The Maze Runner Review

Book Review #5: The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Overall Rating: 10/10

Plot: 10/10

Writing: 10/10

Characters: 10/10

*New Feature* Originality: 10/10

Sample Passage: “You all know the plan.  After two years of being treated like mice, tonight we’re making a stand.  Tonight we’re taking the fight back to the Creators, no matter what we have to go through to get there.  Tonight the Grievers better be scared.”  Someone cheered, and then someone else.  Soon shouts and battle calls broke out, rising in volume, filling the air like thunder.  Thomas felt a trickle of courage inside him-he grasped it, clung to it, urged it to grow.  Newt was right.  Tonight, they’d fight.  Tonight, they’d make their stand, once and for all.

Genre: Young-Adult Dystopian

Number of Pages: 374 | Paperback Edition
Published: By Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books in 2009

Summary: Thomas wakes up in an elevator, remembering nothing except his first name.  Confused as he is, he finds himself in the Glade, a community surrounded by walls, with a bunch of other kids, none older than 17.  They inform him that for two years they’ve been trapped there, supplies coming in once a week, a new boy being delivered every month, and doors to a seemingly unsolvable maze opening every morning and closing every night.  Just when Thomas is learning the order of the Glade, something happens that’s never happened before.  The first girl comes to the Glade a month early. The girl’s arrival brings on mysteries and puzzles that seem impossible, but Thomas believes that they are solvable-if only he could get his memory back.

Out of all the books that I have read in 2012, I don’t think I have yet read a book as fantastic as this, even though so many books I’ve read this year have been fantastic.  I’ve read a couple of really bad books in a row, so this is definitely a refreshing change of pace.  This book might be a contender for the best young adult book I’ve ever read. 

I have heard from some people that they think this book is similar to the Hunger Games.  I guess I see where they’re going with that, but this plot is so original and refreshing.  I haven’t heard of or read any book obviously similar to this.  There was so much suspense in the book, it’s the type of book that you would read all in one day, once you really got into it.  I will admit that the first 50-100 pages might have been a little slow, but that’s just because it was building into (forgive me for being unprofessional) PURE AWESOMENESS!

Okay, now back to being professional again.

I think the main reason why I liked this book so much was because of the characters.  The main character is a guy, Thomas, and the book is written in third person.  Sometimes I feel that third person is better than first person, because authors can really make you connect to the characters more by making their feelings a little more obvious then if you were stuck inside the main character’s head, for instance using more actions and direct feeling words than trying to get a point across metaphorically. I felt so connected to Thomas by the end.  

I think that it also helped that the main character was a guy.  Books that have guys as main characters often have more action in them, and this book definitely had a lot of action.  Plus it’s not as sappy at all, even the-SPOILER ALERT-relationship between Teresa and Thomas wasn’t overly romantic, it was purely simple and direct. UNSPOILER ALERT!  The other guys in the book were completely likeable (or at least most of them were) and you can tell how they’re feeling even though they’re not the main characters!

The writing in this book, absolutely beautiful.  Didn’t over explain things, but there was definitely enough description to let you know exactly what was going on, though I had a little bit of trouble picturing the Grievers, for those of you who have read the book.  I liked how there was a little bit of made-up cuss words thrown in there, it made the guys have a bit more personality, and it made you realize that you were, in fact, in another sort of world.

The suspense and action really make this book lovable.  I would recommend this book to pretty much anyone, unless you like really boring, sappy, romance novels. And if you do, then I don’t really understand you, and possibly you should think about a new outlook on life.

Coming up Next: Silent to the Bone by E.L. Konigsburg and I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You by Ally Carter

Keeping the Moon Review

Book Review #4: Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen

Overall Rating: 8/10

Plot: 7/10

Writing: 9/10

Characters: 8/10

Sample Passage: And there was that sparkle in her eye, bright enough to reach across an ocean and still get me.  My mother believed, and she could make you do it, too.  She’d believed me all the way out of forty-five-and-a-half pounds.  She’d believed us from living out of the car to having anything we wanted.  And now, she would believe millions of people from depressed, Burger-King-scarfing caterpillars into gorgeous, thin, brightly colored butterflies.  Later, as I put away the dishes, I caught a glimpse of myself in the window: my hair different, the new shape of my eyebrows affecting my entire face.  A work in progress, Isabel had allowed as she stood back and admired what she’d done.  I’d been a caterpillar for so long, and although I had shed my cocoon in losing my fat, my coat, and the years that led me here, I wasn’t a butterfly yet.  For now, all I could do was stand on the ground and look up at the sky, not quite ready yet to leap and rise.

