Boy Nobody
Author: Allen Zadoff
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Number of Pages: 337
Release Date: June 11, 2013
Synopsis from
Goodreads:
Boy Nobody is the
perennial new kid in school, the one few notice and nobody thinks much
about. He shows up in a new high school, in a new town, under a new
name, makes few friends and doesn't stay long. Just long enough for
someone in his new friend's family to die -- of "natural causes."
Mission accomplished, Boy Nobody disappears, and moves on to the next
target.
When his own parents died of not-so-natural causes at
the age of eleven, Boy Nobody found himself under the control of The
Program, a shadowy government organization that uses brainwashed kids as
counter-espionage operatives. But somewhere, deep inside Boy Nobody,
is somebody: the boy he once was, the boy who wants normal things (like a
real home, his parents back), a boy who wants out. And he just might
want those things badly enough to sabotage The Program's next mission.
********************************************************************************
MY THOUGHTS:
Boy Nobody isn't the perfect book, but it is a super quick and incredibly fun read that I think a lot of teen boys (and girls) will enjoy. A blend of The Bourne Identity, Grosse Point Blank, and Dexter, Boy Nobody follows a 16 year-old assassin who, after the death of his parents four years ago, was recruited and trained by the mysterious Program. After training with the program for two years, Boy, who is called Ben throughout most of the book although it is just his alias for his current mission, was dropped off in a nondescript town and given a phone. He communicates with the leaders of the program, "Mother" and "Father" through intricate signals and apps, like a poker app which tells him where he is going next and who his target will be. Boy's MO is always the same. Find out who the target is, befriend the target's child (apparently, the target always conveniently has a child the same age as Boy), get in to the house, kill the target, and move on to the next mission. The process usually takes a month or two and then he's on to the next town.
The character of Boy really is a cross between Jason Bourne and Dexter Morgan. He is a highly skilled assassin who repeatedly tells us that he doesn't feel anything for anyone. Boy is who he is for one major reason, when he was only 12 years-old he came home to find that the boy he thought was his best friend had tied up and gagged his father. His father is bloody and obviously very hurt. Boy's friend told him that he has no idea who his father really is, before bundling him in a car and taking him to see "Mother" at the Program. During his two years of training (of which we see very little), all his humanity if leeched from him in order to make him the perfect soldier. So much so, that he barely remembers his past, although snippets sometimes shine through.
There are a couple of things that are different about his new mission. For one, it is his highest-profiled target yet--the mayor of NY--and two, he has only been given five days to complete his mission. He finds out that the mayor's child is a daughter, and a stunningly beautiful one at that, and that she doesn't trust anyone. Boy must find a way to get close to this girl as quickly as possible in order to get close to the mayor.
Like I said, Boy Nobody is far from the perfect book. I found certain parts of the book to be incredibly misogynistic with girls throwing themselves at our "hero" left and right, from the clerk at the hotel who makes suggestive comments to a girl at a party who begins to kneel in front of him. It seemed a bit much for a YA book. The premise is somewhat ludicrous, but "action stories" often require the observer to suspend their belief and just enjoy the ride. Finally, I really wanted what exactly his father did that made him a target of the program and it was never explained.
Despite its problems, however, I really enjoyed Boy Nobody. I rarely read only one book at a time. On any given day I could be in the middle of anywhere from 5-10 books, but once I picked up Boy Nobody, I didn't pick up any of the other books I'm currently reading until I was finished with it. The pacing is super quick, which I love, and the story really is just fun. I love all three of the influences I named above and was thrilled to find a YA book that had elements of all three.
I'd definitely recommend Boy Nobody if you are looking for an action-filled, quick read. I had a great time reading this book. It is labelled as book #1 on Goodreads, and I will definitely be on the lookout for the next book. I'm looking forward to his next mission and am hoping to get some more answers about his past.
Monday, July 22, 2013
The Madness Underneath (Book Review)
Author: Maureen Johnson
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile
Release Date: February 26, 2013
Number of Pages: 290
Synopsis from Goodreads:
After her near-fatal run-in with the Jack the Ripper copycat, Rory Devereaux has been living in Bristol under the close watch of her parents. So when her therapist suddenly suggests she return to Wexford, Rory jumps at the chance to get back to her friends. But Rory’s brush with the Ripper touched her more than she thought possible: she’s become a human terminus, with the power to eliminate ghosts on contact. She soon finds out that the Shades—the city’s secret ghost-fighting police—are responsible for her return. The Ripper may be gone, but now there is a string of new inexplicable deaths threatening London. Rory has evidence that the deaths are no coincidence. Something much more sinister is going on, and now she must convince the squad to listen to her before it’s too late.
