Cress by Marissa Meyer

At the end of 2015, I challenged myself to read the entire Lunar Chronicles series, according to Marissa Meyer's recommendations. I had hoped to finish the series by the end of the year, but came a little short. I reread Cinder and Scarlet, as well as the novellas in between the books, and managed to finish Cress just after the new year.

You can read my reviews of Cinder and Scarlet through the links. I am somewhat ashamed that it took me so long to read Cress, but that's the way books are: too many titles, too little time.

The Lunar Chronicles is a fairy tale-science fiction mash-up. Cinderella is part cyborg and Red Riding Hood is in love with a genetically modified super soldier. The earth is being decimated by plague and the only salvation is from Lunar (As in from the moon) Queen Levana, who is evil. In the third installment, we meet our Rapunzel, Cress.

Cress is a Lunar, but she doesn't have any powers. (Normally, Lunars can control other people with their minds.) Since Cress can't control or be controlled, she is labelled a shell. Shells are traditionally rounded up and killed, but Cress ended up being sent to live on a satellite. She has all kinds of technological training and hacking skills and she does lots of secret work for her Mistress, Sybil, the head Thaumaturge/bodyguard for Levana.

All Cress thinks about is the world outside her tiny satellite. She watches videos, looks at pictures, and listens to music from earth, dreaming that she might experience earth firsthand. She also develops a huge crush on Carswell Thorne, the cocky criminal who escaped from prison with Cinder. She read about his various crimes through the years and considers him to be misunderstood.

Thorne, Cinder, Scarlet, and Wolf are all traveling on his (stolen) ship the Rampion when they contact Cress to get some hard evidence of Levana's plans (At the end of the first book, Cress had been the girl in the android's file who warned Cinder about Levana's bad intentions towards earth). They decide to rescue the stranded girl, but are interrupted by Sybil. Team Cinder escapes, but Sybil captures Scarlet and takes her back to Luna. They also end up with Jacin Clay, Sybil's pilot. Unfortunately, Sybil sends the satellite plummeting to earth...with Thorne and Cress still on board!

Fortunately, Cress was able to slow their landing, and the pair end up wandering through the desert. Thorne can't see because of the crash, and they have a terrible time between the hunger, thirst, and foot pain. They eventually come across a caravan of helpful people who escort them to a city. Thorne ends up disappointing Cress by gambling and flirting with an android escort, which gives their rescuers the chance to kidnap Cress and sell her to someone buying Lunars.

Meanwhile, the Rampion crew heads to Africa to meet up with Dr. Erland, the secret Lunar. Erland ends up being the guy buying Lunars, and he is also Cress' father. Team Cinder decides to stop the wedding and save earth by kidnapping Kai. There's some minor betrayal, but it all goes off without a hitch otherwise.

I remember the first time that I read Scarlet, it was sometimes hard to follow the story because I had trouble keeping track of whether the narrator was Scarlet or Cinder. It was easier the second read, but I have a bit more trouble with Cinder/Cress here. I am still a fan of Cress and Carswell Thorne is fantastic, so I love this book. We even get a glimpse of Miss Winter towards the end to gear us up for the last book.

 

The Dark Days Club by Alison Goodman

I know it is hard to accept, but there are agencies other than human in our cities, and they require certain special abilities to contain. Our abilities. For centuries Reclaimers had worked alone, but Mr. Fielding drew our kind into one group: the Dark Days Club..."

Lady Helen starts The Dark Days Club preparing for her presentation before Queen Charlotte. Her parents both died ten years earlier, so she lives under the care of her aunt and uncle. Her aunt is nice, but overbearing. Her uncle sucks. Seriously, he tells her that if the Queen asks about her mother, who everyone believes to have been a traitor to the British government, to say that her mother's death was for the best. His intimidation actually spurs Helen to bring a miniature (A little portrait, if you didn't know) of her mother to the presentation attached to her fan.

Helen is surprised to encounter the notorious Lord Carlston at the palace. Carlston is rumored to have murdered his wife, then suspiciously vanished from society. He is also distantly related to Helen. After a strange encounter, Helen is upset to realize that Carlston stole her miniature. To add to the peculiarity, the Queen does ask after her mother, then tells her, "Don't believe everything you hear."

