Divergent by Veronica Roth

     In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

     During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

     I've been hearing a lot about this book in the YA-reader circles and there are lots of reviews raving about it, so I decided I wanted check out what all the buzz was about. And needless to say, I had HIGH expectations for this book because of all of the hype surrounding the book and the upcoming film adaption.

     And guess what...it lived up to my expectations.

     I will admit, it started out sort of slow, and I sort of had to force myself to keep reading for the first couple of chapters, but sometime around when Tris changes her name and moves to the Dauntless camp, I found it difficult to put the book down. Before I realized it, I was engrossed in this story, and the writing was incredibly well done and the story steadily became more dramatic, exciting, and enticing. It's easy to see (after finishing the book) why so many people are excited for the final installment, to be released in October.

Things That I Liked:

1. I really liked Four. He has the greatest personality, and I love his veiled interest in Tris, although there was a point, like, two pages after meeting him where I said to myself "he's that kid that was abused by the Abnegation leader."

2. The action; the story was narrated in Tris's head, but because she is an action-oriented character, there isn't a lot of long thought-passages of her trying to make a decision or thinking about her situation.

3. The fear landscape/simulations were a really cool idea, and I totally didn't see the use of them coming up in the end-scheme of the big turning point in the book. I thought it was a really interesting use of the simulation and it really makes the reader think about morality and the owner of the responsibility of people's actions.

4. Tris's struggle with "becoming" Dauntless but being unable to be completely Abnegation. It felt real and relatable, and I really admired how she handled her issues.

Things That I Didn't Like:

1. Peter is a b*tch. But he is a good villain, I guess.

2. Eric. I know nothing about him except that I was supposed to hate him and indeed I did.

3. Is there, like, a history, or some kind of origin story for how the factions came to be? Like, it's obvious this supposed to be a dystopian version of Chicago, but how did Chicago as we know it now get to the point it is in during Divergent? What's going on in the rest of the world?

4. It would be really cool to know what exactly it means to be Divergent, because from what I can tell, it just means that you are indecisive and can actually think for yourself.

Overall Impression:

     This was a really interesting novel, and I'm really excited to see where things go from the end of the first book. It's clear that the next two books are going to be very different from the first one, so it will be interesting to see if the style can stay the same.

The Blonde's Rating: 4/5

Amazon Rating: 4.6/5

Goodreads Rating: 4.3/5

To read the review for Insurgent, click here.

Thanks,

The Blonde

Everneath by Brodi Ashton

      Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath. Now she’s returned—to her old life, her family, her boyfriend—before she’s banished back to the underworld . . . this time forever. She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can’t find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.

      Nikki longs to spend these precious months forgetting the Everneath and trying to reconnect with her boyfriend, Jack, the person most devastated by her disappearance—and the one person she loves more than anything. But there’s just one problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who enticed her to the Everneath in the first place, has followed Nikki home. Cole wants to take over the throne in the underworld and is convinced Nikki is the key to making it happen. And he’ll do whatever it takes to bring her back, this time as his queen.

     As Nikki’s time on the Surface draws to a close and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she is forced to make the hardest decision of her life: find a way to cheat fate and remain on the Surface with Jack or return to the Everneath and become Cole’s queen.

     I picked up this book, expecting it to be a one-hit wonder similar to Meg Cabot's Abandon series, where a girl has infatuated the keeper to the Land of the Dead, but I was pleasantly surprised! This was a really unique story with an original plot and a shocking ending, leaving me very excited for the sequel.

     Things That I Liked:

     1. The cover -it is gorgeous, and I can't get over just how pretty it is.

     2. The main character, Nikki, is strong, courageous, and self-sacrificing, prepared to spend the last of her short time back at home helping her family and bringing relief to others rather than satisfying herself. 

     3. The mystery: yes there is the mystery of Cole and the other Everlings and how they live, but I think the readers were only given a small taste of the bigger mystery in this story, which is that of the Everneath's queen and the ruling class, and their existence. 

     4. The timeline: the majority of the story was in a conventional timeline, but whenever the story reached a point where Nikki remembered something significant from her past, the text would go back to that moment, with each chapter/break subtitled with the time and location, to minimize confusion to the readers.

     Things That I Didn't Like:

     1. I was unclear about the location of "Park City" where the story takes place. Normally this wouldn't make much of a difference for me, but there were a few mentions about being a town known for American Indian tourism/memorabilia which made me wonder about where this was taking place, as well as the local river rapids and mountains that seemed easy to drive to. But overall, not a big deal, in fact, a very small one.

     2. Cole's motivation: I didn't like that he wouldn't explain anything about how he and Nikki would "make a run for the Everneath throne." Obviously the queen is very powerful and knows a lot of information about her Everlings, so how would these two be able to not only keep Nikki's existence a secret, but then fight her for her ruling status? 

     Overall Impression:

     This was a really interesting story, and I really liked the voice in which it was written. The prose was well-written, and there were few holes left by the end of the book. The ending was shocking, and left for a satisfying cliffhanger to have you scrambling for the sequel.

Blonde Rating: 4/5

Amazon Rating: 4.2/5

Goodreads Rating: 3.8/5

Stay tuned for my review of Everbound, the sequel to Everneath; there will NOT be a review for Neverfall, the digital novella companion to Everneath.

