Divergent

Divergent
By Veronica Roth (click here for her blog!)
Published by HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen Books

Beatrice Prior lives in dystopian and crumbling Chicago city. She was born into Abnegation faction (there's a good SAT vocab word for you!), one of five factions that people are now divided into after taking an aptitude test at age 16. The Abnegation faction is defined by their selfless lives, they live and work only to serve others. To aid this life of denial, things like pets, hobbies, and mirrors are not allowed. Beatrice has always felt like she does not belong in Abnegation, she is too selfish and too curious (curiosity is also looked down upon because it only serves a selfish desire for knowledge). But where does she belong?

In Candor, where everyone is truthful to the point of not caring if words hurt others? In Amity, where people strive for friendship with everyone? In Erudite (ding, ding for another vocab word!), where the pursuit of knowledge is everything, even above your sense of humanity? Or is it in Dauntless, where your bravery is tested every day, sometimes in cruel and shocking ways?

With her identity crisis looming in the very tangible form of her aptitude test, Beatrice knows she can't escape the truth that she is different. But just how different, and dangerous, she has no idea. Her worst fears come true when her aptitude test comes back inconclusive. Her tester tells her in a hushed and strained voice that she is Divergent, but that she must never, never, never tell anyone.

The day after her inconclusive aptitude test, Beatrice faces the first of many tough choices in her life. At the Choosing Ceremony, Beatrice must decide if she will choose to leave her family forever and join another faction for her own happiness and to be true to herself, or to stay with her family's faction which is safe full of memories. If she chooses to leave, she must decide who is she in a new world away from family. If she chooses to stay in Abnegation, she will be denying herself any chance of self-discovery but she will be with her family. Choices, choices...and the choice that Beatrice does make will reveal how little she knows about her own parents, how precarious is the peace in her world, and how hard and self-less it is to love and to be brave.

Veronica Roth is a new writer on the scene and she has lots going for her! Readers of The Hunger Games will feel at home in these novels, minus the Edward/Bella/Jacob love triangle (which was the biggest detractor in that series, for me). At first, I felt that our protagonist Beatrice was not defined enough. There is very little self description on her part, leaving her kind of vague in your mind. But as the novel progresses, so does her self-discovery and her character finally finds definition. And while I found this annoying at first, perhaps it was a very clever ploy on the part of the author to make Beatrice's maturation in the novel that much deeper.

I highly recommend this book. I think high schoolers and even college students will enjoy the story and be totally sucked in to the darker moments of the novel. Ms Roth has a second book in the series, Insurgent, due out in May 2012. I can't wait!

Midnighters: The Secret Hour

Midnighters: The Secret Hour
By Scott Westerfeld
Published by
HarperTeen

Jessica Day is new in the small town of Bixby, Oklahoma. Jessica is already facing the normal stresses of moving from Chicago for her mom's job, adjusting to a new high school and advanced classes, and dealing with her younger sister's temper tantrums about the family's move. If this weren't enough for a 15 year-old girl to handle, the first day of school Jessica becomes the focused interest of the strangest kids at school. You know, the kids that dress all in black, listen to loud metal music, and sit alone at their own lunch table. Jessica can't figure out why they are so interested in her, and why they keep asking her strange questions, like about her dreams and the taste of the town's water. But then she does have a strange dream....or was it?

Jessica soon learns that she is part of a select group of people born at the stroke of midnight. This gives her the ability to live out a 25th hour of the day at the strike of midnight. At first it is a beautiful landscape of leaves and rain drops frozen in time and glowing with a strange blue light. But then Jessica learns that she and the other kids aren't the only things that inhabits the secret hour. There are older and more dangerous things in this eerie world who want her dead. Now it's up to Jess and her new friends Rex, Dess, Melissa, and Jonathan to find out why they want her dead and how to stop them.

Scott Westerfeld does another wonderful job with teen fiction in this series (there are three other books in the series which I would be reading right now except that every copy at my library is checked out...grrr). Westerfeld is best known for his Uglies, Pretties, and Specials books (which are also good, but don't get me started on the development of the protagonist Tally, the books' greatest downfall) which are very good science fiction books. His Midnighters series, however, reminds me of author Charles de Lint (go read his Moonheart right now!). Westerfeld does a fun job of interweaving Native American mythology with a little science fiction in these books. I'm so impressed with the rules of his fantastical midnight world. But I won't say anymore, it's more fun to discover them on your own!

