Blue Moon by Alyson Noel

Book Review #10: Blue Moon by Alyson Noel (book #2 in The Immortals series)

Overall Rating: 6.75/10
Plot: 4/10
Characters: 8/10
Writing: 8/10
Originality: 7/10

SPOILER ALERT! If you haven’t read the first book of this series, Evermore, you might want to think about not reading this review. However, this has not been a very good series so far, so you’re welcome to ruin it yourself, I won’t get mad. 

Sample Passage: I’m as anxious as [Damen].  But I’m also concerned.  Concerned about his inability to manifest, concerned about the fleeting cold look in his eyes—holding my breath as he takes a swig from his bottle, reminding myself of how quickly his wound healed, convincing myself it’s a good sign.  And knowing my concern will only make him feel worse, I clear my throat and say “Fine. You go get the car.  And I’ll meet you inside.” Unable to ignore the startling coolness of his cheek when I lean in to kiss it.

Genre: Teenage Paranormal Romance
Ages: 13 and up 

Number of Pages: 284
Published: 2009 by St. Martin’s Press 

Summary: Drina was finally killed, Ever became immortal, and now she and her soul mate, Damen, have forever to spend with each other. Or so Ever thinks, until a new guy shows up at school named Roman, where it seems like he has everyone under his spell. Once Roman makes his appearance, Damen also starts to fall ill, and for some reason starts to hate Ever.  When a once every 3-5 year opportunity comes along where Ever can go back in time and save her family, Ever realizes she has to take it and save her family from the car accident that wasn’t supposed to happen that took their lives, in order to save Damen.  Ever realizes however, she might be too late to save Damen and her family anyway.

Review: If you guys have read my review of the first book in the series, Evermore, you’ll know that I definitely wasn’t a fan of it.  I also predicted that I wouldn’t be a fan of Blue Moon. I was right.  This book was only a little bit of a step up from the trainwreck that was Evermore. 

In this book, the plot was a complete disaster.  I found it confusing, boring, and rushed.  I wasn’t captivated by it at all, there was barely any suspense in it, and I had little to no incentive to keep reading it.  It’s mostly about how Ever is trying to save Damen from this new guy Roman who just randomly shows up, which I thought was not explained very well.  Even at the end when you have his big monologue which explains his so brilliant-evil plan, it seemed very confusing, and just slapped together. You really don’t see much of Damen in this book, even in the scenes where he is really sick, he doesn’t say much at all.

There is a lot of backstory in this book, especially through the many visits Ever has to Summerland.  However, the backstory explains the things that I actually didn’t think much about.  There were also some obvious holes in Ever’s plan to save Damen, which wasn’t a very good plan after all, and you knew something was going to go wrong, which actually made it quite frustrating for the reader. The plot of this book was just extremely flat (there it is: The Plateau Effect) and focused on only one thing: saving Damen.  It lacked the intriguing mystery in Evermore.  

The only reason that this plot got the same rating as Evermore was because there was less of the Damen-Ever romance that I didn’t really like in the first place.  If you liked that romance, basically the plot should be a 2 or 3/10, because there really was none.  You also get to find more about Ever’s past life and what her character was like in the past before the accident, which I found to be the most interesting part of the whole book.  Luckily, what might have been the worst plot-line I’ve ever seen in a book was saved by an ending that actually kept me somewhat on the edge of my seat. 

Ever bugged me a little less in this book, and so did Damen.  First of all, it was nice to see Damen in a weak setting where Ever is actually the strong one, I could finally look back and see Damen as somewhat of a relatable person…you know, minus the immortality and that stuff.  Ever didn’t even really let herself go when Damen was sick and didn’t pay much attention to her anymore.  I felt that she was a lot stronger in this book than in Evermore, and she didn’t freak out about every little thing.

One thing that still bugs me about Ever is how she treats Sabine.  Ever will always say how guilty she is for how she treats Sabine, but she never really seems to do anything about it.  For example, Sabine gets on Ever in this book because she doesn’t really eat.  I thought immortals could eat, they just didn’t have to.  That part confused me.  Haven and Miles weren’t in this book very much! I was disappointed.  I like those two characters, they sort of add normality to the book.

SPOILER ALERT!

There’s only one thing that really got to me as far as the characters go.  Was Ava REALLY a traitor?  That didn’t make sense to me.  She was so genuine!  Was Roman just lying to Ever or is Ava really that bad of a person? If any of you followers can explain that to me, that would be very much appreciated.

UNSPOILER ALERT!

