The Lost Colony

Demons, Taiwan, and child genii, oh my! The fifth book in the Artemis Fowl series explores the concept of time travel and alternate dimensions in a way that makes sense to someone who conks out in the middle of discussions about the fourth plane. It's like a new start, where tons of new characters are introduced, and we get to learn even more about the history of fairies and the species that got left in the past (literally). In terms of writing, there's nothing new here, but with Eoin Colfer's unique and sarcastic dialogue and wisecracks ("Cappuccino! What a lovely word!"), that's a good thing. Just read the books in order for your own sake.

Plot summary: Fourteen-year old Artemis Fowl for once has decided to do an experiment by observing, and not risking the lives of humans and fairies. His new interest in time rifts would be perfectly fine, but there's someone else out there who is consciously after something that's not supposed to exist. Demons. An (almost) innocent visit to the opera house is about to turn wacky, and Artemis and Holly, official cross-species world-saving team, have to figure out exactly how much one twelve-year old girl genius knows about the secret life of the Fairy Folk before their life becomes not so secret anymore.


Ooooh! New covers!

Related websites:

• Author's site

• Official series site

• Fan site

Fire Star

Dragon book #3. I didn't enjoy this book as much as the first two for quite a few reasons. First, MY FAVORITE CHARACTER DIES!!! FREAKING DIES!!!! Sorry. Second, the author introduced a whole bunch of complicated abstract things. Like Fain. What the heck is Fain??? And Ix? And what is the difference between the polar bears Ingavar and Ragnar??? Third, the story was jumping around between the Pennykettle household, the Arctic, and 500 years in the past. This gets really confusing after a while, as you can imagine. I barely hung on to the basic plot, and look! I survived! And I still felt like getting the fourth book! That's something special. With most books, I would've dropped it in the middle, but I guess I thought Fire Star had more potential, with The Fire Within and Icefire before it.

Plot summary: Yes, David and Zenna do end up winning Dr. Bergstrom's trip to the Arctic. They're having a grand time with their professor up North socializing with the natives and spotting polar bears. Meanwhile, the sibyl Gwilanna has hatched up a new plan to bring the last dragon, Gawain, back to life. As she prepares the three necessary items, which include The Tooth of Ragnar (a legendary icy island IN THE ARCTIC), David and his friends need to foil Gwilanna's evil plot before Gawain returns.

Related links:

• Author's Website

Wherever Nina Lies

Wherever Nina Lies, by Lynn Weingarten, delivers a small taste of the morbid with her novel about a cross-country jaunt to find a missing sister. There's adventure galore, as well as romance that turns out to be something completely unexpected (oh believe me, it IS). I loved the way the author created Nina as an artist, and scattered some of her really nice drawings throughout the book, giving it a unique feel. When you read the book, Ellie, the narrator's frustration and determination is completely believable, and you can sometimes find yourself sympathizing with her. That being said, the book carries a rather depressing tone throughout the story, and at the climax, the storyline changed a bit too suddenly for me.

Plot summary: Ellie Wrigley might seem like an ordinary, happy girl on the surface, but she's still coping with the sudden disappearance of her older sister and role model, Nina. Nina was a carefree kind of person, and sneaking out at night was just the kind of thing she always did. So it wasn't a surprise when she left the house one night. That day, she didn't come back. Two years later, Ellie leaves, too, in search of Nina. She's brought along a boy she met at a party who thinks she has some hope of succeeding. With a picture Nina left behind as a clue, she sets off on a road trip (in the looser sense of the word) on a mission full of surprises to reclaim her lost sister.

Related links:

• Author's website

• Book website

Icefire

I think the second book in the dragon series, Icefire by Chris D'Lacey, outperforms the first one. We see more of the original Pennykettle dragons, as well as some new characters. Polar bears, sibyls, and "fire tears" enter the story in Icefire, making it more of a fantasy book than The Fire Within. We learn a lot more about the history of dragons, the history of polar bears, and how the two timelines overlap. This story was at times mysterious, and at others hilarious. Definitely read this book, but make sure you start with The Fire Within, otherwise it won't really make an ounce of sense.

Plot summary: David Rain's college professor Dr. Bergstrom gives him an assignment to research whether dragons exist. If he wins the contest, he gets to visit the Arctic on a paid research trip. As time goes by and David finds more information about dragons and their secrets, the polar bears are learning about him in turn. If they want to win the trip, David and his new friend Zanna need to work as hard as possible, because there's a new dragon about to be born.

