Dec 28 2012

Your Pick for Nik! – January Nominations!

Don’t forget to vote for your favorite book in the feature: Your Pick for Nik!

Thank you for all the votes I’ve received so far. “Falling Kingdoms” by Morgan Rhodes is currently in the lead, but there’s still plenty of time to make your vote count!

You have until 10:00 pm (MST) on December 29th to make your selection. I will be revealing the winning book shortly after!

If you’re new to my page, here’s how it works:

Your Pick for Nik! a book club where I turn over control of my reading list toyou!

Each month, I will nominate 5 to 10 titles from my TBR list and YOU will choose which one gets featured. It can be one you’ve already read and want to discuss, one you want to read but wish to see my feedback first, or – and this is my favorite part – you can read it along with me!

Just click on the link below to view my 10 nominees for January. Simply vote for your favorite, and let the best book win! On Saturday the 29th, I’ll announce the winner. Come the end of the month, I will post a thorough review of the chosen title – and hopefully find out what you thought of it as well!

January Nominations!

Dec 27 2012

Your Pick for Nik! – January Nominations!

As we’re only a few days away from closing out this month’s selection (Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson, 12/30) I figured it would be a good time to reveal next month’s nominations!

For those of you new to this feature, Your Pick for Nik! is a monthly book club where I turn over control of my reading list to you!

Here’s how it works: I will nominate titles from my TBR list and YOU will choose which one gets featured. It can be one you’ve already read and want to discuss, one you want to read but wish to see my feedback on first, or – and this is my favorite part – you can read it along with me!

Depicted below are my 10 nominees* for January. Simply vote for your favorite, and let the best book win! At 10:00 pm (MST) on Saturday the 29th I will announce the winner. Come the end of January, I will post a thorough review of the chosen title – and hopefully find out what you thought of it as well!

To cast your vote, just leave a comment indicating your chosen title – and may the best book win!

January’s Nominations:

Title: Falling Kingdoms

Author: Morgan Rhodes

Genre: Teen Fantasy

Overview: In a land where magic has been forgotten but peace has reigned for centuries, a deadly unrest is simmering. Three kingdoms grapple for power—brutally transforming their subjects’ lives in the process. Amidst betrayals, bargains, and battles, four young people find their fates forever intertwined: Cleo: A princess raised in luxury must embark on a rough and treacherous journey into enemy territory in search of a magic long thought extinct. Jonas: Enraged at injustice, a rebel lashes out against the forces of oppression that have kept his country impoverished—and finds himself the leader of a people’s revolution centuries in the making. Lucia: A girl adopted at birth into a royal family discovers the truth about her past—and the supernatural legacy she is destined to wield. Magnus: Bred for aggression and trained to conquer, a firstborn son begins to realize that the heart can be more lethal than the sword… The only outcome that’s certain is that kingdoms will fall. Who will emerge triumphant when all they know has collapsed?

Title: Death’s Daughter

Author: Amber Benson

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Overview: Calliope Reaper-Jones so just wanted a normal life: buying designer shoes on sale, dating guys from Craig’s List, web-surfing for organic dim-sum for her boss… But when her father—who happens to be Death himself—is kidnapped, and the Devil’s Protege embarks on a hostile takeover of the family business, Death, Inc., Callie returns home to assume the CEO mantle— only to discover she must complete three nearly impossible tasks in the realm of the afterlife first.

Title: Mistress of Dragons

Author: Margaret Weis

Genre: Fantasy

Overview: Welcome to the Dragonvarld… In Mistress of Dragons we are introduced to a world where political deception, greed, and avarice have lead to a violation of the “hands off” policy of the Parliament of Dragons concerning the affairs of men. Indeed that violation threatens more than policy and order it threatens the freedoms and survival of the entire human race.

Title: Touched by an Alien

Author: Gini Koch

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Overview: How can a sexy marketing manager join forces with an Alpha Centauri male in Armani to save the planet-using hairspray, a Mont Blanc pen, and rock n’ roll? Easy… She’s Touched by an Alien Marketing manager Katherine “Kitty” Katt steps into the middle of what appears to be a domestic dispute turned ugly. And it only gets uglier when the man turns into a winged monster, straight out of a grade-Z horror movie, and goes on a killing spree. Though Kitty should probably run away, she springs into action to take the monster down. In the middle of the chaos a handsome hunk named Jeff Martini appears, sent by the “agency” to perform crowd control. He’s Kitty’s kind of guy, no matter what planet he’s from. And from now on, for Kitty, things are going to be sexy, dangerous, wild, and out of this world.