Thanks for reading,

The Blonde

Phoenix by Elizabeth Richards (Black City)

Phoenix: A Black City Novel, by Elizabeth Richards

      Weeks after his crucifixion and rebirth as Phoenix, Ash Fisher believes his troubles are far behind him. He and Natalie are engaged and life seems good. But his happiness is short-lived when he receives a threatening visit from Purian Rose, who gives Ash an ultimatum: vote in favor of Rose’s Law permanently relegating Darklings to the wrong side of the wall or Natalie will be killed.

      The decision seems obvious to Ash; he must save Natalie. But when Ash learns about The Tenth, a new and deadly concentration camp where the Darklings would be sent, the choice doesn’t seem so simple. Unable to ignore his conscience, Ash votes against Rose’s Law, signing Natalie’s death warrant and putting a troubled nation back into the throes of bloody battle. 

      I loved the first installment in this series for a lot of different reasons. I liked the relatable characters, the interesting mix of politics, racism/species-ism, supernatural happenings, and forbidden love, and the always exciting twists and turns the story was making.

     Not that Phoenix didn't have all of that, but it wasn't "up there" with the first book, not by a long shot. 

     It starts off really exciting, with everyone wondering whether or not the vote for Rose's Law (which we find out later will totally screw over all the Darklings by sending them to a worse concentration camp than when they were warring). Then the anty gets upped when Purian Rose himself threatens to hurt Natalie, who is newly engaged to our hero, Ash Fisher, half-Darkling and rebellion symbol/leader, Black Phoenix, if he doesn't vote to support Rose's Law, which obvi he can't do! Then there's a crazy turn, and basically Ash, Natalie, and all of their friends need to get their butts out of Black City, and quick.

     For some reason the Bastet (half-cat humanoid with a deadly-to-Darkling venom) boy that Natalie saved from experimentation in Black City is thrown into the mix. His name is Elijah, and there's some weird crap about a weapon that his missing mother supposedly has that can totally turn the rebellion around and send the government running scared. This sounds very convenient, except for the fact that Elijah's mother has gone missing, along with her good friend Lucinda, who just happens to be Ash's aunt.

   

     There's more about this second installment that annoyed/frustrated me than there was that was super exciting and entertaining (so basically the exact opposite of Black City):

    1. Basically, once Ash, Natalie, and Elijah left Black City, the book took a long and unnecessary amount of time and pages to get back to something relatively important and interesting. A majority of the "drama" in this book, which was boring relationship bullshit, could have been completely avoided if Natalie had been smart.

    2. If you read Black City, you know that at the end of the book, there's this crazy fight going on and Natalie gets bitten by some little shit Darkling brat from the ghetto...where all the diseased, Wrath-ridden Darklings live. Now, if you've ever read any sort of thriller/mystery book before, you know that nothing like that ever gets written into a book unless it's going to come back to bite the characters in the butt later on. So it was no surprise to anyone who's ever read a book over a 3rd grade reading level that Natalie was going to contract Wrath. 

     Now some of you may be like "oh, but she's a human, and humans don't succumb to Wrath, their just carriers, it's no big deal!", well no, because it is a big deal. Because, as we learned in the last book, Natalie has a half-Darkling's heart in her chest, so she's got Darkling particles in her body, making her susceptible to Darkling diseases. 

     So all of the drama in the middle of this book comes from Natalie being too scared to tell Ash that she has Wrath, thinking he'll break up with her because of it. By keeping this secret, Ash thinks that she's got something going on with Elijah, bringing about the classic, love-triangle-drama that YA authors like to pull out when they've got a happy couple and a sequel novel to get through.

      So that's two things, the avoidable drama and being predictable.

     3. The time period/fashion/era of this world is still not explained. Once in a while the fashions will be mentioned and it just doesn't seem to make sense, because it's all, like, Victorian steampunk corsets and sportcoat vests, while there's all this crazy technology like tablet/digipads for TV/info, Transporter and Destroyer Ships that seem like high-tech hover vehicle prisions, and yet there are no cars, or cell phones, but there are telephones. It's just very confusing, and I'd really appreciate some sort of "guide to the times."

     4. Just like the last time there was a romantic rival for Ash and Natalie, Giselle is completely pointless.

     Please don't get me wrong; while I was disappointed in this book after the powerhouse of a novel Black City was, it was still really well-written, interesting and exciting, and the first and the third parts were really action-packed and full of constant turns and struggles. Even the second part was pretty cool because we finally got a glimpse of the Barren Lands we heard about from the Darkling wars, and the characters spent some time in the concentration camp where the Wrath was created which was super cool.

     And then the book ends by giving the reader weird situation after weird situation, wondering what the F**K is happening and wondering if these we will ever know what is going on because the impossible is happening right now, and characters are throwing themselves into dangerous situations when they don't have to.

Overall Impression:

      I got the impression that there is definitely a great story hiding out under all the the stuff that this book built on top of it. I definitely look at this book as a bridge to get from the awesomeness of book one to what i can hope will be a heart-stopping amazingness of book three. Unfortunately that means a less than perfect book two, but you know what, it's a pretty decent bridge if book three delivers like I have faith it will. 

Blonde's Rating: 4/5

Amazon's Rating: 4.3/5

Goodreads Rating: 4.2/5

Thanks for reading,

The Blonde