Transparent by Natalie Whipple (review)

Paperback, 368 pages
Expected publication: May 21st 2013 by HarperTeen
Source: Edelweiss

Synopsis:
Plenty of teenagers feel invisible. Fiona McClean actually is.

An invisible girl is a priceless weapon. Fiona’s own father has been forcing her to do his dirty work for years—everything from spying on people to stealing cars to breaking into bank vaults.

After sixteen years, Fiona’s had enough. She and her mother flee to a small town, and for the first time in her life, Fiona feels like a normal life is within reach. But Fiona’s father isn’t giving up that easily.

Of course, he should know better than anyone: never underestimate an invisible girl.

Review:

Natalie Whipple’s YA debut novel is quite a strong one. I enjoyed it. It certainly presents an interesting new premise. Before I started the novel, I thought the invisibility thing was something she could turn on and off so I was a happily surprised when I realized that Fiona McClean is invisible all the time. Even to herself. This may have been the first time I have encountered an invisible protagonist.

The set up is intriguing: a mob boss’s daughter in a world where “special skills” are common, running so her father cannot exploit her invisibility and use her in his war with the other mob bosses. A mother who is addicted to her father who is really satan’s spawn. Nothing soft about this man. More on this later. She finds herself in a new town, meeting new friends and two brothers. I have a soft spot for books that take time to build relationships between family members. I also like it when the romance is not the cheap kind (the insta-love, I mean) and is accorded attention and given time. Cohere. However, I have some complaints about that so more on that later.

I thought that removing the body from the girl would perhaps give us a chance to see a narrative without discussion of beauty and physicality. However, if anything, this magnified the issue and Whipple does Fiona’s desire to see herself very well. I felt her yearning to see what colour her hair is and what her eyes look like – things we take for granted but are actually impossible for her. The pacing is fast and the writing is smooth. There are no awkward transitions and I like the flow of the narrative from one scene to another.

The climax, however, could have done with more work though I appreciate that for once, there was no grand forgiveness scene; sometimes parents suck and it’s totally okay to tell them that they do and no child has to forgive a parent when the parents actions are beyond atrocious and YA novels should probably stop perpetuating that ideal of parents as flawed but ultimately redeemable. Yes, I have an issue with that but we’ll discuss it some other day.

So this book, you guys, it was fun. Entertaining. There were two things I had issues with though:

1. I thought the girl friend and her family were too welcoming and friendly. There needed to be more in the way of their motives. Some explanation. I believe in goodness, I truly do, but that kind of goodness is suspicious. Everyone’s looking out for number one. Maybe I’m just cynical?
2. This is a spoiler so avert your eyes.
   I wondered how Whipple would address Fiona’s invisibility where the romance was concerned. I thought it was amazing that the dude, even though he couldn’t see her, had fallen for her and it made me feel all kinds of tingles realizing that. However, in the end we find out that he had been able to see her all along. That was his skill and it was disappointing. It was even more concerning however when Fiona mentions that having him see her made her feel complete, as in, his recognition of her physical person made her feel complete. I would have liked to see Fiona come to that realization, that state of feeling, without a man helping her. Her reaching the point where she was self-actualized, assertive and confident of her own existence would have had more impact had she found the feelings through her own actions. It would have been more satisfying to see her get there on her own. As it is, all this is doing, albeit unintentionally, is reaffirming patriarchy. And yes, I went there.
   /End spoiler

Do I recommend this book to you? Yes, I do. While it has some troubling aspects, at the heart of it, it is entertaining, fun and dude, it would make such an awesome movie but the movie would probably make the protagonist visible and that would ruin everything. Ah well. I liked the book! I hope you do too.

Parallel by Lauren Miller (review)

Hardcover, 432 pages
Expected publication: May 14th 2013 by HarperTeen
Source: Edelweiss

Synopsis:
Abby Barnes had a plan. The Plan. She’d go to Northwestern, major in journalism, and land a job at a national newspaper, all before she turned twenty-two. But one tiny choice—taking a drama class her senior year of high school—changed all that. Now, on the eve of her eighteenth birthday, Abby is stuck on a Hollywood movie set, miles from where she wants to be, wishing she could rewind her life. The next morning, she’s in a dorm room at Yale, with no memory of how she got there. Overnight, it’s as if her past has been rewritten.

