Review: Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

Title: Incarceron

Author: Catherine Fisher

Release Date: January 26th, 2010 (first published May 3rd, 2007 in the UK, I think)

Publisher: Dial

Age Group: Young Adult

Pages: 442

Source: Library

Series: Book one of Incarceron series

Other Titles in the Series: Sapphique (book #2)

Challenge: Steampunk Challenge

Summary (goodreads.com): Incarceron is a prison unlike any other: Its inmates live not only in cells, but also in metal forests, dilapidated cities, and unbounded wilderness. The prison has been sealed for centuries, and only one man, legend says, has ever escaped.

Finn, a seventeen-year-old prisoner, can’t remember his childhood and believes he came from Outside Incarceron. He’s going to escape, even though most inmates don’t believe that Outside even exists. And then Finn finds a crystal key and through it, a girl named Claudia.

Claudia claims to live Outside—her father is the Warden of Incarceron and she’s doomed to an arranged marriage. If she helps Finn escape, she will need his help in return. But they don’t realize that there is more to Incarceron than meets the eye. Escape will take their greatest courage and cost far more than they know.

Because Incarceron is alive.

My Review: At first this book was really slow. I didn’t like Finn’s point of view chapters at all, but I liked Claudia’s so I trudged on. Once their stories intertwined I liked it a lot better. It was fascinating to learn about Incarceron from a prisoner’s point of view as well as an outside. See people outside of Incarceron have been told that it’s a paradise but really it’s a prison that has a mind of its on. The prison Incarceron is like the Demon Child of Stephen King’s Rose Red and Disney’s Smart House, not exactly the place I would want to live but it’s a great topic to read about. There are plenty of plot twists and action so I think it’s a book most teenagers will enjoy (my best friend loves this book!). There’s also going to be a movie made soon which I think will draw in even more readers (even if its only because Taylor Lautner is playing Finn (which makes no sense to me but there you go)).

Review: The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

Title: The Red Pyramid

Author: Rick Riordan

Release Date: May 4th, 2010

Publisher: Hyperion Books for Children

Age Group: Young Adult

Pages: 516

Source: Library

Series: The Kane Chronicles (book #1)

Other Titles in the Series: The Throne of Fire (book #2) is due out May 3rd.

Summary (goodreads.com): Since their mother's death, Carter and Sadie have become near strangers. While Sadie has lived with her grandparents in London, her brother has traveled the world with their father, the brilliant Egyptologist, Dr. Julius Kane.

One night, Dr. Kane brings the siblings together for a "research experiment" at the British Museum, where he hopes to set things right for his family. Instead, he unleashes the Egyptian god Set, who banishes him to oblivion and forces the children to flee for their lives.

Soon, Sadie and Carter discover that the gods of Egypt are waking, and the worst of them —Set— has his sights on the Kanes. To stop him, the siblings embark on a dangerous journey across the globe - a quest that brings them ever closer to the truth about their family and their links to a secret order that has existed since the time of the pharaohs.

My Review: At first I was a little disappointed with this book, it started off really slow but after a while I started to like it. I liked how it was supposed to be a transcript of what happened to Carter and Sadie since they recorded their story. It was well done, I would be reading and think it was just written and then whoever wasn’t talking would break in really quick to say there version or they would make a face and the person recording would comment on it. It's hard to explain if you haven’t read it, but it's cool. Personally, I like Sadie’s perspective better because she wasn’t as serious as Carter, she was funnier. At times it was hard to remember that Carter is supposed to be the older sibling because Sadie is so mature (what with being British and all). However, I feel as if they both should have been older maybe around 15 or 16, Carter and Sadie both seemed to handle things way too maturely for being in their lower teens. I liked that this book had so much of the Egyptian history because I just re-learned about them in my Western Civilization class last semester. I loved Bast, Carter and Sadie’s friend aka the goddess of cats, she’s fierce and funny! Overall, I would recommend this to teens who liked Rick Riordan’s other books as well as kids who like Egypt!

