Review of Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan

Title: Glow

Author: Amy Kathleen Ryan

Published by: St. Martin's Press

Released: 2011

Summary: A heart-stopping, action packed drama occurring in the vastness of outer space. Waverly and Kiernan are inhabitants on the Empryean. The only life they've ever known is aboard a spaceship and their ultimate mission is to reach and populate New Earth. The Empryean is one of two ships traveling to New Earth and is in year 43 of the journey. Suddenly, The New Horizon, the other ship slows down and requests a rendezvous with the Empryean. Their leader, Anne Mather, has something to discuss with Captain Jones. In one terrifying moment, Kiernan and Waverly are separated. Waverly and the other girls are kidnapped by the New Horizon's crew while Kiernan and the other boys are left to run the ship without the adults. Kiernan and Waverly must each fight to be reunited once again.

My Thoughts: Wow! What a book. A heart-stopping, action packed ride through space. I won this book through the Goodreads First Reads program and I'm glad I did. I thoroughly enjoyed this book from start to finish. The action never slowed and it left me itching to know what happens next. Just a great, well told story that I would recommend to everyone to read.

I only had two issues with this book. First, the Waverly at the beginning didn't really do anything to avoid capture. I just kept thinking, Come on. Do something! But, she just let herself get herded away and didn't do anything to fight back. Luckily, Waverly's character turned into a real fighter as the story progressed.

The second issue I had, was I felt this book was a little negative about religion. I felt in some ways it tried to cast a bad light on religion and the people who practice it. The main villian, (Anne Mather, who reminded me a lot of Umbridge from Harry Potter) was a bad person who twisted religion to suit her needs. It felt like to me that religion and belief in God was portrayed in a negative fashion. I felt it would have been more authentic for Waverly to realize that there are evil people in the world who twist religion for their own purposes, but that the majority of religious people are not evil. That aspect of the book bothered me a little. 

I really, really, really liked this book and plan on continuing with this space odyssey. I'm very curious as to what happens next.

BOOKCITEMENT LEVEL 4.5/5

New Earth, here I come!

Review of: The Dead and Buried By: Kim Harrington

Title: The Dead and Buried

Author: Kim Harrington

Published by: Scholastic Point

Release Date: January 1, 2013

Summary: Jade is excited about moving into a new house and starting a new school. She feels ready for a new start. Everything is going fine until the rumors start to swirl and her little brother mentions seeing a glittery, glowing girl in his room. Jade then learns a devastating secret about her new home, a girl died there a couple months ago. But it isn't just any girl, it's Kayla Sloane, the most beautiful and popular girl in the town. While Jade can't feel the ghost, she can sense Kayla's presence  Jade can't begin her new start, her new life, until she gets rid of this ghost and the only way to do that is to find out who really killed Kayla Sloane.

My Thoughts: I would like to thank Netgalley and Scholastic for letting me review an e-arc of this book. I found it to be a very enjoyable, good book. The writing style was very easy to read and get sucked into. The characters were likable and the mystery left me guessing until the very last page. 

The Dead and Buried is a very enjoyable ghost story and I would recommend it to anyone who loves a good ghost story mystery.

BOOKCITEMENT LEVEL 4/5

Mean girls make even meaner ghosts

Review of The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

Title: The Red Pyramid (Kane Chronicles 1)

Author: Rick Riordan

Published by: Disney Hyperion Books

Released: 2010

Summary: Sadie and Carter Kane have spent the majority of their lives apart. Carter has been traveling the world with his archaeologist father while Sadie has been living in England with her grandparents. On one of their visits together, everything goes awry. A museum and priceless artifact blows up, their father disappears, and the Egyptian god of naughtiness, Set, is unleashed. Sadie and Carter must rescue their father and on their journey they find they have the blood of the pharaohs. Rick Riordan takes us on another exhilarating journey through Egypt in his new series, The Kane Chronicles. 

My Thoughts: Fun, Fun, Fun! What a blast of a book. The adventure never slows. The incorporation of Egyptian mythology is intriguing. And the characters become people you root for. Just a very fun adventure and a thrilling first in a new series.

I liked how the perspectives switched from Sadie to Carter and how the story operated as an after the fact account. I also liked how the Egyptian gods were portrayed with Bast and Thoth being my favorites. It was a very exciting read and the action just never stopped.

The only iffy things were possible love interests for kids. I could see Carter falling for Zia in a first crush sort of way since he was 14, but Sadie liking Anubis who looks 16 and her being 12 seemed a little yuck. And also (SPOILER!) the whole being possessed thing was a little ehh. Possession, in my book, is never good.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and plan on continuing with Sadie and Carter's adventures in the next book. Just a very fun read full of action and adventure.

BOOKCITEMENT LEVEL 4.5/5

Who knew Egyptian gods could be so complicated.

Reading Right Now! The Dead and Buried by Kim Harrington

Title: The Dead and Buried

Author: Kim Harrington

Published by: Scholastic Point

Release Date: January 1, 2013

First off, I just want to make a huge apology for ignoring my blog for the past couple weeks. I've just had other stuff on my mind and haven't made my blog a priority. The good news is, the test I was stressing over is now behind me, so hopefully I will be more reliable about updating my blog and getting back on schedule. So, I'm sorry for being a lazy bum.

