ARC Review: Level 2 by Lenore Appelhans

Please note: The title of this book has changed to The Memory of After.

Think of this place as a waiting room. Earth, what we call Level One, is about creating and forming memories. And this waiting room, Level Two, is about processing those memories, sifting through them to find the meaning of your time on earth. To come to terms with it so you can move on.


Felicia Ward lived a tormented life on earth. Before she died, she had many shameful secrets she'd rather not relive. So when she ends up in Level Two -- a strange, white place full of hive-like structures that allow its inhabitants to plug in and relive memories of their life back on earth -- Felicia of course, chooses only to relive the happy times. But soon Julian, a boy she knew on earth, with secrets of his own, appears in her chamber, calling for her to join the rebellion against the Morati -- the angels responsible for imprisoning souls in Level Two and preventing them from moving on to the next level.

Remembering how consorting with Julian back on earth led to the disgrace of her family, Felicia doesn't know whether she can trust him here in Level Two. But his promise to reunite her with her earthly boyfriend Neil has left her with no other choice than to join his fight. Told in a present-tense, first-person narrative as well as looking back at her past life through the memories Felicia watches in Level Two, Appelhans creates an engaging and highly original narrative that will leave you wondering: Will Julian and Felicia defeat the Morati?  Will he fulfill his promise to Felicia? Or will he find another way to burn her the way he did back on earth?

OK, I'm just going to get this technicality out of the way right now so you can make your own judgement about the reliability of this review: the author is a personal friend of mine. Many of you already know that before Lenore received her book deal through Simon & Schuster that she was a book blogger. I have been following her blog for a few years now and even visited her last summer when I vacationed in Europe (it's a tad bit serendipitous that I'm posting this review today since it was almost this exact time last year that I visited her). Perhaps many of you will feel as if this will cloud my judgement in writing this review since I consider her a friend, and perhaps unconsciously it does. But everything I am writing in this review is my true opinion. There is no sugarcoating here in order to spare the feelings of a friend. Everything I write is how I truly feel.

Having said that, let me just amp this review right up with the superlatives: this is one of the most amazing novels I have ever read! Lenore has not only crafted an incredibly unique story in envisioning this white, Matrix-like place of Level Two, but she has also rooted it in theology and mythology. People have been categorizing this book as a dystopia, but that's a bit of a misnomer since the world Appelhans created isn't really a society in the human sense of the word. There are dystopian elements to it, yes, but I honestly see it more as a fantasy than sci-fi/dystopia. Even Lenore addresses this dystopia issue in a recent blog post.

Rather than continue in regular book review fashion, I would instead like to give you a list of 5 reasons why you should read this amazing novel. So in no particular order, here are my top 5 reasons why you should read Level 2 when it comes out on January 15, 2013:

1. The characterization
Lenore did an amazing job creating believable, complex, and interesting relationships among characters. Felicia's encounters with Julian leave you constantly wondering if he's the good guy or bad guy, her relationship with her father is endearing and helps the reader to see a softer side of her so we can get behind her, and her feelings for Neil genuinely evolve over to course of the novel (in her memories) rather than the irritating "insta-love" phenomenon that seems to be running rampant through YA these days.

2. The ending stands on its own yet still leaves room for the next installment.
It is extremely irksome to me that so many YA trilogies are being written now as one continuous story rather than letting each book stand on its own. It's fine to read cliffhangers every once in a while, but to have that be "the thing" that all YA series writers seem to be doing gets tiresome. Level 2 not only stands on its own, but the ending has a perfect cadence. Yes, I want to read Level 3 (like RIGHT NOW!) but I appreciate that Level 2 is a complete story in and of itself, which defies the trends (I'm someone who prefers originality to trendiness if you hadn't noticed).

3. The writing
Julia Child once said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "People who love food are the best kind of people." I agree with said statement since I am a foodie after all, but I could also replace the word "food" for "words." I love people who love words, who relish in finding just the right word to make their sentences sing. People like John Green and Laini Taylor are writers I admire and whom I feel have mastered wordsmithing, who don't dumb down their writing for the sake of their teenage audience. And now I would put Lenore Appelhans into that category as well. Wordsmithing aside, however, the book also appeals to people who love action-packed plots with lots of vivid detail. The entire time I was reading all I kept thinking was what a mind-blowing movie it would make (sort of like the afterlife version of The Matrix).

4. Originality coupled with tradition
I've already mentioned this point, but it bears mentioning again. Never in a million years would I have pictured the afterlife to look like Level Two, and I'm sure most people wouldn't either, which is why, despite the initial doubt in believing that Level Two is a place where you could actually end up after you die, Lenore grounds her story in theological and mythological concepts (limbo, purgatory, fallen angels, the five rivers of Hades, etc.) to make it more believable. Quite ingenious.

