Young Adult

The Rosie Black Chronicles: Dark Star by Lara Morgan

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First there was Genesis, then Equinox, and now there is the dramatic conclusion to The Rosie Black Chronicles, Dark Star.  Lara Morgan grabbed me right from the start of Genesis and I’ve been dying to find out how Rosie’s story will end.  Will she be able to bring down Helios and save her world?

To protect Pip and fulfil her deal with Sulawayo, Rosie Black has joined Helios. But trouble is brewing within the ranks of the powerful organisation a rebellion is rising. Who is part of the rebellion? Who is trying to take full control of Helios? How does the mysterious Dark Star fit into these plans? The stakes are high for Rosie. The survival of Pip and the world as she knows it depends on her. Can Rosie find the truth and save those she loves before it is too late?

Dark Star is an action-packed, tense, sci-fi thriller and the perfect end to this fantastic trilogy.  Our favourite characters return to help Rosie bring down Helios, and Lara also introduces us to some new characters who have their part to play.  There are plenty of twists and turns in the story as, like Rosie, you’re never sure who to trust (is that person part of the rebellion or is it all an act?).  From the moment you enter the Enclave with Rosie you’re on edge, and as Rosie discovers more information about Helios and her situation gets more desperate you start to turn the pages faster.

One of the things I like the most about the series is that the romance between the characters doesn’t get in the way of the story.  There has always been a thing between Pip and Rosie, and in Equinox (the last book) a relationship developed between Dalton and Rosie, but their relationships don’t take over the story (like many YA series).  In the world that they live in there isn’t really time to stop and stare longingly into each others’ eyes, but their relationships still affect their decisions.  The bonds between them mean that they are willing to sacrifice their own safety (and their life) to help each other escape.  You just hope that they will all make it through and be able to have their romantic moments after they’ve saved the world.

I also love the technology that Lara has created in her future world.  There are medical patches that heal wounds, AI taxi cabs, pulse guns, a portal to transport people onto other planets, and many other fantastic inventions.  A lot of her technology is more advanced versions of what we have today so it’s not hard to imagine a world like Rosie’s.

Lara ended the story perfectly, tying up the loose ends, but also leaving it open so that you can wonder about what might happen next.  If you haven’t read The Rosie Black Chronicles get them from your library or bookshop now.

4 out of 5 stars

Thanks to Walker Books Australia I have a set of The Rosie Black Chronicles, signed by Lara Morgan, to give away.  You can enter here.

Win a signed set of The Rosie Black Chronicles

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The Rosie Black Chronicles is an action-packed, fast-paced series set in the not-too-distant future.  There are corrupt organisations, secret plans, a killer virus, rebellions, space travel, a colony on Mars, a touch of romance, and a butt-kicking main character, Rosie Black.  Dark Star, the dramatic conclusion to The Rosie Black Chronicles has just been released in Australia and NZ (you can read my review here).

To celebrate the release of Dark Star Walker Books have given me a signed set of The Rosie Black Chronicles to give away.  All you have to do to get in the draw is leave a comment telling me Who is your favourite butt-kicking book character? Competition closes Wednesday 28 November (Australia and NZ only).

Thanks to everyone who entered.  The winner is Christine.

This is Not a Drill by Beck McDowell

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Many of the books I’ve been reading lately have focused on characters and their relationships with those around them.  I love books like this, especially when they’re narrated by the main character, because you really get inside their head and find out what they’re thinking and feeling.  In Beck McDowell’s new book This is Not a Drill you get inside the heads of two teenagers who find themselves caught up in a hostage situation in an elementary school in America.

The door swings open and a man walks in like he owns the place. He raises his fist. Gripping a handgun. Aimed directly at the teacher.

Emery finds it awkward as hell tutoring a bunch of grade-one kids with her ex-boyfriend. It’s not easy for Jake either – he knows Emery thinks he’s useless, especially after what he did to her. But when a boy’s father turns up at school with a gun, a bad situation for Emery and Jake suddenly turns deadly. The boy’s father – a soldier home from Iraq – says he just wants to spend time with his kid. But resistance from the teacher has deadly consequences. The man isn’t afraid of opening fire, even in front of the children. And one way or another, he’s not leaving without his son.

