Socialpunk

Socialpunk, by Monica Leonelle.

On the one hand, she needed Nasser's hash and she promised she would do what he wanted if he helped her save Dash. On the other hand, she would never fall in love again, never explore the beginnings of feelings with Nahum, never have a chance to help Dash change his mind about her.

Not that it mattered with Dash; Cinder knew in her heart that her best friend just didn't love her like that. Maybe aligning herself with Nasser would be for the best. Maybe he would keep her from getting her heart broken again And she could do something real for once in her life, something important. She could be someone her hash depended on; she could balance out Nasser's not-so-brilliant moments, and she could help him keep them all safe.

Socialpunk is the first novel in the Socialpunk series, a new series by author Monica Leonelle, and a blogger friend of mine received an email asking for reviewers for it, which she then forwarded to me. I love dystopian literature, and Socialpunk definitely qualifies; it's a mix of The Hunger Games and the movie In Time, among other books and movies, in my opinion, and it catches your attention from its opening paragraphs.

The novel is a little hard to explain, so I'm going to use the synopsis from Goodreads instead:
Ima would give anything to escape The Dome and learn what’s beyond its barriers, but the Chicago government has kept all its citizens on lockdown ever since the Scorched Years left most of the world a desert wasteland. When a mysterious group of hooded figures enters the city unexpectedly, Ima uncovers a plot to destroy The Dome and is given the choice between escaping to a new, dangerous city or staying behind and fighting a battle she can never win.

That's a little bit simplified, but it's basically the gist of it. Ima, aka "E," soon finds out that the world she considered her own is actually fake - an experiment - and she must go back to The Dome and save her friend Dash, before all of the residents of The Dome die.

The novel was very interesting; I will definitely be checking out Socialmob (Socialpunk #2) when it is released in July. The book is nonstop action throughout, and I started reading it today on my smartphone during a work break (I had a digital copy of it) and finished it just now on my iPad - it's that quick of a read. My only complaint about it is that the ending is very abrupt, as another reviewer also complained about, but I suppose that any loose ends can be tied up during the next book in the series.

3.5 out of 5 stars.

*Disclosure: I received an e-copy of this novel to review. The opinions listed, however, are my own.

The author is doing a giveaway, as well! Sign up below to enter:
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Born Wicked

Born Wicked (The Cahill Witch Chronicles, Book 1) by Jessica Spotswood.

"Aren't you bored silly, Cate? I know I am. If I didn't have my novels, I'd throw myself right in the river." Maura's eyes snap as she stands and stretches, the fabric pulling tight through the bodice. She needs new dresses to fit her new curves. "What life do we have here, wandering around the house like ghosts? Don't you ever crave more?"

Do I? It's been years since I let myself consider what I want. It hardly matters. I didn't want Mother to die; I didn't want Father to turn into a shadow of his old self; I didn't want the responsibility of policing my sisters. I certainly never wanted to be a witch in the first place.

The universe has yet to take my wishes under consideration.

Watch out, YA books, there's a new star in town: Jessica Spotswood. Born Wicked is the first book (of what I hope is many) in The Cahill Witch Chronicles, and although the novel started off a bit confusing, I was soon enthralled in the story.

The year is 1896, and Cate's intention ceremony is coming up soon. In six weeks, she must decide if she wants to join the Sisterhood - a cloistered group of religious women who live in the city, New London - or announce her engagement to a man. Her childhood friend, Paul, returns from studying in the city, and she can tell that he is going to ask her to marry him. However, although Paul is a good friend, she finds herself more attracted to the gardner, Finn Belastra. At the same time, she must deal with hiding her witch powers - as well of those that her two sisters have - from the Brotherhood, the group of men that governs them and carts off witches either to the insane asylum or to their deaths. Cate also finds out about a powerful prophecy that might be talking about her and her sisters, as it talks about a group of three sisters, and she must figure out if she is the "most powerful witch" in the prophecy too.

This book was great and I can't wait for the second installment. The writing was excellent and the characters were definitely relatable, even though it takes place around the turn of the 20th century. The scenes with Cate and Finn are some of the best in the book, and the arrival of a new governess, Elena, stirs up some trouble as well. Things also pick up when Cate discovers other "secret" witches in town, and learns to improve her powers by working with them. Although the ending was not what I expected it to be, I can see why the author made it so, and I'm hoping that this will make for an interesting Book 2 in the series.

