The Summoning and The Awakening

Disclaimer: I get all my books from the library.  

Today I am reviewing another series, but this time I read the first book before the second book. This series is The Summoning and The Awakening, by Kelly Armstrong.

Book 1, The Summoning, introduces us to Chloe Saunders, a girl who quite suddenly begins to see ghosts. Of course she can't tell this to anyone because she's not exactly sure it's really happening. But when she attacks a teacher at school (not on purpose--she's trying to escape from a ghost), she's placed in a group home for troubled youth. The plan is to rehabilitate her and return her to society.

Or so she thinks. Turns out, the other kids in the group home have secret abilities too. Chloe realizes that not only is she really seeing ghosts, but she has the power to raise spirits back into their bodies. Along with this understanding comes the realization that she and the other teenagers are in deadly peril. Either they banish their powers, or they die.

This book is a real page turner. It had me riveted right to the end. And so I was thrilled when I was able to get book 2 from the library.

I give this book an A.

Book 2, The Awakening, follows Chloe and her friends as they make a run from the group home and those who are attempting to manipulate their powers. Kind of an in between book, it helps cement the characters' relationships and foreshadow the big reckoning that is likely to happen in book 3.

This book was just as dramatic and engaging as the first book. I am looking forward to the third, and this is a great addition to any collection.

I give this book an A.

A = Buy this book NOW
B = Buy this when you can
C = Check it out from the library
D = Don't bother reading it
F = Burn it

Betraying Season by Marissa Doyle

Disclaimer: I get all my books from the library.   

Today's book is Betraying Season by Marissa Doyle.

This book is also a sequel, though I didn't know that when I checked it out. (I should pay more attention.) The first book is Bewitching Season, which I have not read. The sequel stood quite well on its own, giving me enough details to understand what had happened in the first one, but also leaving enough out to make me want to read the first one.

Set in the mid 1800s in Ireland, Betraying Season is full of historical references and interesting facts about courtship and propriety of the time. But it is also much more than that. It's about a young girl named Pen who is studying magic in the hopes of becoming a powerful (but good) witch. In the mean time, she meets a young man and falls madly in love with him--only to discover that his mother set them up so she could use Pen's power.

This book is extremely well written. It did include alternating POVs between Pen and Lover boy, and I think the book would have been more suspenseful if we hadn't had that inside look. There was one half of a chapter where I though our heroine acted incredibly stupidly, and I rolled my eyes and skipped several pages. But maybe that was just me. Overall, the book was romantic, suspenseful, and real. This is a good one for a teenage girl's shelf. Keep in mind that I haven't read the first one, but I assume it is just as good.

I give this book an A-.

A = Buy this book NOW
B = Buy this when you can
C = Check it out from the library
D = Don't bother reading it
F = Burn it

Fate by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Disclaimer: I get all my books from the library.  

Today's book is Fate, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes.

This book is a sequel, but I didn't know it at the time I checked it out. I decided to read it anyway, and I'm glad I did. I enjoyed it. The first book is called Tattoo, but Fate pretty much told me everything that happened in Tattoo, and thus I don't feel a need to read it. (That's the problem with reading the sequel first, I guess.)

As far as YA literature goes, it was refreshing and real. I could relate to the main character Bailey so much, everything from her skipping a shower to making fun of her small chest. Ha! Of course there was the element of magic and paranormalcy, which is all the rage right now and I'm on the bandwagon.

Without giving too much away, Bailey and her friends received magic powers a few years earlier when they put on washable tattoos. Bailey's powers have grown stronger, and now she is one of the Greek gods; one of the Fates, to be specific. Only the gods are having a problem with her being mortal and doing an immortal's job. In this book, they do everything short of kidnapping her to make her join them in immortality.

There is no swearing and no sex. What a shock! There is a sweet love interest. I thought the book wrapped up kind of fast, but it held my interest and I thought it very appropriate for a teenage girl. I enjoyed access to Bailey's inner thoughts, though sometimes I thought the author let them take over. Keep in mind that I haven't read Tattoo, but if you're still looking for Christmas presents, these books could be them. (As far as I know, there is not a third.)

I'm giving this book a B.

A = Buy this book NOW
B = Buy this when you can
C = Check it out from the library
D = Don't bother reading it
F = Burn it 

Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank

Disclaimer: I get all my books from the library. 

Today's book is Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank.