5. Lack of plot holes
Since I know Lenore, I feel like this caused me to read with a more critical eye and I was hyper-aware of when things weren't adding up. Which is why I was amazed that every single time I would think to myself, "Well wait, how is that possible?" the question would always be answered later in the novel, sometimes even a few sentences later.

 So there you have it. My Top 5 Reasons why you should go out and pre-order Level 2 right now. :)

I know this book has been hugely buzzed around the blogosphere because Lenore is a blogger herself, but after reading it and witnessing her brilliant creativity and originality, I can imagine WAY more people than bloggers will know her name come January. I'd be willing to bet on it.

Read some other early reviews of Level 2:
Stacked
The Perpetual Page-Turner
Diary of a Book Addict
Dark Faerie Tales

Also check out this awesome interview with Lenore at Forever Young Adult

Level 2 by Lenore Appelhans
Expected Publication: January 15, 2013
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Pages: 288
Genre: Fantasy
Audience: Young Adult
Disclosure: ARC won in a contest

The Hunger Games movie review

 Attention: This review contains major book spoilers. Read at your own peril if you haven't read the books yet.

I wasn't going to write about The Hunger Games movie. I didn't want to be just another person in the blogosphere to add my two cents to an otherwise oversaturated commentary.

But then I saw the movie. And I couldn't NOT comment.

I sat there in the theater for two and a half hours today completely spellbound, more than half of the time in tears or on the verge of tears. It was such an emotional experience to see the world that Suzanne Collins created come to life. Sometimes when we imagine a world in our heads from a book we read, it can still be a bit incomplete and hazy, so when books become movies we rely on the movies to try to fill in the blanks for us. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they don't.

I'd have to say The Hunger Games succeeded beyond my wildest expectations. One place where movie producers filled in the gaps for me was how they envisioned The Capitol. What a lavish and wickedly wacky world they imagined, and while completely different from what I pictured in my head, it somehow fit perfectly with the story.

But let's go back to the beginning with The Reaping. Before Effie Trinket announces the names of the Tributes, she queues up a film that President Snow narrates to explain the purpose of the Hunger Games. It immediately puts you in mind of one of those old Soviet propaganda films - displaying bronzed, muscled tributes, willing to risk life and limb for "the greater good." But here is where the visual of the movie over the book was beneficial. The contrast between the proud, regal tributes in the propaganda film and the stunned, frightened citizens of District 12 was jarring, made even more symbolic by the striking camera angles that bounce back and forth between propaganda and reality.

Then there's the emotion of the results of The Reaping. Katniss most definitely steals the show with her dramatic response to Prim being selected as Tribute - we all saw that in the trailer. But what we didn't see was Peeta's reaction to his selection as tribute and while definitely not as dramatic, it is equally as emotional.

Since we're talking about emotion, let's discuss the actors. While I was quite dubious about almost every casting choice, now that I have seen the movie in its entirety, I can't imagine anyone else playing those roles. I'm still a little iffy about Peeta, but I think he nailed the likability factor. There was no swooning for me over Peeta in this movie. I've always been a Gale fan from the beginning and the movie just reinforced that position. Just as in the book, I never bought into the romance between Peeta and Katniss. It always felt like it was just a ruse to her in order to survive.

Which leads me to Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss. She nailed the calculating and emotionless when she needed to and the moving and dramatic at other times. I'd have to say that Rue's death is even more devastating in the movie than the book for the simple fact that Lawrence's reaction to it is so powerful and convincing.

Woody Harrelson as Haymitch I thought was a great choice. The character seemed to be much more with it in the movie vs. the book and was definitely less of a drunkard on screen, but Harrelson still manages to make the role work for the movie and given more time, would have explored his major vice a bit more, but with time constraints, I'm sure that was something they had to sacrifice.

One of my favorite casting choices was Lenny Kravitz as Cinna. OK, can I just say that I can't believe that man is almost forty-eight years old? He doesn't look a day over thirty-five. Cinna's integrity and gentle-nature was definitely given its proper due in Kravitz's portrayal. He along with Gale were two characters I wanted to see more of in the film.

And Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket? Delightfully uncomfortable and wickedly hideous - and I mean that in the best possible way. Maybe I just don't remember well enough from the book but Effie in the movie seemed much more like a pawn of the Capitol than she did in the book. Perhaps I'm just misremembering though. Where Cinna definitely had a "stick it to the man" kind of vibe, Effie felt more like she thought the whole thing was just a big pageant instead of a fight to the death.

As Kimberly over at Stacked mentioned, one thing they added to the film that I really enjoyed was seeing the "behind the scenes" work of the gamemakers and the calculating orchestration of the games by Seneca and President Snow. Because Katniss narrates the entire book, we don't get to see what's happening from the perspective of other characters so that was a different experience from the book and one that I think enhanced the story.

