Review: There Once Were Stars by Melanie McFarlane

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

There Once Were Stars CoverThere Once Were Stars
Melanie McFarlane
Month 9 Books

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Peace. Love. Order. Dome.

Those are the rules Natalia must live by under the protective dome. Radiation and violent infected will kill anyone who ventures outside. Then Nat spots the impossible through the curved surface of the dome: survivors on the outside. When soldiers seize one of the men, Nat wrestles with conflicting desires. Should she find him and learn more about the world outside or keep her head down as her grandmother always admonishes her? When the outsider shares an impossible gift with Nat—a picture of her that her parents carried on their last mission outside the dome—she begins to fear that her leaders keep dark secrets.

As soon as I saw the premise of this book, I knew I had to read it. A close friend in junior high school and I used to talk about writing a story about a girl who lived in a bio dome and a boy from the outside. I love that Melanie McFarlane has done it!

The story moves very quickly. Sometimes I liked this, because it felt like things were always happening. Other times it felt rushed, and I wished for more pauses to stop and examine the story world or to better transition from one scene to the next. Sometimes I lost track of the setting because things happened so quickly. I’d think Nat was in the hall, but then suddenly she’d flop onto her bed, and I’d be like, wait, what?

I liked the development of the romance. I liked that Nat finds herself caught between two boys who passionately believe in their politics, and that her own political beliefs emerge independently. I kind of kept rooting for Jak (What is it about the perfect best friend that always makes me want him to emerge as the hero?) even though I liked Evan. There were definitely some twists that kept me turning pages where it came to the romantic elements.

Over all, I thought this book was okay. It didn’t blow me away, but I wasn’t sorry I read it. I think fans of Matched by Allie Condie might really enjoy There Once Were Stars. For more information about the story, check out my interview with author Melanie McFarlane.

Cultural Elements
Everyone appears to be pretty homogenous within the culture of the dome.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Boy/girl kissing. A few times Nat stretches out on a bed with a boy.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Nat’s parents died on an expedition outside the dome. Their bodies had been mutilated. Few details given about the incident. A disease turns people violent and causes their bodies to decompose while they’re still alive. (Sounds like some kind of zombie virus type deal.) Nat witnesses a few people infected with the disease. A man purposely infects himself as part of a murder/suicide plan.

Drug Content
None.

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

Save

Save

Save

Save

Review: The Choosing by Rachelle Dekker

Book Review and Content, Christian World-View, Clean Fiction, Dystopian or Post-Apocalyptic, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , ,

The Choosing
Rachelle Dekker
Tyndale

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

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.

Save

Save

Review: Machinations by Hayley Stone

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, New Adult 18up, Romance, Sci-Fi, , , ,

Machinations
Hayley Stone
Hydra/Random House

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Rhona remembers dying on the battlefield as Camus held her. When she wakes in a chamber, far from the battlefield, she learns a startling truth: she’s not the original Rhona. She’s a clone.

She races home to a hidden military base where her team of resistance fighters waits for her to lead them against the Machines who’ve chosen to end humanity as a logical solution to establishing world peace. There, she must convince her former allies and the man who first loved Rhona that she’s capable of leading them in a war for humanity’s survival.

I liked that this book paired the elements of a robot/artificial intelligence uprising and the morality/personhood of a human clone together into one fast-paced, fascinating tale. I liked that the plot hinged on whether Rhona could prove her value, not just as a military leader, but as a human being.

I wanted to see that idea juxtaposed against the value of artificial intelligence to kind of explore at what point a machine gains value as an independent life form, if ever. I just thought that would have been interesting—to have a clone on one side of the battle lines compared to AI on the other. Instead, the machines, though highly intelligent, remain largely personality-less, which is okay. However, for the directions the plot pursues, it made sense.

For some reason I really struggled with Camus’s name. I kept forgetting what it was and then wasn’t sure how to pronounce it, which I found a little distracting. I liked that he had this really strong, strategy-oriented approach to life. Rhona’s strengths and weaknesses were very much opposite to his. The fact that they so obviously needed each other and that together they could be such effective leaders definitely amped up the tension between them. Everyone wrestled with whether or not to allow Rhona to resume her former post as commander.

Another total gem in Machinations—the dialogue. I loved Rhona’s snappy one-liners and the way she often said completely absurd things to diffuse tension or make a point. The way she interacted with other characters made her believable and distinct, so I immediately liked her.

What I really didn’t like? The cover. Nothing about that image connects me to the story. I wanted to see the fierce Alaskan winter landscape, the machines. Something like that. The image of the girl on the cover doesn’t look like a warrior back from the dead. I don’t think I’d have picked this up off the shelf in a bookstore.

If you liked These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner or Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, give Machinations a read. The humor is toned down a little bit compared to Illuminae. The balance of romance to sci-fi reminded me a lot of These Broken Stars.

