Review: Incarnate by Jodi Meadows

     

Incarnate by Jodi Meadows
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Series: Newsoul (#1)
Pages: 384
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: January 31st, 2012
IBSN: 9780062060754

NEWSOUL
Ana is new. For thousands of years in Range, a million souls have been reincarnated over and over, keeping their memories and experiences from previous lifetimes. When Ana was born, another soul vanished, and no one knows why.

NOSOUL
Even Ana’s own mother thinks she’s a nosoul, an omen of worse things to come, and has kept her away from society. To escape her seclusion and learn whether she’ll be reincarnated, Ana travels to the city of Heart, but its citizens are suspicious and afraid of what her presence means. When dragons and sylph attack the city, is Ana to blame?

HEART
Sam believes Ana’s new soul is good and worthwhile. When he stands up for her, their relationship blooms. But can he love someone who may live only once, and will Ana’s enemies—human and creature alike—let them be together? Ana needs to uncover the mistake that gave her someone else’s life, but will her quest threaten the peace of Heart and destroy the promise of reincarnation for all?

In Heart, the same souls are reincarnated over and over again, keeping their memories and personalities. And then Ana is born -- a newsoul, a stranger -- and an old soul vanishes. She's treated apprehensively, allegedly having no soul at all, but decides to find out the truth about herself, with the help of Sam, the only person who's ever treated her like a person.

Incarnate was a pretty idea -- of a new girl in a world of people who've been together for hundreds of years, of the promise of reincarnation, of safety from a mystical world behind city walls -- but it felt too often like that was as far as it went. Like whenever you asked the guide if the show was starting soon, they'd distract you by pointing somewhere else like "have you seen this yet? This is interesting!".

Ana travels to Heart with the intention to figuring herself out -- both in search of the answers to her questions about her mystery soul, and to try to find who she is without the influence of her abusive mother treating her like less than a person. But post-arrival, her mission is only at the forefront of her mind when she isn't with Sam, which -- as his guest and with most citizens wary of her -- isn't often. I'm finding that the stories with the most potential are doing themselves a disservice by focusing majorly on the token romance (The Unbecoming Of Mara Dyer, anyone?). Sweet as Ana and Sam were, their burgeoning relationship would have served better as a complement to the plot rather than a stand-in for it.

Though, to the author's credit, she manages to make Ana learning to play the piano or talking to Sam mostly compelling, only later noticing there was something missing once you find that piece near the end.

This very readable quality can be accredited to Meadow's writing style, subtly otherworldly and setting appropriate without being alienating, and though with its few inconsistencies (occasionally poorly articulated, and occasionally beautifully descriptive) it was mostly pleasant and smooth and didn't stray too far into inconsequential details.

Overall, Incarnate was a unique idea that felt like it succumbed too much to the existing YA market -- it focused more on an intriguing premise than an intriguing plot, and the romance dominated. The plot was squeezed and condensed so late that it was almost an afterthought, but it what of it was unexpected and twisting and had so much potential. I won't set my hopes so high come book two, but I'll most definitely continue this series.

Review: Everneath by Brodi Ashton

     

Everneath by Brodi Ashton
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Series: Everneath (#1)
Pages: 384
Publisher: January 24th, 2012
Published: Balzer & Bray
IBSN: 9780062071132

Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath, where immortals Feed on the emotions of despairing humans. Now she's returned- to her old life, her family, her friends- before being banished back to the underworld... this time forever.

She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can't find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.

Nikki longs to spend these months reconnecting with her boyfriend, Jack, the one person she loves more than anything. But there's a problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who first enticed her to the Everneath, has followed Nikki to the mortal world. And he'll do whatever it takes to bring her back- this time as his queen.

As Nikki's time grows short and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she's forced to make the hardest decision of her life: find a way to cheat fate and remain on the Surface with Jack or return to the Everneath and become Cole's...

After being tempted into the Everneath, an underworld where immortals feed on human emotion, in a moment of weakness, Nikki Returns. She gets just six months before she's pulled back. Six months to explain, to apologise, to say goodbye again. Or six months to figure out how to cheat fate.

So Everneath was intriguing in the way it focused less on the paranormal lore -- which was well-realised and well-implemented itself -- and more on the contemporary themes of letting go and accepting consequences. I'm sure fans of both PNR and contemporary novels will find this compelling.

Nikki returns to give a proper send-off to her family, but hardly mentions them. So much transition scene is skipped over that she probably does spend a lot of time with them, but it's hardly referenced. Ditto Jules. What could have been so touching was pushed aside to make room for romantic relationships, when more platonic relationships are still vital to fleshing out a character.

But apart from the occasionally twinge of annoyance when her neglected loved ones were mentioned, I liked this book much more than I expected to.

Nikki's narration was very readable, with a voice that was quiet but not passive. She was constantly growing from all of her trials. Between the her that we see past tense snippets of and the present her, she's matured so much. She took the easy way out almost a year ago, and now she understands that was the absolute wrong way to approach her situation, but doesn't dwell on it. She's learned to accept her mistakes, but is also determined to avoid them now. 

And although a romance featuring as the main plot has always rubbed me the wrong way, that of Everneath wasn't just designed to add a swoon factor. Cole and Jack were the difference between her staying easily complacent with herself and her trying to grow into the version of herself she'd like to be. Their dynamics were realistic and reflected these roles they played. It was never about who she loved more (barf) but who she wanted to be.

The pacing was smooth and fast, skilfully portraying how quickly time passes with a frightening deadline looming. The plot twisted, and the denouement really was the best part of the story. The ending was impressive, foreshadowed but not expected, and left the story open to continuation but still with a sense of resolution.

Everneath is a novel I'd recommend to most fans of the Unearthly series -- it's a paranormal story with more weight on the realistic. Ashton created dynamic characters you could become invested in and a story well worth the time you spend reading it. Don't dismiss it like I almost did based on the cover that in no way reflects the contents.

Review: Eve by Anna Carey

     

Eve by Anna Carey
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Series: Eve (#1)
Pages: 318
Publisher: HarperTeen
Published: October 4th, 2011
IBSN: 9780062048509

Where do you go when nowhere is safe?

