Review: The Unwanteds

Title:  The Unwanteds
Author:  Lisa McMann
Series:  The Unwanteds (#1)
Rating: 4.5/5

Summary:

When Alex finds out he is Unwanted, he expects to die. That is the way of the people of Quill. Each year, all the thirteen-year-olds are labeled as Wanted, Necessary, or Unwanted. Wanteds get more schooling and train to join the Quillitary. Necessaries keep the farms running. Unwanteds are set for elimination. 

It’s hard for Alex to leave behind his twin, Aaron, a Wanted, but he makes peace with his fate—until he discovers that instead of a “death farm,” what awaits him is a magical place called Artimé. There, Alex and his fellow Unwanteds are encouraged to cultivate their creative abilities and use them magically. Everything Alex has ever known changes before his eyes, and it’s a wondrous transformation. 

But it’s a rare, unique occurrence for twins to be divided between Wanted and Unwanted, and as Alex and Aaron's bond stretches across their separation, a threat arises for the survival of Artim that will pit brother against brother in an ultimate magical battle.

Review:

I love dystopian books.  Ever since The Hunger Games hit shelves I've devoured any other series with that theme.  This is the first book of a series that is six books long so far (I am guessing there will be seven total, because of reasons you will learn in the book!)

I think one thing that really drew me to this series, especially since it's middle school level, not young adult, is its take on art.  Personally, I have tried almost every art medium out there and to think that art can truly come to life like it does in Artime is an amazing concept.  The characters are lovable and once you meet Simber you'll want a giant flying cheetah made of stone for yourself.

I've read up through the fourth book so far, but I admit I got very bored in that book, but that's likely because I was kind of binge reading these and needed a break before going on to the next book.

Other Books in the Series:

Island of Silence (Book 2)
Island of Fire (Book 3)
Island of Legends (Book 4)
Island of Shipwrecks (Book 5)
Island of Graves (Book 6)
Island of Dragons (Book 7 - Not yet published)

2016 Reading Challenge: A Book You Can Finish In A Day

A Book You Can Finish In A Day

Technically I didn't finish this book the same day I started, but that's only because I started it at about 10 pm, and finished it shortly after midnight the next day.  However, I'm counting that as a "day" because it was less than 24 hours by far.

I rather liked the book, and it is a Newbery Award winner:

The One and Only Ivan

by Katherine Applegate

Summary:

Ivan is an easygoing gorilla. Living at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, he has grown accustomed to humans watching him through the glass walls of his domain. He rarely misses his life in the jungle. In fact, he hardly ever thinks about it at all.

Instead, Ivan thinks about TV shows he’s seen and about his friends Stella, an elderly elephant, and Bob, a stray dog. But mostly Ivan thinks about art and how to capture the taste of a mango or the sound of leaves with color and a well-placed line.

Then he meets Ruby, a baby elephant taken from her family, and she makes Ivan see their home—and his own art—through new eyes. When Ruby arrives, change comes with her, and it’s up to Ivan to make it a change for the better.

Katherine Applegate blends humor and poignancy to create Ivan’s unforgettable first-person narration in a story of friendship, art, and hope.

Top Ten Books I Enjoyed Recently That Weren't My Typical Genre

Presented by The Broke and the Bookish

Top Ten Books I Enjoyed Recently That Weren't My Typical Genre

1. The Martian by Andy Weir

I don't really do science fiction, pretty much ever.  If I delve into that side of literature I go towards fantasy, but this book was amazing.

2. The Grownup by Gillian Flynn

I actually read this as a brand new book, that I requested through the library because it had been on the bestsellers lists (or at least the author had).  I don't typically read mainstream, new releases, but this was kind of hilarious.

3. Breakwater Bay by Shelley Nobel

Just a basic family drama/romance, not normally exciting for me.

4. Awesome Sh*t My Drill Sergeant Said by Dan Caddy

This was straight up hilarious, and nonfiction is not my favorite genre by far.

5. If You Feel Too Much by Jamie Tworkowski

Again, nonfiction, but it's from To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA), so I had to because I love them, and I loved this.

6. Raising My Rainbow by Lori Duron

Blah memoirs usually, especially whiny ones about how someone is different and life is hard, but I found this rather inspiring.

7. American Sniper by Chris Kyle

Again, memoir, but war.  I love war movies, not typically books.  This was the best book I read in 2015 hands down.

8. Entwined With You by Sylvia Day

I normally find myself embarrassed by reading books that are known to be about sex and not much more, but this series has actual plot and Sylvia Day can actually write, so I make the exception for her.