By no means a new book, this is practically a classic. It came out in 1959, though I hadn't heard of it until someone recommended it to me a few weeks ago.

Granted, writing styles were different back then, and this one followed the normal style: The first few chapters were riddled with way too much back story for ever paragraph of dialogue. But finally the action started and the back story ended and the book was MOVING.

Quick plot summary: It's a 'what-if' sort of story. What if the Soviet Union had bombed us and we'd gone into a full out nuclear war? That's what happens. Most of the United States population is wiped out. The book is factually fascinating as it shows the break down of society, then how the survivors build it back up again.

Today we have lots of post-apocolyptal books out: Hunger Games, Maze Runner, Uglies, etc. So this book gave a great look into how exactly the world might come to an end.

If you're big into owning all the classics out there, you'll want to buy this book. I'm not, so I'm giving it a C.

A = Buy this book NOW
B = Buy this when you can
C = Check it out from the library
D = Don't bother reading it
F = Burn it 

Miracle Wimp by Erik P Kraft

Disclaimer: I get all my books from the library.

Today's book is Miracle Wimp by Erik P. Kraft.

Take a look at that cover. If you are thinking that this book looks perfect for a 13-year-old boy, you are right. I glanced through it, thought, "Cute," and stuck it in my bathroom.

And that was the perfect place for this book.

This book is hilarious. I did not anticipate liking it as much as I did. Each chapter is about a page long, and full of funny teenage thoughts. They're not vulgar, hateful, rude, or anything like that. Actually, the kid is thoughtful and funny. Very funny. The drawings cracked me up too.

There's not like a central plot, but it goes through this kid's school year, his junior year of high school, I believe. I thought this book would not appeal to me. I was wrong.

If you have a teenage boy who doesn't like to read, this book is perfect. And you can steal it when it's bathroom time, too.

I'm giving this book an A.

A = Buy this book NOW
B = Buy this when you can
C = Check it out from the library
D = Don't bother reading it
F = Burn it 

Evermore and Blue Moon by Alyson Noel

Disclaimer: I get all my books from the library.

I love that I get to say exactly what I think.

Today I'm reviewing Evermore and Blue Moon, by Alyson Noel. I will review them individually but in the same post, so you can decide if it's worth reading Evermore.

First off, I enjoyed Evermore. The main character, Ever, is psychic. She can see auras. That's cool. Damen, the new kid in school, falls hard for her, even while everyone else is in love with him.

But Ever is dealing with her own problems, mainly being that her whole family died in a car accident a year ago. Emotionally, she's not stable.

Then it turns out that Damen has powers of his own. And he has a very jealous ex-wife who is out to get Ever.

I liked that Ever was a virgin. I didn't like that a central point of the book was about when she would finally lose the label.

I didn't like the weird names. What's up with that? The last book I read by Noel had names like Zoe, Echo. This one has Ever, Stacia, Hazel. Yeah, I know some people put weird names on their kids. But not everyone. And not sixteen years ago.

Ever did not seem like a girl in love to me. That was hard to get into. It's like she just kind of went with it.

And finally, the immortals seem too much like Meyers' vampires for my taste. Drive fast cars, don't eat, move very quickly. But at least the skin doesn't sparkle.

On it's own, I would give this book a B.

But here's the problem. You can't consider it on it's own, because it's a series. A trilogy, I believe. And Blue Moon totally let me down.

The action was fine. Drama was excellent. Blue Moon was as much a page turner as Evermore. I could almost ignore that the whole premise to this book was that Ever and Damen have finally decided to have sex. You know, because the world revolves around it.

But the characters were completely unbelievable. Damen, Ever's powerful love, loses his powers because someone (Ramon) takes away his 'immortal juice.' Without it, he goes back to being a normal person.

Well, his normal person was completely despicable, mean, hateful, horny, and terrible. Which begs the question. Which one is the real Damen? Is the immortal juice happy juice? Why am I interested in him as a character if his personality isn't real?

Even that I could buy into. But I couldn't buy into the ending. Ever chooses not to be with him. Again. (She did the same thing at the end of book one.) Which again leads me to feel she doesn't really love him. I know she had a hard choice in front of her, but I also know what it is to really love someone, especially someone you plan on spending forever with. You don't look back.

