Outside In review

Outside In
by Maria V. Snyder
Harlequin Teen
February 2011

First line: "My world changed in a heartbeat."

Trella's journey through space continues in this sequel to Inside Out. As before, time is referred to in weeks - characters are so many "weeks old" events happened a certain number of "weeks ago." It gives the whole book a bit of alien flavor. The ship's estimated time of arrival, one million weeks, means they'll actually be spending nearly 2,000 years in space! The mystery of where they are has been solved: the crew of their generation spaceship will be spending the rest of their lifetimes (and their children's lifetimes) traveling towards a planet where they can finally live "Outside" again.

In the meantime, Trella is facing the hard work of reuniting the "scrubs" and the "uppers" on board the ship. Frankly, the same kind of loner, adventurer spirit that enabled her to explore the ships air ducts for hours on end, eventually discovering the "Gateway" airlock to Outer Space, as well as additional levels of the ship, planned by their ancestors for the inevitable population crowding that they face, is exactly the same kind of spirit that makes her a stunningly inappropriate choice to be on the ruling council. She regularly skips out on council meetings in favor of poking around the ship's tunnels as she used to do.

Engine problems on the ship create chaos, just as Trella is dealing with being reunited with her estranged mother Dr. Lamont as well as her deepening relationship with her boyfriend Riley. It turns out that the ship's mechanical problems are due to outside interference. But who or what could be harassing the citizens of Inside from so deep in space? 

I'll recommend this for tween readers who aren't quite ready for Across the Universe by Beth Revis. The plot moves quickly, and the romance is fairly tame.

Compare to:
Across the Universe - Beth Revis
Glow - Amy Kathleen Ryan
Enclave - Ann Aguire



I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

Frozen review

Frozen
by Robin Wasserman
Simon Pulse
October 2011

First line: "Lia Kahn is dead. I am Lia Kahn."

Teenager Lia Kahn leads a charmed life until a car accident robs her of everything, including her body. Her wealthy and pushy father has her memories downloaded into an android body. Lia is horrified at she's been turned into but still makes an effort to try and adjust. Wasserman mines a lot of ethics questions here including what makes us really human, our bodies or our memories? While Lia is coping with her own overwhelming feelings over the accident and adjusting to her new body, there are also a lot of sibling rivalry issues. Her younger sister Zoie, who should have been in the car that day, has spent her whole life being overshadowed by Lia, who has always been daddy's favorite and a bit of a Queen Bee. It's finally Zoie's turn to shine at school as Lia is shunned as freak; Zoie even goes so far as to steal Lia's old boyfriend. Talk about a shocking betrayal!

Having her life turned upside-down in this way really changes Lia - and makes her parents wonder if she really is their daughter anymore, or just a close simulacrum of her. Her brusque and demanding father practically admits that he regrets pushing for the procedure. He thought he was saving his daughter, not dooming himself to having to live with a robot who reminds him of what he lost. Ouch!

In the meantime, Lia meets a group of underground rebels who are campaigning for mechs' rights. They're a desperate and sad group, taking wild risks just to prove that they can and are angry that doctors won't "upgrade" them with vision or hearing that outperforms human standards. There's just a hint of a love triangle. When things don't work out with Lia's odious ex-boyfriend Walker, she finds new friends: nerdy technology-loving human Auden and intense skinner Jude. With her new circle of friends, she may not be the old Lia Kahn, but she reasons that she's still a sentient being with hopes and dreams for the future. Just as Lia is just starting to pull herself together, the book ends on a shocking cliffhanger.  Not realizing her own strength, she seriously injures her friend Auden in an accident. Will he recover or die? Or will he become like Lia? Frozen is the first book in the Cold Awakening trilogy and was originally released under the title, Skinned.

Compare to:
The Adoration of Jenna Fox - Mary E. Pearson
Feed - M.T. Anderson

Uglies - Scott Westerfeld
Being Nikki - Meg Cabot


I borrowed this book from the library.

Inside Out review

Inside Out
by Maria V. Snyder
Harlequin
April 2010

First line: "I'm Trella. I'm a scrub."

