ARC Review: Never Fade (The Darkest Minds #2) by Alexandra Bracken

Pub. Date: October 15^th, 2013

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Hardcover

507 pages

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Synopsis from Goodreads:

Ruby never asked for the abilities that almost cost her her life. Now she must call upon them on a daily basis, leading dangerous missions to bring down a corrupt government and breaking into the minds of her enemies. Other kids in the Children’s League call Ruby “Leader”, but she knows what she really is: a monster.

When Ruby is entrusted with an explosive secret, she must embark on her most dangerous mission yet: leaving the Children’s League behind. Crucial information about the disease that killed most of America’s children—and turned Ruby and the others who lived into feared and hated outcasts—has survived every attempt to destroy it. But the truth is only saved in one place: a flashdrive in the hands of Liam Stewart, the boy Ruby once believed was her future—and who now wouldn’t recognize her.

As Ruby sets out across a desperate, lawless country to find Liam—and answers about the catastrophe that has ripped both her life and America apart—she is torn between old friends and the promise she made to serve the League. Ruby will do anything to protect the people she loves. But what if winning the war means losing herself?

Within the first few chapters of Never Fade I began to realize how many significant details from The Darkest Minds I completely forgot. When I say significant, I’m talking major plot points, primary characters, and the ending of the novel. I literally forgot about 90% of the book. What I think affected my memory the most was how Never Fade in no way picks up where The Darkest Minds left off. All of those little memory light bulbs that go off as characters, setting, and plot details become important again, weren’t lit as early into Never Fade as I would have liked, because the story begins in a completely new location, with an almost entirely new set of characters. I really liked Bracken’s style of jumping right into the action, and I would typically applaud the lack of blatant recapping. But, for one of the first times EVER, I actually really needed a recap to orient myself within the story.

ARC Review: Pawn (The Blackcoat Rebellion #1) by Aimee Carter

Pub. Date: November 26^th, 2013

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Hardcover

296 pgs. 

Synopsis from Goodreads:

YOU CAN BE A VII IF YOU GIVE EVERYTHING.

For Kitty Doe, it seems like an easy choice. She can either spend her life as a III in misery, looked down upon by the higher ranks and forced to leave the people she loves, or she can become a VII and join the most powerful family in the country.

If she says yes, Kitty will be Masked - surgically transformed into Lila Hart, the Prime Minister's niece, who died under mysterious circumstances. As a member of the Hart family, she will be famous. She will be adored. And for the first time, she will matter.

There's only one catch. She must also stop the rebellion that Lila secretly fostered, the same one that got her killed, and one Kitty believes in. Faced with threats, conspiracies and a life that's not her own, she must decide which path to choose and learn how to become more than a pawn in a twisted game she's only beginning to understand.

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From Pawn’s synopsis alone I saw links to the classist society from The Elite series, a single test defining your fate from Divergent, and the fake identity/ impersonation from The Lying Game. I’m not saying those elements are unique to the novels I mentioned, but the number of links I could make to other stories made me worry that Pawn wouldn’t bring anything new to the table. Was I wrong. Almost instantly after starting reading, Pawn’s uniqueness and ability to captivate me as a reader decimated my worries.

Review: Indelible (The Twixt, #1) by Dawn Metcalf

Pub. Date: July 30^th, 2013

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

384 pages

Paperback

Joy Malone is blissfully unaware that the paranormal world of The Twixt exists simultaneously to ours, until a night out leaves her with a sliced cornea, and weird-beings approaching her with nonsensical messages. Indelible Ink, a Scribe from The Twixt, is responsible for receiving messages from other beings of his world, marking humans with an invisible to the human eye signature of ownership. When Joy can see him, instead of blinding her, eliminating her ‘sight’, he mistakenly marks her as his property. Joy and Ink must convince Ink’s world that he intentionally claimed her, or risk their lives. Their relationship, real or fake, is constantly tested, and through these tests they discover that something seriously deceptive is going on within The Twixt.

The characters and their relationships, for me, was the best part of the novel. Joy and Ink’s relationship has just the right mix of love, hate, understanding and misunderstanding, to keep things interesting. In keeping up appearances, Ink and Joy have to act like they are romantically together, something that is completely unnaturally to Ink. He is not human, he does not feel as humans do, and through their relationship Ink experiences many firsts. From holding hands, to feeling jealous, to fearing for someone else’s safety, Joy enlightens Ink to what caring about someone else feels like. I really appreciated the twist of the guy experiencing the firsts, because it is not something we see often. Their relationship was very natural, with the ups and downs that normal relationships have, which I felt made the entire novel realistic, and that much more compelling.

Review: Earthbound (Earthbound #1) by Aprilynne Pike

Pub. Date: July 30^th, 2013

Publisher: Razorbill

352 pgs

Hardcover

Before I review Earthbound, let me just say that I absolutely adored Aprilynne Pike’s Wings series, and I’m always afraid I’m not going to like the new, when I loved the old. Wings was something that I picked up a few years ago expecting a cute, fun, light read, and I found myself surprised by its complexity and world building. My feelings for Earthbound were thankfully the same. I’m not sure how Pike is able to seamlessly create an entire paranormal world with a complex mythology, while keeping the story straightforward, understandable and simple in its delivery. She amazes me, this book amazed me, and you should read it.

