Plus One by Elizabeth Fama

Elizabeth Fama's first novel in ten years, Monstrous Beauty, was easily one of my 2012 favourites so I was incredibly excited when I learned she had a new release coming out, and I picked up Plus One almost right away. In terms of storyline itself, like her previous book about mermaids, the concept of Plus One wasn't the most exciting or innovative. It's the story of a boy and a girl one of whom is a night dweller, and one who works during the day, in a future America that has been strictly divided into day and night classes. When the night girl, Sol, tries to kidnap her newborn day niece to bring her to meet her dying grandfather, she is caught by a boy, D'Arcy, who soon becomes the only one she can trust, and maybe love.

The alternative history behind Plus One is interesting, and just as with Monstrous Beauty it is seamlessly incorporated into the storyline so that enough is known for the world to make sense without bogging down the plot. There's lots of action but it doesn't take away from the emotion. Sol is a bit of a stubborn, emotional, character, but as a reader I really felt her passion. In many ways D'Arcy is the opposite, analytical and patient. However there was a predictable element to their connection I don't want to spoil, but which I felt was too cheesy and convenient and took away from it. 

As excellent as world-building seemed, there were some issues when you think about too much, but while I was reading I was plenty distracted by an exciting plot and writing that was very easy and engaging to read. However, it was definitely the characters that made Plus One memorable, and although Sol's plan is a bit ridiculous at times, it just seems so perfectly impulsive and emotional and her. Fama's most recent novel isn't flawless, but it definitely reminded me why her novels are so much fun to read and why I will definitely be picking up whatever she writes next.

Release Date: April 8th 2014 Pages: 373  Format: Egalley
Source: Edelweiss  Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)  Buy It: Book Depository

Salvage by Alexandra Duncan

 Sci-Fi isn't a genre I automatically gravitate towards, but I'm always willing to make an exception, especially for a YA book that catches my attention, which is exactly what I did for Salvage by Alexandra Duncan. Salvage is the story of a teenage girl, Ava, who lives on a male-dominated space ship and ends up fleeing to earth, where she learns that not everything she was told was true.

There are a lot of things that are great about Salvage. Ava is easy to relate to and a very strong narrator. Her voice felt real and authentic, and even when the world around her was unfamiliar, she helped make it an easy transition for me as a reader. Part of that is Duncan's fantastic world-building, as I thought the setting was unique and there was an unusual twist with the male-dominated ship. Salvage was definitely a book with strong female characters! Both Ava and that component reminded me a bit of Birthmarked by Caragh M. O'Brien, which I loved, and I think fans of that series would also likely enjoy this one.

I really appreciated that Salvage is a full story in one book, and as far as I know there are no sequels in the work. Although it's pretty long (about 500 pages) that's still rare in Sci-Fi YA and it was great to a get a full, detailed story in one novel. No cliffhanger endings! As much as I loved the book and would easily pick up a sequel, I kinda hope it remains complete on its own. There is a bit of a love triangle. It's not something I generally enjoy, but it was a bit unusual here and not quite as annoying as it can sometimes be.

Although the world Duncan created was really neat, the way the trains and ship worked, the best part of the book that kept me hooked was definitely the characters. Ava's character progression felt so real and that is what made me love Salvage, sci-fi or not.

Release Date: April 1st, 2014 Pages: 520  Format: Egalley
Source: Edelweiss  Publisher: Greenwillow  Buy It: Book Depository

Mini Reviews: Seraphina and Struck Tie-in Short Stories

Lately, so many awesome young adult novels have equally impressive free short stories to accompany them, and the two I read most recently tie into Seraphina by Rachel Hartman (review here) and Struck by Jennifer Bosworth (review here). In both cases, the stories take place before the events of the novels, but in the first case it is immediately before, while in the latter it is many years earlier. However, neither story has any spoilers to the novel it accompanies and both can definitely be read before, or after, those books.

"The Audition" takes place right before Seraphina when the title character has gone to audition for the role of royal assistant music composer as well as the Princess' music tutor. It's a cute little story that corresponds well with what the reader later learns about the characters. I thought it especially was a good introduction to the Princess, showing her sense of humour. Seraphina came across as honest and nervous, and the way that she invited Orma, her music tutor, to come with her but not her father was really telling.