Anyway. The bigger issue was that, with Damen's life on the line, Ramon, the same guy who Ever knows is evil, offers save his life. A girl who has never betrayed Ever, always helped her, never lied, tells Ever not to do it. (This girl has magical powers too. Ever's seen her use them.) Ever doesn't listen to her. She listens to Ramon, the evil guy who's been taking Damen's happy juice. And of course, there are dire consequences, which leads to the third book.

Except I won't be reading it. Ever's an idiot. I don't really care anymore what happens to her. Well, I care enough to ask someone. That's why I'm giving this book a D.


A = Buy this book NOW
B = Buy this when you can
C = Check it out from the library
D = Don't bother reading it
F = Burn it

The School for Dangerous Girls by Eliot Schrefer

Disclaimer: I get all my books from the library.

Today's book is The School for Dangerous Girls by Eliot Schrefer.

First off, I really liked this book. It is a dark thriller, about juvenile delinquents who are sent to a school that's supposed to reform them. Only the school has a dark element to it. It appears that some of the teachers don't care about the girls with bad tendencies. In fact, they kind of enjoy throwing the girls at each other.

What I really liked about this book was how the author humanized the girls. Many of them have done illegal things and are slightly nutso. Yet we get to see how they are also just girls, with feelings and fears and people they care about.

There is some swearing in the book and some references to sexual activities. But the book doesn't revolve around it or glorify sex, like that's the only important thing in life (like some books I've read).

A very good read. Definitely YA, probably for teenage girls.

This book gets a B.

A = Buy this book NOW
B = Buy this when you can
C = Check it out from the library
D = Don't bother reading it
F = Burn it

Absolute Brightness by James Lacesne

Disclaimer: I get all my books from the library.

Today's book is Absolute Brightness by James Lacesne.

I hate to be critical of this book because I think it had an absolutely important message: that of not judging others, of being compassionate, of learning how to love.

But the book was a rambler. I honestly read the first 100 pages, skipped the middle 300, and read the last 30. I wanted to get into the story. I skimmed enough to figure it out: Leonard, the weird and gay cousin, comes to stay with the broken family. Leonard's outlook on life is unusually positive, and he helps those around him see the good things about themselves and their lives. However, because of his obvious gayness, he is murdered by a fellow classmate.

Exactly how all this happened, I don't know. Like I said, I skimmed. Maybe I have a short attention span. I WANTED to read this book. But I didn't have the patience. Maybe you'll have better luck. Give it a shot and see what you think.

This book gets a C.

A = Buy this book NOW
B = Buy this when you can
C = Check it out from the library
D = Don't bother reading it
F = Burn it

Saving Zoe by Alyson Noel

Disclaimer: I get all my books from the library.

Today's book is Saving Zoe by Alyson Noel.

I'm not going to say much about this book because I was so disappointed by it. It had a great premise and started out so emotionally strong: The protagonist (Echo)'s older sister, Zoe, was brutally murdered a year ago. Echo receives Zoe's diary and gets to know her sister, who she totally idolizes, in a way she never imagined.

Sounds good, right?

Don't hold your breath. This book got great reviews from people who said it made laugh and cry. Not me. First of all, Zoe is so not who I would want to admire. She gets drunk, smokes pot, sleeps around, sneaks out, does horrible in school, and lies to everyone. And the book is really about her, not Echo. Sure, I get the point. That Echo has to discover who she is without Zoe and come to be okay with herself. But the book never once makes it out that maybe Echo, with her good grades and 'boring' boyfriend, might be the better sister.

Oh, and Echo totally dumps her 'boring' boyfriend to go out with the cool bad boy who smokes. Because of her sister. Give me a less used cliche.

I still plan on reading the Immortals series. I sure hope it's better.

I was so disappointed I wanted to burn the book. So this book gets a big fat F.

A = Buy this book NOW
B = Buy this when you can
C = Check it out from the library
D = Don't bother reading it
F = Burn it

Short Girls by Bich Minh Nguyen

Disclaimer: I get all my books from the library.

Today's book is Short Girls by Bich Minh Nguyen.

This book was kind of an anomaly for me. As I read it, I could tell that it was a work of literary art. It bridges chasms of cultural depth between the American and Vietnamese culture. It has a huge moral undertone. It has a plot.

And yet, it didn't really hold my attention. There was a lot of description. Flashbacks interspersed with the current day. And I just wanted to know what was happening. This book is well written, and I skipped ahead quite a bit because I wasn't putting it down until I knew the whole story. But it couldn't keep me.

