February '17 Reviews

 

Glitter by Aprilynne Pike. - Wei Li                          

Blackmail, betrayal and Glitter.
While Glitter may seem like an innocent and sweet name, but Glitter is the street name of a severely addicting drug that is just starting to spread in France. Anyone would comes in contact with it develops a dependence on Glitter. The palace in the Kingdom of Versailles has been bought by a major company, with its teenage president as Versailles' king. Though the world has advanced into the future, the palace is immersed in the style of the eighteenth century, with all the ball gowns, makeup and lavish feasts, but behind it is all this hi-tech intelligence. Danica, the current fiancée of the cunning young king has been blackmailed by her mother into the betrothal, and she desperately wants to escape, as she has witnessed the king strangling a girl. Who would want to be his next victim?
Danica will do anything to get the money for her to get a new identity and flee the Palace of Versailles. Anything.

 Rated 5/5 Glitter specks. "I am bitterly impatient waiting for the next book in this series. The story is deeper than it may first appear. Also there's lots of death, murder and surprises."

Cell Seven by Kerry Drewery. -Isabella

It's set in this dystopian place which is probably America. The law system is totally corrupt - if you're accused of killing someone you're immediately put on death row, and society dictates whether you're guilty or not. But the thing is, the author did it very badly because the whole society is supposed to believe that it is a democracy, and it so clearly isn't. For example there's this show where they get you to vote whether a person is guilty or innocent and it is really obvious, see-through, how biased it is. It's a bit ridiculous and frustrating. You don't believe how oblivious people seem to be, you keep thinking 'Really?!" The book focuses on Martha, a girl accused of killing a very famous politician. She pleads guilty, but it seems like she might be covering for someone, or her motives were more complicated than she would have you believe.

Rated: 3/5 criminals "Very predictable. I feel like the author was trying to go for shocking at the end, but it was just a mess"

All Your Friends Like This: How Social Networks Took Over News by H Crawford D Filipovic A Hunter - Jackson

This is a very strange book. It's written by three people, which is slightly confusing because each person writes a different chapter and then link back to their own previous chapters which are spaced between the other writer's contributions. They reference each other as well though. They all worked for Nine MSN's digital news platform. They talk about how the empire of new has been shifting over from traditional newspapers to social media. They invented an engine, called the "likable app engine" it goes and gets all the data from 50 different top news sites and gets all their articles and goes on to Facebook and says how many times they have been shared and liked and put that information into a graph. From the results they at really interesting things like the sort of boom but not really boom when the wiggles changed. The guy who made the engine said he stayed up til three in the morning making it. There is a very long tangent in the book about the image of a lion and a lamb, that was uploaded and exploded across news site and social media. They talk at length about traditional newspaper editors who were people you didn't want to mess with and went by gut instinct, and then later on they talked about the editors of Nine MSN who now have lots of data to support everything they send out. 

Rated: 4/5 clickbaits "It was a positive take on the direction of journalism. Suggesting a sort of rebirth of the medium rather than a dumbing down"    

Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead. - Natasha 

This series is about a society where you have three types of species Moroi (vampires), Dhampir and Humans. Then there are the Strigoi are the bad vampires who have no remorse, whereas the Moroi are royal and wield magic. The Dhampir are have Moroi half human. They’re the guardians of the Moroi, making sure that they don’t get wiped out by the Strigoi. There’s this Dhampir girl called Rose Hathaway and her best friend Lissa, who is a Moroi and a Royal. She’s the last of her line. They were in a car accident which killed Lissa’s whole family. Rose and Lissa were both in the car at the time. Everyone assumes that Rose naturally survived the accident. Ever since then the two have developed a new affinity for each other.  Rose falls in love with her instructor Dmitri but even though it is reciprocated, they can’t act on it. book four, Rose has to honour a terrible pact as Dmitri has irrevocably fallen to the dark side…

