Feature and Follow #107

Hi guys, I am taking part in this week's Feature and Follow, hosted by Alison Can Read and Parajunkee. What you have to do, is follow them, follow this weeks featured blogs and put this button in a post so that people can post comments here to say that they have followed me. You also have to fill aut a Linky form, so that people can find your blog. Click Here to go the this week's Feature and Follow Friday. By the way, I named last weeks post Feature and Follow #109, however it was in fact #106! Sorry for any confusion that this may have caused you.

 This weeks FF question is:  

What was your favorite book that you were REQUIRED to read when you were in school?
The answer to this is To Kill A Mockingbird. I thought this was a really good book, with a good plot and storyline. I also loved the way that it was narrated by a child.

Feature and Follow #106

Hi guys, I am taking part in this week's Feature and Follow, hosted by Alison Can Read and Parajunkee. What you have to do, is follow them, follow this weeks featured blogs and put this button in a post so that people can post comments here to say that they have followed me. You also have to fill aut a Linky form, so that people can find your blog. Click Here to go the this week's Feature and Follow Friday.

Book Review #4

Title: Fear

Author: Michael Grant

Date Published: 3^rd April 2012

Publisher: Electric Monkey

Age Rating: 12+

Genre: Dystopian

Main Characters

·         Sam

·         Peter/Little Petey/Pete

·         Caine

·         Astrid

·         Diana

·         Giaphage

·         Connie(Sam’s Mum)

·         Dekka

·         Brianna

·         Lara

·         Quinn

·         Drake

·         Penny

·         Edilio

                                    

Storyline (From Goodreads):

   It's been one year since all the adults disappeared. Gone.

   Despite the hunger and the lies, even despite the plague, the kids of Perdido Beach are determined to survive. Creeping into the tenuous new world they've built, though, is perhaps the worst incarnation yet of the enemy known as the Darkness: fear.

   Within the FAYZ, life breaks down while the Darkness takes over, literally—turning the dome-world of the FAYZ entirely black. In darkness, the worst fears of all emerge, and the cruellest of intentions are carried out. But even in their darkest moments, the inhabitants of the FAYZ maintain a will to survive and a desire to take care of the others in their ravaged band that endures, no matter what the cost.

   Fear, Michael Grant's fifth book in the bestselling dystopian Gone series, will thrill readers . . . even as it terrifies them.

Review

   I really enjoyed this book. I loved all the intricate plots and the way the author portrayed all of the characters in the FAYZ.

   This is the 5^th and penultimate book in the Gone series, and in my view, is well worth reading. It has a lot of characters, but despite what can sometimes happen in books, you don’t get confused with who is who.

   I loved the way the plot moved, which was not so slow that you got bored reading, but not fast enough for you to find yourself confused and wondering what was happening.

   I also liked the way the storyline flicked between the Lake, Perdido Beach, Peter, Clifftop, The Mine and Outside. This made the story even more interesting and helped me understand more.

   Another thing I liked was the ending. I won’t say what happened, but it made me really want to continue reading and to want to read Light, the next book in the series.

   All in all, I felt that this was a very good book full of cliff hangers, narrators and excitement. Because of this, I feel that this book is a book worthy of the Carnegie Medal.

Rating (out of 5)

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Book Review #3

Title: Uglies

Author: Scott Westerfield

Date Published: 1st January 2005

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Age Rating: 12+

Genre: Distopian
Main Characters:

• Tally Youngblood
• Shay
• Peris
• Dr Cable
• David

Plot (from Goodreads):
   Everybody gets to be supermodel gorgeous. What could be wrong with that? Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license -- for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there.
  
