The Revenge of Seven by Pittacus Lore

Title: The Revenge of Seven

Series: Lorien Legacies #5

Author: Pittacus Lore

Release Date: 26th August 2014

My Rating: 3/5

Blurb:

The worst was supposed to be over. We were reunited after a decade apart. We were discovering the truth of our past. We were training and getting stronger every day. We were even happy...

We never imagined the Mogodorians could turn one of our own against us. We were fools for trusting Five. And now Eight is lost forever. I would do anything to bring him back, but that's impossible. Instead, I will do whatever it takes to destroy every last one of them.

I've spent my entire life hiding from them, and they've stolen everything away from me. But that stops now. We're going to take the battle to them. We have a new ally who knows their weaknesses. And I finally have the power to fight back.

They caught Number One in Malaysia.

Number Two in England.

Number Three in Kenya.

And Number Eight in Florida.

They killed them all.

I am Number Seven.

I will make them pay.

In A Nutshell:

Plot twists, unlikely allies and old characters return. The battle begins...

My Review:

*** Please note this review contains spoilers. Do not read if you have not read The Fall of Five ***

Here’s a little recap from The Fall of Five…

Following Five’s betrayal, Eight’s death and the attack on the Garde’s penthouse in Chicago, the surviving Loriens and their human friends are in disarray and unable to contact each other.

In Chicago, Four awakes from his sleeping nightmare to find the penthouse under attack. With Sarah, Sam and Malcolm fighting the Mogs, Four makes a decision based on the vision to let the Mogs take Ella to Setrakus Ra, knowing she will not be harmed, while he saves Malcolm and the others. While gathering their chests, Four is almost killed except he is saved by Adam, a ‘good’ Mog who helped Malcolm rescue Sam earlier on. Four agrees to accept his help, although is still wary of him. After Five kills Eight in Florida, Six, Nine and Marina escape Five and the Mogs using Six’s invisibility. However they have to leave Eight’s body behind.

* * * * * *

The Revenge of Seven starts with the Chicago Garde driving to Washington DC while the Garde in Florida try to find their way out of the swamp without Five or the Mogadorians spotting them. With no idea that the penthouse has been destroyed, they focus their anger on Five and try to figure out how to get Eight’s body back before the Mogs can begin experimenting on him.

Meanwhile, Ella is on Setrakus Ra’s spaceship. With no way of getting a message to the Garde and while Setrakus Ra politely attempt’s to convince her of his vision, things quickly turn nasty and Ella is put in danger in a way never expected.

Separated and with no way to communicate with each other, things only get worse for the Garde when the Mogadorians war ships land on earth. And then all hell breaks loose. The final battle has come, and no one is prepared for it so soon.

I don’t think anyone was more surprised than me to discover how much I have loved this series. I usually reject sci-fi books, particularly ones that have aliens, but right from the beginning I have been sucked into the Lorien stories and have stuck with the series all the way through. Admittedly, I kind of hoped everything could continue on as it has been and I wouldn’t have to get involved in reading about alien invasions. But the time has finally come and while I have started to waver a little, I’m still interested to see where the storyline will go, particularly now that we have been left with a few plot twists at the end of The Revenge of Seven and the introduction of unlikely allies. It’s also interesting to see some old characters show up and see how they contribute to the current plot. In any case, I’m sticking with the Lorien Legacies and I hope you will too.

The Sky So Heavy by Claire Zorn

Title: The Sky So Heavy
Author: Claire Zorn
 

Release Date: 24th July 2013

My Rating: 5/5
 

Blurb:

For Fin, it's just like any other day - racing for the school bus, bluffing his way through class, and trying to remain cool in front of the most sophisticated girl in his universe, Lucy. Only it's not like any other day because, on the other side of the world, nuclear missiles are being detonated.

From an exciting new voice in Australian YA literature, Claire Zorn, comes a haunting novel, The Sky So Heavy - a mesmerising story inspired by the continued debate over Australia's treatment of asylum-seekers and how a line through a map can determine your fate.

In A Nutshell:

This gripping story of utter desperation and survival is full of suspense as our characters face a near apocalyptic future. Faced with situations no one, let along children, should have to endure, they question where to draw the line when fighting for survival and how far you would go to protect the ones you love. Claire Zorn and her debut novel, The Sky So Heavy, are exciting new additions to the Aussie YA community.

My Review:

The Sky So Heavy is the debut novel by Australian author Claire Zorn. Zorn has created a chilling story of survival set in Australia’s Blue Mountains after another country ‘tests’ nuclear missiles and essentially sends the world back into the dark ages.

