Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

I'm not going to summarize this one. I take it you all already know what The Hunger Games is about, and if not please leave my blog. (I kid, but really. Go read it.)

And, by the way: MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT. Don't read this if you haven't read the book. Go away. Otherwise, sit and stay a while. Have some popcorn.

Now, I'm a huge lover of this series. I read the entirety of Mockingjay out loud with a group of friends, taking turns by chapters on a long, lengthy roadtrip. Let me tell you: there's nothing more fun than delivering one of Suzanne Collin's cliffhanging last chapter lines to a group of readers. I think it impacted my reading, but in a good way. The shared excitement was like that crazy-palpable energy you can feel before a good concert.

Anyway, I thought the book was great. The writing, hands down, was absolutely brilliant. I can systematically argue and praise the plot every which way, but the writing is nothing but fantastic.

A lot of people - and even I'm guilty of this - made it about the romance. Team Gabe or Team Peeta. Before this book, I was the former. After this book, I was neither. I really wanted Katniss to have the strength to stand up by herself, but she'd become so broken she couldn't have lived without Peeta, or at the very least, someone to lean on.

Gale became someone who was completely overwhelmed by anger and hate and fire. He was the person Katniss didn't want to become. It showed how war can effect you, how something can fester in your heart until it becomes all-consuming. When there were glances, peeks, of the old Gale, I remembered why I liked him so much. But people change, and he became a shining example of that. It's pretty depressing to watch a character you love fall into someone you have little respect for. But I thought it was pretty masterful on Collins' part.

It's funny that I would be so interested in the politics of this book, when I generally hate everything to do with politics. But the way it was written, with such structure and organization, I fell into it. It was less about the politics and more about finding justice.

And (again, spoiler) the most beautiful moment of justice is when Katniss shoots Coin. To me, that said everything that needed to be said about this book.

There was tragedy, death, justice, and life. I definitely shed some tears. There's a lot of controversy about the ending, but I think there would be no matter how Collins' wrote it. I thought it was done very well, and while I'm sad it came to an end, I'm bittersweetly happy with the results.

Crank by Ellen Hopkins

Kristina goes to visit her dad and in the process transforms into Bree: a girl who falls for a boy and gets hooked on crank. It's a seductive lifestyle for the newly born Bree, and she can't deny the call of the monster.

This book was amazingly written. It's told in verse - Ellen Hopkins is famous for it, and for good reason. The lyricism and beauty of her words hold an incredible amount of impact. The poetry speaks loudly and her writing is true artwork.

But I could not sympathize with Kristina/Bree at all. At. All. I had very little connection with her character, which is something that's painful considering the beauty of the writing and the intense subject matter.

The only other book I've read by her was Identical, which I absolutely loved. I enjoyed the plotline a lot more and the ending jolted me. The writing in Crank I may have liked better, but the plot and characters didn't hit me as hard.

Regardless, Ellen Hopkins is a master of words and reading her work is a completely different experience.

The Dark Divine by Bree Despain

A Prodigal Son
A Dangerous Love
A Deadly Secret

So says the tagline for The Dark Divine, a love story (among other things) between a werewolf and a girl. Now, I'm not going to do a standard review for this one. It wasn't my favorite book, although I did like some parts of it: Grace's art class, the religious undertones - which usually annoy me, but in this instance actually intrigued me. I also really liked the brother vs boy-interest debate. You don't really see that a lot in YA, and it's interesting. Bits and pieces of this book I enjoyed, but something about the characters and the plotting wouldn't let me fully thumb-up this one.

But that's as far as this review is going to go, because my feelings towards the characters aren't exponential. But I did want to bring up an accusation: Perez Hilton posted that The Dark Divine was a rip-off of Twilight (after hearing about the movie rights selling, because I doubt he reads *cough*)

This is probably one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. Forbidden love stories and, if you want to get technical, werewolves, were here a LOOOONG time before Twilight. Vampire Diaries, for instance, was printed over ten years ago and involved a romance between a vampire and a human. Sound familiar? And yes, it also had werewolves. The Sookie Stackhouse books are yet another example. There are so many references I could pull from here, but the bottom line is this: stop using Twilight as the go-to paranormal book. Because, frankly, the idea isn't original. But generally, no ideas are. We all get inspiration from past media and stories and history. But no two books are the same because no two author's views and takes on it are the same. Did Bree Despain read Twilight and intentionally write a forbidden love story because of it? No. Did Bree Despain read hundreds of books and watch hundreds of movies about forbidden romances and did they influence her writing? Probably. Does that make it unoriginal? Absolutely not. The idea is distilled in our brains because we want what we can't have. Forbidden. It's juicy. Like an apple. (Yeah, that was intentional. Bite me. ;))

I mean, I love, love, love what Twilight has done for reading, but I really hate that people view it as a market. And that the word "rip off" would be used regarding TDD. Because it's not, at all.

What's your opinion on this book/issue?

Deception by Lee Nichols

This was one of my book club's picks and I'm glad we decided on it. My entire book club didn't agree with me, but I thought this was a fun, nostalgic read. I'll describe the nostalgia after I tell you (for those who don't know) what it's about:

Emma Vaile is visited by the mysterious Bennett - a smexy college boy from her past - who takes her, on her parents orders (while they're away on a "business trip"), to Thatcher Academy. Emma starts having memories and visions of the Academy, even though she's never stepped foot on it before. Yay, #ghoststory.

