Every adult in the world is dying, and quickly. The human race is going to disappear. Is there anything that can be done?
This book takes place many years in the future, another apocalyptic story. A comet passed by the Earth, too close for comfort but far enough away that scientists believed we were safe. They were wrong. Once you turn 18 you become infected with a disease that will kill you. Some more quickly than others, but everyone is guaranteed an early demise. So what do we do? Well, in Testa’s world, we create a ship that will transport the smartest, healthiest, and most able teenagers to a planet in another galaxy, a planet that has the same basic design as Earth and the greatest chance for their survival.
This story is great because it goes back and forth between the teens flying in the ship and the background to how they got there. It ties past and present together, so the explanation parts do not slow down the events occurring. And it has mystery as someone tries to sabotage the ship and most likely bring the complete end to the human race.
I like this story because I like apocalyptic type stories, and I like science-fiction type stories. There is a hint of romance, great character development, an invented sport, and the most hilarious narrator you will ever read. His name is Roc, and he is a computer.
It’s one of the shorter stories, which means I finished it in one night and then stayed up for another hour and a half thinking about it. I love it when that happens… except when I have school the next day. So maybe you should wait until a weekend to check it out, because this is a story you will not want to have to put down.
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The Comet's Curse was the one of the recent book selection of our Teen Book Group. Our group discussion involved a live, online chat with the fantastic (and funny!) author, Dom Testa, who answered all our questions about the book and how he wrote it! Want to make sure you get to participate in the next book group and author chat? Ask for more info at the youth services desk about how you can join the next conversation.
Super-special-extra thanks to Amethyst for not just the review but also for being part of the book group!
Click here to check our catalog to see if The Comet's Curse or other titles in Dom's Galahad series are on the shelves.
Friday, December 17, 2010
The Julian Game by Adele Griffin (reviewed by Emily TenCate)
According to its cover, The Julian Game was supposed to be an intriguing tale about high school and modern-day life in the form of misrepresentation through the Internet. Yet the book itself was sorely misrepresented by the cover-summary.
Hence my main complaint: the author was trying REALLY HARD to make her characters relatable and interesting and, most of all, MODERN (aka, good at technology), but it's clearly been a while since the author was a teenager.
It's as if, having forgotten what it was like to be in high school, the author emphasized every awful thing she read about in other teen romances. Everything is taken to ridiculous extremes, particularly the characters.
The in-crowd (cleverly titled "the Group") includes a fashion model and four other psychopaths who refer to each other as "Loozer" (I can only assume the spelling is meant to reflect the mental capacities of the Group?), "Lardass," (self-explanatory) and "Nerbit" (which is supposed to mean something like "nerd" but instead sounds like a rather charming combination of "gerbil" and "armpit"). They also drink lots of Irish Whiskey, invent fake Facebook profiles in attempts to get guys (is this a common custom among high school girls? I wouldn't know...) and go to way too many parties. There is a significant lack of schoolwork involved.
The antagonist, naturally one of the in-crowd, is so obnoxious that she's actually unreal: her routine revenge scheme typically involves something along the lines of causing an entire family to go bankrupt. Oh, and of course she draws on body fat with gel pens at sleepovers and creates slanderous blogs demolishing others' reputations - but as Queen Bee of high school, those are in the job description.
On the other side of the equation, you have the main character, who is a nerd. Fairly typical: nerdy characters are in vogue for teen fiction these days! But the author, once again, decides she wants her hero to really stand out, so she emphasizes the nerdiness like none other and inadvertently creates a cliche that is more cliched than I have ever seen before. As a result, our main character, who is named after some freakishly obscure painter, is into Star Trek, Star Wars, video gaming, and Mandarin Chinese tutoring (I will admit that this is cool, while perhaps a bit unrealistic). She's unathletic and scrawny, and to complete the image, she wears XL hoodies and baggy pants all the time. (Naturally, though, when she dresses up, she's drop-dead gorgeous - how else would she attend a million parties?)
