Inhuman by Kat Falls review

I will be writing a summary of this book soon, as I'm pretty sure this is going to be a series because of the open ending it had.  I went into this novel with low expectations, since it seems all the dystopians I have read lately are not very good and fall into the same old "love triangle, idiot main character, corrupt government, woe is me" scenario, but I was surprised that I REALLY liked this one!  It didn't completely capture my attention until about halfway through, but after that point I couldn't put it down. There is a love triangle (it's a teen novel after all), but even though I inwardly groaned through the beginning of the romance, by the end I found myself as torn as the main character on who I liked better. A unique concept that in a way reminded me of a few of the characters in Daughter of Smoke and Bone, which I loooved. Can't wait for the next book!

Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

Legend by Marie Lu

Characters:

June- main character of the novel. A 15 year old military prodigy who is the only known person to have scored a perfect 1500 on her aptitude test.

Day- 2nd main character of the novel. A 15 year old boy who is the most wanted criminal in the Republic due to his crimes against the government.

Metias- June's brother who is killed during the first few chapters of the book

Thomas- Metias best friend and fellow military. We find out he is the one who killed Metias under commander Jameson's orders

Commander Jameson- leader of the Republic army. 

Tess- an orphan who was living in the slums and scavaging until Thomas took her under his wing

Kaede- a Skiz fighter/bartender. We find out near the end of the book that she works for the Patriots

Chian- a military trainer. not a main character of the book but I think we will be seeing more of him in Prodigy, the 2nd novel.

John- Day's older brother. Saves Day from getting killed by sacrificing himself to the guards

Eden- Day's younger brother who ends up getting the plague.

Ollie- June's dog

Elector Primo- leader of the Republic (would be like our President)

     This book begins with June being in school in military training for the Republic.  There are 3 different groups or factions in this book: The Republic, which is in the West of the United States (no longer United), the Colonies, who are the rebels living in the East and fighting the Republic, although we never really find out in this book exactly what they are fighting about, although I guess they just don't like the way the Republic government rules, and the Patriots, who seem to be allied with the Colonies against the Republic. Their symbol is described as being the old United States flag.

     June is a troublemaker in school, always breaking the rules, and is suspended for climbing a large building when she was supposed to be studying with her classmates.  Her brother Metias is sent to pick her up and ends up telling her that they need to discuss something but says they will talk about it once he gets home from his military rounds that day.  Thomas is also in the car, and we find out that he sticks strictly by the rules and follows orders to the letter (this will become important later in the book).

     June is awakened that evening by Thomas knocking on the door telling her Metias has been killed.  June goes to see the body and there is a knife sticking out of his chest.  Commander Jameson at this point tells her she is to be the one to go after the person who killed Metias, who June assumes is Day, the Republic's most wanted criminal. She tells Commander Jameson she will go into the slums and act like one of them to get information about Day's whereabouts.

     At this point the book skips over to Day's POV and we find out he was trying to get plague medicine for his family from the hospital because their door has been marked with an X indicating a plague victim lives inside.  The only person in Day's family who knows he is alive is his older brother John.  Day will always bring food, money, and other gifts to the backdoor and give them to John while his mother and younger brother are asleep or out.  When Day sees the X he goes to the house and John tells him it is Eden his younger brother who has the plague.  While Day is escaping from the guards at the hospital (the hospital had run out of plague vaccines so the task was pointless anyways) Metias sees him in an alley and is about to shoot Day but Day throws one of his 2 knives and hits Metias in the shoulder. He then gets away.

      June has started a rumor in the slums that she has plague medicine and Day hears of it, so warily goes to the location she has stated: the 10 second place (the bank), which Day knows is meant for him to hear since he called the bank that when he said he could break into it's vault in 10 seconds and did it, getting a lot of cash in the process and giving it to the poor people in the slums and his family like a modern day Robin Hood. He doesn't fall for the trick though because he sees that her cape is tied into an intricate knot which he knows is military and he leaves before she ever sees him and before he sees her face also.

    When this plan fails Day and Tess go to the Skiz fights (basically just people fist fighting and other people betting on it) to try to gamble and earn money. Kaede (the bartender who told Day about the medicine rumor) is the one fighting that night and while Day observes from a ledge above, he sends Tess in to do the gambling and bets on Kaede.  They win money on the 1st round but Tess is so small (she's only 13) that she ends up getting pushed into the circle with Kaede. Kaede is about to fight her thinking she is the next challenger when June steps from the crowd to protect the small girl.  She fights Kaede and wins, but not before Kaede stabs her in the side with a serrated knife. When June refuses to fight any more people the crowd becomes a mob. Day steps in to rescue her, and he, June, and Tess escape to the abandoned building where he lives.

    Over the next couple days while June is recovering, she and Day and Tess become close and June and Day begin to fall for each other and they kiss, but that evening June sees Day reach for his throat like he's used to having a necklace that isn't there anymore.  June realizes he's the one who killed Metias because she found a pendant lying on the ground near Metias's body.  It is at this point that June follows Day (who she now knows actually IS Day even though he never revealed a name to her before) to his family's house and discovers that they are plague victims. June calls Thomas on her earpiece to turn Day in, then tells Day once he comes back that she heard some military talking about coming to take his family away and he had better hurry and get to them.  He takes off for his family's house and June tells Tess to stay there, that she will go after him, but she actually goes to meet up with Thomas and Jameson.

     Thomas and Commander Jameson show up at the house and grab Day's family and threaten to kill them if Day doesn't come out of his hiding place because they know he has hidden somewhere close once the army shows up. When he doesn't immediately reveal himself, Jameson gives Thomas the order to kill Day's mother and he shoots her in the head.  Day comes out of hiding to try to kill him and is captured and taken to the prison in the city. Thomas begins pursuing June romantically but she is repulsed by him since she saw that he was happy to kill Day's mother.

     June tortures Day to try to get him to tell her why he killed her brother, but he keeps insisting he didn't do it and she eventually starts to believe him about that and other things he tells her.  He tells her that when kids are sent to the "work camps" for failing the aptitude test, they are experimented on for the scientists to find out what is wrong with their genes to correct any future generations and then killed.  Day was sent there when he failed his test and they messed up his knee by cutting cartilage out and his eye by slicing into it and taking a sample. 

