Review- Across the Universe- Beth Revis

Across the Universe- Beth Revis

Publisher: Razorbill
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 416 pages

Genre: Science Fiction

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From Goodreads

A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder. 

  Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone-one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship-tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next.Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

Usually I wait until the end of my review to share why I think a book will appeal to the guy readers out there, but I’m going to make an exception with Across the Universe.  Why? Well basically because I think that there is one thing that is so awesome about this book that will help get it into the hands of guys and I just can`t wait to share it. And what`s even cooler is that it has nothing to do with the story!! So what is it? The dust jacket. Yep that’s right. The dust jacket. Why? Because it is awesome!! Okay but why is it awesome you might be asking? Well it’s reversible, that’s why! 

 Across the Universe has not one, but two covers. The first cover has kind of a cosmic look to it. Its main colours are pink and purple and the dominant images are reverse profiles of Amy and Elder.  Now don’t get me wrong, the cover is beautiful. It’s just really, really feminine. It`s a sad but true fact that most guys would walk by and notice it on the shelf at their local bookstore and say to themselves, “I can’t read that, it’s a `girls` book.” Let’s be honest, there aren’t a lot of teenage boys that would enjoy walking down the halls at school carrying around a pink and purple book. The problem with that is that they would be missing out on a really awesome book! So how did the publisher solve this problem? Simple, they designed a second cover. All you have to do is turn the dust jacket inside out and BAM it’s a whole new book! (well obviously it’s the same book, but you get my drift). The second cover isn’t hyper masculine or anything like that, but it’s perfect and it totally appeals to the guy readers out there. As you can see by the picture, it’s basically a blueprint of the Godspeed. Not only does it look great, but it also gives the reader an awesome visual of the different levels of the ship that Revis describes throughout the book. In my opinion adding the reversible cover to the book was nothing short of a stroke of genius.  Kudos to whoever came up with the idea.

Okay, okay enough about the dust jacket. Let’s talk about the book already. So aside from the fact I absolutely loved the cover, I loved the book just as much. When I first heard about Across the Universe I was drawn in by the plot summary right away and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. And Beth Revis definitely didn’t disappoint me. I would describe this book as ``sci-fi lite`. And by that I mean it will not only appeal to regular science fiction fans but to readers who generally don`t read books about space, space ships, and little green men, as well.  It really does have something for everyone. 

The story is told in a duel narrative. First there`s Amy, the 17 year old girl born on earth who has been frozen in ice for centuries locked away in Godspeeds underbelly. And then there is Elder, the teenage leader-in-training of Godspeed. Personally I liked both of these characters. Although I will admit that at one point I felt as if Elder was a little too one-dimensional and was controlled by let`s just say his, primal urges, a little too much. However, the more I read the more I realized there was a lot more to him than that. I also realized heck, who am I to judge. If I had spent my entire life aboard a ship with nobody my age around of either sex and all of a sudden a beautiful girl is thrust into the picture, who`s to say what kind of urges I would have had. The more I thought about it, I realized that Revis had actually hit the nail right on the head with that one.  I guess us guy`s aren`t as `deep` as I`d like to think sometimes. 

I`ve been a sci-fi fan for a long time, but I can honestly say I had never really thought of all complex issues that would result from multiple generations of people living and evolving on board a spaceship while on a flight that is going to take hundreds of years.  Across the Universe really does a great job with tackling these issues and discussing them in a way that is both interesting and entertaining for the reader to follow. 

The people of Godspeed and the ship itself really are a wonderful creation, and I give Beth Revis all the credit in the world for bringing them to life and sharing them with us. I don`t know if she has any more adventures onboard the Godspeed planned for the future, but I would definitely welcome them. 

Full marks for this one from the GUYde. Give it a read, even if you don`t normally read sci-fi, you might just find that ``sci-fi lite`` appeals to you.

The White Pine Award

I mentioned in my review of Getting the Girl that I was planning on doing a post about the Ontario Library Association’s White Pine Award program. Well, as promised, here it is. 

Every year the OLA hosts the Forest of Reading program where 10 different Canadian authors/illustrators are nominated for an award in 7 different age groups/ categories. It’s called the Forest of Reading because all of the categories names are tree related (pretty clever huh?).  I’m going to focus on the White Pine award because it’s directed at high school students and YA books.

The program is supported through local public and school libraries across Ontario and ultimately the goal is get people reading, no matter what their age!! Something I whole heartedly support. The nominees are announced in November and the cool thing about the program is that participants get to vote for their favourite book at the end of April and the whole thing culminates with the awesome Festival of Trees in May of each year. The Festival of Trees is a two day event held at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto where the participants have the opportunity to attend and meet the authors. Ohh, and of course they give out the award!! Last year’s winner of the White Pine Award was Mostly Happy by Pam Bustin.