Even though it ties into a high fantasy novel "The Audition" honestly isn't. It's not about dragons or magic or anything like that. It's really just about one girl and her feelings. And despite that, Hartman captures the struggle in a pure and well-written way. After reading Seraphina I didn't feel like I was missing any of the story, but it was still great to have this added little insight into the character's experiences and what brought her to the royal palace in the first place. For that reason, I think "The Audition" would be great to read before Seraphina.

"Prophet" gives further background to the villain of Bosworth's Struck in a way the novel attempts, but doesn't fully reveal because it is told from the perspective of a different character. Instead of Mia, this is Prophet's story, only told back when he was simply Rance Ridley, the son of a cult leader. Before everything changed, and he became the person Mia meets. It's a soft introduction to him, and gives him a more human side that isn't really portrayed in Struck and for that reason I thought it was a nice little addition to the series.

Unlike "The Audition", I feel like "Prophet" is more interesting after having read the novel it accompanies. That's because reading Struck, I loved to hate Prophet, and I thought there was enough background for him as a character. Sure, it was a bit mysterious, but most bad guys are. Still, picking up this short story afterwards I definitely enjoyed being let into the character's mind and finding out the truth about the events that made him who he is. The story itself is strongly written and dramatic, and even though I knew how things were going to turn out in the end, I still really enjoyed reading it.

Great, basically spoiler-free little short stories that can be picked up for free– The Audition here, and Prophet here– these are definitely worthwhile reads if you're interested in the novels they accompany. Thought I found both to be quite a bit different than the books themselves, Hartman's story lacks the real fantasy element and Bosworth's is told from a completely different character's perspective, they fill in some of the gaps in the stories in a way fans of the novels, including me, can definitely appreciate.

The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

I really enjoyed Jay Asher's debut novel, Thirteen Reasons Why, when I read it (although in retrospect the concerns I had have increased) and so I was definitely was interested in picking up his second book when it was finally released. It turned out to be a co-written novel with another well-loved author but one I've never read anything by in the past, Carolyn Mackler.  

The Future of Us takes place in 1996, when neighbours and former best friends Josh and Emma discover Facebook on the computer. The only thing is... Facebook hasn't been invented yet. And the profile pages they're logged onto are their own, fifteen years in the future. As Josh and Emma see their actions ripple across their future, reflected in their profile pages, they're forced to come to terms with their present, and their relationship.

This was a really charming story with a unique spin on time travel that was never really explained. The scientist in me really wanted to know why Emma and Josh had access to this page. Despite not knowing the why or the how of the events, the repercussions of having access to a future self's profile page were actually quite interesting and examined well. I appreciated that not every change in the present had a direct correlation to a future self, sometimes things– like the future children they'd have– were just altered by moments too tiny to quantify.

What made The Future of Us so charming to me was its nostalgia. I was only a kid in 1996, but I still have some memories from that era. I remember using dial-up internet, and when cell phones were something special and people still made mix-tapes. So it was a lot of fun reading about a time when that was the norm. I'm uncertain if it would have the same charm to a younger reader though, somebody without any memories of that time. In that way, it's more like historical fiction, but just a little weird because it's not that historical, and even calling it that makes me feel old!

The only thing The Future of Us really lacked was the kind of suspense and tension that characterized Thirteen Reasons Why, and I was therefore pretty surprised to realize that the story just didn't have the intensity I hoped for. With really exciting stories I'll pick up an audiobook and end up finishing with a hard copy when I find they are taking too long, but I didn't have that problem with this one and managed to listen to the whole thing. I think because the only way the reader really saw the repercussions of the characters' actions were through their profile page, they didn't have the same immediacy to them they usually would. I also thought that some of the secondary characters, like Josh's brother and Josh and Emma's mutual friends, were a little flat.

I enjoyed both the male and female perspectives, or Asher and Mackler's writing, in The Future of Us. I felt like both characters were authentic and dimensional, and I liked how Emma was the one afraid of commitment and Josh was the romantic instead of the stereotypical reverse. The audiobook narrators were also really good. Ultimately, The Future of Us was a fun and endearing book, filled with nostalgia and cute moments that charmed me but just lacking enough excitement and depth to make it really memorable.