      June finds out by hacking into the database that Day didn't fail the test: he got a perfect score like her but was sent to the "work camp" because he was poor and the Republic wanted the scientists to get those samples to try to engineer a way to make future soldiers as athletic and eagle-eyed as Day was (whose real name she finds out is Daniel Wing). When they were through with the experiments they threw him in a pile of bodies thinking he was dead but he wasn't and escaped to live a life on the streets. 

     June is very suspicious now so she starts reading her brother's journal and begins seeing misspelled words. Her brother was very smart and never misspelled anything so she knows it is a code.  When she collects all the misspelled letters it leads her to a website where she discovers a blog he wrote for her. It turns out their parents were not killed in a car accident like they thought when they were young. Their father worked in the laboratory and discovered that the annual plague that took over the slums was actually piped into the water supply (or just given to a single household if it was a special strain, hence the X with a vertical line through it on Day's family's door) by the government to test the viruses to use against the Colonies. Then the government would test on the slum people and create a vaccine to use on the wealthy so they wouldn't get it.  This weeded out the "non-necessary" citizens and helped them develop a weapon at the same time.  

     When their father discovered this he was going to quit that next day but Jameson didn't want to take the chance of him or his wife telling anyone so she had them killed.  Metias started asking around to find out what actually happened to his parents and June sees that the next day was when he was killed too.  She then digs into his autopsy report and sees that although there was a stab wound in Metias's chest, there was also one in his shoulder and there was grease on the knife in his chest: the same type of rifle grease she saw smeared on Thomas when he came to tell her about Metias.

     She begins to build a plan to free Day and goes to find Kaede because she knows Kaede is a part of the Patriots. When she finds her, she sees that Tess is with her and safe and is relieved.  June pays off Kaede with 200,000 notes which she had received as a reward for capturing Day in order to get her to help free Day.  Kaede agrees.

     June goes back to begin the plan, but Day's execution has been moved forward to that day because Jameson is suspicious of June. The plan is shot so when the Patriots create a diversion in the plaza, June frees John and Day and they run.  Guards are closing in on them so John dresses in Day's blindfold and runs back to the plaza dressed as Day to distract the guards so June and Day can escape.  He is shot and killed but June and Day get away.

     In the final scene, Day comes around (he had taken a horrible beating from Thomas and Jameson so was only semi-conscious) to find that they are now in Vegas, his brother saved them, and they are going to join the Colonies and Patriots in the fight against the Republic but they have escaped and are safe for now.

     

     

The First Phone Call From Heaven by Mitch Albom

What an amazing book. The first I have read in a long time that made me actually cry rather than just getting a bit choked up.  Even if faith based novels are not usually what you would consider reading (I do not normally read these sorts of books either), I would still recommend taking a look at this one.  If you've ever lost someone close to you, this story will really touch you and have you dwelling on the great memories you had of them: and who doesn't want to remember their loved ones who are gone for just a few more minutes? Pick it up at a library, buy it, download it, whatever you need to do, but definitely get this one.

5 out of 5 stars

Not A Drop To Drink by Mindy McGinnis

So...it was good, just not as good as I expected.  If there is a 2nd installment (which I think there will be), I will read it but it's not one that I have listed in my calendar so that I'm in the bookstore the day it's released.  I liked the characters, but this reminded me a lot of the book Ashfall in that you get very detailed descriptions of daily routines...I actually feel like I can smoke my own meat if an apocalypse happens now.  Unlike Ashfall though, I didn't become very attached to the people in the book, and the love story was just horrible.  The plus side of the character writing is that this is one of the strongest female leads I have seen since Tris or Katniss.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Okay, I'm going to do this summary a bit different since there is such an information overload in this book.  Let's start with the factions and main characters:

There are five "factions" in the community where Beatrice lives.
1. Abnegation- the selfless, identified by their neutrally colored clothing, make up most of the government in the community since they are honest and trustworthy
2. Dauntless- the brave, have tattoos and wear dark clothing, protect the city. use simulation serum's to teach control of fear
3. Amity- the peaceful, wear colorful red and yellow clothing, do the farming for the community
4. Candor- the honest, dress in formal type wear such as suits, good with debates. use truth serum to get information
5. Erudite- the intelligent, high tech faction craving knowledge, also has a few leaders in the government

The characters:
Beatrice (known as Tris once she joins Dauntless)- the main character
Four (also known as Tobias)- Tris Dauntless instructor and love interest
Christina- Tris best friend
Caleb- Tris brother
Will- a Dauntless initiate in training with Tris, one of Tris's friends
Al- another of Tris's friends who ends up committing suicide
Tori- one of the leaders of Dauntless; a tattoo artist; first person to tell Tris she's Divergent
Eric- another leader of Dauntless; we find out he is working with Jeanine Matthews
Jeanine- leader of Erudite; using simulation serum to take over Dauntless and make an army against Abnegation
Peter- a Dauntless initiate who stabs Edward and tries to kill Tris
Edward- a Dauntless initiate who is stabbed in the eye by Peter due to Peter's jealousy that he is in 1st place among the rankings
Natalie and Andrew Prior- Tris parents; members of Abnegation
Marcus- Four's father; leader of Abnegation
Molly- Dauntless initiate with a grudge against Tris

So normally this would be where I put the plot summary, but Wikipedia has it about summed up so I will just put the link here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divergent_(novel)

11/22/63 by Stephen King

I absolutely loved this book.  It's quite long but well worth the time it takes to read it, because it is so intense the pages just fly by.  I've always loved anything about the Butterfly Effect so this was right up my alley.  Just an FYI, though, the ending is pull out the tissues sad :(

5 out of 5 stars

The Divergent Trilogy

Just to let everyone know, I am going to begin re-reading the Divergent books within the next few days and posting the plot summaries in anticipation for the October 22nd release of the final installment, Allegiant, in the trilogy, so if you have forgotten what went down in the last 2 books check back here and I should have the information soon :)

In The After by Demitria Lunetta

Sorry I'm just now getting around to writing this review.  It's been a crazy couple of months.  This is one of those books that has really stuck with me even though it's been a while since I completed it.  I find myself trying to be as quiet as possible in the wee hours of night (if you've read the book you know what I mean) just to see how I would survive in this world.  Not really in my top 10 books, but one that definitely kept me interested enough to continue the series when the next installment comes out.

The Road to Woodbury

The Road To Woodbury by Robert Kirkman review:  This is the 2nd book in the "Governor" series of books related to The Walking Dead storyline.  Once again, there are fresh new characters that you begin to really feel a connection to with a great plot along the way.  If you love The Walking Dead universe, you have to have this book for your collection!

