Hourglass (One line review)

Hourglass: Hourglass | Myra McEntire
YA, Science Fiction

Characters ★★★★☆

Setting ★★★☆☆

Writing Style ★★★★☆

One hour to rewrite the past . . .

For seventeen-year-old Emerson Cole, life is about seeing what isn't there: swooning Southern Belles; soldiers long forgotten; a haunting jazz trio that vanishes in an instant. Plagued by phantoms since her parents' death, she just wants the apparitions to stop so she can be normal. She's tried everything, but the visions keep coming back.

So when her well-meaning brother brings in a consultant from a secretive organization called the Hourglass, Emerson's willing to try one last cure. But meeting Michael Weaver may not only change her future, it may also change her past.

Who is this dark, mysterious, sympathetic guy, barely older than Emerson herself, who seems to believe every crazy word she says? Why does an electric charge seem to run through the room whenever he's around? And why is he so insistent that he needs her help to prevent a death that never should've happened?

REVIEW

Beautiful and compelling, Hourglass reinvents time travel and tells a story that is haunting, emotional, and will stay with me for a long time.

★★★★☆

(3.5 stars)

The Dream Thieves (One line review)

The Raven Cycle: The Dream Thieves | Maggie Stiefvater
YA, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal

Characters ★★★★★

Setting ★★★★★

Writing Style ★★★★★

Now that the ley lines around Cabeswater have been woken, nothing for Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Adam will be the same. Ronan, for one, is falling more and more deeply into his dreams, and his dreams are intruding more and more into waking life. Meanwhile, some very sinister people are looking for some of the same pieces of the Cabeswater puzzle that Gansey is after...

REVIEW

Delightful and magical as ever, Maggie Stiefvater weaves a story more colourful and complex than even The Raven Boys.

★★★★★

The Woken Gods (ARC review)

The Woken Gods | Gwenda Bond
YA, Urban Fantasy, Mythology

Characters ★★★☆☆

Setting ★★★☆☆

Writing Style ★★★☆☆

The more things change…

Five years ago, the gods of ancient mythology awoke all around the world.

The more things stay the same…

This morning, Kyra Locke is late for school because of an argument with her father.

Seventeen-year-old Kyra lives in a transformed Washington, D.C., dominated by the embassies of divine pantheons and watched over by the mysterious Society of the Sun that governs mankind’s relations with the gods. But when rebellious Kyra encounters two trickster gods on her way home, one offering a threat and the other a warning, it turns out her life isn't what it seems. She escapes with the aid of Osborne "Oz" Spencer, a young Society field operative, only to discover that her scholar father has disappeared with a dangerous Egyptian relic. The Society needs the item back, and they aren’t interested in her protests that she knows nothing about it or her father's secrets.

Now Kyra must depend on her wits and the suspect help of scary Sumerian gods, her estranged oracle mother, and, of course, Oz--whose first allegiance is to the Society. She has no choice if she’s going to recover the missing relic and save her father. And if she doesn't? Well, that may just mean the end of the world as she knows it.

REVIEW

I wasn't too sure about this in the first 20%. I had very high hopes and was initially underwhelmed. This might have been down to a book hangover I was experiencing, because once I got past 40% I really started to enjoy this. By the halfway point it got awesome and I couldn't stop reading it.

The Woken Gods puts a new spin on urban fantasy with a world not inhabited by creatures of the night or demons but with Gods - of all pantheons. I loved the collective of Gods, and that Gwenda Bond wrote about Gods of all religions as opposed to only Greek or Egyptian Gods. The conflict and relationship between the different Gods was something new and enjoyable.

As for characters, Kyra is a little difficult to connect with but ultimately likeable and the supporting characters are even more so. I found myself draw more to those characters than Kyra, as she was a little bit too different from myself and I couldn't completely put myself in her place. I loved Justin, however, and fell hard for Oz.

The setting itself is, I imagine, more terrifying if you have visited the city The Woken Gods is set in. I loved the contrast of ancient Gods and modern city, and the unique little ways that it had been affected by the Gods' awakening. The carriages and lamps for example, I adored. It gave the book a total otherworldly feel, while still keeping it quite real and grounded in D.C.

