Legend by Marie Lu

I got this ARC in June. It comes out in stores in 3 days (the 29^th). I read it in less than one day. Imagine Matched mixed with Divergent, mixed with The Death Cure, and you can get an idea for awesome this new dystopia is. For some reason, I kept thinking of my favorite Disney movie, while reading it too: Aladdin. There’s definitely an Aladdin/Jasmine type love story (that takes the back seat to the crazy plot).

The book, like many other dystopias, takes place in a not so decent future. The U.S. is divided between the Republic and the Colonies, two warring groups. Amongst the constant war, devastating poverty, and frequent weather disasters, is the plague: a disease that keeps coming back and killing off tons of people (or at least the people who can’t afford vaccinations). So much of the book deals with a class system where the majority of the Republic’s people are poor, score badly on a crucial test, die of the Plague, and work in low-paying jobs or labor camps, begging for money, and a small portion of the population is wealthy, healthy, and intelligent.

The book follows two teens from the Republic. June (girl) is from the wealthy section. She is famous for scoring a perfect score on the ultimate placement test and is training as the youngest soldier for the Republic. Day (boy) grew up with the majority, in the poorer sections of the Republic. He scored poorly on his test, is a wanted criminal for standing against the government, and is trying to save his family, whose door has just been marked with the symbol for the plague.

June and Day live in a strict, class-run society, where the general rule of the government seems to be: shoot first, ask questions later. The story really takes off when June’s brother is killed by Day. He throws a knife at him in his escape from the military after robbing a hospital of expensive medicine to give to his family who cannot afford it. Day is sort of like a dystopian Robin Hood, known for rebellious acts against the government and for helping the poor.

June finishes her schooling early and is immediately placed on the job of tracking down Day and avenging her brother’s death. June is the character who learns just how messed up her world really is. She has lived a rather sheltered, safe life, and on her journey to find Day, becomes more and more aware of how the world actually works. Before realizing Day is who he really is, June falls for him. He saves her from a sticky situation and continues to help her survive in the poorer districts she does not know at all. But, she turns him in any way.

The story gets so good when June learns about Day’s true involvement in the death of her brother. There’s execution days, crazy breaking out plots, family rescue missions, speaking with the enemy (the Colonies), disarming weapons, lots of guns, crazy chase scenes, amazing fights, and secret government truths that will even make avid dystopia readers’ blood boil.

I love how relatable this book is to current politics. So much of the class system in this book can be seen with the current state of the U.S. economy. I love learning about June’s brother and what he knew before he died. I loved the nonstop action. I loved how intelligent the two characters were. And I really love that they each noticed the other’s intelligence right away and that was a major attracting feature. I loved that for once in one of these stories, women did not sink backwards in civil rights. June was proof that a woman could be top in rank with men. Though, the leader who’s really in charge, is male. All of the female characters here were survivors, fighters, and just plain interesting to read about.

I really loved Day. I loved him before I learned his real story and could truly become sympathetic toward him. He is just so caring, so brave, and truly heroic. June is brave too. She always does what she thinks is the right thing to do, even when it’s not necessarily what she’s been taught to do. And from the beginning, she’s also known for being a little rebellious or at least curious in situations where soldiers are meant to just be obedient.

I don’t know if the final copy of the book will do this but June’s chapters are written in black ink, and Day’s chapters are written in gold in the ARC. At first this was annoying because gold is not as easy to read as black…and I wonder how this transmits to ebook format…and then I figured that there has to be some metaphor, some purpose, some point as to why Day, the poor, rebellious, less fortunate character is entitled to the gold ink. Is it irony? Is the ink saying early on how intelligent everyone should know he is? I wish this was made more clear. It must cost some serious money to print in gold ink, and it’s not a good sign that readers cannot figure out the importance of it –why spend all that money and time on something that doesn’t make sense?

All in all, I loved this book. I can’t wait for a sequel (that is hopefully in the works). It’s on my list for favorite dystopias. It’s also on my list for favorite YA of 2011. Look out for these lists soon. I give it a 10/10!

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

I haven’t posted in a while. I really have had a terrible week. My dad’s been sick in the hospital all week, and for the first time in a long time, I haven’t really felt like reading much. And despite the fact that I am literally in the middle of several different books, I felt a need to do some re-reading yesterday. I have comfort food, and then I also have comfort books.

