Legend - Marie Lu (#1 - Legend Trilogy)

Title: Legend
Author: Marie Lu
Genres: Dystopian, young adult, romance, action

 What was once the western United States is now home to the Republic, a nation perpetually at war with its neighbors. Born into an elite family in one of the Republic's wealthiest districts, fifteen-year-old June is a prodigy being groomed for success in the Republic's highest military circles. Born into the slums, fifteen-year-old Day is the country's most wanted criminal. But his motives may not be as malicious as they seem. 

From very different worlds, June and Day have no reason to cross paths - until the day June's brother, Metias, is murdered and Day becomes the prime suspect. Caught in the ultimate game of cat and mouse, Day is in a race for his family's survival, while June seeks to avenge Metias's death. But in a shocking turn of events, the two uncover the truth of what has really brought them together, and the sinister lengths their country will go to keep its secrets. 

America has been split into two parts - the Republic and the Colonies. The Republic is very military country so the most earning jobs are military connected. All children have to take a 'trial', which is like a test at the age of ten (I think) which evaluates your physical abilities and your intelligence. June has been the only person to get a perfect score, 1500/1500.

Day on the other hand, has failed his trial and his mum and younger brother think he's dead. Only his older brother John, knows that he is alive. He is the most wanted criminal and his family are poor and live in a poor sector (the Republic is split up into different sectors which are mainly divided by families' wealth and status) where there has been an outbreak of the plague. His younger brother Eden has the plague. 

'In my mind, I make a silent promise to my brother's killer. I will hunt you down. I will scour the streets of Los Angeles for you. Search every street in the Republic if I have to. I will trick you and deceive you, lie, cheat and steal to find you, tempt you out of your hiding place, and chase you until you have nowhere else to run. I make you this promise: your life is mine.'

This book kicks ass.

I picked it up from my local library and after I had finished reading it, the urge to keep the book was enormous.  I eventually had to buy my own copy after I received a mail from the library warning me that I had to return it soon.

I liked:

-Day.

-June.

-The idea of  how the country was militarily run.

-The uniforms.

-How smart June and Day both were as it meant no reading dumb dialogues.
-Both June and Day's similarity.
-The plot.

-The rollercoaster this book sends you on.

I didn't like:
-The fact that Day emotionally weaker than June. (He had been through more so it was understandable I guess)
-It's extremity. Day and June are only 15/16 and yet they have the highest statuses - the prodigy and most wanted criminal.

Although Legend is easy to read, it is packed with plenty of action, entertainment and thrills. The scenes are described vividly and they are never boring. The book includes scenes that are light and amusing; scenes that are heartbreaking and sad; scenes that are just absolutely mind blowing and genius; scenes that deal with family, death and betrayal. It has it all.

I loved June, and in my opinion, if June and Katniss were in a fight, June would win. I think that June would also beat Tris, but it'd be close. Reading her chapters were exciting and stimulating as she'd notice little details as someone of her abilities would and you really got a good impression of her mind.

Day is basically like the dude version of June in the way that he too is also clever and agile. Within ten minutes of reading the book, I was already reading about Day jumping of a however-many-storey high building and surviving, with a few injuries. He was purely a brilliant character to read through.

If you are a dystopian lover, there is a 90% chance that you will enjoy it. This book has all the characteristics that a good, if not a fantastic dystopian novel should have and there is not a single moment where the word boring comes to mind. If you are not a dystopian lover, but still enjoy reading YA books, then there is an 80% chance that you will like Legend. It is mixed with action, suspense, unravelling mysteries, humour, romance here and there, moments where you think holy crap and fun.

Rate out of 5: ☆☆☆☆☆

-C E L I N E

Paper Towns - John Green

Title: Paper Towns
Author: John Green 
Format: Paper back 
Release Date: September 22nd 2009
Genre: YA, Contemporary, Romance, Mystery, Realistic Fiction. 
Stars out of ten: 

SUMMARY 

Quentin has always loved Margo Roth Spiegelman, for Margo (and her adventures) are the stuff of legend at their high school. So when she one day climbs through his window and summons him on an all-night road trip of revenge he cannot help but follow.

But the next day Margo doesn’t come to school and a week later she is still missing. Q soon learns that there are clues in her disappearance . . . and they are for him. But as he gets deeper into the mystery – culminating in another awesome road trip across America – he becomes less sure of who and what he is looking for.

REVIEW 

Quentin Jacobsen's miracle is that he lives next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman, a girl who he has always loved from afar. 

