Me on This Week's Book Week (80)

This Week's Book Week is rather similar to Stacking the Shelves hosted by Tynga's Reviews only with far more rambling and a less witty title. ;)

I won NaNoWriMo, yay! And it wasn't a total struggle this year, yay! ;) Now to get back to it on Monday and actually finish the first draft.

On Tuesday my 300th book review went up. Wow. It doesn't really feel like 300, but then it also doesn't feel like 3 years since my first post went up. I'd love to redo those first few reviews, they're probably terrible now but I thought they were good then.

I'm still compiling titles for the underrated YA of 2013 post. Feel free to leave your suggestions either in the comment box or on Twitter or through e-mail. :)

Reviews going up this week will feature These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner (Tuesday) and The Lost Sun by Tessa Gratton (Friday). :)

Bought/borrowed/received:
Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier (borrowed from the library)
Loki's Wolves by Kelley Armstrong & Melissa Marr (borrowed from the library)
Starry Nights by Daisy Whitney (borrowed from the library)
Saga #16 by Brian K. Vaughn & Fiona Staples

Me on The Madness Underneath

Title: The Madness Underneath
Author: Maureen Johnson
Release Date: February 26, 2013
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile (Penguin imprint)

After her near-fatal run-in with the Jack the Ripper copycat, Rory Deveaux has been living in Bristol under the close watch of her parents. So when her therapist suddenly suggests she return to Wexford, Rory jumps at the chance to get back to her friends. But Rory's brush with the Ripper touched her more than she thought possible: she's become a human terminus, with the power to eliminate ghosts on contact. She soon finds out that the Shades, the city's secret ghost-fighting police, are responsible for her return. The Ripper may be gone, but now there is a string of new inexplicable deaths threatening London. Rory has evidence that the deaths are no coincidence. Something much more sinister is going on, and now she must convince the squad to listen to her before it's too late.

The Madness Underneath is what I've come to expect from Maureen Johnson in a good way. There's mystery, ghosts, murders, high school, teen romance confusion, and teen angst in general, and it all comes together in the best way. This book is back to Rory attempting to juggle all the part of her life, a life that sees London's ghostly past mixed with Rory's own odd and unique way of thinking. After being attacked by a ghost masquerading as Jack the Ripper, will returning to Wexford really be that easy?

Rory is quirky, eccentric, and sometimes just plain weird, but she's also curious and rather compelling. As I read this book I was fascinated with how Rory saw events play out, with her point of view. She's an intriguing kind of heroine for a ghostly murder mystery, seeing the world from a different angle. Sometimes it's like she's looking at it from the side, and it's clear that she'll be the one to decide what she'll do next as opposed to someone else. She's back to her school and her complicated possible thing with Jerome, back to her ghostly adventures with her team of Stephen, Callum, and Boo, and she's back to helping people. I think that's the biggest or at least the most important part of her personality. For all her weird stories and eccentricities, all Rory wants to do is help people with whatever problem they have. It's just unfortunate that it leans more toward the paranormal and death-centric side of things.

But it's not just Rory or Stephen or Jerome or the rest of the characters, it's also the setting that makes this book. The haunting streets and basements of London. The book is set right in the heart of hundreds of years of history, of war and bloodshed. Taking into account all those who've died in London since it was first settled, there are bound to be more than a few ghosts wandering around, and there are bound to be some angry and resentful ones. Will this be the time for Rory to put her new ability into action?

There's a definite mix of Rory's real/school like and her new dangerous ghost life. It's so interesting, watching them twist and twine around each other, how when they finally do intersect one will complicate the other in impossible ways. Rory now has to find a way to balance these two lives of hers, but it doesn't look like it's going to be easy.

This is Rory's return to where it all began, but what's to come? What's next for her? And will she be able to cope? She's part-dealing with the aftermath of old danger and part-walking into some new danger. One of the bigger changes for Rory now is her new ability, the one that goes beyond just seeing ghosts, but is that all there is now? Just ghost searching and stopping the evil ones from hurting innocent people? Or is there something more out there, more that she realized? I knew going in that the ending would be shocking and it was, even if I'd already guessed what it could be, but that doesn't mean I wasn't left yelling at the book once I was done, wondering when the next one will be out.

(I own a finished copy of this book.)

Me on Waiting on Wednesday (155)

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

Title: The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
Author: Leslye Walton
Release Date: March 25, 2014
Publisher: Candlewick Press

From Goodreads:

Magical realism, lyrical prose, and the pain and passion of human love haunt this hypnotic generational saga.

Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender. Ava—in all other ways a normal girl—is born with the wings of a bird. In a quest to understand her peculiar disposition and a growing desire to fit in with her peers, sixteen-year old Ava ventures into the wider world, ill-prepared for what she might discover and naïve to the twisted motives of others. Others like the pious Nathaniel Sorrows, who mistakes Ava for an angel and whose obsession with her grows until the night of the Summer Solstice celebration. That night, the skies open up, rain and feathers fill the air, and Ava’s quest and her family’s saga build to a devastating crescendo. First-time author Leslye Walton has constructed a layered and unforgettable mythology of what it means to be born with hearts that are tragically, exquisitely human.

