Category Archives: Mystery/Suspense/Thriller

Review: The Choosing by Rachelle Dekker

Book Review and Content, Dystopian or Post-Apocalyptic, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , ,

the-choosingThe Choosing
Rachelle Dekker
Tyndale

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Seventeen year-old Carrington Hale is at the top of her class, a sure pick for some lucky man on her day of Choosing. Only, no one chooses her. Devastated and forced to leave her family behind, Carrington joins the masses of other unworthy, unchosen girls to serve as Lints, laborers whose only value lies in completing the menial tasks assigned to them.

Authorities are troubled by the murder of several Lint workers. The brutal killer must be stopped before he undermines the Authority of the Law and upsets the people. To reassure the people, when widowed leader Isaac makes the unorthodox request to choose a second bride, the ruling leaders ask him to choose a girl from among the Lints. And Carrington realizes this may be the second chance she’s been hoping for.

I liked that this wasn’t strictly a dystopian story. It definitely had all the elements of one, but it’s also the story of the pursuit of a serial killer. I’ve never seen a mash-up of those two genres before, and I think it really worked.

That said, I’m super squeamish to violence, particularly anything sexual or creepy, so this was not an easy read for me. If you have similar sensitivities or abuse history, consider this a trigger warning. You might want to steer clear of this one. The details are limited to a few scenes, but it definitely creeped me out.

I enjoyed Carrington and Remko’s characters a lot, though. She’s a great strong yet sensitive heroine. Remko definitely fits that strong silent type, so he definitely had me won over. I loved the banter between him and his friend Helms.

Since this is a Tyndale book, I expected a strong spiritual element, and there definitely is one. I felt like the story was a bit all humans are good, it’s the system that tries to tell you otherwise. I didn’t think it translated well to Christian doctrine. That said, often Christian fantasy follows the thread of a Creator God and leaves out the Jesus elements of the faith, so maybe I’m being too strict in my interpretation. But that was my opinion. For more on that, see the Spiritual Content section below.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Brief kisses.

Spiritual Content
Carrington’s people believe a sort of perverted version of the Bible, handed down to them by a historical leader. According to the rules, women are unworthy second-class citizens to be helpers and laborers. A spiritual revolutionary named Aaron challenges the ideas of the current leadership, telling his followers, you are blameless, perfect, worthy.

The twisted version of scripture used by leadership to control the populace reminded me a little bit of the book used by leadership in Delirium by Lauren Oliver. I found Aaron’s teaching to be really more Unitarian than strictly Christian, if that makes sense. I felt like the idea that we are blameless and perfect sort of flies in the face of the Christian doctrine that it’s only by Jesus’ sacrifice that we are found blameless.

Violent Content and Trigger Warning
An assassin slashes the throat of a guard before killing himself.

A man at first woes his potential bride with kindness, but soon turns to threats and abuse.

A serial killer has been killing women laborers using bleach internally and externally. Some scenes feature the killer with a bound victim who begs for help.

Drug Content
None.

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Review: The Progeny by Tosca Lee

Book Review and Content, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, New Adult 18up, , , , , ,

The Progeny
Tosca Lee
Howard Books

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Twenty-one year old Emily Jacobs wakes up to learn she has elected to have her memory erased. In a small town in Maine, she struggles to form a plan for her future. A handsome stranger approaches her in a grocery store, and she reluctantly lets him into her life. Which would be great, but apparently he’s trying to kill her. Emily flees with no clues as to her past, the identity of her allies or her enemies beyond a hidden code recovered in a necklace. The code leads her to a conspiracy spanning generations and linking her genetically to the most famous female serial killer.

Part Davinci Code, part Memento, The Progeny is a roller coaster ride that never stops. As soon as you think you understand what’s going on, hold your breath, because the next page will probably change everything.

I’ve been a long-time reader and fan of Tosca Lee, going all the way back to her debut novel, Demon. Lee has an incredible gift for taking a familiar story (like the creation story referenced in Demon) and making it fresh and new without veering from its core truths. Though this is a modern-day suspense-filled story, Lee remains strong in connecting readers to the humanity of her characters and their very believable struggles and questions. All of the faith elements in this story felt real and natural. Faith isn’t the central theme, but it’s present and organic in its presence.