This is Not a Drill is a tense, gripping story, set over the course of a few hours.  Beck McDowell hooks you from the first page and doesn’t let you go until the very last word, breathless and with your heart pounding.  Like the characters, you feel on edge and you turn the pages quickly, but quietly, for fear that the man with the gun might hear you and all hell will break loose.  Beck packs so much into the 215 pages of this gripping story, from the affects of war on returning soldiers and their families, to the different ways that children react in traumatic situations.

Although the story is based around the event that is taking place, it’s really a story about relationships.  The relationships between the Mr Stutts (the man with the gun) and his family are central to the story, and the relationships between the other characters in the story affect the direction that the story could take.  The teacher, Mrs. Campbell has a great relationship with her students.  She stays calm for her them and helps keep them calm by distracting them.  The relationship of the two narrators is quite tense because something has happened between them, but they quickly have to put this behind them so that they can help protect the children.

The story is incredibly tense, but the children help to relieve that tension.  Even though they are being help captive by a man with a gun they still worry about the little things, like eating and going to the bathroom.  There is a particularly touching moment when the children decide to sing Edelweiss.

4 out of 5 stars

This is Not a Drill by Beck McDowell is out in Australia and NZ now so grab a copy from your library or bookshop.  Beck McDowell is joining me on Thursday for a Q & A about This is Not a Drill and how her experiences as a teacher have helped with her writing.

Win a copy of This is Not a Drill!

Thanks to the wonderful people at Hardie Grant Egmont I have a copy of This is Not a Drill to give away.  All you have to do to get in the draw is enter your name and email address in the form below.  Competition closes Monday 19 November (Australia and NZ only).

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Prepare for the conclusion to The Rosie Black Chronicles

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The Rosie Black Chronicles, written by Australian author, Lara Morgan, is one of my favourite YA science fiction series.  If you haven’t come across this series (from Walker Books Australia) you don’t know what you’re missing.  Here’s the blurb of the first book in the series, Genesis:

Rosie Black is on the run to save her family and uncover the truth.
Five hundred years into the future, the world is a different place. The Melt has sunk most of the coastal cities and Newperth is divided into the haves, the “Centrals”; the have-nots, the “Bankers”; and the fringe dwellers, the “Ferals”. Rosie Black is a Banker. When Rosie finds an unusual box, she has no idea of the grave consequences of her discovery. A mysterious organisation wants it – and they’ll kill to get it. Forced to rely on two strangers, Rosie is on the run. But who can she trust? Pip, the too attractive Feral, or the secretive man he calls boss? From Earth to Mars, Rosie must learn the secrets of the box. Before it’s too late.

Lara amped up the action and the tension in the second book, Equinox, and the third and final book, Dark Star, is due to be released in November.  I’ll be reviewing it here on the blog in a couple of weeks and, thanks to Walker Books, I’ll have some signed copies to give away.  In the mean time, check out the fantastic trailer for Dark Star:

Lara Morgan will be visiting the Walker Books Australia offices on Thursday so if you have any burning questions about the series to ask her you can post them here or send Walker Books a message on Twitter – @WalkerBooksAus

Every Day by David Levithan

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Sometimes you discover a book that you know you are going to love without the book even being published yet.  You hear or read about the idea of the story and it sounds so exciting, clever, and original that you want to read it right now.  David Levithan’s new book, Every Day, was one of those books for me.  It was even more amazing than I had imagined.

9781921922954_large_coverEvery day a different body. Every day a different life.Every day in love with the same girl.

Every morning, A wakes in a different person’s body, a different person’s life. There’s never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live: Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere.

And then A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon. From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply. Because A has found someone he wants to be with—day in, day out, day after day.

Can you love someone who is destined to change each day?

