The Lost Girl

Eva's life is not her own. She is a creation, an abomination--an echo. She was made by the Weavers as a copy of someone else, expected to replace a girl named Amarra, her "other," if she ever died. Eva spends every day studying that girl from far away, learning what Amarra does, what she eats, what it's like to kiss her boyfriend, Ray. So when Amarra is killed in a car crash, Eva should be ready.

But sixteen years of studying never prepared her for this.

Now she must abandon everything and everyone she's ever known--the guardians who raised her, the boy she's forbidden to love--to move to India and convince the world that Amarra is still alive.

What Eva finds is a grief-stricken family; parents unsure how to handle this echo they thought they wanted; and Ray, who knew every detail, every contour of Amarra. And when Eva is unexpectedly dealt a fatal blow that will change her existence forever, she is forced to choose: Stay and live out her years as a copy or leave and risk it all for the freedom to be an original. To be Eva.

 

With echoes (no pun intended) of the brilliant Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, The Lost Girl was completely captivating.  I loved, loved, loved this engaging debut novel from Sangu Mandanna.  While it wasn't my original intention, I read The Lost Girl in a day devouring each new page as quickly as I could.

The opening section, introducing the reader to Eva, was pitch perfect.  Showing her relationship with each of her caretakers and examples of how she feels like a prisoner.  By the end of part one I was on Eva's side no matter what, and this allegiance carried on throughout the book.

Then there is the sinister Loom where the Echoes are created. The name makes the process sound like a fairy tale, yet it is anything but.  There are three scientists who work at the Loom, and through their story Mandanna presents the old idea that brilliance corrupts.  How far does the science push you until you're not you any more?  Is there a point where what you've created becomes more human than you? 

When I finally finished it got me wondering: Is The Lost Girl classed as YA because the narrator is a teen? Because what I had just read was a diverse and adult exploration of the grieving process.  There were so many discussion points that I found myself still thinking about The Lost Girl long after I had finished reading.

As a side note: If not for a review link on twitter, I would have never of found/read The Lost Girl.  I know for a fact that I wouldn't have picked it up in a bookshop; the cover doesn't grab me, and neither did the blurb on my copy.  Just goes to show you that the old adage is true...

Prodigy

Missing

June Iparis

Agent, Los Angeles City Patrol,

15, Female, 5 FT 4 IN. 

350,000 Republic notes reward.

 

If seen, report immediately to your local official.

 

That's what the republic wants their people to think.  That I'm missing.  What they don't say is they want me dead.  I helped Day, the country's most notorious criminal, escape his execution, aided the rebel patriots in a staged uprising and turned my back on the republic.

 

But I won't turn my back on Day...

I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't as obsessed with Marie Lu's first dystopian novel Legend as other bloggers seemed to be.  While I thought there was plenty of good stuff in there, I was totally anti a June and Day romance.  Why couldn't they just admire each others abilities and similarities and then build up to the smoocholas in either the second or third book in the trilogy? 

However, the coupling that I hated in the first book become a strength in Prodigy.  Lu provided of a sense of who these characters are, and consistently showed me why I should be rooting for a Day/June relationship.  Prodigy has so much to love (including the fact that Lu isn't afraid to kill off her characters, as I like it when peril actually means peril) and I couldn't put the book down; a complete contrast to my experience of when I was reading Legend. 

With Prodigy, Lu successfully expanded her damaged world, that has been ravaged by the effects of global warming, beyond the Republic.  I don't want to be too spoilery, but the contrast between the Republic and the Colonies is rather interesting. I hope that the dichotomy between the two is explored further in the next book. 

My one criticism is that I guessed some of the plot twists early on.  This explains why, when Day and June finally figured that there were shenanigans taking place, I was all Dennis Duffy from 30 Rock, actually shouting, "FINALLY DUMMIES!" 

So how does the Legend series progress?  And how does Lu even begin to wrap up her trilogy in a satisfying way?  We'll have to wait until next year when Champion is released.  Is it wrong that I am hoping for a they all die at the end scenario?

A Million Suns

Trapped on board the spaceship Godspeed, Amy trusts no one.

 

The ship's ruler is dead and a rebellion threatens.  Amy wants to help Elder as he tries to take charge, but she's torn between her feelings for him and the chaos that's pulling everything apart.  As more harrowing discoveries are made about Godspeed, Amy is caught in a  desperate race to unravel its secrets.  Only one thing is certain.

 

They have to get off this ship.

