Aerin barely escapes slavery on the planet Vizhan, fleeing in her father’s broken down ship, the Fugitive.  Knowing nothing of her past and having no answers since her father died when they crashed on Vizhan years ago, Aerin has no where to turn.  Luckily, a friendly captain takes her onto his ship and secures her a place at a prestigious school, Academy 7.  Aerin knows that she doesn’t really belong at Academy 7, doesn’t belong to the Alliance — the governmental body that supports the academy, and is at a disadvantage since she has had no formal education, so she works extra hard to prove herself, to prove that she belongs and give no one a reason to question her presence.  Dane is the son of the Alliance’s military commander.  His father is powerful and rich but a very hard man.  Nothing Dane does can measure up to his father’s standards.  When Dane is accepted to Academy 7, he only excepts the invitation because he knows his father would not approve, his father having some sort of falling out with the academy years ago.  Dane is famous because of his father’s name and his own bad boy reputation, but behind it all is a cunning mind and he is determined to stay at Academy 7, at the very least to annoy his father.  Aerin and Dane are very different but have more than they can expect in common.  They both have tough, questionable pasts.  They compete for top honors in every class.  They both have secret pasts.  Aerin and Dane are drawn together but will secrets and their own self destruction keep them apart?

Reaction: I found Academy 7 a quick, satisfying read.  While the setting is technically sci-fi, with different habitable planets, easy interplanetary travel, artificial living environments, and more, readers who are not fans of sci-fi will still enjoy the story because at its center is simply two people with complicated lives trying to get by.  I think teens will find themselves able to easily relate to both Aerin and Dane.  They are both prickly because of their pasts and not very trusting of others.  Aerin spent years fighting for her life as a slave.  Dane’s father, while highly revered, abuses Dane both verbally and physically.  What they don’t know is that they are connected by more than just similar experiences and attitudes, but by their family’s shared pasts.  While secondary to their overall connection, finding out the truth about their pasts is an important part of Dane and Aerin’s story.  Readers who like character driven stories with scarred but healing characters will enjoy Academy 7.

Marcus and his buddies sneak out of school to work on the next clue to a game they play called Harajuku Fun Madness.  Unfortunately, the end up being in the wrong place at the wrong time when terrorists set off a bomb in San Fransisco.  While running for cover in a subway station, Marcus’ best friend Darryl gets knifed and they quickly change course to try to find help.  After many failed attempts at hailing down passing cars, one official looking vehicle stops.  Marcus thinks they are finally about to get help, but he’s wrong.  Bags are thrown over their heads and they are hauled off to a place unknown where they are split up and interrogated.  At first Marcus plays it cool, like he does when confronted by any authority figure; he knows his rights and he’s not talking unless his lawyer is present.  These officials aren’t playing by the same rules and laws that Marcus knows.  They humiliate him and interrogate him until he will give them practically anything they ask for.  Now all he wishes is to be released and allowed to return to his family.

Marcus gets his wish but it is a mixed blessing.  He is told he must never tell anyone where he has been or what he has been through, not even to his parents, or “they” will come and get him.  All of his friends are released with him except Darryl.  No one knows what happened to Darryl.  He could be dead if his wound was never properly cared for.  And the San Fransisco Marcus knows and loves is very different.  Everyone and everything is so careful monitored by the Department of Homeland Security, the very people, Marcus realizes, who picked up and interrogated him and his friends, and no one is allowed any of the personal freedoms expected by citizens of the United States.  Marcus decides to wage a rebellion in the only way he knows how, by hacking and scamming and jamming the electronic systems used by DHS.

And this is just the beginning!  Marcus’ revolution grows and though he often questions whether or not he is doing is the right thing, he believes that something must be done to restore freedom to the people of San Fransisco.  In his own words:

You can’t get anything done by doing nothing.  It’s our country.  They’ve taken it from us.  The terrorists who attacked us are still free–but we’re not.  I can’t go underground for a year, ten years, my whole life, waiting for freedom to be handed to me.  Freedom is something you have to take for yourself. (334)

Reaction: Wow.  Seriously one of the best books I read this year.  I was completely hooked because I was so freaked out.  Sadly, I could see everything talked about in the book as a possibility for our future.  For example, one of the main things that drives Marcus crazy after he is released is the way the DHS tracked people using their subway or EZPasses (called different things in the book).  These passes were practically mandatory for any commuter if they wanted to travel in a timely manner.  Every time someone went across a bridge or used public transportation, his or her account was registered.  But there were also points all across the city that would pick up the signals of these different passes and track a persons movements everywhere.  The authorities used math to find patterns in people’s travels and pulled them over for questioning if the patterns registered as abnormal.  This made me think about red light cameras.  Around Cincinnati there has been some buzz about the ACLU opposing red light cameras because they didn’t want the authorities to be tracking where people were going.  I originally scoffed at this because, seriously, the funds for the local police are so low I don’t think there is any way they are going to spend time using the cameras to track the movements of every random joe schmo in the city.  But now I’m thinking, is this just the beginning?  I mean, the police have even less money than when the issue was first brought up and probably the idea is still more good than harmful, but what will it lead to?  Now I am completely paranoid but I think in a good way.

Besides the crazy techno revolution stuff, Marcus deal with regular teenage stuff as well.  He has trouble connecting with his dad after the terrorist attack.  When Marcus didn’t come home right away, his dad completely freaked out and now is totally supportive of all the DHS measures to “keep everyone safe”.  This makes Marcus upset and angry because he’s seen first hand the lengths the DHS will go in the name of anti-terror measures.  Also, Marcus gets a girlfriend who is equally as smart and motivated as he is.  His relationship was a great and completely unexpected element (for me, at least) to the story.  Some of the technology description and background got a bit heavy and I found myself skimming or skipping those parts but it didn’t detract from the overall awesomeness of the book.

Bottomline, I think this is really a must read for my generation, for generations after mine, really for everyone.  Some of us can be pretty apathetic (myself included) when it comes to fighting for political measures we think are wrong or defending our constitutional rights.  Little Brother gives a glimpse of how things could be and certainly made me look at the world in a slightly different way.  Questions are good.  Debate is good.  Don’t let those things be taken away.

P.S. I originally started listening to this on audiobook and the reader was very good so I would definitely recommend checking the audio out.

P.P.S The recent #twitterfail (read here or here for details) totally reminded me of something Marcus would do if twitter were controlled by the DHS, which I’m pretty sure it’s not…right??

Hmm, how to go about summarizing this book…Arthur Dent thought his day was going to be bad when he woke up to bulldozers about to down his house.  What his friend Ford Prefect knows is that his about-to-be-demolished house is the least of Arthur’s worries.  Ford may mostly look human but he’s not.  He has been stuck on Earth for 15 years, posing as an out-of-work actor as he researches for the travel book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  What Ford knows, because of all of his fancy, un-Earthly equipment, is that the Earth is about to be demolished and if he and Arthur don’t hitch a ride off Earth soon they will be demolished with it.  With a stroke of luck, Ford and Arthur arrive safely aboard the spaceship doing the demolishing and strike out on an unlikely adventure in outer space.

Reaction: Hitchhiker’s Guide was a lot easier and faster read than I expected it to be but, while I did enjoy it, I didn’t connect with it in the same way many of its followers have seemed to.  I can totally understand why it would have such a cult following.  The writing was great, it was funny, it was off-the-wall but relatable, but it just didn’t do much for me.  I am very glad I read it, though!  I don’t think there’s much more to say other than it is one of those you just have to read to believe.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnk1zPw_PHc]

Now, on to the review:

by Mary E. Pearson

Jenna was in a horrible accident and it has taken her a year to wake up.  Now that she is awake she can’t remember anything.  Her father, a doctor, says it will come back with time but she doesn’t even understand the word time.  How is it that she can recite whole books and every fact about a historical incident but she can’t remember ever having friends?  Something is horribly wrong, Jenna just hasn’t figured it out yet.

Reaction: This is a very hard book to review because I don’t want to give too much away.  What I can say is that The Adoration of Jenna Fox is a very well-written, thought-provoking book that just may make my favorites list for the year.  Jenna’s time is some point in the future, and while many things are different, many things stayed the same.  Pearson’s future world could be 5 years from now, 10 years, 100 years.  The characters and their problems are timeless but shaped by the advanced medical technologies and an over-use of genetic engineering.  Jenna’s central conflict involves her search to understand who she is and her place in the world.  She struggles against her parents’ smothering love and wonders at the choices they have made for her.  She longs for friendships, relationships but is not sure that she deserves them.  While Jenna deals with the issues all of us have faced at some point in time, her situation and what she has become because of the accident make her journey more difficult than any of us could imagine.

Quotes: Here are some of my favorite passages.  They are a bit spoilery.  Read at your own risk.

I sensed that Father thinks I should be impressed.  Maybe even grateful.  But what about my missing heart?  My liver?  I don’t want five hundred billion neural chips.  I want guts. (126)

“What about my soul, Father?  When you were so busy implanting all your neural chips, did you think about that?  Did you snip my soul from my old body, too?  Where did you put it?  Show me!  Where?  Where in all this groundbreaking technology did you insert my soul? (129)

Check it out: Mary E Pearson’s website.  My library’s TeenSpace webpage is quoted.  Woohoo.  Oh, and it’s going to be a movie.  I’ll be very interested to see that one!

