Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake

So, it hasn't been that long ago that I blogged about Anna Dressed in Blood.  It was an excellent creepy book, that kept me on the edge of my seat.  It also really surprised me (in a good way) that a YA author would be willing to gruesomely kill off some of her characters.  I know that sounds weird, but as a diehard fan of Stephen King, in my book, the more out there it gets, the better. 

Warning:  If you haven't read Anna Dressed in Blood, then you might want to skip the last paragraph. 

Girl of Nightmares is Anna's sequel, and while I wasn't disappointed, I felt that for once, a trilogy would have served Blake better. I know it seems to be the trend in YA literature to have trilogies pop up everywhere. It has really become way over used. However, I think that Blake wrapped up this series too quickly. SInce I went into the book thinking that it would be a trilogy, I kept expecting it to leave me hanging. Although I was glad that didn't happen, I felt that Blake wrapped up the ending the way too abruptly. I'm hoping that she will change her mind and we will get to see Cas again from her somewhere down the road.

Girl of Nightmares, like the first book, has some seriously creepy moments, but they are fewer and farther between. The book opens six months after Anna dragged the Obeahman to Hell and saved Cas and his friends. However, Cas can't move on. He can't let Anna go. What's worse is that he begins to see and hear her everywhere. She is being tortured constantly because she didn't cross over to where she was supposed to go. She is trapped with the Obeahman and he is still feeding off of her pain and fear. Cas knows that he can never move on while she is suffering. He decides that he has to go after her and bring her back. This decision sparks tension between him and his friends, and starts Cas on a journey that will take him far from home.... in more ways than one.

An Abundance of Katherines

I read An Abundance of Katherines a while back, and actually blogged about it, but I'm now maintaining two separate blogs with basically the same posts.  Since blogspot is essentially blocked to students at school, I've created my own blog on my school website.  But, I really prefer blogspot, so I'm keeping both up and running. 

I have found that I really enjoy John Green's books. His characters are quirky and fun, but usually just normal teenagers struggling with various issues. An Abundance of Katherines fits into his usual category, but I think I expected too much from this book. I loved the premise, and I liked the book, but I felt like he could have taken it in a different direction at times.

Colin Singleton, a recent high school graduate, embarks on a road trip with his best friend Hassan, in order to get over his latest breakup with Katherine XIX. Yes, that's right, Colin only dates girls named Katherine....K A T H E R I N E, not Catherine or any other variation. He also has been dumped by all nineteen of his former Katherines. Collin was a child prodigy who wants more than anything to reach his potential and become a genius. He fears that he won't matter and that his abilities in languages, codes, and anagrams will be the only thing that he will ever be good at. Hassan has been out of high school for a year, but has yet to do anything with his life. He has taken off a year....or two, or more from going to college. Their road trip leads them to a small town in Tennesee called Gutshot, where the two boys make friends, get a job, and learn that there is more to life than they originally thought.

Ashes by Ilsa Bick

Ashes is a book full of non-stop action. I really enjoyed reading it, and I think most teenagers would enjoy it as well. However, since it is a zombie book, eventhough it has its own twists, I know it won't be for everyone. It does have some pretty gruesome details in places. 

Alex is a 17 year old girl with a brain tumor. She knows that her life is at its end, so she decides to hike into the wilderness to spread her parents' ashes, while she is still healthy enough to do so. However, everything changes in an instant when an electromagnetic pulse flashes, destroying every electronic device, wiping out every computerized system, and killing billions. Alex joins forces with Tom, a young soldier on leave, and Ellie, an 8 year old girl who lost her grandfather to the pulse. Alex, Tom, and Ellie soon discover that the pulse changed some of the survivors for the better, while others were turned into ravenous zombies. Not only do they have to protect themselves from the changed, but they also have to protect themselves from survivors who will ruthlessly do whatever it takes to survive, even if it means killing and stealing from other survivors.

Unwind by Neal Shusterman

I really enjoyed Unwind. Like Article 5, it deals with some prety serious issues. The story takes place in the United States many years after a civil war called The Heartland War. The Heartland War was fought over the right to life between Pro-Choice and Pro-Life supporters. The war ended with a horrifying compromise. They decided that children have the right to life until the age of 13. Between the age of 13 and 18, the child's parent can choose to retroactively abort him or her, as long as 99.4% of the child stays alive. If a parent chooses to unwind the child, he or she is sent to a harvest camp, where every part of the child is harvested for transplant. The book is thought provoking and tense in places, but it is also hard to read in parts. Unwind focuses on three very different teenagers who are set to be unwound. Connor is a rebellious teenager who is able to escape and go on the run. In the process of his escape, he causes a bus wreck, and a great deal of chaos, which allows Risa, a girl from a state home, to also escape. Risa is a good student and a talented piano player, but she is a victim of budget cuts. The government just can't afford to support all of the children who are unwanted. In the process of Connor's escape, he takes Levi hostage. Levi is a 13 year old boy who was raised by his family as a tithe. His family tithes 10% of everything, and since Levi is the 10th child, he has been marked since birth as a tithe. Levi sees his unwinding as something that God wants and he accepts it....almost. The story focuses on the very different paths these three teenagers take to try to prevent their unwinding

