Review: Partials by Dan Wells

RUN, don't walk, to the nearest copy of Partials by Dan Wells. This book is great!!

Partials is set in the near future. America's engineered robot-warrior soldiers--called Partials--have turned on the government. During the uprising, a weaponized plague released by the Partials all but extinguished human life. The remaining tiny immune population gathered on Long Island.  No baby has lived in 11 years- the RM disease kills within days. Human kind is on the edge of extinction. Some have accepted the control of the Senate, others live outside the protection of East Meadows, and the Voice is trying to over throw the government in response to the Hope laws which mandate pregnancy for women 18 years old and up. Determined to find a cure our girl Kira and her friends engineer a dangerous and treasonous trip into enemy territory. The resulting political intrigue and research is a race against time to discover the key to survival. Kira's research makes her question the government she lives under, the stories she was told about the war's origin, and her own identity.

• Originality: 8. A great dystopian world. And sci-fi. SCORE!
• Absurdity: 4. The government is complex and the mission Kira and her friends go on feels realistic in its gritty detail.  I had trouble following Kira's genetic experiments, but I accepted them since they sounded complicated. (This is the exact same way I accepted the movie Inception). A ridiculous response? probably. But at least I wasn't rolling my eyes at the 16 year old scientist extraordinaire. ALSO on the absurdity scale, the shoot-outs from Kira et. all: I thought Whhhhaaaattt how is everyone a Rambo?!? But by page 300 I was hooked and I didn't care if this was absurd.
• Level of Paranormal (??) Romance: 3. We are left unsure of Kira's status with Marcus, her boyfriend (who was good for a few laughs) BUT keep your eyes on the prize: SAMM (yes, two m's). Who cares if he is a robot? He is hunky and mysterious.
• Level of Harry-Potter-ness: 5. The writing in this book is basic--action is the number one priority. But Partials also asks big questions about what type of person you would be in the face of hopelessness and WHAT humanity and humanness means in a where humans are the minority. 

PS - did this make anyone else think of Cinder? Medical research, robots, looming war....
PPS - BEST PART= jungle animals in lower Manhattan.

Waiting on Wednesday: Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness

It is a short week this week. Huzzah! It is already time for Waiting on Wednesday, a feature hosted by Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases. Encore Huzzah!

This week my WoW is Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness, the sequel to the epic/crazy A Discovery of Witches. (Check out Crazy Camper's review here.) This is not YA, but let me tell you, Harkness packs in the usual suspects--magical powers, insta-love, and cursed lovers,  PLUS a healthy dose of French chateaus, yoga, and red wine. What is not to like?

Diana Bishop,Oxford scholar and reluctant witch, and handsome geneticist and vampire Matthew Clairmont discovered a magical manuscript known as Ashmole 782 and found themselves in a battle to unlock it's secrets in book one. In Shadow of Night the two love birds travel back in time to Elizabethan London. Diana looks to learn more about her magic and Matthew is forced to confront his past  while the mystery of Ashmole 782 deepens.

This book is part of a trend: shadows and night and blood (oh my!). My brain keeps trying to mix it up with Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo and The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman. Do you sense a trend, too? The good part is, they all look great. What are you "Waitin' on"?

Review: Dearly, Departed: A Zombie Novel by Lia Habel

Obbbbbbbbbbsesssssssion.

500 pages of YA Fiction goodness, paranormal (dead?) romance and apocalypse amazingness. I think that Lia Habel and I would get along famously (and not just because she's in her twenties and lives in Upstate New York - shout out, Syracuse!).

 Love can never die. Love conquers all, so they say. But can Cupid’s arrow pierce the hearts of the living and the dead—or rather, the undead? Can a proper young Victorian lady find true love in the arms of a dashing zombie? 

The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria—a high-tech nation modeled on the manners, mores, and fashions of an antique era. A teenager in high society, Nora Dearly is far more interested in military history and her country’s political unrest than in tea parties and debutante balls. But after her beloved parents die, Nora is left at the mercy of her domineering aunt, a social-climbing spendthrift who has squandered the family fortune and now plans to marry her niece off for money. For Nora, no fate could be more horrible—until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses.

But fate is just getting started with Nora. Catapulted from her world of drawing-room civility, she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting “The Laz,” a fatal virus that raises the dead—and hell along with them. Hardly ideal circumstances. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and dead. But as is the case with the rest of his special undead unit, luck and modern science have enabled Bram to hold on to his mind, his manners, and his body parts. And when his bond of trust with Nora turns to tenderness, there’s no turning back. Eventually, they know, the disease will win, separating the star-crossed lovers forever. But until then, beating or not, their hearts will have what they desire.

In Dearly, Departed, romance meets walking-dead thriller, spawning a madly imaginative novel of rip-roaring adventure, spine-tingling suspense, and macabre comedy that forever redefines the concept of undying love.

