Reading

You may have noticed that I haven't posted any reviews in quite some time. As it turns out, I much prefer reading books than writing reviews. It started to feel like work, and this blog was never meant to be work.

I may or may not start posting reviews again here someday, but for now I'll talk about any books that move my spirit on my personal blog, Love Life Project.

Happy reading, everyone!

The Host

title: The Host
author: Stephenie Meyer
how I read it: once from the school library, once before I gave it to my Dad for Christmas, once as an audiobook

Melanie Stryder has done the unthinkable: she has stayed present and conscious in her own body, despite the Soul who controls it. The Host tells a classic “tale of the bodysnatchers” story, with a twist; this time, the story is told through the eyes of Wanderer, the parasitic alien creature who’s doing the snatching. Melanie floods Wanderer with memories of Jared until he is all that either of them can think about. Soul and Host become reluctant allies in their goal to save the man that they both love.

The first few pages of The Host are slow and a bit difficult to understand. I had to push my way through the first chapter in particular and I nearly put the book down. I'm glad that I persevered, because once this book takes off, it's impossible to put down. The story is well-paced and suspenseful. I found myself rereading exciting passages multiple times because I loved the fact that Meyer managed to surprise me.

The love triangle - three people in two bodies - was interesting and fun. While this idea has been explored before (that two-timing Rio in love with both Jem and Jerica, anyone?), Meyer made it seem like a fresh and completely original idea.

This book has some flaws. There are very few shades of gray in the characters. For the most part, they are either "good" or "bad". While a few of the characters do change and grow, they tend to do it in a very sudden and jerky fashion. They flip from "good" to "bad", or from "bad" to "good" quickly and without much personal anguish. Wanderer (renamed Wanda by the humans) was particularly cloying at times. While I really did like her, her goodness bordered on boring. She also never seemed to grapple with the moral issues of being a parasite, despite coming to love the humans.

With Stephenie Meyer's meteoric rise to fame, it's hard not to compare The Host to the Twilight series. In my opinion, The Host is a far more interesting and original book. I know that this is probably going to shock (and possibly annoy) a lot of people, but I didn't really like Twilight. I found the female lead one-dimensional, weak, needy and almost kittenish. Wanda suffers the same fate in many ways; she is submissive and almost too "good". But because of the way that Souls are portrayed - as gentle and nonviolent by nature - it was much more acceptable to me to have a weak female lead. Still, I hope that if Meyers writes any more books, she'll drop the whole "damsel in distress" plot and write a stronger, more independent female character.

This book made me want to: build a bunker and stock it with supplies. Oh, who am I kidding. I've wanted to do that for years.

Verdict: Despite its flaws, this was a good story with strong pacing and likeable characters - well worth reading!

Sequels: none as of yet.

Exodus

title: Exodus
author: Julie Bertagna
how I read it: I borrowed this one three times from the public library

In the year 2099, the polar icecaps have melted and most of the world is underwater. 15-year-old Mara and her small village cling to a life of subsistence farming on Wing, an island in the North Atlantic that gets smaller every year. Finally, caught in a terrifying storm that seems to be eating up their island altogether, they set off into the ocean on small boats, with no guarantee that they will ever find anywhere to land.

The characters in this book are strong, realistic and likeable, but Bertagna doesn't pull any punches. Bad things sometimes happen to good people in this book, the way that they do in wars and environmental disasters. Bertagna researched refugee camps when writing this book, and this really comes through during some of the scenes. I could feel the hopelessness, hunger, fear, frustration and sheer boredom during the part of the book that drew on this research.

This is a truly remarkable book of courage, loss and perseverence. The fact that I read it three times (and would happily read it again) is testament to the quality of both story-telling and writing. Honestly, I don't feel that this book has gotten anywhere near the attention that it deserves. I've never met anyone who's read it, unless it's been on my recommendation. I don't understand what makes one book a bestseller while another equally good book - like Exodus - remains relatively unknown. If any young adult fiction belongs on a best-seller list, then this one should be right up there with the best of them.

This book made me want to: become a better swimmer.

Verdict: Truly beautiful book that I think should be on everyone's "must-read" list.

Sequels: Zenith (available) and Aurora (not yet finished). Exodus can be read as a standalone novel - no cliffhangers, although the ending is both open and bittersweet.