In a dystopian future, Trella is a "scrub" responsible for cleaning and maintaining the pipes that service the "uppers" or higher castes. Everyone lives in a building only known as "Inside" - there are rumors of an "Outside" but no one's seen it in their lifetime. As a reader, you know that there are one of two possibilities: either they are underground, or in a spaceship. My money was on spaceship, pretty quickly on. Time is referenced to only in weeks, which gives everything a pleasantly alien feel - the characters refer to themselves as "x" weeks old, and seem to use the phrase "a hundred weeks" the way we'd refer to something as "a year or two." They speak about "one million weeks" the way we might say, "an eternity" and it's a commonly held belief that they'll find the way Outside when the clock reaches one million weeks. Children are raised in creches by their Care Mothers until they graduate to a job assignment. Overcrowding is a real problem on the lower levels, yet the "Pop Cops" still inexplicably test everyone to ensure that no one is making use of birth control. Failure to obey results in being fed to "Chomper" a.k.a. the ship's recycling system.

The story was a slow build-up to what for me was the super-obvious "reveal" of the novel. But I did like the character of Tris. She's petite, and not at all girly. She's a bit aloof from the other scrubs, hence her nickname, "Queen of the Pipes." Cogon, another one of the scrub workers, seems almost like a father figure to her. He arranges for her and her childhood friend Logan to meet with Domotor, a wheelchair-bound prophet looking for the Gateway which he believes will take them Outside. There is the mildest hint of romantic interest, when she meets Riley, one of the uppers who secretly agrees to help her search for plans to Gateway, which they hope will take them Outside. If this book was skewed for just a little older, I'd say we have the beginnings of a Trella/Logan/Riley love triangle, but that situation doesn't appear to rear its ugly head here. I'll recommend this for middle-grade readers and young teens.

Compare to:
The Pledge - Kimberly Derting
Birthmarked - Caragh M. O'Brien
Across the Universe - Beth Revis
Glow - Amy Kathleen Ryan


I borrowed this book from the library.

Christmas haul 2014

Apparently, the secret is out... I'm a Whovian. Here's a picture of my Christmas haul this year - all gifts from different people!

Star Wars Reads Day

Tomorrow is Star Wars Reads Day. I've never quite understood why it isn't on May 4th. (May the Fourth be with you! Get it??) Okay, I'll stop with my dad jokes. This month I put together a display of all our Star Wars books and graphic novels for kids - they've been going like hotcakes!

Noggin review

Noggin
by John Corey Whaley
Atheneum Books for Young Readers
April 2014

First line: "Listen - I was alive once and then I wasn't."

This sci-fi novel takes place in the very near future, and the ability to revive cryogenically frozen patients is brand new. Travis had suffered from leukemia as a 16 year old, and in part because he wanted to spare his family from their continuing grief over his imminent death and partly because he was tired of being sick and wanted to give up - he agrees to the experimental procedure.

Much to his surprise, he wakes up 5 years later, with his head attached to a new healthy body. He experiences this as being "in the future" and is only the second patient to have been revived.

His decision to return to high school and finish out his sophomore year stretched my suspension of disbelief - wouldn't he have just tested for his GED or something? That is really saying something, that I found this more unbelievable than the fact that Travis had been brought back from the dead.

Happily, there's very little attention given to the adjustment that Travis has to his new body. He's taller and healthier than he was before. He's got a nasty scar on his neck. And that's it really. Other than that, he's really ready to pick up and start living life again. I liked that he gets occasional advice from the first body transplant survivor, Lawrence Ramsey. Travis is also very conscious of the fact that Jeremy Pratt is the real reason he was able to come back. Jeremy's family donated his body after he suffered a brain tumor.

The main conflict of the story is that while Travis is still mentally and emotionally 16 - his best friend Kyle and his girlfriend Cate are now in their twenties. Kyle is trying to live in the closet and Travis is shocked that Kyle is trying to date a woman, even after privately confessing that he's gay. Travis is  devastated that his first love Cate has moved on. She's engaged to someone else, and so, Travis starts a mad campaign to win her back. This was absolutely cringe-worthy! Travis engages in one awkward situation after another, hoping to worm his way back into Cate's heart. With the help of his new friend Hatton, Travis is able to find ways to cope with his new situation.

