One Was Lost by Natalie D. Richards

Publication Date: October 4, 2016

Series: Standalone

Genera(s): Mystery/Thriller

Subjects: survival, camping, murder

Setting: Southern Ohio

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

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 320 pgs.

HC/PB: Paperback

List Price: $10.99

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Summary/ product description: “Damaged. Deceptive. Dangerous. Darling. Are they labels or a warning? The answer could cost Sera everything.

Murder, justice, and revenge were so not a part of the plan when Sera set out on her senior camping trip. After all, hiking through the woods is supposed to be safe and uneventful.

Then one morning the group wakes up groggy, confused, and with words scrawled on their wrists: Damaged. Deceptive. Dangerous. Darling. Their supplies? Destroyed. Half their group? Gone. Their chaperone? Unconscious. Worst of all, they find four dolls acting out a murder—dolls dressed just like them.

Suddenly it's clear; they're being hunted. And with the only positive word on her wrist, Sera falls under suspicion…”

My Review:  I received an ARC of One Was Lost from Anderson’s Bookshop for a pre-pub event, which I sadly can’t attend because of a night class.

One Was Lost is a standalone thriller set in the Appalachian wilderness of southern Ohio. A group of 6 teens are on a trip with two teachers. A rainstorm causes a flash flood. The bridge that they were supposed to cross the river with is broken. Sera, Lucas, Jude, Emily and Mr. Walker make it across, but Madison, Hayley, and Ms. Brighton get left behind as the river floods.

The group of five sets up camp, hoping the river level will go down the next day. The next morning they wake up to find word written on their arms and Mr. Walker unable to wake up. They figure out that they were drugged, probably by something in their water bottles. Most of their supplied have been destroy or stolen. Sera’s word is Darling, Lucas has Dangerous, Emily has Damaged, and Jude had Deceptive.

This book is full of brutally realistic survival and a freaky mystery. I had my guesses on who did it, but I didn’t expect who it turned out to be. I enjoyed the romance between Sera and Lucas. I thought Sera being a director of school plays made her a unique and interesting protagonist. I liked the fast pace of the story and I just wanted to know what happened next. I never read anything by this author before, but this book made me want to check her other books out.

I recommend this book to those who enjoy mystery thrillers, like anything by Alexandra Sirowy, Kimberly Derting, or Becca Fitzpatrick.

Cover Art Review: My ARC cover is orange. The new cover has a voodoo-doll made of sticks, which are mentioned in the book.

The Revival by Chris Weitz

Series: The Young World Trilogy (bk. 3) Final Book

Genera(s): Dystopian Sci-fi

Subjects: post-apocalyptic, survival, viruses, love, adventure

Setting: New York City

POV/Tense: 1st person past tense rotating between Jefferson, Donna, Peter, Evan and Kath, mainly, and interludes from Brainbox, Rab, and Imani

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 258 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $18.99

Publisher: Hachette: Little, Brown

Summary/ product description: “The teens survived a mysterious catastrophe in The Young World, brought the cure back home in The New Order, and now must forge a new world in this fast-paced conclusion from acclaimed film director Chris Weitz.

The teens forge a new world in this epic conclusion to The Young World trilogy.

After the emotional cliffhanger of The New Order, shocking events take place for Donna, Jefferson, Kath, and their tribe as they face their greatest challenge yet--how to hold the new city-state of New York against a ruthless attack from the Old World.

Heart-stopping action and exciting new revelations will leave readers hungry for the final installment in the series.”

My Review:  The Revival is the finale to the Young World trilogy. If you have not read this series, it’s set in a post-epidemic version of New York City in which only kids and teen survived the plaque. I recommend this to fans of the Gone series by Michael Grant, The 5th Wave, The Hunger Games, Divergent, Maximum Ride, Quarantine by Lex Thomas, Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne, No Easy Way Out by Dayna Lorentz, Inhuman by Kat Fall, The Murder Complex by Lindsey Cummings, Taken by Erin Bowman, and other dystopian book.

Donna is back in New York City and with her comes some of the people she met in Cambridge, including Rab, the guy “seduced” her to get information. There’s Titch who’s a burly guy, there’s Guja, a Nepalese mercenary, and a few other. Jefferson, the leader of the group of kids who lived in Washington Square, was pinning for Donna to come back and Kath says he should get over her. Kath and Jefferson had a thing for a while. Peter is mad that Chapel, a guy who he thought her was in love with, betrayed him, and possibly also just seduced him for information. Evan, Kath’s brother, from Uptown, is a sociopath and has some nefarious plans.

