Review: Ship Breaker

Title: Ship Breaker
Author: Paolo Bacigalupi
Rating: 8
Date of Release: May 1st, 2010

Summary: In America's Gulf Coast region, where grounded oil tankers are being broken down for parts, Nailer, a teenage boy, works the light crew, scavenging for copper wiring just to make a quota--and hopefully live to see another day. But when, by luck or chance, he discovers an exquisite clipper ship beached during a recent hurricane, Nailer faces the most important decision of his life: strip the ship for all it's worth or rescue its long survivor, a beautiful and wealthy girl who could lead him to a better life... 

Let's start right off with first impressions. The cover goes very, very well with the story, it is what drew me in to reading the book in the first place. It isn't super common that a cover goes along well with the story, but this one does. Second, I hate that summary. Look at the first sentence. Thirty-nine words and five commas. Too much, just break it into different sentences for crying out loud! I'm a stickler for simplistic sentences, so that irked me.

About the story itself. For once, I preferred the characters to the plot, which usually isn't my view. The plot had promise, but at times it felt a little...flat. The final sea battle was confusing and I felt a little unfulfilled at the end. Plus, all of Nailer's choices seem 'right'. One of the rules of plot devices is that the first problem should just happen to the character, and the rest are caused by his or her choices. Look at Harry Potter, the Goblet of Fire. The whole Dark Mark thing in the beginning wasn't Harry's fault, but at the end, Sirius dies because of Harry's impulsive choices. Nailer made no such choices, and so the plot was a little iffy for me. It wasn't horrible, but I had an all-over 'meh' feeling about it.

The setting was great. Beached clippers, rusting all over the Gulf, destroyed cities, a "Life Cult". The lore of the story was great, I don't have much negative to say about it.

Now, the characters. As I mentioned above, the characters plus the setting are what gave this book its highish rating. Nailer was definitely not perfect, just a boy living in a imperfect world. His sense of morality has been dulled but not destroyed, as he finds when he looks into Nita's (the wealthy girl that was beached) eyes. The lingo used throughout is pitch perfect, rich people are 'swanks', there's 'light crew' and 'heavy crew'. And also, I'm so happy that this story had a male protagonist. Nearly all YA seems to have a female protag these days, or at least the popular books.Although this was written two years ago, I'm hoping to see more male protagonists in the future, just for diversity.

Will I read the sequel? Maybe. If I have time.

Final Rating: 8

Review: The Way We Fall

Title: The Way We Fall
Author: Megan Crewe
Rating: 7/10
Date of Release: January 24, 2012
Summary: It starts with an itch you just can't shake. Then comes a fever and a tickle in your throat. A few days later, you'll be blabbing your secrets and chatting with strangers like they're old friends. Three more, and the paranoid hallucinations kick in.

And then you're dead.

When sixteen-year-old Kaelyn lets her best friend leave for school without saying goodbye, she never dreams taht she might not see him again. But then a strange virus begins to sweep through her small island community, infection young and old alike. As the dead pile up, the government quarantines the island: no one can leave, and no one can come back. 

Those still healthy must fight for the island's dwindling supplies, or lose all chance of survival. As everything familiar comes crashing down,  Kaelyn joins forces with a former rival and discovers a new love in the midst of heartbreak. When the virus starts to rob her of friends and family, she clings to the belief that there must be a way to save the people she holds dearest.

Because how will she go on if there isn't?

Firstly, that is a freaking long synopsis, no? I spent longer than I expected typing that out.

Okay, I have to say this book surprised me. A lot. Reading the synopsis, I thought it would be a zombie novel, and barely included it in my library hold shelf. That would have been a mistake.

Let's start with characters: I'm going to be honest, I wasn't dazzled. We got the stereotypical loyal, loving, hot boyfriend Gav. Not much to say there, there wasn't much to him except excessive loyalty and not much pride. Like, none, actually. Even when he's working his butt off helping the island, he spends his time moping that he isn't doing enough. I have to say I didn't really like him. I did like Kae. The book was written out journal-style, like she was writing letters to her best friend Leo. Her thoughts were interesting and I liked her. Which is pretty darn rare, since protagonists can get on my nerves.

The other characters were 'meh'. Meredith and Tessa, I didn't seem to get a good grasp of their characters  Tessa especially, she was really two-dimensional. Quentin, however, I liked. He made a good villain, and some scenes with him and Kae made me shiver.

