Room - Emma Donoghue (2010)

Mac lent this book to me saying it was the best book she read all year, and I have to admit I was disappointed. It's a book that made me really paranoid about being kidnapped off the street and really made me think about the world differently, so if you enjoy books that make you think, I strongly recommend this book.

I think the writing style of this book was really interesting as it is from the perspective of a five year old boy, so he capitalizes inanimate objects as he thinks they are real living things. The plot was a really good idea as well, I actually found it quite disturbing, especially the idea of a five year old with waist long hair breastfeeding, that is an image you will find hard to get rid of. This book had good writing and a good plot, it just didn't grab my attention that much.

For plot summary, see Mac's previous blog.

You Against Me - Jenny Downham (2010)

This book was lent to me by Mac and I can believe that she gave Before I Die (also by Jenny Downham) 4 stars, and this book only 3. I liked this book so much more than Before I Die and found the storyline a lot more intriguing.

This book was an easy read and was very hard to put down once I got into it. I found the storyline interesting and the decision that Ellie had to face very thought-provoking. The best character, in my opinion, was Ellie, she had such a conflicting decision to make and I found it easy to like her personality. To top off the thought-provoking storyline and likeable characters it had a happy ending, which always earns points in my book.

For plot summary, see Mac's previous blog.

Divergent - Veronica Roth (2011)

This book was lent to me by Mac soon after she read it and the only reason that has been keeping me from reading this for so long is that she needed it back for her assignment. I hate her for keeping it from me for so long. The movie rights were optioned before the book was even released and I really hope they do the story justice.

I loved this book, I found the world interesting and the story refreshingly different from most dystopian novels I've read. I really loved the character Four, he was very gentle, humble and kind, yet brave and courageous at the same time, I really want him to be real just so I could marry him myself. I also found it fun to imagine which faction I would choose if I was in this situation and it was surprisingly hard to choose.

Tris lives in a world where the population is split into five factions each of which honour a different value and strive to achieve it. There is: Candor, which values honesty, Amity, which values peace, Erudite, which values knowledge, Abnegation, which values selflessness, and Dauntless, which values bravery. When Tris takes her aptitude test to see which faction she would do best in, she learns that she is a divergent someone that belongs in many factions, not just one. Tris then betrays her family, who are Abnegation, and moves to Dauntless, in which she makes many new friends and falls in love with Four, a training leader who also moved into Dauntless from Abnegation, a rare occurence. The night after initiation all the Dauntless members, who had been injected with a serum that can control their behaviour, form an army to destroy Abnegation as they are being controlled by an Erudite leader who wants to be in power. However, as Tris is a divergent, she is not controlled by the serum, neither is Four as he is also a Divergent, so Jeanine, the Erudite leader gives Four a serum she was developing that will work on Divergents. Tris' mum and dad then sacrifice themselves for her to get to the control room to stop the serum affecting people, however first she must pass Four, who was guarding the control room. She manages to do this without killing him and together they stop the serum and take the data that contained the serum's control code.

The Power of Six - Pittacus Lore (2011)

I was so excited for this book because I read I Am Number Four like six months before it was a movie and could not wait for this book. It was absolutely worth the wait.

I think I liked this book even more than the first book in the Lorien Legacies series and if they keep getting better I cannot wait for the next book, which hasn't even been confirmed yet. My favourite part in this book was learning more about Six and her seeing her character develop into more than just a warrior.


This book switches between the perspectives of John, who is with Six and Sam, and Marina, number seven. Marina has been living in a convent with her cepan, Adelina since they first arrived on earth because Adelina has started to believe in the nun's ways, this has left Marina to develop her legacies and look for the other Garde by herself. John, Sam and Six have a bit of a love triangle going as they are on the run, however when they learn that Sam's dad was a human that helped the Garde escape and was a Lorien ally that left a tracker to find their ship in his lair, they have to stop running and return to Paradise. They get the tracker, however John's chest gets stolen in the process and then he goes to see Sarah, who has been working with the police and has turned him in. Six breaks him and Sam out of jail and then they split up, with Six going to Spain to save Marina who is being attacked by Mogadorians, and Sam and John going to the mogadorians headquarters to get the chest. Six helps defeat the mogadorians with Marina and Ella, the tenth Garde who was sent on the second ship from Lorien and who has been with Marina for a while. John and Sam save the chests and find Nine captured in the cells, Sam then gets trapped in the cells while looking through them to find his father and John and Nine are blocked out of the headquarters by a forcefield as Setrakus Ra, the mogadorian leader, returns to join the fight.

Bloodlines - Richelle Mead (2011)

My cousin lent this book to me because she lent me the Vampire Academy series which I enjoyed. This is a spin off from that series, but it's written in the same type of style and fans will enjoy it.

I definitely enjoyed this book, I really liked the original series, and this book is written in the same way as the old series except revolving around Sydney and Jill. Richelle follows the same kind of plot structure she always does with lots of enjoyable dialogue until the last hundred pages when all the action happens. I really enjoyed how much Adrian was in the book considering how loveable his character is.


