The 5th Wave

The 5th Wave, by Rick Yancey, has been out awhile (since May 2013), long enough to already have a sequel (The Infinite Sea, published in September 2014), but though it caught my eye way back when, I didn't pick it up until this year. I gave it only three out of five stars for various reasons, but none of those reasons was my interest once I started reading. The book hooked me quickly and fascinated me throughout. It's one of those suspenseful, mysterious stories where you don't quite know what's going on until near the end, a little bit like The Maze Runner in that regard. But as with The Maze Runner, I wasn't completely satisfied.

The 5th Wave sets the stage with an alien invasion that has progressed in waves: 1) total blackout, 2) coastal areas flooded, 3) worldwide plague, 4) snipers killing the human race one by one. Cassie has lost everyone and everything she knows in this hopeless battle for survival and now waits in hiding, wondering when and what the 5th wave will be. There's no one she can trust; the aliens look just like us. There is no place to go; the aliens attack where humans congregate. There is hardly reason to keep trying to live, but humanity is stubborn that way, and Cassie has at least one reason. Though the outcome looks bleak, Cassie is determined to go down fighting.

Cassie starts the narration, but the book veers off from a focus on her later on so that you begin to wonder if she really is the main protagonist we're rooting for or just one of several. The story starts getting into different characters' points of view, which broadens the story quite a bit but creates some confusion as to Cassie's significance in it. Once you get used to the idea, however, some of the other characters' plots are similarly intriguing.

In some ways, the story is what you'd expect from an alien invasion story. In every one, the humans don't go down without a fight, and somehow they end up triumphing. The funny thing is, the book is trying so hard not to be like those stories. Cassie's musings even make fun of people's perceptions of aliens before the attack. She says the stories are all wrong; we never had a chance. But, of course, someone must survive, or we wouldn't keep reading. So, as much as the story strives for originality, it has to follow certain formulas, at least a little, in order to even retain an audience. I don't have a problem with this; I simply find it ironic.

(Minor SPOILERS this paragraph.) As I said, I was thoroughly intrigued by the book's premise and mystery, and captivated to the end. But I can't say I loved the book. Some time has passed since I read it, unfortunately, and I couldn't tell you exactly what threw me off most. The story goes to dark places. I don't usually mind darkness, but it gets a little brutal and graphic and leaves you feeling, at best, uneasy. At one point, you get vibes of the Holocaust. There's a lot of death, and if you thought The Hunger Games was brutal because kids were killing other kids, you won't like this. There's the violence, but then there's the romance, which borders on Stockholm Syndrome, though no one is actually a captive in the situation. There's probably a better term for falling in love with your savior, especially when the two of you are the only ones around. Anyway, it's a bit clichéd: girl is rescued by handsome stranger, who also happens to be the only other person she's sure is alive, and falls in love with him after he cares for her injuries. It's hard to swallow at first. Maybe it was because I want romance in my novels that I eventually got used to the relationship, even if I found it strange sometimes.

A movie adaptation is in the works. I can only wonder what it will be rated, though I am curious enough to consider seeing it. The book's sequel is available at my library, but I haven't quite felt the urge to pick it up.

Firefight (Reckoners #2)

[This review was first published with others on a blog I wrote for Childrenofthewells.com and has been only slightly altered for this website.]

Brandon Sanderson, author of high fantasy, changes style and tone a bit for this young adult series that began with Steelheart and continues with Firefight (published January 2015), but his wit, humor, and vision for winding up a story toward a great end are all on full display. The beginning of Firefight didn’t reel me in immediately, despite having already secured my interest with the first book, but by Part 2 of 5, the game was changing, the stakes were rising, and I was hooked. By about the halfway mark, it began to get difficult to put the book down. My husband, Nick, and I rarely read the same stuff, but we both like Brandon Sanderson. Being a young adult fiction reader, I generally prefer quicker reads like this one. Nick has yet to convince me to read Sanderson’s 1000-page (and that’s just one book out of a whole series) high fantasy epics. And I have to chuckle a little bit as I say that since Firefight and the other books of this series are all about Epics.

(SPOILERS in this paragraph, if you have not read Steelheart) In Firefight, David is a Reckoner, a member of what used to be a highly secret group of Epic slayers, but now David has become a legend. All he wants is for the people to fight back against the super-powered Epics, humans who, one infamous day, gained powers and have used them to conquer and destroy the world. They are dangerous and nearly invincible, each with one carefully guarded weakness, the only thing that can possibly take them down. They are madmen, every last one of them. In this case, absolute power does really corrupt absolutely. David and his team are about to attempt to take down a very powerful Epic and her cohorts in what was once New York City and is now Babilar, a city covered by water where the citizens live relatively peaceful lives under the rule of Regalia. But the woman David loves works for Regalia, and even though his love is an Epic, David is willing to risk his life to prove she can be redeemed.

This was a great sequel. I liked the first one well enough, especially as it progressed (Nick and I both agree that Sanderson has the art of the ending down), but sequels are hard. How do you keep everything that made the first one good but turn it around enough so that it’s not just a copy of the first? Well, you could take notes from Sanderson. He introduces new places, switches out a few people, and changes up the protagonist’s motivations, but still keeps the same sense of humor and, really, even the same basic plot. This series is set up spectacularly for that. There’s always another cool Epic to fight in a world overrun by them, right? But Sanderson has the imagination to remake and redirect his story in such a way that everything is as exciting as the first time. Arguably, this second book is actually better than the first, and that takes serious talent! He is currently writing Book 3, Calamity, and I can hardly wait! Five stars.

Fairest

[To save me some time and get some reviews posted before I fall further behind, I am going to re-post a couple reviews I wrote elsewhere first. I'm involved with a group of writers at childrenofthewells.com, a website dedicated to the telling of a post-apocalyptic fantasy story we are in the process of writing. Six full novellas are already available, and while we wait for our authors to finish the next installments of the story, we post blogs about all manner of things. This month, we are focusing on our latest Good Reads, which coincides with my own blog perfectly. When my week at CotW came up, I posted four quick reviews at once, borrowing from some of the ones I'd already posted here on my personal blog, as well as adding a couple new ones. This time, I am borrowing from my CotW blog and re-posting, with minor tweaks, one of those newer reviews.]

Fairest, by Marissa Meyer, could almost be a standalone novel. It is the fourth book of a young adult series (The Lunar Chronicles) I love and preorder yearly. (I rarely stick with a series enough to pay money for it, spoiled as I am with free advance reader copies.) This one, published in January, is a break in the overarching story of the series and tells the villain’s tale instead. Narrowly focused as it is, it's a bit shorter than the other books in the series.

The Lunar Chronicles are modern, sci-fi twists on fairy tales we know, taking place in a world where the moon is inhabited by Lunars with special powers and where humans on Earth are dying of a virus that doesn’t touch Lunars. Cinder is about a cyborg who gets to go to the ball (Cinderella). Scarlet is about a pilot who teams up with a man-wolf hybrid (Little Red Riding Hood). Cress is about a hacker who lives alone in a satellite in space and just longs to be rescued by the man of her dreams (Rapunzel). And Winter (coming in November 2015) will be about a beautiful princess whose evil stepmother, the queen of the moon, keeps her under careful guard (Snow White). Fairest, then, is about the rise of the queen of Luna and about the forces, some her own fault and others not, that turned her into the villain of the entire series. I enjoyed it very much, but of course, it wasn’t about the heroines who ultimately band together as the series progresses. Though each story focuses on a different leading lady, they all converge as well.