Plenty of twist and turns in the plot will surprise readers. I really enjoyed the way the final sentence of each chapter becomes the title of the next chapter. I read this book for my book club, and we all found a lot to discuss. The book ends rather abruptly - I would have loved a epilogue telling us how Travis is doing in a few years time.

Compare to: 
Unwind - Neal Shusterman
A Long, Long Sleep - Anna Sheehan
Airhead - Meg Cabot


I purchased this book.

TARDIS library display

I'm pretty excited about the upcoming 50th anniversary of Doctor Who - so excited, I decided to put together a Doctor Who display at my library, transforming one of our display cases into a TARDIS. Inside, we put books on time travel, sci-fi, Doctor Who DVDs as well as books about the show. We also included biographies of historical figures featured on the show such as Madame Pompadour, Winston Churchill and Vincent Van Gogh. We included books by famous English authors mentioned on the show - Agatha Christie, Charles Dickens and Shakespeare's sonnets. I even put Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in there, since the Doctor claimed to have read it before it was published.

So far, reaction has been very positive. A lot of Doctor Who fans have asked to take pictures with it, and we also get a lot of questions, "What is that blue box?" Bar none, I think this is one of my favorite displays ever.

A Hero for WondLA review

A Hero for WondLA
by Tony DiTerlizzi
Simon & Schuster Children's Books
May 2012

First line: "Eva Nine watched a turnwing flap its triple pair of wings to join its flock."

DiTerlizzi continues his sci-fi saga of Eva Nine in this gorgeously illustrated sequel to The Search for WondLA. There are several internet extras embedded in the illustrations, but readers don't need computer access to enjoy the story. DiTerlizzi's two-tone blue and black illustrations are reminiscent of W.W. Denslow's original illustrations for The Wizard of Oz.

Eva Nine has long believed herself to be the last surviving human on Orbana but now she joins a human colony for the first time, and after a lifetime of limited contact with other sentient beings, naturally she finds everything very overwhelming. Human pilot Hailey and Nine's older "sister" Eva Eight each have their own agendas and Eva Nine learns a lot about loyalty, friendship and xenophobia. I liked how Eva matures so much in this book. Eva is temporarily blinded by the comforts of her new home in New Attica amongst the human colonists, but after she realizes that she misses her alien friend Rovender, who has been barred from entering the human city, she leaves to continue her search for answers about how their world came to be in ruins.

With fantastic world-building, airships, chases, intrigue and mystery, this is a series that has a lot of appeal for older middle grade readers and young YA readers. I'm definitely looking forward to more in this complex and fascinating series.

Compare to:
The Wizard of Oz - L. Frank Baum
Zita the Spacegirl - Ben Hatke
The Ruby Key - Holly Lisle
Larklight - Philip Reeve, illustrated by David Wyatt

I borrowed this book from the library.

The Color of Rain review

The Color of Rain
by Cori McCarthy
Running Press Kids
May 2013

First line: "Of all the directions to be looking, I stare up."

Seventeen year old Rain White dreams of getting away from decrepit and dangerous Earth City. Her younger brother Walker is becoming "Touched" - more and more catatonic by the day, and the rest of their family has already been ripped away from them in this dystopian future. She hopes to get passage for her brother to mech space where there may be a cure for his debilitating condition. Clearly, Rain's only option is to become a space prostitute. Her best friend Lo convinces her to sell her virginity at a good price to a disgusting client, but when this plan falls through, she meets Johnny, a sexy space traveler, who offers her and her brother a spot on his ship... for a price.

Rain is horrified when she learns that Johnny's offer to buy her virginity is all a sham. He's actually a space pimp with a whole stable full of girls. Yes, he said he was interested in her body... but he never said it was specifically for himself. Her brother is cryogenically frozen and spends most of the book as a popsicle, as she struggles with psychopathic Johnny and his number one assistant, cyborg mech Ben.

