Review: Sever by Lauren DeStefano

Sever

Author: Lauren DeStefano

Release: February 12th 2013

Genre: Dystopia, Science Fiction, YA

#3 in the Chemical Garden trilogy

Prequels: Wither (#1), Fever (#2)

Plot:

Time is running out for Rhine in this conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Chemical Garden Trilogy.

With the clock ticking until the virus takes its toll, Rhine is desperate for answers. After enduring Vaughn’s worst, Rhine finds an unlikely ally in his brother, an eccentric inventor named Reed. She takes refuge in his dilapidated house, though the people she left behind refuse to stay in the past. While Gabriel haunts Rhine’s memories, Cecily is determined to be at Rhine’s side, even if Linden’s feelings are still caught between them.

Meanwhile, Rowan’s growing involvement in an underground resistance compels Rhine to reach him before he does something that cannot be undone. But what she discovers along the way has alarming implications for her future—and about the past her parents never had the chance to explain.

In this breathtaking conclusion to Lauren DeStefano’s Chemical Garden trilogy, everything Rhine knows to be true will be irrevocably shattered.

Goodreads | B&N

Review: Fever by Lauren DeStefano

Fever

Author: Lauren DeStefano

Release: February 21st 2012

Genre: Dystopia, Science Fiction, YA

#2 in the Chemical Garden trilogy

Series: Wither (#1), Sever (#3)

Plot:

Rhine and Gabriel have escaped the mansion, but danger is never far behind.

Running away brings Rhine and Gabriel right into a trap, in the form of a twisted carnival whose ringmistress keeps watch over a menagerie of girls. Just as Rhine uncovers what plans await her, her fortune turns again. With Gabriel at her side, Rhine travels through an environment as grim as the one she left a year ago - surroundings that mirror her own feelings of fear and hopelessness.

The two are determined to get to Manhattan, to relative safety with Rhine’s twin brother, Rowan. But the road there is long and perilous - and in a world where young women only live to age twenty and young men die at twenty-five, time is precious. Worse still, they can’t seem to elude Rhine’s father-in-law, Vaughn, who is determined to bring Rhine back to the mansion...by any means necessary.

In the sequel to Lauren DeStefano’s harrowing Wither, Rhine must decide if freedom is worth the price - now that she has more to lose than ever.

Goodreads | B&N

Review: Wither by Lauren DeStefano

Wither

Author: Lauren DeStefano

Release: March 22nd 2011

Genre: Dystopia, Science Fiction, YA

#1 in the Chemical Garden trilogy

Sequels: Fever (#1), Sever (#2)

Plot:

By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children. When Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement. Her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next, and Rhine is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape--before her time runs out?

Together with one of Linden's servants, Gabriel, Rhine attempts to escape just before her seventeenth birthday. But in a world that continues to spiral into anarchy, is there any hope for freedom?

Goodreads | B&N

San Diego Comic Con 2013: Divergent News!

Last Night, there have been some new from SDCC about Divergent, the movie as well as the final book in the trilogy, Allegiant, which I am very excited to talk about!

Review: The Crown of Embers by Rae Carson

The Crown of Embers

Author: Rae Carson

Release: September 18th 2012

Genre: High Fantasy, YA

#2 in the Fire and Thorns trilogy

Series: The Girl of Fire and Thorns (#1), The Bitter Kingdom (#3)

Plot:

In the sequel to the acclaimed The Girl of Fire and Thorns, a seventeen-year-old princess turned war queen faces sorcery, adventure, untold power, and romance as she fulfills her epic destiny.

Elisa is the hero of her country. She led her people to victory against a terrifying enemy, and now she is their queen. But she is only seventeen years old. Her rivals may have simply retreated, choosing stealth over battle. And no one within her court trusts her-except Hector, the commander of the royal guard, and her companions. As the country begins to crumble beneath her and her enemies emerge from the shadows, Elisa will take another journey. With a one-eyed warrior, a loyal friend, an enemy defector, and the man she is falling in love with, Elisa crosses the ocean in search of the perilous, uncharted, and mythical source of the Godstone's power. That is not all she finds. A breathtaking, romantic, and dangerous second volume in the Fire and Thorns trilogy.

