Nil On Fire by Lynne Matson

Series: Nil (bk. 3)

Genera(s): Dystopian Sci-fi/Romance

Subjects: survival, mystery, adventure, islands, animals, parallel worlds

Setting: The Island of Nil

POV/Tense: 1st person POV, past tense, rotating between Skye and Rives, and 3^rd person POV of Nil, and various other characters.

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 406 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $17.99

Publisher: Macmillan: Henry Holt and Co.

Summary/ product description: “Despite Rives and Skye's attempt to destroy Nil, the island remains. And back in this world, Nil won't let Skye go. Haunted by a darkness she can't ignore, Skye wrestles with Nil nightmares that worsen by the day and threaten to tear her apart. As Skye fights to keep her mind intact, she realizes that to finally break free of Nil, she must end Nil's vicious cycle once and for all--and she can't do it alone.

Who will return to Nil, and in the end, who will survive? In this thrilling final installment of the Nil series, the stakes have never been higher: everyone's fate hangs in the balance, including Nil's own--and Nil will fight to the death. When the full force of the island is unleashed, Skye faces an impossible choice, a cruel one she'd never imagined she'd have to make. Soon one Nil truth becomes painfully clear: only one side can win.

Losing isn't an option, but winning will cost Skye everything.

Perfect for fans of Lost and survivalist stories, NIL ON FIRE is a stunning conclusion to the Nil trilogy that will leave readers breathless.”

My Review:  Nil on Fire in the final book in the Nil trilogy. If you have not read the Nil series, it’s worth reading. It has a tropical island setting and has romance, action and survival. The island of Nil is only traveled to and from by gates. There are lot of deadly animals there, and some people. You only get one year to try and catch a gate, or you die. I would recommend this series to fans of shows like Lost, Naked and Afraid, Man vs Wild and other shows with survival and islands. Also fans of books like Madman’s Daughter, Lord of the Flies, Catching Fire, and The Forsaken by Lisa M. Stasse. Spoilers on the previous two books ahead.

Skye and Rives may have escaped Nil, but Nil is still haunting Skye. She hears Nil calling her in her dreams. She thinks Nil wants her to end the islanders’ tradition of crossing through the gate. Skye, Rives, Thad and Charlie go the island that holds the gate to Nil. Nil pulls Skye through the gate to the island she never intended to return to. Rives and Thad end up going through the portal to. Also, Paulo’s cousin, Lana goes though, and another ex-Nil resident, Zane.

Nil isn’t the same as when they left it. It seems crueler. The only one they left behind was Paulo, who says he lost time and that’s why he didn’t go through. More teens have showed up on Nil since them. The Icelandic guy, Hafthor, the fierce Amara, the running-back from Alabama, Calvin, two Australians who already knew each other, Molly and Davey. And that’s just the ones Paulo met. It seems Nil’s been busy. Skye, Rives and the other have 3 months until the stationary gate opens and they working on solving the mysteries of Nil and form a plan on how to destroy. This book in on fire and stuff trly goes down in this awesome finally.

This final book is told in alternating perspectives on Rives and Sky mainly, much like Nil Unlocked, but it have 3^rd person point of views of other characters as well as the island’s POV itself. The island is alive, almost like it’s a goddess or something. Having these other POVs adds to the story telling and lets us see what’s going on elsewhere. I really wish we got Thad and Charlie’s 1^st person POVs too, like in the first book. The first book felt more like a standalone and the next two like a companion duology.

I do like that there’s more paranormal stuff added to the story. Skye and Rives can communicate telepathically ever since they left Nil the first time. Some other characters share connections too. There’s also this ability called the Sight. Lana says that it’s only gift to women. Ramia had it.

All in all, I enjoyed this series and really would love to read more books with awesome island settings. I’ve never been to any tropical islands or even the ocean. Nil is definitely not an island I’d like to visit.

Cover Art Review: Okay cover. Fits with the rest of them. I like the fire on the title.

Nil Unlocked by Lynne Matson

Series: Nil (bk. 2)

Genera(s): Dystopian Sci-fi/Romance

Subjects: survival, mystery, adventure, islands, animals, parallel worlds

Setting: The Island of Nil

POV/Tense: 1^st person POV, past tense, rotating between Skye and Rives

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 418 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $17.99

Publisher: Macmillan: Henry Holt and Co.

Summary/ product description: “On the island of Nil, the rules are set. You have exactly 365 days to escape—or you die. Rives is now the undisputed Leader of Nil City, but keeping the City united is tougher than ever.

