Young Adult Archives - Page 10 of 15 - Brooke's Reviews and Sweeps

Remember Fawkes on the Fifth of November!

By Brookelorren on November 3, 2018Leave a Comment

Remember, remember, the fifth of November! In 1605, Guy Fawkes tried to blow up parliament with a bunch of gunpowder located underneath the House of Lords. When he was caught guarding the gunpowder, he ended up becoming associated with treason (and later fighting against the government) forever. Fawkes is a story based on the Gunpowder Plot, with magic and a bit of romance thrown in.

The story starts with a great line: “I wasn’t ready to turn to stone.” As a writer, I’ve started to pay attention to the first lines of books, and I love this one.

In the early 17th century, the England of Fawkes is troubled by a plague where people will turn to stone. Thomas Fawkes has that plague. His absentee father chooses not to give him his mask (your mask is the source of your color magic). This effectively kicks him out of school, so he heads off to London to track down his father — and discovers that his father is in a plot to destroy parliament and install a new government.

In the world of Fawkes, the people are divided into two groups: Keepers, who will only listen to one type of color magic, and Igniters, who practice all kinds of color magic. Both groups blame the other for the plague going on in the city. It seems a lot like today, where there’s a lot of division (particularly in the United States); it seems like there are two main sides that want to blame the other.

Over the course of this story, Thomas Fawkes needs to figure out where he stands on the whole color magic situation. It might even mean that he disagrees with his father. He also reluctantly falls in love with Emma, who has a secret of her own (which I really like).

I agree with some of the other reviews on this book that it starts out slow. I’m not sure what makes it seem that way. Perhaps it’s because we’re still getting to know the characters at that point, and Thomas is still indecisive about the direction that he wants his life to head in. Either way, the story really takes off towards the end. It makes up for the slowness at the beginning.

There is a lot of actual history in this book, which the history buff in me loves. Fawkes is a great story in itself though. If you love both history and magic, I highly recommend it. It might start slow in the beginning, but the book ends with a bang. Not exactly literally. The gunpowder plot was foiled, after all. But it does end spectacularly.

Books with Dark Magic and/or Darkness

By Brookelorren on October 30, 2018October 29, 201822 Comments

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday Topic is a Halloween/Creepy Freebie (hosted, as usual, by That Artsy Reader Girl). I’ve decided to write about books with dark magic and/or darkness in them. I don’t celebrate Halloween, so I had to alter the topic a bit.

So a little bit about my Halloween story. Back when I was in college, I went to Knott’s Scary Farm with my future husband, a couple of his friends, and his future fiancée (perhaps you notice that this is already getting weird). So my husband had broken up with his future fiancée, then we went out for a while, and then he went out with her again. And we were all at Knott’s Scary Farm together. Needless to say, it didn’t really go all that well. But I was at this Beetlejuice show, and this fake Beetlejuice character was telling jokes about death and I was just thinking “this really isn’t funny. Death isn’t really funny.” I’m sure that being there with my future husband and his then-girlfriend didn’t help anything, but I haven’t really been into Halloween since.

But I digress. Back to our Top Ten List:

Slasher Girls and Monster Boys – This will probably be the closest thing that I get to a “Halloween” read this year. It’s an anthology with several stories from various authors. Like most anthologies, some stories are better than others. It has a lot of stories where bad boys and girls get the justice that they deserve. And there’s creepiness and in many of these stories, a little bit of magic. If you’re looking for something to read tomorrow while you’re handing out candy, maybe this is your book.

Enchantée ~ Gita Trelease – Enchantée is not a creepy book at all, but there is a creepy villain in this book that uses his magic for evil and not for good. There has to be some force that works against the heroine of a story or it’s not a good book, right?

Give the Dark My Love ~ Beth Revis – In Give the Dark My Love, our main character is literally practicing necromancy. If I was going to put “necromancy” under a dark magic or a light magic umbrella, it would definitely go under dark magic.