This is definitely a great read for fans of the series Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee wrote together, The Books of Mortals. It’s suspenseful and action-packed, spanning across the US to Eastern Europe. Would I read the sequel? Yes. Absolutely. Can I read it tomorrow?!

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing. That characters are having sex is implied but not explicitly described.

Spiritual Content
Among Emily’s allies are monks and nuns. More than once she wonders about God’s role in her life, what his judgment would be for sins committed. She also spends some time thinking about her own faith.

Violent Content
Emily’s enemies are brutal. She witnesses their cruelty in the form of video clips sent to her showing friends they’ve captured and beaten. She witnesses the aftermath of the beating, not the act itself. She also learns of friends who’ve been murdered.

There are some brief details about Emily’s ancestor, the serial killer, but nothing drawn out or gory.

Drug Content
Emily drinks tequila and longs for a glass of wine. She is twenty-one.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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Review: Girl Stolen by April Henry

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

Girl, Stolen
April Henry
Henry Holt & Co

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Nothing was supposed to happen. Her step-mom left her in the car for a few minutes while she ran inside to pay for antibiotics. But when Cheyenne woke, instead of her step-mom behind the wheel of the car, it’s a boy with a gun. She’d been kidnapped.

Taking the car was supposed to be easy. It was running. Griffin hopped in and took it. He just didn’t realize there was a girl sleeping in the back seat. Once Roy starts calling the shots, things get complicated. The girl’s dad owns a big company. The boys want to collect a ransom. But Cheyenne’s pneumonia’s getting worse, and without antibiotics, she won’t last long. Her blindness keeps her from being able to recognize her captors, but it also makes it that much harder for her to escape.

This book really caught my attention because it’s a story about a kidnapping in which the protagonist is also blind. I liked that it was about a blind character but not about her blindness. I thought Henry portrayed Cheyenne as crafty, smart and independent. I liked Griffin, despite his flaws. He’s not the sharpest pencil in the box, but ultimately he wants to do the right thing and keep Cheyenne safe, and I definitely respected that. I liked that their relationship didn’t go wild and unrealistic places and stayed in this more ‘tentative allies’ frame.

Suspense isn’t really my thing, so I feel like it’s hard for me to evaluate the book in terms of the genre. I thought it could have been more suspenseful and intense. Because Cheyenne reasoned things out carefully, I think it tended to read with a gentler pace than some of the (few) suspense novels I’ve read. I didn’t enjoy it less for the pace, though.

Language Content
Mild language used infrequently.

Sexual Content
While the group holds Cheyenne captive, one man threatens to rape her. It’s creepy, but he doesn’t succeed.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
Griffin’s dad is a violent man. There are references to things he’s done, but we don’t see him really become violent in terms of directly harming anyone in the story itself. He breaks windows on a truck and threatens to shoot Cheyenne. A man is shot in the chest with a shotgun at close range.

Drug Content
When Cheyenne is sick, Griffin describes her fevered state as reminding him of really drunk people at parties he’s been to. Cheyenne thinks the men who’ve captured her may be drunk.

Review: The Hunted by Matt de la Pena

Book Review and Content, Dystopian or Post-Apocalyptic, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , ,

The Hunted
Matt de la Peña
Delacorte Press

When Shy and his friends reach the California shoreline, they find widespread devastation and panic. What seemed at first like an easy mission – transport precious vaccines to Arizona to stop the spread of a disease destroying humanity – suddenly becomes near impossible. With the border closed and vigilantes hunting down anyone on the road, the trip seems like a hopeless cause. But with more and more people dying, Shy can’t give up. He must find a way to deliver the medicine and the evidence damning its creator.

The rise of the ugly disease and the conspiracy behind its spread will likely remind readers of James Dashner’s Maze Runner series. The Hunted packs a high dose of suspense and a fast-paced plot that keeps the pages turning. At one point the story takes a bit of a sci-fi turn. Something really unreal happens, but Shy kind of scratches his head and moves on. Nothing further develops from that moment, and readers are left hanging.

