Book Review: The Elite

The Elite
by Keira Cass
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication Date: April 23rd 2013
Source: Library
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Thirty-five girls came to the palace to compete in the Selection. All but six have been sent home. And only one will get to marry Prince Maxon and be crowned princess of Illea.

America still isn't sure where her heart lies. When she's with Maxon, she's swept up in their new and breathless romance, and can't dream of being with anyone else. But whenever she sees Aspen standing guard around the palace, she is overcome with memories of the life they planned to share. With the group narrowed down to the Elite, the other girls are even more determined to win Maxon over - and time is running out for America to decide.

Just when America is sure she's made her choice, a devastating loss makes her question everything again. And while she's struggling to imagine her future, the violent rebels that are determined to overthrow the monarchy are growing stronger and their plans could destroy her chance at any kind of happy ending.

If you're like me and you enjoyed The Selection because of it's cattiness and endless drama, then you'll be sorely disappointed in The Elite. I didn't really expect anything more from this book other than fluffy drama set in a pseudo dystopia, but gosh this one really disappointed me. There was one cat fight. One. GIVE ME SOMETHING TO WORK WITH HERE KEIRA CASS!!!

I really didn't mind the characters so much in The Selection. Sure, Maxon was a bit too vanilla, and Aspen was well, an emotionally manipulative jerk, but America was basically so bland I couldn't care less what she did. This time around? Oh goodness this girl got annoying really fast. I don't watch The Bachelor so I don't really know what happens on that show, but I feel like it's pretty much always the guy calling the shots. In The Elite, it's America calling the shots and being a bitch about it. You know that Katy Perry song Hot n' Cold? Yep, that was America.

She spent the whole book toying with Maxon's feelings, and then got all jealous and pissed whenever she saw him hanging out with any of the other girls. Plus on top of that she couldn't decide which guy she liked better, Maxon or Aspen. It was literally every other chapter that she changed her mind.

Maxon was putting everything on the line and saying "say the word and we'll be wed!" and America's all like "I can't be the princess... BUT I DON'T WANT ANYONE ELSE TO HAVE MAXON HE'S MINE STEP AWAY BITCH!!!!"

Yep, it was awful.

As for the guys I am solidly on team "America get's killed by the rebels and Aspen and Maxon go off into the sunset marrying girls that are much more worthy of their love." THEY DESERVE BETTER THAN AMERICA. SO. MUCH. BETTER.

Ultimately The Elite was really disappointing, especially for someone like me who read it simply for entertainment/drama purposes. It was pretty much entirely composed of America whining, and one of my favorite characters got tossed to the wind. While this event did cause the only good drama in the story (if you could call it good drama), it also left the queen as the only interesting character and she was not around nearly enough to save what could have been.

Oh and did I mention that there's also one of those awkward "Did you, you know do it? What was it like?" *wink wink nudge nudge* type scenes which I thought was hilarious and terrible all at the same time. That stuff just does not translate to the page well. Authors take note.

I'll still be reading the final book in this trilogy, but my expectations are way, way down. Plus, I'm secretly hoping that America will get blindsided by a semi-truck and we'll never hear from her again. Too much to hope for? Darn it.

Julia :)

NEW CATCHING FIRE TRAILER!!!!

I'm just gonna leave this here.

Thoughts? Julia :)

Book Review: The Program by Suzanne Young

The Program
by Suzanne Young
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication Date: April 30th 2013
Source: Library
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Sloane knows better than to cry in front of anyone. With suicide now an international epidemic, one outburst could land her in The Program, the only proven course of treatment. Sloane's parents have already lost one child; Sloane knows they'll do anything to keep her alive. She also knows that everyone who's been through The Program returns as a blank slate. Because their depression is gone - but so are their memories.

Under constant surveillance at home and at school, Sloane puts on a brave face and keeps her feelings buried as deep as she can. The only person Sloane can be herself with is James. He's promised to keep them both safe and out of treatment, and Sloane knows their love is strong enough to withstand anything. But despite the promises they've made to each other, it's getting harder to hide the truth. They are both growing weaker. Depression is setting in.

When I first read the summary of The Program I thought it had so much promise, but at the same time I knew that it was the kind of story that could go one of two ways: It could either be a thought-provoking look at what can lead to teen suicide, or it could be a dystopian novel that completely exploits it's subject matter. Unfortunately, The Program turned out to be the latter.

If I were to sum up The Program in one word it would be angst.

THIS BOOK HAS SO MUCH TEEN ANGST.

The first third of the novel is almost entirely made up of the two protagonists, Sloane and James, having an angst off. They were both so emotional, yet unemotional and they spent all their time talking about how depressing their life was. To be honest it made me feel depressed just reading about it.

And then Suzanne Young went and decided to have the only character I actually liked commit suicide. To make matters worse, this particular suicide was pretty much just used as a plot device to get Sloane and James into The Program. I was not a happy camper guys. Not a happy camper.

As the book progressed it was pretty much just more angst, on top of more angst, with a side of, what else, ANGST. "I'm going to forget James." "James is going to forget me." "James will never love me again." "MY LIFE IS OVER."

CRY ME A RIVER.

The plot finally did pick up, but only about 2/3rds in and by then it really wasn't enough to save the story for me.

I've talked a lot about how the angst was just too excessive in this novel, but that certainly wasn't the only problem. In fact that wasn't even the main problem though I've harped on it the most in this review thus far. The true problem with The Program is that it took several extremely serious subjects, suicide and sexual abuse amongst other things, and instead of dealing with them in a respectful manner it turned them into plot devices for YA dystopian fodder. Nothing in The Program is even close to being scientifically or medically sound, and it pretty much makes a mockery of suicide and mental illness. Don't even get me started on the sexual abuse factor!