Release Date: November 21st 2011  Pages: 356  Format: Audiobook / Hardcover
Source: Borrowed / Publisher  Publisher: Penguin Canada
Also By This Author: Thirteen Reasons Why (Asher) Buy It: Book Depository

Struck by Jennfer Bosworth

Struck by Jennifer Bosworth
 
Release Date: April 26th 2012
Pages: 373
Format: Hardcover
Source: Publisher
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux BYR
Buy It: Book Depository

Mia Price is a lightning addict. She's survived countless strikes, but her craving to connect to the energy in storms endangers her life and the lives of those around her. Los Angeles, where lightning rarely strikes, is one of the few places Mia feels safe from her addiction. But when an earthquake devastates the city, her haven is transformed into a minefield of chaos and danger. Two warring cults rise to power, and both see Mia as the key to their opposing doomsday prophecies. They believe she has a connection to the freak electrical storm that caused the quake, and to the far more devastating storm that is yet to come.

I'm conflicted over Struck, there were some parts I really enjoyed, but a few aspects that didn't quite work and left me wanting a little more from the novel as a whole. In particular, sometimes there is some absurd statements, like a really intense moment right near the climax and Mia is rushing to get somewhere, and she says "This was one instance when it would not do to arrive fashionably late for the party." and it just seemed so out of her voice and character, as well as the story context. This sort of thing happened a few times, like another part that quoted (without credit) the factually inaccurate The Dark Knight saying, "Fear not, for it is always darkest before the dawn. At this moment, things are very dark, in the world at large, but especially here, in the so-called City of Angels."

But even though there were moments that jarred me out of Bosworth's world, those moments when I was one hundred in it were far more frequent. Specifically, I loved the premise of this book, I love the reality that Bosworth has created, the creepiness of these cults and the world on the brink of destruction and the lightning that strikes through it all. Struck is the kind of book that simmers beneath the surface, and when everything finally explodes it is just wow.

As a main character, I really appreciated Mia. She has this physical manifestation of everything she's been through, she's covered in lightning scars, and it gives a unique and intriguing element to her personality. She's also just really strong, she feels an obligation to take care of her family– since her dad is dead and her mom is completely useless. There's a backstory to her mom that makes her actions more understandable but there were definitely still times I wanted to shake her and wake her up.... then again, I think Mia did too!

It took awhile for me to get involved in Bosworth's world, because the background to her story is extreme– definitely relies on some suspension of belief– and not instantly clear, but when I did I found myself in for a really exciting experience. I do wish that it had been more clearly set out from the start, and that some of the phrasing in the book had been rethought. However, ultimately, Struck is an incredibly unique and thrilling book with a strong but realistic main character and a premise that is unlike anything I had ever read before.

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

Release Date: June 19th 2012
Pages: 288
Format: Hardcover
Source: Publisher / TLC Book Tours
Publisher: Random House
Buy It: Book Depository

On a seemingly ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, Julia and her family awake to discover, along with the rest of the world, that the rotation of the earth has suddenly begun to slow. The days and nights grow longer and longer, gravity is affected, the environment is thrown into disarray. Yet as she struggles to navigate an ever-shifting landscape, Julia is also coping with the normal disasters of everyday life—the fissures in her parents’ marriage, the loss of old friends, the hopeful anguish of first love, the bizarre behavior of her grandfather who, convinced of a government conspiracy, spends his days obsessively cataloging his possessions. As Julia adjusts to the new normal, the slowing inexorably continues.

What an incredible debut novel. Easily one of my favourite novels of 2012, The Age of Miracles captured my attention from the first paragraph. It begins:

"We didn’t notice right away. We couldn’t feel it.
We did not sense at first the extra time, bulging from the smooth edge of each day like a tumor blooming beneath skin."

This perfect simplicity, this beautiful description, is a staple of Walker's and though at first I was riveted by her words, they would have been nothing without a strong and dimensional cast of characters to back them up. At the center of the story is Julia, an adult reflected back on when everything changed, when the earth began to slow on its axis and time piled up, each day getting longer than the last. Even though Julia is twelve at the time of the story, The Age of Miracles isn't young adult because she has the adult perspective. At the same time, the clarity and ease of Walker's writing, as well as the content, means that like Vaclav and Lena by Haley Tanner this could definitely appeal to a younger audience too.

Despite all the natural disasters that occur, The Age of Miracles is not a traditional science fiction or post-apocalyptic story; it's really a coming of age novel. Even as the world around her falls apart, Julia still has to navigate the normal struggles of growing up: friendship, love, family. It is these struggles that allowed me to connect with her as a reader, and I found them realistic and heart-breaking. At its core, this is a story about Julia, and not the broken planet.