The book starts when they are both nine and are cycling together through the cul-de-sacced streets to Jefferson Park where they would usually play together. Instead, this time they find a man slumped next to a tree with flies in his mouth and Margo Roth Spiegelman who was nine at that time, said "maybe all of the strings inside him broke". After cycling home and reporting what they saw to their parents, Margo later turned up at her window and told him that it was a mystery in which she wanted to solve. She told Quentin that she went back to the scene and tried to figure out the mystery.

The chapter ends with Q saying 'Maybe Margo loved mysteries so much, she became one. 

Part One starts 9 years after that incident, they are now 18 and haven't really spoken since. Q has two bestfriends, Radar (who is addicted to adding information to a website called Omnidictionary) and Ben (who appears to have the wildest soul between the three). The are very much like average but hilarious 18 year olds, worrying about prom and how no 'honeybunny' will go to prom with Ben the story then goes on to tell the tale of a Ben who in tenth grade got hospitalized due to a kidney infection but Becca Arrington (one of Margo's friends) started a rumour that the real reason he had blood in his urine was due to chronic masturbation, which then spread around the school. Whilst Radar is worrying about the fact that his girlfriend, Angela has clocked onto the fact that Radar has never invited her to his house. This is due to the fact that Radar's parents own one of the largest collection of black Santas. But Quentin is still madly in love with Margo from afar, and doesn't plan on trying to talk to her any time soon. 

However his plan is boycotted when Margo sneaks into his room late on night, claiming that she need to go on a roadtrip of revenge and that she needs a driver. Q is reluctant at first but agrees to it anyway. Their night of revenge starts when they visit her 'friend' Beccas house, and finds Margo's boyfriend (soon to be ex-boyfriend, Jason) there and he is very very naked. But Margo was very prepared for this and gets Quentin to call Becca's father, whilst she steals Jasons clothes. Becca's father soon realises that there is a boy with his daughter causing Jason to run in a hurry but has no clothes to wear, Margo was prepared for this as well, getting Quentin to picture a very naked, very frantic Jason. 

Next in the roadtrip of revenge Q drives Margo to Karin's doorstep due to the fact that when she told Margo, Margo didn't believe her and shouted at her and insulted her hair and her ass. Margo then goes on to tell Q  "When you say nasty things about people you should never say true ones, because you cant really fully, honestly take those back, you know?" 

After visiting Karin's house they visit the lovely Jason Worthington's house, chucking a fish through the window and spray painting an M on the side of their house. Quentin says that Jason lives in a place where the motto is: "Big, ugly homes, for big, ugly people" . 

The next visit is to Margo's friend Lacey ( who we later find out to be Ben's 'girlfriend'?) who always used to hint at the fact that Margo was fat and didnt tell Margo about Jason and Becca. Margo put the fish under Lacey's car seat, with a quote on the wrapping saying 'Your friendship with MS sleeps with the fishes'. 

They next drive to the Suntrust building, where when they have finally hiked to the top Margo gives the infamous speech about the Paper Towns and the Paper people. 

“Here's what's not beautiful about it: from here, you can't see the rust or the cracked paint or whatever, but you can tell what the place really is. You can see how fake it all is. It's not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It's a paper town. I mean, look at it, Q: look at all those culs-de-sac, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I've lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters.”  

The next stop they take is for Q to get his revenge on a person who bullied him, Chuck Parson, who always taunted him by twisting his arm saying "Call yourself a faggot". So Q gets his revenge by using hair removal cream to remove his right eyebrow, which proved successful and lathering every surface in his room with Vaseline. 

The last thing on Margo's list is to break into SeaWorld, which is an adventure in itself. By the end of the night Quentin is convinced that tomorrow, him and Margo will speak at school and she will even sit with him at lunch. 

Imagine Quentin's surprise when Margo doesn't show up to school the next day, or the day after that, or even 5 days from that. But when a police officer turns up and Margo's parents are being idiots claiming that they are going to change the locks, to teach Margo a lesson. But they do let something slip, Margo leaves clues to where she is going, so when she went to Mississippi, she ate alphabet soup and left the four letter Misi. Quentin is determined to find Margo. 

FIRST SENTENCES

(OR IN THIS CASE PARAGRAPH)

"The way I figure it, everybody gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never get struck by lightening, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But id you consider all of the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to one of us. I could have seen it rain frogs. I could have stepped foot on Mars. I could have been eaten a whale. I could of married the Queen of England or survived months at sea. But my miracle was different. My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman."

(I felt the need to write the entire paragraph due to how amazing the writing is). 

MOVIE?!

