Fluttering Butterflies

The Red Queen Series Red Queen (book 1), Glass Sword (book 2), King's Cage (book 3) by Victoria Aveyard This series is FANTASTIC! One of the tricks that many author take a long time to master is the ability to surprise the reader. In teen novels, this is especially apparent in mysteries; you can usually see whoever "did it" before the author actually has the reveal. Victoria Aveyard has managed the unlikely... and not only does she surprise the reader, she does so many times in one novel. Victoria Aveyard also begins to experiment with changing points of view later in the series, which shows the benefits of using changing POV to show different sides to a story. I picked up the first novel in this series, Red Queen , a while ago and postponed reading it until about a week before I would be at a signing event that Victoria Aveyard was attending. My goal was to read all three of the current books before I met the author. The first book was really good. It paints a dystopian ...

Empress of a Thousand Skies Written by Rhoda Belleza Published by Razorbill It had been a long time since I had found a decent book to read. There had been many new authors attempting to write amazing stories, but some ended up, in my opinion, with unrealistic romances, weak plot lines, and characters that just weren't believable. As someone who enjoys writing, I know that it is hard build the characters and plot into a complex, great story. Just when I had realized that I couldn't find I good book, I had stumbled across Empress of a Thousand Skies. I started it, not really expecting to like it, but soon, I couldn't stop reading the book. Empress of a Thousand Skies was an interesting and enjoyable book. While the plot was not entirely unique, the story was not as predictable as one might expect. Yes, there were some obvious clichés and it seemed to have been written for a certain age group, rather than being universal. However, the characters were intriguing and the settin...

By Kerry Wilkinson Despite the extreme popularity of the Hunger Games trilogy there were some serious flaws.  This book, Renegade , played into several of them.  One of my biggest problems wight his book was the extraordinary resemblance to Catching Fire , the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy.  In order to fully explain my problems with this book I will be giving away part of the ending.  So there will be SPOILERS. Ok, I'll start at the beginning.   Renegade is the second book in the trilogy.  I read the first one, Reckoning , probably over a year ago.  I found it extremely similar to the Hunger Games when I read it for these reasons.  There is something called the Reckoning where everyone takes basically an aptitude test that nobody really understands how it works.  They get a status as a result of this test: Elite, Member, Inter, or Trog.  That's not the important part though.  Then, there is the Choosing.  It is basi...

By Delilah s. Dawson Patsy is an indentured servant of the United States government, which has turned into the Valor National government. Valor National was a bank that got the United States out of debt by adding a clause in a credit card application which allows them to demand all the money owed on the spot, have them be killed, or have them be turned into a hit man. Patsy's mother had taken out a huge loan and now Patsy has to either kill ten people in five days or her mother dies. This book had a good idea, but the way it was executed was a little boring. The entire book focused on Patsy and Wyatt, the son a man she just killed, riding around in a van and killing people. Their relationship was very implausible, considering Patsy killed her father and they met when he was about to get revenge by killing her, and a chapter later they were making out. Overall their relationship was not very fleshed out, and the pretense the book was set in was a little implausible. On one hand, wha...

by Chris Stuyk-Bonn       Whisper has lived in the woods ever since she was abandoned as an infant because of a disfigured mouth.   In her society, disfigurations are frowned upon, so she instead lives with a few others who were also abandoned and taken in by a man named Nathaniel.   The beginning is very expository because Whisper doesn’t talk much, and when she does, she whispers - hence her name - and the book takes a while for the book to get going.       After Whisper is taken away by the father who abandoned her then moved again to the city and forced to work to give her father money, the story picks up.   Whisper meets other characters who also have disfigurations and learns how to live with her own and use the talents she has to make a living.   I enjoyed the middle when Whisper was growing as a character and learning new things and the story was developing.   However, partway through, a doctor offered to fix Whisper’s disfi...

Written by: Marie Rutkoski This book is like a tootsie roll lolly pop. You have to get through the boring outside before the delicious center, but the wait is definitely worth it. Fair haired Valorian Kestrel is the daughter of a famous general who’s expectation of her is to join the military or marry. Kestrel is not encouraged to play her beloved piano, so when she accidentally overhears the auctioning of a Herrani slave who is a fellow musician, she uncharacteristically buys him from the market. She soon finds that he is a proud and unbeaten man, and she asks him for his complete honesty in all things. Kestrel learns from Arin many things about herself and his past, and she realizes that the conquered Herrani are not the helpless people she may have thought them to be. From their conversations, Kestrel begins to see the true nature of her society, her family, and of course, herself. To be completely honest, the minute I opened this book I was ready to write a completely sub-par revie...

Written by: Bethany Hagen  This book is similar to a packet of oyster crackers: tasty but not quite the same as the whole clam chowder. Set in futuristic America, this novel follows Madeline Landry; she is the heir to her family's vast fortune but she's not so sure she wants it yet. America is controlled by the gentry, and the people are broken up into classes. First, there is the Uprisen, a select group of wealthy gentry who control basically the entire country. The heirs are expected to marry early and produce children quickly; this task falls to Madeline, and she is reluctant until she meets the very suitable and handsome David Dana. The second class of citizens is the middle class, people allowed to work in trades and service to the gentry and upper class. Finally, there is the lowest of the low, the Rootless, who handle the radioactive materials that provide the gentry with their endless wealth and power. The Rootless are sick and poor, and they are constantly dying as a r...

By H. A. Swain . Published this month.        Thalia Apple lives in the not-too-distant future where all food is gone. Wars, famine, and plagues have eradicated all plants and animals save humans. It's only thanks to One World corporation that humans receive Synthamil and inoculations that provide nutrition while balancing hormones and suppressing hunger. Thalia's mother and father are renowned scientists and engineers within One World corp, so they live in relative luxury. However, Thalia thinks differently from the rest. She resists One World's vapid consumerism and likes to learn about the past where farmers grew and ate their own food and made things with their hands. Recently, she has been feeling something strange inside: she feels hungry. Soon she learns that the world is nothing like she knew, and some rumors have more truth than she thinks.        I read this book on a recommendation and I believe it was well placed. T...

By Emma Trevayne This is the sequel to Coda , an intriguing futuristic story about a society that is controlled by addictive music until a boy named Anthem creates his own music and leads a revolution.  Chorus is the story of his younger sister, Alpha, who has moved to Los Angeles and is working hard in school so she can discover a cure to strange and powerful flashbacks that have been haunting her and her twin brother, Omega. There was a lot that bothered me about this book.  There was one of the most pointless deaths I have read (which I won’t expound on to avoid spoilers) as well as a character just being able to guess a super important password, which is something that always bothers me in books.  When setting a password on a top-security system, it’s not going to be something that someone can just guess . However, what bothered me most of all was that the author hid relevant information that the main character knew.  For the first few chapters of the book, A...

Extra Points for a cool cover :) Written by: Catherine Linka Eat some granola bars on the go while you read about Avie's fast paced escape! Avie Reveare lives in a Paternalist society, where her every move is controlled by the men that surround her. She must adhere to the strict rules that govern her and all the women, and she never has a moment of privacy (really, never ). When Avie's father arranges her marriage to a vile Paternalist billionaire, Avie realizes that maybe it's time for her to run away to Canada, where women are free and treated equally. With the help of her long-time love interest Ronan, and a network of friends, she is spirited away in the night. On her way to freedom though, she slowly realizes just how oppressive the Paternalists are. She deals with romance, betrayal, and lots of action. I liked this book! The plot/setting was really original and definitely was an interesting commentary on the society we live in today. A lot of books that I read these d...

Written by: Georgia Clark Gulp down a tall glass of H2O and some water crackers for this one! Yay for sci-fi/adventure/romance/dystopian original novels! Seriously, I really liked this book. Clark is a charismatic writer, and her characters are complex and fun to get to know. Tessendra Rockwood is a spoiled rich girl who (for reasons initially unknown) leaves the protective dome of her city, Eden, to camp out in the Badlands. The contrast is horrifying; people in Eden live clean, happy lives and have an abundance of precious water, while in the Badlands children fight over the smallest sip of muddy liquid. Tessendra is eventually found by a member of the rebel group Kudzu, who are intent on ending the growing inequality. She returns home and lives with her uncle, who she thinks may be helping Eden keep the water in and the Badlanders out. She works undercover with the Kudzu, and eventually hatches a plan to help free the water, all while balancing her time studying at home with her Unc...

