Mind Games (Kiersten White)

Title: Mind Games

Author: Kiersten White

Publisher: HarperTeen

Length: 241

Rating: 4.5/5

Fia does everything they tell her to, because if she doesn’t, they’ll kill her sister Annie, and probably her as well. Fia is the ruthless hands—killing, stealing, deceiving—of an organization that uses women with special brain powers to their own secretive ends. Both sisters are being used, and both are tired of it. Because they’ll do anything to protect each other, will they ever escape?

First of all, thanks to Epic Reads for the chance to win an ARC of this book. If you’re not following Epic Read’s Ustream of #TeaTime every Wednesday, you should start now!

I couldn’t put this psychological thriller down! It was like that time sophomore year of college where I watched the entire series of Alias. Fia was like an early, angrier Sydney Bristow, and I loved her for it. It takes a certain amount of authorial skill for me to love angry, messed up characters, and Kiersten White gets it just right. Both Annie and Fia have done some awful things, but you like them, despite it all.

Another thing I loved about this book was the power that women held. Yeah, many of them were being ruthlessly used by a male-dominated evil corporation, but the real power (as Fia proves) lies with the women. Here, natural “womanly” traits, such as the ability to feel emotion and to trust instincts and intuition are actual brain powers.

And instead of the typical YA male-female relationship driving the plot, it’s the relationship between sisters that drives everything Annie and Fia do. Of course there are boys (good-looking boys) along the way, but everything comes down to the powerful bond between sisters, something which anyone with a sibling can get behind.

If you like a good mystery/thriller, this book is for you.

Watch author Kiersten White tell you about her favorite Kick Butt Girls! Here's one of my favorites, Shannon Hale: http://www.epicreads.com/blog/kick-butt-girls-with-kiersten-white-5-shannon-hale/

And more! Including Sydney Bristow! And Veronica Mars! http://www.epicreads.com/blog/tag/kick-butt-girls/

Goblin Secrets (William Alexander)

Title: Goblin Secrets

Author: William Alexander

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books (Simon & Schuster)

Length: 223

Rating: 4.5/5

While searching for his lost brother, Rownie escapes Graba the witch’s household and takes up with a troupe of goblin actors. Danger follows Rownie everywhere as Graba tries to get him back, and the Guard of the city of Zombay search for human actors. Because in Zombay, it is illegal for anyone but Goblins to act, for masks and those who wear them hold a certain power. What magic has Rownie gotten himself involved in?

Goblin Secrets was the 2012 National Book Award Winner for Young People’s Literature, so of course it’s a great read. It’s got adventure, mystery, and magic. Even though it’s classified in my library as a “Juvenile” book and  marketed toward readers aged 8-12, this book deals with a lot of big topics. Rownie learns about family, home, and finding where you belong.

In Zombay, everything you know about the world is turned on its head. Acting is illegal, goblins exist, and masks come to life. I liked that the book was structured like a play, with acts and scenes rather than chapters, which fit wonderfully with the importance of theatre. The book never talks down to its readers, and instead, you discover as you go.

A definitely read for young readers looking for a fun, challenging read. Or older readers looking for the same! 

Front and Center (Catherine Gilbert Murdock)

Title: Front and Center

Author: Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Length: 256

Rating: 4.5/5

After Dairy Queen and The Off Season, D.J. Schwenk is back, and hoping to fade back into the background. She just wants to be plain old DJ again, but everyone in her life has a different idea. Like her brother Win, and college scouts, and her basketball coach. And for some reason, as hard as she tries, D.J. can’t stop thinking about Brian Nelson. So as much as she wants to be in the background, it seems an unlikely fate for D.J.

I loved the first and second book so much, you know I started reading this one the minute The Off Season’s audio book finished. My only complaint with the early books is that D.J. was a little too shy and naïve about the world. But in this third book, D.J. is forced to face the future and what it might hold for her. Already grown up so much more from the events in the second book, the questions D.J. must answer in Front and Center really make her grow as a person, and will make the reader love her all the more as a character.

This entire trilogy is great for readers of all ages and comes highly recommended!

Where She Went (Gayle Forman)

Title: Where She Went

Author: Gayle Forman

Publisher: Dutton (Penguin)

Length: 264 pages

Rating: 4.5/5

Three years after the catastrophic events in If I Stay, Adam is a famous rocker and Mia is a celebrated classical musician. But things are not as rosy as they appear, as both are still haunted by the events in If I Stay, and their break up which followed. A chance meeting in New York City forces them to confront the past.