I googled this halfway through reading the book and was very disappointed to find this on John Green's blog;

Q. Paper Towns movie?A. The rights to Paper Towns were optioned by Mandate Pictures (which made Juno), and I was hired to write the screenplay. I worked hard on the script for much of 2009, but in the end Mandate didn’t feel they had the kind of screenplay they could shoot. So it goes.

Q. How much did you change in the Paper Towns screenplay?
A. A lot. (For one thing, the ending was completely different.) I’ve always believed that a movie CAN’T be faithful to a book, because a book is something that happens in conversation between a writer and a reader, whereas a movie is mostly something you look at. So, like, trying to render the people and events of a novel on screen is impossible, I think, because you’ll only end up with some poor approximation of the magic of the book. So in the end I’d rather make a good movie than a faithful one, which is what I tried to do. I wanted the ideas of the book to be preserved, but mostly I just want the movie to be good.

I really liked his answer ti the second question and I totally respect the decision he made, because if the movie didn't turn out how I imagined it to be, I would cry for years.  

MY THOUGHTS 

I'm going to try to keep this brief because if how long my review was, but I had so much fun writing about such an amazing book. John Green deserves to be praised in this life and in all the lives after, he is one of the best writers, telling some of the best stories. 

Praising John Green Forever.

My bLoG iS BETteR ThaN Your VLoG

ELlIe

(A/N: I have slightly changed the tagline for Margo Roth Spiegelman who stated;

“The rules of capitalization are so unfair to words in the middle of a sentence.”

I am currently living by this quote, and am now a big believer in random capitalization ). 

Torn - Cat Clarke

"This is the real way a friendship ends. Not with some huge screaming row, but with a gradual withdrawal. You’d think it would be less painful this way." 

Title: Torn
Author: Cat Clarke
Genres: Young adult

Four girls. One dead body. A whole lot of guilt.

Alice King isn’t expecting the holiday of a lifetime when she sets off with her classmates on a trip to the Scottish wilderness, but she’s not exactly prepared for an experience beyond her darkest nightmares… 

Alice and her best friend Cass are stuck in a cabin with Polly, the social outcast, and Rae, the moody emo-girl. Then there’s Tara – queen of mean. Powerful, beautiful and cruel, she likes nothing better than putting people down. 

Cass decides it’s time to teach Tara a lesson she’ll never forget. And so begins a series of events that will change the lives of these girls forever...

A compelling story of guilty secrets, troubled friendship and burgeoning love.

Torn wasted no time and dove straight in. From the beginning, this book has been consistent and never disappointing. Predictable, you'd think from the blurb, but I think that it was how it was mean to be. The story was never about finding out what happened to Tara, although with withheld information and a different approach, this book could've easily been a more suspenseful book. I think Cat Clarke did a good job approaching the story how she did because if she hadn't, it would've ended up like the all too mainstream and very, very predictable crime/mystery wannabee books.

We are revealed what happened to Tara Chambers pretty early on, easily within the fifth chapter. After the truth has been revealed to the readers but not any other character that doesn't already know, we are taken through Alice's journey of guilt, grieving and coping with what has happened. She is torn between doing what is right or from doing what she has to to not get into serious trouble. 

However, at the end of Torn, I couldn't see a story with many twists or turns. I could only see a story with a simple beginning, middle, and end. I could imagine what was going to happen at the end which I don't like, I like stories where I have no clue on what will happen.

This book was an easy read with enough to keep me entertained but not enough to make me want to lose sleep and food over it. Much of the time, I felt that the author was just adding things to pass the time even though I know this isn't true. In spite of my rate, this book was still a good read.

Rate out of 5: ☆☆☆

-C E L I N E

Another John Green Movie?!

After the massive, but predictable success of the movie The Fault in Our Stars, John Green's first novel Looking for Alaska will be adapted on screen! 

Actress and film maker Sarah Polley has been assigned by Paramount to adapt Looking for Alaska into a movie. John Green is dominating both the book charts and film charts and will continue to.

AAAANNDDD... Paper Towns is also going to be adapted by the same producers who worked on The Fault in Our Stars. Exciting, exciting, exciting!

You can scream now.

Before. Miles "Pudge" Halter's whole existence has been one big nonevent, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave the "Great Perhaps" (François Rabelais, poet) even more. He heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed-up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young, who is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart.

After. Nothing is ever the same.

For those of you who didn't read The Fault in Our Stars before watching the movie, I suggest that you go to your closest bookstore, buy and start reading Looking for Alaska ASAP, pronto.

-C E L I N E 

Mockingjay News!

   

For the fans of the Hunger Games this is directed straight at you, whilst we have a look at the newest report for the Mockingjay Part One Movie. This is where you'll be able to find everything you need to know. 

