Matched

Matched
by Ally Condie

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Cassia has finally reached one of the biggest nights of her life, her matching ceremony. In a futuristic society (I’m assuming American), the government has come up with the perfect way to protect its citizens from the consequences of making bad decisions. And how have they done that? By taking away their ability to choose in the first place. Not only do they tell you who your perfect match is, they tell you what job you should have and what food you should eat. Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it sounds, especially when Cassia and her family have never known life differently.

Cassia is content when the matching system puts her with her lifetime best friend and neighbor, Xander. But when a glitch in the system shows Cassia another match–one she can never have–the perfect life Cassia has grown up believing in seems a lot less than ideal. That along with a message from her dying grandfather to “not go gentle into that good night” causes Cassia to turn to the match she wasn’t meant to see, to question the authorities, and even to break a few rules. Before she knows it, Cassia finds herself wanting the one thing she can’t ever have: a choice.

Book Trailer:

I’ve got to say, I like this one.  Short, simple, and yet it totally has me intrigued.

Problems:

1) Darn these romantic triangles. I’m tired of reading about the totally awesome best-friend-guy who wants to be more and could be if the girl wasn’t so hung up on the handsome, mysterious boy she’s not supposed to be with. Surely others have noticed this pattern in young-adult literature.

2) While Ky was great and all, sweet and sincere and clearly cared about Cassia, I can’t say that I really fell for him. He’s a great kid, don’t get me wrong. And many girls would be lucky to have his sweet fictional self, I find myself sort of “eh” about him, personally. I guess there was just something missing there for me.

Praises:

1) I’ve said it many times before, and I’ll say it again. I love futuristic and dystopian novels. I love seeing the future through someone else’s eyes. And I absolutely love seeing all the different ways authors can turn the government into the ultimate bad guy.

2) The best part is that this one was unique. I’ve read many books like this before, but none that concentrate on a person’s right to chose quite like this one has…though an interesting movie called TiMER does come to mind(it’s streaming on Netflix).

3) You know how picky I am about my protagonists. I’m happy to say that this one didn’t drive me nuts near as much as many of the others have and will continue to in the future. I just feel like I have to point out a likeable female protagonist in my reviews these days.

Predictions:

1) Considering how popular this series has been, I’m going to assume most of you already know what is going to happen anyways. But here we go. The most I can say is that Cassia is going to have to go out there into the Outer Provinces and try to find him.

2) Because I can read the description of the next book, I know that she won’t find him. But she’ll spend the rest of the book looking for him. Things won’t be as she thought, and she’ll start to question her decision again. Especially when Xander comes in and ends up being the totally awesome guy that she could maybe see herself with. Naturally, this is all because Ky is nowhere to be found and Cassia will be naive and vulnerable to lies and misinformation (not to accuse Xander of lying, he seems better than that to me).

3) In the end, of course, it will be Ky–though maybe not until the last book. Cassia will bring the government down and people will realize how awful it was and they can have the chance to choose how they live their lives if they want to. Yay happy endings!!

A World Away

A World Away
by Nancy Grossman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Eliza Miller has spent her entire life in an Amish community. That means no electricity, no technology, not even a car. She’s been raised by her parents to believe that the simple way of life is best, that it keeps one humble to the great blessings in life. And Eliza gets that, really. But after hosting weekly dinners when the tourists come and observe her lifestyle, Eliza can’t help but marvel at their clothes and cell phones and wonder at the amazing lives they must lead.

So when Eliza finally gets her chance at a real Rumspringa, working as a nanny for a Chicago family, there’s no way she’s letting this opportunity pass her by. Suddenly she’s thrown into a world full of the wonders she’s only ever heard of. A world where doing the dishes takes ten minutes as opposed to two hours! And did I mention the cute boy that mows the lawn? Could the non-Amish life get any better?

