Book Reviews by Genre: Fiction

The Shade of the Moon is the final book in the series Life as we Knew it. This story fallows the perspective of the youngest brother living in a secure location until something bad happens. This book is sad at some parts but you kind of have to read it to complete the series. You have to read the first three books of the series before you read this one. Again some parts are sad but it rapped up the story well in the end. Would recommend if you have read the other books.

This world we live in is the third book in the life as we Knew it series. This one fallows the story of Miranda and her family surviving off what food they get each week. It all changes when more people show up at town. I would recommend this book to anyone who has read the entire series up to this point the books will not make sense if you haven’t read this far. Parts of the book are sad but overall I would say it was a good book. With all that happens in this book you will have to read the next and final book to satisfy you. 8/10 I would recommend.

This is the second book in the Life as we Knew it series. In this book it fallows the story of Alex and his family trying to survive this apocalyptic world in a big city, New York City. Read this book before you go on to the next it is very important that you do. I would recommend this book to anyone who has read the first book the author did a fantastic job of writing this book. I wouldn’t read this book if you are younger because it may be a little more graphic. I enjoyed reading this book and the ones after it. Would recommend

The book Life as we Knew it is a book about an asteroid hitting the moon and knocking it closer to the earth. Miranda and her family must survive this catastrophe together. I really enjoyed this book I would recommend this book to people who like dystopian books. I would really recommend this book to anyone I can, it is a series though. In the series there are four total books. Definitely a must read.

In this Moroccan inspired sci-fi/fantasy read, our protagonist, Amani, is taken away from her family and planet by an oppressive regime right in the middle of her coming of age ceremony. She soon discovers that she’s been taken because she looks exactly like the princess and heir to the throne, Maram. As assassination threats aimed at Maram get more serious, Amani realizes that she’s been taken to be trained as a body double. While at first swept away by the trappings of the court, Amani comes to understand that she faces mortal danger on two fronts: if she doesn’t portray the princess well enough, if she’s discovered, she’ll be killed. If she plays the princess too well, she’s likely to be assassinated.

When I read this premise, I knew I needed to get this book in my hands. I love court intrigue and the chance to learn about a new-to-me culture. Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed. For almost every element that I considered, there was something that I liked and something that I hated. For example, take the world building. The Moroccan lense through which the world was built led to some rich cultural and fantastical elements as well as some pointed commentary about the negative effects of culture erasure and colonialism. However, the science fiction elements were completely out of place, unnecessary, and jarring. They’d take a spaceship to another planet and I would have totally forgotten they were in space, that’s how extraneous the science fiction elements were. There was a paradoxical wealth and dearth of technology that drove me a little crazy.

Maram was really well developed and was a very interesting character as she's got a bit of moral ambiguity going on. Amani was a little flat and seemed to have almost no agency. She falls into instalove with Maram’s fiancé who was even more flat than Amani, so perhaps they deserve each other? The plot meandered, and I often wondered where the story was going – it did get interesting after Amani realizes she’s in a great place to further resistance efforts but that realization was a long walk to a short drink of water, to use an aphorism from my childhood.

While I liked elements of the book, on the whole, it didn’t work for me. Many other reviewers have loved it, though, so if the premise sounds intriguing, you may consider giving it a try. For readers of Renee Ahdieh and Tomi Adeyemi. I liked half of it, so I’ll give it half of the stars: 2.5.

Thanks to Flatiron Books and Netgalley for the eARC, which I received in exchange for an honest review. Mirage is available now – put your copy on hold today!

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is succh a good book. PLEASE READ IT. If you are into fantasy you would love to read this book it has so much element to it. With all the creativity J.K. Rowling put into this book its was just amazing!

We Were Liars is a mysterious young adult novel about a wealthy family who spends every summer on their private island. The story focuses on the main character, Cadence. After Cadence suffers a head injury during one of the summers, she cannot remember almost anything from that trip to the island. The next summer things are very different and Cadence has to try and remember why.
This book is quite a page-turner. As Cadence slowly remembers more and more details of the mysterious summer when she suffered her head injury, it is nearly impossible to put the book down. However, not all page-turners are necessarily great books. The story of We Were Liars may have been intriguing, but the content was not very substantial. There didn’t really seem to be any morals, and if there were, they weren’t very clear. Things just happened throughout the story, and although it was a mystery, nothing was truly deep or thought-provoking. The ending was shocking, but after thinking on it I thought, “That’s it?” I think that the drama of the story tricks you into thinking it’s a deep book, but the longer you think on it the more shallow it becomes. Basically, this book is purely entertainment, which is not all bad, but it was one of those books that after I read it, I thought about how I could have used my time differently.
Overall I would not read We Were Liars again, but it wasn’t a terrible book. If you are looking for a book that is just entertainment and won’t make you think much, this is the book for you. If you are looking for an exciting mystery novel, I would say look elsewhere.
Reviewer Grade: 12

It is a good book. I like it because the characters are funny and it has a sense of wonder. The main character is Harry. He starts out living under his uncles stairs then soon learns that he is a wizard. He then is sent to Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry where he makes new friends and learns magic. He then learns that the sorcerer’s stone is in the school and someone is trying to steal it. That is why I believe that book is good. I would recommend it if you are looking for a fantasy.

