Showing posts with label dystopia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dystopia. Show all posts

Saturday, January 31, 2015

The Last Orphans Book Review

Title: The Last Orphans
Author: N.W. Harris
Series: The Last Orphans #1
Rating: 4/5 Stars
Bookshelves on Goodreads: 2015-reads, books-i-own, dystopia, owned-ibooks, damaged-guys

This book was given to me, in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

"Everyone changed so much in a short time, seeming grown up, ready to fight and to survive."

The concept of teens and children living in a world without adults isn't really a new concept, but this book is very refreshing, bloody, and unique, and stands out for me. This book was full of action and grief. I found it really hard to stop flipping through pages. It had really strong characters and it was so fun to read about how this new world effects them and makes more brave.

The Last Orphans is a dystopian book based on a world where adults are killed off all at once, leaving teens and children to learn what happened and protect themselves. Shane Tucker has had a pretty awful day, going to his grandmother's funeral and fighting with his alcoholic father. Little does he know, that it is about to get so much worse. Suddenly the sky turns green, a storm picks up, and his aunt is murdered by a ton of bees.

He finds other teens and finds out they are in the same situation, having their parents and grandparents dieing from nature and animals. He meets Kelly Douglas and her sister Nat, and together along with his best friend Aaron, football player Steve, tough girl Tracy, and a gothic girl Laura, they have to protect over 70 kids. Soon they learn that they may be in the same danger the adults were in, and go on a mission to save everyone from possible death.

One of my favorite parts about this book were the characters. My favorites were Shane, Tracy, and Aaron. The main character Shane was just a great naturally born leader. He goes through so much pain in a matter of hours, and loses so many people, but he still steps up to help others. Tracy was probably my favorite character. She was such a bad ass and a survivor. Aaron was Shane's best friend and seemed like a really funny nice person.

I do have to say that I thought this book was really gory. I mean, due to the type of book it is, it's supposed to be that way, but it might have been too much. Harris went into detail about many adult's deaths and different graphic scenes. I didn't really bother me, but if you aren't into bloody scenes, read with a little cation.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It reminded be a lot of Gone by Micheal Grant and The Walking Dead. So if you are into good world building, gory scenes, and a ton of action, I would give this book a try!

Saturday, November 8, 2014

Monument 14 Book Review

Title: Monument 14
Author: Emmy Laybourne
Series: Monument 14 #1
Rating: 4/5
Shelves on Goodreads: book-boyfriends, dystopia, have-high-hopes-for, books-i-own, love-the-cover

"But the truth is:
I am the light. You are the light.
We are lit up together."

I remember when I was a kid, when I would go grocery shopping with my mom I would hide behind all the paper towel bundles and make a fort. I always kind of wanted to live in a store. I mean, you would have everything and anything at your disposal. So when I saw Monument 14 at Half Price Books and read the summary, I instantly knew that I was going to go read this and indulge my childhood.

I really enjoyed Monument 14. Sure, it had its quirks and disappointments, but I had a lot of fun reading it. Monument 14 revolves around Dean, a teenager who gets stuck in grocery store with a group of other kids and teens. The world is ending and is stuck with a ton of natural disasters. The kids get stuck in a huge hail storm on a bus until their bus drives straight through the doors of this grocery store.

So they set up shelter there. The teens take care of the kids and almost form their own little tribe. Everyone has a job. They even build a huge fort that they sleep in. Dean's little brother is among the group, with some jocks, and his crush. So much drama in one grocery store.

I found that the characters were either a hit or miss for me. I liked Dean, he was nice, kind, and a writer. I liked Jake, Niko, and Dean's little brother. But I didn't like Astrid or Josey, they both were selfish and annoying as hell. So this was one of my issues with this book.

I was surprised because with a book full of kids, you would expect it to be less brutal. There was a ton of action, deaths, a sex scene, and a near rape. It was interesting and action packed, which I found to be an almost added bonus because I really didn't expect it.

Overall this book was really fun and interesting. While it wasn't perfect, it was a good read. I can't wait to read the next one!  

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Unravel Me (Shatter Me #2) Book Review

 Title: Unravel Me
Author: Tahereh Mafi
Series: Shatter Me #2
Previous Reviews from this Series: Shatter Me
Rating: 5/5 Stars
Bookshelves on Goodreads: blood-everywhere, book-boyfriends, books-i-own, damaged-guys, favorites, have-high-hopes-for, love-the-cover, my-emotions-i-cannot, dystopia, romance

"I want to know how to convince you to design a smile just for me. Yes, I do want to be your friend. I want to be your best friend in the entire world."