Our main character is seventeen year old Fin. Along with his younger brother Max, the boys battle the freezing cold and dwindling supplies after their dad disappears on the first night. As the months go by, they come to the realisation that those not from the city (Sydney), or who do not possess ‘valuable’ skills (such as doctors) are being left to die. The brothers, forced to fend for themselves to survive, team up with new friend Noll and Fin’s school friend Lucy, and attempt to make their way towards the city in search of Fin and Max’s mother. But staying alive and getting into the barricaded city will be harder than any of them expected.

As Fin tries to hold it all together and stay positive for their little group, their new reality means hypothermia, dehydration and starvation become very real possibilities. And if those don't kill them, someone will probably try. The kindness of strangers often surprises them when at the same time, people they have known their whole lives try to kill them for supplies. With the population becoming more desperate and violence escalating in correlation to how hungry people are, Fin, Noll and Lucy question what is right and wrong. Who do they trust? And where do they draw the line in order to survive and protect the ones they love?

This gripping story of utter desperation and survival is full of suspense as our characters face a near apocalyptic future. Yet throughout their struggle, Fin, Max, Noll and Lucy continue to hold on to hope that they will find somewhere they can rebuild their lives.

Claire Zorn and her first novel, The Sky So Heavy, are exciting new additions to the Aussie YA community.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Title: The Maze Runner

Author: James Dashner

Series: The Maze Runner #1

Release Date: 6th October 2009

My Rating: 3/5

Blurb: 

When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his first name. His memory is blank. But he’s not alone. When the lift’s doors open, Thomas finds himself surrounded by kids who welcome him to the Glade—a large, open expanse surrounded by stone walls.

Just like Thomas, the Gladers don’t know why or how they got to the Glade. All they know is that every morning the stone doors to the maze that surrounds them have opened. Every night they’ve closed tight. And every thirty days a new boy has been delivered in the lift.

Thomas was expected. But the next day, a girl is sent up—the first girl to ever arrive in the Glade. And more surprising yet is the message she delivers.

Thomas might be more important than he could ever guess. If only he could unlock the dark secrets buried within his mind.

In A Nutshell:

A promising beginning but it didn't follow through to an ending that interested me.

My Review:

The Maze Runner is sort of like a cross between The Hunger Games and the TV show Lost. A group of about fifty teenage boys have been placed in an unknown area with no escape. They are given certain supplies each week and once a month, another boy joins them with his memory wiped clean. With no way of leaving, the boys send groups into the maze which is connected to the area they have been remanded to, in the hope of finding an exit and the possibility of a normal life and finding the families they hope are looking for them on the outside. But the maze appears unsolvable and has Grievers, mechanical monsters that patrol, ready to kill any boy that comes into contact with them.

Despite their undesirable circumstances, the characters have managed to form their own working community with a type of government and jobs to keep them busy. Everyone has a job to do, whether it be maintaining the vegetable gardens and caring for the livestock, cleaning the living quarters, taking care of the sick and injured, preparing meals or entering the maze. With the arrival of Thomas, and then Teresa, things start to change and as people begin to remember snippets of their former lives, the maze and the community they have created may not be all that bad after all.

I enjoyed the story and the characters for a large portion of the novel and I was really intrigued as to which way the plot was going to go. However, the direction the author took wasn’t for me and I began to lose interest in the final chapters. The last pages introduced a whole new mystery which did not appeal to me so I won’t be continuing on with The Scorch Trials.

Indigo Awakening by Jordan Dane

Title: Indigo Awakening

Series: The Hunted #1

Author: Jordan Dane

Release Date: 1st December 2012

My Rating: 2/5

Blurb:

Voices told Lucas Darby to run. Voices no one else can hear. He's warned his sister not to look for him, but Rayne refuses to let her troubled brother vanish. On her desperate search, she meets Gabriel Stewart, a runaway with mysterious powers and far too many secrets. Rayne can't explain her crazy need to trust the strange yet compelling boy — even though he scares her.

They discover Lucas is running from the Believers, a fanatical church secretly hunting psychic kids — gifted 'Indigo' teens feared to be the next evolution of mankind. Now Rayne's only hope is Gabe, who is haunted by an awakening power — a force darker than either of them imagine. A force that could doom them all.

In A Nutshell:

Not for me. Too little in some areas, not enough in others.