Johnny casually takes Rain's virginity, and then downgrades her from "red" status - meaning only he can touch her - to blue, green and then yellow, as he allows fat slobby crewmembers to abuse her. Gradually, she and Ben reach out to each other, as they discover Johnny's secrets. Johnny is actually trading Touched colonists as slaves to mining colonies. Rain and Ben try to free them at a gambling colony run by Johnny's ex-girlfriend, but are foiled by Johnny's seemingly all-powerful reach.

Interestingly, Rain is fairly highly sexed herself. She finds Johnny attractive, and enjoys their time together, even as she recognizes that mech Ben is much more sensitive and ultimately, a better match. Even though she's only recently become sexually experienced, she's quickly able to turn off her feelings and provide a decent experience for her repulsive clients.

While marketed for fans of Across the Universe by Beth Revis, the space element is not as prevalent as one might think and this book might actually be a better match for mature readers who enjoy dark dystopian fantasies or readers looking for books about arranged marriages. Readers who liked Julia Karr's XVI about a dystopian world where all women over 16 are fare game for random men, or Suzanne Fisher Staple's Shabanu about a Pakistani girl doomed to an arranged marriage, or Pearl Abraham's The Romance Reader about a girl's escape from an arranged Hasidic Jewish marriage, will find much to appreciate in this gritty sci-fi dystopian novel about a girl's exchange of sexual power for freedom and family.

Compare to:
Across the Universe - Beth Revis
XVI - Julia Karr
Shabanu - Suzanne Fisher Staple
The Romance Reader - Pearl Abraham


I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

Rocket feltboard

Forgive the poor picture quality - I snapped this on my cell phone, and for some reason the moon looks very bright! I just have a quick little rhyme that goes with this one:

I'm a little rocket, pointing to the moon!
5, 4, 3, 2, 1... blast off, zoom!


I read the following books:

Randy Riley’s Really Big Hit – Chris Van Dusen
You Can’t Eat a Princess! – Gillian Rogerson
Mooncake – Frank Asch
The Birth of the Moon – Coby Hol
Brave Spaceboy – Dana Kessimakas Smith

The funniest moment in this storytime, I had two little girls sitting in front, who began arguing among themselves while I was reading Mooncake by Frank Asch.

"The moon is made of cheese," nodded one girl.

"No! You're wrong! The moon is made of air," her friend whisper-shouted back.

"Cheese!"

"Air!"

"Cheese!"

"Air!"

I had to stop reading, and tell them, "Ladies! You are both wrong! The moon is made of rocks. Now, can we settle down and find out what Bear thinks the moon is made out of?" It was very hard to keep a straight face, let me tell you.

The Host review

The Host
by Stephenie Meyer
Little, Brown and Company
January 2008

I highly recommend this amazing, fast paced, psychological sci-fi thriller from the very popular author of the Twilight series. This is true science-fiction, on par with Bradbury or Asimov. Meyer uses the concept of an alien and human forced to co-exist in the same body to pose questions about memory, personality and what it means to be human. 

The story begins as the conquest of Earth is nearly complete. The altruistic Souls have invaded and are using most humans as "hosts" for their small, parasitic bodies. 

Wanderer has taken over Melanie, her 8th host, and she finds the strong-willed personality of her host start to push through, as she starts to fall in love with the same humans her host cared about. In the meantime, a small band of humans have formed a top-secret resistance, and the society of the Souls may be changed by this particular invasion more than they ever could have anticipated. Riveting stuff, with a bit of a twist to the ending that will leave you wishing this wasn't a stand-alone book! Meyer has supposedly been working on a sequel for a while - let's hope some excitement about the upcoming movie finally spurs Meyer to complete it.

I purchased a copy of this book.

Spark review

Spark

by Amy Kathleen Ryan

St. Martin's Griffin

July 2012

First line: "Seth Ardvale wasn't aware of what woke him; he only remembered the fading dream of a rumbling sound that shook his bones."

In this sequel to Glow, Waverly, Kieran and Seth continue their adventures on the Empyrean - a generation starship designed to take colonists on a century long mission to a new planet. I was hoping for this book to be a lot like Across the Universe - but despite the love triangle there's a lot less romance.

Waverly has successfully brought the kidnapped girls back from the New Horizon, the uber-religious sister ship of the secular farming ship the Empyrean. Kieran has assumed command, and with Seth's attempted coup unsuccessful, Seth is in the brig.