It's no secret that I found Beth Revis' Across the Universe disappointing; not so much that I didn't want to read the next instalment of the series, but enough to have my doubts that I would continue with the trilogy beyond the second book.  Imagine my surprise when I read A Million Suns in one morning, unable to put the SCI FI YA tale down until I had finally found out all of the secrets that were still hidden within Godspeed.   

The plot of A Million Suns primarily concerns itself with Elder's struggle becoming a leader; not only is he too young for the job, but he is having to deal with a population that is no longer drugged into submission.  Throughout Revis is continually asking tough moral questions, not of her characters but of her readers too, the main one being should Elder resort to using Phydus again in order to gain some type of order and save the population of the ship?

The book is again split, alternating between Elder and Amy's narrative.  For me, I think my new found love of the series came about because I didn't mind reading the Amy sections this time around.  With the events of A Million Suns, Amy had something to focus on other than her parents and her constant whinging for the life she left behind.  Amy's narrative voice has evolved due to her adapting to life on Godspeed. While she hasn't forgotten her parents, her previous life isn't as all consuming as it once was. 

I thought that A Million Suns was a lot stronger than Across the Universe in many ways, and although the 'villain' of this book was really obvious, I still enjoyed going through the rabbit hole with Amy and Elder.  Unlike before, I am now very excited to see how Revis wraps up her trilogy and am going to order a copy from the library as soon as it becomes available.

The Book Thief

I don't know why I hadn't read The Book Thief by Markus Zusak until recently and I couldn't tell yo why I decided that it was finally time to read it.  I did a little bit of research beforehand and had seen a comment on Goodreads that this wasn't a book you could read quickly.  I'd argue against that as I steamed through the Book Thief like a locomotion on it's way to get Anna Karenina.  I thought it was one of the most beautiful pieces of fiction that I have ever read. 

Here's the blurb from Goodreads (the picture is from there too as I forgot to take one of my copy, d'oh!): HERE IS A SMALL FACT - YOU ARE GOING TO DIE. 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier. Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall. SOME IMPORTANT INFORMATION - THIS NOVEL IS NARRATED BY DEATH. It's a small story, about: a girl, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. ANOTHER THING YOU SHOULD KNOW - DEATH WILL VISIT THE BOOK THIEF THREE TIMES

Captivating and harrowing at the same time, I thought that Zusack had found a perfect voice in which to tell his story.  The narrator, Death, wasn't a characicture like you'd expect, just an observer who had become fascinated with Lisel's story.  The reasons for this are left unclear.  Did Death follow Liesel and those who lived on Himmel Street to prove to itself that there was some good in humanity during a time when there appeared to be none?  Or as a prime example of the evils that others can do to each other? 

Even though it may have been heartbreaking, there were proper consequneces for everyone in this sad tale.  The narrative was set up like a stack of dominoes that the Zusack was waiting to flick at just the right moment, so that they all topple.  When he knocked his dominoes down I was in tears, heartbroken for Liesel and all of the people I had grown to love over the course of the novel.  Yet even in death there was beauty and I'm definately going to buy my own copy of this tremendous book.

Rebel Heart

 

It took me a few days to read Blood Red Road, and I thought that the same reading time would apply to it's sequel, Rebel Heart.  Not the case.  I read this thing in a day.  It was a couldn't put it down, didn't look at page numbers, totally in the Dustlands with everyone, situation.  Here's my warning that there may be spoilers ahead...but I'll try my best to be as vague as I possibly can.

 

There's a price on Saba's head.

They call her the Angel of Death. She defeated a tyrant, but victory has come at a cost. Haunted by the ghosts of her past, she needs Jack. His moonlit eyes, his reckless courage, his wild heart. But Jack has left, and a ruthless new enemy searches for Saba across the Dustlands...

 

While not as action laden as Blood Red Road, Moira Young's second Dustland book features plenty of character development.  Rebel Heart has a lot in common with Lauren DeStefano's Fever in the sense that just because you defeated/escaped the big bad of the first book doesn't mean that all of your problems will fade away and your happily ever after will appear out of nowhere.

 

For a start Lugh and Saba's once close relationship has completely fractured by the events of Blood Red Road.  It's frustrating because throughout the book there's no communication between any of the characters.  If only Lugh would tell Saba of his experiences of being held hostage by the Tonton.  If only Jack could tell Saba his plan.  But then if these secrets were divulged, Rebel Heart would be rather boring... 

