Holy smokes, this book was AMAZING! I couldn’t stop reading this one!
When Sena was young, she lost her moms to the famous race that her planet is known for. That’s really all her planet has. It’s freezing cold all the time, constantly under some sort of storm, and filled with corporate gangsters. When Sena ends up in trouble with one of the gang boss’s she ends up unintentionally stealing a fighting wolf from him. On the run from the boss, she ends up doing the one thing she swore she would never do…help with the race.
Wow, I really got sucked into this book! It’s full of magic, friendships, mystery, and first romance all wrapped up in a coming of age story. When Maeve discovers some old tarot cards, she finds that she has a knack for them, and begins giving readings to all the girls in school. When one goes wrong and someone important to her disappears, she finds that a chain reaction of events has begun and she needs to tap into her unknown magical powers to fix everything.
I loved Maeve’s journey in this, and it is what kept pushing me to read. She is learning so much about herself and her friends. There’s some great LGBTQ representation in this one, and I enjoyed that Maeve is learning how to best support the people in her life.
So, to be totally honest here, I picked this one up without reading the synopsis because it’s book 2 and I just KNEW I wanted to read it! So…I was surprised to find that this wasn’t going to be a book about survival above ground, but instead one of surviving below…still. So, it took me a little to get over being a bit grumpy about that 😂!
If you haven’t read the first book in this series, Escaping Eleven, you definitely need to start there! It’s an amazing story that I loved!! Book 2 jumps into the story where book 1 left off…SPOILERS… Eve and Wren are above ground, but they soon realize they can’t survive up there. They don’t know anything about the world, what to eat, how to fight animals off, what water is safe, etc. And so, they return to Eleven. Their lives return to normal a bit, there are lover’s spats, Eve punches people, and they realize they need to try to save everyone in the compound, not just themselves. But obviously that’s not as easy as it seems!
Sonia Peterson can’t help but be excited for the bright future ahead as she nears the end of her last year of high school. But she quickly discovers that things are not what they seem in the quiet community of Glendale. After her neighbor’s suicide and a slew of disappearances, Sonia’s friend Devon divulges one of the town’s best-kept secrets: at eighteen, residents are required to receive a serum that takes away their immoral impulses and imperfections, or they are exiled to a place called the Away. At first, Sonia can’t believe what she’s heard, but when her turn for the appointment comes, all of her worst fears are confirmed. Now, she must decide who she can trust and discover who is really at the core of the plot to rob Glendale’s residents of their elemental human nature. Her journey takes her deep into the heart of the Away in pursuit of freedom for herself, her friends, and her community. Can she unravel the conspiracy before it’s too late?
Just the Facts:
The Away by Cassandra DeJesus Genre: Young Adult Page Count: 224 pages Publisher: Mascot Pub Date: April 2021
I could not ignore this book’s cover! I love how wonderfully it fits the story, I look at it now, after reading, and I just think it was matched so well.
This was a creepy, dark, atmospheric read, and it was so different than what I was expecting! The magical elements were darker and more sinister making this a great gothic story. I loved the characters and their backstories. As the plot wove its way through the pages, I was blown away by what was really going on. It was surprising, and something that I absolutely enjoyed!
Bullying is a topic that needs to continue to be discussed, and I’m so happy to see these types of stories being written. This was an interesting mix of high school drama, bullying, and sisterly relationships.
The Dimes are this terrible group where each member tries to become the number 1 position in the group by bullying other students until they drop out of school. How awful! They are a horrible group that is easy to hate. When their sites are set on the Robertson sisters, they find it harder than anticipated.
I feel like this book was a bit of a mixed bag. I was interested, and I didn’t ever just stop reading this book, but I also kept going back to the synopsis trying to see what it was that I was looking forward to. That Panem callout in the synopsis kept me going. It did feel a little like Panem from the controlling aspect, but I don’t think that’s enough of a connection to use that city.
The world is like ours, but with changes to history. I was really confused in the beginning. They reference historical British royalty family bloodlines, but their histories are changed, so just know going in that any history you know won’t match with this version.
I love a good dystopian story, and this book had that plus great characters and a mix of magic that had e totally entranced!
The magical powers that these characters have were exciting, and I loved learning about them. It’s a magical system that was easy to understand, which I always appreciate! The story begins with an accidental use of powers, and it gripped me from the first line!
This book was amazing! It kept me glued to the pages. The storyline was interesting, and I loved the characters!
This is a dystopian YA novel set generations after the earth has become too hot for humans to live on the surface. The wealthy leaders of Earth built enormous bunkers under the ground and brought laborers with them so that there would be people to run the underground cities and do all the work. Eve lives in Compound Eleven. She’s a lowly 2nd-floor inhabitant, however, it’s better than the 1st floor. Living on the 5th floor are the elite and the privileged. As she looks for a way to escape the compound, she accidentally befriends a 5th-floor boy. She finds that maybe not everyone on the 5th floor is bad…or are they?
Okay, if you have been reading this series, I cannot wait for you to grab this one! If you haven’t started this series, it is amazing, and you should absolutely read it! Please do not start the series with this book. This is a series that should be read in order. These are not stand-alone stories.
The White Door picks up pretty soon after the last book ends. We are literally thrown into the action within the first few pages, and it’s a heart-racing adventure from there on out. Someone is trying to kill Brek, and they don’t know who. Behind the white door, Meg and Brek discover yet another world, but this one proves to be so different from the previous ones. They find themselves thrown into crazy plans that have involved them from the start, and dangers that are proving to be more real than they could have ever expected.
So, I tend to pick books based off the title and the cover. Usually, that is enough for me to know I want to read the book, and I usually think I know what the book will be about. That’s not always the case though! How to Pack for the End of the World was one of those books that held surprises under the cover for me! It is not an apocalyptic story, but a mystery surrounding a group of friends at their school.
Amina has just started a new school due to her anxiety and consistent focus on dooms-day situations. She finds some like-minded friends, and they create a new group where they focus on survivalist techniques. They create increasingly intense and difficult challenges that the group needs to succeed in. Someone is attacking the group one by one on social media though, and the need to figure out who it is.
I cannot even explain how much I loved this story! What an absolutely amazing mix of coming of age, paranormal, and mystery!
This dual-timeline story takes the reader between 1918 and 1943 to unravel the deep-rooted secrets of a family and their nurse. In 1918, Millie arrives in a small town in Colorado, recently hired to provide nursing assistance to two Gainsbury family members with the Spanish Flu. Millie finds a spark of romance in the family’s son, Edward, who just returned from the war. Millie has a secret though, that she protects to keep others safe, and Edward may be getting close to understanding what it is.
In 1943, Dinah has recently said goodbye to her brother as he heads off to war, and she’s finding herself alone and sad. In her loneliness, she visits their favorite hiding spot but experiences some upsetting occurrences…sounds and handprints on the glass that she cannot explain. And then a man dressed in a WWI uniform. She begins to think she is being haunted, and her story becomes intertwined with Millie’s as Dinah searches for the truth about the man in uniform, and what happened to Millie.
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