Requiem, by Lauren Oliver (2013)

Goodreads

My rating:  6 out of 10 stars
*language, sexual inference

To check this read out at NOLS, click HERE!

The Host, by Stephenie Meyer (2008)

Goodreads

My rating:  6 out of 10 stars
*long, long, long

To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!

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!

Dust Lands Book 2: Rebel Heart, by Moira Young (2012)

It's late afternoon.  Since morning, the trail's been following a line of light towers.  That is, the iron remains of what used to be light towers, way back in Wrecker days, time out of mind.  

Picking up the story where Blood Red Road left off, Jack is on his way to tell Ike's girl the bad news.  He's headed to a tavern in the storm belt called The Lost Cause.  All he wants to do is tell Molly, and then get back to Saba in Big Water.

The Tonton used to be dirty, rough, violent thugs, but now they are clean cut, organized.  This makes Jack feel uneasy.

It means that the enemy have changed their game.

The Tonton follow the Pathfinder and work to make his vision for New Eden come true.  Young, healthy adults are branded on their forehead to populate and New Eden.  These landgrabbers are called Stewards of the Earth, miracles to heal the earth.  Everyone else is eliminated or enslaved.   Homesteads are forcibly taken, family members are murdered.  

Saba wants to meet Jack in Big Water, but things don't go as planned as they start their journey.  First a disturbing message from Maeve from Jack.  Then Saba learns that the Pathfinder put a price on her head.  She is haunted by the ghost of Epona.  And she has an unusual attraction to the Pathfinder, Seth.

Read Rebel Heart to find out what happens to Jack and Saba.  Even though there are parts of the book that aren't ever answered, like when Ariel tried to help Saba with her demons, it's still a good read.

Rating:  6 out of 10 stars
* inferences of rape, prostitution, sexual references, language

To check this read out at NOLS, click HERE!

The Rise of Nine, by Pittacus Lore (2012)

6A.  Seriously? 

Beginning exactly where The Power of Six left off, The Rise of Nine shows what happens after Six meets Marina and Ella in Spain.  They're headed to India to find Eight. 

Narrated by John (Four), Six, and Marina, The Rise of Nine is the exciting addition to this series!  The group has separated and Six, Marina and Ella find Eight; John has found Nine.  The teens quickly realize how serious the situation is.

"This isn't playtime.  We're at war, dude - war."

The Rise of Nine is filled with twists and turns, similar to the other two.  

Rating:  8 out of 10 stars
*language

To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!

The other books in this series:

 

The Kill Order, by James Dashner (2012)

Teresa looked at her best friend and wondered what it would be like to forget him.

Thirteen years before Thomas and Teresa entered the Maze, Mark lives in a world that has been ravaged by heat and radiation.  Living in an encampment in the Appalachian Mountains in western North Carolina, Mark and his friends have had to fight to survive the year of death and terror.  Life is not easy for the survivors.

The sun flares struck with little warning.

Mark and his best friend, Trina, try their best to be happy and make each day count, but the memories always keep coming back.

The memories.   They never let him go, not even for a half hour.  They always had to rush back in, bringing all the horror.

The Kill Order tells what happened with the sun flares struck the planet.  The intense heat and radiation.  How lucky Mark and Trina were to be underground on the subtrans.  How lucky they were to meet Alec and Lana.

At the camp, everything changed in an instant.

But their laughter was cut off by a strange sound.  Something Mark hadn't heard in over a year, and he hadn't expected to hear it ever again.

The sounds of engines in the sky.

This is the first sign of advanced technology since the sun flares.  The Post-Flares Coalition (PFC) delivers supplies to Asheville, but this berg is unmarked.  Five people wearing bulky rubber suits emerge from the berg, each holding a black tube like a gun.  They spray the survivors with darts.  Some are killed immediately.  Others die a much more painful death.

Alec and Mark make their way to the berg to learn more about this attack.  Sealed boxes with warning symbols.

Virus VC321xb47

Highly Contagious

24 Darts, Extreme Caution

Mark and Alec meet Deedee, a young child who has been abandoned by her village after they were attacked by a similar berg.  She had been shot in the arm, but everyone left her there, alone.  She is immune to the virus.

