YA

Book Review: United as One

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United as One
Lorien Legacies #7
by Pittacus Lore

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: YA sci-fi

Spoiler notice: The following review will contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series, starting with I Am Number Four.

The Mogodorians have been pushed back, if only slightly, and new human Garde are rising up. Does John have what it takes to lead a new generation against Setrakus Ra and take back the Earth once and for all?

Here at the end of the story, I have to stay that it did not differ too greatly from what I expected of it, though there certainly were some paths that I didn’t anticipate. I think, though, that most of those paths ended up not really leading anywhere particularly important. I feel like the author set up some things that just didn’t pan out in a satisfying way. I also think some of the characters that had larger roles in the previous books are shunted to the side, and only three characters really get to do much in this book. That probably means that the author let the cast list get a bit bloated, which I suppose would have been difficult to avoid, given the premise of this series, but the issue mostly comes when he can’t maintain it. And the climax…I don’t want to spoil anything, but I really anticipated more direct involvement by the original Garde.

On the other side of things, though, even if there weren’t any major twists or brilliant moments, the book still brings an overall satisfying confusion to a series that I mostly enjoyed. Battle fatigue understandably hits John, not to mention grief over the loss of a loved one (not that I was ever a huge fan of that relationship). Unfortunately, all of this makes parts of the book a little slow, but the weak ending doesn’t diminish my overall enjoyment of the series. I’d probably call it a 4-star series. I liked it enough to try out some of the side stories and at least consider the spin-off series. As for recommendations, fans of YA action stories, especially in the sci-fi genre, should definitely give this series a try.

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Book Review: The Fate of Ten

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The Fate of Ten
Lorien Legacies #6
by Pittacus Lore

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: YA sci-fi

Spoiler notice: The following review will contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series, starting with I Am Number Four.

Once again split up, the Garde are unable to work together as intended to deal with the Mogodorian invasion of Earth. But whether or not the excursion to Mexico will be as helpful as they had hoped remains to be seen. Meanwhile, fighting amongst some of the Garde makes it difficult for John to focus on stopping the Mogadorians.

I really did not expect this series to get to the point it has—full-scale invasion. It’s a lot for a small number of newly powered teenagers to handle, so it’s a good thing they’re gaining some unexpected allies. I’ve also enjoyed most of this series more than I thought I would, considering that it’s overall fairly shallow and action-based. I like some of the characters and their friendships (though there are a couple of characters and relationships I couldn’t care less about), and Adam is really growing on me. I’d really like to know more about his “relationship” with One.

It seemed to me that the language was suddenly ramped up in this book. I’m not going to go back and check past books, but to my recollection at least, it feels like, on a scale of 1 to 10, we went from a 1 or 2 to a 7, which is quite a leap. Overall, though, I’m enjoying the ride. Taken as a fun, sci-fi romp and not any kind of deep literature, it’s kept me engaged pretty solidly since book #3 (I enjoyed book #1 but found #2 pretty boring). I’m looking forward to reading the final one, and though I didn’t originally intend to bother with the novellas, I’m starting to think I should really check them out.

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Book Review: Disney After Dark

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Disney After Dark
Kingdom Keepers #1
by Ridley Pearson

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy

Due to some fictional technology, five kids whose likenesses were used as holographic hosts in the Magic Kingdom start “crossing over” and waking up as their holographic selves, in the park, when they sleep at night. They find out that various characters from different Disney media have started coming to life and are threatening the park. Worse yet, if they grow stronger, they might threaten the world outside of the park. And only the five hosts can stop them.

I think someone’s status as a Disney buff probably greatly affects their enjoyment of this book, for better or for worse. I’ve only been to Disney World once, many years ago, and I haven’t actually watched very many of the classic Disney cartoons. If there was anything about this book that was relying on the reader to know more about either of those things, it may have affected my understanding or enjoyment of the book. Even with that limitation, the premise of the book captured my attention. I may not know the park well, but I can imagine the excitement of wandering a magical park after hours.