Plotwise, this book was top notch. Got drama, action, family, all narrated from the journal perspective. I haven't seen much journal-style in the new YA market lately. There is a reason for that though, there is not as much suspense, since we know she made it out fine and is writing it to her almost-boyfriend back on the mainland. So when [SPOILERS] Kae gets knocked out by the virus, we know she's got to be fine, because there's like fifty-freaking-percent of the book left. [END SPOILERS]

If this was based on a zombie-type virus, it was a good twist. The virus was scary, and I caught myself scratching and itching nervously throughout the story. It was an easy read, not twisty or super over the top, but still heart-stopping at some bits.

However, things can move a little too fast. For instance, something bad happens to Kae, and she gets over it within the next two entries. What? For real? She really cares that little? My respect for the story went downhill after the first 70% or so. It just seemed to jump from plot point to plot point too fast, leaving the characters little time to have a breath. Maybe style, maybe just a poor writing choice, but I didn't like it.

That's all I got for now.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Final Score: 7

Review: Revived

Title: Revived
Author: Cat Patrick
Rating: 4
Date of Release: May 8th, 2012
Summary: As a little girl, Daisy Appleby was killed in a  school bus crash. Moments after the accident, she was brought back to life.
A secret government agency has developed a drug called Revive that can bring people back from the ead, and Daisy Appleby, a test subject, has been Revived five times in fifteen years. Daisy takes extraordinary risks, knowing that she can beat death, but each new death also means a new name, a new city, and a new life.
When she meets Matt McKean, Daisy begins to question the moral implications of Revive, and as she discovers the agency's true goals, she realizes she is at the center of something larger--and much more sinister--than she ever imagined.

[Warning: this whole article contains spoilers. While I do not recommend it, if you want to read it I suggest you don't read the review]

You would think, looking at this awesome cover, that Cat Patrick had brought us a very unique premise in sci-fi fiction. I grabbed it eagerly, ignoring the 'meh' reviews on Goodreads. It can't be TOO bad, right?

Above: Daisy

Where do I begin? Well, to start off, Daisy. So you've been given the chance to come back from the dead five times. What do you do? Complain about having to move each time, of course. Have a 'holier than thou' attitude to the agents who live in your house. Darling, in case you haven't noticed, Mason and Cassie have to move too, every time you forget your EpiPen and get stung by those meany bees. Daisy doesn't seem to care that other people in her life are affected by her move. 

As for the other characters, I liked some of them and hated some of them. Let's start off with Matt. If I have to read one more 'Ohmigosh he is so hottttt I'm going to die he's so cutttee and perffeect and I just love him and he loves me and we all eat rainbows and butterflies, yay!' story, this will be me:

Matt is perfect. He's rich. He lives with his pushover parents in a mansion and drives and awesome car. Even after his sister, dies, he's still perfect. Still has a car, and pushover parents, and can fly and see Daisy in her new home. And, while Audrey (Matt's little sister, dying of cancer) is sick, Daisy thinks telling Matt about how she has come back from the dead five times will result in anything except him demanding that Daisy steal it and give it to Audrey. Really? Did you even think that one over, Daisy? Of course, it doesn't work, because for some reason, it can work on a girl who was stung by many bees and is all swollen and filled with bee venom, but it doesn't work on cancer. Convenient?

Which brings me to another quick point. How does Revive even work? How is it possible at all to bring someone back from the dead? There was a lot of potential for some interesting sciency stuff or even philosophical stuff, but instead we got a long discourse about what Audrey's room looks like and how hot Matt is. For Science Fiction, the 'science' element was severely lacking.

One more point on the bad side before we move over to the 'pros' side. The plot in the middle meanders around. So Daisy goes out, get drunks, come back--with, guess who? (hint: ohmigosh he's so hotttt I'm going to dieeee). Um, so? Daisy goes a whole bunch of places, but it doesn't seem to affect the story a whole lot. Maybe the fact that I didn't care about the main character clouded my judgement, I can't know for sure. All I know is that 3/4 of the book was 'ohmigosh, he's so hottt' and 'ohmigosh, my new best friend is dying. That obviously means I have to tell her brother that I came back from the dead. But guess what, he can't use it to save his sister'. The last 1/4 was interesting, if only it had taken up more of the story.

All of this wasn't horrible. There were parts I enjoyed, or actually cared about. Audrey was, by far, the best character in the story. Mason was good too, but he could get pretty unrealistic at times. So, I liked Audrey and her whole subplot. But again, I didn't think her death mattered much in the story. So. Daisy's sad, and she has to be there for Matt. Okay. But how does that stop the villain. I feel like her death was setting up for a whole philosophical side, but at most, that "side" got one page. I found too many problems with this story, and the bad outweighs the good.

