Wither by Lauren DeStefano

What if you knew exactly when you would die?

Thanks to modern science, every newborn has become a ticking genetic time bomb - males only live to age 25, and females only live to age 20. In this bleak landscape, young girls are kidnapped and forced into polygamous marriages to keep the population from dying out.

When sixteen-year-old Rhine Ellery is taken by the Gatherers to become a bride, she enters a world of wealth and privilege. Despite her husband Linden's genuine love for her, and a tenuous trust among her sister wives, Rhine has one purpose: to escape - to find her twin brother and go home.

But Rhine has more to contend with than losing her freedom. Linden's eccentric father is bent on finding an antidote to the genetic virus that is getting closer to taking his son, even if it means collecting corpses in order to test his experiments. With the help of Gabriel, a servant she is growing dangerously attached to, Rhine attempts to break free in the limited time she has left.

What a beautiful, haunting debut.

Imagine knowing you only had a few years left to live, and yet you spent them fearing that you would be snatched up and sold into marriage. Imagine the future of your world, when you, and your children, and any future generations each have an expiration date.

I've said it already - DeStefano's debut novel is haunting. At sixteen, Rhine is completely aware of her limited lifespan, but she will fight to spend it as she pleases, not as one of three wives to a wealthy man. When the novel isn't focusing on her drive to escape, much of it explores her relations with her sister wives, and each girl feels quite differently about her imprisonment.

For all Rhine's dreams of love, there is little romance in Wither; she forms a close bond with the servant Gabriel but doesn't fixate on him, and is barely a wife to Linden. More important to her is her bond with her twin brother. For him, and for her freedom, she will escape.

Wither is the first in the Chemical Gardens trilogy. Suffice to say, I will be following the series and any of DeStefano's future works.

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Amy said goodbye to her old life 250 years ago, before being cryogenically frozen for a trip through space. She is a passenger of the Godspeed, destined to explore and populate a new world. She is supposed to wake up when the arrive...yet she is yanked from her frozen slumber fifty years early. Now she must navigate the society that has kept the Godspeed running all these centuries.

Elder has lived on the ship his entire life, and he has always known that he will be the next Eldest, the leader of the Godspeed. But when he meets Amy, the only other teenager on board, she forces him to question the Elder/Eldest rule, and the workings of the Godspeed itself.

Who is to be trusted? As more frozen passengers are in danger of being killed, Amy and Eldest must work together to unravel the mysteries and hidden history of the great ship before it's too late.

***

I LOVE LOVE LOVED this book. Across the Universe is told in alternating POV, and the jumps between Amy and Elder are absolutely perfect. For a good chunk of the book, Amy is still frozen, but she has thoughts - thoughts of her old life, dreams of the future - and they create remarkable characterization considering she's spending her time sealed in a box. Meanwhile, Elder's perspective reveals the state of the ship: after a rebellion several generations ago, an absolute ruler was installed to keep order. But there's more to his success than strong leadership, as Amy will force Elder to realize.

So there's the worldbuilding; there's the romance; there's the mystery and suspense of someone pulling the plug on Amy's fellow pilgrims. There's the Beatles reference. There's the gorgeous cover art. And there's Revis's beautiful writing. My goodness, I could not put this book down.

The final word: READ IT!!!

Haven by Kristi Cook

"Violet doesn't understand why she feels drawn to the Winterhaven School. She just knows it's the right place for her. When she discovers the school's secret, it all makes sense: Everyone at Winterhaven has psychic gifts. For the first time in her life Violet doesn't have to hide her visions. She's always seen them as a curse, but now she can hone her ability and try to control it.

But she's thrown completely off balance when she meets the most alluring - and most mysterious - boy in school. She's never connected with anyone the way she does with Aidan, and the intensity takes them both by surprise. But as their relationship deepens, she begins to have visions of Aidan's death - and sees that she's the one who's fated to kill him."

-from the inside jacket


From the start of Haven, I was hooked. Violet has finally found somewhere she fits in: a school full of psychics. Not exactly the norm among the paranormal books these days. And while the school is more of a safety-in-numbers kind of thing than teaching them how to use their powers, Cook definitely uses the opportunity to build her cast. Violet is surrounded by telekinetics, empaths, astral projectors...and vampires.

Yeah, vampires. This is the point where I started having some issues. There is so much that Cook could have done with Violet's new, psychic friends, but instead the rest of the novel is peppered with supernatural cliches. The Boy, Aidan, can read minds and is inexplicably drawn to Violet...and guess what? He's a vamp (please see Twilight). Then we find out that when Aidan was mortal, he loved a woman who looks exactly like our heroine (Vampire Diaries) and that Violet is one of a select few girls who are destined to slay vampires (Buffy).

One coincidence, I can handle. I was actually interested to see how Cook would handle the mind-reading boyfriend in a unique way. Make him a vampire...okay, she's not the first to do that. But piling together three major plots from three very popular franchises distracted me from a lot of the book's highlights.

And despite the deja vu, I did enjoy reading Haven. Violet has a strong, distinctive voice and her visions - always of someone she cares about, always bad news - drove the mystery of the plot. I especially liked her new friends, Cece and Co, who were a wonderful dose of normalcy even when they were levitating purses and stepping out of their bodies.

So what's my final word? Even though the plot is flawed, Cook's writing style is captivating. The beginning was wonderful, the end less so. If you think you can look past the deja vu, go ahead and give it a shot.

This is Cook's first novel.