This sounds like a wonderfully magical book. :)

Me on Pawn

Title: Pawn
Author: Aimée Carter
Release Date: November 29, 2013
Publisher: HarlequinTeen

For Kitty Doe, it seems like an easy choice. She can either spend her life as a III in misery, looked down upon by the higher ranks and forced to leave the people she loves, or she can become a VII and join the most powerful family in the country. If she says yes, Kitty will be Masked - surgically transformed into Lila Hart, the Prime Minister's niece, who died under mysterious circumstances. As a member of the Hart family, she will be famous. She will be adored. And for the first time, she will matter. But there's a catch. There always is. Faced with threats, conspiracies and a life that's not her own, she must decide which path to choose and learn how to become more than a pawn in a twisted game she's only beginning to understand.

Pawn is a glimpse into a certain kind of future, one where an all-powerful family reigns, where secrets and conspiracies are born and die daily, where young people are tested on what their future worth to society will be and how those low scorers will never have the chance to advance. Where people are not always valued or treated like people. Except for one girl. She's been given the chance to be someone important, to actually BE someone, but the price she must pay is a dangerous one. It means being a pawn in someone's scheme, and it means her deciding if she will be that pawn or if she will rise up and speak out.

Kitty has resigned herself to a dismal future, one where she'll be barely taken care of by society because her score was so low. She's a bit street smart but she can't read very well, her learning disability impacts her test score and so she's deemed to be not worth having a semi-privileged life, meaning a warm home, a good job, and one day marrying her boyfriend. Her new life as Lila Hart sounds glamourous, but she knows there's a catch. There's always a catch. Kitty just never expected this kind of catch, never expected a life of secrets, lies, and backstabbing, a life of near-constant power battles and the lengths some will go to in order to win.

The book is set in a dystopian future where the United States thrives because of one family, a family that picked it up from ruin and saved it. It's a society that takes care of all its citizens as long as you give it everything you have, as long as you work as hard as you can. Study, train, push yourself to the limit, and only then will you get the chance to be part of the elite. If you don't give as much, if you give the bare minimum, no one will help you. This society rewards the overachievers and punishes the weak, but the system is flawed. When only one kind of intelligence is tested, when only certain skills are desired, only a certain type of person will move on. And that type isn't always the best type.

Kitty is very much a pawn throughout the book. She never makes her own decisions, except for the first one, the one that starts everything. Once she's Masked, once she becomes Lila, she does what she's told when she's told. She's the Hart family's newest puppet, but she has good reason to be. It's play the role or be killed. It's play the role or her boyfriend will be killed. It's play the role or everyone she's ever cared about will be killed. And so she plays the role, but other plots and plans are still happening around her. She will be pushed to make a choice, the choice to continue the role or to fight back and realize she's not worthless after all.

Considering the large number of dystopian YA novels and series that have been published, I found the premise of this book to be intriguing. I was impressed at what Carter was able to pull off with Kitty. There are some overall similarities to other series, but it's the characters, the world-building, and other little details that set it apart. Every misstep could mean death. Everyone could be part of a secret group trying to change the world. Everyone has a hidden agenda. I'm curious as to what will happen next, which secrets are still to be revealed, and who the next person to use Kitty will be.

(I received an e-galley of this title to review from HarlequinTeen through NetGalley.)

Me on This Week's Book Week (79)

This Week's Book Week is rather similar to Stacking the Shelves hosted by Tynga's Reviews only with far more rambling and a less witty title. ;)

Even more writing! I'm so looking forward to December when I can get back to reading more. I'm not going to stop writing altogether, I'd like to finish a draft for the first time in years, but I'm going to balance it out more. Read one day, write the next, and so on. Not sure how the weekend writing is going to go, I've had a weird headache all Friday and it seems to want to linger.

New Doctor Who today. Yay! :) I'll be wearing my 'The Angels have the Phone Box' shirt while watching the new episode. I find it interesting that they started the show to draw in adults and kids, to make it interesting but also educational, and now it's turned into this huge thing.

Catching Fire came out but it'll be a while before I see it, maybe another week or so. My sister's been working hard in grad school and once her semester ends we'll be seeing it. :) It sounds like it's faithful to the book, so that's good. I don't know how I feel about Mockingjay being two movies, though.

The regular review schedule is back! This week will feature Pawn by Aimée Carter (Tuesday) and The Madness Underneath by Maureen Johnson (Friday). :)

Bought/borrowed/received:
The Inventor's Secret by Andrea Cremer (from Penguin Canada)
Landry Park by Bethany Hagen (from Penguin Canada)
Half Bad by Sally Green (from Penguin Canada) (took me until now there's a face in profile in the red)
Dangerous by Shannon Hale (from Penguin Canada)
Blues for Zoey by Robert Paul Weston (from Penguin Canada) (yay for more Canadian YA)
This Star Won't Go Out by Esther Earl sampler (from Penguin Canada) (I think I'm going to cry if I read this, and it's just a sampler.)
The Story of Owen by E.K. Johnston (from Carolrhoda Lab through NetGalley)