I won a copy from Goodreads First Reads.
"THE GREATEST MYSTERY OF ALL TIME...
THE HISTORY OF HUMAN ORIGINS...
WILL BE REVEALED.
_______________________________
70,000 years ago, the human race almost went extinct.
We survived, but no one knows how.
Until now.
The countdown to the next stage of human evolution is about to begin, and humanity may not survive this time."
Okay, the Atlantis Gene is a thriller about the legendary Atlantis with a scientist that sounds similar to Dr. Temperance Brennan from Bones. And the Clocktower operative, David Vale/Andrew Reed have parallel characteristics with FBI Agent Seeley Booth. If you like books by Kathy Reichs like Virals or you like the tv show Bones, you'll like this book.
The beginning of The Atlantis Gene: A Thriller is thrilling. (See what I did there?) It's exciting and interesting. I love it and I couldn't get enough of it. I kept on reading and reading until the end. It's so good and the scientific facts in the beginning are actually real (other than the Atlantis Gene theory). The Toba Catastrophe is real. Human population did indeed decrease severely at that time (70,000 years ago).
Now we are at the ending. The ending of The Atlantis Gene is nowhere close as good as the beginning. I admit it, the beginning is as good as Divergent or The Hunger Games, but the ending? It's horrible. I feel as if the author, A.G. Riddle, rush a bit at the end. He didn't really answer our questions at the end.
Which brings us to plot holes. Yes, this eight hundred pages or so book has plot holes. Most of my questions are asking, "So how did _________ (fill in the character's name) get from point A to point B?" I hate plot holes. Anyway, the plot is pretty good although some corrections and edits will do The Atlantis Gene some good. If you are thinking about reading this book anyway, you should know that twist and turns are everywhere.
The science in The Atlantis Gene is easily understood. It doesn't take a physics whiz to know what exactly is Kate Warner talking about. She usually explains it for the dimwitted characters, usually David Vale.
If you are sensitive about characters dying, don't read it. A lot of people die in The Atlantis Gene, mostly in the end.
Characters:
One Complaint about Characters: Too many characters! I couldn't keep track of them all. It didn't help that they had alias.
Kate Warner is the twin to Bones. Well, not exactly a twin in biology but more in psychology. They are both cold or have emotionless faces. They are both scientists. They are both intelligent in their field. Kate Warner, however, is a blond unlike Dr. Temperance Brennan who is a brunette.
David Vale/ Andrew Reed. Everything you need to know about David Vale is that he's a similar counterpart to FBI Agent Seeley Booth. Except he works for a different agency with a dangerous agenda that can affect the entire human race.
And many others. Please stop using alias or else I will go insane over them.
Rating: Four out of Five
I won a copy from Goodreads First Reads.
"During the summer of 1908, twelve-year-old Constantine Boyd is witness to an explosion of home-spun investigation—from experiments with cave-dwelling fish without eyes to scientifically bred crops to motorized bicycles and the flight of an early aeroplane. In 1920, a popular science writer and young widow tries, immediately after the bloodbath of the First World War, to explain the new theory of relativity to an audience (herself included) desperate to believe in an “ether of space” housing spirits of the dead. Half a century earlier, in 1873, a famous biologist struggles to maintain his sense of the hierarchies of nature as Darwin’s new theory of evolution threatens to make him ridiculous in the eyes of a precocious student. The twentieth-century realms of science and war collide in the last two stories, as developments in genetics and X-ray technology that had once held so much promise fail to protect humans—among them, a young American soldier, Constantine Boyd, sent to Archangel, Russia, in 1919—from the failures of governments and from the brutality of war."
The Investigators
Twelve year old Constantine Boyd travel to his "uncle's" farm. He discovers and witness the inventions and creativity. He spends most of his summer trying to find the cave-dwelling eyeless fish and doing chores on the farm. The lesson at the end of the short story is meaningful and insightful.