Everyone's parents on the Empyrean have been kidnapped by Ann Mather, the charismatic leader of the New Horizon. That leaves the children of the Empyrean to run the ship as they try to catch up with the other ship that has their families hostage. I was kind of surprised by the fact that even though the oldest children on the Empyrean are 15 and 16 years old, they are all mostly overwhelmed. For the most part, their attitude seems to be, "I'm just a kid! I don't know how to... pilot a ship/be the captain/run a medical bay!"

Waverly is overtaken by her feelings of rage and is more than ready to wreak havoc on the New Horizon and take revenge for having been kidnapped and her eggs stolen by the infertile crewmembers on the sister ship. On a certain level, this made perfect sense. But on another level, I thought to myself, "Ladies, think this through." Do the girls on the Empyrean really want the human race to die out? Are they actually willing to bear all the children of the next generation all by themselves? That's a minimum of four children each, and hopefully more. And here's this other ship, with over a hundred surrogate mothers all of whom are delighted to carry pregnancies to term. Sharing their eggs just makes sense. Granted - the other ship should have asked. They should have taken the time to talk to the girls, and bring them around, not just drugged them, and taken what they needed without asking. That was rude. But at the end of the day, what else was going to happen?

I thought the book could have explored the religious questions more thoroughly. Kieran is religious, unlike most of the members of his ship. He puts together a weekly church service, and I was surprised that very little religion enters into his sermons, which are mostly pep talks about why he should continue to be captain.

This book is fairly gritty, as various characters have to survive near misses with air locks, piloting One Man mini-ships at zero g, freezing temperatures in the outer bays, etc. etc. They are mostly too bruised, tired and scared for any romance to happen.

Compare to:
Across the Universe - Beth Revis
The Comet's Curse - Dom Testa

Inside Out - Maria V. Snyder

I borrowed this book from the library.

Pulp-o-Mizer

Check out this cool website: PULP-O-MIZER: the custom pulp magazine cover generator.
Fun! Here's one I cooked up... 

There are lots of options to change the image, text, font, everything, and when you're done, you can purchase posters, mugs, iPad covers, you name it, with your image. Enjoy!

Glow review

Glow
by Amy Kathleen Ryan
St. Martin's Griffin
September 2011

First line: "The other ship hung in the sky like a pendant, silver in the ether light cast by the nebula."

This book had so many things that I liked about it. It takes place in a generation starship, designed for over a century long journey to a new world. Just after this first line, setting up what an amazing world readers find themselves in - stars! spaceships! nebula! -- the female protagonist, 15 year old Waverly Marshall, says, "Our ships are so ugly." Ah, I love it! It's just another boring old day on the starship for them.

Waverly and her friend Kieran are the first generation to be born aboard the Empyrean, a secular farming ship. Everyone is curious and concerned to meet up with another starship, the New Horizon which should be light years ahead of them.

There are a lot of interesting controversial topics tackled in this book: religion, infertility, and gender roles. Waverly finds the society on her spaceship vaguely misogynistic... pushy Kieran appears to be a shoe-in for taking over as Captain of the ship one day, and he's eager to marry Waverly and start a family. Waverly, on the other hand, just doesn't feel ready to settle down... and she's also kind of intrigued by Seth, a moody loner.

I thought this might be a simple love-triangle is space story until the real twist in the plot happened - the New Horizon forcibly boards the Empyrean and kidnaps young girls, Waverly among them, hoping to solve their fertility problem. As disgusting as this is, I kind of felt sympathy for the crew members of the New Horizon. They are portrayed as genuinely nice people in a very tough situation. And, [spoiler alert!!!] I was relieved that they don't want to force the girls to become pregnant... rather, they just want to harvest their eggs. Waverly does a great job of organizing the girls once they find themselves on the ultra-religious sister starship and fighting to get their way back to the Empyrean.

As much as I could compare this to various books, I actually was reminded of pretty much every episode of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, where questions of the survival of the human race and the place of religion in their society ranked very highly. Glow also brought to mind two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation that dealt with this kind of problem. In When the Bough Breaks - a group of infertile colonists kidnap children from the Enterprise and in Up the Long Ladder, a group of infertile colonists steal DNA from the Enterprise to hopefully clone new crew members with.