Cultural Elements
One of Rhona’s allies is a German man named Ulrich. He expresses himself in German several times, which I enjoyed. I loved it because I actually understood a lot without needing the context or explanation in the narrative. Other than that, most of the named characters appear to be either white American or European. A Japanese doctor treats Rhona’s injuries, and he speaks to the leadership on her behalf. The narrative describes one woman as having dreads and the appearance of an Amazon warrior.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Moderate profanity used moderately frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Camus tests Rhona, asking her about various memories, including the last time they made love. For two sentences-ish, she briefly remembers (more the romance of it than the particulars.)

Spiritual Content
Vague references to prayer. Because Rhona is a clone, the story delves into whether or not she is actually the real Rhona. Is she a slightly different person with the same inherent value, or merely a copy, a scientific abomination? The story discusses some issues of morality concerning human cloning.

Violent Content
When the story opens, Rhona dies of a gunshot wound. Rhona and her allies fight the armed machines. Later, one of Rhona’s allies talks about a former capture by the machines in which he was brutally tortured. He shows scars on his arms from electric burns.

Drug Content
After battles or other trauma, medical staff administer medicine to manage pain and hysteria.

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

Save

Save

Save

Save

Spotlight: Wolf Road by Beth Lewis

Dystopian or Post-Apocalyptic, News and Fun, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , ,

The Wolf Road
Beth Lewis
Crown Publishers
Available July 5, 2016

Amazon | B&N | Indiebound | iBooks | The Book Depository

One of the books I’m really anticipating this summer is a debut novel called Wolf Road by Beth Lewis. I love books where the protagonist is forced to reevaluate things he or she took for granted as absolute truth. Something about this book reminds me of All the Truth That’s In Me by Julie Berry, which I LOVED. So today, I wanted to share a bit more about this great book as a part of an Irish Banana Blog Tour.

In her debut novel THE WOLF ROAD (July 5, 2016; Crown), author and managing editor at London’s Titan Books Beth Lewis introduces us to a world decimated by an unnamed, apocalyptic event and inhabited by desperate people accustomed to hunting, tracking, and killing to survive. Among them is Elka, the young heroine whose unmistakable voice guides us through the untamed landscape of the area formerly known as British Columbia on her journey to escape the horrors of her own past.

About The Wolf Road

Everything Elka knows of the world she learned from the man she calls Trapper, a solitary hunter who took her under his wing when she was just seven years old. He has taught her how to shoot, track, set snares, and start fires—all the skills necessary to survive in a wild, lawless land where men are at the mercy of the elements and one another. But when wanted posters begin appearing in town, Elka realizes that the man she thinks she knows so well is harboring terrible secrets. The more Elka finds out about him, the less sure she becomes about her own identity—especially as she begins to recover some of the painful memories she’s kept at bay throughout her childhood.

As the horrific facts emerge, Elka makes her escape, armed with nothing but her knife and the survival skills he’s taught her. She sets out in the hope of finding her true parents, who traveled to the frozen north years earlier in pursuit of gold, but Elka can tell by the shadows that follow her that Trapper’s on her trail—and he won’t be letting his little girl go without a fight. As she encounters physical hardships, violence, and loneliness that at times test her sanity, she also strains to distinguish between fact and fiction in her own recollections. Ultimately, she will have to turn and confront not just Trapper but the dark reality of her past.

THE WOLF ROAD is a tautly suspenseful cat-and-mouse tale of justice and revenge, played out against a vast, unforgiving landscape—told by an unforgettable, tough-as-nails young heroine fighting desperately to escape the terrors of her childhood and rejoin humanity.

About Beth Lewis

Beth Lewis was raised in the wilds of Cornwall and split her childhood between books and the beach. She has traveled extensively throughout the world and has had close encounters with black bears, killer whales, and great white sharks. She has been, at turns, a bank cashier, a fire performer, and a juggler, and she is currently a managing editor at Titan Books in London. The Wolf Road is her first novel.

Beth’s Website | Twitter | Facebook

Praise for The Wolf Road

“Arresting…[an] odyssey that highlights the striking wilderness landscape and Elka’s grit.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Wolf Road

“An unrelenting psychological thriller of wilderness survival wrapped in a terrifying hide-and-seek game of trying to escape an unspeakable past. … Fans of suspense with a touch of horror will be pulled into Elka’s intense struggle to find peace and redemption as the whole truth is finally revealed.”

—Booklist on The Wolf Road

Irish Banana Blog Tours The Wolf Road Tour Schedule

Swing by some of the other tour stops for more information, including sneak peeks, author interviews, and book reviews!

7/11: The Story Sanctuary – Spotlight (you are here!)