9. Who Was Alfred Hitchcock? by Pamela D. Pollak

Need I say memoir again?  I'm starting to think I read these more than I think, but this was childrens level.  If you have a child and they don't like nonfiction, introduce them to this series of books, they'll love it.

10. The Terrorist's Son by Zak Ebrahim

Memoir!  Mostly I loved it because it was related to a Ted Talk, and if you don't know what Ted Talks are, then google it.  Now.  Seriously.

Top Ten Tuesday [9]

Top Ten Tuesday is an original meme by The Broke and the Bookish

REWIND!

Top Ten Childhood Favorites

I didn't read much during my "childhood" so I have very few favorites, but enough to make a list of ten.

     1.  A Mother for Choco by Keiko Kasza

Choco, a little bird living alone, sets out to find a mother, but he has no luck until he meets the warm-hearted, generous Mrs. Bear and her other children--Piggy, Ally, and Hippy.

     2.   Stellaluna by Janell Cannon

Stellaluna is the tender story of a lost young bat who finally finds her way safely home to her mother and friends. This award-winning book by Janell Cannon has sold over 500,000 copies and was on the bestseller list for more than two years.

     3.  Sand Cake by Frank Asch

Papa Bear uses his culinary skills and a little imagination to concoct a sand cake.

      4.  Scribbler of Dreams by Mary E. Peterson

Kaitlin Malone has been raised to hate the Crutchfields, relatives the Malones have feuded with for as long as Kaitlin can remember. This legacy of hatred has never been questioned until Kaitlin meets a boy and begins to fall in love with him before she discovers that he is a Crutchfield . . . and the son of the man her father has gone to prison for killing. 
To give the relationship a chance, Kaitlin lies about her identity. But what was supposed to be one temporary untruth leads to yet another, and soon she finds herself tangled in a complicated web of deceit. In the course of her deception, she discovers an even bigger lie: The Crutchfields are not the monsters her family has always portrayed them to be. When Maggie Crutchfield, the matriarch who started the feud, reaches out from the past to right a wrong, she offers Kaitlin a legacy worth holding on to-if she can.

      5.  Till Death Do Us Part by Lurlene McDaniel

The doctor's diagnosis for April Lancaster is not good. April has a brain tumor which cannot be operated on. She's only 18, and her future is uncertain. But when she meets Mark Gianni, a 21-year-old with a passion for car racing, things change.
Mark is handsome and charming--and has cystic fibrosis. Despite herself, April falls completely in love with him. April  says yes when Mark asks her to marry him. But a racing accident aggravates Mark's CF, and April must make a decision that will change the course of her life forever.

     6. Everworld Series by K.A. Appelgate

David's life was pretty normal. School. Friends. Girlfriend. Actually, Senna was probably the oddest aspect of his life. She was beautiful. Smart. But there was something very different about her. Something strange.
And on the day it began, everything happened so quickly. One moment, Senna was with him. The next, she was swallowed up by the earth, her screams echoing from far, far away. David couldn't just let her go. Neither could the others. His friends and hers. So, they followed. And found themselves in a world they could have never imagined. 
Now they have to find Senna and get home without losing their lives. Or their minds. Or both...

     7.   I Love You Forever by Robert Munsch

An extraordinarily different story by Robert Munsch is a gentle affirmation of the love a parent feels for their child--forever. Sheila McGraw's soft and colorful pastels perfectly complement the sentiment of the book--one that will be read repeatedly for years.

     8.  Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

Twelve-year-old Artemis Fowl is a millionaire, a genius—and, above all, a criminal mastermind. But even Artemis doesn't know what he's taken on when he kidnaps a fairy, Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon Unit. These aren't the fairies of bedtime stories—they're dangerous! Full of unexpected twists and turns, Artemis Fowl is a riveting, magical adventure.

     9.  Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

Come in … for where the sidewalk ends, Shel Silverstein's world begins. You'll meet a boy who turns into a TV set, and a girl who eats a whale. The Unicorn and the Bloath live there, and so does Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout who will not take the garbage out. It is a place where you wash your shadow and plant diamond gardens, a place where shoes fly, sisters are auctioned off, and crocodiles go to the dentist.Shel Silverstein's masterful collection of poems and drawings is at once outrageously funny and profound.

     10.  Amelia Bedelia and the Baby by Peggy Parish

Taking care of babyAmelia Bedelia has her hands full when she takes care of Mrs. Lane's baby. As usual, the literal-minded housekeeper mixes things up, but she also wins the heart of her newest and youngest fan.

