New dystopia sequels!

In case you haven't heard, the vampires have had to move over and make room for all the dystopia YA fiction coming out these days. A couple that I read after hearing their authors speak last April at TLA were Delirium and Ship Breaker. Their authors are riding the waves of fame and have produced seconds in the series. Lauren Oliver was at the Southlake Barnes and Noble to promote the publication of the MUCH awaited sequel to Delirium, Pandemonium. Her writing is absolutely incredible. Even more incredibly, she says that plotting in her novels is one of her biggest challenges. If you have read either of these titles, you know how hard she must work at it because they are page turners! Unfortunately, I can't say much about the book itself. It would just give away too much of the suspense if I did. I'll just dangle a tidbit: following her escape from the city of Portland where she was going to be forced to have the cure for love induced upon her, Pandemonium alternates between now and then. Lena's hearbreaking exit from the city left readers wondering if she could possibly continue at all in the face of her losses. She takes it one day at a time, as we all do. But glimmers of hope come in the form of the now chapters, where she has found a group of Uncureds like herself to help her learn survival in the Wilds. Rest assured that you will LOVE this book. My prediction is that it will follow in the footsteps of Harry Potter, Twilight, and Hunger Games as the next international YA bestseller/ culture-shaker-upper.

Drowned Cities is the companion novel to Ship Breaker. Not a sequel because most of the main characters are new. Tool does return as one of the protagonists in this story, which is much darker than the first. We move away from the coast and inland at the beginning of the story, away from the Drowned Cities where a small village is trying to scrape out a humble farming existence and escape the attention of the war boys. Unfortunately, Tool's escape from one of the militaristic factions in one of these Drowned Cities brings a squad of sadistic soldiers down upon them. In the village is where Mahalia and Mouse live, with a doctor who does his best to help when he can get his hands on proper medicine. The two are just children, ages not mentioned, but survivors of attacks on their cities. The good doctor took them in, but when the soldiers hold the villagers hostage, Mahalia tricks them so that she can escape. Tool, hiding in the nearby woods after a violent encounter with the squad of soldiers, has taken Mouse hostage while Mahalia returned to the Dr. to get  him medicine and free her friend. Things do not turn out as well as Mahalia had hoped, but luckily Tool values her loyalty to Mouse and agrees to help her get to one of the Drowned Cities (Washington DC) to hopefully leave America behind for a better life. Dark, indeed. A compelling read if you don't mind a little blood, violence and inhumanity.

What do you value most?

In the book Divergent, it determines what faction you belong to.

Honesty= Candor

Bravery= Dauntless

Intelligence= Erudite
Peace and friendship= Amity

Selflessness= Abnegation

Tris was born as a member of Abnegation, but decides to join Dauntless at her Choosing Ceremony. In Abnegation, she just didn't feel like she belonged. Dauntless is very different, but she has to survive initiation before she can have the privledges of membership. That means she has to face her fears, fight, and survive the bullies. But  when her family is criticized for their political leadership, and her mother tips Tris off to a dangerous plot, she will be challenged to try and save her new friends, as well as her own family. In the stages of being made a movie, this science fiction thriller is as much fun as Uglies, Matched and Delirium, and is on the new Lone Star List.

Bruiser

What do you think a boy nicknamed Bruiser is going to be like? Here's a hint: he was voted most likely to go to jail. He's a pretty big guy, and very quiet. Maybe a little misunderstood. Bronte, working in the library, decides to help him as he wanders around the poetry section. In high school, most guys don't spend a lot of time in the poetry section- at least, not guys with a reputation like Bruiser's. Their short conversation intrigues her- he had a particular author in mind- and she decides he is date-worthy. However, for her popular twin brother Tennyson, Bruiser is not the right guy for his intelligent sister. Tennyson starts watching Bruiser so he can report the would-be boyfriend's horrendous habits back to his loveblind sister. But what he finds instead is a very protected 10 year old brother, a very mean uncle, and a very rundown shack. What Tennyson witnesses changes his mind completely about Bruiser. So Bronte is free to continue her romance and the twins get closer to the mysterious boy. They begin to notice strange things when they are around him. Strange things about him. Disturbing, but not at all in the way they once thought of a boy named Bruiser. What if his nickname isn't because he causes bruises, but heals them? What if his distanced personality is way he protects himself? What if everyone had a story to explain their behavoir? Maybe you should find out the truth before you judge someone. That's what Bronte and Tennyson learn in Bruiser, by Neal Shusterman.

Fantasy Watch

Since fantasy is my favorite genre, I frequently have new fantasy books that I want to talk about, so here's a few I've read recently. As a side note, I think some of these fall into a new cross-genre: horror/fantasy. Or is that gothic? I'm sure there is nothing new under the sun...

