Finding Fortune by Delia Ray
Release Date: November 10, 2015
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Source: ARC from publisher
Rating: DNF
Buy It: Amazon | IndieBound
Running away from home isn’t as easy as Ren thinks it will be. At least she isn’t running very far-just a few miles to the ghost town of Fortune . . . or Mis-Fortune as everyone else calls it. Mis-Fortune on the Mississippi. Supposedly, there’s an abandoned school on the outskirts with cheap rooms for rent. Ren knows her plan sounds crazy. But with only a few more weeks until Dad comes home from his tour of duty in Afghanistan, she also knows she has to do something drastic so Mom will come to her senses and stop seeing that creep Rick Littleton, the creep she promised she would stop seeing but didn’t, for good.
From the moment she enters the school’s shadowy halls, Ren finds herself drawn into its secrets. Every night old Mrs. Baxter, the landlady, wanders the building on a mysterious quest. What could she be up to? And can Mrs. Baxter’s outlandish plan to transform the gym into a pearl-button museum ever succeed? With a quirky new friend named Hugh at her side, Ren sets out to solve the mystery that could save Fortune from fading away. But what about her family’s future? Can that be saved too?– Goodreads
Review:
I feel Finding Fortune could have been really, really good, but it just didn’t work for me. From pacing, to characters, to setting I could not find myself able to get through it. I wanted to know the answers to the questions that had been posed. But after two months of trying to read Finding Fortune I decided it was time to put it aside. I may come back to it later because I was enjoying it. Just not enough.
Star Wars: Episode IV a New Hope: Being the Story of Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, and the Rise of the Rebellion (Star Wars Illustrated Novels #1) by Alexandra Bracken
Release Date: September 22, 2015
Publisher: Disney LucasFilm Press
Source: Audio from library
Rating: 
Buy It: Amazon | IndieBound
The galaxy is at war.
Although the Rebel Alliance has won a few battles against the Empire, hope is fading. The Empire is about to unveil the greatest weapon the galaxy has ever seen–the Death Star. The Rebels’ only chance to defeat it now lies in the unlikely hands of a princess, a scoundrel, and a farm boy….– Goodreads
Review:
I’m going to say something…taboo. I’m not a big Star Wars person. I know. Sacrilege. How can I live this life. However, this past summer when I had a chance to go to LucasFilms when I was in San Francisco, HECK YES I went. And I got it. I got the love of Star Wars. I also got excited about Alexandra Bracken’s newest book in the universe.
Star Wars: Episode IV a New Hope: Being the Story of Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, and the Rise of the Rebellion is a retelling of Episode IV, from four points of view. Where this story shined for me is the fact I listened to this as an audiobook. With two narrators and sound effects I felt like I was there, in the middle of all the action and I wanted more. I think this story will be good for people who are beginners of the series.
Last week, my dear friend Anna and I hit up our local indie in Phoenix, which side note. 
Thanks Changing Hands for coming to downtown Phoenix! Hearts in my eyes for you! Although Anna and I go to this place once a month for book talk and booze, we came this time for Alexandra Bracken’s Phoenix signing. While she’s from Phoenix, she now lives in New York City and has not had a signing in Phoenix. I have the pleasure of meeting her last year at ALA in Chicago, and the next ALAs as she worked for a publisher, but it was enjoyable to see her as an author this time.
For the whole signing I felt like I was in Alex’s living room discussing books and publishing.I mean a giant living room with about 50 to 75 people, but it still stayed intimate and cozy. She answered any and all questions which ranged from “where did this idea come from?” to “what is the process for creating a cover?” I was enrapt listening to all of her answers. As someone who goes to…a few a lot of book signings, I’ve heard a lot of 
the same questions over and over again, with very little enthusiasm for them. But with Alex, I was fascinated and wanted to hear more.
It was also a lot of fun because her family was there. From her mom, to her older sister, to her younger brother and his friends cosplaying the characters. I really hate being like “this book signing was just a lot of fun” but you know what? It was. It was one of the better book signings I’ve ever been to, and not just because I sat next to this lovely bowl of 
candy the whole night (of course that helped). What was most interesting to me though was Alex’s road to publication. While it’s considered normal, she just recently quit her job, where should worked at a different publishing house and she worked her ass off so now she can write full time. Something she said is hard for her because she is used to writing int he wee hours of the morning. Not writing at 3AM, is this something she can do? Spoiler: she told us it is different, but she is working on it and she gets to see her friends again! Brunch! (No. I’m not into foods why’d you ask?)
I highly recommend seeing Alex if you have the shot. Her and her books are worth it.
The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken
Release Date: December 18, 2012
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Source: NetGalley
Rating: 
Buy It: Amazon | IndieBound
When Ruby woke up on her tenth birthday, something about her had changed. Something alarming enough to make her parents lock her in the garage and call the police. Something that gets her sent to Thurmond, a brutal government “rehabilitation camp.” She might have survived the mysterious disease that’s killed most of America’s children, but she and the others have emerged with something far worse: frightening abilities they cannot control.
Now sixteen, Ruby is one of the dangerous ones.
When the truth comes out, Ruby barely escapes Thurmond with her life. Now she’s on the run, desperate to find the one safe haven left for kids like her—East River. She joins a group of kids who escaped their own camp. Liam, their brave leader, is falling hard for Ruby. But no matter how much she aches for him, Ruby can’t risk getting close. Not after what happened to her parents.
When they arrive at East River, nothing is as it seems, least of all its mysterious leader. But there are other forces at work, people who will stop at nothing to use Ruby in their fight against the government. Ruby will be faced with a terrible choice, one that may mean giving up her only chance at a life worth living.