In Fairest, Levana is the younger princess of the Lunar people and, therefore, not the heir. But she is the one interested in politics while her queen sister is concerned only with her own pleasures. When a daughter is born to her sister, Levana is pushed even further down the line of those to inherit the crown. Scarred and ugly on the outside, Levana constantly uses her glamour to disguise her features. All she wants is to be beautiful and loved, and in the world she’s grown up in, the only way to get what she wants is to take it by force.

It is certainly an intriguing story. Complex villains are fascinating, despite (or perhaps due to) their moral corruption. Fortunately, though the protagonist in Fairest has little in the way of a moral compass, this does not transfer to the telling of the story, which is tactful and PG. The only thing "wrong" with Fairest is that it is not about the good guys. Sometimes good guys are seen as boring, but in this case, the heroines’ stories are just as good as the villain's, and they’re more...well, happy. So, this one “only” gets four stars.

Hacker

Hacker is the third installment of The Outlaw Chronicles, a young adult series by Ted Dekker. See my reviews of the other two books here and here. Each novel generally focuses on a new person, but in Hacker, we get to see the continuation of one character's story from Eyes Wide Open, the first in the series, while we are also introduced to Nyah, a seventeen-year-old girl who hacks corporations to blackmail them into giving her a job. Basically, she shows them their weaknesses by hacking them and then fixes the problem, all to provide for her mother, mentally impaired in a car accident. But when Nyah messes with the wrong people, she is forced to run to a person who turned his back on her, to Austin who is dying from a brain tumor. Together, they attempt the impossible to find a cure for Austin and Nyah's mother. It's the biggest hack of all, and the clock on each of their lives is ticking.

For whatever reason, this book didn't impact me as deeply as the other books from the series or as much as most Ted Dekker books do. Don't get me wrong, it was still entertaining and meaningful. But the message from each of these books (yes, Dekker always has a message, but his books usually don't feel preachy) is essentially the same with only little variances. And I got the message better in the other books, especially in Water Walker, which is perhaps my favorite of the three, the message being one about identity and who we really are beneath the costume of appearance, intelligence, or whatever else we define ourselves by. Maybe I didn't get into this one because of the hacking terminology. It intrigued me but was a little over my head. Maybe it was character. I didn't identify with Nyah as much as with some characters. Maybe it was the plot which, while it moved fairly well, lacked a certain edge I've come to expect from Dekker's books. Maybe all those were fine, and I just wasn't into it this time. I haven't been doing as much reading here toward the end of the year. My mind is on other things.

Regardless, the series is good, and if you really want to get the full picture, start with Outlaw, which is awesome and kind of sets up the series, though it's also a stand-alone book. I'm looking forward to reading A.D.30 next, also a recently published novel from Ted Dekker but one that I expect to be quite different from anything of his that I've read before. It's the perfect time to read the fictional account of a person who lived through Jesus' days as we head into Christmas. And even after reading Hacker, I'm expecting quite a lot out of this next one.

The Jewel

It's been a couple weeks since I read The Jewel, a young adult novel by Amy Ewing (busy month for us!), so this review will mostly be overall impressions. What attracted me to the novel in the first place was a pretty cover and a fascinating premise: teenage girls sold to rich women as surrogates to birth their babies for them. In addition, these girls have magic powers (the why of this is never quite explained...maybe a topic to be covered in future books of the series?) that allow them to manipulate the color, shape, gender, and growth of the babies. All this takes place in a world separated into tiers of wealth, with the rich at the center of the city, a ring of merchants after that, an industrial ring, a farming ring, and finally a ring for the poorest of the poor, from which the magic surrogate girls come. It's a pretty nice set-up for a dystopian world.

(SPOILERS follow.) The thing is, some of the subject matter is a bit...adult. Teenage pregnancy is still kind of frowned upon in modern USA (though maybe less now than it used to be). Though it's been a part of other cultures for millennia, it's not something our kids are really prepared for. Violet, the main character, does manage to avoid pregnancy in this book despite her enslavement, but she does undergo doctor's appointments and tests that my younger, teenage self might have found a little freaky to read about. Fortunately, nothing is overly graphic, so I'd still consider it teen-appropriate material.

I was more bothered, really, by the other morally degraded content of the book. Girls are not the only ones forced into certain lives. Teenage boys can sell themselves as companions who entertain rich females in every way except the actual sexual act. But since the mothers buy these boys to entertain their daughters, some of the mothers are a bit proprietary toward the companions and use them to meet their own sexual needs (again, not graphic; this is only spoken about and not depicted at all).

In The Jewel, Violet falls in love with Ash, who is one of these companions. Both of them find themselves slaves in the same household and reach out to each other. At least that's the way the book tries to sell it. I had a hard time buying Ash's "slavery" since he basically chooses to lead this kind of life. While the surrogates have no choice and little freedom in their new lives, the companions are paid and are even considered acceptable company in the upper echelons of this world. I had a hard time respecting Ash as the love interest (I had someone else in mind, actually) and rooting for the romance. I never like it when the teenage love interests of a book have sex, but when a character is basically a male prostitute, whatever the book is trying to say about the wrongness of that gets a little muddled when he has no problem having sex with a girl he gets to choose. I get the difference there, but I'd rather see more realistic repercussions to an enforced lifestyle of prostitution. I didn't want the sex to be there at all, but if it had to be, difficulty being vulnerable with Violet, difficulty giving her more than he might give a paying partner, would have been more realistic. I just didn't buy it.

One other minor moment in the book bothered me because it was cheap conflict. Violet is a slave, and she knows that Ash is essentially one, too. After they have an intimate moment together, she sees him with the girl he's been paid to be a companion to and she gets mad. It just annoyed me. She knows what he does, knows he doesn't have a choice (according to the book, at least). Her anger comes off as petty in this situation. If he doesn't have a choice, she doesn't really have a right to be mad at him. If anything, she should understand him and forgive him because they are both being forced to do things they don't want to do.

Without the companion parts, I would have liked this book more. It was different and intriguing. It offers a lot of interesting moral discussion without being too over-the-top. (For instance, the girls are impregnated in a lab by doctors and not by having to sleep with their owners' husbands or anything too heinous like that.) So, I give it three out of five stars.

The One (A Selection novel, #3)

After reading and reviewing The Selection and The Elite, by Kiera Cass, I just have a few thoughts to add about The One, which ends this trilogy. I admit, I enjoyed the series...more than I thought I would. It's odd because I'm not really into pageantry and I've never watched The Bachelor. I do, however, enjoy an occasional reality TV show (more along the lines of Survivor), and I do love to read dystopian young adult fiction. This series combines both, but to read more about that, start with my reviews above. (I was rather negative on The Selection, but as I read the other books, I was proven wrong about a few things, including the heroine's name.) Obviously, this review may SPOIL the earlier books of the series, so if interested, don't read on here.

