So far this semester I haven't found very much time to read, but I did get the chance to pick up The Shifter, Code Name Verity, Steelheart, and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. The first one I found purely by accident while wandering around the library (it caught my eye because the working title of one of my stories was Shifter once). The other three were highly recommended on goodreads.
Synopsis: Nya is an orphan struggling for survival in a city crippled by war. She is also a Taker—with her touch, she can heal injuries, pulling pain from another person into her own body. But unlike her sister, Tali, and the other Takers who become Healers' League apprentices, Nya's skill is flawed: She can't push that pain into pynvium, the enchanted metal used to store it. All she can do is shift it into another person, a dangerous skill that she must keep hidden from forces occupying her city. If discovered, she'd be used as a human weapon against her own people.
Rumors of another war make Nya's life harder, forcing her to take desperate risks just to find work and food. She pushes her luck too far and exposes her secret to a pain merchant eager to use her shifting ability for his own sinister purposes. At first Nya refuses, but when Tali and other League Healers mysteriously disappear, she's faced with some difficult choices. As her father used to say, principles are a bargain at any price; but how many will Nya have to sell to get Tali back alive?
My Thoughts: I really like this book. It has a unique, Caribbean-type setting, and Hardy does a brilliant job of portraying the realities of a country at war. It's not a heavy read, but it's very well written, and I'm surprised I'd never heard of it before. The magic system is structured and believable, and the characters are well-rounded. I'd definitely recommend it to fans of juvenile fiction--people like me who enjoy clean, believable, action-packed creativity.
Synopsis: I have two weeks. You’ll shoot me at the end no matter what I do.
That’s what you do to enemy agents. It’s what we do to enemy agents. But I look at all the dark and twisted roads ahead and cooperation is the easy way out. Possibly the only way out for a girl caught red-handed doing dirty work like mine — and I will do anything, anything, to avoid SS-Hauptsturmführer von Linden interrogating me again.
He has said that I can have as much paper as I need. All I have to do is cough up everything I can remember about the British War Effort. And I’m going to. But the story of how I came to be here starts with my friend Maddie. She is the pilot who flew me into France — an Allied Invasion of Two.
We are a sensational team.
My Thoughts: This book made me cry. A lot. I don't usually read historical fiction, but picked this book up during the first week of the new semester, and despite all the homework I had to do, I just couldn't put it down. It's amazing. I'm a big fan of stories told by unreliable narrators, and it's incredible how Elizabeth Wein conveys so much in even the smallest details. I felt breathless by the end, just blown away by how it all turned out. This story is going to stay with me forever.
Synopsis: There are no heroes.
Ten years ago, Calamity came. It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary men and women extraordinary powers. The awed public started calling them Epics.
But Epics are no friend of man. With incredible gifts came the desire to rule. And to rule man you must crush his wills.
Nobody fights the Epics... nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans, they spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them.
And David wants in. He wants Steelheart—the Epic who is said to be invincible. The Epic who killed David's father. For years, like the Reckoners, David's been studying, and planning—and he has something they need. Not an object, but an experience.
He's seen Steelheart bleed. And he wants revenge.
My Thoughts: Once again, Brandon Sanderson is an AMAZING writer. His action sequences are so fast-paced yet full of details that suck you right into the story. My only problem with this book is that it reminds me a LOT of Mistborn: the Final Empire. You've got a random underdog person who becomes involved with an organized group determined to overthrow the god-status emperor, who is a monster but actually does kind of a good job of keeping the world from falling apart. The concepts are very much the same, as are the endings. But I suppose the two books cater to a different audience, so maybe most casual readers won't compare the two. Even having read Mistborn, I liked this book a lot. The writing is fantastic, the action stunning, the characters unique and memorable, and the story engaging. Of course, it's the first book in a series (because apparently Brandon Sanderson has a superpower that allows him to work on like four separate series all at once), but this book stands well on its own. I look forward to the sequel, but I'm not left hanging and desperate for more.
Synopsis: When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder -- much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It's hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing―not even a smear of blood―to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?
This is Clary's first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It's also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace's world with a vengeance, when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know...
Exotic and gritty, exhilarating and utterly gripping, Cassandra Clare's ferociously entertaining fantasy takes readers on a wild ride that they will never want to end.
My Thoughts: Since the film adaptation came out last year(?) I've heard a lot about this book, but I just didn't read it until this last week. I guess I felt a little tired of YA fiction. But I liked this book okay. I'd thought it was a dystopian novel, but turns out it's actually modern-day fantasy, along the same lines as Twilight and Harry Potter. Sorry, it's not fair to compare it to Twilight. Nor to Harry Potter. It's completely unrelated. For one, it's darker and edgier than most YA fantasy, which adds realism and makes the "protagonist discovers he or she is actually a wizard/witch/werewolf/whatever" formula a lot more believable. It caters to an older audience (like 16-year-olds as opposed to 12-year-olds). It does a good job of presenting a real, dangerous conflict that makes the use of magic something vitally important, not just a cool thing the protagonist discovers. The writing is very good. Cassandra Clare writes some great descriptions (though I noticed that a LOT of them were cat-themed. She must really love cats.) She manages to talk about the sights, smells, and sounds of each scene, without bogging down the story with too much exposition. The only downside to this story is that it does contain language and a lot of sexual innuendo, so I can't really recommend it to everyone. I was kind of embarrassed to be carrying it around BYU campus. I mean, just look at that cover. And if you had the actual book in your hands you'd see that every blurb contains the word "sexy". Like, oh really? Sexy? I couldn't tell from the shirtless guy on the cover that "sexy" is what the author was going for (though, to be fair, the character on the cover never actually takes his shirt off in the book). I'll probably finish this series someday, but it wasn't so spectacularly original that I crave more.
So I hope these quick reviews give you some ideas of what you want to read next. Just doing this has made me think that I really need to start reading more. I used to read a book a day in junior high and high school, so only four books in two months is disgraceful for me. :) I think I'm going to challenge myself by finding a list of recommended books and vowing to read them all. Stay tuned for that.
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