Smek for President! by Adam Rex

Tip is frustrated.  She and J.Lo saved the world but no one knows it.  Her mom has finally decided to start acting like a mom when Tip has been taking care of herself her whole life.  So when J.Lo suggests visiting the Boov's new home planet, New Boovworld, Tip agrees, even though her mom told her no.  The two pack up Slushious (their flying car) and head to New Boovworld to clear up the whole misunderstanding about J.Lo letting the Gorg know where the Boov were and all.  Things do not go as planned.

I loved The True Meaning of Smekday and was very excited for a sequel I didn't even know was coming.  It did not disappoint.  Maybe it wasn't quite as delightful as the first one, but it was still pretty delightful.

We are reunited with all our old friends, Tip, her mom, J.Lo, Dan Landry, who's taken all the credit for conquering the Gorg, and meet lots of fabulous new characters.  We are finally introduced to the legendary Captain Smek, who's having some trouble on New Boovworld.  It seems that some of the Boov are calling for the first presidential election the Boov have ever had!  Captain Smek is in trouble.  But capturing Public Enemy Number One (who happens to be J.Lo) might make him look a bit better.  When J.Lo is arrested and put in prison on New Boovworld, Tip teams up with a friendly flying billboard she names Bill to try and set things right.

Like the first book, beneath all the hilarity and silly antics of the Boov, it's a story about family and friendship.  Tip is struggling with some growing pains and the relationship with her mom, who she knows loves her but won't get off her back.  And as much as Tip says she doesn't care if no one knows she saved the world, she does, in fact, really care that no one knows she saved the world!  I mean, SHE SAVED THE WORLD! 

The story was funny, sweet and had some great twists and surprises.  And lots of hilarious Boovian accents.

Smek for President! comes out February 10, 2015.

The League of Seven by Alan Gratz, illustrated by Brett Helquist

Unlike most people, Archie Dent knows that monsters are real.  That's because his parents are members of the Septemberist Society who protect the world from the monstrous Mangleborns.  They are currently trapped under ground, but every thousand years or so they rise again but have always been defeated by The League of Seven, who form in the time of need.  The Mangleborn are now waking, and when Archie's parents and the rest of the society is taken over by the Mangleborn, Archie sets out to save the day, and maybe form the new League of Seven himself.

This was a great start to the series, plus it was steampunk, which I very much enjoy.  It's 1875 America, and the reason everything is run on steam is because the Mangleborn feed off electricity.  It's the Septemberist's job to make sure electricity isn't discovered, and put an end to when it is.  There was some good world building going on, most mysterious is that all contact has been lost with Europe, which might mean it's been overtaken by the Mangleborn.  That was just mentioned in passing, but I'm sure it will show up again later.  Essentially the world kind of gets remade every time the Mangleborn show up and destroy everything.

The League of Seven is always made up of seven kinds of people - a tinker (like an inventor or mechanic), a law-bringer, a scientist, a trickster, a warrior, a strong man, and a hero.  Archie is convinced he is the hero of the new League of Seven, even though he can't quite figure out what his strengths are.  He meets two other kids around his age while trying to save his parents, Fergus, a young mechanic, and Hachi, a First Nations girl out for revenge.  It's after they start working together that Archie decides they're the new League of Seven, with Fergus as the tinker and Hachi as the warrior.

Various historic figures show up in the story.  We have Thomas Edison, the crazed scientist who's determined to harness electricity no matter what the cost.  There's Tesla, a paranoid recluse and member of the Septemberist Society.  There's also lots of delightful mechanical creations, I mean, it's steampunk.  So we have the ever polite Mr. Rivets, Archie's family's Tik Tok servant, who can fill a variety of roles from pilot to protector depending on which card is inserted in his back.

As the story progresses, Archie, Fergus, and Hachi begin having strange dreams, where they hear the Mangleborn speaking to them, and see Archie's parents working toward freeing one of the monsters (remember, they're brainwashed).  Archie, however, seems to have a strange connection with the monster, who keeps calling him Jandal a Haad and telling him he's made of stone.  As the group struggles to find answers, Archie learns more about the previous Leagues of Seven, and begins to worry that he's not the hero after all, he's something stranger and more dangerous.

It was a great mix of action, adventure, and even a bit of horror (what with monsters eating people).  I also like the entire League wasn't formed by the end of the book.  They may have defeated one monster, but there's plenty more where that came from.  Further members will be found in future books.

