Review of Generation Dead by Daniel Waters

A strange phenomena is happening all across across America. Certain Teenagers are dying... then coming back from the dead. Phoebe is willing to accept this and get to know the 'Zombies' but others, like Pete and Margi, are finding it more difficult. Margi feels the most guilt after ignoring one of her closest friends when she came back.
When Phoebe first meets Tommy, she finds him really intriguing and writes a poem about him, giving it to him on impulse. Can a dead kid and a living girl ever be accepted by society? Adam is in love with Phoebe and he hates seeing her with the 'Dead Kid' and had to deal with Pete's lecherous ways towards Phoebe. And Pete hates the 'Dead Kids' and wants them dead... forever. And he might just achieve that. A thought provoking story that leads to a dramatic and shocking ending in the first book in the Generation Dead series, this book will leave you wanting more...

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This is one of my favourite books this year. I started reading it fully expecting not much at all and was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that this story was really well thought out. The Living Impaired kids are being killed off by various gangs and a mysterious white van that we don't discover about just yet, dying (again) in horrible ways. Legally, too, as there is no law that states that a 'Zombie' has rights. They cannot vote, they can be killed, they can't even have a library card. I'm interested in the Politics of this as the series progresses. I'd like to see if the laws the Zombies want are put in place, because even the Government seem to be against them.
I read somewhere that the characters were 'cardboard' but I believe that this is incorrect. They have personalities, I can connect with the characters, so for me personally they are not cardboard.
Pete, oddly enough is one of the characters I felt the most sorry for. He had a friend, Julie who died and he feels so much hate towards the Zombies because she never came back. He attaches himself to Phoebe because she reminds him of Julie, even accidentally calling her Julie occasionally.
Adam, I admit, is a little cardboard. He's a Jock who's fallen in love with his best friend. He follows her around like a puppy and rather reminds me of Jacob from the Twilight books.
Tommy is an interesting character. The story has three narrators, Phoebe, Adam and Pete but I would have liked to see Tommy's side of the story too. He seems like a nice person and all but I think he's just using Phoebe to make a statement.

5/5

Review of Circle of Three: So Mote It Be by Isobel Bird

In the first book of the series, Kate finds herself wishing that popular jock Scott would like a girl like her. After being assigned a project on the Witch Trials she accadentally lends a book at the library she didn't want, a book of spells. Feeling bored and with nothing to do she decides to try one out for a bit of fun, but the results aren't what she was expecting and she finds herself desperately looking for someone that will help her...

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I enjoyed this book. It was a simple, fun read, nothing too surprising or anything though. Will I get through the other 10+ books (*sneaks in a year later* I didn't.)? I don't know.
The character's were unique and all, but the book felt like it lacked something. Kate, as the narrator was good but she annoyed me. I think the spells should have been a little more life-threatening for me to be more interested, they were bland and not very well thought out... in fact one was ripped straight from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A good read if you like high school novels with a twist just don't expect anything too exciting.

3/5 

Review of Annexed by Sharon Dogar

Written as a companion piece to Anne Frank's diary, this is the story of Peter van Pels, the boy who was in love with her. The story is written as if by Peter, telling of what it was like for him to be cooped up in the Annex with this strange, eccentric girl amongst a lot of other people. Seeing his life from his sick bed in the Nazi death camp of Mauthausen, from just before arriving at the Annex to his death, this is a beautiful and moving storyline.

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At first when I picked up this book I was worried that it wouldn't be as good as it could be. But as this is a touchy subject to write about, I figured the publishers wouldn't publish it if it wasn't good.
I wasn't disappointed. Completely (well almost) historically accurate, I feel like Peter is now a real person, rather than a boy in Anne's diary. The story that Peter tells is completely believeable and drags you right into that cold, suffocating world of the Annex and tells the story of it's residents. If Peter ever had the chance to write a biography, I doubt it would differ much from this.
There are gaps where we're not quite sure what happens in parts of Peter's life, like where he died for instance, so Sharon Dogar had to guess. I think she did it marvelously.
Beautifully told, I'd recommend this to any fans of Anne Frank, in fact I feel it's a must read. Only bad point I can think of is that this will probably used in schools, so a lot of kids might end up hating it! After all, teachers pick stories to bits...

5/5 

Review of Willow by Julia Hoban

Willow's parents died in a car accident in which Willow, with only a learner's licence, was driving. Devastated by grief and finding no-one to turn to, not even her Brother, she finds comfort in her razorblades, which she uses to blot out the pain of seeing her parents die. Leaving all her friends behind to move into her Brother's home, she stops bothering to call them, becoming more and more dependent on her razors. She feels that her Brother blames her for the accident and the fact that her avoids looking at her or speaking about anything that isn't trivial secludes her even more.
Guy meets Willow at the library and finds her intriguing. After discovering her secret he feels both powerless to help her and unable to tear himself away from her. Will he be able to pull her away from the comfort of the razor?