Frequency ~ Christopher Krovatin – At first glance, Frequency seems to be a contemporary novel about high school students that are into music and use a few too many drugs. This book has it’s own kind of magic in it: music. Maybe you’ve gotten so into a song that you feel like the beat is controlling you (I know I have). In this book, the magic of music takes that feeling a step farther and is actually controlling people.

The Young Elites ~ Marie Lu – Not everybody in The Young Elites is dark: just our main character, Adelina Amouteru. Maybe she could have been a good person if life had treated her a little differently. At any rate, the main character in this series does some pretty evil things and her powers granted from the gods are pretty magical.

Ember in the Ashes ~ Sabaa Tahir – While the main characters in the Ember in the Ashes series are neither evil or magical, there is some evil magic afoot in this story. And there are evil characters. Plus, this series is pretty darned good.

Ever the Hunted ~ Erin Summerill – Ever the Hunted (and its sequel, Ever the Brave) is not one of those stories that feels creepy, but there is definitely some dark magic in this story. Our main characters are amazingly sweet, but there are some mind-controllers out there, and they’re not so sweet.

Throne of Glass ~ Sarah J. Maas – The Throne of Glass series has some pretty dark and creepy magic in it (although the first book doesn’t have a lot of magic in it). Our main character is also a pretty wicked assassin. I still have to read the last three books in the series (it’s really long) but it’s definitely worth reading.

Ace of Shades ~ Amanda Foody – The setting of Ace of Shades is very much like Las Vegas with a little bit of magic. It’s dark and gritty and dangerous. Definitely not a place that you’d want to be wandering alone in after dark.

The Mortal Instruments series ~ Cassandra Clare – This series has all the creepy crawlies in it: demons, werewolves, vampires, and the like. Yet, I don’t really feel like these are creepy books at all. Nevertheless, since I’m writing about books that contain dark magic or darkness in them, these books qualify. And they are probably going to make my list of Top Ten Books I Read for the First Time in 2018 (I lump all books in series together) so they should make it to today’s list.

Well, that’s today’s Top Ten List. Next week, I’ll list ten older books that I still want to read.

What books have you read that have dark magic or darkness in them?

Blitzball ist Sehr Interressant

By Brookelorren on October 29, 2018October 21, 2018Leave a Comment

What would happen if Adolf Hitler were cloned? Blitzball, a new book by Barton Ludwig, attempts to answer that question. This is the story of Addie, a soccer player for Reichfield High, and his discovery that he was not who he thought he was. Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an Advanced Reader Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Every weekend, Addie plays soccer against North Prep, their rival school. As our story begins, Addie and his best friend Thomas have debilitated the star player on the other team so he can’t play. Shaylee, a girl, ends up playing on the team instead.

As a reader, you might notice something strange about their little town. Reichfield High is nearly all white (with the exception of one Jew). North Prep is predominantly non-white. The students at Reichfield High are encouraged to have racist viewpoints. They refer to themselves as “Aryan” and have a lot of unkind things to say about people of other races. They also don’t like homosexuals or transgender people. Reichfield students also learn German. This is a typical Nazi town, located in a modern neighborhood in a place that looks a lot like the United States.

Addie begins to have feelings for Shaylee, which he fights initially, because she’s not Aryan, and Addie has been taught that you really shouldn’t develop feelings for people that aren’t white. Together, they discover that Addie was a clone of Adolf Hitler. Addie doesn’t even know who Hitler is at first; for some reason people that live in Addie’s town don’t have access to the Internet, although Shaylee and her classmates do. As he discovers the truth about himself, he tries to defy his genetics and upbringing and become his own person.

What I Liked

There were a lot of things that I liked about Blitzball. Addie was an interesting character. He behaved a lot like you would expect someone to behave if Adolf Hitler grew up today. In a way, the story reminds me a lot of Er ist Wieder Da, a really funny movie where Hitler resurrects in a German park and is found by a photographer, who treats the guy like he’s a joke. Addie grows as a character throughout the book, which is pretty important when you start off a Nazi. By the end of the book, he becomes an enemy of the Nazis in this story.