Sixteen years after a deadly virus wiped out most of Earth’s population, the world is a perilous place. Eighteen-year-old Eve has never been beyond the heavily guarded perimeter of her school, where she and two hundred other orphaned girls have been promised a future as the teachers and artists of the New America. But the night before graduation, Eve learns the shocking truth about her school’s real purpose—and the horrifying fate that awaits her.

Fleeing the only home she’s ever known, Eve sets off on a long, treacherous journey, searching for a place she can survive. Along the way she encounters Arden, her former rival from school, and Caleb, a rough, rebellious boy living in the wild. Separated from men her whole life, Eve has been taught to fear them, but Caleb slowly wins her trust . . . and her heart. He promises to protect her, but when soldiers begin hunting them, Eve must choose between true love and her life.

Orphaned like so many others after a virus wiped out most of the world, Eve has spent most of her life in an isolated all-girl boarding school. Before graduation, she finds that her future isn't the one she's been convinced of -- there's no trade to learn, no life in the city. So she escapes into the wild, valedictorian Eve who knows nothing of the world besides the propaganda she's been fed, and soon finds out that survival is going to be harder than she could have imagined.

My main motivation for reading Eve was that I wanted to figure out its gimmick. It sounded like any other dystopia in the blurb, with the token future world post dramatic population decrease rather shallow in execution. But there's always a catch. And so it is that in Carey's dystopian world, women and men are illogically segregated.

So the world is apparently approximately 98% decimated, which still leaves the population of a large country, and rather than banding together into average-sized cities and trying to live as normally as possibly they can, the solution is (I don't feel like I'm spoiling anything you find out just a few dozen pages in) to put women in battery farms and try to get our seven billion back as soon as possible. It made no sense to try to rebuild civilization on this instilled apprehensiveness of the opposite gender and on drastic means to boost a population still too large to make extinction a serious risk.

Still going with the illogical, a romance is formed, with complete disregard for the setting's ridiculous customs. Eve spent her whole life learning the dangers of men, without having ever met a single one personally. Even in realising so much of her school's teaching was at least somewhat false, there is no way -- absolutely none -- that she could learn to trust a man in such a short amount of time. Even without the psychological implausibility, her relationship with Caleb was rushed and without chemistry and his attraction to her was founded on what, that she was the only girl he'd ever met?

And for a namesake novel, it's expected that Eve be somehow notable or memorable, but she doesn't have a strong voice or anything particularly unique about her. She has the scared, determined, unrealistically selfless personality of dozens of Harper heroines before her, the kind that I'd have to scroll up to the blurb to remember if it weren't made so obvious.

Eve is a book best left to the kind of person who generally exclusively reads the popular hyped new releases. I'd call my problems with it a failure to suspend disbelief, but it was more than the idea at the center of Eve is so implausible it was silly, and it couldn't at least compensate for in the way others like Delirium did.

Review: This Gorgeous Game by Donna Freitas

     

This Gorgeous Game by Donna Freitas
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Pages: 240
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Published: January, 2012
IBSN: 9780312674403

Seventeen-year-old Olivia Peters is absolutely over the moon when her literary idol, the celebrated novelist and much-adored local priest Mark D. Brendan, selects her from hundreds of other applicants as the winner of his writing contest. Not only is she invited to take his class at the local university; she also gets one-on-one sessions with him to polish her story and prepare it for publication. But the writing sessions escalate into emails, and texts, and IMs, and gifts, and social events. What was once a delightful opportunity has become a dreadful burden. What kind of game is Father Mark playing? And how on earth can she get out of it?

Olivia wins a writing competition and the chance of a lifetime to not only meet her literary idol, but to have him as a mentor as she prepares her story for publication. His faith in her talent is encouraging and his attention is flattering, until it isn't anymore. There appears to be no escaping him when he calls and texts and emails and IMs and shows up around every corner.

This Gorgeous Game is a unique and personal look at an issue not commonly explored in YA, in which Freitas realistically develops and captures the natural feelings of isolation and anxiety associated with stalking.

Olivia is written with such an endearing normal voice. In fact, all of the characters and their dynamics and their situations were so, so normal. Olivia has an older, engaged sister; nice, supportive friends; a caring mother; a burgeoning romantic relationship. All of this carefully contrasts with her life post-normal, post-competition, and it becomes clear how in the foreign post-competition that she could miss where the line should have been drawn.

For all of the normality, though, it isn't plain or boring. The psychological premise isn't the whole plot, with the focus often on forming the kind of strong friendships that save. But for these character-building respites from the more disturbing themes, it actually serves to make them all the more frightening. The way obsessiveness like Father Mark's can worm its way slowly into lives mostly unnoticed -- into any normal life, from the most unexpected of places.

This Gorgeous Game is a story frightening in its portrayal of how easy it is to miss warnings of the most sinister things, but simultaneously uplifting in the promise of a friend's help. Well-written and engaging, it's not to be missed by fans of grittier contemporaries and not to be dismissed by people squeamish about subject matter like this.

Review: The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

     

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
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Pages: 404
Publisher: Scholastic
Published: October 18th, 2011
IBSN: 9780545224901

It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die.

At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them.

Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn’t given her much of a chance. So she enters the competition — the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen.

The Scorpio Races are held every November. Riders catch and fight for some semblance of control over their water horse, and unleash them on the competition in the race. To pass the finish line at all is an achievement. This year, Sean and Puck have so more riding on the races than their lives, but there'll only be one winner.

Sean works for the owner of his beloved water horse Corr, and wants nothing more than to officially own him, but not even the winnings of three races can buy the winner of them. After the death of her parents, Puck's struggled to keep her home and to keep her brother in it and the races seems the answer to both. And with her competing on a regular horse, she and Sean make for the highest profile riders. Their relationship is built on this common ground, slowly, with almost tangible chemistry between them, serving to help already complex characters grow.

Maggie Stiefvater has weaved fantasy elements realistically into a contemporary yet foreign setting, building a slightly mystical atmosphere and palpable suspense up to the races. The Scorpio Races combined Stiefvater's talents for building alluring fantasy worlds (Lament and Ballad) and crafting narrative voices with emotional weight (The Wolves of Mercy Falls). I see where she's coming from when she calls this her favourite novel she's written -- and it might be my favourite that she's written as well.

