These Broken Stars

These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow, what a story. Where to begin?

This is the story of Lilac, spoiled rich girl and daughter of the richest man in the known universe. It is also the story of Tarver, young soldier decorated for valor in war and now expected to be the symbol of military strength and honor for the rich and powerful. They are aboard a luxury liner spaceship which crashes when yanked out of hyperspace unexpectedly. Due to some quick thinking, they alone survive the crash and must make the journey from their landing site to the crash site in order to send an SOS signal.

The best thing about this book is the way the relationship between the characters change and grow. They begin as enemies with preconceived notions about each other. Along the journey, circumstances and companionship shape them into friends and then lovers. Lilac is a rich girl, but knows she is spoiled. She also feels caught in a life she doesn't want but feels she can't escape. She is proper and well-bred, controlled by a father she idolizes. She is trapped.

Tarver, on the other hand, feels equally trapped. The military is his own "rich father." He feels a burden towards his family to excel and succeed. He also feels demeaned by the society in which he is required to function; there is the classic pull between the experienced soldier and the unwilling, attractive, hollow icon.

This plot and world building are epic. The world is revealed to us as readers as it is revealed to the characters. It is complicated and broad, and goes beyond human understanding in unpredictable ways. There are shocking twists and beautifully emotional reactions. The pacing, although it seems to slow down at about 75% through, actually does not. It simply takes a different focus. The ending is a complete and fulfilling conclusion to an epic story.

The book in audio is narrated from two points of view by Cynthia Holloway and Johnathan McClain. Sarge Anton narrates the part of the interrogator. Holloway and McClain are fabulous and only enhance the story as true voice actors.

These two authors have managed to inject honesty and reality into a story of total fiction. The characters are endearing, the story epic, and the world realistic while fantastical.

Incredible. Amazing. Best of 2014. I cannot rave enough about this book. Just read it.

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Not a Drop to Drink

Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After finishing this book, my initial reactions were simply these words - stark, spare, clean, bare, raw. Sad. Determinedly good.

This story follows Lynn, a young girl in a dystopian world where water, food, and supplies in general are in short supply. Those in the cities are starving and desperate. People out in the rural areas, like Lynn, are better off but unprotected. Lynn and her mother spend their days defending their house and land and pond while surviving the elements and attacks from coyotes and strangers, some good, some bad, some tragic.

Lynn is a sympathetic protagonist who has been raised to survive. Her survival skills are not secondary but rather simply the way she is. Her mother is a hermit by necessity while yearning for community. Because of the way she has raised Lynn, Lynn is conflicted when presented with the compassion she feels for strangers who come into her world. Her willingness to trust grows slowly, balanced with her background and current situation.

There is a romance with Eli, a boy who gradually enters Lynn's world. It is honest and sweet, unlike most YA romances. It is a side happening, with most of the action focused on the defense of Lynn's property.

A surprisingly likable character is Stebbs. Stebbs is a neighbor who has known Lynn and her mother for many years. He is a bit of a curmudgeon, offering sound advice to Lynn and telling her the truth while also communicating his compassion and regret.

And offsetting the plain black-and-white view of Lynn's world was Lucy, a young girl with an innocent but honest view of people. Lucy changes Lynn dramatically through the course of the book.

While it seems that a story about a girl just defending her land would drag along, this plot is anything but slow. It has a steady pace that is gripping. it is realistic. It is at times devastating. The world building is good but not great. The details are revealed bit by bit, but I never felt that I really got a good grasp on the way things were and why. The ending wrapped up well, but I think it could have gone another way and been just as good. Still, it fit the tone of the book.

This book was narrated on audio by Cassandra Campbell. At first she sounded flat, giving the characters little to no depth. But as the book went along, it became obvious that it was the characters themselves that were not flat but simply bleak. The narration fit the story extremely well, especially the contrast between the voices of Lynn, Eli, and Lucy.

This book did an amazing job of raising the question of whether it is enough to simply survive. Do we need community? Do we long for it even when it is dangerous? Is living enough if it is simply surviving?

It is thought provoking and serious while being easy to read. I recommend this one highly.



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The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is not an entertaining read. It is classic sci-fi, classic dystopia. It is not brain candy.

The story follows Offred, a woman who is caught in a society where fertile women are enslaved as "handmaids." The world is a patriarchal society which has descended into a corruption of Biblical values. Women are possessions. They are used as trophies, mistresses, prostitutes, and breeders. Offred is a breeder.

The book is written like a diary. It reads like an inner conversation, going between the present and flashbacks. Offred is trying desperately to deal with her situation both on an emotional and physical level. There are tricky relationships to navigate with the Commander, his wife, her own husband who is presumed dead, her lost daughter, the other handmaids and house staff. All the while she struggles to keep her moral values while seeing the hypocrisy in the society, which requires her to behave amorally.

