Double (ARC)

Hey Guys, I was privileged to participate in an ARC tour from Around the World Tours. I've signed up for a bunch of these and to start things off: "Double" by Jenny Valentine!

Summary:When the sixteen-year-old runaway Chap is mistaken for a missing boy named Cassiel, his life changes dramatically. Chap takes on Cassiel’s identity, gaining the family and friends he’s always dreamed of having. But becoming someone else isn’t as easy as he hoped—and Chap isn’t the only one hiding a secret. As he teeters on the brink of discovery and begins to unravel the mystery behind Cassiel’s disappearance, Chap realizes that he’s in much deeper danger than he could have imagined.

Award-winning author Jenny Valentine delivers an explosive mystery where dark secrets, betrayal, and loss pave the way for one teen’s chance at redemption. After all, you can’t just steal a life and expect to get away with it.

I am a big fan of mystery books (ever since I was five and my dad read me The Boxcar Children) and you cannot deny that Jenny Valentine had a great idea for a novel. It would be like trying to fit into a role in a play or movie that you hadn't studied for at all and just had to stick it out, not mess up and stay in character. Except this wasn't a play, this was real life, and if Chap messed up, the consequences would be very severe. It was so suspenseful because every time he spoke you wouldn't know if it would be his last moment as Cassiel Roadnight.

I think the flashbacks when Chap was still with his Grandpa were the happiest parts of the books, because the relationship he had with his Grandpa was so pleasant and sweet.

One of the weaker parts of the story was the character development, because the only characters that really developed throughout the book were Chap and Floyd, the rest were all too blinded by love to actually do anything interesting. Floyd was hands-down my favorite character. He was nice to Cassiel (Chap) even before Chap became Cassiel. Cassiel had been a complete jerk to him, instead of holding a grudge he lets it go and really helps Chap do the right thing.

This criticism is unimportant but it was interesting so I just thought I'd mention it. In the beginning of the book Chap is at a shelter, and he said "soccer on TV", but wait, this takes place in England, the boy has lived in England all his life and he calls it soccer not football?! An outrage! Maybe they were just trying to appeal to us dumb American readers.

This book was a complex, intense, mysterious thriller that has good series potential.

3.5/5

Book Battle Update: This is my seventh book read in the book battle, Maddz has read 5, smooth sailing from here I hope!

This book will be released Feb. 21, 2012, preorder on Amazon.

This ARC tour was from Around the World Tours (Click on the image above for link).

Behemoth

A while back I read Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, I was really excited to hear there was a sequel, Behemoth!

Summary: The behemoth is the fiercest creature in the British navy. It can swallow enemy battleships with one bite. The Darwinists will need it, now that they are at war with the Clanker powers.

Deryn is a girl posing as a boy in the British Air Service, and Alek is the heir to an empire posing as a commoner. Finally together aboard the airship Leviathan, they hope to bring the war to a halt. But when disaster strikes the Leviathan's peacekeeping mission, they find themselves alone and hunted in enemy territory.

Alek and Deryn will need great skill, new allies, and brave hearts to face what's ahead.

I really liked the first book in this series, so I had high expectations. At first I felt like those expectations hadn't been met, because the first 30-50 pages were quite boring and was more just recapping what happened in the first book. Then after a while it goes back to the thing I loved about Leviathan, the heart-pounding battle scenes, the awesome fabricated beasts and some really evil villains!

One thing, that I thought made the book a tad worse then Leviathan is the way Deryn, a girl who acts very manly suddenly turns into a "lovey-dovey" girl, who only cares about Alek. I mean, I don't hate romance in books, sometimes they are quite nice, but Scott Westerfeld failed to keep me interested in this one, just annoyed and waiting for something to happen besides the constant "he loves me, he loves me not" going on inside Deryn's head. But I liked that this content came in and was an important and rather hilarious part of the story later.

Illustrator Keith Thompson does an excellent job at illustrating the book; he gives a real feel of what's going on and his illustrations are pure genius!

One of my favorite parts of the story is when Alek is in Instanbul (and because this is heavy steampunk, he changes history and the revolution in Instanbul in 1908 was not successful) and is helping the rebels pull off an uprising. All of the characters during this period of the book really shine and come to life, especially his new-found revolutionary allies.

