Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E. K. Johnston Published: 2016 by Dutton Books (Penguin Random House) Bought Hermione and Polly have one goal as cheerleading co-captains: avoid the second half of the curse of their small town. The first part of the curse is that each class has someone die. The second part is that each class has one teen pregnancy. When Hermione is raped at cheerleading camp, the outcome is obvious. And the choice she makes fall in line with her desire to change the curse of their town. But making that choice has a different set of consequences. I appreciated Johnston's optimistic outlook of a tragic event. She also approaches the subject with a honesty, not shying away from the trauma of surviving sexual assault or the choices that are rarely shown in teen literature. In fact, as far as I know, this is the only book where the choice hasn't already been made before the book begins. So I appreciated this book for its new actions, and it read...
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Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead is the story of a dhampir (or Guardian) and her Moroi (full Vampire) best friend. Rose is protecting Vasilisa in the outside world when they're caught and hauled back to the school they ran away from: St. Vladimir (located in the wilds of Montana! haha). Their return to the school doesn't go as smoothly as they would like. To be honest, I'd heard of these books when they came out but hadn't taken the time to read them. When I saw the commercial for the movie, I decided it was time to pick up a copy and read it. I've always been a read it before I see it when I can girl. To my shock, I found a copy of it on my shelf when I was looking for a different book, so I started reading it as my first "old" book of 2014. I was surprised to find that I really really liked it! My copy is an early edition--at least, I'm hoping it is because there is a ridiculous amount of errors in it (bad copy editor bad!) which dist...
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell was SPECTACULAR. I stayed up until 1 am on a work night to finish it. Admittedly, I've been a devoted Rowell fan since I read Eleanor & Park this summer, but while I still think I loved Eleanor & Park more, Fangirl spoke to me on a fundamental level. Mild spoilers ahead. I wish I'd had this book when I was a college Freshman. I was Cather. Except I was Cather rooming with my Wren (not a twin sister, but a best friend from high school). I didn't go to many parties, I spent a lot of time in my room on my computer, I spent a lot of time doubting my life and my choices. She makes a comment about not feeling like a real adult but a pre-adult, and I still feel that way. I loved that Simon Snow is basically Harry Potter (except Rowell throws in a few HP references to make it seem like it isn't HP, but it so totally is). Harry Potter is still the biggest fandom I've ever been a part of. I started reading fanfiction in 8th...
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum is the classic tale of Dorothy and Toto's adventure to Oz. There are 14 Oz tales in all, but the first book reflects what we know and love as The Wizard of Oz film. I had never read the book(s), and it's been a few ages since I've seen the movie, so it was exciting to look at the story from a new, fascinating angle. Of course, the tale is so ingrained in my brain from my childhood that it all came back to me as I was reading. I've also seen Oz the Great and Powerful fairly recently (which was a misogynistic piece of crap in my opinion, but the tale does incorporate some of the traditional Oz elements) so that assisted my memories quite a bit. My favorite part of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is that besides Dorothy who is actually far from home, the others already have the qualities they're going to the Wizard to get. On their journey, the scarecrow demonstrates over and over again how intelligent he is. Th...
Allegiant is the concluding novel in the Divergent triology. Therefore, there will be some spoilers in my review. Actually, there will be a lot of spoilers in this review. Because I have a lot of feelings and a lot of things to say. So skip to the end if you don't want any spoilers. I'm actually not entirely sure how I felt about Allegiant. Like Roth threw a major curveball in this novel, and it's been almost 24 hours since I finished it, and I'm still not sure how I felt about it. So in Allegiant, we find out that this entire world we've grown to love in Divergent and Insurgent is a total lie. It's a genetic purity experiment. And I guess part of my problem with this curveball is that I don't think that's how it would go. On one hand, it reminded me of Haddix's Running Out of Time where the main character also finds out her world's a lie (which I LOVE. That book is one of my favorites from my youth). On the other hand though, I just don...
Summary: This prequel to the Maze Runner starts in a world already destroyed by Sun Flares. Mark and Trina are two teenagers who have survived the unthinkable: the destruction of Earth as we know it. However, just when societies are beginning to reform and people are starting to live again, their camp is attacked by a ship. They shoot darts at their community and leave. But Mark and his mentor, Alec, aren't quite so ready to let the attack go. They need to find out what's happening and why. My Review: I liked The Kill Order better than the last two books of the Maze Runner series, but I don't think that I actually liked it over all. I ended up having to sticky note problem spots in the book for me because I was getting so annoyed. The middle section of the book is covered in orange sticky notes. The beginning wasn't terrible. I mean, Dashner has a fixation on making boy/girl couples as the main focus of his novel and ignoring most other relationships, but I was wi...