Matched, by Allie Condie (2010)

Now that I've found the way to fly, which direction should I go into the night?  My wings aren't white or feathered; they're green, made of silk, which shudders in the wind and bends when I move - first in a circle, then in a line, finally in a shape of my own invention.  The black behind me doesn't worry me; neither do the stars ahead.

On her 17th birthday, Cassia Maria Reyes is called up to attend her Match Banquet and finally learns who is her Match.  The Society chooses your perfect Match so that the Society can achieve maximum results:  happy, strong, healthy Citizens.  People are Matched when they're 17, Contracted at 21, and have babies before their 35th birthday. 

In the Society, you are called up to attend a Matching Banquet when you are 17 years old.  On the 15th day of each month, in every City Hall across the country, the Matches are announced in alphabetical order according to the girls' last names.

For one night, Cassia sheds her plainclothes for a gorgeous green silk dress and eats unregulated portions of savory foods and dessert.  When it's her turn, she stands to see her Match on the screen - it is dark and stays dark.

Your match is here this evening.

Xander Thomas Carrow.  Cassia's best friend.  Even though it's very unusual to know your Match, Cassia is happy to be matched with Xander.  But this moment marks when everything begins to change.

When Cassia finally gets an opportunity to see the information on the microcard she was presented at the Match Banquet, she is stunned.  Xander's face darkens on the screen and disappears.

"Cassia Reyes, the Society is pleased to present you with your Match."  My heart stops, and I can't believe what I see.  A face comes back into view on the port in front of me.  It is not Xander.

The Society controls everything.  Where you work.  Who you'll marry.  When you'll die.  To unclutter people's minds, many things have been simplified - 100 songs, 100 paintings, 100 stories, 100 poems; everything else has been elminated.  Cassia believed that the Society did not make mistakes.  She knows what it means to be a sorter, and she's one of the best sorters.  But she recognized the second face on her microcard - Ky Markham. 

Encourged by her grandfather as he died on his 80th birthday, Cassia begins to wonder.  Is the Society perfect?  Who is her perfect Match: Xander or Ky?  She loves one, but is in love with the other.  And most importantly, Cassia wants to know why people can't make their own choices?

Matched feels a lot like the society in Lois Lowry's The Giver, but Matched probably a more exciting read for teens and young adults.  It's romantic, but very appropriate for teens and young adults. 

Rating:  10 out of 10 stars

To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!

The second book in this series will be released on November 1, 2011.

where she went, by Gayle Forman (2011)

Every morning I wake up and tell myself this:  'It's just one day, one twenty-four-hour period to get yourself through.'

Told from Adam Wilde's viewpoint, the second book to if i stay is richer and deeper the first one.  You can't help but to love the characters.  Three years after the accident, Adam is the singer and lead guitarist for his band, Shooting Star.  They are hugely successful, wealthy, famous.  But Adam is anything but happy.  He suffers from extreme anxiety.  He has to take pills just to make it through the day, and he chain smokes to calm his nerves.  And he misses Mia.  Every.  Single.  Day.

And he's haunted by the promise he made to Mia while she was in the hospital.

If you stay, I'll do whatever you want.  I'll quit the band, go with you to New York.  But if you need me to go away, I'll do that, too.  Maybe coming back to your old life would be just too painful, maybe it'd be easier for you to erase us.  And that would suck, but I'd do it.  I can lose you like that if I don't lose you today.  I'll let you go.  If you stay.

Adam is by himself in New York City.  He finds himself in front of Carnegie Hall staring at a poster that says YOUNG CONCERT SERIES PRESENTS MIA HALL.  Mia and Adam finally meet after a silent three years apart. 

Gayle Forman continues the beautiful and touching story of Adam and Mia in a unique and unforgettable way.  Experience heart-break and forgiveness in this hard-to-put down novel. 

To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!

Rating:  10 out of 10 stars
*Inappropriate language and sexual references

Behemoth, by Scott Westerfeld (2010)

Alek raised his sword.  "On guard, sir!"


Picking up exactly where first novel, Leviathan, left off, Alek spends six days with Deryn (or Dylan) aboard the airbeast.  For the first time, Alek feels like he is in a place where he belongs.  Even though he is a Clanker, he quickly becomes attached to the beasts of the Darwinists.

Alek and the rest of his Clanker crew have saved the Leviathan three times, but Britain has just declared war on Alek's granduncle.  Alek is now a prisoner.

The airship continues its journey east to Constantinople, but has a near-deathly run-in with two German ironclads - Goeben and Breslau.  But the Goeben has a Clanker weapon unlike any seen before, thanks to Mr. Nikola Tesla.  The Tesla cannon can shoot bolts of lightening, a devastating weapon to a hydrogen beast!

Istanbul (since 1453) is a Clanker city, but its machines are in the shape of animals, gods and goddesses.  Germans have been pouring into the city to share all of the glories of the mekanzimat:  projects, railroads, and wireless towers, run the newspapers, and even train the Ottoman army.  The sultan is half broke, but flexes his power when he feels threatened.  The people of the Ottoman Empire raised the money to purchase the dreadnought from the British.  Conveniently, Lord Churchill decided to keep the beast.

Join Deryn and Alek on this exciting adventure through Istanbul as they join in a revolution to help the Committee for Union and Progress rid the city of Germans.  Meet the Behemoth, the companion creature to the Osman.  Scott Westerfeld does it again with this novel that appeals to so many interests.  Rarely is the second book in a series as delicious as this!