Immortal by Gillian Shields
On her way to a new boarding school, Evie meets a mysterious boy who she later begins to have nighttime outings with. But there are dozens of things going on that she can't explain-like the girl whose place in the school she took, recently drowned in the nearby lake, a girl she can sometimes see that looks exactly like her but old-fashioned,the inexplicable aloofness of the one other scholarship girl at school, why the boy she's falling in love with refuses to see her in the daytime or introduce her to his parents. She's almost driven to insanity when other girls help her realize that she has latent powers that are the key to all the mysteries she's encountered.

Fragile Eternity by Melissa Marr
If you enjoyed Wicked Lovely, put this book on hold! Wicked Lovely is a story of twisted love when the Summer King of the fairies chooses mortal Asilinn to be his Queen. In between these two is the story of one of Aislinn's friends who is victimized by an nefarious fairy- Ink Exchange. But it digresses. Fragile Eternity picks up the story of the Summer King and Queen again. Their tenuous agreement to let Aislinn keep her mortal boyfriend is put to the test as the summer draws near and their powers rule them. Is she destined to be her king's true consort, or can her mortal find his own way to intervene? This was a book I just couldn't put down.

Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink
This title is on the Lone Star list for next year. A tale of two sisters, one evil and one good. But after their father's death, Lia finds a book with a prophecy that she can't ignore. Partly that's because of the snake mark etching itself to life on her wrist and a matching medallion given to her by a strange girl. The mystery of the prophecy is something she must work to discover while keeping it secret from her twin. But beware reader, all is not as it seems.

A Beastly Twist

The most recent book I've finished was Beastly by Alex Flinn, who happens to be a woman. Oops. I was reading a particular paragraph thinking to myself, "Now see, that's exactly where men and women have completely different views on sexism". I flip back to see the info on the author and lo and behold, Alex is a woman. So much for my theory. I guess I have to admit to you all at this point that, yes, I did have an issue with the portrayal of sex and sexism in this novel. Not once, but twice mind you, the author made a disturbing comment about how a school dance is like legalized prostitution. I'll explain this in the context of the reading as best I can: the boy buys the girl a fabulous corsage and gets her a limo to ride in and and treats her like a princess all night. In return, it is assumed he will get what he wants, which is apparently always to ravish her. O.M.G. Reminds me of a disgusting article I read in Ebony that shocked the bejeebers out of me. It was a pro/con debate on why men should pay for sex. I know what you're thinking. What? Why would any magazine publish such trash? No idea, but they did and I read it. The man (and I do use that term loosely) said that in any relationship a man has to buy a woman lots of things to be able to get in bed with her. My jaw did hit the floor. I cannot possibly fathom a world where people think these attitudes and actions are not only widespread and normal, but ACCEPTED. They most definitely are not. I don't know about you, but my life has never resembled the above descriptions. OKAAAAAY, I think I'll get off my soap box now.

So did you actually want to know what the book was about? Ok. I can do that. Well, it's a modern day retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Need I say more? Well, I will anyway. I tend to be long-winded when I write. Beast starts out as your typical most popular guy in school with good lucks and a rich dad to boot. What does this make him? A total jerk. So of course, the night of the aforementioned dance, he is turned into the beast by a mysterious new student (the witch) at school whom he dissed earlier in the story. When his father finds out, he spends months going to doctors to cure this stange disease before giving up on his son entirely. He is moved out of his father's Manhattan apartment and moved to a 5 story house in Brooklyn with the housekeeper and a new tutor who is blind.

With the witch's parting present- the magic mirror, he looks in upon his former friends and discovers the shallowness of their lives- which of course mirrors his own former existence. Ironic, huh? One he returns to frequently is a humble girl who attended his school on scholarship. Their brief connection was when he gave her the crushed rose that his date was not impressed with the night of the dance. She turns out to be Beauty if you didn't see that coming from a mile away. Now this is a stretch, but he manages to entrap her as his "prisoner" when it is her drug-addicted father that breaks into the house. In order to not be killed or have charges pressed against him, this really pitiful father offers up his daughter to the beast. Whatever. So she moves in, eventually falls in love with him cause he's changed and then he has to let her go because her father gets sick months later. But wouldn't you know on the very night his chance to get his true self back would expire if he's not kissed by a woman who loves him, he checks on her with his mirror and sees her in such peril he risks running through the city to save her. And of course she kisses him just in time and saves the day.

I wasn't thoroughly impressed if you didn't get that. It's one of this year's Lone Star books, but I don't know why. I really think it's a high school book. I definitely won't vote for it. But feel free to form and share your own opinion of Beastly.