Angelfall by Susan Ee

Wow, just....wow.  Much better than I expected.  If you're tired of the angel "love stories" then you will love this one.  Still has a bit of a love story, but none of the teen angst, and an amazing story line!

Angelfall by Susan Ee

     Penryn, her wheelchair bound sister Paige, and her mother are trying to escape from gangs who are taking over the neighborhood they are staying in (I picture it being kind of like a bombed out city setting). Apparently angels have destroyed everyone and everything they can find on Earth, although we never find out why.
     As the family is trying to escape, they come across a group of angels attacking another angel. The angels are cutting off the lone angels white wings.  They try to sneak around but the other angels hear and come after them, so to distract them Penryn throws the lone angel his sword and he fights back, chasing the other angels away.  Before they leave however, one of the angels grabs Paige and takes off with her.
     Penryn takes the broken angel from the street (along with his cut wings) to a safer place and begins to mend him to try to get info about where they would have taken her sister.  In the meantime, we learn that her mother is schizophrentic and has taken off on her own, along with learning that she was the one who caused Paige to be in a wheelchair by hurting her during one of her episodes.
     They are attacked by a gang but fight their way out of it, and Penryn tells the angel (who's name is Raffe) that since she saved him he owes her the courtesy of helping her find her sister.  Although they are enemies he agrees.
     They are captured on the road by what they think is just another gang, but then once imprisoned they talk to the leader, Obi, and it turns out they are a resistance movement against the angels.  Penryn is overjoyed to find out the populace are beginning to fight back, but they must still try to escape so that A)no one finds out Raffe is an angel, and B)so that Penryn can go to the aerie to find her sister.
      They escape once but are captured again.  They are put to work to help out the camp, and this is when Pen meets Tweedledee and Tweedledum (not their real names, but they ARE twins).  They challenge Pen to get into a fight with a "popular" girl they don't like since she kicked a guard's butt earlier for trying to touch her.  It turns out fights are allowed to go on and people in the camp make bets because it's the only way to let off steam while stuck there.
     Pen starts to decline, but then they tell her if she does it they will help her get away so she can go find her sister.  She gets into the fight, but there is a crazy commotion outside and it's cut short.  Pen and Raffe escape during the fray, but it turns out something small has been killing people and tearing them to shreds.  They have small teeth marks all over them, and no one knows what it is unless it's some wild cannibal kids, so they start calling them "low demons".
     Pen and Raffe reach the aerie by Pen dressing herself up in a slutty outfit to gain entrance into the stronghold.  They allow her through and once inside Raffe bandages his wings to his back to make it seem like they aren't cut off so the other angels don't think he's fallen.
     Raffe tells her to go up to this albino angel (Josiah) and talk him into going to the bathroom to meet Raffe where no one will hear them.  When she gets up to him, she sees that the reason he is offset from the other angels and their human women is that he has blood red eyes.  She spills a drink on him, and when he heads to the bathroom she and Raffe follow him in.
      It turns out Raffe rescued Josiah and was his military leader and trainer so Josiah tells them that since Gabriel the Messenger has been killed by humans there is unrest among the angels over who will take his place, and some are saying they want Raffe, who's real name is Raphael (an archangel), to be the successor, but another angel with ties to Hell is trying to take it, along with an angel in cahoots with the Hell angel (who Pen calls the Politician).
     Raffe begs Josiah to get his wings sewn back on and Josiah agrees.  I honestly can't remember the girl angel's name, I think it's Raelynn or something like that?
     While Pen is waiting for Raffe to come back from his surgery, she sees that Dum is one of the waiters at this place, and gets him to help her get a servant's uniform so she can look for her sister.  He tells her that he knows of a place where they may be keeping the children and leads her there.  They are attacked in an alley by a gang outside, but Pen's mother comes and the gang runs off scared because she is one of the guards in the aerie and has a cattle prod like taser.  Pen's mother then joins her in the hunt for Paige.
      They go into a room that has big test tube like things where angels with scorpion tails are in the tanks feeding on humans.  When Pen hears voices coming she hides and sees across the room a bunch of kids who look like they have been cut in various parts of their bodies and then sewn back together(she thinks they are all dead).  She finds Paige there and she is still alive, but now has metal teeth extensions sharpened to razors (and can walk!) and Pen realizes these kids are the things they've been calling low demons, because when an angel sees Pen it attacks her but Paige attacks it and chews it up.
     Raffe suddenly bursts into the room while bombs are going off overhead (the resistance is attacking the aerie) with the Hell angel and the Politician behind him.  Apparently Raffe's wings have been sewn onto the Hell angel to make it seem like he is now an accepted angel and his batlike wings have been sewn onto Raffe to make it seem like he's truly fallen.  Hell angel is attacking Raffe but Pen takes his sword (which has now rejected him and is so heavy he can't lift it) and attacks Hell angel. He smacks her aside and one of the scorpion angels stings her, paralyzing her.
      Raffe comes to her, thinking she is dead since she's paralyzed, and she realizes he really does care for her because he is so upset over her death.  The Hell angel and Politician leave because the Politician convinces it is better for the other angels to see Raffe as fallen rather than a martyr if they kill him.
     Raffe takes Pen outside to where Obi, her mother, and Paige are and lays her down so they can take her.  Pen doesn't see where he goes because she can't move even her eyes.  Paige picks Pen up with superhuman strength for someone of her size and puts Pen in the truck along with the rest of the resistance.
      The aerie collapses and everyone is very happy because they have made the first strike against the angels to let them know they are fighting back.
     The book ends with Pen regaining feeling and she looks up to see that Raffe is flying above the truck.