To get her mother's portrait back, Helen arranges for a visit from Carlston. She is incredibly surprised when he ends up forcefully throwing it at her...and she catches it. Her newly discovered reflexes are bad enough, but one day at the park she nearly ruins her prospects with a potential suitor by starting to chase a runaway horse. The odd part was that she somehow knew exactly what the horse would do before it did it. Carlston eventually reveals the truth: she is a Reclaimer, like her mother before her.

Reclaimers seek out Deceivers, demonic creatures in human form, which they can see through a special lens but only after the Deceiver has fed. There are several different types of Deceivers, all of which feed on sin and vice. The Dark Days Club is the collective group of Reclaimers in England, of which there are very few compared to the thousands of Deceivers. Carlston wants to train Helen to fight the Deceivers after she gains her Receiver strength. Yet there are things he keeps from her, important revelations about her mother that Helen ends up finding out for herself. So she ends up with a big decision on whether to become a Reclaimer or to give up her legacy and possibly herself.

I really liked the regency era setting of the book. It's like Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Pride and Prejudice. Everything was way more difficult for Helen given that she had to adhere to such strict rules of conduct as an upper class and unmarried young lady. The story did get weighed down a bit by exposition, but I understand how that can happen with a first book. I'm still looking forward to reading more of the Lady Helen series to see how her story unfolds after the big changes at the end of this book.  

Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard

"Newbloods, silverbloods, redbloods, it's all the same, all over again. Some who are special, some who are better than the rest, and the ones who still have nothing at all..."

You can read my review of the first book in the series, Red Queen, here.

Red Queen introduced us to a world separated by blood. Those with silver blood have incredible abilities and rule over the ordinary people with red blood. Mare was an ordinary Red who ended up having powers. Because of this, the royal family forces her to pretend to be Silver, dealing with all the intrigue and betrayals of palace life. Meanwhile, Mare joins the Red Guard, an army of Reds who are fighting against Silver rule.

Glass Sword takes place right after the events at the end of Red Queen. Highlight for spoilers: Maven betrayed Mare and is super evil and the Queen made Prince Cal kill his father, and they blamed it all on Mare. 

So, Mare and Cal were on the run with the Red Guard. Among them was Mare's (presumed) dead brother, who also has abilities. They make their way to a stronghold on an island. Soon, a new leader arrives. He and Mare don't agree on the future direction of the Red Guard. She ends up leaving to hunt the Reds with powers of Silvers like her, or New Bloods as they call them. 

 The problem is that Maven also has the list, and Maven is also fudging nutso. He plays a cat and mouse game with Mare, almost always a step ahead of her. She finds notes from him trying to get her to give up, saying that he will stop killing New Bloods if she will return to his side. I was very sad in Red Queen because I liked Maven, and he seemed nice and sweet. I still hoped he might be redeemable, but now he's going around killing babies. 

I really tried to lighten up a bit on Mare this book. In the first book, she seemed like some sort of Katniss retread. Here, she was a little annoying with her constant reminders that she is special and more important than everyone else. I decided that I wasn't being completely fair. Overall, I liked Mare and this book better once it got going. There was a heck of an ending, so I'm interested in seeing what happens next.

Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here by Anna Breslaw

"Is this the moment I'm supposed to realize Gideon's actually a shitty person who just happens to have excellent taste in comedy? Or is this the moment I realize I'm too judgmental and living in my own weird cerebral universe and have unrealistic standards for boys, or just for life?"

Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here is largely about internet fandom and fanfiction, so there is a great deal about tumblrs and netspeak and such. FYI. Scarlett is a BNF (Big Name Fan) of Lycanthrope High. It's a television show about teenagers at a boarding school and werewolves and other supernatural stuff. The book opens with a letter from the show's creator announcing its cancellation. Scarlett and the other BNFs aren't sure what to do. Should they keep going with Lycanthrope High fics using their own OCs (Original Characters) or should they join another fandom, such as the show Imaginary Detectives? They decide to try and write their own stuff, and Scarlett starts it all with a story based on characters from her own life.

When they were kids, Gideon's mother used to watch Scarlett after school. They bonded over stand up comedy, though that all changed when she urged him to try it out himself. Gideon's mother refused to watch Scarlett and the two drifted apart. Still, Scarlett can't help feeling that Gideon is her destiny. They are two kindred misfit elves who will be together in the end. The trouble arises when Scarlett tries to bond with Gideon over their shared misfit status, only to find that he isn't such a misfit anymore. Gideon is sort of dating the popular, but fake, Ashley and hanging out with some a-hole boys.

