The Forsaken

The Forsaken. Lisa M. Stasse. 2012. Simon & Schuster. 375 pages.

At first I think the hammering sound is the noise of waves crashing down on white sand.

Alenna has "failed" her GPPT (Government Personality Profile Test) and has been sent to Prison Island Alpha. She's heard about the island, obviously, in the past few years, everyone has. She's even seen some of the violence from the island on screen, with the image of one boy, in particular, staying with her in the day or so leading up to her own "test." She never thought she'd be one to fail the test, she never thought she'd test positive for being violent, out of control, a potential danger to others. But she woke up on the island, and though she knows it has to be a mistake, how, do you survive long enough to prove that?

Soon after she wakes up on the island, she meets David, another "mistake" of sorts. He seems so very sane! The two work together--especially at first--trying to survive their first day or two. But they're just beginning to trust one another when they are claimed by different factions on the island. David is taken by the Drones on the "Monk" side of the island, Alenna is taken by the other side. She's given a truth serum, and trained to be a warrior. She makes a couple of friends and finds her place. Liam and Gadya are perhaps the two closest to her.

The book is obviously a thriller with plenty of secrets, secrets, and more secrets.

I enjoyed this one. Is it the best dystopian ever? No. But for those wanting another series like James Dashner's Maze Runner, for those that don't mind more-of-the-same from their dystopias, then this one could satisfy. The world-building isn't amazing. The characters aren't that well-developed. The relationships between the characters aren't fully explored. Is there a love triangle? I don't think so. Not really. True, the main character TALKS to two guys. (She talks to more than two guys.) But the fact that she talks to David and tries to listen and understand him does not mean that she sees him in that way, and there is not proof that he has those kinds of feelings for her either. 

Read for Presenting Lenore's Dystopian August.  


Read The Forsaken

• If you're in the mood for a YA dystopia
• If you don't mind a familiar feel to your dystopia
• If you are looking for something fast-paced and action-driven

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Raider's Ransom (MG)

Raider's Ransom. Emily Diamand. 2009. Scholastic. 368 pages.

Cat puts up his nose to sniff the breath of wind barely filling the sail, and opens his small pink mouth to speak.

Knowing that I could never quite do justice to Raider's Ransom in my review, let me encourage you to just pick up this one and give it a try. I can't promise that you'll love it. But. You just may. It's that kind of book. The kind that actually delivers what it promises.
If you like action/adventure quests, I think you'll really, really appreciate Raider's Ransom. I think you'll enjoy the world Diamand created in the novel. I think there will be scenes that stay with you. I think you'll enjoy not only her world-building but her characterization and storytelling too.

The heroine of Raider's Ransom is a young girl, Lilly. She may be young, but she's a fisherman with a small (very small) boat of her own. And to the dismay of some, she's the owner of a cat, a sea cat. Not something to be taken lightly in her community of survivors. When she's at home, on land, she stays with her grandmother. But. Readers don't get a chance to see a more relaxed Lilly. For the novel opens with Lilly discovering the tragic truth: when she was out sailing her vessel, out fishing, the raiders (or should that be Raiders?) attacked her village. They were looking for something specific, the attack wasn't just random. I don't know if that makes things better or worse for Lilly since one of the things they were looking for was her cat. The Raiders kill Lilly's grandmother, and kidnap the Prime Minister's daughter. One might think that they kidnapped her for a nice ransom, but, they had something even more in mind. They return without their sought-after object, a particular jewel. And that's only the beginning. The problem? Well, I can't talk about this one without revealing too much. I think this is one of those that is best discovered all on your own. Trust me.

So. I won't go into details. But I will say we get another narrator. And that proves most interesting indeed! For I certainly wasn't expecting it at all.

This one went above and beyond all my expectations. It really did. It surprised me in a good way.

Read Raider's Ransom

• If you like survival stories or starting over stories; 
• If you like action/adventure stories with a quest, a journey, a mission
• If you like action stories with battles and close escapes
• If you like dystopias, novels set in the future with a society quite unlike our own
• If you like good storytelling

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Partials (YA)

Partials. Dan Wells. 2012. HarperCollins. 480 pages.