Quarantine: The Loners by Lex Thomas

This book begins with the main character of the book, David, finding out his longtime girlfriend Hilary is cheating on him with one of his teammates from the football team.  David's mother died about a year ago and Hilary says he hasn't been the same since and that she can't be with him anymore.  David sees his teammate, Sam, at the party he is at and beats him up.
     The next day David and his brother Will are starting back to school from their summer vacation in a new school (still the same teachers and students at the school, but a new school has been built).  When they go into school part of the school explodes, a giant canopy is dropped over the school and soldiers rush in telling the students they have been quarantined due to a virus carried by an escaped teen from a nearby testing facility that causes anyone very young or old to die when coming into contact with the teenagers. David sees this firsthand when several teachers die due to exposure to the teens.
     Life from there pretty much gets worse.  Food drops are started by the military and students begin forming groups to try to get the most food and supplies.  The groups are as follows: Nerds, Geeks, Freaks, Varsity, Pretty Ones, Sluts, and then there are those who aren't in a group like David called Loners (although they are called Scraps at this point in time).
     David begins doing the other students laundry to try to get the necessary supplies for himself and his brother since no group will have them due to David being an arch rival of Sam, now the head of Varsity and a known killer since he recently killed a kid during one of the food drops.
     David is out doing his trading for the day when he sees a girl (we later find out her name is Lucy) at the "Graduation Booth" being attacked.  This booth is on a release schedule for each student.  As they become older the virus gradually fades out of their system and they are scanned at the booth and released into the outside world.
     David saves Lucy by attacking Brad, a member of Varsity who is trying to rape her.  Brad falls when David punches him and hits his head on the concrete, dying.  It seems now Sam will really have it out for David since he killed one of his friends.
     We find out Lucy was a member of the Pretty Ones (the group Hilary now runs) but was kicked out because she couldn't be forced to date a member of Varsity, and we also discover that Will knows Lucy from a summer camp the year before and that he is in love with her and has been ever since then.  Although Lucy was a member of the Pretty Ones, we find out she has a very kind heart and is not malicious like the rest of that group.
     A while later, another Scrap pulls David to the side to try to get him to be their leader.  He at first declines but when this group of Scraps rescues him when Sam is about to hang him he agrees to be their group leader.  They become the Loners, and live in the school dump area downstairs.  Varsity attacks the dump and burns it down, so now the Loners are starving and homeless.
     David goes to the next food drop to stand up to Sam with the Loners, although there are only a few of them and almost triple their number in the Varsity group out of desperation for supplies.  When one of the Varsity members steps forward and joins the Scraps, several other people do too (totaling about 80 fellow Scraps) and now their group is large enough to even take the food away from Varsity at the drop, who normally takes most of the food pallets.  When Sam tries to attack David during the commotion, the Loners all stand up for him and are going to beat Sam to death but David stops them.
     Now that they are a larger group, the Loners take over the stairwell and make it their home.  All seems to be going well.
     Later on in the book, Hilary tries to get David back but David has fallen in love with Lucy and she with him by this point.  Hilary is pissed, and when Sam finds out he forces Hilary to attack David and stab him, taking out his eye. The relationship between David and Lucy is a huge rift in he and Will's relationship, but when Hilary attacks David, Will takes off on his own because he feels guilty since he was supposed to be guarding the stairwell the night David was attacked.
     After recovering from his wound for a few weeks, David attends the next "Graduation" ceremony to show that he is still strong enough to be a leader and not afraid to come out in the open since one of their own group is graduating.  However, at this ceremony the graduation doors don't open and soldiers burst into the school again saying that the exit doors are malfunctioning and they will have to be scanned one by one.  A student tries to go through who is not supposed to graduate and all hell breaks loose, causing the soldiers to start shooting and the students to riot.  Two soldiers are killed but the rest escape.
     As punishment no food drops come anymore, and the students realize the outside world is just going to let them die, so things become even more desperate as people are killed for what little food is left.
     Will comes back just in time with news that he has found a dog in the depths under the school and thinks there is a way out. David is beginning to hallucinate because he has now passed the graduation time and when the doors won't open he is now slowly being killed by the very contagion he once carried.
     As the Loners begin to search for the escape route David is captured once again by Sam who tortures him before planning to kill him.  Sam catches him by putting a reward of food out on the intercom system for anyone who brings David to him, and although the Loners have an alliance with the Sluts, and their leader Violent is girlfriend to the leader of the Nerds, the Nerds sell them out and take David to Varsity for the reward.
    Will makes an announcement on the intercom that Sam should meet him on the quad for a fair fight, but when Sam starts the fight Will actually beats him by faking a seizure and then attacking.  Will then announces to everyone who came to watch the fight that since all of Varsity showed up on the quad that the food is unattended.  All hell breaks loose and Varsity takes off to protect their food while the Loners take David as fast as they can to the tunnel where they believe the outside to be.
     The book ends with David getting out of the tunnel but the tunnel collapsing before the rest of the Loners can make it out so David takes off into the outside world to get help, and we see a group of kids bust down the front doors to the school so everyone quarantined can escape, saying the soldiers are "all gone".
   
   