I think the idea of the "Tesla Cannon" is really cool. Though Nikola Tesla never actually made it (or anyone else made it for that matter). The technology has gotten a lot more advanced in this book from the last one. In Leviathan the walkers are all depicted as just moving hunks of metal. In this one some are modeled after Greek mythology and have arms and legs (the ones from the first book just have legs).

This book was a fun and energetic book with lots of plot twists, a rare sequel that lived up to the first.

5/5

Book Battle Update: This is my 6th book read in our book battle, so far I'm winning 6-4.

Cinder and Ella (ARC)

Debut novelist Melissa Lemon's classic take on the Cinderella legend.

Summary:After their father’s disappearance, Cinder leaves home for a servant job at the castle. But it isn’t long before her sister Ella is brought to the castle herself—the most dangerous place in all the kingdom for both her and Cinder. Cinder and Ella is a Cinderella story like no other and one you’ll never forget.

Okay, first things first, I hate the story of Cinderella. She is such a doormat! I thought that this book would be different, meaning she would actually not act like a slave. I was surprised that this tale is not different in the slightest. After their father died, Cinder has basically become a slave to her family and Ella does Cinder's duty when she can't. Cinder has to run away, yes I said run away and not confront her problems. Since we were little didn't adults tell us "you can't runaway from your fears, you have to confront them"?, so this book the heroine does exactly opposite.

I really did like the character of Ella though, she was nice to everyone, she can and will defend herself (especially from obnoxious knights), and tries to help her sister out whenever she can. When Lemon was focusing on her, the book was a real delight. The times when she wasn't, not so much. I felt like this book wasn't really enjoyable, it didn't excite me and it didn't make me want more. The prince, the main antagonist in book, wasn't very well thought out, and didn't really seem evil, just really annoying. I mean, he just sends out his various knights to do his bidding, not very passionate about his terrible deeds, eh?

Lemon's writing style was very Grimm's fairy tales-like, and personally I did not find that appealing, more confusing.

This book was interesting but not very exciting, certainly not for boys, and rather boring.

2.5/5

Book Battle Update: This is my fifth book read in the book battle, yippee! I'm beating Maddz 5-4, I guess that was one good thing about this book!

This book will be released November 8. Preorder it on Amazon.

In My Mailbox (11)

Teaser Tuesday 7/5

Teaser Tuesday is weekly meme hosted by Mizb at Should be Reading

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!
• Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!

This week's teaser is from:

Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld

And the teasers are:

1.Alek stood there, his hand on the doorknob. He should be heading up, leaving these godless creatures behind. But he'd spent seven long nights watching the eggs and wondering what would emerge from them. In another few moments he would finally see.

2. At least it was clear enough that the creature didn't eat humans. It was far to small for that, and too.... appealing, even with it's strange excess of skin. Somehow the large eyes seemed wise and sad. Alek found himself wanting to pick up the animal and comfort it.

The creature extended a tiny hand.

Happy 4th of July!

Hey guys! So guess what... it's Fourth of July! Wow, I've already done half a year of blogging. I feel so proud of myself! Have a great, epic, awesome, exciting, wonderful day with family and friends. Enjoy the fireworks, and try to read a few (or a lot) pages. I know I will!

Uglies

I'm a big fan of dystopian (for those who don't know the definition of dystopian is

• dystopia - state in which the conditions of life are extremely bad as from deprivation or oppression or terror) books, so naturally I was interested in this one by Scott Westerfeld.

Summary: Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license -- for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there.

But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world -- and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

This book has a very distinctive take on the human race's future, at the start it seems as though it's gone for better, unlike most depictions of the human race in dystopia. After age 16 everyone gets to be pretty and have life be one constant stream of parties -- awesome, right? But as the story goes on Tally discovers that really their government is quite ruthless and that being pretty is really just like being in a really fun prison. Key word, prison.

I like the character development of Tally, she starts out longing to be pretty.Then with the help of her new friends Shay and David she starts to see how ugly the pretty world is, and why being pretty is just surrender.

This book dragged and took a while to get going, but when it did, boy was it fun!

I found Tally's narration interesting, I loved her very unique take on the world and how matter-of-fact she was.

The world in this book is very intriguing, because though they are humans, they separate themselves a lot, calling us "rusties" for our obsession with metal and make us sound foolish at every chance they get.

This book was a brilliant dystopian novel that will leave readers begging for the sequel.

5/5

Book Battle Update: This is my fourth book read in the book battle, now me and Maddz are all tied up!