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This is one of the most depressing books I have ever read. But it is uplifting too. The book is written entirely in the present tense, which the Author doesn't seem to have a good grasp of, so a few of the sentences don't quite fit.
Willow doesn't seem to have the same taste in books as most YA yet this seems to be normal. Tristes Topiques anyone? Going by the blank faces I'd guess you've never heard of it either.
The psychological side, in the mind of a self-harmer, is very accurate, to the point where I wonder if the Author has self-harmed in the past. She thinks of everything: all the emotions, the addictions, how to hide it etc.
I'd describe this books as a 'dark, emo, coming of age story'. Although it is rather depressing I did enjoy it quite a lot. I would have loved there to be an epilogue, about a year or so later where Willow's more normal and everyone's happy and singing about rainbows... but that's just my oddness.

4/5

Review of The Betrayal of Maggie Blair by Elizabeth Laird

In seventeenth-century Scotland, saying the wrong thing can lead to banishment - or worse. Accused of being a witch, sixteen-year-old Maggie Blair is sentenced to be hanged. She escapes, but instead of finding shelter with her principled, patriotic uncle, she brings disaster to his door. 
Betrayed by one of her own accusers, Maggie must try to save her uncle and his family from the king’s men, even if she has to risk her own life in the process.

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I loved this book. I like it when a book is historically accurate and quite a few of the characters and places were real and Elizabeth Laird's own ancestors, so there's a unique personal touch in there too. The story is well plotted and suspenseful in all the right places, and sad in all the right places too.
Maggie Blair is a heroine that, when it ends, I was sad to let go. The other characters in the book are equally excellent, even the spiteful Annie, whose fate is really quick shocking.
One strange thing though: there's a scene where Maggie is hiding with some cattle herders who are helping her to get to her Uncle's house. One of them offers her money to cure his earache and she refuses, much to his dissapointment. Later on though when she's half asleep she mutters some words (not realising that she's doing this) that she'd heard her Grandmother use and his earache is miraculously cured the next day. That's the closest you get to true witchcraft. I figured maybe she'd use 'spells' more often after that but no...

5/5

Received free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Review of The Lipstick Laws by Amy Holder

April Bowers is a loser, a reject, a bra-stuffer... so imagine her surprise when the Queen Bee, Britney Taylor, invites her to sit at her table. Soon April is pretty, popular and enjoying every minute of it. When she first meets the new boy, Matthew Brentwood, April quickly develops a huge crush on him, even nick-naming 'Hottie-Body-Brentwood'.

When April is kicked out of the gang for breaking 'The Lipstick Laws' and sees her ex-friend Britney flirting with Hottie-Body-Brentwood she wants revenge. So she forms the Lipstick Lawbreakers to destroy Britney's reputation, with hilarious results...

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I absolutely loved the Lipstick Laws, I stayed up late into the night to read as much as possible of it. It's hilarious! If you've seen Mean Girls, read this. It's much better. The nick-name 'Hottie-Body-Brentwood cracked me up, it was so cheesy! Oh and the cross-dressing scene.... I found myself reading various snippets to my equally amused OH. This book is definitely worth the read for the random scenes of bra stuffing, clothes rack hiding, water disasters and Britney's secret... There wasn't any part of this book that I could give a bad rating to and I'm hoping desperately for a sequel... and a movie!

5/5 

Received free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Review of Trickster's Girl by Hilari Bell

In the year 2098 America isn't so different from the USA of today. But, in a post-9/11 security-obssessed world, "secured" doesn't just refer to borders between countries, it also refer to borders between states. Teenagers still think they know everything, but there is no cure for cancer, as Kelsa knows first-hand from watching her father die.
The night Kelsa buries her father, a boy appears. He claims magic is responsible for the health of Earth, but human damage disrupts its flow. The planet is dying.
Kelsa has the powers to reverse the damage, but first she must accept that magic exists and see beyond her own pain in order to heal the planet.

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 Although this is classed as a Sci-Fi novel I would recommend it lovers of Fantasy/Adventure/Dystopian due to there being more Fantasy elements in the story than Sci-Fi. There is futuristic elements but nothing particularly heavy – unless a futuristic coffee machine is too much for you. It also reads like a fantasy novel.

Kelsa and Raven fight like an old married couple which is quite hilarious. There's plenty of sarcastic comments in here!

I really enjoyed this story, especially the suspenseful moments but... I was disappointed with the ending. I felt it was rather rushed and not the ending I was hoping for. For instance, as you'd expect, Kelsa and Raven were flirting with each other all the way through and I was waiting for them to get their act together and at least kiss. There was barely a cuddle! That was very disappointing, especially as that's what you'd expect from a YA novel.

