How fun is it when you’re handed, not one but two, books in a series for a gift? I had the absolute joy of becoming the proud owner of Slated and Fractured by Teri Terry this November.

I’d been eyeing the books off for quite a while, but as I am an extremely visual person, I didn’t really connect with the cover art. I am pleased to say this is definitely on the ‘don’t judge a book by it’s cover’ list. The journey within both books isn’t given an iota of a clue with the cover.

Could you imagine waking up, unable to walk, talk or remember who you are, or were? Nightmarish right? Now picture the whole reason you can’t remember being because you’ve been wiped clean like a slate, as punishment for criminal activity you can not even remember. But what if you began to remember?

Enter Kyla’s internal nightmare as she learns the crushing truth behind the government’s protocol known as slating, and in book two, Fractured, she discovers the reality of how she got there in the first place.

I ploughed through these two rather large novels in under 4 days. They are completely engrossing and incredibly addictive. Don’t bee too surprised if you find the book leaking into your dreams and has you staring out the window when you’re not reading.

The things I enjoyed the most would have to be the family and friend dynamics, the relationships between the Slated and the non slated, adult to child. We are constantly having to blur the line between what we would consider to be acceptable and what’s beyond not okay.

You’ll have to make up your own mind as to if you think reactions are rational or within believable limits, but I think if I had a consequence like being slated ahead of me I’d become less opinionated pretty damn quick.

Teri Terry has spun an incredible web and her hero has a dangerous sting in her tail.

Book three, Shattered is due in March 2014, and this time I will not hesitate to pick it up.

Slated

Paperback, 448 pages

Published May 3rd 2012 by Orchard Books

ISBN 1408319462 (ISBN13: 9781408319468)

Fractured

Paperback, 432 pages

Published April 4^th 2013 by Orchard Books

ISBN 148319489 (ISBN13: 9781408319482)

I know a lot of you aren’t going to like what I’m about to write, but maybe some of you will agree with me. I can easily say that I really enjoyed Legend, and there’s no doubt about it. But I can also say that the cover doesn’t do the story inside justice.

It’s true that the cover does incorporate various aspects of the story, but I feel there are endless possibilities and that the cover could have been much more eye catching that it is.

On the other hand, how crazy amazing was Legend?! Day and June are totally kickbutt! And OH so perfect for each other!! I love that this story was told in both of their points of view. The reader got the chance to get into both of their heads and see what they’re thinking and how they’re living their lives.

Legend weaves back and forth between the lives of Day and June, who live in the same world, but on completely different ends. While June is the baby sister of a high ranking soldier, Day is viewed as a criminal. June has perfect scores, is enrolled in a military academy and is living a good life. Day is legally dead, hiding in the slums, hoping to steal any food, and medicine to provide for his brothers and mom.

At the age of ten every child has to take a test called the Trials, scoring them on their intelligence and physical ability. The score they receive decides what kind of lifestyle they will be living in their future. If they’re scores are high (like June’s) their life will be comfortable. But if their scores are low (like Day’s) they are sent to working camps.

A civil war is rising between the rich and poor. More and more of the poor are dying due to a plague, while the rich go on living their lives with the cure.

When June’s brother is brutally murdered, she sets out to find his killer and get revenge. She heads to the poor lands of her society, knowing she has nothing left to lose. Her brother meant everything to her, and was always there for her, even when their parents weren’t.

Day is struggling with his own problems. He has a risky plan to steal the plague cure and return to his baby brother who is coming down with the sickness. His plan doesn’t run as smoothly as he hoped because Day isn’t sure, but he thinks he might have killed a soldier on his way out of the hospital. 

Day and June bump into each during a street fight. Day takes in June, and they both start to have feelings for one another. June soon finds out who Day really is, and what he did. And can’t believe she was distracted by her feelings.

But the couple soon realizes everything isn’t what it seems. The world they are living in is a lie. The government, the Trials, the plague – everything is a lie. Day and June know what is REALLY going on, and need to do something about it.

