Review: Eve Trilogy

Title(s): Eve, Once, Rise

Author: Anna Carey

Series: Eve Trilogy

Publisher: Harper Collins
Genre: YA/Dystopian

Release Date: 2011, 2012, 2013

Sixteen years after a deadly virus wiped out most of Earth's population, the world is a perilous place. Eighteen-year-old Eve has never been beyond the heavily guarded perimeter of her school, where she and two hundred other orphaned girls have been promised a future as the teachers and artists of the New America. But the night before graduation, Eve learns the shocking truth about her school's real purpose and the horrifying fate that awaits her.

Fleeing the only home she's ever known, Eve sets off on a long, treacherous journey, searching for a place she can survive. Along the way she encounters Arden, her former rival from school, and Caleb, a rough, rebellious boy living in the wild. Separated from men her whole life, Eve has been taught to fear them, but Caleb slowly wins her trust... and her heart. He promises to protect her, but when soldiers begin hunting them, Eve must choose between true love and her life. 

-taken from Goodreads

This was another dystopian series that I picked up at random. When I first started Eve, the first book, I wasn't sure how I felt. The writing felt like it was geared to a much younger audience than, say, The Hunger Games. It threw me off, but I did like that the story appeared to be a nod to The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood (which I recently reviewed). Not only was the plot similar, but the book actually opens with a quote from The Handmaid's Tale, making it clear that Carey knew what she was doing. The first few chapters progressed much faster than I had anticipated. It felt like the author was rushing me through some key points so that she could get to the good part: ok here's your main character, she lives in a school, oh and there's this other character who's breaking out and on the same night Eve finds out the truth and breaks out too. I swear that's all just in the first couple of chapters.

However, once Eve's journey begins, the book finds a good pace. I really enjoyed all of the characters; I thought they were all well written and diverse and relatable. The way the world and the government were set up made perfect sense and I loved reading about her days spent in the wild.

Now here's where things get interesting to me: I thought the second book, Once, was the best in the trilogy. Let me repeat that. The MIDDLE book of a trilogy was MY FAVORITE. This has never happened before and may never happen again. In this book, Eve's journey takes her the Sand City (no spoilers on how or why) and there happens a major twist that I did not see coming. I'm a sucker for a good twist and I ended up finishing this book in just a few hours as a result. I also loved how much Eve grows emotionally in Once. She really starts to take care of herself and make good decisions and even when she's forced into situations beyond her control, she doesn't just lay down and take it. She makes the most of what's thrown at her and doesn't break.

On the heels of the awesomeness of Once comes Rise, ironically named as the story actually descends into blahness. The story starts to have that rushed feeling again and it's as though the author got tired and said "ok now this happens, this happens, and this happens." The most disappointing part was the ending. For the majority of the book, you pretty much know what the big climactic ending will be, and then it's almost no ending at all. It feels like a huge loss when Carey basically just cuts you off from the scene you've been waiting for. I'm trying to come to terms with it and not let the ending ruin the entire series. I keep going back to how good that middle book was and then I feel ok with imagining my own ending.

I have to give the overall series 3 hearts. That middle book kept it from falling to 2 and the ending of the third book kept it from rising to 4. And so it goes.

Buy it: Amazon, Barnes and Noble

Review: Matched Series

Title(s): Matched/Crossed/Reached

Author: Ally Condie

Series: Matched Series

Publisher: Dutton Books for Young Readers
Genre: YA/Dystopian

Release Date: 2010, 2011, 2012

Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate... until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.

The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.

-taken from Goodreads

Once again, I'm going to review a series as a whole instead of doing each book individually. When all the books in the series have already been published when I start reading them, then I usually finish them in under a week - it seems silly to post a separate blog post for each one 3 days in a row.

The Matched series was very interesting for me in that I finished it having no idea how I felt about it. I don't think I've ever finished a book or series and not been sure whether I liked it or not.

Matched, the first book, had me completely hooked from chapter one. The idea of every aspect of your life (from the food you eat and the clothes you wear to the person you marry and how many children you have) being decided for you by the government was so intriguing. I was fascinated by these people's lives and the way they seemed to just blindly accept everything they were told.

