Tag: young adult

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Top Ten Books on my TBR for Summer 2015

Posted on by Claire

toptentuesday

I’m much more of mood reader than a seasonal reader, so this list of Summer Reads probably won’t be very summery (lots of space doom), but it’s always fun to take a snapshot of what I’m hoping to read in the near future!

After I saw the beautiful trailer for The Martian, I couldn’t stop thinking about the story and just had to listen to the audiobook again. I liked it just as much as the first time, despite knowing what would happen, and it still made me tear up in places. So now I’m in the mood for Sci-Fi, SCI-FI, and MORE SCI-FI.

Luckily I had three shiny Audible credits, so I treated myself to:

1. Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson
I saw this one featured on Audible’s main page and I picked it up because Elizabeth at Books and Pieces recently gushed about it. Good enough for me! I’ve just started listening to it today & the moon’s already exploded. :)

2. Century Rain, by Alastair Reynolds
I asked for recent SFF recommendations on Twitter and this is one of the books that was mentioned. The blurb says it’s about a space archaeologist who rediscovers Earth. Yes, please!

[one_half]Seveneves_Book_Cover[/one_half][one_half_last]century rain[/one_half_last]

3. Space Chronicles, by Neil deGrasse Tyson
Audible suggested this one to me and I hesitated approximately 0.415186 of a second. I love popular science books and I loved Neil Tyson when I heard him speak on various science podcasts. Also his twitter is pretty amazing.

Next, I want to read some of the books I’ve already got on my shelves as the unread books are piling up and guilt-tripping me into not buying new ones…

4. The Burning Dark, by Adam Christopher
This one is more space-horror than straight-up science-fiction, but it was recommended by my friend Nick Bryan, and I do have a copy at home. I just read & really enjoyed The Ghost Line, the new Elementary tie-in book that Adam Christopher wrote, so I feel good about trying one of his own titles. Also, check out the cover, I LOVE it!

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5. Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel
Nothing says summer like a post-apocalyptic novel about an acting troupe, right? I bought this one a few weeks ago after George R.R. Martin recommended it, and I can’t wait to give it a go. I suppose at least in this one the Earth won’t be doomed, like in my first two selections! The cover design is so gorgeous that I really hope I love Mandel’s writing, just so I can get her other titles & have a matching set.

6. The Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy: A Handbook for Girl Geeks, by Sam Maggs
I pre-ordered this one & got it on the day of release. I’ve already rifled through & what I’ve seen had definitely made me smile. I’m not sure I need a handbook for being a girl geek or a fangirl, but I know this is the book of my people. I’m not going to read it straight away, I have a feeling I’ll need to add a bit levity to my summer reading if it gets too doom-and-gloomy.

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7. Yes Please, by Amy Poehler
I picked this up as an audiobook after watching quite a bit of Parks & Recreation recently. I love the show (and Leslie Knope of course!) so I was curious to read Poehler’s book. A lot of people on booktube really liked it so I’m looking forward to listening to this.

Finally here are three books I’ve been waiting to buy for a little while, and I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to contain myself when I go to Waterstones on Saturday to pick up another book I ordered for novel research…

8. The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place, by Julie Berry
A book about seven proper young ladies attempting to hide two murders and unmask a murderer? In a boarding school? In Victorian England? SIGN. ME. UP. Amazon & Goodreads both told me I should read this after I wish-listed & Want-to-read-ed Robin Stevens’ next Wongs & Wells book (which, incidentally, also comes out this summer) and it sounds about right. I’m very excited to dive into this, and it’s another one to cheer me up after all the space-death.

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9. Uprooted, by Naomi Novik
A brand new standalone based on Polish myth and folklore by the author of the Temeraire series!! I LOVE Naomi Novik’s writing and I’m not alone: Robin Hobb blurbed the book, Brandon Sanderson also said he loved it. I cannot wait. I’m dropping everything to read this the minute I get my grubby little hands on it. (So, Saturday.)

10. The World of Ice and Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones, by George R. R. Martin, Elio M. Garcia Jr. & Linda Antonsson
I’ve been putting off getting this Game of Thrones companion book until Season Five finished so that I would have something to read in the long dark months with no book or TV episodes. On the bright, no character we love will be brutally killed in the next ten months!

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Let me know in the comments if you’ve read any of these & if you have any recommendations for me based on this list. If you do your own list, please link back to The Broke and the Bookish, who created and hosts Top Ten Tuesday.

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When The World Was Flat (and we were in love) – Review

Posted on by Claire

17568923Author: Ingrid Jonach
Genre: YA sci-fi
Publisher: Strange Chemistry
Date: January 2013
Source: Net Galley
Buy the Book – Goodreads

Lillie is your average small-town-Alaskan high-school student. Crackpot hippie mother not-withstanding, Lillie’s life is pretty normal until she starts dreaming of her own death, every single night.

Then new guy Tom strolls into school; he’s handsome, rich & British, a swoon-worthy combination if there ever was one.

But he is also strangely familiar, Lillie instinctively knows things about him she couldn’t possibly know. Do they really have some kind of weird connection, or is a simple teenage crush making her read way too much into Tom’s every word or gesture?

The beautiful cover and intriguing title should give you an idea of the lyrical, atmospheric flavour of the book. It doesn’t lack in sass either, with Lillie’s opinions and descriptions rendering the small town and its inhabitants in vivid detail. I was particularly impressed with the expert portrayal of teenagers, which hit just the right notes of frailty, bravado and cruelty in turn. The parade of couchsurfers moving in and out of Lillie’s living room never failed to provide comic relief.

The revelation of a supernatural aspect to the plot came fairly late, allowing the high-school drama to take front and centre stage for the first half of the book. That’s a relatively large portion of the story which is solely dedicated to Lillie’s everyday life, as well as that of her family, friends, frenemies, and even the town.

This early focus allowed the reader to immerse in Green Grove sufficiently to understand exactly how devastating an impact the later reveals could have.

One initially very sympathetic character turns suddenly sinister shortly after the central crux of the story is finally revealed, and the reader feels this twist all the more cruelly for this attention paid the character in question early on.

The lack of a supernatural plot-twist before the mid-point also provided its own little pinch of suspense. There is a certain amount of meta at play; when you pick up a book from a genre publisher, you expect some kind of science-fiction or fantasy element.

Yes, the weird dreams could just be dreams, except the reader knows they’re not. I spent the first half of the book wondering, at the turn of every page, is this next one the page I’ll find out?

By the time Lille finally gets told what is going on, the seasoned genre reader will have probably guessed the most likely answer (I did), but Jonach builds on the beloved sci-fi concept and creates a beautiful, multi-layered hidden fantasy world. There is almost a bit of cognitive dissonance between the high-school drama and high-concept sci-fi portions of the story, but if you enjoy both genres, like I do, you will love both halves equally.

I read this book on holiday and I must say it was close to the perfect summer read for my taste – a fun, witty story, with enough emotional resonance to make me root for a happy ending, none of the unnecessary sap I always dread from romances, and a decent grounding in sci-fi without any arduous info-dump. It feels great sometimes to step back and read a story not about the end of the world, but the tearing apart of someone’s little world, which is just as dramatic when it’s done well.