Young Adult Archives - Page 12 of 15 - Brooke's Reviews and Sweeps

Batman: Nightwalker Was Good

By Brookelorren on September 6, 2018July 16, 20188 Comments

I recently finished reading Batman: Nightwalker by Marie Lu. When I first heard about the book, I wasn’t planning on reading it; I am so not a superhero person. My husband drug me to see a couple Spiderman movies a while back, and I’ve seen the Superman movies and some others… but it’s definitely not my genre. That being said, I loved Brad Meltzer’s Book of Lies, which has something to with Superman, that I read several years ago.

Anyway, I had started saying that Marie Lu could write about the alphabet and make it interesting. If I really believed that, then I should read her Batman book to see if it’s true. It actually was good, so that theory still holds. It’s probably my least favorite book that she’s done (but she set the bar really high with her other seven books), and it’s not going to make my top 10 books of 2018 list (which is okay because she might have two books on that list anyway), but I definitely enjoyed it.

The story follows Bruce Wayne right after he turns 18, about the time that he’s graduating from high school. He’s already fabulously wealthy, and is already realizing that there are some people that just care about him because of his influence. He’s ready to spend his last summer before college with his two best friends… until he happens to run across a crime scene.

He has a cool car that can chase down the bad guy, so he does — and gets in trouble with the police as a result. He is sentenced to community service at the local insane asylum. There, he discovers a little more about the string of crimes happening in the area, committed by a group called the Nightwalkers. He ends up bending the rules a little bit, but in the process ends up saving the day. Oh, and he also develops a thing for a criminal that may not be as bad as she initially seems to be.

One of the things that I love about this book (and pretty much all Marie Lu books in general, I’ve come to realize) is that it shows compassion for people that many would otherwise dismiss. People sometimes can be condemning of people because they happen to be the wrong race, or had to make difficult choices because they were poor, or did something stupid in their past. Our villain, Madeleine, might be a criminal, but there were forces that drove her there. I love how the book delves into the reasons why she chose the path that she did rather than just writing her off as a bad person. This book also deals briefly with sexual harassment, which is very timely in the #metoo era.

Batman: Nightwalker introduces us to Bruce Wayne discovering some of the cool Batman toys that he’ll later use as Batman. I thought it was also cool how the book goes a little bit into his interest with bats.

I thought that Batman: Nightwalker was a good story worth reading. My daughter is reading it now and also likes it; she enjoys superhero movies in general. Although this book isn’t in a genre that I routinely read, I did find it interesting.

City of Glass was Magical

By Brookelorren on September 3, 2018September 6, 2018Leave a Comment

I recently read City of Glass by Cassandra Clare. This story was great. I bought this book used off of Amazon.com when I realized that I was #5 on the waiting list at the library, and all the books after this on the waiting list were going to become available sooner. So I spent a few dollars for my own copy rather than waiting for this one to become available, and then waiting several more months for this story to conclude.

While this review doesn’t contain spoilers for City of Glass, it may contain spoilers for the first two books.

My experience was probably different than someone reading it in 2009, when this book first came out, because I had the benefit of being able to look up online what was going to happen between Clary and Jace. I won’t say here what happens because I don’t want to include spoilers, but the whole incest issue between the two of them does resolve itself. In this book. So if you’re thinking “eeew” as you read this book, don’t worry about it. It will get fixed. In about 400 pages.

When we last left these characters, Clary had discovered that there was a way to cure her mother, but it required her to travel to Idris. Jace doesn’t want her to go, however, thinking it’s too dangerous. Fortunately, Clary has a mind of her own and isn’t about to let her brother tell her what to do.

Due to a few things that happen, both Luke and Simon end up in Idris as well, and they’re not supposed to be there.

There are bigger things to worry about than that, however. Valentine still has the Mortal Cup and Mortal Sword, and he still wants to use them to root out what he sees as corruption in the Clave. At least, that’s how he puts it. Part of him just wants to take over the world.

