Speed Date with Alex: ASHFALL by Mike Mullin

I'm trying out a possible meme that I'm calling a "Speed Date". It's a quickie review of a book: under 150 words, hitting the highs/lows. I'm thinking about running it on Thursdays--you know, not a "date night" but a good time for one of those wacky "speed date" things they run at bars so you can meet a bunch of people quickly. If enough people are interested, I'll hook up a linky, and we can speed date books (I love in-depth reviews but sometimes you just need a quickie, yanno? hehe.). Leave me a comment and tell me what you think! Also, I did Google this idea but if you already run something like this on your blog (or know of a speed date-like meme), just let me know, okay? I don't want to repeat what's already out there.


First victim...er, participant in my Speed Date is:

ASHFALL (Ashfall #1) by Mike Mullin
YA Post-Apocalyptic
466 pages, hardcover
Available now (Sept. 2011)
Publisher: Tanglewood Press
Review copy provided by publisher via NetGalley


Under the bubbling hot springs and geysers of Yellowstone National Park is a supervolcano. Most people don't know it's there. The caldera is so large that it can only be seen from a plane or satellite. It just could be overdue for an eruption, which would change the landscape and climate of our planet.


Ashfall is the story of Alex, a teenage boy left alone for the weekend while his parents visit relatives. When the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts unexpectedly, Alex is determined to reach his parents. He must travel over a hundred miles in a landscape transformed by a foot of ash and the destruction of every modern convenience that he has ever known, and through a new world in which disaster has brought out both the best and worst in people desperate for food, water, and warmth.


When I finished this book, I immediately ran to my science teachers and told them they had to read it and share it with their students. What a great story!


After the Yellowstone supervolcano explodes and coats the most of the US in ash, Alex sets out across Iowa to find his family and runs into serious amounts of trouble—both natural and with his fellow human beings. While he starts out as a cranky teen, Alex quickly matures into a quick-witted young adult somewhat more capable of surviving in his terrifying new world. Along the way, he falls in love with Darla, a mechanical genius, who saves his life on more than one occasion.


Well-researched and horrifyingly realistic, ASHFALL explores the devastating results of a supervolcano while telling a hair-raising story. I’ll definitely be adding this one to my post-apocalyptic/dystopian unit next year.


Available on Amazon | IndieBound

Waiting on...LAST RITE by Lisa Desrochers

Another awesome series is coming to a conclusion this year! I wasn't all that into the whole angels and demons genre but the Personal Demons series converted me. And now, it's ending. *sigh* I like the colors on this cover--very eye-catching. Plus, with the two guys mirroring each other, you know it's going to be an epic battle between good and evil.

LAST RITE (Personal Demons #3) by Lisa Desrochers

YA Paranormal

368 pages, hardcover

Releases on: May 8, 2012

Publisher: Tor Teen

In this final installment of the thrilling, edgy Personal Demons series, the battle between Heaven and Hell has become critical, and Frannie Cavanaugh is right at the center of it.


With the help of the powerful angel Gabe and demon-turned-mortal Luc, Frannie has been able to stay one step ahead of the forces of Hell. But when the demons killed Frannie's best friend and destroyed her brother, they raised the stakes. If Frannie wants to keep her family and friends safe, she knows she has no choice but to go on the run.


Their best defense is the power Frannie has been struggling to master, but her attempts to hone her skill go horribly awry. If Frannie doesn't learn fast, the consequences could be devastating--even apocalyptic.


What happens when you can't outrun Hell...or trust the ones you love?


So, what are you waiting on?


Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

"I'll Be Back": PARTIALS by Dan Wells

PARTIALS (Partials #1) by Dan Wells
YA Post-Apocalyptic/Dystopian
472 pages, hardcover
Available Feb. 28, 2012
Review copy provided by publisher via Amazon Vine
Publisher: HarperTEEN

The human race is all but extinct after a war with Partials--engineered organic beings identical to humans--has decimated the population. Reduced to only tens of thousands by RM, a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long Island while the Partials have mysteriously retreated. The threat of the Partials is still imminent, but, worse, no baby has been born immune to RM in more than a decade. Our time is running out.

Kira, a sixteen-year-old medic-in-training, is on the front lines of this battle, seeing RM ravage the community while mandatory pregnancy laws have pushed what's left of humanity to the brink of civil war, and she's not content to stand by and watch. But as she makes a desperate decision to save the last of her race, she will find that the survival of humans and Partials alike rests in her attempts to uncover the connections between them--connections that humanity has forgotten, or perhaps never even knew were there.

Holy cow, y'all. I just finished this book yesterday, and it's been a while since a book left me so satiated. I'd actually been in rather a reading funk before picking up PARTIALS, having discarded three books prior.  Back on the reading wagon now, for sure!

Positive: The world-building. In this world, humans build human-like robots, called Partials, to fight their enemies, and the robots turn on them. While that part's not so unusual--think Terminator or Alien--a plague then sweeps through the human race, decimating its numbers and leaving the world with fewer than 40,000 humans who barely cling to survival. Humans believe the Partials are to blame. The government gathers its people close, trying to salvage what's left of humanity and save the future. As with most governments, they start out with good intentions that quickly sour as free will and the desire for power overcome those ideals. This world comes to life through a rich details and robust backstory, parceled out in manageable nibbles rather than huge chunks.

Positive: The pacing. It's fast and relentless. Kira and her band of merry men hardly have time to catch their breath or recover from their wounds before they've got to take actions that may save their world or may wipe the human race from the planet. The Partials, the disease RM, and the Voice (human rebels who don't agree with the government's decision to require women to get pregnant by the age of 18) are all out to destroy each other. 