The Killing Order is an exciting read to learn about the devastation after the sun flares and about the virus, later called the Flare.  Filled with suspense, this was one of my favorites in this series.  

Rating:  10 out of 10 stars

To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!

The other books in this series:

Insurgent, by Veronica Roth (2012)

** PLOT SPOILER IF YOU HAVEN'T READ DIVERGENT!  **

I wake up with his name in my mouth.

Starting exactly where Divergent left off, Tris is filled with guilt about Will's death.  Tris, Tobias and other members of Dauntless are staying at the Amity headquarters.  Amity is offering safe houses for members of all factions, even for some Erudite who attacked Abnegation.

Tobias' father, Marcus, knows secret information that will change everything.

Tris will do anything to find the truth.

I know this information will change everything.  Everything we have done, and everything we are about to do.

Insurgent is a thrill sequel to Veronica Roth's first novel, Divergent.  It's exciting, breath-taking, and well written.

Rating:  10 out of 10 stars
This book is not at NOLS...yet!

Pandemonium, by Lauren Oliver (March 2012)

** PLOT SPOILER IF YOU HAVEN'T READ DELIRIUM!

Alex and I are lying together on a blanket in the backyard of 37 Brooks.  The trees look larger and darker than usual.  The leaves are almost black, knitted so tightly together they blot out the sky.

With Alex's help, Lena escaped Portland, Maine; Alex did not.  Lena found herself 60 miles southwest of Portland, near Rochester, New Hampshire.  She's half-dead, fevered, bruised and broken.  

Lena is saved by a group living in a free zone.  Raven, now 21 years old, came to live in the Wilds when she was 15.  

"Everything you were, the life you had, the people you knew...dust...There is no before.  There is only now, and what comes next." 

Lena finds herself lost without Alex.

Love, the deadliest of all deadly things.

Love, it kills you.

Alex.

Both when you have it...

Alex.

And when you don't.

Alex.

Overcome with grief, she struggles to figure out how to live in this new life without Alex. 

Alex was the one who understood things here.  He could have built up this collapsed street for me, turned it into a place of sense and order.  He was going to lead me through the wilderness.  With him, I would have been okay.

Lena soon finds herself in Brooklyn, New York.  She is now Lena Morgan Jones.  Her mission:  watch and blend in with the Deliria-Free America (DFA).  She is told to keep a close eye on Julian Fineman, son of DFA founder Thomas Fineman.  At the March 23 rally, Lena receives strict orders to watch Julian.

"Don't take your eyes off him, no matter what...

No matter what, okay?"

Lena is captured by Scavengers, people who don't stand for anything, people who want to destroy everything.  They also capture Julian.  Lena and Julian are forced to work together to survive.  Secrets are revealed.

You.  Must.  Escape.

Pandemonium is even more exciting than Delirium!  In the end, Lena is faced with a shocking revelation.  Unfortunately, readers will have to wait until Lauren Oliver finishes the third book. 

Rating:  10 out of 10 stars
* Language

Not available at NOLS...yet!!

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!

Blood Red Road (Dust Lands #1), by Moira Young (2011)

Lugh got born first.  On midwinter Day when the sun hangs low in the sky.
Then me.  Two hours later.
That pretty much says it all.
Lugh goes first, always first, an I follow on behind.

Eighteen year old Lugh and Saba are twins.  With their pa and 9-year old sister, Emmi, the twins have spent their whole life in Silverlake, a dried-up wasteland ravaged by constant dustorms.  There hasn't been any rain for six months.

We bin watchin the land die, bit by bit.

The family is starving and Lugh wants to leave.

You aint really leavin, I says.

Ain't I?  There ain't no reason to stay.  I cain't jest sit around waitin to die.

Suddenly four armed men capture Lugh and take him away.  Saba's world is shattered and she embarks on a quest to get him back.  Not only does she learn that she's strong, she learns to trust others. 

Blood Red Road is an exciting start to the Dust Lands series.  If you like books like Hunger Games, Divergent, or Maze Runner, you'll love this read.

To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!

Rating:  8 out of 10 stars
*mild language

Next in the series: