Review: The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong (Darkest Powers #2)

Story Synopsis:

If you had met me a few weeks ago, you probably would have described me as an average teenage girl — someone normal. Now my life has changed forever and I’m as far away from normal as it gets. I’m a living science experiment — not only can I see ghosts, but I was genetically altered by a sinister organization call the Edison Group. What does that mean? For starters. I'm a teenage necromancer whose powers are out of control: I raise the dead without even trying. Trust me, that is not a power you want to have. Ever.

Now I’m running for my life with three of my supernatural friends - a chaming sorcerer, a cynical werewolf, and a disgruntled witch - and we have to find someone who can help us before the Edison Group finds us first. Or die trying. (from Goodreads)

My Review:

A couple of weeks ago, I reviewed The Summoning, the first book in the Darkest Powers trilogy. I liked that book. A lot. On to the sequel, The Awakening. Guess what? I liked this one, too!

Armstrong once again delivers a story that's fun, quirky and filled with pulse-pounding suspense. The characters are just as interesting as before. A mega-bonus (from my point of view) is that Armstrong again devotes a couple of pages to pointing out how NOT to treat people with mental illness, and for that she gets my applause and virtual hugs.

The plot is not quite as gripping as the first book, and a lot of it involves getting the characters from Point A to Point B. That said, I can't really fault a book for focusing on moving the characters from one place to another, since my all-time favorite trilogy is Lord of the Rings, and that's about 70% walking, as one does not simply walk into Mordor. Some of the best stories out there are journey stories. But with The Awakening, I got the distinct feeling that the book's real job was to set me up for the third book. Part of this was because a lot of scenes followed a patten: Chloe is, intentionally of unintentionally, testing out her powers. Let's see what happens! Readers, take note.

Even with this business-time aspect, Armstrong still manages to create a fun, page-turning addition to her Darkest Powers trilogy. Next stop: The Reckoning.

Rating: 4 stars

Rated by: Blair

Review: The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong (Darkest Powers #1)

Story Synopsis

 My name is Chloe Saunders and my life will never be the same again.

All I wanted was to make friends, meet boys, and keep on being ordinary. I don't even know what that means anymore. It all started on the day that I saw my first ghost - and the ghost saw me.

Now there are ghosts everywhere and they won't leave me alone. To top it all off, I somehow got myself locked up in Lyle House, a "special home" for troubled teens. Yet the home isn't what it seems. Don't tell anyone, but I think there might be more to my housemates than meets the eye. The question is, whose side are they on? It's up to me to figure out the dangerous secrets behind Lyle House...before its skeletons come back to haunt me. (from Goodreads)

My Review:

I have a confession to make. When I first heard about this book, I thought it was going to be a paranormal romance along the lines of a certain other series which I hate and which will remain unnamed. So I wrote it off my book list and forgot about it...until my fellow blogger Lisa recommended it to me. Lisa's recommendations tend to be spot-on, so I swallowed my skepticism and picked up this book. And guess what? Lisa was right. This book is great. Lesson learned.

The main character, Chloe, is full of endearing quirks, including a stutter and a tendency to see the world from behind the lens of an imaginary film camera. All the secondary characters are well flushed out, especially the awkward, intelligent Derek. The plot is gripping, the pacing excellent, and the writing is clean and fun.

All of these are reasons why you should read this book. But none of them are the main reason why I loved this book.

That came in the form of a five-page scene between Chloe and the psychiatrist Dr. Gill. I've mentioned before that in my real life, I'm a neuroscientist. WARNING: I'm about to nerd-out. Okay? Here we go.

The set-up for the scene is that Chloe has just had a run-in with a dead janitor that no one else could see. Dr. Gill is telling Chloe that she might be schizophrenic. What follows is one of the most honest discussions of schizophrenia I've ever seen in a fiction book, let alone a YA paranormal. While Chloe freaks out over the possibility of being "schizo", Dr. Gill calmly and concisely lays out what schizophrenia is, what it is not, what is myth, and what is real. In our society, schizophrenics are subjected to a stigma that is undeserved. That Armstrong devoted a chunk of her book to pointing out and responding to that undeserved stigma is amazing. As soon as I read that scene, I knew that it didn't matter what happened after in the book, I was going to like it. This book gets a big, fat, Neuro Seal of Approval.