And don't you worry, steampunk fans, there are airships.  There are always airships.  There's even a battle while on an airship.  It doesn't get better than that.

The League of Seven comes out August 19, 2014.

Frank Einstein and the Antimatter Motor by Jon Scieszka, illustrated by Brian Biggs

Frank Einstein is a scientist and an inventor.  He's also a kid.  Frank is determined to win this year's Midville Science Prize.  With the winnings, he'll be able to save his grandfather's Fix It! repair shop.  With Frank's invention of two SmartBots, Klink and Klank, he tackles his biggest project of all: an antimatter motor.  But Frank, his friend Watson, and the two robots realizes they have bigger problems to worry about than the science fair: Frank's rival kid-scientist Edison has some evil ideas of his own.

I love the idea of these books.  A series that teaches scientific concepts!  So cool!  This first book looked at the concept of matter, the next book will look at energy, and so on it will go through six planned books.  Really great idea.  And I totally learned things.  For example, on the second page, I learned the correct way to calculate distance between seeing lightening and hearing thunder.  I always thought the number of seconds between them was the number of miles a way the storm was.  Wrong! You have to divide it by five, because there's five seconds between light and sound for every mile.  I've been doing it wrong my whole life.

As for the story itself, I wasn't blown away.  It was a fine lower-middle grade read.  It wasn't quite what I expect from Jon Scieszka, which is really sharp and funny.  I mean, it's quite the undertaking, explaining the entire concept of matter while also making a fun story!  Future books will probably be smoother.  I thought it was perhaps a little clunky, melding the adventure story with the science concepts.  

I liked that along with the story there are diagrams of the scientific concepts.  You can ignore them if you want, but they definitely helped a visual person like me better understand the concepts Frank was using in his inventions.  And aside from the diagrams there were very cute illustrations by Brain Biggs.

I look forward to seeing where the rest of the series goes.

Frank Einstein and the Antimatter Motor comes out August 19, 2014.

These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

Lilac LaRoux is the daughter of the richest man in the galaxy.  Tarver Merendsen is a decorated war hero, but even his medals can't change the fact he's not from a rich family.  When the unthinkable happens, Lilac and Tarver are thrown together and have no one to rely on but each other.  And it's a matter of life and death.

I hate the cover.  And the title is silly.  And it's too bad because I actually quite enjoyed the book.  But if I hadn't gotten it as an ARC I probably would have never bothered to pick it up because, well, it looks like completely fluff, right?  Publishers keep hyping this as "Titanic in space," which doesn't make any sense after reading this.  OK, yes, big fancy thing (in this case, a spaceship) crashes and no one ever thought such a thing could happen.  Lots of people die.  And I guess there's the class issue.  But otherwise?  Not Titanic in space.

But anyway.  To the book itself.  I'm not sure if I can talk about this without there being spoilers.  So this is your spoiler warning.

Altered by Jennifer Rush

Anna has worked with her father for the Branch, and with her responsibilities of typing up reports and filing, she has developed relationships with their four subjects: Nick, intense and quiet; Cas, fun and flirtatious; Trev, smart and her closer friend; and Sam, who Anna loves. They have been genetically altered and their memories wiped, their abilities are exceptional and their pasts unknown. But when the Branch starts taking a greater interest in Anna herself, Anna finds herself allied to the boys that she used to monitor.

Anna and the boys find themselves on the run and they must decide who they can trust and where they can go for information. It doesn't help that one of their own is betraying them. In the end Anna must decide where her loyalties lie and how her hidden past ties in to the four boys'.

I was so excited about this book. I'll own it. Obviously I didn't expect it to be Shakespeare but I thought that it would be gripping in an emotional-sense. There were so many elements that I usually enjoy: emotionally distant love interest, enhanced boys, girls that learn that they are capable of more than they though... I loved the idea that Anna had this double-blind secret that unveils throughout the book. Her love for Sam seemed like icing on the cake!

Alas and alack. The actual follow through was not so good. There were elements that were good. Some of the mystery was well done, interesting twists and great action.

But then there's Anna. Not so great. Anna is pretty Mary Sue-ish and her love for Sam was one-dimensional. There just wasn't really any basis for her devotion nor for his feeling grow for her. Especially as the truth comes out that Sam used to be in a very serious relationship with Anna's older sister. Did I forget to mention that Sam is almost ten years older than Anna? Ick.