At times Shy seems a little young for seventeen, especially in his relationship with Carmen, who often reads as much older. Their relationship progresses through the course of the story, but isn’t a strong central focus. Shy wants to track down his family members and first finds his dad, with whom he carries a lot of emotional baggage. The rebuilding of that relationship borders on being too easy or perfect, but like Shy and Carmen, it’s not in the spotlight very much. Readers looking for a suspenseful, post-apocalyptic tale will find no shortage of action in this high-energy story.

Language Content
Extreme profanity used often. More than one character pretty much uses profanity to refer to any general noun. Often.

Sexual Content
Shy makes a quick comment about how he hooked up with Carmen (in the first book.) Things heat up between them. They swim in underwear and have sex (not a lot of description there.) All this while Carmen is engaged to a man who may or may not still be alive.

Spiritual Content
There are some digs at religion/faith, at Christianity/Jesus in particular as being a useless pursuit. A priest helps Shy and his friends, but there’s no mention of what state the man’s faith remains in.

Violence
There are some pretty gross moments, mostly descriptions of bodies long dead. Some seemed unrealistic – if there’s an outbreak of contagious disease, why aren’t corpses burned? Instead they’re kind of just left sitting there getting nastier and nastier.

Vigilantes with guns shoot anyone who could be sick or who gets in their way.

Drug Content
Shy and his friends carry vaccines that they hope can be replicated to stop the spread of the disease.

The story contains an idea that a large medical company has basically scammed the public by creating a devastating illness and then withholding the vaccine, hoping to use it to get rich.

Review: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Book Review and Content, Dystopian or Post-Apocalyptic, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Sci-Fi, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , ,

Ready Player One
Ernest Cline
Random House/Random House Audio

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Orphaned and left to the care of his neglectful aunt, seventeen year-old Wade spends as much time as possible in the online virtual world of the OASIS. From virtual school to online chat rooms to video games, Wade lives most of his life and maintains his closest relationships over an internet connection. When the OASIS founder James Halliday dies, he leaves a challenge behind for the most faithful of his users: find three keys, unlock three gates, and locate the Easter egg within the OASIS. The prize: his fortune and control of the OASIS empire. Of course, everyone wants to win, but Wade, a devoted student of Halliday’s interests, knows for him, it’s the only way to survive. Once Wade uncovers the first clue, a dangerous rival threatens his life, and Wade must continue his online hunt on the run. The only way he’ll ever be free is to win the prize.

After coming across rave reviews, I listened to this novel as an audiobook, narrated by Wil Wheaton. We are a pretty pro-Wil Wheaton household: a little bit Trekkie, avid Tabletop followers, and yes, we’ve watched the recorded sessions of the Acquisitions, Inc Dungeons and Dragons games. So, needless to say, both my husband and I were excited to get into this video gamer story. We listened to it on the way to and from my cousin’s out-of-town wedding.

All the way through, I loved the narration. Wheaton’s delivery was entertaining and he seemed to really enjoy the story himself, which made it easy to enjoy hearing it. As a child of the 80s, I got a kick out of a lot of the references (some I missed… must have been too busy with My Little Pony or Jem & the Holograms.) The first quarter of the story itself really had me hooked. Here’s this kid with this big dream, and suddenly the cost of pursuing it skyrockets. Suddenly finding Halliday’s Easter egg could cost Wade his life.

But once Wade went gaga over Art3mis, I felt like the tale lost some steam. Over and over I felt like there were opportunities for conflict or tension, and instead they became long passages about how awesome Wade is and how he knows everything he needs to know, and did we mention he’s awesome? To me, those parts read like a fantasy as opposed to a story. So that kind of dampened my enthusiasm a bit.

Still, the overall mechanism of the contest and the big inevitable showdown between the gunters and the black-hearted IOI guru made for an exciting climax. I liked that Wade’s friends are not who he thinks they are. A bit of that reveal may have bordered on being preachy, but the overall message – that the internet is sort of the new marketplace, and despite the fact that an avatar’s appearance bears no connection to the gamer’s real face, certain kinds of people get preferential treatment. I liked that Cline went there and respected that he took the opportunity to challenge stereotypes.