The last piece of the movie that I wanted to comment on was a discussion a few of us were having on Twitter about the handheld camera work. Lenore Applehans mentioned that the frequency of shaky camera work left her with a headache and feeling nauseous. As someone who experienced this very thing a few years ago when my husband and I saw The Bourne Ultimatum in theaters, I worried that I would come out of the movie feeling the same way, or worse, having to leave in the middle. Thankfully, this did not affect me in the slightest, and in a way I was grateful for the shaky camera work as it made the violence much less gory.

Overall, I'd have to say this is one of the most amazing book to film adaptations I've ever seen. And since Suzanne Collins's name appeared quite a few times in the credits, I'm going to be so bold to say that including the author in making a book come to life on screen almost always is a wise decision.

Despite the fact that I didn't love the other two books in the series as much as I loved the first one, the creation of this blockbuster phenomenon has made me buy into the whole experience and made me even more emotionally invested than I was when I read the books. And listening to all the sniffling, snorting adults, teens, and tweens sitting in the theater today, I could tell they all felt the same way too. The way that they ended the first movie was a perfect set up for the second one and made me ever more anxious for next year.

ARC review: Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

When Lena left her life behind in Portland, she left the old Lena behind too. Now that she resides in the wilds, she is no longer the girl we knew from Delirium. She must fight and push to survive and imagine a life without Alex - which for her to cope, she must pretend he never existed.

As she creates a new life for herself in the wilds, something sinister is afoot on the other side of the fence, which results in the need for the resistance to rise up and make themselves known rather than simply acting in passive defiance within the confines of the oppressive government as they have done in the past. Now is the time for action.

In the process of being part of such resistance, Lena finds herself in new dangers that she had not experienced before, and meets new obstacles in the form of a new love interest that attempts to help her forget about Alex. Is it possible to forget the great love of her life? Can she be reborn again? Or will the ghosts of her past continue to haunt her?

I have said it before, but I can't help but continue to say it over and over again: Lauren Oliver's prose is so beautiful in its simplicity it's almost painful. You read her sentences and think: how can something so simple be so enchanting? This woman can write about surviving in the wilds and make it so descriptive, I can almost taste the food Lena is eating:

I sip from this bowl of broth more slowly, savoring its strange, earthy quality: as though it has been stewed with stones.

I mean, it's not like this broth sounds like a five star meal, but as a foodie, I am so intrigued by the idea of this strange, earthy broth that  I really do want to see what it tastes like. Yes. That just happened. Lauren Oliver actually made me want to eat survival provisions.

Something else I adored about this book and her other books is the fact that Oliver does not dumb down her stories for her teenage audience. She uses the same literary devices of the great classics taught in schools today, but she clearly makes them more accessible to her readers. The motif of rebirth runs rampant throughout the entire novel and even the most literal of thinkers could pick up on this.  As someone who really struggled through abstract and archaic texts in high school, this book is just another example of why teachers and schoolboards today need to realize that you can learn the same literary concepts through contemporary texts, not just classics. Lauren Oliver is a YA author who should be taught with regularity in high schools.

Pandemonium is a very different book from Delirium. Oliver even said this herself. She worried that people would be upset and disappointed. For me it was just the opposite. This book was definitely more tense and filled with anxiety than the previous book, but it was just as well-written and engrossing as the first. The only bad thing about getting to read the book early is now I have to wait that much longer for the third book and oh boy is it going to be a doozy. Despite the fact that I knew how this book was going to end midway through, it was still quite dramatic and chill inducing. I would say more but I don't want to spoil anything by saying too much. Just know that Requiem is going to be one heck of a closer to the series.

Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver
Series: Delirium #2
Publication Date: February 28, 2012
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pages: 384
Genre: Dystopian
Audience: Young Adult


Check out my current ARC giveaway of Pandemonium

Matched by Ally Condie

Cassia lives in a Society where all life decisions are not yours to make: your job, what you eat, and even who you marry are all carefully constructed for the Greater Good.

When her best friend Xander is chosen as the person she will marry, she is initially thrilled. But when her other friend Ky's face shows up momentarily on the video screen after her Matching ceremony, Officials tell her it was a mistake and that she should plan for a happy life with Xander.

At first she follows the Officials' advice and begins planning for her life with Xander. But slowly and naggingly, Cassia finds herself falling for Ky and questioning all she's ever believed about her Society. Do they really know what's best for her life and the life of its people? 

Matched is a vivid and luscious work of dystopian fiction. Ally Condie's writing stands out as some of the most beautiful and captivating I've ever read. Some have criticized that the plot lags in the middle, but I felt like Condie was giving proper time for world building and for the relationship to develop. So many authors thrust the main character onto a love interest, disguise their lustful interactions as love, and rush the characters through a superficial relationship. I found the leisurely pace of the novel perfect for getting to know characters and feeling their love develop.