With the help of Caitlin, her science-savvy BFF, Abby discovers that this new reality is the result of a cosmic collision of parallel universes that has Abby living an alternate version of her life. And not only that: Abby’s life changes every time her parallel self makes a new choice. Meanwhile, her parallel is living out Abby’s senior year of high school and falling for someone Abby’s never even met.

As she struggles to navigate her ever-shifting existence, forced to live out the consequences of a path she didn’t choose, Abby must let go of the Plan and learn to focus on the present, without losing sight of who she is, the boy who might just be her soul mate, and the destiny that’s finally within reach.

Review:

 

Reading this novel is like turning into a yoyo. You are up and then you are down and then you are dizzy and then your head is spinning and you are not aware whether you are standing up or sitting down. Or if you are in fact upside down. These things happen.

If you are familiar with chaos theory (which I am not) and know anything about The Butterfly Effect (Wikipedia helps), you will know that according to it, a small action could have drastic consequences later on. For example, if you are sitting in class one day and realized that you had lost your eraser but instead of asking the person sitting beside you for one, you decide to just cross out the word or whatever and continue with your work. Seemingly harmless, yeah? Now consider this, if you had asked the person for the eraser and struck up a conversation with them, you may have become friends and that person could have introduced you to his father who was one of the interviewers at the university you wished to go to. And had you met the father, you would have been more comfortable at the interview which would have led you to passing the interview and getting accepted, graduating with honors, becoming say a doctor and saving thousands of lives. All because you asked for an eraser.

With me so far?

Okay, Parallel, truthfully, it confused the heck out of me for the first third. I am not scientifically-inclined to begin with and I just couldn’t  place myself in the narrative so I took a break. A long break. So long that I almost didn’t come back to it but I did and I am so glad I did because this book is kind of awesome. Still confusing and not perfect, but original and interesting.

There is some kind of collision between two universes and Abby gets displaced or something like that – this is the hazy part. The parallel world is one year behind the “real world” and somehow all the actions of her parallel self affect Abby in the real world. I think. Let’s go with that. So the chapters are alternate usually from high school parallel Abby to Yale Freshman Abby. But the “real” Abby is actually a movie star. Yikes. Anyways.

The pacing is steady and the writing is unproblematic. The mechanics are unclear but that could just be me. I liked seeing  how the high school Abby’s decisions affected Freshman Abby in the future. That was the fascinating part.

There is a love triangle and it was handled rather clumsily but still, there are two separate Abbys and so two different soulmates and just…I’m getting confused again. I did like the friendship between the best friends, warts and all.

I think you need to read this book for yourself. It’s certainly different and other people may articulate their reviews with greater eloquence than I seem to have the capacity for. I enjoyed the novel mostly though I wasn’t a fan of the waffling. I thought the ending was a bit too neat and too smug, if that makes sense, but that didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the novel as a whole. Recommended.

The Originals by Cat Patrick (review)

Hardcover, 304 pages
Expected publication: May 7th 2013 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Source: Publisher

Synopsis:
17-year-olds Lizzie, Ella, and Betsey Best grew up as identical triplets… until they discovered a shocking family secret. They’re actually closer than sisters, they’re clones. Hiding from a government agency that would expose them, the Best family appears to consist of a single mother with one daughter named Elizabeth. Lizzie, Ella, and Betsey take turns going to school, attending social engagements, and a group mindset has always been a de facto part of life…

Then Lizzie meets Sean Kelly, a guy who seems to see into her very soul. As their relationship develops, Lizzie realizes that she’s not a carbon copy of her sisters; she’s an individual with unique dreams and desires, and digging deeper into her background, Lizzie begins to dismantle the delicate balance of an unusual family that only science could have created.