By the time you get to the end of this book, secrets will be revealed and people will die. We also meet new characters. Even though I did look up spoilers to find out what was up with the whole Jace/Clary thing, reading the books up to this point clarified quite a few things.

One of the things that I appreciate about these books, that I haven’t mentioned before, is that there is a lot of Bible and historical literature in these books. For example, Clary wrote Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin at one point, without realizing what that meant. I recognized it as what “the handwriting on the wall” was in the book of Daniel. We also see lines from Milton and some Latin. These certainly aren’t theological books, but I find the references to be clever.

I also love it when books have themes to them. The Mortal Instruments books seem to speak about corruption. How people use power wrongly. How people take advantage of laws to benefit themselves, even if by doing so they are acting immorally. Through the character of Valentine, we even see how evil can package itself in an attractive manner. These details make me enjoy the books more.

I absolutely could not put this book down, and read it in two days, despite having to work and do other things. If you haven’t read City of Glass yet, you should continue with this story.

Give the Dark My Love…

By Brookelorren on August 27, 2018August 19, 2018Leave a Comment

I was recently given the opportunity to read Give the Dark My Love by Beth Revis. I received it through Penguin’s First to Read program. It was a good book, although I can’t say that it was my favorite.

Nedra is a 17 year old girl who grew up in a poor village. She doesn’t have many prospects in life… until she gets a scholarship to a prestigious school, where she plans to train to become a medical alchemist. While she doesn’t feel quite like she fits in, she develops a friendship with another student there, Grey, that seems to be developing into more than friendship.

There’s a plague crossing the land, and Nedra wants to stop it, or even try to find a cure. As the story progresses, she ends up discovering that there may be necromancy involved. Necromancy is illegal. Grey is not too excited about this. At the end, there are some twists and turns, and Nedra seems to be sliding into the dark side. Will she be a villain in book 2? I hope to find out.

The Good

There are a lot of good things about Give the Dark My Love. I liked the characters and the family relationships that Nedra had. There’s some political intrigue, and it speaks a little bit about class and privilege. The magical system is well thought out (except in this world, it’s not magic, it’s science). I liked the plot twist at the end of the story as well.

The Not as Good

Overall, I enjoyed the book. I would have liked to have seen more of the relationship between Nedra and Grey, and there was a lot that went on between Nedra and her professor that wasn’t shown either. The writing style didn’t draw me in as much as some of the other books that I’ve read recently have, but it was still quite good.

Conclusion

Give the Dark My Love has at least two books to it, and I would like to continue with the series (although I’ll probably try to obtain an ARC or check it out from the library). For me, I don’t think that this book has endless rereadability, but it I did like it.

This book is expected to go on sale on September 25th, but you can pre-order it now.

Caraval Invites You to a Magical World

By Brookelorren on August 25, 2018July 8, 20186 Comments

Welcome to the exciting world of Caraval! That is what my library could have told me when I found out it was available for download after a short time on the waiting list. Caraval is a book full of magic, mystery, danger, and love (mostly between sisters).

Scarlett had always wanted to experience the magic that was Caraval. From the age of ten, she wrote to Legend, the Master of Caraval, hoping to get tickets for her and her sister Donatella (Tella). Her grandmother had told her stories and made it seem wonderful. It seemed like a wonderful dream, while in her own life…

Her father was abusive, he wouldn’t let them leave the island that they lived on, and she decided to get married to someone that she had never met just to escape. One day, she finally gets tickets to Caraval, after she had given up. She no longer wants to go, thinking that her marriage will save her from her toxic life.

She ends up going anyway; you’ll just have to read the book to find out how. After she gets there, she discovers that it’s not quite what she was expecting. It seems to be a magical, more dangerous version of Las Vegas, where everything that happens in Caraval is supposed to stay there. We find out that not everything stays there, however. Scarlett’s sister is kidnapped, and she has to find her before it is too late.

She ends up partnering up with Julian, a brash sailor who is definitely not Scarlett’s type, although deep down inside, she finds him to be devastatingly handsome. Over the course of the search, Scarlett grows as a person, and comes to the realization that maybe she’s putting her hopes into the wrong things.

In the end, we find out the truth about what went on in Caraval. Maybe… Scarlett wasn’t actually saving Tella after all. Perhaps Tella was saving her. Maybe Julian isn’t actually a sailor. Again, you’ll have to read to find out.

What I Liked

I enjoyed this book. The characters were likeable, and they grew as people as they struggled through the book. Scarlett is very practical (maybe a little too much so) and protective of her impulsive sister. Tella is a little too impulsive. The love between these sisters is what drives the story, which I found to be a really sweet underlying theme.

There was a lot of mystery to this book, and as I read, I couldn’t help but to wonder what was really going on. In Caraval, nothing is exactly as it seems. The book reveals much of its mysteries by the end of the book… but then we realize that there is one more mystery to be solved. Now I can’t wait to read the next book, which I’m on the waiting list to read at the library.

Anything I Didn’t Like?

I can’t think of anything that I didn’t like about this book. Maybe at the beginning of the book, Scarlett seems a little hopeless and clueless, but as she grows throughout the book, she becomes a strong person in her own right.

I enjoyed Caraval quite a lot and am looking forward to reading the next book, Legendary, as it becomes available. If you haven’t read it yet and choose to check it out, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

When Elephants Fly Was Good, But I Could Have Gotten More

By Brookelorren on August 20, 2018August 13, 2018Leave a Comment

I recently received a copy of When Elephants Fly, by Nancy Richardson Fischer. I forgot that I had entered a sweepstakes to win it, and I was pretty excited to see it in my mailbox. It is a wonderful story about a girl, Lily, whose mother had schizophrenia and tried to kill her. She just turned 18 and thinks that if she just keeps a stress-free life between now and the time she’s 30, then she’ll be able to prevent getting it herself.

Unfortunately, life doesn’t quite work out that way. Living a life without stress means that you also miss out on a lot of good things in life. She’s reluctant to apply for any college other than her local community college (her therapist convinces her to apply for a good college anyway, and she decides to apply to the best college out there, USC). She had been reluctant to apply for the internship at the local newspaper as well, but as our story begins, she had already been accepted and is working there.

At the internship, Lily gets to write little pieces for her local newspaper on local interest events, like the new baby calf being born at the zoo. Unfortunately, after the baby calf is born, its mother rejects the calf and tries to kill it, which brings up her own memory of when her mother tried to kill her. This triggers a series of events that changes Lily’s life forever, as she tries to save the baby elephant. It brings more excitement into her life for sure, but also causes the risk of mental illness to increase.

I thought this book was pretty good. I really enjoyed Lily’s friendship with her best friend, Sawyer, which unfortunately becomes strained during this book. Sawyer is going through his own problems with detached parents, and Lily doesn’t see that for a while because of her own problems. I would have liked to have seen more of their friendship though.

Lily meets a guy in this book that she develops a relationship with, but I don’t particularly feel it all that much. Maybe if they would have spent more time together, I would have shipped them more, but as written, they were just okay together. This part of the book could have gotten a little more attention.

The ending of the book leaves a lot unresolved. Does Lily get into USC? Does she develop schizophrenia? What happens to her friend? What happens to her and her new boyfriend? What happens to the baby elephant?

Overall, I thought When Elephants Fly was good. The subject matter is really important; there are so many people these days dealing with mental issues, so this book will be helpful for a lot of people. The story was good, the characters were interesting, and the friendship in this book was represented well. It goes on sale on September 4th, but you can pre-order it now.

Strange the Dreamer is Like a Beautiful Dream

By Brookelorren on August 16, 2018June 29, 2018Leave a Comment

Just recently I finished reading Strange the Dreamer, by Laini Taylor. Her writing has been described as beautiful prose. If you’re unfamiliar with her writing, you’ll just have to read her works to see it. I didn’t want to put down this book, and I’m looking forward to reading the second half of this duology, Muse of Nightmares, later on this year.