Related links:

• Author's website

Graceling

Graceling is a totally awesome fantasy book by Kristin Cashore. It's amazing for a first novel, with tons of well-thought-out components. A lot of people have compared it to The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, with the main characters both skilled in combat. That is an analogy I can definitely picture. For goodness' sake, the main characters even share the same first three letters in their names!
I loved the way the relationships between all of the characters changes throughout the book, especially when one of the unexpected plot twists occurs. I have one small nitpick, though. In the later beginning, the story kind of sped up. I mean, one minute the main character is thinking, I feel so betrayed! I hate you so much! And the next, she goes, oh yes, I'll risk my life and go across the mountains in the dead of winter with you. But remember, I still hate you!
In my opinion, definitely worth a read if you like adventure.

Plot summary: In a land of seven kingdoms, Katsa, niece of a controlling king, is (un)fortunate enough to be Graced with a very special skill. Her Grace is killing. She does her uncle's dirty work, by physically punishing all the criminals. Behind the king's back, however, she forms a secret council to help those in need. Then Katsa meets Po, who is also Graced with fighting. As Katsa's rebel streak starts to show even more, how can she and Po turn around and try to save more people than she hurts?

Related links:
• Author's Website
• Official site

The Fire Within

Another new series! Keep up with me, people. These ones don't have a name, so I will refer to them as the "Dragon Books" by British author Chris D'Lacey. These books were very uh...interesting to read, because I read the third one before the second. Big mistake. Well. The main focus of the storyline is on the dragons (duh). I've always thought about mythological animals that come to life, and voila, here's a book on that exact topic. I love the little dragon guys. Each one has a different personality and purpose, and the only word that comes to mind when describing their physical appearance is "cute". The human characters, though, did not appeal to me as much. I found them kind of predictable, even the main character.

Plot summary: Clay dragons. Everywhere. That's what college student David Rain sees when he goes to move in with Elizabeth Pennykettle, and her daughter Lucy. Little by little, David explores the secrets behind the tiny clay creatures, and he gets a lot more than he bargained for when Liz gives David his very own dragon. As the story of history, friendship, and squirrels unfolds, David begins to work on a tale of his own.

Related links:

• Author's website

Lock and Key

Hi all! Sorry I've been away for a while. But now I'm back! MWAHAHAHAHA!
Anyway, I've gotten around to reading another Sarah Dessen book called Lock and Key. It's quite interesting, with a bunch of totally unexpected twists, but This Lullaby still reigns supreme. The main character goes through a total personality overhauling, and at the very end, casts away the last part of her old life (oops. Major spoiler if you've read it). The only part of the book that I didn't like were the ends of the chapters. These I don't usually mind, but the author used all these non-concrete, evasive, fancy words for the last four or so sentences. EVERY CHAPTER. Urgh. I ended up just skipping over the last bit of each chapter because they basically restated exactly how the main character felt about whatever happened. Still, a very nice book overall.

Plot summary: After years of living on her own in the "slums" of the city, you'd think that it would be a dream come true for seventeen-year old Ruby Cooper to create a new life for herself by living with her wealthy sister and her husband. The happy couple live in a perfect mansion (with a pond!), send kids to the elite high school of the city, and right next door is Nate, the cute boy who's unbelievably nice to everyone. What's wrong with Ruby, then? She just can't stop thinking about the shabby house she used to live in, as well as her mother, who vanished before Ruby could discover the real truth. It seems like Ruby Cooper is going to have to change who Ruby Cooper is in order to adapt to her new life.

Related links:
• Author's Website

The Opal Deception

The fourth book in the Artemis Fowl series really didn't appeal to me the first time I read it. The reasons are obvious. One of my favorite characters (not saying who!) dies in the...uh...second chapter, the author introduces a whole new completely superficial supporting cast, and and our favorite boy genius has no idea what half the book is about. To be honest, I kind of expected the long-awaited companion to book 3 to be a lot better. After a second read-through, however, one starts to see Colfer's trademark subtle but side-splitting humor ("push the button before I come over there and push it with your face!"), as well as the way he incorporates the Fairy Folk's various über-high-tech stuff into each chapter. Best book in the series.

Plot summary: Captain Holly Short of the Lower Elements Police needs some help when the rest of the LEP wrongly accuses her of murdering her commander, something she definitely would NOT do. It turns out that the real culprit is Opal Koboi, but Holly can't do anything with that knowledge. The LEP wouldn't waste any time catching Captain Short, let alone have her explain the truth. Only one person in the world can help her. It's too bad he's forgotten all about her and the fairies. Last year, Artemis Fowl was mindwiped as his side of a deal, so the LEP erased all his fairy-related memories. Now we just have to hope that Holly can restore the 14-year old evil-turned-good-turned-evil genius' fairy knowledge before Opal Koboi claims her title of Queen of the World.