Review:

Cat Patrick and I must have fate. Every time summer comes around, I read one of her books. It is a conscious decision to read them. I requested review copies because even though the last two books were not my favourite, I still thought the premise of both books was new, fresh, original. They promised me something new, something different from the tired tropes being regurgitated in YA.

Except that no matter how new and interesting the premise of the book seems to be (as gleaned from the synopsis), the execution somehow never lives up to it. I don’t know if it’s because I demand too much from my reading materials or if my perspective as an adult is vastly different from the targeted adolescent audience. For instance, The Originals. Clones, one identity, overprotective mother and one boy. Sounds fascinating, yes? I thought so too.

I wanted something substantial where the clones were concerned. Some interiority where the narrator mused on the meaning of being human, being a person, on being created versus being born naturally. I wanted some philosophical depth that simply wasn’t present. This book is all about the superficial. It caters to a very specific audience; one that doesn’t delve between the lines or attempts to read more into the story than there is – because really, there isn’t anything more. The focus is a bit too concentrated on the romance; I get that you are in like or love or whatever you want to call it. And I didn’t even hate Sean Kelly, though he didn’t seem to have much of a character besides the protector, snogger and general sounding board. The relationship between the girls was interesting and had the potential to be so fascinating – it would have been had there been more of an exploration on their similarities and where (and how) the differences started.

But as I said, superficiality. This superficiality is manifested in the denouement of the novel rather explicitly and I’ll leave you to figure out how. I suppose the novel is entertaining enough; a beach read, an airplane read. Harmless fluff if you’re in the mood for it. It’s fun and rather than being a philosophical discourse on the meaning of being human, it is a lighthearted jaunt through a “what if.” If you are looking for something more substantial on clones, try Beta by Rachel Cohn.

The Rules (Project Paper Doll #1) by Stacey Kade (review)

Hardcover, 416 pages
Expected publication: April 23rd 2013 by Disney-Hyperion
Source: Net Galley

Synopsis:
1. Never trust anyone.

2. Remember they are always searching.

3. Don’t get involved.

4. Keep your head down.

5. Don’t fall in love.

Five simple rules. Ariane Tucker has followed them since the night she escaped from the genetics lab where she was created, the result of combining human and extraterrestrial DNA. Ariane’s survival—and that of her adoptive father—depends on her ability to blend in among the full-blooded humans in a small Wisconsin town, to hide in plain sight at her high school from those who seek to recover their lost (and expensive) “project.”

But when a cruel prank at school goes awry, it puts her in the path of Zane Bradshaw, the police chief’s son and someone who sees too much. Someone who really sees her. After years of trying to be invisible, Ariane finds the attention frightening—and utterly intoxicating. Suddenly, nothing is simple anymore, especially not the rules…

Review:

Ooh, I liked this book. There are some books (and authors) who are very clear on what they are trying to achieve and they aim for that without getting derailed or distracted by anything else that might crop up during the process of writing. I loved the tense atmosphere Kade creates, this sense of impending doom when the bad guys find Ariane and return her to that room in the laboratory. It’s always present and there were moments when I screamed at Ariane to not do whatever she was going to do because I didn’t want her to be caught. Yes, I get caught up in the books I read.

Ariane herself is a believable character. It’s not exactly something I can correctly articulate. There’s this “otherness” to her, in the way she observes things, reacts to them and then mulls over them. She is something other than human but at the same time she is just a teenage girl trying to find herself no matter what species she is (or is not). The novel is told from two different perspectives with alternating chapters. Zane, when we first meet him, is not someone any sane girl would like to know. He is a follower, the Mean Girl’s most loyal supporter but what I appreciated was that Kade takes our initial perspective of the dude and then changes it by showing us more about him, growing him as a character. And while Ariane does not change as dramatically, there is change in her character as she finds out things and experiences more emotions and love than she ever thought was possible for her.