Raiders have grown bolder, supplies are dwindling, and non-human inhabitants have taken a turn toward the deadly. New arrivals cause rifts within the City, putting the Search system at risk, and calling everything Rives knows into question. Desperate for answers, he teams up with the only other person searching for them: Skye, a new arrival with a mysterious past of her own. Soon the duo find themselves locked in a desperate race to save all the residents of Nil—and possibly destroy the island forever. But at what cost? And  

My Review: Reading Nil was exciting because it was new and refreshing, but I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t some crazy twist that involved aliens or a government experiment. The island of Nil, which doesn’t exist just is. Teens are caught by moving portals and find themselves in Nil. They didn’t want to be there. They got 365 day to find a portal to take them back home. There are animals that appear on Nil. Dangerous animals like tigers and other big cats, predators, and angry hippos. And also, the occasional zebra or alpaca.

In the first Nil book, the main character were Charley and Thad. To my surprise, this sequel was told by two other people, Rives and Skye. Rives is the new leader since Thad left. Skye is girl with a father obsessed with finding the mysterious island that changed his twin brother’s life. Skye get the chance to read the post-Nil journal written by her uncle. I really enjoyed getting a peek into her uncle’s experience. Her uncle nicknamed Nil “Giraffe Land” because that’s the first animal he saw there.

Skye’s father has a lead on a possibly Nil survivor and that’s how Skye meets Charley. Skye speak with Charley and get more information. Skye’s father finds out about a place called Spirit Island in Micronesia. He thinks it may be the mysterious Nil, or at least connected to it. On December 21, Charley and her father go to a set of islands near this Spirit Island, and that where Charley reckless follows an island boy through a stationary portal in the middle of the night and finds herself on Nil.

On Nil, she wake up naked to two boy taking, one of the boy angry that Skye was there. Sky finds the island boy she followed is named Paolo, and he’s secretive about his reason for being there. On day 3, Skye meets Rives. She tells him how she got there and about her uncle. They develop a connection. I think Skye and Rives are more interesting protagonists than Charley and Thad were, but those two had more romance.

Skye wants to know about why Nil exists and when and where the stationary portal appears. Skye’s very curious and fierce. Dex, the British guy with the Mohawk from the first book, think Sky is a bloody badass. Much like Thad and Charley, Skye and Rives try to unlock the further secrets of how Nil works in hopes of getting the islanders home.

I recommend this to fans of shows like Lost, Naked and Afraid, Man vs Wild and other shows with survival and islands. Also fans of books like Madman’s Daughter, Lord of the Flies, Catching Fire, and The Forsaken by Lisa M. Stasse.

Cover Art Review: I like the cover, but not as much as the 1^st book’s cover. I do love the landscape on it though. 

Kalahari by Jessica Khoury

Series: Corpus (bk. 3)

Genera(s): Sci-fi Thriller

Subjects: experiments, animals, scientists, deserts, mystery, survival, adventure

Setting: The Kalahari semi-desert in Botswana, Africa

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

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 354 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $17.99

Publisher: Penguin: Razorbill

Summary/ product description: “Deep in the Kalahari Desert, a Corpus lab protects a dangerous secret…

But what happens when that secret takes on a life of its own?

When an educational safari goes wrong, five teens find themselves stranded in the Kalahari Desert without a guide. It’s up to Sarah, the daughter of zoologists, to keep them alive and lead them to safety, calling on survival know-how from years of growing up in remote and exotic locales. Battling dehydration, starvation and the pangs of first love, she does her best to hold it together, even as their circumstances grow increasingly desperate.

But soon a terrifying encounter makes Sarah question everything she’s ever known about the natural world. A silver lion, as though made of mercury, makes a vicious, unprovoked attack on the group. After a narrow escape, they uncover the chilling truth behind the lion’s silver sheen: a highly contagious and deadly virus that threatens to ravage the entire area—and eliminate life as they know it.

In this breathtaking new novel by the acclaimed author of Origin and Vitro, Sarah and the others must not only outrun the virus, but its creators, who will stop at nothing to wipe every trace of it.”

My Review: Kalahari is the third (and final or not final?) book in the Corpus series, a companion to Origin and Vitro. I’m not sure if this is happening at the same time or after those books. There are no shared characters, but Strauss was mentioned once. Sarah and her father live in the Kalahari. Her father is a zoologist originally from New Zealand, and is studying the migration of animals. Sarah’s mother died four month ago in an accident, and she was from North Carolina originally.

Five teens arrive at their camp for a week of learning about wildlife and the ways of the Kalahari. All the fun is pushed aside when Sarah’s father and half-bushman Theo go off to get the location of poacher hunting a white lion. They don’t return by nightfall and the next morning Sarah takes the teens in search of her father, who may be dead by now. They come upon a metallic lion and can’t believe their eyes. Lots of struggles happen. Surviving this semi-desert is not easy, and thankfully Theo taught Sarah the ways of the Bushmen.