Rating: Four out of Five
The Ether of Space
Okay... Someone hand me a dictionary. What is this I'm reading? The Ether of Space is mostly confusing and puzzling. I spend most of my valuable time trying to decipher the description of the Ether of Space, only to find myself giving up in the end. Really confusing. It's rocket science, only not quite literally.
Rating: One out of Five.
The Island
The island is amazing. We see a young girl, curious in evolution and caught up with Mendel's influence. Torn between two sides of science, the girl has to betray one of the two directions.
Rating: Four out of Five
The Particles
Sam, no longer the young boy from "The Ether of Space", journeys to find his future. In the Particles, his story is told.
Rating: Three out of Five
Archangel
The star of the book. Constantine Boyd, the same boy from "The Investigators," returns as an American soldier. He is tough and brave. But he's caught in the line of fire between two sides. All he wants to do is to...
Rating: Five out of Five.
Overall, it's a 3.4 out of five, which will be rounded down to three out of five.
"A darkly compelling mix of romance, fairy tale, and suspense from a new voice in teen fiction
The trees swallowed her brother whole, and Jenny was there to see it. Now seventeen, she revisits the woods where Tom was taken, resolving to say good-bye at last. Instead, she's lured into the trees, where she finds strange and dangerous creatures who seem to consider her the threat. Among them is Jack, mercurial and magnetic, with secrets of his own. Determined to find her brother, with or without Jack's help, Jenny struggles to navigate a faerie world where stunning beauty masks some of the most treacherous evils, and she's faced with a choice between salvation or sacrifice--and not just her own."
The Treachery of Beautiful Things is amazing, in summary. With an awesome storyline and conflict, I admire the entertaining twist and turns of The Treachery of Beautiful Things. Some of it is based on William Shakespeare's Midnight Dream.
The plot is pretty and dangerous. Beware of twist and turns with every page, paragraph, and chapter. With danger and beauty in every direction, the fey world is an interesting setting. Yes, Puck is here, but sadly not in the same way as Puck from the Iron Fey Series. After all, we all love that mischievous and hilarious Robin Goodfellow.
The fairy tale retelling part isn't as strong as the romance or suspense. It's rather a small portion. I forgot the title of the tale, but can tell you the plot of it. The girl finds a charming boy. The boy plays enchanting music. The girl is trapped into the boy's curse and has to find the boy before time runs out. The girl sees many of the boy's imposters and can't find the boy. Then she hears the boy's music and is lead to him. The girl holds the boy as he shifted form usually monstrous. She has to hold him until the curse breaks and then "Happily Ever After."
NOT! In this book, the ending has a slight twist, but unfortunately leaves me hanging to wonder what happen to the Fey World. What will happen to the other characters? Is there going to be a sequel to The Treachery of Beautiful Things? All these questions. So there is a loose ending in this book? It's a huge red mark in my book.
Characters:
Jenny is, in my opinion, too boring. She's too Snow White and Cinderella to me. I feel if Jenny is a bit more warrior and fighter, The Treachery of Beautiful Things will be better and more entertaining, especially to older readers.
Jack is odd and unusual. In the Fey World, danger lies everywhere. You can't trust anybody and you should have learn from your previous lessons. But no, Jack trusted the wrong people and the worst rulers like Mab and Oberon. For a guy who lived in the magical world, he should be able to play with the strings better, but noooo!
Rating: Three out of Five
"tick
tick
tick
tick
tick
it's almost
time for war.
Juliette has escaped to Omega Point. It is a place for people like her—people with gifts—and it is also the headquarters of the rebel resistance.
She's finally free from The Reestablishment, free from their plan to use her as a weapon, and free to love Adam. But Juliette will never be free from her lethal touch.
Or from Warner, who wants Juliette more than she ever thought possible."
WOW! I'm so stunned by the writing of Tahereh Mafi. I regret not reading Unravel Me earlier. I read the preview of Unravel Me back in February 2013 and instantly was unsatisfied with the beginning. I immediately decided that Unravel Me wasn't worth my time. Juliette's bad behavior and whines annoyed me endlessly in the beginning.