Two things I did have trouble with though were:

a)      Jenna. Ariane’s so-called best friend. She’s not a very good friend and while Kade does try to give us something more than just a superficial explanation of her horribleness, I think we needed to see some scenes of the two girls together to properly appreciate what the friendship meant to Ariane.

b)      The Mean Girl. Okay, I  buy her mean-girlery and even understand that she uses power in the only venue available to her – power that she doesn’t have over her parents. It’s her sick way of feeling better about being basically abandoned by her own parents. I get that. But the ending is a bit too fast. I don’t know, I needed a bit more.

All that said however, this book is fun, entertaining and contains a twist that I didn’t see coming. It manages to be fresh and engaging without regurgitating tired plot devices. I strongly recommend it.

Mila 2.0 (MILA 2.0 #1) by Debra Driza (review)

Hardcover, 480 pages
Published March 12th 2013 by Katherine Tegen Books
Source: Library
Challenge: Debut Author 2013

Synopsis:
Mila 2.0 is the first book in an electrifying sci-fi thriller series about a teenage girl who discovers that she is an experiment in artificial intelligence.

Mila was never meant to learn the truth about her identity. She was a girl living with her mother in a small Minnesota town. She was supposed to forget her past—that she was built in a secret computer science lab and programmed to do things real people would never do.

Now she has no choice but to run—from the dangerous operatives who want her terminated because she knows too much and from a mysterious group that wants to capture her alive and unlock her advanced technology. However, what Mila’s becoming is beyond anyone’s imagination, including her own, and it just might save her life.

Mila 2.0 is Debra Driza’s bold debut and the first book in a Bourne Identity-style trilogy that combines heart-pounding action with a riveting exploration of what it really means to be human. Fans of I Am Number Four will love Mila for who she is and what she longs to be—and a cliffhanger ending will leave them breathlessly awaiting the sequel.

Review:

Another emerging trend in North American YA lit is the exploration of the boundaries of humanity. In other words, an investigation of what it means to be human. There has been an influx of books containing protagonists who discover themselves to be clones, cyborgs and, in Mila 2.0, an android. All of them question the meaning of being human. All of them wonder what quality it is about a person that makes them human. This debate is probably a reflection of the contemporary times, a discussion that has been given context by the cloning and other experiments that are being carried out currently.

I cannot honestly say that Mila 2.0 started off great for me. I didn’t like the main character and I didn’t understand why she would continue to try to be friends with a girl who goes so far as to try to kill her so she can remove her as a rival for a boy’s attention. (I don’t think any normal girl would go that far.) The first half of the novel is too melodramatic, the insta-attraction I don’t mind because I think there is more to that guy than the readers have been made aware of but it concerns me that once again, a boy is shown for a few moments, makes some kind gestures and is immediately seen as the love of the protagonist’s life. However, I do sense that the author is setting things up and it wouldn’t surprise me if the dude turned out to be the rat bastard who sells Mila out. But I guess we’ll see.

The novel picks up for when Mila finds out that she is an android. Driza is especially skilled at writing Mila’s anguish at finding herself a human sized computer. Her horror at the slots and plugs in her body is well expressed as is her sense of betrayal at her parent. The action scenes are well done and I can see this being a great movie. The antagonist of the piece, however, is very two dimensional and I wanted to know more about this person. He seems to present such a contradictory figure so it isn’t as though there is no potential for a rich character. It would be great to see him developed further as a character in the next installment because right now he is rather flat. The primary dilemma here is one I dare say we will be facing before long: does a machine deserve to be treated like a human being? The entire novel hinges on that question. Even as the reader is busy feeling offended, angry on Mila’s behalf, there is a niggling feeling, a voice that chimes in: this is not a person, she is a  machine, a machine that can think, breathe, talk, laugh and love but still, just a machine. It is deeply unsettling and an issue that, I think, would benefit from more discourse.

The novel ends on a promising note. And though the first half of the novel is a 2, the second half is a four. I am definitely going to be reading the next one in the series to see how Mila’s life plays out.