My Review: 

I’m sorry to say that Indigo Awakening really didn’t do it for me. There are a lot of characters involved and we are shown what is going on from all of their perspectives, at least nine different points of view. There were lots of characters to ‘follow’ and I got to the point where I really wasn’t caring about what was going on. At times, I found the descriptions of what was happening, what the characters were thinking and their reasons for doing things, over explained or repeated and I felt these could have been edited down quite a bit.

In terms of the storyline, the abilities of the Indigo Children are not really explained. After finishing the book, all I really understood about them is that they can communicate telepathically with each other, but I don’t really understand what else it is that they can do. Gabriel’s abilities were both under-explained and over-explained. When he uses his abilities, there is lots of detail about what is going on and the process that leads to the manifestation, but it’s not really clear exactly what it is he is doing.

While I’m sure there are plenty of people who enjoyed Indigo Awakening (see second opinions below), it wasn’t what I was expecting. I spent most of the novel wanting to skip past the other characters and just focus on the developing relationship between Rayne and Gabriel.

Second Opinions
The Eclectic Reader
I Heart YA Books
Books With Bite

The Rise of Nine by Pittacus Lore

Title: The Rise of Nine

Author: Pittacus Lore

Series: The Lorien Legacies #3

Release Date: 30th August 2012

My Rating: 5/5

Previous Books: I am Number Four, The Power of Six

Blurb:

Until the day I met John Smith, Number Four, I'd been on the run alone, hiding and fighting to stay alive.

Together, we are much more powerful. But it could only last so long before we had to separate to find the others. . . .

I went to Spain to find Seven, and I found even more, including a tenth member of the Garde who escaped from Lorien alive. Ella is younger than the rest of us, but just as brave. Now we're looking for the others--including John.

But so are they.

They caught Number One in Malaysia. Number Two in England. And Number Three in Kenya. They caught me in New York--but I escaped. I am Number Six. They want to finish what they started.

But they'll have to fight us first.

In A Nutshell: Awesome, awesome, awesome!

My Review:

The Rise of Nine was truly awesome. Four and Six are back, each accompanied by the new Garde members they tracked down in The Power of Six. There is no rest for the wicked as Six, Marina, Ella and Crayton travel to India in search of Number Eight and encounter rebel fighters in India. Meanwhile, Four and Nine travel across the US, hiding from new enemies and trying to find a way to contact the rest of the Garde.

In the third adrenaline-filled instalment of the Lorien Legacies, the Garde are frustrated to discover that the US Government has stupidly joined forces with the Mogadorians. As lives are lost and new legacies are discovered, the Lorien Garde finally starts to come together, just in time to face the head of the Mogadorians, Setrakus Ra.

New characters, new gadgets, new legacies, new challenges – this series just gets better and better. Book four, rumoured to be titled The Return of Lorien and to be released in August 2013, cannot come soon enough. If it is anything like The Rise of Nine, it will be mind-blowing!

 

Survive by Alex Morel

Title: Survive

Author: Alex Morel

Release Date: 31st July 2012

My Rating: 5/5

Blurb:

Jane is running away from everything. From the facility she’s been living in, from her pain, from her guilt, from life. She boards a plane to Montclair, New Jersey, though her destination isn’t important – she doesn’t plan to be alive when the plane lands.

Jane has devised the perfect suicide. She’ll fall asleep on the plane and never wake up. But as she’s reaching for her pills in the tiny bathroom, the plane hits turbulence and everything goes black.

Jane wakes amid the charred wreckage of a plane crash on a snowy mountaintop, and discovers just one other survivor – a boy named Paul. Lost in a perilous, icy landscape, with little food and water, their chance of survival seems small. But as the pair unite against the vast wilderness, Jane discovers a reason to fight for her life.

In a Nutshell:

This is a story about survival and hope. It’s about conquering your fears, perseverance and pushing yourself beyond what you think is possible, even when every aspect of your body is telling you that it’s impossible.

My Review:

This is a story about survival and hope. It’s about conquering your fears, perseverance and pushing yourself beyond what you think is possible, even when every aspect of your body is telling you that it’s impossible.

After a plane crashes in snowy isolated mountains, a suicidal Jane is left dumbfounded as to why she survived when others did not. But with the delicate rescue of the only other survivor, Paul, and the possibility of hyperthermia, she has little time to consider letting the elements take her away. Under Paul’s instructions, together they seek higher ground and shelter while desperately trying to figure out how to survive until rescuers reach them. Jane doubts herself and her capabilities, yet with a bit of tough love from Paul, her survival mode and instincts kick in. Even when your own life seems pointless, if someone else’s survival depends on you, there really is no choice in the matter. Jane very quickly see’s things from a new perspective and fights to keep the cold from devouring her and Paul. 