Sydney has been assigned to protect Jill from moroi assassins who wish to kill her so Lissa can no longer be queen. Jill has been sent to a college in Palm Springs with Sydney, Eddie, Adrian, to whom she is now spirit bound, and Keith, Sydney's boss who is an extreme dickhead in my opinion. Sydney eventually becomes fond of all her new vampire and dhampir friends and they help her discover that Keith has been selling vampire blood and saliva for his own personal gain. Sydney is then attacked by Lee, who was a moroi whom Jill had fallen for, he had previously been strigoi but had been restored by a spirit user and was now trying to become strigoi again. Adrian then comes to help Sydney, and eventually Eddie and Jill turn up to save the day, but not before they discover that Lee cannot become strigoi again and he dies trying to be turned by two other strigoi who he had called. Sydney is then assigned to stay on in Palm Springs in Keith's place and to head up a task force discovering about spirit's affect on strigoi, there is a little spark of romance between her and Adrian right before the end of the book, however Sydney is disheartened when her task force arrives and Dimitri is part of it.

Delirium - Lauren Oliver (2011)

I wanted to read this book when Mac bought it for a friend of ours for her birthday in February, she said she would lend it to me when she finished it however she still hasn't. So I borrowed it from another friend of mine on the recommendation that I would really like it, I did like it, but it's not as good as others in its genre.

I did like this book, I found it very similar to Matched by Ally Condie with the opressive society that chooses your husband or wife for you. I found that the character that never talked, Gracie, was my favourite. She was very interesting and helped keep Lena's home life interesting.


This book is set in a future where love is a disease which you are cured against at 18. Lena was looking forward to her procedure until she met Alex. Alex is an "invalid" someone who lives past the border of the city and in the wilds, he managed to get a fake id number and was allowed to live in society. Lena falls in love with Alex and she decides to leave before her procedure with him and go the the wilds. The Regulators catch them, lock Lena up, and move her procedure foward, however with the help of her best friend Hana and her cousin Gracie, Lena escapes her bounds and Alex comes for her. A chase ensues which ends in Lena crossing into the wilds and Alex being shot helping her escape. A really depressing ending, especially considering how much more I liked Alex than Lena.

Specials - Scott Westerfeld (2006)

This book is the third in the Uglies series and was a reread for me because of my english oral.

This book is a lot more action packed than previous books in the series and still has the excellent writing style and interesting characters of the previous books. The best part of this book was the reappearance of David, who was scarcely in Pretties and I had forgotten how much I liked him.


In this book Tally Youngblood is now a special special, a cutter, led by Shay and devoted to taking down the Smoke. Tally wants Zane to become a special, however Shay says that he needs to do something to prove he can be special so they decide to help him escape to the smoke so Dr Cable will make him special. To help him escape Tally and Shay steal a tool from the armoury and accidentally destroy it in the process. Zane escapes with a bunch of crims and Tally and Shay follow them, however Shay decides to go ahead leaving only Tally following the crims and Zane. When they arrive at the Smoke they learn that the smokies have joined with another city, Diego, which allows free thinking and has no specials and have already passed out hundreds of thousands of pills to many cities. Dr Cable then attacks Diego thinking it was them that destroyed the armoury and Zane dies in the process, Tally then returns to her city to tell Dr Cable the truth about the armoury, however before she leaves David gives her a cure for being special injection that she can take when she wants. Tally then talks to Dr Cable and learns that she knew it was Tally and Shay that destroyed the armoury and had spun it this way so no one would stop her attack on Diego, Tally then uses the cure on Dr Cable so she doesn't stop any of the progress and decisions that the cities make on their own. Tally is locked up downstairs and hears all the news that the cities are allowing free thinking, but are starting despecialization to make sure there are no superhuman specials left to hurt people, when Tally is taken for her operation Dr Cable helps her escape and tells her there needs to be at least one special left. Tally then escapes into the wild with David and tells people that they are the new special circumstances and will protect the land and forests when people start to destroy the land.

Pretties - Scott Westerfeld (2005)

The sequel to Uglies, this book is also a reread for me for my english assignment and I still am enjoying it, for the second time.

This book is very different to Uglies with a lot less about The Smoke in the storyline. However it does introduce Zane, a character who is very loveable and interesting to read about.

Tally Youngblood is now a pretty, best friends with Shay and about to be voted in to her new clique, the crims. When a party with her new friends gets crashed by Croy, who tells Tally the whereabouts of the cure, Zane wants to help Tally find and test the cure together. When they get the pills, they take one each, which has a crippling affect on Zane, Tally and Zane must then get the tracking bracelets off so they can escape to the Smoke. Tally gets sidetracked on her way to the smoke, getting trapped in an experiment full of pre-rusties that live like barbarians and discovering more about how the specials manipulate people. When Tally arrives at the smoke she learns that the pills had to be taken together, one breaks down the leisions in the brain and one stops the process so the brain isn't severly damaged. Zane took the one that breaks down the brain, however without the other pill it didn't stop giving him brain damage, Tally's pill didn't help her at all, meaning that she was never cured and changed her brain herself. A tracker soon goes off that was placed in Zane's tooth, Tally stays with him even when David asks her to leave with the smokies and when the specials arrive Shay is leading them and captures Tally, telling her that she will make her special.