In Ember, the only sources of light are lampposts. The whole city depends heavily on electricity, and it just so happens to be running out of it. The city is dying, and everyone knows it. When Linda finds a letter, she's sure it's the secret to saving Ember. Unfortunately, it had been chewed up by her baby sister before she saw it. Linda and her friend, Doon, are determined to find out what the letter means.
In the beginning, the novel doesn't say what, exactly, Ember is, except that it's a city, artificial light is the only light there is, and the only food to eat is canned. Because of that, the readers don't really know what the setting is, and that really makes the book mysterious as well as interesting.
There wasn't really anything special about the characters, but finding out what was really going on was fun. It really felt like I was there with the characters, trying to solve the mystery together; Something about the novel made me very emotionally invested in it.
Reading about the environment so familiar to the characters but so foreign to me was fascinating and enjoyable.
The City of Ember, to me, was one of a kind. The sense of adventure I felt when reading it, even though most of the story was in the same setting, was enchanting. I hope this review compels you to read it because it really is a great book.
Reviewer Grade: 8
In Allegiant, the third and final addition of the Divergent series, Tris lives in a city of five factions, groups of people who believe in upholding and supporting one personality trait. Dauntless are brave, Amity are kind, Candor are honest, Abnegation, selfless, and Erudite intelligent. In the previous book, a video was sent out to Tris's city asking for people to come from the city out into the world and help the poor, suffering people. Tris and her friends want to go and see what the real world is like, but the factionless (people who failed to be accepted into a faction) took them as prisoners. They escaped and go out beyond the limits of the city. Tris discovers the truth behind her city and what the outsiders plan to do to it.
Will she succeed in saving her friends from a horrible fate, or will she fail and have no friends to go back to? Find out by reading Allegiant. Allegiant perfectly explains the backstory of the city in the books. However, it is very different from the other two books in the Divergent series because it reveals the unexpected truth about the city. Overall, it is a very good book.
Reviewer Grade: 8
Sixth grader Miranda Sinclair started receiving strange letters that somehow predict the future. After she got more and more letters, Miranda was determined to solve the mystery behind them.
The novel really conveys the feeling of normalcy; it seems like the every-day life of an ordinary middle schooler, but when the future-predictions letters are added into the mix, it feels surreal- almost dream-like.
It got a little confusing in the middle for me because I couldn't understand why the characters were doing what they were doing, but it all gets brilliantly explained at the end. The way it all tied up was wonderful and worth all of the confusion; the ending really was the best part.
The characters were all like ordinary people I'd see everyday, which gave me the feeling that I was reading realistic fiction rather than science-fiction.
Their personalities weren't typical and they weren't just generic personalities (e.g., a a mean popular girl or a nerdy unpopular kid).
Reading When You Reach Me was a roller-coaster (especially the last part!) and I really recommend it to everyone.
Reviewer Grade: 8
Rash is a book about a so called “perfect” society, where anything moderately dangerous is outlawed. After Bo has had a run in with the law for the third time he is sent to a work camp to serve time for his crimes. His old A.I from when he was in school promises him freedom. Can he do it? Meanwhile Bo runs into many dangerous things on his time in prison.
Insurgent, Divergent's sequel, takes place in Chicago, in the distant future.
In Chicago, there are five factions that each believe upholding and strengthening a certain aspect of people's personalities. People either devote their lives to one of the factions, or live factionless, empty. There is Abnegation, which is selfless, Candor, which is honest, Dauntless, brave, Amity, peaceful, and Erudite, intelligent. Tris, Insurgent's main character, is Divergent, which means she resists serums and can't be forced to think a certain way. Her boyfriend, Tobias, is also divergent. The Erudite want to kill all the Divergent, so they must hide their secret. Tris must fight the Divergent hating Erudite. After watching both of her parents die, she starts to go into depression and self doubt, not to mention the hard task of getting her best friend Christina to forgive her for doing a terrible thing. To destroy the Erudite, she must make sacrifices, even if it means she has to betray the one she loves the most to do what is right. This was an amazing book. While not quite as good as Divergent, the book was still great! I would definitely recommend reading it.