You know who I did like? Nick, Cas, and Trev. Much more interesting and dynamic. Who got the short end of the stick when it came to character development and plot time? Nick, Cas, and Trey. Lame.

I've read Erased as well, I hope to have that review up soon-ish, which was better but not at the same time... Ahh well.

The Living by Matt de la Pena

Shy is spending the summer working on a cruise ship.  It seems like a pretty great job, until, on his second trip out, he witnesses a man jump to his death.  Now he's being followed and questioned, even though Shy knows nothing about the man.  Then an enormous earthquake hits California, followed by a tsunami, destroying the ship.


This is the first book in a series.  I hadn't read anything by Matt de la Pena before, even though Mexican Whiteboy has been on my "to read" list forever.

The Living mixes two dystopia/science fiction elements together: natural disaster and virus outbreak.  Before the massive earthquake, we learn that Shy's grandmother and Carmen's (another cruise worker who Shy has a thing for) father both died of Romero disease, a new illness that's spreading over the Mexican border into California.  It kills very quickly, if you aren't diagnosed right away.  After the earthquake, which is huge, off the Richter scale, levels much of the West Coast, the disease runs rampant.  And there's a TERRIBLE SECRET behind the disease, and it's linked to that man Shy saw jump from the ship.

Aside from the dystopian aspects of the book, which yeah, is the main focus, there's a lot in there about class differences.  Shy is all too aware of the difference between him and the people who pay to be on the cruise.  Are their lives worth more than his?  It doesn't seem so, especially after the ship is gone, and Shy is on a lifeboat with a rich girl, Addie who wasn't all that friendly to him before and clearly looked down on him.  But through their shared experience of suffering, they grow closer.

Shy and Addie end up on one of the Hidden Island that are contacted with the company the man who committed suicide worked for.  Shy is reunited with the other ship survivors, only to discover the horrifying truth about Romero disease.  Addie disappears, supposedly with her father, who works with this company, but I'm sure they'll be reunited in a later book.  Shy feels like she betrayed him, even though he's sure Addie couldn't have known what was really going on.

It was a gripping story and I enjoyed it.  A good pick for science fiction fans and fans of dystopia alike.

The Living comes out November 12, 2013.

The Silversix by AJ Lieberman & Daren Rawings

Phoebe has been living on her own since her parents died a year ago.  When a strange man comes looking for her, Phoebe runs for it, taking with her the moon registry her parent's left her.  Phoebe gets nabbed by Child Welfare Services and finds herself living in a home for orphaned children.  She meets five other kids, all who have the same moon registry, all signed by Phoebe's father, all whose parent's died on the same shuttle explosion.  The Silversix set out to find the truth of their parent's deaths, and maybe bring down the most powerful company on Earth.

It was fun, but a lacking in details.  Some kids won't care.  But there wasn't a whole lot of world building. Craven Mining controls pretty much everything, because they control the Hydro-2, some kind of energy source.  But I wasn't totally sure what, exactly, Hydro-2 was, how it was mined, why there were steel bubble, and why there couldn't be any open space.  So I had a lot of questions.  Oh, I was also confused about what the transmission that was sent to Phoebe's location before the shuttle blew up.  What was the transmission?  It wasn't the moon registry, all the kids already had those.  So...what exactly was it that they were looking far? Whatever

So yes, there were holes.  A fair number of holes.  But despite that, it was still an enjoyable read.  Phoebe is spunky, determined and resourceful.  The friends she makes are a rainbow of ethnicities, and they create for themselves their own kind of family.  All does not go smoothly.  The kids get to use their various talents to get themselves out of trouble.

The ending also happened rather quickly, and was again lacking in detail.  Suddenly they're all heroes and Craven is in jail and no more Hydro-2 and all the open space comes back.  Hmm, the more I write about this the more I realize that there was a lot missing from this story.

The art was cute and cartoony.  I didn't like the color pallet so much, I thought it looked a little sickly, that maybe that was intentional to create a feel for the world.  The format was traditional comic panels with very little breaking out of the mold.