Here is a list of the 2011 White Pine Nominee’s. (with links)

1. 1.   Borderline- Allan Stratton

2.  2.   Fear the Worst- Linwood Barclay

3.  3.   Fishtailing- Wendy Phillips

4.  4.   Gravity Brings Me Down- Natale Ghent

5.  5.   Hearts at Stake- Alyxandra Harvey

6.  6.   The Monkeyface Chronicles- Richard Scarsbrook

7.  7.   The Second Trial- Rosemarie Boll

8.  8.   Some Girls Are- Courtney Summers

9.  9.   Swim the Fly- Don Calame

1010.  The Worst Thing She Ever Did- Alice Kuipers

There are three books on this list on my TBR radar that I think would really appeal to the guys out there, so I`m going to try and get my hands on copies and post a review for all of you to check out! 

This year’s Festival of Trees is being held May 11^th and 12^th. I plan on being there and when it`s all said and done I`ll definitely be posting all about it!

In the meantime check out the Forest of Reading Website to learn more about this amazing program! It really highlights some of the best YA books coming out of Canada.  And Canada is pretty awesome. Just saying. 

Incarceron- Catherine Fisher

Incarceron- Catherine Fisher

Publisher: Dial
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 448 pages

Genre: Dystopian

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Imagine a living prison so vast that it contains corridors and        forests, cities and seas. Imagine a prisoner with no memory,       who is sure he came from Outside, even though the prison has    been sealed for centuries and only one man, half real, half           legend, has ever escaped.                                                         
Imagine a girl in a manor house in a society where time has been forbidden, where everyone is held in a seventeenth century         world run by computers, doomed to an arranged marriage that appals her, tangled in an assassination plot she both dreads and desires. One inside, one outside. But both imprisoned. Imagine a war that has hollowed the    moon, seven skullrings that contain souls, a flying ship and a wall at the world's end.                                       
Imagine the unimaginable. Imagine Incarceron                                                                                                                              

                                                                                                      

Incarceron is a prison unlike any other you’ve ever heard of before.  It’s a whole world onto its own.  A world that has been sealed off from the outside for generations. No one comes in and no one ever gets out (or so the prisoners think). Outside of the prison is the Realm. I world permanently and deliberately trapped in the past. 

The story is told in a dual narrative (which I love). First there is Finn. The prisoner trapped in Incarceron whose only memories prior to waking up one day all alone in a cell, are vague, fleeting flashbacks brought on by seizure like episodes. Finn swears that he was born outside of the prison even though pretty much everyone he knows thinks he’s crazy for it.

On the flip side there is Claudia, the daughter of the Warden of Incarceron and destined to be Princess of the Realm. Claudia is trapped in a falsely created world bound by the “protocol” imposed on the people of the realm by the ruling Monarchy. The reader soon realizes that Claudia is just as much of a prisoner as Finn.  I must say that as the story progressed I became convinced that the Realm was more of a prison than Incarceron. 

Catherine Fisher had the extremely tough job of creating two completely different worlds for the reader to explore. Honestly these two worlds couldn’t have been more different from one another. I actually found that I was more interested by the Realm and trying to figure out what exactly was going on there than I was Incarceron. The Realm is described as an old fashioned Victorian(ish) era world, although throughout the book Fisher hints at the fact that the whole place is just an illusion neatly hiding all the advanced technology underneath.  Incarceron is revealed to the reader as a dark, artificially created, self-contained and self-supporting world. With Incarceron Fisher makes sure the reader knows that the prison is beginning to show its age and like most prisons it is a cruel and vicious place. What’s worse though is that fact that Incarceron is alive, and it is always watching.  Survival is day to day accomplishment in Incarceron. 

Like I said, being able to create and fully develop two totally different worlds is not an easy task to undertake in just one book, and when I finished it there were definitely a lot of unanswered questions in my mind. However, from what I’ve heard the sequel (Sapphique) answers a lot of them, so I’m really looking forward to reading it and learning more about these two fantastic worlds.

This book has so many things that guys will enjoy. Incarceron is a rough and tough world full of fights, battles, non-stop adventures, and endless mystery. This one really gets the imagination going. It’s not all roses and lollypops. It’s dark, it’s twisted, and its ending is not what you would call a fairy tale one. And in my opinion that isn’t what the majority of guys are looking for a story anyways.

Even though I don’t rate the books I review here on the GUYde, this one gets top marks from me and is highly recommended for the guys out there.

Getting the Girl- Susan Juby

Getting the Girl: A Guide to Private Investigation, Surveillance, and Cookery- Susan Juby

Publisher: Harper Teen
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 352 pages

Genre: Mystery, Comedy

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Sunglasses. Check.

Binoculars. Check.
Notepad. Check.
Mom's pink bike.
Check. Check?

Meet Sherman Mack. Short. Nerdy. Amateur P.I. and prepared to do anything for Dini Trioli. Nobody knows who began it or when it became a tradition, but every girl at Harewood Tech fears being D-listed, a ritual that wipes her off the social map forever. When Sherman believes Dini is in danger of being D-listed, he snatches up his surveillance gear and launches a full-scale investigation to uncover who is responsible. Could it be the captain of the lacrosse team? The hottest girls in school, the Trophy Wives? Or maybe their boyfriends? One thing is for sure: Sherman Mack is on the case. And he's not giving up. Part comedy, part mystery, and with all of Juby's trademark tongue-in-cheek humor, Getting the Girl takes on one of the cruelest aspects of high school: how easy it is for an entire school to turn on someone, and how hard it can be to be the only one willing to fight back.