Still, as a science grad student myself I sometimes have a hard time suspending belief when reading novels where things happen without explanation (like The Way We Fall by Megan Crewe). While I'm not entirely sure why the slowing occurred, otherwise the vision of the future that Walker creates comes with the appropriate science to back it up. What I mean is that the events that follow have logic behind them– for example, as the days slow, certain plants can no longer survive in the extended darkness. Each disasters that follows has a similar reasoning behind it, so that as a reader I was never thrown out the story and left questioning but instead remained fully immersed in Walker's world.

Even though I enjoyed Walker's vision of the future, ultimately, it is the words not the world that made me fall in love with this novel. Combining a simple and eloquent voice, perfect moments of description, and genuine characters, Walker's debut novel The Age of Miracles was everything I hoped it would be from that first perfect sentence.

The Way We Fall by Megan Crewe

The Way We Fall (Fallen World #1) by Megan Crewe

Release Date: January 24th 2012
Pages: 309
Format: E-galley
Source: NetGalley/Publisher
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Buy It: Book Depository

When a deadly virus begins to sweep through sixteen-year-old Kaelyn’s community, the government quarantines her island—no one can leave, and no one can come back. Those still healthy must fight for dwindling supplies, or lose all chance of survival. As everything familiar comes crashing down, Kaelyn joins forces with a former rival and discovers a new love in the midst of heartbreak. When the virus starts to rob her of friends and family, she clings to the belief that there must be a way to save the people she holds dearest. Because how will she go on if there isn’t?

Admittedly a lot of this novel reminded me of Susan Beth Pfeffer's Life As We Knew It, and the fact that it is basically told in journal entries (technically she's writing somebody, but she's not sending the letters, so it might as well be a journal) probably doesn't help that cause. Although it's got a similar post-apocalyptic feeling to it, The Way We Fall has the distinction of being set entirely on one island, contained but separate, while Kaelyn doesn't really know what's going on in the rest of the world, though there are hints.

While there was a lot I loved about this island, like the fact that it was Canadian, and how much scarier it was that they were cut off from the world both literally and figuratively, I admit something left me perplexed. Apparently it was in Nova Scotia, which is awesome, but there are references to Halifax and Ottawa, but nowhere in between. It seems to imply that the island is located somewhere in the middle, while ignoring other cities like Montreal, that would certainly have been closer than Ottawa, if it was in fact Nova Scotia Crewe was writing about. So that's my Canadian geography confusion, left even more perplexed by the fact that the author is actually Canadian. I did read an advance copy, I wonder if anyone who picked up a finished edition noticed the same thing? Did I just misread the book / am I crazy?

Location ramble aside, something I really loved was that, despite being a book about a very deadly virus, many of the important deaths in The Way We Fall are not from infection. Instead, they are caused by consequences stemming from what the virus has done to people and society. It was really near to see how far the impact could spread, so that even those who were healthy weren't necessary safe.

I also enjoyed Kaelyn's unexpected love interest, I could really see how these two people came together in a tragic time, which felt believable. I liked the fact that Kaelyn was biracial– having lived in Nova Scotia for several years, I could appreciate that she would have been a minority, and in certain situations the fact that it made her stand out added an interesting dimension.

The scientific aspect of The Way We Fall was where I had a bigger issue, though I admit to being a grad student in biology which might make me both more informed, and more curious, about it than the average reader. One of my favourite recent films is Contagion, and likely because the novel is told from the perspective of a teenage girl, The Way We Fall lacked some of the detail I was hoping for. Still, I have definitely read other post-apocalyptic type YA books where a teenage narrator didn't prevent the author from giving a more thorough explanation of what was going on, for example the medical mystery in Prized by Caragh M. O'Brien.

The ending of The Way We Fall fell into the "meh" category for series, I didn't feel like I had quite enough answered, but I guess more is being saved for book #2, The Lives We Lost. I'm not entirely sure if this is a trilogy I'll be continuing but there was enough I enjoyed about The Way We Fall that, should the next novel catch my interest, I'll certainly give it a try.

Review Elsewhere: A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan

"Sheehan’s writing is lyrical and strong, the symbolism is beautiful, and the character struggles are raw and emotional. Her teenage voice felt genuine, and many of the issues Rose faced could be applied to contemporary times as well. "

Click here to read the rest of my review.