Related websites:

• Author's site

• Official series site

• Fan site

The Battle of the Labyrinth

I FINALLY got to finish the fourth Percy Jackson book that I started about a month ago. Yay. For some reason, the fourth installment read faster, the author seemed to have forgotten about Percy's ADHD for a while (not that I mind; the "I only learned what it said later" thing was getting kind of boring), and the plot kept getting more and more exciting (yay) and/or violent (bleh), with the last few chapters devoted to a battle at camp (bleh x 100). Very mixed reviews, if you will. In my opinion, this book would have worked as the last one in the series, as most of the characters find what they're looking for. The only loose end that needs to be tied up is how the demigod protagonists will defeat the newly born monsters and villains. Which the author takes care of in about 600 pages of fighting in The Last Olympian. Gee, I'm really looking forward to more gore.
Okay. Well. Maybe I am looking forward to The Last Olympian. Once they get through about 50 holds at the library.

Plot summary: One more book, one more school Percy gets kicked out of. After escaping the cops (yep, there was an explosion. Again), he heads to Camp Half-Blood to keep away from the monsters. At camp, he and his friends discover an entrance to the Labyrinth, and they go on a quest to stop Evil Luke and Kronos the Lord of Time (or something) from invading camp via the entrance to the Labyrinth (ooh, more fighting, how fun). As the foursome try to meander through the Labyrinth's seemingly endless paths, Evil Luke is cooking up a new plan of his own.

Related websites:

• Author's site

• Official series site

• Percy Jackson fan club

The Eternity Code

This is the third book in the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer. This book used to be my favorite one in the series purely because of the well-thought storyline, but some time and one new book later, some of the shine wore off. The emphasis on high-tech fairy gadgets remains, as well as the ingenious use of Artemis', well, genius. Although the series was meant to be a trilogy, the rather sad ending contains a bit of a cliffhanger, and leaves one itching to read the fourth book.

Plot summary: Artemis is back at it again with his criminal deeds! However, his newfound family is making this his last adventure. After his meeting with an American businessman, Jon Spiro, goes deadly wrong, he and the LEPrecon fairies (is that proper grammar?) team up again to retrieve the pirated fairy technology that Spiro now has in his megalomaniacal grasp. However, Spiro still has quite a few tricks up his white suit sleeves.

Related websites:

• Author's site

• Official series site

• Fan site

Related links!

Hi! I just put up related websites for each book. There's the author's site, the official series site, and sometimes a fan site. Enjoy!

What I Meant...

I just finished another book no one has heard of. It's called What I Meant..., by Marie Lamba (the dot dot dot part is actually part of the title). It's about an Indian-American girl whose life suddenly gets turned totally topsy-turvy (alliteration! hahah!). When I read about all the new problems she was facing, I actually got quite frustrated internally for her.

Plot summary: It seems like Chachi, Sang's evil aunt, is moving into Sang's house just to make her life harder. She steals, lies, and snoops into other people's lives. What's more, Sang's best friend Gina is giving her the cold shoulder for apparently no reason at all. Sang's parents truly believe she's bulimic, and when she tries to bust Evil Chachi, Sang seems to be the one getting into trouble. And to top it all off, her parents have the stupidest no-dating-until-you're-15 rule. How is Sang supposed to take control of her life when she can't even go to a concert with a boy?

Related websites:

• Author's site

The Alchemyst

New series time! Yay. This is the first book in the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel (that's a relatively long name) series by Michael Scott. This is another fantasy book, where mythological creatures borrowed from all kinds of ancient legends (mostly European) live among the humans, or humani. I liked this book a lot, and I'm waiting to read the second and third ones, The Sorceress and The Magician, but I'm too lazy to get my butt to the library so I can put them on hold. Anyways. The action in the book is very fast-paced, and new characters are constantly introduced, making the (mostly) immortal cast ever more diverse. However, the fantasy part is pretty much exactly what you'd expect. That's what you get from using actual people and legends.

Plot summary: Sophie and Josh Newman, twins, are working summer jobs when Josh's employer, Nick Fleming, turns out to be an alchemyst named Nicholas Flamel. They quickly find themselves stuck following Flamel on his quest to defeat Dr. John Dee. This evil necromancer has stolen the Codex from Flamel, which contains the recipe to the Elixir of Life, which makes one immortal. Without it, Flamel and his wife, Perenelle, will die within the month. Josh and Sophie find a new land of magic and vegetarian warrior vampires right beyond the one they've known, but can their newly discovered powers save the mythological world?

