The Death Cure, by James Dashner (2011)

It was the smell that began to drive Thomas slightly mad.

Thomas has been in complete isolation for three weeks.  Thomas has endured the Maze and the Scorch Trials and has been infected with the Flare.  All at the hands of WICKED.  What's next?

WICKED had taken his life and those of his friends and were using them for whatever purposes they deemed necessary.  No matter the consequences.

On the 26th day, the door opened:  Rat Man.

"Do you think we enjoy all this?  You think we enjoy watching you suffer?  It's all been for a purpose, and very soon it will make sense to you."

Rat Man admitted that WICKED has done some awful things to Thomas and his friends, but he insists that it's all part of a plan that Thomas not only agreed to, but helped set in place.

"You are obviously well aware that we have a horrible disease eating the minds of humans worldwide.  Everything we've done up till now has been calculated for one purpose and one purpose only: to analyze your brain patterns and build a blueprint from them.  The goal is to use this blueprint to develop a cure for the Flare.  The lives lost, the pain and suffering - you knew the stakes when this began.  We all did.  It was all done to ensure the survival of the human race.  And we're very close.  Very, very close."

The virus is man made, airborne, and highly contagious.  Thomas learns that he and most of his friends are Munies, and on the outside they are really, really hated. 

The Death Cure is the third and final book in the Maze Runner trilogy.  Can Thomas and his friends stop WICKED from starting another round of trials?  Can they find a cure?  Can Teresa and Brenda be trusted?  Is this the end of our world?  You'll enjoy this thrilling, and often times terrifying, adventure.

Rating:  10 out of 10 stars
*mild language

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Goliath, by Scott Westerfeld (2011)

"Siberia," Alek said.  The word slipped cold and hard from his tongue, as forbidding as the landscape passing below.

Goliath, the third book in the Leviathan series, picks up exactly where Deryn and Alek left off in Behemoth. Leviathan, a thousand-foot-long airship made from the life threads of a whale and over one hundred other species, is traveling farther from Europe and the war.  No one will confirm their destination.

"If anything," Volger said, "we should be headed southwest by now, toward Tsingtao."

Alek frowned.  "The German port in China?"

Alek, son of the late Archduke Ferdinand and a Clanker prince, is on the Darwinist ship.  The war between the two technologies (Clanker and Darwinist) is spreading faster every day.  His best friend is Midshipman Dylan Sharp, a girl disguised as a young man so she can fly with the British.  Only Count Volger knows she's a girl.

First the Russian Czar sent a message.  Then the Leviathan picked up mysterious cargo in Russia. 

"There must be a clue in that cargo we picked up from the Russians."

The ship's destination, Tunguska, is an endless fallen forest.  The trunks of the trees had been stripped of their bark and they all pointed in the same direction.  The captain of the airbeast has ordered a rescue.

Dylan helps rescue the 28 men who have made an encampment to protect themselves from the fighting bears.  Leading the group is Nikola Tesla - Clanker boffin, maker of German secret weapons - who says he has always known the cause of the fallen forest.

"I've always known the cause.  I was only curious about the results...I must remain secretive at the moment, but soon the world will know."

Tesla worked for the Clankers until he saw what the war was doing to his home in Serbia.  Alex's parents were killed by a group of Serbian revolutionaries, a plot organized by his granduncle and Germany.

Tesla has created a massive weapon to end the war:  Goliath.

"Tesla is a Serb," Volger explained slowly. 

"Our country attacked his homeland,

not Germany."

Alek felt the weight of the war settling

on his shoulders again. 

"My family is to blame, you mean."

Goliath is an exciting resolution to the Leviathan series.  Find out if Deryn can keep her secret.  Can Tesla's weapon end the war?  And what is Alek's destiny?  Meet interesting characters in Tokyo, Mexico and the United States. 

Rating:  10 out of 10 stars
*mild language

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Crossed, by Ally Condie (November 2011)

I'm standing in a river.  It's blue.  Dark blue.  Reflecting the color of the evening sky.

Far from her safe home in Oria Province, Cassia Reyes is in a work camp looking for Ky. 

If I'm going to find Ky, it has to be soon.

Ky is somewhere in the Outer Provinces.  Young men are sent to abandoned villages so the Enemy thinks the Society still lives there. 

Do you time in the villages and we'll bring you home in six months.  We'll give you Citizen status again.

No one lasts six months.  Ky has been here for 12 weeks.  There isn't any way the boys can defend themselves because the ammunition isn't real.  Replacements are sent, but they are much too young.  Ky is familiar with the area of their new village assignment; he decides it is time to run away.

Can Cassia find Ky?  What is Xander's secret?  Does the rebellion exist?  Who will Cassia choose?

Crossed offers more insight into the history of Society and the Rising.  It's a delicious read, especially if you enjoyed Matched.

Rating:  9 out of 10 stars
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The Berlin Boxing Club, by Robert Sharenow (2011)

As Herr Boch finished the last lecture of the school year, I sketched one final caricature of him into the margins of my notebook. 

His mom is agnostic, his father is atheist.  Fourteen year-old Karl Stern grew up in a secular household; he has no religious background or education.  Living in Berlin in 1934, Karl and his family are Jewish.

Karl, a gifted cartoonist, is a student at Holstein Gymnasium.  He doesn't look Jewish with his light hair.  There is a group at his school who Karl calls the Wolf Pack; the Wolf Pack likes to terrorize the five Jewish students who attend the school.  

Up until that moment I had managed to avoid them, assuming that I had kept my background hidden.

Unfortunately the Wolf Pack eventually caught up to Karl and beat him up.  Karl is tall and skinny, terrified of fighting, terrified of people finding out he is Jewish.  Later that same evening Karl meets Max Schmeling, der Meister, the champion boxer, hero of Germany.

Max and his wife buy two paintings from Karl's dad who owns an art gallery.  He pays for one, but offers a barter for the second.  He offers to teach Karl how to box.

"Surely you can't put a price on private boxing lessons with Europe's greatest heavyweight?"

Max offers boxing lessons because he believes every boy should learn to defend himself.  And thus begins Karl's transformation, beginning his training on the three hundred.  Then, he trains at the Berlin Boxing Club. 

Karl is in love with Greta Hauser and she wonders why he wants to fight.

      "Then what's it for?"

     "To prove something."

     "What...but why does that matter?"

     "To prove to myself that I'm not afraid."

Germany is not a safe place for Karl and his family.  As the Nuremberg Laws go into effect, Karl's life is forever changed.  The Berlin Boxing Club is a gripping novel that explores what Berlin was like in the early 1930s as the Nazi government rose and started to dominate Europe.  Boxing helps Karl reinvent himself, but in the process he learns what's worth fighting for. 

Rating:  10 out of 10 stars
*Issues of religion, circumcision, Nazi Germany, Holocaust

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