Wake Up Missing by Kate Messner

Cat fell out of a tree a couple months ago, and she's still suffering from the concussion.  Headaches, hard to focus, forgetful, Cat wants her old life back.  She and her mother discover a clinic called I-CAN that uses cutting edge gene therapy to help people recover from head injuries.  Cat is eager to start getting better and begins treatment at the clinic, but soon she realizes the doctors' main focus isn't on making her and the other kids well.

This was a good middle grade science fiction read.  And it wasn't too science fictiony.  No space or super computers or interplanetary whatever.  Four kids with concussions are in danger of being implanted with the DNA of past scientific geniuses.  And no, I'm not giving anything away by saying that, because that's on the back of the book.  Kind of dumb, really, because then there's not anything to reveal in the course of the book, but there it is.

Cat, even before her concussion, was struggling with who she was, a classic middle school experience.  We learn that her best friend, Lucy, has recently ditched her, and Cat had spent all her life doing whatever Lucy did, whether she really liked doing it or not.  Now Cat is feeling even less like herself, suffering from memory loss and unable to concentrate on anything. 

Cat goes off to the miracle head injury clinic in the Everglades and finds that there are only five other kids there, all around her age.  Cat is hopeful at first, since two of the other kids who were there before her already seem so much better.  But it isn't long before things don't seem quite right.  It's hard for Cat to piece everything together, because it's so difficult for her to concentrate.  But one kid seems to have undergone a complete personality change and another is confined to her room for mysterious reasons. 

While freaking out about becoming part of a crazy scientific, possible terrorist plot, Cat is also beginning to learn how lead and not just follow and to trust herself.

So good dose of middle school issues and finding yourself, along with science fiction mad-scientist plot.  Good times for all!

Wake Up Missing came out September 10.

The Walking Dark by Robin Wasserman

The Killing Day happened a year ago.  Five perfectly normal people suddenly started killing, and then killed themselves.  12 people were dead, and no one left to explain why, except for one girl, who has no answers to what happened.  After a tornado partially wrecks the town of Oleander and causes a breach in a nearby military complex, the townspeople are prevented from leaving, supposedly for their own good.  But are the soldiers protecting the town from the breach?  Or is the rest of the state being protected from them?

So I didn't finish it.  Not completely.  Around page 250 I really just wanted to know how it was all going to come out.  But the big reveal of what was really going on hadn't even happened yet, and there was another almost 200 pages to go.  I was getting tired of the buildup.  I got it.  Something was afoot.  Everyone was acting crazy and murderous except a select few.  It clearly wasn't natural.  So I started skimming.  And I skimmed my way through the rest of the book and I feel completely satisfied.

I have to say I haven't really liked any of Robin Wasserman's other books.  They've been fine.  They fit in neatly with whatever is popular at the time, be it dystopia or paranormal or whatever so they're always a safe buy.  I was enjoying this one more than I had any of her others when I first started reading it.  It was much darker than any of her others, and also a lot more gripping and interesting.

The story centers around five teenagers.  West, Daniel, Ellie and Jule all witnessed one of the murders on the Killing Day.  Cass killed a baby that day, had has supposedly been in a mental hospital for the past year.  She has no idea why she did it.  The five all have vastly different lives.  West is the golden boy football player.  Ellie is incredibly religious and thinks she hears God, or someone, in her head.  Daniel's father is an alcoholic and he's just trying to care for his younger brother.  And Jule's family runs a huge meth lab.  They were all interesting characters who develop other the course of the story.

But it was taking FOREVER.  At first the slow build was fine.  It made things dramatic.  But I think it just went on too long, as things get worse and worse in the town.  More and more people seem to lose it, and I felt like it was high time for this all to start going somewhere.  Even the prospect of the town trying to burn Cass at the stake was not enough to keep me reading.  I just wanted to know WHY it was all happening.  And the reason why was good too!  It really was.  I just lost the patience to get there.

So...yeah.  How's that for a mixed review.  I recommend it, even though I didn't finish it.  Perhaps you'll be more patient than I am, or be more pulled in.

The Walking Dark came out September 10.

All Our Yesterdays by Christin Terrill

Em has tried everything to stop the creation of Cassandra, a time machine that will destroy the world.  Each time she goes back ends in failure and lands her in the same military prison.  Em has one last chance, and one last thing to try.  She can't fail.