Review:
The Darkest Minds follows Ruby, as mentioned above, from her horrible time in Thurmond (of which we only see the beginning and the end) to her mad dash for freedom with three other escapees, Liam, Chubs, and Zu. Thurmond is kind of a legend, one of the first facilities for what Ruby calls Generation Freak, and one that once performed experiments on the children living there. There is only a little mentioned about the virus at first, so I was confused in the beginning, but the children are classified into color groups, like the terror alert scale, and soon, all the upper echelon children*-red, orange, yellow-are dead, whether from the virus or from the camp, I wasn’t sure. Ruby doesn’t trust anyone, and with good reason, as she’s been hiding her true nature for six years at camp. She won’t let anyone touch her or get close to her, and I found myself just completely sympathetic toward her. Her parents shipped her off when she was in fourth grade to what is basically a concentration camp for children. Ruby gets points for being able to hold coherent conversations.
One of the problems with the protag keeping a secret from the other characters is most of the time we, the readers, know the secret already. It can be frustrating watching Ruby jump around and be skittish and secretive, knowing it has to come out at some point, understanding why she’s hiding it, but also wishing she would just grow a backbone a little too. Which is unfair considering where she spent her childhood. She is incredibly good under pressure in the beginning, and she looks out for Zu before anyone else. The problem I found was, after the action of the beginning, the middle is very slow. This is another traveling book, full of kids trying to get from one place to another while adults try to either kill or control them. Dystopian novels are starting to make me sad. Does this mean I’m getting old?
So we spend most of the novel looking for the mythical Slip Kid, who absolutely no one will give any details on for quite some time. It was also kind of nice to have the romantic role reversal, where it’s very obvious Liam is falling for Ruby, while Ruby is oblivious, but also not terribly interested. Granted, her disinterest has more to do with her fear of herself than Liam himself, but it’s nice to not have a female protag following the boy around like a puppy for half the novel. And I started feeling sorry for Liam, because, while he’s got a sunnier disposition than Ruby, he’s damaged goods too. He devised the breakout plan for his camp, and when only a few people escaped and more were killed, he blamed himself. And, because of that, he believes he can’t go find his parents until he “earns it,” until he breaks everyone out of every camp. That’s a lofty goal, and kind of delusional. I want to say, “Liam, don’t be a hero,” because he simply can’t do that on his own. This isn’t fantasy; Liam doesn’t have magic. And the world that Bracken creates with this story is not a kind one. I don’t believe it would ever allow Liam to be a hero in that way, not without putting an expiration date on his life.
As mentioned above, Bracken creates a hard, unyielding world for her protagonists, where even a kiss can be deadly, and happiness is elusive. Ruby’s secret keeps her from any more than a few minutes of comfort, of laughter. I don’t like it when teenagers call themselves “monsters” for doing what circumstances dictate must be done. This book kind of destroyed me, but in a good way. I’ve been growing tired of the dystopian genre since earlier this year, maybe even last year when I did my Hunger Games rereads, but this one… Sure, the science is a little sketchy, but if you can suspend your disbelief (something I couldn’t do with books like Delirium and Wither), I think the journey Ruby takes, both in her head and with her friends, is really something to read. So definitely check this one out, buy it, whatever, because it’s the perfect dystoptia for these cloudy winter days. (See my review of Bracken’s previous novel, Brightly Woven, here.)
*I hesitate to call the children by their “colors” or refer to them as Blues or Reds, because that’s exactly how you start dehumanizing fellow people. By referring to groups of children as “Blues,” you only see their designation or what makes them bad or different. That is why in my field (special education), we’re trying to incorporate more people-first language. If you say “autistics” instead of “children with autism,” there’s a whole different set of ideas that arise, not to mention how labels generalize. Ahem. Excuse my tangent.
Brightly Woven by Alexandra Bracken
Release Date: March 23, 2010
Publisher: Egmont USA
Source: Library
Rating:
Buy It: Amazon | IndieBound
The day the rains came was like any other, blistering air coating the canyon in a heavy stillness….
Just as the rains come after ten long, dry years, a young wizard, Wayland North, appears, to whisk Sydelle Mirabil away from her desert village. North needs an assistant, and Sydelle is eager to see the country – and to join him on his quest to stop the war that surely will destroy her home. But North has secrets – about himself, about why he chose Sydelle, about his real reasons for the journey. What does he want from her? And why does North’s sworn enemy seem fascinated by Sydelle himself?
Review:
I was fully prepared to give this book three stars, because there are some problematic elements, but I ended up really enjoying it despite its flaws. Sydelle lives in a remote village that has suffered from extreme drought since she was seven years old. One day when she is sixteen, a wizard named Wayland North shows up, and it begins to rain. He offers Sydelle’s father, an elder in the village, to give them rain if he can take Sydelle in return. Sydelle is furious, as I would be, and rails against North at every opportunity. I hated North during this part as well. He’s eighteen, only two years older than Sydelle, but he’s condescending and treats Sydelle like a little girl. It’s like he expects her to be grateful when she was essentially sold to him. She sees herself as a slave, and I did too. But pretty soon what I affectionately refer to as Stockholm Syndrome sets in and Sydelle is determined to help North in his quest.
Someone has killed Palmarta’s king, and North has information about it. He needs to get his notebook to the Sorceress Imperial before the two-month deadline, but they must go by backroads. Wizards in Palmarta are required to be registered and ranked, but North has evaded that constriction. You’ll find out why later.
It’s hard for me to review this seriously because this book is complete and total fluff. There’s no onscreen death, so to speak, there’s a tiny bit of romance that doesn’t go beyond kissing, and there’s a war that we never see the front lines of. There’s a lot of telling instead of showing. This isn’t a book that will make you think nor will it even surprise you. It’s entertaining and light, not to mention short, and it’s a lot of fun. Untwisting North’s secret past was my favorite part of Sydelle’s journey with him.
yAdult Review 