With plenty of action and sudden surprises, Glow ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. I can't wait to lay my hands on the sequel, Spark.

Compare to:
Inside Out - Maria V. Snyder
Across the Universe - Beth Revis
Birthmarked - Caragh M. O'Brien

I purchased a copy of this book.

Waiting on Level 2

I guess I'm on a sci-fi kick lately. This looks great.

Level 2
by Lenore Appelhans
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

January 2013

In this gripping exploration of a futuristic afterlife, a teen discovers that death is just the beginning.Since her untimely death the day before her eighteenth birthday, Felicia Ward has been trapped in Level 2, a stark white afterlife located between our world and the next. Along with her fellow drones, Felicia passes the endless hours reliving memories of her time on Earth and mourning what she’s lost—family, friends, and Neil, the boy she loved.

Then a girl in a neighboring chamber is found dead, and nobody but Felicia recalls that she existed in the first place. When Julian—a dangerously charming guy Felicia knew in life—comes to offer Felicia a way out, Felicia learns the truth: If she joins the rebellion to overthrow the Morati, the angel guardians of Level 2, she can be with Neil again.

Suspended between Heaven and Earth, Felicia finds herself at the center of an age-old struggle between good and evil. As memories from her life come back to haunt her, and as the Morati hunt her down, Felicia will discover it’s not just her own redemption at stake… but the salvation of all mankind.

Waiting on Shades of Earth

I love this series so much. Can't wait to find out how it ends.

Shades of Earth
by Beth Revis
Razorbill

January 2013

Amy and Elder have finally left the oppressive walls of the spaceshipGodspeed behind. They're ready to start life afresh--to build a home--on Centauri-Earth, the planet that Amy has traveled 25 trillion miles across the universe to experience. But this new Earth isn't the paradise that Amy had been hoping for. Amy and Elder must race to uncover who--or what--else is out there if they are to have any hope of saving their struggling colony and building a future together. But as each new discovery brings more danger, Amy and Elder will have to look inward to the very fabric of what makes them human on this, their most harrowing journey yet. Because if the colony collapses? Then everything they have sacrificed--friends, family, life on Earth--will have been meaningless.

Waiting on Revolution 19

I'm in the mood for something science-fictiony. This could fill the bill!

Revolution 19
by Gregg Rosenblum
HarperTeen

January 2013

Twenty years ago, the robots designed to fight our wars abandoned the battlefields. Then they turned their weapons on us.

Only a few escaped the robot revolution of 2071. Kevin, Nick, and Cass are lucky —they live with their parents in a secret human community in the woods. Then their village is detected and wiped out. Hopeful that other survivors have been captured by bots, the teens risk everything to save the only people they have left in the world—by infiltrating a city controlled by their greatest enemies.

Waiting on Spark

As soon as I finished reading Glow, I was desperate to read the next one in the series. Not much longer to wait now!

Spark
by Amy Kathleen Ryan
St. Martin's Griffin

July 2012

Waverly and Kieran are finally reunited on the Empyrean. Kieran has led the boys safely up to this point, and now that the girls are back, their mission seems slightly less impossible: to chase down the New Horizon, and save their parents from the enemy ship. But nothing is truly as it seems…Kieran’s leadership methods have raised Seth’s hackles— and Waverly’s suspicions. Is this really her fiancé? The handsome, loving boy she was torn from just a short time before? More and more, she finds her thoughts aligned with Seth’s. But if Seth is Kieran’s Enemy No. 1, what does that make her?

In one night, a strange explosion rocks the Empyrean—shooting them off course and delaying their pursuit of the New Horizon—and Seth is mysteriously released from the brig. Seth is the most obvious suspect for the explosion, and Waverly the most obvious suspect for releasing him. As the tension reaches a boiling point, will Seth be able to find the true culprit before Kieran locks them both away—or worse? Will Waverly follow her heart, even if it puts lives at risk? With the balance of power precarious and the clock ticking, every decision counts… every step brings them closer to a new beginning, or a sudden end...