I enjoyed this.  And I appreciated how Christin Terrill got around the tricky situations that time travel causes.  In this version of time travel, traveling in time creates "paradoxes," things that won't change even if other events are altered.  For example, you shouldn't be able to go back in time and shoot your own grandfather.  But in this kind of time travel, you could.  You would cease to be with the death of your grandfather, but a remnant of you would always be there to shoot him.  Time travel can get super confusing, and many writers don't take the time to work out the rules of their time-traveling world.  It's science fiction, and if the rules of the world are established, I am willing to suspended my disbelief.  So well done there.

The book goes back and forth between Em and Finn, who have gone back in time to stop the creation of the time machine, and Mariana, James and Finn (yes, same Finn, just different version) who are living in the time Em and Finn go back to.  Mariana and Em are our two main characters, although both Finns and James play a large part.  Mariana has been in love with James for a while now, but James, who is a genius and at 19 is already working on a Ph.D. thinks of her as a friend and is far too focused on his work.  Mariana will do anything for James.  She finds Finn, James' friend annoying and doesn't like James' focus taken from her.  Em is tough.  She and Finn have been through hell, and they are fiercely determined to fulfill their mission, even though that once they achieve their goal they will cease to be. 

I don't really want to say much more about this one.  I would hate to give anything away.

 I was surprised to realize that All Our Yesterdays is the beginning of a series.  I was surprised because the ending didn't seem to leave much to continue.  I'm sorry that it is a series, actually.  It does well as a stand-alone.

All Our Yesterdays comes out September 3, 2013.

The 100 by Kass Morgan

The only humans left live in a space station orbiting above an Earth destroyed by radiation.  But the space station can only last so long, so its leaders decide on a way to see if Earth is once again safe for human life.  100 juvenile prisoners are sent to Earth.  If they survive, the rest of the human race can follow if they die...they were slated to be executed anyway.

The 100, which hasn't even come out yet, is already in development to be a show on the CW.  It wasn't written specifically for that purpose, but I can see why it got snapped up for a show.  It reads like TV episodes.  It revolves around a collection of characters, all who are hiding dark secrets and chapters, and book itself, ends on dramatic cliff hangers.

The story is split between what's happen on Earth which focuses on juvenile convicts Clark, her ex-boyfriend Wells, who got himself imprisoned so he could go with her and try to earn her forgiveness, and Bellamy, the young man who shot the Chancellor in order to be on the ship with his sister.

On the ship we see through the perspective of Glass, who was supposed to go to Earth but made a run for it in the confusion and made it back to her wealthy family, who were able to secure her a pardon.

Our main character's lives, through slow reveals, are all intertwined.  What did Wells do that was so unforgivable?  Why does Clarke blame him for her parent's execution?  Why was Clarke herself prisoned?  What did Wells do that speed up the process to send the ship to Earth?  What did Glass do to get herself imprisoned?  What is the terrible secret she cannot tell anyone?  Lots of drama.  On Earth, we have a love triangle with Clarke, Bellamy and Wells.  Up in the space station, Glass is reunited with her lower-class love, only to fear he will learn what she's still hiding. 

The world building was pretty good.  A lot is still left unsaid, but it's pretty clear that was deliberate.  Humans left Earth in the first stages of the "Cataclysm" but there has been no detail so far as to what exactly that was.  It's mentioned that some "infected" survivors made their way onto the ship and were quarantined.  Anyone who gets sick on the ship is quarantined.  The space station is split up into classes.  Phoenix is where the wealthy live.  They are the ruling class, they have the best food, better clothing options and more opportunities.  Walden and Arcadia are where the lower class lives.  Their lives are hard.  They cannot come and go around the ship as they please.  They are limited on food and clothing and job opportunities.  Because of limited resources, there is a strict one child per family limit.  Those that disobey are executed.

It's a pretty harsh world.  Execution seems fairly typical.  It doesn't seem that these people living in space have learned to adapt very well.  They're just living off what meager resources they originally brought with them, and as those become less and less, Walden and Arcadia suffer more and Phoenix takes what there is.

I think teens who have enjoyed other dystopias will like this series a lot.  Plenty of drama and romance for all.

The 100 comes out September 3, 2013.

