Tag Archives: Competition

Review: Chaos of Now by Erin Jade Lange

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

Chaos of Now by Erin Jade LangeChaos of Now
Erin Jade Lange
Bloomsbury
Published on October 2, 2018

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About Chaos of Now
Is it real if it happens online?

Life at Eli’s high school hasn’t been the same since his classmate Jordan died by suicide after being tirelessly bullied. Schools now have access to students’ online activities and students have less privacy than ever. Eli just wants to graduate—so he can get out of town, get away from his father’s embarrassingly young fiancée, and get himself a prestigious coding job. But Eli’s hacking skills get him roped into a vigilante website that—while subverting the school’s cybersnoops— seeks justice for Jordan and everyone else being bullied. Suddenly Eli finds himself in way over his head as his keystrokes start to have devastating consequences in the real world . . . This timely story from the author of Butter is a thrilling tale about the power of the internet, the young people who wield it, and the fine lines between bully and victim, justice and vengeance.

My Review
Chaos of Now took some directions I wasn’t expecting, and I really appreciated that about the story. I liked Isabel and Zack a lot, but Eli was a tougher sell for me. I didn’t like the kind of know-it-all attitude and his insensitivity to the people around him. That said, he grows a LOT as a character through the story, and by the end, I felt like I had a much stronger connection with him. I liked the way his relationship with Misty, his father’s girlfriend, changes over the course of the book.

I thought the topic of coding and of bullying online made for a really fascinating, intense read. At first I worried about the position the book would take. Eli had some really strong feelings about online freedom and the idea that people who don’t take precautions to seriously protect their data can’t be upset if someone accesses it. He learns that there are some definite flaws in his ideals when he faces unexpected consequences.

Sorry… I know that’s kind of vague. I don’t want to give away too much of the plot. But I definitely liked that he has this shifting view of life online because of what he experiences through his relationships with Mouse and Seth in particular.

While this probably wasn’t my favorite book this year—it’s a bit of an out-of-the-box pick for me—I did enjoy reading it. I think fans of Leopoldo Gout’s The Game series will enjoy this book.

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Cultural Elements
Major characters are white. Eli has a crush on a Latino girl named Isabel.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used fairly frequently. Some slurs used by kids bullying another kid.

Romance/Sexual Content
Eli overhears a conversation about a girl taking a pregnancy test. Eli watches a video of a classmate doing a striptease down to her underwear. Eli’s dad’s girlfriend is a former stripper. He makes some insulting comments about her previous life. Some kissing between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
A boy hits Eli and slams him around in a bathroom. Eli describes witnessing a classmate light himself on fire and die by suicide.

Drug Content
Video footage shows a boy using steroids. In one scene teens drink alcohol from a flask and spoke pot.

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

Review: Scythe by Neal Shusterman

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Dystopian or Post-Apocalyptic, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , ,

Scythe
Neal Shusterman
Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published on November 22, 2016

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About Scythe
Thou shalt kill.

A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery. Humanity has conquered all those things, and has even conquered death. Now scythes are the only ones who can end life—and they are commanded to do so, in order to keep the size of the population under control.

Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe—a role that neither wants. These teens must master the “art” of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own.

My Review
When Scythe first came out, it was pretty near the top of my reading list because of how much I loved the other Neal Shusterman books I’ve read. Somehow or other, I didn’t get to reading it very quickly, and here I am, almost two years later.

I really enjoyed this book. I’m often sensitive to violence in books, so I was a little nervous about that. But I found it to be a lot like the way The Hunger Games handles violence. The characters are disturbed by what’s happening and find ways to fight against it or call it out as wrong. Some things about it reminded me of Unwind, particularly the moral questions surrounding the Scythes’ role as killers.

My favorite thing about Scythe is the way the stakes just kept getting higher and higher. It felt like every few chapters, there would be some new intense twist making me sit straight up in my seat. Sometimes I suspected the twist a little bit before it happened, but even then, the revelation of it was so satisfying and the intensity ratcheted up so high that I had to keep going to find out how it all turned out.

Would I read the second one? Yes. Absolutely.

If you liked Unwind, I suspect you’ll love Scythe, too. It will also appeal to fans of Scorch by Gina Damico.

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Cultural Elements
In this futuristic story world, all races are pretty mixed. Certain characters are described as “leaning” toward a particular race or other. Scythes are mandated to kill across a diverse population or else face punishment.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used pretty infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. A couple of references to sex in suggestive comments.

