Book Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

This Cinderella story takes place in the future after 4 world wars have ravaged the Earth and a plague is running rampant over the Earth. Cinder is the best mechanic in New Beijing. She works at a stall in the market and brings in the only money her family (which consists of one nice step sister, one evil stepsister and an evil stepmother) lives off of. Cinder is also a cyborg. When she was younger she was in a horrible accident and she was rebuilt with machine parts. When Peony (the nice sister) gets sick, Cinder's step mother volunteers her for the cyborg draft, where each day a cyborg is sent to test plague antidotes. Then she meets Dr. Erland and her whole life changes as Cinder learns more about both her body and her past and gets to spend more time with Prince Kai.

Over all I really liked this book. Cinder is a great character and I loved Iko and her malfunctioning personality chip. Kai is also a pretty interesting prince.  He comes across as smart and interesting and not as overly vain as one would expect. There were some things I figured out fairly early (it is Cinderella after all) and there were other twists that I was never expecting.  

I listened to this as an audiobook and I really enjoyed it.  I thought the narrator did a good job getting the different personalities and feelings to shine through with her voice.  I am hoping that when the next volume in the trilogy is released it will be available on audiobook at the library and that it will have the same narrator.

The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross

Finley Jayne has a darker half that protects her and frightens her. As time goes on it is becoming more and more difficult for her to control and making it harder for her to keep a job. One night she is forced to run from her employers home and is hit by Griffin King a Duke who sees her as one of his own; people with abilities. He takes her in and soon learns that Finley has an interesting and unexpected connection to him. Finley joins Griff, and his friends Emily, Sam and Jasper on the hunt for The Machinist, a criminal who is managing to make machines turn against people.

I absolutely adored this book for so many reasons. Being the book geek that I am, I always love it when a book finds a way to connect with other books so I was completely amused and intrigued by the connections drawn to Jekyll and Hyde and Journey to the Center of the Earth.

I loved how the two parts of Finley become integrated over the course of the book. I liked watching her become stronger and more finely tied together. However I still loved her split parts as well, particulalry how part of her was attracted to Griff and the other part was attracted to Jack Dandy. (It's the first love triangle in a long time that has annoyed me beyond belief.) I also found Jack Dandy extremely interesting. He was a criminal beyond a doubt but he was an interesting mix of commoner and smart business man. I definitely think he is someone who makes it a point to allow others to underestimate him and I really hope that he is involved in the next book even though they will be leaving England for it. I also enjoyed watching Sam come to terms with himself and the changes that Emily made to save his life. I am hoping that in the next book he will continue to grow and become a little bit smarter. While I don't expect his temper to entirely disappear, I am hoping that he continues to think about things more. My biggest complaint about the book was the lack of information on Jasper so I am very excited to see that the next book in the series is going to focus on him and that was all resolved.

I also really liked how The Machinist tied into Griff's groups' past and I was very intrigued by how he was able to get the robots to work. While for the most part the story was anything but predictable there was one point regarding what the Machinist was planning where I found myself getting frustrated. Someone as smart as Emily is supposed to be should have figured out what was going on a few pages earlier. I did find it a little bit irritating that she had to wait for Griffin to come to the lab and figure out what was going on. I wanted her, Finley and Sam to be a little bit more independent sometimes; but I'm hoping over the course of the series the characters will continue to grow and learn to stand on their own.

The Strange Case of Finley Jayne by Kady Cross

This is a prequel to the Girl in the Steel Corset, which I have an e-galley of and will be posting a review of tomorrow. I was able to get it free for my kindle from amazon. Prior to reading this I had thought that the whole short story on amazon thing for free was frustrating, because it only gave you a taste. Now I am thinking of it as more as knowing whether the book(s) it's based on is worth spending money on.

This introduces the main character of the Girl in the Steel Corset and lets us know how she is unique and how she got the position she is working at in the beginning of the next book. It was a short story that was definitely interesting and now I can't wait to read the book. It also gave me a really clear concept of the world that Finley lives in, a mix of technology, supernatural and Victorian London. Finley was definitely an interesting character and I'm hoping that Phoebe and her mother also make an appearance in the next book.

