Hook Me: In the After by Demitria Lunetta

Title: In the After
Series: In the After #1
Author: Demitria Lunetta
Publisher: Harper Teen (June 25, 2013)
Genre: YA Dystopian

Book Description: They hear the most silent of footsteps.
They are faster than anything you've ever seen.
And They won't stop chasing you...until you are dead.

Amy is watching TV when it happens, when the world is attacked by Them. These vile creatures are rapidly devouring mankind. Most of the population is overtaken, but Amy manages to escape—and even rescue “Baby,” a toddler left behind in the chaos. Marooned in Amy’s house, the girls do everything they can to survive—and avoid Them at all costs.

After years of hiding, they are miraculously rescued and taken to New Hope, a colony of survivors living in a former government research compound. While at first the colony seems like a dream with plenty of food, safety, and shelter, New Hope slowly reveals that it is far from ideal. And Amy soon realizes that unless things change, she’ll lose Baby—and much more.

Rebellious, courageous, and tender, this unforgettable duo will have you on the edge of your seat as you tear through the pulse-pounding narrow escapes and horrifying twists of fate in this thrilling debut from author Demitria Lunetta.

First line: I only go out at night.
Last line read: Whether it was Monday or Wednesday seemed meaningless in the After.

Overall Impressions: I love the idea of dystopian with aliens. Too much lately involves some disaster (natural or manmade). The aliens, although they look different, remind me of the ones from the movie Signs. Amy is a strong heroine who will do anything to survive. Sometimes the story reminded me a lot of Julie Kagawa's The Immortal Rules, except Lunetta has aliens instead of vampires. The writing style is fast-paced and a bit jarring at times and the sample had a bit too much backstory for my taste. I would have preferred learning about the world as the story progressed.

Would I keep reading?: Maybe.

Book Review: Memento Nora series by Angie Smibert

Title: Memento Nora
Series: Memento Nora #1
Author: Angie Smibert
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books (April 1, 2011)
Genre: YA Dystopian

Format Read: Ebook
Length: Short Novel
Source: Purchased from Amazon

On an otherwise glossy day, a blast goes off and a body thuds to the ground at Nora's feet. There are terrorist attacks in the city all the time, but Nora can't forget.

In Nora's world you don't have to put up with nightmares. Nora goes with her mother to TFC--a Therapeutic Forgetting Clinic. There, she can describe her horrible memory and take a pill to erase it so she can go on like nothing ever happened. But at TFC a chance encounter with a mysterious guy changes Nora's life. She doesn't take the pill. And when Nora learns the memory her mother has chosen to forget, she realizes that someone needs to remember.

With newfound friends Micah and Winter, Nora makes a comic book of their memories called Memento. Memento is an instant hit, but it sets off a dangerous chain of events. Will Nora, Micah, and Winter be forced to take the Big Pill that will erase their memories forever?

Teaser: I watched him leave. He wasn’t glossy. He wasn’t dreary, either. He was something else.

He was all there. [5% Ebook. Loved these lines and the impact they have on Nora.]

Review: Memories are worth saving in Angie Smibert’s Memento Nora.

Nora is your typical glossy popular girl until she witnesses several events that turn her world upside down. I love how Nora changes throughout the book from popular to almost outcast, and yet it’s for the best. Micah is a great match for Nora as they work together to create their comic book Memento. Winter is unusual, unique, and quite the genius. Although some characters are more forgettable than others, Nora and her friends are all very glossy.

I loved the dystopian worldbuilding within this novel. The quest for shopping is taken to a whole other level. The idea you can go to a clinic and forget your worries and bad memories is both interesting and terrifying. Although this world is dark, it’s not without hope.

I enjoyed Memento Nora by Angie Smibert. It’s definitely a glossy novel.

 Five Bookworms = I loved it!