Condie does a wonderful job of making the reader see how easily our own world could turn into this one. As a result, the poignancy of Cassia's feelings toward creativity and what little art she's allowed to experience was amplified by my own feelings toward art - I couldn't help but think about how I would feel if I were limited to only 100 paintings or 100 songs. Thanks to our technological advances, our world has become indundated with art...anyone can write a story, sing a song, or draw a picture and thousands of people could see it online somewhere by tomorrow. The Matched series reminded me to try and truly appreciate the opportunities I've been given to be able to freely create and view beauty in my world.

I leave you with a quote from Crossed - it's my favorite little passage in the whole series because it's about love and it's so true.

"Everyone has something of beauty about them. In the beginning for me, it was Ky’s eyes I noticed, and I love them still. But loving lets you look, and look, and look again. You notice the back of a hand, the turn of a head, the way of a walk. When you first love, you look blind and you see it all as the glorious, beloved whole, or a beautiful sum of beautiful parts. But when you see the one you love as pieces, as whys—why he walks like this, why he closes his eyes like that—you can love those parts, too, and it’s a love at once more complicated and more complete."

Buy it: Amazon, Barnes and Noble

Review: Dry Bones

Title: Dry Bones
Series: Walt Longmire
Author: Craig Johnson
Publisher: Viking
Genre: Mystery
320 pages
Release Date: May 12, 2015

When the largest, most complete fossil of a Tyrannosaurus Rex is discovered in Absaroka County, it would appear to have nothing to do with Walt. That is, until the Cheyenne rancher who finds her is found face down in a turtle pond. As a number of parties vie for ownership of the priceless remains, including rancher Danny Lone Elk’s family, the Cheyenne tribe, the Deputy Attorney General, and a cadre of FBI men, Walt must recruit undersheriff Victoria Moretti, Henry Standing Bear, and Dog to investigate a sixty-six million year-old cold case that’s starting to heat up fast.

-taken from Goodreads

I received this book as a part of Penguin's First to Read program. I usually request multiple books in the hopes I'll get picked for something...anything...and this one sounded good so I requested it. I have now learned my lesson. I should always research the book at least a little bit because Dry Bones turned out to be book #11 in a series! Whoops - I ended up with lots of wondering who people were and being given glimpses of past events that I knew nothing about. I have to hand it to Craig Johnson though, because he was not one to review copious amounts of detail from previous books and had I read the rest of the series, I would have been really happy about that.

As for the book itself, I did enjoy it. Johnson has a very dry way of writing in. He lays out the facts and tells you a story without cluttering up pages with long descriptive prose and emotions. I still felt like I connected with the characters and it made the book feel fast-paced and constantly moving forward.

I really like Longmire as a character - I love his dry sense of humor the most. It's written from his perspective and I actually chuckled out loud at some his inner thoughts about people. Johnson has an interesting way with phrases that was very entertaining for me. For example, when he said a man "looked like a bad smell." I love interesting writing that avoids cliches and overused phrases!

I definitely plan to start this series from the beginning some time in the future.

Buy it: Amazon, Barnes and Noble

Review: Last Man Off

Title: Last Man Off: A True Story of Disaster and Survival on the Antarctic Seas
Author: Matt Lewis
Publisher: Plume
Genre: Non-Fiction
256 pages
Release Date: May 12, 2015

...a gripping true story of disaster and heroism...against a breathtaking backdrop of icebergs and killer whales. On June 6, 1998, twenty-three-year-old Matt Lewis had just started his dream job as a scientific observer aboard a deep-sea fishing boat in the waters off Antarctica. As the crew haul in the line for the day, a storm begins to brew. When the captain vanishes and they are forced to abandon ship, Lewis leads the escape onto three life rafts, where the battle for survival begins.

-taken from Goodreads

I was immediately interested in this book because of my fascination with Antarctica, which is a result of my fascination with whales (if you're not following, narwhals live in Antarctica) but that's neither here nor here.

The story grabbed me right from the start. Just the idea of being a marine biologist is fascinating to me, so I enjoyed reading about how Matt found his job and the steps he had to go through before finally ending up on a ship. He did a great job of relaying exactly what it's like to be onboard a fishing vessel and what the comraderie is like amongst the crew.