 

Lugh's not the only one with problems.  Saba's own guilt has been manifesting over all the girls that died during her stint as a cage fighter and also over her part in Epona's death.  It's a tough choice to take your strong narrator and show her weaknesses, but it pays off by making Saba appear human.  The only grating part is when Saba tries to go off on her own again, only to be chased down by the rest of the gang.  You'd think that by now she'd realise that her friends and family aren't going to let her go that easily.

 

Then there's the developments between Saba and DeMalo.  I sort of knew that Young was going in this direction ever since DeMalo's first appearance in Blood Red Road, so it wasn't a big shock.  I'm not one for love triangles, but people do silly things when they feel that they've been betrayed.  At least Saba realises that she may have made a mistake, and the portrayal of that is at least an adult, and real, representation of what life sometimes throws at you.  Though I am interested as to who the heart stone was directed at in the last scene, and to have DeMalo's ambiguity of character cleared up.  Just what does he want?

 

Rebel Heart isn't as thrilling as Blood Red Road, but that's not to it's detriment.  If anything I have a clearer idea about who these characters really are.  I do wonder what direction Young will take the plot and her characters in for the third book.  It's a shame I've got to wait until January 2014 at least until I find out.  Bah.

Blood Red Road

In the Dustlands, you fight or you die.

There are no laws in Saba's world.  When her twin brother is stolen, she pursues his captors through a wild, wasted land.  She must become a warrior to survive.  On this dangerous road she can trust no one.  Not even the handsome thief who saves her life - and steals her heart.

 

Prior to reading Blood Read Road, I had heard lots of good things about Moira Young's Dustland series.  From what I could garner from goodreads The Dustlands was a better executed version of Lauren DeStefano's The Chemical Garden Trilogy.  Now that I've finally read both Blood Red Road and Rebel Heart (and Wither and Fever) I just can't see the parallels between the two series. Yes, they both feature twins, one of whose job it is to locate the other, but that's where the similarities end.

 

Where the Chemical Garden trilogy is set in a recognisable futuristic America, where all the states are still intact, the Dustlands could be set almost anywhere, on a different planet even.  I sort of wish that there hadn't been the few dystopian elements to root in our world (like the sky scrapers) and that Young had made this into an all out, foot stomping, cut throat, futuristic western. 

 

Saba's quest to find Lugh is a brutal journey that goes in directions that are unexpected and thrilling.  From the moment Lugh gets taken I wasn't expecting anything but peril for these characters.  And this isn't the type of danger where everyone magically lives at the end.  No, this was a world where tragedy happens and it sticks.

  

I thought the dialect would be grating, but after a while I didn't notice.  However, I am fed up with love interest having a lopsided smile, and then there's the whole heart stone maguffin...But even I have to admit that it did set up some interesting dynamics for the next book.  Plus Saba's a hard headed as a stubborn mule.  She doesn't want to accept that she could be falling in love, so maybe Young did some reverse psychology on me in that I was actually rooting for Saba and Jack by Blood Red Roads end.

 

What stood out for me was the relationship between sisters Saba and Emmi.  Young's duo are a reflection that not all sisters get on, and not just on a superficial 'they'll grow out of it' level either.  The disdain that Saba shows towards Emmi in contrast to her unconditional love for Lugh made Saba a real person with complex feelings that aren't always considered to be the right ones.

And don't even get me started on what should have stayed on Saturn...

I could go on all day about the different things I loved about Moira Young's novel (I haven't even mentioned Nero and The Free Hawks) but I'll stop here and leave some surprises.  Blood Red Road is an extraordinary start to what hopefully will be a thrilling and unique series.  I just can't believe I waited so long to start reading it! 



Emilie and the Hollow World

I got an advance copy from Strange Chemistry (via Net Galley) of Martha Wells new book Emilie and The Hollow World.  I thought it would be good company for me on my usual train journey up to Norwich.  1 hour and 45 minutes later I was lucky to have got off at the right station.  

 

While running away from home for reasons that are eminently defensible, Emilie’s plans to stow away on the steamship Merry Bell and reach her cousin in the big city go awry, landing her on the wrong ship and at the beginning of a fantastic adventure.
Taken under the protection of Lady Marlende, Emilie learns that the crew hopes to use the aether currents and an experimental engine, and with the assistance of Lord Engal, journey to the interior of the planet in search of Marlende’s missing father.
With the ship damaged on arrival, they attempt to traverse the strange lands on their quest. But when evidence points to sabotage and they encounter the treacherous Lord Ivers, along with the strange race of the sea-lands, Emilie has to make some challenging decisions and take daring action if they are ever to reach the surface world again.

