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At the core of its plot, Erased by Jennifer Rush features psychological and genetic engineering that erases important memories and plants false ones in the void.  Four of the experimental group teens manage to escape the Branch lab.  Anna, unable to let go of the past, is on the run with loyal and noble Sam, the irritatingly adorable Cas, and Nick, “a shark masquerading as a panther” (19).  The Branch has been using biotechnology to turn teens into weaponry, and the four have received genetic alterations and programming to turn them into a team of assassins, with Anna as the leader. Hunted by the Branch,Read More →

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Early on in James Dashner‘s newest The Eye of the Minds, I jotted down: “Matrix“;  then a little later, “The Maze Runner,” and finally “The Truman Show.”  Dashner combines these and more pop culture influences in an imaginative, if not a wholly original, way to create a world within a world full of shadows, illusions, and shifting realities. VirtNet is an all-immersive virtual reality game.  After physically connecting to the interface, a player climbs into a “coffin,” the gateway into the VirtNet that induces a sleeplike state that keeps the player in suspended animation while inside the game.  Everything about Virtnet is programmed to beRead More →

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As its central conflict in The Darkest Path by Jeff Hirsch, the United States is again divided against itself, with some states controlled by the Federal Army and others controlled by the Army of the Glorious Path.  Leader of the Path is President Hill, who has co-opted progressive ideas about economic justice and mixed them with religious fundamentalism.  The Path believe that “there is a light inside all of us that comes from God.  The Choice is simply committing yourself to following the path that it illuminates” (254).  Propaganda occurs through mottoes and prayer, with followers believing “I am the Way and the Path” (240). Read More →

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Whoa – I was knocked back by David Massey‘s debut, Torn. Based on simply the slightly cheesy tease on the cover (“An American Soldier. A British Medic. Afghanistan. Can their love survive a War?”), I wasn’t sure what to expect from the book, but within the first few pages I was so captivated, horrified, and walloped by this powerful story that I stayed glued in my chair until I finished the book.  At a swiftly-paced 274 pages, the time flew and before I knew it I was breathlessly coming up for air and looking at war in a whole new way. And then the very nextRead More →

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For a fast-paced, suspenseful, and engaging read, Nick Lake’s Hostage Three won’t disappoint.  That Lake was the Winner of the 2013 Printz Award is apparent in his writing style—which captivates with its pacing and imagery-richness. The book’s protagonist is seventeen-year-old Amy Fields fromLondon.  Struggling to deal with her mothers’ death and craving her father’s attention, Amy has taken acting out to a self-destructive level: swearing at teachers, taking drugs, insulting her parents, going to all-night parties, and intentionally failing her high school exit exams.  Hoping to block out the world or simply wishing to disappear, she is snarky, sullen, defiant, and without charming personality quirks.Read More →

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Four teens who inexplicably survive the “end of the world”, brought together seemly by random chance who each have an undiscovered power and a deeply hidden pain, who together can set the teetering, ravaged city of Los Angeles (and perhaps the whole world) back on its axis . . . Icons by Margaret Stohl?  Not even close, actually.  Instead, this tale of destruction, survival, and the power of love comes from Francesca Lia Block and is as different in tone, imagery, and execution as day from night.   In Love in the Time of Global Warming (August 2013), Block again crafts a story wherein herRead More →

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When people drive by an accident, or a house fire, or some other horror that routinely befalls our fellow human beings, we’re compelled to look. To stare. To seek out signs of lost normalcy, the life that was, the people as they were “before.”  It’s an uncontrollable urge to peer in, despite the fact that we’re aware of the suffering and pain wrapped up in the debris.  Andrew Smith‘s The Marbury Lens is one of those horrors that you can’t look away from, no matter how much you want to, no matter how gruesome the detail, no matter the pain twisting in your gut asRead More →

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She doesn’t know her name. She doesn’t know where she is. All she knows is that her fingernails have been removed, she has been physically attacked, and she’s a prisoner to two men. Before she can open her eyes, she hears the men discussing how they are going to “finish her off because she knows too much”. This action packed novel follows a girl who is unaware of her entire life. She has lost all her memories and is on the run from a group of men who want to kill her. Even going to the cops has gotten her in trouble. She has beenRead More →

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I’m not sure what to say about Matt de la Pena’s The Living.  I’ve been wrestling with how to review this book for a couple of weeks now and I still haven’t really found a place to start.  The blurb on the back of the ARC says “genre-bending” and I think that’s the best I can come up with too; that’s not because I wasn’t engaged by the story, didn’t care about the characters, and wasn’t thinking about Shy and his unbelievable 8 days long after I closed the back cover, it’s just that The Living is . . . different. Shy’s taken a jobRead More →