Speaking of character development: the novel includes numerous demented, forced character quirks that are JUST TOO WEIRD to be real. For example, the antagonist rehearses her password (out loud, in normal conversation) 94 times - precisely- the month before she changes it. It's not only ridiculous - it's also just bad computer-use policy in general. I never knew that there was such a thing as "too unique," but this book has convinced me that there is.
While the characters are definitely pushing the far bounds of believable with their quirkiness, the plot does anything but. As per usual, our nerdling hero pines after the in-crowd. Violently so. She'd do anything to talk to them - even offer to tutor antagonist master in Mandarin Chinese! She simply yearns to be addressed by those offensive, derogatory, but somehow oh-so-wonderful nicknames!
So she invents this fake online profile and then shares it with Evil Antagonist from the in-crowd so that they can talk to gorgeous, unattainable, athletic, bit-of-a-player, most-popular-guy-at-the-nearby-boy's-school Julian. Well, except evil antagonist doesn't want to talk... she wants to get back at hot-jock! With her typical overblown MO, she invites hot-jock, through an incredibly convoluted scheme, to a party where he gets both beaten up AND arrested! Because that totally happens all the time in high school!
Through yet another convolution (after all the directions it's been twisted in, the plot looks like a balloon animal!) hot-jock and main character nerd make out!
And then decide they don't like each other.
Thank goodness, the end.
--
Thanks for the total honesty, Emily! We appreciate it when people tell us how they REALLY feel in their reviews.
Want to check out The Julian Game and decide for yourself? Click here to check our catalog to see if The Julian Game is on the shelves.
Hence my main complaint: the author was trying REALLY HARD to make her characters relatable and interesting and, most of all, MODERN (aka, good at technology), but it's clearly been a while since the author was a teenager.
It's as if, having forgotten what it was like to be in high school, the author emphasized every awful thing she read about in other teen romances. Everything is taken to ridiculous extremes, particularly the characters.
The in-crowd (cleverly titled "the Group") includes a fashion model and four other psychopaths who refer to each other as "Loozer" (I can only assume the spelling is meant to reflect the mental capacities of the Group?), "Lardass," (self-explanatory) and "Nerbit" (which is supposed to mean something like "nerd" but instead sounds like a rather charming combination of "gerbil" and "armpit"). They also drink lots of Irish Whiskey, invent fake Facebook profiles in attempts to get guys (is this a common custom among high school girls? I wouldn't know...) and go to way too many parties. There is a significant lack of schoolwork involved.
The antagonist, naturally one of the in-crowd, is so obnoxious that she's actually unreal: her routine revenge scheme typically involves something along the lines of causing an entire family to go bankrupt. Oh, and of course she draws on body fat with gel pens at sleepovers and creates slanderous blogs demolishing others' reputations - but as Queen Bee of high school, those are in the job description.
On the other side of the equation, you have the main character, who is a nerd. Fairly typical: nerdy characters are in vogue for teen fiction these days! But the author, once again, decides she wants her hero to really stand out, so she emphasizes the nerdiness like none other and inadvertently creates a cliche that is more cliched than I have ever seen before. As a result, our main character, who is named after some freakishly obscure painter, is into Star Trek, Star Wars, video gaming, and Mandarin Chinese tutoring (I will admit that this is cool, while perhaps a bit unrealistic). She's unathletic and scrawny, and to complete the image, she wears XL hoodies and baggy pants all the time. (Naturally, though, when she dresses up, she's drop-dead gorgeous - how else would she attend a million parties?)
Speaking of character development: the novel includes numerous demented, forced character quirks that are JUST TOO WEIRD to be real. For example, the antagonist rehearses her password (out loud, in normal conversation) 94 times - precisely- the month before she changes it. It's not only ridiculous - it's also just bad computer-use policy in general. I never knew that there was such a thing as "too unique," but this book has convinced me that there is.
While the characters are definitely pushing the far bounds of believable with their quirkiness, the plot does anything but. As per usual, our nerdling hero pines after the in-crowd. Violently so. She'd do anything to talk to them - even offer to tutor antagonist master in Mandarin Chinese! She simply yearns to be addressed by those offensive, derogatory, but somehow oh-so-wonderful nicknames!