This is a very easy read....as in 280 pages in two days. I think 8th-11th graders will enjoy this one. I'm sure most students can relate to Jessica's social and school dilemmas. It does sadden me though to think that Hermoine Granger and I may be the only two souls who LOVED school and reading thick history books. Sigh.

A Game of Thrones

A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire Book One
By George R R Martin
Published by Bantam

"In the game of thrones, you win or you die." Take warning readers, Mr. Martin means what he writes. And boy, does he write! And well!

This first book of the Song of Ice and Fire series introduces us to the Seven Kingdoms and its current tribulations: murderous strife for the ruling seat of the Iron Throne, an exiled princess in possession of three not-so-fossilized dragon eggs, and the threat from north of the Wall - the wildlings and worse creatures are astir and may be a threat to match the internal one inside in the Kindoms' capital. This book is a superb start to what I think is proving to be one of the best fantistorical series ever written.

The Stark family occupies the last holdfast in the north before the Wall. The Night's Watch are the a brotherhood which guard the Wall and keep the Others and wildlings north of the Wall from crossing south to threaten the Seven Kingdoms. They forswear family, women, lordly allegiances and worldly possessions for the greater good of the Seven Kingdoms. But lately, their numbers are dwindling and their rangers sent to patrol the other side of the Wall are disappearing. Only the Starks are aware of the peril beyond the Wall, but their family is torn apart and spread across the kingdom when King Robert orders his close friend, Lord Eddard Stark, to travel back to the capital to be the Hand of the King. The king's selfish request and blindness to the real threates of the kingdom is the undoing of the hard-fought peace he and Eddard won in their youth.

Now who will ensure the safety of the Seven Kingdoms when winter is coming?

Will it be Jon Snow, Eddard's bastard son, who joins the Night's Watch and faces the true terrors of the winter?

Will it be Rob Stark, Eddard's eldest son, who must now act as Lord of Winterfell when things go array with his father in the capital?

Will it be Caitlyn Stark, Eddard's wife, who must now counsel her eldest son in times of war as well as solve the murder attempt against her younger son Bran, who may have seen something that could unlock deep dark secrets about the royal family?

Or could it be Arya Stark, the youngest daughter who is resourceful, tenacious, handy with a sword  and possibly the only honest soul trapped in the royal castle?

Are you dying to read A Game of Thrones yet? You should be! Martin does a superb job of keeping you on your toes with royal and blood thirsty intrigue, battles, and whispered secrets you could almost believe yourself in the castle of King Henry VIII. However, Martin never lets you stray too far into the historicity of his world without reminding you of the larger threat of things fantastical...it's like he keeps the dragons and Others in your peripheral vision and then...BAM!...just when your heart couldn't bee squeezed anymore by the hopeless plight of the good guys fighting in the castles and battle grounds, those terrible creatures of nightmares show their shadows in the story and your skin goes crawling with goosebumps.

I give this book ten toes and ten fingers way up! I think that readers age 17 and up will enjoy this book most, but only if you can dedicate a few hours to get completely lost in Martin's superb story telling.

The City of Ember

The City of Ember
By Jeanne DuPrau
Published by Yearling

On Assignment Day Lina Mayfleet wants more than anything to be a messenger. All Ember children finish their education at age 12 and are assigned a lifetime job. Messengers run through the city carrying messages between Ember citizens. Line loves to run and she is fast; she knows that she was made to be a messenger. While Lina wishes to become a messenger, her classmate, Doon Harrow, wants more than anything to be assigned to work as an electrician or a pipes worker so that he can fix the city's generator and save the citizens of Ember.