Title: Eve & Adam

Authors: Michael Grant & Katherine Applegate

Genre: Teen Fantasy

Overview: In the beginning, there was an apple – And then there was a car crash, a horrible injury, and a hospital. But before Evening Spiker’s head clears a strange boy named Solo is rushing her to her mother’s research facility. There, under the best care available, Eve is left alone to heal. Just when Eve thinks she will die – not from her injuries, but from boredom—her mother gives her a special project: Create the perfect boy. Using an amazingly detailed simulation, Eve starts building a boy from the ground up. Eve is creating Adam. And he will be just perfect . . . won’t he?

Title: Holder of Lightning

Author: S.L. Farrell

Genre: Fantasy

Overview: Seventeen-year-old Jenna had led a peaceful life, herding sheep and tending crops, until the night she picked up a small but strangely alluring stone that would change her entire future. For what she held in her hand was Lámh Shábhála, the master stone of legend which could reawaken all the other stones of power and bring magic back to the world. And there were many among the nobility who would risk anything, including murder, to claim Lámh Shábhála for themselves.

Title: Dragonmaster

Author: Chris Bunch

Genre: Fantasy

Overview: Young Hal Kailas is a runaway and a pauper, living hand-to-mouth in a kingdom where peace is by no means certain. But Hal has a dream. In his even younger days, he had the awesome experience of bonding with a young dragon-and the memory of the beast’s great strength and power consumes his every thought.When war finally comes, the most daring and ruthless of men will ride these fearsome dragons-monstrous weapons of war that rule the sky. Few men are strong enough to bend a dragon’s will, but Hal, who has reason to think he may be one of them, will prove to be the greatest Dragon Master of them all.

Title: Green

Author: Jay Lake

Genre: Fantasy

Overview: Her exquisite beauty and brilliant mind were not enough to free her from captivity. That took her skills with a knife, plus the power of a goddess. Born in poverty, in a dusty village under the equatorial sun. She does not remember her mother, nor her own name—her earliest clear memory is of the day her father sold her to the tall pale man. In the Court of the Pomegranate Tree, where she was taught the ways of a courtesan…and the skills of an assassin…she was named Emerald, the precious jewel of the Undying Duke’s collection of beauties. She calls herself Green.

Title: Wither

Author: Lauren DeStefano

Genre: Teen Fiction

Overview: What if you knew exactly when you’d die? By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males born with a lifespan of 25 years, and females a lifespan of 20 years—leaving the world in a state of panic. Geneticists seek a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children.

Title: Foreigner

Author: C.J. Cherryh

Genre: Science Fiction

Overview: A mesmerizing new tale by the bestselling author of Serpent’s Reach. In the 300 years since humans lost the war to the alien atevi, humanity has traded advanced technology for peace and a remote island refuge. Then the sole human allowed to enter into atevi society is marked for an assassin’s bullet.

*Overviews taken from bn.com

Dec 1 2012

November’s Your Pick for Nik!: Partials by Dan Wells (5/5 stars!)

Title: Partials

Author: Dan Wells

Series: Partials #1

Genre: Teen Fantasy

Rating: 5/5 stars!

The Overview: The human race is all but extinct after a war with Partials—engineered organic beings identical to humans—has decimated the population. Reduced to only tens of thousands by RM, a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long Island while the Partials have mysteriously retreated. The threat of the Partials is still imminent, but, worse, no baby has been born immune to RM in more than a decade. Our time is running out.

Kira, a sixteen-year-old medic-in-training, is on the front lines of this battle, seeing RM ravage the community while mandatory pregnancy laws have pushed what’s left of humanity to the brink of civil war, and she’s not content to stand by and watch. But as she makes a desperate decision to save the last of her race, she will find that the survival of humans and Partials alike rests in her attempts to uncover the connections between them—connections that humanity has forgotten, or perhaps never even knew were there.

partials

The Review:

I have to say that “Partials” blew away all of my expectations and I couldn’t be more thrilled that it was November’s “Your Pick for Nik!”. I haven’t enjoyed a teen book so much since the “Hunger Games”. Incredibly fast-paced and creative, I guarantee you’ll have a difficult time putting this one down!

Writing: The writing was by far my favorite element of this book. Breaking the mold of your typical teen books (especially the many dealing with postapocalyptic settings) Wells managed to deliver one surprise after another throughout the story. It’s this lack of predictability that has moved this book into my top 10 favorite teen books. Don’t get me wrong, I love the genre, but after a while they do all tend to sound alike. “Partials” was so profoundly different that I’m still reeling from it a few weeks later. Wells was incredibly creative and resourceful in his plot-development, and I stand in awe at his originality. Even the scientific aspects dealing with the RM virus deserve some praise – it was written easily enough to follow for us more, uh, literary folks while still coming across as legitimate knowledge from the author (kudos to him for doing his research). In any case, I was convinced he knew what he was talking about.

