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.

The Memory Key by Liana Liu

Series: Standalone

Genera(s): Dystopian Sci-fi/Mystery

Subjects: memory, technology, death, grief, near-future

Setting: A town called Middleton. Somewhere in the middle of the U.S. Kansas?

POV/Tense: 1^st person POV, present tense: Lora Mint

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 356 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $17.99

Publisher: HarperTeen

Summary/ product description: “In a five-minutes-into-the-future world, a bereaved daughter must choose between losing memories of her mother to the haze of time and the reality-distorting, visceral pain of complete, perfect recall.

Lora Mint is determined not to forget.

Though her mother’s been dead for five years, Lora struggles to remember every detail about her—most importantly, the specific events that occurred the night she sped off in her car, never to return.

But in a world ravaged by Vergets disease, a viral form of Alzheimer’s, that isn’t easy. Usually Lora is aided by her memory key, a standard-issue chip embedded in her brain that preserves memories just the way a human brain would. Then a minor accident damages Lora’s key, and her memories go haywire. Suddenly Lora remembers a moment from the night of her mother’s disappearance that indicates her death was no accident. Can she trust these formerly forgotten memories? Or is her ability to remember every painful part of her past driving her slowly mad—burying the truth forever?

Lora’s longing for her lost mother and journey to patch up her broken memories is filled with authentic and poignant emotion. Her race to uncover the truth is a twisty ride. In the end, Liana Liu’s story will spark topical conversations about memory and privacy in a world that is reliant on increasingly invasive forms of technology.”

My Review:  I had no idea what kind off book this would be going into it. I really expected more sci-fi stuff, but what I got was a story set about 50 years in the future in which people had memory keys implanted into their brains as a precaution to Vergets disease.

The story did not feel futurist at all. It may as well been set in contemporary times because this memory key was the only technological innovation that was not something we had today. Maybe this disease had prevented other technological advances from being developed. Maybe it’s more of a alternate history story. I’m not sure. There’s no mention of tablets or smart phones. There’s a library with normal computers. There’s really not much world building. I’m disappointed in this, but I still enjoyed the story for the most part.

The narration was pretty fast paced. It was written in first person, present tense and wasn’t overly complicated or wordy. Sometimes there was too much repetition, but it worked. The flashback caused by the malfunctioning memory key cut into the story way too much, but not all were irrelevant. They fit into the plot. The plot was about a memory centered around the events before her mother’s death, and implicated that she may have been murdered or taken. The mystery story overtakes any sci-fi elements.

Some other interesting point on this story are the characters. Lora is half Chinese (Though the country is never specifically mentioned). Her mom’s parents immigrated to America. Her mother’s sister Aunt Austin is a congresswoman. Lora’s father is an “absentminded” literature professor. Lora’s best friend is Wendy and she’s always setting Lora up with her date’s friends. Lora used to have a crush on Wendy’s brother Tim. At the beginning of the book Lora meets a boy named Raul and later dates him. So there’s so romance, but it’s not a big part of the story.

This book has similarities to other near-future dystopian or sci-fi stories out there. I recommend this to those who enjoyed Elusion by Claudia Gabel, Uninvited by Sophie Jordan, Minders by Michele Jaffe, on Unwind by Neal Shusterman.

Cover Art Review: I love the hand rendered title treatment. The color scheme is nice. The cover is simple and clean.  

Don’t Let Go by Michelle Gagnon

Series: PERSEFoNE (bk. 3)

Genera(s): Realistic Fiction/Action Thriller

Subjects: hackers, technology, diseases, adventure, fugitives, conspiracies

Setting: Contemporary times, Throughout the USA

POV/Tense: 3^rd person POV, past tense: Noa, Peter, Daisy and Teo

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 335 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $17.99

Publisher: HarperTeen

Summary/ product description: “In this pulse-pounding final installment of the Don’t Turn Around trilogy, which in a starred review Kirkus called “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for teens,” Noa and Peter race across the country in their search to destroy Project Persephone before time runs out.

After a devastating loss, Noa Torson is out of options. On the run with the three remaining teens of Persephone’s Army, she is up against immeasurable odds. The group is outnumbered, outsmarted, and outrun. But they are not giving up.

When Noa and Peter realize they can’t run anymore, and that Noa’s health is failing, they know they must go back to where this began. But when they come face-to-face with the man who started it all, the question becomes, can they win?

This riveting final book in the Don’t Turn Around trilogy ratchets up the action as Noa and Peter confront the evil that has chased them and won’t let them go.

My Review:  This is the first book in this trilogy that I was fully able to enjoy. Maybe I was just in the right mood for it this time. The first two books just didn’t have the epic amount of action and adventure that this book did. There was some romantic stuff, but it wasn’t the most important thing. I really liked that Noa and Peter were back together for this book. They are both amazing hackers (and Zeke was too). They have great dialogue. Also Teo and Daisy are so cute together. All their dialogue is lovey-dovey and funny.

Don’t let go had a dystopian-esque feel to it. It was very much a thriller. It’s a little on the sci-fi side with Noa’s implanted thalamus and the made up disease of PEMA. This book is so much fun, but there’s also some questionable subjects. Kidnapping and organ trafficking and murder and whatnot. You can discuss it. The book leads into an epic conclusion and we finally discover what PEMA really is.

I’d compare it to the Unwind series, but instead of unwinding AWOLs, street kids were being kidnapped to be experimented on and used to find a cure for a disease called PEMA. I love to hacker stuff. I always feel like hackers have superpowers because they can manipulate technology (but hackers can be bad when they use their powers to steal you information). /ALLIANCE/ is a hackivist group that Noa and Peter are apart of. It is like the real hackivist group, Anoymous. I watch Agents of SHEILD and Skye is a hacker, and I also watch Scorpion on CBS, another great TV show about hackers. Anyone who’s a fan of those shows or thriller maybe enjoy this series.

Cover Art Review: I like the silhouetted hand and fist and the title. The color scheme is good. It’s a sticking cover. Wish it were metallic.