Stolen by Lucy Christopher

So a girl gets coffee with a cute stranger at the airport. He may be a few years older than her, but he has pretty eyes and she has time to kill. You gotta live a little, right? Except for the fact that he's not a stranger, because he's been following Gemma for years. So he slips some drugs in her coffee, kidnaps her, and forces her to live with him in the desert.

Kind of a bad guy, right?

Except for the fact that there's a gray area. There shouldn't be a gray area when a 20-something-year-old guy kidnaps a 16-year-old girl from the airport. There should be no doubtful thinking or questioning: it should be a straight-forward hate towards Ty, her captor.

Except for the fact that he's intelligent and nice (aside from the whole kidnapping thing) and he paints beautiful art and loves nature. But he stole Gemma, because he was lonely and selfish, yet he does things that are actually pretty selfless.

Which obviously leads to a hardcore mindjumble. What the hell are you supposed to think, reading this book? There's no solid answer as to what you should think (which is the case for all books, but especially this one) just as there is no solid answer as to Ty's character. If you told me that before reading this book, I probably wouldn't have believed you. I'm a realistic thinker. Okay, so he has pretty eyes and abs? What the hell does that matter WHEN HE KIDNAPPED A FREAKING GIRL? Because that's really, really not okay. But it's also really not that simple, at all.

This book is about a case of stockholm syndrome - Gemma starts to feel sympathy for Ty, and it's done incredibly realistically. I was able to completely put myself into Gemma's shoes because every time she reacted to her situation, I could imagine myself reacting the same way, realistically. There wasn't ever a "wow, you're an idiot," instant, which is what I thought would happen just reading the summary. There are so many books where I want to slap the main characters because of the actions they choose - like in horror movies, when you want to yell, DON'T OPEN THE DOOR, YOU DUMBASS - but Gemma was so genuine in her emotions. It was so realistic her character almost fell a little flat, though, because you can't have a lot of character development when there's so much panic involved. A lot of the emotional/character attention was on Ty, so making Gemma a little 2D was probably necessary to make the book work.

Anyway, this book was good. I almost got stockholm syndrome myself, reading it. It trapped me in its pages and there was literally no way of escape, but I enjoyed the ride. It was written beautifully, and even though sometimes I wanted to look away from the words because they mess with your mind, they were also enthralling. Ty takes Gemma and the reader into an entirely different world, but it's one full of demented beauty, despite how real and vivid the setting is.

It's a book that makes you challenge the line between right and wrong. It makes you question emotions and second-guess human nature. It makes you love and hate and everything in between.

Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon

It's kind of funny how much my reading habits have progressed since I first started reading. There will obviously be no book better than Are You My Mother? but my taste has changed so much over the years. I kind of started reading backwards.

Well, I've always been a reader. I would literally carry around milk crates of books before I could even read. I was also a horrible evil child who liked to make demon noises during dinner, and seriously the only thing that would get me to behave was to threaten to take my books away. They were my toys. And then, when I got to middle school, I started reading adult murder mysteries. In seventh grade, when we filled out our library sheets and I was asked who my favorite author was, I put Mary Higgins Clark. (I think this fact might also go hand-in-hand with the demon noises.) From there, I moved on to a hatred of murder mysteries and a love of YA, especially Laurie Halse Anderson. And I hated fantasy. I couldn't do that whole suspension of disbelief thing. I would have to understand everything about a book, and it would bug me to an extreme OCD extent if I didn't understand something. I was a picky, prejudiced reader and it kept me from reading some pretty amazing books.

But now? I absolutely love fantasy. You want to add magic? I'm in. Dragons? So in. Instead of having to understand everything, I just read the dang book and enjoy the hell out of it. And I'm so so glad, because otherwise I wouldn't have picked up Silver Phoenix.

Wow, that was a long introduction. I'll talk about the book now.

Silver Phoenix is about a girl, Ai Ling, who's on a mission to find her father and meets a boy named Chen Yong who's also on his own quest. She starts developing these super-mysterious powers and has a whole bunch of crazy following her as a side effect. Her journey to the Palace of Fragrant Dreams is never, ever boring for that reason.