Despite the slow middle, Ready Player One was a really fun read. I highly recommend the audiobook version.

Language Content
Extreme profanity used throughout the story. More frequently in the first half than the second half.

Sexual Content
References to the main character being a virgin. There are places to visit within the Oasis in which players can purchase virtual companionship and use a doll to simulate sexual experiences. There aren’t really any details describing the process. The main character goes through a brief period in which he’s desperate enough to try this, but feels ashamed later.

Spiritual Content
Gunters sort of treat Halliday’s book as a holy text. Not in the sense of worshipping him per se, but more like the quest has that much importance.

Violence
Bad guys blow up a trailer park full of innocent people and toss a gamer off the balcony of his apartment building to his death. Virtual battles take place within the Oasis. Nothing is described in gory detail.

Drug Content
None.

Random Trivia
Spielberg (who is mentioned in the book) will be directing the film version of Ready Player One, which is set to be released in December 2017. Also, to celebrate the release of the paperback version of his book, Ernest Cline hosted a contest inspired by the story in which participants had to locate an Easter egg within the story and unlock gates to reach a final victory. The prize, a Delorean was awarded to the winner, Craig Queen.

Review: Nirvana by J R Stewart

Book Review and Content, Dystopian or Post-Apocalyptic, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, New Adult 18up, Sci-Fi, , ,

Nirvana
J R Stewart
Blue Moon Publisher

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Seventeen year-old punk rock star Larissa Kenders has a cause to fight for and a soul mate who understands her better than anyone. But when her lover, Andrew, a brilliant programmer for a powerful company, disappears, Kenders has to take all she’s learned in her quest to protect animal rights to a whole new kind of fight: one to find and save the man she loves. With corporate thugs closing in around her, she must decode clues Andrew left behind about why he may have been murdered. She’ll need help, but choosing the wrong ally could cost her life.

My number one issue with this novel is that I really don’t think it qualifies as YA. Though the narrator is seventeen, all of the issues she deals with are adult issues. There’s no sense of coming-of-age, or sort of graduating into the adult sphere. She begins the novel living independently with her adult boyfriend and then investigating his disappearance on her own.

I really liked that Stewart brought music into the story and used punk music in particular in the way he did. I loved that Kenders had a cause important to her and that the music was a big part of her platform for that cause, yet it lent itself to other parts of the story pretty seamlessly.

I loved her relationship with Andrew. They seemed to really get each other and have a relationship worth fighting for. I loved the scenes where Kenders goes into the virtual world and meets Andrew and it’s laced with the snippets of reality. I LOVED the layering of virtual and real overlapping so tightly that it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended. The theme is explored in discussions between characters a little bit as well – whether events experienced in the virtual world are at all real. Such a great thread. It felt very Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to me, and I totally enjoyed that.

I felt like there was a really abrupt jump in the part where Andrew disappears. I don’t want to give too much away, but one chapter ends with Kenders saying she’s going to go find him and the next begins with a huge event that left me feeling like I missed a few pages. Over all it wasn’t a big deal. There were a couple of times where the boys are kind of like, hey we’re smart, so you (Kenders) sit tight and let us do the hard thinking. It made sense in terms of the plot, but sort of sidelined her as the protagonist and put her more in the damsel-in-distress position. I liked the story better in the scenes in which Kenders was playing a more active role in the story.

Overall I think this is a cool sci-fi story. It definitely reminded me of some of the recent VR movies that I wanted to like, such as Surrogate with Bruce Willis (I liked this better, actually.) I think it will have more appeal outside the YA audience. Not that I didn’t enjoy it, but I feel like it’s more of an adult sci-fi novel with a young narrator.

Language Content
Extreme profanity used infrequently.

Sexual Content
Descriptions of kissing and a lead-in to sex, but no description of the actual exchange.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
Brief descriptions of torture tactics used to pressure a man to give up information. A man is killed in an explosion that leaves his body badly burned.

Drug Content
None.