The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau

     This book is the story of Malencia Vale and her quest to become a candidate in "The Testing", a series of tests to determine whether graduating high school students have what it takes to go to the University.
When the book begins, we learn Cia is graduating and wants more than anything to go to University to make her parents and brothers proud.  She learns she has been accepted through Michal Gallen, a Tosu City (where the University is located) official.  He escorts Cia, Tomas (Cia's friend and crush), Zandria (another girl who is very artsy and always flirts with Tomas, and two other students to the city to begin testing.
     Before she leaves home, Cia's father tells her to be very careful because even though he can't remember what happened, he knows the officials erased his memory of the testing but he gets brief glimpses occasionally and knows it is bad, although he does say it might just be nightmares and not memories.
     The first test begins with the students doing written exams, after which Cia's roommate, Ryme, kills herself by hanging bc she can't stand the pressure.  All the officials seem unconcerned and Cia realizes something is wrong with their situation and that they are all in danger if a death is treated so nonchalantly.
     The second test places boxes in front of the students and they have to complete several tasks, one of which being sorting plants that are poisonous from those that are not.  The testers then make them eat the plants which they sorted as safe, making Cia realize this is what was meant by being "penalized" for a wrong answer.  With the next box they have to fix a non-working radio, and when a candidate pulls the wrong wire a nail shoots him in the eye and kills him.  Once again, the officials tell them to continue with their work and do nothing to help.  By this point, Cia is beginning to hate the officials but can't do anything about it for fear they will kill her also.
     The 3rd test is the biggie.  They are told they can pick 3 items from a room, and that they will be dropped off in the desert and must come up with a way to get back to the testing facility (supposedly showing their strengths and whether they can survive in the demolished outlands).  Cia picks a gun, a medical kit, and some canteens for water.  She and Tomas set up a plan to meet at a large building once they figure out they are going to be dropped off in Chicago due to the way the map looks (I think it's about 400 miles they are going to have to travel?).   
     Michal is Cia's escort again, and she realizes he is on her side and against the whole "Testing" process when they make their last stop before the drop off to have lunch and he takes her away from the cameras to give her pointers on surviving.
     She wakes up near Chicago in a tube-type seating area and goes to find Tomas.  On her way she is attacked by another candidate with a crossbow but manages to escape, almost falling off a crumbling bridge, but Tomas catches her and they begin their journey.
     The first major milestone is finding an "oasis" when they are dying of thirst, but Cia thinks it may be booby trapped and she is right.  While she goes across a large hill to see if there is water anywhere else, Tomas can't wait any longer and when he goes to get a drink from the oasis it blows up and pokes a huge stick through his upper leg.  Cia mends him and they continue.
     They next come to a maze of roads and have to keep backtracking to try to find their way out.  Will, one of their friends they made while coming to the testing (along with his brother Gill, who was "sent home" but probably killed), finds them and joins up with them. When they are beginning to run out of food Cia goes to hunt and comes into contact with mutant humans living in the wild and is forced to kill them when they attack. When she makes it back she sees that both Will and Tomas's eyes are haunted and they are hiding something but they won't tell her what it is. 
     Cia and Tomas eventually leave Will behind since he doesn't have a fast mode of transport and they need to hurry (they made homemade bicycles to travel faster).  Farther down the line, Cia comes into contact with a man from over the fenceline who keeps giving her food and eventually tells her he is there to help bring down the testing officials, and there are "many more, even inside the city" who want to help. He gives her a serum to take to prevent her from succumbing to the truth serum officials give after this test to learn everything they can about a candidates thoughts. 
     They begin to pass through another city, and one of their testing friends, Brick, begins to rain down machine gun fire on the mutant humans following them.  Cia yells for him to stop but he can't hear her and kills them all.  This really hurts Cia because these mutant humans were people too and werent doing anything to harm them, just following them curiously. Cia feels responsible because she saved Bricks life back at the testing center by telling him one of their teammates (Roman) had set them up for failure during a test involving team problem solving where they were supposed to split up the questions and then go in a room and answer them one by one.  If a door had been opened, once it was opened again (tampering with teammates answers) it would explode.  Roman goes in and answers all the questions so that the doors will explode for all his team after him.  Cia figures it out and tells Brick, so she feels him killing the mutants to "pay her back for saving him" is her fault.
     While they are camping, Roman comes along and tries to kill them, but Will shoots and kills Roman first.  He has found a skimmer (a type of hovercar) and has caught up to them.
     When they finally get near to the end of the test, Will tries to shoot Tomas and Cia and reveals his true colors, but Cia fires on him and he runs away, but not before shooting Tomas.
     Cia manages to get them across the finish line and they are taken back to the testing center for the 4th and final test, which is for them to tell the officials their experiences with the truth serum.  Cia takes the vial and is able to not tell the officials about her father's warnings about the test because she is afraid that he will be killed since he has memories left of the testing. She asks Dr. Barnes about how Zandri died (she knows she died since she didn't return to the testing center), and Dr. Barnes laughs and tells her she should know since Zandri's bracelet is in her bag.  Cia realizes this is what was haunting Tomas and begins to wonder if Tomas killed Zandri since she saw blood on his knife.
     Cia is escorted back to her dorm room, and she begins to hide in the bathroom where are there no cameras to see her cry for fear they will think her weak.  She accidentally pushes a button on her brother's TransCommunicator that she brought with her (a type of walkie talkie, compass, recorder), and his voice starts playing.  She decides to record her own experience in case they take her memory of the testing away. She finds out that she passed the testing, feels a pinch on her neck, everything goes black and time skips forward to 6 months down the road at the university.  Cia's memory has been wiped but Michal gives her a gift box (it's her birthday) and tells her it's a gift from home, but Cia gets the meaning and waits til she is alone to open it.  It is the TransCommunicator, and she pushes the button on the back to hear what the recording is, and the book ends with her listening to the recording in disbelief.

Note:  There was not a good place to put it in the summary, but for reference in case it comes up in the next book, the officials made all the testing candidates wear bracelets with symbols on them to sort their group, which Cia figures out are recorders and that the officials are listening to them during all their tests.
     
    

The Hunt by Andrew Fukuda review

So this was one of those books that I read in like a day and a half and my first thoughts on it were "wow, freaking awesome" and then it went to "wait a minute, that would never happen" and then back to "wow, freaking awesome" again.
There are a lot of wtf moments in this book (elbows and armpits anyone?)but overall I really liked it and can't wait to read the next one.
Some things about the book really bothered me, like the fact that our protagonist never figures out his crush is a human until almost the end of the book. Seriously dude? The rest of us knew it the moment she asked them to roll down the car window cuz she couldn't see! 
And don't get me started on the debate I had with myself this morning in the shower....it went a little something like this: "ok, so if he has to hide every human aspect of himself, what does he do if he gets an erection during the day" and "there is no freakin way someone could go their whole life without yawning,coughing, or getting the hiccups or a pimple" and "what the hell does he do if he gets sick when the vamps never do" and then my last thought was "why is he even trying to go to school and blend in with the vamps when he could totally just ditch everybody and chill in his house?"
Okay, so maybe I overthink things, but there were a lot of gaps that should have been filled. Like I said, I still thought the concept was pretty awesome and I can't wait to read the next book, but I think I will go on with my life now and stop trying to dissect every aspect of it's flaws.