Before long, all the machines and gadgets that once baffled her are becoming a part of her everyday life. The magic and mystery that once filled her days is now one of the last things she ever thought it would be…normal. And when Eliza starts missing her friends and family, she starts to consider that maybe this life isn’t really all it’s cracked up to be. Because ultimately, having the cutest clothes and the latest gadgets will never compare to the people that truly love you.

Book Trailer:

Sorry guys, no book trailer for this one, not even any fan-made ones.  Guess I can’t say I’m surprised, this book hasn’t really had a big hype around it.  But if anybody finds a trailer (or better yet, reads the book and makes one themselves), I’d love to see it in the comments section below!

Problems:

1) I’m having trouble finding a way to put this, so bear with me. I just wish Eliza hadn’t been so impressionable. She’s lived her entire life without makeup and fancy clothes, yet as soon as someone tells her she needs these things, she immediately believes it herself. And at the party, I really wanted her to be strong and not succumb to peer pressure. But she let me down some, and honestly, I got a little tired of how easily she was becoming the average, somewhat shallow (no offense) teenage girl.

2) Josh was a tough romantic interest for me. I really liked him when we first met him, I mean REALLY liked him. He seemed really sweet and I liked that he wasn’t defined by his piercings and other stereotypical stuff like that. Honestly, I’d forgotten he looked like anything other than a clean-cut American boy. But towards the middle, I was getting a little nervous. I kept feeling like something bad was coming, like he was going to make a super douche move.

Praises:

1) I loved seeing the stuff we use and take for granted everyday through her fresh eyes. She would get excited by something totally normal, like a car window or a coffee maker, and it would get me totally excited too. It was even slightly embarrassing how fascinated I was just reading about her first experience with a CD player. It was kind of bizarre!

2) It was cook seeing her home life and how the whole Amish thing works. I mean yeah, I’ve seen it in movies and TV shows, but I’ve never really read about it. And certainly not from a teenagers perspective. In fact, I’ve seen more about Rumspringa than what life is actually like for them back home. One thing I’ve learned, it takes some serious balls to live like that. Especially if you actually know what it’s like in the modern world.

3) I really liked the ending. Of course, I won’t say what it is or what happened. But I felt it was appropriate, and it really was what I was hoping/expecting to happen. It just seemed right, I guess.

Demonglass

Demonglass
by Rachel Hawkins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Once upon a time, Sophie Mercer was just your average teenage witch who moved to a paranormal private school and fell madly in love with the hottest warlock there. But Sophie’s not like other witches. She’s actually part demon and much more powerful than any light or dark witch she’s met before. Turns out Sophie is from a semi-long line of part demons, including her father, grandmother, and the great-grandmother demon Sophie had to kill after a group of idiotic girls raised her from the dead. To add more to her unfairytale, Sophie learned that the prince charming she fell for, Archer Cross, is actually an agent of L’Occhio di Dio (a group of paranormal hunters).

In an attempt to deal with her screwed up love life and possibly remove her demon side, Sophie heads over to England to spend the summer with dear old dad, her vampire best friend, and the Hex Hall caretaker she’s betrothed to…wait, what? Come on, did you really expect anything less than a seriously weird and stereotypical love triangle?

So Sophie’s in England, learning more about her powers and the boy she’s supposed to get married to when she runs into Archer…and the rest of L’Occhio di Dio. But just when she thinks they’ve finally caught her, her not-so-prince charming does the last thing she expects. He lets her go, and now Sophie is more confused than ever. Can she really trust the boy she thinks she loves, or is he just trying to get close enough to catch her once and for all?

Book Trailer:

Once again, nothing legit in the vast spaces of the World Wide Web, so I had to go with a fan-made one.  And being in the good mood that I am, I decided to go with one of the more humorous ones I’ve found.  But I’ve got to warn you, not once while I was reading Demonglass did this song EVER cross my mind.  Enjoy.