Outside In review

Outside In
by Maria V. Snyder
Harlequin Teen
February 2011

First line: "My world changed in a heartbeat."

Trella's journey through space continues in this sequel to Inside Out. As before, time is referred to in weeks - characters are so many "weeks old" events happened a certain number of "weeks ago." It gives the whole book a bit of alien flavor - and preventing me from realizing at first, that their ship's estimated time of arrival - one million weeks, means they'll actually be spending nearly 2,000 years in space! The mystery of where they are has been solved: the crew of their generation spaceship will be spending the rest of their lifetimes (and their children's lifetimes) traveling towards a planet where they can finally live "Outside" again.

In the meantime, Trella is facing the hard work of reuniting the "scrubs" and the "uppers" on board the ship. Frankly, the same kind of loner, adventurer spirit that enabled her to explore the ships air ducts for hours on end, eventually discovering the "Gateway" airlock to Outer Space, as well as additional levels of the ship, planned by their ancestors for the inevitable population crowding that they face, is exactly the same kind of spirit that makes her a stunningly inappropriate choice to be on the ruling council. She regularly skips out on council meetings in favor of poking around the ship's tunnels as she used to.

Engine problems on the ship create chaos, just as Trella is dealing with being reunited with her estranged mother Dr. Lamont as well as her deepening relationship with her boyfriend Riley. It turns out that the ship's mechanical problems are due to outside interference. But who or what could be harassing the citizens of Inside from so deep in space? 

I'll recommend this for tween readers who aren't quite ready for Across the Universe by Beth Revis. The plot moves quickly, and the romance is a little tamer than a lot of YA sci-fi dystopian that's out there.

Compare to:
Across the Universe - Beth Revis
Glow - Amy Kathleen Ryan
The Comet's Curse - Dom Testa


I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

Skinned review

Skinned
by Robin Wasserman
Simon Pulse
September 2008

First line: "Lia Kahn is dead. I am Lia Kahn."

Teenaged Lia Kahn leads a charmed life until a car accident that robs her of nearly everything, including her body. Her wealthy and pushy father has her memories downloaded into an android body. Lia's horrified that she's been turned into what's nicknamed a "skinner" but knows that she has to try and adjust. Wasserman mines a lot of ethics questions here including what makes us really human, our bodies or our memories? While Lia is coping with her own overwhelming feelings over the accident, and adjusting to her new body, there are also a lot of sibling rivalry issues. Her younger sister Zoie, who should have been in the car that day, has spent her whole life being overshadowed by Lia, who has always been daddy's favorite and a bit of a Queen Bee. It's finally Zoie's turn to shine at school as Lia is shunned as freak, and Zo even goes so far as to steal Lia's old boyfriend. Talk about a shocking betrayal!

Having her life turned upside-down in this way really changes Lia - and makes her parents wonder if she really is their daughter anymore, or just a close simulacrum of her. Her brusque and demanding father practically admits that he regrets pushing for the procedure. He thought he was saving his daughter, not dooming himself to having to live with a robot who reminds him of what he lost. Ouch!

In the meantime, Lia meets a group of underground skinners who are campaigning for mechs' rights. They seem a desperate and sad group, taking wild risks just to prove that they can, cutting themselves, and are angry that doctors won't "upgrade" them with vision or hearing that outperforms human standards. There's just a hint of a love triangle. When things don't work out with Lia's odious ex-boyfriend Walker, she finds new friends: nerdy technology-loving human Auden and intense skinner Jude. I was shocked, shocked, shocked by the ending of the book. Lia is just starting to pull herself together: she may not be the old Lia Kahn, but she's still a sentient being with hopes and dreams for the future. She challenges Auden to some feats of athletic skill, and either not realizing her own strength, or Auden's human fragility, Auden is seriously injured. Will he recover, will he die? Or will he become a skinner like Lia? Skinned is the first book in the Cold Awakening trilogy.

Compare to:

The Adoration of Jenna Fox - Mary E. Pearson
Feed - M.T. Anderson

Uglies - Scott Westerfeld
Being Nikki - Meg Cabot


I borrowed this book from the library.