In this third book, the Selection comes to a close. One girl, just a commoner, is chosen to be the prince's wife. It's almost like a fairy tale, except this one comes with the politics of a world dying for a change in leadership. You would think--I would think--it would be mostly fluff, but it doesn't come across that way.

(This paragraph definitely contains SPOILERS.) But I didn't give it five stars. As usual, I come to the end of a series and find something lacking. Actually, this time, I am pleased with the end. Some might find it too neat and happy, despite a few deaths, but I like the overall turnout. No, the end is not the problem, but getting there is a little bumpy. Throughout the three books, the main character, America, has been hiding a lingering love interest from the prince. At the end of the second book, she makes her decision between the two men in her life, but in the third book, the effects of hiding one from the other linger. The conflict comes to a head when the truth is revealed near the end in a close that feels both a bit rushed (multiple people die quickly and without much fallout) and a bit tacked together for the sake of added drama and angst. I would have preferred a more mature approach to the revelation at the end, both characters realizing the irony of the situation (the prince was allowed to date 35 girls at once, but America would have been in serious trouble if her one other love interest was discovered).

Other than that, I was mostly pleased with the book and, aside from the annoying love triangle, the series as a whole. Three stars.

The Ring & the Crown

The Ring & the Crown, a young adult novel by Melissa de la Cruz, mixes fantasy and Victorian genres. The idea of magic competing against a sort of scientific and industrial revolution (not steam but electric) is an idea I've not run across a lot. In fact, it was unique enough that a group of my writing friends (myself included) created a world with a similar idea at its starting point. Our plot differs drastically from anything Melissa de la Cruz would write and was conceived far before I picked up her book, but the idea that magic is a sort of science is the backdrop of both stories. (Ours changes even from that. If you want to know more, check out childrenofthewells.com.)

The Ring & the Crown has a large cast of characters. Most young adult books stick to one or two to narrate the story, but this book is a step removed from the immediacy of first-person narration with a third-person limited viewpoint which is interchanged among five different major characters. Though the characters are appropriate for young adult, the writing style bridges the gap between young adult and fantasy or even historical fiction.

I didn't like all the characters. There were really only two I was rooting for, though I wasn't entirely antagonistic to the others. The setting of the plot both intrigued me and contributed to why I didn't like some of the characters. By at least by the end, I was sympathetic to most of them.

The setting is this: a war has come to an end by the soon-to-be alliance of Prince Leopold and Princess Marie whose interests lie in different directions than each other. Meanwhile, Wolf, the younger brother of the engaged prince is trying to find his own direction, be it in girls or fistfights. Leopold's lover, Isabelle, must sign away her engagement to him so that the royal wedding may progress. The American girl, Ronan, must find herself a rich husband in London to save her family's financial situation. And the magician Aelwyn must choose between a life of independence or a life of service to her childhood friend Marie.

The magic history bears remarking on as it appears to be related to a version of the stories of King Arthur, Lancelot, and Merlin, taking place perhaps near a thousand years after those events. Whether this book would claim that story to be the same one we know or whether it's all part of an alternate universe is not addressed but would be an interesting thing to ask the author.

I'm not sure if this book is part of a series, as most young adult books are, or if it is meant to stand alone. It feels like a standalone book, particularly at the end, which attempts to resolve all the characters' lives. The end is abrupt and unexpected. Looking back, I saw a few hints of foreshadowing, but there didn't seem to be quite enough time taken to set everything up. In fact, characters end up explaining the end to one another, an end that is interesting but that feels a bit like the cliff notes version. I certainly had mixed feelings. I generally liked how things were resolved overall, but I felt like not everyone's story was told adequately...and forget happily. I know stories don't have to end neatly and happily to be good (though I prefer happy, or a really good reason not), but when half your main characters fade into obscurity at the end of a book, it's not satisfying. Fortunately, they were the characters I didn't care about as much, but like I said, once my sympathy was aroused, I thought they deserved better. Maybe that's what a sequel could be for.

This book gets three stars from me. Morality plays a small factor in that rating. There was the sensuality I expected just from the nature of the book's content, but the details were mostly implied. There were places where it fit the story and other places where it didn't need to be there but was just added to give some wildness to a character, which could have been done in other ways. On the other hand, I appreciated the interweaving of story lines (until the end) and the way that the world felt like it had some history and depth, and I did enjoy the read despite the odd end and character complaints I have.

Steelheart

If you've heard of the name Brandon Sanderson, you've probably heard he was the writer of the last few books of the late Robert Jordan's 14-book Wheel of Time series. My husband grew up on that series, the ending of which was just published a year and a half ago, so it was from him that I heard about this author. When I saw an advanced reader's copy of Steelheart, a young adult science fiction book by Sanderson, I picked it up both for the name on the cover and for the premise about superhumans crushing the rest of humanity with their powers and about a group of rebels determined to take them out one by one. Coincidentally, my advanced reader's copy has a praising quotation from the latest author I've enjoyed, James Dashner. And when my husband read the book first and thought I would really like it, that sealed the deal.

Happily, I was not disappointed. Sanderson knows how to write characters, and he knows how to write action, both a must for a story like this one. David, the book's narrator and central character, is an awkward and single-minded but endearing character. His eventual companions all have quirks of their own so that even when the action lags the entertainment does not. If there's any character I liked less than the others, it's the girl, probably because she's written from a male perspective and we don't get to see into her head.

Sanderson is good with the big picture, with what the world would look like with all these evil supervillains, or Epics, controlling it. And he's good with the details: the powers and weaknesses of each Epic, the idiosyncrasies of each character (like David's bad metaphors or Cody's wild Scottish tales), the logistics of a small fight scene or a big battle. It's a pretty large book but actually rather short compared to what Sanderson normally writes. I read it fairly quickly, despite the size.

The set-up for the book is this: Epics are powerful and evil, but they have weaknesses. David is the only person alive who has witnessed Steelheart's weakness, on the day David's father was killed in front of his eight-year-old self. Over the last ten years, Steelheart has ruled as the master of Newcago, where he turned everything to steel and enlisted the help of another Epic to make it always night. Steelheart appears invulnerable, but David believes all the clues are locked away somewhere in his mind, and if he can find and join the Reckoners, a group of rebels who are the only ones defying the Epics, he will attempt to take out the greatest Epic of all.

Sanderson delves into themes of heroism and revenge without coming across as preachy. With just a dash of romance but a lot of heart, this story is more than teenage boy escapism. It's shallowly fun where it needs to be but deep enough not to feel cheap. It's a story that should have appeal for both genders and all ages.

Admittedly, I don't read a lot of books like Sanderson's. For all I know, there's a lot of other similarly good stuff out there. I've read pieces of The Wheel of Time but have been reluctant to dive into that due to the sheer volume of the thing and the world-building. I prefer quicker stories. But this young adult story ended up being just right in length and detail, and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the trilogy when it comes out. There is also a short novella between the events of Steelheart and Firefight (expected publication in early 2015) called Mitosis, which I enjoyed.