Fans of the classic dystopian novel The Giver will undoubtedly notice many similarities in the plot and theme of this book, which was really my only annoyance and that was mild. Despite the similarities, Condie's vivid and pleasant writing style gives this book a different tone than Lois Lowry's seminal novel which is stark and dreary. Which is to say, this is the most pleasant dystopian novel I've ever read or listened to. Even though the world is clearly not something one would ever want to live in, I never felt threatened or uncomfortable by the world Condie created. Yes, Cassia's desire to question everything her Society stands for is necessary and only natural. But this novel had a much more quiet power to it than the typical grand, sweeping dystopian plots of today.

So if you're like me and you're a fan of quieter books that focus more on character development than fast-paced plots, you are in for a treat with Matched. I will happily and eagerly read the next book in the series.


Matched by Ally Condie
Published: November 30, 2010 by Dutton
Series: Matched #1
Pages: 366
Genre: Dystopian
Audience: Young Adult

ARC Review: Fever by Lauren DeStefano

Goodreads summary:

Rhine and Gabriel have escaped the mansion, but danger is never far behind. 

Running away brings Rhine and Gabriel right into a trap, in the form of a twisted carnival whose ringmistress keeps watch over a menagerie of girls. Just as Rhine uncovers what plans await her, her fortune turns again. With Gabriel at her side, Rhine travels through an environment as grim as the one she left a year ago - surroundings that mirror her own feelings of fear and hopelessness. 

The two are determined to get to Manhattan, to relative safety with Rhine’s twin brother, Rowan. But the road there is long and perilous - and in a world where young women only live to age twenty and young men die at twenty-five, time is precious. Worse still, they can’t seem to elude Rhine’s father-in-law, Vaughn, who is determined to bring Rhine back to the mansion...by any means necessary. 

I came across an ARC of this book on display at the Simon & Schuster booth at the NCTE conference a few weeks ago. When I asked one of the reps if they had any more ARCs available to give away, she looked under a table, inside a box, and magically produced a copy of this much coveted sequel to Wither. I was so happy that I gave her a hug.

So I was sad to discover that I didn't love it nearly as much as Wither, which was such an amazing, vivid work of storytelling. The characters of Rhine and the sister wives in the first book were so real to me. They felt like people instead of characters. But for some reason, the characters in this book felt more like they were moving in slow motion rather than real time. Rhine and Gabriel didn't jump off the page the way they did in the first book, and the new, young character of Maddie was just completely out of my realm of ability to imagine. She was in the background even though she was an important character for the first half of the novel.

Fever felt more like a transitional novel, in the sense that you were waiting for something major to happen, only to realize that something major won't be till the next book.Which is not to say that nothing happens in this book. There are plenty of nail-biting moments. And yet, even with those moments, you're still waiting for that "THING" to reveal itself, which, in this book's case, doesn't happen until the very last page. 

And yet, that very last page will sure make you want to read the third book. So kudos to Lauren DeStefano. I might not have loved this book as much as the first, but she succeeded in getting me to want to read (and covet) the third book.

Fever by Lauren DeStefano
Series: Chemical Garden #2
Expected Publication: February 21, 2012 
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Genre: Dystopia
Audience: Young Adult
 

Audiobook Review: All These Things I've Done by Gabrielle Zevin

The year is 2083 and Anya Balanchine might outwardly appear like your typical 16-year-old girl from the twenty-first century, but outward appearances can be deceiving. In a world where chocolate and coffee are illegal, Anya has grown up in a family where chocolate is the family business. With both her parents having been murdered due to her father's mafia connections, and an ailing grandmother who is their legal guardian, Anya is the de facto head of her family. She does everything in her power to make sure she doesn't get separated from her siblings, which right off the bat, shows the reader how practical and matter-of-fact she is. 

Only when she meets a new boy at school, who ironically happens to be the son of the assistant D.A., does she start to break down her barriers and open up. Even still, with the possibility of love on the horizon, you never feel like Anya doesn't have her wits about her. Her top priority is and always will be her family, so in that sense, her practicality ends up being likeable rather than frustrating. In the hands of a less dexterous author, a character so matter-of-fact and practical might come off as being cold and unfeeling, but Zevin skillfully creates a wonderfully empathetic character in Anya.

The narrator of the audiobook is Ilyana Kadushin, of Twilight fame, and her performance in this audiobook was as luscious as a Balanchine Special Dark chocolate bar. I think her narration of this book was far superior to her performance of the Twilight saga. I thought she wasn't expressive enough and rather one-dimensional in her Twilight performance, and her only saving grace was her exquisite voice. In All These Things I've Done, however, her performance was much more dynamic and expressive. Not only was her voice satisfying to listen to, but she learned from her previous experience that simply having a beautiful voice does not a good narrator make and that you need to put some emotion into it. In Twilight she was stoic and unfeeling, in All These Things I've Done, she was much more charismatic.

In reading other reviews of this novel, everyone labels the genre as dystopia, but I'm not really buying the dystopia moniker. Yes the book takes place in the future and yes, society seems to have degraded, but not enough of the American culture has changed for me to believe that this is a true dystopia. I guess the reason people have labeled it dystopia is because there isn't really any other genre it could be. To me though, it's sort of dystopia-lite. Even with the dubious genre labeling, this book is still worth every second of your time - whether you listen to it or read it. I will definitely be one the people coveting an ARC of the sequel!


All These Things I've Done by Gabrielle Zevin
Published: September 6, 2011 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and Macmillan Audio
Pages: 354
Audiobook length: 10 hours, 11 minutes
Audiobook narrator: Ilyana Kadushin
Genre: Dystopia
Audience: Young Adult
Disclosure: I received a copy of the book and audiobook for review

Audiobook Review: The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

From Goodreads:

Prentisstown isn’t like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts in an overwhelming, never-ending stream of Noise. Just a month away from the birthday that will make him a man, Todd and his dog, Manchee — whose thoughts Todd can hear, too, whether he wants to or not — stumble upon an area of complete silence. They find that in a town where privacy is impossible, something terrible has been hidden — a secret so awful that Todd and Manchee must run for their lives. But how do you escape when your pursuers can hear your every thought?

So just about every review I've read of this book has highly praised it and declared what an amazing story it is. I, on the other hand, found very little that I enjoyed about it. I want to state right off the bat, that doesn't mean I'm saying this is a bad book. I just found it incredibly difficult to get through. 


I'm going to start with what I liked about The Knife of Never Letting Go. The idea of The Noise I thought was so creative and like nothing I've ever encountered in a dystopia before. It's like Patrick Ness took the concept of "Big Brother" from Orwell's 1984 and amped it up tenfold. Despite the fact that I liked the concept, its execution I thought was extremely painful to get through. Virtually nothing about the New World's secrets is unearthed until the very end of the story which makes you feel like you're trudging through the plot to get to the Big Reveal at the end. For me, that was torturous. I like the plot to reveal itself bit by bit throughout the story rather than being bombarded with the whole shebang at the end.


The only thing that waiting till the end had going for it was that it kept me from abandoning the book entirely because I was determined to learn what the Big Secret was. And then once I did learn all the secrets by the end, they seemed to be too complicated for me to feel like this was a truly enlightening moment in the story. It's not like I didn't understand the secrets, but they just took my brain too long to process for me to have that moment where my eyes bug out and am amazed at what has just been revealed.

At the core of the story however, what really prevented me from enjoying it was how hopeless the whole situation felt. There is virtually NO hope to cling to whatsoever in this story. Most dystopias I've read and enjoyed had a modicum of hope to cling to, however small it may have been. While listening to the audiobook of The Knife of Never Letting Go, I felt incredibly depressed. Part of it I think was because I didn't have much faith in the main character. Yes, he was an inherently good person, but he didn't have much oomph to him. Maybe it was his ignorance that frustrated me. And it's not like that was his fault, but I just felt so frustrated to be going on this journey with him and not knowing ANYTHING about the secrets of Prentisstown.

The other thing that bothered me was the audio presentation. I did not buy Nick Podehl's performance of Todd in the slightest. What Nick sounded like to me was a refined, college educated man trying way too hard to sound like a young, illiterate 13-year-old boy and yet it was also half-hearted at the same time. Strangely enough though, I did enjoy his characterization of Todd's dog, Manchee. That was definitely the best characterization in the whole performance and the only one that felt authentic.


I know there were lots of people who loved this book and who sing its praises to the moon and back. I was just not one of those people. That doesn't mean I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. I think it has a great deal of literary merit and there are so many amazing talking points that it would be a perfect choice for a book club or literature circle. 


Final Assessment:
Would recommend to mature readers who like a challenge and can handle the slow, torturously secretive plot.


The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
Audiobook narrator: Nick Podehl
Original Publish Date: May 5, 2008
Publisher: Candlewick
Pages: 496
Audiobook Length: 11 hours, 55 minutes
Genre: Dystopia
Audience: Young Adult

Audiobook Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

Goodreads Summary:

In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue - Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is - she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are - and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves.... or it might destroy her. 

This is going to be a rather short review because, well frankly, I just didn't care for this book. I know I am one of the few voices of dissent because most of the reviews I've read about this book have been glowing (though Clockwork Reverie wrote a well-thought out, amusing review on the side of dissent too).  

Many people have compared this book to The Hunger Games, and while there are certainly similar elements, it doesn't come close to creating the magic of the dystopian world that Suzanne Collins created. The violence in The Hunger Games felt justified because it was forced upon them by The Capitol. And in the end, (HG SPOILER ALERT) the main character finds a way to "stick it to the man" so to speak. In Divergent, however, the violence felt senseless and gratuitous. I never really quite understood the purpose of all the "tests" the Dauntless had to go through and never really got a sense as to who the enemy was. It became a bit more clear by the end, but the antagonizing force in this novel was much more ambiguous than in other dystopias I've read and enjoyed. 