So basically, in the future, they revert to Victorian traditionalism because it was the Gilded Age and everyone was proper and prosperous. Girls dress in fancy Victorian garb and ride around in electric carriages. Entire neighborhoods are built underground (can't really remember the reasoning, other than, hey, it's the future!) and a zombie virus has started to infect bordering nations to New Victoria.

Though the government has tried to both contain and cover-up the outbreak, it's quickly spiraling out of control and Nora (our lovely, brave, smart protagonist) has been taking from her home to a secret military compound for protection under the gentle care of (gasp) good zombies!

Now, to be clear, in New Victoria there are both good and bad zombies - and Bram, Nora's eventual love interest, is the best of the best. He so sweet he actually had me thinking that I could maybe go for a good zombie if the world came to an end (we would probably have to stop at holding hands though, let's be real).

• Originality: I'd give this an 8 - this is not your typical zombie novel and it's really, really well written. Miss Habel is a fabulous addition to the YAF genre.
• Absurdity: There's a bit of belief-suspension that inevitably takes place when you're talking about good vs. bad zombies and people running around in Victorian garb in about 200 years. Don't worry, friends, cell phones are still prevalent is post-Apocalyptic South America. 7!
• Level of Paranormal Romance: 7 - this is sweet, lovely young adult romance. Nothing too major, but adorbs all over the place. I heart Bram!
• Level of Harry Potter-ness: I'm going to give it up for Lia, I'll give this a 8.5. She's a great writer and she really spins her tale. This is an extremely well written book! 

I do believe there is some type of sequel in the works and I'm pumped to read it. Get this book!
On to the next ...

Top Ten Tuesday: Future Favorites

Hello and happy TTT! Hope you all had great long weekends. Goosie Mama and I went to RI, got tans (errrr sunburns), and got our digital readers VERY sandy.  Crazy Camper was off camping and loving nature/rocks/plants, so we have not yet heard of her escapades, but hope they were epic!

On to the TTT, hosted by the awesome The Broke and the Bookish. This week's TT books written in the past ten years you hope people are still reading in the next 30 years was hard, but I am giving it the 'ole college try! This is an abbreviated list: what makes a timeless read (besides critical acclaim)? For example, the critics loved Swamplandia! by Karen Russell, but Goosie Mama found it unappealing (see her hilarious review). 

1. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. OBVI. I will fall off my chair if this doesn't win a major award.

2. The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stievfvater. It already feels timeless! (review)

3. Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta. (my glowing review). I love the lyrical quality of this book.

4. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (WHOA adult lit. We have it in us to read "important" fiction). Scary and sparse and gripping

5. The Millenium Trilogy by Steig Larsson. Cultural phenomenon. Done and done. (The same could be said for Twilight or Hunger Games series). I chose the third of these over 4th of July fireworks last summer. No joke.

6. Never Let Me Go  by Kazuo Ishiguro  (MORE real-deal adult lit! But with some sci-fi and YA love.)

7. The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson. (my love in review form). YA at its best. I bought a copy after I read it, because I loved it so much and felt like I needed to have it accessible at all times, just in case!

Share your TTT and help us identify classics in the making!

Review: The Marriage Pact by M.J. Pullen

Okay, before we get all judgy on why I even picked up (read: downloaded) this book in the first place, you have to understand that sometimes the NYPL e-books come fast and furious (I think I have 8 checked out currently?) and sometimes there is a serious drought. Case in point, I had finished up my queue and being an Amazon Prime member (yes, yes, I know I'm putting the local, independently owned bookstores out of business, but I die for free 2 day shipping on dog toys) and started running through the Kindle Members Lending Library (it's tepid, at best).

Anyways, I initially was (very, very) confused and thought this was The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides (sometimes, I do the Cliff Notes version of life), so faster than you could say Justin Bieber, this book was in my Kindle and I couldn't borrow any more books until June. Dang.


The synopsis was every terrible chick flick you could conjure:

Marci Thompson always knew what life would be like by her 30th birthday. A large but cozy suburban home shared with a charming husband and two brilliant children. A celebrated career as an established writer, complete with wall-to-wall mahogany shelves and a summer book tour. A life full of adventure with her friends and family by her side.

Instead, Marci lives alone in 480 square feet of converted motel space next to a punk rock band, hundreds of miles from her friends and family. She works in a temporary accounting assignment that has somehow stretched from two weeks into nine months. And the only bright spot in her life, not to mention the only sex she’s had in two years, is an illicit affair with her married boss, Doug. Thirty is not at all what it is cracked up to be.

Then the reappearance of a cocktail napkin she hasn’t seen in a decade opens a long-forgotten door, and Marci’s life gets complicated, fast. The lines between right and wrong, fantasy and reality, heartache and happiness are all about to get very blurry, as Marci faces the most difficult choices of her life.

Yep, this book was a train wreck that I somehow felt guilted into finishing because I had been so flippant about downloading it. 

But, basically, I think I've come to several Life Conclusions based on reading this "book":

1. Do not, under any circumstances, date your boss. Gross and conflict of interest doesn't even begin to describe it.
2. Do not date creepy, insistent business men (yeah, I'm currently struggling through 50 Shades of Grey and this is becoming a theme).
3. Do not break up other people's marriage.
4. Do not think 30 is over the hill and past your prime so that you settle into a loveless marriage because you don't think you have other options.
5. Always, always download the newest Katy Perry song before you go running.

Oh, shoot. I guess that last observation was a personal musing, but a truism nonetheless.

This one was not really worth rating on our typically YA scale, because (alas) this was not YA Fiction - it was Dumb Adult Fiction. That being said, I'm in Rhode Island, so I'm using the Ghost Hunters sign off: On to the next!

Review: Cross my Heart by Sasha Gold

Cross my Heart by Sasha Gold is historical fiction. I guess I knew this when it came out this spring, but I waited for it from the library for a long time. By the time I downloaded it, I had forgotten. If you read library books on a Nook like me, there are no back blurbs for memory refreshing. Now that I have finished it, I am not sure WHY I wanted to read it. (Maybe historical fiction is not my thing. OPPS.)

Hey, at least this mask makes sense for
the story. I just don't know if they
 had bedazzlers in Renaissance Venice.

Cross my Heart follows 16 year-old Lara della Scala as she is removed from the convent she hates to replace her dead sister, Beatrice, as fiance to the rich merchant Vincenzo. Not only is Laura devestated by the loss of her sister, Vincenzo is as old as time and sexually aggressive. I CANNOT THINK OF ANYTHING MORE REPULSIVE. To avoid this fate Laura trades a secret she learned in the convent for access to the Segreta, a female secret society that controls Venice. They deal in secrets and you do not want to cross them. Laura escapes a future with Vincenzo but she also comes to suspect that her sister's death was more than an accident--and that the Segreta might have been involved.

• Originality: 4. A standard secret-society murder mystery. There were some plot twists I didn't see coming, but I never felt caught up in the mystery.
• Absurdity: 7. Laura is a nun one second, and a beautiful, secret-society-joining, falling-in-love young woman the next. HELLO, wouldn't there be a bit of a transition period? Please refer to The Sound of Music. These things take time.
• Level of Paranormal Romance: 5. Ahh, yes, insta-love. Flavored by hunky Italian Renaissance painters. And ex-nuns. I guess Roberto is  dreamy, but I was not convinced. 
• Level of Harry-Potterness: 3. This is the real reason I didn't like this book. The 'historical fiction' dialogue seemed forced and silly. I can deal with magicians, but apparently I draw the line at historical fiction repartee. DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED on The Gathering Storm. Vampires AND historical Russia? Ugh. (Yes, I actually read this. For shame.) 

Waiting on Wednesday: Warrior Edition, In Two Parts

Thank god for my Nook and hidden
book covers

This week's Waiting on Wednesday comes in two parts! 

Part One: The mostly-ridiculous-Greek warrior variety

Dark Frost by Jennifer Estep

 More freaky things are in store for our girl Gwen Frost. She is the target of the Reapers of Chaos, the people who murdered her mom and want to unleash chaos on the world. All they need is a powerful artifact that her mom hid. It is a race between the good guys and the bad guys to find it! This is the third book in the Mythos Academy. Book two, which centers on a school ski-trip was boilerplate and reminded me a bit of when the Baby Sitters Club went on a ski field trip (anybody??) Whatevs, I am still intrigued.

Part Two: The more bad-ass-fantasy warrior variety

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

I know I am a bit slow on WoW for Bitterblue. But my library doesn't have it yet, so I am waiting on it still. Anyways, first I MUST READ Fire, book 2 in the Graceling Realm series, so I can read Bitterblue. I believe in reading books in order! And while I didn’t love Graceling, I really did love Bitterblue as a character (see my review). I expect to want to be her friend.

Review: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart was not what I thought it would be. It is NOTa zany caper book in which the boys are outsmarted by the cute girl and people fall in happily-ever-after (high school) love. 

 

Frankie Landau-Banks at age 14:
Debate Club. Her father’s “bunny rabbit.” A mildly geeky girl attending a highly competitive boarding school.

Frankie Landau-Banks at age 15:
A knockout figure. A sharp tongue. A chip on her shoulder. And a gorgeous new senior boyfriend: the supremely goofy, word obsessed Matthew Livingston.