Katniss Everdeen has had a tough life.  She lives in District 12, the poorest district in the country of Panem, once known as North America, and in the poorest part of District 12 known as the Seam.  When her father died, Kat became her family’s support system as her mother gave into grief and her sister, Prim, was too young to bear the burden.  Now, at 16, Kat illegally hunts to keep her family alive.  Things are going as well as they can until it is time once again for the Hunger Games.  The Hunger Games take place once a year.  24 teens are chosen to participate, two from each district, one boy and one girl.  Each teen is on their own, fighting to the death against each other in unknown terrain.  Only one teen can win; it is survival of the fittest.  This year, despite every safeguard Kat has put in place, Prim’s name is called.  Kat cannot bear the thought of her young, innocent sister in the Hunger Games, so Kat does the unthinkable for her district and volunteers to go in place of her sister.  Kat knows how to survive, she’s been keeping her family alive for years, but can she outwit, out-maneuver, and overcome those contestants who have had lives of priviledge and years of training for the games?  Kat will be tested in ways she never imagined as she strives to endure the Hunger Games.

Reaction:  I can definitely see why The Hunger Games has been floating around as a possible contender for the Printz this year.  It is a wonderful story with broad appeal, both emotional and action-packed.  Collins has a wonderful way with words.  Readers are given enough background to understand what is going on and how Kat came to be the person she is without being bogged down with over-description.  Katniss is an amazing and complex character.  She has such a hard time loving people and an even harder time trusting, due to the hard knocks she’s been handed, but when she loves and when she trusts she does so with her whole being.  Her emotions, and sometime the lack thereof, play a large part in the games.  I felt very sorry for Katniss because she spends much of the time holding herself back from others; survival is her main goal but she does not understand what she might be missing out on by shutting others out.  While the story line is basically wrapped up in the end, there are still so many unanswered questions and so much uncertainty regarding the future that I cannot wait for the next installment to see where Collins is going to take us next.

Cover: I know I tend to comment on cover art a bit much but I am a firm believer in the power of covers to make or break a book.  With Hunger Games, since it is getting such great publicity, I don’t think this will be the case, and the cover isn’t bad, I just think that it could have been better.  My first reaction to the cover was, “This looks like an adult book.”  The size (smaller in length and width than the average adult hardback) helps distinguish it as teen but I’m not a fan of the old-school, rigid block lettering for the title and I think it is, overall, a bit too simplistic.  Also, while the gold emblem will mean something to those who read the book, it means nothing to people simply browsing for a good title.  I think it was a good idea to use the emblem for the cover but I wish it had been incorporated into an illustration instead of being the sole focus.  Finally, I’m sure I will be the only one to make this connection, but the cover reminded me of the packaging of this product…maybe not the best association for me to make with a teen book.

Other Reviews (I’m sure there will be many more to come): nineseveneight and Librarilly Blonde

Booktrailer (My new favorite things!): [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If_uBQzGetk]

First, what are the odds that I would read two book with the number 100 in the title back to back?  Not very likely, I would say, but it has happened.

Sylvia knows she’s very different from other girls at school.  First, she’s super smart and has been bumped up two grades.  Second, she’s super strong and super agile.  What she doesn’t know is why she’s different; this can’t just be puberty, can it?  Then a group of men try to snag her and take her in an unmarked white van but she’s saved by a feisty chick who looks eerily like her.  This chick, Regina, tells her that they’re sisters and there are more of them out there, all with super powers.  Sylvia and Regina set out to reunite with their long lost siblings.  Meanwhile, the men in the unmarked white van are staking out the other sisters while still trying to capture Sylvia and Regina.  These men are sent to find the girls by a mad scientist named Dr. Tabitha Carver who is in charge of a weird government program that is growing super-powered girls in tubes.  Turns out, Sylvia, Regina, and a few other “sisters” were stolen from the program and adopted into families in mainstream society and now Dr. Carver wants them all returned in time for their maturation.  Can Sylvia save her test tube sisters or will Dr. Carver capture Sylvia and use Sylvia for her own evil purposes?

Thoughts: 1. Weird.  2. Gorey.  3. Weird. 4. Intriguing.  So I am definitely interested in the story line and I want to see what is going to happen to Sylvia (this is supposedly only book one) but it had some crazy elements.  For one, there was A LOT of death and blood.  And not death by weapon but death by the hand of a 13-year-old girl.  Sylvia kills a lot of people with her bare hands.  Kinda creepy.  Second, there was some weird suggestive sexual stuff between Dr. Carver and Peter, who is some hunter of some sort — I’m not really sure what he was.  Then there is all this political stuff going on between Dr. Carver/Peter, Dr. Carver’s boss, and some unknown dude.  Anyway, it was definitely action-packed and based on an interesting (if not creepy) concept that I don’t want to delve into too much for fear of spoilers but be forewarned about the gore and adult themes.

What I hated: The cover.  I don’t know why but I really, really dislike the cover.  I think it’s the color — teal, I guess — coupled with the yellow and red of the numbering.  Second, I’m not a huge fan of the weird girls in the middle of the zeros in the number 100.  Plus, I really wish it had more illustrations and was much less monochromatic.  I mean, the illustrations are great inside and completely jump off the pages.  I disliked the cover so much I wasn’t even going to give this book the time of day until I read this review from Reading Rants!  I know, I know…never judge a book by its cover but, really, the cover is marketing and this one didn’t say “Read me!” to me.