However, it fell short in execution. The book just wasn’t written all that well in general. The dialog is often stilted, and the prose is clunky and even non-sensical at times. There are continuity issues, even within a single page. And the characterization is lacking. Any book with this many characters working together to defeat the villain(s) has a heavier burden making sure that the different characters don’t blend together and that there is at least some development for each. In this case, basically none of the characters were developed, and for the most part, I couldn’t tell the four kids that weren’t the MC apart.

By the time I read this first book, my husband had already gotten almost the entire rest of the series for me, as we’ve seen the books at thrift stores and such. For that reason, I had more desire than even normal to really like this book, and so I was disappointed that it was mediocre at best. However, since I do own most of the series, and I can see that the rating on Goodreads goes up a little with each book, I will continue on in the hopes that it gets better. In the meantime, I wouldn’t really recommend this book to anyone, but if it does sound intriguing to you, certainly check out other reviews at the link below, as others have liked it more than I did (and others liked it less).

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Book Review: The Revenge of Seven

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The Revenge of Seven
Lorien Legacies #5
by Pittacus Lore

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: YA sci-fi

Spoiler notice: The following review may contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series, starting with I Am Number Four.

The Garde are split up and hurting, betrayed by one of their own and on the run. But they’ve also gained an unlikely ally in Adam, who can help them understand the enemy a little better. The disastrous future that John saw in Ella’s vision is looming, maybe sooner than they think, so their next steps are crucial.

The action, suspense, and stakes are really ramping up here in the back half of the series. Since the author(s) clearly has/have no issue with killing characters off (not that it’s been super common, except for the Cêpan), I’m often on edge waiting to see the outcome of an encounter with the Mogadorians, especially during the climax. The revelations of what the “Beloved Leader” and his human allies have done or allowed is totally believable, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the fallout and looming invasion continue into the next book.

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Book Review: The Fall of Five

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The Fall of Five
Lorien Legacies #4
by Pittacus Lore

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: YA sci-fi

Spoiler notice: The following review may contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series, starting with I Am Number Four.

Now that 5 out of 6 of the remaining Garde are together (plus one), it’s time to think about bringing the fight to the Mogodorians. While they inventory their chests and get some training in, the absent Five sends up a signal for them to come find him. Do they finally have what it takes to defeat the Mog leader? Or will they crash and burn?

This was my favorite book of the series so far. The dynamic of the different Garde who grew up with very different lifestyles, combined with the human element, provide an interesting backdrop to the action. The fight scenes didn’t make me resort to scanning like they have in the past (or maybe they were shorter/fewer). There are some epic, cheer-worthy moments early in the book, and then some intrigue and action later too. Though I did predict the climax to some degree, it still had me hooked.

Though I don’t particularly care about Sarah or Sarah and John’s relationship, I’m glad we’ve at least skirted the love triangle. There’s still an element of pairing everyone off, but it gets right to the edge of what would be annoying for me without quite going over. There is a capture-the-flag-type training scene that involves a lot of head hopping (since this series has changed POVs between 3 (or 4?) characters ever since book #2), and it was really confusing, but I think that’s mostly because the Kindle book doesn’t have the (slightly) different fonts for the different POVs. I didn’t always even realize we’d switched POV, especially if it happened at the end of a page, and would get lost, but the print book probably makes that a lot more clear. That’s a formatting thing that the publishers should definitely take into account, but not something I’m going to hold against the book. This book definitely left me wanting to know what happens next, and though #2 was a little shaky for me, I’ve enjoyed the series overall so far and look forward to continuing it.

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Book Review: Nightfall

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Nightfall
by Jake Halpern & Peter Kujawinski

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: YA fantasy thriller

When the sun sets on the island of Bliss, it won’t return for 14 years. At the same time, the tide also rolls out for miles, making it impossible to leave the island, which will turn into a cold, icy, inhospitable place. So the people living on the island have a small window of time to leave, sailing south, where they’ll live in the Desert Lands during the 14 years of night and return at dawn. During that small window, Marin and her twin brother Kana try to track down their friend who has gone missing and make it back before the ships leave the island.

The synopsis of this book intrigued me so much that I bought it despite the fairly low rating it has online. And for at least 2/3 of the book, my intrigue level remained high. The set-up and foreshadowing kept me hooked, even on the edge of my seat at times. The authors did a great job with the setting—the darkness building as the sun makes its final descent into the horizon, foreign noises in the forest, bizarre rituals that the islanders must attend to before they leave the island. I admit it—I was a little creeped out. I had some predictions about what was going on, and therein lies the downturn for me.