---

Title: The Forgetting Curve
Series: Momento Nora #2
Author: Angie Smibert
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish (April 1, 2012)
Genre YA Dystopian

Format Read: Ebook
Length: Short Novel
Source: Purchased from Amazon

Aiden Nomura likes to open doors especially using his skills as a hacker to see what's hidden inside. He just keeps pulling until one cracks open, exposing the flaws. It's like a game until it isn't. When a Therapeutic Forgetting Clinic opens in Bern, Switzerland, near Aiden's boarding school, he knows things are changing. Shortly after, bombs go off within quiet, safe Bern. Then Aiden learns that his cousin Winter has had a mental breakdown. He returns to the US immediately. But back home in Hamilton, Winter's mental state isn't the only thing that's different. The city is becoming even stricter, and an underground movement is growing. Aiden slowly cracks open doors in this new world. But behind those doors are things Aiden doesn't want to see, things about his society, his city, even his own family. Aiden may be the only one who can fix things before someone else gets hurt.

Teaser: Do not volunteer for something until you’re sure it doesn’t include manual labor. Book of Velvet. [84% Ebook. So, so true!]

Review: Forgetting isn’t an option in Angie Smibert’s The Forgetting Curve.

I loved the introduction of new characters, such as Aiden Nomura. Velvet’s Book of Velvet sayings were very glossy and had a way of breaking up the tension in this fast-paced novel. Winter, Nora, and Micah are back, although they’re not quite the same after Memento Nora.

The stakes keep getting higher in this novel. Their world is changing, but is it for the better—or worse? As the government tries to keep everyone in their place, a movement is rising to take back their memories—and their lives.

The Forgetting Curve by Angie Smibert won’t let this reader forget how it’s a fantastic book two in the Memento Nora series.

 Five Bookworms = I loved it!

---

Title: The Meme Plague
Series: Memento Nora #3
Author: Angie Smibert
Publisher: Amazon Children’s Publishing (August 13, 2013)

Format Read: Ebook
Length: Short Novel
Source: Purchased from Amazon

In this third and final installment in the Memento Nora series, Micah and Nora piece their memories together as Aiden, Velvet, and Winter continue the work of the MemeCast. The teens all band together to get the word out about the new ID chips - and how the government and TFC are using the chips to manipulate the public remotely.

Teaser: A real piece of the past, she’d called it. I’d always thought the past should stay dead and buried. Or, at a bare minimum, have bigger closets and a pool. [19% Ebook. Bigger closets and a pool is definitely called for.]

Review: TFC can take your cares away, but you’ll find it difficult to come back to who you are in Angie Smibert’s The Meme Plague.

Nora and Micah have a bigger role in this novel than book two. The characters face very difficult decisions as they go against TFC and the government. The upcoming elections don’t ease their problems either. As the group struggles to hold onto who they are, they are facing a world that they might not be able to change.

Although I enjoyed Memento Nora and The Forgetting Curve, I felt this novel had something missing. There was a lack of urgency and underlying pace. Yet the ending was perfect for the series.

Though not my favorite of the series, I recommend The Meme Plague by Angie Smibert as well as the entire Memento Nora series.

 Four Bookworms = I really liked it!

Book Review: The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau

Title: The Testing
Series: The Testing #1
Author: Joelle Charbonneau
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children (June 4, 2013)
Genre: YA Dystopian

Format Read: Ebook ARC
Length: Novel
Source: NetGalley

It's graduation day for sixteen-year-old Malencia Vale, and the entire Five Lakes Colony (the former Great Lakes) is celebrating. All Cia can think about—hope for—is whether she’ll be chosen for The Testing, a United Commonwealth program that selects the best and brightest new graduates to become possible leaders of the slowly revitalizing post-war civilization. When Cia is chosen, her father finally tells her about his own nightmarish half-memories of The Testing. Armed with his dire warnings (“Cia, trust no one”), she bravely heads off to Tosu City, far away from friends and family, perhaps forever. Danger, romance—and sheer terror—await.

Teaser: “Are you ready to be done with school and get out into the real world with the rest of us slobs?” [pg. 2 of PDF ARC. This teaser made me laugh.] 

