Review: Uglies

Uglies

Scott Westerfeld

Simon Pulse

Description: Everybody gets to be supermodel gorgeous. What could be wrong with that? 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.

Review: I found this a great book. Taking a hard look at humanity. In a world driven by beauty obsessed society can one person truly stay unique. This book take a look at peer pressure in the purest form for any sixteen year old fitting in is a major part of life. We look at Tally, a strong main character, to stay true to herself and be an individual. Filled with self doubt and confusion Tally has to decide to change into what society accepts or rage against society. We cheer her on as she fights to be herself in a world that rewards conformity. This book makes us care about all the characters and root for them to succeed in the face of insurmountable odds. This book pulls you in and keeps you reading with the wonderful world Scott Westerfeld creates. This book is for anyone who thinks being beautiful will solve all their problems.



Review: Immoral

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Immoral

Brian Freeman

St. Martin's Paperback

 

 

Description: Lieutenant Jonathan Stride is suffering from an ugly case of déjà vu. For the second time in a year, a beautiful teenage girl has disappeared off the streets of Duluth, Minnesota - gone without a trace, like a bitter gust off Lake Superior. The two victims couldn't be more different. First it was Kerry McGrath, bubbly, sweet sixteen. And now Rachel Deese, strange, sexually charged, a wild child. The media hounds Stride to catch a serial killer, and as the search carries him from the icy stillness of the northern woods to the erotic heat of Las Vegas, he must decide which facts are real and which are illusions. And Stride finds his own life changed forever by the secrets he uncovers. Secrets that stretch across time in a web of lies, death, and illicit desire. Secrets that are chillingly immoral.

 

Review: Let me start by saying this is a new to me author. Now I am kicking myself for passing this book by so many times at the bookstore. I really did like this book. For a debut book I must applaud Mr. Freeman. I am now a fan and will read the rest of the series.

 

 Now on to the book. This book is really a page turner and I could not put it down, Okay I had to go to work. I wanted to call out so I could finish it but in the end I went to work. I found myself thinking about the story and trying to figure out "who did it"all day. This book has so many twists and turns you do not see coming that it keeps you on the edge of your seat and your pulse racing. The fast pace action was amazing. I ended saying up all night to finish this book and I was happy when it all came together in the end . This book is a must read for anyone who likes thrillers. I can not praise it enough. This gets my highest rating available.

 

 

 

Review: Vampire High

Vampire High

Douglas Rees

Delacorte Books for Young Readers

 

 

Description:It doesn’t take long for Cody Elliot to realize that his new high school is a little different. The other students are supernaturally strong, don’t like the sunlight, and are always placing orders at the local blood bank. When his new friend shows him his fangs, Cody doesn’t need any more clues—these kids are vampires! As Cody struggles to fit into this secretive community, he disrupts centuries of human-vampire segregation, with some serious—and some seriously funny—consequences.

Review: This book puts a new and unique spin on the vampire tales we have all hear and read before. I really enjoyed this book it was a fun read with serious issues if you read between the lines. I did like how Cody wanted to be treated as an equal and be judged fairly. Not just pass because of the schools need for humans for water sports. Cody grows up a little and you find yourself hoping it works out for him. You can see him struggle with fitting in. Being bullied by the other humans because he is not content with the way things are. Despite all the odd against him he does manage to find some friend and in the end finish freshmen year.



this gets   

 

 

 

Review : Gone by Michael Grant

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gone

Michael Grant

Harper Teen

 

Description: In the blink of an eye. Everyone disappears. GONE.

Except for the young. Teens. Middle schoolers. Toddlers. But not one single adult. No teachers, no cops, no doctors, no parents. Just as suddenly, there are no phones, no Internet, no television. No way to get help. And no way to figure out what's happened.

Hunger threatens. Bullies rule. A sinister creature lurks. Animals are mutating. And the teens themselves are changing, developing new talents--unimaginable, dangerous, deadly powers--that grow stronger by the day.

It's a terrifying new world. Sides are being chosen, a fight is shaping up. Townies against rich kids. Bullies against the weak. Powerful against powerless. And time is running out: On your birthday, you disappear just like everyone else...

 

 

 

Review: Wow!!!

This is the first dystopian book I have ever read and if they are all this good I am hooked. I found this book a page turner from the start. The fantastic plot was well written and very interesting. I also liked how the characters developed and we got to know them all. You can instantly relate to the teen in the book.  "Gone " is both frightening and captivating at the same time. It is fascinating to see how these teens deal with adult situations that are thrust upon them in the most stressful times of their young lives. The violence in the book is a bit upsetting (kids do die) , but it relates to the story. I am going to read the complete series. I am compelled to see what happens next, and how they survive the next chapter and catastrophic events that will surely befall them.