Final Score: 4

Waiting on Wednesday: Fragments

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine. That is good, otherwise I would need spell check to know how to spell Wednesday :P I hate that word.

What book am I waiting on this week?

Fragments, by Dan Wells

As I mentioned before, when I reviewed Partials, this book wasn't AMAZING, but I really enjoyed it none the less, so I can't wait for the sequel to come out. February 26, 2013. Oh, why?

One gripe: they can't use a different image for the girl then they did for Partials? For real? That seems a bit lazy to me. Click here to see the other cover...with the same girl, down to the blowing hair.

But, Partials, Fragments. I see what you did there (wink)

Review: Fair Coin

Title: Fair Coin
Author: E. C. Myers
Rating: 9
Date of Release: March 27, 2012
Summary: Sixteen-year-old Ephraim Scott is horrified when he comes home from school and finds his mother unconscious at the kitchen table, clutching a bottle of pills. The reason for  her suicide attempt is even more disturbing: she thought she'd identified Ephraim's body at the hospital that day.

Among his dead double's belongings, Ephraim finds a strange coin--a coin that grants wishes when he flips it. With a flick of  his thumb, he can turn his alcoholic mother into a model parent and catch the eye of the girl he's liked since second grade. But the coin doesn't always change things for the better. A bad flip can destroy other people's lives as easily as it rebuilds his own.
The coin could give Ephraim everything he's ever wanted--if he learns to control his power before his luck runs out.

I was intrigued by this story from the synopsis to the cover. I mean, this is a pretty epic cover. But the story was just as good, if not better, then the cover.

The story follows Ephraim as he tries to change his not-so-good present into the life he always dreamed of, with the 'magic' coin. I expected magic, some cheesy moments and an okay story. I wasn't expecting the head ride this book was. Ephraim soon [minor spoilers] realizes that the coin isn't magic at all, in fact it has a root in principles of alternate universes.[end spoilers]. The whole premise was very interesting. For some readers it might be too much theory and not enough clear-cut action, but I really enjoyed that whole aspect of the book.

Ephraim is a sympathetic character. I feel that I would have made the same blunders and done the same things he would have if I had a 'magic' coin. Sure, he didn't have a huge presence in this story, but because the plot was so cool I let that pass. He does his job in the story, but no more. The other characters were also good. Not great, but good. This book might dip into a bit of the classic cliches: the cute geeky girl, the mildly perverted sidekick, and the stupid bully jock, and that was one thing I didn't really like. Then again, there is a difference between archetypes and cliches, and the characters in Fair Coin toe that line.

Altogether, there isn't much I have against this. There were some pacing problems, a few points where I just wanted them to get on with it (especially about 4/5 the way through), but when the plot came back it came back with a vengeance. I will be looking out for Fair Coin's sequel, Quantum Coin, when it comes out in three days (Oct. 23)

Review: Ashes, Ashes

Title: Ashes, Ashes
Author: Jo Terggiari
Rating: 6
Date of Release: 6/1/11
Summary: A thrilling tale of adventure, romance, and one girl's unyielding courage through the darkest of nightmares. Epidemics, floods, droughts--for sixteen-year-old Lucy, the end of the world came and went, taking 99% of the population with it. As the weather continues to rage out of control, and Sweepers clean the streets of plague victims, Lucy survives alone in the wilds of Central Park. But when she's rescued by a pack of hunting dogs by a mysterious boy named Aidan, she reluctantly realizes she can't continue on her own. She joins his band of survivors, yet, a new danger awaits her. The Sweepers are looking for her. There's something special about Lucy, and they will stop at nothing to have her.

I expected a lot from this book. Cool cover, interesting synopsis, nice setup...it had all the necessary components to make it insta-book love. Unfortunately it fell short.

First of all, I didn't really care about the main character, a girl named Lucy who lives survives by herself in what was once New York. I didn't dislike her, but I had no feelings to really care about her. So, sure, her life kind of sucks and she meets a hot boy who saves her from a pack of feral dogs. I didn't really care at all.

The other characters were slightly better. Aidan, the boy who saved her, is cute, but we never really know about him. Why does he like Lucy, aside from the fact that she's the female main character and that kind of thing is written in the literary stars? Where did he come from? Why does another character, Del, like him for? I feel the author was setting up for another story to answer some of these, but I'd have liked a lot less secrets and a few more answers. 

