Book Review: Escape Velocity by Robin Stevenson

Escape Velocity by Robin Stevenson

Genre: Contemporary Young Adult
Pages: 240
Acquired: 10/18/11
Book of Your Shelf? No
Why I read it: First Reads
Series: No

Lou is a teenager living in Alberta with her father, and she's miserable. She has no life, no friends, and her father's deteriorating health and prescription drug addictions are driving her mad. Her mother, a famous poet and author, left minutes after she was born. They reconnected when she was a older, but things have happened since that makes it difficult for them to speak to each other. When the unthinkable happens and Lou's dad ends up in the hospital after a stroke, she is shipped off to live with the mother she hardly knows. Lou decides to make the best of the situation and tries to figure out why her mother left. She is convinced the answer will be found somewhere in her mother's writing, but the conclusion Lou draws is not a happy one.

Lou rubbed me the wrong way. The author seemed to be trying to make her optimistic and hopeful, but it just didn't seem to come across the pages right. She had few original ideas and it often seemed like she just didn't get it - any of it. The situation between her and her father seemed extremely unrealistic and I had a hard time relating to them. The strain between Lou and her mother really held the story together for me. With both of them trying to figure their lives and themselves out, they keep missing what really matters most in their relationship.

I saw most of the final twist coming, but it was a bit more dramatic than I anticipated. The book ended nicely for me - it left things open to continue in the imagination, but closed enough to give me resolution.

3/5

Book Review: All Good Children by Catherine Austen

All Good Children by Catherine Austen
Genre: Distopia, Young Adult
Pages: 312
Acquired: 09/07/11
Book of Your Shelf? No
Why I read it: LTER

Series: NoneMax, Ally and his mother live in a city called Middleton. Middleton is one of the few places left in the US with a decent school system, safe streets, healthy people, and little crime. But the administrators of Middleton think it could be even better. What if they found a way to get rid of misbehavior in children. Now, we're not talking about just the big ones like arson and fighting, but even the little ones, like giggling in class and expressing an opinion. As this is slowly taking effect on the children of all ages, few seem to speak out against it. Max's mother is one of those few and they begin to hatch a plan to escape from the city.

While, our main character is Max, I fell in love with his little sister Ally. Not the brightest in the bunch, she makes up for it in pure personality. Max, a fantastic graffiti artist, seems to be going through a fairly typical teenage angst stage that didn't seem overly original. The supporting characters tended to remain fairly flat throughout the book until they were effected by the new behavior "cure". Then they just turned into what Max calls zombies....a very appropriate name.

The plot centers around Max and his family and a few of his friends, especially his best friend Dallas, and their lives as they make plans to escape without being zombified. The plan they hatch is intricate and simple at the same time and keeps the story moving as we watch the town slowly become more and more suspicious of the family. There were times when the story seemed to drag a little, but perhaps that was done on purpose to show you how hard it was for the family to make it through. As a concept the story was amazing.

3.5/5

Book Review: Shatter Dreams by Ellie James



Shattered Dreams by Ellie James

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 342
Acquired: 7/11/11
Book of Your Shelf? No
Why I read it: LTER
Series: Midnight Dragonfly (1)

Trinity is special. She dreams true things, things that are or will be happening...and most of the time they are not good. Trinity comes to live with her aunt in New Orleans after the death of her grandmother. After a foolish prank is pulled on her by Jessica, the mean but popular girl at school, Jessica turns up missing. Trinity has "seen" what is going on, but most won't believe her and the ones that do think Trinity had something to do with it. Trinity has to find a way to save Jessica before it's too late, but there is a deeper plot at work against her that she doesn't see.

Trinity is a great character. Haunted by her past and her present she is looking for answers to so many questions. The urgent one is how she can help Jessica without making it seem even more like she was involved in the disappearance. She is also trying to learn more about her family and the mysterious "gift" she has of seeing things.

Trinity is helped by by her new friend, Chase. Chase used to be Jessica's boyfriend and is also being investigated as a potential part of her disappearance. He has connections and tries to help Trinity find answers to her many questions.

A great story that draws deep on the history of New Orleans, from its historical cemetaries to the wreckage left by Hurricane Katrina. We follow Trinity as she learns about the city of her past and what to expect from her future.

4/5

Book Review: The Dragons of Chiril by Donita K. Paul

The Dragons of Chiril by Donita K. Paul

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Pages: 390
Acquired: 6/4/2011
Book of Your Shelf? No
Why I have it: ARC
Series: Valley of the Dragons (1)

Tipper's father, Verrin Schope, has been missing for a long time. When he returns in a most unexpected manner, followed by a magician and his librarian, things start to get a little strange. Verrin Schope is an artist, and three of his sculptures are much more important than anyone could ever guess. In order to save the world (and himself) the statues must be reunited once again. Tracking down the three statues, which have been sold over the years Verrin was missing, proves to be harder than it was originally thought. The journey to recover the statues is what drives the story forward through a very interesting series of events.

I enjoyed reading Dragons of the Valley, and while this book preceeds the story, knowing part of the outcome did not detract from the story at all. Seeing where my favorite characters came from and how they met was great. I did not enjoy the characters quite as much as I did in Dragons of the Valley. They did not develop and grow in a way that I found satisfying, but this being the first book in the series it may have just been setting them up to do so.

