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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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Just in time for the General debate of the sixty-seventh and sixty-eighth sessions of the General Assembly of the United Nations this September, Malinda Lo’s novel Inheritance, a sequel to Adaptation will release for publication.  Lo’s book explores the adaptation abilities of two seventeen-year-old debate partners, David Li and Reese Holloway, who are abducted from Noe Valley, California, by Imrians, aliens from the planet Kurra.  Although a car accident after a debate match renders them brain dead, Imrian scientist Dr. Evelyn Brand not only saves their lives but alters them to become what some consider “hybrid monsters.”  After their adaptation, David and Reese are ableRead More →

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How do you become a man when you don’t have a man in your life?  What does it mean if your father left you and your mom?  Or worse, was never in your life to begin with?  In Dead Ends, the second book by Arizona author Erin Jade Lange,  the question of fathers and the legacies they leave to their children unites unlikely friends on a journey of discovery, healing, and transformation. In his high school, there are the “haves” and the “have-nots”, and Dane Washington is a “have not”.  What Dane does have, however, is a fierce temper and the power to back itRead 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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A teenage girl with an unknown power, her guy best friend with whom she’s so comfortable she doesn’t even consider romance, and a mysterious guy, brooding, beautiful, and seemingly dangerous who is suddenly everywhere she turns.  Twilight?  No, actually, these three teens are the main characters in The Fallen Series author Lauren Kate‘s new trilogy, Teardrop. Seventeen year old Eureka Boudreaux is a strong-willed, beautiful, and depressed.  Just months ago she lost her best friend, her mom Diana, to a rogue wave that inexplicably swept their car, and only their car, from a bridge connecting the Florida Keys to the mainland.  Now Eureka, wracked withRead More →

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A tale of star crossed lovers of a different sort unfolds in Page Morgan’s The Beautiful and The Cursed. The story takes place in 1890’s Paris, France, a time where royals ruled the world. Lady Charlotte moves her daughters, Lady Ingrid and Lady Gabriella, from an English mansion to a French abbey she plans to remodel into an art gallery. Her son, Lord Fairfax, was sent to France two months earlier to scout out the location. The move could not have come at a better time for Lady Ingrid. Her reputation in London had taken a nosedive when she accidentally set her friend’s home onRead 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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Untold Damage by Robert K. Lewis is the classic tale of a fallen cop who is looking to regain control of his life. Mark Mallen used to be an undercover cop in the San Francisco Bay area attempting to uncover a drug lord who has been smuggling heroin into the city. He has been undercover for a little over a year and has not gone up in rank as much as he hoped. With a wife and new born child waiting for him to come home, he knows he needs to speed up the process. He decides that the best way to really get intoRead More →