Survive was a gripping, emotional, fast paced read that I powered through in one sitting. I loved the relationship that formed between Jane and Paul and I was desperate to find out how their story, and fight for survival in the harsh, snow covered mountains, would be resolved.

There was also some cool little survival tips included. As someone who has never been in the snow, but who plans to be this time next year, I now know not to eat snow (obviously I hope to never be in this kind of situation in the first place)!

I also can’t help but compare it to another novel I read recently This is Not a Test in which another suicidal teenage girl is randomly stopped from carrying out her plan and is ‘forced’ to work with people fighting to survive. Both follow the same principle but I found Survive so much more enjoyable and gripping. I’m not sure why but I think possibly because it was more realistic; fighting the elements of Mother Nature rather than zombie’s. Survive also felt like it had more heart. 

This Is Not A Test by Courtney Summers

Title: This Is Not A Test
Author: Courtney Summers

Release Date: 19th June 2012

My Rating: 3/5

Blurb:

It’s the end of the world. Six students have taken cover in Cortege High but shelter is little comfort when the dead outside won’t stop pounding on the doors. One bite is all it takes to kill a person and bring them back as a monstrous version of their former self. To Sloane Price, that doesn’t sound so bad. Six months ago, her world collapsed and since then, she’s failed to find a reason to keep going. Now seems like the perfect time to give up.

As Sloane eagerly waits for the barricades to fall, she’s forced to witness the apocalypse through the eyes of five people who actually want to live. But as the days crawl by, the motivations for survival change in startling ways and soon the group’s fate is determined less and less by what’s happening outside and more and more by the unpredictable and violent bids for life—and death—inside. When everything is gone, what do you hold on to?

In A Nutshell:

This Is Not A Test is a compelling novel that looks at the psychological state of 6 teenage survivors as they fight to live during what appears to be a zombie apocalypse. A story of hope and finding a reason to live.

My Review: 

This Is Not A Test is a compelling novel that looks at the psychological state of 6 teenage survivors as they fight to live during what appears to be a zombie apocalypse. Although there is some action, the story isn’t based around the teens as they constantly battle the undead. Instead we look at each person’s state of mind and how they evolve during their time holed up at their now empty high school.

Sloane had planned to end it all after a lifetime of being a punching bag for her father. But before she could, the apocalypse started. This could have been the perfect opportunity for her life to end but while sitting in the middle of the street waiting for a zombie to come and munch on her (that wasn’t supposed to sound comical), two guys she went to high school with stumbled across her and helped her to ‘safety’. Sloane has no desire to ‘take anyone down with her’ so while she waits for the perfect moment when she can surrender to the banging on the otherside of the wall, she spends her days surrounded by people who want to live and are struggling to adjust to suddenly being faced with death. But perhaps what is even more significant is that without realising it, Sloane begins to form a type of bond with some of the others, possibly giving her a reason to fight, if not for herself, then maybe another.

It was a gripping novel with a message of hope but I finished it feeling rather blasé. For some reason, and I can’t quite put my finger on what or why, but it just wasn’t enough for me.

 

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

Title: Beauty Queens
Author: Libba Bray

Release Date: 1st June 2011

My Rating: 5/5

Blurb:
Teen beauty queens.
A lost island.
Mysteries and dangers.
No access to email.

And the spirit of fierce, feral competition that lives deep in the heart of every girl, a savage brutality that can only be revealed by a journey into the heart of non-exfoliated darkness.

The horror, the horror!

Only funnier. With evening gowns. And a body count.

Join Libba Bray in this wicked satire of beauty pageants, reality TV and pop culture.

In A Nutshell:
A hilarious story filled with sexy pirates, killer snakes, temperamental beauty queens and accessories that can be used as weapons, Beauty Queens shows that just because you may be pretty, doesn’t mean you can’t fend for yourself when everything turns to mud (literally!). Highly recommended!

My Review:
I totally loved Beauty Queens! It has been described as Drop Dead Gorgeous (the movie) meets Lost (the TV show) but what I found was that Beauty Queens is so much more. While it is absolutely hilarious and does take the mickey out of beauty pageants, it is ultimately an uplifting story filled with heart and featuring a great cast of characters. It is a story about personal discovery, empowerment, comradery and the pressure put on girls, not just in beauty pageants but in today’s society.