Reminiscent of Jules Verne's Journey To The Centre of The Earth, with a sprinkling of Gail Carriger, I found Emilie and The Hollow World wonderfully imaginative.  Wells' plot takes Emilie down to the depths of the sea only to pop up in a place where merpeople exist, among other interesting creatures. This brilliant story was adventurous and light hearted, but most of all a lot of fun to read. 

The introduction is fantastic, and within a few pages I knew exactly what to expect from this book, where the plot was headed and what kind of characters I would be reading about. I couldn't stop my self from laughing every time Emilie found herself in a situation more perilous than the last.

Once the action moves to the Hollow World, as a reader you have to use your imagination to interpret Wells' fantastically written creation.  It is completely different to a lot of YA titles where my brain just goes into auto-pilot because most of the plot is set somewhere that is vaguely familiar.

Yet Martha Wells' story is not all action; but there's certainly no romance either.  In fact Wells offers something more interesting all together and that's the relationship between Emilie and Miss Marlende.  An apprentice and teacher bond forms between the two, Miss Marlende being a great example of a strong women who has a career and no time for smoochies.  It was interesting and somewhat refreshing to have not one but two characters who were not completely focused on the opposite sex.  This meant that these characters could be defined in their own terms, rather than those of what would impress the object of their affection.

If you've read Jonathan L. Howard's Katya's World (another great Strange Chemistry title that is all adventure and no romance) and fancy trying a bit of steam punk then give Emilie and the Hollow World a read.  I'm hoping this is the start of what could be a wonderful series.

The Teleportation Accident

History happened while you were hungover.

 

When you haven't had sex in a long time, it feels like the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone.

 

If you're living in Germany in the 1930's, it probably isn't.

 

But that's no consolation to Egon Loeser, whose carnal misfortunes will push him from the experimental theatres of Berlin to the absinthe bars of Paris to the physics laboratories of Los Angeles, trying all the while to solve two mysteries: whether it was really a deal with cosmic evil that claimed the life of his hero, the great seventeenth-century stage designer Adriano Lavicini; and why a handsome, clever, charming, modest guy like him can't, just once in a while, get himself laid.

 

 

I am a sucker for beautiful covers and Ned Beauman's The Teleportation Accident happens to have a cracking cover.  When I finally managed to stop staring and open the book to read the first page, I was worried. Was Beauman's second novel going to be a verbose waffle, trying too hard to be what a Man Booker Prize longlisted book should be?  He certainly had me going for a while...and then it became funny.  Not small laughs either, but proper out loud, I have to repeat what I've just read to everyone I can find, funny.  Beauman had me hooked at 'Tassels on Tassels on Tassels on Tassels' and my worries about not understanding a thing melted away. 

That's not to say that The Teleportation Accident is just a barrel of laughs.  It's frustratingly bonkers and that's down to the lead character.  Loeser is pretty much a loser.  He could have been an Ian McEwan character, for he is totally, unequivocally selfish.  He's completely oblivious to events outside of his own small world, including the impending WWII, and only cares about his ever decreasing sex life.  Loeser only starts to look like a better human being when he is in the company of the other demented characters that populate this weird world. 

There's a haphazard nature to the book, in the way that Loeser keeps falling into trouble, but at the same time Beauman makes sure that everything that happens stays interconnected and relevant to the core story.  I also found that just because the setting and the year changes, it doesn't mean the story or Loeser will, turning The Teleportation Accident into a bizarre version of groundhog day. 

The ending, while wrapping everything up, is still a bit WTF?!? but after I finished I realised how glad I was I kept reading even though I wasn't keen on the first few pages.  It makes me wish that more of this sort of fiction would find a way onto the Man Booker Prize longlist/shortlist each year, proving that intelligent reads don't always have to be uptight and dreary.

Across the Universe

Amy has left the life she loves for a world 300 years away.

Trapped in space and frozen in time, Amy is bound for a new planet.  But fifty years before she's due to arrive, she is violently woken, the victim of an attempted murder.  Now Amy's lost on board and nothing makes sense - she's never felt so alone.

 

Yet someone is waiting for her.  He wants to protect her - and more if she'll let him.

But who can she trust amidst the secrets and lies?  A killer is out there - and Amy has nowhere to hide...