Maggie's writing remains the beautiful and poetic prose that captures the plaintive voices of her characters and personifies settings and animals but also frequently trips up unfans of thicker prose. Each word felt meticulously chosen to bolster the tentative and melancholic mood and to better define the characters.

This story is resolved in one volume, and it reminded me of the simple pleasure I'd almost forgotten of reading a book and experiencing only the anticipation that you can assuage by reading faster, and not that of eventual sequels. The Scorpio Races ends on a sweet, memorable note that will stay with me longer than any transitional cliffhanger.

The Scorpio Races is a suspenseful and emotional and atmospheric story that should appeal to fans of her earlier books, or anyone other huge fans of emotional contemporary fantasy.

Review: I'll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan

     

I'll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan
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Pages: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Published: May 17th, 2011
IBSN: 9780316122795

Raised by an unstable father who keeps the family constantly on the move, Sam Border hasn't been in a classroom since the second grade. He's always been the rock for his younger brother Riddle, who stopped speaking long ago and instead makes sense of the world through his strange and intricate drawings. It's said that the two boys speak with one voice--and that voice is Sam's.
Then, Sam meets Emily Bell, and everything changes. The two share an immediate and intense attraction, and soon Sam and Riddle find themselves welcomed into the Bell's home. Faced with normalcy for the first time, they know it's too good to last.

Sam and his younger brother Riddle live under the care of their unstable criminal father, constantly moving out of his paranoia. Drawn to music, Sam one day finds himself in the back pew of a church, transfixed by the off-key solo of Emily Bell, who's given him more incentive to stay than he's ever had.

Let's begin with: I'll Be There is one of the most charming books I've ever read.

The tone of I'll Be There pretty accurately represented what it was all about. All throughout these undeservedly terrible situations, there's a hopeful undertone giving comfort. Hope carries in the promise from the very beginning "I'll be there", in the way our characters never  delve into self-pity, in the soft, young quality to the prose.

Sloan's writing style is spare and beautiful and perfectly captures the emotions behind each of the characters and pulls off third person narration with deeply personal voices. A whole range of characters -- from smarmy sons of detectives to young boys whose education come from phone books to concerned parents -- are created genuine and relatable despite how wholly different they may be to the target audience, and our three leads Sam, Emily and Riddle are among the sweetest characters I've ever had the pleasure of accompanying.

On diverse characters, the story also struck me as having this ageless quality -- as in young in a way that wasn't juvenille or distant -- that will make it appeal to people of all ages, not just YA.

Also, unexpectedly, I'll Be There was not an entirely character-driven novel. In the first pages, Emily tells us about her fascination with twists of fate and ironies, detailing a story of a woman saved from a fall from her apartment window by a mattress ditched by the future husband she'll one day run over and kill. And later, the story follows the Border brothers through a series of astounding near-impossibilities that we forget are still possibilities, taking us along for an almost-ridiculously winding journey that would be comical if it weren't so sad.

And for all of the characters' personal journeys and emotional turmoil, Sloan weaves an ending that intertwines all of the finer points of the novel, restores karmic balance, and leaves even the most stone-hearted of readers all gooey.

A heart-warming story of circumstance and chance and love, I'll Be There is a new favourite of mine and must-read for fans of contemporary fiction.

Review: Every Other Day by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

     

Every Other Day by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
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Pages: 352
Publisher: EgmontUSA
Published: December 27th, 2011
IBSN: 9781606841693

Every other day, Kali D'Angelo is a normal sixteen-year-old girl. She goes to public high school. She attends pep rallies. She's human.

And then every day in between . . .She's something else entirely.

Though she still looks like herself, every twenty-four hours predatory instincts take over and Kali becomes a feared demon-hunter with the undeniable urge to hunt, trap, and kill zombies, hellhounds, and other supernatural creatures. Kali has no idea why she is the way she is, but she gives in to instinct anyway. Even though the government considers it environmental terrorism.

When Kali notices a mark on the lower back of a popular girl at school, she knows instantly that the girl is marked for death by one of these creatures. Kali has twenty-four hours to save her and, unfortunately, she'll have to do it as a human. With the help of a few new friends, Kali takes a risk that her human body might not survive. . .and learns the secrets of her mysterious condition in the process.

Kali's both normal and not, though not at the same time. One day, she's a withdrawn teenage girl and the next, she's a fierce demon hunter. It's a routine she's used to. Until one day at school, she notices the mark of a paranormal parasite on a girl. The mark that indicates she'll be dead by the end of the day. And unfortunately for Kali, that day is a human one.

Every Other Day spans just a few days; at 380-odd pages, it works out be around 6 pages an hour. But the story is anything but slow.

We're lucky enough to have a protagonist that's very nature pushes the plot forward. Kali's determination to first save Bethany paired with the time limit on her hunting skills means she doesn't waste a second deliberated whether or not she does what she needs to do. This just might be her most admirable quality as well.

Kali had a distinct voice, evoked through the narration that served more than just a fast-pace. Her determined nature was consistent through both human and demon hunter days, but the differences between her two selves were portrayed as well. The personal style of narration also emphasised the fine character development and changes in motivation that come with her new investment in her friends' well being and self-discovery.
The world in which paranormal creatures are scientifically acknowledged is well-built and well-researched. Beyond your token vampires and werewolves running free, there are hundreds of strange, dark and diverse species that come into play, making for a unique and fascinating and -- since neither us nor Kali completely understand them -- unpredictable read. 

It starts as a simple attempt at saving one person's life and evolves into monsters around every corner and unraveling conspiracies, Every Other Day is a paranormal story with teeth. It's right up the alley of fans of Angelfire.

Review: The Future Of Us by Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler

     

The Future Of Us by Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler
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Pages: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia
Published: January, 2012
IBSN: 9780857076076

It's 1996 and less than half of all American high school students have ever used the Internet. Facebook will not be invented for several more years. Emma just got a computer and an America Online CD-ROM with 100 free hours. When she and her best friend Josh log on to AOL they discover themselves on Facebook... fifteen years in the future. Everybody wonders what life has in store for them.
Josh and Emma are about to find out.