The individual Gods were my most favourite thing about this book. Anzu is, for a fearsome God, a total adorable sweetheart and I came away from this wanting my own personal Guard (that, however, may end in me getting my head bitten off.) Enki was a compelling enigma. Legba was someone I wanted to smack in the face very hard. They all had their own charm and made this book something very different from other Mythology-inspired books I have read.

In short: a good book with an exciting world, fast pace, and high stakes that I would recommend to all who enjoy Mythology.

Thank you to Netgalley and Strange Chemistry for this review copy, and sorry about the delay!)

Avalon (ARC review)

Avalon | Mindee Arnett
YA, Sci-Fi

Characters ★★★★★

Setting ★★★★★★

Writing Style ★★★★★

Of the various star systems that make up the Confederation, most lie thousands of light-years from First Earth-and out here, no one is free. The agencies that govern the Confederation are as corrupt as the crime bosses who patrol it, and power is held by anyone with enough greed and ruthlessness to claim it. That power is derived from one thing: metatech, the devices that allow people to travel great distances faster than the speed of light.

Jeth Seagrave and his crew of teenage mercenaries have survived in this world by stealing unsecured metatech, and they're damn good at it. Jeth doesn't care about the politics or the law; all he cares about is earning enough money to buy back his parents' ship, Avalon, from his crime-boss employer and getting himself and his sister, Lizzie, the heck out of Dodge. But when Jeth finds himself in possession of information that both the crime bosses and the government are willing to kill for, he is going to have to ask himself how far he'll go to get the freedom he's wanted for so long.

Avalon is the perfect fit for teens new to sci-fi as well as seasoned sci-fi readers looking for more books in the YA space-and a great match for fans of Joss Whedon's cult hit show Firefly.

REVIEW

Epic, high impact, and a tempest of emotions.

Avalon tore a hole right through my heart (*wink, wink, nudge, nudge, Avalon reference*)

Jeth and his crew are intergalactic thieves. They travel from space port to planet procuring items and ships as ordered by Hammer, a powerful man (think: space mafia) who owns Jeth, his sister, and their friends.

The stakes in Avalon are very high. Avalon, Jeth's ship and home, is everything he's ever wanted, and he's offered one last job in return for ownership of the ship his parents lived on before they were killed by the ITA (think: space police). He's so close to finally owning his home, to being free of the control held over him, and to freeing his family and his crew from the same control - but of course it's not easy. 

Enter: mysterious Bermuda-triangle-area-of-space, a wrecked ship, and three castaways. Add to the mix: a suspicious ITA guy who says he wants to help Jeth, a heck load of unanswered questions, and an invisible force that starts attacking Avalon.

Long story short, shit goes down. And it's awesome.

I love science fiction. Absolutely love it. I was raised on shows about aliens and time travel and space ships and this book just drove home everything that I love about the genre. It was exciting and terrifying, complex and far-fetched, somehow without being so far-fetched that I was thinking 'what the hell?' while reading. I fell in love with this book during the first chapter and was way beyond infatuation by the end.

The characters of Avalon were funny, smart, and genuine. Jeth was brave beyond sense, unexpectedly intelligent for a thief, and a complete idiot darling. I loved each one of the characters, even the 'villains' who were surprisingly unique and new. I'd expected your run-of-the-mill antagonist, but nope. Hammer and Renford turned out be to unpredictable and scary as hell because of the power they held over Jeth.

I'm trying to cut the rambling down but not doing so well so I'll make it short. Avalon is a masterpiece of young adult science fiction and everyone needs to read it as soon as it's released. Mindee Arnett is a fricking genius and I am going to go on Amazon right now and buy all of her other books. This book blew my tiny mind away and stole my heart. 

~

*gets emotionally attached to a ship*
Avalon, my baby! I'll save you from the nasty punch-hole things! *pets the pretty ship*

*screams into the night* FINALLY, A YA SCI-FI NOVEL THAT DOESN'T HOLD BACK BECAUSE TINY TEENAGE MINDS CAN'T COMPREHEND SPACE SHIPS AND SPACE TRAVEL.

Someone give this book all of the stars. At least, I don't know, twenty? Yes. This is a twenty star book.