I am finding it hard to write a review of Across The Universe by Beth Revis.  I finished it two weeks ago, and I can't really remember any thoughts I had while reading.  Revis' tale was pleasant enough, and yay for a bit of SF YA, but there seemed to be something missing.

The only problem I can recall is that I wasn't as grabbed by Across the Universe as I wanted to be, finding it very easy to put it down and leave for a couple of days.  This could be because I didn't really care too much for one of the protagonists: 'daddy's girl' Amy.  I was very glad that the narration was split between her and Elder, as I don't think I could have stood for a whole 400 pages of Amy's inner thoughts. Although I wasn't so keen on her, one of the redeeming features of Across the Universe, for me, was the relationship between Elder and Amy.  I couldn't quite figure out if Revis was aiming for her characters to fall in love at first sight or for them to have an instant curiosity about something different.

Overall, I think there's more of me wanting to like this book than actually liking it for what's on the page.  However, I am still interested as to what will happen in the next book, and maybe that will be a chance to convince me that this series is better than it first appears...

Ascend

Wendy Everly can barely remember what it was like to feel like a normal girl.  She'd wished for her life to be different but everything is so much more complicated than she'd expected.  And she certainly hadn't dreamt she'd be getting married at eighteen to a man she didn't love - all for the sake of duty.

As the big day approaches, Wendy can't stop thinking about two different men - and neither of them are her husband-to-be.  Finn, quiet, strong and determined to do what's right, and Loki, dark and seductive - a sworn enemy who once saved her life...

With all out war just days away, Wendy needs to act quickly if she is to save her friends and family.  But while her loyalties and duties are to her people, deeper passions are leading her elsewhere.

And as her worlds collide Wendy must sacrifice everything she loves to save them.  But will it be enough?

WARNING: This review *might* be a bit spoilery.

Ascend is pretty much a good conclusion for Amanda Hocking's Trylle series.  It is all about growing up and how to make the right decision.   Most of the supporting characters get pushed aside in this book (with the exception of Willa, who is allowed some growth, too.) and it really is a chance to show how much Wendy has changed over the course of the series.  She is unrecognisable from the somewhat selfish person she was in book one.   Now an adult and making mature decisions not only about her kingdom but her love life, too.  There's still the annoying love triangle: Wendy's relationship with Loki grows over the course of the book, and her relationship with Finn deteriorates into something new.   I'm extremely glad Hocking didn't back track on the ideas she had put in place in Torn, as I think this would have ruined the entire series for me.

These books have never been about action, but about world building and character interaction.  Therefore, the climactic fight between the Vittra and the Trylle may have been short and sweet, but I did laugh at the Buffy-esque moment when Wendy finally gets the upper hand over her father. 

Right up until the last few chapters, I was content with how the series was wrapping up.  Then I started to notice the direction Hocking was corralling her characters in and I thought....oh balls.  The last moments I spent with Wendy and co. read like the epilogue in Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows.  I get the need for a happily ever after, but this was way too happy, way too neat and tidy.  Then there was the short story included in my edition.  Normally I sing the praises of these extra stories, but this time around Hocking further hammered home how twee and perfect everything was for the Trylle.  I'm not cruel...it's not like I wanted everything to turn out like one of Elora's last paintings, but maybe the ending could have been a touch more subtle?

Another problem I had was the contradiction of Wendy not wanting a one-night-stand with Finn, because it would only be for one night.  Flash forward to her saying a 100 pages later that she was okay reversing the situation when having a chance to sleep with Loki.  Was this a case of double standards or was this intentional because things would eventually work themselves out?

Overall,  I'm not sad that this was the last book.  I think there's room for more stories (perhaps from a different narrator?), but everyone is in their perfect happy bubble, so maybe they should be left that way.

Legend

Los Angeles, California, Republic of America.

He is Day, the boy who walks in the light.

She is June, the girl who seeks her brother's killer.

On the run and undercover, they meet by chance.  Irresistibly drawn together neither knows the other's past.  But Day murdered June's brother and she has sworn to avenge his death...

I saw Legend on so many TTT lists last year that I had to know what all the fuss was about.

While I enjoyed Marie Lu's dystopian tale, I could have done without the smoochies.  It just read like this: "Oh I find you attractive, now I must save youuuuu!".  I know I'm a grinch, but Lu had developed more than enough to bind Day and June together.  Without the romance there would have been a far more interesting dynamic between the two of them and how they represent the same ideals whilst having completely different backgrounds.