Spiritual Content
Most religions appear not to exist anymore. One group remains, worshipping sound and living monastic lives in secluded communes.

Violent Content
Vivid descriptions of deaths. Some are painless or quick. Others are crueler. This is meant to show the difference in the ways Scythes carry out their jobs. Some use more compassionate means and others seem to revel in causing pain. Rowan struggles with these attitudes, realizing he could in fact become the kind of monster who enjoys killing.
Scythes are allowed to end their own lives, and some do in the course of the story. One suicide happens off-scene. Rowan witnesses another. Sensitive readers may find scenes like this too intense.

Drug Content
Some Scythes use poisons or drugs to end a life, usually as a way to do it painlessly.

Review: The One by Kiera Cass

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

The One (The Selection #3)
Kiera Cass
HarperTeen
Published on May 6, 2014

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About The One
The time has come for one winner to be crowned.

When she was chosen to compete in the Selection, America never dreamed she would find herself anywhere close to the crown—or to Prince Maxon’s heart. But as the end of the competition approaches, and the threats outside the palace walls grow more vicious, America realizes just how much she stands to lose—and how hard she’ll have to fight for the future she wants.

My Review
I picked up The One because I needed a light read, and this The Bachelor meets Cinderella fit the bill. Sometimes the dialog gets a bit superficial, and a few times America comes off as selfish. She criticizes Maxon about his complex feelings for the other candidates when she harbors her own feelings for her childhood bestie, Aspen. But where The Elite left me frustrated by that hypocrisy, America finally faces the truth that she’ll have to choose between the two boys in The One. And not just choose between them—but face the fact that her secret-keeping might destroy any hope of happiness in her future.

The writing is a bit different, but I think this series might appeal to readers who like books by Melanie Dickerson or Victoria Aveyard. See below for content notes.

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Cultural Elements
One of the girls America competes with is black and another is Asian.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used maybe eight or ten times.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. At one point, America invites a boy into her bed. They stop short of having sex, not wanting their first experience to be an impulsive moment. But they do spend the night together.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Rebels attack and kill citizens. The king pressures the remaining Selection candidates to condemn criminals to harsh, violent punishments.

Drug Content
None.

Review: Genius: The Game by Leopoldo Gout

Book Review and Content, Clean Fiction, Sci-Fi, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , ,

Genius: The Game
Leopoldo Gout
Feiwel & Friends
Available May 3, 2016

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As the clock counts down to Zero Hour, 200 of the best and brightest kids form teams competing to solve a challenge created by a young visionary with world-changing goals. For Rex, Tunde and Painted Wolf, the competition is only part of the challenge. Rex needs a supercomputer housed at the challenge site to locate his brother whose been missing for two years. A war lord threatens to wipe Tunde’s whole village off the map unless Tunde and his friends deliver a powerful weapon to him at the end of the contest. Painted Wolf will do anything to help her friends, but she must keep her identity a secret or her family’s lives are forfeit.

This book reminded me a little bit of On a Clear Day by Walter Dean Myers. It had a really diverse cast of extremely bright kids with very diverse talents (everything from biology to mechanical engineering to coding.) From the description of the book, I was expecting a much more tense, sort of cerebral thriller kind of tale. While there are some tense moments and the story follows the solving of a puzzle, I didn’t feel like I was really on the edge of my seat so much. I liked Rex a lot and Painted Wolf. Tunde felt a little stiff to me, but his strong sense of morality won me over for sure.

My husband is a software engineer, so I enjoyed showing him some of the code in the story and letting him kind of explain it to me. I liked the way Gout used the code to advance the story, and I was definitely excited to see a software guy in the hero seat. Loved that. (Obviously I’m a bit biased, but still.) I thought it was interesting how the pieces fit together into a much larger puzzle by the end of the story. I’m definitely curious as to where it will go next.

Readers looking for a high-tech adventure story should definitely give this one a read. I think fans of the Percy Jackson books would enjoy the team challenge elements of this story and the strong characters. Over all it’s really clean, and I definitely appreciated that, too.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
A war lord makes some threats to Tunde, saying he will basically destroy Tunde’s entire village unless Tunde brings him a custom-made weapon. At one point the war lord puts Tunde’s mom on the phone with him and she pleads with him. It’s intense, but not violent per se.

One team performs surgery on an insect to install an electrical control system.

Drug Content
None.

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

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