How melodramatic.

Related websites:

• Author's site

• Official series site

• Fan site
• SotINF Wiki

The Arctic Incident

Ta da. The second Artemis Fowl book. I didn't think this one was as amazing as the other five books, but everyone else seems to adore this book. Hmmm. The author was very smart and turned the main villain from book 1 into one of the protagonists. I think the storyline and basic idea of this book really sets the stage for the rest of the series, the first book being kind of like an introduction.

Ze plot summary: Remember Artemis Fowl? Yeah, he was that evil genius who captured a fairy for ransom a few months ago. Well now the fairies have another problem, and they've blamed Artemis. When he turns up innocent, the fairies need his help to find out what's really going on. But Master Fowl never does anything for free. The fairies find themselves escorting Artemis to Russia on his mission to rescue his long-lost father. How in the world is Captain Holly Short supposed to help the conceited 13-year old criminal mastermind who held her hostage last year? And even if they're able to find Fowl Sr., there's that goblin revolution going on underground to deal with.

Related websites:

• Author's site

• Official series site

• Humongous fan site

• Artemis Fowl fan club

Crown Duel

This book by Sherwood Smith was originally written in two parts: Crown Duel and Court Duel, because the publisher apparently thought that shorter book = more readers. The book's characters are vibrantly realistic (well, as realistic as you can get in the fantasy Medieval Ages), and they cope with problems that really make sense. There's some fighting (okay, lots), some romance, and some treacherous plotting, (not necessarily in that order) but none of the parts overwhelm the rest of the book. I loved Crown Duel, and I'm pretty sure I read it in one sitting on the Detroit-Shanghai plane.

Plot summary: The teenage Countess Meliara, or Mel, has vowed to protect her country from the rich and selfish nobles when they come to fight. War comes soon enough, and Mel and her brother Branaric need to come up with a way to fend off the King's strong army. Once the violence dies down, however, Mel and her friends discover life at court, where she quickly discovers it's simply a deceptively quiet battle in the ballroom.

Related websites:

• Author's site

The Titan's Curse

Today I didn't finish any books and I'm kind of stumped what to read next, so I might as well continue the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. This is book 3, The Titan's Curse. In my opinion, is wasn't as good as the first two books, although it's got plenty of awesome points already. Several new dark characters were introduced, and the book's cover art had a little of a depressing feel to it.

Or maybe that was just my imagination.

Nevertheless, I stayed up pretty late reading it anyway.
That being said,

Plot summary. Percy and his friends Annabeth and Grover are in school again...but this time to learn more about two new half-bloods. After an attack by a monster disguised as the Vice Principal, Annabeth is thrown off a cliff. When Percy and Grover return to camp with the help of Artemis' hunters, they start off on yet another quest to save Annabeth from the traitorous Luke, and the very powerful evil forces he's joined himself with. Monsters abound.

Related websites:

• Author's site

• Official series site

• Percy Jackson fan club

The Sea of Monsters

This is Percy Jackson book #2. In my opinion, this one was better than the first one (The Lightning Thief), and that one was pretty darn good already. I really like the way Riordan takes things that pretty much everyone knows about (in this case, the Bermuda Triangle) and puts a really believable mythological edge to them.

Plot summary: Percy and his new friend Tyson are forced to play dodgeball with some rather burly new kids at his school. Of course, the game turns into a deadly fireball battle with Laistrygonian cannibals. That's just his typical bad luck, though. After word gets out about Percy setting the gym (and probably the whole school) on fire, his friend Annabeth takes him and Tyson to Camp Half-Blood, the only place that half-bloods, people with one parent from ancient Greek mythology, can live peacefully. Percy finds out that the camp's sacred borders are broken, and even though his enemy, the bully Clarisse, gets the official quest to find out what really happened and how to save the camp, Percy and his friends set off on their own adventure of monstrous proportions.

Related websites:

• Author's site

• Official series site

• Percy Jackson fan club

Vibes

This book by Amy Kathleen Ryan I got from the library as an impulse borrow. It was from my Hurry-up-we've-got-five-minutes-before-we-have-to-go-so-pick-some-random-books-up-even-if-you've-never-heard-of-them list. I read it in one day. It was so bad and predictable that it was good. The characters were all kind of the same (unpopular misanthrope freaks) and the storyline is centered around the main characters' hippie school, Journeys. You should read it for the author's witty descriptive language, but in all other aspects, not really worth it.