Reviewer Grade: 8
I saw the trailer for this book and I wanted to read it before I watched the movie. I was slightly disappointed when I read this. I was hoping for a cool, unique, different aspect of an alien book but I was wrong. The book was extremely confusing to read, I found myself reading over a page 5 times to understand where I was at in the book. The plot jumps around in different time periods so many times without warning. The annoyance I suffered from the book might be different from your perspective of the book. There was also a love story that was going to emerge but failed miserably. The only thing I enjoyed, which is why I gave this 3 stars, was the action portions. Even though the writing STYLE was confusing, the writing itself is quite intriguing, kind of like a poem. Once you understood where you are at, the action scenes pull you in but then it goes back to round one, which is boring, confusing, and annoying.
Reviewer Grade: 12
Matched by Ally Condie tells the story of a young girl living in a society where everything is chosen for you - who you are, where you live, who you marry. Cassia, the protagonist, is matched with her best friend - everything seems to be going great until it is discovered that she has also been Matched with another boy. This book had a lot of potential and an interesting concept, but I personally felt it didn't really deliver. The pacing was slow. There wasn't much tension. The characters were a little one-dimensional and cheesy. Although it wasn't one of my favorite books, it could make for a nice summer read.
Reviewer Grade: 9
Dandelion Wine is a book about an entire town in Green Town, Illinois. It follows many of the different citizens, but focuses on the character development of Douglas Spalding. The book starts with him and his Grandfather making dandelion wine, as a tradition as the beginning of summer. I am reading this for school, and at first, I wasn't thrilled with it. It has no plot, but instead makes up for it with the mini stories throughout the book. Every chapter is new, and about a completely different citizen of Green Town. I was shocked with how the book had many different themes, most of them dealing with love and death, but most of all grief. Each chapter changed my perspective of the world just a little bit, so by the end I felt almost new. I was able to relate to Doug very much, along with other characters. This book hits the hard questions, and views the tragedies of life through only a boy's eyes. I found myself gasping at parts, not because of plot twists, but because of the complete shock of innocence vs tragedy. It made me view life in a completely different way. This has defiantly made my top 5, maybe even 3, book list.
Reviewer Grade: 10
Atlantia is about a girl named Rio. The earth was polluted long ago, so to make a safe haven, the people made Atlantia, an underground city. However, the people below could not survive without some people staying above to farm, and send them supplies. Some people sacrificed their health below so that their loved ones could be healthy instead. This formed the two civilizations: Above and Below. Rio has always dreamed of seeing the stars, the sun, the Above. When your 15 you are able to choose were you want to spend the rest of your life. Once you choose, you cannot go back. Rio’s dream of going above is crushed when her mother dies in a mysterious way, and her twin sister, Bay, makes her promise not to leave her, thus trapping her in Atlantia. When the time comes to choose, Rio goes first, being the older twin, and chooses the Below. However, to everyones surprise, Bay chooses to go Above, and abandons Rio with no explanation. True, the best friend of another boy who chose to go up, thinks he knows why his sister left Rio, and together, they find the truth, about more things then they were looking for. I first picked up this book, about two years ago, when Ally Condie was in Colorado for a book signing. As a volunteer at the library, I was at the event, and got my copy of Matched signed, and bought Atlantia and got that signed as well. I didn’t read it until quit recently. I especially enjoyed the book’s themes. Unlike other YA novels, the focus on the book was not the romance, but the sisterly love instead. This made a great combination of the themes of love in the book. Atlantia always found a way to surprise me, and the plot twists kept on coming. Unlike Condie’s other books, the Matched series, this book wasn't overly romantic and predictable. I was defiantly not disappointed in the writing. Another thing, however, is the reason that Bay leaves does not fit the plot, and confuses me more than anything. Other than that, it was a very well put together book.
Reviewer Grade: 10
Greta Stuart has been a hostage for most of her life. Well, technically, she's one of the "children of peace". You see, long ago, after the world was ravaged by the effects of global warming, an AI named Talis put himself in control, and decided to almost completely eradicate war by having the leader of each country turn over their heir to be a "child of peace" until the child reached the age of 18. Should that country go to war, the child will be killed. Greta's nation, the Pan Pols (Canada) are about to go to war over water, and Greta knows that her death is imminent.
This book is hard to explain. Basically, the world-building is pretty detailed, but not without some holes (many of which are explained by the end of the book), and most of the first half of the book was spent explaining the world that Greta and her fellow hostages lived in. Also, Greta is the proverbial ice princess - she is fairly stoic, even in her own head, and so I didn't think she was very likable for the first half of the book.
However, as the book progresses, Greta really comes into her own. Her stoicism and propriety have given her a certain amount of power in regards to the fellow children of peace, and it's really fun to see her step up and wield that power. And then, stuff goes terribly, horribly wrong, and the pacing and intrigue of the story really pick up.
I'd give the first half of the book 2 stars, and the second half 5. So, over all, like a 3.5 or something. By the end, I was loving it. If you like really complex dystopian novels (this is more like 1984 than Divergent), then this one is not to be missed.
Journey To The Center Of The Earth is a wonderful book. In it, the main characters Axel and his uncle find a mysterious message in a book saying that if you descend into the crater of Sneffels before the kalends of July, you will find a passage to the center of the earth. Putting aside all hesitations, they begin their journey and explore the depths of the earth.
Will their journey succeed or will they die in vain? Find out by reading this book. You will not be disappointed! The only bad part is that it's a bit unrealistic. Overall, this is a great book.
Reviewer Grade: 8
I had originally picked this book to read because the movie is very popular.
I thought that the book would live up to the hype the movie had. It wasn't a bad book by any means, I was just expecting more. Most of the parts were predictable, but there were one or two things that weren't. It had fairly easy vocabulary considering how long the book was. I felt that this book was more geared toward guys with its derogatory terms like "klunk"(poop).
Overall, this is an average dystopian book.
Reviewer Grade: 8
Divergent is a fantastic book about a 16 year old girl named Beatrice who lives in a society where there are 5 factions, groups of people who believe in upholding and strengthening one certain asset of their personality. The Candor are honest, Dauntless are brave, Abnegation are selfless, Amity are peaceful, and Erudite are intelligent. Now Beatrice gets to choose to devote herself to one of those factions for life. Which one will she choose? She thinks this is an easy question until she discovers something shocking about herself that she must hide from everyone. Will her secret be safe, or will she suffer the consequences? This was an amazing book. I would definitely recommend this book for anyone.
Reviewer Grade: 8
June Iparis is a prodigy trying to avenge her brother. Day is a criminal trying to save his family from the plague. Their paths cross when Day accidentally ends up killing a member of her family - and she decides to track him down. Legend is an exciting thrill-ride you won't be able to put down! Every chapter ends with a crazy new plot twist. June and Day are likable protagonists you'll be rooting for the whole time. I highly recommend this
book for the thrilling adventure and amazing writing.
Reviewer Grade: 9
When Ford Prefect, an undercover alien that got stuck on Earth, realized that Earth would soon be blown into smithereens, he and his human friend, Arthur Dent, escape and embark on an adventure through space. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy parodies other sci-fi novels, which is enjoyable for those who are experienced with that particular genre. This novel is very light-hearted, simple, and it doesn't really get too serious anywhere. The humor is random and ridiculous (in a good way), and it really was what made the book. All of the characters had strong and eccentric personalities with their own little quirks that make them special; they were all very engaging. It's a pretty good classic (that's why I chose to read it in the first place), it's very quotable (and who doesn't like quotes?), and fast-paced. It might seem a little immature to a select few, but the amount of people who like it heavily outweigh the ones who don't.
Reviewer Grade: 8
Kady and Ezra are citizens of the Kerenza colony - an illegal mining colony in a remote corner of the universe. One day, the colony comes under attack from rival mining company Beitech. Kady and Ezra manage to escape on two of the three spaceships that survive the attack. Unfortunately, in the process of escaping Kerenza and battling Beitech's ships, the Kerenza ships are massively damaged and unable access their jump drives to escape to the nearest jump station. The remaining Beitech ship is chasing the Kerenza ships through space in order to eliminate ALL survivors from the Kerenza colony.
Illuminae is a collection of the electronic communications between Kady and Ezra juxtaposed with a variety of different things: ship diagrams, dialog between the different ships' commanders, Wikipedia type pages, video
transcripts, thoughts from the AI controlling one of the ships, pictures of victims, etc.