Overall Legend was totally bad (…ass, that is!) and I already added Prodigy and Champion to my Christmas wishlist! Day and June were everything and more that I was hoping for in two main characters in this type of society dealing with these types of issues! I think that it’s extremely interesting that the world they live in is very comparable to the world we’re living in. Each person is sorted and filed by their physical ability and intelligence, but in Legend it’s is much more obvious.

Dying to read the rest of the series!

Alone in a hospital room, a sixteen year old girl tells her story to a digital recorder. It is not a fairy-tale…

Jenna Lord’s life has not been easy. At eight she was caught in a house fire that almost killed her, and she still bears the scars. Her brother, the only person that she could rely on, shipped out to Iraq to escape their controlling parents and left her alone. Now, living with parents who are more caught up in their problems than concerned about her, Jenna is about to start a new school.

She’s terrified. And then she meets Mitch Anderson. He is gorgeous, caring and confident. And he’s her teacher. Before she knows it, events begin spiralling wildly out of control.

Drowning Instinct is one of those books that leave you without a clear emotional response. Rather than a black and white, cut and dried sort of a feeling of love or hatred, it leaves a conglomeration of swirling greys in its wake. It’s the kind of book too, that would mean different things to a person at different points in their life. If I’d read it as a teen I might have thought it vaguely romantic; as an adult, though, I find it intensely creepy. Either way, there’s no denying that it’s beautifully written.

The subject matters contained within it are not so beautiful. Jenna is a somewhat reformed cutter. She still thinks about cutting all the time and keeps a pair of scissors handy so that her options are open. Her mother is alcoholic and depressive. Her father is a philandering control freak. Actually, everyone in this book is pretty messed up. Is it a love story? No; more a story about people struggling to function and latching on to anyone that they can so that they don’t sink.

It shows a gritty and harsh reality that sadly does exist for some people, and that is the strength of this novel. Given the environment Jenna was raised in, she’s heart-breakingly vulnerable. Every layer of protection that a sixteen year old would normally have has been stripped away. Her brother has left, her parents don’t know how to care and she doesn’t have the confidence to know her own worth. Or to be able to say no to the only affection that she is being offered.

While readers can feel for Jenna, the novel does fall into the category of mistaking pain and sorrow for character. She’s come from bad circumstances, Mitch has come from bad circumstances; but their pasts don’t make them better or more interesting people. They are inherently weak. Mitch goes through the motions of doing the right thing and being the good guy, but will ultimately break morals, ethics and laws to get what he wants. Jenna doesn’t even manage to look like she’s doing the right thing. She’ll help the people who can make her feel wanted, and forget the ones who can’t.

This definitely isn’t a fairy-tale. There is no prince – nor any princess. Just a lost and lonely girl who is too young to realise that the choice she thinks she’s making isn’t a choice at all. It’s a lifetime of destruction funnelling her into the next cycle. It’s not a happy read; we know this from the outset, but it is raw and desperately bleak.

While the story can be predictable and the plot leans heavily on coincidence, this is a book that explores the world through the eyes of an unlikely protagonist. As such, it’s fresh and brings up some interesting questions that don’t have ready answers.

Drowning Instinct – Ilsa Bick

Quercus Books (February 1, 2012)

ISBN: 9781780870434

“Solving the Maze was supposed to be the end. No more puzzles. No more variables. And no more running. Thomas was sure that escape meant he and the Gladers would get their lives back. But no one really knew what sort of life they were going back to.

In the Maze, life was easy. They had food, and shelter, and safety . . . until Teresa triggered the end. In the world outside the Maze, however, the end was triggered long ago.

Burned by sun flares and baked by a new, brutal climate, the earth is a wasteland. Government has disintegrated—and with it, order—and now Cranks, people covered in festering wounds and driven to murderous insanity by the infectious disease known as the Flare, roam the crumbling cities hunting for their next victim . . . and meal.