I read this book shortly after I read the Hunger Games and I truly thought it would be much better than it ended up being. All of my friends had told me it was the most amazing book they had ever read and they loved everything about it. It was a struggle for me to keep reading the book but I had bought the entire series, so I was determined. I truly regret buying the books and wish I would've spent the money on a different series. The entire book seems like it's trying to be a mashup of other popular dystopian books and every time I would pick it up, I found myself thinking it had no originality. It reminded me a lot of The Giver, which is one of my favorite books, but it was like if The Giver was mixed with the The Hunger Games and not well written. I definitely haven't reached for Divergent since I read it the first time, and I don't think I'm likely to ever read it again.
Reviewer Grade: 12

A group of boys are stranded on an island after a plane crash. With no adult supervision, the boys are free to do whatever they want. At first this is something to celebrate. However, as their time on the island grows, the boys learn the challenges of staying alive. Eventually, some of the boys become complete savages and complete chaos reigns the island.
Lord of the Flies is full of symbolism and is at some points very difficult to understand. To follow the story, much inferring is necessary along with a fairly advanced vocabulary. I personally did not enjoy the story very much.
However, some readers may disagree. I do not recommend this book for anyone that is younger than high school.
Reviewer Grade:9

All four of these books (Breakthrough; Ripple; Leap; Catalyst) are fast paced, incredible adventure/mystery's, creative, fascinating with wonderful characters both human and animal. Michael is a great author. Can't wait for the next book in the series.

I slogged through 200+ pages of tedium to reach an absolutely ridiculous conclusion. This will be the last time I see Paris.

Her books have gotten progressively worse. I would lump her in with Ruth Ware. Modern day "thriller" writers who are popular. Why, I do not know.

Fabulous. If you are at all interested in the Romanovs as a whole (beyond Nicholas and Alexandra), this is a wonderful introduction. This book expands the story of the Romanovs from the point of view of Empress Maria Feodorovna who married the Russian Tsarevich and was the mother of the ill-fated Russian monarch Nicholas II (she was also the sister of Queen Alexandra of the U.K., King Frederick VIII of Denmark, and King George I of Greece - luckily there is a handy family tree in the front of the book for you to refer to!) Beautifully written and engrossing.

You think with an inciting incident as extreme as the one at the end of The Long Earth , the follow-on book, The Long War, would be an exciting series of battles. If you thought that, you’d be wrong. Instead, authors Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter take the Speaker for the Dead route by aging the main character of the first book by at least a decade and throwing in heavy doses of non-human racism (speciesism?). For a book that has “war” in the title, there isn’t much war at all. This is disappointing for many reasons.

Sure, there’s still plenty of neat science fiction ideas presented here, but The Long War exhibits the same problems that were present in The Long Earth. First and foremost, the wit and humor of Terry Pratchett is hardly to be seen in this book, only occasionally popping up to add levity to a situation. Secondly, there’s so much exposition that the book “tells” instead of “shows,” that it almost becomes a bore to read. Finally, with so many subplots strung together, it was difficult to know precisely what was going on, who these characters were, or why I should care.

I’ll still probably suffer through the rest of this series since I don’t have to think very hard when I’m listening to the audiobook. The fact that I want to get through this five-book series as quickly as possible says something, though. The real problem is that the ideas and settings presented here could have been great. If the end of the first book had transitioned seamlessly into this one, causing the people who could “step” to rise up against those who would perform the despicable act that affected datum Earth, then we’d actually have a war on our hands instead of . . . this. Don't even get me started on the ending, which I'm pretty sure had a good paragraph of dialogue copied from The Long Earth.

An overly long book with little to no war, I give The Long War 2.0 stars out of 5.

This book is the first of a 13 book series and it is FANTASTIC!!!!! It is hilarious, the characters are very well developed. The story line is very intriguing as well as entertaining. All around this book is a great mix of romance (beware it seems a little surprising how descriptive it is), supernatural and comedy!!