Four out of five stars for Steelheart.

The Eye of Minds

I've been on a James Dashner kick, or at least I was when I read his Maze Runner books in quick succession. I was a tad disappointed with the end of that book series, so I didn't bother to read the prequel, which was about different people anyway. But I saw The Eye of Minds, also by Dashner, on the library shelf alongside those other books, and intrigued by the premise, I thought I'd give it a try.

The book was interesting enough. I think it just hit me at the wrong time. I went on a four-day camping trip shortly after starting it, and here's something about me that you might think odd...I don't usually read on vacations. The only vacation over which I remember doing some lovely reading was the one where I was pregnant with my first child. I left the sun and water be and stayed on my bed in my air-conditioned room and just read. Ah, it makes me happy just to think of it. I read two whole books that week! And though I could do that at home, it was quite the accomplishment to do it on a vacation. I know that sounds opposite, but that's how I work. So, you guessed it, I did not read on my camping trip, and after that, summer whirled in like a cyclone: birthdays, holidays, outings, the World Cup! (Having spent my formative years in Brazil, I root for them, even against the USA should it get to that.) I knew the summer would fly by, but now in the eye of the storm, I'm still blinking in confusion and wondering how I got here.

This week, I finally got to the halfway point of the book, and then it was smooth and quick reading from there. The first half of the book took me all month. The second half took a couple days. And like I said, I don't think it's all the book's fault. But I think I'm over James Dashner...for now (not that there's much else to read, though there is a fall movie I'm looking forward to). As always, his premise is intriguing, and once he gets the action rolling, his books are hard to put down. But I'm never quite happy with his endings.

In The Eye of Minds, Michael is a gamer and hacker who spends much of his time in an immersive virtual world with his two best friends whom he's never even met in real life. While his body is nourished and his senses are stimulated in the "Coffin," as he calls it, he is able to taste virtual food, feel the sword slash in battle, and even experience death without real repercussions (like, obviously, staying dead). But when players begin to die in the game and not return to their bodies, Michael's hacking skills earn him the dangerous job of tracking down whomever is tampering with and controlling the virtual reality.

Aside from summer's interruptions, this book's timing was interesting because I was simultaneously introduced to the anime Sword Art Online, the first season of which I am almost through watching (short review here: the first half is better so far than the second). The main similarity is the all-immersive aspect of the virtual realities in both. In Sword Art Online, however, the characters are stuck in their virtual reality, and the only way out is true death (even in the physical world) or beating the game. The Eye of Minds begins differently, in that regard, but as the book goes on, the similarities are even greater. I won't spoil it more than that.

Due to the nature of virtual reality, you'd expect a lot of gratuitous sex and violence in a book about it, but I'm happy to say that Dashner steers clear of the sex. At one point, there's a lot of violence, but it's not made light of. The main characters, at least, don't do it for the fun of it, and there's some commentary on why anyone does it at all (though I'm not sure the author ever gives us a clear answer). The real interesting moral questions come at the end of the book and lead into its sequel, which will be available later this year. Most anything more I would say would spoil the book, so sorry. Only this: it doesn't have to do with sex or violence, but it was one of the things that made me unsure about the book. It's interesting but unsettling.

I give the book three stars because, overall, I enjoyed the read. I might even read that sequel some day. But for now, I need something that isn't quite such a downer at its end, so I part ways with James Dashner.

Maze Runner Trilogy, Books 2 and 3

I will try to be super vague about these books by James Dashner since they are sequels to a book you probably haven't read and might want to. This review is mostly my feelings about the sequels and won't contain details. If you want to know what the series is about, read my review of The Maze Runner.

The Scorch Trials (Maze Runner #2)

I had a hard time getting into this sequel. The end of The Maze Runner bothered me a bit, perhaps because the answers to the riddles of the maze were not quite what I was looking for. And those answers are kind of what the second book is about, so I just wasn't as interested. Also, the book seems to meander around a bit without focus. I guess the first book didn't feel like it was meandering because it was mysteriously building up to the reveal. In this installment, Thomas and his buddies are still looking for answers, but their environment is less controlled; perhaps that is then reflected in the writing. I did really get into the end of the book, though, and that happened in The Maze Runner, too, despite the unsatisfactory answers. Dashner is particularly strong when his characters have a mission and goal, when everything is action-oriented. Everything moves quickly then, and the books are hard to put down at the end.

The Death Cure (Maze Runner #3)

Though The Maze Runner is still my favorite book of the trilogy, I enjoyed this last book more than The Scorch Trials. By this point, I knew more or less what the author's big picture was, so I was able to enjoy the journey a little more. There weren't as many surprises, maybe, but the action, Dashner's strong point, was good. If I rated The Maze Runner four out of five stars and The Scorch Trials three stars, you'd think I would rate this book four also. Sure, there are minor flaws in all three of the books. For instance, sometimes when the reader might have a question about something happening in the book, the author appears to address it, but sometimes it feels like an afterthought, like (and I'm clearly paraphrasing), "Thomas wondered why so-and-so did such-and-such," but that's all we get. The reader wondered. The author acknowledged that we were wondering by also making Thomas think about it a bit, but no real answer was given. Like I said, that's a minor flaw that might take you out of the action for a second but that doesn't ultimately matter. A bigger issue I had with the books is that Dashner kills off a lot of his characters (in all the books, not just this one), and though Thomas is particularly sensitive to a few of the deaths, there's a certain "Oh, well" feel about the rest. I understand why Thomas feels the way he does (he's on a mission, and there will be sacrifices), but I wish there was more commentary on the whole thing. (SPOILERS to the end of the paragraph.) By the end of this third book, Thomas has had enough. He feels most of the deaths have been for nothing, so we do get some commentary but nothing that really feels satisfactory. In fact, the end of this book is a big reason it gets only three stars from me. It feels a little cheap, like the author couldn't fix the problems he set up. The idea is: "We can't save the world, so let's scrap it." I guess it's a consistent philosophy throughout the books (I can't save those kids who just died, so I'll push on.), but again, it's not satisfactory.

A Final Note on the Series: At this point, I do not plan to read the prequel to the trilogy, The Kill Zone, which is about different characters. But The Maze Runner is still an attention grabber, and I do plan to see the movie, out in September. The setting itself is fascinating, and that's probably what attracted me most to these books. Unfortunately, that setting is almost exclusive to the first book.

The Maze Runner

If you haven't yet been surprised by the preview for The Maze Runner movie, out this September, look it up! That might make you want to read this series, as it did for me. I'd heard of The Maze Runner book, by James Dashner, but for some reason, I'd never read it and didn't even really know what it was about. Actually, when I first started hearing hype about it, I thought I'd already read it. I mistook it for another book. Anyway, I missed it, but now I'm jumping on the bandwagon with everyone else, it seems.

So, is it worth the hype? I've been asked this question by others intrigued by the trailer, as I was. The short of it is, I sped through the book and am still interested in seeing the movie. It wasn't everything I was expecting, maybe, and I'm not yet sure how I feel about the revelations at the end of the book. But the journey is mysterious and suspenseful, the danger is life-or-death, and the characters are, for the most part, likeable and complex. I've already got my hands on the sequel in the four-book series (actually, a trilogy and a prequel, and I'm uncertain if that's it or if there are more books coming).