A very typical good vs bad storyline, with a few twists to make it interesting. The bad guys were a little too obviously bad. A few more in depth surprises would have helped the story a bit.

3.5/5

Book Review: The Witches of East End by Melissa de la Cruz

The Witches of East End by Melissa de la Cruz

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 288
Acquired: May 13, 2011
Book of Your Shelf? No
Why I have it: LibraryThing ERC
Series: The Beauchamp Family (1)
Release date:  June 21, 2011 - HardCover and NOOK

The Beauchamp women, Joanna and her daughters Freya and Ingrid, have been around for ages ... literally. They are very powerful witches, each with their own special talents. Many, many years ago they were banned from using their powers and they have been struggling to live "normal" lives ever since. Soon their home town of North Hampton, Long Island becomes a bit of a cauldron for dark energy. Unexplainable accidents and strange disappearances lean the Beauchamps back to their old ways of magic. What seems to be a bit of innocent magical assistance soon turns into a full scale investigation by the tree into what is starting to foul their normally happy town.

All three witches are fascinating women. Their characters are well written and well rounded. Each has her own unique personality that I came to appreciate very early on in the story. As each struggles with their own part of the strange occurrences around town, we see a glimpse of just how powerful they could be if they really tried.

I really enjoyed this book and it ended with an opening for a sequel that I hope arrives quickly. For those of you familiar with de la Cruz's other series, there is an interesting twist that was worked into the story very nicely.

4/5

Book Review: The Lady of Bolton Hill by Elizabeth Camden

The Lady of Bolton Hill by Elizabeth Camden

Genre: Young Adult, Christian, Historical Romance
Pages: 336
Acquired: April 2011
Book of Your Shelf? No
Why I have it: ERC
Series: No

A rarity in 1800's, Clara Endicott is a journalist. She has made a name for herself in England by writing about the working conditions of London's poor. She has also wound up in jail for the same thing. An anonymous supporter helps her return home to Baltimore where she finds that life has changed. Her childhood best friend, Daniel Tremain, has risen from a mill worker to an industry leader and power house. But Clara finds that more than just Daniel's social and financial status has changed. He does not seem to be the same person she knew growing up. As Clara tries to find the man she once knew deep inside Daniel, she is inadvertently drawn into danger by one of Daniel's many adversaries.

A enjoyed the story very much, until the end. I had not read too much about this time period and I enjoyed reading a story that brought it to life for me - the labor riots, the crime, and the muckrakers making headlines. However, the characters fell a little flat - especially Clara who seems to start off perfect and go about trying to make everyone else just as perfect as she is. In some ways she succeeds and in others she doesn't. Her successes seem to pop out of nowhere, with people changing their entire life view after just a few conversations with her.

Overall, the story itself was good, but I found the characters to be lacking.

2.5/5

Book Review: Wildthorn by Jane Eagland

Wildthorn by Jane Eagland

Louisa Cosgrove is in trouble. On the way to stay with some friends of her older brothers, she finds the carriage stopped in front of an asylum instead. An asylum for mentally ill women, and they seem to think she's someone names Lucy Childs. Try as she might to convince them of their mistake, they just assume her "confusion" is all part of her mental condition.

Louisa was an oddity for her time. She wanted to be a doctor like her father in an era where females even being nurses was still frowned upon. As she tries to unravel the threads of her past and figure out how she ended up in the asylum, Wildthorn, we get to see the difficulties and joys of her life as she grew up. We also get a very intimate look into what asylum life was like - and it wasn't very pretty.

Louisa finds unexpected friends, and surprising enemies as she goes. I was very surprised when the betrayer of her trust is finally revealed and is forced to come to terms with what happened to Louisa.

While the story was interesting and moved along fairly well, there were times I had a little trouble believing in some of the characters, at times they seemed very static.

3.5/4

Book Review: The Secret Year by Jennifer R. Hubbard

The Secret Year by Jennifer R. Hubbard

This was an ARC won on La Femme Readers blog.

The secret year is a story about living in the past. For a year, Colt and Julia were having a secret affair. She was from a rich family, had rich friends, and they all tended to look down on the people that lived in the area Colt lived in. Until a chance meeting down at the river changed everything. Now Julia is dead and Colt finds himself unable to publicly mourn her, because no one has any idea that they even knew each other. To top it all off, Colt feels that he is partly responsible for the car accident that killed her.


Colt finds himself in the possession of a journal that Julia wrote the year they were "together". He finds himself reliving the moments they shared and unable to truly move forward. As he lives in the past, the rest of the world is moving forward with or without him. He struggles to let go and find a place where he belongs again

The characters struggled with all the typical teenage issues, which were only compounded by the loss of Julia. At times I felt bad for Colt and others I thought he was acting like a spoiled brat. We learn about Julia through the journal entires that Colt reads, and she becomes a character that many could relate to. The story was touching and I breezed through it in two sittings. I had to make myself put it down the first night because it was 2am and I really needed to sleep.
4/5