Choker by Elizabeth Woods

Cara is the quiet girl. Ever since she moved away from her best friend Zoe years ago, she's had trouble fitting in. So when Zoe shows up in her room, running away from home, she has to keep her safe. Zoe hides in her room, content to give Cara makeovers and advice on boys. Cara doesn't even mind if Zoe is a little obsessive-controlling; she's just glad to have her friend back.

Knowing that Zoe is around gives Cara the confidence to branch out. She makes friends on the track team and totally connects with Ethan, her crush.

Then tragedy strikes the town. A girl is found dead, another missing. And Zoe's moods oscillate radically, shifting from kind to cruel to needy until Cara can't keep up. Why did Zoe run away from home? And could she be involved with the incidents?

***

Cara may have gotten the nickname "Choker" because of an embarrassing event in the cafeteria, but Zoe is the one who is strangling her. Even from the first few pages, a prologue when the girls were neighbors and Zoe tried to get Cara to try her mom's "zombie pills," I was yelling at Cara to get away from that girl. The feeling only got stronger when Zoe returned as a teenager; I hated her mind games and the "but don't you love me?" nature of it all. And, every time, Cara gave in to Zoe's demands.

But I suppose that's what turned Choker into such a compelling read - rooting for Cara, watching each time she did try to stand up for herself and got closer and closer to actually succeeding. Who hasn't had a friend that played with her loyalties?

I've seen a lot of reviews that treat this book as an "intro thriller." I haven't read much horror/mystery myself, so it was kind of perfect in that respect. Dead bodies? Check. Murder mystery? Check. Heebie-jeebies? Triple check. And even though I was guessing the end pretty quickly, the true finale was powerful and startling.

Choker is a great read for the horror hesitant (like me) with a narrator worth rooting for.

This is Elizabeth Woods' first novel.

XVI by Julia Karr

"In the year 2150, being a girl isn’t necessarily a good thing, especially when your sixteenth (read sex-teenth) birthday is fast approaching. That in itself would be enough to make anyone more than a little nuts, what with the tattoo and all – but Nina Oberon’s life has taken a definite turn for the worse. Her mother is brutally stabbed and left for dead. Before dying, she entrusts a secret book to Nina, telling her to deliver it to Nina's father. But, first Nina has to find him; since for fifteen years he's been officially dead. Complications arise when she rescues Sal, a mysterious, and ultra hot guy. He seems to like Nina, but also seems to know more about her father than he’s letting on. Then there’s that murderous ex-government agent who’s stalking her, and just happens to be her little sister’s dad."
--from Julia Karr's website


I really looked forward to XVI. The idea that girls are branded with a tattoo that announces they are old enough for sex -- to keep them safe, of course -- Well, I just had to read it.

I loved Nina's interactions with each person. Her care for her sister, juggling her new and old friends, dealing with her sex-teen obsessed best friend... you just have to root for her, and that kept me racing through the pages.

However, I wish that Nina's dystopian world was more developed. For all the alluding to the XVI tattoo, we never really understand the government's reasoning behind it. How is branding you supposed to keep you safe?? And even though Karr had some impressive futuristic technology (for example, all of our gadgets have been reduced to a Personal Audio/Visual and a Family Audio/Visual), I felt like she kept throwing tech at us just to prove it existed.

XVI was a worthwhile read, but not an ohmigosh must read. Karr has a great message and strong characters to support that message, but her world needs just a little more work before it blends into the story.

This review is for the 2011 Debut Author Challenge at The Story Siren.

Super-duper contest at the YA Lit Six!!

So I've been reading this blog since they first got started, and they're awesome. The Y.A. Lit Six is a group of teen and youngish adult bloggers, some published, all writers. And they're holding a contest....with a read of the winners' manuscripts as the prize! So. Awesome.

Check out the contest! It ends March 15th.

The Morganville Vampires by Rachel Caine

Given my interest in the paranormal (which the YA world shares right now, luckily for me), I've heard about the Morganville Vampires many times. I finally got a hold of the first book, Glass Houses, to check it out.

So worth the hype.

Claire is a sixteen-year-old genius: having graduated high school, she has already been accepted to MIT. Unfortunately, her protective parents send her to the "safe school" of Texas Prarie University, for a year or two before the big leagues. But nothing is safe in Morganville. Because Morganville is a town full of vampires.

And in a town full of vampires, you either swear allegiance to them or you get eaten by them. And when Claire flees her dorm because she's being picked on, she walks into secrets that could get her killed.

Now Claire lives in the Glass House with Michael, Shane, and Eve, three Unprotected humans. There are secrets, and danger, and -oh!- school. Will Claire survive?

***

I'm on the sixth book in the series, and I am tearing through them. Caine writes with the perfect style for Claire's POV: nervous and stubborn and intelligent. And while each book has it's own story arc, greater troubles in Morganville surface every volume. The books are quick enough reads on their own (~250 pgs), but be certain to have the next one ready! So far every one has ended on a mega cliffhanger that sets up for the next book.

If I have any complaints about the book, it's the obsession with Claire's age. I've lost track of the number of times she's had to say that she's "almost seventeen." Hooray for virtuous boys and obnoxious villains, but I get it already! She's young.

The series so far:
Glass Houses
Dead Girl's Dance
Midnight Alley
Feast of Fools
Lord of Misrule
Carpe Corpus
Fade Out
Kiss of Death
Bite Club (May 2011)

The Bottom Line: Get ready to be addicted!