The Maze Runner is about a boy who remembers nothing from his life but his first name, Thomas, as he is slowly lifted in an elevator toward an unknown destination. He arrives, the ceiling of the elevator opens, and he is met by a bunch of boys who've been expecting him, the monthly newbie to their small, organized, self-led civilization. None of the boys know where they've come from, but they quickly find out what they are supposed to do. When Thomas steps into the light, he discovers that he is in a large field, of sorts, surrounded by high walls. The community of boys is mostly self-sustaining with supplies delivered weekly from the "Creators." But all is not harmonious. Even though the boys have strict rules and seem to live a relatively stable, productive life, they are prisoners in a maze, where maze runners daily search for a way out, dodging evil machine-like creatures who rule the night. Little do they all know, Thomas included, that his arrival will change everything.

Intrigued yet? I was. The set-up of the all-boys community and the hierarchy of leadership is well thought through. The creatures are revolting and terrifying. The mystery of what the maze is and what the boys are there for, especially since they don't remember anything, just begs you to read on. With such drama and mystery, there's bound to be some disappointment upon getting the answers. Remember the TV show Lost? I loved it, beginning to end, but a lot of fans hated where it ended up. Part of what made that, and makes this, so entertaining is not knowing what to expect. But don't get me wrong, I'm pretty excited about reading the next book, The Scorch Trials. This series hasn't let go of me yet, not by a long shot.

Go check out that movie trailer now. If you aren't interested yet, you aren't going to be, but if this review already piques your curiosity, I'm betting that will clinch the deal.

Panic

I thought I'd read a few books by Lauren Oliver but didn't double check until after I'd read Panic. The author seems to be fairly popular, and her name was familiar to me. I'm not sure if that's why I picked up Panic or if I thought the premise was kind of interesting, probably a little of both. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten my review of the first young adult book of hers that I read, Delirium. I liked her grade school fiction book The Spindlers a little better. The thing is, she does have great ideas. I'm just not so fond of her delivery and style. I'm sure that's a personal preference thing, so readers, please take this review as one person's opinion, and get another before you dismiss this book.

Panic is contemporary young adult fiction set in a small New York town where life is ho-hum and never changes...until, that is, summer rolls around and the game begins. Every summer, the graduated seniors play Panic, a game of dangerous dares and higher and higher stakes with the winner taking home at least $50,000, collected from the student population over the year. The adults know it's played and try to stop it. The risk of arrest is just part of the game. The two judges are a total secret, even to the players themselves, and the locations and dares are kept secret until the last minute.

Money is big incentive to play, but Heather and Dodge have their own reasons on the side. Dodge's sister was injured in last year's game, and he has an opportunity to even the score. Heather will do anything to get her and her sister away from their addicted mom. Heather didn't mean to play, but her options have run out. One way or another, she will escape.

What I like least about this book is the sense of hopelessness and unhappiness that permeates the setting and the plot. The characters are really in a bad place emotionally, and it's no wonder. They live in broken, dysfunctional families in rundown homes. I suppose it is the perfect setting for this kind of book. Who else would be desperate enough to risk their lives for money? But it's so depressing.

I didn't grow up in that kind of environment, and though I know it exists, it's kind of hard to look at. I keep asking myself if I'm just stuck-up and selfish and would avoid that kind of environment if I knew it existed in my neighborhood. I'm trying to be honest here. I would certainly feel out of my element and completely uncomfortable, but I know that's not a reason to turn a blind eye to need. I won't lie and say that I would jump at the opportunity to help people like this; I don't know what I would do. If the opportunity presented itself, I want to believe my heartstrings would be pulled, just as they are for one exemplary adult in the novel. But what complicates the issue a bit here is that this is fiction (based on reality, as it undoubtedly is). I know the world is broken, but I don't go to fiction to remind myself of it. I go to fiction to escape it.

(Minor SPOILERS follow.) Now, books like this can be a great help to teens struggling with the same things, but here's where I have further issues with the book. I'm not sure it offers a way out. In the end, despite everything, the game is played and the game wins. The characters don't learn that they can live without the game. Rather, they benefit from it. It's not that they don't grow, but it doesn't seem like they learn from their mistakes. They just make the best of what they're given, and they learn to live despite the crap. That message is too hopeless for me. As a Christian, I know there is so much more to life, and even though I can't hold a non-Christian author to the standards I hold myself to, the difference in our beliefs is so glaringly obvious it can't be ignored. For me, this book didn't work because it didn't match my values. I'm not talking about the inclusion of dysfunction; I'm talking about the road out of it. The author's answer was an answer for her characters, but it was lacking some things, and it was a temporary fix. It certainly wasn't a universal fix for anyone dealing with the same problems. If I'm going to read a book about hard issues, I want to see light at the end of the tunnel. The light here is faint and doesn't make the read worth the trouble.

Aside from the thematic issues above, there are a few other scenes of moral degradation to be aware of, not deal-breakers, but they do add to the general dark feel of the book. There is some swearing, including the F-word. There are no sex scenes, though there's the implication of past sex and some sexuality. There is a lot of teenage drinking, and some characters deal with addiction.

For me, this book is two stars. It had some potential but didn't realize it. I can't recommend it, even for teens going through similar circumstances. Instead, I recommend Christian author Melody Carlson's True Colors series about teens struggling with various issues. I've read only one, Blade Silver: Color Me Scarred, dealing with cutting, but that was what I was looking for in a book dealing with such depressing but very real problems.

The Winner's Curse

The feel of this young adult novel is very different than a lot of young adult novels I read. It's not really historical fiction, but it's historical influence is obvious. It's like an alternate world, but it's also not fantasy.

In The Winner's Curse, by Marie Rutkoski, Kestrel is Valorian aristrocracy. Her father is a top-ranking army General, and as is the case with every Valorian woman, Kestrel must either join the army or marry. She has a keen mind, but she's not a very good fighter. She prefers to play music. But neither is she too thrilled about the other option. On a whim, she purchases a slave for far too much money, unsure why she does it except that her father could use an excellent blacksmith and the auctioneer says the man can sing. Though she's paid too much, Kestrel cannot imagine the true cost of what she's done. It's the winner's curse.

Although this book is fully fiction, it feels like something straight out of Rome, and the author even admits the influence from that time period. The Valorians are a proud warrior people who conquered a race that was much less savage and more artistic, adopting some of its customs and enslaving its people. But a slave has pride too, as Kestrel discovers. It's only a matter of time before the conquered arise to throw off their oppressors. You really get the sense that this society is as ill and fat and debauched as Rome grew to be, but from Kestrel's vantage point, we don't see the worst of it. No graphic scenes. No sex scenes, and the main characters are moral.

