Unhinged by A. G. Howard

Alyssa Gardner has defeated the Red Queen, saved her beloved Jeb, and is now the reigning queen of Wonderland.  All she has to do now is finish high school and convince her parents to let her move to London with Jeb.  Unfortunately for Alyssa, that is not going to be so simple.  Alyssa's art has changed.  She no longer creates mosaics with dead bugs, and instead colors her artwork with her own blood.  These mosaics show maniacal images from Wonderland that Alyssa would rather not try to decipher.  Too bad she has to use these mosaics, and rely on Morpheus (her childhood Wonderland friend who is amazingly unreliable and manipulative) to help protect her kingdom.  Alyssa is increasingly torn between the human world with Jeb and her parents, and her love for and commitment to Wonderland.

One of my favorite things about Splintered was all the descriptions of Wonderland.  The world sounded so beautifully hideous.  This book is set mostly in the human world, so there are not as many of these awesome Wonderlandeqsue images.  Also, the characters are a little less likable for me in this novel.  Jeb came across at times as wooden and kinda assy.  Morpheus is always assy, but he still manages to be decent enough to just keep my sympathy...most of the time.  Alyssa's conflicted desires to be in the human world and in Wonderland were understandable, but she did not handle the situation she was in very well at all and allowed some of her family and friends to suffer.

While Splintered is a book that could stand on it its own; Unhinged is obviously a book that needs a follow up.  The main action didn't start until rather late in the book, and there was resolution, only an obvious start to a next chapter.  I am glad I read this, and I am very much looking forward to reading the next book about Wonderland, but this one fell a little flat for me.

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Divergent is coming out as a movie in March and is pegged to be the "next Hunger Games" type series.  With that, and the fact that so many people have raved about this book, I figured it was about time that I got around to reading it.

This book took me at most 3 days to read.  And that is only because my husband and I got Battlefield 4 last night and spent time setting that up (I read this book during the set up) and then playing.

Divergent is a dystopic story set in a future Chicago.  In it's world there are 5 factions, each follows a specific ideal.  Beatrice is raised in Abnegnation where she is taught to be selfless above all else.  The year she and her brother, Caleb, turn 16 they are allowed to choose which faction they want to continue their life with.  Divergent's world is based on the idea of "faction before blood" so choosing a faction other than Abnegnation means separating themselves from their family forever.

When preparing to make her choice, Beatrice finds out information about herself that could potentially be dangerous to her and her family.  Beatrice thinks the only thing she has to worry about is choosing a faction and surviving initiation, but there are much darker happenings going on.

Beatrice (aka Tris as she renames herself) drove me a little nuts with her selfishness, but I loved the world that Roth had built.  I did fell that the end kind of was like a quote from Anchorman "well that escalated quickly", but other than that I really enjoyed the book.  I can't wait to see what happens in the next one.

Numbed by David Lubar

Numbed by David Lubar is a book for late elementary/early middle school.  The two main characters visit the math museum with their class and manage to insult a math loving robot who "numbs" them, meaning that Benedict and Logan are no longer able to do math.  Too bad the boys are about to take a big math test at school, the results of which will determine if the class gets an awesome reward.

Benedict and Logan must return to the museum, and finish a bunch of math tests to regain their math ability or else they are going to let their whole class down.

This book is aimed at a different age group than the books I normally read.  I did enjoy the characters, and the information about math, but the book seemed really short to me.  I do think that it would be good in a school or public library for kids in 4 - 6 grade, and would recommend it to readers my library.

Never Fade by Alexandra Bracken

This is the sequel to the book The Darkest Minds and it picks up shortly where that book left off.  This review will contain spoilers to The Darkest Minds, so if you haven't read that book yet, GO and read it cause it's awesome.  Then, come back and read this review.

