Uncommon Criminals

Heist Society #2

by

Ally Carter

Kat’s successful raid on the Henley has made her a star among thieves and brought her back to the family business–sort of. Following in the steps of the mysterious Visily Romani, she’s been doing solo missions to reclaim art stolen by the Nazis during World War II. When she’s approached by a woman claiming to be the rightful owner of one of the world’s most valuable gems, the Cleopatra Emerald, it’s difficult to turn down the job… especially when it was Visily Romani who sent her to Kat. And hey, the fact that the gem is supposedly cursed and that even the greatest criminals in the world have failed to steal it–including the head of her own family–is no big deal, right?

The second book in the Heist Society series follows in the footsteps of the first, setting readers up for lots of action and another great heist. The story has some interesting twists and delves a bit deeper into the past of Kat’s family. Kat continues to be an interesting and believable heroine,  with the book’s villain acting as a foil to her. It doesn’t quite have the punch of book one, but it was definitely a fun read and I’m hoping Carter will continue the series soon, as I’ve really enjoyed it.

Heist Society

Heist Society #1

by

Ally Carter

Kat was three when she did her first job. By fifteen she’s well experience in the art of thievery. Cons? Heists? Getaways? She’s done them all. But her biggest getaway yet was dropping out of the family business. Her attempt at a normal life is cut short when her friend and co-conspirator, Hale, arrives with news that her father is in trouble. A mobster’s private art collection has been stolen and her dad is the chief suspect even though he claims he was doing a completely different job the night of the theft. With few options left to her, Kat undertakes the most important job of her criminal life: tracking down the stolen paintings… and stealing them back.

Heist Society is a delightful page-turner in the tradition of heist films—think young adult version of Ocean’s Eleven or The Italian Job. As in these types of films, the characters are depicted as loveable criminals who, while thieves, are not dangerous or evil. The plot features a number of exciting twists and turns and a great lead up and execution of the heist. It also manages to do a great job of bringing to life the group of teens who make up Kat’s crew and showcasing the family dynamics at work between them as well as the romantic tension between Kat and Hale. This was a really fun, if quick, read and I moved right on to the next book.

Divergent

The Divergent Trilogy 

by

Veronica Roth

The population of Chicago is divided into five factions, each of which believes in a particular path to order. Abnegation believes in selflessness, Dauntless in bravery, Amity in harmony, Candor in honesty, and Erudite in knowledge. Born into Abnegation, Beatrice Prior has just turned sixteen, and now she and the others of her age must choose whether to remain in the factions they were born into, or leave their families behind to join a new faction. She has never felt quite at home in Abnegation. She had hoped her aptitude test would bring clarity to her decision but instead, it tells her that she is something very dangerous: she is divergent. She doesn’t fit into just one faction and it’s a secret that follows even through her initiation into the Dauntless faction. If Dauntless training doesn’t kill her–as it well may do–being found out as divergent will.

Read More

So Yesterday

The Gardener

by

S.A. Bodeen

A childhood run-in with a dog left Mason with gruesome facial scars that, combined with the stature of a football player, leave most people rather intimidated. Far from being a jock or a bully, Mason is reserved and has a penchant for heroism. When he is present to see a comatose girl his age wake from her stupor with no memory of her life but an urgent need to escape, what else can he do but help? That decision takes him on a quest that will lead him deep into the mystery of the multi-national research company that fuels his home town, and to secrets that shroud his family’s past.

Read More

Books I started and gave up on…

Matched by Ally Condie: Started this but didn’t get too far. The fact that the dystopic fantasy seems to centre around a love triangle of sorts was enough to put me off.

Shiver by Maggie Steifvater: I’m torn about whether I should continue with this one. It’s painfully slow much in the Twilight tradition with little plot besides the love story, but the writing is gorgeous. When the audio file comes on even in a random spot, I just stop and start listening to the flow of words. 

I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore: I got about halfway through before I just switched to another book for the simple reason that this one was somewhat generic and not terribly interesting.