Well that was...amazing. How am I supposed to choose between Adam and Warner? At this point I'm team Juliette because I would okay with either boy she picks. Unravel Me was just perfection. As usual, I won't spoil Unravel Me, but I don't really have much a choice but to spoil some of Shatter Me. So if you haven't read the first book and don't want to be spoiled, stop here and go pick up Shatter me!

Unravel me picks up about 2 weeks after Shatter Me ends. Juliette, Adam, and Kenji are at Omega Point: a place for people like Juliette, with powers and abilities. Of course most of them have easier powers then Juliette; healing, invisibility, etc... But Juliette is the most powerful. There she starts to discover just how powerful she is.

While they are preparing for war again the Reestablishment, they slowly discover why Adam and Warner can touch Juliette.

So I really liked Juliette in this book. She had a lot of character growth and finally saw that she needed to get stronger and grow up. While I didn't think that she was bad at first, she really turned into a more powerful person and character. You get to see a more selfless side of her that I really liked.

Warner and Adam? God. Why did Mafi have to do this is me. I had it chosen: I was team Adam. And now? What the fuck, I have no clue. I love them both but I think I might actually like Warner more. We get to see a whole new side of him in Unravel Me that I just love.

“I want you,” he says. He says “I want all of you. I want you inside and out and catching your breath and aching for me like I ache for you.” He says it like it’s a lit cigarette lodged in his throat, like he wants to dip me in warm honey and he says “It’s never been a secret. I’ve never tried to hide that from you. I’ve never pretended I wanted anything less.”

But one of the best parts? Kenji. Kenji is so freaking hilarious and just a great guy. He is super nice to Juliette even when she is being a bitch. He is Adam's best friend. He is more damaged then what people think. Most of the times I laughed was because of him.

“The man is moody as hell.”

“I am not moody—”

“Yeah, bro.” Kenji puts his utensils down. “You are moody. It’s always ‘Shut up, Kenji.’ ‘Go to sleep, Kenji.’ ‘No one wants to see you naked, Kenji.’ When I know for a fact that there are thousands of people who would love to see me naked—”

This book is perfect and I can't wait until I get my hands on the last one.

Sunday, September 14, 2014

The Program Book Review

Title: The Program
Author: Suzanne Young
Series: The Program #1
Rating: 4/5 Stars
Bookshelves on Goodreads: books-i-own, dystopia, have-high-hopes-for, mental-illness, my-emotions-i-cannot, romance

  “I think that sometimes the only real thing is now.”

The Program was beautiful, heartbreaking, and scary. Really if you think about it, the whole concept of this book is scary as hell. What is suicide was contagious? What if you did have to hide your feelings? What if you could get sent to the mental ward just for crying or having a bad day? As a person who has had depression and anxiety her whole life, it is just a concept that seems to freighting and possible.

The concept of this book is that more and more teens are getting depressed and commiting suicide. The suicide rate is at an all time high and the Program has stepped in. If they find you depressed or even upset, they will send you to the Program. They drug you into not remembering your life and the people you love most. Then you get sent back into the real world and everything is blank.

This is Sloane's world. She lost her brother to suicide. The only reason she got through it was because of James, she brother's best friend and her boyfriend. Then their friend Miller dies and they both got depression and try to hide it so they don't go into the Program. But the Program is coming for them.

So I loved a lot about this book. I really liked how emotional it was and how real it seemed. I liked Sloane and felt for her situation. But while I liked James, I couldn't really love his character as much as I wanted to. But I didn't like the concept of the program or how close it hit to home. It was almost too emotional in the fact that reading it just made me upset. But overall I enjoyed it and can't wait to read The Treatment!

Friday, September 5, 2014

Shatter Me Book Review



 Title: Shatter Me
Author: Tahereh Mafi
Series: Shatter Me #1
Rating: 5/5 Stars
Bookshelves on Goodreads: books-i-own, book-boyfriends, dystopia, favorite-series, favorites, have-high-hopes-for, love-the-cover, other-supernatural, pissed-me-off, romance
 
“I spent my life folded between the pages of books.
In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.”

So I was going to shorten that quote, I swear, but I just couldn't. That is probably the most perfect, relatable quote that I have ever read. So your welcome. Saying that, I was scared going into this book. Really scared. I have heard so much good and bad about it and I was scared that I was just falling into a hype, but I wasn't. Shatter Me heard such a unique writing style that I think that it will be either a hit or a miss with people. But it was a huge hit with me.

