tiny pink books

The Passage by Justin Cronin
Ballantine Books, 2010.

You may have been wondering, “Where the heck is Laura?” during these past few weeks.  Well, dear friends, I’ll tell you where I’ve been–stuck with my nose buried in this monster of a book, The Passage.  I received an ARC of this at a conference and, despite the 700+ pages, decided to start a long process of lugging this brick around until I finished it.  It’s not exactly a page turner, for me anyway, but I slogged through every page for, despite it being the opposite of the type of books I like, it was compelling enough that I absolutely had to finish it.

A suspense/horror/scifi novel, The Passage is about vampires (or a vampire-like monster anyway), the end of the world, the last remaining people of the human race and their salvation.  Epic plot to go with the page length.  Recommended for readers who like Stephen King’s epics.  For me, I found The Passage more intriguing and interesting than frightening, but that’s fine by me.

Gone by Michael Grant
Harper Teen, 2008

One day in a small coastal Californian town, everyone over the age of 14 disappears.  One second, they’re there and the next…gone.  It’s an interesting premise and the book completely delivers enough movie-like thrills to keep even a reluctant reader turning the 500+ pages.  As the children and teens left fend for themselves and start to form their own society, some fight for survival while others fight for power.  Add to the mix a rise of superhero-like mutant powers that start springing up amongst the people (and animals!) and you have yourself a very fun, very action packed read.   It may be simple and a bit formulaic, but the plot moves along at television/movie paces, delivering consistent action and dramatic highs.

The start of a series with two other books now out, Gone is a great book for boys (though it has a diverse enough cast to appeal to action/scifi seeking girls as well) and would work pretty well for the middle school set.

Farewell to Arms

Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
1929
First off, let me just say that I have absolutely loved all the Hemingway that I have encountered thus far.  He makes me want to go camping and hunt with my bare hands or fight a bull or something.  This was no exception, even though the ending left me furious and frustrated (and sad, sad, sad, sad, sad!).

A Farewell to Arms is a love and war story with some of the most interesting characters I’ve ever met on the page.  Lieutenant Henry, the main character, is serving in World War I in the Italian army, despite the fact that he is an American.  Complicated, yet oh so macho much?  Check.  He falls in love with Catherine Barkley, a British nurse who is stationed in Italy.  Catherine starts off crazy and soon becomes, well, interesting.  I’ve read some comments that describe Catherine as a sexist portrayal of a woman, but I found to be much more intriguing and complicated than that.  She and Lieutenant Henry embark on an intense, war hospital-based courtship that is all fairytale and no reality.  There’s love, there’s sexy banter, there’s some tough guy war stuffs (it is Hemingway, after all), a bit of adventure and them, of course, some tragedy.  It’s all very good and I think this is one of those classics for everyone.

Also, I should add that I listened to this in audio format.  How did this come to be?  I desperately needed a new audiobook for my commute home and my holds for the latest teen werewolf love story hadn’t come through yet, so I found myself browsing until I picked this one up.  I usually avoid the classics or anything really that could be defined as “literature” when it comes to audio format, but I figured that Hemingway is so short and blunt and downright uncomplicated that I could follow in audio format…and I was right!

Maze Runner by James Dashner
Delacorte Books, 2009

The first in a soon to be trilogy, Maze Runner is a YA science fiction book about a colony of boys living in a strange, isolated environment surrounded by a giant maze.  While their general memories are in tact, mysteriously enough, the specifics of their memories (who they are, how they came to be there, etc.) are gone.  When 16-year-old Thomas arrives to the colony, slowly, things begin to fall apart.  The writing is basic, but it gets the job done with an efficiency that works.  With enough fast-paced action and psychological mystery to keep most readers turning the pages, Maze Runner is a fun and intriguing read.  Although the ending leaves a little to be desires, I’m pretty sure I’ll still be excited to read the sequel when it comes out.  While there’s an inevitable comparison to The Hunger Games, Maze Runner is different, with much less character development and internal drama.  It’s a fun, fast paced book that sets up a trilogy.  Recommended to reluctant readers!