The setting of this story was unique. It reminded me of The Truman Show. Addie lives in this small “country” where life pretty much revolves around him. The people at his school are in on it. Not only was he a genetic clone of Adolf Hitler, he is being raised in similar circumstances to him.

What I Liked Less

While I found Blitzball to be interesting overall, there were parts of this story that I liked less. The last part of the book seemed to be a little too much, although I liked the epilogue. We also never find out why someone created a genetic clone of Hitler and went through all the trouble of raising him to be another Hitler.

There are a lot of German words in this book (mostly swear words). As a German speaker, it didn’t really bother me, but it’s possible that non-German speakers might find that it makes reading the book more difficult. I’m not a very good judge of this because I am literate in German, but it’s something to be aware of.

Final Notes

I wouldn’t recommend this book to younger YA readers. There are some situations that aren’t really appropriate for younger readers. In addition, the characters of Reichfield High have very racist attitudes; someone with less maturity might not realize that these students are supposed to be the bad guys.

Overall, Blitzball was an interesting book that I enjoyed, but I can’t really put it on the same level as some of the more amazing books that I’ve been reading this year. If you find the premise interesting, I recommend reading it, but it’s not a book that I will rush out and tell everybody that they need this on their TBR right now.

Slasher Girls and Monster Boys… Oh My!

By Brookelorren on October 25, 2018December 16, 20184 Comments

The end of October is upon us. I’m not into scary stories or spooky things, but I figured that I’d read Slasher Girls & Monster Boys for the season anyway. I’m not really big into short stories, but thanks to a Top Ten Tuesday topic from earlier this year, I’ve discovered that some of them are pretty cool.

This anthology has stories from several authors that I wasn’t familiar with, as well as some that I’ve heard of but haven’t read yet (like Kendare Blake) and some that I’ve read before (including my favorite author, Marie Lu). They all have their own styles that they bring to this genre, and some of the stories I liked much better than the others.

Each of the short stories in Slasher Girls & Monster Boys was based on a classic movie or story. I don’t really think that knowing the original story really gave away anything in the ending. For example, “In the Forest Dark and Deep” was based on Alice in Wonderland. Knowing the Alice story didn’t really give away what was going to happen in the story.

I didn’t really find these stories to be scary. They did seem to have a lot of stories of the supernatural and of revenge, however. I did like that about these stories.

Some of these stories I was just okay with. There were a couple with bizarre endings that I would have liked to have been explained more. I think that it’s normal in an anthology that you won’t like all the stories equally well though.

Here were some of my favorites:

“The Girl Without a Face” ~ Marie Lu. Well, duh! I’ve never read anything in the “horror” genre by Marie Lu before, but this story definitely has a lot of Lu-like elements to it. The voice is familiar, as is the overall message of this story. Sorry, I can’t give away what that message is, because then I’d pretty much spoil it!

“On the I-5” ~ Kendare Blake. I bought Three Dark Crowns earlier this year but I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. “On the I-5” is a story of a girl who meets someone at a truck stop on the I-5 (which runs from Washington State to Southern California). Again, I can’t really tell you much more than that without spoiling the story, but it was pretty good.

“The Birds of Azalea Street” ~ Nova Ren Suma. I’ve seen the Hitchcock movie The Birds more than once in my lifetime, and although I did have a guess as to what was happening in this one, I thought it was a sweet story about justice. If sweetness can be a little dark and creepy and involve death.

“In the Forest Dark and Deep” ~ Carrie Ryan. This was another tale of jerks seeing justice. I think there’s a theme to my favorite stories here, because all the stories that I’ve pointed out here include some form of justice for somebody. This story has a tea party/Alice in Wonderland influence to it.

If you’re looking for something to read this year with just a little bit of the creep factor, but you don’t want to commit to a full length novel or two, you might want to check out Slasher Girls & Monster Boys. Chances are you’ll recognize a few of the authors, and you might find a new author you want to read more of!

I Was Into the Hollow

By Brookelorren on October 22, 2018October 16, 2018Leave a Comment

Last week, I read Into the Hollow by Lynn Vroman. I have to thank Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read it. This is a really sweet story and I enjoyed it a lot.

