PANIC by Lauren Oliver

It’s a town where not much happens, where few people have jobs and even fewer people have the ability to get out of Carp. Boredom, drugs and drinking rule not just the adult world, but the adolescent world as well. That was what started it, the boredom and wanting to get out of the town, that is was fueled Panic. Panic was simple, in theory at least. Everyday for the entirety of everyone's senior year they had to give a dollar, and then whoever won Panic would get the money, usually around 50,000 dollars. That was more that enough to get out of Carp and never look back. The day after graduation, any graduating senior who wished to declare their entrance into the games would go to the top of the cliffs near the lake and jump. That, would be the easiest part of Panic. From there, every activity would get harder and harder, scarier and scarier. Every year, people died and ended up in the hospital, but the hope and possibilities that the money of winning Panic offered was more than enough to entice even the most chicken of 18 year olds to try. This year, the stakes were higher, and the money pot was greater with nearly 67,000 dollars going to this years winner. Heather had no real interest in the game, she thought it was stupid, but after her two best friends announce that they are getting out of Carp, heading to college and the possibility of a modeling career ahead of them, not to mention her boyfriend cheating on her in front of the entire Panic party kickoff, Heather jumps of the cliffs without thinking, hoping to escape her mundane future of waitressing in Carp. But things in the game of Panic are never as they seem. Her best friends start to lie and betray her in order to get ahead, the strange and mysterious Dodge is suddenly hanging around and "helping" when things get crazy, and someone is squealing to the cops about the game. People are being arrested, thrown in jail, hospitalized, and after one crazy and terrifying event... dead. Heather knows she should just withdraw, but her anger is fueling her more than she ever could have imagined, and she’s starting to think she just might win it, if she doesn’t end up dead. ''

Cress (Lunar Chronicles #3) by Marissa Meyer

Cress was locked away in a satellite orbiting Earth, she could hardly remember a time when she wasn’t there. She was a Lunar shell, but rather than have her killed Queen Levana and her trusted advisor Sybil put her away in a satellite orbiting Earth, the planet they hoped to one day soon over take. Cress was in charge of watching the Earthen newsfeeds for information, watching the leaders of the world for weaknesses, for making the Lunar spaceships around the Earth undetectable to any other satellites. It was Cress’ job to spy on Earth, keep the Lunar ship movements undetectable, and report any and all findings to her Queen. Unfortunately for Levana, Cress started to betray her.

Alone, with no one to talk to and with the knowledge that her queen almost killed her, not to mention knowing everything evil that Levana was doing Cress started to rebel. She did her duties aboard the satellite, but when Cinder (the true queen of Luna) was being hunted by all of Luna, and by Earth under threat of annihilation, Cress hid her the way she had been hiding Lunar spaceships for years.

When Cinder and her friends learn of this, they contact Cress and plan on rescuing her from her satellite prison, but they are to slow. Sybil intercepts the message and is waiting for them aboard Cress’ satellite. Just like the evil witch in Rapunzel. Sybil captures Scarlet and heads back to Luna, hoping to use lunar methods of torcher to get the information on Cinder and her plan to over throw the current crown. Before she leaves for Luna though, Sybil blinds the hero Carswell Thorne who was the one on the podship sent to retrieve Cress. The two are left in the satellite as Sybil sets its coordinates to fall out of the sky and toward Earth.

Cinder, the true hero and main character of this story is at a loss. Everyone she had been counting on to help her is hurt, wounded, dead, or captured. She too has barely escaped with her life, and the only person with her is a mortally hurt Wolf. The only thing she can think to do is head to Africa, where the crazy Luna doctor lives in secret. A doctor who has helped Cinder many times in her life, and the man who reveled her true identity and saved her as a baby.

Would you believe that this isn’t even the first half of the novel? That is how amazing this third installment of the Lunar Chronicles is. I love the characters, the way each book introduces different characters and themes of popular fairytales, without over doing it or forcing the story to follow the original fairytale. I loved this book, and couldn’t put it down. The 550 pages seemed to fly by as I read it. Cannot wait for the next novel to come out next year!

Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis

I think this book had great potential. It’s a futuristic dystopian novel, set in a time when water is scarce, population laws in cities are harsh and those that live outside the city are left to fend for themselves. It’s realistic, at least in that sense. There are also water witches, woman who can sense where water is and if there are under water streams and lakes. That’s the strain of the book that made me shake my head in annoyance, and made what could have been a great book hardly mediocre.