Emma's dad's latest guilt gift is a new computer. When Josh comes over with an America Online CD-ROM, they log onto the internet for the first time and discover the Facebook profiles of their future selves.

I originally anticipating some issues suspending disbelief enough to enjoy The Future Of Us, but the characters reacted with natural and sympathetic confusion and paranoia. The confusion especially was founded, with these two kids from 1996 who have no idea how reliant we are on the internet seeing people's lives laid out bare. The Facebook element serves to make us reflect on our own dependence on the internet, and show us that the way to happiness a) is by focusing on the here and now, and b) is by focusing on forming real life connections, rather than ones form through Facebook chat and Twitter @s.

The speculative element is what you pick the story up for, the main hook, but you stay for the predominant contemporary story line of Josh and Emma trying to figure out what they want through trial and error. It's light and fun, at least when it isn't annoying. It follows the classic contemporary plot template of a burgeoning relationship, an obstacle, and a way around it. The ending is predictable, but the way there is mostly sweet and relatable.

I've read books by both Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler before (and am an fan of the latter but not so much the former), and so was familiar with their previous characters -- very normal, very relatable. Josh and Emma followed in the footsteps of their forecharacters in this respect, but took it that little bit farther and to achieve acute plainness. The plain voices reflected the simple prose, which was smooth, certainly, but by no means impressive.

Though what was notable about the characters was perhaps their poor memory or short attention spans. Subplots would arise in the form of worries -- worries that plagued them a great deal -- about their friends' futures, but often drop out unresolved without even entering the characters' thoughts again.

Overall, though, The Future Of Us was an entertaining and surprising novel about social networking and to a greater extent, regular networking. Though with inconsequential subplots and characters occasionally acting irritatingly, there's a sweet message and a sweeter friendship at its heart.

Review: Where It Began by Ann Redisch Stampler

     

Where It Began by Ann Redisch Stampler
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Pages: 384
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Published: March 6th, 2012
IBSN: 9781442423213

Gabby Gardiner wakes up in a hospital bed looking like a cautionary ad for drunk driving—and without a single memory of the accident that landed her there. But what she can recall, in frank and sardonic detail, is the year leading up to the crash.

As Gabby describes her transformation from Invisible Girl to Trendy Girl Who Dates Billy Nash (aka Most Desirable Boy Ever), she is left wondering: Why is Billy suddenly distancing himself from her? What do her classmates know that Gabby does not? Who exactly was in the car that night? And why has Gabby been left to take the fall?

As she peels back the layers of her life, Gabby begins to realize that her climb up the status ladder has been as intoxicating as it has been morally complex...and that nothing about her life is what she has imagined it to be.

Gabby wakes up in hospital with no memory of the night that put her there, but what happened was obvious. With the blood alcohol concentration of a keg and in her hand the keys to her boyfriend's car wrapped around a tree beside her, her future looks to be a blur of DUI charges, jail time, and perhaps the most daunting in her mother's eyes, a face mangled by the crash. In the aftermath, she'll question if the events of that night were really what they seemed.

Ann Redisch Stampler's YA debut gets under your skin. Far from the light contemporary the cover and blurb imply, you accompany Gabby through a difficult journey and through so many intense and complicated emotions and realisations -- that growing into the person she wants to be is more important than any relationship is perhaps the most profound of all.
Written in evocative prose in a voice inherently teenaged and inherently Gabby. The narration was so personal, Gabby felt real and like someone we really know. I felt as though in the shoes of a fourth member of their friend group -- another Lisa or Anita bringing board games to her house during her recovery and asking her to open up. Her personality is well realised and well portrayed such that her shortcomings are plausible and sympathetic rather than frustrating.

The characters are dynamic and realistic. I prefer to relate to my characters than to idealise them, so their well-conveyed angst and bias and jealousy and ignorance made them only more engaging. Their flaws and poor decisions bring them to life and make them real. The characterisation was superb, and the narrative voice so true and raw. Stampler creates characters which explore moral grey areas that you can learn things about yourself from.

Gabby's reflection and emotional turmoil pay off in the end, in a huge and unexpected and perfect complete turn around. The way she finds the strength to accept what happened to her free of any bitterness and pursue what she really needs rather than wants is inspiring, and also gives us the comfort of knowing she finds the peace she so deserves.

Where It Began tackles relevant issues in a non-preachy tone, making for a story we get more than a few hours of entertainment from. Characters well-written and are created with relatability prioritised over likeablility, to be affecting on a much deeper level. It's an upcoming, enriching contemporary any fans of the genre should definitely seek out in early March.

Review: Under The Never Sky by Veronica Rossi

     

Under The Never Sky by Veronica Rossi
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Series: Under The Never Sky (#1)
Pages: 400
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: January 3rd, 2012
IBSN: 9780062072030

Aria is a teenager in the enclosed city of Reverie. Like all Dwellers, she spends her time with friends in virtual environments, called Realms, accessed through an eyepiece called a Smarteye. Aria enjoys the Realms and the easy life in Reverie. When she is forced out of the pod for a crime she did not commit, she believes her death is imminent. The outside world is known as The Death Shop, with danger in every direction.

As an Outsider, Perry has always known hunger, vicious predators, and violent energy storms from the swirling electrified atmosphere called the Aether. A bit of an outcast even among his hunting tribe, Perry withstands these daily tests with his exceptional abilities, as he is gifted with powerful senses that enable him to scent danger, food and even human emotions.

They come together reluctantly, for Aria must depend on Perry, whom she considers a barbarian, to help her get back to Reverie, while Perry needs Aria to help unravel the mystery of his beloved nephew’s abduction by the Dwellers. Together they embark on a journey challenged as much by their prejudices as by encounters with cannibals and wolves. But to their surprise, Aria and Perry forge an unlikely love - one that will forever change the fate of all who live UNDER THE NEVER SKY.

Everything goes awry in Aria's plan to find out what happened to Bliss and why she can't contact her mother there. The only two survivors of their adventure outside the realms are her and the boy that got them stuck there. Coincidentally also the son of a Consul. With his word against hers, she's exiled to the Death Shop, where undeserved kindness from a Savage with his own tragedy helps her discover the secrets of the world she thought she knew.