In this follow-up to the Edgar Award-nominated THE NAME OF THE STAR, Maureen Johnson adds another layer of spectacularly gruesome details to the streets of London that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end.
To be honest, I didn't love the first book in this series, The Name of the Star. While I found the premise to be very interesting, I wasn't overjoyed with the execution. Regardless, I have enjoyed other books by the author and was curious enough by the cliffhanger in the first book to want to know what happens next to Rory and her friends. I found that I did enjoy this second book better than the first, but I'm still not in love with this series or the writing.
The Madness Underneath starts with the brutal murder of a pub manager a few days after the incidents from the first book and just a couple of blocks away. We then find ourselves in Bristol where Rory is recovering from her traumatic experience at her parents' house and seeing a therapist at their insistence. It isn't long, however, until the therapist suggests that the best thing for Rory is to go back to her London boarding school, Wexford, and try to get on with her life. There she is reunited with her best friend, Jazza, and the members of the 'ghost police', and her pseudo-boyfriend (who is pure vanilla and whose name I can't even remember).
Trying to adjust back into the swing of things proves incredibly difficult for Rory. She isn't doing well in school and is still having a hard time mentally dealing with the events of the first book. On top of that, one major difference in Rory now is that she herself is a terminus (a thing that kills ghosts) and because the mechanical ones that the ghost squad used to have are now gone. This makes Rory special and necessary. When a classmate gives her the name of her rich therapist who doesn't charge and who has agreed to see her, Rory decides to give her try. The action starts to build from there.
Again, I didn't love this book, but I did enjoy it more than the first. For one, I found this one to be a little more action-packed. Even though the first one was about Jack the Ripper (!) I never felt that edge-of-your-seat feeling with it. I liked that this one took place mostly away from the school--it was the scenes in both this book and the first that took place at the school or with the 'boyfriend' that were the most boring and ineffective. One of the biggest downfalls of this book is Rory herself. I seriously wanted to scream at her more than once for being such a clueless idiot.
And that ending. While the first book had a slight cliff-hanger, the book could easily stand on its own. The ending of The Madness Underneath is pure cliff-hanger. I'm not crazy about how it ended period, but I find it so annoying when series books end on notes like this when the next book won't come out for at least a year (and I read this a couple of months before its release so it will be even longer for me). That and I'll read at least 50 books between now and then which means I'll have to revisit this book just to remember what happened. Sorry, that's just a personal pet peeve.
All and all, The Madness Underneath was pretty good, but it wasn't spectacular. If you liked the first book, of course you'll read this one. If you like light paranormal YA, you'd probably enjoy this series. I'll definitely be picking up the final book and will continue to look for what Ms. Johnson puts out in the future.
*I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Stacking the Shelves (15)
Stacking the Shelves is a weekly feature hosted by Tyngas Reviews. This meme allows us to share the books we've recently added to our shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks! *Clicking the link of a book's title will take you to Goodreads.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows (Summer Series Book Review)
seeds
Polly has an idea that she can't stop thinking about, one that involves changing a few things about herself. She's setting her sights on a more glamorous life, but it's going to take all of her focus. At least that way she won't have to watch her friends moving so far ahead.
roots
Jo is spending the summer at her family's beach house, working as a busgirl and bonding with the older, cooler girls she'll see at high school come September. She didn't count on a brief fling with a cute boy changing her entire summer. Or feeling embarrassed by her middle school friends. And she didn't count on her family at all. . .
leaves
Ama is not an outdoorsy girl. She wanted to be at an academic camp, doing research in an air-conditioned library, earning A's. Instead her summer scholarship lands her on a wilderness trip full of flirting teenagers, blisters, impossible hiking trails, and a sad lack of hair products.
It is a new summer. And a new sisterhood. Come grow with them.
MY THOUGHTS:
I was a bit late to the Sisterhood party. It's been a few years since I read them all for the first time, but all four of the original series' books were out when I first picked them up. I really enjoyed that series and have read all four books a couple of times now. I love that they focus on female friendship, with their respective romances playing out in the background. I love that the girls go through real issues and that they have realistic relationships with their parents. I love that they are fast-paced and easy to read. So when 3 Willows was released a few years ago I was so happy that Anna Brashares was returning to this series, even if it was with a new set of girls, because as much as I like the Sisterhood series, I couldn't get through her book The Last Summer (and I've tried, like, 3 times) and I hated My Name is Memory. So when I was thinking about what book I could review this week as part of my summer series, I thought of this one. I recently bought a copy of 3 Willows from my favorite used bookstore (for $2!) and so sat down to revisit it. Even though I don't like it quite as much as the original Sisterhood books, I did enjoy my second outing with the girls of 3 Willows.