Frankie Laundau-Banks. No longer the kind of girl to take “no” for an answer. Especially when “no” means she’s excluded from her boyfriend’s all-male secret society. Not when her ex boyfriend shows up in the strangest of places. Not when she knows she’s smarter than any of them. When she knows Matthew’s lying to her. And when there are so many, many pranks to be done.

Frankie Landau-Banks, at age 16:
Possibly a criminal mastermind. (Good Reads)

Frankie sets out to take down the secret order of the Basset Hounds, her boyfriend’s secret-bro-fest. I like that Frankie rallies against the people who only see her as an adorable, young girl,  people who like her best when she needs help or when her boyfriend can set the boundaries and make the rules.  She is sick of being underestimated by friends, boys, even her family. Good to hear. BUT I found it depressing that EVERYONE underestimated her. I wanted more for Frankie. And the ending? I want a guarantee that she will continue to kick butt. 

Originality: 7. High-school pranks are as old as they come, but I really liked Frankie as a character so points for her to waking up hot one day and taking it in stride (yaaa for anti-wimps).

Absurdity: 4. Hello, fraternity boys. They are this ridic sometimes (and they are this BFF-y too.) So I think this really worked for me. I liked how Lockhart included the emails that Frankie wrote/receive. It made her masterminding seem real.

Level of Paranormal Romance: 2. TOXIC relationship. These boys are NOT keepers.

Level of Harry-Potter-ness: 6. I really liked the narrative tone. I have not read anything like this before--it is snarky and self-aware and, at its best, defiant.  

I leave you with my favorite line:

 Her ex boyfriend writes “ Frankie, what’s up? Hope your term is going well so far. I want to apologize for what happened with Bess last year” and she responds “you mean, you want to apologize, or you are apologizing? Your grammar is indistinct.”

 SLAM! Grammar insults!

Friday Library Updates

Yesterday, I went for a run. It ended at my neighborhood library. I picked up  Starters by Lissa Price and A Beautiful Evil by Kelly Keaton. Success! 

Waiting to check out, the girl in front of me (in her school uniform) was trying to explain a book to the librarian, who was searching the database. She explained it had a "circle with a flame in the middle" and the librarian mumbled "mumble, Roth, mumble." I came to the rescue!! I asked "Are you looking for Divergent?" "YES!" said the little girl. I told her how good it was and recommended she get a hold on Insurgent while she was at it, since it was so popular. She took my advice, OBVS.

YAF and WS, changing the world one YA reader at a time! HAPPY FRIDAY PEOPLE.

Review: Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris

FRIENDS I am not sure how I feel about Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris. To start, lets recap the 12th installment of the Sookie Stackhouse crazy-fest:

With Felipe de Castro, the Vampire King of Louisiana (and Arkansas and Nevada), in town, it’s the worst possible time for a body to show up in Eric Northman’s front yard—especially the body of a woman whose blood he just drank. Now, it’s up to Sookie and Bill, the official Area Five investigator, to solve the murder. Sookie thinks that, at least this time, the dead girl’s fate has nothing to do with her. But she is wrong. She has an enemy, one far more devious than she would ever suspect, who’s out to make Sookie’s world come crashing down. (Good Reads)

•  Level of Originality: 2. It is hard to review a book that is so far along in a series for originality--so much ground has been covered! It is even harder with Deadlocked because there is not much to the plot. What mystery was at the center of the book? The dead person on Eric’s lawn, or the missing Fangtasia employees, or the fact that someone is after Sookie’s antiques? (ya, that is about as boring as it sounds). Book #12 does not stand out.
• Level of Absurdity: 2 or 10 (depending on how you feel about this series). I give this a 2 since no NEW paranormal species are introduced in Deadlocked. But if you have not accepted the witch-fairy-vamp-shifter mixing, this is a 10.
• Level of Paranormal Romance:  3. Eric was not as awesome as he usually is and SHOULD be. I mean, if I like Bill more than Eric, you know there is a problem. Because Bill is 90% made of boring.  CHARLAINE HARRIS DO NOT RUIN THE AWESOME THAT IS ERIC.  Please realize that you have been warned.  
• Level of Harry-Potterness: 2. I was not taken with Deadlocked. I was delighted by the first couple of these books. But in the end, I still love Sooks. She is strong-minded. She  unwinds with a clean house, sunbathing, and doing a bit of nothing alone--I wish I had a cool old farmhouse somewhere in the woods to do this, too. But this plot really dragged. AND can Sam get a normal, good girlfriend for once?!

The best part: for Sookie’s birthday the vamps stopped by and Eric said:

“And I suppose as usual, Bill will want to express his undying love that surpasses my love, as he'll tell you--and Pam will want to say something sarcastic and nearly painful, while reminding you that she loves you too." 

MORE OF THIS, please.
Breaking News! Dead Ever After, the 13th book, due out in 2013, will be the last! (Vulture)