lei

Review to come~

I always assumed that The Walled City was a dystopian novel, so as I read each page I was surprised to discover that the book isn't set in a distant future or in a different world- it is set in our world, in our timeline. However, it felt like an entirely different world. It was incredibly dark and dangerous, and I could feel the tension in every scene. In a district filled with cheaters, gangs, prostitutes, and drug dealers, you wager your life every day.

The Walled City is a riveting novel written in three different perspectives- Dai's, a drug trafficker with a dark past and a dangerous secret; Jin's, a girl who spent years pretending to be a boy to survive the City and to look for her missing sister; and Mei Yee's, a prostitute with a silent desire to escape and find a better life outside and see the sea. Three different people from different walks of life in the City, three different lives that ended up finding each other and working together to destroy the King Pin's gang from the inside and escape the City forever.

I loved Dai, Jin, and Mei Yee equally. At first glance, they seemed like people who gave up and succumbed to the City's powers, but they actually had this fire within them- this quiet determination that pushed them every step of the way. Learning about their pasts, my heart broke and cheered for them even more. My heart raced along with theirs at every danger that they faced and believe me when I say that it was like they were cats that have nine lives considering all of the near-death circumstances that they got into. Reading this book was like asking for a heart attack!

The book had echoes of a reality that we refuse to accept. There are places out there just like the Walled City, like the Kowloon Walled City that the book is based on. Ryan Graudin managed to create a carbon-copy vision of those places and projected it into the book. It was absolutely masterful and terrifying. His writing kind of reminded me of Haruki Murakami's- tasteful, smart, fluid, and realistic with a drop of magic. It keeps you guessing and leads you on a spiral of fictional reality that will shake your core. Words cannot express the experience The Walled City gave me, you'll have to read the book yourself. But be careful! In the Walled City, there is no escape.

Originally posted on The Selkie Reads Stories (http://selkiereadsstories.blogspot.com)

Every Day isn't my favorite Levithan book, but it surely will be one of the ones I'll keep close to my heart. It's one of those books that may not be over all as brilliant as others, but it's own essence makes it shine with a unique brilliance.

David Levithan is one of my favorite contemporary YA writers and when I found out about Every Day, I was completely floored. I couldn't grasp the concept of Levithan writing a paranormal/fantasy novel. I'm not sure if this is his first, but i'm more familiar with him as a contemporary kind of guy. I wasn't sure what to expect but I looked forward to reading the book nonetheless. And I am so glad that I did because I loved the reading experience Every Day gave me.

I loved the dialogue, I loved A's inner narrative, I loved A's interaction with the people who are close to the people he becomes. Levithan weaves all the aspects of the narrative so well and the characters he introduces as the book progresses and the descriptions of the things that A goes through to every single day are so overwhelmingly surreal. That's what I loved the most about this book, I guess. Every morning when A wakes up in the body of a different person, Levithan introduced me to that person and that person's life and the people around him/her. The way he embodies the different characters astound me because they were all so uniquely interesting. I will forever be a fan of Levithan's fluidly easygoing writing and his strong voice that emanates honesty.

Rhiannon. The plot basically surrounds her because this book basically is a romance and she's the whole reason why A is doing all these things that he doesn't usually do, but I didn't care much for her. I mean, I was okay with her character, but I strongly feel that the book would be equally as interesting even if she didn't enter the story line. What I did like about Rhiannon was that she was like a real person; ethical and logical and used her brain in every situation, and she took into consideration how her actions would reflect other people.

Most people hated that the love A felt for Rhiannon was like instalove and that he was doing all these things for a girl he barely knew, but imagine yourself in his position for a moment. If you led a life like him and then a girl you can imagine spending every day with enters your life and then everything you lived for suddenly has meaning, wouldn't you jump at every opportunity to be with her? Love isn't always out there as an option for him and when life gave him a chance at it, he did what any person with a right mind would do and took it. And from Rhiannon's point of view, would you be willing to be with someone and love someone who became a different person every day? There's so much more to this book than others let on, because it makes you think and wonder and makes you thankful for every day.

I'm not a big fan of the decisions that A made and the things that he did either, but I understand why he did them. I'm proud that he made a good decision and did the right thing in the end; it's like he opened his eyes and finally faced the truth. And because of that, A and David Levithan and this book tore my heart apart with equal amounts of depression and happiness.

This isn't your ordinary zombie book. Reboot introduces us to a world where some people, people whose bodies can adapt to the mutation given by an epidemic disease, rise from the dead and become stronger, faster, and less prone to human emotion. A government agency called HARC uses these living dead called the reboots to fight as soldiers and perform brutal tasks with no questions asked.

Wren rebooted after 178 minutes, making her the deadliest and most highly feared Reboot. The humans that patrol the HARC base are terrified of her and the lower reboots know to stay away. The only people who treated her like a person were Leb, one of the few humans at HARC who treated reboots with respect, and Ever, her ‘under sixty' roommate and the closest Wren had to a friend. Wren was okay with the reputation of being a monster who enjoyed killing and found some truth in it until Callum came along. Callum is a 22 and one of the weakest reboots in the base. Wren usually chooses to train the reboot with the highest number, but something about Callum and his unabashed humane self intrigues her and chooses him to be her trainee, surprising the other reboots, the humans, and Wren herself.

Being Callum's trainer changes Wren and she starts to feel the human emotions she thought she would never feel again. She starts to break the rules she has followed for the past five years, and allows herself to show compassion towards others. These emotions make Wren start to wonder when she gets called to do private missions and Ever and the other under sixties start to act strange and less sane. When Callum refuses to kill a human during one of their field missions, the president of HARC orders her to get rid of him but she silently refuses to kill Callum and enlists Leb to help her and Callum escape to a place where reboots get to live free from HARC's influence.