Review: Malencia “Cia” Vale desires to be a part of The Testing, but the dangers involved may prove to be more than she and the other candidates can handle in Joelle Charbonneau’s The Testing.

Intelligent and kind-hearted, Cia Vale must find a way to put her naivety aside without losing who she is. Her budding relationship with Tomas is sweet, and I enjoyed how they looked out after each other. Cia has a wonderful relationship with her family too. Her brothers were so much fun to read about. Each character added to the story with how they treated The Testing and their fellow candidates. Charbonneau dug deep into their psyche and morality on who would rise above the horrors awaiting them.

The worldbuilding, although reminiscent of The Hunger Games, is complex and well thought out. Charbonneau built the history, the landscape, even how the creatures would’ve changed. The Testing itself was intriguing at how it starts like an ordinary exam, which turns out to be extraordinary and very dangerous. Each moment in the story speeds along in this well-written novel with plenty of twists and turns. 

The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau left me craving for book two.

 

Five Bookworms = I loved it!

S is for Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi

 

For 2013's A to Z Challenge, I am talking about book series, particularly some favorite series as well as series I've been waiting to read for a LONG time.

S is for ... Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi

I’ve followed Tahereh Mafi’s blog for a long time. When I heard about Shatter Me, the idea sounded so fantastic. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to read the first book yet. It’s just waiting on my Kindle for me. I’ve heard Mafi’s style is so unique, and I love the idea of crossing out words too.

Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war– and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.

Waiting on Wednesday: THIS IS NOT A TEST by Courtney Summers

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating.

This Is Not a Test

By Courtney Summers

Publication Date: June 19, 2012

From Goodreads: 

It’s the end of the world. Six students have taken cover in Cortege High but shelter is little comfort when the dead outside won’t stop pounding on the doors. One bite is all it takes to kill a person and bring them back as a monstrous version of their former self. To Sloane Price, that doesn’t sound so bad. Six months ago, her world collapsed and since then, she’s failed to find a reason to keep going. Now seems like the perfect time to give up. As Sloane eagerly waits for the barricades to fall, she’s forced to witness the apocalypse through the eyes of five people who actually want to live. But as the days crawl by, the motivations for survival change in startling ways and soon the group’s fate is determined less and less by what’s happening outside and more and more by the unpredictable and violent bids for life—and death—inside. When everything is gone, what do you hold on to?

I love the cover, and it sounds like such a great book.

What's your "waiting on" pick?

Book Review: THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins

Title: The Hunger Games

Series: The Hunger Games #1

Author: Suzanne Collins

Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

Format: Kindle Novel

Source: Purchased

Genre: YA Dystopian

Goodreads 

Description: In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister Primrose, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before — and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that will weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

Review: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins exploits the ultimate battle between the classes in this intense novel.

When sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen’s twelve-year-old sister is chosen for the Hunger Games, she steps forward to take her place. Thrown together with the sweet boy who’d once given her bread, Katniss must find a way to survive against twenty-three other competitors. Because in the Hunger Games, there is only one victor. To lose, means death.

The Hunger Games is a fast-paced read. Collins’ greatest talent with this book is the underlying tension throughout. As a reader, I had to keep turning page after page to find out what would happen. The plot reminds me of the Athenian tributes to Crete in Greek mythology. Katniss is such a strong, hard character with a glimpse of a softer side. Peeta’s love for her is endearing. I loved the use of Roman and Greek myths and motifs throughout. The world building is brilliant with the take on a futuristic American (a.k.a. Panem) as well as the interesting creatures, such as the mocking-jay. This novel is one-part social commentary, one-part reality TV show-ish, and one part love story.

Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games is an intense read, and I can’t wait to read books two and three. May the odds be ever in Suzanne Collins’ favor.

Five Bookworms = I loved it!

Teaser Tuesdays: THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

 

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

0% Kindle copy

When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim's warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress.

Do you have a teaser? If so, leave the teaser or a link to one in the comments.