Problems:

1) So you may have noticed in my above description that I’m not always the biggest fan of love triangles. It’s not that I don’t like them at all. I just feel that they can be overdone and over dramatic and not completely necessary. If a love triangle is the only way to make your book intriguing, then something is wrong.

2) Okay, before I can say anything I must confess that this protagonist did not get on my nerves nearly as much as the others do. That being said, there was one little thing that made me want to punch Sophie in the face. And that was how completely oblivious she was about Cal and his feelings. A girl would have to be seriously blind to not see that coming.

Praises:

1) There was some good action in this one. It kept me reading and on my toes. It’s books like this that make it possible to pick it up and never put it down again until your done, literally. It was a quick easy read that kept my interest from start to finish.

2) I was pleased by some of the twists and turns thrown in there. Some were a tad predictable, but others I didn’t see coming from a mile away. So kudos to the author for that one. I consider it a real victory when you stump me so well.

3) Pretty strong ending, I’d say. It’s one of those cliffhangers where the protagonist is in a huge, complicated mess and you have no idea how she is going to get out of it. But, of course, you know she does. I’m intrigued to keep reading and see how it all turns out.

Predictions:

1) So even though Sophie was still clueless at the end, it seems pretty safe to say that her mother is a Brannick. You know, those people who hate prodigium that’s fairly comparable to the Eye. My guess is she makes peace with that clan and they all join together to fight L’Occhio di Dio.

2) We saw what happened with Nick, the other demon kid. But my bet is that he’s going to come around in the end, join up with the good guys and prove that demons can be good…either that or there’s going to be a showdown between Nick and Sophie, good demon vs bad demon.

3) Naturally, the good guys will win and Sophie and her friends are going to live happily ever after. Possible her mother and father will get back together now that we know he’s still in love with her. Oh, and obviously we know which boy Sophie is going to end up with. I’ll give you a hint, it starts with an A and ends with rcher Cross.

Passion

Passion (Fallen #3)
by Lauren Kate

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

All hell was breaking loose, as in an angel battle in the front yard of her parents’ house on Thanksgiving. So what does Luce do when the reality of her present life becomes too overwhelming? She hitches a ride on an announcer and travels back to another one. And another one. And another one. Luce is going through and reliving some of her past lives, meeting Daniel over and over and falling in love with him each time. And it helps that she can jump into a new one right before the inevitable burning up of her soul.

Luce is lost within the announcers, and the best Daniel can do to save her is go after her. He follows her back through the past lives, forced to relive his many losses but always one step behind the real Luce. Can he get to her before she goes back too far, with no chance to get back to the present? Or worse, will she change the entire course of history as they know it?

Book Trailer:

Interestingly enough, this trailer is actually from Australia…not America.  But still, I liked it.  Simple, to the point.  And I think I liked the song in the background most of all.  Enjoy.

Problems:

1) Again, Luce can get annoying (as do almost all young-adult female heroines). She just irks me constantly because for some reason she can’t seem to trust anyone, including the love of her many lives.

2) Did it never occur to her that taking direction and advice from a creepy little gargoyle randomly popping up between announcers was a bad idea? Seriously, what is wrong with this girl? We all learned it in elementary school, STRANGER DANGER!!!!

3) This may just be me, but I kind of saw this book as a filler. Almost like the author still had no idea how to end her story, so she threw in the past lives to give herself some more time. But who knows, maybe some of this will be pivotal to the ending.

4) I get that Luce’s appearance must have changed for some of her lives (she can’t exactly pull of a Chinese soldier or Aztec maiden looking the was she does now). But I’m curious about Daniel. Since he’s been living the same life the whole time, how does he fit into China or ancient Egypt and so on?

Praises:

1) Regardless of what I said before about this feeling like a filler book, I think this was my favorite one yet. Not because of the writing or the plot even. I just loved the historical parts. Going through their past lives, watching them fall in love over and over in new ways each time. It make their love story fresh.