Because it is a diary, the plot is simply a look into Offred's life and her struggle. It concludes with an epilogue which is a transcript from a conference in the far future. The speaker addresses Offred's diary as an historical artifact, examining its authenticity and her situations within the confines of the world as it then was. The story never really concludes; we, as well as the conference audience at the end, are left to wonder what became of Offred.

This book is both difficult and beautiful to read. It cannot be rushed; Atwood's writing is so poetic and tragic. It is everything that everyone has said about Atwood - beautiful language, horrific situation. In a word, brilliant.

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The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ah, vampires. While I generally avoid them, once in awhile I give them a chance. In this case, I'm glad I did.

This story follows Tana, who lives in a world populated by vampires who are required to live in "Coldtowns." These are cities which have been designated specifically to house those who are vampires and those who may become vampires. Amid the general population, if a person is bitten they begin to "go cold," the process of them turning into a vampire. This turning is preventable if the infected person does not drink human blood. At the end of roughly a 3-month period, they are cured.

The action starts right off with Tana waking up after a party. She find that her former boyfriend and a vampire are both restrained in another room, while every other partygoer is dead. The vampire Gavriel seems benign (can any vampire be benign?) and the ex-boyfriend Aidan is understandably terrified. This launches us into a plethora of questions about why Tana survived the massacre, who the vampire is, and why Aidan was spared.

Tana is a relatively standard protagonist. She does the best she can under the circumstances. What makes her appealing is her inner conflict; on the one hand she is a thrill-seeker and non-conformist. On the other hand, she is sensible, protective of her family and a loyal ex-girlfriendish friend. Gavriel is a brooding enigma and Aidan is an amoral charmer. This threesome makes for a great ride through the story's twists and turns.

There are some secondary characters who lend interest to the story. Part of the appeal of Coldtowns are the reality shows which are broadcast from them. This makes them appealing to starry-eyed fans. We meet a couple of these fans and are given a glimpse into the celebrity-seeking mentality of our culture. It begs the question of what makes us want to be famous and what we're willing to do to attain it.

This plot is one interesting, convoluted adventure. The sub-plots alone are worth the read. The culmination of events is not a straight line at all; puzzles abound and the real villain is obscured until the very end. This makes the story riveting. It's hard to put this book down.

The ending was wonderful and sweet. It also raised the question as to whether humanity is really worth it. And any book that asks these philsophical questions in such an entertaining way is worthy of the time spent reading it.

This book was narrated on audio by Christine Lakin. She is a voice actor rather than a narrator. The voices she gave to the characters were diverse and the emotion was appropriate to the dialogue. The story was made better for the audio performed.

I had a taste of Holly Black with White Cat, part of her Curseworker Series. I enjoyed this far book far more. Black is unafraid to go to the dark places in her stories without putting us off with abject horror. This is an entertaining twist on the traditional vampire tale, and one I thoroughly enjoyed.



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Neverfall

Neverfall by Brodi Ashton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a short story giving us some background of the villain from Everneath and Everbound, Cole.

I like this character - Cole - and loved this look into his background. For a short story, it is well done because we don't just get his back story. We see him grow, begin to be honest with himself, come to some conclusions about his feelings and goals. That's a pretty good trick for a novella. The dialogue between Cole and Maxwell is full of wit and sarcasm, adding to the fun of the read.

The plot takes place in the time between the end of the first book in the series, Everneath, and the second book, Everbound. Yet another strength of this story is the backstory it offers about other supernatural beings connected to the Everneath world. The story was well-paced and vibrant. Although the ending was a foregone conclusion because of the circumstances of the second book, there was still a thrilling climax to the action. This story was anything but boring and even a tiny bit gruesome.

Currently this story is only available as an ebook. Hopefully there will be more novellas to accompany the series and they will be available as a bind-up.

Overall I loved it. The story really enhances the series and makes it all the more difficult to figure out just who the bad guy really is. That unpredictability alone speaks to the strength of the series.


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Everneath

Everneath by Brodi Ashton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

(This was a re-read for me as an ebook. My original read was the audio version completed on March 26, 2013)

That's the 4 stars side of 3.5 stars. This book alternately intrigued and frustrated me.

I tend to stay away from the fantasy genre because for me, it doesn't relate to the real world. But lately, I've been surprised by stories that are fantasy set against a dystopian or real-world backdrop. This is just such a book. There's a lot of mythology to be learned here. I would even venture to say that it's enough to warrant a look into D'Aulaire's Greek Mythology just for fun.