Amy Tintera's writing as Wren echoed the voice of a true reboot: strong, assured, confident, and calculating. But it also had just the right amount of bits of emotion that sprawled across the pages, showing us the humane side of Wren that was bursting at the seams.Wren was convinced that she was the heartless and bloodthirst creature that everyone thought her to be and it was true during the first parts of the book but as the story gradually progresses, you'll see Wren finally coming into terms with why she enjoyed killing and why she kept her emotions bottled up. Callum was incredibly cute and very very human. It was hard to believe that he was a reboot. With that playful smile of his and that curious glint in his eyes, he was just what Wren needed in her life. Callum was an overactive ball of sunshine; always looking at the bright side of things and never backing down whenever Wren dismissed his playful advances.

Reboot was an incredible fast-paced and adrenaline filled book with kickass and endearing characters and unbelievable twists that will keep you on the edge of your seat. The action scenes were vividly set out for the reader and the romance was cute and sweet. Reboot lived up to the expectations of it's cleverly unique plot that plays with what being human truly means. It perfectly laid out the framework for a series that i'm sure will be more than amazing, showing us glimpses of Wren's tragic past that i'm sure will slowly be uncovered in the succeeding books, and leaving us with questions that are dying to be answered. My only complaint about the book is that it unnecessarily rushed through some major events during the last part of the book. Filled with just the right amount of humor and innocent romance that balances out the gore and harsh realities, Reboot is one of the best young adult debut novels of the year.


Read more: The Selkie Reads Stories
Follow us: @ellietheselkie on Twitter

Fiona McClean hates her family, has had to move to a new school and seems to be completely invisible to the boy she likes. So far so normal, right? But Fiona really is invisible. She doesn't even know what colour her own hair is.

Born into a world where Cold War anti-radiation pills have caused genetic mutations, Fiona is forced to work for her mind-controlling mobster father as the world's most effective thief. When her father announces she must become a murdering assassin, Fiona and her telekinetic mother make a break for freedom. Running to a small Arizonian town, Fiona finds that playing at ‘normal life' with a mother on the edge, a brother she can't trust, and a boy who drives her crazy is as impossible as escaping her father.

I entered Fiona McClean's world the way I would enter a classroom on the first day of school, expectant but slightly hesitant. I really wasn't sure how to react to the blurb because it had so much going on. Family problems? Mutants? Mafia? Heck, it was even advertised as The Godfather meets X-Men. It already packed a heavy punch, and if you roll it all up with the fact that this is a young adult book with high school and boys, you really just don't know what to expect.

Transparent started out slow, introducing us to the mafia syndicate world that Fiona was born into. The author writes in a precise way that slowly made me felt at ease about all the information about syndicates and pills that strengthen mutation that bombarded me at every flip of the page. It was all so easy to read and I soon found myself settling into the plot and the world that Fiona lived in.

Fiona wasn't an easy protagonist to like because she had all these faults about her. I mean, you can't expect her to be a sweet little Mary Sue considering the way that her father brought her up. She spent most of her life performing missions and stealing for a mafia syndicate, so she had all these walls and reservations, always feeling unease whenever someone shows the slightest kindness towards her. Her older brother Graham often abused her by flying her way up into the sky and dropping her to the ground, so the only person she truly trusted was her other brother Miles who had a useless mutation and was considered nothing in the eyes of their father.

When her mother took her to a small town in Arizona and enrolled her in high school, it was like her whole world and everything she was taught changed. Everyone stared at her and poised her as a threat to their peaceful town, but Brady and Bea, mutants like herself, came to her aide and became the first two real friends she ever had. Her world slowly opened up to kindness in the form of a family of mutants, the Navarro family, and Brady's brother Seth. I slowly learned to love Fiona as she went through all these changes and became so much stronger because of the people that she let into her life.

Seth. Can someone please find a pen and add him to my list of book boyfriends? Pretty please? This boy right here is the guy for me. I love Natalie Whipple for creating a character like Seth; someone who everyone relies on to fix things, but is so dreadfully broken himself. Seth and Brody have a really complicated family, and Seth took the reins by becoming the man of the house early on and grew up fast so that Brody didn't have to. Seth tutors math for the extra cash and lives for the subject because as long as you know the process, you'll always have a solution to the problem.

He's really rude to Fiona and is pretty blunt about things, but he has his reasons. Seth is broody, awkward, shy, blunt, geeky, courageous, hesitant, and a complete whirlwind of emotions. I'm guessing that some people will vote for Brody, but I'm Team Seth all the way. He's probably the best thing to happen to Fiona, and her to him. I'm going at a length here by saying that Fiona is basically Scott Summers and Seth is Jean Grey. Yep. Go away, Wolverine! (Yes, I know what happens to Jean and Scott's relationship. Yes, I still stand by my point.)

The plot seemed like a mess to be honest, but it started to clear out along the way and everything fell into it's perfect place. Natalie's writing was so easy to understand and flowed so perfectly, I didn't have to retrace my steps. Her skill for writing characters so incredibly real astounds me to the core and for that reason, I will continue to look forward to her future work. I loved every character in this book, major or not. Transparent in set in a world much like the X-Men universe, where mutants were common but feared upon for no reason. The difference being that Natalie Whipple took all of that and added just the right amount of reality and humanity into it. Each and every one of her characters had a story to them, and these stories are our stories.

And how do you wrap off a story like this, you ask? I'm not giving anything away. Let's just say that it tugged on the seams of my heart and warmed my soul. By the time I read the last sentence, I was smiling from ear to ear.

Read more: The Selkie Reads Stories
Follow us: @ellietheselkie on Twitter