Tag Archives: YA Scifi

Beta by Rachel Cohn

21 Jan

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Book One in the Annex Series

Rating: Four out of Five Stars

Beta is like the teenage girl version of iRobot. But instead of robots they are clones (ahh epic sci-fi-ness!) And as my nerd girl status reaches “ninja master”, that basically means LITERARY GOLD in my mind.

Beta reminds me a lot of Glitch. And by a lot I mean pretty much exactly. Sure the characters have a different quirks and different worlds, but the premise of the book is the same: you shouldn’t feel emotions, but you do so now you somehow have to deal with it and if you let people know, you will be deactivated. But since you are a badass, you are gunna stick it to the man and survive with your boymanlover. Yup, pretty sure I could be talking about either one of those books with that description!

Lucky for moi, I loved Glitch so it’s only normal that I would enjoy Beta too. BUT OMG THAT ENDING. I think this is the WORST CLIFFHANGER I have ever experienced.

Seriously, this was me reading the last three paragraphs:

JDKIn

C0pUt

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And then it ended and I realized book two DOESN’T EVEN HAVE A RELEASE DATE YET

D1nx1

Heartbreaking… seriously. Probably one of the most intense endings I have read in awhile. It’s not even the intriguing ending like Crossed by Allie Condie was. At least she left me with something I could think about, mull over, and let fester in my brain until Reached came out. Oh no, not Rachel. She created this whole world for you and then WHAMBAM thank-you-ma’am turned everything inside out.

I  really enjoyed this book. I flew through it and was bugged eyed the whole time. It’s not a fast paced book but is does have a lot of twists that hold your interest and keeps you engaged in the story.

For the first book in the novel, it’s a great start to an awesome series. It’s dramatic, fast paced, sexy, and intense. But unless you want to be tortured like me for a year, wait until the second book comes out..

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To Read Tuesday – up and coming reads!

4 Dec

I want to give a huge thank you to everyone out there who read my first two chapters last week. I received some GREAT feedback and look forward to going back and editing a few things. I was super nervous about going “public” with it but I couldn’t ask for better readers than you guys or more support! Keep emailing me at smcampbell07@hotmail.com!

Ok on to the real post!

As I assume you’ve realized by now, I am a geek. There is a glaring neon arrow that points to me and says “BOOK NERD”. I spend more money on books than I do on clothes and booze, and as a 23 year old I feel that is quite the accomplishment! I am so into all things books I actually have a list of book releases pinned onto my calendar at work. 12

Overkill? HECK NO! I am a proud book nerd and I wear my geekdom like it’s a badge on honor. My work bestie and book soul mate Amy gave me the suggestion to write a once a week blog about those book that are coming out soon that I am super duper stoked for!

Thus, To-Read Tuesdays have commenced! Chea!

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Prodigy by Marie Lu

Series: Legend Book Two

Previous Rating: Legend (book one in the series) 5 out of 5 stars.

Release Date: January 29, 2013

Why I am Excited: I adored Legend. It was a fast paced and thrilling book. I connected with both characters and enjoyed reading the story through both of their preservatives. Lu got dinged on having her characters be to similar by reviewers but I praise her for it. While no, there is not as much diversity between narrations, it did give the readers a better sense of how different life is in this world based on birthrights. The world was created thoroughly and because we experienced two different view points with June and Day, we really got a chance to see and know the dystopian society. Legend left on such a twist in the plot I have been aching for almost a year to read this book.

What I Hope To See: *CONTAINS SPOILERS* If you haven’t read book one, LOOK AWAY! Now that both June and Day are fully developed as characters, I hope Lu starts to create obvious separation between them. June = female Day =male.  You can still have a strong heroine without making her all pigtails and prom dresses! With that being said, I hope June doesn’t become TOO much a girly lovesick teenager. She can have emotions, but they need to rule her the same way they ruled her in Legend. I hope that now that they have busted out of the Republic, they don’t automatically get pampered and pushed into a leadership role with the Patriots purely because they have insider information. Yes, they are both insanely badass, but I would like to see some kind of development where they have to prove themselves worthy to lead type of a thing.

My Predictions: it’s been almost a year since I have read Legend but based purely on what the summary says about book two, here are my thoughts:

  1. June and Day’s relationship: I think it’s going to be one of those awkward relationships where neither one of them fully trust the other and they don’t know exactly how to interact with each other. Issues? Complication? Oh yes please.
  2. June is going to have a thing for the new Elector. If memory serves, June met him in Book One and he wasn’t half bad. I think this will cause a lot of friction between June and Day.
  3. Someone needs to die. Either Day’s brother or someone else important to the main characters but someone needs to die in order for a vengeful attack to be made.

“Each day means a new twenty-four hours. Each day means everything’s possible again. You live in the moment, you die in the moment, you take it all one day at a time.” Marie Lu, Legend

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Glitch by Heather Anastasiu

12 Nov

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Book One of the Glitch Series

Rating: Four out of 4 Stars

I adored this book. And the more I step away from it and let it process, the more I find myself thinking about it. Although originally I gave it three stars, any book that keeps me thinking about it days after I have finished it gets bumped up to the next level.

Let me preface this review by saying that I do understand the negative comments about this book. And having read the reviews before I read the story I was almost going to pass this book by. But I am sooo glad I didn’t. Here are my two issues:

1.) Glitch is obviously a debut author’s book and not a seasoned writer’s work. We can see evidence of a newbies writing throughout the story. The most obvious places to me was when Anastasiu described to character movements. She wouldn’t fully describe a scene and so when she would have a character do some action, you where thrown out of the story. For example, Zoe and Adrien would climb onto the bed but she wouldn’t say they laid down or sat up so you couldn’t fully create the picture in your mind. But then she would say “Zoe leaned forward and put her hands on her knees”. And you would have to now rework the picture of the scene in your head to put Zoe in a position that would allow her to do that action. While the overall story was thought out, there are general techniques that Anastasiu will need to work on in the next book.

2.) Anastasiu took on a huge task writing an character that doesn’t have emotions. After all, books are based on a characters emotions! The problem was that you need descriptive words you get from having emotions to create a fluid and beautiful story. So sometimes Zoe would describe pictures or people using words like “warmth” and “compassion” when she really shouldn’t have any understanding of warmth or compassion if she doesn’t understand emotions right? Right.

So those two glaring negatives aside, I did enjoy this book and look forward to Book Numero Dos. The issues of the book were very technical and show the authors youth in writing. But I did think the way she wrote Zoe’s relationship with Max and Adrien was well done. Anastasiu definitely captured how confusing emotions are and how much we feel effects how we act. I enjoyed being apart of Zoe’s journey of emotional discovery, it was realistic. I thoroughly enjoyed the dynamics between Max and Zoe. I realize this relationship has been criticized immensely, but in my opinion it was SO TRUE! And bravo for not creating a weak character who DOES have a morsel self respect. I liked how we finally have a female character who does have morals, even if she doesn’t understand where they come from.

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