I have never read a book with a setting like this before! Not many books I’ve read have even been in Africa, and none in southern Africa. Instantly it reminded me on Zoo, the TV show based off the James Patterson book of the same name. It also made me think of Inhuman by Kat Fall, a book I recently read about a virus that turn people into animal. This virus/infection spreads by touch and turns animals and people into metal (not normal metal. It’s not like King Midas’s touch). This is like those adventure movies where there’s something mysterious going on. Movies like the Mummy or Indiana Jones or the Ruins.

The characters were pretty interesting. Sarah, our narrator, was kind of awkward and not used to being around people her age. Sam was helpful and protective, and her love interest. Miranda and Kase, both from Boston, were together and kind of rich and spoiled and not used to the wild. They complained a lot. Kase is a photographer, and he brought Miranda along. Joey is an Asian guy from California whose always joking around. Avani is half-Indian, half-Kenyan and Canadian. She very book smart and likes to study and really prepared for this trip. I like it when there are not so many characters that you get confused. The adult characters are less developed, but add to the story.

I’d recommend this book series to fans of Unremembered, Maximum Ride, Altered by Jennifer Rush, The Rules by Stacy Kade and other books about when science goes wrong. Also, if you like foreign settings or you just love animal, you’ll enjoy this.

Cover Art Review: These new cover for this series are not that compelling. Though, this cover does show an African landscape. But in the book Sarah said there were no rocks, only sand and here I see boulders or a rocky ridge.

Inhuman by Kat Falls

Series: Fetch (bk. 1)

Genera(s): Dystopian Sci-fi

Subjects: mutants, animals, viruses, survival, adventure

Setting: Davenport, Iowa; Moline, Illinois; Chicago, Illinois

POV/Tense: 1^st person POV, past tense: Delaney Park McEvoy

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 375 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover and soon in Paperback

List Price: $17.99

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Summary/ product description: “In a world ravaged by mutation, a teenage girl must travel into the forbidden Savage Zone to recover lost artifacts or her father’s life is forfeit.

America has been ravaged by a war that has left the eastern half of the country riddled with mutation. Many of the people there exhibit varying degrees of animal traits. Even the plantlife has gone feral.

Crossing from west to east is supposed to be forbidden, but sometimes it’s necessary. Some enter the Savage Zone to provide humanitarian relief. Sixteen-year-old Lane’s father goes there to retrieve lost artifacts—he is a Fetch. It’s a dangerous life, but rewarding—until he’s caught.

Desperate to save her father, Lane agrees to complete his latest job. That means leaving behind her life of comfort and risking life and limb—and her very DNA—in the Savage Zone. But she’s not alone. In order to complete her objective, Lane strikes a deal with handsome, roguish Rafe. In exchange for his help as a guide, Lane is supposed to sneak him back west. But though Rafe doesn’t exhibit any signs of “manimal” mutation, he’s hardly civilized . . . and he may not be trustworthy.”

My Review:  Inhuman was as amazing as I expected, but I didn’t expect it to be set in the state I live, Illinois. I didn’t know Kat Falls was from Illinois. I met her at the YA lit conference I Naperville last year and got my copy of Inhuman signed and I finally just read it. Inhuman is unlike and dystopian book I’ve read. Sure, it’s got a virus, but this virus turns people into animal instead of zombies. It causes people to mutate and become “manimals” and later, ferals.

I had thought that Lane’s love interest would be a wild animal-boy, but that wasn’t the case. At least not yet.  Lane ends up having to go to the Feral Zone to find her father who turns out to be a “fetch” (a person who brings requested items over the wall). What he does is illegal and the only way to wipe his record is to do a fetch for an official. Lane runs into some issues. She meets a young line guard named Everson, and a hunter named Rafe. Lane wants someone to take her to Moline because her father may be there. Some romance happens, as well as funny bickering between Lane, Rafe and Everson.

The story reminds me of Madman’s Daughter by Meagan Shepherd, which is a retelling of the Island of Dr. Moreau. The story seems very Dr. Moreau like, but set in post-pandemic Iowa and Illinois. There are the manimals and feral, but there are also mongrel. The mongrels are animals (not humans turned animals) that have multiple species DNA. They are chimeras. There are mole-chimps (chimpacabras) and piranha bats (weevlings), and hyena-boars. Creepy freaky creature that I have a hard time picturing. If this was a movie, then the CQI folks would have a heck of a challenge (and the make-up people too).

The setting of this book makes some familiar to me feel unfamiliar in a good way. Living in Illinois, there is a lot of rural prairie areas, which the author mentioned. Also, part of the story in set in Chicago, in Lincoln Park zoo, which I’ve been to multiple times. The zoo becomes a place for the ferals and mongrels. I recommend this book to fans of the Madman’s Daughter series, the Feral series by Cynthia Leitich Smith, and other books about werewolves, were-people, animal people and mutants.

Cover Art Review: Very cool post-apocalyptic city-scape. The gold color fit. The wall is perfect for the story.