Review: Girl Wonder by Alexa Martin

Saturday, December 31, 2011

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Title: Girl Wonder
Author: Alexa Martin

Release Date: May 3rd, 2011
Publisher: Hyperion
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 304
Source: Won ARC at TBF 2011
Challenge: Debut Author Challenge (hosted by The Story Siren)


Summary (goodreads.com): As if transferring senior year weren't hard enough, Charlotte Locke has been bumped to lower level classes at her new school. With no friends, a terrible math SAT score, and looming college application deadlines, the future is starting to seem like an oncoming train for which she has no ticket.
Then Amanda enters her orbit like a hot-pink meteor, offering Charlotte a ticket to something else: popularity. Amanda is fearless, beautiful, brilliant, and rich. As her new side kick, Charlotte is brought into the elite clique of the debate team—and closer to Neal, Amanda's equally brilliant friend and the most perfect boy Charlotte has ever seen.
But just when senior year is looking up, Charlotte’s life starts to crumble. The more things heat up between Charlotte and Neal, the more Neal wants to hide their relationship. Is he ashamed? Meanwhile, Amanda is starting to act strangely competitive, and she's keeping a secret Charlotte doesn't want to know.
Talented newcomer Alexa Martin delivers a poignant story of first love, jealousy and friendship, where the ups and downs of senior year have never been so complicated. What else can Charlotte do but throw her hands up and ride?


My Review:
Alexa Martin did a really good job writing about a lost girl who is having a hard time figure out who she is and who she wants to be in her life. The main character Charlotte is a girl who got sucked up into the vacuum of a stereotypical high school senior year complete with drugs, sex and booze. I hated Charlotte because of this. I found her to be a written really well character, so well written in fact, that I ended up hating her for the majority of the novel. However, once her life imploded I really started to like her because she realized that she was an idiot and her so called friends were losers. The denouement of this story is what makes me like Charlotte and the book in general. I ended up rooting for Charlotte in the end. I could see that after she came to her epic realization that she finally started to see the people who were there for her all along such as her brother and his best friend (who, by the way, were my favorite characters of the novel). Overall, this is a story about growing up and making mistakes, but it is also a story about how even after making a ton of mistakes there will always be a tomorrow and it will be better than the day before!


Review: The Demon Trapper's Daughter by Jana Oliver

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Author: Jana Oliver

Release Date: February 1st, 2011
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 340
Source: Bought for Kindle
Series: The Demon Trappers (#1)
Challenge: Debut Author Challenge (hosted by The Story Siren)


Summary (goodreads.com): Demon Trapper Riley Blackthorne just needs a chance to prove herself—and that’s exactly what Lucifer is counting on…
It’s the year 2018, and with human society seriously disrupted by the economic upheavals of the previous decade, Lucifer has increased the number of demons in all major cities. Atlanta is no exception. Fortunately, humans are protected by Demon Trappers, who work to keep homes and streets safe from the things that go bump in the night. Seventeen-year-old Riley, only daughter of legendary Demon Trapper Paul Blackthorne, has always dreamed of following in her father’s footsteps. When she’s not keeping up with her homework or trying to manage her growing attraction to fellow Trapper apprentice, Simon, Riley’s out saving citizens from Grade One Hellspawn. Business as usual, really, for a demon-trapping teen. When a Grade Five Geo-Fiend crashes Riley’s routine assignment at a library, jeopardizing her life and her chosen livelihood, she realizes that she’s caught in the middle of a battle between Heaven and Hell.


My Review:
I really liked this book! It’s really different from all the other books I’ve read this year. From the summary I got the impression that this book would be told from Riley’s point of view seeing as she is the Demon Trapper’s daughter, so I was (pleasantly) surprised to find that it’s a dual narration between Riley and her father’s trapping partner, Beck. I think this narration technique is what made me like it so much. Yes, the action and plot and all the other characters are brilliantly written as well, but it’s the stark contrast and the surprising similarities between the narrators that make this book stand out. I just really like Riley and Beck together (I ship them, I really do. I will go down with this ship). I also loved how Oliver handled the setting of the story. It’s 2018 and the world is literally going to Hell because of the economy of the last decade (which would be what we’re living in right now). She presented it in a way that is totally believable even with all the demons running amok. I could see this happening the way she puts it forth. Riley, too, is totally believable because you can tell that at times it’s hard for her to be the only female trapper in her neighborhood and that she has to live up to what her father has done and that even though it is hard and the pressure is overwhelming she remains strong. Riley is a character that it’s almost hard not to immediately love her due to her sarcastic and heroic nature! Overall, a splendid debut that has everything one could possibly be looking for in a book: love, laughter, life, death and demons!