Me on Blue Lily, Lily Blue

Title: Blue Lily, Lily Blue
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Release Date: October 21, 2014
Publisher: Scholastic Press

There is danger in dreaming. But there is even more danger in waking up. Blue Sargent has found things. For the first time in her life, she has friends she can trust, a group to which she can belong. The Raven Boys have taken her in as one of their own. Their problems have become hers, and her problems have become theirs. The trick with found things though, is how easily they can be lost. Friends can betray. Mothers can disappear. Visions can mislead. Certainties can unravel.

Blue Lily, Lily Blue is haunting and powerful, a far more heavy and melancholy book than I had anticipated. A return to Henrietta, Virginia, yes. A return to Blue and her raven boys, to their search for a dead Welsh king hidden along the ley lines, yes. A return to a place where the real world and ghosts and psychics combine and make the world a far stranger place, yes. But not at all what I had expected.

In some ways, in good ways and bad ways and sad ways, this is Blue's story. She's always felt like her raven boys pulled her into their world, their search. But the truth is that all they did was turn on the light hanging over Blue's world when all that was lighting it before was a candle. All they did was show her that there was far more going on right under her nose at 300 Fox Way that she ever would've imagined. Which is so Blue. A girl who sees herself as the white sheep in a family of black sheep. A battery in a house full of psychics.

Everyone, everything, is changing. And not necessarily in a good way. They're all thinking about what the future holds, or what it doesn't. College, family, romance, escape, dead Welsh kings. Life. The only one who doesn't think about change is Noah, already dead. He changes in little ways, in frightening ways, but he's always the same Noah. Blue is no longer the same Blue. The same can be said of Gansey, Adam, and Ronan.

A somber tone trickles and winds its way through the pages of this book. Their mortality is so obvious now. They all seem so fragile, ready to break the second someone tips them over. But things are getting darker, more dangerous. They're getting closer. The Raven Boys is discovery, full of possibilities. The Dream Thieves is adrenaline and mistakes and dreams, it's harsh and explosive. Here, they're staring to think about the future and what it might hold.

This is the step before the last. This is one more step before jumping off a cliff. They're getting close, so close I can feel it skitter up and down my spine. What's to come, what will come and what won't, both frightens and excited me. I will never want my hours, my days, my weeks and months and years, in this world to come to an end.

(I purchased a copy of this book.)

Me on Idols

Title: Idols
Author: Margaret Stohl
Release Date: July 8, 2014
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (Hachette Book Group imprint)

The Icons came from the sky. They belong to an inhuman enemy. They ended our civilization, and they can kill us. Most of us. Dol, Ro, Tima, and Lucas are the four Icon Children, the only humans immune to the Icon's power to stop a human heart. Now that Los Angeles has been saved, things are more complicated, and not just because Dol has to choose between Lucas and Ro, the two great loves of her life. As she flees to a resistance outpost hidden beneath a mountain, Dol makes contact with a fifth Icon Child, if only through her visions. When Dol and the others escape to Southeast Asia in search of this missing child, Dol's dreams, feelings and fears collide in an epic showdown that will change more than just four lives, and stop one heart forever.

Idols is a continuing mission for the Icon Children, as they now know themselves to be, an ongoing search. A search for answers, a search for weaknesses, a search for a way to save the human race from the Idols and their insidious control. A search to save humanity.

Dol's life is filled with running and hiding, with searching and discovering. She and the others, Ro, Tima, and Lucas, are trying to find out as much as they can about the Idols so they can stop them like they did in Los Angeles. So they can take back Earth. But it certainly wears on her. The mission of theirs sounds bleak, hopeless. They are constantly hunted by the Sympas and the Idols, who will stop at nothing to continue their plans for the planet. But Dol won't stop. She can't.

Dol is certainly pulled in different directions in this book. First to the mountain, then across the Pacific Ocean to Asia, then into the jungle. Between Ro and Lucas. She has her moments of being active, of making decisions, but perhaps it's her personality that made me think everyone else was just a bit more interesting. She can be passive, which isn't always a bad thing, but she does get yanked around by Fortis quite a bit, they all do, and it would be nice to see her tell him off and take complete control.

I found the in-between chapters rather interesting. I could picture a child poking a hornet's nest with a stick, once a day, every day, for years, poking at it and poking at it, until one day it explodes in a cloud of furious insects flying straight at his face.

Emotions are important to this book. What do they mean to humanity. What do they mean to humans when confronted with alien life forms with no faces, aliens with an agenda of colonization and extermination of the planet's native life forms? They mean everything. They are what separate us from them, what drive us to rebel, to fight back, to resist until our dying breaths. No human being wants to die a slave, wants to die under the oppressive thumb of a faceless dictator. Sorrow, rage, fear, love. They are what push us to the brink in order to guarantee our survival.

It's a curious kind of second book in what I assume is a trilogy. There's so much travel, so much searching. And the truth behind their existence is so much more than what Dol and the others ever thought possible. The book ends with the biggest shock, and I'm so interested to find out what will happen next.