My rating: 3.50 out of 5 stars

The Hunt by Andrew Fukuda

The Hunt begins with us learning that Gene is one of the only humans still alive in the world.  We are never taken into how the vampires came to be the majority, but are told that the remaining "hepers" (humans), live in a Dome that is dawn/dusk time controlled to protect them for study, although really it is that they are to be used as a type of vote-getting tool for the Ruler when his approval rating falls and he holds a Heper Hunt.
     Gene's father was bitten 7 years ago and his mother and sibling were killed many years before that.  His father trained him to be like the vampires to blend in: never smile or show emotion, never let them see you sweat, bathe frequently to keep the human stench off you, never show any twitches or yawn, always keep all body hair shaved, keep your "fangs" polished and looking new.  He has succeeded so far, blending into high school and just trying to survive by keeping under the radar, although his very popular classmate Ashley June, has shown interest in him.
     When the Ruler announces a Heper Hunt to take place by a lottery, Gene is announced as one of the winners along with Ashley June.  They are taken to the Institute to be trained for the Hunt, where they meet The Director, Frilly Dress (the Director's backup, kind of reminds me of a chubby Effie Trinket), and the other hunters: Phys Ed and Abs (both students at another school), Gaunt Man, Beefy, and Crimson Lips.  As you can tell we never learn their actual names, but this is what our protagonist calls them throughout the book.
     Gene is made to stay out in the library since it is crowded in the main hall, although we later find out it is because this is all a publicity stunt and he is expected to be the winner since he is one of the only eloquent contestants who can talk to the press afterwards and help write a book about the hunt so he is kept seperate.  He starts to get a human smell because there is no water around, but realizes he can bathe in the pond inside the Dome during daylight hours when no vampires will see him.  He meets the other hepers during this time (although they start to attack him first, thinking he is a weird vamp who can come out in the day).  Their leader is named Sissy, and there are several others including a little boy named Ben, and Sissy's backup, Epap.  Gene chooses to make out like he is just a human who has learned to survive around the vamps and doesn't reveal any facts about the hunt.  After spending the day with them he goes back to the library and discovers a beam of light leading to a book by "The Scientist".  It has one blank page in the middle of the book.
     The Director tells the hunters that the hepers are going to be given weapons to make the hunt more memorable including knives, daggers, and FLUN's (high powered flashlights that can burn the vamps).  It is a  consensus that this will not matter since the vamps are so much faster than humans.  The vamps are also given a few different items to give them advantages over the other hunters, including FLUN guns, sun protective cloaks, and sunscreen.  One of the vamps (Beefy) makes a break for the dome with his sunscreen to try to eat the hepers while the Dome is down, but he is melting and Gene grabs him before he can get to them and then he is just a pile of goop.  Gene also saw Ashley come outside and run toward the Dome but when he finds her suncloak he sees that there is no goop and when he looks toward the library she is standing there exposed in sunlight and they realize they are both humans.
     They become allies to try to figure out a way to get out of the hunt since they will be exposed as hepers (their lack of speed and distaste for human flesh will give them away).  Their plan is to release the autolocks on the Institution where the paparazzi and media are staying so that when the hunt begins all hell will break loose with ALL vamps running after the hepers instead of just the hunters and they will be lost in the midst.  This plan fails miserably when Gene returns to the library on the night before the hunt and realizes it is to begin from the library.  All the hunters and the Director are inside the library, and when the beam of sunlight that leads to the book gets in Gene is exposed as a human.  He manages to get away and runs to the Institute to find Ashley, who is in the process of shutting down the autolocks.  Phys Ed puts on a suncloak and just makes it to the Institute before he becomes a gooey mess, but his screams awaken all the vamps in the building and they smell Gene's blood from a cut and come after him.
     Ashley saves him by cutting her own arm and leading the vamps away so he has a chance to make a break for it, and she jumps into a type of manhole where they first saw a heper emerge when they came to the Institute during a type of desensitizing process where the hunters where tied to posts around an arena while the old male heper ran around the arena and gathered food that had been set out for him (he was killed when Gaunt Man used a hidden knife to saw through his straps and came after him).
     Gene runs to the Dome and finds a note in the food tube from Ashley stating that he must find the other hepers (they have been led to believe the Dome has malfunctioned and they must move to another place that day, although all it's actually to keep them out of the dome before it rises so the hunt can begin) and bring them back as bait so he can come rescue her while the vamps are distracted, so he finds a horse and carriage that was left outside and takes off after them.
     He finds them and starts to bring them back but the hunt has already started and they are forced to stand their ground and try to fight.  The Director has come after them also since he is pissed that he was made out as a fool to believe that Gene was ever a vampire.  They escape by the skin of their teeth using the FLUN guns and knives, but Ashley had already disengaged the autolocks on the Institute before the chaos started so now they have a whole herd of vamps after them.
     They use the map in the scientists book(the blank page was a map revealed only in sunlight so vamps couldn't see it) to find the river a few hours away and make it to the boat on the map.  They are safe in the boat since vamps can't swim and the book ends with Gene feeling heartbroken for leaving Ashley Jude in the manhole and not being able to go back for her.  He also goes to get a sketchbook for one of the people in the group while they are cooking in the daytime and starts flipping through the pages.  It is mostly portraits of all the group members of the hepers, but he stumbles across one labeled "The Scientist" (who the hepers loved dearly since he was human like them and had promised to one day get them out of the Dome).  It turns out the rendering of the scientist is his father.  END OF BOOK 1.

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

This book begins with a description of how love has been decided on as a disease, and at everyone's 18th birthday they are forced to undergo a procedure to cure them of the "deliria".  Lena is almost at her 18th birthday and cannot wait to undergo the procedure to prevent the contagion of deliria, since she saw what it did to her sister and mother.  Lena has always been told that her mother killed herself when Lena was 6 by jumping off a cliff near their home due to her strong feelings for Lena's father who passed away.  Her mother underwent 3 different procedures to cure the deliria but they never took hold.  We later find out that Lena's mother is still alive and has been kept imprisoned in the Crypts ( a type of jail/asylum where they keep everyone who is seen as a "sympathizer" to those with deliria or who have it themselves).
     Lena meets a boy by the name of Alex, and begins talking with him because she thinks he is cured. She begins falling in love with him, though she doesn't really realize that's what's happening, and he eventually tells her that he was never cured, and the scars on his neck that represent the procedure were inflicted by the Invalids (ppl who live outside protected cities) so he could come live in the city out of the Wilds.  Lena is angry at him for lying to her and tells him to leave her alone.
     Hana is Lena's best friend who talks Lena into going to a party where Uncured people will be.  There is unapproved music at the party but Lena loves the sound although she won't admit it.  Later Hana tells Lena that she is going to another party but Lena is scared to go and stays home.  There is a raid that night so Lena runs off to warn Hana so she won't get caught and Lena herself is injured at the party by the regulator's, but Alex comes to her rescue and from that point on Lena is hopelessly in love with Alex.
     Lena tells Hana about Alex after Hana discovers him sneaking it to see Lena at her work and Hana becomes an ally to help Lena see Alex from then on.  They find an abandoned house on the outskirts of town and it becomes their meeting place.
     Lena is matched with another boy after her test, and the boy comes by to see her and tells her that he was in love with another at one point in time too but that things will be better and she will forget Alex after the procedure.  Alex is standing nearby and hears this.  He walks away, thinking Lena has chosen to have the procedure after all, but Lena goes after him and finally declares her love. This is the point where Lena describes something her mother had and Alex tells her he thinks she is still alive, although when they go into the Crypts they discover her mother recently escaped. At the abandoned house she is captured and taken hostage in her home.  She finds out they have planned to move the procedure up by a week, and although she had planned to run to the Wilds with Alex, she now can't get word to him that it's planned for sooner than expected so she sends Hana with a message to put in the fist of The Governor (the statue she used to run by in her marathon's with Hana) in hopes that Alex will find it and rescue her.
     He does come to rescue her, and Lena takes off with him on a motorcycle with regulators in pursuit.  The fence Alex and Lena used to go into the Wilds where Lena could see it wasn't bad a couple weeks prior has now been electrified, so Alex tells her to jump at the last second and they are going to ram the bike into the fence to short circuit it.  It works and Alex tells Lena to climb the fence and run, but when she looks behind her he isn't following and she sees that he has blood all over him and has been shot.  The last thing she sees is Alex mouthing the word run and the regulators swarming over him.  END OF BOOK 1