The world was richly imagined and executed well. There was a vivid quality to it all, especially the aether sky, despite minimal description. The plot was clever in its twists and entertaining in the speed in which events unfolded. Where the plot seems straight-forward from the start -- Aria wants back to her mother, back into the pods, and Perry wants to save his nephew and lead his tribe better than his brother -- revelations and unexpected roadblocks constantly mould their plight into another direction entirely, but while still paying mind to their original intentions. It was thoroughly engaging journey to join them on, and one where the continuation through a sequel would not feel contrived.

Both Aria and Perry are determined protagonists, with a goal and the will to do whatever than can to get it. This attitude of theirs drives the story forward, while you become attached to them for their friendly and kind dispositions. Though memorable voices through their third person narration they certainly did not have, becoming invested in their well being was effortless and added another layer to the drama.

While both characters were fleshed out and likable separately, together -- at least romantically -- they fell flat. So much of Aria's attachment to Perry was based on her fear of the unknown world, and so much of Perry's to her was based on...biology, and his preternatural sense of smell. The chemistry was literal chemistry. The attraction felt less than realistic and less significant to their development than their friendship.

The solid pacing took a break for the romance. The story evolved smoothly, until a day spent entirely confessing attraction and savouring each other at the height of the drama went on for what felt longer than their weeks of travel. Aria and Perry's relationship was not the most important part of the story, but the actual important part was forced to wait by for YA's token inconsequential romantic scenes.

Rossi's writing style was plain and simple, to-the-point but not without sufficient description to bring the setting to life. This prose served her well in crafting a fast-moving plot, but it left the story devoid of any memorable flair or voice. A story is in equal parts the idea and the words, and I felt like a great plot was let down by the plainness of the prose. 

Under The Never Sky is an engaging and imaginative novel featuring likable protagonists and a twisting, fast-paced plot. An entertaining read for fans of all speculative genres of YA, but readers who lean more towards contemporary tastes will be disappointed by the romance and the writing.

Review: Touch Of Power by Maria V. Snyder

     

Touch of Power by Maria V. Snyder
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Series: Healer (#1)
Pages: 394
Publisher: Harlequin Teen Australia
Published: January 2012
IBSN: 9781921796494

Laying hands upon the injured and dying, Avry of Kazan assumes their wounds and diseases into herself. But rather than being honored for her skills, she is hunted. Healers like Avry are accused of spreading the plague that has decimated the Territories, leaving the survivors in a state of chaos.

Stressed and tired from hiding, Avry is abducted by a band of rogues who, shockingly, value her gift above the golden bounty offered for her capture. Their leader, an enigmatic captor-protector with powers of his own, is unequivocal in his demands: Avry must heal a plague-stricken prince—leader of a campaign against her people. As they traverse the daunting Nine Mountains, beset by mercenaries and magical dangers, Avry must decide who is worth healing and what is worth dying for. Because the price of peace may well be her life...

The healers were renowned for their ability to relieve injuries and illnesses, until the plague broke out and it was rumoured to have started with them. Now they're being hunted down and executed and healer apprentice Avry is on the run. Her attempts to flee after using her gift to cure a child are thwarted, though, but a team of men who need her help reviving the prince that could reunite the realms.

Avry is the token Snyder fantasy protagonist. She has a coveted gift and is preternaturally good at everything she tries (how quickly she picked up fighting skills to match people who'd trained their whole lives!). The predicament of being used and targeted for her gift combined with the character's familiar voice made me constantly forget that I wasn't rereading the Study series.

The Maria V. Snyder charm is wearing off for me, with the conclusion that she has just one character, and the one journey the one character takes -- to learn it's okay to need others. That one character has the same romantic interest in each new book, the belligerent male with whom she shares no chemistry and shows no interest in her until they're both under duress.

Maria's writing style is simple and straight-forward, unembellished. This serves her well through action sequences, but less so for world-building. Descriptions are plain and too uninteresting to discourage skimming in search of the next piece of dialogue. The world-building is weak and a vivid setting -- as important as plot and characters in fantasy -- was not created. Certain elements of the setting, such as the lilies, had so much potential to be fascinating if the imagery surrounding them was stronger.

To my dismay, I couldn't even get lost in an exciting plot. Touch Of Power was a slow beginning to the Healers series, the frustrating kind of travelling fantasy where half the time is spent walking. The banter between Avry and her companions on the journey, presumably intended to make the transition scenes more engaging, was again too familiar, like a scenes lifted from the Study series only with different character names. Subplots were constantly arising, distracting the characters from the actually intriguing main story line, and then proving to have little consequence after all.

I can see the appeal this generally well-received novel has, but it is ultimately too similar to the author's previous fantasy novels for me to be at all impressed.

So the beginning to Maria V. Snyder's new series should satisfy her devout and slightly biased fans (particularly of the Study series), but more involved fantasy readers will be unimpressed with the lack of depth in world-building and a story that isn't unique to Snyder's others.

Review: Sirensong by Jenna Black

     

Sirensong by Jenna Black
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Series: Faeriewalker (#3)
Pages: 312
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Published: January, 2012
IBSN: 9780312575953

When Dana is invited to Faerie to be officially presented at the Seelie Court, it's no easy decision. After all, everyone knows Titania, the Seelie Queen, wants her dead. But Titania claims not to be the one behind the death threats; and her son, Prince Henry, makes the decision a whole lot easier when he suggests Dana might be arrested for (supposedly) conspiring with her aunt Grace to usurp the Seelie throne. So she and her father better do as they're told...

The journey through Faerie is long-and treacherous. Dana thought it would be a good idea to have friends along, but her sort-of-boyfriend, Ethan, and her bodyguard's son, Keane, just can't seem to get along, and Kimber's crush on Keane isn't making things any easier. When a violent attack separates Dana from their caravan, the sexy Erlking saves her just in the nick of time... and makes it clear that he hasn't given up on making her his own.

Arriving at Titania's beautiful palace should be a relief. But Dana is soon implicated in an assassination attempt against Titania's granddaughter, and is suddenly a fugitive, forced to leave her father behind as she and her friends flee for their lives. Will she be able to prove her innocence before the forces of the Seelie Court – or, worse, the Erlking – catch up with her? And will she save her father before he pays the ultimate price in her stead?