Last Survivors Series by Susan Beth Pfeffer

I have decided to combine my reviews of the three novels so far in the Last Survivors Series by Susan Beth Pfeffer- Life As We Knew It, The Dead and the Gone, and This World We Live In- into one review. However I am vague enough that you are able to read the complete review without spoiling any of the novels.

Life As We Knew It is the perfect title for a book where the world ends. Well not quite, but a meteor does hit the moon and while everyone thinks it's not going to be a big deal, but that turns out to be far from the truth. The tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that follow are only the beginning, all chronicled in the diary of a teenage girl named Miranda who struggles for survival along with her mother and two brothers in the face of limited food and water and an increasingly destructive outside world.

Life As We Knew It is the kind of book that envelops the reader, taking you into a world that one instant looks exactly like your own before turning it on its head in an incredibly terrifying and breath-taking away. What made the novel so unique was how you get to see the damage unfold, making it different than many post-apocalyptic novels, like Ashes, Ashes by Jo Treggiari, which usually begin long after the destruction has begun.

With Life As We Knew It Pfeffer tells a story that is both horrible and utterly human, about what good people will do under desperate circumstances- especially when it comes to family. Miranda, like most of her family, are less interesting as characters than they are as a mechanism for telling a riveting tale that will keep your heart pounding till the last page. However, in a way that works, because it is instantly clear to the reader that they could be anyone and that is what makes it scariest of all.

The incredibly intense feeling that Life As We Knew It left in me was why I was so excited to pick up its sequel, The Dead and the Gone, only to find out that the book is actually told over a similar period of time from a different perspective that doesn't involve Miranda and her family at all. Instead, it is the story of Alex, a Puerto Rican teenage Catholic boy living in New York City with his two young sisters and whose parents don't come home when the meteor hits. Forced to care for them under increasingly worse circumstances, Alex struggles for their survival as well as having to decide whether or not to leave the city- and risk never seeing his parents again- or stay, and risk all three of their lives.

Unlike its prequel, The Dead and the Gone is written in the third person and it's not a format I enjoyed as much. Possibly this has something to do with audiobook narrators, as I didn't particularly enjoy the reader for this book in the series, but mostly I think it is a result of the lack of tension felt from that perspective. With Miranda's story, I constantly felt on edge about what was going to happen next, but possibly because the reader already had a good idea about the environmental disasters going on from the first book, I just didn't feel the same excitement for this story.

The Dead and the Gone is also an incredibly religious story in comparison to its predecessor, and in a way I found that made it less accessible and universal. It also means that Alex faces some moral dilemmas not shared by Miranda and which I wasn't entirely convinced about; like breaking into the apartment of a tenant that has gone on holiday and is clearly not coming back, when you have no food to feed your family. Ultimately, Alex just isn't relateable in the same way that Miranda was and despite being so excited for The Dead and the Gone, I just wanted more from this book and unfortunately the longer I let it settle in and percolate, the more dissatisfied I feel with it.

The original Last Survivors Trilogy- which is now supposed to be expanded on- finishes with This World We Live In, a novel once again from Miranda's diary perspective, but which brings the characters from the first two books together when Alex is among a group of people who show up at Miranda's family's doorstep. Unfortunately, I found This World We Live In to be an incredibly disappointing finale in a way that left me regretting having read past Life As We Knew It, which ended quite satisfactorily, in the trilogy; although I must admit I am hopeful enough, and these books are quick enough reads, that I would likely pick up a future addition to the series.

Most of my issues with the novel would contain important spoilers, but basically Alex comes across as pretty unlikable which made me not particularly care how things turned out for him, and the majority of the characters seem to go a bit crazy by the end of the book. For a book where most of the time things seem to be getting better, it is like all of a sudden the author changed her mind and threw every negative event possible at the characters (Mockingjay anyone?) I was also pretty sick of this audiobook narrator by about halfway through, as well as getting impatient with the story, so I ended up finishing my hard copy of the novel. I was really hoping to end on the same kind of high note that Last Survivors began with, and though I did appreciate the return to the diary format, This World We Live In was just not the grand finale that a series beginning with as great a book as Life As We Knew It deserves.

