson mystery), but they brought some other books, too. :)

I'm thinking of having a day during the Canadian YA Lit event where everyone posts their thoughts on the same topic and links back here and everyone shares. Like, there would be a set day where everyone interested, bloggers and authors and everyone who wants to, posts their thoughts on Canadian YA/YA in Canada, and then links to everyone participating would be here and you can read what other people think. Thoughts?

Today I heard rumours that Sarah Rees Brennan might be joining Cassie Clare at her BC stop for the Clockwork Princess tour near the end of March. How interesting. ;)

I had a weird depressive morning on Thursday but then I pulled myself out of it by pre-outlining a book idea and listening to random music. I think I needed to work out some angst and work out an idea I've had for more than a year.

Received:
Marco Impossible by Hannah Moskowitz (I adore Hannah's books. Also, I want more LGBTQ middle grade.)
Things I Can't Forget by Miranda Kenneally
Mortal Fire by Elizabeth Knox

Borrowed from the library:
Forgotten by Cat Patrick (audiobook) (I'm testing out some audiobooks to see if I want to listen to more of them. I have a finished copy so I might read along.)

Me on Dualed

Title: Dualed
Author: Elsie Chapman
Release Date: February 26, 2013
Publisher: Random House

The city of Kersh is a safe haven, but the price is high. Everyone has a genetic Alternate, a twin raised by another family, and citizens must prove their worth by eliminating their twin before they turn twenty. Survival means everything. Fifteen-year-old West has trained as a fighter, preparing for the day when her assignment arrives and she will have one month in order to hunt her and kill her. But then a tragic misstep shakes her confidence. Stricken with grief and guilt, she's no longer sure that she's the best version of herself, the version worthy of a future. If she's to have any chance of surviving, she'll have to stop running not only from her Alt but also from love, even though both could destroy her.

Dualed is dark and dangerous, a high-speed chase to both eliminate the target and to stay alive. Constantly on the run, constantly in danger, constantly close to death, West is forced to think fast and move even faster if she wants to prove herself as the stronger of the pair. A very complex story, we see only one side, only West, but we know there is another story happening nearby, that of her Alt and her own mission to survive.

Like most protagonists, West has her issues. She has her own fighting skills, her own personality defects, her own emotional problems, but she knows she has to put everything aside if she wants to survive. The one variable is her Alt, her genetic twin, herself but not herself. We never her, never learn much of anything about her, but we know she must die so West can live.

West's problem is that everything around her crumbles at the start of the book, leaving her despondent and weary, leaving her wondering if she's really the better of the two. She needs to believe that she is, that she deserves to live, that she will fight her Alt as hard as she can for the right to continue living. If she doesn't, someone else with her face will have a future.

There seems to be a new trend popping up, a trend that circles around sibling bonds, twins, and alternate versions of characters. It's the other side of ourselves, us but not us, that intrigues it. What if there was someone out there who looked exactly like you do but lived a different life? What if, like in this book, you were forced to kill them, forced to prove you were the stronger of the two? How do you prove that? There's no comparison of skill or personality or intelligence, just kill or be killed. Just hope you can shoot faster.

As a whole, the book isn't as dystopian as I was expecting, the ruling group has its secrets but they aren't discussed or exposed. It's more of a futuristic thriller with a complicated over-looking government that makes its citizens choose who lives and who dies. A fast-paced and thrilling debut with hints of romance, I'm very curious as to what the author will bring forth for the sequel.

(I acquired an advance copy at ALA Midwinter.)

Me on Waiting on Wednesday (116)

Waiting on Wednesday is a bunch of weekly fun hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. :)

Title: Thornhill
Author: Kathleen Peacock
Release Date: September 10, 2013
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books (HarperCollins imprint)

From Goodreads:

Mac can’t lose another friend. Even if he doesn’t want to be found.

The ripple effect caused by Mac’s best friend Amy’s murder has driven Mac’s new love, Kyle, to leave Hemlock and disappear from her life forever. But Mac knows that Kyle plans to enroll in a rehabilitation camp, where he can live with other werewolves. She refuses to accept his decision, especially since the camps are rumored to be tortuous. So she sets out in search of Kyle with a barely sober Jason—and Amy’s all-seeing ghost—in tow.

Clues lead Mac to find Kyle in a werewolf den in Colorado—but their reunion is cut short by a Tracker raid. Now Mac and Kyle are trapped inside the electric fences of Thornhill, a camp for young werewolves. As she devises an escape plan, Mac uncovers dangerous secrets buried within the walls of Thornhill—and realizes that the risk to the people she loves is greater than ever before.

I'm a big fan of Kathleen's, not just because she's Canadian or because she loves the stuffing out of my Canadian YA Lit event or because she likes me, it's because with Hemlock she wrote a book that satisfied the part of my reader heart that adores stories about werewolves. Werewolves in the real world. The wait for Thornhill will be long, but at least I have Hemlock to reread. :)