This book series is full of humor and action. This is one of the most fun dystopian book series you will ever read. It’s a little bit like the Gone series at first, minus the super power. I love that we get different first person perspectives. The male POV are in a serif and female in san-serif a typeface. The chapter headers have a weapon silhouette behind the character name. I recall the first book was all Jefferson and Donna, but here we get Peter, Kath, Evan, Imani, Brainbox, and Rab. Some of them only get 1 or 2 chapters.

This book also brings up a lot of social issues like race, gender and sexuality, and it does it with humor. Some of the characters are clearly a bit racist, but most are just trying to survive and don’t care about that stuff. There’s just a extremely diverse cast of characters that the author created, maybe unreality so. I don’t think that it’s a very realist story, even if there was a virus that killed all the adult and kids had to survive. Yes, there would be cliques and gangs, but some of the story does seem silly, but this is fiction and I enjoyed it.

The book ended in an acceptable way. We didn’t get to see what happed 6 months later or whatever future would happen, but the character definitely had some kind of resolution. A climatic scene, and showdown, some sad deaths, some romance. It’s a pretty good finale and I will miss this series, but there’s always more to read.

Cover Art Review: Cool cover, as always with this series. I like that awesome samurai sword that the guy in the middle, who is probably Jefferson, is holding.

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.

The Last Star by Rick Yancey

Series: The 5th Wave (bk. 3)

Genera(s): Dystopian Sci-fi

Subjects: post-apocalyptic, aliens, survival,

Setting: Ohio, during late winter, early spring. Ohio Caverns. A little bit of Canada too.

POV/Tense: 1st person POV present and past tense, rotating by part between Ringer (Marika), Zombie (Ben) & Cassie (Cassiopeia), and 3rd person of Evan and Sam

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 338 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $18.99

Publisher: Penguin: Putnam

Summary/ product description: “The enemy is Other. The enemy is us.

They’re down here, they’re up there, they’re nowhere. They want the Earth, they want us to have it. They came to wipe us out, they came to save us.

But beneath these riddles lies one truth: Cassie has been betrayed. So has Ringer. Zombie. Nugget. And all 7.5 billion people who used to live on our planet. Betrayed first by the Others, and now by ourselves.

In these last days, Earth’s remaining survivors will need to decide what’s more important: saving themselves…or saving what makes us human.”

My Review:  The Last Star is the highly anticipated finale of the 5^th Wave trilogy. It starts off with a prologue about why Cassie’s father named her Cassiopeia. Then there’s the 3^rd person perspective of a priest who’s a silencer, and goes to Ohio Caverns and kills the people living there. Then at page 21 we finally get to the story.  

Cassie’s pretty angry. Her, Zombie aka Ben, Evan Walker, Dumbo, Sam and Megan are all hiding out. Ringer and Teacup went ahead to some Caverns. Cassie’s mad because of a lot of things, but one thing is that her six-year-old brother Sam forgot his ABCs. Zombie and Dumbo go after Ringer. They run into trouble and stuff happens. There’s only 4 days till the spring equinox when the bombs will drop from the mothership to destroy all cities on earth.

This series seems to use well-known places as settings. At least well known if you ever been to Ohio. In 2004, when I was 11, on my family trip to Ohio, we visited Ohio Caverns. It was a cool cave. I’ve been to 5 other caves, and this one seemed pretty small. Maybe it was just the tour we went on. Anyway, I took pictures. It was beautiful. On that trip we also the air force base’s museum, the space museum in Dayton and also we stayed in Columbus.

Here's Ohio Caverns:

(the girl in the blue jacket is me)

Here's the air force museum:

This series has been pretty good, but some things have really irritated me about it. Maybe the way perspective change and the way chapter begin and end on the same page with very little space much like in the Unwind series. I this final book there are labels when the perspective change. Cassie, Zombie, Ringer, Sam, and Evan Walker. And the perspective changes every few chapter. No having to really a whole part, 100 pages straight, of just one character.

My favorite character’s POV to read is Cassie. She’s funny. Her humor reminds me so much of Maximum Ride. I still wish the whole book was in Cassie’s perspective, but I can see now how that wouldn’t have worked. Maybe if it was limited to Cassie and Zombie. What I don’t understand now if how Cassie’s POV could have been written in a journal the whole time because of the ending.

Let’s talk about that ending. *VAGUE SPOILER AHEAD*

If you read the ending to Allegiant by Veronica Roth, it’s that kind of ending. I hate martyr endings. Also, I feel like too much was left open, like there’s a possibility of a spin-off series. Probably won’t happen, just saying.

Also, in September 2014 I got to meet Rick Yancey. You can click here to see.

Cover Art Review: Not sure if that’s an air force base or water treatment plant on the cover. The cover is pretty good. You can see the owl behind the title this time. It’s a lot more noticeable than the previous covers.