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.

Pure

We know you are here, our brothers and sisters . . .

Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost-how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.

 

Burn a Pure and Breathe the Ash . . .

There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked. Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different. He thinks about loss-maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter. Or maybe it's his claustrophobia: his feeling that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. So when a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her.

 

When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.

Jullianna Baggot has created a speculative young-adult novel that doesn't lack in imaginative content.  While at times dialogue may jar, and aspects of the plot fall into familiar YA territory, there is still plenty of features within the text that redeem Pure and set it apart from other offerings in the sub genre.

What stood out for me was that Baggot doesn't talk down to her YA audience.  She explains about the possibility of a nuclear war, and provides an option of what the aftermath could be like, but the only problem with Pure is that there is too much talking and not enough action. Maybe, as part of a trilogy, the second instalment will be more action led now that the damaged world both inside and out of the Dome has been established.

Intrusion

I love the cover for this book but, by now, I should have realisd the prettier the cover the higher the chance the content inside isn't as good.  Not only does Intrusion have a striking cover, but an interesting blurb to match:

Imagine a near-future London where advances in medical science have led to the development of a single-dose pill which, taken when pregnant, eradicates many common genetic defects from an unborn baby.
Hope Morrison, mother of a hyperactive four-year-old, is expecting her second child. She refuses to take The Fix, as the pill is known. Her refusal divides her family and friends and puts her and her husband in danger of imprisonment or worse.
Is Hope's decision a private matter of individual choice, or is it tantamount to wilful neglect of her unborn child?

I wasn't left with a good impression and, having read it only a couple of weeks ago, can't remember exactly what took place within the pages.  There was something lacking, a vagueness that clouded over the whole of the book so that I remained detachted.  It tried to hard to be a commentary on the big brother society, but Intrusion couldn't decide if it wanted to be specualative or full blown sci fi.  The characters were not engaging either; like Christine not having a reason for declining a fix, I could find no reason to empathise with the Morrisons or the other characters.  The only exeception were the segments on unfair profiling, but these too got lost.  A bit of a muddle, and a shame it couldn't be as good as the cover suggested.