I hoped (though I probably should have known better) that The Program could be an intelligent look at teen suicide. Instead it's a bloated dystopian novel that is full of teen angst and uses difficult subjects as nothing more than plot devices. There was so much potential but nothing came of it. It makes me sad. :(

If you want to read a dystopian novel that's heavy on angst and light on smart, thought-provoking content, then I'd give The Program a read. Otherwise I would skip it.

Julia :)

Super Six Sunday: Those book series that I STILL need to read!

Super Six Sunday is a new meme hosted by Bewitched Bookworms and inspired by The Broke and the Bookishes Top Ten Tuesday.

This week it's all about the book series that I need to finally read. I'm so glad this popped up as a topic because I've been planning on doing a post about this for awhile now and just haven't gotten around to it till now.

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6. The Matched Trilogy by Ally Condie

When I first started my blog Matched was just coming out and I remember there was so much hype surrounding it. I totally bought into the hype so, not surprisingly, it ended up falling a bit short for me and I never got around to reading Crossed or Reached. I'm sort of on the fence about finishing this series. On one hand I'm really curious to know what happens and if it got any better, but on the other hand I don't really want to waste my time on a series that isn't worth it. Thoughts?

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 5. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

This is sort of embarrassing for me to admit, but I haven't actually read all of the Chronicles of Narnia books. Crazy right? I'm pretty sure I've only read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (because who hasn't?), and Prince Caspian. I also think my mom read The Horse and His Boy aloud to my sister and me when we were kids, but that doesn't really count. The reason I haven't read these is because after listening to Focus on the Family's radio dramas of the books so many times (seriously, they're amazing) I sort of feel like I don't have to anymore. Of course, I don't really believe that, but the content of the radio dramas is pretty much all dialogue and descriptions straight out of the books so it's almost like reading them. I'll get around to finishing this series eventually, I just haven't yet. I WILL READ ALL OF THEM, I PROMISE!

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 4. The Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins

Because I'm such a huge fan of The Hunger Games I of course want to check out Suzanne Collin's other popular series the Underland Chronicles. Anyone of my lovely followers a fan of this series? I love the concept of it, and I've heard really good things. It's just that longish series tend to scare me off, especially when they're all already published. Everything seems so much more manageable when it's just one book a year you know? 

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 3. The Curse Workers Series by Holly Black

This series has been recommended to me by a bunch of my friends and on top of that I totally I love the concept behind it. I just haven't gotten around to reading it yet. I REALLY NEED TO THOUGH. The blend of magic, con-men, and mystery sounds so awesome! Also, I'm pretty sure that we can all agree that Holly Black is amazeballs. I really need to devote some time to reading these!

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2. The Heroes of Olympus by Rick Riordan

I read The Lost Hero and really enjoyed it, but I have yet to read The Son of Neptune and The Mark of Athena. The thing with this series is it's like my book intimidation kryptonite: the books are huge and I'm two books behind. Fortunately there is still time for me to catch up a bit before The House of Hades comes out, but not much. I should probably take advantage of that time before it's too late and at least read The Son of Neptune. 

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 1. The Leviathan Trilogy by Scott Westerfeld

I want to read this series SO BAD. You have no idea how bad I want to read it. I also want it on my shelf even though I haven't read it yet. The covers are just amazing, I love the fact that Scott Westerfeld got a special illustrator to help bring the books to life, and everything about it sounds so awesome. I really do have to read this series pronto. In fact I should probably put Leviathan on hold at the library right now.

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So those are my top 6 book series that I still need to read or finish. What are some of the book series that you've been procrastinating on? Do we share some of the same ones, or are yours completely different from mine?

Julia :)

Cover Comparison: Sarah Dessen Edition

This cover comparison has been brewing for months now (I'm pretty sure Russell from The Habermann Press suggested do it sometime last year. WHOOPS.) but now it's finally here. YAY!

In all honesty the reason why I decided not to do this comparison till now is because I wanted to wait till the summer because Sarah Dessen's books are quintessential summer reading. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I can be a horrible procrastinator. Okay, so maybe it's partially because I'm a horrible procrastinator, but let's just forget about that....

As you guys probably know (unless you're living under a rock somewhere which I highly doubt since you're on the internet reading this blog) all of Sarah Dessen's books got cover redesigns last year. Yep, every last one of them. I'm sure you've seen at least some of these new covers already but lets take a good look at them and the original covers.

                                                                Original Covers

                                                         New Covers

                     

Original Covers: I'm a big Sarah Dessen fan so to me these covers are classic. I've read every one of Sarah's books when they bore these covers so it only makes sense that they hold a special place in my heart. Along for the Ride and The Truth About Forever are my two favorites, but I feel like This Lullaby and Dreamland both have pretty timeless designs. That being said I do have to admit that some of the other covers look a bit outdated and were probably in need of a revamp.

New Covers: The first thing thought pops into my head when I see these new covers is that almost every one of them looks super photoshopped and staged. I don't know what it is about the way these covers are edited, but they just look so sterile to me. Regardless I do love some of them. The Lock and Key cover? Perfection, and to be honest probably one of my new favorite book covers.  However, I feel like some of the other covers are just lacking. The Truth About Forever, What Happened to Goodbye, and That Summer just don't hit home for me. I feel like their original covers represented their story much better, but whatever.

So Who Wins? In this case I really can't pick a definitive winner. For some of these books I definitely prefer the original cover, while for others I absolutely adore the new cover. However I must admit that across the board I love the gorgeous coloring of Sarah Dessen's name on all of the new covers. They got that right!

Instead of telling me which set of covers you like best like you normally do, this time I want you guys to let me know which of Sarah Dessen's book covers, old or new, are your favorite! I'm super curious to hear your responses and see if we share cover favorites. :D

Julia :)