What took me by surprise was how much it made me think. I was taken aback by the actions of some of the crew and it really made me wonder how I would hold up in a life-threatening situation. I commend Matt for being a really good guy who somehow managed to take charge amongst a group of men who had loads more experience than he did.

I received this book from Penguin's First to Read program.

Buy it: Amazon, Barnes and Noble

Review: It Had to Be Him

Title: It Had to Be HimSeries: It Had to Be Series
Author: Tamra Baumann
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Genre: Romance
278 pages
Release Date: April 2015

Even though Meg Anderson’s hell-raising days are over, coming home to Anderson Butte isn’t easy, especially when her impossible-to-please dad is the mayor and her do-gooder siblings run the place. But with another job lost and the gorgeous father of her daughter trying to make contact after disappearing three years ago, a break is definitely in order. Hopefully the little town filled with big, juicy secrets can help.

After being off the grid for years, Josh Granger, a man with his own secrets, wants Meg and his daughter back. But first he has to get past townspeople as protective as a pack of rottweilers. He’s not the man Meg thinks he is, but he can’t tell her why…not yet.

As Meg slowly warms to Josh, it’s clear the old spark is still there. But when his secret is exposed—along with Meg’s own shocking revelation—will it tear their family apart again, or bind them forever?

-taken from Goodreads

I'm kind of weird about the order in which I read books. If I read a complex mystery or something really heavy and dark, then I can't just switch to a YA novel or a comedy memoir immediately after that. For some reason in my brain, making that switch harms my perception of the lighter/younger stuff, so that's where romance novels come in.

Romance novels are my palette cleanser.

Now I'm not trying to be rude to romance novels so let me also say I LOVE romance novels. That's pretty much all I read growing up (my grandmother ran her church library and clean romance novels are the heart's blood of church libraries) and I still read a lot of them. They're the perfect escape from reality - they're usually light fluffy reads intended to have a feel-good ending.

Anyway, after reading the long epic novel, Kushiel's Dart, I needed a palette cleanser so I downloaded It Had to Be Him from Amazon's Kindle First program. It was very cute - what really made it stand out to me was the variety of unique characters. Meg's gun-toting grandmother is hilarious and doesn't hesitate to shoot trespassers - even if the trespassers are part of her family. Meg has a strained relationship with her father, and yet fixing that relationship isn't really a focus in the story. Her siblings are all very protective of each other in very different ways - all in all, I just really loved everyone. I'll probably be looking into books in the same series in the future.



Buy it: Amazon (free with Kindle Unlimited!), Barnes and Noble

Review: The Fair Fight

Title: The Fair Fight
Author: Anna Freeman
Publisher: PenguinGenre: Historical Fiction480 pages
Release Date: April 2015

Born into a brothel, Ruth's future looks bleak until she catches the eye of Mr. Dryer. A rich Bristol merchant and enthusiast of the ring, he trains gutsy Ruth as a puglist. Soon she rules the blood-spattered sawdust at the infamous Hatchet Inn.

Dryer's wife Charlotte lives in the shadows. A grieving orphan, she hides away, scarred by smallpox, ignored by Dryer, and engaged in dangerous mind games with her brother.

When Dryer sidelines Ruth after a disastrous fight, and focuses on training her husband Tom, Charlotte presents Ruth with an extraordinary proposition. As the tension mounts before Tom's Championship fight, two worlds collide with electrifying consequences.

- taken from Goodreads

I received this book through the Penguin First to Read program.

The story was a little bit slow to start, but it only took a few chapters to draw me in. It follows three main characters: Ruth, a female fighter who had been born and raised in a brothel, George, a middle class gambler trying to make his way in the world, and Charlotte, the sister of George's best friend. The majority of the plot revolves around the world of fighting in the rings of Bristol, a subject I knew next to nothing about, especially female fighting, so I was intrigued and happy to learn something new.

One of my favorite things about the story is how the three different POVs overlapped so that you could read multiple perspectives on a single scene. Initially I was disappointed in the characters themselves because I didn't really feel a connection with any of them (I like for books to make me feel). But then it seemed that as Charlotte started to grow and change (and her story was my favorite to follow), so did my feelings for these characters. Suddenly they were much more real and I was transformed into a raving feminist on the sidelines, cheering for these poor tragic women to win in life.



Buy it: Amazon, Barnes and Noble