Lockdown:  Escape From Furnace by Alexander Gordon Smith
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), 2009

When fourteen-year-old Alex is framed for a murder, he is sent to the Furnace, a new, state of the art prison for juvenile offenders.  The Furnace is a brutal place, built deep in the bowels of the earth, offering tortures far worse than death.  Facing violent gangs, hard labor, mutated evil monsters, and more, Alex must try to do what has never been done before–escape.

A roller coaster from the very beginning, Lockdown is definitely a page turner.  While the writing feels a bit simple and the plot and characters are a little predictable (though it’s easy to identify with them), the book remains fun and exciting from cover to cover.  It’s violent, dark, and brutal, yet never really pushes the gore or language too far for younger readers.  Complete with cliff hanger ending, this is thriller that will leave readers hanging for the next installment.

I’d recommend this book to reluctant readers (boys, mostly!) who want to move onto something a little bit darker than the Alex Rider books.  Although I can see those readers crossing over and enjoying this too, I think readers who enjoyed books like The Compound will be satisfied with Lockdown.  Definitely not for readers seeking melodrama, sophistication or lyrical language though.

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
Simon Pulse, 2009

In Leviathan, a steampunk alternate history of World War I, Scott Westerfeld has created a wonderfully imaginative world with characters as likable as they come.  Telling the stories of Deryn Sharp, a spunky and tough girl posing as a boy soldier in the British army and Aleksander Ferdinand, son of the Archduke and on the run from his own country of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  In Westerfeld’s world, the British, known as The Dawinists, have followed Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theories with a twist of genetic engineering to create animals for battle and transport.  The Germans, known as the Clankers, use engine powered iron machines (think steampunk meets mecha) to do their bidding.  The result is a spectacular adventure–fun, imaginative, and meticulously detailed (yet never dry).

If you can tell already, I loved this book.  I’m a fan of Westerfeld’s previous work with the Uglies series and Leviathan has surpassed my expectations.  I should also mention that the illustrations, by Keith Thompson, are excellent and really contributed to the feel of the story.  I guess the thing that I was most impressed with in Leviathan, was Westerfeld’s ability to create a world with so many details, both historical and fantastic, yet still have lifelike characters and an exciting plot with much drama.  Go Scott!

I’d recommend this book to, uhh, everyone.  But seriously, this book is timely in that it is decidedly steampunk, which is currently exploding on the hipster front (has anyone picked up Make magazine lately?).  I can see this book working for a lot of different audiences (the fantasy readers, the scifi readers, the nostalgic adventure readers).  I think this is be a great book for adults, teens, and tweens who want adventure, a little imagination, and a lot of fun.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Scholastic, 2009

The much anticipated sequel to The Hunger Games, Catching Fire picks up where The Hunger Games left us.  Katniss Everdeen has returned to District 13 to a new life of luxury after winning the brutal, teenage deathmatch in the last book.  Although she has space, money, and food to spare for the first time in her life, Katniss is not at peace.  Tormented by nightmares and trapped in a fake relationship with her companion winner, Peeta, Katniss misses the woods and her best friend/potential true love, Gale.  Peace does not last long.  With the Districts growing more and more restless, inspired in part by Katniss’s move to defy The Capital and refuse to kill her partner, Peeta, in last year’s Hunger Games, Katniss knows that she and those she loves will never experience peace from the controlling Capital.

I’m not going to go too far into the plot so as not to spoil it for anyone, but let me just say this:  Catching Fire is just as full of nail biting excitement and action as The Hunger Games.  I thought that The Hungers Games was an outstanding book and Catching Fire lives up to it in every way.  Catching Fire is a little bit more mature and a little bit darker (in both violence and mood).  The characters are more developed, as is the political landscape of the world in which they live.  While the ending leaves off at a cliffhanger, I think readers will be more than satisfied.  This series is turning out to be one of the most widely appealing, fun, and thought provoking ones available.  Recommended to teens and adults who want a page turner with action and a well crafted dystopia.

Tomorrow When the War Began by John Marsden
Pan Macmillian, 1993

Even though it’s been out since 1993, I recently keep hearing about The Tomorrow series, an Australian series of YA books about a group of teenagers surviving an invasion and subsequent war in their small, rural town.  It’s an epic series, consisting of seven books and a whole further spin-off series.  The premise of the first book, Tomorrow, When the War Began, was too good for me to resist–a group of seven friends, led by Ellie Linton, travel to a remote part of the bush for an unsupervised camping trip and return to discover that their country has been invaded.  Their family and friends are all missing and soldiers are patrolling the town, hunting down remaining citizens like themselves.  What follows is a story that’s half survival and half warfare, as the group tries to set up a camp and fight guerrilla attacks against the invading army.