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Everyone belongs to a faction - Abnegation (selflessness), Candor (honesty), Erudite (knowledge), Amity (peace), or Dauntless (courage).  Tris has grown up in Abnegation, the faction dedicated to selfless actions, and the faction that is in charge of the government.  But the Choosing Ceremony is approaching, and Tris has a chance to leave her faction, and family, for another.  Tris knows that if she chooses Dauntless, her life will be forever changed.  Not only will she never really be a part of her family again, but she will have to learn all the skills needed to make it through the physically and mentally challenging Dauntless initiation process.

Summaries of all YA dystopian books will from henceforth begin with "It was the future, and everything sucked."  I finally got around to reading Divergent.  It's been on my list forever, and the movie is coming out, and even though it's not like it's one I need to read in order to sell it to the children (it doesn't need my selling it) I wanted to read one of them.  It was enjoyable.  Nothing especially new under the sun, but enjoyable.

I was reading this on my way to Chicago, and since Divergent takes place in a future Chicago, that was kind of fun.  I would read something and go, "I just went there!"  And it was exciting.  Also, I went to the dystopia panel where Veronica Roth spoke, and hearing her talk about what she was thinking when she wrote the book made reading it all the more interesting.

The book was engaging.  Especially after hearing Veronica Roth speak, I really liked the idea of this community of people deciding to focus on the attributes that they felt were causing suffering in the world.  Some people thought it was ignorance so they dedicated themselves to study.  Some people thought it was violence, so they dedicated themselves to peace.  It's all suppose to work together seamlessly, with each faction contributing what they excel in.  But like so many good ideas, after a while things started to not quite work the way they were suppose to.  And each faction essentially became what they had hated most.  Those dedicated to selflessness become so focused on the needs of others they ignore the needs of their loved ones.  Those dedicated to courage become so focused on showing others how brave they are they turn into bullies, which is form of cowardice.

Spoilers coming up if you haven't read it.  You have, of course.

I liked the story.  Tris was interesting, as was Four, the stoic love interest, and things were swinging all just great until we got to the great mind take over section.  That was a little...weak.  I don't know.  There was a lot of build up.  Why did they want to kill the people that were Divergent?  What where the Erudites planning?  How would they ever get all the Dauntless to fight for them?  Oh.  Mind control.  Well, OK.  I don't know.  I was disappointed.   I was expecting a big reveal and felt a little let down.

Also, kind of disappointed the main point of evil is coming from Erudite, the faction I totally would have chosen.  Much like in Harry Potter, when most people wanted to be in Gryffindor and I wanted to be in Ravenclaw.  I just want to go where the books are!

Rachel Rising: The Shadow of Death by Terry Moore

Rachel wakes up and digs herself out of a shallow grave.  She isn't sure what's happened.  And why she looks so strange.  And why people are freaking out when they see her.  Rachel is dead.  And she's going to find out who killed her and why.

Rachel Rising is another graphic novel I've been hearing about for a while, due to how awesome it was, but hadn't gotten around to getting a copy.  I have finally read the first issue.  It was pretty awesome.

It's very dark.  People are dying in violent ways.  Rachel wakes up with strangulation marks around her neck.  A man gets --> decapitated in elevator doors.  Yeah, dark and violent.  But not gratuitously so, I didn't think.

The story is a mystery.  Rachel is trying to figure out who killed her and who is behind other people dying.  She sees a strange woman, who no one else, with the exception of a little girl, can see, who seems to show up, and then terrible things happen.  And Rachel isn't the only one coming back from the dead.

The first volume is doing a lot of set up.  It establishes some major characters and raises lots of questions and doesn't answer any of them.  I am looking forward to reading the next volume and seeing where it goes.

The art is black and white ink drawings.  For the most part it's in a traditional panel format.  The darkness of the panels fits well with the tone of the story.

Orleans by Sherri L. Smith

Ever since the deadly outbreak of Delta Fever, the entire Gulf Cost has been cut off from the rest of the Outer States.  The people on the outside assume that almost everyone in Orleans is dead.  But that is far from the case.  Fen de la Guerre lives in Orleans. In Orleans, you live with a tribe that corresponds to your blood type.  Blood is the most precious commodity in Orleans, and you need a tribe to protect you.  But Fen's tribe has just been attacked, and now she has her leader's new born daughter, and the promise that she will give the baby a better life.  Daniel is a scientist whose brother died of the Delta Fever.  Daniel is so close to finding the cure.  He believes that going into Orleans itself will help him get there.

