Four Dead Queens by Astrid Scholte | book review

✧ This review is spoiler-free! ✧

Title: Four Dead Queens
Series: standalone
Author: Astrid Scholte
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers
Published: Feb. 26, 2019
Category: YA
Genre: dystopia, fantasy
Pages: 413
My Rating: ★★★☆☆
Goodreads page

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Synopsis

Seventeen-year-old Keralie Corrington may seem harmless, but in fact, she’s one of Quadara’s most skilled thieves and a liar. Varin, on the other hand, is an honest, upstanding citizen of Quadara’s most enlightened region, Eonia. Varin runs afoul of Keralie when she steals a package from him, putting his life in danger. When Varin attempts to retrieve the package, he and Keralie find themselves entangled in a conspiracy that leaves all four of Quadara’s queens dead.

With no other choices and on the run from Keralie’s former employer, the two decide to join forces, endeavoring to discover who has killed the queens and save their own lives in the process. When their reluctant partnership blooms into a tenuous romance, they must overcome their own dark secrets in hopes of a future together that seemed impossible just days before. But first they have to stay alive and untangle the secrets behind the nation’s four dead queens.

An enthralling fast-paced murder mystery where competing agendas collide with deadly consequences, Four Dead Queens heralds the arrival of an exciting new YA talent.

[ This synopsis was taken directly from Goodreads. ]

Rise of the Red Hand by Olivia Chadha | ARC review

I was given a free digital ARC in exchange for a honest review.

✧ This review is spoiler-free! ✧

Title: Rise of the Red Hand
Series: The Mechanists, #1
Author: Olivia Chadha
Expected publication: January 19, 2021
Publisher: Erewhon
Category: YA
Genre: sci-fi
Pages: 384
My rating: ★★★☆☆ (2.5)
Goodreads page

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Synopsis

A rare, searing portrayal of the future of climate change in South Asia. A street rat turned revolutionary and the disillusioned hacker son of a politician try to take down a ruthlessly technocratic government that sacrifices its poorest citizens to build its utopia.

The South Asian Province is split in two. Uplanders lead luxurious lives inside a climate-controlled biodome, dependent on technology and gene therapy to keep them healthy and youthful forever. Outside, the poor and forgotten scrape by with discarded black-market robotics, a society of poverty-stricken cyborgs struggling to survive in slums threatened by rising sea levels, unbreathable air, and deadly superbugs.

Ashiva works for the Red Hand, an underground network of revolutionaries fighting the government, which is run by a merciless computer algorithm that dictates every citizen’s fate. She’s a smuggler with the best robotic arm and cybernetic enhancements the slums can offer, and her cargo includes the most vulnerable of the city’s abandoned children.

When Ashiva crosses paths with the brilliant hacker Riz-Ali, a privileged Uplander who finds himself embroiled in the Red Hand’s dangerous activities, they uncover a horrifying conspiracy that the government will do anything to bury. From armed guardians kidnapping children to massive robots flattening the slums, to a pandemic that threatens to sweep through the city like wildfire, Ashiva and Riz-Ali will have to put aside their differences in order to fight the system and save the communities they love from destruction.

[ This synopsis was taken directly from Goodreads. ]

1984 by George Orwell | Book Review

Title: 1984
Series: standalone
Author: George Orwell
Published: June 8 1949
Genre: dystopia, classic
Pages: 237
My Rating: ★★★★☆
Goodreads page

There are no spoilers in this review.

Top 10 Books I Read in 2017

2017 is coming to an end… and thank goodness for that. It’s been a rough year, to say the least, but that didn’t stop me from reading some pretty freaking awesome books. I didn’t read as much as I wanted to this year, but that just means I’m going to try extra hard in 2018 to get to all the books I want to read.

Too many books, not enough time, am I right?

YA Novels with Male Protagonists

I read a lot of young adult novels. In fact, 95% of what I read is in the young adult genre. What I’ve noticed over the years is that there aren’t a lot of male protagonists. Sure, there are some male main characters, but most of the time the story isn’t focused on them. Often times it is a girl narrating the story or, if it’s in third person, the narrator focuses on the girl more than the guy.

We need more male protagonists in the YA genre. Everyone should have a protagonist they can relate to, and that means boys as well. I came up with a list of books that have a male main characters. The sad thing is, I had a lot of trouble compiling a list because there are so few books with male protagonists that I’ve read. This goes to show that either 1) I’m more interested in books with female protagonists or 2) the world needs more YA books with male main characters.

Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles, #1) by Marissa Meyer | Book Review

Title: Cinder
Series: The Lunar Chronicles, #1
Author: Marissa Meyer
Published: January 3, 2012
Edition: paperback
Pages: 387
My Rating: 5 / 5
Goodreads page

ATTENTION: This is a spoiler-free review.