Number of Pages:  228 | Hardcover Edition
Published: 1999 by Viking, a division of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers 

Summary: Colie Sparks, formerly known as fat and “easy,” is dropped off in the small town of Colby, North Carolina to live with her aunt Mira while her mother, the famous Kiki Sparks—master of exercise—tours Europe.  Just when she thinks it’s going to be the worst summer ever, she finds herself a waitress at the Last Chance restaurant, along with two older waitresses who seem to know their place in life.  With the help of Morgan and Isabel, Colie just might find her place too.

Though I did not dislike this book, it definitely wasn’t anything fantastic.  It was just…average.  Basically just average on every level except the writing, which I think Sarah Dessen definitely excels in.  The plot I would compare to a wide, open plain, with grass in it and….not much else.

This plot was very anti-climatic, predictable, and somewhat boring.  There’s not a whole lot of action, most of it is basically learning Colie’s backstory and why she has her insecurities.  After you read a lot of Sarah Dessen books, it starts to feel like you’re reading the same book over and over again, just with different characters and slightly different side plots and conclusions.

In most of Dessen’s novels, there are a lot of things that stay the same.  There’s always some sort of a broken mother-daughter relationship.  With this book there was, the only difference was it wasn’t exactly resolved in the end like in most of Dessen’s books.  I felt like it actually lacked the depth of relationships that Dessen usually puts into her books.  

There’s always some sort of a guy who is very quirky and different—either he’s an artist, or he likes weird music, or something like that—who helps the main character see who she truly is.  And they always end up together.  This book had that sort of a relationship.

I know it’s sounding like I didn’t like this book very much, but that’s not true.  Most of the writing, as usual, is beautiful, I feel like the words flow so well together that it becomes poetry-like.  And most of the characters are downright hilarious, especially the two waitresses. Although I really didn’t like Isabel, for those who have read the book, I thought that the way she handled her friendship with Morgan was definitely, as Morgan would say, impaired.  And she seemed too immature at first.

So basically what I’m trying to say is that this is the book for someone who just wants a light read where you basically can predict how it’s going to end, and where it’s so cheesy that you really don’t care about how it’s going to end, but can still have fun with it.  And I’m not really quite sure who wants to do that, but if you do, knock yourself out. 

Coming up Next: The Maze Runner by James Dashner and Silent to the Bone by E.L. Konigsburg

Something Like Fate Review

Book Review #3: Something Like Fate by Susane Colasanti

Overall Rating: 3/10

Plot: 3/10

Characters: 3/10

Writing: 4/10

Sample Passage: The bond that Erin and I have was supposed to mean that we’d always be friends forever. That nothing could ever come between us.  Now I’m wondering if our bond is strong enough. Maybe we’ve grown apart so much that the accident doesn’t matter anymore. Maybe the rest of what we have together isn’t enough. I’m not sure it our friendship is strong enough to survive into next year when we’re away at college. But.  We know each other in a way that no on else can. We share a history that makes us permanently connected. So I have hope for us.  All I can do is hope.

Number of Pages: 268 | Paperback Edition
Published: 2010 by Viking, a member of Penguin Group Inc.

Summary: Lani is a believer of fate.  She believes that the stars and your sign, and your horoscope affect your path. It has been accurate so far, in her mind. But she becomes very unsure of her fate when her best friend Erin, with whom she is tied together for life by fate, starts to date Jason, the guy that could possibly be her soulmate. And she thinks he feels the same way. When Erin goes off to camp, leaving Jason and Lani alone, Lani finds herself with the hardest decision of her life. Fate? Or her best friend?

As I’m sure you could tell from that summary, this plot seems pretty darn cliche. And it IS pretty darn cliche. It’s exactly what the summary makes it seem like, which isn’t true for all books. I believe that you can’t judge a book by its front or back cover. Although with this book, eh, I’m going to go ahead and say you can. 

I really did not like this book. The plot, aside from being cliche, was poorly planned out and written. Most of the time when I read a romance novel of this type, there are many other little plots within that plot that helps define the character at the end. Well, this only had about 2 plots. Jason. And Blake, who is gay but is hiding it. And the only one that really captivated me was the second one. Unfortunately, that was only 20% of the book.

It did get better in the second half. The first half is all about Lani making the decision of whether to date Jason or not.  That’s about it.  All we hear is “I think he’s my soulmate, you’re not supposed to keep soulmates apart” immediately followed by a “But this is wrong, I shouldn’t be doing this.” That may be good for, you know, 10 pages or so but I don’t think it’s good for 100! 

The characters are mostly really annoying. Lani is a huge believer in fate, which I don’t believe in, so I found it very annoying and hard to relate too. Jason is okay, but you can’t really tell what he’s feeling except for the fact he loves Lani very much. If I had to compare him to a character in another book I would compare him to Ky in Crossed, for those of you who have read that. And that is not a good thing. Erin is totally not nice at all, completely self-centered in my opinion. The only character I really like is Blake. Despite his situation (his dad always says really mean things to him) he seems really happy and strong.