This book is really, really good. I met Cindy Pon at ALA last year and was ecstatic to read her writing. But, for some reason, it was one of those books I would "read next." My reading pile results in this A LOT. But my friend Megan had only amazing things to say about it, and she doesn't like fantasy, so I picked it up and wow.

The settings in this book are absolutely gorgeous. Every scene was painted right under my eyelids with imagery and magic and beauty. I wanted to take it all in and keep it there, ingrained in my brain forever. It's one of those books that opens up your imagination and gives it a playground to explore. You go from one scene to the next in a kind of fluid fairytale motion, and every single one of those scenes grabbed my fascination with a death grip.

And the people. It hurts my heart even thinking about them, because there's so much muchness in these characters. It was amazing to be able to meet them, and I can't wait to visit them again in the sequel.

The bottom line is that it's a gorgeously told journey, one filled with worlds only a brilliant mind can imagine. I can still almost smell the places this book took me, and there are some pretty marvelous scents. Seriously. You should really smell this book.

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Across the Universe is told in alternating POV - one part told by Amy, a girl who is frozen, and the other by Elder, whose entire life has been on a spaceship. It seems like it would be pretty obvious whose point of view I would enjoy more, considering one consists of freezer-burned brain-thoughts, but I actually liked Elder's point of view more just because of his voice. Even when Amy eventually wakes up (which is in the book's plot summary, so it's not a spoiler,) I couldn't really connect with her. Obviously, I felt some sympathy because dude her life pretty much sucks, but I found Elder's voice and life to be much more interesting. He's the one who's supposed to take over control of the ship once Eldest is gone, but he's kept in the dark about a lot of the politics behind the facade. His whole side of things is about finding out the truth, and whether the truth he finds is worth it.

Which brings me to a whole paragraph on veritas. That's "truth" in Latin, because I just used the word "truth" in the paragraph up there and I didn't want to be repetitive (which I just failed at,) and also because it sounds pretty pretentious and I want you all to think I'm smart. So, truth. Elder sets out to find it. There's a lot of dark hidden secret-like tidbits sporadically thrown into the stars in this one. You kind of have to reach to grab them, and when you do, you don't really want to believe it. What Elder finds out is hard, and the path to finding it out might be even worse. It's filled with drama and death and identity crisis. But he went through all of that to find the truth. I mean, there are a lot of people - A LOT - who are lazy and happy with their lives and want to sit on their butts and be content with the fact that they're lied to. But then there are people who value truth above everything. It's something that's SO fascinating to me, because what part of who you are chooses what is more important? And will that decision change once you find out whatever it is you so desperately needed to find out? You can't go back after finding out the truth, but even just one tiny morsel of it can change everything about how you live.

Oh, should I probably shut up now? Okay.

We'll talk about the plot. At parts, it was slow for me. It actually took me a lengthier time to read it than I thought it would. But once I got into the thick of it - and, I admit, it took a little bit longer than I anticipated based on the buzz surrounding it - I ended up GETTING INTO IT. Like, really into it. And there's this one scene at the end that made me literally fist-pump. Maybe I go to too many concerts. But seriously, this was definitely a fist-pumping scene. Because it was kind of gruesome? And I'm a sadist? I really am. But it was a poetically justified sadism. It was The Prince and the Pauper-level poetic justice, let me tell you. Also, I love being cryptic. This is fun.

And I can't really leave this review without mentioning creativity. Creativity basically translated into insanity in this book, and that was something that was a simple idea, but basically blew my mind. Because trying to "cure" creativity - and just highlight the logistic parts of the brain - is horrifying. It wasn't something that was a large part of the book, but more a part of the background. My favorite character was actually a part of the ward where they kept these crazy creative hooligans. But the idea that was planted there, if expanded (especially since these people are going to land on a new planet and basically start life there,) is gaaaah-worthy. Can you imagine a society where creativity is punished instead of honored? How freaking boring would that world be? But at the same time, schizophrenia seems to follow those with overactive brains. So the idea isn't too far-off, especially for someone who wants to control or coddle people, but agh. I wanted to poke that section of the book with a stick and run away. It was awesome.

