Messenger of Fear by Michael Grant

“This,” he said without the least drama or emphasis, “is about true and false.  Right and wrong.  Good and evil.  And justice, Mara.  This is about justice.  And balance.  And…”  He nodded as if to himself rather than to me.  “… and redemption.”

 

Mara has awoken and all she knows is her name.  She doesn’t remember what happened, where she is, where she’s supposed to be, or even if she’s just dreaming.  All she knows is her name, Mara and she clings to it.  Another thing she knows is that this ethereally beautiful and menacing boy/guy in all black is someone you don’t mess with, and for a while she calls him the Messenger of Fear.  Slowly he shows her a young girl who is dead, and they figure out it was a suicide; but why did she kill herself?  Mara needs to know, she needs to who is responsible and when she finds out she has no mercy.  You see the Messenger of Fear comes to people during a time in their life that they did something really really bad, and knew it was bad before they did it.  I am not talk about petty things either.  The Messenger gives them two choices, play a game of chance or accept your punishment (of course if you lose the game of chance you still receive your punishment).  The game is also extremely intense and tends to be gruesome.  The point of the matter is that all of us do something that we know will have dire consequences, and what separates us is how we react to those situations.  Some of us will do the right thing, and others will pretend like they didn’t know.  A good example is for instance if you ran over a dog.  Most people would stop and call the police and report it (because, it’s a crime to drive away from the scene of an accident), but there might be a few who think that no one some them and they drive away.  The second group of people is the one the Messenger of Fear visits. 

 

This was a such a creepy story, and it had everything I liked.  It had a pale good looking guy, who wears all black, and exudes predator.  Nightmares are a real thing in this book, and overall the theme/message of being a good person, of right and wrong.  I really hope to follow more of Mara’s story, find out more about the Messenger of Fear, and watch them find redemption.  A great beginning of a series.

 

Thank You Edelweiss.

4 out of 5 stars

YA Summer Enders

Rumble by Ellen Hopkins
Pub: 8/26/2014
Pg. 560
ARC Received by Edelweiss


"Some say death is a doorway, belief the key.  Others claim you only have to stumble across the threshold to glimpse a hundred billion universes in the blink of single silver shard." 


I really enjoyed Hopkins' Rumble, purely because of the nature of her writing.  I found myself not able to put the book down, but also found myself questioning my beliefs, morals, and opinions.  Matt is going through some serious soul searching.  His family is messed up, his brother committed suicide a few months back, and frankly Matt has given up on faith.  Instead he is determined to "go big, or go home."  Even his highly devote and highly good looking Christian girlfriend, Hayden, couldn't sway him.  Matt was a likeable character with a bit of narcissism, self deprecation, and reflection he made it easy to relate. 

4 out of 5 stars.



Feral by Holly Schindler
Pub: 8/26/2014
Pg. 432
ARC received by Edelweiss

"It made it seem like Claire's entire life had been tainted by violence, right from the start.  she wondered if violence didn't follow some people, the same way bad luck trailed after others."

Claire Cain is a survivor.  She survived being beaten brutally out in an alley a few months back, and everyday she survives another day of PTSD.  With a chance move, Claire thinks she will be able to heal better some where else; however, the town of Peculiar, Missouri isn't as quiet as she might have hoped.  Within her first couple of weeks in Peculiar a student from Claire's new high school is found murdered, beaten to death/perhaps strangled.  All Claire can focus on are the similarities between herself and Serena.  There is also the sinister way feral cats have been appearing: first at the murder scene, then following Claire around.  Claire must figure out what's going on soon, or else she will lose everything she's been holding on to.  This was an intriguing psychological thriller.  It had me think that it was a supernatural/paranormal book and all of a sudden it became very real.

3 out of 5 stars.




Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas
Pub: 9/2/2014
Pg: 565
ARC received by NetGalley


In Maas' third installment in her Throne of Glass series, we find Celaena traveling back to her birth place, both under orders of the King she hates and also under the advisement of the one who truly loves her, Chaol, for her safety.  There she finds her aunt Maeve, the Queen, and Rowan, a Prince in Maeve's court.  Celaena must go back, to before she was Celaena, and remember who she was, who she was meant to be, and who is suppose to lead the people of her land.  She's not the only one that needs to make these discoveries, back in Adarlan both Prince Dorian and Choal must decide where their loyalties lie, and fully accept themselves and each other for who and what they are.  The action is just as enticing as the past two books; the book continues to demonstrate the dark of the story, as other characters and monsters are introduced to the story line. The romance kills me, because Choal's regret but acceptance is palpable and Celaena's heart break is as well.  Will she be able to forgive him?  Will she find her self mated to Rowan, as the Fae do for eternity?  And will Celaena, Choal, and Dorian be able to bring down the tyranny and restore hope to all?  Loved, loved, loved this book and I love this series even more.  Please don't let there be a love triangle... please!

