There are no men in Claysoot. There are boys—but every one of them vanishes at midnight on his eighteenth birthday. The ground shakes, the wind howls, a blinding light descends…and he’s gone.


They call it the Heist.


Gray Weathersby’s eighteenth birthday is mere months away, and he’s prepared to meet his fate–until he finds a strange note from his mother and starts to question everything he’s been raised to accept: the Council leaders and their obvious secrets. The Heist itself. And what lies beyond the Wall that surrounds Claysoot–a structure that no one can cross and survive.

Climbing the Wall is suicide, but what comes after the Heist could be worse. Should he sit back and wait to be taken–or risk everything on the hope of the other side?

My Review

Author: Erin Bowman
Pages: 360
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication Date: April 16 2013
Source: Library

For a really scary second, I remembered absolutely nothing about the story when looking at the cover. And then I realized why: the title of this book, Taken, is incredibly generic and it doesn't do the story justice.

The title I've been associating with this story is The Heist. Because the heist is basically what this story is about. It starts as your typical dystopia, only really fascinating because you're seeing a society in which boys' lifetimes are limited and so society is run by women.

There were fascinating aspects to making life work, and the really weird occurrence that was the heist itself-- a boy, when he turns 18 literally disappears in front of all the people in the village.

The story surprises me because it goes beyond the typical and establishes itself really well with lots of action and smart character development. Gray is impulsive and sometimes a jerk. He loves his brother and his family, and he just keeps running into trouble. He learns and grows a lot through The Heist, and I'm curious to see where his story goes.

Something that really stood out for me is spoilery, so I'll keep the spoilers out and say that I loved the way romance was woven into the story. It is very out of the norm and believable. Of course, there are some moments in which I think Gray is a massive jerk, but in general, I love what Erin Bowman did. It was unexpected and great.

Another random comment is that the villain in the story was not that scary to me. They were sleazy, but a la House of Cards, and those kind of characters don't work for me. Still, they antagonized Gray enough and the story was pretty interesting.

I'll probably read the sequel because this was pretty good! In some ways, it reminded me of The Maze Runner.

-P.E.

Hello! 

Here's an update from the scintillating world of P.E.

I started the summer with pretty much one goal: get a job. My first job.

It was a long time before I secured employment. And apparently, I not only secured a job, the part-time job I thought I signed up for ending up being full-time. So now I labour long hours behind a computer, pondering SEO and CTAs, Adwords and Analytics, content marketing and graphic design.

Some days it is terrible, and other days I love it. But that's life!

And somehow, in the middle of the beginning my job, my mother scheduled us for a vacation to the big T-O. (Toronto, for those unaware of the "Centre of the Universe".)

To Toronto I went, other responsibilities be damned. I had a darn good time, too.

Throughout my trip, I read voraciously. I suppose I could write long reviews for every book I read. It's been too long for me to do that, and my memory is absurdly horrid. Instead, I'll mini-review these books.

The Falconer is the first of the books I'll review.

One girl's nightmare is this girl's faery tale

She's a stunner.

Edinburgh, 1844. Eighteen-year-old Lady Aileana Kameron, the only daughter of the Marquess of Douglas, has everything a girl could dream of: brains, charm, wealth, a title—and drop-dead beauty.

She's a liar.
But Aileana only looks the part of an aristocratic young lady. she's leading a double life: She has a rare ability to sense the sìthíchean—the faery race obsessed with slaughtering humans—and, with the aid of a mysterious mentor, has spent the year since her mother died learning how to kill them.

She's a murderer.

Now Aileana is dedicated to slaying the fae before they take innocent lives. With her knack for inventing ingenious tools and weapons—from flying machines to detonators to lightning pistols—ruthless Aileana has one goal: Destroy the faery who destroyed her mother.

She's a Falconer.

The last in a line of female warriors born with a gift for hunting and killing the fae, Aileana is the sole hope of preventing a powerful faery population from massacring all of humanity. Suddenly, her quest is a lot more complicated. She still longs to avenge her mother's murder—but she'll have to save the world first.