Freedom (she goes by Free) hasn’t had the easiest life. After her mother died, her dad took her to Needles, California, where he met another lady and had another child, Little. Little’s mom had postpartum depression, and they left to go back to Appalachia, where they were originally from. When our story begins, Free is a doting sister who adores her half-brother. She works at a grocery store to try to make ends meet. Her daddy digs up ginseng to try to bring in some extra cash. It’s a hard life. They live in a small house without electricity or water, and sometimes there isn’t enough to eat.

Cole is her next door neighbor, but they’ve never spoken. His life isn’t much to brag about either. He has a father and brother in prison for dealing drugs. His sister is a teenage mom and is a former drug addict; her mother still is addicted to drugs. Cole’s sole goal in life is to graduate from high school and save enough to rent a crappy apartment someday.

Sometimes they see each other when Free drives by in her beat up Buick, but they’ve never spoken. Still, they seem to be drawn to each other (although Free would never admit that).

When Cole starts working at the grocery store with her, she tries to keep her distance. He wants to get to know her, but she doesn’t want him to find out her secrets. Then something happens, and her world is turned upside down. She turns to Cole for help. In turn, she seems to help him in a way.

I absolutely loved this story. Both Cole and Free are responsible teens just trying to survive in a world where the adults in their lives haven’t made it easy for them. You want them to make it. And you want them to be together.

The setting of Into the Hollow is fairly unique. I haven’t read a lot of books set in Appalachia. As I read the book, I can visualize the forest, and the run-down houses, and the things that make this area what it is.

Into the Hollow was a book that I didn’t want to put down. I’m not sure how much publicity it’s going to get, but it probably won’t be enough. It’s one of those books that might end up in a “hidden gems” type of Top Ten Tuesday post, because I enjoyed it so much, but I’m afraid not many people are going to hear about it. It won’t be released until November 6th, but you can pre-order it now.

The Wren Hunt Sings

By Brookelorren on October 15, 20183 Comments

I recently read The Wren Hunt by Mary Watson (thank you to Netgalley and Bloomsbury YA for an Advanced Review Copy in exchange for an honest review). It is a magical book in a fairly unique setting that made me want to keep reading.

The Wren Hunt is set in modern-day Ireland. The story starts out with some excitement: every year after Christmas, some boys chase Wren (our heroine) until they catch her, and demand some sort of trinket for her. Wren doesn’t find this chase amusing, but for some reason, they continue to bully her year after year.

Soon, we find out that the boys that chase her are part of a group of people that her family has been feuding with for generations. Like in Romeo and Juliet or The Weight of Feathers, Wren’s family is part of the augurs, and the boys that bully her are the judges. Both judges and augurs have a sort of druidic magic to them. Wren’s gift allows her to have visions of the future, although sometimes it is difficult to interpret what they mean.

The augur’s magic appears to be fading, and they blame the judges for it. Wren is sent to take an internship at a business run by the judges, in order to spy on them. The judges there don’t know that she’s an augur, and if she is found out, it wouldn’t do well for her.

Over the course of this book, she falls in love, finds out some shocking truths about herself, and has to make difficult decisions about her life. There’s betrayal, and twists, and things aren’t always exactly as they seem. It all makes for a great story.

Setting

I love how Ireland was used as the setting for this book. It makes an excellent backdrop for the druidic magic. The Wren Hunt transports you to a small village in this country. The town has this small-town feel of a place that kids grow up in and don’t really escape from. It’s unlike a lot of fantasy book settings, which made it interesting.

Characters

I really liked the characters and relationships portrayed in this book as well. Although she lost her parents when she was young, Wren is close to the family members she lives with, as well as her childhood friend. In this book, Wren is growing apart from her family, and I love how Ms. Watson tackles this. There are also enemies, a growing but sometimes awkward attraction to a boy, and coworkers.

Overall

Will The Wren Hunt make my list of Top Ten Books I Read in 2018? No, but I’ve read a lot of books this year, and a lot of good books aren’t going to make it onto the list. This book is a unique book that kept my attention from the beginning until the end. I definitely recommend it.

The Wren Hunt won’t be available until November 6th, but you can pre-order it now.

MORE Amazing Marie Lu News!

By Brookelorren on October 13, 2018October 13, 20182 Comments

It seems like every time I get major Marie Lu news that I can’t wait to share with everybody, I’m at work. I spend my 15 minute breaks on Twitter; that’s when I see them. I knew Marie Lu had some news to share with us either this week or next, but I couldn’t imagine that she was going to write a FOURTH book to Legend! I’m so excited!

Oh, and it’s supposed to come out NEXT FALL! I was a little disappointed last month when Ms. Lu said that Kingdom of Back wouldn’t be coming out until 2020. Goodreads had been saying it was a 2019 release, so I figured I had over a year to wait for a new book from her. This might be why there was the delay. I do have some short stories to read (I plan on reviewing the Slasher Girls and Monster Boys anthology later this month, which has a story by her in it), but we get a whole new book next year. Yay!

Oh, and that’s not the ONLY good news today! She will have another book called Skyhunter coming out! It looks like Skyhunter is going to be a duology.

There is an article about the deal in the Washington Post.

So this last 30 days has been an AMAZING reading month for me. Not only have I read some of the best books this year (Wildcard, Enchantée, Muse of Nightmares, more Mortal Instruments books), I get this news. When I read this on my last break, I practically floated through the last hour of work! And of course whenever anybody asked how I was, I told them “outstanding!” or some other thesaurus variant of the word. If they asked why I was doing so well, I told them about the book, LOL.

Have a wonderful day!

Ever the Brave Was Beautiful

By Brookelorren on October 12, 2018October 11, 2018Leave a Comment

I first heard about Ever the Brave when I kept seeing that Once a King was going to come out this fall. The story sounded really interesting, so I just had to get the books from my library. I read Ever the Hunted in July (you can read my review here), but I had to wait a lot longer in order to read the second book in the series. This book was worth the wait.

Since this book is the second in a series, it may contain spoilers for the first book.

Britta might have gotten herself out of immediate danger in Ever the Hunted, but her life has not gone back to normal. She now has this mysterious bond with King Aodren, and on top of that, he now seems to have the same kind of mysterious connection to her that she used to have with Cohen. Of course, she’s in love with Cohen, which makes the situation even messier. To make things worse, the king seems to be developing feelings for Britta.

The danger in Britta and Cohen’s life hasn’t gone away, either. The Spiriter that was controlling Aodren is now wreaking havoc in the kingdoms of Malam and Shaerden, threatening to destroy the fragile peace between the two countries. Cohen has to track down this Spiriter, which is causing strain in his relationship to Britta.

Britta eventually discovers that she has to choose between Cohen, who sometimes is a little overprotective of her, and Aodren, who continues to shower her with gifts.

Choice seems to be a pretty big theme in Ever the Brave. Cohen has to learn that even though he wants to protect his love from all of the dangers of this world, he can’t make that decision for her if he doesn’t want her to feel smothered. He also feels like he needs to give Britta the freedom to choose between her and Aodren, even if it means that she might not choose him. I thought it was sweet that he cared enough for her to want her to make that decision, even if it potentially could hurt him in the end.

I loved the ending of Ever the Brave and am looking forward to reading Once a King at some point, even though Britta and Cohen won’t be main characters in that story. This is a sweet story with a beautiful ending. I highly recommend it.

Evenfall Fell Short

By Brookelorren on October 11, 20184 Comments

I was recently given the opportunity to read Evenfall by Gaja and Boris Kos (thank you Netgalley for the ARC). While I thought the concept of the book was good, it sadly did not live up to expectations. Evenfall did have to follow some of the most amazing books I read this year; even still, it was just okay.

After I was about 25% of the way through the book and I still wasn’t feeling this book, I tried to figure out why this book just didn’t mesh with me. I think the biggest problem was that there was a lot of infodumping. Ember, our heroine, was confused and was trying to figure out what was going on. Her new friend Ada was trying to help her understand, but there was a lot of explanation and not much action. For a lot of the book, there wasn’t a lot of dialogue either. There were descriptions of them eating breakfast, traveling to Ada’s house, and a little bit of hiding, but there wasn’t a lot going on.

The action did pick up some in the second half, when Ember’s interactions with the “bad guy”, the Crescent Prince, pick up in earnest. The last 20% of the book was actually fairly good. Still, I thought there was a love interest that sparked a little too quickly in the last bit (Ember and another person declared their love to each other after knowing each other for probably less than a week).

Despite all of the explaining that was going on, there were times when the character seemed to know things that she shouldn’t have. I hope that these are fixed before the finished product comes out, but there were two occasions where Ember names a character they were going to meet when we hadn’t been introduced to them previously.

On a positive note, the magic systems and the storyline were interesting and complex. I started to feel like I was getting to know Ember by the end of the book. I could also feel for her and the fact that she didn’t want to be used as somebody else’s pawn. There were a lot of interesting aspects to the world here.

Considering that the action did pick up towards the end of the book, I might think about reading the sequel. It’s not something I’d put at the top of my TBR, but there is a part of me that wants to see this world put back together.

Muse of Nightmares is a Dream

By Brookelorren on October 7, 2018Leave a Comment

Muse of Nightmares was released last Tuesday, and if you haven’t read it yet, you should definitely put it on your TBR. It’s getting to be that time of year where I start thinking about what the best books of the year were, and there’s a good chance that this book is going to make the Top Ten Books I Read for the First Time in 2018 list.

Because this review is the second in a duology, there may be spoilers for the first book.

This book begins where Strange the Dreamer left off. Lazlo discovered that he was godspawn, Sarai was dead, and Minya was trying to get Lazlo to do her bidding to allow her to go down to Weep and let her get her revenge on the humans. What a mess! Of course, Lazlo is this gentle soul who wouldn’t hurt a fly. What is a poor boy who loves his Sarai to do?

In addition to the difficult situation the godspawn were left in, we were left with questions. Where did all the other babies go? Why did Lazlo suddenly turn into godspawn when for twenty years he was just an ordinary boy? What does the bird flying around have to do with anything (and why is the bird on the cover of this book? All of that will be answered in Muse of Nightmares.

I don’t want to give too much away, but Lazlo and Sarai’s relationship continues, the humans down in Weep finally meet the godspawn, and secrets are revealed about the universe that I certainly didn’t expect. The characters that we loved in the first book are back, and most of them grow and become better people.

Just like Strange, Muse is a beautiful book with gorgeous prose. Laini Taylor has such a lovely way of writing. The alluring words made me want to keep reading. The world that she built is imaginative, and the way that she writes it makes it vivid. You grow to love the characters and empathize with them.

Another thing that I loved about reading this book was that it has such a beautiful message to it. Minya wants revenge for what happened to her. The humans who were exploited have reason to hate the godspawn. Another character that we will meet when we read this book has another reason to hate. One of my favorite lines in this book is repeated twice: Let all the ugliness end here.

It’s such a timely message. Let all the ugliness end here. If we could get one thing from reading this book, that would be it. Wouldn’t the world be such a better place if we could all just listen to each other? To try to understand where other people are coming from? There would be so much less anger floating in the air if we could just get that. Just like the humans, godspawn, and the new character we meet in Strange the Dreamer and Muse of Nightmares, almost all of us are trying to do the right thing. Sometimes the right thing is not easy to discern. Maybe if we were all a little more like Lazlo and Sarai, our hearts would heal.

The ugliness does end, at least for the characters here. I won’t say what happens, but I was in tears for the last 50 pages of the book or so, it was so beautiful. The ugliness even ends for some of the characters that you might not even think could change. Not everyone gets a happy ever after, and not everybody’s soul can mend, but the end was perfect.

Or was it? This book opens itself up to fanfiction or further books in the series. Maybe we’ll see some more novellas from here. That would be nice.