I think the reason I loved this book so much is because of Meg Cabot. Hear me out: a huge part of my childhood was filled with The Mediator books. They were one of the few series that I continued with and adored and read and reread while I was a preteen. Something about those books - the ghosts, the forbidden love, the plot twists and the hilariously awkward moments when the main character is trying to ignore an annoying ghost while in a roomful of people - made me hug them close.

And Deception reminded me of an older version of The Mediator series. There were a lot of differences; the buildup and society were completely unique. But it also made me nostalgic (which, in this case, is a very good thing.)

There's really nothing I love more than a good ghost tale, so I'm a little biased. But I really think this series has a lot to offer: suspense, humor, mystery, romance. I know I'll definitely be picking up the sequel.

Goodreads Giveaway

I'm giving away a signed copy of my book, RAE, over on Goodreads.com. You can enter by clicking here and filling out the form.

It's really, really easy if you already have Goodreads - seriously, you just, like, click. And if you don't have it, it's easy to sign up. (Just takes a couple extra blank boxes.) And, in that case, regardless of whether you want to enter this contest or not, you should definitely sign up. It's a lot of fun; it's like facebook for readers. Win, win, win.

Anyway, I hope you enter! If you don't, I'll send the hellhounds on you. :) Happy reading, folks!

Hunger by Jackie Morse Kessler

Lisa is anorexic. She's also one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. One guess which. Yep: famine.

When I heard the premise of this one, I knew I had to have it. When I was at BEA, I asked a publicist if they had advanced copies: it was one of the books I needed to have. She said they didn't have any stocked but to check in the secret meeting rooms, which were behind ominous gray curtains. So I braved my way into the meeting rooms, where professional publicists were busy being intimidating and professional, and found the very last copy sitting thinly on the table. I put it in my bag and walked out of there with a big grin on my face. It felt very Sydney Bristow-y.

Now, I'm always worried about books with great premises. When a story idea is that amazing, the writer better damn well execute it or this reader will be overly unhappy.

In this case, Jackie Morse Kessler nailed it. Lisa was a very realistic teenager, which, while knowing the character is apocalyptic, wasn't something I expected. The relationship with her boyfriend was authentic and relative to YA contemporaries. But this is a fantasy book. And the mixture of realism and fantasy were mixed together perfectly. I found myself not only loving the worldbuilding but also how gritty and human the non-human characters were.

Also, her horse was kickass.

Basically, it was a fantastic book and I can't wait to read the sequel, RAGE.

Grace by Elizabeth Scott

It's no secret I love Elizabeth Scott. You can read my review of The Unwritten Rule if you want to figure out just how much. The answer: a lot. Her writing flows, her characters scream, her words belt.

Grace was a little different than most of her other books, though. The main character is meant to die. She's an Angel - and not in the paranormal sense. She was born to be a bomb, or more technologically speaking, the holder of a bomb. A suicide bomber. That's who her society and family raised her to be. But Grace wants a name and a life for herself.

This was much more political than anything I've seen from Scott. I love how diverse her books can be, but at the same time I can see classic elements that define her writing. She usually writes in sparse prose that hits home. It's a unique kind of writing, and it's always been very effective to me.

Grace wasn't my favorite EScott. It might even have been my least favorite. That isn't saying I didn't like it; it's saying I didn't like it quite as much which, when relating to Elizabeth Scott, might mean I didn't like it quite as much as, say, breathing. Or coffee. (Those two apparently equate each other.) I still really enjoyed it. Mainly because it made me think.

This is a society that's fictionalized - sometimes described as dystopian - but is also very, very realistic. There are so many civilizations we don't even know or think about that have their own society and views on life. And some of them are dark. Cannibals, anyone? This book explores a civilization that believes in raising children to die: but that's all that civilization has known.

The main character goes against her society's beliefs and honor system for one reason only: she wants to live, above all other things. Is that selfish? You immediately want to answer no, right? But after the main character uses her bomb as a distraction, killing innocent people so she can escape, it makes you think again. And then think again.

One of the things I didn't like was that I couldn't connect with the characters, which is what I usually love most about Scott's books. It's hard to like a character in a realistic novel who has intentionally killed other people (yet somehow it's easier when they're a vampire : *cough* Damon). But at the same time, her situation was so desperate and tragic that you want to connect with and understand her. It was just harder for me to be sympathetic when I didn't relate or connect with a lot of what she said or did. It's such an estranged situation, but I greatly admire EScott for tackling it.

What I really liked about Grace were the questions it brought up. The main point of this book is something entirely important but also one that isn't delved into a lot in YA:

What is your life truly worth?

October Contest

If you're a new blog reader, you might not know that I've been giving away $40 worth of your choice of books to one winner monthly. September went by too fast, so I'm doubling the ante this month.

For the month of October, you can win $80 worth of books of your choice! You can choose any you want, as long as it's $80 including shipping. (B&N gives orders over $25 free shipping, so that's a smart flippin' choice unless you want to support a local indie.) There are also stores that ship overseas, like Better World Books, so you can still enter if you don't live in the U.S.

As an added bonus, anyone previously a follower (before October) gets +1 entry! This is for all my loyal readers who rock in feather boas.

All you have to do is fill out the form below...good luck!