2) I loved getting into Daniel’s head and seeing his point of view. It was totally different from Luce’s perspective. It was good to finally get to see with our own eyes how much he truly cares about her, and how hard it was all those years of losing her. He was so much more aware of everything than she was, but the author did a great job of not revealing too much without it feeling strained or held back.

Predictions:

1) It’s usually hard to give predictions for the next one without ruining the end of the book. Fortunately, I have like zero new ideas. So that makes it easier. I still think Luce is the one who’s decision matters on the scale. I even think she’s an angel…somehow. But other than that I have no idea what’s going to happen in the next book, aside from the detail suggested at the end of this one. It’s actually pretty depressing.

Insurgent

Insurgent (Divergent #2)
by Veronica Roth

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s official, Tris has survived initiation with top ranks and has finally become Dauntless. The excitement was cut short though when the factions are dragged into a war of the Erudite’s making. With the help of the brainwashed Dauntless, they have wiped out half of the Abnegation population. It was Tris that saved the day though, stepping up to her role of fearlessness and and making impossible choices that saved many lives in her home-faction.

But the war is nowhere near over, and Tris and Tobias, along with a few others, are now on the run. Seeking shelter in Amity, Tris is only now starting to realize the consequences of being Dauntless, like the grief clawing inside of her at the loss of both her parents, the nightmares and guilt after shooting and killing one of her close friends. Her relationship with Tobias is getting crushed beneath it all. She’s exhausted, tired of being the only one that can save everyone, tired of being Divergent. Tris has to make yet another choice: either to give up completely in order to save those she loves, or to sacrifice everything and embrace her Divergence for the better of the Factions.

Book Trailer:

Problems:

1) It was a little slow going for me at first. It didn’t grab me from the beginning like Divergent did. I would read a chapter before I felt like I was ready to put it down again. I probably got about a third of the way through before I was really into it.

2) I loved learning about their world in the first book, probably one of my favorite parts of futuristic novels. By this book we already no all of that stuff, so it didn’t seem as fresh and exciting this go around.

3) I was completely over the Tobias/Tris drama from the start. They were totally awesome before, but now there’s all this doubt and anger and mistrust. I couldn’t even pick a side because they both had their bad moments.

Praises:

1) I’ve heard a lot of bad things about the ending, but I for one absolutely loved it. I can’t wait to read the next book, see what exactly happens where we left off. I’m not sure she could have ended that any better for me, otherwise I probably wouldn’t be this thrilled to read the next one.

2) There were a few twists in their, some expected and some unexpected. There was one that really threw me for a loop, someone not on the side I had expected. I thought until the very end that he was working as a sort of double agent, but it seems that I was wrong in my hopefulness. Can’t wait to see what comes from that little switcheroo.

Predictions:

1) Things are not at all what they seemed among the factions. The secret Erudite has been trying to hide for so long has been unleashed, and there’s an entire world out there waiting to be explored. I just wish I knew what they were going to do with it. Seeing as there is virtually no information about the plot of the next installment, I am completely at a loss.

Except of course that everything is going to go wrong until Tris saves the day…because that’s what happens in every series finale. Duh.

Silence

Silence  (Hush, Hush #3)
by Becca Fitzpatrick

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After she’s been missing for several days, Nora Grey suddenly wakes up in the middle of the night in an old cemetery with no idea where she’s been. Even worse, she has no memory of the last five months of her life. Everybody is supportive, her mom, Vee, even Hank Millar (her worst enemy’s father who is now dating her mom), trying to get Nora back to her normal life.

Though Nora can’t quite put her finger on it, something is missing. And she’s not just talking about her memory. There are flashes, glimpses of the memories that are trying to break through, and they’re eating her up inside. But when Nora meets Jev, a guy who swears he’s never met her before, Nora can’t deny the instant connection she feels. He knows more than he’s letting on, and he’s the key to unlocking her past.