The originality of this book was just okay.  I mean, not a whole lot of teen paranormal romance novels are original.  Noel’s writing isn’t too bad, I can follow what little plot there is in this book well enough.  Her description is really good too, and I admire authors who can describe things well.

Overall: If you’ve read Evermore and are expecting something even better and so amazing that you’ll have to stay up all night reading this book, you are going to be sadly disappointed.

Coming up Next: Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen and Legend by Marie Lu

Someone Like You Review

Book Review #9: Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen

Overall Rating: 8.1/10

Plot: 8/10

Characters: 8.5/10

Writing: 9/10

Originality: 7/10

Sample Passage: The dam was groaning, opening, as I twisted in Macon’s arms, suddenly terrified, all the noise and light and the world so far below us.  ”Macon,” I said, trying to pull away, back toward the path.  ”I should-” But then he pulled me back in, kissing me hard, his hands smoothing my hair, and I closed my eyes to the light, the noise, the water so far below, and I felt it for the first time.  That exhilaration, the whooshing feeling of being on the edge and holding, the world spinning madly around me.  And I kissed him back hard, letting loose that girl from the early summer and the Grand Canyon. At that moment, suspended as free-falling, I could feel her leaving me.

Genre: Teenage Realistic Fiction
Ages: 14 and up 

Number of Pages: 281 | Hardcover Edition
Published: in 1998 by Viking, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.

Summary: Ever since one hot, summer day, Halley has always had her best friend Scarlett to help her with her problems and look out for her, even while Scarlett was in a serious relationship with her first love, Michael. But Scarlett now needs Halley more than ever when Michael dies, and Scarlett finds out she’s carrying his baby.  Unfortunately, Halley has problems of her own, when she has a bad boy for a boyfriend and a famous teen psychologist for a mother.  Things are anything but perfect in Halley and Scarlett’s life, and with a baby on the way, things are about to get even crazier.

Review: Almost all of Sarah Dessen’s books are the same.  There’s a bad relationship between the main character and her parents, there’s some sort of a romance, the main character has always had to be strong for someone else, and everything turns out perfectly at the end, with a major cheesy realization for more than one of the main characters.  Since this was one of Dessen’s first novel. fortunately I found it a little more original than the others, even though it had the same plot idea.

Unlike some of Dessen’s other books that start with a flashback, this book starts right in on the action, which ended up being a good and bad thing. A good thing because it keeps you interested, and a bad thing because some things that might have had significance if you knew the characters better were instead just minor details that you could skim right by. At the beginning ofSomeone Like You, Scarlett’s boyfriend Michael dies, and right away you introduce what are supposed to be the two main relationships in the book: the relationship between Scarlett and Halley, and the relationship between Halley and her mom.  

One thing that I did not like about this book was Scarlett and Halley’s relationship.  I want to know more about their past.  Generally one of Dessen’s strong points is building fantastic relationships between characters, sometimes even being too detailed, but this time I just felt like Dessen explained how they met, and that’s about it. I wanted to know more about Scarlett, and why she is how she is. 

The mother-daughter relationships in Dessen’s books are very interesting, but often repetitive. Someone Like You contained the example of the controlling mother who wants her daughter to do exactly what she thinks is the right thing to do.  Finally, you have Halley and Mason’s (her boyfriend) relationship, which I hated.  You could tell that Mason just wasn’t a good person. He was at first, but then he tried to get Halley to go out in the night with him even after she was grounded. And then he pressured her to go beyond her comfort zone.    Most of the guys in Dessen’s books are very quirky, unusual, but nice; this guy was just a jerk. 

I also wasn’t a fan of the main character, Halley.  Sometimes throughout the book I felt a need to enter that world and shake her, because I’m tired of these sappy romance novels with extremely weak female characters who will risk it all for a guy.  Thankfully, Scarlett was a very strong female character, so she balanced it out a little bit. I could analyze this book all day, but I just wanted to give you guys some background on the characters.

The plot is intriguing, I find it interesting to read books on teen pregnancies, because each character is different in books, with the way they handle it and so forth. Also you wonder what’s going to happen with Halley and Mason.  It still kind of had the famous Plateau Effect, where there might have been one major hill or a bunch of little ones, but the rest had about as much interest as a wheat field in Kansas. A.K.A: Not that much. The ending was a little abrupt as well. I wanted to know more about what happened! I was pretty disappointed with that ending.

As far as originality goes, this book was pretty much your typical teen drama novel, and, if you know Dessen and her type of writing, your typical Sarah Dessen novel. I found this one to be a little more original than most, because the main character wasn’t the one with the biggest problem.  It was a side character. It’s just too bad that Dessen didn’t focus on that a little bit more. Dessen is always very good with her description in her writing. I always find her way of explaining how people feel so elegant.  I love the way she writes.

Overall: I often complain about Sarah Dessen’s books and their lack of originality, but if you like these types of books than this is one of the better ones, one of the ones worth reading.  And for those of you who like strong female characters and books with a lot of action, make room on your bookshelf (which we ALL need) and get another book instead.

Coming up Next: Blue Moon by Alyson Noel

Looking for Alaska Review

Book Review #8: Looking for Alaska by John Green

Overall Rating: 8.8/10

Plot: 7.5/10

Characters: 8.5/10

Writing: 9.5/10

Originality: 10/10

Sample Passage: Just like that.  From a hundred miles an hour to asleep in a nanosecond. I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together, in the most innocent sense of the phrase.  But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating.  So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was a drizzle and she was a hurricane.

Genre: Teenager Realistic Fiction
Ages: 16 and up

Number of Pages: 221 | Hardcover Edition
Published: By Dutton Books, a member of the Penguin Group, in 2005

Summary: Miles is an average teenager with an average life that is definitely not to his liking. When he leaves for boarding school, it’s for a purpose: to seek what poet Francois Rabelais said he would seek in his famous last words: “I go to seek a Great Perhaps.”  But does the Great Perhaps really involve the pranks, booze, sex, and cigarettes Miles’ new friends introduce him to? With Alaska, the Colonel, and others’ help, Miles might just find the meaning of life, the Great Perhaps, that he is looking for. 

Review: When I picked up this book, it really didn’t look appealing at all. I mean, who wants to read a book about teenagers acting stupid? The only reason I really started to read it in the first place was, yes, because it was written by John Green, the author of the fantastic book The Fault In Our Stars. And because that book was SO fantastic, I had extremely high expectations going into this book. 

Unfortunately, my expectations were not quite met.  Although I have to give John Green a break, this was his first novel.  I just didn’t have the WOW factor like I did with the Fault In Our Stars. And even if I hadn’t read his newest, fantastic novel, I most likely would have still been disappointed by this book.

This plot sort of had the plateau effect, where there aren’t many peaks, just one flat surface.  The only peak was in the transition between the “before” and “after” sections, which is how this book is split up, sort of into two parts: before and after.  For those of you who have read the book, you’ll know that this was a MAJOR peak, the saddest part of the whole story.  And it did make me want to cry a little.

Another good point about the Major Peak was, to be honest, I did not see it coming.  Really after you’ve read it and you know what it is, you think “why didn’t I see that coming?”  But it was a nice little bump in what was otherwise a very plain conflict.  To some, maybe the plot was a fantastic representation of this Great Perhaps that Miles is seeking throughout the whole book, but to me, the plot was drinking, cigarettes, sex, cigarettes, drinking, sex, pranks, over and over again. And it just got kind of old.

I do like the characters though, particularly the sarcasm in their voices and their blunt sense of humor and their outtake on life. The only character that bugged me a lot was Alaska, the main girl character in the story.  For some reason she just bugged me, because she was sort of cheating on her boyfriend, but just as Miles was ready to take it to the next level with her, she would stop and say “It’s too bad I love my boyfriend” or something like that. I feel like in the end she cheated Miles, and I felt bad for him. She also seemed to think that she was the world, and when her story was finally told I found it very hard to feel sympathetic toward her.

One fantastic aspect that was in The Fault In Our Stars is also in Looking for Alaska: the writing. I have always admired John Green’s vocabulary, and how he can make teenagers seem really smart, even if their not doing very smart things.  So in this book, the writing was mostly flawless, except for a couple of things that he improved on in The Fault in Our Stars that were mistakes in this book.  Originality was up to par, I’ve never really read anything like this book.

Overall, maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on this novel. But if you were someone who read The Fault In Our Stars and are completely obsessed with that book, then you might be a little disappointed by Looking For Alaska. Without any sort of comparison, however, it can be a mostly enjoyable read.

Coming up Next: Blue Moon by Alyson Noel and Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen

The Scorch Trials Review

Book Review #7: The Scorch Trials by James Dashner(Sequel to The Maze Runner)

Overall Rating: 9.6/10

Plot: 9/10

Characters: 9.7/10

Writing: 9.8/10

Originality: 10/10

SPOILER ALERT! IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE MAZE RUNNER, YOU SHOULDN’T READ THIS BECAUSE YOU WILL BE RUINING A FANTASTIC SERIES FOR YOURSELF.  AND IF YOU LIKE RUINING THINGS FOR YOURSELF, THEN YOU PROBABLY NEED SOME HELP.  CHECK IN WITH YOUR LOCAL PSYCHOLOGIST.  IMMEDIATELY.

Sample Passage: Thomas was just about to say something stupid when he stopped dead in his tracks.  Somebody almost ran into him from behind, tripped around to his side, but he couldn’t tell who—his eyes were glued in front of him, his heart completely frozen.  Thy sky had lightened considerably, and the leading edge of the mountains’ slope lay just a few hundred feet away.  Halfway between here and there, a girl had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, rising from the ground.  And she was walking toward them at a brisk pace.  In her hands she held a long shaft of wood with a large, nasty-looking blade lashed to one end.  It was Teresa.

Genre: Young Adult Dystopian Fiction
*New Feature!* Ages: 13 and up 

Number of Pages: 360 | Paperback Edition
Published: 2010 by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books

Summary: Thomas and the other Gladers may have solved the mystery of the Maze, but WICKED has many more things in store for them.  Just when the Gladers think their safe, Teresa gets taken away and is replaced by a boy named Aris, who claims he came from a group of girls who he helped escape the Maze.  Things get even stranger when a man shows up telling the Gladers and Aris that they are all carriers of the Flare, a terrible disease that destroys your brain slowly, and the only cure is hundreds of miles away in a desert called the Scorch, where the sun is so hot that it can burn a person up when it’s highest in the sky.  They have to cross the deadly Scorch in two weeks to get the cure, or they will die a slow, painful death from the Flare. There are many questions on the Glader’s mind, but the biggest one is: how many of them will die in the Scorch Trials, and how many will live and get the cure to save their life?

Review:  Most sequels to books, especially if the book is fantastic, can be a complete let-down.  When I read the Scorch Trials, I was very relieved that it did not disappoint me in the slightest, though it definitely was not up to par with the Maze Runner. 

In The Maze Runner, the plot was very simple.  The only goal was for the Gladers to escape the Maze.  The plot gets a lot more complex in this book even though there is still only one single prominent goal: to cross the Scorch. You also have Thomas’s memories, which come back to him randomly in his dreams on some nights.  You also have Teresa, who goes missing at the beginning.  And then you have every single one of the Variables that WICKED throws at the Gladers and the others.  When you combine all these factors together, that’s a lot, and sometimes you see authors struggle trying to make sure that every aspect of the plot they have created is well-explained without making it too boring.  Writing is all about balance. And Dashner can totally pull it off.

So that’s not even why I took off a whole point for the plot.  Dashner’s balance with all of it was border-line perfect!  I took a point off because there was so much action that it became hard to create the heart-pounding suspense you got in the Maze Runner, for instance when Chuck was killed.  Even though that was very sudden, it definitely made my heart pound, and it was a major shock!  But since there is SO much action and SO much suspense that is supposed to be there, I found myself not being as surprised, if that makes any sense. 

Also, there was a little less of the dry humor you get in the Maze Runner with Minho and Newt.  And I thought there was a little less character development with the characters in the book.  You have a couple of new characters in the book, and the rest is pretty much Teresa and Thomas, obviously. This disappointed me a little because I LOVE Minho and Newt, and I totally wanted to know more about them!  But hey, no book can be completely perfect.

There were a lot of good points.  Action, first of all. I found it a little overwhelming but it still kept me interested in the story.  Also you know a lot about what Thomas is feeling! I love how some authors can do that, even though the book isn’t in first person.  It’s sort of like with J.K. Rowling’s work, sometimes you forget that you’re not reading any “I feel,” or “I felt,” you’re only reading it from the unknown narrator’s perspective.  I love it when a book does that.

The originality for this book is fantastic.  All of the things that happen to the characters and everything, it’s so fresh and new. I’ve never heard anything like it before! Like in the Maze Runner, the main character being a boy like Thomas instead of someone like Katniss in the Hunger Games still continues to be very refreshing.  It’s nice how guy main characters don’t let their feelings overwhelm them like girl main characters sometimes do. (Not all the time, just sometimes.)  It’s like guy characters just get what needs to be done done. And girls do that too, it’s just harder to find in young adult writing today.

Overall, this was a fantastic sequel. It was not as good as The Maze Runner, but it still kept me intrigued the whole way through. I am so excited to read the final book in this trilogy, the Death Cure.  If you’re a person who has read the Maze Runner, but not the sequel, then you should continue with the series. I promise it will be worth your time. And I keep promises. So go read it. Now. Seriously. Go.

Coming Up Next: Looking for Alaska by John Green and Blue Moon by Alyson Noel.