Waiting on Wednesday #72: Reckoning

Waiting on Wednesday is a wonderful meme created by Jill from Breaking the Spine where we highlighted an upcoming release that we're eagerly anticipating.

Reckoning (Silver Blackthorn #1)
by Kerry Wilkinson 
Hardcover, 368 pages
Expected publication: July 1st 2014 
by St. Martin's Griffin (first published May 22nd 2014)
by HarperTeen

Goodreads | 

One girl. One reckoning. One destiny. 

In a far-off future, after years of war and famine have eliminated all technological advancement, returning society to a feudal system, in the village of Martindale, hundreds of miles north of the new English capital of Windsor, sixteen-year-old Silver Blackthorn takes the Reckoning. This coming-of-age test not only decides her place in society – Elite, Member, Inter or Trog – but also determines that Silver is to become an Offering for King Victor. 

But these are uncertain times and no one really knows what happens to the teenagers who disappear into Windsor Castle. Is being an Offering the privilege everyone assumes it to be, or do the walls of the castle have something to hide? 

Trapped in a maze of ancient corridors, Silver finds herself in a warped world of suspicion where it is difficult to know who to trust and who to fear. In this novel by Kerry Wilkinson, the one thing Silver does know is that she must find a way out . . . 

I'm not sure to which sub-genre does this qualify? Dystopian? Historical YA? It's a mixture of both. I'm just curious as to how the story will played out.

Review: The Taking

The Taking (The Taking #1)
by Kimberly Derting 
Hardcover, 368 pages 
Expected publication: April 29th 2014
 by HarperTeen
ARC from Netgalley
Goodreads | Amazon| B & N | TBD

A flash of white light . . . and then . . . nothing. When sixteen-year-old Kyra Agnew wakes up behind a Dumpster at the Gas ’n’ Sip, she has no memory of how she got there. With a terrible headache and a major case of déjà vu, she heads home only to discover that five years have passed . . . yet she hasn’t aged a day. 

Everything else about Kyra’s old life is different. Her parents are divorced, her boyfriend, Austin, is in college and dating her best friend, and her dad has changed from an uptight neat-freak to a drunken conspiracy theorist who blames her five-year disappearance on little green men.

Confused and lost, Kyra isn’t sure how to move forward unless she uncovers the truth. With Austin gone, she turns to Tyler, Austin’s annoying kid brother, who is now seventeen and who she has a sudden undeniable attraction to. As Tyler and Kyra retrace her steps from the fateful night of her disappearance, they discover strange phenomena that no one can explain, and they begin to wonder if Kyra’s father is not as crazy as he seems. There are others like her who have been taken . . . and returned. Kyra races to find an explanation and reclaim the life she once had, but what if the life she wants back is not her own?

Have you ever watch this show called 4400 where people just vanished into thin air and then came back so suddenly without seeming to age and now they gained cool new superpowers?

Yes, this is basically the plot of this book. Kyra; the star of her high school soccer team suddenly disappeared after jumping out of her dad's car during an argument. Five years later she re appeared and discovered that everyone had thought she was dead and had moved on with their lives. 

As Kyra desperately tried to come to grips with the changes around her (her mother had remarried, her boyfriend's kid brother now have the hots for her) she also found out that she's not the only one who has been taken and all of the taken returned with some kind of superhuman abilities but not without some consequences. Their blood is apparently lethal to normal human beings and once come into contact can cause immediate death.

With sinister secret agents hell bent on hunting and rounding up all of the taken, Kyra is forced to flee her home with the help of Simon; a stranger claiming to be one of the taken. Despite the obvious similarities between the book and the show, it's hard not to get swept away by the conspiracy theory and the burning desire to uncover who or what actually abducted all of these people in the first place and the real reason why they were taken. For me,the main pull of the story is in solving that mystery  because the characters (especially Kyra) just annoyed me most of the time.

Understandably since it is part of the series, we will not get a conclusive explanation regarding to the kidnapping but that ending is just way bizarre for me to even make sense of.

Waiting on Wednesday #71: The Fever

Waiting on Wednesday is a wonderful meme created by Jill from Breaking the Spine where we highlighted an upcoming release that we're eagerly anticipating.

The Fever: A Novel 
by Megan Abbott 
Hardcover, 320 pages 
Expected publication: June 17th 2014 
 by Little, Brown and Company

Goodreads | 

The panic unleashed by a mysterious contagion threatens the bonds of family and community in a seemingly idyllic suburban community. 

The Nash family is close-knit. Tom is a popular teacher, father of two teens: Eli, a hocky star and girl magnet, and his sister Deenie, a diligent student. Their seeming stability, however, is thrown into chaos when Deenie's best friend is struck by a terrifying, unexplained seizure in class. Rumors of a hazardous outbreak spread through the family, school and community. 

As hysteria and contagion swell, a series of tightly held secrets emerges, threatening to unravel friendships, families and the town's fragile idea of security. 

When I first saw the cover, I really thought that this is a ghost story reminiscent of The Exorcist. But apparently its more Contagion than The Exorcist. Still, I might just give it a try.

Review: A World Without Princes

A World Without Princes 
(The School for Good and Evil #2)
by Soman Chainani 
Kindle Edition, 400 pages 
April 15th 2014
by HarperCollins
ARC from Netgalley
Goodreads | Amazon| B & N | TBD

In the epic sequel to the New York Times bestselling novel, The School for Good and Evil, Sophie and Agatha are home, living out their Ever After. But life isn’t quite the fairy tale they expected.

When Agatha secretly wishes she’d chosen a different happy ending, she reopens the gates to the School for Good and Evil. But the world she and Sophie once knew has changed. 

Witches and princesses, warlocks and princes are no longer enemies. New bonds are forming; old bonds are being shattered. But underneath this uneasy arrangement, a war is brewing and a dangerous enemy rises. As Agatha and Sophie battle to restore peace, an unexpected threat could destroy everything, and everyone, they love—and this time, it comes from within.

Just as we thought that both girls had their own version of happy ending in the previous book, Sophie and Agatha are forced to face the consequences of their choices. As much as I like the first book which I really thought was a stand alone, the second book tend to feel drawn-out at times.

I just feel as if this is not up to the excitement of the first book maybe because I feel so bad for Agatha most of the time and was annoyed how clueless and ignorant Sophie can be. And as the girls discovered that the witches and princesses have banded together to re-write new fairy tales and create a new Ever After, things took a very evil new twist with princes now becoming the girls' adversary of sorts. You could say that this book is like an epic battle of the sexes.

And the turn of events in that jaw-dropping ending is like a turn-around to the final chapter of book one where each girl make their own choices of happy endings or in this case a not-so-happy ending. I'm just intrigued to find out how things will be in the next book.