The House of the Scorpion

title: The House of the Scorpion
author: Nancy Farmer
how I read it: in book form, about six times in three different houses – my copy is much-loved, complete with dog ears and chocolate stains.

Clones, opium, betrayal, love, power, slavery...and did I mention clones? Farmer’s tells the story of Matt, a young clone – dehumanized, isolated – and his growing understanding of the world and his role within it. When Matt is a child, locked in a small shack in the middle of vast opium fields, he is discovered by three other children. Matt has never played with other children. He has no mother, father or siblings. His only companion is Celia, who loves him dearly, cares for him, and keeps him hidden during the day while she is away. Matt’s introduction to the wider world is anything but kind, but he must learn to be strong in order to survive.

This is one of my all-time favourite books. You’d think that I’d know it by heart after six or seven reads, but it still surprises and shocks me every single time. It’s a dark, depressing story in many ways, but – as with any good story – there are still glimmers of hope.

Matt is a captivating main character. He is in turn naive and shrewd; kind and cruel; young and wise. I spent most of the book wanting to gather him in my arms, whether he was a small child or an adolescent. Farmer wrote in such a way that six-year-old Matt is a true six-year-old. The vocabulary and voice grow and change along with Matt. This growth was very well-executed and made the story all the more compelling. The suspense builds from the beginning of the book and doesn’t let up.

The future that Farmer has created is dark and frightening. It doesn’t seem all that implausible that some day land controlled by druglords might claim independence from other nations. It doesn’t seem all that impossible that the strong would find a way to enslave the weak using the most horrific form of mind control. It doesn’t seem unbelievable that someday the rich and immoral would twist technological advances to better their own lives at the expense of others.

This book brings up a lot of questions. Which is stronger, nature or nurture? How do we define right and wrong? Is it possible to atone for evil that we’ve done in the past? What makes a person a person? How do we balance ethics with rapid technological advances? How can we stand up for what we believe to be right when the rest of the world disagrees with us?

Oh, my brain hurts.

This book made me want to: read it again. And also say no to drugs.

Verdict: one of the best books that I’ve ever read...and I’ve read a lot of books.

Sequels: nada. This is the second standalone book that I’ve reviewed in a row. What a shocker!

Blood and Chocolate

title: Blood and Chocolate
author: Annette Curtis Klause
how I read it: print book from the library

Vivian is a werewolf. Her pack – hard-partying, hard-living, dangerous and wild – lives in the human world but also apart from them. As the only female teenager in the pack, Vivian is a bit isolated. While she grew up playing and roughhousing with The Five – five young males of about the same age as her – now that they are no longer children, the energy between them has changed. She misses her father who died not long ago, and she and her mother have a volatile, changeable relationship. Vivian longs for something more; and she believes that she has found it in Aidan, a human (“meat-boy”) that she meets at school.

I really enjoyed this fast-paced book. The story was unpredictable and exciting. It drew me in and kept me turning pages until the very end. I was especially fascinated by the depiction of werewolves as both violent and sensual animals.

While there were no explicit sex scenes, this book is very sexually charged. Sex and power are inextricably linked, and Vivian has absolutely no qualms about using her sexuality as a tool. I have to admit that some of the messages in this book about love and sex left me feeling very uncomfortable. The ending, in particular, left me feeling unsettled. Don’t get me wrong; I have absolutely no problems with sexuality in young adult novels. Sexuality is such a huge part of adolescence that it would be utterly naive to omit it. But after reading this book, I was left wondering about the author’s intent. I can’t really discuss my thoughts here beyond that without spoiling the book, but I’d be very happy to discuss further with anyone through email.

Despite these issues with the book, I really enjoyed the story and especially Vivian’s character. While she is not always likeable and I couldn’t always relate to her, she is an extremely strong female character. She knows what she wants, and she is fully confident in her ability to get it. She has both human characteristics – longing, loneliness – and wild, feral werewolf qualities that meld together to create an extremely interesting character.

This book made me want to: run really, really fast.

Verdict: a tight, compelling read. I do think that this book should be previewed by parents and discussed afterwards with younger teens.

Sequels: nope! This is a standalone book.

The Darkest Powers

title: The Darkest Powers trilogy (The Summoning, The Awakening, The Reckoning)
author: Kelley Armstrong
how I read it: all bundled up nicely in one thick book. Since I read it as one book, I’m going to review it as one book! But I’ll only summarize the very first bit, so as not to spoil the story for anyone wanting to read it.