Review: Infinity by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Title: Infinity

Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

Release Date: May 25th, 2010

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Age Group: Young Adult

Pages: 464

Source: Library

Series or Stand Alone: Series-Book 1 of the Chronicles of Nick

Other Titles in the Series: Invincible (due out in store March 22nd)

Challenge: N/A

Summary (goodreads.com): At fourteen, Nick Gautier thinks he knows everything about the world around him. Streetwise, tough and savvy, his quick sarcasm is the stuff of legends. . .until the night when his best friends try to kill him. Saved by a mysterious warrior who has more fighting skills than Chuck Norris, Nick is sucked into the realm of the Dark-Hunters: immortal vampire slayers who risk everything to save humanity.

Nick quickly learns that the human world is only a veil for a much larger and more dangerous one: a world where the captain of the football team is a werewolf and the girl he has a crush on goes out at night to stake the undead.

But before he can even learn the rules of this new world, his fellow students are turning into flesh eating zombies. And he’s next on the menu.

As if starting high school isn't hard enough. . .now Nick has to hide his new friends from his mom, his chainsaw from the principal, and keep the zombies and the demon Simi from eating his brains, all without getting grounded or suspended. How in the world is he supposed to do that?

My Review:

When I think of Chronicles of Nick I think “Oh man, so freakin’ funny” which is closely followed by “Gah, I can’t wait for the second one!” I’ve thought this about twenty times since I finished and that was approximately about an hour ago. Even with all the flame throwers and the zombies trying to eat people, there’s actually a very good lesson buried deep within Infinity; “Don’t pick on people…seriously, they may take out revenge and it may be apocalyptic.” I don’t know if that’s exactly the lesson if any the author was trying to convey, but I think its good anyway (if it takes a zombie apocalypse to stop kids from bullying one another so be it!). I also learned that guys named Bubba are particularly funny and are even more so when they’re brandishing weapons! After Nick, his friend Bubba is my favorite character because between him and Nick’s amazing sarcasm this book is great! This book really needed those funny parts or it would have been way to serious, the humor fits in nicely. I recommend all zombie lovers (which I’m actually not…I think they're a dumb foe) to read this as well as anyone who wants a laugh.

Review: Thirteenth Child by Patricia C. Wrede

Title: Thirteenth Child (Frontier Magic #1)

Author: Patricia C. Wrede

Release Date: April 15th, 2009

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Age Group: Young Adult

Pages: 344

Source: Library (I’m seriously considering buying it though!)

Other Titles in the Series: Across the Great Barrier (Frontier Magic #2) due out in August.

Challenge: N/A

Summary (goodreads.com): Eff was born a thirteenth child. Her twin brother, Lan, is the seventh son of a seventh son. This means he's supposed to possess amazing talent -- and she's supposed to bring only bad things to her family and her town. Undeterred, her family moves to the frontier, where her father will be a professor of magic at a school perilously close to the magical divide that separates settlers from the beasts of the wild.

With wit and wonder, Patricia Wrede creates an alternate history of westward expansion that will delight fans of both J. K. Rowling and Laura Ingalls Wilder.

My Review: I can totally see this book becoming my new obsession! It's completely different from everything I’ve ever read. Who would’ve thought that magic on the frontier make such an interesting subject. I loved Eff’s voice in this. Everything she says sounds exactly right for the time period even when she’s talking about magic and magicians. There’s just so much to learn about this magical Old West and about Eff and Lan’s powers. I think it was cool how Eff’s narrative about her life in this book spans from when she was five until when she was eighteen. It never felt like time was passing too slow or even too fast, the pacing was always right and the author never over does any of the magical elements or even the hardships of life on the frontier. Every character from Eff and Lan to the obnoxious Uncle Earn (who I honestly wanted to strangle because of the things he said to and about Eff) were all very vivid and stand out in their own way. I’m really glad this is a start of a new series because there’s just so much left to learn about this Old West and the creatures that are plaguing it (like the steam dragons and mirror bugs). The only thing that would have made this book better is a map, just so I can make a visual in my head to compare to what I know about how the US looked back then to the Old West of this book. Other then that though I wouldn’t change anything. Its great just the way it is!