NERVE by Jeanne Ryan-REVIEW

BOOK DESCRIPTION FROM GOODREADS:

A high-stakes online game of dares turns deadly
When Vee is picked to be a player in NERVE, an anonymous game of dares broadcast live online, she discovers that the game knows her. They tempt her with prizes taken from her ThisIsMe page and team her up with the perfect boy, sizzling-hot Ian. At first it’s exhilarating–Vee and Ian’s fans cheer them on to riskier dares with higher stakes. But the game takes a twisted turn when they’re directed to a secret location with five other players for the Grand Prize round. Suddenly they’re playing all or nothing, with their lives on the line. Just how far will Vee go before she loses NERVE?

MY THOUGHTS:

NERVE is an thrill-a-minute. As a reader I totally felt the discomfort and nervousness Vee feels during the dares she decides to complete for the game. Introducing Ian as her dare partner is a stroke of genius because he just adds to the thrill, but in a much different way. What makes this book so good is the fact that everyone can relate. Who wouldn’t contemplate standing up in a crowded room and singing Mary Had a Little Lamb if they were going to win a brand new iPhone if they did it. The problem is, once you complete one dare it gets easier and easier to complete the next and the game is designed to get progressively harder. The ending is one that leaves you thinking about what really happens to Vee. There are so many possibilities.

OTHER BOOKS IT REMINDS ME OF:

DASH AND LILY’S BOOK OF DARES by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn
FLASH POINT by Nancy Kress

THE BOOK OF BLOOD AND SHADOWS by Robin Wasserman-REVIEW

Nora, her best friend Chris, his girlfriend Adriane and Chris' best friend and roommate Max all  are working on a translation project for a professor. Nora is assigned to translating letters written by Elizabeth Weston over 400 years before. What she discovers is a recipe for a machine that is believed to open up channels to God.

This discovery leads to murder, secret brotherhoods and betrayal. When Chris is found murdered in his home, Adriane catatonic by his side in a pool of blood and Max the last person seen leaving the house, Nora is determined to prove Max's innocence in the murder and to put together the puzzle pieces of where Elizabeth hid the parts of the machine(Lumen Dei).

When Max contacts Nora she and Adriane sneak away from a class trip and head to Prague to meet Max. They are followed by Chris' cousin Eli who has family connections in Prague and also has family secrets he is unwilling to share with Nora. From the time they reach Prague they are faced with those trying to protect the Lumen Dei and others that are trying to find it for their own purposes. Nora soon finds that she doesn't know her friends as well as she thinks she does. Hers and Elizabeth's lives seem to mirror each others and betrayal is around the corner for her just as it was for Elizabeth.

My Thoughts:

I found myself comparing this book to a cross between The DaVinci Code and an Indiana Jones movie. It reminded me of The DaVinci Code with the secret sects protecting a spiritual being/object along with lots of supposedly spiritual connotations. It reminded me of Indiana Jones in the fact that once the object was acquired the greedy person seeking the power suffered a grizzly demise of supernatural dimensions. Not to say that being compared to these is a bad thing, but the fact that this is marketed as a Young Adult book had me scratching my head. The writing was fairly technical and also at times hard for me to slog through. If I had a hard time keeping my attention on the text I cannot imagine a teenager staying with it through to it's ending. I have to say though that I did become invested in the characters and continued to read on just to find out what happened at the end.

Pet Peeve:
Like I said, The Book of Blood and Shadow is marketed for 12 and up. I started seeing very early in the book that the author was peppering the story with words that were not common for most adults not to mention middle school grades or high schoolers. This was frustrating for me, but I began to write down each word that I either didn't know the meaning of or knew from the sentence what the author meant, but wasn't quite sure that a YA student would know the word. I then looked these words up after I finished the book. I probably should have looked them up while reading, but seriously, what Young Adult would stop reading during a story to look up a word? So here is my list of words:

Ameliorated-heard of it, but don't use it!

Iterations-never heard of it

Ensorcelled-huh?

Egalitarian-heard of

Disingenuous-heard of

Caesura-never heard

Karass-couldn't even find it when I looked it up

Vertiginous-heard of

Soporific-heard of

Ethos-heard of

Matrices-plural of matrix!

Defenestration-never heard

Inchoate-never heard

Those are just the words that stood out to me. There were other words such as detritus that I knew the meaning of, but is not really a common word. I understand an author wanting to enlighten and improve our vocabulary, but if I had to stop and look up every word then that to me would detract from the story.  And once again this is a Young Adult book, stick with what they know because the unfamiliar will lose them just as it almost lost me.


Sexual Situations=Some, but nothing graphic
Violence=There are a couple of murders that are bloody
Language Content=Mild

VARIANT by Robison Wells-REVIEW

Benson Fisher has finally found the educational experience he’s been looking for. As a foster kid who has been bounced from home to home for all of his life, he’s never had a chance to stay at a school for very long. He wants to make something out of his life. He wants to learn. He is sick of the competing for learning with the deadbeats at school who don’t want to learn. He applied for the scholarship to Maxfield Academy as part of an outreach program for foster kids and got accepted. He couldn’t wait for his life to change.

It doesn’t take long for him to realize he made a very big mistake.