Newborn #485GA18M died on June 30, 2076, at 6:07 in the morning. She was three days old. The average lifespan of a human child, in the time since the Break, was fifty-six hours. They didn't even name them anymore. Kira Walker looked on helplessly while Dr. Skousen examined the tiny body. The nurses--half of them pregnant as well--recorded the details of its life and death, faceless in bodysuits and gas masks. The mother wailed despondently from the hallway, muffled by the glass. Ariel McAdams, barely eighteen years old. The mother of a corpse.

It has been eleven years since a deadly virus (RM) killed most of the human race. The survivors who had--for one reason or another--a natural immunity to the virus have joined together and resettled on Long Island. The youngest human alive is a little over fourteen. Not long after the novel opens, the school shuts down because there are no more students to teach, and the teens are deemed old enough to go into a trade or be apprenticed into a trade. (Kira is in the medical field. She's not quite eighteen yet, so she's not "required" to be pregnant yet. But the Hope Mandate legislates women's lives. Humanity must be saved. And that means every woman old enough must do her part. True, no baby has survived past a few days old in eleven years. But they have to keep trying, right? They just can't give up on finding a cure and successfully reproducing, right? Well, hope isn't easy to come by. But when Kira's best friend becomes pregnant, she becomes DETERMINED to find the cure that will save her baby. Nothing is more important to Kira than the cure.

Once Kira's plan is formed, Partials is quite the compelling read!!! Kira and a handful of her friends set out to do something risky--something that appears to be quite insane. But Kira knows it is the only hope for finding a cure.

I enjoyed this one. I did. I'd definitely recommend it.

Favorite quote:

Happiness is the most natural thing in the world when you have it, and the slowest, strangest, most impossible thing when you don't. (78)

Read Partials

• If you enjoy science fiction, dystopias, or post-apocalyptic novels
• If you enjoy fiction with a survival theme
• If you enjoy unique coming-of-age stories 

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

May B. (MG/YA)

May B. Caroline Rose. 2012. Random House. 240 pages.

I won't go.
"It's for the best," Ma says,
yanking to braid my hair,
trying to make something of what's left.
Ma and Pa wanted me to leave
and live with strangers.
I won't go.

Mavis Elizabeth Betterly is "May B." the heroine of Caroline Rose's historical verse novel. The novel is set in pioneer times in Kansas. Our young heroine, our oh-so-lovable heroine, is being forced by her parents to leave home. She's being hired out to a newlywed couple. A settler has married an Eastern woman who knows absolutely nothing about keeping house. NOTHING. May B. will sleep in a corner of the cabin and try to be as invisible as possible all the while doing all the work in and out of the house. Cooking, cleaning, and doing all the "womanly" tasks of the nineteenth century. The woman, the wife, is not friendly with May B. at all. The truth of the matter is that she is MISERABLE and regretting the decision to marry every minute of every hour of every day. She HATES her life, and she is so full of hating and bitterness that she can't be grateful to May B., she can't appreciate how much work this young girl does.

If all went according to plan, her father would pick May B. up around Christmas time. Just a handful of months--August to December--to live with strangers and do her share for her family. But all does NOT go according to plan. For something happens that changes everything. And May B. will have to depend on herself, learn to trust herself, in ways she couldn't have predicted in the summer.

I definitely LOVED this one. While not every reader will find pioneer stories equally appealing, this one is just oh-so-good! For historical fiction fans, this one may just be a must read!!! I found the heroine to be so lovable. I felt for her almost from the very start. Her narrative voice was very strong. Some of these poems were just amazing!

My favorites:

I play a game inside my head,
counting plum trees that dot a creek bed,
rabbits that scatter at the sound of wagon wheels,
clouds that skirt the sky.
For hours, that is all,
and grass,
always grass,
in different shades and textures
like the braids in a rag rug.

Miss Sanders told us that lines never end,
and numbers go on forever.
Here,
in short-grass country,
I understand infinity. (18)

and

So many things
I know about myself
I've learned from others.
Without someone else to listen,
to judge,
to tell me what to do,
and to choose
who I am,
do I get to decide for myself? (158)

Read May B.

• If you love pioneer stories
• If you love historical fiction
• If you love coming-of-age stories
• If you like survivor stories
• If you like verse novels
• If you like stories about heroines with reading problems (dyslexia)

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Earth Abides

Earth Abides. George R. Stewart. 1949/2006. (Introduction to this edition by Connie Willis!) Random House. 368 pages.

