Book Review: Winter - Marissa Meyer

Title: Winter
Author: Marissa Meyer
Publication Date:  November 10th 2015
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Pages: 824
Link to Goodreads: Here
Part of a Series: Book 4 of the Lunar Chronicles

Plot: Princess Winter is admired by the Lunar people for her grace and kindness, and despite the scars that mar her face, her beauty is said to be even more breathtaking than that of her stepmother, Queen Levana.

Winter despises her stepmother, and knows Levana won’t approve of her feelings for her childhood friend—the handsome palace guard, Jacin. But Winter isn’t as weak as Levana believes her to be and she’s been undermining her stepmother’s wishes for years. Together with the cyborg mechanic, Cinder, and her allies, Winter might even have the power to launch a revolution and win a war that’s been raging for far too long.

Can Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter defeat Levana and find their happily ever afters?

Reading Period: January 04, 2016 - January 08, 2016

Book Review: Cress - Marissa Meyer

Title: Cress
Author: Marissa Meyer
Publication Date:  February 4th 2014
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Pages: 550
Link to Goodreads: Here
Part of a Series: Book 3 of the Lunar Chronicles

Plot: Even in the future. there are damsels in distress...

In the third installment of the Lunar chronicles, Cress, having risked everything to warn Cinder of Queen Levana's evil plan, has a slight problem. She's been imprisoned on a satellite since childhood and has only ever had her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress a great hacker. Unfortunately, she's just received orders from Levana to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice. 

When a daring rescue of Cress involving Cinder, Captain Thorne, Scarlet, and Wolf goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes as a high price. Meanwhile, Levana will let nothing prevent her marriage to emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only hope the world has. 

Reading Period: December 27, 2015 - December 29, 2015

Book Review - The Game of Lives - James Dashner

Title: The Game of Lives
Author: James Dashner
Publication Date: November 17th 2015
Publisher: Delacorte Books
Pages: 352
Link to Goodreads: Here
Part of a Series: Book 3 of the Mortality Doctine

Plot: Michael used to live to game.

Now the games he was playing have become all too real. Only weeks ago, Sinking into the Sleep was fun. The VirtNet combined the most cutting-edge technology and the most sophisticated gaming for a full mind-body experience. And it was Michael’s passion. But now every time Michael Sinks, he risks his life.

The games are over. The VirtNet has become a world of deadly consequences, and Kaine grows stronger by the day. The Mortality Doctrine—Kaine’s master plan—has nearly been realized, and little by little the line separating the virtual from the real is blurring. If Kaine succeeds, it will mean worldwide cyber domination. And it looks like Michael and his friends are the only ones who can put the monster back in the box—if Michael can figure out who his friends really are.

Reading Period: January 13, 2016 - January 16, 2016

Book Review: The Rules of Thoughts - James Dashner

Title: The Rules of Thoughts
Author: James Dashner
Publication Date: August 26th 2014
Publisher: Delacorte Books
Pages: 304
Link to Goodreads: Here
Part of a Series: Book 2 of the Mortality Doctine

Plot: Michael completed the Path.What he found at the end turned everything he’d ever known about his life—and the world—completely upside down.

   He barely survived. But it was the only way VirtNet Security knew to find the cyber-terrorist Kaine—and to make the Sleep safe for gamers once again. And, the truth Michael discovered about Kaine is more complex than they anticipated, and more terrifying than even the worst of their fears.

   Kaine is a tangent, a computer program that has become sentient. And Michael’s completing the Path was the first stage in turning Kaine’s master plan, the Mortality Doctrine, into a reality.

   The Mortality Doctrine will populate Earth entirely with human bodies harboring tangent minds. Any gamer who sinks into the VirtNet risks coming out with a tangent intelligence in control of their body. 

   And the takeover has already begun.

Reading Period: October 15, 2015 - October 20, 2015

Book review: The Eye of Minds - James Dashner

Title: The Eye of Minds
Author: James Dashner
Publication Date: October 8th 2013
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Pages: 308
Link to Goodreads: Here
Part of a Series: Book 1 of the Mortality Doctrine

Plot: Michael is a gamer. And like most gamers, he almost spends more time on the VirtNet than in the actual world. The VirtNet offers total mind and body immersion, and it’s addictive. Thanks to technology, anyone with enough money can experience fantasy worlds, risk their life without the chance of death, or just hang around with Virt-friends. And the more hacking skills you have, the more fun. Why bother following the rules when most of them are dumb, anyway?

But some rules were made for a reason. Some technology is too dangerous to fool with. And recent reports claim that one gamer is going beyond what any gamer has done before: he’s holding players hostage inside the VirtNet. The effects are horrific—the hostages have all been declared brain-dead. Yet the gamer’s motives are a mystery.

The government knows that to catch a hacker, you need a hacker.

And they’ve been watching Michael. They want him on their team. But the risk is enormous. If he accepts their challenge, Michael will need to go off the VirtNet grid. There are back alleys and corners in the system human eyes have never seen and predators he can’t even fathom—and there’s the possibility that the line between game and reality will be blurred forever.

Reading Period: August 17, 2015 -  August 18, 2015

Review

Book Review: Scarlet - Marissa Meyer

Title: Scarlet
Author: Marissa Meyer
Publication Date: February 5th 2013
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Pages: 464
Link to Goodreads: Here
Part of a Series: Book 2 of the Lunar Chronicles

Plot: Cinder, the cyborg mechanic, returns in the second thrilling installment of the bestselling Lunar Chronicles. She's trying to break out of prison--even though if she succeeds, she'll be the Commonwealth's most wanted fugitive. 

Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit's grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn't know about her grandmother or the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. When Scarlet encounters Wolf, a street fighter who may have information as to her grandmother's whereabouts, she is loath to trust this stranger, but is inexplicably drawn to him, and he to her. 

As Scarlet and Wolf unravel one mystery, they encounter another when they meet Cinder. Now, all of them must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen Levana, who will do anything for the handsome Prince Kai to become her husband, her king, her prisoner.

Reading Period: October 10, 2015 - October 14, 2015

Book Review: Illuminae - A. Kaufman & J. Kristoff

Title: Illuminae
Authors: Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
Publication Date: October 20th 2015
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Pages: 599
Link to Goodreads: Here
Part of a Series: Book 1 of the Illuminae Files

Plot: This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do.

This afternoon, her planet was invaded.

The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to fight their way onto an evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.

But their problems are just getting started. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet's AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth, it's clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she'd never speak to again.

Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping, high-octane trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes.

Reading Period: December 04, 2015 - January 03, 2016