The Bombs That Brought Us Together by Brian Conaghan

Charlie Law lives in Little Town and his new neighbor, Pavel Duda, is a refugee from Old Country. The people of Little Town hate Old Country. So Charlie quickly discovers that his budding friendship with Pav causes him all kinds of problems both at school and while he's out and about. As life in Little Town further deteriorates after a bombing and invasion from Old Country, Charlie finds himself in a life or death struggle to save his family at the sacrifice of someone else's.

The Bombs That Brought Us Together is both a beautiful story of friendship in the gravest of circumstances and a chilling dystopia that feels not too far into the future from our own reality. It gets to the heart of people's tendencies to fear what is different and to allow that fear to turn into hate.

     "Can't they just live here with us... in harmony or whatever? I said. "It's not as though they're perfect."
     "It's not as easy as that, Charlie," Dad said.
     "It's not charlie," Mom said. 
     "Why?" I said. 
     "The fact is, they don't like us, and we don't care much for them. We're not compatible. End of story. And anyone replacing one controlling Regime with another is hardly a progressive move, is it?" Dad said.
     "Our ways are different, Charlie," Mom said. 
     "But how can I not like them when I don't even know them?" I said. 

For those students (and adults) who love dystopia and are struggling with the state of the world, this would be a great book to include in a middle school or high school library. The vague and allegorical nature of the setting lends itself to lots of interpretation and connections to many conflicts in the world right now. This book has my highest recommendation to share with students and to read for yourself.


The Bombs That Brought Us Together by Brian Conaghan
Published: September 13, 2016
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Pages: 361
Genre: Dystopia
Audience: Young Adult (Middle School and High School)
Disclosure: Finished copy provided by publisher

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Audiobook Review: Requiem by Lauren Oliver

Since this is the third and final book of the Delirium trilogy, I sort of feel like I can't write a proper summary of the story without giving too much away from the previous two books. But I doubt anyone is going to run out and read Requiem without having read Delirium and Pandemonium (at least I hope not!) so I guess I can give a little bit away.

Starting right where Pandemonium left off, Lena is still living in the Wilds with the other Invalids when it is soon discovered that Regulators from the other side of the fence are infiltrating areas around the borders to try to vanquish the rebellion. Regulators have never breached into the Wilds before because they have never wanted to acknowledge the existence of the Invalids, but as the Resistance movement continues to grow stronger, both Regulators and Invalids can no longer deny what they know is true: Resistance will soon build to Revolution.

In this last installment of the trilogy, Lauren Oliver has added a new element to her story-telling: a second narrator. In the first two books Lena was the sole narrator, but now Oliver has included the voice of Lena's former best friend Hana to the mix. This addition brings an interesting dichotomy to the narrative by hearing from someone who is "infected" with amor deliria nervosa and also someone who has been "cured." This dichotomy builds to a fever pitch by the climax and leaves the reader/listener feeling both angry and satisfied at the same time. And while I didn't love this book or the second book nearly as much as the first one, I felt the ending was both satisfying and disappointing at the same time. But I think that's what happens when you get emotionally invested in characters and a storyline; I don't know if any end will entirely satisfy you.

I know many people who have been waiting to read Requiem are wondering what will play out with the whole love triangle aspect that left us hanging in Pandemonium, and I have to say that I was pleased that Oliver chose not to spend a great deal of energy focusing on that element of the story. Instead, more time was spent focusing on the differing perspectives between Hana and Lena's voices, which I have to say quite pleased me since I think the love triangle trope is tired and way overdone.

Sarah Drew returns as the audiobook narrator in this final installment and she is still the perfect fit to tell this story. When I reviewed the first book, I mentioned how the listener really gets a sense that Drew feels everything the characters are feeling in her performance. And yet, in this book, while her performance during dramatic moments felt real and heartfelt, those "in between" moments of the story had a tendency to feel overacted. So while I thought her performance during the moments of heightened emotion were spot on (especially the climax I was referring to above), it was the emotionally neutral moments that I felt needed to be toned down a bit. Still, that is a rather nit-picky criticism because Drew is one of my favorite female audiobook narrators. I hope to hear more from her in the future.

Read my reviews of the previous books in the series:
Delirium
Pandemonium

My favorite review of Requiem:
Brian Wyzlic at Wyz Reads


Requiem by Lauren Oliver
Audiobook narrator: Sarah Drew
Series: Delirium #3
Published: March 5, 2013
Publisher: HarperCollins/HarperAudio
Pages: 391
Audiobook Length: 10 hours, 13 minutes
Genre: Dystopia
Audience: Young Adult
Disclosure: Received for review from publisher

Audiobook Review: Because It Is My Blood by Gabrielle Zevin

When Anya Balanchine is released from Liberty Children's Facility, she wants nothing more than to go back to school and live a normal, peaceful life with her younger sister Natty. Unfortunately, wherever Anya goes, controversy and illegal activity is sure to follow, and it isn't long before the family business she wishes so badly to escape comes back to put a stranglehold on her. At first Anya spends a great deal of time and energy trying to break through the chains of her family business, but she soon realizes that escape is futile and she must surrender to what Michael Corleone and she now know is true: "Every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in."

Because It Is My Blood is the second book in the Birthright series by Gabrielle Zevin, the first book being All These Things I've Done, which is where we learn that Anya Balanchine grew up in a world where coffee and chocolate are illegal, but her family runs a very successful chocolate company in Russia, selling their wares on the black market in the U.S. And just like All These Things I've Done, Because It Is My Blood has a quiet power to it. Anya is one of the strongest, fiercest female protagonists I've ever come in contact with and yet that ferocity is coated under a thick layer of stoicism and control. And despite her reserved nature, Anya is not cold. She comes across as quite likeable even though in the hands of a less dextrous author, I'm sure she would have come across as icy and robotic. I continue to marvel at what a contradictory yet empathetic character Zevin has created in Anya Balanchine.

Just as with the first audiobook, Because It Is my Blood is narrated by Ilyana Kadushin and she is every bit as perfect for the role of Anya as she was in the first book. If you read the first book and enjoyed it, there is no doubt in my mind that you will enjoy the continuation of Anya's story in Because It Is My Blood. 

My only real contention with this book is that it is categorized as dystopia when it reads nothing like a dystopia. In my review of All These Things I've Done, I called it dystopia-lite because while society has degraded and become more corrupt, it wasn't drastic enough to feel dystopian. There was no Big Brother, or factions, or an arena full of kids fighting each other to the death. Corruption was evident but not perverse as it is in most dystopias.

Because It Is My Blood by Gabrielle Zevin
Series: Birthright #2
Audiobook Narrator: Ilanya Kadushin
Published: September 18, 2012
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Macmillan Audio
Pages: 350
Audiobook Length: 10 hours, 51 minutes
Genre: Dystopia? <------ I'm still not convinced of this
Audience: Young Adult
Disclosure: Audiobook received for review from publisher