Dana is invited to be presented at Seelie court, and with danger foreseeable whether she attends or not, she decides to go. But upon arrival, she's framed for a crime punishable by death. And with no other known Faeriewalker capable of committing the crime, proving her innocence and saving not just herself, but her friends and family as well, seems impossible.

Jenna Black's Faeriewalker series was her YA debut after a career of writing adult urban fantasy. The genre switch seemed pointless, with this new story just an adult urban fantasy with a YA cover design and a character several years younger. A teenaged character does not a teen novel make.

The characters are unrealistically created, and given stock personalities and dynamics. Our protagonist is given a kind of hero complex and an unnatural sense of compassion for people she doesn't know, though for all this selflessness, she's a weak and whiny girl who couldn't save anyone on her own and without her inexplicably admiring friends. I don't mind an unlikable narrator as long they're a realistic and fleshed out one (and don't make constant, misandric sweeping statements about men). But Dana's voice wasn't one that at all helped getting through the story.

Black's prose was clumsy and inarticulate and often repetitive, constantly reminding us in melodramatic fashion of things we're well aware of. Dana takes care to remind everyone that people are after her at least three dozen times, each time become less and less reputable as the strong, selfless character the author tries to make her. A quote that stood out to me while reading to demonstrate this unrefined style, complete with heinous parenthetical:

"...I impressed myself myself by catching it one-handed. (I had to catch it one-handed because Ethan was squeezing me so tightly against him my arm was trapped.)"

Whether Sirensong is the end of the series or not, I'm not sure, but the distinct impression of a permanent conclusion was given by the rushed and deus ex machina denouement in which all of Dana's vaguely catch-22-esque problems were resolved by an very uncharacteristic concession.

Sirensong was an irrelevantly-titled story of standard Faerie mythology for people with an impressive ability to ignore frustrating characters and plot devices and lose themselves in a relatively fast-paced unfolding of events.

Review: The Sharp Time by Mary O'Connell

     

The Sharp Time by Mary O'Connell
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Pages: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Published: November 8th, 2011
IBSN: 9780385740487

Sandinista Jones is a high school senior with a punk rock name and a broken heart. The death of her single mother has left Sandinista alone in the world, subject to the random vulnerability of everyday life. When the school system lets her down, her grief and instability intensify, and she ponders a violent act of revenge.

Still, in the midst of her crisis, she gets a job at The Pale Circus, a funky vintage clothing shop, and finds friendship and camaraderie with her coworker, a boy struggling with his own secrets.

Even as Sandinista sees the failures of those with power and authority, she's offered the chance to survive through the redemptive power of friendship. Now she must choose between faith and forgiveness or violence and vengeance.

The death of her beloved mother and the constant failures and shortcomings of the world around her leaves Sandinista caught between constant defeatism and rage. On the weird and wonderful Thirty-Eighth street, plans for violent revenge take root and a redemptive friendship is formed.

Sandinista had one of the most capturing and passionate voices I've ever read. Everything she was feeling was laid out bare -- her pleas, her grief, the memory are you paying attention? on repeat. She was profoundly angry and profoundly melancholic, and it never even needed to be said, the mood was so effectively created. The writing had the feel of a stream of consciousness, so raw from the perspective of someone so haunted.

Beyond being so easily sympathetic, Sandinista was a relateable protagonist struggling with a relevant issue. Her loss of faith in authority figures and burgeoning desire for retribution articulated feelings the audience is very familiar with. So much about Sandinista's journey was deeply affecting.

The story demonstrated the potential for redemption and solace in the relationships in others; a touching thing for the profoundly lonely Sandinista to come to realise. Her relationship with Bradley had a realistic and gritty dynamic, and the way their bond strengthened through the comfort they eventually found in each other was warming.

On top of being teeming with the heavy, how-can-she-bear-to-carry-this emotion, the writing style is wonderfully clever. Articulate and poetic and wry and so, so clever. "...a squinting owlish lover wondering 'who, who, who are you?'" O'Connell's first novel demonstrated a talent for writing not bestowed upon many debut authors. She subtly creates feeling, such as the thick tension, and builds it gradually and carefully into something almost tangible.

The setting is brought to life with vivacity and stunning imagery. The alternative and surreal thirty-eighth street -- home to an erotic bakery, a monastery, and the vintage clothes store The Pale Circus that Sandinista finds peace working it -- is described evocatively and personified as this comforting maternal figure to Sandinista.

The Sharp Time was a gritty glimpse into the life of someone filled with an emotion YA doesn't often delve into. Grief is well-covered, ditto hopelessness, loneliness, longing. Sandinista's anger is well conveyed and sympathetic, her story detailed intimately, and the message proved touching and relevant.

Review: Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel

     

Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel
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Series: Gone With The Respiration (#1)
Pages: 451
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: December 1st, 2011
IBSN: 9780857530004

The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria—a high-tech nation modeled on the manners, mores, and fashions of an antique era. A teenager in high society, Nora Dearly is far more interested in military history and her country’s political unrest than in tea parties and debutante balls. But after her beloved parents die, Nora is left at the mercy of her domineering aunt, a social-climbing spendthrift who has squandered the family fortune and now plans to marry her niece off for money. For Nora, no fate could be more horrible—until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses.

But fate is just getting started with Nora. Catapulted from her world of drawing-room civility, she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting “The Laz,” a fatal virus that raises the dead—and hell along with them. Hardly ideal circumstances. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and dead. But as is the case with the rest of his special undead unit, luck and modern science have enabled Bram to hold on to his mind, his manners, and his body parts. And when his bond of trust with Nora turns to tenderness, there’s no turning back. Eventually, they know, the disease will win, separating the star-crossed lovers forever. But until then, beating or not, their hearts will have what they desire.

Nora's always been too rebellious for neo-Victorian etiquette, but her father also supported her insubordinate nature. At least, before he died. Left in the care of her overbearing aunt, she can't imagine life getting any worse, until she's abducted by a group of people with sickly skin and crooked gaits claiming to know things about her father she never did.

Dearly, Departed featured an initially daunting genre mashup: a steampunk/dystopia/paranormal/romance. The premise is of survivors of a detrimental ice age reverting to Victorian customs in an effort to resuscitate the beauty of the world. It felt rather haphazard, as though the author liked all of the genres but couldn't choose which one to write first.