I am Number Four by Pittacus Lore

John has been living on Earth with his Cepan Henri since he was 5 years old. Him and Henri have lived moved all over the United States in an effort to stay hidden. His home planet Lorien was destroyed by the Mogadorians and Alex and eight other children are hidden all across the planet Earth until the powers they are supposed to be developing at puberty make an appearance and they can go after the Mogadorians. The Mogadorians are also on Earth, hunting the nine in number order to get around a protective charm that was placed on the children and to gauge whether or not they can take over the Earth as well. At the opening of the book John has just had to move again and now knows that the first three are dead. They move to a little town called Paradise, Ohio where for the first time John starts making friends.

The best thing this book has going for it is that is action packed. The pace is quick and never stays in one place for long. It's all developing powers, fighting and giant battles. It definitely keeps you entertained.

The background on Lorien and the kind of planet it was and what society was like was interesting. The flashbacks of both the planets destruction and the scraps of John's life were really interesting. I also like learning about how the history of Lorien and the history of Earth have intersected. However I couldn't help but think that some of the things about the planet sounded familiar as if they had been pulled from other stories, books, televisions shows, movies etc.

My other source of contention was the relationship between Sarah and John. It was a sweet relationship, it really was, however we never get to know Sarah. All we know is she's a nice girl and she was on a bad path but straightened herself out via family and photography. Since we don't really get to know her well, it's hard to figure out exactly what it is that John see's in her.

Outside In by Maria V. Snyder

At the start of this volume of the Inside Out series, the rebellion is over and the committee has been reformed to help govern inside. Trella is trying to quietly step into the background and allow the committee to do it's job. Unfortunately, the committee isn't quite working out the way it was planned and there is unrest among everyone which gives Outsiders a foot hold in.

In the first book the revolution comes about quickly and with minimal blood shed. I was really glad that in this book the transfer to a new government wasn't smoothed over. I was afraid that it was going to be a book where after the rebellion everything was going to be perfect until the Outsiders came. I was very happy to that author showed how hard it was to bring everyone together and to find a good way to govern inside.

The pacing of the book is quick with action on almost every page. There is one incident after another and it seems impossible to figure out who is doing what. If I hadn't known about the Outsiders from the goodreads blurb, I don't think I would have figured it out.

Trella's temprement adds to the action because she often doesn't stop and think about things but just continues to do what she deems is necessary. Trella is a character that I have grown to love and I really enjoyed reading about her development. She could see the problems caused by the committee and slowly came to the realization that her involvement was important because she was able to help bridge the gap between Uppers and Lowers, both because of who she was and how she saw things.

There are two things that I really wished I had gotten to see though. I would have loved to have gotten some more of the history of Inside when Logan found it and I would have liked to have followed Riley a little bit. I'm not going to explain why because I don't want to give away any spoilers but it would have been interesting to see things from his perspective. However these are really minor issues for me and overall I really enjoyed the read.

(The version I read was ebook provided to me by netgalley for review)

Inside Out by Maria V. Snyder

At first I couldn't get into this book, I'm not entirely sure why. I think it might be because in the beginning Trella is not the most endearing character. Trella is a scrub, a lower level worker known as "The Queen of the Pipes". She is standoffish and doesn't have many friends (okay she has one friend) because she prefers solitude which is difficult to get among the thousands of Scrubs she is forced to live with in dorms. But once you see Trella really interact with Cog and she accidentally begins the rebellion, she softens a lot and I really started to like her. I also really loved how everyone came together to help her, so often in a book like this I feel like someone always betrays in a mean spirited way. Yes there was some betrayal but most of it was under duress.

There were also a lot of really great surprises in this book that made it an even better read (I'm going to be as general as possible so I don't give anything away). Particularly how Trella met her mother. I always knew that she would eventually meet one of her parents but I wasn't expecting it to come about the way it did. I also really liked getting more specifics about Inside and how it actually worked.

There was so much I going on in this book that we didn't get to know a lot of characters besides Trella, Cog and sort of getting to know Riley. (Although I loved Sheepy and I thought it was a great way of developing Riley and Trella's relationship.) The book was self contained and doesn't need a sequel but since there is one coming out I am hoping we get to know some of the other characters better like Logan and Anne Jade.