By: Stephanie Diaz The set up for this book was very good.  The idea was excellent.  It was similar to a lot of dystopian novels with hints of science fiction and romance which made for a very interesting mix.  The setting was on a different planet, Kiel.  The main character, Clementine, is from the surface.  Everyone from the surface goes to school and until they are 16.  When they turn 16 they take a test to find out what their "promise score" is.  If they are in the top ten then they are "extracted" and get to live in the core.  If they are not selected they are either replaced or they are simply killed once they turn 20.  Everyone alive on the 20th birthday dies.  The moon spews acid which can kill someone in 10 minutes.  The core set up a force field  to protect against the acid but sometimes it leaks.  As always in books, the main character is selected to live in the core.  Her only problem is that leaving the s...

Written by: Elizabeth Fama Crack these pages open while gobbling up a rich chocolate cake laced with spice.  If you’re a solid romance buff like me, but also enjoy alternate reality adventures, this is the book for you.  Sol Le Coeur is part time hot-headed sass master and part time devoted caretaker. She keeps her heart closed off to everyone but her Poppu, who she is fiercely devoted to, so much so that she is willing to risk her freedom so he may hold his great-grandchild in his arms before his dying day. When she accidentally swipes the wrong baby from the hospital, Sol is caught up in a whirlwind of intrigue and confusion that all lead back to her estranged brother, Ciel, and the fractured society they must live in. Sol must navigate her way through the mysteries while conforming to a rigid day-night schedule. She is only allowed out under the cover of darkness. And she manages to handle (we hope) this all while braving the emotional roller coaster of true love. I really ...

By Bethany Hagen . Release date: February 4th 2014 (tomorrow!)        Madeline Landry lives in the luxury of the antique Landry estate with her mother and father. They are among the few elite living in a post-war Jane Austen-romance-novel-styled society. Their opulent lifestyles are supported by a large common lower class. Below the lower class are the Rootless, the poorest of the poor stuck with the worst jobs: handling spent radioactive charges used for generating electricity. There's a lot of responsibility on Madeline's shoulders to step up to the role of the next of her line, the most powerful family in the United States. As Madeline receives more pressure from her father to follow family responsibility, she learns more about the Rootless than she ever knew before.        The upper class in this book is literally modeled after a Jane Austen novel. Inexplicably, in post-war society, they reverted to the 1700's. They drink t...

by Joelle Charbonneau       I picked this book up with very high hopes. Most of my Galley amigos agreed that this was a textbook "Jelle" book, so to speak. The cover was intriguing, but not stunning--I even had an ARC with a different cover than the one to the left, a nicer, more edgy black design with a shiny silver incal. The cover fits the book neatly, actually. It's edgy at first, screaming to be picked up, and depressingly shallow, run-of-the-mill mundane after three minutes of scrutiny.       My reading notes are full of comments like "stilted dialogue" and "plastic and one-dimensional". I guess I can start with the writing, which was banal and ill-fitting. Charbonneau has a very lucid style of writing; she's very good with broad strokes and blanket words that outline her world. But there it stops: at the outline. No room, for example, in the book is described in more detail than:      1) The rough size of the room, given in such delici...

by P. J. Hoover Piper lives in a world of extreme heat.  It's a cool day if the temperature dips below 100˚, and it often goes over the danger level of 122˚.  Piper's mom is overprotective to the extreme, and she has one friend, Chloe.  She claims to love her mother, but I found this a little hard to believe because she always complains about her.  Then come two new boys, Shayne and Reese, and both of them are extremely good-looking, and both of them have an interest in Piper. Then Piper's mom suddenly leaves because her father is nearby, and he is not allowed anywhere near her.  Within the first few chapters, Piper hardly does anything that her mom would like.  She breaks about every rule she can.  She gets a tattoo.  She goes on a date.  But really, she wouldn't do anything to hurt her mom because she cares about her. On one of her excursions, Chloe is killed (except not really).  Shayne, who is nearby, tries to comfort her, and he doe...