Dark Energy by Robison Wells

Series: Standalone

Genera(s): Sci-fi

Subjects: aliens, UFOS, boarding schools, mystery

Setting: Minneapolis, Minnesota

POV/Tense: 1^st person POV, past tense: Alice (Aly) Goodwin

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 273 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $17.99

Publisher: HarperTeen

Summary/ product description: “WE ARE NOT ALONE

Five days ago, a massive UFO crashed in the Midwest, killing thousands of people. Since then, nothing–or no one–has come out.

THEY HAVE ARRIVED

If it were up to Alice, she’d be watching all of this on the news from Miami, Florida. Instead, she’s the newest student at a boarding school not far from the crash site–because her dad is the director of special projects for NASA, and if anything’s a special project, it’s this.

AND THERE’S NO GOING BACK

A shell-shocked country is waiting, glued to televisions and computer screens, for a sign of what the future holds. But when the aliens emerge, they’re nothing like what Alice expected. And only one thing is clear: Nothing will ever be the same again.”

My Review:  Dark Energy is a book I’ve been highly anticipating since I heard about it. I’ve read all the other books by Robison Wells, and finally he writes one with aliens! The book isn’t what I expected. Not at first. Based off the cover I expected something more creepy and mysterious and more rural. The book is set in Minnesota, mainly at a boarding school for the “gifted and talented.” Alice is sent there because her father works for NASA and he’s investigating the UFO crash site outside of Minneapolis.

Nothing has come out of the space ship yet and everyone’s anticipating the possibility of malicious aliens who want to take over, if any aliens survived, that is. When aliens finally do come out of the ship they are not what Alice expected, in fact, there’s nothing really alien about them. They call themselves the Guides, but what is there purpose? To help, or it there another reason. Two teen guides are sent to Alice’s school and Alice and her roommates try to get information out of them. Some of what they say doesn’t add up. These Guides have translators, but there’s many thing about Humans that they don’t understand.

Anyway, there’s a lot of fun dialogue. Alice and her father have some pretty funny conversations, and Alice and Kurt flirt a bit and banter too. Alice’s roommates are smart and pretty awesome. They seem pretty accepting of Coya. Alice is half Navajo, so she feels just as out of place at this school. Alice is very bold and stubborn and fun.

Dark Energy was cool and funny at times. There are so many pop-culture references, like mentions of Ancient Aliens, Star Wars, Star Treck, 2001, ect… and even pop-culture Icons like Taylor Swift. It’s not dystopian really, but it does remind me of The 5^th Wave or the TV shows Falling Skies. Also this book has a crazy twist….actually a few crazy twists, none of which include time travel sadly, so I guess I was wrong this time.

I recommend this to fans of TV show like: Ancient Aliens, Falling Skies, Hunters (Syfy),  Childhood’s End (also SyFy). Movies like Independence Day, and War of the Worlds. Books like The 5^th Wave, Scan, Rush, The Taking, Alienated, In the After and pretty much anything with aliens. If you listen to 3^rd Phase of Moon radio show on Fridays and are a UFO geek.

Cover Art Review: The cover is cool, but doesn’t fit the content very well since the book’s setting isn’t rural and the book isn’t that creepy. The space ship is supposed to be cylindrical, not a saucer.

The Creeping by Alexandra Sirowy

Series: Standalone

Genera(s): Mystery/Horror

Subjects: kidnappings, murder, monsters, amnesia

Setting: Savage, Minnesota

POV/Tense: 1^st person POV, present tense: Stella

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 387 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $17.99

Publisher: Simon & Schuster book for young readers

Summary/ product description: “Eleven years ago, Stella and Jeanie disappeared. Stella came back. Jeanie never did.

Now all she wants is a summer full of cove days, friends, and her gorgeous crush—until a fresh corpse leads Stella down a path of ancient evil and secrets.

Stella believes remembering what happened to Jeanie will save her. It won’t.

She used to know better than to believe in what slinks through the shadows. Not anymore.”

My Review: The Creeping is a pretty good horror story. It’s a standalone, so you don’t have to worry about waiting for sequels. It’s about a girl named Stella who was supposedly kidnapped with this other girl named Jeanie when they were six and Stella was the only one to return and she had amnesia. Stella is a pretty interesting narrator. A dead girl who looks like Jeanie is found in the cemetery and this set event into motion. Stella is more determined than ever to recover her memories of what happened when Jeanie was taken.