Though, I think I read this one again more due to the fact that I plan on seeing the movie soon than on it being just for comfort. I actually read the whole book in a bookstore, a few years ago. And like with what I said about Selznick’s latest book, the volume seems much heftier than it actually is. I easily read the whole thing (525 pages) in a couple of hours because a large quantity of the book is pictures.

This one is about a boy named Hugo, who grew up fixing clocks with his father. Both he and his father were always fascinated by how things worked, particularly machines. The book takes place mostly in a Paris train station, where Hugo’s uncle brings him after the death of Hugo’s father. The uncle is not a pleasant man, and when he disappears one day, leaving Hugo to work all the clocks in the station himself, Hugo, despite having no money or caregiver, does not actually seem worse off than before.

The train station to Hugo is home. He sleeps in a secret room, knows his ways behind the walls, and even knows when and where he can steal enough food to survive. The story really begins the day Hugo finds himself going to the building his father died in (by fire). He finds the automaton (self-operating/robotic machine) his father was working to fix, in the wreckage. He and his father found the automaton abandoned in the storage of the museum/building that burned and saw that when not broken, it was meant to write letters with a pen.

It becomes Hugo’s goal to figure out how to fix what his father couldn’t. He even childishly hopes that maybe the letter it will one day write will actually be from his father. His dreams come to a halt though, when the toy-seller at the station, catches him stealing from him, and ends up taking Hugo’s notebook (with all the information his father wrote down about fixing the automaton). The toy-seller’s goddaughter promises to help Hugo get his journal back. And the two children then embark on solving the mystery of the automaton, which turns out being a mystery about the people closest to them.

There’s plenty of film history in this story. And one of my favorite scenes is when the two kids (Hugo and Isabelle) go to a movie. I also love when the automaton finally works and we get to see what its pen really has to say. I love how everything is connected in this book. And I really love the magic. There are these links between clockwork, film, and magic tricks that were just so interesting! Hugo is an orphan that is just so easy to care and root for. I was dying for him to get back his notebook, to get the automaton to work, and to not be found out by the authorities before these things could come into fruition. I also loved Isabelle and her fascination with books, and her inability to let things go.

There’s toys, there’s mystery, there’s magic, there’s the secrets of the Paris train station, and there’s some remarkable artwork. Sometimes, I found myself rushing through the illustrations to find out what would come next in the story. And sometimes I really just had to pause and take in the artwork too, because some of it was just breathtaking, and could even stand alone, possibly in many separate frames in an art museum. I mean the book did win the Caldecott in 2008.

There was one little gap in the story that I noticed both times while reading. Maybe it’s just me being completely unobservant, but I’m not sure why Isabelle’s godfather made the decision to stop doing what he used to do. And I really felt the need of an explanation for why others thought him to be dead…Was this clearer to anyone else?

Regardless, I loved the story. I loved the art. I loved the characters. I really just loved this book. It definitely gets a 10/10 from me.

The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

This is one of the last ARC’s I picked up in New Orleans. And I’m so glad I did. Firstly, I met Jay Asher a few times throughout my stay in New Orleans. Granted, I think he hosted one of the YALSA events I went to. And another time was at the signing of this book. But I know I saw him at least two other times looking at YA books! And meeting him and learning how nice of a person he was only made me want to read this book so much more.

Also, there’s that picture. I asked Jay Asher, Carolyn Mackler, and David Levithan if I could put their picture on my blog. Apparently, YA authors like to hang out together at these conferences! And then Jay Asher asked if he could put my picture on his! So if you go to my ALA New Orleans posting: ALA New Orleans Adventures, you will see that picture at the bottom, and there should be a link to Jay Asher’s blog with the picture of me taking that picture!

Jay Asher is famous for the book Thirteen Reasons Why, and Carolyn Mackler is famous for her girl fiction YA books like The Earth, My Butt, and other Big Round Things. They are two very different writers. And like how I felt with David Levithan and Rachel Cohn, this just made their characters so much more relatable.

The book takes place in 1996, when Emma gets her first computer, and CD-ROM for AOL (with a dial up connection!). Her best friend Josh and her have barely been on speaking terms for the past six months because Josh made his feelings known to her. But, Josh is the one that hands her the CD-ROM.  And with AOL, comes a link to reading their futures. Josh and Emma come to be friends again (both with other respective love interests), as they learn about Facbook, the website of the future that shows them what their lives will be like in 15 years.