As far as the audiobook production, I think that is what kept me from abandoning the book. Emma Galvin was the narrator and she did a superb job of interpreting the grave tone of the story, and yet despite the graveness, she still had a pleasant timbre to her voice that made me want to keep listening. 

Despite enjoying the audio production, the story did not engage me enough to continue on with the series. 


But here are some others who will because they loved the book so much:
Good Books and Good Wine
The Story Siren
Pure Imagination

Divergent by Veronica Roth, narrated by Emma Galvin
Published: May 2011
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books and Harper Audio
Pages: 496
Audiobook Length: 11 hours, 11 minutes
Genre: Dystopia
Audience: Young Adult
Source: acquired from publisher

Bumped by Megan McCafferty

From Goodreads:

When a virus makes everyone over the age of eighteen infertile, would-be parents are forced to pay teen girls to conceive and give birth to their children, making teens the most prized members of society.

Sixteen-year-old identical twins Melody and Harmony were separated at birth and had never met until the day Harmony shows up on Melody’s doorstep. Until now, the twins have followed completely opposite paths. Melody has scored an enviable conception contract with a couple called the Jaydens. While they are searching for the perfect partner for Melody to bump with, she is fighting her attraction to her best friend Zen, who is way too short for the job.

Harmony has spent her whole life in religious Goodside, preparing to be a wife and mother. She believes her calling is to bring Melody back to Goodside and convince her that “pregging” for profit is a sin. But Harmony has secrets of her own that she is running from.

When Melody is finally matched with the world-famous, genetically flawless Jondoe, both girls’ lives are changed forever. A case of mistaken identity takes them on a journey neither could have ever imagined, one that makes Melody and Harmony realize they have so much more than just DNA in common. 

There is so much to like about this book: a unique, humor-filled satire/dystopia that can spark lots of conversation about a controversial issue: teen pregnancy.

But there is so much that frustrated me (and many other readers) too. First of all, I'm not the first person to mention the difficulty in figuring out the vernacular of the world McCafferty created. Most of it was easy to figure out (pregg, breedy, neggy, bump) but what bothered me were the words and concepts that were difficult to pick up on due to the author's lack of explanation or context. What the heck is MiNet? MiChat? 2Vu? As part of McCafferty's world building, I thought it was her responsibility to fully bring us into that world. There wasn't enough context for the reader to completely figure these things out.

And don't get me started on the ridiculous ending. It wasn't even an ending. I couldn't even call it a cliffhanger. The book needed at least one to three more chapters to have ended in a way that would satisfy readers while still setting us up for the next book. It almost feels like authors are getting lazy because they know they have a three book deal so they can just can continue the story in an upcoming book. That really irritates me. Even though readers know there's another book coming, authors still should feel a sense of responsibility to end a book appropriately. This book did not end in such a way.

Does that mean I won't read the next book? Does it mean that I wasn't invested enough in the story to feel the need to keep going with the series? Not in the slightest. I did enjoy this story. I enjoyed the conversation it will spark. I enjoyed watching the development of the characters. My criticisms are more frustrations than feelings of outright anger. I don't have to love every book I read to appreciate its literary merit. I will definitely be adding the second book to my TBR pile when it comes out!

ETA: I had a day to think about it, and I feel bad for saying I think authors are getting lazy. I highly respect and admire the work that authors and publishers do and I don't want anyone to think I feel otherwise. I'm 100% positive Megan McCafferty and her editor and publisher had their reasons for ending this book the way they did. I'm only writing my feelings based on my frustration that the book felt incomplete. To me, even if a book is part of a series, it should still be able to stand on its own somewhat. I felt like this book was missing some sort of closure. Even when books end in cliffhangers, there is some tiny bit of closure (however small it might be) to let reader feel satisfied until the next book. I wasn't feeling any sort of closure happening here at the end of this book. If anything, even more conflicts arise at the end, while leaving old conflicts still up in the air.


Bumped by Megan McCafferty
Published: April 26, 2011 by Balzer & Bray
Pages: 336
Genre: Dystopia
Audience: YA
Format: E-galley acquired through NetGalley

Audiobook Review: Delirium by Lauren Oliver

From Goodreads:

Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing. They didn’t understand that once love -- the deliria -- blooms in your blood, there is no escaping its hold. Things are different now. Scientists are able to eradicate love, and the governments demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Holoway has always looked forward to the day when she’ll be cured. A life without love is a life without pain: safe, measured, predictable, and happy.

But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena does the unthinkable: She falls in love.

I acquired an advanced reader copy of Delirium through Netgalley back in December. When I read the book a few months ago, I didn't feel like I could write a review that would do it justice. Then a few weeks ago, someone at Harper Audio offered me the chance to listen to the audiobook.  It was then that I knew this was the time to start attempting to put my thoughts about this book into a cohesive message. 