5 stars.



Don't Touch by Rachel M. Wilson
Pub: 9/2/2014
Pg: 432
ARC Received by Edelweiss

"Touch another person's skin and Dad will never come home.  The danger feels even bigger than that.  Touch another person's skin and Dad will evaporate." 

Caddie has rules.  She never touches anyone's skin, for fear that her father will not come back home.  This isn't the first time she's made rules for herself, since she was little Caddie has lived by rules to ensure her safety, the world's safety, and ultimately keep her from shattering.  But what if the one thing you can't do, that you're afraid to do, is the one thing you need?  After Caddie transfers to an Art high school, where she reconnects with old friends, she begins to want things.  She most definitely wants to be Ophelia in the upcoming school production of Hamlet, and she wants to go unnoticed (especially her strangeness).  Enter Peter, he is everything Caddie isn't.  He's impulsive, in your face, and there's this life in his eyes that makes Caddie's heart race.  The problem is that she still cannot touch anyone. How is Caddie suppose to be in a play, friends with people, and foster a crush on Peter when the thought of touching anyone sends her into a panic attack?  A very true issue that isn't spoken about enough is given voice in Rachel M. Wilson's novel Don't Touch. 

4 out of 5 stars.


The Jewel by Amy Ewing
Pub: 9/2/2014
Pg: 358
ARC received by Edelweiss

"These are perks to being a surrogate.  We get to dress how we want, eat what we want, sleep late on the weekends.  We get an education.  A good education.  We get fresh food and water, we always have electricity, and we never have to work.  We never have to know poverty--and the caretakers tell us we'll have more once we start living in the Jewel.  Except freedom.  They never seem to mention that."

Violet is a surrogate, one of many that are auctioned off into servitude for the aristocratic women.  She lives in an era where women cannot have children, and so surrogates, who come from a more diluted background, are used to carry the royal children.  At the auction Violet will lose her identity, become lot 197, and become the property of a well to-do lady.  But soon she realizes that within the city limits of The Jewel lies betrayal, heartbreak, games, and death, and the surrogates are usually the victims.  The head of the houses are cruel with each other, some are sinister, and others use their property like play things parading them along the town square on leashes.  Violet must get out, but soon she falls in love with a companion, another group that is placed in servitude in a sexual manner within The Jewel.   All this can lead to is death, no matter how much a surrogate is valued, they are still property.  Will she be able to escape with the help of a "lady-in-waiting" Lucien?  How can she keep her love for Ash a secret after he confirms his feelings for her?  And is there a rebellion slowly growing within The Jewel?  A YA Handmaid's Tale, with lushes scenery and caustic revelry. 

3 out of 5 stars. 

Amity by Micol Ostow

I wanted to love Amity by Micol Ostow so much, that I will actually give a proper review (well, proper in my view).  I like Amity, the urban legend and the history behind it; it was a story that captured and captivated many audiences and especially those that live in New England towns like that in Concord.  Ostow’s take on Amity was a bit the same and a bit different.  Like other stories based on this house, he focused on a past event but juxtaposed it to a present tense story.  You have Connor and his family, that moved into Amity 10 years before Gwen and her family moved in.  Connor is the past and Gwen is the present. 

What Worked:

Obviously I like the blending of the past and present story.  Are they only connected because they lived there, or because there was something innately wrong with them? 

It’s pretty gruesome.  You can’t have an Amity horror without some bloodshed, witch craft, Native American folklore, or demon eyes.  All of the above was present.

Connor’s crazy versus Gwen’s crazy.  They are both a little different than your average person; however, Connor made me feel as if snakes slithered under my skin, while Gwen just drove me nuts with compassion.

Annie.  Annie really worked. 

The house was an entity all on itself.  Yes the back stories were there, but it all came down to the stones, the foundation.  Amity was the villain in the story, not just an object that evil was projected onto. 

What Didn’t Work:

The connection between Connor and Gwen were not very solid.  Besides living in the same house and dealing with psychological issues respectively, they were not the same person or even remotely alike in personality.  While Gwen felt hunted, Connor felt comforted by Amity.

Um… really Connor?  I did not like his story, but then again do we really like Ronald DeFeo Jr., the original murderer in the Amityville horror story? 

Why do people insist on staying in places as creepy as this one?  Gwen was afflicted with hysteria, and you are going to take her out into the middle of Nowhere, USA and not expect some crazy things to go down?  Why are the adults always so… dumb?

WHY would you end it that way?  I had so much more of Gwen to experience, I had so many more questions, and I sure as heck don’t want to go through that house again just to find out how Gwen’s doing.

 

This was definitely worth the read.  I know this is a mixed review, but I found it scary and I found it interesting.  I don’t regret the couple of hours it took from me because in the end it accomplished what a horror movie tries to accomplish.  It gets you thinking, involved the action, and ultimately fighting along with the main character until the bitter end.

 

Thank You Edelweiss.  3 stars out of 5.

 

 

Between the Spark and the Burn by April Genevieve Tucholke

 

“Your life is not your own, Vi,” she said.  “Don’t you know that? It belongs to the people who love you.  So you need to take better care of it.”

—Between the Spark and the Burn

 

Between the Spark and the Burn picks up where we left Violet.  River is gone, her parents are back, and things seem to be gathering dust again.  Violet is in an obvious funk since River left with Brodie, and Neely is trying to find his brother while keeping secrets of his own.  Violet, Neely, and some of the old gang get together at first to find River; however, Violet and Neely are separated from Luke and Sunshine early on and will go together from town to town looking for River.  Following odd tales, tabloids, and the radio Violet and Neely eventually find River’s location, but what they don’t expect to find is a Sea God, a boy with burning hair and a sweet disposition, twists and turns that lead to Brodie, and love.  I know it’s not cool to have a love triangle (I hate them myself), but in this book it worked.  Violet doesn’t seem to be comparing the two and she’s not using the two, if anything they are all using each other for the sake of River.  I am really curious to find out what happens in the next book, because frankly s*&^ just got real.  The end left me hopeful and hopeless.   I love this series and this author because she keeps an air of cool interest, splashed around in beautiful prose.  It is hard to have a writer both embody the sublime in their descriptions and in their diction.  Another rare gem to add to the YA collection, with a crazy cast of characters, even crazier shenanigans, and all set in eerily beautiful rare towns. 

4 out 5 stars.  Thank You Edelweiss!

Random by Tom Leveen

Random by Tom Leveen is a strangely compelling idea, with not such a great execution.  Set in the span of a night, Tori receives a random phone call.  She doesn’t know the caller, it was all by chance, but the caller is desperate and he connected with Tori.   Tori doesn’t have time for this, she needs to clear her head and get ready to go on trial for murder, and her Facebook page is beyond incriminating.  The problem is, the first person who reached out to her killed himself (why she’s on trial), and the second person to reach out to her needs to be talked off the cliff before he jumps.  Dealing with the death that she might have caused, and dealing with a stranger who needs help are more than what Tori can handle, but does she want another death on her conscious? 

This was a terribly good idea.  I like when writers look at an event through different eyes.  Most of the time bullying stories are told from the victim’s perspective or close relation of the victim; however, this story is told in through the bully’s perspective.  A huge challenge for most people to understand is that adolescents are the most dangerous people, due to the fact that they do not know right from wrong all day.  I don’t want to say that parents or others do not teach them, but most if not all adolescents learn through doing and seeing.  Coupled with the fact that they are trying to fit in, this can be dangerous as illustrated by Tori’s story.  I appreciated the angle and also the truth behind “sometimes people don’t understand their actions affect others.”  This can be psychologically explained, since teens are thinking about themselves and trying to figure out their role in the world.  What I didn’t appreciate was the execution.  The story was too short; there is no way of really knowing if Tori changes, or if anyone really learns a lesson.  I also did not like the fact that people felt the need to bully a bully.  I get tough love, I get teaching a lesson, I don’t get why people can feel superior enough to bring someone else down just based on that person’s actions, especially when those teaching the lesson are morally right and also teenagers.  Where were the parents?  Why didn’t those that wanted to teach Tori a lesson team up with the parents or adults to show that this was a lesson learned, instead I felt it was for self-serving reasons.  Not a terrible story, just very superficial and at times frustrating. 

3 out of 5 stars.  Thanks Edelweiss.

The Girl From the Well by Rin Chupeco

“We are the fates that people fear to become.  We are what happens to good persons and bad persons and to everyone in between.  Murdereddeads live in storms without seasons, in time without flux.  We do not go because people do not let us go.”

The Girl in the Well by Rin Chupeco is the story of two ghosts, a boy with tattoos, and a Japanese folk tale of horror.  The girl in the well is said to have lived a long time ago, in the days of the samurai.  She was a dutiful servant but was in love with another/She was in love with her master, and depending on what version you read her master took one of the ten tablets in her care in order to make her surrender to him/she pretended to lose one in order to test his love for her, he then beat her until she agreed to sleep with him/ as punishment for her lie, and then unsatisfied the master throws her down the well and she breaks her neck: forever gazing at the world upside down and with a twisted neck.  She is the ghost that rises from the well, she is the ghost that screams bloody murder, and she is the ghost that kills those who do wrong.  The reader is introduced to the ghost at first and we learn that she know finds retribution for children who have been murdered, by murdering the culprits and in turn releasing the spirits of innocent children attached to their murderers; we follow her through the story until she meets the tattooed boy, also known as Tarquin, who appears to have a malignant spirit that follows him around.  Soon Tark begins to notice her, his cousin begins to notice her, and she is no longer a vengeful ghost, she becomes the woman in white, while the entity that is poisoning Tark is known as the woman in black. 

This was such a creepy, horrific story.  If you have seen Ringu, or The Ring, then you are familiar with the girl in the well.  Using Japanese folklore really amps up the horror in this story, since to me, Japan happens to do a wonderful job freaking the daylights out of people.  The woman in white is not a bad spirit to innocent people, but she is scary in her own right, and the woman in black is just awful.  There are gruesome scenes, gruesome crimes committed, and ancient rituals to explore in this fast paced novel about tragedy, malice, and redemption.  If you like horror, but not supernatural whimsy (which I thought was the “horror” description for this book), and you wouldn’t mind some culture in your life I suggest picking up this book.

4 out of 5 stars.  Thanks Edelweiss.

The Islands at the End of the World by Austin Aslan

“The president’s voice is strong.  ‘My fellow Americans, and my fellow citizens around the globe: I apologize for the deceptions of the past twenty-four hours.  Well-intentioned advisors have counseled me to keep secret what we’ve recently learned.  My conscience and my heart will not allow that.  I have made the determination that you have a right to know about the extraordinary—”

The flat screen turns blue.  A small text box bounces about the monitor: Weak or no signal.”

Leilani is your typical teenage girl living in Hawaii with her parents and brother.  The only thing not typical about Leilani is that she is epileptic.  This has caused her to be an outsider in social groups (along with being raised on the mainland and being half Hawaiian) and also to feel bad about certain things she cannot do, like driving.  Other than that, she lives a pretty normal life.  Her father and she are leaving their island to go to another in order to get into an epileptic drug study.  Once they leave her mother, brother and grandfather at home strange things begin to happen.  First it was a meteor that struck down and created a minor tsunami, secondly Leilani has been having odd dreams of times past before humans, and finally all satellites and communication devices are down, even microwaves stop working.  Stuck on the wrong island, Leilani and her father fight their way through hysteria, internment camps, and really, really bad people.  What happens when the apocalypse begins, but you are cut off from a main land or continent?  What will Leilani do when her medicine runs out?  Why does she keep dreaming during her fits?  Are her mom, brother, and grandfather okay?

The Islands at the End of the World is a fascinating look at one of the most popular themes in YA right now.  Almost every other book (hyperbole, people, hyperbole) in YA is a dystopian/apocalypse story that questions how we will cope if things go bad.  What can we do when all the technology that we rely on is wiped away, when life as we know it is changed completely?  All these novels take place on American main land ground, characters end up traveling crazy distances to reach resolutions to their stories; however, Leilani must travel from island to island to reach her home, and furthermore she and everyone else are cut off from the rest of the world.  They do not know how everyone else is fairing.  On top of this theme there is also the element of Hawaiian folklore/culture and aliens… that’s right I said aliens or some extra-terrestrial beings.  I just found the story intriguing and also a breath of fresh air to be introduced to Hawaiian folklore, and also the perspective of islanders about the end of the world.  This book also does not lack in humor: “I thought you didn’t believe in violence.”  “I never believed in Armageddon, either, but guess what?”  “It believed in you?”  Cannot wait to read the next book, pick this book up ASAP!

4.5 stars out of 5.  Thanks Edelweiss.