Unremembered – Jessica Brody (Unremembered #1)

Hardcover, 320 pages
Expected publication: March 5th 2013 by Farrar, Straus, & Giroux (BYR)
Source: Net Galley

Synopsis:
The only thing worse than forgetting her past… is remembering it.

When Freedom Airlines flight 121 went down over the Pacific Ocean, no one ever expected to find survivors. Which is why the sixteen-year-old girl discovered floating among the wreckage—alive—is making headlines across the globe.

Even more strange is that her body is miraculously unharmed and she has no memories of boarding the plane. She has no memories of her life before the crash. She has no memories period. No one knows how she survived. No one knows why she wasn’t on the passenger manifest. And no one can explain why her DNA and fingerprints can’t be found in a single database in the world.

Crippled by a world she doesn’t know, plagued by abilities she doesn’t understand, and haunted by a looming threat she can’t remember, Seraphina struggles to piece together her forgotten past and discover who she really is. But with every clue only comes more questions. And she’s running out of time to answer them.

Her only hope is a strangely alluring boy who claims to know her from before the crash. Who claims they were in love. But can she really trust him? And will he be able to protect her from the people who have been making her forget?

From popular young adult author, Jessica Brody comes a mesmerizing and suspenseful new series, set in a world where science knows no boundaries, memories are manipulated, and true love can never be forgotten.

Review:

The premise of this novel is not original – amnesia seems to be affecting quite a number of YA protagonists – but the characterization of the main character in all her blank glory reads far more authentically than others. Violet is like a blank slate – I am not certain she is even human. Who she is, what she is, where she is from – these are questions that seem to have no answers to her. It is more than amnesia that affects her, however. Violet doesn’t seem to know anything. Not hugs, not macaroni and cheese, nothing. She is a blank slate and Brody does a fantastic job in portraying that.

The novel is compulsively readable with a rapid pace and sequences with high tension and danger. There are men in black trying to capture Violet and a strange boy who makes Violet feel emotions she doesn’t understand. I thought that the execution of the whole romance portion a bit tired. It didn’t make sense that (spoiler) Violet (aka Sera) would erase not just the boy she purports to love but also the memories of their time together while knowing that the trip they’re planning to take is chockfull of uncertainties and there are no guarantees that things would go as smoothly as they had hoped it would.

Zen has a lot of potential as a character but right now he is limited by his role as a love interest. He is defined by it and he is not rounded as a character with his own dreams, thoughts and desires that exist outside his love for Violet. The plot is very interesting and again, has a lot of space for further development but the latter part of the novel is rushed and the ending, a somewhat cliffhanger, does not answer questions that I really want have answered. Who and what is Sera? Is she human? The manner in which Sera/Violet handles her stepbrother is abrupt and perhaps a bit too neat to suit the story.

While the novel is entertaining, these gaping holes and unanswered questions make for a clunky read with frequent pauses as you try to decipher what’s going on. Perhaps the story will find its rhythm in the second book in the series. For now, I say give it a whirl. It’s not the best one out there, but it is entertaining. You may like it more than I did.

Quicksilver (Ultraviolet #2) – R. J. Anderson (review)

Hardcover, 314 pages
Expected publication: March 1st, 2013 by Lerner Publishing
Source: Net Galley

Synopsis:
Back in her hometown, Tori Beaugrand had everything a teenaged girl could want—popularity, money, beauty. But she also had a secret. A secret that could change her life in an instant, or destroy it.

Now she’s left everything from her old life behind, including her real name and Alison, the one friend who truly understood her. She can’t escape who and what she is. But if she wants to have anything like a normal life, she has to blend in and hide her unusual… talents.

Plans change when the enigmatic Sebastian Faraday reappears and gives Tori some bad news: she hasn’t escaped her past. In fact, she’s attracted new interest in the form of an obsessed ex-cop turned investigator for a genetics lab.

She has one last shot at getting her enemies off her trail and winning the security and independence she’s always longed for. But saving herself will take every ounce of Tori’s incredible electronics and engineering skills—and even then, she may need to sacrifice more than she could possibly imagine if she wants to be free.