Not only were my predictions true, there was very little variation from it in the last third or so of the book. Once it’s revealed to us what is going on, there’s not really anymore suspense or intrigue. I wish the authors had held a little bit back somehow, saved a little bit of suspense for those last chapters. There were a couple of minor things that happened that may have been meant as twists or at least that I didn’t predict, but none of them were terribly exciting. And while I don’t fault the authors for ending the book where they did, I think there were definitely some things about the situation on the island that should have been explained, because otherwise, they just leave one scratching their head (not saying more due to spoilers).

Overall, I’m really glad I read this book. It’s a great example of an atmospheric read; it just falls short in the climax and conclusion. But I enjoyed it enough to be excited to see the the authors wrote a 2nd novel in the same world, which I have now added to my TBR. My 14-year-old daughter also enjoyed this book, which I think is just as important, since she’s actually the target audience for the book (and I am definitely not). I do recommend it to anyone of any age who enjoys darker fantasies written for teens.

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Book Review: The Rise of Nine

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The Rise of Nine
Lorien Legacies #3
by Pittacus Lore

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: YA sci-fi

Spoiler notice: The following review may contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series, starting with I Am Number Four.

The Garde are starting to connect in small groups and want to take the fight to the Mogadorians. But there is still a lot about their powers and their inheritance they don’t know, and not all of them are sure that they are prepared to face Setrakus Ra, the strongest Mogadorian, who has now come to Earth.

Though the plot still feels a little meandering, I enjoyed this book more than I did the previous. Number Nine is, in turns, kind of a jerk but also helpful. I don’t really know why the book is named for him, since he doesn’t do anymore than anyone else and none of the narrative is from his POV. I suppose it’s just a way to continue the streak of numbers in the titles. I appreciate that, though there’s no specific explanation about limitations in the characters’ powers, they clearly do have some. Part of it goes back to the fact that they’re still learning how to use them and even learning what they are. They have chests full of toys that they have no idea how to control, or even if some of them might be bad.

It’s really a shame that wise adults don’t tend to last too long with these teens, not that it’s a surprise, since the Cepan don’t have any abilities, plus the books aren’t really about them. I tend to skim the fighting scenes, because I’ve never been a big fan of pure fight scenes, and they come up a lot in these books. But overall, I’m still enjoying the series and intrigued about what will happen to keep going, though not enough to have any interest in the side stories.

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Book Review: Elizabeth’s Playground

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Elizabeth’s Playground
Abby’s Letters #3
by Dana Romanin

My rating: 2 / 5
Genre: Christian YA romance

After losing her dad and then her mom and being lied to by her older sister for months about her mom’s death, Abby doesn’t have a lot of capacity for trust. She also can’t quite keep herself from shoplifting whenever she’s stressed and doesn’t feel worthy of love. But when she meets the new kid, Ian, she can’t stop herself from liking him any more than she can stop herself from snatching items off the store shelves.

I wish I had liked this book more. I think I get what the author was going for throughout, but it just didn’t really work for me. Though Abby has had some rough stuff in her life, I think she is more traumatized than makes sense to me. Yes, her mom was an alcoholic, but in the first book, we’re shown that Abby still had a decent relationship with her. That was the whole point of her letters that showed her older sister Jane that Abby and their mom were close, while Jane only thought of her mom as a mess. And yes, Jane lied to Abby for a while about her mom being dead so that Abby wouldn’t be taken away, but since then, Abby has been in foster care with a loving family. So why is she a prickly, self-destructive klepto who feels like she doesn’t deserve love?

Right off the bat, I didn’t care for the cliché of instant attraction between Ian and Abby (more on his side than hers, but hers wasn’t far behind), nor the cutesy nicknames they give each other and use almost exclusively throughout the book. In fact, the whole book feels like a lot of clichés or tropes mashed together, starting with Abby being really rude to Ian when they first meet, yet him being drawn to her because there’s “just something about her.” There is some light sexual innuendo I didn’t care for, and Abby’s friend Louisa has a sort of “wise older person” persona, despite being a fairly typical-seeming teenage girl otherwise. Then there’s the moment near the end of the book when Abby’s foster dad tells her that she needs to stop living for others and do something for herself, which led me to ask…when was she ever living for others? In the end, I liked the idea of this series of novellas more than I liked the execution, though I think that the middle book could stand alone as a decent read.

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Book Review: Lightkeepers

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Lightkeepers
by Kennedy Plumb

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: YA romance

In this modern Rapunzel re-telling, Rapunzel (Zella) has lived in isolation all her life, one of the first “Children of the Lighthouse,” an organization her mother founded. Though she understands her mother’s reasons for keeping her shut away and has always done her best to obey, it only takes one small crack to make her wonder about the world outside the stone walls. When a young man bursts into her room looking for refuge from the cops, Zella sees a way out.

This book was overall okay, though not really my thing. The set-up of Zella living in a lighthouse as part of a cult, and having been lied to her whole life about the world outside to keep her complacent wasn’t bad, but I think it was all quite shallow for being something so dark and potentially deep. Based on what we’re told about her isolation, she knows more things about normal life than I would expect. And once she starts getting out into the real world, she doesn’t really seem as naïve as I feel like she should be.

Ryder’s foster situation is also fairly interesting to start with, if a little cliché, but again, it wasn’t explored as deeply as I might have preferred. Instead, the focus is mostly on Zella’s freedom or on Ryder and Zella’s burgeoning relationship. And their relationship advances fast enough that it doesn’t seem stable to me. I mean, he’s a foster kid whose every action is defined by his need to belong and she’s…well, she’s a cult child who’s been isolated her whole life and is presented with the opportunity for freedom by an attractive teenage boy. It’s probably not unrealistic that they become chummy so quickly, but to me, that’s not exactly romance.

One other thing to note—this book was self-published, and is overall one of the better self-published books I’ve read. It wasn’t terribly obvious, other than maybe the shorter length to the book, which seems to be a common thing with self-published books. In the end, I think this book is aimed at 2 things that I’m not: a teenager (specifically female, I assume) and a fan of Tangled (which I’ve never seen). However, my daughter is a 14-year-old girl who is a fan of Tangled, and after I read this book, she did as well, and she liked it. So if you’re in that audience in some form, you might do well to check out this book or at least other reviews at the link below.

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Book Review: The Power of Six

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The Power of Six
Lorien Legacies #2
by Pittacus Lore

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: YA sci-fi

Spoiler notice: The following review may contain some spoilers for the previous book in the series, I Am Number Four.

John Smith’s attempt to stay out of the hands of the Mogadorians and the FBI is interspersed with the introduction of another of the Garde, number seven out of nine who are meant to be the saviors of their planet Lorien. Where John has been on the move throughout his time on Earth, Seven—known as Marina—has been living in a convent orphanage for years. But she’s not as safe as she seems to be.

I don’t know…I enjoyed the previous book quite a bit. John and Henri’s father-son-like relationship was the heart of the story, and we’re completely missing anything resembling a heart in this one. I already didn’t really care about John’s relationship with Sarah in the previous book, and now I am supposed to care about a love triangle? John is beating himself up over the fact that he’s “supposed to” love only Sarah all his life, because Henri had told him that Loriens love only one person for life. But he (and the author) failed to keep in mind that 16-year-old love isn’t necessarily real love. I get the feeling, though, that the author(s) just assume that YA is supposed to have a love triangle.

Meanwhile, in the sections about Marina, not a whole lot happens. Her Cepan has turned her back on her and Marina’s heritage and Marina is dealing with bullies, both in the form of peers and nuns. Again, it seems like the author(s) just took every trope of YA (in this case, the MC being bullied) and put it all into a story. John’s and Sam’s choices at various points are pretty terrible, which maybe points to them being badly in need of a wise adult, but mostly makes them seem inept. There’s a lot of action, though I’m not a huge fan of major fighting/battle scenes. Overall, this one just didn’t work as well as the first one did for me. Still, I’m interested to see what happens, since there’s clearly an over-arcing plot going on. I just hope the characters get a little wiser.

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