Book Review: Gravity by Melissa West

What I liked about this book is that the aliens are interesting and different.  Ok, of course, they are different but these have some unique features and characteristics plus they need humans to continue living.   Good descriptions make it even more interesting.  Gravity by Melissa West is a Taking Novel which refers to Ancients (aliens) taking from humans the substance they need to live.  Humans are required to wear a sleeping mask during this process and must not peek. 

Ari, the heroine is especially talented in warfare and trained in Special Ops by her father.  As an alien spy Jackson wants to learn all he can from her and other humans.  At the same time Ari and Jackson are trying to prevent a war between the Ancients and humans.  Ari will do what she can even if she must betray her father.  The planet Loge needs the  earth and its people. 

I am looking forward to the second book Hover and answers to many questions that came to mind. 

Superhuman Immortals in Space!

Garth Nix's newest book, A Confusion of Princes, is a exhilerating space opera.  The main character, Khemri, is a Prince.  Which is pretty awesome as far as Khemri's concerned, except there's thousands of Princes in the intergalactic empire.  And he just discovered that they're all out to kill each other.  Khemri is going to have to work hard and stay ever-vigilant if he wants to survive.  He's got a lot of learning to do in a very short amount of time.  To make matters more complicated, he's also sent on a secret mission, so now even more people want to kill him, but for different reasons.  On top of all that, he's finding out that there's a lot of secrets and lies in the Empire - and a lot of them have to do with the Princes and their Priests and the Imperial Mind and Khemri himself. 

I want to tell you more because this book is so good, but everything else would be spoilers.  So read it - it's fantastic!

~ Book Ninja

Cyborgs and Humans and Plague, Oh My!

It's the year 2076, and the human race has been decimated by an airborne virus known as RM. Women are mandated to become pregnant as often as possible in the hopes that a baby will be born immune--but it's been ten years and no infant survives more than 56 hours. Teenage medic Kira is convinced that the cure for RM lies with the Partials, a race of engineered cyborgs who were responsible for the release of the virus in the first place. In order to find the answers she wants, however, she has to capture a Partial first.

Half medical thriller, half dystopian, Partials by Dan Wells follows Kira as she tries to unlock the secret to curing the disease that has claimed so many lives around the world. The intrigue deepens when Samm, the Partial that Kira has captured, gives an entirely different perspective on the war that has dragged on for so long between the Partials and the humans.

Bored with Teen Books? Try These!

If you normally stick with the teen shelves at the library, you might be surprised to learn that a lot of teens have favorite books from the adult or children's sections, too. Here are some that teens tell me they've loved, and that I might've snuck as a teen, myself:

• Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Yeah, teens usually say they're checking them out for a little brother or sister, but, busted! They're fun for any age. All the illustrations make them a really fast read, and a new book or movie seems to come out every couple of months, so you won't be bored.
• Jurassic Park (remember that movie about the dinosaur theme park that seemed like such a great idea, until they started eating people?) is a great mix of action, suspense, and science. And as a friend of mine put it, "Everything I know about chaos theory, I learned from Jurassic Park." Michael Crichton wrote some other books that are still popular, too, like The Andromeda Strain. 

Just Another Story About a Girl and Her Dragons

Menolly doesn't just love to play music -- she's really good at it. But on her world, only men are allowed to be musicians. Menolly's not good at things that are "women's work," but she's way better at playing the harp than most men. She hardly ever got to play, and at the beginning of the book, even that was taken away from her and she was forbidden from ever playing music again. Ever. I don't know about you, but I wasn't at all surprised when she ran away. I was surprised at what she found, though...Dragons!

Ender's Game: Earth is Losing...

After decades of battle against insect-like aliens, we still haven't found a general who can defeat them.We're running out of soldiers, we're running out of spaceships, and we're running out of hope. But maybe, with the right training, one special boy can be molded into a hero.

Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card, tells the story of Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, who's only six when he's recruited to Battle School to learn strategies to defeat the aliens. I'm excited to see the movie adaptation next year, but you should definitely read it first, so why not now, before the hype starts and you hear spoilers?

Teen Volunteer Dystopia Picks

Here at Flowing Wells Library, our summer teen volunteers kept busy with an art project based on their favorite dystopian novels and short stories.

The Giver by Lois Lowry was a striking visual choice for the collage. Black and white with poignant bursts of color illustrate a tale of a boy who learns there is much more to life than he has been led to believe. If you like this classic, check out its sequels, too!

Read on for the rest of their picks...