At first the two don’t really believe this site comes from the future. They think Facebook is some kind of prank being played on them. But what seals the deal is finding a picture in Emma’s high school memories photos that she knows she hasn’t developed from her camera yet in the present. Josh and Emma learn that any changes they make in regards to important decisions and even not-so important decisions (like spilling something on a new carpet) can drastically change and effect what their futures will be.

Emma learns that she will eventually marry someone who seems awful, so she goes about making sure that marriage will never happen. She even calls her future husband in 1996 to see what she can do to prevent anything from happening. She learns what school he goes to and decides she won’t be going there. But more than even future husbands, Facebook is telling Josh and Emma who is out of the closet in the future, who is not friends with them in the future, and who will become a teen mom in the not-so-distant future, and so much else.

In very subtle ways the book deals with the questions: how much of the future would you want to know? How much are you willing to give up to strive for a better future (your current boyfriend, your dream college, your best friend?) And how much time should we actually be spending on Facebook looking at everyone’s lives instead of actually just living our own?

The book deals with a few other tough teen subjects (on the sidelines, in other words very slightly) like: sex, sexuality, falling in love with your best friend, teen pregnancy, and divorce.

What I loved most was the relationship between Emma and Josh. I just kept hoping for the two to be together. I thought both characters were so real. These authors weren’t afraid of making Emma seem a little selfish and not so bright in the boy department (which makes sense considering all the divorces she’s been through), and they weren’t afraid of making Josh a real teenage boy. Yes, he was a very good, sweet, and almost ideal boy (but a sex-wanting teenager too).

The one thing I was not a big fan of was what I call the product placement. I get that the authors liked going back to the 90’s. I liked going back to the 90’s too. Really, I did. It was fun to remember my first AOL experiences and some dial-up memories. But there was so much said about clothing, music, and skateboards. I just felt a little overwhelmed. We don’t need all those things to know the time period. Or, we at least don’t need all those things as much as we got them. Maybe one Dave Mathews reference would have been enough?

The book was like a really good teen movie where you keep hoping for certain characters to get together. I loved the characters. I loved the concept. And most of all, I loved how believable everything was. I give it a 9/10.

Awake at Dawn by C. C. Hunter

So, technically I’m reading two epic fantasy books right now…One about dragons and one about Beka Cooper. Know what I’m talking about? But, I woke up from a bad dream last night around 1 am, and I have no idea what it was about. All I know is I woke up terrified, shaking, and couldn’t sleep. What’s a girl to do? Apparently, reading fantasy was not the right medicine. I started this book, and before I knew it, my clock said 6am. My eyes were burning from being open so long, but I really pulled my first all-nighter since graduate school with this one. I guess it takes me five hours to read one YA book?

Needless to say this book was the perfect medicine. I loved the first one. And I loved this one (book 2). I was a little confused in the beginning because I thought the last one ended at the end of camp, but apparently I’m wrong. This literally started immediately after book 1 ended, before camp is over, and before camp can become school.

It has a lot of the same questions as before. Kylie in the first book had to deal with a camp full of supernaturals who all can normally read someone’s mind patterns to determine what kind of creature they are: human, vampire, werewolf, fairy, shapeshifter, or witch. And, no on could place Kylie. In the first book she dealt with a best friend with a pregnancy scare, an ex who kept pushing Kylie to do things she didn’t want to, divorcing parents (who think she’s at a camp with troubled teens), the love triangle with the fairy guy and the werewolf guy from her past, and all the crazy attempts someone was making to sabotage the camp she comes to accept she’s a part of.

In this book, not knowing what kind of creature she is, is even more frustrating. She develops a lot more abilities too. Now, she can talk to ghosts, go into people’s dreams and do things there, protect people with super strength, run really fast, drink and like the taste of blood, and some other really cool things I refuse to spoil. The camp sabotage is over and a lot of this book focuses on Kylie trying to figure out her heritage and fixing things with her parents. She also learns her friend from home has cancer. She finally takes the trip to the waterfall, to search for the angels of death. Lucas (werewolf guy from the past) comes back to camp and messes everything up that Kylie started to have with Derek (fairy guy).  This time, there’s a ghost haunting her, telling her that she needs to do something or someone she knows is going to die just like her (the ghost), which apparently involves a lot of blood.