Tavia Michaels shouldn’t be alive. She was the only survivor of a plane crash that killed hundreds, including her parents. Now living far away from everything she ever knew, and trying desperately to recover physically and mentally from the damage done in the crash, Tavia questions just how damaged she is when she starts seeing things. Buildings appear and disappear, symbols start popping up everywhere, and Quinn, a guy she swears she has never met, yet feels she has known forever, keeps

Review: Undercurrent by Paul Blackwell

Pub. Date: July 23^rd, 2013

Publisher: HarperTeen

320 pg.

Hardcover

Before I start my review let me just say that I acknowledge I am probably not the target reading audience for this book. Even still, I was completely drawn in, especially for the first few chapters, and I really couldn’t wait to find out what was going to happen. The problem I guess is that I am the type of reader who always works at figuring out the mystery. With Undercurrent I figured it out in less than 100 pages. I don’t know about you, but once I put the pieces together, I have a hard time staying engaged, waiting for the characters to catch up.

Slowing waking in a hospital bed, at first being unable to move, speak, or blink, Callum Harris knows that something is wrong. People keep telling him that he should be dead, and not in a, you’re so lucky way, but an, if karma existed you would be dead, kind of way. Once he’s ‘home’ the wrongness of his life becomes more apparent. His once divorced parents are happily together, his books have been replaced by football trophies on his shelves, a box with a gun and hundreds of dollars is found in his room, people are afraid of him, and most significantly his older brother was apparently in an accident leaving him paralyzed years before.

Review: White Trash Beautiful by Teresa Mummert

Publisher: Gallery Books

Pub. Date: July 9^th, 2013 (first published in 2012)

Paperback

240 pages

I had such mixed feelings about this book. The things that I loved, I thought were done really well, while the things I didn’t love, I didn’t feel got the treatment they deserved.

Cass Daniels is perpetually down on her luck. Working as a waitress to support herself, and her mother, and her boyfriend Jax, is neither inspiring, nor fulfilling. She carries the weight of their needs, and her own disappointment about her life, on her shoulders. Cass is not only providing her family with a roof over their heads and food, but she is ultimately supplying them with the money they need to keep their increasingly severe drug habits going. When Tucker White walks in to Cass’ diner, he represents things that Cass doesn’t understand. Most significantly Cass doesn’t quite get why he’s so interested in her. Tucker has a lot of secrets, but in Cass he sees someone that would not only understand the bad in his life, like his childhood, but someone who wouldn’t be overly influenced by the good, namely his growing fame and wealth. Cass and Tucker’s relationship makes both want more out of their life, and through each other they find the strength to demand more.

Cass’ character is one of the things I loved about this novel. Voices and experiences like hers I feel are underrepresented (appropriately) in fiction. She is ultimately a very strong character, who grows a lot, and who I admired in terms of her resilience. But, Cass and Tuckers relationship is something I had

Review: The First Lie by Diane Chamberlain

Prequel to Chamberlain's forthcoming novel Necessary Lies

Pub. Date: June 4th, 2013

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

ebook

35 pages

The First Lie is a short story prequel to Diane Chamberlain’s new novel Necessary Lies. In The First Lie we are briefly introduced to thirteen-year-old Ivy Hart’s world.  Even though the short story is just that, short, the world that Chamberlain is able to create is vivid, round and extremely compelling. In just a few pages the reader learns a great deal about the Hart family dynamic through allusions to the many secrets that could potentially be revealed in Necessary Lies, as well as through the way that the Hart’s speak to and about each other. The voice of Ivy in this character driven short story is so clear and specific instantly. Before instances of racism and class dynamics are even introduced – major themes from the synopsis of Necessary Lies as well as in this short story - the language and the way that Ivy’s character is presented gives the reader a very clear idea what kind of character we are investing in, as well as the

Review: Imposter by Susanne Winnacker

Pub. Date: May 28, 2013
Publisher: Razorbill
Hardcover
274 pages

Tessa can change her appearance to that of anyone she comes in contact with. She is a Variant – a person with an otherworldly ability. Two years ago, Tessa was offered the chance to leave her not so happy home to join the Forces with Extraordinary Abilities (FEA), a subset of the FBI. She along with the other Variants work at the FEA to hone their abilities, from becoming invisible, to reading minds, influencing emotions, and having super strength. It’s hard not to compare the Variants series to the X-Men, and the FEA to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. While a comparison to such a beloved series (franchise?) can be the kiss of death, at this point in the series I would say the comparison is warranted and deserved. 

Once a Variants training is complete, the FBI can use them to assist during special assignments. But, even though Tessa’s training isn’t done, her specific Variant is needed now. She is assigned to take over the body and the life of Madison, a high school senior, and the fourth victim of a small town serial killer. Tessa is not only unsure if she can maintain her Variant for days or weeks at a time, but she is also unsure how to integrate herself into a family and a group of friends that

Review: Touching Melody by RaShelle Workman

Pub. Date: May 14^th, 2013

Publisher: All Night Reads

Format: ebook

161 pages

When Maddie Martin sees two men leaving her house, one her best friend Kyle Hadley’s police officer father, the other man with a gun, she would never have believed that she would find her parents shot to death inside. Forced by her strict Aunt and Uncle to keep quiet about Hadley’s involvement, Maddie becomes reclusive. She throws herself into music, becoming an accomplished pianist, earning a full scholarship to the University of Bellam Springs. As devastating as it was to lose her parents, never hearing from Kyle after the murders hurts her more, and makes her believe that he is just as bad a person as his father. What Maddie and Kyle don’t know is that her Aunt and Uncle intercepted all of letters Kyle wrote, in an attempt to keep the two apart.

At Bellam Springs, Maddie and Kyle are reunited. Maddie is surprised by how strongly she is drawn back to Kyle, given how firmly she believes that he is not a