Homecoming by Kass Morgan

Series: The 100 (bk. 3)

Genera(s): Dystopian Sci-fi

Subjects: survival, re-colonization, space colonies, outer space

Setting: 300 years in the future, in a space colony called the Arc, and on the East Cost of what was the United States.

POV/Tense: 3rd person POV, past tense. Rotating between Clarke, Wells, Bellamy and Glass.

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 340 pgs.

HC/PB: Paperback

List Price: $12.00

Publisher: Hachette: Little, Brown

Summary/ product description: “Weeks after landing on Earth, the Hundred have managed to create a sense of order amidst their wild, chaotic surroundings. But their delicate balance comes crashing down with the arrival of new dropships from space.

These new arrivals are the lucky ones - back on the Colony, the oxygen is almost gone - but after making it safely to Earth, GLASS's luck seems to be running out. CLARKE leads a rescue party to the crash site, ready to treat the wounded, but she can't stop thinking about her parents who may still be alive. Meanwhile, WELLS struggles to maintain his authority despite the presence of the Vice Chancellor and his armed guards, and BELLAMY must decide whether to face or flee the crimes he thought he'd left behind.

It's time for the Hundred to come together and fight for the freedom they've found on Earth, or risk losing everything - and everyone - they love.”

My Review:  Homecoming is the action-packed finale to The 100 trilogy (at least it seems to be a finale). The series comes to a satisfying conclusion. The drop ships comes down bringing adult and kids from the Colony. Vice Chancellor Rhodes takes charge and doesn’t keep his promise of letting the 100 be free of their past crimes. Well’s father, the Chancellor is not with them since he was in a coma.

Many of the people from the drop ships are injured and Clarke does her best to treat their wounds. Bellamy is taken as prisoner and is supposed to be executed for almost murdering the Chancellor, who he now discovered is his actual father. In the last book Wells and Bellamy discovered they were half brothers, so that makes Octavia only his half-sister. So now he as technically 2 illegal siblings. Of course, they’re kept this a secret from the Vice Chancellor.

With Bellamy as a prisoner, the Colonist have difficulty hunting and doing other survival things. Wells tries to teach the basics of hunting, fire-making and building. Rhodes is reluctant to accept help from kids, especially criminals. Glass and Luke are planning on escaping the camp since Luke was supposed to be an executer and he does want to kill anyone. The Earthborns from Mount Weather help Clarke, Bellamy and Wells. The other violent Earthborns see the new colonists landing as an act of war.

This series was very fun and exciting are far as dystopians go. It’s go awesome survival stuff, romance, humor, interesting character and a cool setting. The combination of a forest setting and a space colony setting gave it variety. The story also had flashbacks in a san-serif font so you’d know if it took place in the past and prevented confusion.

I think I enjoy these books more than the TV shows. The TV show confuses me a lot and I don’t understand how they could have been on the Arc for 97 years only and already the Earthborns have a new language, odd animal mutations, and weird weather. In the book’s it’s only 300 years and the Earthborn speak English and are more like farmers. Also the character inconstancies on the show are weird. Wells was black and is dead on the show, and yet his father survived. Clarke’s mother was on the ship, not on Earth, in the show. It’s completely different.

The 100 (season 3) returns Thursday, January 21, 2016 at 9 eastern/8 central.

Cover Art Review: This cover is terrible. They look dirty and I kind of hate that it has characters from the show on it.

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.

Vitro by Jessica Khoury

Series: Corpus (bk. 2)

Genera(s): Sci-fi/Romance

Subjects: experiments, scientists, islands, mystery

Setting: On an island in the south Pacific, called Skin Island, near Guam

POV/Tense: 3^rd person POV: Sophie, Jim, and Lux

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 360 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover/Paperback

Publisher: Penguin: Razorbill

Summary/ product description: “On Skin Island, even the laws of creation can be broken.

On a remote island in the Pacific, Corpus scientists have taken test tube embryos and given them life. These beings—the Vitros—have knowledge and abilities most humans can only dream of. But they also have one enormous flaw.

Sophie Crue is determined to get to Skin Island and find her mother, a scientist who left Sophie behind years ago. With the help of Jim Julien, a young charter pilot, she arrives--and discovers a terrifying secret she never imagined: she has a Vitro twin, Lux, who is the culmination of Corpus's dangerous research.

Now Sophie is torn between reuniting with the mother who betrayed her and protecting the genetically enhanced twin she never knew existed. But untangling the twisted strands of these relationships will have to wait, for Sophie and Jim are about to find out what happens when science stretches too far beyond its reach.”

My Review: This book, Vitro, take place at the same time as or a few days before the event of Origin, but on an island in the South Pacific rather than the Amazon Rainforest. It’s yet another unique sci-fi story that deals with the morality of science. It’s not about cloning like I first thought. It’s about in-vitro fertilization and a chip that can control these Vitros. The chips cause them to imprint on the first person they see when they are born/awaken.

Sophie came to Skin Island (a fictional island near Guam) because of an email sent by her mother. She’s taken there by Jim, a childhood friend who’s now a pilot and flies tourists. What’s happening on Skin Island is not what Sophie first believed. She see Lux, her secret twin who’s a Vitro. And she is mistaken for her. Jim thinks Lux is Sophie and rescues her and thing keep getting worse, more crazy and complicated.

This book is actually kind of fun too. It’s funny and light, though the horrible science it deals with is not. There’s romance and humor, and a lot of science. It definitely keeps in tone with Origin, but it’s written in 3^rd person POV, rotating between Sophie, Jim and Lux. Origin was 1^st person POV, and only Pia. The only character that is in both books is Strauss. Victoria Strauss is a nasty lady who’s a big part of Corpus, a scientific research organization with projects all over the world. She cares more about profit than anything and inherited the job from her father. She’s seems like Divergent’s Jeanine from Erudite.

I’d recommend this book to fans of Unremembered, Maximum Ride, Altered by Jennifer Rush, The Rules by Stacy Kade and other books with genetic engineering and mad science. Also, if you like tropical island settings like in Forsaken by Lisa M. Stasse, or Catching Fire, then you’ll love this.

Cover Art Review: I love the cover. The test tube with the island is a very cool illustration. Almost minimal.

Here's the paperback cover. Not as cool.