Other than that one disappointment, I was astounded and fascinated with the world that Lu had created.  Maybe I haven't had my share of Dystopian novels yet, so I'm still pretty amazed that writers can come up with all these different post-apocalyptic situations.  I'm not surprised that the film rights have already been snapped up.

I'm still interested to see how Lu will develop her characters, and expand the world outside the Republic, when book two in the planned trilogy, Prodigy, is released at the end of the month.

Divergent

This is the blurb on the back of my copy:

One choice decides your friends.

One choice defines your beliefs.

One choice determines your loyalties - forever.

One choice can transform you.

Bit vague, huh?  For those wanting a bit more info, here's the blurb from waterstones.com:

She turns to the future in a world that's falling apart. For sixteen-year-old Tris, the world changes in a heartbeat when she is forced to make a terrible choice. Turning her back on her family, Tris ventures out, alone, determined to find out where she truly belongs. Shocked by the brutality of her new life, Tris can trust no one. And yet she is drawn to a boy who seems to both threaten and protect her. The hardest choices may yet lie ahead...A debut novel that will leave you breathless.

 

 

It has been a week since I finished reading Divergent.  I tried to hold off writing a review straight away as I instantly came away thinking that not a lot happened story-wise.  However, if this had been true, I wouldn't have felt so compelled to keep on reading Veronica Roth's dystopian YA novel.  While Divergent could never be compared to the works of speculation fiction genius Margaret Atwood ( but then I wasn't looking for another Onyx and Crake, I was looking for a end of holiday read), it had a good momentum and interesting characters.  The first in a planned trilogy, it suffers slightly from having to build a world, so very different to our own, with so many rules, but is a great introduction nonetheless.

What stood out for me, and what was ultimately gratifying, was that Tris wasn't a typical YA narrator.  She wasn't perfect, or helpless and she wasn't unaware of her stunning beauty, waiting for a boy to notice this and save her from the big bad evil world.  Tris has plenty of major flaws, her pride and selfishness to name only two, and I liked how Roth explored this young girl's desire to do not only the right thing, but what was also in her best interests.  Of course there was the obligatory romance, but I'll let it slide as it wasn't love at first sight.  Roth aptly decided that this romance, and the feelings of her two characters, would be shown through their actions rather than just told through their exclamations and thoughts of all conquering love.

I've already ordered Insurgent from the library and I'm hoping that now all the introductions are out of the way, and the characters have been established, that there will be a stronger storyline in place and that the series reaches its full potential. 

 

Gone Girl

Just how well can you ever know the person you love?  This is the question that Nick Dunne must ask himself on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears.  The police immediately suspect Nick.  Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him.  He swears it isn't true.  A police examination of his computer shows strange searches.  He says they aren't his.  And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone.  So what really did happen to Nick's beautiful wife?


Gillian Flynn has one dark mind as Gone Girl is a boat load of crazy.  The narration is split into two, alternating between Nick's thoughts while searching for his wife and Amy's diary entries that reveal more about their marriage than Nick will share.  Right from the start each section of prose has this jittery quality which promptly informed me that this was not going to be a bog standard thriller.  Sure enough, the further I followed Flynn down the rabbit hole that is Amy Dunne's disappearance, the more intense my feelings for the book became.
  I don't want to go into any detail so as to spoil Gone Girl, but it has so many twists, some obvious, some not, and by the end it is hard to know who to empathise with.  A great well paced story, that has some truly horrific moments, I was up until 2 am two nights in a row reading this noir-esque thriller desperate to know what happened next. 

Sweet Tooth

Serena Frome, the beautiful daughter of an Anglican bishop, has a brief affair with an older man during her final year at Cambridge, and finds herself being groomed for the intelligence services.  The year is 1972.  Britain, confronting economic disaster, is being torn apart by industrial unrest and terroism and faces its fifth state of emergency.  The Cold War has entered a moribund phase, but the fight goes on, especially the cultural sphere.
Serena, a compulsive reader of novels, is sent on a 'secret mission' which brings her into the literary world of Tom Haley, a promising young writer.  First she loves his stories, then she begins to love the man.  Can she maintain the fiction of her undercover life?  And who is inventing whom?  To answer these questions, Serena must abandon the first rule of espionage - trust no one.