Review

Warning: I am going to assume you have read the first one in this series, Ultraviolet, if you are reading this review and so there will be spoilers as I refer to the previous book in order to make my review more cohesive. If you haven’t read the first one, here is my review. Read that instead.

Quicksilver is narrated by the alien formerly known as Victoria, or Tori to her friends, you know, the one who was supposed dead and for whose murder Alison was sent to the mental asylum where she met Sebastian Faraday and realized the scope of her synesthesia? It has been quite a while since I read the first one, one year to be exact, so I cannot accurately tell you which narrative voice I prefer. Tori is an interesting character, there is no doubt about that. Whether I could totally connect to her is not something I am sure about. I totally agreed with the decisions she made and I was fascinated by her asexuality (more on this later) and her fear of Deckard was so palpable I could almost taste it on my tongue – though why, of all the terrifying things out there in her world, she would choose an ex-cop with a frightening determination to solve the mystery that composed her whether she wanted it or not is very fascinating and I think speaks on several levels about the current social hierarchies.

Anyway, though I wouldn’t say Tori and I would have been best friends had we met in real life, I did like her as a protagonist. She didn’t spend time waffling. She was very action and goal oriented – she made a decision and then she acted on it. There are several things about this novel that I really liked and that I found very evocative.

The first one is the realism present in what is most certainly a sci-fi YA novel. There is racism, it is discussed and the reader is pulled into a discourse that may question their own thoughts and feelings about it. Anderson does not gloss over the race (ethnicity if the term race offends you) differences and how certain races are stereotyped in certain ways. This is the first time I have read a YA novel that managed to discuss or introduce this issue without portraying it in an extreme way. There is also an instance in the novel when Niki (previously known as Tori) snaps out that “this isn’t the USA” and while it is a bit jarring, it does ground the novel very firmly in Canada. Having read quite a few Canadian YA lit, realistic ones anyway, I have noticed that they usually play down their “Canadian-ness,” one assumes, so as not to alienate the American readers (American authors on the other hand never seem to have trouble assuming that America and American experiences are universal). I remember attending a talk with Susin Nielson and Susan Juby and they were discussing how their publishers had gently urged them to rethink the uniquely Canadian slang they may have used so I was very surprised that Anderson is so adamant about making certain that her readers are aware that they are in Canada and not in USA.

Hee. That made me like the book a lot more.

Another thing that I mentioned briefly before was the asexuality of the main character. This does not mean there is no romance in the novel. It is present but it takes shape in a way that is rather unique and is a lot more believable and interesting than you would think. Plus, a Korean love interest, you guys. Diversity!

The ending to the novel is intense and if there is a third novel (and I don’t see how there can’t be one) it will be intense as well as the stakes have gone much higher than…actually, the stakes have always been high.

The novel isn’t perfect – there were certain slips in transitions and abrupt plot twists that didn’t do the novel any favors – however, the writing is tight, the pace is just right and the characters well individuated. I sincerely recommend this title to you. If you think the first book was intense, you will be surprised by this one.

Eve and Adam – Katherine Applegate, Michael Grant (Review)

Hardcover, 304 pages
Expected publication: October 2nd 2012 by Feiwel & Friends
Source: Net Galley

Synopsis:

Sixteen-year-old Evening Spiker lives an affluent life in San Francisco with her mother, EmmaRose, a successful geneticist and owner of Spiker Biotech. Sure, Evening misses her father who died mysteriously, but she’s never really questioned it. Much like how she’s never stopped to think how off it is that she’s never been sick. That is, until she’s struck by a car and is exposed to extensive injuries. Injuries that seem to be healing faster than physically possible.

While recuperating in Spiker Biotech’s lush facilities, she meets Solo Plissken, a very attractive, if off-putting boy her age who spent his life at Spiker Biotech. Like Evening, he’s never questioned anything… until now. Solo drops hints to Evening that something isn’t right, and Emma-Rose may be behind it. Evening puts this out of her mind and begins her summer internship project: To simulate the creation of the perfect boy. With the help of Solo, Evening uncovers secrets so big they could change the world completely.