Okay, let me just say this: All you poser dystopian teen novels 'breaking the rules' with scandalous gratuitous plot elements better just step back. Nineteen Eighty-Four, the granddaddy of all dystopian novels, just handed your butt to you. This book isn't kidding around. Danger, insubordination, illicit sex, graphic torture, this book has it all. It's not for the weak of heart. And the ending is so powerful and heart-wrenching! The only reason it doesn't get 5 stars from me is the lengthy political and philosophical treatises that appear a few times in the book. I get it, this is the quiet power behind the novel and the part that is dissected by academia. But I'm not an academic, so it didn't do it for me.

This is the first book in another story arc that takes place in the world of "the others", laid out and told from a different perspective in the Meg and Simon series beginning with Written in Red. Lake Silence takes place in another town in the world of "the others" with a whole new cast of characters and problems to solve. Anne wrote this story from the view of an ordinary woman who has survived being married to a verbally abusive husband, the divorce and now the betrayal by the same dirt bag. As a consequence, this story has real human depth without all the self pity one would expect of such a perspective, and instead shows how the problems are handled from flexibility and strength, assisted by truly helpful friends, human and "other". The story is well told and I've re-read it several times waiting for the follow on book, Wild Country. I recommend this book as a story the reader can "sink into" and identify with from multiple points of view.

Third in a trilogy, the Themis story is as gripping in this last novel as it was in the first two, the characters as real as any you've met personally. The story wraps up the trilogy with the end of the robot story. The why, who and where of it are answered and addressed. It's a particularly emotional book in that the main characters finally duke it out over their deep disagreements and yes, work something out. I'm hoping Sylvain does another series as his science fiction writing is entrancing and gripping and exciting. All the reasons for reading a good book.

***THIS BOOK WAS RECEIVED FROM THE PUBLISHER***

About seven years ago, there seemed to be a renaissance of fairy tale retellings and reimagining that swept through popular culture. From television shows like Once Upon a Time and Grimm to movies like Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) and Mirror Mirror (2012) to the books of Melanie Dickerson, it seemed that wherever you turned, you could find someone’s different take on classic fairy tales. While perhaps a little outside this bubble of pop culture, Spinning Silver has the benefit of standing out in a field of genre books that seems to have cooled in recent years.

Based partially on the story of Rumpelstiltskin, author Naomi Novik has masterfully combined elements of Jewish and Russian folklore to reimagine this story from a somewhat more modern perspective while also maintaining its fairytale settings and tropes. If anything, her strong and independent female characters highlight how chauvinistic the original fairy tales seem when compared to the culture we’re living in today. I appreciated how smart the story is, taking the concept of “turning silver into gold” from a merely economical standpoint and turning it on its head by adding in fantastical elements more akin to alchemy.

While the point of view of this book jumped around from a few of the characters, I found the interconnectedness of their stories to be incredibly well done. I probably would have left out the old woman’s POV, since it didn’t add anything other than some unnecessary backstory, but other than that, each character’s storyline had its own tone, challenges, and uniqueness to make the entire plot a well-rounded affair. Writing the story in this way helped to humanize antagonists, provide the terror of poverty, and show plenty of character growth throughout the characters. Even the fact that the “simple” solution of the climax wasn’t the best solution for the characters speaks to the depth of thinking that went into this brilliant plot.

An intelligent and well-written fairy tale reimagining, I give Spinning Silver 4.5 stars out of 5.

Ebo’s brother Kwame is missing. But Ebo knows where he’s gone: to find their sister. Life in Libya is hard, so Ebo and Kwame’s sister, Hannah, left and promised to send back money once she was installed in Europe with a new job and more money. But since she left, Ebo and Kwame have heard nothing from her. So when Ebo wakes up one morning and Kwame is gone, Ebo knows he must go after him. What follows is the harrowing, heartbreaking story of Ebo’s journey through dangerous cities, deserts, and the ocean.

Wow. Look, I cry a lot, and am no stranger to crying whilst reading. But this book made me sob. Like, uncontrollable tears running down my face. The refugee story is often a sad and intense one, and Ebo’s is certainly no exception. And then, when you think about Ebo’s story in the context of it being a real thing happening to real people in this world that we all share, and the US is actively turning away people in similar if not the same situation, well, its depressing. But importantly so. One must also consider the fact that thousands of children, thousands of people are dying, and no one seems to care. It’s a deeply sad book that will cause lots of introspection, but for me, that’s a good thing. This is an issue that needs more attention.

The stunning artwork added to the impact. Seeing Ebo’s expressions - the heartbreak, loss, and hope playing out across his face – made what was already an intense, powerful story all the more affecting. I loved pretty much everything about this book, and I hope you take the time to read it. 5 stars.

Thanks to Baker & Taylor, Netgalley and Sourcebooks for the free paper and electronic advance copies, which I received in exchange for an honest review. Illegal is available now – put your copy on hold today!