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Okay, since it seems that even though this blog has been opened up so that the filter at my school won't block it, it is still giving many students problems when they go there. Therefore, I am going to try to put my posts here and on the school website. I'm hoping it will be as easy as copyng and pasting, but we will see.
Cinder was an interesting take on the Cinderella story. I looked forward to reading it, but it took me awhile to really get into it. The story is set in New Beijing during a time where a plague is quickly killing large part of the population. Cinder is considered a second class citizen because she is a cyborg; therefore, she knows it is silly to have a crush on the prince when he comes to her to fix his android. Cinder is one of the best mechanics in New Beijing, and she uses her skill to keep her adopted mother off of her back to some extent. However, when her adopted sister, her only human friend in the world, catches the plague, her cruel adopted mother signs Cinder over to the government for plague research. No cyborg has ever survived the research

Article 5 by Kristen Simmons



I have read a lot of books this summer, but this book is by far, one of the best.  I could not put this book down once I started it.  I began reading it last night and finally made myself go to bed sometime after midnight.  Then, I spent the entire morning finishing it, because I had to know what happened.

In a (hopefully) distant future, The Bill of Rights have been replaced by The Moral Statutes (see below).  These Moral Statutes are enforced by The Federal Bureau of Reform, known to civilians as the Moral Militia.  At first, if you are not compliant, you receive a citation and you are required to pay a fine.  Now, the rules are becoming more strict and the punishment is getting worse.  Now, if you are not compliant, then the government comes in and makes you disappear.  Seventeen year old Ember's existence is enough to condemn her mother.  She was born out of wedlock, which means that her mother is arrested and Ember is sent to a reform school.  She is not even considered a legal citizen.  What hurts Ember the most is that her boyfriend, who was drafted into the Moral Militia, is present when she is arrested.  She feels betrayed, but she knows she must find a way to escape and help her mother. 

The Moral Statutes of the United States of America
ARTICLE 1 - The United States embraces the Church of America as her official religion.
"Article 1 denied individuals the right to practice or 'display propaganda' associated with an alternative religion to Church of America" (53).

ARTICLE 2 - Literature and other media considered immoral are hereby banned and shall not be owned, bought, sold or traded in any capacity.

ARTICLE 3 - Whole families are to be considered one man, one woman and child(ren).

ARTICLE 4 - Traditional male and female roles shall be observed.
"Traditional male and femal roles were outlined in Article 4.  The importance of a woman's subservience.  The necessity for her to respect her maile partner while he, in turn, supported the famil as the provider and spiritual leader....when I searched for some clause prohibiting domestic violence, I found no mention of it" (53).

ARTICLE 5 - "Children are considered valid citizens only when conceived by a married man and wife.  All other children are to be removed from the home and subjected to rehabilitation procedures" (53).

Simmons, Kristen.  Article 5. New York: Tor Teen, 2012.

Sequels

I've been focusing on reading some sequels lately, so instead of posting a blog over each one, I thought I would just lump them all together and give a brief opinion.  The main reason I don't want to blog extensively on them, is because I will have to give too much of what happened in the first book away. 

 

 

 I recently blogged about City of Bones, which was the first book in The Mortal Instruments series.  I just finished book 2 and 3 of this series and I really enjoyed them, though there were some parts that were very predictable.  Also, while it is such a fast read and action packed, there is always some sort of crazy drama going on too.  This series was originally meant to be a trilogy.  I felt like the author pretty much wrapped up the main conflicts at the end of  City of Glass, so I'm curious to see what she will do with the next three books in the series.  It may be awhile before I read those though, since book 6 has not been published yet.  Since I am at a good stopping point, I think I will probably hold off with the rest of this series until the final book comes out.  The author also has a related series set much earlier called The Infernal Devices series.  I'm not sure if I'll move on to those or not.

On this book, I'm kind of cheating, since I'm not quite finished with it.  I have the audio version, so it takes a lot longer for me to finish a book this way.  However, I am 2/3 of the way through it and I have really enjoyed it so far.  This is the sequel to A Discovery of Witches.  Diana and Mathew have traveled back in time to Elizabethan England.  I would say that this book is probably for more mature readers than the first book.  It also helps if you are somewhat familiar with Elizabethan England and the historical figures associated with that time period, since it appears that Mathew was great friends with every important historical person who existed then.  We meet Christopher Marlow, Henry Percy, Queen Elizabeth, and Sir Walter Raleigh, just to name a few.