When a plane carrying the contestants and crew of the Miss Teen Dream Beauty Pageant crashes on a remote island, the girls must set aside their competitive streaks (although they certainly still appear every now and then!) to join forces and survive.

There are only twelve survivors, all beauty queens, and with only suitcases full of beauty products and accessories at their disposal, the girls have to fend for themselves and avoid the unknown perils of the island. And what do they come face to face with? Killer snakes, quicksand, secret agents, sexy pirates, a stupid trust fund Yale graduate, an arms dealer with a love of Elvis, hallucinogenic berries, a former Miss Teen Dream who is no dream at all and of course each other! Oh and not to mention a lack of food, water and bathroom facilities!

Over the weeks following the crash, the girls begin to discover who they really are, now that they are not being influenced by their pageant obsessed mothers and coaches. They start to realise what they really want for themselves in life, discover talents they didn’t know they had and allow their real passions to come to light.

As friendships are forged and secrets revealed, we get to see some amazing uses for beauty products, hair-straighteners, eyelash curlers and ugly evening wear as the girls create new homes and an interesting but effective range of arsenal to protect themselves from the unknown dangers of the mysterious island.

I loved almost all the girls but my favourite beauty queens would have to be Adina (Miss New Hampshire), Jennifer (Miss Michigan) and Mary Lou (Miss Nebraska). I highly recommend Beauty Queens and am now looking forward to reading Libba Bray’s previous novel, Going Bovine.

Thankyou to Allen and Unwin for this review copy.

Second Opinions
bean there, read that
Words on Paper

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Title: Divergent
Author: Veronica Roth

Release Date: 1st May 2011

My Rating: 5/5

Blurb:

In Beatrice Prior′s dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue-Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is-she can′t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together, they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are-and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes-fascinating, sometimes-exasperating boy fits into the life she′s chosen. But Tris also has a secret: one she′s kept hidden from everyone, because she′s been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might be what helps her save those she loves . . . or it might be what destroys her.

My Review:
I LOVE THIS BOOK!

When I picked Divergent up, I was unaware of all the hype circulating the blogosphere and was unsure of what I was getting myself into. I like going into reading a novel without a biased opinion and allowing the book to have a clean slate. It wasn't until I finished reading it that I discovered I was not alone in my love for it.

It is so easy to become completely absorbed in the pages of Divergent as Tris struggles with the choices she has made, how they affect her in her new faction, and her feelings towards the family she has left behind.

While I didn't connect with all the characters (when tragedy strikes some of them I didn't feel a great loss, just like Tris didn't), I did really like the slowly evolving friendship and relationship between Tris and Four. I liked his whole 'tortured soul, mysterious background' deal and was glad to not have to face ANOTHER love triangle. The relationship is a secondary storyline and I really liked that it wasn't the main focus. There were some fantastic surprises that I really loved, including revelations about her family and the discovery of a long-lost faction member.

I love Tris's spirit, her courage and trains of thought. I love her innocence but also how she feels when she lets go and becomes the person she is, rather than who she has been told to be, no matter the consequences. She is her own person, who is stronger than she, or anyone else, would have believed.

Think The Hunger Games meets Matched. I was a little worried that it would be more like Matched when I first started reading it but the more I got into it, the more I grew to really love Divergent. While I know I probably shouldn't compare books to each other, trust me, dystopian fans will not be disappointed. Beware, like some scenes in The Hunger Games, Divergent can get quite brutal at times.

I can't praise debut author Roth more. Fantastic!

Tomorrow When the War Began is here!

Some of you may remember I blogged a couple of months ago about the extremely exciting news that the amazing Australian YA series Tomorrow When The War Began by John Marsden, was being made in to a movie. Well...it's out!

Last night, accompanied by some very special people (including Linda over at So Much To Tell You), I finally saw my most anticipated movie release of the year. All of us are mega fans of the series and we thought it was AMAZING! We were so happy they didn't screw it up and the move from book to screen was done so well and it stayed true to the book. I was really impressed with the casting which I think says a lot because as you all know, you always have your own image as to how the characters look. Oh and there is also an awesome Australian soundtrack as well.

When it finished, all of us wanted to stay in our seats and watch it again and again. We really hope that all 7 books get made into films, and all in quick succession. I have read that there is talk, if the movie is received well (!!), to make the first three books into movies and then the remaining books into a TV show. I vote all 7 into movies!

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

If you have not read these amazing books, you should go out right now and buy the first. If you are a fan and are skeptical about seeing the movie, don't be, it's awesome.