Fuse by Julianna Baggot

     Fuse begins where Pure, the first novel in the series, left off (see previous blog for summary of that book).  Pressia is with Bradwell and El Capitan, while Partridge is with Lyda being protected by the Mothers.  They are on the run hiding the vials to help with the cure from Willux.  Bradwell has been able to get one of the Black Box machines to become a kind of pet named Fignan, and Fignan gives them facts about anything in the universe they want to know, while also being a secret-keeper with information on how to bring down the Dome and Willux, which they are able to decode by using the names of the Seven.  This gives them the information they need to realize they must get to Ireland to a dome located there. Hastings (one of the Special Forces agents) helps them until they are overtaken by Dusts near an amusement park. The kids living inside the park save Hastings, Pressia, El Capitan, and Bradwell, and they turn out to be the very same kids who Bradwell was trying to help escape the OSR's training program.
     They figure out that there is an airship located in old world Washington DC in the Capitol building and they steal it to make it overseas to Ireland and the Dome there. They are forced to crash land the plane when a tear gets into one of the air valves. Bradwell stays with El Capitan since he has a concussion from the crash, and Pressia continues alone.
     In the meantime, Partridge has turned himself in to the Dome and his father because his father released mechanical type spiders into the wastelands with bombs attached and threatened to kill everyone if he did not return.  Once inside, he is kept hostage by his stepmother Mimi and her daughter Iralene, although Iralene eventually helps him escape, where he takes up residence with his former teacher Mr. Glassings to become the leader of the group known as Cygnus to take down his father. Partridge eventually turns himself in to his father in order to get "in the loop" to figure out a way to destroy him.  When he turns himself in, his father has Arvin Weed (Partridge's old friend but now the resident surgeon) perform a surgery on Partridge's brain which makes him forget everything that happened outside the Dome during his time in the wastes. 
     Lyda has chosen to stay behind in the wasteland to live with the mothers since she feels this is what she was destined for. She later discovers that during their one tryst, she has become pregnant with Partridge's child, and when the mothers find out they are adamant that they believe he raped her, since all men are "deaths" and they storm up to the Dome, determined to kill Partridge. Lyda runs to the front so they will stop and is captured by Special Forces and taken to a holding cell.  Small bits of Partridge's memory has been coming back to him, and when he sees Lyda in the cell he sends Iralene with a paper snowflake to give to her, to let her know he hasn't forgotten her and he still loves her.  Partridge then goes to see his father. Iralene has now told him that his father plans to kill him and have his own mind implanted in Partridge's body, since his own body is disentigrating due to the enhancement drugs (hence why he is after Pressia to try to get the vials and formula to cure himself, but when he realizes he is going to die before he finds her he then chooses to take over Partridge's body).Iralene has given Partridge a poison capsule, and when Partridge pretends to kiss his father goodbye he spits the poison into his dad's mouth.
      Meanwhile, after getting into a tangle (no pun intended) with some Evil Dead type vines, Pressia manages to reach the Dome in Ireland and Fignan shows her that he is indeed a key because he opens up a box with the complete formula for the cure in it.  Pressia then discovers another scientist at this Dome, who turns out to be one of the original Seven.  Since she doesn't know who's side he is on, she runs (finding a horse in the Dome) and goes to find Cap and Bradwell, who are close to death, having become entangled by the evil vines themselves.  Pressia cuts them loose but Bradwell is about to die from blood loss from the thorns in the vines, so she injects part of one of the vials into the birds on his back.  He is healed, but the birds have morphed into giant wings now, so Bradwell is kind of like a giant butterfly,angel, bird thing with six sets of huge wings sticking out of his back, and the airship is still not fixed so we have no idea how they are going to get back home.  END OF BOOK 2

Help is much appreciated....

Hi guys, I just wanted to say that if anyone wants to write a summary of any books they have read to be posted on here to help others out just shoot me an email at janemockingjay@gmail.com and I will be happy to put them up along with giving credit where credit is due....namely to you. See? We can all be poets when we wanna be hehe!

Through The Ever Night by Veronica Rossi review

loved loved loved. I re-read the first book before I started on this one, but I have to say that I think this was better than the first. I was so into it that I even had a dream about what I think Aether funnels would look like (massive spiraling lightning bolts that form a tornado), and let me tell you that dream scared the hell outta me! I can't wait to see where the third book leads, because the end of this one definitely left me wanting more.

Variant review

This book was brilliant from beginning to end, and I haven't looked forward to a sequel this much since (dare I say it again?) the hunger games. No matter how hard I tried to figure this one out, the constant twists left me with my eyes bugging out at almost every chapter. If you liked The Maze Runner, The Hunger Games, The Uglies, or simply any amazing book that left you wanting more, then this is a definite havetohaveitscrewwaitingforthelibrarytogetitimtotallybuyingit kinda book!

Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Good, fast read, but not my favorite John Green book by far. No Fault In Our Stars has this one beat by a mile.