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars

Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld (2009)

The Austrian horses glinted in the moonlight, their riders standing tall in the saddle, swords raised.  Behind them two ranks of diesel-powered walking machines stood ready to fire, cannon aimed over the heads of the cavalry.  A zeppelin scouted no-man's-land at the center of the battlefield, its metal skin sparkling.

Setting:  Europe, summer of 1914

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austria-Hungary Empire, and his wife, Sophie Chotek were assassinated in Sarajevo.  The story of Leviathan is based on the events that led to the Great War, or World War I.  Yugoslavia murders Austria's royalty, Austria seeks their revenge.  Serbs are allied with Russia, who is allied with France, who is allied with Great Britain.  Germany protects Austria and declares war on Russia.  The perfect political ingredients for a global war.

In Leviathan, it is a war of

fabricated beasts vs. mechanical monsters.

Austria - The Clankers
Hapsburg Prince Aleksander Hohenberg, the young archduke and son of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie, is almost 16 years old.  Alek's mom wasn't proper royalty to marry into the Hapsburgs.  It was difficult for them to marry, but when they were finally granted permission, it was for a 'left-handed marriage' - the children will inherit nothing.  Prince Alek is a prince in name only.

After his parents' death he was forced to escape the palace in the middle of the night to learn his uncertain fate.

Britain - Darwinists
Fifteen-year old Deryn Sharp wants to be in the British Air Service.  She'll do anything, including cutting her hair and impersonating to be a 16-year old boy.  She is absolutely fearless.  An amazing adventure brings Deryn, or now Dylan, to the Leviathan - a huge airbeast, a vast web of live, an entire ecosystem. 

Britain has fabricated beasts, thanks to Charles Darwin's discoveries and principles.  Crossbreeds had been the backbone of the British Empire for the last 50 years.  The Clankers are afraid of fabricated species and instead worship their mechanical machines.

Scott Westerfeld's creation is dark, mysterious, and a creative spin on the events that led to World War I.  The cool thing about this book is that it appeals to many interests - historical fiction, science fiction, relationships, family dynamics, loss and love. 

Rating:  10 out of 10 stars

if i stay, by Gayle Forman (2009)

Everyone thinks it was because of the snow.  And in a way, I suppose that's true.

Imagine one of those snow days, where school has been cancelled, your parents don't have to go to work, and there isn't so much snow as to cancel a family day out.  Mia's family is unique and original, and she thoroughly enjoys spending time together.  After all, she's a senior in high school and things will soon change. 

A gifted cello player, Mia is on the verge of finding out if she's been accepted at Juillard in New York City.  She has an awesome boyfriend, Adam, who is also into music and plays in a band, Shooting Star.  Even though she's into classical music and Adam digs punk rock, music is what brought them together.

On the snow day, Mia and her family decide to take a drive to visit Willow, Henry and the baby.  But a 4-ton pickup truck plows into the family's car, shattering Mia's life and family.

Mia is caught between life and death.  She starts to learn what's happening when she's in ICU in Portland, Oregon.  Surrounded by her family, Mia reflects on her life which has been utterly and absolutely beautiful.  Should she stay?  Should she go?  And does she even have a choice?

Rating:  8 out of 10 stars
*Some inappropriate language.

To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!

Gayle Forman's follow-up novel:

The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien (1990)

First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey.

This novel is intense, deep, disturbing, beautiful, and should be required reading for all high school graduates in the United States.  The story, told from O'Brien's viewpoint, follows Alpha Company through the depths of Vietnam. 

The things they carried were largely determined by necessity.

The story unfolds in a series of short stories, each one building on the next.  The platoon members were between 19 - 21 years, led by a 24-year old Lieutenant.  None of these boys wanted to go to Vietnam, and each one of them has forever changed.

What they carried varied by mission.

Meet Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, Ted Lavendar, Henry Dobbins, Kiowa, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Curt Lemon, Azar, Mark Fossie & Mary Anne Bell.

The things they carried were determined to some extent by superstition.

More than 20 years has passed since the war ended, and Tim O'Brien can't stop writing about it.  And honestly, he shouldn't.

For the most part they carried themselves with poise, a kind of dignity.

To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!
Rating:  10 out of 10 stars
*Serious language, war and graphic scenes

Sapphique, by Catherine Fisher (2011)

The alleyway was so narrow that Attia could lean against one wall and kick the other.  She waited in the dimness, listening, her breath condensing on glistening bricks.  A flicker of flames around the corner sent red ripples down the walls.

*Plot spoiler if you have not read Incarceron.

First Sapphique, then Finn.  Finn has escaped Incarceron and is now Outside, but Attia and Keiro are still locked in the Prison.  Attia meets the Dark Enchanter, or Rix, who has Sapphique's Glove.  But is it the true Glove?  And what power, or evil, does the Glove possess? 

Finn's new world Outside is perhaps more dangerous than the darkness of Incarceron, even though his memory is slowly returning.  The Warden is missing and Claudia has presented Finn as the true Prince of the Realm.  But another Prince Giles appears at the Proclamation.  Unlike Finn, the Pretender looks like a prince, acts like a prince, and remembers everything- people, places, events - from Prince Giles's life.  Who is the real prince of the Realm? 

Incarceron wants to escape itself, but if it succeeds, all of the prisoners will die.  And the Realm will be forever changed.

"Incarceron never sleeps.  It dreams, and its dreams are terrible. 

But it never sleeps."

The mysterious secrets of the Realm unfold in this exciting adventure of Sapphique.  Is it possible for someone to save the Realm and Prison from total and absolute destruction?  Or is everyone doomed?

To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!
Rating:  8 stars out of 10