Kestrel, despite being who she is and growing up in the culture she does, is happily not brainwashed by the aristocracy around her. She doesn't lord it over anyone. She's compassionate. When her motives are called into question, she questions herself and isn't naive to the fact that she might be wrong. As a reader, you appreciate her stance on slavery among other things, but you can't help but wonder a bit how she got there. Readers can chalk it up to a difference in personality, perhaps, but she does seem to be the only one in her circle of acquaintances who wants to buck the system. There's not much set-up for it, but it's easy enough to accept, once you get past the part where she outrageously outbids everyone else for a slave. Explanation is given for why this happens, and it works well enough to patch up the logic holes.

(Minor SPOILERS this paragraph) The romance is rather strange, bordering on something like Stockholm Syndrome. It's not really a surprise that Kestrel falls in love with the slave, but it builds slowly, at least, and doesn't feel forced. Later on in the book, there's a reversal in their relationship, and that's when it really begins to have Stockholm Syndrome vibes. Yet the romance itself is almost lost amidst the political turmoil of the rest of the book. That's not to say it's all politics. The book alternates between Kestrel's and Arin's points of view and pretty much stays in their heads, so you don't see more of the world than they see. But for being romantic interests, they don't spend a great deal of time obsessing over each other. I'm not sure whether that is refreshing or a sign of something lacking in the book. The story is clearly supposed to be a romance, but the characters barely spend enough time together to qualify. In future books, I hope the romance develops a little more depth and plausibility.

The book has a surprising end I wasn't expecting. It's dramatic and heartbreaking and promises an entertaining future for this series. Despite its flaws, I really did enjoy reading this non-stereotypical YA novel. Three and a half stars.

Pawn

In Pawn, a young adult dystopian novel by Aimee Carter, Kitty is a girl on the brink of adulthood, getting ready to take the test everyone takes at seventeen, the results of which forever brand you with a number. She just wants a IV so she can have enough to eat and not be separated from her boyfriend. Anything under a IV is bad, the dregs of society, the bumbling idiots. And only the members of one family, the ruling family, get to have a VII. So, when Kitty scores a III and then is given a chance no one else gets to change her number to a VII, she accepts the offer blindly, thus becoming embroiled in a dangerous family feud. It doesn't take long for her to realize that her gift comes at the highest cost, and if she doesn't cooperate, she and those she loves will lose a lot more than numbers.

The premise is interesting, though not unique. Kiera Cass has done something similar in The Selection. What's different about this is that Kitty has to become an entirely new person. She gets Masked, and her whole appearance is made to be the exact replica of another girl, Lila Hart. But she also has to learn to act and talk like Lila. Kitty does this surprisingly quickly, perhaps too quickly, and she never seems to have a solid handle on it, making me wonder how she's supposed to be fooling anyone.

But what kept me reading was the intrigue. Kitty finds herself involved in a battle, and each side wants her for their own. Those on one side want the country to stay as it is. They need Kitty to recant Lila's public viewpoints, and that side is the one Kitty needs to listen to in order to survive. The other side wants the opposite: for Kitty to finish the work of her predecessor (the same work that got her killed) and give hope to the lower echelons of society in order to start a revolution. Though Kitty would love her society to change and be a place of freedom once again, she's not sure whether it's worth the risk.

The back-and-forth pull of right and wrong on a girl who just wanted one number higher is what gives this story resonance (and its title). Morality is part of the package; you can't avoid the discussion. Kitty clearly decides it's worth the deception to live, but is the deception worth killing for, too? There are some shockers, both in plot and morals, but author Aimee Carter doesn't let them go to waste. When morality is at stake, she delves into it, and as far as the twists of the story itself, it's clear the repercussions will continue into the sequel.

Pawn was released in December of 2013. Three stars.

Salvage

I didn't love Salvage, a young adult novel by Alexandra Duncan, but I found it interesting nonetheless. Ava is a girl who's never touched foot on Earth. In fact, to do so would be to destroy her soul, according to the belief system aboard the Parastrata trader ship. Women are too delicate for Earth and anything requiring brain work, though not too delicate for hard menial labor and bearing children. Ava has it better than some. She's top of the ranks of unmarried girls, daughter of the captain, and of marriageable age. She will be married off in a trade agreement with another crew and ship. Ava only hopes it will be to a more lenient kind of crew where women can do mechanical work, which she has learned in secret. But suddenly her world comes crumbling down around her, and her only hope is to escape to the one place where she will likely die.

This book so cleverly describes a cult without ever using the word. Slowly, Ava discovers that nearly everything she's known was meant to oppress her. That's not to say her life becomes all sun and roses. That's not to say she won't still encounter grief and betrayal. But the story is about coming of age and deciding your own fate in a world where injustice has many faces.

It's science fiction, but the focus isn't on that. It really is about Ava's journey. However, it doesn't try to hammer the reader with a message either. It's simply Ava's story, narrated from her point of view. There's a bit of romance, a bit of adventure and discovery. There's a bit about the dynamics of family relationships and about choosing family when the one that's yours has thrown you out. In some ways, it's heavy stuff, but it never crosses that line into being a self-help guide. It's never preachy. I kept expecting it, but it didn't go there.

I didn't love it for various reasons, most small. (SPOILER follows) The biggest is probably that Ava has sex with a boy when she knows it's taboo. Ava is a minor rule-breaker, but I found it hard to believe that someone who grew up in such a sheltered, rule-laden community would commit one of the greatest crimes for a woman without considering the consequences. And she does consider the consequences somewhat, but it's not enough to stop her, and I think a person in her situation would have stopped before going that far. It just didn't ring true for me. (SPOILER ends)

Other that that, the strangeness of Ava's life and speech just threw me off a bit, and I didn't connect with her right away. A few other plot points seemed abrupt or contrived sometimes.

I did, however, appreciate the Earth settings, including Mumbai. Even though the setting is somewhat futuristic, it still feels authentically like what I imagine India to be like from what I know.

I appreciated the end of the book and Ava's journey to freedom. But minor plot and flow issues in the story keep me from giving this more than a three-star, "liked it" rating. This book will be available in April.

The Burning Sky

I wasn't sure at first that I would enjoy The Burning Sky, a young adult fantasy romance by Sherry Thomas, but it didn't take me long to become fascinated, and by the end, I wasn't ready for it to be over. Fortunately, it's just the beginning of a trilogy, but that's also the frustrating part: I can't read the next part of the story yet.

The Burning Sky has some elements that are Harry-Potter-like, particularly as far as magic is concerned. Magic is usually performed with a wand, and certain Latin words must be recited. There is a hidden magic realm, but the kids go to school in Victorian London in the normal world. There is a magical train car that attaches to the regular train to transport one of them to the school. And there's a big baddie that the characters are destined to defeat.

Harry Potter is not the only magic world that seems borrowed from. In fact, the magic elements of the story cross over into something a little like Avatar: The Last Airbender. There's subtle magic, which most people use, and then there's elemental magic, which is direct control over water, earth, fire, and air. And like in Avatar: The Last Airbender, the character is supposed to be the greatest elemental mage of her time, which means she should be able to control all four elements; she just can't figure out how to master air. But aside from these noticeable similarities to other stories, the plot of this one veers off into new territory soon enough.