Ember is a city whose life blood is electricity, which keeps the lights on and keeps the pressing darkness at bay. There are no stars, sun, or moon for Ember, only the yellow light from the street lamps. But lately, the lights have been flickering out, plunging the city into an absolute and terrifying darkness. The storerooms are also running out, which means that food and other necessities, like light bulbs, are scarce. And while the self-interested mayor pretends that there is no problem, Lina and Doon become convinced that the only way to save everyone is to find a way out of Ember. But how to escape? And to where? Despite her dreams of a City of Light, Lina knows they can't walk into the Unknown Regions of total darkness that surround the city because they would get lost, or fall down a big hole, without the knowledge of a movable light. Lina and Doon don't even know if another city exists besides Ember. Their history books only talk about the Builders making the city, but not where the Builders came from or why they built Ember. That is, until Lina stumbles upon The Instructions in her house.

The Instructions are very old and many words and letters are missing. But Lina and Doon quickly decide that the Builders must have made these Instructions to show a way out of Ember. Using the advantages of their new jobs, they set out to solve the mystery of The Instructions, find a way out of Ember, and save the other citizens from being plunged into a never-ending darkness without resources to survive.

I truly enjoyed this science fiction novel. The characters of Lina and Doon are sincere and you quickly find yourself rooting for them! They are resourceful and bring the best qualities of childhood, like imagination and adaptability, to a world that is quickly running out of a future. I think children grades 5-8 will be entertained by this book series. Heck, my husband and I are in our 20s and we both enjoyed following Lina and Doon's adventures to save the City of Ember!

The Maze Runner

My very first review!

The Maze Runner
By: James Dashner
Published by Delacorte Press (an imprint of Random House)

Thomas can't remember where he came from. He can't remember anything about his past life or himself, except for his name, when he is delivered into The Glade by a rusty elevator and into the hands of a group of boys with similar missing memories. None of the boys can remember more than their names when they each arrive at The Glade, an area surrounded by the high stone walls of a maze with four doors in each direction. Although Thomas is scared, the other boys are quick to show him the order of things in The Glade, which includes the number one rule: don't be caught out in the Maze when the doors close at dark.

There are terrible mysteries out in the maze, including walls that move and creatures called Grievers. If anyone is stung by a Griever needle, their only hope of survival is a serum stored in The Glade. But the serum can't save you from the Changing. The Changing is the painful price you pay for getting stung by a Griever, but it is also the only way to retrieve a few precious memories. The problem is that some of the boys who survive the Changing don't seem to think that their lives before The Glade was any better.

Thomas soon learns that the boys are provided with provisions and serum daily by the Creators, the name the boys have given to those who created the maze and put them into it. But the more Thomas learns about The Glade, the maze, the Creators, and the Grievers, the more it all seems too familiar. Soon, things begin to change in The Glade: a boy goes missing in the Maze, for the first time a girl is brought up in the box elevator with a startling message and a new game is put into play by the Creators; one more dangerous than the game of survival the boys have already been playing. Now Thomas can't help but feel that his arrival has brought about all of these changes.

But can Thomas, along with his new friends and the girl, solve the puzzle of the Maze before the Grievers take them all?

This is a book for tweens 11-14, especially young boys who have enjoyed dystopian science fiction classics like Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card or The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

Now that you have the synopsis teaser, here are some of my nit-picky thoughts. Mr. Dashner has done a great job with painting the brutal reality of a society of adolescent boys faced with the realities of death, starvation, and betrayal along the lines of Lord of the Flies. However, his portrayal of Thomas' insecurities and the Griever's ferocity is one dimensional. I would like to have seen more ferocious cunning in Dashner's monsters and another emotion besides "dizzying thoughts" and confusion in Thomas. I can only suppose that Thomas will become a more well-rounded and lively protagonist in the other two books of the trilogy, The Scorch Trials and The Death Cure.

My last thought on Dashner's novel is about his plot revelation timing for both readers and characters. For 9/10 of the novel, you feel like there is very little discovery and revelation by the characters. While this may be very close to a reality of adolescent boys discovering these things on their own, Dashner should know that novels can't be read in real-time. After 9/10 of the novel are over, it is as if Dashner realizes that he hasn't given any answers or enough lead time into the set-up for the sequel, which you realize must be coming when you have five pages to go and they are still in the Maze. 


To sum up: Dashner has promise in his gritty portrayal of his dystopian young adult science fiction, however he could learn much from Orson Scott Card on his use of adumbration. Still, not bad for an accountant-turned-author. We're so happy you've seen the light Mr. Dashner.