Prodigy, by Marie Lu (2013)

**Plot spoiler if you have 

not read Legend!**

Day jolts awake beside me.  His brown is covered with sweat, and his cheeks are wet with tears.  He's breathing heavily.

Following Legend, Prodigy takes up where the Republic's most wanted criminal, Day, and the Republic's most celebrated prodigy, June Iparis, left off - hitching a ride on a train bound for the military city of Las Vegas.  Nine days have passed since they broke out of Batalla Hall and escaped Los Angeles.  Day wants to join up with the Patriots to rescue his little brother, Eden.

"You're really set on finding the Patriots, 

aren't you?"

Elector Primo has died and his son, Anden Stavropoulous, is the new Elector.

The Republic has simply moved on to the next Elector without skipping a beat, as if Anden were the same person as his father.  My head swims - I try to remember what I'd learned in school about choosing a new Elector.  The Elector always picked his successor, and a national election would confirm it.  It's no surprise that Anden is next in line - but our Elector has been in power for decades, long before I was born.  Now he's gone.  

Our world has shifted in a matter of seconds.

June and Day find the Patriot's leader, Razor.  Although they don't have any money to offer, they're still valuable to the Patriots.

"There is something you can offer," he starts.  "Fortunately you've arrived on a very interesting night."  

"Rarely has the Republic been as vulnerable as it is now.  There will never be a better time to spark a revolution."

The Patriots want Day and June to assassinate the new 20-year old Elector.

Will they accomplish this mission?  Who can they trust?  Will they survive?  This is a great read if you like action, drama, and political intrigue.  In my opinion, Prodigy is a more exciting read than book 1, Legend.  

Rating:  7 out of 10 stars
*mild language

To check this read out at NOLS, click HERE!

Reached, by Ally Condie (2012)

Every morning, the sun comes up and turns the earth red, and I think:  This could be the day when everything changes.  Maybe today the Society will fall.  Then night comes again and we're all still waiting.  But I know the Pilot's real.

The third book in the Matched series, Reached concludes the story of Cassia, Ky and Xander.  Xander is an official, a physic.  Cassia is a sorter.  And Ky is a pilot for the Rising.  They wait for the Pilot's voice to start the Rising.

 

This is it.

 

The Rising said it would look like this.

Reached was a solid conclusion to the love triangle of Cassia, Xander, and Ky.  I loved the poetry, art, and descriptive language throughout the book, and even though the first half was a bit slow, I really enjoyed the second half.  I liked seeing how questions were answered and what happened to each character.

Rating:  8 out of 10 stars

To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!

The Zombie Autopsies: Secret Notebooks from the Apocalypse, by Steven C. Schlozman, MD (2011)

The enclosed documents are highly classified.  They are exact replicas of the recently recovered handwritten notes of Dr. Stanley Blum, the last scientist sent to the United Nations Sanctuary for the study of ANSD and "zombie" biology.  After careful examination, World Health Organization and United Nations officials have reason to believe that these writings may contain ground-breaking data regarding the nature of the ANSD pathogen.  Furthermore, it is possible that this information represents both a key to a viable cure, as well the most definitive evidence to date that the ANSD virus was artificially manufactured - human-made - and therefore did not occur naturally.  The importance of these potential conclusions cannot be overstated.

One-third of humanity has perished from the plague.  Imagine 2.3 billion people have died.  All attempts at a vaccine or cure have failed.  Experts estimate that civilization can only last another ten years before total destruction.

ANDS, Ataxic Neurodegenerative Satiety Deficiency Syndrome, is present on every major land mass.  Most of the world is under martial law.  The disease is indestructible, untreatable. 

In July 2012 the United Nations set up a study site to study ANSD.  Those who live in the bunkers call it the Crypt.  Three months later the UN received it's last message from the Crypt from Dr. Blanca Gutierrez, resident microbiologist.

Status...gent.  Hype........new.  Diff...virus.

Vaccine...ble

Dr. Blum's orders were to record the findings of the team.  Members of the team left on separate transports, but only Dr. Blum arrived to the Crypts safely.  Only Dr. Blum's notes survived.

I'm writing this because I need to believe that there is hope.

Food has not been delivered for five days.  Water is scarce. 

Dr. Gutierrez still suspects an additional pathogen.

Something makes them live when they ought to die.  Something makes them eat when they ought to stop.  Something makes them able to tolerate some of the worst infections on Earth and keep going.  If this something is one thing, one pathogen, one protein, one change in the way we understand the zombie sickness, then maybe we could take that one thing away.  Maybe we could treat it, vaccinate against it, get rid of it.  Maybe we could cure it.  Cure us.

The Zombie Autopsies is for the extreme zombie enthusiast.  There are a lot of medical descriptions and illustrations to logically explain zombies.  This book is not for the light-hearted...

Rating:  6 out of 10 stars
* Language

To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!

The Lost Code: Book One of the Atlanteans, by Kevin Emerson (June 2012)

The morning after I arrived at Camp Eden, I drowned for the first time.

Owen Parker has always felt out of place, odd man left out.  He is from Yellowstone Hub, and he took the MagTrain to what used to be Minnesota because his dad entered him into a drawing to win a spot at Camp Eden, a summer camp in the EdenWest Biodome.

He kept saying how a month at Camp Eden was a month I didn't have to spend scraping by out at Hub, a month when I didn't have to help him with his breathing issues, the nebulizer packs and the beige phlegm that never seemed to get all the way down the drain, a month when I could have fun like people used to.

The camp used to be called Camp Aasgard.  Lake Eden was once part of Lake Superior, and this site has been a summer camp for 200 years.  Viking ruins were rumored to have been found here. 

There used to be 10 billion people on Earth, but 60% of the population was lost during the Great Rise, when global warming and the climate spun out of control.  Wars, plague and chaos have followed in its wake.  Now the population lives in soaring temperatures and the ozone is depleted.  The only safe havens are the thin rim of land in the Habitable Zone and the five Eden domes.

Life in the Eden West biodome looks idyllic.  The temperature remains at 22-degrees Celsius, the ideal summer temperature before the Great Rise.  After 15 years of construction, the dome was completed in 2056.  It is 6-kilometers in diameter, home to 200,000 people.  But there are rumors that the Eden domes are failing. 

Owen, awkward and prone to injuries, drowns on his first full day at Camp Eden.  Instead of dying, he sees a siren in the water.

-You are not at the end, it said.
-I'm dead, I thought back.
-No.  This is just the beginning...Find me.  In the temple beneath the Aquinara.

-What is oldest will be new.  What was lost shall be found.
-What?
-Find me, Owen.

The life guard, Lilly Ishani, saves Owen from the water.  She tells him not to trust anyone.

Her gaze was still so odd...Then she quickly leaned in.  "No matter what happens in the next couple days, don't tell them anything.  And especially don't tell them how long you were down there.

Later Owen wakes to bandages around his throat, but he can't remember getting cut or scratched while he drowned. 

I ran my fingers over the bandages.  Hotter.  And I was starting to have this weird urge.  I didn't get what it was, I just knew that I couldn't lie there anymore.  I had to get up.  Had to do something.  It was almost like I wasn't in control of myself.

Owen suddenly finds himself rapidly changing, emotionally and physically.  Are there others who are like him?  What has caused the changes?  Who is the siren?  And what is EdenWest hiding?  Owen follows his instincts and learns the truth about who he really is. 

The Lost Code is a SUPER-exciting read!  I hope Kevin Emerson is busy writing the second book, because once this book hits the shelves, readers are going to demand book two immediately!

Rating:  10 out of 10 stars
*mild language, mild romance

Legend, by Marie Lu (2011)

My mother thinks I'm dead.

Daniel Alton Wing, better known as Day, is one of the Republic of America's most-wanted criminals.  JumboTrons publisize his details, but the Republic has no idea what he looks like. 

They don't seem to know much of anything about me, except that I'm young and that when they run my fingerprints they don't find a match in their databases.  That's why they hate me, why I'm not the most dangerous criminal in the country, but the most wanted.  I make them look bad.

The plague has hit the Lake sector.  Day's family lives in the Lake sector.  Only his older brother, John, knows Day is alive.  His younger brother will be 10 years old in a couple of months.  Then he'll have to take the Trial, the test that Day failed.

It's almost always the slum-sector kids who fail.  If you're in this unlucky category, the Republic sends officials to your family's home.  They make your parents sign a contract giving the government full custody over you.  They say that you've been sent away to the Republic's labor camps and that your family will not see you again.

Day knows that this is a lie.

After the soldiers inspect Day's home, they paint a big red X on the door.  Someone in Day's family has the plague.

Fifteen-year old June Iparis is one of the Republic's top soldiers.  June is the only person in the entire Republic with a perfect 1500 score on the Trial.  She was 12-years old, she started her studies at Drake University.  She lives with her older brother, Captain Metias Iparis. 

Suddenly Metias is killed.  The suspect:  Day.  June vows to avenge her brother's death.

I will hunt you down.  I will scour the streets of Los Angeles for you.  Search every street in the Republic if I have to.  I will trick you and deceive you, lie, cheat and steal to find you, tempt you out of your hiding place, and chase you until you have nowhere else to run.  I make you this promise:  your life is mine.

Legend is a fast-paced exciting read!  If you enjoyed books like Hunger Games, Dark Life, Divergent, you'll enjoy this read!

Rating:  7 out of 10 stars
To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!