Positive: Kira. This is one strong-willed, brave, smart girl. Although she's only 16, she's already an adult, working in the maternity ward, watching infant after infant perish from the incurable disease of RM. She and her compatriots have grown up in incredibly difficult circumstances and, because of those, had to grow up fast. When her best friend gets pregnant, she knows that, unless they find a cure quickly, her friend's child will die within days of coming into the world. So she decides to cure RM and, to do that, she has to capture a live Partial, knowing that it's a treasonous act to do so, that a Partial could kill her as easily as she breathes, and that there's still the possibility that the Partial's blood and anatomy won't help at all. But she does it anyway.

Wish: That more books were like this one. Not necessarily of the same genre but paced the same way with full-bodied, interesting characters; and a detailed world. While I did have some lingering questions (ie, Why would the Partials leave the humans alone for eleven years when they were so close to victory? How did the Senate come to be and how did it devolve into more of a dictatorship?), any more backstory might have been overwhelming. And, while there is most definitely another book in the works, this particular chapter of the series finished its story arc with a satisfying, if a little melancholy, resolution.

Overall: PARTIALS once again proves why young adult literature rocks, fulfilling all requirements for a fantastic story: sensational characters, high-octane pacing, and a lush world to get lost in for hours.

Available on Amazon | IndieBound

IMM (28)

Welp, another week down. We're all counting down to this weird mid-winter break our school district has starting on the 20th (only five school days left!). There's been a hideous plague going around, we had very unexpected death of a parent that rocked our school, and the kids have been acting like they ate a huge box of sugar-filled candy chased by two Monster drinks for breakfast. *sigh*

That's probably why I took the plunge--I just registered for BEA!! Yahoo!! It's my first-ever conference, and I'm a little (read: a lot) nervous, just because I don't "know" anyone (IRL, I mean). Plus, I don't really know New York--where to stay, what to do after...any of that. So, I have two main questions for you all: 

Are any of you going?

And, for you BEA/NY vets, where are some good, reasonably-priced (no more than $275/night) places to stay? Is there a hotel bloggers prefer/flock to?

Okay, onto In My Mailbox! A somewhat manageable week--I'm getting pretty far behind in my reading, especially books on my Kindle, which I'm trying not to stress out about but can't help. It's just my nature. Does anyone else reach for the physical book over an ebook? I do. Even if the ebook's one I've really been looking forward to and I'm just meh about the physical book, the latter is what winds up in my hands. I need to modify my thinking a smidge.

Fiona's Pick of the Week

We're having a tired morning...

For Review:

PARTIALS by Dan Wells

VAMPIRE'S KISSES by Veronica Wolff

SHOOTING STARS by Allison Rushby

DEAD RECKONING by Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edgehill

TRANSCENDENCE by C.J. Ormolou

BURN MARK by Laura Powell

MAGIC UNDER STONE by Jaclyn Dolamore

Thanks, HarperTeen/B+B, Penguin/NAL Trade, Bloomsbury Children's Books, Amazon Vine, and NetGalley!

IMM is a meme hosted by Kristi of The Story Siren.

You must comply: ARTICLE 5 by Kristen Simmons

ARTICLE 5 (Article 5 #1) by Kristen Simmons

YA Post-Apocalyptic/Dystopian

384 pages, hardcover

Available now (Jan. 2012)

Review copy provided by publisher via Amazon Vine

Publisher: Tor Teen

New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., have been abandoned. The Bill of Rights has been revoked, and replaced with the Moral Statutes. There are no more police—instead, there are soldiers. There are no more fines for bad behavior—instead, there are arrests, trials, and maybe worse. People who get arrested usually don't come back.

Seventeen-year-old Ember Miller is old enough to remember that things weren’t always this way. Living with her rebellious single mother, it’s hard for her to forget that people weren’t always arrested for reading the wrong books or staying out after dark. It’s hard to forget that life in the United States used to be different.

Ember has perfected the art of keeping a low profile. She knows how to get the things she needs, like food stamps and hand-me-down clothes, and how to pass the random home inspections by the military. Her life is as close to peaceful as circumstances allow. That is, until her mother is arrested for noncompliance with Article 5 of the Moral Statutes. And one of the arresting officers is none other than Chase Jennings…the only boy Ember has ever loved.

Positive: The dystopian society. Oh, very cool. And shiver-inducing. The leader of this shattered country has horrible ideas about the "place" of women, how people should act and think, and he's not above having his soldiers kill to prove a point or just for sport. It's a pretty bleak place, no matter how you look at it.

Positive: Ember. There were times I wanted to shake Ember and ask her what the heck she was thinking but mostly, I cheered her on. Despite all odds, she was determined to escape, find her mother, and survive. She wasn't a leader. She wasn't a patriot. She was just a girl in a terrible world and terrible circumstances who wanted to live life as normally as she possibly could.

Wish: That we were given more backstory. I know, I know. Writerly people preach about not having too much backstory but I really wanted to know how the state of this world came to be. How did all the cities fall? How did this crazy, religious zealot come to be in office and why did people fall in line with his rhetoric? How did they come up with these articles, these rules that are so archaic and harsh?

Wish: That I liked Chase more. I won't say too much because it's part of the story's twisty-ness but I had a serious like-hate relationship with Chase. Just when I started to like him, he'd do something totally prick-ish and my nod of affirmation would turn into a sneer of dislike. So, when Ember tried to get away from him, I completely understood (though her timing left something to be desired).  I never really loved Chase and, many times, couldn't understand why Ember was still hung up on him but I grew to appreciate his dedication and ultimate plan.

Overall: An interesting take on a very dystopian society that emerges after a terrible apocalypse, ARTICLE 5 will keep you turning the pages to see how everything turns out. Oh, and while this is a series and there are some loose threads, there's a relatively satisfying ending to this one.

Available on Amazon | IndieBound