The writing in this book was very dry.  It’s hard to tell if the writing’s good when you have such a bad plot. On the plus side, I understood everything that was happening at all times. On the minus side, if there is such a thing, I thought that sometimes the author would add unnecessary things in there and would tend to ramble.

Overall, this is not the book that I would recommend reading. I thought it was cliche, shallow, dry, and completely not worth my time.

Coming up next: The Maze Runner by James Dashner and Silent to the Bone by E.L. Konigsburg

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Review

Book Review #2: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

Overall Rating: 8.6/10

Plot: 7.5/10

Characters: 10/10

Writing: 9/10

Setting: 8/10

Sample Passage: “Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love.  By returning, you may ensure that fewer souls are maimed, fewer families are torn apart.  If that seems to you a worthy goal, then we say good-bye for the present.”
Harry nodded and sighed. Leaving this place would not be nearly as hard as walking into the forest had been, but it was warm and light and peaceful here, and he knew that he was heading back to pain and the fear of more loss. He stood up, and Dumbledore did the same, and they looked for a long moment into each other’s faces.
“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry.  ”Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry’s ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.
“Of course it is happening inside you head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

Number of Pages: 759|Hardcover Edition
Published: 2007 

SPOILER ALERT! IF YOU HAVEN’T READ UP TO THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE IN THE HARRY POTTER SERIES, YOU WILL BE RUINING A FANTASTIC SUSPENSEFUL SERIES FOR YOURSELF, MAKING IT, IN YOUR EYES, “STUPID.”  AND PEOPLE GENERALLY DON’T APPRECIATE OTHER PEOPLE CALLING HARRY POTTER “STUPID.” ESPECIALLY HARRY POTTER FANS.  I KNOW THIS BECAUSE I HAVE HARRY POTTER OBSESSED FRIENDS.  AND THEY WOULDN’T LIKE YOU. LONG STORY SHORT, (ALTHOUGH I THINK IT’S TOO LATE FOR THAT) READING ON WITHOUT HAVING READ THE OTHER BOOKS IS A TERRIBLE DECISION THAT COULD 

Summary: Dumbledore’s death meant that Harry needed to finish what he couldn’t: destroying all the Horcruxes. Together, he, Ron, and Hermione skip their last year at Hogwarts to hunt these Horcruxes down and defeat Lord Voldemort, a mission so much harder than they could ever imagine. But time is running out for them, and they’ll have to race to take control over the wizarding world from Voldemort before it’s too late.

This is the last book in the Harry Potter series and the only one in which they don’t spend the majority of their time in Hogwarts. Despite that, this book was definitely not a disappointing last installment.

The main issue for me was how confusing the plot is. In order to really and truly understand everything, you have to pay attention to most of the things in the previous books, and EVERYTHING in the 7th book. You would definitely not call it “light reading.”  I think after a while, keeping all this information in turned into a big mess. The first 3 books were sort of carefree, no more than 400 pages, and then the 4th one hit, which was a little bigger than the rest, and the fifth one was HUGE!  I just think some of the things in there aren’t very necessary. But I know huge Potterheads would disagree.

The setting was a downer for most people. I mean, who doesn’t love Hogwarts? But they honestly do it pretty well. There is a lot of scenery changes, and Hogwarts is not completely out of the book, for a mini spoiler there.  The settings are described well, and they all basically make sense.

You know what I was just thinking? Harry Potter has a whole lot of luck. Half of the plans that he, Ron, and Hermione come up with in this book have so many flaws in them, and a 50-50 chance for them to work! Maybe it’s not luck, maybe it’s the Invisibility Cloak….

The characters are great as always. Harry’s not very whiny or annoying in this one, Ron got on my nerves a little though. For part of this book he has a HORRIBLE attitude about everything. Hermione is just…Hermione, Neville is freakin’ awesome!  

I have never been much of a huge fan of J.K. Rowling’s writing per say, because she has a very unique style that doesn’t really suit my writing needs.  Although all throughout the series I have been able to connect with Harry very well, almost as if it were written in 1st person.  And for the crazy plot that this book entails, she does a good job of trying to make it make sense.  There’s also an epilogue to look forward to in this book, and I actually like it. The only thing I want to know is if Harry ending up becoming an Auror or not! If someone has the answer to that, please let me know. 

Otherwise, read this book! And if you haven’t read the series, I am very mad at you for reading this right now because you ignored my spoiler alert. But read the series, it’s not “stupid.” It is actually very, very good.

Crossed Review

Book Review #1: Crossed by Ally Condie

Overall Rating: 3/10

Plot: 4/10

Characters: 2/10

Writing: 2/10

Setting: 5/10

Sample Passage:  Hope looks like a footprint, a half footprint where someone grew careless and stepped into soft mud that later hardened too thick to blow away in the evening and morning winds. I try not to think of the other prints I’ve seen in these canyons, fossil remains of times so long past that nothing is left but imprints or bones of what was, what once lived. This mark is recent. I have to believe that. I have to believe that someone else is alive here. And I have to believe that it might be Ky.