The first volume of a trilogy from an exciting new voice in young adult fantasy, this electrifying thriller combines romance and action, steampunk technology and Scottish lore in a deliciously addictive read.

My Review

 Author: Elizabeth May
Pages: 378
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Publication Date: September 19 2013
Source: Library

I'd say this one was moderately entertaining. Frankly, it's been a while and my recollection of the story is slim. I do remember that there's a case of perfect girl syndrome, in which the main character has it all.

Nothing wrong with having it all, but the story of "she looks like she has it all, but she really doesn't" is not exactly ripe.

There are fairies, however! And Scotland! Although the environment didn't use that setting to its fullest potential. The fairies were fascinating. Especially Kieran. And fascinating is as far as it goes, because I really lacked a grasp on his character. He was very mysterious. Also, there is a tiny fairy that loves to get drunk on honey. I adore this little fairy.

Aileana is hell-bent on revenge. I did feel bad for her because she felt so alone after her mother's death, and her father was a bit of a jerk (as far as I remember).

Strangely enough, this story reminded me of The Winner's Curse in the set up.

The ending wasn't really memorable, in the sense that I literally can't remember any part of it beyond some battle that I think Aileana won? And I suppose the next book deals with the consequences.

I would recommend this to people looking for some easy excitement. It didn't do enough to impress me, but it was a solid read.

-P.E.

Author: Jay Kristoff
Date of Publication: August 12 2012
Pages: 451
Source: School library

Griffins are supposed to be extinct. So when Yukiko and her warrior father Masaru are sent to capture one for the Shogun, they fear that their lives are over. Everyone knows what happens to those who fail him, no matter how hopeless the task.

But the mission proves far less impossible, and far more deadly, than anyone expects – and soon Yukiko finds herself stranded: a young woman alone in her country's last wilderness, with only a furious, crippled griffin for company. But trapped together in the forest, Yukiko and Buruu soon discover a friendship that neither of them expected.

Meanwhile, the country around them verges on the brink of collapse. A toxic fuel is slowly choking the land; the omnipotent, machine-powered Lotus Guild is publicly burning those they deem Impure; and the Shogun cares about nothing but his own dominion. Yukiko has always been uneasy in the shadow of power, when she learns the awful truth of what the Shogun has done, both to her country and to her own family she's determined to do something about it.

Returning to the city, Yukiko and Buruu plan to make the Shogun pay for his crimes – but what can one girl and a flightless griffin do against the might of an empire?

Review:

I barely read this book so I don't feel like this will be much of a review. Nonetheless, I did read it in some sense so here are some very early thoughts.

I ran out of books and picked this one up from my school library the librarian told me technically, taking books out isn't possible at this time but I could if I returned it by Friday. So my attitude toward this book was that if I were to read it, it would have to make me love it because two days during summative period is not a lot of time for reading.

The other thing I knew about Stormdancer is that it wasn't a book that used Japanese culture very well. I read the reviews and made the conscious decision to try this book, but never take this book as an accurate portrayal of Japanese culture.

From the pages I read, I had just one pretty big issue. It was that I had no clue what was happening. There were so many name drops of stuff I had never heard of. I'm open to learning new things but I felt like the writing, especially the description, was so clunky. I was completely lost because I kept encountering Japanese words that I didn't understand. I felt like the explanations were insufficient for me, too.

A lot of the descriptions were very formulaic. It was a lot of stuff like 'the rice paper walls were decorated with ------ and ------' and there were three of these type of sentences, all with parallel structure, right after one another. I didn't find it very interesting because I didn't know what the words meant, and I generally care very little for heavy description. What I prefer is more of a poet's description; describing the emotions rather than random details about the scene.

The plot also felt excruciatingly slow. It felt like it took forever for stuff to happen. I mean, of course that would happen if you spend so much time on descriptions. But I really got nothing out of them. I think ordinarily I would stick with Stormdancer for some more time. I wouldn't let it go so fast, but I didn't have the time. That being said, the beginning wasn't appealing to me.

I have heard that after 50 or so pages when the voyage starts the story improves. Is that true? I got to them on the ship before I had to return the book. So, I'll let you guys determine what I should do: give it another shot, or move on?

-P.E.