4.5 stars out of 5.

*Disclosure: I read this book for the BlogHer Book Club and was compensated for doing so. However, the opinions listed here are my own.

Book trailer:

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The Boiling Season

The Boiling Season, by Christopher Hebert.

She continued to look out the window, seemingly deep in thought. And then she turned to me with a puzzled expression. "I'm surprised that you don't have more compassion. These are your people, after all."

"My people?" I said. Could she really not see the differences between them and me? I stammered on for a moment, but I saw no way to correct her without giving offense. All I shared with such ignorant people was an island. I did not see how the accident of my birth in this time and place compelled me toward loyalty with others simply because they share the same fate. If I must be assigned a people, why could those people not be Senator and Mme Marcus instead? Or even Mme Freeman herself? People who had worked hard to achieve their success.

Imagine my surprise when I received a copy of this novel and saw that two of my former professors at the University of Michigan, Laura Kasischke and Peter Ho Davies, had written two out of the six "blurbs" on the back of the book. I soon learned that Christopher Hebert is an alum of U of M's MFA program, which is very hard to get in to (I was rejected, as I was one of 800 applicants that year, with 10 fiction writers ultimately chosen). It comes as no surprise, then, to quickly find that The Boiling Season was a very good read.

The book is complicated and has many layers, so to save some time here's the synopsis from the publisher:

"Alexandre wants more from life than the gang-controlled slums of his childhood can offer. At nineteen he finds work as valet to an important senator, and ambitiously parlays that position into one as caretaker of a derelict estate being developed by a wealthy American businesswoman. Alexandre's new home in the mountains outside the capital affords him sanctuary from the turmoil wrought by the dictatorial regime that controls the country. But, eventually, he can no longer keep the encroaching civil war at bay. Helpless when his utopia is invaded by an armed gang of the very slum-dwellers he has worked so hard to escape, he must choose between preserving his paradise and protecting his people."

Although the novel starts when Alexandre is 19, near the end of it he is entering his 40s or 50s, it's fascinating to see how much happens to him and to "his" estate during that time. I was actually thinking that the novel could be made into the movie, and then I started thinking about casting, but the author himself has already beat me to the punch: he wrote a blog post about actors he would like to see play his characters. He suggests Don Cheadle for Alexandre, but I was actually thinking more like Demian Bichir, from A Better Life, even though he is Spanish and not Haitian or African American. Hebert also suggests Anthony Mackie for Dragon Guy, one of the revolutionists in the novel, which I could definitely imagine.

4 stars out of 5.

*Disclosure: I received a copy of this novel to review. The opinions listed, however, are my own.

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What Do You Want To Do Before You Die?

What Do You Want To Do Before You Die?, by The Buried Life.
(Jonnie Penn, Dave Lingwood, Duncan Penn, and Ben Nemtin)

This book is a little more unusual than others I've reviewed here, in that it's more of a collection of pictures, with some short stories weaved in, rather than a novel.

The book is by The Buried Life, a group of young guys who have become a phenomenon. In 2007, they came up with a list of things they want to do or accomplish before dying, and set out on a road trip to try and cross some things off their list (#19 on the list, by the way, is to write a bestselling book). So far they have accomplished about 80 of the things on the list, including playing (basket)ball with President Obama and #66, walking a red carpet, in which they snuck onto the red carpet of the VMAs (Video Music Awards).

I had never heard of The Buried Life before reviewing this book, but they have an avid following, looking at their Facebook page, and they actually used the "sneak footage" of them at the VMAs to pitch a show about themselves to MTV, ironically. These guys are also big-hearted: for each "task" that they accomplished, they try to help others live their dreams as well. The book is a compilation of stories from their "bucket list" and words from others about what they would have on their lists, with illustrations accompanying it, and is definitely a good "coffee table" book, as the pages are glossy and colorful.

I read this book in about an hour, so it won't take you long to get through; you might find yourself re-reading it, however, when you want to motivate yourself or perhaps make a "bucket list" of your own.

What Do You Want To Do Before You Die? will be in stores on March 27th.

*Disclaimer: I was given a copy of this book to review. The opinions listed, however, are my own.

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Out of Sight, Out of Time

Out of Sight, Out of Time, by Ally Carter (Gallagher Girls book #5).