I loved and felt for most of the characters. I thought that the writing style was perfect and beautiful. I literally couldn't put it down, it was just so gripping and unforgetable. It was really great seeing the main character, Juliette, come into herself and become brave. I loved the romance. I just have so much praise for this book.

Shatter Me is about a girl named Juliette who has a fatal touch. She doesn't have any clue why or how. Then she almost kills someone, by accident, and The Reestablishment (basically their government) locked her up in an asylum for murder. Her parents hate her, she has never had any friends, and her life just sucks until Adam comes along.

Juliette is in her dark cell when she meets her new roommate, Adam. She knows Adam from somewhere, but she doesn't know where. Adam is instantly nice and charming. She constantly fights the urge to touch him and they go crazy together. Then Warner takes Juliette and Adam to a government building and she discovers that they want to use her as a weapon.

This book just branded itself into my brain and wouldn't let go. I just bought the next book and I am so excited to start it.

Sunday, August 31, 2014

The 5th Wave Book Review

Title: The 5th Wave
Author: Rick Yancey
Series: The 5th Wave #1
Rating: 4/5 Stars
Bookshelves: books-i-own, favorites, dystopia, have-high-hopes-for, other-supernatural, ending-destroyed-me, favorite-series, romance

"We're here and then we're gone, and it's not about the time we're here but what we do with the time."

When I first heard of The 5th Wave, I was like are you kidding me. Aliens. Really. I have never really been a fan of alien anything. But I was at Target and I read the description and bought it because it sounded way too much like The Walking Dead for me to not read it. Alas, I was surprised by The 5th Wave. I was relived that the aliens weren't green or look like ET.

I mean The 5th Wave wasn't perfect. It was really really long and I felt like some parts of the book could have been shorter or more action packed. But I really liked most of the characters. I also felt for them which is always a main plus for me. It was really everything you could ask for in an alien dystopian novel.

So this book is about an alien invansion in 5 waves. The book is split between two different stories that collide and takes place in the 4th wave and part of the 5th. The first story is of Cassie. Cassie lost her mom and dad in the invansion and is now looking for her brother. Her brother was kidnapped alongside a lot of kids to be taken to safe haven that really isn't a safe haven. While she looks for him she meets Evan and he takes care of her when she gets injured.

The other story revolves around Cassie's brother Sammy and his time at the safe haven that is really a base camp. The base camp trains the kids to fight the aliens. Sammy's camp leader is named Ben. Ben turns out to be Cassie's old crush as well. I didn't like this story as much as Cassie's but it was still really interesting.

So overall I thought the 5th Wave was really riveting and intense. I really loved all the characters and I can't wait for the next book in the series!

PS if you didn't know, the 5th Wave is being turned into a movie! Some of the casting has been decided.

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From left to right its Nick Robinson as Ben, Chloe Moretz as Cassie, and Alex Roe as Evan. If you have read the book, what do you think? I like the choices except for Alex Roe. I just think he is a little too old for the part? I don't know. But the rest are great choices.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Requiem Book Review



“And you can't love, not fully, unless you are loved in return.”

*Spoilers if you haven’t read the first two books, Delirium and Pandemonium* You can find the reviews here and here. 
I am so confused. I read this a few weeks ago and I still can’t get over that ending. It was just awful. I was seriously expecting to turn the page and find another chapter or two, but no that was it. But really, besides the ending, this book was a step up from Pandemonium. First it didn’t have the “now” and “then” part, which was great. You finally get to see Alex, which made the book a hundred times better. But the ending was kind of a “wtf moment”.

Requiem was split into two povs: Lena and Hana. Hana is cured and about to be married to the governer. But she soon releases that the cure didn’t work on her. Well it kind of did, but it wears off throughout the book. She displays this by bringing food to Lena’s family, which is homeless after Lena escaped. It was really nice to see her point of view in the story.  

So this book picks up right after Pandemonium. Alex is different, hard, cold, and wrong after seeing Lena with Julian. So basically they both picked people to make the other one jealous. Lena has Julian and Alex has Coral. It is so freaking annoying. There is a shit load of tension between the three, I mean really. There are punches thrown. It is all madness. The whole time I was just like “KISS ALREADY” to Lena and Alex.

The rebellion is in full swing and they are fully fitting back again the government. I loved seeing this intense version of Lena. She is no longer the sweetheart from Delirium or the grieving person from Pandemonium. She is bad ass.

"But maybe happiness isn't in the choosing. Maybe it's in the fiction, in the pretending: that wherever we have ended up is where we intended to be all along."