Red Spikes by Margo Lanagan

I really really wanted to like these short stories but I just couldn't get into it. I love Margo Lanagan's writing, I think it's absolutely beautiful, and the language in these stories is absolutely gorgeous. One of my favorite things about Margo Lanagan's writing has always been her ability to really set a mood in a story, and these stories evoke many different moods from the down right disturbing to a sense of satisfaction. Unfortunately all of the stories felt unfinished to me. Each tale felt like an excerpt from a larger tale that I (mostly) wanted to hear the rest of. This left me feeling frustrated and unsatisfied as a reader.

I read an arc that I got from work and at the end of the arc there was a two page note from the author dealing with where the inspiration for each story. I hope that made it into the final copy because I thought that was really interesting. The stories I liked the best were Baby Jane; A Feather in the Breast of God; Under Hell, Over Heaven; Forever Upward, and Daughter of the Clay. Unfortunately, these all left me feeling the most frustrated as well. It just felt like I was missing out on getting to know characters, endings and even beginnings.

Dark Life by Kat Falls

Ty lives in an underwater colony that was formed after the earth started to fall apart. He meets a Gemma, a topsider searching for her brother and decided to help her. Ty is also dealing with his life and trying to be normal struggling against problems with the government and dealing with his own self.

I typed out this whole review and lost now I am retyping and I just know this one wont be as good, so I apologize in advance. Ty is an incredible character and was extremely likable and easy to relate too. His sister Zoe is also a great character and I kind of wish we saw more of her in the book. The way people live in the colony makes people grow up very quickly so Ty is extremely mature but like most teenagers still a little bit lost when it comes to figuring himself out, although his situation is probably a little bit stranger then most.

We don't get a lot of information about what living up above is like. Just little scraps here and there and most of it is extremely negative. However the descriptions of sea life, both animal and how the people in the colony live are just incredible. They sound amazing and gorgeous, and just incredibly smart.

Although this is not exactly the kind of dystopia we are used to seeing, mainly because the people from the colony live so separate from the colony that the day to day life seems quite normal. It is only the large deprivations that the government infringes on the colony that are seen. This definitely could has strong themes and ideas of how much power a government should have both over it's people and it's colonies.

Going Bovine by Libba Bray

Cameron Smith is a sixteen year old focused on being a slacker, and doing as little as possible. There is nothing really wrong with his home life, he just feels overlooked and has decided to exploit that for all it's worth. Everything changes when he contracts Creutzfeldt-Jacob or “Mad Cow” Disease and Dulcie, a punk rock angel, tells him that if he finds Dr.X he can be cured and he can save the world.

This book has a really great road trip adventure story that focuses on the importance of living life, without being overly heavy and trying to beat the reader over the head with a message. The author makes sure that Cameron gets a chance to experience everything, both the good things and the bad, without dwelling on Cameron’s disease. The adventure that Cameron and Gonzo go on is all about parallel dimensions and possible time travel, but the reader isn’t bombarded with a bunch of technical science terminology so that even those that are not really into science fiction can enjoy this work.

I totally understand why this book was selected for this years Printz Award. This is a book that I think could really grab someone who isn't necessarily a reader. It's a phenomenal adventure story that has a great deal of depth.

Fade to Blue by Sean Beaudoin

I saw this book forever ago in a store and loved the cover. I was recently reminded of it somehow and it was one of my last requests from the library before I decided to cut myself off. I read this whole book this morning while waiting online at the dmv to register my car. It was so interesting that it really made the whole trip go by much much faster, so I decided to share it.

Sophie thinks she is losing her mind, seeing an ice cream truck and having horrible nightmares where she wakes up with bruises that make her wonder what's really going on. Kenny thinks he's losing it to, hearing and experiencing weird feelings, static and mysterious computer code. What does it all mean?

This book kind of reminds me of the Matrix (I'm afraid to explain why cause it might be a spoiler so if you care about things like that skip the end of this run on sentence) because of the Virtuality and the multiple realities where people experience the best the world has to offer. It was kind of neat and much like the Matrix I think this one needs multiple readings to understand everything that's going on.

The other thing I loved about this book is that in most dystopia type books you see the after affects of whatever changed the world. In this case you kind of get to see how a dystopia is starting. You are reading about the corruption of an idea that has the possibility to change the world for the better or for the worse, depending on how it's being used and the decisions these few people make in how the idea is used. I think that is what makes this a really interesting read.