The Telling by Alexandra Sirowy

Series: Standalone

Genera(s): Horror/Mystery/Thriller

Subjects: murder, death, islands, summer

Setting: Gant Island in Washington state

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

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 387 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $17.99

Publisher: Simon & Schuster for Young Readers

Summary/ product description: “Lana used to know what was real.

That was before when her life was small and quiet.

Her golden step-brother, Ben, was alive, she could only dream about bonfiring with the populars, their wooded island home was idyllic, she could tell the truth from lies, and Ben’s childhood stories were firmly in her imagination.

Then came after.

After has Lana boldly kissing her crush, jumping into the water from too high up, and living with nerve and mischief. But after also has horrors, deaths that only make sense in fairy tales, and terrors from a past Lana thought long forgotten: Love, blood, and murder.”

My Review: The Telling is a standalone murder-mystery thriller set on an island in Washington State, called Gant. Lana’s step-brother was possibly or probably murdered two month ago in June. His ex-girlfriend was suspected in helping a car jacking that led to his dead. Ben had stopped the car for a stranger and was attacked and stabbed and then dragged away. Lana spent about a month after his death moping at home until a note Ben left jolts her out of her grief. She starts hanging out with the popular kids, who she’d never thought would include her in anything.

These kids made fun of her in middle school and some of high school. Now it’s August and soon school starts. These popular kids known around town as the Core (Becca, Carolynn, Rusty, Duncan and Josh) are with Lana and Willa (Lana’s only previous friend) at a spring in the woods hanging out and drinking. They dare each other to jump off a cliff into the lake and when they do they find a body stuck under the water: Ben’s ex-girlfriend, Maggie. And when they report the body they suddenly become suspects. But this murder is only the beginning and Lana and the Core have to find the murderer before they become victims.

Ben, Lana’s stepbrother, has a mysterious past. He arrives with his mother Diane, when he was twelve. Diane became Lana’s father’s new wife. Lana’s mother died when Lana was four. Ben’s been telling Lana fantastical stories of good vs. evil since he came. In these stories, Lana and Ben are always the heroes and Lana’s a brave warrior. These stories are sometimes disturbing a violent. They’re not the sort of thing out of a kid’s imagination. Lana was addicted to those stories. They made her feel strong. She wanted to be brave like that Lana. Ben was obsessed with adventure and getting out of Gant. He wanted to do something important with his life, so he spent some time in Guatemala helping to build wells. Gant is a place full of rich people who have excess and Ben found it disgusting, yet his life was full of riches too. He considered himself a hypocrite, and said he wanted to leave Gant after high school.

I really enjoyed the book. I usually only read sci-fi, fantasy and paranormal stuff, but because this had a ghost-story horror feel to it, I didn’t care. It’s a very atmospheric book. The misty setting of Washington in late summer became a character itself. I recently watched the TV series Dead of Summer and even though that was paranormal and not contemporary, it had the same kind of creepy summer feel. I read The Creeping last year by this author and enjoyed it. 

Also, I really am amazed that I was right about the twist. I had this epiphany when I was maybe a third of the way into the book that if I was the author, I would totally make the killer someone so unsuspected, so I went off on a limb on this idea, was pulled away from it by some possibilities, but inevitably came back to the this conclusion which turned out to be right. I sure it was just foreshadowing or maybe a cliché in classic horror and not actually as clever a twist I thought, or maybe I have a psychic superpower for guessing plot twists, because I right maybe half the time or more. It’s really hard to talk about it because it’s too big of a spoiler, but I saw it coming somehow. I WAS RIGHT!!!!

Cover Art Review: I love the opalline paper this is printed on. The cover itself is creepy and definitely gives you a sense of the story inside.

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. 

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.