Written about two sisters who aren't very close to each other, they find themselves pulling together when one sister realizes her husband is cheating on her. While she comes to terms with this unfortunate circumstance, her other sister recognizes herself as the homewrecker, since she is having an affair with a married man. She breaks it off (and there I think the book makes a huge social commentary) and the two sisters learn to live independently, not identifying themselves by their men (another social commentary).

You might love this book. It has some good things to it. It could end up being a classic.

I will give it a good solid C.

A = Buy this book NOW
B = Buy this when you can
C = Check it out from the library
D = Don't bother reading it
F = Burn it

The Possibilities of Sainthood by Donna Freitas

Disclaimer: I check my books out from the library.

Today's victim is The Possibilities of Sainthood, by Donna Frietas. It's an adolescent book. The theme is slightly mature for middle grade, but reads just a bit juvenile for young adult. For this reason, I didn't think I would enjoy it. Too...easy, simplistic.

I was pleasantly surprised. No riveting suspense, but a typical teenage girl hoping for first love. The main character, Antonia, is an Italian-American Catholic, and the cultural influences in this novel were perhaps the most delightful. It was a joy to learn about the Catholic denomination and the Italian traditions. There was enough of a paranormal element to the book to make me wish there were a sequel.

On the downside, I didn't feel like the paranormal element got developed enough. That one aspect kept me turning the pages to see what more would happen, but it was only mentioned in passing. A lot could have been done with it.

A nice slice-of-life romantic novel. An enjoyable read. If you have teenagers, you'll want this one. Warning: There is a lot of talk about sexuality. But it's not done in a bad way.

I'm giving the book a B.



A = Buy this book NOW
B = Buy this when you can
C = Check it out from the library
D = Don't bother reading it
F = Burn it

Veil of Lies by Jeri Westerson

Disclaimer: I check my books out from the library.

I'm hard to impress and dislike almost everything I read. If I do like it, I will praise it from here to the high heavens.

Think you've got something I'll enjoy? By all means, recommend it to me!

Today's book victim is Veil of Lies, by Jeri Westerson.

First I have to say that Westerson did her (his?) research, and that impressed me. The novel is based in medieval times, the 1300s, and it's fascinating. It's a murder mystery patterned after a Sherlock Holmes character, but obviously set very early on.

The law was different back then, and the book gives a very accurate portrayal. It maintains a single point of view, that of Crispin Guest, the once-knighted-now-destitute personal investigator. Westerson doesn't sugar coat the prejudices of the time, or the double standard.

But while interesting, the book wasn't a page turner for me. It took me a week to finish it, and I finished it because I wanted to review it, not because I was desperate to know the ending. In truth, I could have put it down and never returned to it without ever missing it.

Perhaps it is because the characters did not draw me in. They are well written, well developed, and likable, for the most part. But I never felt a deep yearning or emotional attachment to them. Really, I'm not sure what kept me detached from the story.

Overall, though, it was a good book. And your reaction may be very different from mine. This is the first book of a series, and possibly the next book could be what hooks me. Because of that, I'm giving the book a C+.

A = Buy this book NOW
B = Buy this when you can
C = Check it out from the library
D = Don't bother reading it
F = Burn it

Identical

Disclaimer: I check my books out from the library.

I'm hard to impress and dislike almost everything I read. If I do like it, I will praise it from here to the high heavens.

Think you've got something I'll enjoy? By all means, recommend it to me!

Today's book victim is Identical, by Ellen Hopkins.

Right off the bat, the book scored a negative point with me: Lots and lots of swearing. Yes, I know some people do it. But I avoid them. I also avoid books that have it. HOWEVER, that by itself won't give a book a negative score.

The next thing to score a negative point was the formatting. Like free-style poetry. The first page. The second page. What? Every page??? I could not lose myself in the narrative. BUT, I'm sure someone would call it creative, new, unique.

The story was pretty interesting. Twin sisters, a mom who's gone batty, a sexually abusive father. But then I got suspicious about the identity of the sisters (early on, too, in like the first thirty pages). Only that was too easy. Too cliche. I had to be wrong.

I wasn't.

The ending was way too reminiscent of "The Uninvited" for me to be impressed with the book. I didn't enjoy reading it and found the ending boring, unoriginal, and not quite believable.

My rating: D

A = Buy this book NOW
B = Buy this when you can
C = Check it out from the library
D = Don't bother reading it
F = Burn it