But if you don't base your opinions of books on five-page scenes that actually have little to do with plot or character development, that's okay, because there's lots of other reasons why this is a fun and gripping read. It's several years old now, and paranormal is drifting out of the YA market, but if you missed this one when it was first released, I highly recommend you pick it up now.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Rated by: Blair

Review: Dark Inside by Jeyn Roberts

Story Synopsis:

Since the beginning of mankind, civilizations have fallen: the Romans, the Greeks, the Aztecs...and now us. Huge earthquakes rock the world. Cities are destroyed. But something even more awful is happening: An ancient evil has been unleashed, and it's turning everyday people into hunters, killers, and crazies. This is the world Mason, Aries, Clementine, and Michael are living in--or rather, trying to survive. Each is fleeing unspeakable horror, from murderous chaos to brutal natural disasters, and each is traveling the same road in a world gone mad. Amid the throes of the apocalypse and clinging to love and meaning wherever it can be found, these four teens are on a journey into the heart of darkness--and to find each other and a place of safety. (Goodreads.com)

My Review:

In the last few years, zombies have taken over pop culture like a bunch of, well, zombies. I love a good zombie romp, but they have gotten somewhat played out. Now along comes Jeyn Roberts’ apocalyptic novel, Dark Inside, breathing new life (or afterlife?) into the zombie genre. It turns out this book isn’t about zombies at all, at least, not in the classic you-bite-me-now-I-eat-braaaaaiiiinnnnnsssssss sort of way. Instead, Roberts alters the zombie mythos, using it to explore the not-quite-hidden malevolent side of human instinct and personality. The result is something far scarier than your standard zombie gore-fest. For that reason alone, you should read Dark Inside. As an added bonus, her writing is superb.

My only real problem with this book was that there were too many point-of-view characters – five. This works fine if you’re writing a 900+-page long book with densely packed prose (I’m thinking Game of Thrones here), but less well with a 300-page book with a YA typeset (bigger font and margins). The result is that none of the POV characters feels fully developed – there just isn’t enough space to develop in. I occasionally found myself confusing the two guys, they felt so similar. That said, with fewer POV characters, Roberts might have been unable to fully tell her story. So rather than cut characters, I would have liked a longer book, so each person could be more deeply explored. As long as I’m talking about characters, I have to point out a little personal bonus: Aries’ entire arc happens in a city where I lived for seven years. Fantastic. I’ve never read a book that had such a familiar setting. It added a whole extra level of awesome.

This book left me wanting more, and I love it when books do that. I wanted to know the characters better. I wanted to know what happened to the world. I wanted to understand what made people behave with such brutality. I wanted to sleep, because I read this book in a single, snack-filled night. Like most apocalyptic books, this one leaves more questions than it answers, and that’s okay. These questions, coupled with the fantastic writing, make it well worth the read.

Rating: 4 stars

Rated by: Blair

Review: The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

Story Synopsis:

In Mary's world there are simple truths. The Sisterhood always knows best. The Guardians will protect and serve. The Unconsecrated will never relent. And you must always mind the fence that surrounds the village; the fence that protects the village from the Forest of Hands and Teeth. But, slowly, Mary’s truths are failing her. She’s learning things she never wanted to know about the Sisterhood and its secrets, and the Guardians and their power, and about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness. When the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, she must choose between her village and her future—between the one she loves and the one who loves her. And she must face the truth about the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Could there be life outside a world surrounded in so much death?

(from Amazon.ca)

My Review:

Let me start off by saying that I'm not a huge fan of Zombie movies, with the exception of Shaun of the Dead). I've never had the stomach for the rotting dead thing. But this book came to me highly recommended, and I can see why!

I devoured this book--um? like a zombie does brains? (sorry!) I literally couldn't put it down. Ryan is a very poetic writer and her portrayal of a world after the zombie apocalypse, a village ruled by the Sisterhood and the Guardians, is chilling and deep.

Through her protagonist, Mary, Ryan shields us from the gore of zombies  to give us a powerful story of love and the desire for freedom. Betrothed to a man she doesn’t love and in love with a man she cannot have, his brother, Mary yearns for an elusive world beyond the village walls, one with a vast ocean beyond the forest of hands and teeth.

Mary's yearning, the chilling depth of the world she lives in, and Ryan's elegant prose kept me engrossed in this story until the end. If you're a fan of zombie fiction, this novel is an amazing read. If you're not, this novel may just change your mind.

Rating: 5 Stars

Rated by: Lisa