            Lynn knows no life but the one by her pond. Her mother taught her two things, keep the water safe and don’t trust anyone. Shoot first, don’t ask any question, protect the water because nothing else matters. Lynn has life figured out, its hard and solitary survival is of the upmost importance, and never go anywhere without at least one rifle and a knife.

            There have never been to many people, coyotes usually pose more of a threat than the random starving wanderer, but then Lynn starts to notice things in the distance. Smoke, and a weird eerie light during the twilight and evening hours, and its not the passing smoke of a wanderer. Strangers are in her area, ones who aren’t passing through. They are staying, they are strong, and they are powerful.

            For the first time in her life Lynn knows that she can’t take care of this problem herself, she needs people to help her. Despite the mistrust, Lynn teams up with an old friends of her mother from across the woods, and a young boy and his niece who were left alone after all their family was killing for violating population laws back in the city. Not much, but it’s all that Lynn has, and she would rather go out fighting than give up her pond and become a sexual slave to the strangers.

            Like I said, this book could have been good. Had the water witch thing not entered the story, I know I would have enjoyed it more. It would be a 4/5 star novel if not for the water witch thing, which brings it down to a 2.5 rating. What makes that detail the most annoying, is that the water witch thing isn’t actually a very big deal in this first book of the series, but it will be which is why it gets brought up. Annoying, I wanted a realistic dystopian future novel, not a semi-magical one.

The False Prince (The Ascendance Trilogy #1)

Civil War is brewing in the kingdom. Rival nobles are out for blood and the threat from outside kingdoms grows ever stronger. What most people don’t know is that the royal family is dead, a secret that one of the King’s low ranking regents and advisors has been keeping a secret.

Four years ago, the King’s youngest son disappeared. Rumored to have been murdered by pirates, with his body never found some still hold out hope that the young prince will one day return and unite the kingdom. That is at the root of Connor’s plan. He has searched every orphanage in the kingdom, looking for boys he thinks might fit who the prince would look like now. He has chosen four boys, all of the age and with similar facial and body structures to the king and queen, Sage is one off those boys.

Sage, while young, is head strong and a fairly clever thief. While the other boys look at the possibility of ruling with pleasure and want, Sage scoffs at the idea of being a puppet king for Lord Connor and his agenda. Fighting the training Connor and those in his camp are forcing on the boys, Sage continues to be defiant and headstrong, often at danger to himself and the few people he has come to know and care about.

There is also something that Connor isn’t telling the boys, Sage knows what people look like when they are lying and avoiding the truth, and when one of the other boys gets killed Sage realizes there is much more to Connor’s plan than trying to protect and unify the kingdom.

What Connor and his men don’t know is that Sage has a secret too, a boy living on the street learns tricks, and hears rumors and secrets that people try to keep hidden. Trying to turn Sage into the long lost prince might be the worst thing Connor has ever done.

I loved this novel. I liked the twists and turns the author wrote, some of which I figured out or at least mused on, while others came out of no where and wasn’t until I really thought about it did I realize the hints that Jennifer Nielsen left throughout the novel. It has a historical fiction feel without is being based on a specific event. This is a novel that can stand on its own, but I cannot wait to read the sequel when it comes out!

The Fallen: Enemy Novel #5

As it says at the beginning of The Fallen, this book starts at the same time that The Sacrifice takes place, and ends with a few of the characters from the two novels coming together. This is the fifth installment of Charlie Higson’s absolutely amazing The Enemy Series about a zombie apocalypse that takes place in London, England. This isn’t going to be the most details review, because it takes place far into the series, and the novel is over 500 pages.

This novel centers around the characters who are at the museum and those who have been traveling to the museum. It opens with the kids from Holloway arriving at the museum just as the sickos have broken in. If not for the skills of Jackson, Achilles, and the rest of the crew the chances of Justin or anyone else surviving the night was slim to none. Once the two groups merge they decide to embark on an expedition to the medical center nearby. While there, the small group of fighters and scientists learn a few things about the disease that are not good. And while they lose a lot of people on the way, they also pick up some “freaks,” mutated children trapped in the medical center who know more than anyone they have ever come across.

Back at the museum, they are on the lookout for whoever let the sickos in, and that would be Paul. Paul is slowly killing of other kids, he seems to have caught the sickness. That isn’t the worst part though, in the second to last chapter things are revealed about Paul’s evil deeds that shocked me, things I didn’t see coming. And the cliffhanger at the end, about Small Sam and Ella is just to much to handle!! Such an amazing series, cannot wait for the next one.