Another thing I appreciate about the writing was the fact that there was not a single drop of false tension throughout the entire book. False tension is created when an author withholds stupid information to try to add suspense. Wells was actually quite forthcoming, giving the reader all the information he could up front using Kira’s perspective to shape what he wanted us to know. It was refreshing, and made the parts with actual tension that much more intense – you know something serious is going on. In contrast, when things got too intense, he always managed to relieve the tension with a well-placed bit of humor – incorporating it in a clever and non-awkward manner. I even laughed aloud a few times.

Finally, there was a supreme lack of “fluff” in this book. Every scene either worked to advance the plot or reveal character. This is a major part of why the story was so fast-paced, and this leads me to my next observations:

Pacing: I don’t know about you, but when I read, my mind tends to wander every so often and I find myself having to go back and reread several paragraphs or even pages at a time. I didn’t do that once in this entire book. In fact, I was so into the story that I found it difficult to stop and take notes for this post. It’s not the type of book you analyze, it’s the type you just enjoy! It is one of the best-paced books I’ve read in ages, and it makes me even more eager for the second book, “Fragments“, as it’s bound to be just as good. This is where I also draw my greatest comparison to the “Hunger Games” trilogy, specifically “Mockingjay.” It had all of the same elements of Collins’ final book, but didn’t have shocking events just for “shock’s” sake. In any case, Wells definitely figured out how to keep an audience engaged, and I dare you to read it without becoming riveted!

Characters: I actually don’t think the characters were the strongest elements of the story. Most of the characters, save Kira and Samm, were written in a rather flat manner, seeming to be to the vehicles by which we are led to our next events rather than people we were supposed to get connected to. A means to an end, if you will. Not to say they weren’t likable. In fact, for flat characters they were really well-developed. I think Wells did this on purpose to draw the reader’s focus to the events and provided a bit distance from the violence (I guess it’s supposed to make us a little im-“Partial”).

Since the book is written in first-person, the reader really only finds out what Kira thinks of the characters, rather than as the author would describe them. It was done quite well, but I believe this is why it lacked a bit of physical description. I, for one, would have appreciated a few more drop-in reminders. We really only get to know them through their dialog, and they don’t really develop beyond that. All that said, the format the author chose for his characters worked brilliantly within the context, and I didn’t feel the lack because Kira was such a strong lead. She was a living contrast of teenage girl and soldier, managing to be otherworldly and relatable at the same time.

World Building: The best thing I can say about the world building is that I felt like I was there. The imagery was amazing, using beautifully descriptive passages such as, “…last to fall were the buildings, distant and solemn, the gravestones for an entire world” (147). In addition to this lovely descriptive voice we actually found out more about this world through the attitudes and lifestyles of the people. They are living in a world of extremes where danger lurks around every corner. I loved that the environment was almost a character in its own right.

Overall, “Partials” is one of the best books I’ve ever read, and I think it has the potential to be the next big hit of the genre! Give it a try – you won’t be disappointed!

Other Books You Might Like:

: The Fifth Wave by Ricky Yancey

: Divergent by Veronica Roth

: Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

: Legend by Marie Lu

: The Bane by Keary Taylor

by Niki Hawkes

Now Let’s Discuss!

I had a lot of fun composing this review, but I’m most looking forward to hearing what YOU think. Do you agree or disagree with my assessments and why? What elements of the book worked for you? Did you find the story compelling? Did any of you enjoy the book as much as I did?

Nov 20 2012

Your Pick for Nik! – December’s Selection!

Thank you for your votes!

By the biggest margin yet, this month’s winner is… “Warbreaker” by Brandon Sanderson!

A thorough review for this title will be posted on December 30th, so there’s plenty of time to pick it up if you want to participate. I am super excited to read this one and look forward to hearing what all of you thought about it as well! :)

For more information on this feature click here.

“If you think reading is boring, you’re doing it wrong.”

Nov 18 2012

Your Pick for Nik! – December’s Pick!

Don’t forget to vote for your favorite book in the feature: Your Pick for Nik!

“Warbreaker” by Brandon Sanderson is currently in the lead, but there’s still plenty of time to make your vote count!

You have until 10:00 pm (MST) on November 20th to make your selection. I will be revealing the winning book shortly after!

If you’re new to my page, here’s how it works:

Your Pick for Nik! a book club where I turn over control of my reading list to you!

Just click on the link below to view my 10 nominees for December. Simply vote for your favorite, and let the best book win! On Tuesday the 20th, I’ll announce the winner. Come the end of the month, I will post a thorough review of the chosen title – and hopefully find out what you thought of it as well!

December Nominations!

Nov 6 2012

Your Pick for Nik! – November’s Selection!

Thank you for your votes!

It was a really close one this month, but the winner is…“Partials” by Dan Wells!

I will be posting a thorough review on Saturday December 1st. For those of you reading along with me, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on it!

I don’t know how long it will last, but right now bn.com is selling the ebook for only $2.99.

Happy reading! :)

For more information on this feature, click here.