Life As We Knew It:
Release Date: October 1st, 2006                                                              Pages: 360
Source: Audiobook and Review Copy From Publisher                             Buy the Book
The Dead and the Gone:
Release Date: June 1st, 2008                                                                   Pages: 321
Source: Audiobook and Review Copy  From Publisher                            Buy the Book
This World We Live In:
Release Date: April 1st, 2010                                                                   Pages: 239
Source: Audiobook and Review Copy  From Publisher                            Buy the Book 

Subject Seven by James A. Moore

Subject Seven by James A. Moore tells the story of five teens, seemingly normal but brought together by Subject Seven, a deadly sleeper assassins hiding in the body of a teenager. After Subject Seven escapes from the lab where he is kept prisoner, he decides to seek out others like him and take revenge of those who have harmed him. But as two individuals battle for the same body, will they be able to destroy the organization who made them who they are- without destroying themselves in the process?

I was actually really excited by the premise of Subject Seven, I think the idea of genetic modification in a creepy and thrilling way has the potential to be even more horrifying than many dystopias because of how close society has come at times. That said, while I still think it's an idea that has a potential to be a great book, Subject Seven is not. I feel as if this book was written for hormone-driven boys who prefer the graphic to the intellectual. There's lots of fighting and violence, hot girls getting their clothing torn off and an evil villain. The plot also feels similar to a comic book. Still, even recognizing that I may not have been the intended audience, I expected more out of the novel.

Forget the Massive Cliffhanger Ending that annoys me so much, Subject Seven doesn't really have an ending at all. It feels like the first couple chapters of the book Moore was intending to write, incomplete and without any resolution. Despite all the action, not much actually happens or changes, and the only thing that might be potentially considered a twist is incredibly obvious from the beginning. There's a sequel, Run: A Subject Seven Novel, set for release in 2012 but I don't expect it to offer any firm conclusions either. It feels like the kind of story that will be drawn out as long as possible, and although this book was short, it definitely didn't intrigue me enough to picked up the second one in the series. Maybe the obvious audience of teenage boys would have enjoyed Subject Seven more than I did, but in the meantime I'll continue to keep my eye out for that great novel featuring genetic modification that I know is out there somewhere.

Release Date: January 20th, 2011
Pages: 327
Source: ARC From Publisher
Buy the Book 

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Back in January when Across the Universe by Beth Revis was first released, it seemed as inescapable as the ship it takes place abroad. Every blog I turned to was raving of its merits, lusting over its iridescent cover, or otherwise exclaiming its virtues. Naturally, that meant that I wasn't interested in reading it. Rather- I was already sick of it before even picking it up, and so I let my copy sit in the pile of "books I'll get to someday" for the next six months. Then, before heading to the beach in July I packed up that stack of novels, figuring the two weeks away were a perfect opportunity for some of those titles I had been neglecting. And in a way, the stars aligned, because it turned out that Across the Universe was definitely a book for me, I just needed a little breathing room before we got to know each other. However, when we finally did, I was glad.

Across the Universe is told from in two alternating voices from two very different teenagers, and not just because they are of opposite genders and were born two hundred and fifty years apart. Amy was only seventeen when her and her parents were frozen and placed aboard the spaceship Godspeed, waiting three hundred years to be awoken on a new planet. Something goes wrong though, and Amy wakes up fifty years ahead of schedule. She is alone and thrust into a new world with new rules and the ever present threat that whoever tried to kill her will get her parents next. Amy is forced to rely on Elder, the future leader of the ship on which she is held captive and who perhaps may have answers to some of her questions. Together, they race to unlock the secrets hiding on board a spaceship fueled by lies before it is too late.

There were so many things I loved about Revis' story. It was incredibly unique, and it makes science fiction approachable and relateable. Spaceships are not high on my list of settings to read about, but Godspeed comes to life and the novel even includes a map for more visual readers to get acquainted with the location. There are also many details and technological inventions that fill the story with authenticity, and unlike many other novels I have read which are set in the future- XVI by Julia Karr for example, which I did enjoy nonetheless- I really felt like I understood what all of these things did and what their purpose was.

Across the Universe begins with a bang but then develops slowly, the reader is instantly drawn into the world, Amy's panic, Elder's curiosity, but then Revis lets you settle in and doesn't rush the story but instead lets it unfold naturally. I've read before that Revis came up with a twist, and then built a story in which she could use that twist, and so I had high expectations for the mysteries hiding on the ship. I was not at all disappointed, in the end I felt like everything fit together but was also completely unpredictable and I loved it.