(I received an advance copy of this title to review from Hachette Book Group Canada.)

Me on Don't Even Think About It

Title: Don't Even Think About It
Author: Sarah Mlynowski
Release Date: March 11, 2014
Publisher: Random House Children's Books

We weren't always like this. We used to be average New York City high school sophomores. Until our homeroom went for flu shots. We were prepared for some side effects. Maybe a headache. Maybe a sore arm. We definitely didn't expect to get telepathic powers. But suddenly we could hear what everyone was thinking. Our friends. Our parents. Our crushes. Now we all know that Tess is in love with her best friend, Teddy. That Mackenzie cheated on Cooper. That, um, Nurse Carmichael used to be a stripper. Since we've kept our freakish skill a secret, we can sit next to the class brainiac and ace our tests. We can dump our boyfriends right before they dump us. We know what our friends really think of our jeans, our breath, our new bangs. We always know what's coming. Some of us will thrive. Some of us will crack. None of us will ever be the same. So stop obsessing about your ex. We're always listening.

Don't Even Think About It is a quirky, funny, interesting look at possible downside to flu shots. What if after the shot you could read minds? Cool, right? But what if the other twenty people in your homeroom could also read minds? What if it then became impossible to keep secrets from them? What would you do?

The story is told by "we," by all of them, an ensemble cast from Homeroom 10B with a few stand out voices. Olivia. Mackenzie. Cooper. Tess. Pi. Because of the multiple characters, the book becomes multiple glimpses into their lives as their new-found ESP ruins their lives. They get caught up in secrets and truths, hearing what they don't want to hear from friends and family members. It was an interesting way to tell the story. Complicated and busy, but interesting. Everyone's voice was heard. Everyone has moments, quips, quirks, snide comments, and harsh realizations.

Secrets are a curious thing, and often painful when revealed. To the person who isn't supposed to find out. To the people around you who aren't part of the situation. When you're the one keeping it. When you discover those close to you are keeping it from you. Secrets can suck, they can stab deep into the heart of us, and they will always be revealed.

The idea of this book is what initially drew me in: flu shots giving a class of teens psychic abilities. Why not? I thought it was a great idea, very inventive. I was a little surprised at the collective narrator but not put off. I found this book to be very funny, very entertaining, and rather believable in terms of everyone's reaction and subsequent actions. This was my first time reading a book by Sarah Mlynowski, and if they're going to be this fresh and amusing, it won't be my last.

(I received an e-galley of this title from Random House through NetGalley.)

Me on Waiting on Wednesday (137)

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

Title: Bang
Author: Lisa McMann
Release date: October 8, 2013
Publisher: Simon Pulse (Simon & Schuster imprint)

From Goodreads:

Jules should be happy. She saved a lot of people’s lives and she’s finally with Sawyer, pretty much the guy of her dreams. But the nightmare’s not over, because she somehow managed to pass the psycho vision stuff to Sawyer. Excellent.

Feeling responsible for what he’s going through and knowing that people’s lives are at stake, Jules is determined to help him figure it all out. But Sawyer’s vision is so awful he can barely describe it, much less make sense of it. All he can tell her is there’s a gun, and eleven ear-splitting shots. Bang.

Jules and Sawyer have to work out the details fast, because the visions are getting worse and that means only one thing: time is running out. But every clue they see takes them down the wrong path. If they can’t prevent the vision from happening, lives will be lost. And they may be among the casualties…

I rather enjoyed the first book in the series, the author has this sparse sort of way of writing. Only gives the reader what's absolutely necessary, no extra fluff. And the covers are simple and striking. :)

Me on Waiting on Wednesday (119)

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

Title: The Lost Sun
Author: Tessa Gratton
Release Date: June 25, 2013
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers

From Goodreads:

Fans of Neil Gaiman's American Gods and Holly Black's The Curse Workers will embrace this richly drawn, Norse-mythology-infused alternate world: the United States of Asgard. Seventeen-year-old Soren Bearskin is trying to escape the past. His father, a famed warrior, lost himself to the battle-frenzy and killed thirteen innocent people. Soren cannot deny that berserking is in his blood—the fevers, insomnia, and occasional feelings of uncontrollable rage haunt him. So he tries to remain calm and detached from everyone at Sanctus Sigurd's Academy. But that's hard to do when a popular, beautiful girl like Astrid Glyn tells Soren she dreams of him. That's not all Astrid dreams of—the daughter of a renowned prophetess, Astrid is coming into her own inherited abilities.

When Baldur, son of Odin and one of the most popular gods in the country, goes missing, Astrid sees where he is and convinces Soren to join her on a road trip that will take them to find not only a lost god, but also who they are beyond the legacy of their parents and everything they've been told they have to be.