There’s romance for Kylie and both her best friends at camp, awful parents visits, and a lot of growing up and Kylie embracing all that she can be. It ends before I know what she is, and I am still dying to know! Though, it ends with a promise of information in book 3. There’s saving friends, escaping rogue vampires, and a lot of family drama. I loved it.

The one thing that did kind of bother me was: the lack of intelligent guessing/research on Kylie’s part as to what she is. I feel like I have two reasonable guesses for what she is and I can’t believe that the girl wouldn’t guess these things too. Does her not guessing them mean the author will go one of these routes? I don’t know. I just feel like Kylie is a little bit dumb when it comes to this. She’s researching, even calling in the P.I. to find her dead, biological father’s parents. Why doesn’t she use the same tenacity in discovering what she is herself, instead of just whining about it being hard and looking for answers from other people?

Regardless of the whining, which actually was a lot less than it was in the first one, I did read this whole thing in one night. I give it a 9/10. And I can’t wait for book 3 to come out in April.

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

My ARC pile from my summer library conference has finally, significantly lessened in size. I have less than 10 ARC’s left from June! This is one of them. And it did not disappoint.  Mafi’s writing style was not my favorite, but this is so overshadowed by the sizzling romance and the amazing story of Juliette.

Mix together some serious 1984, militaristic, communism type dystopian world with X-Men and that’s the setting for this. It takes a little while to learn about the messed up world Juliette lives in because the book begins after she has spent 264 straight days locked up in a room, with no communication with the outside world. And Juliette has some serious issues. She has lived pretty much her whole life with no human contact. It’s discovered early on by her parents that whenever Juliette touches anyone, they suffer and can die. She’s ostracized her whole life, made fun of by everyone, left alone by everyone else, and when she makes an attempt one day to protect a 3-year old from an abusive mother, she ends up accidentally killing the child. Since that day, she’s locked up in this room, cold, starving, and thirsty.

The sad thing is that its clear that Juliette feels as though she deserves her imprisonment. She tried her whole life to be better, to be a good person, to try to prove to her family that she deserved to be touched, but she never was quite good enough. Then things really get interesting when The Establishment (really scary, world-dominating political power) locks a boy up with her. The boy’s familiar. And Juliette thinks its a test to see if she’ll touch him. She doesn’t, but eventually the two become friends, surviving the harsh circumstances together.

And Juliette learns from him how much worse the world has become since her imprisonment. I finally got see what the world outside her prison cell was like, and it sounded awful. The world has been destroyed by natural weather disasters. People have been dying from the world’s lack of food. It sounds like everyone is starving and jobless and homeless. And the Establishment scares everyone into obedience with weapons. The Establishment has killed anyone who opposes them. And it has begun to burn books and art. It’s apparently about keeping everyone unified, with no religion, no culture, and one universal language.

Just when Juliette thinks she can trust Adam, the two of them are taken out of their cell at gunpoint, and she learns that the Establishment wants to use her as a secret, torturous weapon. Oh, and that Adam is actually a soldier for the Establishment. Lucky for Juliette, Adam is that boy from her past and he’s discovered that he can touch her. Juliette has to pretend to be civil around Warner, the head of their Establishment sector, to stay alive. Warner can’t touch her, but he’s fascinated by her, has her dress in fancy clothes, and looks at her all the time. He tests her abilities, and they all discover that Juliette also has super strength when she’s really angry.

And what makes this book so good is the romance. Watching the romance develop between Juliette and Adam (who’s not a very loyal soldier) was amazing! It would be good without the whole Rogue from X-Men type deal. Feeling what Juliette was feeling, to finally be touched by someone who loved her was just so intense, and made the romance so much better!

Any way, the two love birds escape the establishment, pick up a younger brother and a friend along the way, evade death at every corner, escape torture, get shot at, steal tanks, bust through steel factories, fight powerful leaders, out run soldiers, and so much more.  I won’t ruin the ending because it was super awesome (even more so than everything else I’ve mentioned), but just know that the ending only makes this book even more comparable to X-Men, and in a good way. Oh, and there’s a secret Juliette has yet to tell Adam or anyone about her and Warner, and this makes the drama so much more dramatic!

Just in case you can’t tell, I loved it. The story was fantastic. I love reading about girls with super powers. I loved seeing the positives and the negatives of Juliette’s powers. And I loved watching her grow stronger and more rebellious as the book went on.