Maxfield Academy doesn’t have any adults on campus. All the teaching is done by the students. The day begins with announcements from a man the students call the Iceman. Once announcements are over the daily schedule appears on the screen. The schedule is different every day. Sometimes classes may start at 7 AM – sometimes they may start at 1:00 PM. There is no way of knowing.

This might not sound so bad. Follow the rules and everything will be okay. But, things can’t be right if the students are locked in can they? And what about the students that disappear and never come back after going to detention? What kind of school has students acting as security guards patrolling the perimeter of the property on 4 wheelers? Why is Benson the only one who wants to escape?

VARIANT is twisted! Usually I can kind of see where the story is going, but this one was very hard to predict. There were a couple of things that REALLY surprised me. The ending absolutely left me going, “W-W-What????” I’m definitely interested to see what happens in the sequel. I can’t even guess!!! ARGH!!!!

Language Content=Some
Sexual Content=None
Violence Content=There is fighting that gets pretty bloody

SKELETON CREEK: THE RAVEN by Patrick Carman-REVIEW

Still trying to uncover the secret of the Crossbones Sarah and Ryan embark on another leg of the mystery. This time Sarah is heading back home from LA. On the way she will make several side trips looking for clues that The Apostle has left in various places.

Ryan is at home in Skeleton Creek fending off reporters trying to interview him about the discovery of the lost Thomas Jefferson books. The mayor of Skeleton Creek is encouraging him to answer as many questions as possible in order to keep Skeleton Creek in the news and on the map.

Between working in his fathers fishing store and returning reporters calls Ryan is unravelling the map that the Ghost of Old Joe Bush had given him. Between he and Sarah they unravel a mystery about Edgar Allen Poe that the Crossbones have been protecting for years. As things unfold the torch is passed to a new generation of Crossbones protectors.

I have enjoyed every book in the Skeleton Creek series. They are great mysteries and the video's that go along throughout the story help maintain the suspense of the mystery.

SCORPIA RISING by Anthony Horowitz-REVIEW

In this final installment of the Alex Rider series the action does not disappoint.


Alex has never wanted to work for MI6. It seems that every time they ask him for help he is forced unwillingly into situations that any normal 15-year-old boy would be unable to get out of. After his last mission his caretaker Jack put her foot down and said NO MORE to MI6. Alex hasn't heard from them in months and is finally feeling like he will be able to lead a normal teenage boy life.

Alan Blunt, Head of Operations for MI6, is being forced into retirement. The likely person to take over will be Mrs. Jones. It appears that they will be forced to use Alex Rider once again to infiltrate into a private school in Cairo. What they don't know is that Scorpia is orchestrating behind the scenes and that MI6 is playing right into their hands.

Scorpia has devised a plan to not only discredit MI6 but to finally get rid of Alex for good. Their plans have been thwarted by Alex before. When all of the dust settles will Alex come through intact or will the events that happen leave Alex broken and unable to pick up the pieces?

The book is broken into two parts. The first part is Scorpia and the second part is Alex. I actually thought the first part was a bit slow. Thankfully it isn't very long and the action does pick up. I didn't want to put the book down! I'm sad that this is the last Alex Rider book. I could see Anthony Horowitz picking it up again when Alex is an adult which would be totally cool! I wanted to cry when one of my favorite characters was killed...I'm still pretty bitter about it! All in all this was a great ending to a great series, thank you Mr. Horowitz for keeping me entertained!

How you may ask is this book Edifying? Very little language content with no sexual situations or inuendo's. Yet an exciting read that will keep young readers entertained that's how!

IN THE SHADOW OF EVIL by Robin Caroll-Repost from October 2010

MY ONLY VICE(Julie's other blog) is offering this book as a giveaway on her blog. Check it out to enter the drawing. 

Layla is a contractor. An unusual profession for a woman. But she is very good at her work. In fact she has just been nominated for a prestigious award. When one of the homes that she has built burns down and a dead body is found in the remains Layla becomes a suspect.


Maddox is the detective working the case. He too is good at his job. His one regret is that he was never able to find the person who murdered his mother. With a broken relationship with his father, and resentment towards a God that would allow his mother to die Maddox is only too willing to believe the worst of Layla.

Layla decides that she is going to try to discover who burned the house and murdered the person inside. While seeking answers from the various people that she contracted to work the site the killer realizes that she needs to be warned off. Layla is side-tracked when people she knows are brought to the hospital with bleeding noses that won’t stop and respiratory problems. The doctors can’t figure out what is the common denominator in the symptoms and they can’t identify what is causing the symptoms.

When Layla’s sister Alana’s fiance’ is hurt in an explosion, Maddox and his partner decide that they need to protect Layla from whomever is trying to hurt her. With their growing attraction for each other sparks fly! But Layla’s faith baffles Maddox. As the mystery unfolds and relationships are mended Maddox begins to see how faith is an important part of our existence.

As the killer becomes more desperate Maddox and Layla race the clock to find out the reason behind the killings. Will they be in time to prevent another tragedy?

Robin Caroll has written an excitement-filled story that will keep the reader wanting to turn the pages until the very end.

This is an inspirational novel appropriate for Young Adults and older.