STILLS AND SET. 

With fans of the Hunger Games eagerly awaiting the Mockingjay Part One movie, many are going crazy about the fact that we still do not have a theatrical trailer. The scheduled date for the Mockingjay movie to hit theatres 21st November of this year. This means that it is 138 days away and we still do not have a trailer. Only propaganda report and stills, the rest is left up to our imagination. 


We are also told 'Fans should expect a cliffhanger from the first instalment of the movie'  and reports claimed that the major action scenes from the book will be shown in the second adaptation of the book. 
Although Mockingjay is the weakest out of the three books it includes a major bloodbath about the insurgency against the Capitol. However producers say that by bringing it up onto big screen it'll be an advantage claiming that they will make it bigger than the books. 

Back in October 2013 US weekly did a Catching Fire special to confirm that the capitol scenes will be filmed in France and Berlin.
An abandoned mill in the town of Griffin just south of Atlanta is being used for filming and rumours and assumptions have been spread saying that this will be District 8, but we cannot be sure. 
Much of the movie was being shot in Atlanta and Georgia. However places such as Los Angeles was added to the list. 

CAPITOL PROPAGANDA POSTERS. 

 The capitol Propaganda is to keep the fans ticking over, telling us to sit tight and more will come later, this is only to keep us satisfied. The posters highlight the strengths of the outlying districts, showing that each is important to the Capitol. 

CAST. 

CAST NEWS. 

JOSH HUTCHERSON / HIJACKED PEETA. 

A photo of Josh Hutcherson surfaced online back in March of what appears to be set make up for Mockingjay. Josh is with Laura Simpson who gained media attention after a behind the scenes write up from the Oscars. He is wearing the golden necklace that Effie Trinket gave to Peeta as a token going into the Quarter Quell, and make up looking like char, perhaps to signify burns perhaps from Capitol Torture. Many were confused as to why Peeta is wearing the necklace as he gave it to Katniss in Catching Fire, however it is not totally clear whether she gave it back or that Peeta kept it. 

The best guess is that it will be the Peeta we will see in Mockingjay Part 2. His black eye is slightly faded meaning it is an older incident. It could be the scene where Peeta tries to warn District 13.Perhaps  

At the mention of my name, Peeta’s face contorts in effort. “Katniss…how do you think this will end? What will be left? No one is safe. Not in the Capitol. Not in the districts. And you…in Thirteen…” He inhales sharply, as if fighting for air; his eyes look insane. “Dead by morning!”

Off camera, Snow orders, “End it!” Beetee throws the whole thing into chaos by flashing a still shot of me standing in front of the hospital at three-second intervals. But between the images, we are privy to the real-life action being played out on the set. Peeta’s attempt to continue speaking. The camera knocked down to record the white tiled floor. The scuffle of boots. The impact of the blow that’s inseparable from Peeta’s cry of pain.

And his blood as it splatters the tiles.

Perhaps this was the first sight of a hijacked Peeta. 

WHO IS ANTONIUS?

Well, when I heard this name I had no sense if recognition whatsoever. Antonius is going to be played by Robert Knepper who also didn't know who the character was claiming "They're so secretive about things like this!" 

Well we soon found out that Antonius is a solider fighting for the capitol, so he is a bad guy, entertainment weekly say that 'Robert Knepper tends to play nasties.' 

Or he could be a soldier fighting for District Thirteen, turning the tables completely and being a good guy. 

But in my opinion I think he is going to be a bad guy, Antonius sounds very Roman, and in the Capitol Roman names seem to be the trend. Such as Flavia, Portia, Cinna...

MOCKINGJAY TEASER 

Not only Tributes went crazy about this teaser but it seems like the whole world did as well, this 'trailer' was the most viewed trailer with over 10 million views! 

Many of you will be pleased to know that a full length trailer is due out later this month and I will be eagerly awaiting and probably scream and jump up and down when it is released! 

 MY BLOG IS BETTER THAN YOUR VLOG

ELLIE

Is It Christmas?

I'm a HUGE fan of Sarah's movies, and her ideas about Looking for Alaska are really wonderful, and I am SO VERY EXCITED.
— John Green (@realjohngreen) June 26, 2014

New Releases - JULY 2014

Wow, June has gone by so fast and now I'm Julying. 
lets ignore that joke and carry on with the hottest new releases of July 2014...

ON THE FENCE 

Author: Kasie West 

Release Date: July 1st 2014.

Format: Paper back.  