The story itself is intriguing and relatively large-world, though focused narrowly on only two characters. One is Prince Titus, who is basically a puppet sent to school in the normal world so that he can have even less chance of learning magic and gaining the power he might need to overthrow the Bane. The other is Iolanthe, a young elemental mage, struggling to provide for her addicted caretaker through the sale of what she considers to be paltry elemental magic powers. But the prince has been waiting for a prophecy given by his now-dead mother to reveal to him the elemental mage he must help to defeat the Bane. It's a cause he's willing to give his life for, but when Iolanthe shows up, she's anything but what he expected. What's more, she doesn't have the same convictions he has. Iolanthe needs his protection to hide from the Bane. She'll even pretend to be a boy at an all-boys school. But she won't make it easy for the prince.

When I was looking up Sherry Thomas on Goodreads, I was surprised to discover that she is a prolific adult romance writer. From the types of covers her romances have, one might expect this book to be more sensual. But there's no sex at all. Instead, there's the underlying tension of a boy falling in love with a girl who doesn't even like him and not being able to do much about it because of the fact that he's trying to pass her off as a boy to all who know him. It's a fun romance that grows from friendship, or at least a partnership, first. You know the girl is going to come around. Otherwise, it wouldn't be a romance. But the fun is in how it all comes about. Thomas is obviously experienced on that end, and I'm pleased to say she delivers well on all accounts: romance, adventure, fantasy, fairy tale. I cannot say whether future novels in the trilogy will remain sex-free, but at least this first one is a safe and morally sound read for all, without sacrificing an interesting plot.

Four and a half stars.

These Broken Stars

These Broken Stars is a lovely book I'm so glad I picked up. Written by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner, this young adult science fiction novel weaves a tale of love with a gripping story of loss and survival. Lilac is the richest girl in the universe, and Tarver is just a poor young soldier, albeit an honored war hero. For a moment, when everything is normal, they are drawn to each other, but Lilac ends it forcefully and cruelly, knowing anyone she loves will only face the fury of her father. Tarver, humiliated, backs off. But then fate brings them back together when disaster strikes the massive spaceship they are both on, yanking them out of hyperspace and hurtling them to the planet below. Then, all Tarver and Lilac have are each other, and as much as they hate it, they will have to find a way to cooperate and cross this strange planet to a place where they can be rescued. But something on the planet seems to have other ideas for them.

This was a delightful read, with all sorts of conflict and two interesting, multi-faceted characters. First, you throw two characters who hate each other into a disaster from which they come out alone with each other on the opposite side. Then there's the matter of pure survival without many supplies in a hostile and new environment. Once they are as miserable as possible, add a few mysteries that will build on each other like a good ghost story. And then, once your characters are comfortable, throw everything on its head once or twice more. Make sure there's always more trouble they can run into. And throughout, have flash-forwards to when one of the characters is being interrogated about the events. You know he escapes, but at what cost, and why is he lying? And there you have it: brilliant storytelling.

At first, I admit, I was intimidated by the size of the book. It's none too thin, and there are lots of words per page. I noticed it particularly because most young adult books are super fast reads with half as many words per page. I didn't know what I was getting myself into, but I was very quickly hooked. And then I was glad there were so many words because I knew the book wouldn't be over too soon and I could read to my heart's content and know there was always more to come back to. As much as I love those fast reads, I'm always having to start a new one too soon. And starting is the hardest part when you don't know if it will be good or not. Having a good book to return to is always the best.

This was also different from my usual fare in that it was science fiction. I've enjoyed books about characters in space before, so I wasn't thrown off by it. But they are usually few and far between. It was nice for a change of pace.

I have conflicting views on the morals of the book, though I do understand the reasoning behind them. SPOILER ALERT: The characters do end up falling in love and having sex. I'm not a proponent of sex outside of marriage, so I didn't like it for that reason. But on the other hand, these characters are stranded together with no certainty of rescue, and I think that if you don't have a way to be legally married, you can still be married in your heart before God (providing you believe in God). Of course, nothing like that is discussed in the book. As with all young adult books, they are in love, so they have sex. Nothing sacred about it. That's what I don't like about it. I do appreciate that the details are kept simple and vague. If you have to talk about it in young adult books, no need to be graphic.

Morals aside, the story itself bothered me as it led toward the end. To be more than vague about this would definitely be a spoiler, and I don't want to give anything away here. Let me just say that as the characters became okay with how things stood, I became more okay with it. But I was still left a bit unsettled. Though I don't think that it will matter or change the things I'm referring to, this is only the first book of the series, so added books may help the unsettled feeling to go away. In any case, I'm curious about the future of this series. I don't think future books will have quite the same dynamics that made me love this book, but I am still interested in finding out what becomes of the characters. However, this book is a good stand-alone, too, and once you finish it, you'll be fairly satisfied.

This book was released in November of last year. Four stars.

Allegiant

Although I will try to avoid major SPOILERS, for those of you interested in reading Veronica Roth's Divergent series, you'll probably want to stop reading this review.

I was really impressed by Veronica Roth's story when I began this series with Divergent, reviewed here. Now that I have read Allegiant, the conclusion to the trilogy, I have mixed feelings. Divergent has not lost its luster. And there were aspects of this final novel that still impressed me. I'll get to those in a minute. But overall, Allegiant just wasn't as easy to read for various reasons. There's not as much movement and danger as in the first two books. There's a lot of sitting around thinking. The book is also narrated differently, by two main characters rather than just Tris. And the biggest cause of my mixed feelings is the end. It's so daring (like the Dauntless!) and something that's just not done (or rarely) in young adult fiction, but I'm not sure whether or not it actually works.

Allegiant has a lot to wrap up. I won't go into the details of the first two novels. You can link to my review of those above. Let's just say that in this novel, the world gets bigger. It's no longer just a place that was once called Chicago. The characters are thrust into that bigger world, so the effects of that are part of the story. But they are not completely cut off from the world they left behind, quite the opposite actually.

Identity is a big thing in this book. The factions have been terminated, but when you are raised to think along very narrow lines, that's not something you can simply shed. Tris and Tobias narrate and offer insight into this whole process of change as they come up against new injustices and have to decide whether or not to bring the revolution they began on the inside to the outside.

While I enjoyed the characters and was intrigued by the changes they were going through, this book is not particularly fast-paced. What I do like about it is that this slower pace offers the chance to really delve into some moral questions. Roth is a Christian (or, at the least, a believer in God), and though her books wouldn't be labeled as "Christian," I think her worldview really shows if you care to look. One of the big moral questions of the book is, are genetically deficient humans inferior to those with perfect genes? It's certainly not the first time such a question has been asked, but Roth puts a new spin on it. And she doesn't tackle fixing the problem with the usual simplistic, one-can-be-sacrificed-for-the-many, nihilistic, existential answers. She has characters who have those viewpoints, but she also offers something different, something more complex, maybe not as easy but better.