So out in the Wilds, the government is now hunting them down. They didn’t even say they were real in the first two books, and in the third they are hunting them down. The Wilds are a mess. They are constantly moving around to try to find a save place. But there is no safe place, and they soon learn that.

So while I had some problems with this book, I can’t deny that Lauren Oliver’s writing is incredibly perfect and beautiful in every way. It is just so amazing. I do think that this was a great book, while it wasn’t perfect, it was a good read.

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Pandemonium Book Review

“The flip side of freedom is this: When you're completely free, you're also completely on your own.”

*Intense spoilers if you haven't read Delirium*
Pandemonium was incredibly confusing but still kind of great. It was honestly disappointing and a big step down from Delirium. Delirium left me breathless and pandemonium was just kind of sad. I realized that with Alex, this series kind of isn't special to me. I also found it kind of wrong that they would just kill him off. I mean I get why they did it, it was supposed to be romantic and all of that, but no.

This book was split between "now" and "then". "Then" is when Lena finds a group in the wilds and trys to get over the death of Alex. "Now" is a little bit in the future when she is under cover for the resistance against the government. I found the whole concept really confusing. Like I would get into the story and then all of the sudden I was in the future or the past.

But I need to stop complaining because I did like the book as a whole. I liked the new characters like Raven and Tack. I also liked how Lena changed so much, and for the good. She was much more strong and brave. It was a nice change from the weaker person we met in Delirium.

In "then", Lena is about to die from all of the running and her injuries. Then Raven and her group finds her and she stays with them. She learns that the Wilds are a very hard place to live and that hunger is normal.

In "now", Raven sends her to New York and she is under cover for the resistance. She is a student at an academy and is involved in the DFA (Deliriua Free America). She is supposed to watch a young leader named Julian and ends up falling for him.

So overall, I liked it but the book did have some problems with it.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Delirium Book Review


"It's so strange how life works: You want something and you wait and wait and feel like it's taking forever to come. Then it happens and it's over and all you want to do is curl back up in that moment before things changed."
 
The whole idea behind this trilogy just shouldn't work, but it does. It was beautiful, romantic, and action packed. The writing style was great, for me at least. I think that it might not work for some people though. Lauren Oliver writes with a lot of metaphors, and some people might find that annoying, and I do a little bit. But they are such beautiful metaphors that I had a problem hating them.

"Love: a single word, a wispy thing, a word no bigger or longer than an edge. That's what it is: an edge, a razor. It draws up through the center of you life, cutting everything in two. Before and after. The rest of the world falls away on either side."

See, don't you think that is just beautiful? So for me, the writing style was a big plus. I also felt for the characters. When they hurt, I hurt, it was really emotional. It was just a great start to the trilogy.

Our main character is Lena. She lives in Portland, where love is considered the most deadly of all diseases. They have borders around the cities, curfews, and cures to protect them from the "deliria". You can only get the cure once you are 18, or it has bad side effects. Well really it has bad side effects anyways. It makes it so you can't love, can't feel, and the sick thing is that everyone believes in the cure. They believe that being in love will kill you and that the government is just trying to protect them by beating people for going to parties and killing them for getting the deliria.

They have different schools for boys and girls and lots of scary stories to make them believe they will get sick if they kiss someone and what not. Lena always believed their stories until Alex makes her change her mind. Alex is an "invalid" that meets Lena and they fall in love. Invalids are people that live outside of the protected cities and rebel from the idea that love is a disease. They live in the Wilds and barely survive every day, but they are free.

Lena has a best friend named Hana. Her and Hana run together and later on Hana shows her that their is another way to live your life. She was actually one of my favorite characters, besides Alex, because she was a rebel and was a free thinker. But Alex was my favorite. He was so romantic and selfless, basically your dream guy. He read poetry to her for crying out load.

This book was great for me. It is a romantic thriller that you can't miss.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

The Maze Runner Book Review

"If you ain't scared, you ain't human."

The Maze Runner is an intense thriller that left me wanting more. This book lived up to its hype. It was hard to put down and had some interesting writing. By interesting, I mean both good and bad. The book was really confusing and hard to get into at first. They have weird like greanie, klunk, and different names for different jobs. At first I was confused but it got loads better. After the first few chapters I couldn't put it down. 

I almost gave this 5 stars. But the beginning and part of the end dropped it for me. The beginning was just really confusing. I can't tell you about the end of course, spoilers, but one of my favorite characters died. Blah, don't you just hate when that happens? 