Lazlo Strange is an orphan. He was originally raised in a monastery, but he is drawn to stories. When he gets the opportunity to deliver books to the library, he decides not to leave. He becomes an apprentice librarian, reading books in his spare time. With his head in a book and his mind in a fairy tale all the time, he becomes known as Strange the Dreamer. Above all other stories, he is fascinated by the story of a city called Weep. Or at least, that’s what everybody calls it now. Lazlo knows that it had another name… once. He felt it disappearing from his mind.

Lazlo would have continued this life indefinitely, living out his life as a lowly librarian, until fate intervened. He decides to take a chance and do something bold, which is a move that will change his life forever.

In the city of Weep, there is a girl called Sarai. She lives with a few other people, isolated from the rest of the world. Until the day that she finds herself in Lazlo’s dreams. This is the beginning of an unlikely romance.

Lazlo and Sarai are from two different worlds that don’t understand each other. Will their relationship ever evolve from anything outside of dreams? You’ll have to read the story to find out.

The characters in this story are outstanding. Lazlo is not particularly handsome on the outside, but he’s an interesting character that more than one avid reader will probably be able to identify with. In contrast to Lazlo’s rough exterior and beautiful insides, the people that are beautiful on the outside aren’t always the most beautiful people on the inside. Our other main protagonist, Sarai, is also a wonderfully complex character, who has changed over time as she gains understanding about the people around her.

Like the prose of this story, the world of this story is also beautiful. Ms. Taylor’s writing is wonderfully descriptive, which makes the deserts and cities and library come alive. Even though this world contains creatures and magic not present in our own world, it’s not hard to imagine.

Strange the Dreamer seems to have underlying themes to it. Revenge and hate is not the answer. Good people sometimes do bad things. Often, both sides of a conflict have good reasons to have grievances against the other, but if we let hatred simmer forever, it hurts everyone. If those aren’t messages that we need more than ever, I don’t know what are.

If you’re looking for a beautiful story in an imaginative world that you won’t want to put down, consider getting this book.

Ever the Hunted is Ever Wonderful

By Brookelorren on August 5, 2018July 6, 20184 Comments

Ever the Hunted was a wonderful book. I discovered it as I was looking through upcoming titles. Once a King looked really interesting, but since it was the third in the series, I figured that I better start at book 1. I was in luck, because Ever the Hunted was available at the library (I’m on the waiting list at the moment for Ever the Brave).

The book grabbed me from the beginning pages. Our heroine, Britta, is in a tough situation. Her papa died, and the king is ready to come and take her lands, because she can’t inherit it. She hasn’t seen her ex-boyfriend Cohen in over a year, but that doesn’t matter anyway, because she could never marry him anyway: he has a noble heritage and can’t marry an outcast like her anyway.

After she gets caught poaching, she is asked to go find the murderer: her ex-boyfriend Cohen.

Dun dun dun!!!

If you want to find out what happens, you’ll have to read the book. As the story progresses, we find out that things aren’t exactly as they initially appear to be. Britta finds out that she is not exactly the person she thought she was. She finds out that there is more that she can do than just finding out who killed her papa — she needs to try to save the kingdom itself. Even if it costs her her life.

I loved this book from the very beginning. The characters’ struggles grabbed me from the start, and they were well-written. There were many supporting characters, many which seemed to have their own personalities and desires.

The world was interesting. There are two main countries in this story, both of which seem to have their own unique personalities. The two countries are at the verge of war, and you can feel the tension as a result.

This book is suitable for teens of all ages.

I’m looking forward to getting to the front of the waiting list at the library for Ever the Brave. I can’t wait to read more of this trilogy!

August Monthly Deals on Amazon.com!