The HarperCollins Children's Audio website plugs this book as "Romeo and Juliet meets 1984." What a perfect description of this story in only five words.  Lauren Oliver's latest book definitely shows large glimpses of George Orwell's classic dystopia.  Clearly Oliver was familiar with Orwell's famous work before writing Delirium as evidenced by this saying from the book:

Liberty in acceptance
Peace in enclosure
Happiness in renunciation

which mimics Orwell's famous motto from 1984:
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength.

Since the popularity of The Hunger Games, the dystopian genre has been so over-saturated that, at first glance, this book might just get dismissed as just another author trying to cash in on a trend. However, what sustains this book and sets it apart from all the other dystopian novels is in the beauty of Oliver's simple, no-nonsense prose.  And yet, despite its simplicity, it is also lyrical and poetic. Even further to Oliver's credit is her ability to subtly  weave a developing and evolving protagonist through a suspenseful, page-turning plot.  Lena's character begins the novel having accepted the previously stated Orwell-esque mantra. However, as the story progresses, you slowly but surely see that lie begin to unravel as everything she thought she once believed comes crashing down around her. 

In regards to the audio presentation, Sarah Drew did a phenomenal job at interpreting this story.  Her emotions were perfectly on point and they were so believable that I almost felt like SHE was feeling those emotions as she was reading the story.  When Lena cried, I could almost see the tears running down the narrator's face.   I highly recommend the audiobook if you're a fan of listening to books, but, like me, get frustrated with indifferent, apathetic, or just plain ill-suited narrators.

Without revealing any spoilers, I will say that upon first reading, I was perplexed, almost angered by the ending.  But the second time around, I understood why the book had to end the way it did.  I would love to say more, but I don't want to give anything away.  All I can say is that if you're a fan of dystopia and you haven't read this book yet... what are you waiting for?


Delirium by Lauren Oliver
Audiobook Narrator: Sarah Drew
Published: February 2011 by Harper Teen and HarperCollins Children's Audio
Pages: 441
Audiobook Length: 11 hours, 41 minutes
Genre: Dystopia
Audience: Young Adult

Wither by Lauren DeStefano: ARC review

From Goodreads:

What if you knew exactly when you would die?

Thanks to modern science, every human being has become a ticking genetic time bomb—males only live to age twenty-five, and females only live to age twenty. 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 Rhine is growing dangerously attracted to, Rhine attempts to break free, in the limited time she has left.

This book stayed off my radar for quite some time.  I noticed lots of book blogs talking about it, but it didn't seem like a story that would interest me.  And truth be told, I judged the book by its cover and felt like it would be a dystopia that was all fluff and no substance.   

Oh how wrong I was.

I was wrong about so much when it came to my initial judgment of this book.  

In addition to making incorrect assumptions about the quality of the writing, I also assumed as I began to read that most of the characters in this book would be antagonistic toward Rhine.  I guessed that Linden would be a jerk of a husband and that the sister wives would be unbearable to live with.  

So I guess what I'm saying is that Lauren DeStafano does an amazing job at subverting assumptions.  You look at the cover of this book with the fluffy dress and the fluffy hair and assume that the book is going to be less about the writing and more about the swoon-worthiness of the story.  You assume that the characters will be simple rather than complex.  You assume, you assume, you assume.  

But then just about every assumption gets completely crushed to bits.  

And you know what?  I LOVED that!  I loved that I had no idea what was going to happen next and that I was always guessing.  I loved that all of the characters (except for Vaughn) had something redeeming about them, because your initial reaction at the beginning is that the conflict will be Rhine vs. everyone else.  

This story is so much more complex than that.  And the complexity is what keeps you reading.  

And let me just say how much I love the name Rhine for a female protagonist.  I never would have thought of Rhine as being a female name but now that I've heard it, if I ever have a daughter, I might consider that for a baby name.  Just like the name Isabella exploded after Twilight came out, I wonder if the same thing will happen with Rhine.   

Cover comments: Though I think the cover is stunning and I personally love this new trend of beautiful girls in pretty dresses, I think some of these books with glamorous covers are preventing guys from becoming interested in possibly reading them.  Don't get me wrong, I think a lot of pretty dress covers are books that most guys wouldn't pick up anyway, but Wither is a book that I think guys would enjoy if it had been marketed differently.  This does not strike me as a "girly" story,  and yet the cover has lumped it into the category of chick lit with one sweeping move of a beautiful model in a frilly dress. 

I look at The Hunger Games series which has a female protagonist and could have easily been targeted only toward females, but the simple black and gold cover prevented gender stereotyping, and now you have boys as well as girls reading the books in droves. I'm thinking Wither could have been a book that was of interest to both genders had they created a more gender neutral cover.  
 

What are your thoughts?  Do you agree?  Disagree?
   
Regardless of the cover, I thought this was an amazing debut for this brilliant new YA author.  I hope to be reading her books for years to come!