I attempted to listen to this book like I did the last one, but it was so good I grabbed a hard copy and read it in one sitting. I liked this book even more than it's catalyst, maybe because there was less death. Still a good amount of moping and troubled souls, but it was all very cathartic. It's as if this book is the therapy to If I Stay; completely necessary and quite soothing once you work through the knots the characters have tangled themselves in.

Adam and Mia have both changed a great deal in three years, and it's easy to hate them for destroying each other in such complicated ways. But in this book, we finally get to hear Adam's voice, and get his side of the story. And when Adam and Mia finally meet again, they, and the reader, gets some much needed closure.

Days of Blood and Starlight (Laini Taylor)

Title: Days of Blood and Starlight

Author: Laini Taylor

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Length: 517

Rating: 5/5

In this sequel to Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Karou has finally learned who she really is. But this revelation and the betrayal it exposes shatters her world. To avenge her people, Karou is pulled into a deadly war between angels and demons that has been raging on for centuries.

This book is both stunningly gorgeous and terribly tragic. I had the pleasure of meeting author Laini Taylor at a book signing, where she admitted that it took her a while to realize that this book had a completely different tone from the Daughter of Smoke and Bone, the tone of a war book.

This isn’t the magical, romantic world of Prague any more. Karou teams up with the monsters, but still struggles to find the clear line between good and evil, while the reader roots for it to never exist, because we love characters on both sides of the war. We get the same struggle from Karou’s angel, Akiva, and I loved seeing the world from his point of view.

The book was just so beautiful, and so well-written, and I’m so upset I have to wait for the third book in the trilogy to come out. Until then, all I can do is hope that Karou and Akiva can find some sort of peace, because I’ve come to love them and all their friends so much!

You can find a great interview with Laini Taylor here.  

Scarlet (A.C. Gaughen)

Title: Scarlet

Author: A.C. Gaughen

Publisher: Walker & Company (Bloomsbury)

Length: 292 pages

Rating: 5/5

Will Scarlet is Robin Hood’s greatest thief, a necessary asset as they struggle to protect the people of Nottingham from the evil sheriff. When the sheriff hires the thief taker Gisbourne to hunt them down, Scarlet’s deepest secrets are threatened to be exposed. Not only is she secretly a girl, but she also has a past with the evil Gisbourne, and he’ll stop at nothing to take her, and Robin Hood, down.

It took me a couple chapters to really get into this book, but once I did, I didn’t want to put it down. Scarlet is everything you want in a kick-butt heroine: smart, quick, good with daggers, full of secrets, and hopelessly bad at romance. She gets struck by arrows, fists, and mean words, and while her first instinct might be to run away, she always gets back up, no matter how bruised she might be.

As someone who loves the Robin Hood story, I thought this was a very clever retelling. While the gist of the legend is the same, it made me think of all of the characters in new and unexpected ways.

While it was written to be a stand-alone book, I was excited to hear that there will be a sequel coming in 2014. I can’t wait!

Scarlet (Marissa Meyer)

Title: Scarlet

Author: Marissa Meyer

Publisher: Feiwel and Friends (Macmillan)

Length: 452 pages

Rating: 5/5

While Cinder tries to break out of prison and remain invisible to the entire Commonwealth, over in France, Scarlet is trying to find her missing grandmother.  Desperate, Scarlet teams up with Wolf, a mysterious street fighter. Their paths collide as their missions intertwine, and it’ll take both Cinder and Scarlet to stop the evil Lunar Queen Levana from taking over the globe.

I really liked Cinder, but I liked this installment even more. In fact, I’m throwing a small tantrum right now that I have to wait another year for the next book (there will be four all together- the last pair are called Cress and Winter). Such brilliant fairy-tale retelling! I love how the elements of the stories we love are reimagined and interwoven into the great story against the evil (ugh I hate her!) Queen Levana. The story gets deeper, the characters get better, and the world gets put in even more peril. What’s not to love?

Not to mention how much cute guy action we get in these books- a definite plus. Wolf is dangerously dreamy. The guy Cinder teams up with to break out of jail, Captain Carswell Thorne, doesn’t get to romance much, but he’s hilarious as he tries in his attempting-to-be-suave ways. And we could never forget about Prince Kai, who we get to see as he’s left with the mess Cinder leaves.

I’d eat this book up if the ravenous Wolf hadn’t gotten to it first!