I decided to take a second chance at Unravel Me when my friends bugged the daylights out of me. They said, "It's a good book. You should read it." To amuse and save myself, I pick it up and was ensnared in Tahereh Mafi's trance.
The plot is brilliant! The twist about Adam and his drunk father is clever and ingenious. (Highlight the blanks to see spoilers.) Even better is the twist involving Aaron Warner Anderson and Adam Kent Anderson. They are brothers. I'm so surprised by that middle-of-the-book twist. However, the cliffhanger at the end of Unravel Me is even bigger and badder (in a good way)!
The writing, as always, is beautiful. I love how Tahereh Mafi uses strikes and words to give meaning to the words and to hint Juliette's true feelings. Unravel Me follows the traditions of Shatter Me, the first book in this sequence.
Characters:
I find Adam Kent not so handsome or amazing anymore. He grows distant from Juliette and is often ignorant towards Juliette's feelings. I believe Adam is sad and angry at everything around him, especially Juliette and his father. He's not as attractive or interesting in Unravel me. I'm very disappointed in Adam Kent.
Aaron Warner turns out to be a surprising and fascinating character/potential love interest. He is awesome. In Unravel Me, more of Aaron Warner's hidden past and mysterious personality is unraveled. (See what I did there?) Tuck away behind a hard shell is a sweet boy lost in a world of lies, truth, violence, and deception. It's hard not to betray Team Adam and instead, ally with Team Aaron.
Juliette, the star and narrator of Unravel Me, is a huge whiner in the beginning. Everybody around her "understands, for awhile. Then they want the angry little kid to do something he knows he can't do, move on." -John Blake, The Dark Knight Rises
So, yes, Juliette is the 'angry kid' in the quote. Adam, Castle, and basically everybody at Omega Point wanted her to move on. From the girl at the beginning to the girl at the end, Juliette undergoes the biggest character growth of the Juliette Sequence, yet. To me, the ending is similar to Scarlet by Marissa Meyer, but is still as awesome and heartwarming.
Rating: Five out of Five
"For too long, Kitsy has had to satisfy her dreams of becoming a real artist by giving her friends makeovers before prom. So when her best friend Corrinne's family offers to sponsor her for a summer art course in New York City, Kitsy bids a temporary good-bye to Texas to say hello to the West Village.
Between navigating the subway and the New Yorkers—namely, the Art Boy who has a nice trick of getting under her skin—Kitsy knows that this summer is going to be about a lot more than figure drawing."
You know that feeling of clicking when you read a good book? Like that feeling, that good connection with City of Bones. Or the click with Harry Potter. Or Shatter Me/Legend/Vampire Academy.
I didn't feel it when I read A Long Way From You. Instead, I felt endlessly disappointed with the writing, the plot, the everything in A Long Way From You. I wasted precious days reading this book. If I had a time machine, I will...
Do something horrible to my younger self/rip the book/or something like that
The plot was so dreadful. I rolled my eyes at every page in this book. It's that horrible. Never, ever, ever read this book. Take it from me. I swear "I will never read this book again if I reincarnated into another book nerd girl." (Swear with me.) The writing faired a bit better than the plot, but was still as horrible as the plot.
Characters:
I hated Kitsy. I don't know how this girl could get under my skin within the first page, but she could. She irritated the good humor out of me. All I have left is bad humor, cruel jokes, sarcastic remarks, and the middle finger. It didn't help that her name Kitsy reminded me of Kristen Stewart, another name which could irk the good out of me and leave the dark, dark side behind. (Twilight was ruined because of her. All than blinking, more blinking, audible breaths, annoying gasps, and emotionless faces.) Kitsy was like a spoiled kid, who didn't care about her life. She just wanted to escape everything by running away to New York City. She didn't care about the boyfriend, friends, and family member she left behind in Texas. She was ignorant and just an annoying little kid.
The Art Boy. I liked him much more than Kitsy. I liked him in the same way I liked Tyler, who nearly ran over Bella in Twilight. (If his assassination attempt succeed, I wouldn't be tortured with Stewart's bad acting skills in the next few movies.)
Rating: One out of Five