Although I overall liked this book, although I had some reservations.  I just felt like the plot went up and down too much in terms of the action.  Not just warfare action either–any type of plot movement took a good long while to develop.  The first signs of the war took more than fifty pages to appear.  When it finally does get going though, Tomorrow was hard to put down.  The emotional experiences, especially terror, of Ellie and her friends were told in such descriptive detail that it came right of the page and kept me up all night.  Unfortunately, these intense experiences were surrounded by so many long passages full of practical details (descriptions of the camping site, descriptions of the supplies, etc.) that the book really dragged.

Overall, I liked this book.  It was interesting and, at times, absolutely riveting.  I just wish it had been paced more evenly.  I’d still recommend it for readers seeking a well developed series, as it looks like the later books get more and more convoluted and intense.  It’d be hard to hand this to a reluctant reader, but for readers patient enough to get through the slower parts of the book, there is a good premise and some very interesting characters in here.  As for me, I don’t think I’m hooked enough on the series to read on…at least for a long while.

The Compound by S.A. Bodeen
Feiwel and Friends, 2008

Eli is the 15-year-old son of a mega rich, genius founder of a major technology company (think Bill Gates) in Seattle, Washington. His father, obsessed with the threat of nuclear war, has built an incredible underground compound where he and his family will live out a 15 year nuclear fallout. Only, when the family is rushed into the compound one night, under the threat of nuclear way, things don’t go smoothly, leaving Eli’s twin Eddie and his grandmother locked outside, presumably to die. Six years later, with not a word from the outside world, Eli has grown used to a sad and drastic life of routine in the compound. But, as the food supply grows low and Eli’s father pushes the entire family towards a horrific and immoral solution, Eli begins to question everything he has known of his father, the compound, and life as he knows it.

The premise of The Compound is terrifically cliche…and everything about the book–the characters, their motivations, the plot–really works on this level. It’s like a really good, cheesy action movie that keeps you hooked, even though years of television and movie watching have trained you to know what’s coming. The characters, especially, the father, are cartoonish caricatures in some ways…but that only adds to the fun of The Compound. Bodeen has managed to write a novel that reads in an almost cinematic way (and it would make a great movie!).

Perfect for reluctant readers and boys who enjoy things like the Anthony Horowitz novels. Oh and I listened to the audio version, which was well read.

Hatchet by Gary Paulson
Bradbury Press, 1987

I know, I know, Hatchet is way old and is such a standard part of every children’s book collection.  It’s incredible that I never got around to reading it until now.  I like disaster/survival stories and I needed something that was available and on the shelf immediately for a drive home one day!  Hatchet was there and here we go.

Hatchet is an exciting story about an amazingly adaptable boy named Brian who is stranded alone in the Canadian wilderness after a plane crash on a single engine plane.  With no rescue on the way, Brian must figure out how to survive with no food, no special knowledge, and only a small hatchet.  As he slowly learns how to use the environment and the hatchet to create fire, find food, hunt, fish, etc, he also struggles emotionally with his memories of home and his parent’s recent divorce.  It’s an interesting story, if a bit didactic at times.

The best thing about Hatchet for me, of course, is the development of Brian’s survival skills.  It’s exciting and, although he is a frustratingly slow to learn characters sometimes, I was quite impressed with his bravery and determination.  The emotional moments of Hatchet were the really droll parts for me.  Maybe it’s just that we’ve come a long way since 1987, but the whole tortured child over his parents split was, I don’t know, kind of silly considering the other odds he had to fight again (wolves, bears and a deranged moose!).  It’s still a good story though and I’ve noticed that we recently got in a new edition with an updated cover that doesn’t scream 1987 anymore.  I think the story will still be loved by children and tweens (especially boys) seeking adventure stories or stories about survival.

I also have to add that I listened to the audiobook…and it was probably the worst audiobook I’ve ever heard!  Terrible, overly dramatic reading and mindlessly place mood music.  It was hard to get through it, even though I enjoyed the story itself.