Ty discovers an entire township chained to a sunken submarine, its inhabitants condemned to an icy underwater grave. It’s only the first clue to a mystery that has claimed hundreds of lives and stands to claim two more — – lives very precious to Ty and his Topsider ally, Gemma.
Another good ‘what if’ book in regards to the climate change and rising oceans. This one will appeal to both boys and girls who enjoy reading alternate possibilities to how we treat our home world. Very thought provoking and brings lots of imagination into what it would look like, feel like, very sensory in its pages. I had fun doing just that.
It’s been about a year since the explosion at Happy Jack Harvest Camp. Connor is running things at the AWOL camp in Arizona. Risa is out there too, in a wheelchair due to her severed spine and refusal to accept unwound parts. Lev, the boy who didn’t clap, is doing his part for the underground resistance movement, saving tithes on their way to the camps. Things begin to change when a new kid named Starkey is brought to the camp. Starkey was storked and, as a result, has a serious chip on his back. He’s also brilliant and possibly dangerous. In the world outside the camp, the world’s first “rewind” has come into being. His name is Camus Comprix and he is a composite of over one hundred of the smartest, most athletic and most aesthetically pleasing unwinds. Camus, who prefers to call himself “Cam”, is meant to be the next big thing for the pro-unwind camp, but he’s having some problems of his own. Add in a few more colorful characters and you’ve got yourself quite the harrowing ride.
I’m a huge fan of the Uglies series, so when I found out that there would be a graphic adaptation, I was intrigued. Thankfully, this new version is not attempting to rehash the plot of Uglies. Rather, it is fleshing it out by telling Shay’s story (as the title obviously implies). It’s an interesting enough read, but I ultimately didn’t feel that it captured the excitement or urgency of the original. Shay is a great character, but I’m not really feeling like this does her many favors. In other words, this isn’t exactly a revelatory perspective. It is nice to see Shay’s back story and it was fun to see Tally through her eyes. The artwork is vaguely manga-inspired, which honestly makes all the characters look way too pretty (even if they’re still “ugly”).
Aria’s life in Reverie has been relatively normal. She spends her time in the Realms, a virtual world accessed via “smarteyes”, hanging with her friends and meeting up with her mother periodically. When the link to the pod that her mother is living goes dead and stays dead for over a week, Aria begins to worry and takes a risk that ultimately gets her kicked out of Reverie and all the other pods. She has effectively become an outsider and is pretty sure that she won’t survive the first day outside the pods. In the meantime, an outsider named Peregrine has managed to temporarily break into Reverie after an aether storm destroyed part of the pod. He’s in search of medicine for his young nephew, Talon, but the same catastrophe that gets Aria in trouble also prevents Perry from succeeding in his risky mission (one that is forbidden by his tribe and has been undertaken in secret). Lucky for Aria, she narrowly misses getting killed by an aether storm due to Perry’s arrival on the scene. Together they must attempt to find common ground so that they can each stay alive long enough to do what they need to do.
Thumped picks up about 8 and 1/2 months after Bumped, which naturally means that some babies are on the way and quite soon. Harmony is back in Goodside with her husband, Ram. Melody is by now one of the most famous young women in the world. The press is positively rabid for any details about either twin. They’re scheduled to deliver twins on the same day and in a world where babies are some of the most expensive commodities, it’s no surprise that Melody and Harmony are the focus of nation-wide attention. Unfortunately for the girls, this fame does not come without its difficulties, especially since there are certain secrets that could take the girls from famous to infamous in a split second.
Gah! This series! I love it! I’m not even going to recap what’s been going on in this book or any of the others because to do so would likely mean spoiling something for those who aren’t yet at this point. I will say that, with one book left to go, this series is getting even more intense. Fans of these books will definitely be pleased to find that this one is every bit as exhilarating as the rest. I love Michael Grant’s writing in these books. The narrative shifts from character to character and each one has a distinct voice and personality. Nearly every bit from each character ends in a mini-cliffhanger which propels the reader through the book in a breathless manner to see what happens next. I certainly lost some sleep over this book. And that’s a good thing. Fans of the Gone series should put this on hold immediately. They won’t regret it.
Gaia is the daughter of a midwife and has trained for it her whole life. She’s really good at what she does, which happens to include making sure that the ruling Enclave gets the required three babies per month. On her way back from a delivery, Gaia is told that her parents have been arrested and that if she has any lists that her mother may have kept, she needs to turn them over to the authorities. Puzzled, Gaia can only think of one thing that might be what the Enclave is looking for: an embroidered ribbon that contains a code. While she doesn’t know what the code means, she attempts to keep it safe while keeping up her duties as the official sector midwife while her mother is in prison. When Gaia receives a note from her mother instructing her to destroy the code, Gaia decides to take actions into her own hands and endeavors to break into the Enclave to save her parents.