By Brookelorren on August 1, 2018Leave a Comment

I have recently discovered how wonderful Amazon.com’s sales can be. While I’ve known for a while that Amazon has plenty of free books, I’ve often found them to be either books in the public domain or ones that were just “meh” to me. However, if you look at the right time, you can find books on sale that might already be on your TBR for $1.99 or $2.99. Here are the books that are on sale in August that I’m most interested in (or have already read):

Marissa Meyer’s Renegades is on sale this month for $2.99! I haven’t read it yet, but it’s been on a lot of people’s favorite book lists. Maybe it will be one of your favorites!

Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake is on sale this month for $1.99! It sounds like an interesting story and I’ve thought about getting it. Now would be a good time to do so.

I’m not a huge fan of superheroes, so I’ll probably pass on this one myself, but Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo is on sale for $1.99 this month. It’s part of the DC Icons series.

Although I’m not a fan of superheroes, I do like everything that Marie Lu publishes, and I did like her Batman: Nightwalker. It’s on sale for $1.99 this month!

Those are the books that seemed most interesting to me that are on sale at Amazon.com this month. This link will lead you to a list of the rest of the great August 2018 deals, if you’re interested in seeing more!

Popular YA Books That I Loved

By Brookelorren on July 31, 2018July 30, 201826 Comments

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday Topic is Technically “Popular Books that Lived Up to the Hype,” but since I’ve really only been paying attention to new releases of books for a few months now (in fact, I missed the fact that my favorite author had a book coming out last year until after it was out), I can’t tell you which books were hyped and which books were not. So… I will be posting the top 10 most popular YA books (according to the Goodreads YA by year lists) from the last 5 years that I loved.

As usual, if a book is part of a series and multiple books of a series are eligible for this list, they will be listed together. And as always, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

10. Our tenth book to make the list is Summer Days and Summer Nights, which I just finished a little over a week ago. It was the 26th most popular book on the Goodreads YA list of 2016. If I were to redo this list in a couple of months it probably wouldn’t make the list (since there are a lot of books that were more popular that I have yet to read) but today it makes the list.

9. Number nine on the list is The Wrath & the Dawn, by Renée Ahdieh. Since I haven’t read The Rose and the Dagger yet, only this book makes the list. The first week of June was a Renée Ahdieh week this year, as I read this book on June 3rd and immediately read Smoke in the Sun on June 4th (I was so excited because it arrived a day early, LOL). Renée Ahdieh is the first of two authors to have to books (or book series) to make this list.

8. The second author to have two books on this week’s list is Marie Lu. All three books in the Young Elites series were fairly popular on the Goodreads YA lists (The Young Elites was #14 in 2014, The Rose Society was #11 in 2015, and The Midnight Star was #15 in 2016).

7. Lazlo might have a Strange name, but Strange the Dreamer was a very popular book, and I loved it as well. I can’t wait for Muse of Nightmares later on this year, but since that one hasn’t been released yet, it’s not eligible for this list.

6. Warcross is the second Marie Lu book to make this list. It was the 6th most popular book on the Goodreads YA list of 2017, although it was my #1 book from last year. Since I haven’t read Wildcard yet, it’s not eligible for this list, although I’d be willing to bet a year’s salary that I will like it once I get to read it this September.

5. Caraval was the fifth most popular book of 2017, and it comes in on today’s list at number five. Since I still haven’t read Legendary, that book does not make today’s list, but chances are I will probably like it once I get the chance to read it.

4. Number four on today’s list is the other Renée Ahdieh book, Flame in the Mist. Because I also loved Smoke in the Sun, that book also places here. Flame in the Mist was the fourth most popular book of 2017.

3. Veronica Roth’s Carve the Mark was immensely popular last year, coming in at number three on the Goodreads list as well as on today’s list. I also loved The Fates Divide, so that also gets a spot here on today’s list.