In the same way, we never know how this plague that killed much of the earth's population 'mutated'. The characters use the phrase 'it mutated', but we never know how, are what that entails. The plot had holes, and more than I touched on here for the sake of spoilers. There were too many scenes of Lucy doing work, flirting with two different guys or just thinking about superfluous details--like how to get meat off a turtle--that when you get to the end of the story you realize how little real plot went on between the 342 pages that wasn't some long, detailed treatise on how Lucy's house looked before she moved out.

But, for all its shortcomings, I cannot say I derived no enjoyment in reading Ashes, Ashes. I did. Maybe because, as I stated before, I really love this genre, or the fact that everything was directing me to read this first out of all the new library books I picked up. So while there were many things I didn't like about this novel, they didn't stop me from reading it. If you don't look too hard at the plot holes or annoying main character, some could enjoy this book.

Final Rating: 6

Review: Partials

Title: Partials
Author: Dan Wells
Rating: 8
Date of Release: February 28, 2012
Synopsis: The human race is all but extinct after a war with Partials—engineered organic beings identical to humans—has decimated the population. Reduced to only tens of thousands by RM, a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long Island while the Partials have mysteriously retreated. The threat of the Partials is still imminent, but, worse, no baby has been born immune to RM in more than a decade. Our time is running out.

Kira, a sixteen-year-old medic-in-training, is on the front lines of this battle, seeing RM ravage the community while mandatory pregnancy laws have pushed what's left of humanity to the brink of civil war, and she's not content to stand by and watch. But as she makes a desperate decision to save the last of her race, she will find that the survival of humans and Partials alike rests in her attempts to uncover the connections between them—connections that humanity has forgotten, or perhaps never even knew were there.

~ ~

I know today is supposed to be a writing-tip day, but I had a library trip yesterday and nabbed this little beauty off the shelf. It's synopsis intrigued me and I read the entire 500 pages in nine hours. May I note this genre of book is my absolute star-crossed favorite. That being said, not everything was sunshine and roses with this book.

The main character of the book is Kira, a sixteen year old medic/researcher. Even though she's a teenager, in her world she is treated as an adult and expected to act like one, so we don't get any whiny teens in this story, which is a refreshing change for a YA novel. That being said, Kira can be obstinately stubborn, which can get a little annoying.

Her boyfriend, Marcus, didn't hit it off with me. His character plays the whole humor angle, and while there are some chuckle-worthy jokes he makes, sometimes it's off color and that jarred me from the depths of the book to make me read over the jokes again, trying to 'get it'. While he does lighten the mood of the otherwise dark book, his humor can get a little annoying.

Xochi is one of the best characters of this book. She's funny and cool, and reminds the reader that even though this is set in post-apocalypse, teenagers are still the same, music-blasting, rebellious, sometimes a bit too full of themselves. I enjoyed her throughout the whole novel.

Altogether, the characters weren't my favorite part of the book. I found that I didn't care a whole lot about them. They got a little bit annoying after a while, and that's the main reason I deducted points from the overall score. The two characters I liked were Xochi and another person, for who the sake of spoilers I won't mention in this review. Rest assured that there is another person who I couldn't help loving.

The plot, though, takes the cake of this entire book. The reason I couldn't put this down was the interesting plot. Sure, sometimes it dragged and sometimes it sped too fast, but the story is what roped me to my chair to keep reading. Just when you think all the secrets are out in the open, another one hurtles into you like a runaway bus.

I had only two gripes with the plot. One, there are a lot of travel sequences, which dragged on a bit. I found myself trying to skip through those paragraphs and had to more or less force myself to read every word. As soon as the action or tension comes, your back into the world of Kira and the others, but the scenes where they're just hanging out in a wagon were definitely not my favorite.

The other one was the scientific jargon. This was more of a personal taste issue, but as Kira is a medical researcher there are more then a few pages of her musing on the nature of some small particle. While the jargon did help me get into her world, at some points it made me feel like I was reading a medical biography. Again, this is a personal taste issue, and not everyone will feel the same as me. It is SCIENCE fiction. But I just thought I'd throw that out there.

One of the biggest points that I liked where that you never knew who the 'bad guy' was until the end. It's not a clear cut, traditional, over-bearing government-we-must-rebel-against-dystopian.

Altogether this was a solid book. I enjoyed it (as I think would be evident from reading it in nine hours). There were some slow parts that I feel could have been cut, but I would recommend it as a fun, dystopian science-fiction book.

Final Rating out of Ten: 8