So she invents this fake online profile and then shares it with Evil Antagonist from the in-crowd so that they can talk to gorgeous, unattainable, athletic, bit-of-a-player, most-popular-guy-at-the-nearby-boy's-school Julian. Well, except evil antagonist doesn't want to talk... she wants to get back at hot-jock! With her typical overblown MO, she invites hot-jock, through an incredibly convoluted scheme, to a party where he gets both beaten up AND arrested! Because that totally happens all the time in high school!
Through yet another convolution (after all the directions it's been twisted in, the plot looks like a balloon animal!) hot-jock and main character nerd make out!
And then decide they don't like each other.
Thank goodness, the end.
--
Thanks for the total honesty, Emily! We appreciate it when people tell us how they REALLY feel in their reviews.
Want to check out The Julian Game and decide for yourself? Click here to check our catalog to see if The Julian Game is on the shelves.
The Saga of Larten Crepsley: Birth of A Killer by Darren Shan (reviewed by Zach Fields)
An interesting mixture of action and suspense. it lives up to the rest of the Cirque du Freak series. There should be more to the story though, in my opinion. This book has a great opening line which keeps the reader wanting to find out how the it happens. And it just keeps you interested. Truly a hard book to put down. Shan did an excellent job with this book. I hope to read more!
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Zach reviewed an ADVANCE READER'S COPY (ARC) of this book, meaning he got a chance to read it before it was published and then he had a chance to let the library know if it he thought we should purchase it for our shelves or not.
Do YOU want a chance to read and review books before they're published? Do YOU think you could give your opinion on if the library/other people should buy these books? If so, you can ask at youth services or send us an e-mail for more information on how you can get a chance to be an advance reviewer.
--
Zach reviewed an ADVANCE READER'S COPY (ARC) of this book, meaning he got a chance to read it before it was published and then he had a chance to let the library know if it he thought we should purchase it for our shelves or not.
Do YOU want a chance to read and review books before they're published? Do YOU think you could give your opinion on if the library/other people should buy these books? If so, you can ask at youth services or send us an e-mail for more information on how you can get a chance to be an advance reviewer.
Worldshaker by Richard Harland (reviewed by Bear Schacht)
Yay Steampunk!
Length: 3,956.9 meters (12,982 feet)
Width: 1,170.4 meters (3,840 feet)
Weight: 3,110,776.4 metric tons (3,429,044 tons)
Upper decks population: 10,040 approx.
Filthies: 2,130 approx.
Worldshaker is a steam powered juggernaut as big as a city. Col Porpentine is the grand son of the supreme commander of Worldshaker, destined to take over the position. He has known nothing but the easy life, and as he is a member of the most important family, he has the best of everything. Then he meets riff, a Filthy girl from below decks, and his world is turned upside down.
I enjoyed reading this book. The world/ship and the politics between families were detailed and interesting. I also enjoyed the development of the main character, his gradual realization that what he had been brought up to believe was wrong and the people around him, people he trusted, were living lies.
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YAY, STEAMPUNK! I couldn't have said it better myself, Bear. Who doesn't love a good dirigible every now and then? ^___^
Click here to check our catalog to see if Worldshaker is on our shelves.
Length: 3,956.9 meters (12,982 feet)
Width: 1,170.4 meters (3,840 feet)
Weight: 3,110,776.4 metric tons (3,429,044 tons)
Upper decks population: 10,040 approx.
Filthies: 2,130 approx.
Worldshaker is a steam powered juggernaut as big as a city. Col Porpentine is the grand son of the supreme commander of Worldshaker, destined to take over the position. He has known nothing but the easy life, and as he is a member of the most important family, he has the best of everything. Then he meets riff, a Filthy girl from below decks, and his world is turned upside down.
I enjoyed reading this book. The world/ship and the politics between families were detailed and interesting. I also enjoyed the development of the main character, his gradual realization that what he had been brought up to believe was wrong and the people around him, people he trusted, were living lies.
--
YAY, STEAMPUNK! I couldn't have said it better myself, Bear. Who doesn't love a good dirigible every now and then? ^___^
Click here to check our catalog to see if Worldshaker is on our shelves.
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