But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

Review:
   I found this book on Goodreads, and I am glad I did. Uglies is a thrilling book with a fast storyline and a unique plot.
   I also really liked the characters. They all had really strong personalities and you could really interact with them because of this. My favorite character was Tally, because she was really brave and I liked the way she struggled to decide what whether she should protect Shay and in doing so break her promise to Peris (her friend who had turned pretty 3 months earlier) that she would join him in New Pretty Town as a perfect pretty, or to betray Shay and join Peris in New Pretty Town. I also liked the way she handled this.
  I also liked the way the story developed. The pace was good: not too slow so that you got bored with the way the story dragged on, and not too fast so that you kept on forgetting what was happening and how it had happened.
   I loved the way that this book made everything in it seem real. When reading, I sometimes found it hard to realise that there was no Tally Youngblood. This helped make the story very heart provoking and sad at parts.

   Overall, I really enjoyed this book, with its heartwarming story about perfection gone horribly wrong and loyalty to friends. This is an AMAZING series, and if you haven’t read it, then you should.


Rating out of 5:

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Book Review #2

Title: Unwind

Author: Neal Shusterman

Date Published: 6th November 2011

Publisher: Simon and Shuster

Age Rating: 12+

Genres: Young Adult and Distopian

Main Characters:

• Connor
• Lev 
• Risa

Plot (From Goodreads):
The Second Civil War was fought over reproductive rights. The chilling resolution: Life is inviolable from the moment of conception until age thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, parents can have their child "unwound," whereby all of the child's organs are transplanted into different donors, so life doesn't technically end. Connor is too difficult for his parents to control. Risa, a ward of the state is not enough to be kept alive. And Lev is a tithe, a child conceived and raised to be unwound. Together, they may have a chance to escape and to survive.

Review:
   One good thing about the book was the characters personalities. They were really strong, so you could really interact with them and you really wanted them to survive.
   Another goood thing was the narration. It was forever skipping between people, which helped you understand their point of view and what everyone belived. This reminded me a bit of Mortal Chaos by Matt Dickinson and the multiple narrators and storylines that weaved together to create one amazing story.

   I found some bits a little bit confusing, and because of this, I had to flip back a few pages sometimes, just to check what was happening. This, as far as I was concerned, was really the only thing that let this book down.

   The fact that everything slotted together was another good point. Everything was explained at the end, except what happens next to Connor, lev and Risa, which likely to be explained in the sequel, Unwholly, which comes out in August 2012.

   Overall, I thought that this was a really good boook, despite being a bit disturbing. It had a great plot and was set at a fast pace, so you never got bored. However, I found a few bits a bit confusing, which sort of ruined the story for me.

Rating out of 5:

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Book Review #1

Title: The Look
Author: Sophia Bennett

Date Published: 1st March 2012

Publisher: Chicken House

Age Rating: 12+

Genre: Contemporary

Main Characters

• Ted Trout
• Ava Trout

Plot (From Goodreads):

   When Ted is spotted by a model agency, she can’t believe it. At the same time her gorgeous sister, Ava, is diagnosed with cancer. With her world turned upside down, Ted has a lot of growing up to do, some of it in five-inch platforms. Can she be a supermodel and a super sister? Or will she have to choose between fame and family?

Review:

   I really liked this book. Not only did it have a really strong storyline, but it also portrays a serious message in a really heartwarming way.

   Some books really dont work when they have a 15 year old as a narrator, because the narrator may sound too grown up, or too childish. This, however, this worked perfectly for me. Ted's sarcastic sense of humour really suited her character and personality.

   Another good thing about it was Ted's character. She was really strong and positive and tried to be a really good sister whilst Ava was ill. She also took everything in her stride,  so whenever she was called names or laughed at in school, she just carried on.
   I also liked the fact, that, despite how pretty and popular Ava was, she wasn't perfect and had some flaws. This is because in some books, you find characters that are pretty, popular and perfect. They then don't seem human, and you find it hard to interact with them. However, with Ava, this is luckily not the case.

   Overall, I would say that this was a really well written book with a great plot. This book, despite not being my type, really worked for me and I would recomend it to others as a really great book. However, I found some bits a little bit boring.


Rating out of 5:

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