I liked the set-up for this story a lot.  No, it's not at all new that there was a deadly outbreak of some kind and part of the U.S. gets quarantined and young people must struggle to survive.  BUT!  Sherri Smith went beyond the rather old and tired trope and created a really interesting way of life.  Delta Fever appears to be a kind of blood disease, and different blood types are effected different ways.  Fen is an O-Positive, and that's a good thing to be.  She has the Fever, but it's not going to make her go crazy, unlike some other blood types.  Because having "clean" blood is so important, back market blood farms have sprung up, and it isn't unusual go tribes to attack each other for their blood, or to sell them to a blood farm.  It's super creepy, and yet, totally fascinating.

The Different Girl by Gordon Dahlouist

Veronika has lived on an island for as long as she can remember, with three other girls, Caroline, Isobel and Eleanor.  Their teachers are Irene and Robbert.  They observe thing.  They are warned to never, ever go near the water.  One day, pieces of a shipwreck wash up on shore, and along with them a girl, May.  With May's coming, Veronika realizes just how different she and the other girls are, and how dangerous the outside world can be.

This was...whoa.  There is no way to talk about this without lots of spoilers, so just be aware that there are lots of spoilers.

It doesn't take very long to figure out that Veronika, Caroline, Isobel and Eleanor are not quite...normal.  They are not regular girls.  Their attention to detail is so focused.  The questions that Irene and Robbert ask them are so specific.  They take "naps," which seem to happen whenever Irene and Isobel and Robbert need to attend to other things.  They don't eat.

What was interesting about the framing of the book is that as the reader, you never know more than Veronika does.  Ever.  Not even at the end.  It is completely through Veronika's perspective, which is, of course, a very analytical one, devoid of unnecessary emotion.  The term "robot" is never used.  Neither is "artificial intelligence" or anything like that.  It's not clear if Veronika is completely mechanical.  I think so?  We don't know how the girls were made, because Veronika does not know.  We don't know how they function, because Veronika doesn't know.  It was frustrating at times, not knowing.  I wished for an omnipotent narrator who could answer my questions, but I never got one, and a lot of my questions didn't get answered at all.

The pace of the book is very slow.  Veronika and the other girl's lives revolve around observing and telling others what they have observed.  And that's what much of the book is.  May shows up, and is frustrated with the slow pace of life.  She doesn't have the patience to sit and observe and then explain in detail what she's seen for hours.  The plot very, very slowly unfolds, and while there is a dramatic, and in many ways, unsatisfying conclusion, even that part felt slow, deliberate, like the lives of the girls.

Toward the end, Veronika is able to learn more about where she came from than she ever has known before, but even that information is sketchy and full of holes.  And by the end of the book, there is no one to ask, and the girls must figure out how to carry on and care for themselves.  And then it ends.

In many ways, totally unsatisfying.  In other ways, totally fascinating.  Give it to your kids who like to think about things and ponder life's many questions.

Slated by Teri Terry

Kyla has been given a second chance.  If a criminal or gang member is under the age of 16, they can be slated which means having their memories completely wiped.  Those who are slated are placed with families and start their lives again - under the constant supervision of their Levo, a device on their wrist that can't be removed and monitors their mood.  Kyla is having a hard time adjusting.  She swears she remembers things about her own life, but that's not possible.  Is it?

This was an enjoyable dystopian novel, and one that I'm curious about where it will go.  I still have lots of questions about the world Kyla is in, but it didn't feel like poor world building was why I hadn't figured it out yet.  Things were deliberately held back.  The reader doesn't know anything more than Kyla does, and she's just starting to put things together.  I hope when all is revealed it won't be disappointing!

The first thing I was trying to figure out, right from the beginning, is why there were so many under 16-year-old criminals.  We are not that far into the future.  It's 2054.  It is still unclear what happened, but it involved some kind of massive gang uprising and violence, which was put down harshly by the government.  There are still Antigovernment Terrorists (AGT).  Do the terrorists recruit young children?  Are gangs still prevalent?  It seems that gang violence had been pretty much eradicated.  Why still so many slated?

Spoilers

Every Day by David Levithan

Each day, A wakes up in a new body.  A tries to do the best he can not to interfere with the person whose body he's in life.  But one day, he meets a girl, and everything changes.  In love for the first time, no matter where A is or what body he's in, he always wants to find her.