7/13: Dizneeee’s World of Books – Excerpt

7/15: Storybook Slayers – Spotlight

7/19: Here’s to Happy Endings – Excerpt

7/21: No BS Book Reviews – Q&A

7/25: I Turn the Pages – Mood Board

7/27: Take Me Away to a Great Read – Excerpt

7/29: A Book & A Latte – Q&A

8/2: Novel Ink – Spotlight

8/4: Life According to a Bibliophile – Review

8/8: Bookish Lifestyle – Q&A

8/10: Emily Reads Everything – Review

8/12: Reading is Better with Cupcakes – Review

Save

Save

Save

Save

Review: That’s Not Hay in My Hair by Juliette Turner

Book Review and Content, Christian World-View, Clean Fiction, Contemporary, Middle Grade 8-12, , , , , ,

That’s Not Hay in My Hair
Juliette Turner
Zonderkidz

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Jules finishes fifth grade just in time to move from her tiny New York apartment to a 300 acre ranch in Texas. While her mom overflows with confidence that she and Jules can care for the longhorn cattle, horses, dogs and cats on their own, Jules carries some doubts. Sure enough, zany adventures abound as she and her mom struggle to find their inner cowgirls. Through it all, Jules determines to remain positive. When tragedy strikes, though, she’ll have to reevaluate her feelings for her new Texas life.

Turner really hits her stride in the scenes in which one wacky event follows another. In one, Jules struggles to get ready for school in the morning amid animals running amok. Another shows her frantically helping her party diva grandmother prepare for a Fourth of July barbecue. Lots of good-humored, clean fun.

The writing feels young, which mostly works for a story in the middle grade genre. At times the story loses focus, and lingers in scenes and dialogue that don’t really move the plot forward. Overall, it’s a sweet story with a lot of humor and heart. Jules’ struggles over changing schools definitely seem believable. I wished her peer community had been better developed. I expected there to be a little more connection with friends in the story, as those relationships become more and more important in the middle grade years. The story primarily focused on Jules’ relationships with her family members, and those feel genuine and fun.

Something about the story reminded me a little bit of the stories by Bill Wallace called Beauty (one of my favorites!) and Buffalo Gal. That’s Not Hay in My Hair is a lighter story about a modern city-girl-gone-cowgirl. But readers who’ve enjoyed one should consider trying the others.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Several mentions of animal poop. At one point Jules slips on a cow patty.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
Jules mentions the church she and her mother attended weekly while they lived in New York. She also attends a Christian school, and at one point her teacher asks her to share a favorite Bible verse. Jules doesn’t know one off the top of her head, so she names a reference she sees on a classmate’s notebook. She or her mom pray at different points in the story. After the death of one of the animals, Jules wonders if the animal is in heaven. She sees an image of the animal that makes her believe so.

The vet briefly references a Native American burial tradition.

Violent Content
Jules and her mom live on and work a 300 acre ranch with cattle, horses, dogs and cats. At one point, an animal has to be put down. A vet handles everything.

Drug Content
None.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com® book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

 

Save

Save

Review: I Wish My Teacher Knew by Kyle Schwartz

Book Review and Content, Nonfiction, , , ,

I Wish My Teacher Knew
Kyle Schwartz
De Capo Lifelong Books
Available July 12, 2016

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

When her Twitter post became a social media sensation, Kyle Schwartz realized that her classroom exercise asking students what they wished she, their teacher, knew about them was something other teachers and students needed in their classrooms. In her book, Schwartz explores what led her to performing the exercise with her class. She explains how it has changed her experience as a teacher. She breaks down her approach to building a community within her classroom and how important that is to supporting a successful learning environment.

The chapters also connect current research about trauma, grief, and poverty and their effects on children’s abilities to learn. With those things in mind, Schwartz relates her own experience. In the book she also shares stories from other teachers and students which address these issues.

I Wish My Teacher Knew is part an inspirational tale about how teachers matter and have an incredible opportunity to affect the lives of their students and part a gentle how-to resource for recreating a successful community environment to support both academic and personal growth for students.

As a parent, this book helped me understand that teachers have broader goals than simply instructing students on basic subjects like math, science, reading, and history. The importance of a classroom community makes sense to me now on a much deeper level. I’d kind of assumed that those community elements were more a happy accident than a carefully cultivated environment actually designed to support the students’ learning ability. It makes a lot of sense to address issues like trauma and grief because of the direct effect on a child’s ability to focus in the midst of those challenges. I simply never considered the purposeful way teachers implement these elements into their classrooms.

I’m so grateful for the men and women who’ve dedicated their lives to making these kinds of differences in their students’ lives. This book makes a great resource not only for teachers but for parents, too. There’s a lot more happening in classrooms than we realize. It’s important not to take those gifts for granted and to find ways to offer support.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content
None.

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

Save

Save

Save