Review:

I quite liked this for a while. I think up till about 40%, I was enjoying it a lot and then it somehow began to fall apart for me. Here’s the thing, I really like Applegate’s books. I loved Sharing Sam and have read it countless times. I haven’t read anything of Michael Grant but people seem to really like this Gone series so I figured I was in safe hands. And I was, to a large portion, I was.

The concept is really unique and the characterizations are well done. The fractious relationship between Eve and her mother is very intriguing and Solo presents a mystery I would have liked to delve into. I felt that the narrative veered off course when Adam appeared. The world building, too, was not as strong as I would have liked it to be and there is a whisper of more but it remains a whisper and Solo’s vendetta against Evening’s mother goes nowhere.

I was not a fan of the romance in this book. If it had been Solo alone, yeah, but there’s Adam and then there’s some insta-love thrown in. We are basically told who Eve prefers rather than being shown and this detracted a whole lot from the entire story. I felt that the latter part of the narrative is suddenly thrown together and that people who weren’t even present for most of the narrative suddenly are important and the readers are being demanded to accept things that have no basis or given any foundation prior to the reveal. I read something by Patricia C. Wrede the other day where she said that authors have to be careful to not throw readers out of the narrative by flaws in their world building. For me, this occurs during the whole dilemma where if Eve “built” Adam to be her perfect mate, there should have been no way she could have resisted him. If she does resist him, he is not her perfect mate. Know what I mean?

Do I recommend this? It was an okay read but it lacks a coherence (in my opinion) that ties up everything together. If Solo is prepared to go against Eve’s mother, why hasn’t he prepared a place for himself outside the medical facility? Ah, there are many other questions like this one that makes reading this novel a bit of a challenge.

Adaptation – Malinda Lo (Review)

Hardcover, 400 pages
Expected publication: September 18th 2012 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Source: Publisher

Synopsis:

Reese can’t remember anything from the time between the accident and the day she woke up almost a month later. She only knows one thing: She’s different now.

Across North America, flocks of birds hurl themselves into airplanes, causing at least a dozen to crash. Thousands of people die. Fearing terrorism, the United States government grounds all flights, and millions of travelers are stranded.

Reese and her debate team partner and longtime crush David are in Arizona when it happens. Everyone knows the world will never be the same. On their drive home to San Francisco, along a stretch of empty highway at night in the middle of Nevada, a bird flies into their headlights. The car flips over. When they wake up in a military hospital, the doctor won’t tell them what happened, where they are—or how they’ve been miraculously healed.

Things become even stranger when Reese returns home. San Francisco feels like a different place with police enforcing curfew, hazmat teams collecting dead birds, and a strange presence that seems to be following her. When Reese unexpectedly collides with the beautiful Amber Gray, her search for the truth is forced in an entirely new direction—and threatens to expose a vast global conspiracy that the government has worked for decades to keep secret.

Review:

 If you have read the synopsis for this novel, you will understand exactly why it is so intriguing. The mystery it promises reeled me in and I began with the intention of reading a few pages but about two and a half hours later, turned the last page. Lo knows how to tell a story. She knows how to reel a reader in and while Adaptation had some flaws, you have to give credit where it is due.

It is inevitable that I will end up discussing the romance in this novel because of two reasons: one, it is a large portion of the novel and two, it is the weakest part of the novel in my opinion. The love triangle here is inevitable but it is an interesting one because one of the players for our heroine’s affections is a girl. I couldn’t connect to Reese at all and I felt that someone who has such overwhelmingly strong feelings for the boy in her life, falling almost immediately for the next person (regardless of their gender) was a bit unbelievable. The hurricane fast progression of Amber and Reese’s relationship is a bit baffling especially considering that Reese has not even considered liking girls before she met Amber. A bit more caution, a bit more hesitancy on Reese’s part would have made the whole thing a lot more realistic than it ends up being.

The only way I can make myself accept the hurried pace of their relationship is by a bit of theorizing and this will take place under the spoiler tags. (Highlight to read.) Amber is an alien and comes neatly packaged with these supernatural talents which perhaps also includes persuasion. So their relationship may have had genuine seeds but Amber may have used her talents to get the ball rolling and keep Reese entangled, manipulating her emotionally to keep her pliant. This, of course, is supremely icky and I hope I am wrong but well, it makes sense in my head.

David is portrayed a bit too ideally for my taste and he is way too understanding and accepting for it to be realistic. Moving on to the actual narrative, the premise that is unsurprisingly overshadowed by the romance, things are interesting though the entire secret that the book is built on is not really as surprising as I was hoping it would be. And I was surprised how the reason for the plane crash is added in almost as an afterthought.

Despite all my complaints however, I did enjoy the book. It is very readable and Lo shows with eerie precision how helpless ordinary citizens can be when the enemy is the government. When people who are supposed to be working for your good turn around and decide you are expendable, now that is real terror and Lo is uncannily adept at narrating the fear, the terror associated with these instances. I can’t tell you whether to read this book or not, but I can encourage you to make up your own mind about it.

Earthseed – Pamela Sargent (A Review)

Paperback, 304 pages
Published January 15th 2007 by Tom Doherty Associates(first published March 198)
Source: Publisher

Synopsis:

Ship hurtles through space. Deep within its core, it carries the seed of humankind. Launched by the people of a dying Earth over a century ago, its mission is to find a habitable world for the children–fifteen-year-old Zoheret and her shipmates–whom it has created from its genetic banks.

To Zoheret and her shipmates, Ship has been mother, father, and loving teacher, preparing them for their biggest challenge: to survive on their own, on an uninhabited planet, without Ship’s protection. Now that day is almost upon them…but are they ready to leave Ship? Ship devises a test. And suddenly, instincts that have been latent for over a hundred years take over. Zoheret watches as friends become strangers–and enemies. Can Zoheret and her companions overcome the biggest obstacle to the survival of the human race–themselves?

Review

I found Earthseed to be fascinating for more than the obvious reasons. We’ve had a recent spate of many young adult novels set on spaceships and will continue to do so in the near future. What sets Earthseed apart from them is the fact that it was written when the young adult genre was barely defined and if I’m not incorrect, was hardly recognized as a genre in its own right. The reading experience, too, is markedly different from reading other novels that may be superficially attempting to do the same thing and tell the same story.

There is a gravitas to Earthseed that is somehow lacking in contemporary young adult novels. What I mean by that is in my experience with reading some of the more popular young adult novels, I’ve found them to be very concerned with material things. Sometimes to the detriment of the overall narrative itself. That is not the case with Earthseed. Also the multicultural and diverse cast of characters in Earthseed is very welcome and I like that this multicultural-ness does not feel contrived to make the world in the narrative all encompassing but a natural progression of the circumstances that led to the creation of this solitary “world.” The characterizations, too, were fascinating and while I cannot exactly articulate why, I reiterate that there is a certain more gravity, more solid-ness in the characters in Earthseed than I usually expect in characters in young adult novels.

Perhaps what is most different is the romance bit. There is no insta-love. There cannot be, these kids have known each other from birth but also lacking is the melodrama, the deep importance placed on romantic love. I found that really refreshing. The focus of the novel remains the spaceship, the self-discovery, the growing into their skins and the growing up of the children who represent hope and more. With all these important issues, romance, while present, does not take center stage and I applaud that. I also thought it was very interesting how there is no “true love” and the accompanying refrain of “soul mate” in the novel. What this says about recent novels is something I feel is worth pondering.

Earthseed explores themes of growth, mental and emotional. It also challenges the rights a creator has over the created. There are several sequences of intense action and danger that will have you reading rapidly and almost breathless with anticipation. This will make an awesome movie. Anyway, I recommend this to you. If you haven’t ever read science fiction, try this. It actually is a science fiction novel and not a novel just masquerading as one.