Shaolin Burning is the fantastic graphic novel by award-winning New Zealand cartoonist, Ant Sang. It’s a mix of kung fu legend and Chinese history, and it’s totally cool. You might recognize his illustrations because he was one of the creators of NZ TV series, bro’ Town. Check out this great book trailer by publishers, HarperCollins NZ.
You can also check out an interview with him from TV3’s Nightline programme.
Two quite different trailers for Will Hall’s new book, Department 19. It looks fantastic and I can’t wait to read it.
My first couple of reads for the year have been dystopian novels and this looks to be a growing trend in Young Adult fiction. Personally I love dystopian novels. I love the imaginations of these authors who build a society that could easily exist in the not-too-distant future. They take a small piece of today’s society, such as social networking or consumerism, and ask ‘what if this got totally out of control?’
In Rae Mariz’ debut novel The Unidentified, 15 year-old Katey (AKA Kid) goes to school in the Game, an alternative education system run by corporations. These ‘Games’ have been set up in disused shopping malls, so where there used to be shops, there are different spaces that students can go to try new products and participate in activities to increase their ‘score.’
The students vie with each other to be noticed and sponsored (or ‘branded’) by the corporations, thereby giving them celebrity status and financial freedom. Students each have iPad-like devices that they use to update their profile pages and live streams. When Kid witnesses a mock suicide staged by an anonymous group called the Unidentified, she begins to doubt the system. The story will strike a chord with teens and they’ll be able to really relate to Kid and the suffocating world she lives in.
If you’re a fan of YA dystopian fiction there are plenty of titles to choose from. Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games Trilogy is the most obvious choice (and the most popular) but here are a few others I recommend:
Across the Universe is the absolutely amazing debut Young Adult novel by Beth Revis and I can already tell that it is going to be one of my favourite books of the year.
The story starts with Amy who, along with her parents, is being prepared to be cryogenically frozen for the next 300 years as they travel to a new planet. Her parents and the other adults on the ship all have special skills that will help to colonise this new planet, while Amy is a nonessential, just there because of her parents. There are also others on board the ship, Godspeed, who are not frozen but keeping the ship moving on it’s course. Elder is one of these people. He is the youngest person on the ship and the one chosen to lead the next generation. When Amy is violently woken 50 years before they are due to arrive on the new planet, she creates tension in Elder’s carefully ordered society. On a ship in the middle of space where everyone has the same skin and hair colour, similar features, and never questions the rules, Amy is not welcomed.Amy’s questions and Elder’s own discoveries lead them to uncover the lies that Eldest has been telling them all about the ship and their quest for Centauri-Earth.
Beth Revis leads you on a rollercoaster ride, with lots of unexpected twists and turns. Across the Universe has something for just about every reader – a dystopian society, science fiction, mystery, murder, and a touch of romance. It’s the first book in a new trilogy and I really can’t wait to read more. Get your hands on one of the hottest YA novels of 2011!
You can also check out Beth’s website and read her very entertaining blog.
I can’t wait for the New Year holiday to start! 5 days off to read, read, read. My reading pile is absolutely huge at the moment and it doesn’t help that I buy more books to add to the pile. What’s a guy to do when there are Boxing Day/New Year sales in the bookshops? I know I can’t pass up 30% off books, even if I don’t actually need anything (I will scour the shop until I find a book or two to take home).
Books I’m currently reading:
– The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson – I’m getting slightly bogged down by all the back story of Zalachenko but I’ll carry on just to find out what happens to Lisbeth.
– The Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi – fantastic post-apocalyptic Young Adult novel.
– Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion – a zombie love story.
What books are you going to be reading over your New Year break?
There have been so many great Young Adult books published this year. I don’t tend to read paranormal romance (which is a good % of the market), but here are my top reads of 2010.
Across the Universe by Beth Revis is going to be one of the hottest YA novels of 2011. I absolutely loved it and will be posting my review as soon as the book is published in NZ on 4 January. If you’re anticipating its release or want to know more about it, check out this fantastic book trailer:
It has something for everyone – a dystopian society, science fiction, mystery, murder and a touch of romance.
Check out Beth Revis’s website for more info.
Imagine this:
You’re in your favourite bookshop, scanning the shelves. You get to the section where your favourite author’s books reside, and there, nestled in comfortably between the incredibly familiar spines, sits a red notebook.
What do you do?
The choice, I think, is obvious:
You take down the red notebook and open it.
And then you do whatever it tells you to do.
From these opening sentences of Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares I was hooked. Set in New York in the days leading up to Christmas, and a few days after, the story alternates between the characters of Dash (written by David Levithan) and Lily (written by Rachel Cohn). Lily is the girl who left the notebook in the bookshop for just the right guy to come along and accept the challenges found inside. Dash accepts the first challenge and leaves the notebook for Lily to collect. The notebook continues to be passed back and forth between them, with the help (and sometimes hindrance) of their friends and family members. They decide to meet each other, but will the boy and the girl in the notebook measure up to the boy and the girl in reality?
I loved everything about Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares. Dash and Lily are great characters with lots of personality, and their family and friends that help them complete their dares are hilarious. The authors have created a real sense of time and place and I really wanted to be there with Dash and Lily, celebrating Christmas in New York. It’s the perfect book for this time of the year, whether you love Christmas (like Lily) or loath it (like Dash).
My Best Friends Are Books 