tiny pink books

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!

Wherever Nina Lies by Lynn Weingarten
Point, 2009

Ellie’s sister Nina disappeared two years ago.  Although most people in her life have given up hope and moved on, Ellie can’t stop thinking about Nina.  When a clue to Nina’s disappearance surfaces in Ellie’s world, she cannot help by follow the trail, suddenly finding herself on a cross country road trip with a near strange named Sean, possibly the only person who understands what Ellie is going through.  As each clue leads her to another, the mystery of Nina’s disappearance grows deeper…and Ellie finds herself quickly wrapped in a world of murder, mystery and romance.

I was very impressed with Wherever Nina Lies.  Not only does it manage to take the mystery/suspense element of the story and turn it into a very fast and exciting read, but it also manages to take the emotional element of Ellie’s loss (not to mention the lack of closure she experiences) and make that sadness palpable.  While I will say this is a tearjerker (yes, it made me tear up in public…alas!), it is first and foremost a page turner.  From cover to cover, I could not put this book down.  Every spare second that I had over the two days I read this, I had my nose buried in this book.  Even though I found the ending to be unrealistic and a little “lifetime movie of the week,” I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Recommended to reluctant readers (especially girls).  I think readers of both suspense and drama will like this, as there is plenty for everyone.  Adult readers open to teen books will enjoy this too…it’s definitely a teen book, but it’s also definitely a quality book.

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.

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.

The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong
HarperCollins, 2009

Chloe Saunders is a normal, albeit sheltered teenager…until the day she discovers that she can see ghosts.  Sent to a group home and deemed schizophrenic for her visions, Chloe finds herself completely removed from what was her life.  As if that weren’t enough, Lyle House, the group home Chloe is locked in, is full of mystery and other kids who seem to have strange powers along the same line as Chloe’s.  Full of unease and a little bit of creepiness, The Summoning is a decent scary book.

I think one of the best things about The Summoning is that the scariness is subtle enough for younger young adults, without being too babyish.  There’s a very occasional, PG-13 swear word, but overall the content is fairly tame for a horror book.  The writing style is very soap opera/movie-ish, but that sort of works to The Summoning’s favor, given that the main character has a thing for film directing.  All in all, this was a reasonably entertaining book.  I’d recommend it to fans of Twilight (especially the youngish ones) and readers looking for girly horror.  Not recommended for readers seeking intensely scary books, these are creepy, but just not all that frightening.  Also, the ending cannot even be described as a cliffhanger-it’s such a shameless non-ending that you will have to pick up the second book to finish not just the story, but the final conversation in the book!  This may frustrate some readers (and intigue and excite others)!

I listened to the audio version of this book…it had a pretty good reader and I recommend it for a long drive.

Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott
Simon Pulse, 2008

Living Dead Girl is told from the point of view from Alice, only that’s not really her name.  Alice was abducted by Ray, a sadistic, abusive kidnapper when she was ten years old.  Now 15, and outgrowing her child’s body, despite the fact that Ray underfeeds her to keep her small and underdeveloped, Alice knows that her time is limited. Alice knows that there was another Alice before her and that she was killed when she grew up.  Ray wants her to find a new Alice for him, help him kidnap her, and train her to his tastes.  Alice wants nothing more than death to escape her captor, however, she is trapped to Ray’s will as he threatens to return to her childhood home and murder her parents if she does not do what he says.  It’s about the darkest and twisted a subject matter you could have in a book.

I can’t say that I enjoyed Living Dead Girl exactly.  It’s one of those books that’s just so horrific and dark that it should be hard to read.  At the same time though, the plight of Alice is so frightening that I could not put this book down.  Written in a sparse, painful voice, the character of Alice is compelling and, though most of us can only imaging what it would be like to be her, easy to identify with in a strange way.  I found this book to be disturbing, but I also thought that there is a removal from reality that makes it readable.  This type of subject matter is hard to read about and it seems a bit sensationalized about the way it is treated in Living Dead Girl that is sort of like a teenage Lifetime Original Movie…but darker.  I would recommend this book to fans of Speak who can handle the subject matter.  Reader seeking an equally compelling, but more sensitive treatment of sexual abuse and violence should stick to the excellent The Lovely Bones or Lucky by Alice Sebold.

The Running Man by Stephen King/Richard Bachman

So after The Long Walk, I thought I’d try giving another book by Stephen King, once again written under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman (I’ve got an old, falling apart paperback with them both included).  The Running Man is another science fiction novel set in a bleak, but not too distant, future in the US where Ben Richards enters a deadly game show contest to try and make money to care for his sick daughter.  “The Running Man” is a televised game show where the contestant, Ben Richards, is proclaimed to be a deadly enemy of the government and the public.  He is given a lump of money and is sent running.  His goal is to evade capture and execution by the law enforcement, civilians, and a team of professional hunters.  He also must produce and mail in two video clips of himself every 24 hours.  Every night, his clips are broadcast to the public, where he is slandered as a murderer and scoundrel to incite the public into killing or turning him in for monetary reward.  Basically, he doesn’t stand a chance.  For every hour that he survives, he wins a certain amount of money (which is to go to his family in the inevitable event that he is caught and killed).  If he is caught, he will be killed.  Basically, King has created another live or die game that focuses on the human fascination on the spectacle of violence.

The world in The Running Man echos the same dystopian US that King wrote in The Long Walk, except the world of The Running Man is somehow a little more bleakly hopeless and more divided between rich and poor.  I don’t know why, because The Long Walk was certainly desperately hopeless, but there is absolutely no glimmer of happiness or hope in The Running Man.  From the very first chapter of the book, it’s somehow evident that Ben Richards, his family, and the entire human race is doomed to failure.  The pace of The Running Man is much faster, but there’s something about the hopelessness that nullifies the exciting race of the game.  As the number of pages left in the book dwindled and the plot grew ever more dire, I became annoyed with the book.  As exciting and intriguing as the concept is, The Running Man just doesn’t go anywhere.  Although parts of it are fun and, on a whole, the book is very much readable, I found the book to be a little disappointing.  I’d recommend it to die hard Stephen King fans or to readers needing more after the more interesting and faster page turning Long Walk…

Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz
Puffin, 2004

The first of the extremely popular Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz, Stormbreaker begins with the suspicious death of Alex’s uncle and guardian.  Unwittingly, Alex is pulled into the mystery and ends up discovering that his uncle was actually a spy for the British government.  In a twist of unlikely, but enjoyable, fate, Alex takes his uncle’s place, becoming the first 14-year-old international super spy.  He is sent on a crash training course in special operations before he is sent on a dangerous and exciting mission.

While there’s nothing all too new or intelligent within Stormbreaker, I must admit that it was an exciting and fast read.  I’m not even into action/suspense thrillers, but after seeing this book go out of the library again and again in the hands of 9-13 year-old boys, I decided that it was time to take a gander.  The character of Alex is very likable–he is smart, he is talented, he is witty, even in the face of danger, and even though he was unaware, his uncle has been preparing him for this job with a childhood full of karate, foreign languages, and extreme sports.  The situation and mystery surrounding Alex is fairly standard, but it plays out in an exciting way, with each chapter bring more death defying adventure.  I was also impressed with the treatment of violence in this book.  It’s neither too violent to be unfit for young readers nor is it too glossed over to be childish.  The story plays out exactly as one would expect it to and, of course, leaves off at a point where we can expect more Alex Rider adventures to come.  I appreciate this book for giving the young adult male audience some training before they get up to Tom Clancy and James Patterson (although Patterson has a series of YA novels now too!).  What more can I say?  Recommended for readers ages 9-13.