My only minor thing to nit-pick about Across the Universe is the title, between the Beatles song and the corresponding film, it just feels overused for such an original novel. I feel like another title, perhaps Godspeed, might have been more appropriate. That said I don't care what the names of the next two books in the series are, I'm going to be picking them up regardless! 

In the end, I'm glad I waited to pick up Across the Universe, because reading it now means that there are that many fewer months to wait until the followup, A Million Suns, is released and I can climb aboard Godspeed and enter the fantastical world of Amy and Elder once again.

Release Date: January 11th, 2011
Pages: 398
Source: ARC From Publisher
Buy the Book 

The Dream of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer

"Write down what you think happened, or what you believe happened, or something like what might have happened. All of these are better in the end than writing down nothing at all; all are true, in their own way."

The Dream of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer is written from the perspective of Harold Winslow, a greeting-card writer imprisoned aboard a zeppelin that floats above a city with a motor run by a perpetual motion machine designed by Prospero. Harold was in love with Prospero's daughter, Miranda, and his only company aboard the zeppelin is her voice which he can hear but not find, as well as Prospero's frozen body. The Dream of Perpetual Motion is written in chapters alternating from Harold's memoirs of his life before the zeppelin as well as short chapters of what life is like in the air and how his daily routine goes.

When I first picked this up I didn't realize it drew on The Tempest by William Shakespeare, but about twenty pages in I learned that when I went to add the book on Goodreads, which is when I decided that I would put it down and pick up the play instead since I hadn't read it yet. Although I do not think knowledge of the play is necessary in order to enjoy The Dream of Perpetual Motion, it certainly enhanced my understanding of some of the themes involved in the novel as Palmer plays on the relationships between Miranda, Prospero and Caliban. That said, Palmer has developed a unique and rich story all on his own. The book itself belongs to the genre of steampunk, one I had not previously experienced, and which basically means science fiction taking place at a time when steam power was the dominant form. The world Palmer has created is both eerily familiar, and completely different, as Prospero's inventions often verge on the magical and include increasingly lifelike robots as technology continues to replace humans. Although this is my first experience with steam punk, I did not get the impression that Palmer's world was particularly unique or revelatory, but I did appreciate the way he made it come to life. 

The story of The Dream of Perpetual Motion begins when Harold ends up with an invitation to Miranda's birthday party. Prospero and Miranda never leave their tower, and he has decided to bring children to her so that she may become better socialized. At the end of the evening, Prospero tells the children that he be following their lives from now on and eventually they will receive their heart's desire. Harold doesn't take this offer seriously, but as the events of the novel unfold he realizes just how far Prospero will go to fulfill his promise.

“Oh, I promised you your heart’s desire all those years ago,” Prospero said. “I didn’t say I’d give you what you wanted.”

The Dream of Perpetual Motion is richly written novel, and I think it moves beyond the genre of steam punk into the realm of literary fiction because of its strong character development and language. It was also exceedingly strange at time, in a weird yet enjoyable way. The aspect of the novel I wished for more development of was the relationship between Harold and his father and sister, Astrid, who play an important role in the first half of the book but seem to mostly disappear from Harold's mind about half way through. There was also a few scenes that verged on silly, such as when Palmer included himself as a minor character in the novel, especially considering this is his debut, as well as an incident involving throwing acid

Despite some flaws, perhaps growing pains expected in a first novel, the most notable thing about The Dream of Perpetual Motion is the language, which results in a dream-like world at times as Palmer takes the reader strange and wonderful places. There is a dark tongue-in-cheek sense of humour that occasionally appears throughout the book, and although it didn't always work (see acid incident), when it did I loved it. The book also contained many vivid images that stuck with me after reading it, in particular the scene involving Astrid's artwork. There are also a lot of philosophical layers and illusions to the book, so that I think it will stand up well to repeated readings which is always something I appreciate, and I plan to pick it up again in the future...perhaps when I'm a bit smarter!

Ultimately, The Dream of Perpetual Motion was a well-rendered, richly creative novel and although it has some flaws, Palmer somehow manages to combine adventure and philosophy into one dark and intelligent book.

Release Date: March 2nd, 2010 (February 1st, 2011 in Paperback)
Pages: 368
Overall: 4/5
Source: Publisher
Buy the Book