Review: The Enchantress Returns

Title:  The Enchantress Returns
Author:  Chris Colfer
Series:  The Land of Stories [2]
Rating:  5/5


Summary:

After decades of hiding, the evil Enchantress who cursed Sleeping Beauty is back with a vengeance.

Alex and Conner Bailey have not been back to the magical Land of Stories since their adventures in The Wishing Spell ended. But one night, they learn the famed Enchantress has kidnapped their mother! Against the will of their grandmother, the twins must find their own way into the Land of Stories to rescue their mother and save the fairy tale world from the greatest threat it's ever faced.

Review:

I waited desperately for this book to come out and when it did I only got 20 pages in before I had to put it down!  It's not because I didn't like it though, it's because school refuses to let me read (did I ever mention law school is a horrible, terrible experience?  Because it is).  So anyway, I picked the book back up over my winter break and finished it as fast as I could.

Once I was allowed to pick it up I couldn't put it down!  I'm not huge on the fantasy world, but I'm a sucker for old time fairy tales and this series keeps so true to them, but with a modern spin that I love them.

At first I was apprehensive about the storyline.  Were we going to spend an entire book on another quest to create a mystical thing that may or may not exist?  Why yes actually.  That worried me immediately.  I liked the first book, and the quest and meeting all the storybook characters, but could Chris Colfer really hold my attention by doing something remarkably similar for another 500 pages?  Answer:  Yes he can.

I think I like most about this book how introspective the characters got without being obvious about it.  The characters questing, and the ones they ran into, learned life lessons (like any good fairy tale makes them do) and yet at the same time it wasn't pushed in your face repeatedly.  For example, statements like this one were peppered throughout the book:

“Anyone can have a once-upon-a-time or a happily-ever-after, but it's the journey between that makes the story worth telling.” 

So despite the fact that this is a juvenile book (i.e. located in the juvenile fiction section of the library) I would recommend it to people of [nearly] all ages.

I give it:

[Also, thank you to Little Bookworm Reviews for pointing me in the right direction to create quote boxes!  And has any fellow bloggers experienced blogger running slowly when trying to write a post lately?  It doesn't like to let me save.]

Review: Below

Title:  Below
Author:  Meg McKinlay
Rating: 3/5

Summary:

Secrets have a way of floating to the surface. . . . Mystery, compelling characters, and an abandoned town beneath a lake make for a must-read adventure.

On the day Cassie was born, they drowned her town. The mayor flipped a lever and everyone cheered as Old Lower Grange was submerged beneath five thousand swimming pools’ worth of water. Now, twelve years later, Cassie feels drawn to the manmade lake and the mysteries it hides — and she’s not the only one. Her classmate Liam, who wears oversized swim trunks to cover the scars on his legs, joins Cassie in her daily swims across the off-limits side of the lake. As the summer heats up, the water drops lower and lower, offering them glimpses of the ghostly town and uncovering secrets one prominent town figure seems anxious to keep submerged. But like a swimmer who ventures too far from shore, Cassie realizes she can’t turn back. Can she bring their suspicions to light before it’s too late — and does she dare?

Review:

This really wasn't that bad for a slightly futuristic juvenile book.  It took a while to really understand what was happening though.  I'm not sure if that was the author's intention, to not give us any straight answers about how/why they sunk the old town/city.  I also didn't realize the setting was in Australia until at least halfway in.  That certainly changed the picture in my head (considering I was picturing some mid-west small town in the U.S.).

But despite the confusion in my picturing of the situation, I liked the concept, and I liked the characters.  It took a good 200 pages to hit the climax of the story, but that seems to be getting more normal these days, we don't get the cool down after the climax in books, we get the climax right before the end and that's it.

Being inside Cassie's head for the entire story was probably perfect.  She thinks so differently than the rest of her town (except perhaps Liam), and she also isn't afraid to question everything and do something about it, which makes the story infinitely more interesting.

Overall, 3 out of 5 stars, because the setting wasn't well developed and I thought that was essential to the story, but the rest of it was good.

Recommended to those willing to question their existence a bit (and children over the age of 8 or 10 I think).

Review: Because of Anya

Title:  Because of Anya
Author:  Margaret Peterson Haddix
Rating:  4.5/5

Summary:

Ten-year-old girls don't wear wigs.So why is Anya wearing one? That's what Keely wants to know. But when Anya's wig falls off in front of the whole class, Keely realizes what she really wants is to help Anya, even though she's not sure how -- and even though it means she'll have to do something she's afraid of: stand up to her friends.

