Tag: recommend

YA

Review: Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Series: The Illuminae Files #1

illuminae -amie kaufamn and jay kristoffThis morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do.

This afternoon, her planet was invaded.

The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to fight their way onto an evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.

But their problems are just getting started. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet’s AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth, it’s clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she’d never speak to again.

Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping, high-octane trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes.

5 Drink Me Potions

Kady Grant: He said, “You picked a hell of a day to dump me, Kades.”


I don’t lightly give 5 star ratings, but Illuminae has swept my breath away. It is literally a piece of art, with the unique layout of pages from hacked memos to re-routed secret IMs to black and white pictures of space. But it’s not just an ordinary piece of art. It’s a masterpiece, crafted in such a creative manner like nothing else I’ve ever read before.

It starts off with a storyline that you think you’ve heard before. Girl dumps boy for some reason that is hinted but not revealed yet. Okay, sounds familiar enough. But all hell breaks loose literally hours after, with fire falling from the skies as a rival company drops out of nowhere to attack their tiny planet on the edge of the known universe.

Sweet. So our characters, Kady and Ezra, rush up into spacecrafts fleeing from the enemy. Okay, it still sounds familiar enough. Life on a spaceship hurtling through the universe? Might have seen something like that before.

But it’s WAY bigger than that. Action is ratcheted high within the first several pages. You’re flipping through the pages of documents and transcripted interviews trying to figure out what the heck went down. And as things start making sense, like who attacked them and why this company would do such a thing, there are still so many uncertainties open.

Ezra and Kady get separated on 2 different ships so our two exes ignore each other for a while. Of course, that doesn’t last. As things get worse as they journey for help in the distant universe, Kady with her hacker skills turns to Ezra as he’s the last person in the world she has left. Their IMs were some of my very favourite part of Illuminae. For most of the story, they’re apart and so we really get to see how they interact with other people around them beyond each other. Their personalities become real and tangible. Not just some hero or girl-who-broke-his-heart or however they are with each other. They feel like REAL teenagers that you and I may have bumped into or have known.

But with each other? It’s priceless. It’s clear their chemistry hasn’t died down with the months and distance between them. The love there isn’t just driven by desperation or fear or craving for familiarity in a world that has turned upside down. Amidst all the craziness (and oh boy, is there craziness!), this tale is still a beautiful love story of two people who would do anything for each other.

 

Still there is no time for sorrow. She knows he is in here somewhere, the one she risked everything for.
The only one she has left. The one she loves true.
“Ezra?”

 

And goodness. Ezra Mason is one funny and romantic dude.

 

Mason, E, LT 2nd:Damn, I still remember first day in her class. You were checking me out HARD, Grant.
ByteMe: U. R. DELUSIONAL. u kept asking me stupid questions about hydrogen bonding
Mason, E, LT 2nd: confession: hydrogen was not the kind of bonding on my mind

Continue reading “Review: Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff” →

YA

Review: I Was Here by Gayle Forman

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

I was here -gayle forman

Cody and Meg were inseparable.
Two peas in a pod.
Until . . . they weren’t anymore.

When her best friend Meg drinks a bottle of industrial-strength cleaner alone in a motel room, Cody is understandably shocked and devastated. She and Meg shared everything—so how was there no warning? But when Cody travels to Meg’s college town to pack up the belongings left behind, she discovers that there’s a lot that Meg never told her. About her old roommates, the sort of people Cody never would have met in her dead-end small town in Washington. About Ben McAllister, the boy with a guitar and a sneer, who broke Meg’s heart. And about an encrypted computer file that Cody can’t open—until she does, and suddenly everything Cody thought she knew about her best friend’s death gets thrown into question.

I Was Here is Gayle Forman at her finest, a taut, emotional, and ultimately redemptive story about redefining the meaning of family and finding a way to move forward even in the face of unspeakable loss.

4 Drink Me Potions

I Was Here left me breathless and stunned with the simplicity of Cody’s journey. It left me wishing that there was more after the last pages faded from sight, although it did end on a good note.

Cody was left devastated after the sudden – and unforeseen – death of her best friend, Meg. Now, I haven’t personally been touched by a loved one who even made an attempt on their life, and I generally don’t read a lot of novels on suicides, but I Was Here resonated deeply with me. Meg was her best friend, her better half. To not have known something so huge happening in someone who played such an integral role in her life left her shattered.

 

“I recently lost someone. Someone so integral to me, it’s like a part of me is gone. And now I don’t know how to be anymore. If there’s even a me without her. It’s like she was my sun, and then my sun went out. Imagine if the real sun went out. Maybe there’d still be life on Earth, but would you still want to live here? Do I still want to live here?”

 

I may not personally understand that feeling, but Gayle Forman writes in a way that realistically draws you in. Even without having read the Author’s Note at the end, it was obvious that this novel was inspired by someone who might have actually gone through an experience like this. It was poignant and, well, real.

Cody was also a very interesting heroine. Right off the bat, you knew she wasn’t some scared, weak girl who wanted to cry. She was tough as nails. And maybe more than a little bit angry at herself and Meg for killing herself.

 

“Meg’s parents look blasted into heartbreak, the hollows under their eyes so deep, I don’t see how they’ll ever go away. And it’s for them I find my least stinky dress and put it on. I get ready to sing. Again.
Amazing Grace. How Vile the Sound.

 

But she also was fighting a lot of grief and guilt. She was the best friend. Shouldn’t she have known? Shouldn’t she have been the one telling Meg life wouldn’t be the same without her?