Blurb: 

She's a tomboy. He's the boy next door…

Charlie Reynolds can outrun, outscore, and outwit every boy she knows. But when it comes to being a girl, Charlie doesn't know the first thing about anything. So when she starts working at a chichi boutique to pay off a speeding ticket, she finds herself in a strange new world. To cope with the stress of her new reality, Charlie takes to spending nights chatting with her neighbor Braden through the fence between their yards. As she grows to depend on their nightly Fence Chats, she realizes she's got a bigger problem than speeding tickets-she's falling for Braden. She knows what it means to go for the win, but if spilling her secret means losing him for good, the stakes just got too high.

MY THOUGHTS 

We are again starting the month with another very cliché storyline, where a girl fall sin love with a guy and they become undoubtedly in love forever and ever and they manage to stay together throughout everything, yada yada yada... 

I love cliché books, you have no idea. So for me, this is a must read because I am very curious to see if it is what I think it is. 

ILLUSIVE

Author: Emily Lloyd -Jones

Release Date: July 15th 2014

Format: Hard cover.  

Blurb: 

When the MK virus swept across the planet, a vaccine was created to stop the epidemic, but it came with some unexpected side effects. A small percentage of the population developed superhero-like powers. Seventeen-year-old Ciere Giba has the handy ability to change her appearance at will. She's what's known as an illusionist...She's also a thief.

After a robbery goes awry, Ciere must team up with a group of fellow super-powered criminals on another job that most would consider too reckless. The formula for the vaccine that gave them their abilities was supposedly destroyed years ago. But what if it wasn't?

The lines between good and bad, us and them, and freedom and entrapment are blurred as Ciere and the rest of her crew become embroiled in a deadly race against the government that could cost them their lives. 

MY THOUGHTS 

The cover is awesome, for some reason even though I haven't read the book I think it fits really well to the blurb. I'm not entirely sure whether I would read this or not, if you're a fan of action it seems to be a must read. 

LETS GET LOST

Author: Adi Alsaid 

Release Date: July 29th 2014

Format: Hard Cover 

Blurb: 

Five strangers. Countless adventures.One epic way to get lost. 

Four teens across the country have only one thing in common: a girl named LEILA. She crashes into their lives in her absurdly red car at the moment they need someone the most. 

There's HUDSON, a small-town mechanic who is willing to throw away his dreams for true love. And BREE, a runaway who seizes every Tuesday—and a few stolen goods along the way. ELLIOT believes in happy endings…until his own life goes off-script. And SONIA worries that when she lost her boyfriend, she also lost the ability to love. 

Hudson, Bree, Elliot and Sonia find a friend in Leila. And when Leila leaves them, their lives are forever changed. But it is during Leila's own 4,268-mile journey that she discovers the most important truth— sometimes, what you need most is right where you started. And maybe the only way to find what you're looking for is to get lost along the way.

MY THOUGHTS 

This sounds very exciting and I think if I was to read this book I would enjoy it a lot. It sounds gripping. I really like the cover, I think it reflects the storyline very well. 

CONVERSATIONS 

Author: Katherine Howe

Release Date: July 1st 2014

Format: Hard back 

Blurb: 

It’s senior year at St. Joan’s Academy, and school is a pressure cooker. College applications, the battle for valedictorian, deciphering boys’ texts: Through it all, Colleen Rowley and her friends are expected to keep it together. Until they can’t.

First it’s the school’s queen bee, Clara Rutherford, who suddenly falls into uncontrollable tics in the middle of class. Her mystery illness quickly spreads to her closest clique of friends, then more students and symptoms follow: seizures, hair loss, violent coughing fits. St. Joan’s buzzes with rumor; rumour blossoms into full-blown panic.

Soon the media descends on Danvers, Massachusetts, as everyone scrambles to find something, or someone, to blame. Pollution? Stress? Or are the girls faking? Only Colleen—who’s been reading The Crucible for extra credit—comes to realize what nobody else has: Danvers was once Salem Village, where another group of girls suffered from a similarly bizarre epidemic three centuries ago . . .

Inspired by true events—from seventeenth-century colonial life to the halls of a modern-day high school—Conversion casts a spell. With her signature wit and passion, New York Times bestselling author Katherine Howe delivers an exciting and suspenseful novel, a chilling mystery that raises the question, what’s really happening to the girls at St. Joan’s. 

MY THOUGHTS 

I think this book has an amazing storyline, after reading the first line of the blurb I thought it was going to be another teen high school book, but to my surprise its not. I like the fact that this illness is somewhat eradicating the caste system within the school, a must read.

Well I hope you all enjoyed July's new releases!

MY BLOG IS BETTER THAN YOUR VLOG

ELLIE