Anyway, I'll try and wrap this up for you. I've never really been a good wrapper - my Christmas presents literally look like I threw holidays into a paper shredder - and this book is especially hard to wrap up, but I'll attempt it. This was a good one. It had action, suspense, mystery, and it raised questions (which I think is so so important in books.) It started off slow, but it made up for it in the end. And I would recommend this book to a lot of readers.

Guest Post - Kieryn Nicolas

Kieryn Nicolas is a fantastic person and writer, and I was able to meet her last year for PAYA, a Pennsylvania book event. She's as interesting a person as her characters are, and I'm very excited to check out her newest book, Flawless Ruins.

In 2238, life in America is finally perfect. The Wars are over and the CommWall is in place, blocking communication with what remains of other continents. The women are content to have great education, choice careers, and glamorous hair. Best of all, when every girl turns seventeen she’s given her Like; an adorable, perfect spouse tailor-made just for her.

Everyone looks forward to the day she gets her Like, and Morgan Waters is no exception—until she accidentally stays out past curfew and stumbles across someone who appears to be a Like but claims to be a man. Morgan’s perfect world crumbles down around her in the midst of a forbidden romance, forcing her to deal with the realization that her life may not be so flawless after all.

Mandy Hubbard, author of Prada and Prejudice, Ripple, and You Wish, says it's "Romantic, compelling, and impossible to put down."

She's stopping here on her blog tour to talk about her top five flawed characters in fiction.

5) Summer Finn & Tome Hansen from 500 Days of Summer. Summer is beautiful, smart, and independent, and Tom, the main character of the movie, takes that to mean she’s perfect (and his view of Summer is his major flaw). However, Summer isn’t perfect, and Tom skates over her flaws (until later in the movie, when he lists every flaw he hates, such as her cockroach-shaped birthmark) and doesn’t see how Summer’s preconceptions about love play into her actions. [I know those are two characters, but they pretty come in a set.]

4) Sydney Carton. The (best) character from Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities is lazy, self-loathing, and makes the biggest mistake of all: he lets the girl get away. However, he is able to see himself as flawed, and therefore eventually redeems himself--but not before being awesome along the way.

3) Temperance Brennan from Bones. Talk about being out of touch with one’s emotions! Brennan has a brilliant scientific mind, not to mention she knows, what is it, about three forms of martial arts--however, she’s totally inept when it comes to pop culture, jokes, and other aspects of life such as, well, her own life. Yet she’s an awesome character (and has shown potential for character growth!).

2) Chuck Bartowski. The main character from the NBC series Chuck is a nerd (who works on the “Nerd Herd” at the “Buy More”) thrown into the world of spies after he accidentally downloads government secrets into his brain. In many movies/shows/books with similar plots the character would probably adjust quickly and become an A-team spy, but not Chuck Bartowski--he doesn’t know how to use weapons, defend himself, and refuses to kill anyone, even in self-defense (something his bodyguards-slash-teammates don’t understand at all). To top it off, Chuck’s nerdiness (which is definitely adorable) serves to impede his social life / conversation skills, and he has an incredibly hard time figuring out how to get his cover-girlfriend-slash-bodyguard to go out on a real date with him. Still, Chuck is one of the most unique comedic spy characters on TV. Or ever.

1) Harry Potter. (Obviously from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.) This guy makes so many mistakes, yet readers are rooting for him all the way (even during his moody streak in book five). Plus, he’s a guy, and by that I mean utterly inept when it comes to girls. He blunders through getting a date to the Yule Ball, doesn’t know what to do on his first date with Cho, and has no idea how to navigate his feelings for his best friend’s sister. He’s not a straight-A student, he’s gotten caught when breaking the rules (yet continues to break them), and gets incredibly nervous. But doesn’t just reading that list make you grin? Despite--actually, probably due to--his flaws, Harry Potter is arguably the most fantastic character in the literary world.

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What are some of your favorite flawed characters? Comment and let us know!

You can find out more about Kieryn by heading to her website at kierynnicolas.com

Language of Love by Deborah Reber

I'm prefacing this book discussion by first saying that I've gotten entirely jaded reading or watching romantic comedies, because - like murder mysteries - I've read too many that have the same general outline. But I keep reading and watching them because they give you that light, fluffy feeling and sometimes it's nice to just be a girl and read/watch them.