Number of Pages: 367 in the hardcover version
*New Feature!* Published: 2011  

SPOILER ALERT! IF YOU HAVEN’T READ MATCHED, YOU WON’T WANT TO READ THIS!

Summary: After Ky is taken by the Society, Cassia is determined to find him.  When she finds herself at a camp with a bunch of other girls, she waits for the perfect opportunity to run. Meanwhile Ky is doing a more dangerous job than he ever expected.  No one makes it out alive there. But he is also driven by the thought of Cassia not knowing where he is to make it back to the Society to send a message to her.  When they both get opportunities to run, they find themselves in the same place, not knowing the other is there. Even if they do find each other, a secret about Xander threatens to ruin everything: their relationship, and the way they see each other.

My goodness, if Matched was unreadable, I have no idea what this is. I can’t believe I even wasted my time reading it. I had a weird love-hate relationship with Matched, but my relationship with Crossed was just…hate.  For those who have read it, I opened the book to the first relevant page, which was a map. This is me when I saw the map: “Darn.” Because the map was a bad start for me. I don’t like it when books have a map, I can’t visualize that. It was also a bad start because it was unnecessary. There were four things on the map, and truth is they make it pretty darn clear in the book where you are.  So they didn’t need the map.

But, I didn’t stop after the map because that would’ve been ridiculous. I pushed through.  And the first half of the book, I admit, kept me somewhat interested at least.  There was one annoying factor toward this book, and it is the fact that along with Cassia narrating the book, Ky is also narrating the book.  Ky annoyed me enough in the first one, I always wanted Cassia to end up with Xander, because Xander would probably put her before himself. Ky is pretty sensitive about everything, which makes him a little more self-centered, because he obsesses over his past. Which brings me to the next point of why I didn’t like this.

I’ll do a spoiler later so I can get to the specifics, but I want to try to express this thought with no spoilers.  So here’s the thing, a LOT of this book is explaining more about Ky’s story and everything, which he refuses to accept and tell people in one sitting. I don’t even really understand his story now, even after I’ve read the book, because he gives it in so many bits and pieces that it’s just hard to put it all together. Now for the spoiler alert so people who’ve read the book, or people who just like ruining things for themselves, can see what i mean.

SPOILER ALERT! ONLY READ THIS IF YOU’VE READ CROSSED OR IF YOU LIKE RUINING THINGS FOR YOURSELF!

When Ky and Cassia meet, that was where the book started to go wayyyy downhill for me.  Because Ky just HAS to make things all about him, with his past and his story and everything, which he doesn’t even really tell Cassia! It’s like, if you really want to live with her and everything, you should at least tell her the rest of your story and, oh, I don’t know, move on with your life!

UNSPOILER ALERT! YOU MAY READ SAFELY!

There are just a couple more things I would like to touch upon with this book. The characters annoy me. Almost all of them, but especially Ky and Cassia, which is unfortunate for me because they are the main characters and the narrators. But they just seem like teenagers, with their attitude and outlook on life and everything. They don’t seem as mature. Maybe it’s just how it’s written.

The writing in this book was probably what made it so bad.  I just don’t feel the characters like I love to do in books. The true feelings of the characters are in a pile underneath a bunch of shallow, irrelevant metaphors.  The description is a little too figurative, I would’ve loved it if it were more literal, especially coming from the characters. 

And I have not forgotten, in my review of Matched, I mentioned the similarity of that book to Delirium. This book is also very similar to Pandemonium. I find myself thinking, “that sounds sort of familiar…oh yeah, I read Pandemonium a couple months ago!” The plot, the rebellion, and even some of the characters match those in Pandemonium. (See what I did there? Match? As in Matched? No? Okay.)

Overall, I wouldn’t recommend reading this book unless you like shallow, boring, similar-to-Pandemonium, metephorical, bad writing, and annoying character books. And lets face it, who does?

Coming Up Next: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling or The Clique by Lisi Harrison.

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Hi everyone! I'm Rebecca and here's a little about what I do.  A couple months ago I started a blog on Tumblr about book reviews, Good, Bad, and Ugly Books.  I started with my three Tumblr friends as my followers, and now, less than 4 months later, I have almost 50 followers.  So I decided to do the blog on here, for non-Tumblr people to look at! My blog features book reviews, book pictures, and so much more.  the thing is, I'm not really sure how this blogging site works yet. So please bear with me. And if someone is kind enough to explain things for me, thank you. :)  So, follow me, or whatever you do on here, and you'll get to see the best reviews on the latest books, and some that aren't very popular, but you will love anyways.