Stella’s current BFF is Zoey. They’ve been friends since they were kids and Zoey is very popular. Sam was  Stella’s old friend up until middle school. They see each other at a part and Stella tries to avoid the embarrassment of being seen with him because some leechy girls would start nasty rumors. Stella starts to get close to Sam again and romance blooms. I really like Sam. He’s a geek, but a very nice and good looking, even if poorly dressed, one. Also Daniel, Jeanie’s brother, is back in town.

I really liked the setting of this book. It’s set in Savage, Minnesota during summertime. It’s a real place, even though the author changed some stuff about the place. The real Savage, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis, has a lot less woods. I checked on Google Earth. 

Blackdog Lake is not a state park, but part of a Wildlife Refuge. There is no cemetery next to in, no houses so close to it and no beach. Prior lake is real too. I’ve never been to Savage, but I’ve visited Minneapolis a few times and the Minneapolis zoo isn’t too far from Savage. I actually when to the zoo the day the bridge collapse happened and we were camping in the Rochester KOA. Unrelated, I know. I just like book with real settings that I’ve been to or near.

This book has twists and turn and lot of dark and creepy moments, but it isn’t super scary. I was kind of disappointed by the lack of ghosts and paranormal stuff. There’s talk of a monster and murderers. It’s closer to a slasher flick like Scream than the Ring. I did remind me of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by Genevieve Tucholke, minis the devil stuff. This book is a murder/kidnapping mystery at it’s heart. I enjoyed it and it’s a perfect as a summery horror story or a Halloween tale.

Cover Art Review: The type treatment is interesting. The way the title is woven and layered in the branches. I wish the cover was more creepy though.

Mila 2.0 by Debra Driza

Series: Mila 2.0 (bk. 1)

Genera(s): Sci-fi/ Thriller

Subjects: androids, robots, artificial intelligence, identity, love,

Setting: Clear Water, Minnesota and then across the country, then Washington DC

POV/Tense: 1^st person POV, past tense: Mila

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 470 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover and now in Paperback

List Price: $17.99/$9.99

Publisher: HarperTeen: Katherine Tegan

Summary/ product description: “Mila 2.0 is the first book in an electrifying sci-fi thriller series about a teenage girl who discovers that she is an experiment in artificial intelligence.

Mila was never meant to learn the truth about her identity. She was a girl living with her mother in a small Minnesota town. She was supposed to forget her past—that she was built in a secret computer science lab and programmed to do things real people would never do.

Now she has no choice but to run—from the dangerous operatives who want her terminated because she knows too much and from a mysterious group that wants to capture her alive and unlock her advanced technology. However, what Mila’s becoming is beyond anyone’s imagination, including her own, and it just might save her life.

Mila 2.0 is Debra Driza’s bold debut and the first book in a Bourne Identity-style trilogy that combines heart-pounding action with a riveting exploration of what it really means to be human. Fans of I Am Number Four will love Mila for who she is and what she longs to be—and a cliffhanger ending will leave them breathlessly awaiting the sequel.”

My Review:  I finally got to read this book after a year of it sitting on my shelf. With rumors of Fox adapting it into a TV show, I was really exciting about Mila 2.0. Mila 2.0 reads like a TV show, mostly. Or even a movie. Mila finds out she’s an android after an accident that exposed her mechanical [arts. Mila and her mother who’ve been living in Minnesota for a month have to go on the run before that people who helped create Mila take her away.

Mila seems like you stereotypical teenage girl. Her emotions seem normal. She thinks she’s normal. Finding out she was not a real person really threw her off. She’s smart and tough and even has a big crush on a guy at school. How could she be an android? It was really interesting to think about. I reminded me of the show on Fox called Almost Human, with Dorian having a synthetic soul (Almost Human is the reason why Mila 2.0 was not picked up on Fox. Too similar). Also it was like the Bionic Woman show too. She has all the feeling a person has.

The book was cool and full of action. It was thrilling and had a lot of fight scenes. The only issues I had with this book is that it started off kind of slow. Once it got going it was non-stop action. Mila using her android abilities was really cool. She acted more like she was a cyborg rather that a completely mechanical android. There was also less romance than I hoped for. We really only see Hunter in the first part of the book. Mila meets a guy named Lucas in part 3 and she likes him, but there’s not really a romance between then. I’m sure in the second book there will be romantic developments.

I recommend this to fans of Almost Human, Bionic Woman, Terminator, False Memory by Dan Krokos, Unremembered by Jessica Brody, Maximum Ride, Altered by Jennifer Rush and any teen sci-fi. This book is not dystopian.

Cover Art Review: I love the cover. It’s metallic and the girl’s face it breaking apart, like pixels. Makes me think of Pixel Perfect (old Disney channel movie).