Wither by Lauren DeStefano
Publish Date: March 22, 2011 by Simon & Schuster
Pages: 356
Genre: Dystopia
Audience: YA

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (No Spoilers!)

Well here we are. The end of the Hunger Games trilogy. And no matter how it ended, it was going to be disappointing. So many people have been building up for this moment that people were going to mourn the loss of this horrible, yet beautifully vivid world that Collins created.

Which is to say that I, too, was disappointed in this final installment. While reading the first two books, all I could think about was how much I felt like I was inside Katniss's world. I followed along with her plight against the Capitol and took every step with her.

But Mockingjay felt different. Instead of being inside Katniss's world, I felt like I was floating foggily above it. Instead of feeling part of the action, I felt like I was watching from far away.

I rushed through the entire book because all I wanted to do was get to the end. Whereas with the other two books, I had to savor every moment. While I enjoyed the ending, I felt it was not fully developed. Though to quote Donalyn Miller, "I liked that the book didn't end neatly. While I was unsatisfied with the ending, it felt true somehow." Miller is absolutely spot on. Life often doesn't end neatly either. In fact, it's usually quite messy. Mockingjay imitating real life. Who knew?


Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
First published: August 2010
Number of pages: 390
Genre: Dystopian
Audience: Young Adult

Dystopian as Science Fiction: Help Me Understand

After reading Donalyn Miller's The Book Whisperer a few months ago, I have been inspired to model my classroom around hers and have students choose their own books but give them guidelines by making them read specific genres.

So at the beginning of the summer, I took all the books from my classroom library and labeled them by genre. Here's my frustration though: I need to understand why all dystopian fiction is considered science fiction. There are books where the science fiction label is obvious (Feed, Brave New World) but I look at books like The Hunger Games, and the classic 1984, which are clearly more political than scientific and wonder what it has to do with science (political SCIENCE? I don't consider that pure science. Should I?). I'm assuming because it fits within the "speculative fiction" label rather than the science label and those two descriptions get used interchangeably for this genre. Or maybe just because it deals with the FUTURE?

I guess the reason I'm having such frustration about this is because I have books in my library like The Hunger Games that I'm torn as whether to label them science fiction. Yes, they are clearly dystopian, but science? I'm not so sure.

What say you?

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his first name. He has no recollection of his parents, his home, or how he got where he is. His memory is black. But he’s not alone. When the lift’s doors open, Thomas finds himself surrounded by kids who welcome him to the Glade, a large expanse enclosed by stone walls.

Just like Thomas, the Gladers don’t know why or how they got to the Glade. All they know is that every morning, for as long as they could remember, the stone doors to the maze that surrounds them have opened. Every night, they’ve closed tight. Every thirty days a new boy is delivered in the lift. And no one wants to be stuck in the maze after dark.

The Gladers were expecting Thomas’s arrival. But the next day, a girl springs up—the first girl ever to arrive in the Glade. And more surprising yet is the message she delivers. The Gladers have always been convinced that if they can solve the maze that surrounds the Glade, they might be able to find their way home . . . wherever that may be. But it’s looking more and more as if the maze is unsolvable.

And something about the girl’s arrival is starting to make Thomas feel different. Something is telling him that he just might have some answers—if he can only find a way to retrieve the dark secrets locked within his own mind.

- taken from Goodreads



I was hooked by the first paragraph! In fact, I did a book talk for my students on this book only after having read the first chapter. That is unheard of for me.

What's great about The Maze Runner is that it's sort of the boy's equivalent to The Hunger Games. As much as I've tried to get the boys in my classes into The Hunger Games, they just don't seem to connect with the female protagonist. The Maze Runner has all of the dystopian suspense of HG but with boys as the main characters.

I will say that the writing in this book is not nearly as lyrical as that of Suzanne Collins. It's a bit clunky and feels like you're far removed from the story rather than directly inside of it. Perhaps it's unfair to compare the two writers, but despite my fondness for this book, I sort of felt like I was in a fog as I was reading, whereas The Hunger Games always felt vivid and clear as a bell. Had this been written in first-person I think that might have helped to engage better with the story.

At the same time, I think that the plot-driven suspense will help boys better to engage with the book than the more character-driven (and female protagonist) Hunger Games.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (Hunger Games #2)

Chills. The last sentence of this book literally gave me chills up my arms and down my spine. And then tears began to fall.

I have never been so shocked by an ending as I was with this one. In fact, I was so startled by the ending that my husband, who was sitting near me on the couch, looked over at me and asked me what was wrong when I put my hand to my mouth and stifled an, "Oh my God."

While I did not love this book as much as the first one, I have to commend Suzanne Collins for writing such gripping, unpredictable plots.

If you have not read this book or the first one of the series, I'm telling you that you must read it NOW.

Let me just say that the cliffhanger of an ending is going to make it torturous to have to wait for the next installment. Anyone know when book three is supposed to come out?