I adore Tessa's books, I love how she tells stories. That's what her books are, gorgeously crafted stories. And I know I'm going to love this next book of hers. Norse mythology and gods walking around like celebrities, a tweaked USA setting, a teenage guy battling bloodlust, a teenage girl dreaming of the future and people she doesn't know. I want to read this so much. I want more books like this, more books that don't fall back on the Greek mythology standard that I'm starting to get tired of. :)

Me on The Raven Boys

Title: The Raven Boys
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Release Date: September 18, 2012
Publisher: Scholastic Press

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. She never sees them herself, not until this year when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her. His name is Gansey, and Blue discovers he's one of the rich students at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from the Raven Boys, she knows that coming across them can only mean trouble, but she's drawn to Gansey in a way she can't entirely explain. He's on a quest that includes three other Raven Boys, intelligent Adam, fierce Ronan, and watchful Noah. Now, for as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought it would be a problem. But now, as she gets caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys and the dangerous journey Gansey pulled them into, she's not so sure anymore.

The Raven Boys is ghostly and eerie, steeped in psychics and ley lines, filled with whispers of a time past and forgotten and visions of a time still to come. It was what I've come to expect from a novel written by Maggie Stiefvater, a novel with a wary and mysterious girl at odds with a compelling, eye-catching, and equally mysterious boy, but I was unprepared for the journey and could only follow the path set out before me on the page.

The inevitability of death and the nature of love. We are all meant to die, that much is clear, but are we meant to love, meant to have it in our lives? Where does love come from? Why is it there? What happens when we don't want it, when we know the consequences it will bring? Do we stand strong, let it pass, or are we brave enough to give in knowing it's not meant to last? I imagine these will be questions I'll be asking throughout the series.

Stiefvater never makes it easy for her characters, and Blue certainly has it rough, being told constantly as she grew up that if she ever kissed her true love he would die. Then she sees a non-spirit on St. Mark's Eve, which means he's her true love or she killed him. She's already spent her life, her precious teenage years that should be full of crushes and boys and kisses, avoiding boys as much as possible. And she knows to steer clear of the rich and privileged students of Aglionby, the Raven Boys of Henrietta, Virginia. But she can't help getting caught up in them and part of their world when she meets Gansey. Her non-spirit from the church on St. Mark's eve.

Gansey is all about the things all over the world that can't be seen, and how those things that do exists that aren't seen by all are meant to be found. So he searches for the ley lines in hopes of discovering their secrets, researches ancient kings and long forgotten stories and legends and promises. He's working to prove himself worthy to the secrets and the mysteries to learn what's kept hidden.

At first, with what the reader knows of Blue's fate regarding romantic entanglements, more romance is expected between her and Gansey, and while sparks do fly between them, the story shifts towards its core, a darkly dangerous and mysterious tale of ley lines, ancient kings, and the quest to find what he's been looking for.

The other three Raven Boys have their own challenges and issues, it's not just Gansey that Blue has to deal with. There's Adam with his sadness and almost frailty, his intelligence and not wanting things to change if they're going to hurt, his desire to find his own place in the world that won't be tucked back into Gansey's shadow. There's Ronan with his wild eyes, his wild fists, his own secrets about his father's death and himself and a particular raven, his strength and his scaldingly hot temper. There's Noah with a smaller role but no less important than the others, his quiet ways and quiet steps, his icy cold hands, his eyes always watching what's happening.

On the other side of the book, away from the characters and their complications and motives, is the dark mystery at the heart of the story, the one that's born from ley lines and spirits and psychics, the world we can't see, the world of energy where ancient kings live on, the world that contains things that are beyond the comprehension of most. It's elusive like mist, like a memory just out of reach, this spirit world lost in history that Blue and her Raven Boys, because no matter how much she knows to avoid them they are her boys, are trying to discover.

The story turns Stiefvater's prose lyrical, makes the novel as a whole even more magical and so visual. There's so much packed in, but it all just makes the novel a story rich in details that, odds are, will be important in the future, certain character habits and items and places that will come into play in the rest of the series.

Written in third person, the book moves around, circling the characters on their journeys, from Blue to Gansey to Adam to others. It's all pieces of a story, the pieces we're meant to read not, the moments we're meant to see, Blue and her aunt in the churchyard in the middle of the night, Gansey on the side of the road next to his car as Ronan and Adam drive up. In the future, in the books to come, there will be different moments and different secrets, and the readers will get to see more of what happens along the ley lines. But will everything, and I mean everything, be revealed and solved and discovered at the end of the series? That's up to the author.

A book has power over a reader, even more so when the reader, after turning the last page and reaching the end, wants to dive right back into the world they just left, and that's what happened to me and The Raven Boys. I felt bereft once I turned the final page, felt lost and hollow, and it took nothing for me to turn back to the first page and start over again. I adore this world, this darkly magical world, this world along an unseen path where seasons change in an instant, where the trees talk to you, where the raven cries out, where a dead king waits far from the place of his birth. It's unfortunate that I can't live in this world, but I will relish every moment I can spent between the pages with Blue and her Raven Boys as my guides.

(I borrowed an advance copy of this book from a friend.)