I'm using the pronoun "he" because that's what we default too, but there's actually nothing that suggests that A is a boy or girl.  A is just as likely to be in the body of a male as a female, and does not have a preference for either one.  A is genderless, but since we don't have a pronoun to go with that, I'm using "he" because that's what they do on the book flap.

This was certainly an interesting and unusual story.  A has always been like this, and accepts that it will always be the same.  It is of course a difficult way to live, but A has learned much from always being in someone different.  But it has not allowed A to form any kind of lasting attachments, because of course they can't be kept.

The Culling by Steven dos Santos

Lucian Sparks lives in a world ruled by the Establishment, a cruel, dictatorial government.  Wanting to protect his four-year-old brother Cole, Lucian seeks out his childhood friend Cassius, who is now in a position of power, for help.  But when Cassius thinks Lucian has chosen rebel Digory Tycho over him, he punishes Lucian by making both Digory and Lucian recruits, who are forced to compete against each other in a series of task.  If a recruit fails, he is punished by choosing an incentive - a loved one - to be killed.  For Lucian, it would be Cole.

It's The Hunger Games!  Now with more flesh eating!  Seriously, this didn't even try to pretend it wasn't completely ripping off The Hunger Games.  Person only trying to protect a much younger sibling?  Check. Person not interested in joining the rebellion, only trying to keep said younger sibling safe?  Check.  Young people forced to compete in Gladiator-type games at the hands of cruel dystopian government?  Check.  Young people forced to form alliances to survive, only to have to break those alliances and kill each other in order to protect their loved ones?  Check.

So yeah, it was The Hunger Games, only this time with a male protagonist and a male-male romance.  I did like that aspect of it, that falling in love with another man is not strange in this world.  It was completely accepted as the norm.  The Culling was also more graphically violent.  I know, I know, The Hunger Games are all about kids killing kids, but honestly, the first two books are not especially graphically violent.  The third one much more so.  This was like the third one.

Bad Taste in Boys by Carrie Harris

Kate is more than ready to move beyond her high school experience and go off to college to pursue medicine. She's got everything prepared in order to look the best she can to the college recruiters. This means that she's also staying on top of her extracurriculars, like volunteering lab time with the science teacher and unfortunately helping out with the losing football team. Kate stumbles on evidence that the football coach is giving the team steroids, but it has horrifying side effects. Side effects that look very similar to what you think a zombie would be like. Now people are dying and Kate is worried that those closest to her could be infected: her brother, her best friend, and her secret crush Aaron.

This isn't going to be a long review, because the book itself isn't long. It's super fast-paced and only 208 pages. I think it took me a grand total of two hours to read this. There's not a lot of in depth descriptions of thoughts or evaluation of emotions. Obviously more plot-driven.

I think that it's a longstanding fact that I don't like horror. Zombie especially freak me out. I mean seriously, that shit could happen. So this book was kind of perfect for me. Most of the horror was  from the ambient tension of where the boys were being infected from and having to be covert about where Kate was looking for information rather than from the zombies themselves. Not that the zombies weren't scary, Carrie Harris did a great job describing the effects of the drugs. I especially liked the scene where one boy pukes up black and then seems to die. Well done, creepy without making me put the book down.

This is a series, and the sequel is called Bad Hair Day and involves werewolves. I'll be reading it, mostly because I think this is fun mind-candy. Fast read, without a lot of emotional commitment. Nice.

Through to You by Emily Hainsworth

Camden's girlfriend Viv was killed in a car accident, and Camden can't move on.  All he had was Viv, and without her, there's nothing.  On one of his nightly treks to the place of Viv's death, Camden meets a strange girl, Nina, from a parallel world.  In Nina's world, Viv is still very much alive.  Cam can't resist seeking Viv out, but the Viv in this world seems different.  And she's hiding something.

I liked the idea of there being different worlds based on the different choices we make, but the worlds were different in only a few ways, and it wasn't really explained or shown why those particular changes occurred.  In one world, Nina's parents are alive, and in another they're dead.  In both worlds Cam had a terrible football injury, but in one world he recovered to play again and in the other he withdrew.  In one world Viv is alive and in the other Viv is dead.  It all seemed very arbitrary.  Yeah, I know, those were the important aspects to the story, but you know how I feel about world building.  If you want to have a good sci-fie or fantasy book, you can't just do stuff, there has to be a reason.

Spoilers