The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgis: A random thriller that piqued my interest because it takes place during World War II. It annoyed me greatly at the outset by using a framing narrative that claimed that the story that followed is entirely true, a literary technique that dates back to the dawn of the novel when people were wary of fiction because it was seen as lies. The technique is still used sometimes now, by the Percy Jackson series for example, but I feel it was ill-used in this case because while it obvious that Percy Jackson is a fiction, many readers will not be well enough versed in World War II history to know which details are fact and which are fiction. I had to go to Wikipedia to sort it out, which annoyed me. As for the plot, by the midpoint the impeding disasters of the Nazi plan seemed painfully predictable and I lost ineterest.

Lost to the West by Lars Brownworth: The book details the history of the Byzantine empire. It’s accessible and well written. I stopped about halfway through mainly on account of being tired of all the backstabbing and plotting that went on.

April 4, 1968 by Michael Eric Dyson: I was expecting more of a history of Martin Luther King Junior but the book read a lot more like a dissertation on the civil right movement and wasn’t quite was I was hoping for.

Kraken by  China Miéville: I may actually have been reading this in late 2010 instead of 2011– I’m not sure. The writing is the real highlight of this dark urban fantasy (and ode of Lovecraft) but I stopped after a five or so hours due to the flatness of the characters.

The Scorch Trials

The Maze Runner Trilogy, book 2

by

James Dashner

The Scorch Trails picks up right where The Mazer Runner left off. Though Thomas and the others boys believe they are finally in a safe haven, the illusion lasts only a matter of hours. They wake up in the night to find that Theresa is missing, a new boy left in his place, and a new trial is presented to them. They are told that they’ve all been infected with the deadly illness known as the Flare. If they wish to obtain the cure they must cross the inhospitable landscape known as the Scorch.

This book has more emotional intensity than the first. We see a lot more of Thomas’s emotions now that he knows the other boys and because of the separation from Theresa and our glimpses of their past together. Their predicament is dire and painful to read especially for anyone who’s able to guess where it’s going. The story itself also moves at a much quicker pace as the boys move from one danger to the next with barely a moment’s pause. It’s also much darker than the first book as we learn more about the dystopic future it portrays and the violence within is swift and brutal if not overly graphic.

The Carbon Diaries 2015

The Carbon Diaries

by

Saci Lloyd

In the face of rapid climate change and increasing fuel shortage, the U.K. is now under strict carbon rationing. In the midst of this social upheaval and environmental chaos, Laura Brown also has to deal with schoolwork, an increasingly insane family life, keeping her band together, and trying to get the cute boy next door to notice her.

Read More

A Great and Terribly Beauty

Gemma Doyle Trilogy

by

Libba Bray

Unlike most Victorian girls who spend their youth in London, Gemma Doyle has grow up in the far reaches of the British Empire, that is to say, India. Gemma’s life takes a sharp turn when her mother is killed by a strange magical being and she herself begins to have strange visions. Shipped off to a boarding school in London, Gemma begins to be overwhelmed by the visions and tangled in the web of nastiness and duplicity of the school’s other inmates. Soon she finds that her visions are more real than she could have guessed and that she has the power to open the door to a realm of magic and danger that promises power and delights, but also a being that can devour her very soul.

Read More

The Soloist

by

Steve Lopez

Once a bassist  at Juilliard, the prestigious New York City music school, Nathaniel Ayers dropped out due to schizophrenia. Thirty years later, he ends up living in Skid Row, L.A. playing a violin with only two strings. It sounds like fiction, but L.A. Times reporter Steve Lopez tells the all-too-true story of his encounter with Nathaniel, which, at first is just an interesting column but soon becomes an unusual friendship. 

Ayers, intelligent and musically gifted but whose life was derailed by metal illness, is a fascinating figure. Lopez does an excellent job of recounting the development of his friendship with him and the anxieties, revelations, and ups and downs along the way. Interspersed with the core narrative, so to speak, is all the background information about Ayers’ past gleaned from interviews with family and friends (his family background, his developing interest in music, his time at Juilliard, his breakdown) and Lopez’s own investigation into the metal health system in Los Angeles. Lopez does an amazing job of combining a personal narrative with journalistic investigation so that The Soloist reads more like a novel than a work of non-fiction and leaves readers eager to move through the chapters.