And sometimes, one will come along and take what you assume about romantic comedies and hit you in the face with it. Sometimes the deviation from them isn't outlandish, but it's different enough to cement something solid into the genre - like in the movie 27 Dresses, which I thought stood out because of the actual humor and because James Marsden has been awesome ever since I watched Gossip for the first time.

Language of Love is part of a bindup called Love Love Love which includes a book called Cupidity by Caroline Goode. Cupidity is about a girl turning to the literal Cupid to find some romance. I read it a couple years ago, based on whatever messed-up timeline is in my brain. I love Greek mythology, and I remember it being an interesting read because of that. But since I read it so long ago, I'm sticking to the first book in the bindup, Language of Love.

Deborah Reber was my editor for Rae and the other Louder than Words books, so I obviously was ecstatic to read her fiction work. It's hard to objectively speak about someone's writing when you've gotten to know them, but I can honestly say that she's a good writer.

Language of Love seemed, to me, like 27 Dresses. Not in premise, but in the fact that there was something about it that had an extra dose of originality, while still lining your stomach with cotton candy. I think that originality is found in the voice of the main character. It's a melt-in-your-mouth read, one that's fast and fun and has something that grounds it. It focuses on Janna, a girl who jokingly talks in a Hungarian accent at Starbucks, and then decides to stick with it when a boy notices. And then she starts to date him, which is really kind of problematic because it's hard to keep a Hungarian accent when you've never even been there.

It doesn't just have romance, it has a kind of unrequited angsty love in the background that makes it much more realistic. What I predicted would happen didn't happen, which is pretty rare in romantic comedies. And it has side-characters that are developed, instead of only focusing on the two main characters. And there are shirts with cheese on them. It's just the right kind of quirky to make you smile. And this book does make you smile.

In a way, it reminded me of Where She Went by Gayle Forman, because it has that same kind of spontaneous adventure to it, with an underlining of self-awareness. Because this book isn't just about other people and connection, it's about identity.

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Divergent is probably one of the better books I've read so far this year, if not in my life. I haven't really been this hooked into a book since Mockingjay came out, and to say I'm a fanatic of that series is a little bit of an understatement. It actually reminded me a little bit of The Hunger Games, in the way society reroutes itself in an effort to basically stop war. But in reality, this book wouldn't be classified as dystopian if everything were pretty, so obviously there are some other elements thrown in.

In Tris's world, there are five factions. Each faction focuses on one element of human behavior, such as peace or courage or selflessness. People are divided into these factions based on a test, in which Beatrice is taking near the start of the book. Until teenagers take this test, they grow up in their parent's faction, and they have to decide whether to stay there or transfer based on their test results. But the problem with our main character is that her results weren't conclusive, and that can mean some serious trouble is about to be stirred up. Which, obviously, makes a damn good book. Without trouble, literature would be dead.

I don't want to spoil any of the twists or decisions in this book, but based on the cover and buzz, you kind of already have it semi-spoiled for you. And if you can't predict the faction she'll choose, then you probably don't read nearly enough. A lot of this story - Tris's story - is based around fear, which is something that fascinates me way too much. And Tris has to face her fears in a way that's very tangible, and it makes this book a representation of something that's not solid (which, honestly, is hard to do. And ridiculously fun to explore.)

But that sounds a little too pretentious for this book. Because this book is a ridiculously fun, enjoyable read. It's not a light book by fluff scale, at all, but it's a lot heavier in your hands than you'd expect, considering how fast I finished it. I really, really could not stop reading this one. The world I was thrown into was exactly the same as mine, only with different culture. But that different culture and society made the world almost a completely different place, and that was outstandingly interesting to me.

I can't even begin to sum up everything I loved about this book without writing a novel of my own on it, and time isn't on my side for that. So I'll just say that this series deserves to be epically humongous on the sales charts, and I'm pretty sure the sequels will succeed to that. This should be the new book on everybody's coffee table.

*And, hey, I'm trying to open up more discussion in the comments, so I'll be hanging out there if you've read Divergent and want to chat about it, or about dystopian in general.