Every Day is one of the most extraordinary, thought-provoking, and emotional stories I’ve ever read.  Even now, 3 days after reading the final sentence, I’m struggling to put into words how much this book has affected me.  It’s completely different from anything I’ve ever read, because usually the narrator stays in one body throughout the story and they interact with the same characters.  In Every Day, A is in a different body each day, so it has to get used to being a different person (on the outside) and acting like that person.  One of the most interesting things about this book is the way that you look at the character of A.  Even though A doesn’t know if it is male or female, I imagined A as a male right from the start.  However, I think each reader will picture A differently.

Sometimes it can take you a while to put yourself in the main character’s shoes, but I immediately empathized with A and what it was going through.  You try to understand what it would be like to wake up each day as a different person, but you can’t really grasp how difficult it would be.  A has been this way from birth, so it has never known anything different.  I thought it would be incredibly difficult for a child to understand what was happening to them, but for A it was just life.  A seems to have figured out what to do each time it wakes up in another body and makes its way through the day.  Every time a new day would start, I’d be wondering, like A, who it would be waking up as.  Would A be a black girl, a gay guy, have a gorgeous body or be incredibly overweight?  Then when A has found  out who it is, how will A use that body and what will A do today.  I could totally understand why A wanted to spend every day with Rhiannon.  I’ve never had a crush on a book character before, but I would certainly want to spend every day with her.  The thing I love the most about A is the way that it respects the bodies that it is in.  A tries incredibly hard not to interfere with the lives of those people, and tries to fix mistakes that it has made while in those bodies.

Ultimately, Every Day is a love story.  A and Rhiannon’s romance is doomed to fail, because even though Rhiannon may love A, she’s not always going to love the person he is on the outside.   I loved the interactions between A (in its different bodies) and Rhiannon and you are hoping with all your heart that they can be together.  David Levithan’s ending to the story is absolutely perfect, and has to be my favourite ever ending of a book.

I was sad to finish the book, because I loved David’s beautiful writing and I didn’t want to let A and Rhiannon go.  Every Day is one of those books I want to carry around everywhere with me and tell everyone I know to read it.  Thank you David Levithan for giving me this story!

5 out of 5 stars

Win Every Day by David Levithan

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9781921922954_large_coverEvery Day by David Levithan is one of my absolute favourite books of 2012.  If I could give a copy to every person I saw I would do, but sadly I can’t afford to do so.  Instead I’m giving two lucky people the chance to win a copy.

To get in the draw all you have to do is enter your name and email address in the form below.  If you’re super keen to get a copy you can even enter every day if you like.  Competition closes Monday 29 October (NZ and Australia only).

This competition has now closed.  Thanks to everyone who entered.

Win Zom-B by Darren Shan

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Zom-B is one of the most horrific, gruesome, twisted stories for teens I’ve ever read, and I loved every minute of it!  It’s the first book in Darren Shan’s new 12-book series and Zom-B left me hungry for more.  It’s out now in Australia and New Zealand.

Thanks to everyone who entered.  This competition is now closed.

Zom-B by Darren Shan

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Darren Shan is the master of horror stories for children and teens.  His vampire series, The Saga of Darren Shan, and the Demonata series have been hugely popular.  Now Darren has turned to another staple of the horror genre, zombies.  You may think that this has been done many times before, but Darren has created a fresh and original zombie tale, with plenty of bone-crunching and brain-chomping.

When news reports start appearing of a zombie outbreak in Ireland, B Smith’s racist father thinks it’s a joke– but even if it isn’t, he figures, it’s ok to lose a few Irish. B doesn’t fully buy into Dad’s racism, but figures it’s easier to go along with it than to risk the fights and abuse that will surely follow sticking up for Muslims, blacks, or immigrants. But when zombies attack B’s school, B is forced on a mad dash through the serpentine corridors, making allegiances with anyone with enough guts to fight off their pursuers.

Zom-B is one of the most horrific, gruesome, twisted stories for teens I’ve ever read, and I loved every minute of it!  Darren leaves nothing to the imagination, vividly describing the way the zombies crack open skulls with their claw-like hands and devour their victim’s brains.  It’s one of the only books that has made me cringe at the actions of the characters, and I couldn’t read it before bed, for fear that zombies would invade my dreams. 

I don’t think I’ve ever come across a main character who makes me hate them before either.  B’s father is an incredibly racist man, who is part of different groups who want a ‘white’ Britain, so B is brought up with these views.  He is a vicious man, who beats his wife and shares his racist views freely.  Every time he opened his mouth I cringed and I didn’t really want to hear anything he had to say.  Just when you think he might have had a change of heart, he shocks you again.  B struggles with these views, but they often take over and B ends up beating up black kids or Indian kids at school.  This is the first book in a 12 book series so we will have to wait and see if their views change.

Darren Shan’s zombies are not your average zombie.  When you turn into a zombie, your teeth thicken and become very sharp, and claws grow out of your fingers and toes, making them perfect for digging into skulls to get to the brains.  It’s not known where the zombies came from, but there is a sinister figure in the book that I’m sure has something to do with it.  No doubt Darren will drip feed us details over the course of the series.

There are several shocking twists in the story that blew me away, especially the ending.  At one stage I had to reread what I’d just read several times to make sure I hadn’t imagined it.  Darren leaves you hungry for more (story not brains) and I can’t wait to get my hands on book two!

5 out of 5 stars

NB: This is not a book for a primary school library.  It’s perfect for fans of Darren Shan and anyone who likes horror, including adults.

Eve and Adam by Michael Grant and Katherine Applegate

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Michael Grant and Katherine Applegate have introduced us to characters that we both love and love to hate.  They’ve coauthored over 100 books together, including one of the coolest series of my childhood, Animorphs.  Michael is the author of the fantastic Gone series and BZRK, and Katherine stole our hearts earlier this year when she introduced us to the loveable, One and Only Ivan.  They’ve joined forces once again to bring us creation story like no other, Eve and Adam.

Evening Spiker is recuperating from a freak accident in her mum’s medical facility. She is healing at a remarkable rate, faster than physically possible. As she grows closer to the hot lab assistant Solo, who seems to be hanging around a lot, she realises that things at Spiker Biotech are not quite as they seem. Joining forces, Solo and Eve uncover a secret so huge it could change the world completely. Spiker Biotech is about more than just saving lives. It’s about creating them.

Eve and Adam is an exciting, futuristic thriller, and one hell of a cool book!  Take some ordinary teenagers, throw in a billion-dollar biopharmaceuticals company, genetic engineering, morally corrupt scientists and some sexual tension, and you have Eve and Adam.  Michael Grant and Katherine Applegate sure know how to write and they suck you in from the very first sentence.  This has to be one of the best first sentences ever – ‘I am thinking of an apple when the streetcar hits and my leg severs and my ribs crumble and my arm is no longer an arm but something unrecognizable, wet and red.’

The narration of the story alternates between Eve (Evening or E.V. to her friends), the daughter of Terra Spiker (head of Spiker Biopharmaceuticals) and Solo who is Terra’s ward.  After her accident, Terra gives Eve the task of designing the perfect boy, using special software that her company has developed.  After some initial skepticism Eve takes to the task and it takes her mind off her injuries, but it’s not long before she starts to wonder why her leg doesn’t hurt and there are no scars.  Solo is a mysterious character and you wonder what his motives are.  He seems to be sneaking around looking for something in particular, and puts on an act to make himself seem dumber than he actually is.  When he finds what he has been searching for it’s shocking and neither him or Eve are quite prepared for the trouble that follows.  Into this mix comes Adam, Eve’s perfect boy.  I love the way that Eve describes him when she first sees him in person,

“He’s the most beautiful male I’ve ever seen.  Ever.  Anywhere.  George Clooney and Johnny Depp and Justin Timberlake and all of them, all of them, would be cast as Adam’s less attractive best friend.”

The story is so gripping that I read it in one day.  The end left me wondering whether Eve and Adam is the start of a new series or whether it is a stand alone novel.  I felt like there were a few unanswered questions so this may not be the last we see of Eve, Adam, Aislin and Solo.

5 out of 5 stars