Enter Ben McCallister into this turmoil. He had history with Meg, one that Cody personally did not like. They had a rough start, but there was something drawing them together. Maybe it was this shared guilt for Meg’s decision. Whatever it was, this romance wasn’t some silly-nilly attraction. It was based on a shared understanding on how messed up their lives can get, the same need for someone to just listen and get it. Get them.

I loved how they interacted and the fact that they’re both imperfect. Ben’s not some great guy. He used girls, albeit regretful and a little ashamed afterwards. Cody’s…well, she’s just angry deep inside. Mostly at herself, but this causes her to lash out and distance others. Oh, and both have mouths like sailors.

But together? They lit a tiny spark. A spark that may just be hope for the future. And realizing that Meg’s death wasn’t their fault. They just had to learn to forgive themselves. After all, forgiveness is a miracle drug for the soul.

With this thought in mind, I Was Here was the perfect name for this novel. ‘Cause at the end of the day, what better message for anyone to leave behind than “I was here”?

Overall Recommendation:
Gayle Forman does it again with another sweeping tale of heartache, guilt and a personal journey in finding a way to forgive. Cody was an imperfect heroine who went in search of the reasons why her best friend would kill herself. Without telling her. Without even knowing it could happen. Although she hoped to find a way to give justice to her best friend, if not in life then in death, it leads her to finding herself, as well as a particular guy who may just understand exactly what she’s going through. I Was Here is a poignant story that dives deep into the psyche of someone considering to kill themselves, and how people closest to them would deal with the aftermath. I would definitely recommend you read this touching novel.

YA

Review: Reboot by Amy Tintera

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Series: Reboot #1

reboot -amy tinteraFive years ago, Wren Connolly was shot three times in the chest. After 178 minutes she came back as a Reboot: stronger, faster, able to heal, and less emotional. The longer Reboots are dead, the less human they are when they return. Wren 178 is the deadliest Reboot in the Republic of Texas. Now seventeen years old, she serves as a soldier for HARC (Human Advancement and Repopulation Corporation).

Wren’s favorite part of the job is training new Reboots, but her latest newbie is the worst she’s ever seen. As a 22, Callum Reyes is practically human. His reflexes are too slow, he’s always asking questions, and his ever-present smile is freaking her out. Yet there’s something about him she can’t ignore. When Callum refuses to follow an order, Wren is given one last chance to get him in line—or she’ll have to eliminate him. Wren has never disobeyed before and knows if she does, she’ll be eliminated, too. But she has also never felt as alive as she does around Callum.

The perfect soldier is done taking orders.

4 Drink Me Potions

Wren Connolly, otherwise known by her branded number as 178, having “rebooted” to life after 178 minutes after dying.

She should have lost more of her humanity than anyone else, but it seems all it needed to surface was a push in the right direction.

I held off reading Reboot for a long time. I’m not really sure why. But oh boy, I’m so glad I finally picked it up. This story follows a beautiful protagonist who truly feels that emotions and other trivial human things are just a part of her ill-spent childhood. I love that Wren is such a complicated character. She feels emotions, but she doesn’t believe she’s really human anymore. Even she believes she can be a monster, mindlessly following even the cruelest of orders coming from HARC. After all, she’s 178, right? How much humanity could have been left in her after being dead for so long?

In a way, this inner conflict against her own personal demons reminded me a lot of Rosamund Hodge’s Crimson Bound. I admired the protagonist for the complexity in which her character couldn’t be defined as strictly good or bad. Although Wren wasn’t as monstrous or as dark of a character (for which I am grateful, ’cause poor me can only handle so much darkness at a time), she definitely went through a similar struggle. She killed people. People who were supposedly bad. And she enjoyed the hunt.

Enter Callum, with his wee number of 22 minutes. You would think that a guy like him, who was barely a Reboot and probably retained most of his humanity, would have nothing in common with someone like Wren, who scared even most of the other Reboots in the facility. But he did. With his contagious smile and hopeful attitude, he showed her that there was still a large piece of humanity in her.

Man, this just makes me want to find a Callum for myself.

The romance was sweet and slow-progressing. Reboot as a whole was an extremely fast read, gobbled up in a few sittings, and the romance still felt like it was written in a nice, even pace. And it wasn’t just the romance, but the pacing of the action sequences was well-done. Things weren’t as normal back in the facility, leading Wren to question her role with HARC for probably the very first time.

The world building and setting was definitely interesting. A new virus caused a major outbreak in the area known as today’s Texas. But it had strange effects. It killed a ton of people, but it also “rebooted” some young people after a range of minutes from death. Hence, a new and stronger species of humans called Reboots started roaming. The world building was familiar, in a sense, but with familiar cities remodelled to fit with this fallen world after the virus. I do wish Tintera let us explore a little more into the world she’s created, so that’s something to look forward to in the sequel.

I’ll keep this review short and sweet, closing off with this. The romance does give a lot of weight to Reboot, probably more so than other novels in this genre, but I think it’s well-placed alongside the fighting and the rebellion against the higher order. It connects us to Wren and to Callum in such a strong way that it’ll have you rooting for their survival way before the end of it.

Overall Recommendation:
For a synopsis that suggests rebellion and loads of action, Reboot also has a fair share of romance, as well as diving into the inner conflict that Wren has to deal with. Is she a monster now that she’s a Reboot, having been dead for so long? Could she find a piece of humanity left in her? All that is explored alongside her growing friendship and attraction for newbie Callum, someone she normally would never give a second thought about. I loved that it explored her character like this to give us a sense of who she really is and to let us connect with her, whether she be a monster or not. That’s not to say the novel isn’t exciting and still full of some ass-kicking. I’d say Reboot has something to offer for everyone.