15-year-old Chloe is frightened and confused by the visions that have been plaguing her. She sees people and things that aren’t there, people and things that terrify her but that nobody else can see. Quickly labeled as mentally ill and shipped off to a live-in youth centre, Chloe is determined to prove that she doesn’t belong there. As she learns more about the centre and the other young teens who live there, she starts to understand that there is something far more dangerous and sinister going on beneath the surface than she thought at first.

The ideas behind this book are not new. Supernatural powers show up in adolescence, kids are misunderstood and sent away, people want to control them and their powers, and there’s a classic battle of good against evil (or at least power-hungry). Youth going up against an unfair adult system is a recurring theme in young adult fantasy and science fiction, and this book is no different. But that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable! Sometimes the same themes show up in books time and time again because they’re entertaining, they’re exciting or they make us think. This is, first and foremost, a story about struggling to find yourself in a world that you don’t quite fit into. It’s about fighting against an unfair adult organization that is much stronger than you are.

The Darkest Powers has an obligatory teenage angst love triangle. I don’t have anything against love triangles, so long as they aren’t forced and unbelievable. This one was refreshingly believable and it wasn’t quite so obvious who Chloe would choose in the end. I found myself rooting for all of the three main characters in the book; no one is perfect, but they are all likeable. The love triangle in the book is important and yet almost peripheral to the story, which made it all the more enjoyable.

This is a light, fun read. There are some dark bits, but this wasn’t a book that made me squirm. The pacing is great and the writing flows smoothly. This trilogy won’t change the way that you look at the world, but you’ll have a lot of fun reading it!

This book made me want to: learn to draw comics.

Verdict: a fun read, perfect for summer vacation.

Sequels: the three books can be purchased individually or bound together. I know that Armstrong wrote some other books in the same universe, so I'll be looking for them.

Delirium

title: Delirium
author: Lauren Oliver
how I read it: epub from the public library

Amor Deliria Nervosa: the disease of love. People are horrified by the mere thought of contracting this deadly disease. Luckily for them, there is a cure. In the not-so-distant future, there is a solution to this dangerous illness: eliminate love and emotion with a simple brain surgery that marks the passage from childhood to adulthood.

Lena is months away from her 18th birthday and is nervously awaiting the tests that will match her to a job, a mate and a life before undergoing her procedure. Of course, a lot can happen in 95 days...

In Delirium, Lauren Oliver succeeded in creating a dystopian society in which people’s sense of identity and personal power are completely eroded. The heavy-handed control described in the book was suffocating and reminiscent of some of the classic dystopian fiction like 1984.

This is not an action-filled book. Although there are some suspenseful scenes, the book in general is very slow-paced. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Despite its slow pace, I found myself riveted to this book, turning page after page (well, more like tapping the screen time after time, but you know what I mean.)

Young adult fiction generally has love and identity as central themes. This book is no different. While I do like romance, I prefer that love be peripheral to a larger story. This book had a very different approach; love was the story, with the larger political and social themes peripheral to Lena's emotions.

This might make sense in light of the fact that this is a book aimed at teens, and I remember well how all-encompassing teenage love can be. But as a reader, I found myself far more intrigued by what, exactly, might have led to this dystopian society and less interested in whether Lena and Alex would live happily ever after. That said, I do want to give Lauren Oliver a quick shout-out for bucking conventions and not creating a heartbreaking love triangle for her characters!

As seems to be a growing trend with teen science fiction and dystopian fiction, this book ends on a cliffhanger. I know that I’ve mentioned this before, but quite frankly, I find this trend tiresome. I am reading books. I am not watching serial television shows. If your writing and your story are compelling enough, then I will read the next book in the series. It’s fine to leave an ending open, with an obvious sequel to follow, but I still expect some closure at the end of a book. This book has more closure than some that I've reviewed, but still disappointed me a bit with the "tune in to see what happens next" ending.

That said, I will tune in for the next one.

This book made me want to: Dance.

Verdict: I'm still a bit indecisive. I think it was a really lovely book...but I'm not adding it to my list of all-time favourites. If you're a person who loves romance above all else, I think that you'll really enjoy this one.

Sequels: upcoming - Pandemonium and Requiem. Lauren Oliver held a contest and had blog commenters suggest titles for the last two books in the trilogy. I thought that was kind of cool!