Scarlett's first story is about a boy named Gideon who is given a robot girlfriend named Ashbot. She continues by adding in her best friend Avery, Ashley's sister, and the boy she has just started dating, Mike. Scarlett thinks that Mike is a dumb jock, but Avery is smitten. Finally, she adds in herself as a heroine and true love for Gideon, and as her friends call her out on, a Mary Sue.

In the real world, Scarlett's father finally gets his novel published. She doesn't have a bad word to say against him and often wishes that she could move to New York with him and his new wife and baby. Predictably, the book is based on her father's life pre-divorce and contains some devastating stuff about Scarlett. If all that wasn't enough, her only other friend is the elderly neighbor across the street. Scarlett helps her garden and buys her pot. She finds out that Ruth has cancer and has to deal with the grief of her death.

Basically, Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here is a fully loaded book. It's also really good. I liked Scarlett a lot, even with her tendencies to be judgmental and hipsteresque. She learns some stuff through the book, so it's not so bad. Also, as I've said before, I'm also a sucker for a happy ending.

I received my copy of Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here from Edelweiss, courtesy of Razorbill. It's available for purchase April 19th.

Revenge & the Wild by Michelle Modesto

When Westie was a child, her family traveled westward with a caravan. Her younger brother had been ill, so the family lagged behind the rest of the group. They stopped to rest at a cabin where a kind family offered hospitality. Appearances can be deceiving, and the family turned out to be cannibals. Only Westie escaped, leaving the rest of her family behind.

She was rescued and adopted by Nigel, an inventor. He created the machine that replaced the arm she lost to the cannibals. Together, they saved Alistair, who had also been attacked by cannibals. Nigel created the mask that allows him to speak again.

Rogue City is a strange place where magical creatures live alongside humans, though not always happily. The native people created a barrier around the city to protect the people from the creatures, including a stipulation that if they kill a human, they will die. The magic has been slowly fading away as the land is being stripped of resources. The barrier is getting weaker and the creatures are getting sick.

Nigel invented a machine that will produce magic from gold. It has the potential to save everyone. He only needs money to get the gold. The mayor gets Nigel in touch with a wealthy family to invest. Westie is dumbfounded when the Fairfields look exactly like the cannibals who ate her family.

Westie is an interesting character. She is rude and coarse and she used to have a drinking problem. It can sometimes be difficult to like her, but you get the feeling that she wouldn't care either way. Apparently she is pretty, pretty enough to attract Alistair, the Fairfields' cousin James, and vampire Costin, as well as other young men. Yet, she is always a mess, running around in messy clothes and focused on seeking vengeance for her family.

I liked Revenge & the Wild a lot. The wild west mixed with supernatural is unique. There was a twist that I guessed pretty early on, but I dismissed it as improbable. Wouldn't you know that I was right?

I received my copy of Revenge & the Wild from Edelweiss, courtesy of Balzer + Bray. It's available for purchase now.

Three months down...

So, I haven't been great with posting reviews this year. I think about writing reviews, I tell myself that I am going to write reviews, then I end up not writing reviews. I stare at the screen for a bit, then distract myself with internets or I get too tired to function or I hit a wall with writing and give up until tomorrow. It's getting really difficult and I keep falling further behind. Tonight, I wanted to focus on publishing a review before April...but my nephew decided to spend the night and demands my computer. It's always that way, isn't it?

I'm going to try to be better, try to catch up. In the meantime, the only thing I can think to publish right now are pictures of the pretty copy of The Rest of Us Just Live Here.

The pretty under the cover

Autograph!

Owl Crate February 2016 Unboxing

This is my Owlcrate, yet to be opened.

I heard about Owlcrate a while ago. It sounded like something I might like, and I hoped to try it some day. It's a subscription service that sends out a box containing a Young Adult novel plus related goodies.

The February theme was announced as "Sci-Fi Love," and I was VERY interested. The Owlcrate Facebook page gave hints that the box would contain a Doctor Who item and a Lunar Chronicles item, both of which I love. Purely for the sake of science, I decided to try to figure out what the book would be.

The uneducated part is in case I am wrong...I HATE being wrong. That's why that hyphen makes me anxious.

The Love That Split the World

I liked my guess a lot, and it made me really want the box. Part of me was nervous that I was wrong, that the book would be something else, that I wouldn't like the items or that I already had too much stuff as it is. Eventually, I decided to take the plunge and order. The February box actually sold out, so I was lucky to get one. It arrived last week, but I haven't had time to post about it until now.