2. Sabaa Tahir’s An Ember in the Ashes books get the number two spot this week. A Torch Against the Night and A Reaper at the Gates also share this spot. The first two books in this series were both number 6 on the Goodreads list in 2015 and 2016, but A Reaper at the Gates is number 3 on the 2018 list, which is why it ranks so high here (in case of a tie, the newer book wins out).

1. I just finished Red Queen on Saturday, so it barely makes its debut on this web site by only a few days. It was the second most popular book on the 2015 Goodreads list (#1 was Winter, which I haven’t read yet), and so it makes top spot on this week’s list. I have not read any of the other books in this series yet, so this is the only one in the series that is eligible for this week’s list.

And that’s this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, tracking the most popular YA books released in the last five years that I have read and loved. Have you read any of these? What is your favorite popular YA book?

The House of One Thousand Eyes is an Important Book

By Brookelorren on July 23, 2018July 14, 2018Leave a Comment

I was recently given the opportunity to read The House of One Thousand Eyes by Michelle Barker, in exchange for an honest review. This is an important book to read, especially if you are unfamiliar with the days when the Soviet Union and East Germany existed.

The House of One Thousand Eyes is set in East Germany in the year 1983. Back in those days, there were informants in East Germany everywhere. You never knew who you could trust. The German secret police, or Stasi, could scoop you up and take you to prison, or make you disappear completely. As an aside, I recently was watching a video on security and privacy where they mentioned that the Stasi would sometimes go into a person’s house and move things around just to mess with them and make them think they were crazy. This was a place where real repression happened.

Our protagonist, Lena, spent some time in a mental hospital prior to the beginning of the book. Her uncle, Erich, is a well-known writer. One day, he just disappears. Throughout the book, Lena tries to find out what happened to him. We follow her investigation as she works as a cleaning lady at Stasi headquarters. As we read the book, we find out what she found.

The book was enjoyable, but it wasn’t my favorite. I’m sure that there are people that will like this book more than I did, but I probably will not reread this book. This book is a book that is important more than anything else. I can’t think of any other fiction written during this time period, but I believe that it is more important than ever for people to know what happened there.

What I Liked About the Book

The book was well-written, and the characters were interesting. From what I know about East Germany at the time, I think that the things that happened (people disappearing, people ordering things and not getting them for eons, etc.) were realistically portrayed. I liked the use of German, and especially German slang used in the country at the time. The book had some suspenseful parts where I found myself trying to read as fast as possible because I wanted to find out what happened.

What I Didn’t Like About the Book

I think that I’m the only person that I’ve seen review this book so far that didn’t think that it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. While I did like it, I didn’t think it was as über-wonderful as some people did. The main character, Lena, didn’t exactly make the smartest decisions. I find it difficult to believe that someone growing up in East Germany would be as dense as she was when it came to asking questions about her uncle after he disappeared. As she was investigating what happened to her uncle, she seemed to be a little more foolhearty than most people in her situation would be. When she has to make an important decision about her future towards the end of the book, I find it difficult to believe that she makes the decision that she did.

Trigger Warnings

While this book is being marketed as a YA book, I don’t believe that this book is really appropriate for younger YA readers. Lena is sexually assaulted on multiple occasions, by the same person; the attacks get worse throughout the book. I didn’t particularly like this part of the book, although I do realize that it is probably a realistic portrayal of the way things could have happened.

Overall…

The House of One Thousand Eyes is a book that you should consider reading, especially if you are unfamiliar with the time before the Berlin Wall fell down. We are in a time period where our privacy is becoming less and less and the power of the state is increasing. It’s good to read books like this in order to understand what could happen if a country became this powerful and overbearing. While it wasn’t the best book I’ve read this month so far, it was good for me to have read it.

Another book about East Germany that you may be interested in is Deep Undercover by Jack Barsky. That book is nonfiction and deals with an East German spy that went to America, but it’s also a good book to read as he continually had to deal with his handlers back in the Communist world. That book was one of my favorites from last year.

This book will be released on September 11th, but it is available for pre-order now.