I have really mixed feelings about this one. First, I really enjoyed the layout of the book. I'm not sure that I've read anything quite like it; I guess I would maybe label this as a more modern take on the epistolary
format. Some of the pages (usually when they were in space) were prose set to artwork, which was really cool to see. However, the layout was not easy to read on a kindle - luckily I had the book checked out as both a physical book and an eBook which I would recommend as the book itself is basically an anvil.
I really liked the plot of the first 54% (thanks, eBook!) of the book, and then it went a little off the rails for me. At this point, the book kind of changes from a mystery/exploration of the use of AI to an episode of the
Walking Dead set in space, which is decidedly not my thing. The last half of the book is actionactionaction, which never gives the characters or the readers a chance to breathe. The characters themselves are pretty generic sarcastic teens - I thought they were both pretty funny, but their personalities weren't really developed much beyond the snark. Oh, and the romance. I know I'm not the intended audience, but the romance felt forced, melodramatic, and icky. I skimmed those parts...because gross.
I don't think I'll check out the next book as I was not a fan of the last half of Illuminae, but I did really enjoy the reading experience. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a really unique sci fi read with a
healthy helping of romance. 3 stars. I (mostly) liked it.
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke is a fantasy book about twelve-year-old Meggie and her bookbinder father Mo who can read things out of books with his beautiful voice. Unfortunately, one of the people that Mo has accidentally read out is the evil character Capricorn from the fictional book Inkheart. Though it has been ten years since this happened, Capricorn is still hunting for Mo so that he can read a horrible monster out of Inkheart to do his evil work. The ending to this book is very satisfying, though it still leaves some questions unanswered which the author comes back to in her sequel Inkspell.
The best part of this book is its believable and completely unique characters, from the sad fire tamer Dustfinger to the cruel, superstitious Basta to Meggie’s stubborn, book-loving great-aunt Elinor. The plot is predictable at some times but at others is very surprising. There are plenty of twists since this book is over 700 pages, which makes it a good book for lazy summer reading.
Reviewer Grade: 11
A plague ripples throughout the cities, fatal to anyone who has caught it for too long. No one wonders where they come from; the bigger issue is the war. A new recruit, top in her class, is too blind to notice. A boy, Day, is on the run, he’s resourceful, cunning. The two are unlucky enough to cross paths on a dangerous adventure. I give this a 5/5, it is an emotional roller-coaster all the way.
Reviewer Grade: 7
Thomas can't remember anything.
He wakes up in a mysterious lift and finds himself in a strange place called the Glade with several other boys - all their memories wiped. Encircling the Glade is a giant maze that holds terrifying creatures and endless paths that lead to nowhere. But, who put them there?
This book was very fast-paced. As Thomas tries to unravel his past, we discover something very dark has brought them there - something even wicked. I read this book quickly - it was very hard to put down. The end is just as confusing as the beginning, making you even more anxious to pick up the next book!
The only real flaw I could see was the lack of character development. This may because it's the first book and the characters may change as the story continues. But, besides that, it was great!
Reviewer Grade: 9
This novel is about Eva Nine, a girl who had lived underground her whole life, training to be able to survive on the Earth's surface. Everything changes when a beast destroys her underground home; she was forced to run to the surface, but everything she learned about the earth from her training underground doesn't seem to apply to what she actually experienced.
I really enjoyed reading this book because Tony DiTerlizzi (the author) put a lot of effort into making The Search for Wondla's universe; he described everything very thoroughly and even had pictures in the novel as a visual aid to help the readers imagine what he was trying to convey. The made-up contraptions, plants, and animals in the story were all very unique and I was impressed by the creativity and the thought put into them.
Because of all of the detailed descriptions, it can be a bit overwhelming for some readers. I don't recommend this book to those who tend to skim, because if you do, you will end up confused and unsatisfied with the story.
The illustrations were absolutely fantastic and really tied the book together. The art made me feel like I was actually there with the main character and seeing what she was seeing.
This book is a very good example of adventure and fantasy, but I feel that The Search for Wondla had a little bit of everything mixed into it to make something amazing.
The writing was a bit awkward and not as fluid as it could have been on some parts, which can be noticed by more experienced readers, but it was fairly easy to get past.
The Search for Wondla is a great book and I could not stop after I started reading it.
Reviewer's Grade: 8