3 Willows follows three former best friends at the beginning of their summer before high school. The girls are all 14 (which I believe is younger than the girls of the first sisterhood--who I feel were 16 maybe?), which made this more of a older MG book than a YA book. Polly, Jo, and Ama were best friends growing up, but have slowly grown apart over the past year or two of middle school. Like the Sisterhood series, each girl has a distinct and different personality from the other two. Jo is the pretty, athletic one who moved on from Ama and Polly to the popular girls. Ama, who's black and from Africa originally, is the smart one who's on track to follow her older sister to Princeton. Polly's the weird one with a hands-off single mother. While the girls are still friendly, they are no longer friends. A fact that makes each one sad in their own way.
Again, similar to the original series, you have two girls going away for the summer and one girl staying home, but there is no pair of magical pants in this book. The book does take place in the same East coast town as the other books (in Virginia or Maryland...I'm not sure, but Washington, D.C. is mentioned a couple of times and Jo spends the summer at a beach house that is close enough to get to by what seems like a short bus ride). The original sisterhood girls are mentioned a couple of times and early in the book, one of the girls talks about the pants and how different groups of girls at their school tried to find pants, or skirts, or even scarves that could serve as a magical clothing item to no avail.
Polly is the girl who is staying home. After she stopped being close with Ama and Jo, she was really left mostly to her own devices. Known as being "weird", she really doesn't have any other friends and her mother is also absent most of the time. I really felt bad for Polly. She is such a sweet kid and is obviously really lonely. Her mother is an artist who spends most of her waking hours at her studio and who insists that Polly calls her by her first name. Early in the novel, Polly goes to lunch with an old family friend, the only one who knew Polly's father (of whom she knows almost nothing and who her mother refuses to talk about), and finds out that her paternal grandmother was a beautiful model. The idea that she could be a model sticks in her head, and Polly decides that she spend the summer at "modeling camp." She's disappointed to find that modelling camp is a bit of a shady operation set up in the parking lot of the mall, but she throws herself into learning as much as she can about photography, poses, and runway walking. Determined to lose the curves she believes will stop her from making it as a model (she has a 34D chest and curvy hips), Polly's "diet" quickly turns into anorexia...and there is nobody paying any attention to her to notice.
Jo is spending the summer with her mom at their beach house. She believes her father will join them on the weekends as he has always done in the past, but early on finds out that her parents have decided to start a trial separation. Meaning her surgeon father will spend the summer at their house. Jo's brother died a few years back and since that time, her father has been distant anyway, so she decides not to even dwell on the fact that her parents are separating as they've seemed separate for years already. She throws herself into her new job as a busser at a popular restaurant with her popular friend from school, Bryn. Jo and Bryn want to get into the restaurant's in-crowd of older waiters and waitresses, and Jo begins to be accepted by the group when the cutest waiter starts paying attention to her.
Ama is thrilled when she wins a summer grant from the Student Leader Foundation. The grant is a prestigious award that will look great on her college applications. The program chooses where to send those who win and Ama is crossing her fingers academic camp or another program where she will spend the summer indoors researching and studying and is horrified when she finds out that the foundation is sending her to Wyoming (whoop! whoop! Sorry I always get excited when WY is mentioned as it happens so rarely) for a program called Wild Adventures. The program is weeks of hiking and ends with all students rappelling off a cliff. Ama is unhappy to be outdoors and pissed to be the only black student in the group. She doesn't want to quit because the program is for academic credit and she is terrified to start her high school career with a bad grade.
Overall, I really did enjoy 3 Willows. My love isn't quite the same as it is for the Sisterhood books, but I did enjoy reading about these new girls and liked and cared for all three. Again, this one seems geared to a younger audience than the original series, due to the girl's age, but I liked the pace and was glad that there wasn't any kind of magical gimmick to tell their stories. When the girls were in grade school they were given willow samplings that they planted together in the woods, so the chapters start out with small facts about willows, which was interesting and a bit gimmicky, but I liked that the girls didn't need magic to find their way back to each other.
I liked how certain characters from the original series popped up occasionally. Polly baby-sits for Tibby's little brother and sister, for example, and Brian stops by to grab something from Tibby's room once. Jo works with Effie, Lena's sister. It helps tie the original series to this book, but it's never too much and this book really stands on its own merit.