Book Trailer:

Problems:

1) Unfortunately, it’s been a while since I’ve read this one. The problem I remember most, though not an issue with the writing so match as my own personal issues with a character, is her mother. Obviously I hated her for dating Hank Millar, but then she flat out lied to Nora about Patch. I don’t care if she was trying to protect her, that was completely ridiculous. Horrible parenting, in my opinion.

2) I know I had some issues with Nora being kind of slow in the first two books. But if I remember right (and I may not be) I feel like this time around the truth came a lot quicker to her. It seems kind of odd that what took her five months to figure out before only took a few weeks this time. Maybe Fitzpatrick did that on purpose, like deep down Nora new the whole time, or maybe she didn’t.

3) I was really looking forward to this one because for some reason I thought that neither one of them would remember the other. I was excited to see how Patch and Nora met and started up this time around now that the whole killing Nora thing was no longer an issue. I wanted to see how she’d fall in love with a different him. But it wasn’t really about her falling in love again. It was more like she already knew she loved him, she just had to find out why. Not quite as exciting. Oh well.

Praises:

1) A fairly quick read considering I read it in two days while attending classes full time at UGA. It grabbed my interest and kept me going for the long haul.

2) I liked seeing Patch in this somewhat new light, not always so dark. He was just trying to take care of her, keep her safe.

3) I’m honestly not sure if I’m impressed with the ending. It was very creative, don’t get me wrong. I must give props for just how far Fitzpatrick took the story in only one novel. But I almost feel like the whole Hank Millar thing at the end was sort of a cop-out.

Predictions:

1) Thanks to the ending we know that a war is coming, though I won’t spoiling it by saying what kind of war. But I’m curious to see how things work out considering Nora and Patch are now technically on two different sides of that war.

2) Hopefully things will get better with her mom and Patch can smooth things over with Vee. And hopefully she will find real love in the process. She deserves a happy ending after all that she’s been through.

Happy Friday and Happy Anniversary!

Hello all my amazingly faithful readers and those who just happened to stumble upon this page (I’m not picky).

So much is going on this week that I just wanted to take a moment to catch up with you guys real quick.  I hope everyone is enjoying their Friday and already planning an amazing weekend.  Seeing as just about every day is like the weekend for me now, I’m just hoping to get some serious reading done.

Many of you may not know this, but this previous Monday was the one year anniversary here at Teens Read To0!  I’m super excited and amazed by this, not only that I’ve managed to keep the blog up and running this long, but by the incredible feedback and support this blog has gotten.  You like me, you really like me!

It’s amazing to look back on views, comments, and followers over the year and realize how incredibly the numbers have increased in only a few months.  Not to mention the book suggestions!  They have been so helpful in selecting new books to read and review.  If I were able to buy and read every book that someone has suggested to me through this blog, I would be thousands of dollars in debt with a to-read list all the way to Mars.  I appreciate the suggestions so much, and I want you to keep going.  But please know that I can’t possibly read everything.  Sometimes I have to pick what’s best for the blog and what I think will really interest my readers.  Please don’t get upset if you suggested a book months ago and have seen nothing about it since.  I assure you all, I am reading the suggestions carefully and even have a special e-mail folder where I can go back when I really need something good to read.

On another note, I’ve noticed that a lot of people are trying to connect this blog to an old website that once did similar reviews, TeensReadToo.com.  I see why the title of my blog can be confusing that way (and I swear I didn’t know anything about TeensReadToo.com when I titled it), but this blog is in no way related to that website.  This blog is run by one person (me) and I have absolutely no connection to them.  Didn’t even know they existed for months, in fact.

Now, it being Friday and all I’m sure you guys have a lot to get done before the weekend, so I’ll cut of here.  Again, I really just want to thank you all for reading and following and really bringing my blog on the map and with a purpose!  I’ll get more reviews out to you soon, so keep to the books and enjoy the adventures they take you on this year!

Shannon