Never Fade starts off shortly after the events that ended the first book.  Ruby is now working with the Children's League and using her special powers to persuade enemies of the League to give the League information.  She's heart broken from losing Liam and tries to use the League's resources to track him to make sure he is ok.  Then, during an op, Ruby and her teammate help rescue a special prisoner, Liam's older brother Cole.  Cole's rescue, and subsequent rifts in the League send Ruby on on a mission to find Liam, rescue information, and hopefully help save the lives of her old and new friends.

This book starts kind of slowly and Ruby kind of reminds me of Katniss during the opening of Mockingjay.  But, once Ruby is off on her missions things really get going.  I enjoyed revisiting the old characters, and I also liked the addition of new personalities.  While the first book could have stood on its own; this book ends somewhat on a cliff hanger.  I can not wait to see what happens next.

Proxy by Alex London

The United States has completely changed.  In the future, rich Patrons can live however they want pretty much free of the fear of punishment, because they all own a Proxy; someone who is punished in the Patron's place.  For some people this arrangement works out wonderfully especially for playboy Knox.  Then Knox takes a date on a joyride and crashes the car they are riding in, killing his date.  Then Syd (Know's Proxy) is sentenced to a life sentence and branded.  This is more than Syd can take, so he runs away hoping to find a better life on the outskirts of civilization.  What Syd and Knox don't realize is that they are both part of a larger than either of them had imagined.

This is the first in a planned series (on Goodreads it is listed as Proxy #1) and the ending is great, but also leaves the story open to continue. The action is fast, and the sci-fi tech and speak remind me a lot of the Uglies series by Westerfeld.  Syd is a likable character who also happens to be non-white and gay which is refreshing to see in a story where neither his race, nor his sexual orientation is the focus of the story.  I will definitely be recommending this to library patrons who like sci-fi and action.

School Spirits by Rachel Hawkins

Izzy Brannick is a monster hunter, in fact she is the last in a long line of monster hunters.  When Izzy can't hold it together after her sister disappears, and almost gets killed hunting a vampire, her mother decides that it is time to take a break and face something less scary....high-school.
While Izzy is enrolled at Mary Evans High she is supposed to be looking around for the ghost that almost killed a teacher, but she's also trying to navigate the ins and outs regular high school life, and deal with her first crush.  When the haunting escalates, Izzy must find a balance between trusting her new friends and being a Brannick which means stopping the spirit no matter the cost.

This book is the love-child of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the TV show Supernatural.  Izzy's fish out of water reaction to normal teenage life, and her friends willingness to accept her flimsy cover stories sometimes are a little hard to buy, but aside from that the characters were all enjoyable.  This book had action, romance, and a lot of humor.  I laughed out loud, and enjoyed the book so much I had to read passages out loud to my fiance.  The book does read a little young, but Izzy is a sheltered (in her own way) 15 year old girl, so that is understandable.  I can't wait for the next book in the series, and now I want to go back and read all the other Hex Hall books.

Spellbinding by Maya Gold

Abby is invisible, or so it seems.  She only has one friend, and the guy she has had a crush on forever barely knows who she is.  She also suffers from horrible headaches, and reoccurring nightmares about drowning in a past life.  The only good thing about these dreams is the guy she keeps seeing, the guy she knows she is connected to, the buy with the blue slash through his green eyes.

Then, during a history project, Abby learns that she is related to one of the women convicted of Witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials, and after further investigation she starts to wonder if she herself has witchy powers.  And, when she meets the boy with the blue glint in his eye while researching in Salem...things start to change rapidly.

It's hard to describe this book, because a lot went on without that much happening.  There were times were Abby was not a very likable main character, and some of the descriptions in the book were awkward.  One girl is described as looking like a ham in a dress, but I am not sure if that was supposed to be a good or a bad thing.  Also, the sense of time in the book is off.   The school Abby attends doesn't have prom until the end of June, and she says in August that she hopes she will "get a tan over the summer".  That said, I enjoyed the first 2/3 of this book as a fun and breezy beach read with a touch of history, but by the end I was really frustrated.  Teens may well sympathize with Abby more than I did though, and if a library has a large supernatural following this would be a clean addition to those that want magic with romance.