Kristi Carmichael thinks she's psychic. She can feel what people around her are thinking. According to Kristi, her friend Jacob constantly thinks about her "ginormous gazungas", the cutest and most popular boy in school believes she's really sick (that's probably because of her secondhand "found closet" of clothes), and her dad suddenly forces himself back into her life, with shocking news and the determination to be a real father to Kristi again. Armed with her MP3 chock full of opera that drowns out thoughts that people beam to her, Kristi tries to figure out what's really going on in her life.

Related websites:

• Author's site

Keeping the Moon

Sarah Dessen book #3...

When my friends saw that I was reading Keeping the Moon, they all went "ewwww!" and told me that this was Sarah Dessen's worst book. However, when people tell me that, it only makes me want to read the book even more. So I read it. And guess what? It was actually pretty good. It was nowhere near This Lullaby, but hey, the main character deals with very realistic problems of adjusting to a new city (something I'm going to do in a month), and I'm a big sucker for happy endings.

Plot summary: Colie has enough problems at her old school already. First, she was singled out for being fat, and now post-weight-loss Colie still can't fit in. She's less than pleased when her mom sends her off to live with her overly eccentric aunt in small-town Colby, North Carolina for the summer. However, Colie's in for a surprise when college girls Isabel and Morgan (plus "art freak" Norman) decide to teach Colie how to totally redo her lifestyle and her reputation. And then when two of the Colby residents closest to her run into complications of their own, Colie has to change her mindset yet again to help them out of trouble.

Related websites:

• Author's site

Oops

I just found out that there is another blog out there called Literary Pizazz. I just wanted to say that I had never seen that blog until today, and the name of my blog was completely made up by me. It wasn't until later that I found out about the other Literary Pizazz.

That was really repetitive.

Percy Jackson and enchiladas

Hi again. I just finished the first three (and a half) books of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan. I think my friends got me started on these when they brought the fifth book (the Last Olympian book everyone is talking about) to school and buried their noses in the pages for the whole day. Afterwards, they started saying "enchiladas!!!" over and over again. So I got the first book and read it in one day. We were on a field trip, and every five minutes, you'd hear me going BWAHAHAHA or SNORT or making other eloquent noises like that because the book was so hilarious. The series is centered on ancient Greek mythology, a topic which I learned about in kindergarten, and have been interested in ever since. So naturally, they would mention some new character, and I would be like, duh, that's supposed to be so-and-so.

Plot summary of The Lightning Thief (first book):

Percy Jackson, twelve year-old boy with ADD and dyslexia, can't stop getting expelled from various boarding schools. It's the same thing every year, until the class trip to a museum suddenly turns Ancient Greek. But we're talking real live centaurs here. His mom suddenly decides to send Percy away to Camp Half-Blood, where she says he can learn to control his abilities as a hero. And poor Percy doesn't have a clue what in the world is going on. Soon, with the help of his new friends at camp, Percy must use his newfound powers to save the Gods' most prized possession before everyone's time is up.

Related websites:

• Author's site

• Official series site

• Percy Jackson fan club

Someone Like You

Someone Like You: Honestly, I don't really see why everyone is practically drooling over this book. Yes, it was good, but compared to the other two Sarah Dessen books on here, bleh. The storyline was nice and well-thought-out, but for me, the book itself was kind of depressing. And I read it during testing week in school, so that probably made it worse.

But it was pretty sweet of Scarlett to name Grace after her best friend.

Anyway. Plot summary. Best friends Halley and Scarlett face a difficult episode in their life when the boy Scarlett loved was killed in a motorcycle crash. Then heartbroken Scarlett finds out she is carrying her ex-boyfriend's baby. Halley, usually the shy one, has to stand up for her best friend through all the challenges that high school life can bring.

Related websites:

• Author's site

Sarah Dessen (and This Lullaby)

Sarah Dessen, the teenage girl's stereotypical favorite author. So far, I've read three of her books: This Lullaby, Someone Like You, and Keeping the Moon. Her books deal with very realistic problems that girls are likely to have. Basically, all of the books seem really similar at first glance (girl has problem. Parents get involved. Girl meets boy. Boy helps her solve problem OR girl solves problem herself. Girl and boy realize they like each other. Happy ending.), but if you read carefully, you'll see that each book is different in its own way.

This Lullaby: Eighteen year-old responsible and organized Remy is too busy running the household in place of her irresponsible mom, who is preparing for her fifth marriage. Ever since her dad left, she hasn't believed in committing herself to anything long-term, especially relationships. Then she meets Dexter, who is pretty much her polar opposite. Although Remy tries really hard, she can't seem to let go of the quirky and totally disorganized aspiring lead singer.

Related websites:

• Author's site