The tangled mess of genres made the story much busier than it needed to be. For instance, the entire dystopia theme seemed of little consequence. Rather than just setting it in a steampunk Victorian era, it was set in a future modeled after the Victorian era. The former would have even been more believable and less of a stumbling stock for critical readers. Occam's Razor, the simplest way is usually the best way.

The language wasn't consistently setting-appropriate either. In this futuristic world, little memory of our current popular culture has survived. Nora has a vague idea of what vampires are, but none about zombies. But by the end of the story she's making self-aware jokes about the unexpected humanity of these zombies without the context of background knowledge. I remember a Spiderman reference, "my bull-senses are tingling", that she couldn't possibly know. Suspension of disbelief already needed to be high, and these inconsistencies certainly didn't help.

Otherwise, though, the Victorian language and customs seemed well-researched, although not as well portrayed in some places than others. I gathered from the author photo that Habel has a passion for the steampunk, and while it showed, I figured it would translate into a much more fleshed out element of it.

The story was told through the perspective of five different characters, to effectively give a thorough look at the many sides of the plot, though only our two leads were smoothly developed. The inclusion of the other three minor characters' narratives are vital to the plot, and as vital characters, I was disappointed by how unbalanced the effort fleshing them and the leads out was.

Aside, though, Dearly, Departed was very much enjoyable. The romance, if hasty and confusing (he's an animated corpse!), had believable chemistry and the pair were created likable and sympathetic enough to predispose the reader to support it. The plot had unexpected twists and was mostly fast-paced, making maintaining interest easy.

Lia Habel's debut, though a little ambitious and busy in setting, will appeal to older readers of YA. A fun and entertaining story, but intermittent with darker and more emotional moments than your average dystopia/paranormal.

Review: Break by Hannah Moskowitz

     

Break by Hannah Moskowitz
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Pages: 262
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Published: August 25th, 2009
IBSN: 9781416982753

Jonah is on a mission to break every bone in his body. Everyone knows that broken bones grow back stronger than they were before. And Jonah wants to be stronger—needs to be stronger—because everything around him is falling apart. Breaking, and then healing, is Jonah’s only way to cope with the stresses of home, girls, and the world on his shoulders.

When Jonah's self-destructive spiral accelerates and he hits rock bottom, will he find true strength or surrender to his breaking point?

Jonah believes that the family is the smallest unit of measurement. He and his brothers and his parents aren't components of a family, in that they can't be split apart from the family. With a brother deathly allergic to pretty much everything, including their newborn brother, and parents constantly at odds, Jonah decides he needs to be stronger in order for the family to be stronger.

So begins Jonah's mission to break his bones and have them heal stronger. No, it isn't as pointlessly self-destructive as it sounds. It started with a car accident that broke both femurs, and evolved to intentionally taking a few fingers, a wrist, a rib. "The first feeling is pain...the feeling that never comes in regret."

Break appeared on my radar after I read the wonderful Invincible Summer, Hannah Moskowitz's sophomore novel. Going back to her debut of two years prior, I was worried that IS set me up for disappointment, but while I could see how Hannah's writing developed between the two, Break was still an highly emotional and enjoyable read.

Hannah Moskowitz's style is raw and arresting, adopting a common family setting teeming with stress and worry and love and pulling it off with the believability of someone who's been there. The dynamics are so realistic and touching. The bond between Jonah and Jesse especially, both constructive and destructive at the same time, felt so real, and the exploration at their impact on each other's lives felt so deeply personal that remembering them as fictional characters came as a shock.

The characters' conflicts and motivations, the dynamics between them, their situations: everything is realistic and gritty. Hannah Moskowitz is skilled in bringing to life the most difficult and complicated of relationships and characters and making them relatable.

Break is a powerful and personal contemporary family drama I'd recommend to fans of Courtney Summers' novels. It's one lovers of Invincible Summer should check out to help pass the time until Gone, Gone, Gone's April release.

Review: The Statistical Probability Of Love At First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith

     

The Statistical Probability Of Love At First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith
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Pages: 224
Publisher: Headline
Published: January 5th, 2012
IBSN: 9780755384020

Who would have guessed that four minutes could change everything?

Imagine if she hadn't forgotten the book. Or if there hadn't been traffic on the expressway. Or if she hadn't fumbled the coins for the toll. What if she'd run just that little bit faster and caught the flight she was supposed to be on. Would it have been something else - the weather over the atlantic or a fault with the plane?

Hadley isn't sure if she believes in destiny or fate but, on what is potentially the worst day of each of their lives, it's the quirks of timing and chance events that mean Hadley meets Oliver...

Set over a 24-hour-period, Hadley and Oliver's story will make you believe that true love finds you when you're least expecting it.

Say Hadley had gotten to the airport just four minutes earlier and made her flight. She wouldn't have met Oliver, and may have had the exact miserable experience at her father's wedding that she anticipated. She was lucky. But in another stroke of luck, the two of them are separated after their flight without so much as a last name.

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight has built up a lot of early buzz as a breezy crossover romance. The quirky mood of the story is matched by its title, though while I love long titles as much as anyone else, the whole time I was bothered by how little correlation there is between statistics and probability and how it just didn't work. But onto points of the book that matter more.

The Statistical Probability is barely 200 pages long, short in a way that reflected the story's span of less than 24 hours. Plain prose suited the simple romantic premise and kept to the point, making for a very fast, one-sitting read -- apt for readers also on aeroplanes.

The characters were likable and with definite chemistry, though with voices that didn't distinguish themselves from hordes of other romantic leads. I guess that helped them, though, in a way, adding a familiarity to them that made investing in their story easier. Though without any real development from their either lead, the novel couldn't be called affecting.

The plot also follows the typical structure of romance closely: the couple meets and hits it off, something splits them up, and they reunite. In this case, the something that split them up was airport routine completely independent of them, so their reunion didn't involve any character development or personal demons conquered. Still, while there was little depth, Statistical Probability was very fun to just stop thinking and read.