4/5

Received free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Review of The Amazing Mind Of Alice Makin by Alan Shea

Twelve-year old Alice is growing up in a grey world of old bombsites, in post war London. It's a tough life made harder by her difficult step-dad. Alice's escape is her imagination, which always brightens her day. But when a new boy called Reggie starts school, her mind begins playing tricks on her. She seems oddly drawn to him and whenever they are together the world becomes a more exciting and colourful place. A place where imagination appears to become real: where a bubble-gum machine can suddenly explode into a thousand coloured balls, a handful of fireworks become the greatest show ever, and a row on the lake becomes a terrifying adventure. It seems that together, they can do extraordinary things, but what is their story, and how will it end.

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I loved this book. It's quite a quick read but completely enjoyable. Alice is a funny, quick-witted character with an over-active imagination. She likes to write a lot which gets her into a lot of trouble with her Step-Dad. Personally I would have encouraged it. Alice is the narrator of this book and she talks in short, sharp sentences which is rather cute and helps capture what it's like to be 12 years old.

There is one scene in it where Alice and her friends are at the bonfire and all of a sudden fireworks are going off. I thought that scene must have been amazing to a lot of people as it was just after the war and that much noise and colour wouldn't have been allowed at night in the war.

The story slowly builds towards it's magical ending and never really tells you whether there's true magic or not, it lets you decide for yourself, which is the way it should be.

Personally, I'm with the Indians.

5/5

Review of The Vespertine by Saundra Mitchell

It’s the summer of 1889, and Amelia van den Broek is new to Baltimore and eager to take in all the pleasures the city has to offer. But her gaiety is interrupted by disturbing, dreamlike visions she has only at sunset—visions that offer glimpses of the future. Soon, friends and strangers alike call on Amelia to hear her prophecies. However, a forbidden romance with Nathaniel, an artist, threatens the new life Amelia is building in Baltimore. This enigmatic young man is keeping secrets of his own—still, Amelia finds herself irrepressibly drawn to him.
When one of her darkest visions comes to pass, Amelia’s world is thrown into chaos. And those around her begin to wonder if she’s not the seer of dark portents, but the cause.

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When I first started reading The Vespertine, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. As I haven't read anything else from the Author or heard anything about her, I figured the story would either be brilliant or completely rubbish. I wasn’t disappointed. The story starts off dark and angry, while the Gothic writing draws you in and makes you read more.  The scenes are very vivid and easy to imagine, which draws you into the story even more. The beginning was confusing for me as I wasn't quite sure what was happening but after reading more of the book I re-read the first chapter and everything made much more sense.

My favourite character in the novel is Zora, she’s very smart and daring and Amelia needs a streetwise companion. One description of her particularly amused me: 'Zora spun and tossed herself onto the bed so completely that she'd need help back up... be left to roll back and forth on the duvet like upturned turtle'.

After all of the suspense leading up to what happens to ruin Amelia I found the actual ending a little disappointing. One of those moments where you go ‘Oh... was that it?’ The story finishes off with a nice ending though.

4/5 

Received free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Review of The Rosabella Incident by Pamina Stone

Rich, spoiled Clara Wentworth has always been given everything she wants. She wants Matthew to be her husband, and now they're engaged. She wants Father to make him the Captain of the Rosabella, and that happened, too. Just the way she'd planned.
Maybe it was because everything was so predictable...or maybe, she just didn't want to wait. But what Clara does next will give her more -- much more -- than she'd ever bargained for. It will change her life and shake her soul to the core. If she survives.
 

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The story starts with Clara, the spoilt heroine, deciding to dress as a boy and join her fiancée as he's going away for a while at sea. I found myself wondering why she didn't seem to find it all strange, wearing a boys clothes. 
So, she gets on the ship, and does all the duties she's supposed to... without any complaint. Surely a spoilt, pampered girl like herself would complain about the tough, menial work that sailors do? 
I don't remember any mention of Clara's age all the way through the book. At a guess I'd say between 14-18?
 
Her voice: Apparently she'd changed her voice to sound more like a boy, naturally. She must have had quite a bit of experience impersonating boys voices considering she kept this up even when she was upset.
Nearly half of the way through and after picking the storyline to bits I found that even if the Author could do with more researching, I was enjoying the story immensely. Although it isn't fantastically thought out the storyline is intriguing and kept me reading until the end of the book. It gets quite silly in places but I would buy the sequel, if there was one. However, after writing this book, it seems that the Author vanished off the face of the planet. :(

4/5

Review of Room by Emma Donoghue

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.
Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough...not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

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So, I read quite a lot of comments and reviews stating that Jack, the 5 year old male character in this book, doesn't work, the way he talks doesn't fit that of a five year old. To be fair to Emma, he's not your typical five year old anyway and I found myself falling in love with this strange little character. Jack is quite naive, which is understandable, he's lived in a small room his entire life. 
This book provokes some really interesting questions. What would you do, if at 19 you had been kidnapped and forced to live in a 11x11 room, having to give birth to your kidnappers child and then raise him by yourself? What would your life be like if you were Jack, how is he going to cope with a world that has just become so much bigger than he could ever imagine?