  While Sweet Tooth is not my favourite Ian McEwan novel - Atonement holds that title - I still enjoyed reading about Serena Frome and her time at the CIA in the 1970's.  So far, all of the characters that I have encountered in McEwan's books have interesting jobs but are messes as human beings, making them hard to emphasise with, but McEwan has a brilliant way of manipulating the story that you want to follow these selfish and sometimes despicable people further into their story.  Although I found the narration a little 'off', I enjoyed reading about Serena whose faults include, but are not limited to, being too proud and self involved.  She is a product of her time and upbringing, stumbling through, and is always identified through what men think of her.  When reading, I had this feeling that if the book was told from another character's perspective it would be something completely different because of Serena's selfish nature, only seeing what she wants to. 

  As with a story about spies there is a lot of duplicity. Serena's job at MI5 is just a mask for her love of literature, as the M15 elements of the book are are mask for the meta musings on literature.  I especially found the ending fascinating, and really clever, as it gave me a new perspective on the novel as a whole.

Enduring Love

One windy spring day in the Chilterns, Jose Rose's calm, organised life is shattered by a ballooning accident.  The afternoon, Rose reflects, could have ended in mere tragedy but for his brief meeting with Jed Parry.  Unknown to Rose, something passes between them - something that gives birth in Parry to an obsession so powerful that it will test to the limits Rose's beloved scientific rationalism, threaten the love of his wife Clarissa and drive him to the brink of murder and madness.

 

Enduring Love didn't capture my attention, much to my dismay.   I have loved reading every other Ian McEwan book that I could get my mitts on (Attonement, Saturday, Amsterdam, Sweet Tooth, Solar) but I couldn't continue reading this tale of obsession for any prolonged amounts of time.

  Maybe I have been in an odd mood for the past week, or maybe I found the
prose alienating. Rose rattles on like an elitist madman about his scientific
beliefs for much of the book. I know this was supposed to add to the confusion
and cement Rose as a character but I was only interested in finding out who was
the madman - Rose or Parry? - and couldn't really engage with Joe and his
plight. This is odd, as normally McEwan can make the most detestable characters
readable and interesting. I'm not denying that Enduring Love is a good read, it just wasn't a good read for me.

Seven Wonders

Tony Prosdocimi lives in the bustling metropolis of San Ventura - a city utterly gripped by fear, a city under siege by the hooded supervillain, the Cowl.
  When Tony develops super-powers and acts to take down the Cowl, however, he finds that the local superhero team, the Seven Wonders, aren't anything like as grateful as he had assumed they would be...

 Adam Christopher's homage to the super hero genre could never be accused of being dull.  Seven Wonders is jammed packed with action sequences and various characters that you'd normally find in various graphic novels - some have gloriously funny names - and all of the core players have their chance to shine and their potential explored.
  
  My scatter brain benefited from the overall structure of short chapters that proceeded rather long ones and I also felt that the jumps in narration allowed more freedom to explore how certain characters viewed themselves and then how others viewed them which further emphasised the central theme that power corrupts, even if you don't intend for that to happen...Seven Wonders is exactly as advertised, yet it never keeps in the direction you think it's going to head in.  I thought I had it all figured out and then half way in everything changed!  A fantastic stand-alone novel (but in true superhero fashion, the ending leaves plenty open for a sequel) that would be a great Christmas gift!    

The Other Life

3 years, 1 month, 1 week and 6 days since I’d seen daylight. One-fifth of my life. 98,409,602 seconds since the heavy, steel door had fallen shut and sealed us off from the world

Sherry has lived with her family in a sealed bunker since things went wrong up above. But when they run out of food, Sherry and her dad must venture outside. There they find a world of devastation, desolation...and the Weepers: savage, mutant killers.

When Sherry's dad is snatched, she joins forces with gorgeous but troubled Joshua - an Avenger, determined to destroy the Weepers.

But can Sherry keep her family and Joshua safe, when his desire for vengeance threatens them all?

The Other Life is packed full of teen speculative fiction cliches, including my pet hate of a burgeoning romance between the two leads which normally causes me to scream, "why can they never just be friends?" and then throw the book across the room for good measure!  However; against all odds, I found Susanne Winnacker's debut novel to be a great read.

Susanne Winnacker knows how to spin a good yarn, and The Other Life's success lies in it's pacing.  She explains a lot, and yet there's always something going on, propelling Sherry deeper into the rabbit hole, and I found myself literally unable to put this book down.  I think what I loved most were the Weepers; people who had been infected with a strain of rabies that had killed the other half of the population.  They are a clever way of not using your average zombie in this post-outbreak wasteland and I liked that they all looked different apart from their human-like weeping eyes.  Very unsettling!

I also have to mention, as I always do, that the cover work is beautifully creepy (look at that moth a bit closer) and extends to inside the book as well, with the barbed wire trailing across the chapter headers.  The last couple chapters take the story in a different direction, and I hope that will be explored in the second book of the series, due out spring next year.  So, if you can, get you hands on a copy if only to stare at that lovely cover!

Amped

Twenty-nine-year-old Owen Gray always believed the miraculous device in his brain had been implanted for purely medical reasons, as a way of controlling the debilitating seizures he suffered in his youth.  But when the Supreme Court rules that 'amplified' humans like Owen are not protected by the same basic laws as pure humans, his world instantly fractures.  As society begins to unravel and a new class war is ignited by fear, Owen's father, a doctor who originally implanted the 'amp', confides something that will send him on a harrowing journey - and he is now in grave danger.
  All roads lead to a dusty community in rural Oklahoma, where Owen must find the one man who can explain what is really in his head.  There he also meets Lyle Crosby, a dangerous and unpredictable leader of the fast-growing 'amp' movement, someone whose stunning physical abilities and ruthless ideas show Owen how to harness his own startling gifts - but threaten to draw him into a world from which there may be no moral return.


The blurb for Amped sounds so good doesn't it? I haven't read Daniel H. Wilson's other novel Robopocalypse, but have been tempted many times to purchase it.  However; after reading Amped that compulsion has completely died.
 
The first few pages start off great, and I was devouring the story at a fast pace, but after Owen ends up on the lamb my interest in this book soon disintegrated and I couldn't for ages figure out why.  It's not that Amped isn't based on a great idea, or that any of the technical jargon went overboard - I do think that Wilson's primary strength is incorporating his vast knowledge of robotics into the text - however; the whole thing is just soulless.

My main problem was that Wilson's lead character Owen reads as being completely 2-dimensional and only existing for the purpose of this stand-alone story.  Was this Wilson's intent?  To make 'Amped' characters seem less human because they have been altered?  Well, if that is the case, then I think he succeeded.  It's a shame, as with some tweaking, Amped could have become something completely different, something a lot more thrilling and attention grabbing but unfortunately it's just a generic, bland piece of speculative fiction.    

Heart Shaped Bruise

I've seen this on a couple of blogs, yet I didn't set out to read it, but it was another a case of it catching my eye in the library and me thinking why not?

They say I'm evil. The police. The newspapers. The girls from school who shake their heads on the six o’clock news and say they always knew there was something not quite right about me. And everyone believes it. Including you. But you don't know. You don't know who I used to be.

Who I could have been.

Awaiting trial at Archway Young Offenders Institution, Emily Koll is going to tell her side of the story for the first time.

Heart-Shaped Bruise is a compulsive and moving novel about infamy, identity and how far a person might go to seek revenge.

Heart-Shaped Bruise is a YA Crime/Thriller, probably a good introduction for budding crime novel devourers.  The only problem I had, and this may be a tad spoilery, was that I found myself waiting for a twist that never came.  There were too many coincidences for me and I was expecting something a little more complex from the ending.  Still I read it in one sitting.  Tanya Byrne's writing style is definitely compelling, and in Emily she has created a brittle and fascinating character, that perhaps deserved a better story to inhabit.  So, while Heart-Shaped Bruise is not a bad read, and I would recommend it, it is just not what I expected.

Hollow Earth

Twins Matt and Emily Calder have imaginations so powerful that they can make art come to life.  Their powers are sought by villains intent on accessing the terrors of Hollow Earth - a place where all the devils, demons and monsters ever imagined lie trapped for eternity.  If Hollow Earth is breached, the world will be plunged into chaos.  If Hollow Earth is breached... ...the twins are as good as dead.

 

I picked this up on a whim.  I'd seen an interview with John and Carole on This Morning promoting Hollow Earth and it sounded interesting enough so I figured if they had it in the library I might as well order it and check it out.

 

At first Hollow Earth reads like a stereotypically badly written novel for pre-teens, but once it gets past the introductions and leaves London behind, the story turns into an interesting and quirky quick read.  The Barrowman's seem to have found a good balance between explaining and showing, as I never felt that the story was being dragged by exposition.  The characters may not be original, but their heritage is, and as the story develops they progress from angst ridden pre-teens into curious and somewhat responsible protagonists that I wouldn't mind following for a couple more books.