The romance was sweet, unmushy, and a believable whirlwind that I'm a sucker for. The characters were likable, and occasionally funny, and the story progressed quickly. It's the classic feel-good rom-com translated to paper. It's the exact story you predict from the adorable edition cover. It's the quick cure to a miserable day.

Overall, The Statistical Probability was a cute and entertaining read, if a little generic. It should definitely appeal to fans of YA romance.

Review: In The Arms Of Stone Angels by Jordan Dane

     

In the Arms of Stone Angels by Jordan Dane
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Pages: 313
Publisher: Harlequin Teen Australia
Published: May 1st, 2011
IBSN: 9781921793110

Two years ago Brenna did the unthinkable. She witnessed the aftermath of a murder and accused her only true friend — the first boy she ever loved — of being a killer.

Now sixteen, Brenna returns to Oklahoma only to discover that Isaac ‘White Bird’ Henry isn’t in juvie. The half-breed outcast is in a mental hospital, frozen in time, locked in his mind at the worst moment of his life. When Brenna touches him, she’s pulled into his hellish vision quest, seeing terrifying demons and illusions she doesn’t understand.

Feeling isolated and alone, Brenna’s up against the whole town: targeted by bullying former classmates, a bigoted small town sheriff and a tribe who refuses to help one of their own.

But when Brenna realises she’s as trapped by the past as White Bird is, this time she won’t turn her back on him. She’s the only one who can free them both. Even if she has to expose her secret — a ‘gift’ she’s kept hidden her whole life.

Brenna lost the only person she'd ever really connected with, and if that weren't hard enough alone, she has to deal with the guilt that comes with being the one that sent him away. Two years ago Brenna saw White Bird deranged and bloodied over the body of a classmate and called the police, despite knowing that he was the person least likely to ever commit such a violence. Now it's clear that the only way she can ever move on is by going back and helping White Bird out of the mess she left him in.

I consider myself pretty skilled in eye-rolling, but this book made me feel out of practice. I literally couldn't keep up with the demand for eye-rolling. The characters were painfully contrived and the dynamics and interactions between them unrealistic. So much of the novel demanded angry, audible responses. "This is not how you do people."

For instance, Brenna herself is established almost immediately as an individual. She reminds us constantly just how different she is, seeming at times to be consciously choosing not to fit into with the town Dane created full of stock characters. She condemns anyone with a) friends and b) popular interests as sell-outs and indiscriminately hates them all the way she says they indiscriminately hate her. She thinks her town is small-minded and can't stand individuality, but they mostly dislike her because she thinks she's better than everyone else. Or else because she talks to herself a lot.

The narration shifted out of Brenna's perspective and at some point into the third person narration of almost every other notable character, leaving nothing to bolster this book's esteemed mystery. Even when the change felt like a respite from Brenna's irritating and disingenuous voice, the next character -- the unrealistically cruel bullies, the hackneyed police sheriff, or the inexplicably intense doctor with the unexplained ulterior motive -- proved to be as terribly constructed. I'm left wondering whether it was that Dane doesn't understand people or how to recreate them.

In The Arms Of Stone Angels was pitched as a psychological drama/thriller, which is what I picked up the story for, and what I hoped would make up for the characterisation. But it was ultimately rather boring. There was no suspense, just Brenna trying (not very hard at all) to clear White Bird's name and angsting about the impact what she did had on her. The height of the drama came at the very end in a separate plot thread to the main concern, like an afterthought when the first crashed.

In The Arms of Stone Angels is full of characters who evoke more irritation than sympathy, and with a slow, unmysterious plot that doesn't compensate. Although, the book has been generally well-received, so don't rule it out too quickly.

Review: Brother/Sister by Sean Olin

     

Brother/Sister by Sean Olin
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Pages: 272
Publisher: Penguin Australia
Published: August 2011
IBSN: 9780141338453

WILL
How many times do I have to say it? Yes, I see the picture. It’s a body, obviously. It’s a dead body.

ASHELEY
You have to understand, I love my brother. I’m scared of him too, but . . . regardless of what he has or hasn’t done, I feel for him, you know.

WILL
I don’t care what happens to me, really, I don’t. But Asheley . . . she had nothing to do with any of this.

ASHELEY
It’s not like it sounds. He had a good heart. He trusted me. And I always did the best I could to help him.

WILL
It’s not her fault. None of it. Okay then. The guy in the photo. I killed him . . . but I had to. I had no choice. Why? That’s complicated. That’ll take a while.

This time their deadbeat alcoholic mother is shipped off to rehab, Will and Asheley feel like they're better off. After her departure, Will wins a golf tournament and Asheley finally starts to fit in. Everything's looking up, so why do they end up interrogated in a murder investigation?

Brother/Sister is told through the dual perspectives of Will and Asheley, their narrations a statement to a policeman asking questions about the mysterious and unexplained dead bodies, a recount of the events leading them to the interrogation room. It was a refreshing style, told from the characters' mouths rather than from inside their head. That they had the capacity to lie to us was intriguing.

Brother/Sister began with a kind of blatant hook; the premise of a dead body and the promise of an explanation. But beyond that the story seemed to drag, with the narration slipping from its personal address to first-person detailing of every tedious moment their lives. The odd references to the interrogator were startling, but served as reminders that the story was indeed going somewhere and heightened anticipation.

The end pulled together all of the seemingly pointless plot threads made me rethink dismissing them all. I almost forgive the drawn out and dull beginning for the surprise realisation that it all amounted to something. What you expected from the very beginning -- the inevitability of future tense -- was contradicted with an decidedly unexpected twist, in the literal last sentence, blink-and-you'll-miss-it quick and read-it-over-several-times unbelievable.

The main appeal of this story was the characters, for their skilfully evoked and distinct voices. For their slow development (or rather, deterioration) and for the slow revelation that they may not be as reliable as their relatable beginning may have you believe. The small and cleverly constructed discrepancies between the siblings' recounts were the the first hint, and they gradually got bigger and less deniable.

I recommend Brother/Sister to fans of Choker (Elizabeth Woods), Entangled (Cat Clark), Tighter (Adele Griffin), and Every You, Every Me (David Levithan). It was an intense and gritty story, well-told. It was boring in places, but you'll be rewarded at the conclusion for sticking with it.