3.5 out of 5 stars

The Unbecoming Of Mara Dyer review

This book was amazing up until the last 50 pages or so, and then so many things happened at once that even though I kept reading and THOUGHT I understood, by the end of the book I realized I had no idea what was going on. SPOILER: wait, the boyfriend is some kind of healer? wait, she wants to kill the bad guy but somehow shoots her dad too? wait, what is this weird thing with the animals she can do? wait, this Jude guy isn't really dead? wait, what happened to the weird shop they went to? The list goes on and on, and even though I devoured this book in a day and a half, I'm just hoping that the next one answers some of these questions going thru my head cuz I am totally confuzzled right now...

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

The Way We Fall by Megan Crewe Review

So I re-read this book the other day in anticipation of the sequel that came out this week, and I have to say I loved it just as much the second time around.  When a virus begins decimating the population of an island off the coast of the US/Canada, a girl and her friends have to come to terms with their families and friends dying.   The virus is named the "Friendly Virus" because it makes your inhibitions go away and you become very social, therefore spreading it (pretty smart virus, huh?).  The reason I loved this is because it seems way more believable than all the other virus or disease books I've read that want you to believe everyone turns into a brain eating zombie.

Rating:  I give it 4/5 stars

Pure by Julianna Baggott

Plot Summary SPOILERS

     After the Detonations, the world is in turmoil and people have become fused to objects. Our main character Pressia for example, has a doll head as a hand since she was holding a doll when the explosion hit. Certain people were allowed access to the Dome before the time of the Detonations and were therefore protected. Partridge is the son of Willux, the leader of the Dome forces, and one such protected person.  He has grown up having never seen the outside of the Dome, but once he finds out his mother may be alive due to a slipup from his father's words, he escapes the Dome in search of her where he meets Pressia.
     Bradwell is the leader of a small group of kids over the age of 16 who are in hiding from the OSR, an army who recruits (kidnaps) kids once they turn 16 to turn them into soldiers who will lead an uprising to bring down the Dome.  We find out later that OSR is actually working hand in hand with people inside the Dome.
      El Capitan is one such soldier, along with his brother Helmud, who is fused to his back. He is told by Ingership (the leader of the OSR) to find Pressia and train her as a soldier, when really all he wants is for Pressia to lead him to Partridge, and then in turn to lead him to Partridge's mother.  We later find that Pressia is Partridge's sister, and therefore everything was a ploy by Willux: his son's escape, Pressia meeting Partridge, their search for their mother.
     Lyda is a girl inside the Dome who loves Partridge and is blackmailed into going outside the dome to find him.  She is escorted by Special Forces (see notes further down the line) who take her to find Partridge and Pressia, and joins them in the outlands once the enemies have been killed.
     Willux needs Partridge and Pressia to lead him to his wife in the outlands so he can steal her formula which will cure the cell degeneration that he has caused by trying to create almost superhuman characteristics through a process called coding.  Everyone in the Dome has been subjected to this coding in the hopes that an elite human race would one day restore the Earth and make all the "wretches" (those who survived outside the Dome) their slaves.
     At the end of the novel, we find out that Partridge's brother Sledge, who he was told had commited suicide, is actually a member of a group gone through special coding to make them more animal than human and a type of supersoldier called Special Forces. Sledge kills the other special forces soldiers to protect his brother and mother and then Willux detonates a bomb that was implanted in his brain, killing Sledge and their mother. 
     Pressia, Partridge, and El Capitan join forces and go after Ingership, but his wife named Illia beats them to it and kills her husband.  El Capitan takes over the OSR and becomes a fair leader.  We end the book knowing that Willux is still after the cure his son and Pressia now have, and that there will be a sequel to describe these events.

    

The Way We Fall by Megan Crewe

Ok, so here is my first summary.  If you can think of anything to add let me know!


This book begins with our main character, Kaelyn, writing a letter to her bff Leo, who she got in a fight with right before she moved to the mainland from her island town and hasn't spoken to since (although she misses him terribly).  She has since moved back to the island, but Leo is on the mainland at his school so she still can't talk to him.  Kaelyn goes to one of her friend's house one day to work on a school project and ends up leaving because her friend's dad is saying things that are inappropriate and weird.  Kaelyn's dad is a doctor at the local hospital on the island and after a few weeks discovers that this strange behaviour is a new virus they have dubbed "the friendly virus" because it makes ppl lose their inhibitions and want to be around other ppl, therefore spreading the contagion which has symptoms that go from sneezing/itching, to the inebriated state, and then finally death (pretty smart virus huh?)
Later, Kaelyn goes to Leo's gf house and they start scavenging for medical supplies and food in the currently uninhabited summer homes but Kaelyn sees a dead body in a bed and refuses to go back, although her and Tessa remain friends from then on.  Things worsen as more people die, and the government quarantines the island.  This is the beginning of the end.  Groups rise up who begin to loot and destroy buildings, but Kaelyn joins a group with a leader named Gav who is kind hearted and helps distribute food to the folks who are still alive and uninfected but afraid to come out of their homes.
When things really get bad, the government deserts the island and doesn't even do food drops for the people anymore, so ppl are going hungry and getting more vicious, even as more ppl die.  Kaelyn contracts the virus, but ends up surviving, which turns out to be because she was exposed to a less mutated form when she was sick a year earlier and has developed a type of immunity. Her mother becomes sick and dies, along with her uncle (although he wasn't sick: when the gov had the island under quarantine and the riots started they shot and killed him), and Kaelyn takes in her niece Meredith (who I think is 10 or 11, I don't really remember).
Near the end of the book, Kaelyn's dad is killed in a riot by a group who are going to burn down the hospital to rid the island of the infected, and Meredith gets the virus.  Kaelyn goes to the hospital to speak with the only doctor left, her fathers friend Nell, and Nell takes some of Kaelyn's blood and gives to Meredith to try to cure her.
At the end of the book, we see that Meredith is starting to get better, and Kaelyn has begun to fall for Gav. Tessa is now staying with Kaelyn at her house since looters destroyed her home and greenhouse. We go out with seeing a ferry coming across the harbor towards the island with people aboard (including Leo), so it leads you to believe the mainlanders are coming to rescue those still left on the island.

Hello everyone! Welcome to my blog TheSpoilerAlert. This will be a place for plot summaries from books which will be part of a series. The main idea is to help prevent you from having to re-read the previous book since publishers usually only release a new novel once per year. Honestly, who can remember the details of a book a year later? Ain't nobody got time for that! :) if you have any comments or suggestions, or a spoiler alert that you would like me to place on the blog contact me and I will try my best to accommodate!