**SPOILER**I wasn't a huge fan of how some of the problems were wrapped up, Polly's especially since eating disorders are such a serious issue, and I definitely wish that had been explored with a little more depth and not wrapped up quite so neatly. At the end, she was just kind of like: oh well, I guess I won't be a model and will start eating again...which is very unrealistic. She needed to see a doctor and/or a psychiatrist. Anorexia is a very serious issue and even though Ms. Brashares never flat out tells us that is what is going on, it is very much implied. It seems reckless on her part to then just have Polly be ok after spending the whole summer with an eating disorder.**END SPOILER**
If you are looking for a quick, easy, summer book, I would recommend picking this one up--especially if you liked the original series. When I first read this, I was hoping that it was going to be a series in its own right, but this book was released 4 years ago, so I guess it is a stand-alone.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Waiting on Wednesday (14) Made of Stars
Author: Kelley York
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Release Date: October 1, 2013
Synopsis from Goodreads:
When eighteen-year-old Hunter Jackson and his half sister, Ashlin, return to their dad’s for the first winter in years, they expect everything to be just like the warmer months they’d spent there as kids. And it is—at first. But Chance, the charismatic and adventurous boy who made their summers epic, is harboring deep secrets. Secrets that are quickly spiraling into something else entirely.
The reason they've never met Chance’s parents or seen his home is becoming clearer. And what the siblings used to think of as Chance's quirks—the outrageous stories, his clinginess, his dangerous impulsiveness—are now warning signs that something is seriously off.
Then Chance's mom turns up with a bullet to the head, and all eyes shift to Chance and his dad. Hunter and Ashlin know Chance is innocent...they just have to prove it. But how can they protect the boy they both love when they can’t trust a word Chance says?
Why I'm Excited:
I love a good YA mystery (I may have mentioned that once or twice) and this one sounds intriguing. What are the secrets Chance is harboring? Who really killed his mom? I love the books Entangled Teen has been putting out lately and I'm definitely looking forward to this. Plus look at that gorgeous cover!
What are you waiting for on this sweltering July day? Link me up!
Hey lovely GFC and new followers, please follow me by Bloglovin as we all know Google Reader has gone/is going by the wayside. (I like to follow back, so please let me know if you're a new follower--and leave a link!) Thank you!!!
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Top Ten Tuesday (15) Authors Who Derserve More Recognization
Top Ten Tuesday a weekly meme/original feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Click the link to go to their site to see the original list for today plus links to a whole slew of other blogs. After you read mine, of course.
10.
Margaret Atwood. Awesome author of awesome books. I know almost everyone has read something by Margaret Atwood, but she is just plain amazing and I wish more people were familiar with her work.
Wow. This was really hard. A lot of the authors that I love, like say E. Lockhart and Stephanie Perkins, get a lot of love from my Goodread and blogger friends, but does that mean they are getting the right amount of love from the rest of the world? I don't know. Oh, well. I'm sticking with what I got. I'm excited to see who you wish was getting more love. So link me up!
Hey lovely GFC and new followers, please follow me by Bloglovin as we all know Google Reader has gone/is going by the wayside. (I like to follow back, so please let me know if you're a new follower--and leave a link!) Thank you!!!
Monday, July 15, 2013
Boy Nobody (Book Review)
Boy Nobody
Author: Allen Zadoff
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Number of Pages: 337
Release Date: June 11, 2013
Synopsis from Goodreads:
Boy Nobody is the perennial new kid in school, the one few notice and nobody thinks much about. He shows up in a new high school, in a new town, under a new name, makes few friends and doesn't stay long. Just long enough for someone in his new friend's family to die -- of "natural causes." Mission accomplished, Boy Nobody disappears, and moves on to the next target.
When his own parents died of not-so-natural causes at the age of eleven, Boy Nobody found himself under the control of The Program, a shadowy government organization that uses brainwashed kids as counter-espionage operatives. But somewhere, deep inside Boy Nobody, is somebody: the boy he once was, the boy who wants normal things (like a real home, his parents back), a boy who wants out. And he just might want those things badly enough to sabotage The Program's next mission.
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Stacking the Shelves (14)
Stacking the Shelves is a weekly feature hosted by Tyngas Reviews. This meme allows us to share the books we've recently added to our shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks! *Clicking the link of a book's title will take you to Goodreads.
Dear Girls Above Me by Charlie McDowell
Apparently this author writes a popular twitter account that details the lives of the ditzy girls who live above him. It sounds pretty funny.
17&Gone by Nova Ren Suma
I've heard great things about this one. I gave the ARC a try a few months ago and couldn't get into it, but I'm going to give the finished book a try after so many friends seemed to love it.
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