As for Anya, she just wants her hair to grow back, but no one can tell her whether it ever will. How can she learn to accept her disease when she can't even look in the mirror?

Review:

I kept picking up this book and putting it back down for almost a year, mostly because I never seemed to have time to read it (even though it's about 115 pages).  It's another juvenile book (I seem to be enjoying those lately), but it had a rather "adult" theme.

The book switches between the views of Anya and Keely, two 10-year-olds.  The span of the book is only about a week, and most of the action happens within roughly three days if I remember correctly.

Anya has a disorder called "Alopecia Areata" which is when a person's boy essentially becomes allergic to their own hair and as a result it can fall out in different amounts.

There is a constant lesson throughout this about image and acceptance.  Anya learns to accept herself, and to have the courage to face the others in her class, while her class learns to be tolerant.  I think the biggest self transformation was for Keely, who learned to be her own person.

I recommend this to everyone who needs a lesson in tolerance, and for younger kids especially.

(And I totally stole the stars image idea from my friend who writes the blog Little Bookworm Reviews, go check her out!)

Review: The Mysterious Howling

Title:  The Mysterious Howling
Author:  Maryrose Wood
Series:  The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place [1]
Rating: 4.5

Summary:

Found running wild in the forest of Ashton Place, the Incorrigibles are no ordinary children: Alexander, age ten or thereabouts, keeps his siblings in line with gentle nips; Cassiopeia, perhaps four or five, has a bark that is (usually) worse than her bite; and Beowulf, age somewhere-in-the-middle, is alarmingly adept at chasing squirrels.

Luckily, Miss Penelope Lumley is no ordinary governess. Only fifteen years old and a recent graduate of the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females, Penelope embraces the challenge of her new position. Though she is eager to instruct the children in Latin verbs and the proper use of globes, first she must help them overcome their canine tendencies.

But mysteries abound at Ashton Place: Who are these three wild creatures, and how did they come to live in the vast forests of the estate? Why does Old Timothy, the coachman, lurk around every corner? Will Penelope be able to teach the Incorrigibles table manners and socially useful phrases in time for Lady Constance's holiday ball? And what on earth is a schottische?

Review:

Shockingly awesome!  I thought the premise was interesting to start (thus why I picked up the book), but it actually turned out better than I expected for a juvenile book.  The language (as it takes place "back in the day" in England) is a little difficult for a younger audience I think, I'd say it's geared towards middle schoolers and older.

Anyway, the children were absolutely endearing, and I liked the other characters as well, and they certainly are "characters", like Lady Constance, she's crazy!

The only reason I didn't give this a higher rating because the book led up to this one scene that spanned about two chapters, and those were the only chapters in the book I did not care for.  I think the goal was accomplished, but I didn't love it, I don't know.

Recommended to people middle school aged and older.

Review: Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell

Title:  Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell
Author:  Chris Colfer
Series:  Land of Stories (1)
Rating:  4.5/5

Summary:

Alex and Conner Bailey's world is about to change, in this fast-paced adventure that uniquely combines our modern day world with the enchanting realm of classic fairy tales. 


"The Land of Stories" tells the tale of twins Alex and Conner. Through the mysterious powers of a cherished book of stories, they leave their world behind and find themselves in a foreign land full of wonder and magic where they come face-to-face with the fairy tale characters they grew up reading about. 


But after a series of encounters with witches, wolves, goblins, and trolls alike, getting back home is going to be harder than they thought.

Review:

Don't know why it took me so long to read this!  It was really fantastic, and the best children's book I've read in a while.  I got stuck on the third chapter for about three months or so, but it was mostly because of time issues.  And the story got a little stuck right as Alex and Connor's journey began.  However, I started reading it again yesterday and finished the last 300 pages in a few hours.

I love Chris Colfer as an actor and singer in Glee and when I learned he wrote a book I bought a copy as soon as I could.

I recommend this to anyone who loves a good old-fashioned fairy-tale/fantasy story.

Next book in the series:

Land of Stories:  The Enchantress Returns

Release Date:  August 6, 2013

Summary:

After decades of hiding, the evil Enchantress who cursed Sleeping Beauty is back with a vengeance.

Alex and Conner Bailey have not been back to the magical Land of Stories since their adventures in The Wishing Spell ended. But one night, they learn the famed Enchantress has kidnapped their mother! Against the will of their grandmother, the twins must find their own way into the Land of Stories to rescue their mother and save the fairy tale world from the greatest threat it's ever faced.