 Rated: 4.5/fangs   "I’m always excited reading this series"

Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley. - Imogen

A girl in year ten and her family leave everything behind to go and live by the coast. She’s a great swimmer and so is her younger brother. One day he goes into the surf without her and gets caught in a really strong rip and drowns. She develops depression and ends up failing year twelve. She moves back to her old hometown with all her old friends but she doesn’t tell them that her brother has died. But, her old best friend’s younger sister ends up falling in love with her brother. She doesn’t know how to tell her… You see, her best friend’s family own a book store, where they have this section called the letter library where you can write letters to people in books. So basically at the start of every chapter there are letters that her younger brother and the girl wrote to each other. She keeps cancelling herself out of people’s lives, but she ends up getting back in touch with her old best friend. Then the book store and it letter library and all the life it represents comes under threat…

Rated: 3/letters "Nothing really happens but it’s a good book! Heart-warming and heartbreaking"  

                                      

Game of Thrones Series by G.R.R Martin. -Henrietta

The motivation for me to read the books was from watching the show. It’s really interesting how everyone comments on how sexual it is, but the books really aren’t. The show over exaggerates that element and I think that leads people to focus on those scenes in the books. It’s more about war and politics. It’s really interesting. There’s all of this stuff that happens, like people getting captured, and you just really want to know what happens next.

It’s a really big adventure. 

Rated: 3.5-4/dead kings   "The books are really slow, there’s a lot to take in, but you need it all to understand what unfolds."

Lord of the Rings Book 1 by J. R. R. Tolkien.  –Ari

It took me a while to finish this book. When you watch the movie it’s pretty simple, but when you read the book there’s completely –I’d say useless, history about how this family of hobbits and adventurers came to be. But the book is pretty amazing once you think about it. It starts off being pretty boring, but it really surprises you. Like ‘journey, journey, journey, riding on horses, and then all of a sudden something attacks you’ like-whoa! Overall it’s a pretty great book. The story revolves around what to do about the ring of power. Honestly, I don’t understand why it’s so powerful, it’s a ring that makes you invisible. The assembly of hobbits, elves etc, journey off through the passage of Mordor. You have no clue what JRR Tolkien is trying to tell you, because he kinda expects you to know what these words mean and where they’re from. He’s just like: “Let’s go to Mordor and now let’s speak this ancient language of elves” Anyway it’s a cliff-hanger, there’s a death and the fellowship is all spread-out.

Rated: 4/5 orcs "As the book came out in the 1950’s I don’t have to wait                                              around to find out what happens next."

Dragonfly Song by Wendy Orr. -Erin

It’s really complicated. It’s about this girl who lives in this empire where there are gods and then there are goddesses, then first ladies, those under them and finally peasants. So there is a really rigid hierarchy. A really important woman, a first lady, has a child. The first born child is always supposed to take the place of their mother as a leader, but the child must be physically perfect in absolutely every way and also capable of controlling the weather and talking to snakes etc. But her child isn’t perfect. She is born with an extra thumb on each hand. The second she is born her father cuts off the thumbs so she will be as perfect as she is in every other way. All she has to show for them are two little half-moon scars. Even these are enough to have her thrown out on to the street. The story follows her survival, growing up as a mute slave and then as an                                             apprentice bull dancer – a profession no one has ever survived, until now. 

Rated: 3/5 dragonfly wings. "In this book women are in power, which is great. The actual story is repetitive and frustrating, but what I like about it was the way each chapter of prose ends with a poem that sums up what has passed. The poems are really sweet and sad, and it hurts a little bit."

                                                                                                                                         

 Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. - Olivia

This book deals with some heavy themes such as bullying and is a story about growing up. It is set in the mind of a thirteen year-old boy. I read it over the holidays, I thought it was really good, I can't pick out any stand-out moments right now but I can say I really enjoyed reading it.

Rated: 4/5 villages  "Not particularly memorable, but well written and worth reading"