Review: Because You'll Never Meet Me (Let's ignore the ending, okay?)

Because You'll Never Meet Me
Author: Leah Thomas
Publication Date: July 2nd 2015 
Publisher: Bloomsbury Childrens
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~

In a stunning literary debut, two boys on opposite ends of the world begin an unlikely friendship that will change their lives forever.
Ollie and Moritz are best friends, but they can never meet. Ollie is allergic to electricity. Contact with it causes debilitating seizures. Moritz’s weak heart is kept pumping by an electronic pacemaker. If they ever did meet, Ollie would seize. But Moritz would die without his pacemaker. Both hermits from society, the boys develop a fierce bond through letters that become a lifeline during dark times—as Ollie loses his only friend, Liz, to the normalcy of high school and Moritz deals with a bully set on destroying him.
A story of impossible friendship and hope under strange circumstances, this debut is powerful, dark and humorous in equal measure. These extraordinary voices bring readers into the hearts and minds of two special boys who, like many teens, are just waiting for their moment to shine.

The thing is, I couldn't put Because You'll Never Meet Me down, even though I wanted to at times,  it's nostalgic for me because it brings me back to when I was twelve (or 13, can't exactly remember) and started writing to my pen pal, although I wouldn't call her a pen pal now, because she's become such a great friend (hey, Britt!) and it's true, you really can say anything that you might not tell someone you know, without worry or judgement, because you've never met them.

Phoenix Rising Blog Tour: Guest Post by Bryony Pearce

Phoenix Rising
Author: Bryony Pearce
Publication Date: June 1st 2015
Publisher: Stripes Publishing
#BansheeCrew

In a future world where fossil fuels have run out and democracy has collapsed, an outlawed pirate crew fight for survival on their ship, the Phoenix, kept afloat by whatever they can salvage or scavenge on the debris-filled seas. Toby has never known anything other than life onboard the Phoenix and he's desperate for adventure. But when trouble comes hunting the Phoenix down, Toby realizes that what you wish for isn't always what you want. He meets beautiful Ayla from the Banshee, a rival pirate ship and sworn enemy of the Phoenix, and his world is thrown into disorder. How can he know who to trust and what to believe? The future rests on him making an impossible choice...A gripping novel, perfect for fans of Anthony Horowitz, Eoin Colfer and Suzanne Collins

 Ending the World

For me, one of the most fun things about being a writer is building the world and the characters that live in it.

In the case of Phoenix Rising, it wasn't so much building a world, as ending and then rebuilding it.

So I set out to think about how the world might end.

By the ‘end of the world’ of course I mean the ‘end of civilisation as we know it’. A literal earth shattering event like a meteor strike or the explosion of the sun (which is a favourite suggestion in school visits) would not leave me much scope for developing characters and a world in which to write a story afterwards. So I needed an event that would kill off most of the people and change the world itself, but not so serious that my main characters could not survive and have adventures.

This is something that, as an imaginative individual with a propensity towards the macabre, I have considered many times over the course of my lifetime.

Review: An Ember in the Ashes

An Ember in the Ashes
Author: Sabaa Tahir
Publication Date: June 4th 2015
Publisher: Harper Voyager
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~

Set in a terrifyingly brutal Rome-like world, An Ember in the Ashes is an epic fantasy debut about an orphan fighting for her family and a soldier fighting for his freedom. It’s a story that’s literally burning to be told.

What if you were the spark that could ignite a revolution?

For years Laia has lived in fear. Fear of the Empire, fear of the Martials, fear of truly living at all. Born as a Scholar, she’s never had much of a choice.

For Elias it’s the opposite. He has seen too much on his path to becoming a Mask, one of the Empire’s elite soldiers. With the Masks’ help the Empire has conquered a continent and enslaved thousands, all in the name of power.

When Laia’s brother is taken she must force herself to help the Resistance, the only people who have a chance of saving him. She must spy on the Commandant, ruthless overseer of Blackcliff Academy. Blackcliff is the training ground for Masks and the very place that Elias is planning to escape. If he succeeds, he will be named deserter. If found, the punishment will be death.

But once Laia and Elias meet, they will find that their destinies are intertwined and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.

In the ashes of a broken world one person can make a difference. One voice in the dark can be heard. The price of freedom is always high and this time that price might demand everything, even life itself

If you've already read An Ember in the Ashes you'll know three things. If you haven't read An Ember in the Ashes, you should know these three things.

It really is brutal.

It's without a doubt cruel and immoral.

Its empowering. 

DNF Round-Up: June

This is probably my last DNF Round-Up for a while, since I read all my July books and didn't DNF any, and I've almost finished my August books and haven't DNF'D any there either, so two months of full book reading, I'm happy. 





I didn't finish The Truth Against the World because it was 1) boring and 2) about Wales and Welsh people. Welsh people should not read it.

05/25				"A Welsh person reading a book about and set in Wales. What could go wrong?..."
05/26			14.0%	"Yeah and dw i'n hoffi coffi, but what the fuck has that got to do with anything?"
05/29			14.0%	"You're on hold. Go sit in the naughty corner."

 



 

 

Yeah. I got to 14% and put it on hold. I never picked it back up.

 

Now, I didn't finish this because 1) boring (see the trend?) and 2) this should be marketed towards the younger YA than YA. It's kind of between MG-YA, it was just...ugh. I read the first 30% and then skimmed to 50% and gave up.

 

 

06/01	marked as:	currently-reading
06/01			20.0%	"Ugh, this is painful."
06/03	marked as:	read

The whole "pretending to be a boy and they don't know she's a girl until oops they do' rubs me the wrong way for some reason, especially because she's liking the one guy and yeah, if it's supposed to be a transgender or gay romance, I'm for it, but because it's not, it just got weird.

And they all talked...weird. The adults didn't sound like adults, and that more than anything in a book, makes it all...off for me.


 

Review: Otherbound

Otherbound
Author: Corinne Duyvis

Publication Date:  June 17th 2014      
Publisher: Amulet (Abrams & Chronicle)
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~




 

 

 

 

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Amara is never alone. Not when she's protecting the cursed princess she unwillingly serves. Not when they're fleeing across dunes and islands and seas to stay alive. Not when she's punished, ordered around, or neglected.

She can't be alone, because a boy from another world experiences all that alongside her, looking through her eyes.

Nolan longs for a life uninterrupted. Every time he blinks, he's yanked from his Arizona town into Amara's mind, a world away, which makes even simple things like hobbies and homework impossible. He's spent years as a powerless observer of Amara's life. Amara has no idea . . . until he learns to control her, and they communicate for the first time. Amara is terrified. Then, she's furious.

All Amara and Nolan want is to be free of each other. But Nolan's breakthrough has dangerous consequences. Now, they'll have to work together to survive--and discover the truth about their connection.

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Oh Otherbound, you were almost freaking perfect.

There's a lot of things going on in Otherbound, we have multiple main characters and a lot going on behind the scenes, we have our world, a different world that might or might not be real, with different rules, magic, a cursed princess that if her blood is spilled their world will go to havoc and a few diverse relationships throughout with differently abled and POC characters. All in one book. So. Good.