Middle School Mayhem

I read so many books that sometimes it's really hard to think about what to write about for this blog; other times, the universe just seems to pull out a topic and advertise it in neon lights. With arrows. And a fog horn. I was talking with a middle school teacher the other day and she was saying how there are so few good books for middle school students. My library is also currently working on a program called Middle School Mayhem. So obviously my post needs to be some of my TOP middle school reads. Without further ado, my fave middle school reads:

Eve, Terrified of Adam

Okay, I just finished Eve by Anna Carey, and I don't know WHAT to think. It started out like such a happy, idealistic book about the future. Eve was the happiest girl at her compound, accomplished in many languages, subjects, and surrounded by beloved friends. But then, when she was about to give her valedictorian speech and head off to a bright future learning a trade and having a glamorous life in the city, she found out that the future she was looking forward to was a lie.

My favorites of 2011

Late last year, I read a boatload of new science fiction and fantasy books for teens. A lot of them. Wizards, dystopias, magic, quests - they were coming out my ears, I tell you. These are my top four.

Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick - When a powerful electromagnetic pulse kills off two-thirds of the human race and knocks the rest back to the Stone Age, it's every man, woman, and child for himself. 17-year-old Alex was already living on borrowed time, what with the brain tumor and all, so she thought she knew about living life one day at a time. Along with Afghanistan vet Tom and eight-year-old Ellie, she discovers that it's a little more difficult when you have to fight wild animals and teen cannibal zombies for the privilege.

The end-of-a-series Blues

I hate it when I finish a series. Hate it. Perhaps I am too attached to characters and their fictional lives but the very nature of a story makes you believe there could always be more if someone would only think it up and write it down! Most recently, I finished up Suzanne Collins' amazing Hunger Games trilogy (yes, I am shockingly behind the times) and I've fallen into my usual funk. Just in case any of you are in the same sad boat, I am here to offer you a lifeline--literally! In the same vein, Paolo Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker is an exhilarating, futuristic dark work where the remains of sunken ships in the Gulf of Mexico have become a vicious dog-eat-dog world of scavengers--scrap wood, copper, oil, eyeballs, it's all fair game and makes life precarious at best.

A sci-fi Cinderella

When I first heard about Cinder by Marissa Meyer, I thought it was just a Cinderella story with cyborg elements. It is so much more that. Meyer takes the elements of Cinderella, like the prince, and the ball, and the cruel step-family and weaves them into a much bigger story. There is a new evil Queen, the ruler of the Lunar colony. She has some mysterious powers, she may or may not be responsible for a plague that is decimating Earth, and she wants the Prince's throne. Cinder gets involved because she is an excellent mechanic. Little do people realize it's because she is part cyborg. Anyway, the Prince needs a droid fixed. He says it's for sentimental value, but it's really because she was spying for him. This all makes for a very cool, science fiction style Cinderella that is well worth reading.

Edgy Reads

I was going to do a best-of-the-year post, but when I looked back at the teen books I read in 2011, I realized that most had something in common: they were pretty dark and disturbing. Dark content in YA literature got a lot of press this year, but in the end, it's a personal decision. If you're searching for books that push the envelope and give you that unsettled, is-this-really-okay-to-read feeling, give these a shot!

• After by Amy Efaw is the raw, unflinching story of the person behind the headlines:  Devon did something terrible, something so bad she can't even quite remember or believe it, even in her cell in juvie, where she has all the time in the world to reflect.

Start at the beginning...

Steampunk and post-apocalyptic books may have only just starting getting popular but I think Alan Moore proved that heroines with shaved heads are awesome a long time ago. Thankfully Philip Reeve is rocking all three elements with "Fever Crumb,"the prequal to his Mortal Engines Quartet. If you aren't familiar with that series it is basically a post-apocalyptic steampunk rollercoaster of adventure awesomeness. After almost total destruction of the world from nuclear war, cities roll around on giant machines to escape the natural disasters that ensue. While rolling around the cities eat each other. Seriously. Big cities devour tiny cities, bigger cities devour big cites, and so on and so on. At the same time the cities are fighting a rebel group looking to get cities to finally stay put.

When One Book Isn't Enough

Believe it or not, every single one of the favorite teen books in this year's Summer Reading Program was part of a series. This is a great time to be a fan of YA series -- there are so many excellent ones coming out, and the library has a great selection! So if you're going to be bored over winter break, or forced to head off on a holiday trip, why not grab a series or three to keep you entertained?

If you loved Harry Potter, give Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain a try! Think Harry Potter's life started out rough? Imagine if he'd been a lowly Assistant Pig-Keeper, who got all muddled up in magic, battles, royalty, and epic quests! Start with The Book of Three.

Cold and Furry!

DNA = dieofcute!

Ann Halam's Siberia doesn't just have the usual things I like in a YA novel: a grim, post-apocalyptic setting, a boarding school, a plucky, rebellious heroine, and a heroic journey through the snow (c'mon, I'm a Tucsonan, I need some vicarious cold). It also has an added bonus: cute fictional creatures!