The book is based on a weird world full of teenage boys in a maze. Huh? Oh yes. There are about 50 boys in this big place they call the glade. Then surrounding the glade, is the maze. In the maze are "grievers". They are basically monsters with stingers. Anyways, they have been trying to solve it for two years without much luck. By much I mean none. The glade gets a new member every month. They come through a box in the ground and kaboom! They also get supplies from the box once a week. 

The glade has different jobs. I'm not going to tell you all of them but there are farmers, cooks, etc.. and then there are the runners. The runners run the maze every day looking for a way out.  The grievers normally don't come out in the day, so they have to run back before the doors close and would lock them in the maze, making them basically dead. The grievers can sting people and they go kind of crazy for a few days and get there memories back. Oh yeah, none of the boys can remember anything about their life but there name. See what I mean about confusing?

So then Thomas (our main character) comes through the box and he is super confused. But for some reason he is different. He has a gut feeling that he needs to be a runner. He meets Chuck and they become friends really quickly. Then the next day a girl shows up and all of the boys freak out. There has never been a girl in the glade and she came the next day not the next month. Thomas knows her from somewhere, but of course he can't remember where. So starts the story of getting out of the maze. 

The Maze Runner is a great story, no doubt about it. It is the first book in the trilogy. I hope to have the next one soon! I recommend this book for people who like dystopias, action, adventure, and mysteries!

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Allegiant Book Review


"Be brave."

Seriously, you are going to need to be very brave to read this book. I'm not going to spoil it, but the ending is worse than The Fault In Our Stars. The ending is like the ending of all endings. I cried real tears guys, the tears were real. So, yes I understand why the average rating for this book on Goodreads is 3.63 stars. The ending of this book destroyed the series for a lot of people. But as sad as I am, I get where Veronica Roth was coming from and I think it showed an huge amount of character.

As normal for series, if you haven't read the first two books this will have spoilers. I REPEAT, SPOILERS FOR DIVERGENT AND INSURGENT AHEAD. Okay, I will not be blamed for this. So Allegiant picks up after Insurgent, when the Edith Prior video is released. Four and Tris quickly know that they want to get out of the city and see what happened out there, and if there are still people alive.

So them and a group of others go outside of the fence and find out what happened. Its hard to explain what happens without spoilers, so I'll just stop there. But inside the city, they are on the brink of war. A group of people that want factions back, called the Allegiant, try to take their city back. While Four's mom is leading the city of factionless. Things are a mess.

Through out the book, Tris and Four have lots of relationship problems (grrrr....). They are very up and down through out the whole story. Which is of course, really really annoying. But they work it out, so that is what matters, right? Christina and Uriah get close but don't date, which I kind of wish they did. But really I don't have much else to say.

I thought this book was heartbreaking and real and beautiful. I was shaking when I was reading it in the end. I cried, I laughed, I swooned. The Divergent trilogy is one of my favorites and I'm sad to see it end.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Insurgent Book Review


“One choice can destroy you.”

I always have a problem writing reviews on sequels. It is hard not to spoil like everything about the first book in the series. So for this review, there will be spoilers if you haven’t read Divergent. Insurgent was an amazing sequel. I will say that I think that it did lack a special quality that Divergent had. It wasn’t as special and addicting I guess. But it was really close. If I could, I would have rated Divergent 6 stars, but we only have 5 stars here. So Insurgent was perfect and Divergent was just past perfect, if that makes any since. See my review of Divergent here. You will probably be confused if you don’t read the review on Divergent.

In Divergent, Tris Prior chooses the Dauntless faction and everything changes for her. She has the pass initiation in order to become a full fledged Dauntless member. While there see meets some friends including Uriah, Christina, Will, and Four. She gets romantically involved with Four (swooooonnnnn). She passes initiation as a Dauntless. Her initiation day should be should be a celebration, but it isn’t. The Dauntless are programmed to kill the Abgenation but she doesn’t have the program because she is divergent. But she does end up killing Will and her mom and dad both end up dying for her.

In Insurgent, Tris is dealing with the intense grief of her parents and Will. While she grieves, the factions are at war. She is also having some romantic problems with Four. They keep a lot from each other, and it starts to become a problem. The leader of the Erudite faction wants all the divergent dead, including Tris. Her and her friends are on a constant run from trouble.

Insurgent is really emotional and intense. I’m not sure if I can even possibly give this series enough praise. I probably can’t. Sorry this review is so short, its just impossible to write a review on a book this good without spoilers. But if you haven’t read this series yet, go do it. Just do it.

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