Goodreads | B&N

Review: Star Cursed by Jessica Spotswood

Star Cursed

Author: Jessica Spotswood

Release: June 18th 2013

Genre: Supernatural, Witches, Historical, YA

#2 in The Cahill Witch Chronicles

Series: Born Wicked (#1), Sisters' Fate (#3)

Plot:

With the Brotherhood persecuting witches like never before, a divided Sisterhood desperately needs Cate to come into her Prophesied powers. And after Cate's friend Sachi is arrested for using magic, a war-thirsty Sister offers to help her find answers—if Cate is willing to endanger everyone she loves.

Cate doesn't want to be a weapon, and she doesn't want to involve her friends and Finn in the Sisterhood's schemes. But when Maura and Tess join the Sisterhood, Maura makes it clear that she'll do whatever it takes to lead the witches to victory. Even if it means sacrifices. Even if it means overthrowing Cate. Even if it means all-out war.

In the highly anticipated sequel to Born Wicked, the Cahill Witch Chronicles continue Cate, Maura and Tess's quest to find love, protect family, and explore their magic against all odds in an alternate history of New England.

Goodreads | B&N

Review: Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood

Born Wicked

Author: Jessica Spotswood

Release: February 7th 2012

Genre: Supernatural, Witches, Historical, YA

#1 in The Cahill Witch Chronicles

Sequels: Star Cursed (#2), Sisters' Fate (#3)

Plot:

Everybody knows Cate Cahill and her sisters are eccentric. Too pretty, too reclusive, and far too educated for their own good. But the truth is even worse: they’re witches. And if their secret is discovered by the priests of the Brotherhood, it would mean an asylum, a prison ship—or an early grave.

Before her mother died, Cate promised to protect her sisters. But with only six months left to choose between marriage and the Sisterhood, she might not be able to keep her word... especially after she finds her mother’s diary, uncovering a secret that could spell her family’s destruction. Desperate to find alternatives to their fate, Cate starts scouring banned books and questioning rebellious new friends, all while juggling tea parties, shocking marriage proposals, and a forbidden romance with the completely unsuitable Finn Belastra.

If what her mother wrote is true, the Cahill girls aren’t safe. Not from the Brotherhood, the Sisterhood—not even from each other.

Goodreads | B&N

Review: Endlessly by Kiersten White

Endlessly

Author: Kiersten White

Release: July 24th 2012

Genre: Supernatural, YA

#3 in the Paranormalcy trilogy

Series: Paranormalcy (#1), Supernaturally (#2)

Plot:

Evie's paranormal past keeps coming back to haunt her. A new director at the International Paranormal Containment Agency wants to drag her back to headquarters. The Dark Faerie Queen is torturing humans in her poisonous realm. And supernatural creatures keep insisting that Evie is the only one who can save them from a mysterious, perilous fate.

The clock is ticking on the entire paranormal world. And its fate rests solely in Evie's hands.

So much for normal.

Goodreads | B&N

Review: Supernaturally by Kiersten White

Supernaturally

Author: Kiersten White

Release: July 26th 2011

Genre: Supernatural, YA

#2 in the Paranormalcy trilogy

Series: Paranormalcy (#1), Endlessly (#3)

Plot:

Evie finally has the normal life she’s always longed for. But she’s shocked to discover that being ordinary can be...kind of boring. Just when Evie starts to long for her days at the International Paranormal Containment Agency, she’s given a chance to work for them again. Desperate for a break from all the normalcy, she agrees.

But as one disastrous mission leads to another, Evie starts to wonder if she made the right choice. And when Evie’s faerie ex-boyfriend Reth appears with devastating revelations about her past, she discovers that there’s a battle brewing between the faerie courts that could throw the whole supernatural world into chaos. The prize in question? Evie herself.

So much for normal.

Goodreads | B&N

Literary Identification TAG

I saw Jesse doing this Tag on YouTube and since I'm on a tag roll, I'm doing this right now. I don't know, but I just enjoy these things so, so much. So, here goes!

By the way, I have been re-reading The Iron Fey these past few days and can I say they never, not once, fail to make me bawl and sob like a two-year-old at the end of Iron Queen & Iron Knight?