Now to the book, I want to thank Netgalley and Scholastic Point for approving and providing me with this title. I'm currently about 90% of the way through the book and I'm really enjoying it.

This is the story about a girl named Jade who moves to a new house and a new town. Little does she know that a girl died in her house from mysterious circumstances a couple months before. Jade's little brother Colby can see the ghost. Jade can't see the ghost, but can feel her when she chooses to make her presence known. The ghost belongs to the girl who died in the house, Kayla Sloane. Kayla Sloane was not the nicest girl in life and she continues that way in death. The ghost of Kayla forces and kinda blackmails Jade into finding out who really pushed her down the stairs. Jade goes on an investigation to find out just who killed Kayla and why.

I'm really enjoying this book. It's a fun, quick read with a writing style that just flows. It's also a good mystery. While I haven't figured out just who the killer is, I do have some suspects. This is a very fun book and I recommend you get it when it comes out.

Review of The Sixes by Kate White

Title: The Sixes

Author: Kate White

Published by: HarperCollins

Released: 2011

Summary: Phoebe Hall was a best selling celebrity writer, but now her career is plagued by plagiarism charges. On the advice of her agent, Phoebe decides to hunker down and get away from L.A. She accepts a teaching job at Lyle College where her best friend is president. By Lyle suddenly becomes a dangerous place to be. A student turns up dead in the river and rumors about a secret society of mean girls start to swirl. Phoebe's friend Glenda asks her to investigate this secret society of the Sixes to find out if they are really plaguing the campus. Phoebe fins out that the Sixes don't want to be uncovered and her stay at Lyle gets a lot more dangerous. Sometimes girls in a pack are more dangerous than a pack of wolves. Phoebe must uncover the secrets of the Sixes before it's too late.

My Thoughts: Ehh. A bit of a disappointment for a mystery/thriller. This book was okay, but it wasn't great. The writing was easy to follow and the cover was pretty, but the story contained within was filler.

I really got annoyed with the cliff hanger endings as the end of EVERY chapter. I like to see chapters as possible breaks, but this book decided those kinds of chapters just weren't exciting enough. Plus, they weren't particularly good or needed cliff-hangers. They were just always there and they ended up getting on my nerves.

The mystery was also sort of forced. It's like The Sixes were thrown in every paragraph. Anything that went wrong or was strange, the main character's mind automatically went to the Sixes. For example, (SLIGHT SCENE SPOILER) someone leaves apples in Phoebe's house and she calls her housekeeper to thank her. The housekeeper denies leaving the apples and Phoebe's mind automatically goes to the Sixes. It just seemed too forced. The Sixes were the bad guys from the start, even though they hadn't done anything really bad yet.

My last annoyance with the story was that the main character Phoebe was kind of an idiot. She ran around in the book like a chicken with it's head cut off. She perceived everything as a threat or attack on her. She was always the victim and she took much longer then it was necessary to solve the mystery. She also forgot to eat meals so she would be achy and have headaches. If the book were real, she would've been dead because of her stupid actions.

I wanted a nice thriller. Something to keep me in suspense with a nice mystery to keep me guessing. This novel was just mediocre. No great insights, fascinating characters, or genuinely puzzling mystery. Also there were a couple typos which are never good to see in a finished, published novel. Just an average book for me, but that's just my opinion. Someone else could love this book.

BOOKCITEMENT LEVEL 3/5

Not too worked up about The Sixes.

Reading Right Now! Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Title: Anna Dressed in Blood

Author: Kendare Blake

I haven't started it yet, but I just know it's gonna be awesome. It has a bunch of great reviews on goodreads and a lot of people say that it's genuinely scary. I've been waiting a while to finally get my hands on this one and am muy excited to finally start reading it.

Hope everyone else is reading something fantastic!

HAPPY READING!

Review of iFrankenstein by Bekka Black

Title: iFrankenstein

Author: Bekka Black
Kindle Format

Summary: It's Frankenstein for the digital age! Bekka Black brings Mary Shelley's classic novel, Frankenstein, into the digital age. Victor Frankenstein and Elizabeth are on a work type cruise with their parents while their friend Henry is at home. Victor is desperate to win a scholarship to a certain school. His application for winning is to create the smartest and most human like computer chatbot. Victor names his creation V.V. 

V.V. suddenly becomes too smart and too alive. He pulls up private information and goes beyond his programming codes. V.V. is alive! Victor must do all he can to shut V.V. down in this imaginative novel told through texts, e-mails, pictures, and web pages.

My Thoughts: First off, I just want to thank the author, Bekka Black, for sending me iFrankenstein to review. I read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in high school and really enjoyed the twist Bekka Black put on this classic. I found the story highly enjoyable and a very quick read. I love the format of the story. Reading through e-mails and texts is a refreshing change from the normal book format. I also really enjoyed the added detail of the pictures thrown in. The author did a really good job of converting Frankenstein's monster into the digital age. Virtual Victor was scary and threatening.

iFrankenstein is just a really fun and quick read. I would recommend it to any Frankenstein fan and would also recommend you check out the first novel in the iMonsters series, iDrakula. Just very enjoyable reading.

BOOKCITEMENT LEVEL 4/5

It's Alive!!