 

I actually read this book last year when it was nominated here in Ontario for an OLA White Pine Award (I’ll be writing a post about the 2011 White Pine Awards shortly), but I really wanted to review it here on the GUYde because I think it is an excellent example of a contemporary storyline a teenage guy can relate to.

What blew me away immediately with this one is just how surprised I was with Susan Juby’s ability to write a male character so well. Honestly while reading Getting the Girl and getting to know Juby’s main character, Sherman I can’t remember how many times I thought to myself, “wow he’s just like I was in ninth grade!” Although maybe I shouldn't admit that so freely. No it's true, I couldn't get a date to save my life. Juby does such a great job crafting her protagonist to be both likeable and believable. The further I read the more I seemed to relate to him and the more I wanted to get to know him.  Even though Sherman is the star of the show, Juby doesn't slack when it comes to her secondary characters. The plot really wouldn't work without the Trophy Wives, or Sherm's best friends Rick and Vanessa. I found all of them to be exceptionally written and each are vital pieces to the overall story.

Ultimately this is a “who dunnit” story, but it’s laced with a little bit of romance and whole bunch of comedy. There were a few times during this book where I found myself laughing out loud. There is one chapter in particular that involves a stake-out and an open mouth jar (or more accurately, the lack there of) that literally had me on the verge of wetting myself.

When I picked this book up I couldn’t put it down until I was finished.  This book is a great read for guys. For guys who like mysteries or detective stories, this one is perfect for you. It‘s a fast paced, quick read full of non-stop laughs. Definitely check this one out if you get the chance.         

Leviathan- Scott Westerfeld

Leviathan: Scott Westerfeld

Publisher: Simon Pulse
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 464 pages

Genre: Steampunk, Historical Fiction

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This is World War I as never seen before. The story begins the same: on June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife are assassinated, triggering a sequence of alliances that plunges the world into war. But that is where the similarity ends. This global conflict is between the Clankers, who put their faith in machines, and the Darwinists, whose technology is based on the development of new species. After the assassination of his parents, Prince Aleksandar's people turn on him. Accompanied by a small group of loyal servants, the young Clanker flees Austria in a Cyklop Stormwalker, a war machine that walks on two legs. Meanwhile, as Deryn Sharp trains to be an airman with the British Air Service, she prays that no one will discover that she is a girl. She serves on the Leviathan, a massive biological airship that resembles an enormous flying whale and functions as a self-contained ecosystem. When it crashes in Switzerland, the two teens cross paths, and suddenly the line between enemy and ally is no longer clearly defined.

Let’s just start by saying that there are a few reasons why I really enjoyed this book.

1.       1. It’s steampunk… I love steampunk.

2.       2. I’m a huge history buff and I love studying WWI

3.       3. It mixes both of these things together in an awesome alternate history!!

So for those of you out there that have every studied WWI history you will immediately notice some similarities between Leviathan and the actual history books. However, readers I’m sure will pick up on the fact that there are also some major, major differences. Let’s take for example the giant metal war machines of the Clankers  and the hybrid animal creations of the Darwinists. Personally I don’t remember learning about either of those things in history class, but hey, who knows, maybe I was off sick that day (or slept through it).

                Westerfeld wrote this book using a dual-narrative.  Although both of the stories main characters come from two completely different worlds, surprisingly they also have a lot in common. They are each trying to hide their true identity in order to survive.  Alek is forced to go into hiding because if anyone finds out that he is the true heir to the Empire he is basically done for. And as for Deryn her secret is much different but were the truth to be revealed the consequences would be equally devastating. I found both of these characters engaging and interesting.  I found Deryn to be the more mature of the pair and maybe that’s why her story was more likeable and appealing to me. Alek’s story is more suspenseful and action packed, while Deryn’s is more creative and full of mystery. But I must say that once the two storylines intersect that the plot really takes off.

                The two things that I really think that guys will enjoy about this book is the beast’s (or beasties as Deryn would call them) and the machines. Westerfeld does an excellent job describing both in such detail that it really is easy for the reader’s imagination to bring them to life They are big, strong, fast, and let’s face it the Clanker war machines are built to blow stuff up, and guys LOVE things that blow stuff up. What’s even cooler and I think guys will also love is that the book is illustrated. Keith Thompson really helps out those readers who maybe don’t have the greatest imagination by bringing to life the steampunk world that Westerfeld crafted with the black and white artwork that is scattered throughout the novel.

                Overall I think this is a great book that guys will really get a kick out of.  Westerfeld has already released the second book in this series (Behemoth) and I can’t wait to read it and review it here on the GUYde.