Summary from Goodreads:
The Earth is dying. Darrow is a Red, a miner in the interior of Mars. His mission is to extract enough precious elements to one day tame the surface of the planet and allow humans to live on it. The Reds are humanity's last hope. Or so it appears, until the day Darrow discovers it's all a lie. That Mars has been habitable - and inhabited - for generations, by a class of people calling themselves the Golds. A class of people who look down on Darrow and his fellows as slave labour, to be exploited and worked to death without a second thought. Until the day that Darrow, with the help of a mysterious group of rebels, disguises himself as a Gold and infiltrates their command school, intent on taking down his oppressors from the inside. But the command school is a battlefield - and Darrow isn't the only student with an agenda. The Sno-Isle Libraries Teen Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/snoisleteens Twitter: @dontkillabiblio Tumblr: http://booksandthebeasts.tumblr.com/ Alise has her own channel for acting! https://www.youtube.com/user/lilylixi
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You may not have heard of it before, but steampunk is a sub-genre of science-fiction (and sometimes fantasy) that usually features steam-powered machines rather than the more modern advanced technology. There's also stonepunk, dieselpunk, etherpunk, cyberpunk, and more that I don't even know about, but steampunk is definitely the most popular. This genre has definitely been picking up steam (get it?) in the last couple years in media, movies, games, and of course books. As of late, it's become a fashion-style for cosplayers and fans of the genre too.
Interested? Well, you're in luck! I recently went to the Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle (dressed in the steampunk style of course) and attended a steampunk writing panel of mainly YA authors. When I asked them what books would they recommend to start a reader on their journey into the world of steampunk, this is what they said... This is the story of seventeen-year-old Prenna James, who immigrated to New York when she was twelve. Except Prenna didn’t come from a different country. She came from a different time—a future where a mosquito-borne illness has mutated into a pandemic, killing millions and leaving the world in ruins. Prenna and the others who escaped to the present day must follow a strict set of rules: never reveal where they’re from, never interfere with history, and never, ever be intimate with anyone outside their community. Prenna does as she’s told, believing she can help prevent the plague that will one day ravage the earth. But everything changes when Prenna falls for Ethan Jarves. From Ann Brashares, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, The Here and Now is thrilling, exhilarating, haunting, and heartbreaking—and a must-read novel of the year. Summary from Amazon I was able to make it through middle school by reading The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants so of course I was more than excited to read this book, but it truthfully is a disappointment to read. I'd give it 2.5 stars out of 5 because kudos for the idea, thumbs down for the execution.
The writing was very disjointed and would jump from one thing to another without finishing developing the first idea. Brashares spent a lot of time developing the future world from which Prenna came and not the present world where the story was taking place. If the novel wasn't discussing what the future is like and explaining what the plot was rather than showing, it was discussing what Prenna and Ethan were planning to do and then the two would not actually do it. Consequently, readers were not able to connect with the characters at all. This could also be due to the fact that Prenna and Ethan were flat as a piece of paper. Though they're lovable, all we see them do is solve the problem, try in vain to not fall in love, and play cards. The plot is very urgent within itself. The two have to save somebody from being murdered so the future wouldn't be so drastic. Instead of doing so, Prenna and Ethan, frolick in the ocean and play cards. Now this would've been a great time to develop their character, but it didn't happen. In their down time (of which they seemed to have a lot), Ethan would teach Prenna how to play card games since this was something she didn't learn in her training to be an early 21st century girl. I think Brashares was trying to make card games a motif and symbolic of the plot, connecting how some were tricky, others were based on luck/chance, and one needed skills to play cards, but it never connected. At the end of the novel, the reader is just left thinking, "well, that's a waste of their time." The plot and setting itself is very intricate and detail-oriented, and this would have been SUCH a terrific novel if it had just been executed better. In this stunning bridge book between Cress and Winter in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles, Queen Levana’s story is finally told. Mirror, mirror on the wall, Who is the fairest of them all? Pure evil has a name, hides behind a mask of deceit, and uses her "glamour" to gain power. But who is Queen Levana? Long before she crossed paths with Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress in The Lunar Chronicles, Levana lived a very different story—a story that has never been told . . . until now. Summary via Amazon/Goodreads So Fairest was published by Feiwel and Friends in 2015 and is sort of a prequel/add on to the wonderful Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. This book delves into the past of our antagonist, Queen Levana, and we find out that maybe there is a plausible reason as to why she's certifiably insane.
I personally really enjoyed reading Fairest. It was a quick, short read, but it had plenty to add and definitely made me take another glance at Levana, if not changing the way I saw her (until I went back and reread the first three books again). I would only really suggest reading this book after you've read at least Cinder, but you can really read it any time. Marissa really does a fantastic job in adding more depth to her antagonist. A few spoilers and thoughts below the cut. Continue reading if you would like to discuss! -Talia |
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