One of the ways that fantasy makes itself relatable these days is simply to give it some scientific flavour. In this case, it's just a hint. But the correlation is there, between life and energy and sustainability. If that sounds confusing, then this might help:

“There is no evil. There is no good. There is only life, and the absence of life.”

Which brings me to the exploration of motives, and that alone is wonderful in this story. While mythology is the essence of the plot, the characters are human, with human flaws. And they make bad decisions with far-reaching consequences. Ultimately, the main idea is redemption and sacrifice. There should be more stories about redemption and sacrifice, and this one gets high marks from me for that reason.

The characters - Nikki, Jack, and Cole. This is a book that will make you absolutely detest a love triangle. Nikki, our main protagonist, is both sympathetic and highly frustrating. I couldn't stop reading because I wanted so desperately for her to make good decisions. She frequently made bad ones - but always saying "I knew I should have . . . " Well then why didn't she? Once again I am reminded that everyone can be emotionally immature under even the best of circumstances.

Jack was a character I loved. This was because he wasn't a perfect guy. He may have seemed that at the first - star quarterback, high school heartthrob, all around nice guy. But he had a reputation to battle, stupid decisions he'd made. He'd fallen into traps. And while he's trying to choose to do the right thing, he does get a bit off course at times. It was nice to have a flawed character be the good guy.

Cole was a great bad guy. Or was he? The reason was simply because you were never quite sure of his motives! I never knew whether to hate him or root for him. He simply is what he is without pretense. That honesty makes him sympathetic, even when deep down his motives are questionable. He was clearly, definitively, obliquely drawn. Talk about a perfect villain!

The pacing was somewhat slow in this story. A sense of urgency is created at the outset, because we know that Nikki only has six months before the big bad thing happens. So while the author was able to create suspense (I couldn't stop reading), the whole thing was seemed to move at a snail's pace. On the one hand, it worked because the characters were able to learn and grow. On the other hand, they wasted so much time, and they knew it. And at the culmination of this long, drawn out process, we are given another more urgent situation. Or the current situation gets even more urgent. Take your pick, but in the end, things were somewhat predictable.

The ending was both a cliffhanger and extremely satisfying. It is a good author who can give you a sense of heartbreak and hope at the same time. Although things were unresolved (and thus opening the door for a sequel), they weren't left undone. So while I'm looking extremely forward to the next book in the series, I'm ok with leaving these characters where they currently are.

The audio version was narrated by Amy Rubinate, who was just that - a narrator. Her breathy voice and emotion were pretty flat; I switched to the ebook version of this story because of it. I think I would have liked the characters far better if I had stuck to the ebook from the beginning. Their voices in my own head were much better than the voices given them by Rubinate. I would recommend reading this one in print.

All in all, it was a great plot and a book I simply could not put it down. Fans of mythology will not be disappointed.

“Who loses hope first? And who never gives up? Because it’s not the supernatural abilities that set mythical characters apart. It’s the decisions the human characters make, in impossible situations, that have us still talking about them centuries later. Heroes are made by the paths they choose, not the powers they are graced with.”

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3:59

3:59 by Gretchen McNeil
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love a book that takes a germ of real science and builds a complete fiction from it. This is just such a book.

3:59 is about alternate realities. It follows Josie, whose life seems to be falling apart. She is given a chance to glimpse an alternate version of herself, Jo, in another universe. Jo's life at first look seems to be everything that Josie's is not. But when they switch places, Josie learns that the grass isn't always greener on the other side of the fence.

This book impressed me because of its premise: McNeil has taken a set of characters and developed them fully. Then she made copies of them and developed all those characters fully. For them to be both similar and yet distinct was expertly done.

As a main character, Josie was fascinating to watch. She's geeky, unconcerned with looks and fashion, completely at home in her family with a great boyfriend and loyal best friend. She goes from this situation to a complete disaster in just a few pages. Her journey into an alternate universe changes her from a complacent teenager to a wizened young adult. She learns to stop whining and figures out not just how to change things, but to be sensitive to relationships and other people's situations.

The secondary characters are highly entertaining. The boyfriends are dramatically different from each other, as are the best friends. Penelope was a lot of fun to watch, although she and Josie were questionable as geniuses in theoretical physics. It was unbelievable but so well woven into the story that I didn't mind.

The plot never dragged and the world-building was interesting and believable. The ending surprised me. I never expected the villain and the ending was wonderful. It wrapped up the story nicely while still providing room for speculation.

My only complaint is this: the internal dialogue completely interrupted the external dialogue way too often. While both were necessary, they could have been better worked to give the external conversations better flow.

The aspects of the multiverse, brane theory and string theory made this particular story really entertaining fiction. I couldn't put this one down. And I couldn't recommend it more for fans of YA sci-fi.

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