Sunday, May 20, 2018

My Week in Review: 5/12/18-5/19/18


I have decided to switch things up a bit with the blog - I am going to be doing genre themes.  This means each week I will feature five books from the same genre, with a different genre each week.

This week the feature genre is Young Adult.  Here are the books I'd like to share with you:

Feral Recruit by Ginger Booth - 4 Stars ****


She survived. That's not good enough.

When Ebola struck Manhattan, Ava Panic was a bright high school sophomore. Two years later, Ava's still kicking. Also hitting, biting, and gouging eyes.

Nine out of ten didn't make it. Half the survivors are feral teens like Ava. During the Starve, their gangs terrorized the city. The Army finally stopped the dying, and resettled desirable refugees into the countryside.

But no one wants the gang rats, least of all the adults in the city. The generations loathe each other.

The new nation of Hudson hopes Army discipline can salvage these kids. Ava is game. Because the Army holds all the cards now. And if the streets taught her anything, Ava knows that only the ones with power survive. But for this to work, either the Army or gang rat Ava will have to change.

If you enjoy vivid characters, compelling world-building, and page-turning action, you'll love the climate change apocalyptic Calm Act Feral America series.

Get it now.

The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde - 4 Stars ****


In the good old days, magic was indispensable—it could both save a kingdom and clear a clogged drain. But now magic is fading: drain cleaner is cheaper than a spell, and magic carpets are used for pizza delivery. 

Fifteen-year-old foundling Jennifer Strange runs Kazam, an employment agency for magicians—but it’s hard to stay in business when magic is drying up. And then the visions start, predicting the death of the world’s last dragon at the hands of an unnamed Dragonslayer. 

If the visions are true, everything will change for Kazam—and for Jennifer. Because something is coming. Something known as . . . Big Magic.

Awaken by Michelle Bryan - 4 Stars ****


They destroyed her village. But they left Tara alive. That was their first mistake.


When everything she loves lies in ruins, Tara must run. From the deadly sand lands. From a merciless Prezedant.

And from the lies she’s been told her entire life.

With nowhere else to go, she heads to the town of Rivercross. But if Tara thinks she’ll find safety there, she’s mistaken. And the answers she receives raise only more questions.

And fear.

For her surviving kin. For what she must now do. Because being a New Blood is dangerous. She’ll be feared. She’ll be hunted.

And if she doesn’t find the power within herself soon, the crazed Prezedant’s grip on the world will become unstoppable.

The Fifth Sense by Erik Nickerson - 3 Stars ***


Vision is an illusion, a hoax created by manipulators and savages to corrupt the purity of innocent minds. Fall in line. Be a good citizen. Never open your eyes.


Young Apple Peterson is not a good citizen.

How could she be? She does not echolocate well. Her singing sucks. Her hair is coarse. (And no one likes a girl with coarse hair.) All the cool teenagers smell like fresh mint, feel like soft velvet, sound like ecstatic songbirds, speak only words of loyalty, and never, ever pretend that eyes are actually good for anything.

Apple is not cool, and she knows that something is desperately wrong with her world. But is she willing to bet her life on it?

Two Spells by Mark Morrison - 3 Stars ***


Sarah and her twin brother Jon are heirs to an ancient magical realm and its most valuable treasure, an enchanted library. The library endows readers with the supernatural means of crossing into the uncharted inner-sanctum of the second dimension, inhabited with peculiar and sometimes perilous creatures.

The children are emboldened with a wondrous mystical gift that no other being has ever possessed. But fate intervenes and triggers a disastrous inter-dimensional war that disrupts the fabric of time and space spanning multiple universes, tearing destiny a new and savage pathway.

The two must rescue their world from a phantom hybrid alien race controlled by a demented dark-wizard, Jeremy Sermack. They will either assimilate or be exterminated.

Will they be the saviors the prophets spoke of, or will they retreat to the perceived safety of their distant homeland?

That wraps up YA week.  I hope you see something you like.  

As always, thank you for stopping by.

~Michelle

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