I was especially impressed by Roth's portrayal of broken relationships and the realistic repercussions of them. She offers a mature way of dealing with such brokenness. Both Tris and Tobias have a lot to forgive and a lot to be forgiven for. They aren't perfect heroes, and they have to live with the consequences of their choices, some of those consequences being more real than we readers might like. And in Tris and Tobias' relationship with each other, a romance that has seen the harsh light of reality, we get more of the author's perspective on what real love is and what a mature approach to love is. You don't see that often in young adult literature. Sure, there are the physical moments and romantic parts teen readers supposedly crave, but Tris and Tobias have whole conversations that are about more than their relationship and about more than their immediate trials. They think. It's refreshing.

It's clear the author wanted to present a thoughtful, meaningful story as much as she wanted an entertaining one. I appreciate that, so I wish I could give the book a higher star rating. But a few things hold me back. For one, sometimes I had a hard time remembering who was narrating. At times, Tris and Tobias sound a lot alike. Their characters and the way they deal with things are not alike, but their inner thoughts sometimes tend to be. Context did not always help me distinguish between them, and a couple times, I would think I was reading one's thoughts when it turned out to be the other's. Then, there was one morality question the author left kind of vague that I wish she hadn't. At no point does she say that Tris and Tobias have sex, and she often makes a point of saying they don't. But there is one time when she leaves it vague, seemingly leaving it to the readers to interpret what happened according to their preferences. I'm not sure of the author's beliefs on this point, but of course, I wish she had leaned toward complete abstinence, the reasons for which I have named in other blogs and won't go into detail about here. Much of the morality addressed in this book is actually quite complicated, and Roth deals with it well, but in this simpler thing, I was disappointed.

The last unfortunate thing about this book is the ending impression. I won't spoil it by concretely revealing what happens, but as I mentioned above, it's an unusual ending for young adult fiction and I'm not sure it works. Many dystopian novels end a bit sadly, if they are being honest to how life really works (or how a dystopian world would actually work). The Hunger Games series is one example of this. But the Divergent series ends on a different kind of sad note than we are used to. For the book, it works well enough and makes sense. The author does handle it in a careful manner. But it wasn't what I wanted and hoped for. It didn't satisfy me on the level I'm at when I read a book, that escapist level that honestly doesn't want the book to end just like the real world does.

Though I'm impressed by Veronica Roth's insight and depth, Allegiant just didn't resonate with me as much as her first book did. I can give it only three stars. But if you want to get in on the action, that first story is well worth it and is in process of becoming a movie, which I am very excited to see.

The Elite

I am almost embarrassed to say that I read The Elite, a young adult novel by Kiera Cass, in two days. It's the second installment of a series that began with The Selection, which I read and reviewed here. As you'll notice after reading that review and then this one, some of my impressions remain the same, though my overall impression seems to be improved. (I confess, re-reading that review, I seem to be a little harsher on the book than it deserves.)

But why embarrassed, exactly? The Elite has aptly been compared to reality TV. It's about young women vying for the attention of a prince as they compete toward the end goal of becoming his wife and, eventually, the queen of his country. It's like a beauty pageant meets Cinderella. And while this premise calls out to the little romantic girl in each of us (girls), it's a rather silly and shallow idea.

Granted, Cass adds depth to the story through the politics of the world she has created. Her heroine, named America (perhaps this is a callback to the freedoms of life as we know them here in the United States; the story takes place in a future world where the United States no longer exists), comes from a mid-level caste in a society where your caste is your world. America has been fortunate enough to change her caste simply by being selected for the opportunity to win the prince's hand, but questions are raised about those who are not so fortunate and what opportunities for change arise when one is in power, if one dares to take them. So, the story is not quite as much of a guilty pleasure as it initially appears on the surface.

I like the characters. They are developed and alive, even minor ones, and the major ones have concerns I can identify with. Perhaps I like the characters too much because, like America, I can't decide which boy she should end up with. And here's where the story gets annoying. Love triangles are entirely too common in young adult fiction. Maybe that's on purpose, to reflect the choices real teenagers are faced with. But in this case, the exciting possibilities of falling in love with a prince are overshadowed by America's lingering feelings regarding her former love, a guard who works at the palace. Both are great choices, even though one is poor. I like that the author makes it clear that one is just as good as the other as far as love goes, that being rich doesn't make one a better choice than the other. But the fact that there is a choice at all when America has willingly submitted to this process of trying to get the prince to love her, saps some of the excitement. It's dangerous, not fun, and though the book acknowledges this, I just couldn't shake the feeling of wrongness about it.

I'd hate to SPOIL anything, and I won't, but if you are at all worried, don't read the following line. America's dilemma ends up better than I expected it to at the end of this book. I'm not 100 percent happy with it, but I'm still interested in the story and anticipating Book 3. With my feelings on this book pulled every which way, it averages out to an enjoyable three-star read.

Icons

Icons is my first Margaret Stohl novel. She writes young adult fiction and is the coauthor of the Beautiful Creatures series, the first book of which is now a movie (I didn't read Beautiful Creatures, but I saw the movie and was not too impressed; then again, I'm not really into witches and should have known better).

Icons is quite a different type of story, though still paranormal. Dol and Ro are not normal teenagers, and it's not just because they no longer live in a normal world. When they were infants, everything changed on The Day, when the Lords invaded from space and killed everything in 13 major cities across the globe. The survivors knew there was no hope in resistance. But Dol and Ro are special. They have abilities no one else has, abilities that feel more like curse than blessing. Dol feels everyone's emotions, and on Ro comes a rage so strong he becomes an unstoppable physical force. Only Dol can calm him. They've managed to stay out of site of the Icons and the Lords so far. But the truth of their existence is about to be revealed, and they will have to face their fears and the power of their emotions.

I enjoyed this book for the most part. The setting, though post-apocalyptic, manages to be different than what I've read before (though, granted, not much detail is given), and the paranormal powers are surprisingly (since so many books use them) unique in their presentation and use. I was intrigued about what Dol, who narrates, could or would do with her power, and information about her power is strung along little by little to pull the reader deeper into the story. Between chapters there are "classified memos" that relate to what's going on, often revealing an outside perspective to Dol's. Sometimes the memos' significance doesn't become clear until later. The story is interesting, particularly as new significant characters are added, broadening the plot.

But there was something lacking for me at the end. (Minor SPOILERS may follow.) I felt like there was the story and there was the ending: two separate things that didn't mesh well together. From a character development standpoint, it was fine. Dol got from one point to another, and all the connections were fairly clear. What wasn't as clear was the plot resolution. Not enough clues were provided on that front early on. The end just happened, and not everything necessarily followed from what had transpired earlier. Sorry for being vague, but I really try to avoid spoilers. So, there was that, and (this might be the SPOILER you want to avoid), I didn't like how the romance ended up. There's a love triangle, and I'm not sure Dol picks the right boy. It didn't make the best sense to me. I wasn't convinced of it working out that way, and I didn't understand it. So, the ending was a little rough for me.

I didn't have issues with the morals of the book, though no great attempt seems to have been made to discuss issues of morality. The biggest question raised is whether to risk lives for a chance to do greater good, but even that is not satisfactorily answered. Overall, the morality of the book is neutral, but there's nothing too offensive.

Other than that, I thought the story was unique and enjoyable and a worthy three-star beginning to a new series. Icons was published this past spring. Idols (Icons #2) will be published next summer.