Just as he pulled himself up to the rock ledge, he heard a sudden rattle, and felt a prick of fangs.

Earth Abides almost leaves me speechless. I almost don't know what I could say about this one. I am definitely glad I read it.

Did I find it thrilling and compelling and wonderful? Sometimes. Maybe not as thrilling as you might expect a futuristic apocalyptic novel to be. Think more along the lines of Robinson Crusoe. Slow and steady with some adventuresome scenes. But mainly a more thoughtful novel.

Ish Williams, our hero, was bitten by a rattle snake. He makes it to his cabin before the sickness completely overwhelms him, and he does what he can to try to survive the snake bite. But nothing is certain, and he knows it. What he didn't expect, what he couldn't possibly have imagined, is that while he's been off camping, off having his nature-inspired adventures, his own brush with death via snake bite, the whole world has changed. The earth's population has dropped to almost nothing. In fact, it takes Ish a couple of chapters, at least, to find another survivor. And several more chapters to find a survivor sober enough, rational enough to want to spend any amount of time with. But Ish is determined and intellectual, a real thinker. He will find some way to go on with life, find some way to build a little pocket of society again.

The novel is broken into several sections. Some sections cover a few months, a few years, and other sections cover twenty or thirty years. Some sections are very detailed, very focused on individuals, others not so much. Some characters are definitely developed well, others not so much. Ish is definitely one of the most developed characters, most introspective and reflective characters that I've encountered in science fiction. (Perhaps not more than Ender or Andrew Wiggin in his Speaker of the Dead status.) That doesn't mean I love him necessarily, but it may mean I remember him.

Earth Abides isn't as emotional as it might have been or could have been. Ish just isn't a show-your-emotions type of guy. He is reflective and intellectual. He's resourceful. He knows a little bit about everything. He's a handy guy to have around. But he's not going to go on and on and on about his feelings. He's not going to weep or go crazy. He's not going to lose it just because the world as he knows it has ended. He's disconnected, in a way, yet his detachment may enable him to survive in this new world.

Read Earth Abides

• If you're looking to read vintage science fiction, a classic apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic novel
• If you're interested in survival stories
• If you're interested in a generational story

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Ashfall (YA)

Ashfall. Mike Mullin. 2011. Tanglewood. 476 pages. 

I was home alone on that Friday evening. Those who survived know exactly which Friday I mean. Everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing, in the same way my parents remembered 9/11, but more so. Together we lost the old world, slipping from that cocoon of mechanized comfort into the hellish land we inhabit now. The pre-Friday world of school, cell phones, and refrigerators dissolved into this post-Friday world of ash, darkness, and hunger. 

Just in case Susan Beth Pfeffer's moon trilogy was NOT bleak enough for you, may I recommend Mike Mullin's Ashfall?!

Ashfall is a YA novel--a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel--that is incredibly intense. The America Mullin imagines after a super-volcano erupts in Yellowstone is....not quite for everyone. But. For those that can handle it, those who like things ugly and gritty and very life-and-death, Ashfall is quite the read!!!

The hero of Ashfall is a young guy named Alex. His family is out of town for the weekend. Alex had been invited, of course, but he chose to not go with his family to visit his aunt and uncle in Illinois. The event happens suddenly...and it does change everything. But as intense as it was for Alex in the first 48 hours, it doesn't even begin to come close to what the future holds for him...as he decides to travel to Illinois on his own--on foot--to try to find his family.

Ashfall highlights the best and worst in humanity. There are opportunities for great acts of mercy and kindness--as people share what little they have, as people come together and work to survive. But there are hundreds of opportunities for evil as well. Alex encounters both in his journey. For Alex, the best thing to come out of this catastrophe is meeting Darla. But you have to look hard and search deep to find the hope in this novel.

Read Ashfall

• If you're a fan of post-apocalyptic science fiction
• If you don't mind a LOT of blood--both human and animal. If you don't mind graphic depictions of violence, of slaughter, of rape. This one goes to very DARK places
• If you enjoy gritty novels where every day presents a new challenge to survive
• If you're looking for a post-apocalyptic read WITHOUT zombies

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews