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Author Highlight: Kody Keplinger
There are some authors who just get the teen experience. Keplinger is one of those authors which makes sense since she made her debut, The DUFF, when she was seventeen.
You may have heard of The DUFF movie, but the book, like always, is so so much beter. The movie just takes the phrase “Designated Ugly Fat Friend,” their plots are nothing alike.
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Perfect Scoundrels Review
Worlds collide in the thrilling conclusin to The Heist Society trilogy when one of their own becomes the mark of an insidious long con and tests the line between business and personal feelings.
And for once, Kat may not be able to steal it back.
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Aug Books
Huck: The Remarkable True Story of How One Lost Puppy Traught a Family-and a Whole Town-About Hope and Happy Endings by Janet Elder
As I’ve said multiple times. I’m a sucker for dog memoirs even if they’re a bit sad because, with all the variations, it harbors the same theme. Dogs teach us more about ourselves and the goodness of humans than we realize.
In this case, when Elder was diagnosed with cancer, she gave into her son’s desperate wish to have a dog of his own-Huck. Only for Huck to escape shortly afterwards, revealing a heartwarming tale of a community of strangers coming together to return a beloved dog.
What can be sweeter than that.Sound of Light (Marvel School of X novel) by Amanda Bridgeman
As you’ve already know from my book blog. I’m a DC girl and the only Marvel I really know any backstory/characters are the X-Men. So I had to pick up this book after watching Wolverine and the X-Men since it had Emma Frost, Polaris, Cyclops and my underrated fav, Dazzler.
Now, I only knew 80s Dazzler where she was supposed to cash in on the disco trend and has flashy powers (literally). Here, she has quite an upgrade with her powers are implied to be on level with nuclear reactors if she really let loose. As is, her power is being a light transducer which uses it in a variety of creative ways from distraction to performing to precisely aimed lasers.
It was also special enough for Mystique to kidnap her for months to drain her essence to use for a mutant-DNA steroid drug. Oh and Mystique posed as her during the months she was trapped and no one was the wiser so Dazzler (real name, Allison) has real trust issues.
Present day, she’s being immersed in a normal life, touring with her new band but S.H.I.E.L.D. is dragging her into their mess. With the new MGH drug on the streets, they want to know who’s selling and they believe she can be a liason between the mutant community and them.
She doesn’t want to help after quitting them but they bring up the fact that Cyclops and Magneto have been kidnapped. . . and her father. Three men that she owes her life to.
The problem with being a liason is that she’s not trusted by either community. The agents don’t trust her because she’s a mutant, the mutants don’t trust her since she left the X-men to join S.H.I.E.L.D. and Allison doesn’t trust anyone in general.
But she’s forced to ask for help from Emma Frost who has her own agenda-and makes a ragtag team with Sage, Polaris and Rachel Grey for an intersteller adventure.
(more…)#aconytebooks, #amandabridgeman, #annasortino, #awjantha, #beckyalbertalli, #blackflame, #broadwaybooks, #centaurrising, #comingofage, #cradle, #debcaletti, #disneyhyperion, #gennmcmenemy, #ginnyrorby, #girlunframed, #givemeasign, #hocuspocusandtheallnewsequel, #howtospeakdolphin, #huck, #janeyolen, #jarrettkrosoczka, #jennywilliamson, #jimmybeason, #josephbruchac, #juliemerberg, #kateinwaiting, #kimberlygriffithslittle, #marvelcomics, #memoir, #nativeamerican, #nativeamericansinhistory, #nicejewishgirls, #nonfiction, #penguinrandomhouse, #putnam'ssons, #rachelreads&reviews, #reycraft, #rockridgepress, #scholastic, #scholasticgraphix, #soundoflight, #sunshine, #thetimeofthefireflies, #voicesofthepeople, #willwight, #womenofmythology, #worldmythology, #YA -
Guardians of Ga’Hoole #11-15
Well this series was not what I was expecting and so it absolutely blew me away with how Lasky was willing to go there. I already talked about it in my previous posts but Lasky doesn’t shy away from showing the terror and violence evident in living as a wild animal. But she also humanizes them and elevates the material with its allusions to Shakespeare and Bradbury and more. It’s more than just owls that populate the world but puffins, crows, horses, wolves, polar bears and each have distinct relations to each animal group with their own heirarchies that apparently Lasky expanded into other series. It’s just so expansive and. . . well epic. Anything with animal warfare is just epic to me as it combines the unpredictability of nature with the corruptive ember that is the center of power in this world with ruthless animal instincts.
Just awesome.
It was a real treat to read this and after a month of rest from this, I think I’ll start the Wolves of Beyond.
Now onto the rankings:
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Guardians of Ga’Hoole #6-10
The second set of Guardians of Ga’Hoole books really leans into the World War II-esque/fantasy premise of the book by higghlighting the depravity of the Pure Ones and how one owlet manages to break free from the hateful ideology to help the side of good. That owlet is Nyroc, Kludd and Nyra’s sole son.
And yes, it vaguely feels like a rip-off of Lion King 2.
No matter. I enjoy that Lasky didn’t let reader demographics limit the amount of gore, violence or genocide she placed on these pages. Nor did she skim on the literary allusions to Shakespeare when it came to the wolf clan dynamics. Lots of elements are happening here and why she sometimes stumbles in tying them clearly, it all feels very grand. I just wish she had been able to transition POVs from Soren to Nyroc less abruptly as Soren is shoved to the sidelines once Nyroc enters the stage when I at least expected to them to share POVs.
This set also begins the Legend of Hoole trilogy which I’ll discuss below with the rankings:
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Guardians of Ga’Hoole #1-5
After reading pretty much all the Warriors books in the library, I decided to get into another animal-based series that ccombines fantasy, comprehensive world system and survival of the fittest mantra. Yes, I’m talking about Lasky’s Guardians of Ga’Hoole series as if the title wasn’t enough of a hint.
The series starts with Soren’s birth in a happy, loving family. Except for a mean older brother who shoves him out of the nest. Unable to fly, Soren is quickly snatched away by frightening elder owls who turn out to be the egg-snatchers of St. Aggie’s. St. Aggie’s a school training soldiers in a dehumanizing (de-owlizing) factory-like system, brainwashing them to believe in their might makes right philosphy and trimming wings so no one can escape.
Luckily, Soren makes fast friends with a few others like Digger and Agatha, and remembering his parents’ stories about the Guardians of Ga’Hoole, they break out and join the band just in time for the biggest fight of their lives. A rising danger known as the Pure Ones.
I enjoy how
Now onto the rankings!
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Warriors: Super Specials
This forway into the Warriorverse was limited as the library only had 4 super specials but each offered deeper insight to the clans, characters and forshadow future events (or retcon them depending on your perspective).
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The Legacy of Yangchen Review
After the unsteady state Yangchen left Bin-Er with her companion’s betrayal and the secret cover-up of one enemy allowing another advisary to take economic stage, Yee has a lot for the readers (and the characters) to balance. It’s all about diplomacy, geopolitics and deception and it keeps you at the edge of your seat the whole time. It’s all about heartwrenching conflict and death that leaves Yangchen struggling with her worldview and Kavik questioning his own choices of familial loyalty over the world.
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Extras Review
Three years after Tally unleashed the mind-rain, Japan is running on a reputation econnomy. Whether you’re a neofoodie, techhead, mangahead, reputation bomber or kicker, you gain money and privileges based on your face ranking.
Basically, Westerfeld predicted influencers and people being paid because they’re instagram/tiktok famous. Decades before it happened! Amazing and really surreal.
Aya is one of the extras whose face ranking is below the millions, a major bummer since her older brother is in the top thousand. Aya is desperate to be famous and thinks that kicking (slang for making a viral video) about the secretive Sly Girls group meg-lev surfing is the way in.
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But her big kick comes with the price of betraying the Sly Girls and ends up uncovering a bigger, even more dangerous story than Aya had ever anticipated. -
Specials Review
We’re back to square one, sort of. Tally is once again brainwashed after surgery but this time she’s not another one of the bubblehead pretties but a special, a superhuman soldier with fangs, ultra-senses and titanium skeleton. Basically the world’s deadliest weapon and an enforcer of Dr. Cable to keep moore of the Smokies’ cure pills from getting out.
In this new mindset, Tally is fully devoted to the mission as her memories have been twisted to seeing Maddy’s cure pills as the reason for Zane’s shaky state and struggling motor skills. Additionally, being special gives Tally what she had wanted since the beginning of the trilogy. She’s not pretty but she feels like she’s part of a community that comes with being part of Shay’s Cutter Specials. she’s unstoppable and alive.
But Zane makes her confused-minded and leads Tally down the path of making trouble, changing society as everyone knows it.
In the previous book, I felt conflicted about the solution that Tally rewires her brain by herself as sort of a placebo of the pill. It felt to much of a “chosen one” trope and her being upgraded to a Special seemed to add to that.
But this book gives her a serious tear down from other characters who call out her selfish and self-absorbed nature, and seriously, always prioritizing whichever boyfriend she has is annoying. That combined with her breaking out of the brainwashing to realize the extent of her failures and making a true sacrifice elevates her character from a girl always being controlled by others to one finally taking responsibility and willing to stand against the crowd and the potentially disasterous future when human choices lead to self-destruction.
Really, it was fascinating to see Tally act as the villain of the piece, even questioning if she was one all along. Or at least, questioning if she is as good as she thinks she is. It goes to show the human mind, conditioning and free will to be more complex than one would think.
But as Tally grows, other characters are put to the side, and even have repetitive arcs (Shay and David in particular) but I am willing to forgive it considering how compelling the action is in exploring the inevitable evolution of society learning to embrace uniqueness and being able to think for onself instead of constant governmental control.
Plus I found the ending for Tally to be an interesting subversion for a YA heroine so I end this trilogy with 4 stars.
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Rachel Reads & Reviews 