The beginning chapters were a little hard to read for me because I’m not a fan of the writing style. Mafi uses a lot of metaphors. And while I get that the point is to make Juliette come off as rather insane, lonely, and weak in the beginning, I think that would have gotten through fine without all the not so poetic metaphors. I do like all the worlds that are scratched out, making it seem as though we’re reading her journal. And I liked reading all the things she said and comparing them to the things she scratched out, and wished she said. And either the metaphors slimmed down as the book went on, or I just got used to them and stopped caring because the story was so good.

Also, it kind of just ended…abruptly. And I’m dying to know more. I love the direction the book is taking. I really want to see what can possibly happen in this rather bleak world. I will anxiously be anticipating a book 2. And I recommend this one to YA readers who love X-Men. I give it a 9/10.

The Lying Game by Sara Shepard

So, I kind of fell in love with this show as soon as it started. I never missed an episode. I knew that it was only a matter of time before I would need to delve into the books. I may have to purchase book 2 on my Kindle, soon…I was worried that I wouldn’t like the book as much as the show, which was the case with Shepard’s other series (though, now I’m thinking I might need to give those books another shot). I was so wrong. The book is not only more dramatic, more intense, and more mysterious, but it throws in that whole new genre of YA lit I was talking about not too long ago: death.

The show involves two twins who discover each other as teenagers. One grows up in foster care (with a relatively hard life, Emma) and one grows up with super nice and wealthy adoptive parents, and a sister (Sutton). Emma comes and fills in for her wealthy twin sister, Sutton so Sutton can go off and investigate what on earth happened with their biological mother. There’s scandals, love triangles, a lot of lying, heated romance, and a ton of mystery that involves two families, a lot of covering up, and not knowing who knows what.

Sound good? Well, the book has the same story line, but the rich twin is actually a dead, rich twin. And everything is told from her point of view, while she’s stuck following around the twin sister she never knew she had. Also, in the book, the title makes a lot more sense. Sutton and her friends are known for the lying games, twisted pranks they play on other people and themselves. The point of the games is to make whoever you’re messing with truly believe that whatever is happening is actually real.

And while the girls’ heritage takes major focus in the show, what really steals the story in the book is trying to figure out who Sutton’s murderer is. For a while, it’s clear that the killer(s) have to be someone Sutton, and now Emma, is really close to. There’s still all the drama of hoping no one recognizes Sutton as being someone completely different. Only one person does. There’s teen runaways, boyfriend stealing, cruel pranks, near death moments, weird supernatural ghost/twin moments, double crossing, and murder. Emma can literally trust no one. And Sutton, while lacking a lot of memories and wanting to find her killer as much as Emma does, is conflicted about having her newfound twin take over her life.

I read this in one sitting. It reminded me a lot of Lauren Oliver’s Before I Fall and Jessica Warman’s Between. The romance was not as juicy as it was in the show, but I have a feeling it will get there. A lot of times, with books where the main character is dead, things get a little too spiritual/new age for me. And this book never did that. So much was focused on what Emma was doing and figuring out, that a lot of the whole Sutton being dead thing almost took the back seat to everything else. I almost forgot at times that the main character was dead.

As generally happens with the first book in YA series, not a lot is solved yet. And I really need some answers. So, I will be reading book 2 soon. And I know book 3 comes out this year. I love the show. I love the book. The book is a lot darker. And the characters in the book are way less trustworthy, especially after you find out about the last game played on Sutton. Also, the adoptive parents in the book played a much smaller role. I wonder if their story was just made up for more tv drama, or if that will come to play later as well. I give this a 9/10, and we’ll see how book 2 goes.

Enclave by Ann Aguirre

I was really expecting to love this one. I have only heard great things about this book. I have even owned it almost since it came out. Plus, it’s a dystopia with zombies in it, which for me is a recipe for amazing.

But, the truth is I only started liking it in the second half.  The first half had absolutely nothing new for me. It really was a mixture of Matched, Divergent, City of Ember, and The Forrest of Hands and Teeth.  And I really loved all those books, so it was hard to not like Enclave. It’s just I predicted everything in the first half, when what I was really hoping for was to be surprised. After three times of the main characters falling asleep and awaking to danger, I got a little tired of this plot device…We get it; sleeping can be dangerous. I think one of the best elements to any dystopia is that sort of initial shock/surprise that leads to an underlying idea that all this is not actually all that unbelievable.