5/5

Review of Blood and Ice by Robert Masello

In this haunting and suspenseful thriller, Robert Masello delivers an adventure that spans continents and centuries—a spellbinding story that ranges from Victorian England to a remote antarctic research station, where an ancient glacier yields a shocking prize it has held captive for nearly two hundred years….
Journalist Michael Wilde—his world recently shattered by tragedy—hopes that a monthlong assignment to the South Pole will give him a new lease on life. Here, in the most inhospitable place on earth, he is simply looking to find solace . . . until, on a routine dive in to the polar sea, he unexpectedly finds something else entirely: a young man and woman, bound with chains and sealed forever in a block of ice. Beside them a chest filled with a strange, and sinister, cargo.

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This book is one of those books where the Author has a brilliant idea and then ruins it by writing a half-assed ending. It starts brilliantly by telling you how Sinclair and Eleanor end up in the ice block, then in the next chapter switches to the present day, with Michael as the main character. The book continues to do the switching each chapter so you learn about Sinclair and Eleanor's life in the past, then Michael's life in the present. Then it slows down three quarters of the way through and finishes with a weak ending.I would have given this book 4 stars but every so often Robert Masello launches into extreme detail about the horrible ways animals kill each other and how humans kill animals. There seems to be no need for it either, it was kind of like he just felt like throwing it in the mix. Then he decides to throw in a leg amputation. Why? Guess he felt like it. I will say this is without anaesthetic so if you have a weak stomach it's probably not advisable to read that part.

3/5

Review of Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder

Yelena, convicted of murdering the son of a powerful general, awaits execution. But with only a few hours
left, she is offered an incredible reprieve -- and agrees to become the new food taster for Commander Ambrose, the military leader of Ixia. Living in a palace and eating only the best meals is a dramatic change for Yelena, who spent the last year locked up in a rat-infested dungeon, eating gruel. But she soon realizes that she has more to worry about than ingesting potentially lethal poisons in the commander's meals. The general whose son she murdered has vowed bloody vengeance, and everyone in the commander's retinue look at Yelena as an untrustworthy criminal. The longer she stays alive, however, the more she begins to understand her own perplexing abilities -- all of which will be put to the test when cunning rebels plot to take control of Ixia.

You know those books that you see for ages and ages and ages and then one day you just go, 'I'm sick of seeing you! I'm going to buy you!' Well this was one of those books for me. I bought it quite cheap and wasn't expecting much from it but I was pleasantly surprised - I loved it!

Yelena is a character that is impossible not to love. She gets herself in some pretty awful situations yet never asks for help, just gets on with it and fights or gets the hell out of there. She can look after herself, basically. Valek is one of those characters that is easy to fall in love with, yet you don't really expect him and Yelena to end up together at first. When they did I felt like cheering, it was perfectly written. All of this story is beautifully written though.The story completely sucked me in and I didn't want to stop reading it. When I did I immediately downloaded the sequel as a Kindle version just so I could read it quicker! I wouldn't recommend this to the younger end of YA readers, probably 16+ as there are scenes on this which are quite adult.

5/5

Review of Camille by Tess Oliver

At a time when society conforms to the strictest rules and most proper etiquette, sixteen-year-old Camille Kennecott and her guardian, Dr. Bennett, live a most unconventional life. They hunt werewolves.When unwitting victim, Nathaniel Strider, wanders into one of their full moon pursuits, Camille and Dr. Bennett believe they have found a specimen for their study. Finding a scientific key to unlocking the mystery of lycanthropy would end their late night excursions. Yet beneath the irresistible exterior, Nathaniel is transforming into a flesh-tearing monster, and as each experiment fails, Camille loses another inch of her soul to him. In a month’s time, she must face the prospect of destroying the boy who has stolen her heart.

After reading this, Tess Oliver pretty much became my favourite Author. Her writing is beautiful and compels you to read more of Camille's story and for once, I even enjoyed the romance! Camille, isn't your typical 19th century heroine, I mean, she fights werewolves for a living! She's not really used to men, just Dr Bennet, so when she meets a strange boy who needs her help and finds herself attracted to him, she is understandably confused. Nathaniel, the boy in question, is a bit of a flirt. Okay, a lot of a flirt. He reminds me of The Artful Dodger in Oliver, only older and wiser. Naturally he's not used to romance either and hasn't had feelings for a girl the way he feels for Camille, so watching them slowly try and figure out their feelings and emotions as they fall in love. When you get to the end of this story, you will be wanting a sequel. I know I was when I first read it and said so in my review. And there's one available soon! I'm really looking forward to it. 

5/5