 

 

I give this



Review : The Doll People

The Doll People 

 Ann M. Martin & Laura Godwin

Pictures by Brian Selzick

Hyperion Book

 

 

Review: My daughter and I both have read this book. We both enjoyed. This book is about Annabelle Doll. A hundred year old eight year old doll house doll, and her adventure to find her lost aunt, who has been missing for fifty years. I found this book very imaginative and interesting. Great character development that at some points you forget your reading about dolls. The mystery of what happened to Auntie Doll kept us reading. The danger (centered around the family cat) kept us engaged as well. This is a great book for younger children to read and learn about fantasy, also anyone who wondered what happens to our toys at night.

    

We gave this book 

out of 5

TBR Tuesday

 

 

 

Right now I am reading

 

I am only about 60 pages into it, but good so far

 

 

 

The next to read is an adult book. I have noticed I have not read any book off my shelf for a while. I have read enough YA to discuss them with my kids for weeks.

 

 

I have heard a good things about this book and people have been praising it for a while so I caved and bought it.

 

 

 

Mailbox Monday

 

 

 

 

Ok I have been looking through the book I have read since May and I noticed one thing I have not read any adult book in four months . Well I have to correct that, so I got some new adult mysteries I am looking forward to reading .

 

TITLE: Darkfever

AUTHOR: Karen Marie Moning

PUBLISHER: Dell

 

 

Book Description :MacKayla Lane’s life is good. She has great friends, a decent job, and a car that breaks down only every other week or so. In other words, she’s your perfectly ordinary twenty-first-century woman.

Or so she thinks…until something extraordinary happens.

When her sister is murdered, leaving a single clue to her death–a cryptic message on Mac’s cell phone–Mac journeys to Ireland in search of answers. The quest to find her sister’s killer draws her into a shadowy realm where nothing is as it seems, where good and evil wear the same treacherously seductive mask. She is soon faced with an even greater challenge: staying alive long enough to learn how to handle a power she had no idea she possessed–a gift that allows her to see beyond the world of man, into the dangerous realm of the Fae….

As Mac delves deeper into the mystery of her sister’s death, her every move is shadowed by the dark, mysterious Jericho, a man with no past and only mockery for a future. As she begins to close in on the truth, the ruthless Vlane–an alpha Fae who makes sex an addiction for human women–closes in on her. And as the boundary between worlds begins to crumble, Mac’s true mission becomes clear: find the elusive Sinsar Dubh before someone else claims the all-powerful Dark Book–because whoever gets to it first holds nothing less than complete control of the very fabric of both worlds in their hands….

 

 

 

TITLE: Midnight Caller

AUTHOR: Leslie Tentler

PUBLISHER: Mira Books

 

BOOK DESCRIPTION: Late-night radio show psychologist Rain Sommers is used to the crazies who call in to rage from the back alleys of the French Quarter and the shadows of the bayou. But one caller's chilling obsession with her and her long-ago murdered mother - an iconic singer beloved among the city's Goth community - has even the jaded Rain running scared as a sadistic serial killer known as the Vampire prowls New Orleans.

FBI agent Trevor Rivette is convinced her midnight caller and the killer are one and the same. As it becomes disturbingly clear that the Vampire has a sick bloodlust only Rain can satisfy, she allows Trevor to get closer and closer. But he soon discovers that his secretive past and troubled present are intertwined - and that he may die trying to keep Rain's fate out of a madman's control.

 

 

 

TITLE:  The Bride Collector

AUTHOR:  Ted Dekker

PUBLISHER: Center Street

 

 

BOOK DESCRIPTION: FBI Special agent Brad Raines is facing his toughest case yet. A Denver serial killer has killed four beautiful young women, leaving a bridal veil at each crime scene, and he's picking up his pace. Unable to crack the case, Raines appeals for help from a most unusual source: residents of the Center for Wellness and Intelligence, a private psychiatric institution for mentally ill individuals whose are extraordinarily gifted.

It's there that he meets Paradise, a young woman who witnessed her father murder her family and barely escaped his hand. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Paradise may also have an extrasensory gift: the ability to experience the final moments of a person's life when she touches the dead body.

In a desperate attempt to find the killer, Raines enlists Paradise's help. In an effort to win her trust, he befriends this strange young woman and begins to see in her qualities that most 'sane people' sorely lack. Gradually, he starts to question whether sanity resides outside the hospital walls...or inside.

As the Bride Collector picks up the pace-and volume-of his gruesome crucifixions, the case becomes even more personal to Raines when his friend and colleague, a beautiful young forensic psychologist, becomes the Bride Collector's next target.

The FBI believes that the killer plans to murder seven women. Can Paradise help before it's too late?

 

 

 

 

 

These are all new authors to me and I look forward to reading them this month. Let me know your thoughts on them and if you have read anything from them.