Also, I was expecting to feel about the whole book, the way I did in the first half because every summary I’ve ever read for this book, only mentioned the first half. Not only does the publisher cut half the story out in it’s summary, but also it cuts out what makes this book unique and what finally gave it that little bit of shock value for me. I just wish I got this shock earlier.

Any way, it’s about Deuce, who grows up in an enclave underground. In her world, people are only given names if they live past fifteen (which most don’t seem to do). People in her world have one of three jobs: breeders (those in charge of keeping up the population), builders (people who help make new things and fix old things into something new), and hunters (people who go out of the enclave and fight past zombies in order to catch food to bring back). The book starts with Deuce becoming a huntress.

Her first day as a huntress, gets her paired with Fade (a kind of outcast in her society). Fade is the only person in the enclave to have grown up and lived outside of it. Soon, Deuce and Fade discover secrets about the tunnels surrounding the enclave, and that the zombies are getting smarter. Unfortunately, their enclave does not listen to them. Deuce discovers that the enclave is not all it’s cracked up to be and finds herself siding with Fade in regards to many moral/ethical issues. This way of thinking leads to their banishment.

And then the book really takes off when Fade brings Deuce topside, to the world above the underground subway tunnels. There, NYC is ravaged, destroyed, and relatively vacant. The only people who seem to occupy it are those in deadly gangs. And Deuce soon realizes that there’s bad everywhere, just in different ways. In escaping a rather brutal gang (the wolves), Deuce and Fade pick up two more allies: Stalker and Tegan. And together the four journey north in effort to find a land Fade’s father used to talk about, a safe place.

I know it sounds weird that all the underworld dystopia stuff did not pull me in…I think it’s just that I have read a lot of other under ground stories that I think worked better. I never really got a good description of the enclave and could never truly picture it. And I kept trying to understand things that I just felt weren’t described really well (like the three groups of people, how the hunters were hunting, and what exactly was involved in breeding –like was it consensual or was it rape?, etc.)

I was fascinated by the world above, and what NYC became. I really was as interested as Deuce was in discovering answers. I loved the gang politics. I found the contrasts between the gangs and the enclave insanely interesting. I loved meeting Stalker and getting to know Tegan, who brought in very different elements to the story.

I loved how the characters learned to survive together and to fight together. And I loved how tough Deuce was. One thing that irked me though was that I never really heard them mention practicing (till toward the end with Stalker and Deuce). And I know Deuce and Fade had a lot of training in the enclave (though it was never really mentioned…so maybe they didn’t?), but to keep being able to kill all these zombies and gangers, I feel like they would need to at least stretch a little bit somewhere. They didn’t have a ton of time between all the fights and wounds and chases, but still. There was just this kind of fake, super hero toughness that wasn’t working for me. I needed to see them working at that toughness more. And I didn’t (besides one fight for show) see that work ever in the enclave. I think showing me a little how Deuce and Fade got be the way they were would not only have let me believe them more, but have gotten me to like them more too, and turned them into more interesting, surviving characters that the typical girl who comes to realize her world is not all it’s cracked up to be.

I also kept wondering why the zombies were only underground. But apparently, they weren’t. I just don’t understand how so many days went past above ground without their being any. And Stalker mentioned not seeing them before at all, but how is that possible? Maybe this will be addressed in the sequel?

I’m not meaning to sound so harsh. Deuce becomes way more than the typical girl, half way through the book. She goes from the girl who realizes her world was bad, to a girl who keys in on surviving, and she becomes a much better YA heroine when this happens. I wanted more romance between Deuce and Fade, though I kind of was enjoying the triangle that was forming, and I’m sensing this will be dealt with in more detail in the sequel that is supposed to come out in September 2012.

I also liked that the author did not go overboard with the descriptions of thing that used to be, like Jeff Hirsch did in The Eleventh Plague with all his talk of McDonalds and stores. And I loved seeing the public library, and watching Deuce react to new things and old artifacts; it kind of reminded me of Ariel in the Little Mermaid loving all things human. I’m excited to read what’s in store for these characters and to see how Deuce adapts to yet another way of living and surviving. I look forward to book 2. And I give this an 8/10.