It wasn't like we talked a lot. But then again, it's not like there was all that much left to say. We'd seen things. We'd done things. And I wasn't the only one who was still waiting for me to come home from my summer vacation.

I leaned over the sink and let Bex wash and bleach my hair. Then Macey took the scissors and trimmed away my dead, uneven ends. I sat, letting my best friends work around me, watching as the person I had been last summer washed away down the drain.

When I received an email asking me to review this book, I knew it was book 5 in the series, and I had not read any of the books. I had, however, read Heist Society by Ally Carter, which was very good. I  rented the first four Gallagher Girls books from the library, and immediately got hooked. The newest installment, Out of Sight, Out of Time, is much darker than the previous ones, in that in this installment, our heroine Cammie Morgan wakes up in a convent in Austria and has no memory of her summer at all. The last thing she remembers is leaving the Gallagher Academy to go search for the Circle of Cavan, an evil group that was trying to kidnap her. She wakes up with no memory of the past four months or so, dyed hair, and dirt under her fingernails.

She calls her mother (who is also the headmistress of the school) and is brought back to the Academy, where her friends have been worried sick about her. Cammie must figure out what exactly she did over the summer, and how she ended up at the convent in Austria.

This book was so good that I read it in about two hours. Seriously. My only regret is that now I will have to wait a while for the next installment; as in all of her Gallagher Girls books, Ally Carter gives us an ending that foreshadows the next book. I will caution you that this is not really a "stand alone" book, at least if you want to understand the nuances of all of the relationships going on - definitely read the first four books before reading this one - but even if you had not read any of the other ones, the spy stuff in it alone is enough to keep a reader interested.

5 stars out of 5.

*Disclosure: I was a given a copy of this book to review. The opinions listed, however, are my own.

And the "trailer" for the novel is pretty awesome as well:

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Ship of Souls

Ship of Souls, by Zetta Elliott.

Right after Christmas a blizzard hit the city. This lady on our block went into labor, but the streets weren't plowed, so she couldn't get to the hospital. She tried walking through all that snow but only made it as far as our building. She has the baby right there in the lobby with the help of some of our neighbors. They called an ambulance, but it never came and the baby died. All because of a blizzard. I never told my mom. She was upstairs "dying with dignity." At least that's what Marva and the hospice lady said. To me, it looked like Mom was just too tired and weak to wake up.

Ship of Souls is about D, a bright young man whose mother has recently died. He is put in foster care but soon adopted by Mrs. Martin, an "elderly white woman" who takes good care of him. She soon adopts Mercy, though, a baby who was born addicted to crack, and soon D often becomes second priority. D starts to tutor Hakeem, one of the school "jocks," and he also meets Nyla, one of the prettiest girls in school. D soon finds a bird in Prospect Park that isn't exactly what he looks like - for one, this bird can talk - and he and his friends must help the bird on its quest without becoming harmed.

This novel - more of a novella, since it's only 120 pages long - features interesting characters, including Nuru, the talking bird; however, I'm not a huge fan of "sci-fi," so it probably wouldn't be a book I would normally pick up. The cover, too, is a bit menacing: it has a picture of hands holding a bird with blood-red eyes, and almost reminded me of something voodoo-esque. For YA readers who like sci-fi, though, this book will definitely appeal, and the writing in the novel was overall very good.

2.5 stars out of 5.

*Disclosure: I was provided a copy of this book to review. The opinions listed, however, are my own.

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Inception: The Shooting Script

I was given copies of three movie-based books to review: Inception: The Shooting Script, Red Riding Hood, and Cowboys and Aliens. What I thought the books were going to be was a novel adaptation of the films, all of which I have seen; what I got, however, was entirely different, but also pretty cool.

Inception is a crazy movie to begin with, so to read the script was a little confusing; I would recommend seeing the movie first. By now most of you know the plot, but basically it has to do with planting an idea inside one's mind - i.e., the idea of "inception." Leo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and more star in the movie, and it was one of the more interesting films of 2010 (see my review here).

I would say the book is geared towards those who are huge fans of the movie. It has a lot of drawings and initial ideas that were used for the movie, which I thought was interesting since I've already seen the film. If I had not seen the movie, I probably would have been a bit confused, since Inception is a hard movie to understand just from reading the script. Because I have already seen the film, though, I was able to link what I was reading on the page with the scenes from it.

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