Book Worth Reading: WITHER by Lauren Destefano

Okay, this was not the best book that I have read this year.  BUT, I read the whole thing from cover to cover in less than a day and I think that really says something.

Pros:  I found the storyline to be seriously interesting and entertaining.  It's a dystopian book (my favorite genre) and we are wrapped in a world where in an attempt to create a generation of artificially engineered babies that are immune to cancer, something has gone terribly wrong with the next generation.  When the children of this perfect generation reach a certain age, they die.  25 for boys, and 20 for girls.  I know, this part sounds sort of like that movie that came out last year with Justin Timberlake but the rest of the book is totally different.

Some people in this world think that if everyone is just going to die so young, then the human race ought to just give up and die out.  Other people want to continue procreating new generations of children in the hopes of someone finding a cure.  Of course, this means that childhoods must be very short because girls don't have much time to bear children before they die.

In order to get the best chance of procreation in the quickest amount of time, wealthy people have turned to kidnapping pretty girls and forcing them into polygamous marriages.  That is exactly what happens to the main character in this book.

The action starts right away and really never stops.  I never found a boring part of the book so I never had a chance to set it down and get on with my day.

Cons:  There are some loose ends that might bother some readers and the author could have done a lot more in the character development department.  Some of the main characters were very well developed, but others we knew little about.  Most annoying to me was how little the reader knows about the love interest by the end of the book, even though he was part of the story from very early on.  Of COURSE this book is part of a trilogy so I am thinking that the author will develop the characters more in the second book.

Best book I have read this year or not, I really am looking forward to reading the next one.  Book 2 in the Chemical Garden Trilogy is called FEVER and it just came out last week.  I am already on the waiting list at the Dallas Public Library and am excited to see what happens next!

P.S.  It was recently announced that WITHER is going to become a movie!  I love it when that happens with good YA books!

Book Worth Reading: EVERYBODY SEES THE ANTS by A.S. King

I usually don't like books when I can detect that the story is just about delivering some sort of a message.  EVERYBODY SEES THE ANTS by A.S. King does have a powerful thread of anti-bullying that runs through it, but there is so much more to love about this book!

Lucky Linderman comes from a less than perfect family (don't we all?).  His father behaves like a turtle--always in his shell, and his mother is a squid--swimming laps all day instead of facing her problems.  His grandfather is a prisoner of war in Vietnam that was never brought home.  Lucky has his own problems too, like the bully that has been torturing him since he was seven when the kid peed on his feet and then got Lucky in trouble for it.

But this isn't just a simple story about a contemporary kid with bully problems.  Lucky dreams every night about rescuing his grandfather from the jungle, and the dreams actually start to get very real.  You almost get the sense that maybe he really is with his grandfather every night, which is really cool.

To me though, the best characters in the book are the ants.  After a particularly traumatic event with the bully, Lucky begins seeing these ants that provide commentary for the rest of the book.  They say the most hilarious and on point things that everyone thinks but it was so unexpectedly awesome to see them actually printed in a book.

All in all, whether you read it because of the message, or you read it just to enjoy an incredibly well written book, EVERYBODY SEES THE ANTS is a great choice!

Book Worth Reading: ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD by Kendare Blake

I CONSUMED this book in less than 24 hours!  I stayed up much later than I should have and I am very sleepy now as a result.  But--not too sleepy to share with you why you should read this book.

Cas is a professional ghost hunter that moves around the world with his mom killing violent ghosts the same way his family has done for generations.  When he arrives in a sleepy Canadian town to kill Anna Dressed in Blood, everything feels different.  Cas tries to go on with business as usual, but other people get involved and things get complicated.  Also, Anna is by far the most powerful ghost that Cas has ever seen and he has to find out how she got that way before he can figure out how to defeat her, or even if he wants to...

Let me just say that no, I don't think that this book opened my horizons to a new way of thinking or will eventually find its way into classic literature.  I did learn a little bit about voodoo cultures, but mostly I was just highly entertained.  If you like a good ghost story and are not too squeamish when it comes to reading gory descriptions, I definitely recommend this book.  

Book Worth Reading: REVOLUTION by Jennifer Donnelly

Who doesn't love a good page turner?  Last year, I read Jennifer Donnelly's A Northern Light, which in the end I did decide was a good book, but it probably took me a few weeks to get through it--not exactly one I couldn't bear to put down.

From the first page of her new book Revolution I was hooked.  Even though it was quite a bit longer than her other book, I easily knocked it out in less than a week.  It has so many elements that I am drawn too:  a dark, edgy, self destructive main character with a mysterious past;  a peek into the lives of the gossip girl style, too rich, Upper East Side teens; a ghost story like quality; time travel; and the contrast between the current racial tensions and violence in Paris and the blood and gore of the French Revolution.

If you want to read for fun, check this one out.  Let me know if you like it!

Want to share your own book review?  Soon you will be able to send us your reviews and we will post them on the blog.  If your review of a book not already reviewed on our blog gets chosen to be posted, you will receive a free book! (only one free book per month).  More details coming soon!