The Gladers are far from finished with running. Instead of freedom, they find themselves faced with another trial. They must cross the Scorch, the most burned-out section of the world, and arrive at a safe haven in two weeks. And WICKED has made sure to adjust the variables and stack the odds against them.

Thomas can only wonder—does he hold the secret of freedom somewhere in his mind? Or will he forever be at the mercy of WICKED?”

 There was so much hype around this series every time another instalment was released, and it seemed like everyone was talking about them. And no wonder! There was not one slow moment throughout this entire book, and throughout The Maze Runner. If you haven’t started this trilogy, you need to ASAP!

The Scorch Trials begins right where The Maze Runner ends. The Gladers have just escaped the maze, but now are facing their next challenges; the world that’s falling down around them, and the Flare, to name a few.

After their arrival, the Gladers wake up to a (clean) man sitting at a desk behind a clear protective shield. He is here to tell the group about their next test; go 100 miles across the desert within two weeks. To get the Gladers to take this seriously, the man tells them that each and every one of them is infected with the Flare, and if they make the distance they will be granted the cure.

This story was so intense, mysterious and crazy! This group of teenagers has no memory of who they are, or what is going on around them. And the reader only knows what the Gladers know.

Besides every page being filled with action and mystery, there was also a lot of character development. The reader was re-introduced to the characters who survived the maze (I won’t be giving anything away, go read the book!) and to a few new ones. Thomas is still the smart and friendly leader we got to know in the first book, but within the second segment we see him facing some difficult situations. Thomas really pulls himself and the Gladers through a lot of tough times. Teresa seemed to be the girl for Thomas in The Maze Runner, but she does a few things, that completely change and spin the minds of readers. I was unsure whose side she’s on!

The new characters we got to meet were Brenda and Jorge, two people that the Gladers bumped into, and decided to bring along for the Gladers sake, and theirs. The two join the ride, in hopes of getting the cure as well. Brenda has Thomas questioning his love for Teresa as he starts to have feelings for her, so I’m excited to see how that works out and who Thomas picks.

I couldn’t believe how action packed this book was, and how much more I enjoyed the characters, even though I already loved them in The Maze Runner! I can’t wait to start reading the third and finally book! Who knows what James Dashner will have in store for both me and the Gladers.

P.S. Does anyone know if they are making these into movies?

Moving to a new high school sucks. Especially a rich-kid private school. With uniforms. But nothing is worse than finding out the first girl you meet is dead. And a klepto.

No one can see or hear Kimberlee except Jeff, so–in hopes of bringing an end to the snarkiest haunting in history–he agrees to help her complete her “unfinished business.” But when the enmity between Kimberlee and Jeff’s new crush, Sera, manages to continue posthumously, Jeff wonders if he’s made the right choice.

Clash meets sass in this uproarious modern-day retelling of Baroness Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Kindle Edition, 352 pages

Published April 30th 2013 by HarperTeen

Jeff is the new kid in school and has had some trouble getting noticed and making friends. When he begins to anonymously return missing property from a long ago fiasco. Most people are grateful, some are upset, and for others like Sera, old unwanted memories return.

The first person that Jeff encounters as a friend at his new school is a ghost. A ghost that in life stole everything she could get her hands on and hid them in a cave. She thinks she is stuck on Earth for her past actions and with the help of Jeff, they slowly begin to return the property she has stolen.

During the course of the story Jeff does gain some friends through the connection of the property and love connection with Sera, who has some secrets of her own.

Kimberlee is a really mean girl. She is vindictive, holds a grudge and always uses payback against others to make herself feel better. Jeff on the other hand is shy and very loyal person. The two personalities really clash in the story which brings most of the humor to the novel.

Kimberlee does grow the most throughout this book. The connection between Jeff and Sera is truly sincere and slowly grows throughout the story – it was my favorite part. Jeff is such an honest and devoted person.

Life After Theft has a great combination of characters, a unique ghost story and relationships that are life altering. It’s amazing how one small act can change a life.