The Warrior Heir

Title: The Warrior Heir

Series: The Heir Chronicles - book 1

Author: Cinda Williams Chima

Rating: 4 stars

Genre: Young Adult, Urban Fantasy

Number of Pages: 426

Publication Date: 2006

Publisher: Disney Hyperion

Summary: Before he knew about the Roses, 16-year-old Jack lived an unremarkable life in the small Ohio town of Trinity. Only the medicine he has to take daily and the thick scar above his heart set him apart from the other high schoolers. Then one day Jack skips his medicine. And it feels great - until he loses control of his own strength and nearly kills another player during soccer team tryouts.

Soon Jack learns the startling truth about himself: he is Weirlind, part of an underground society of magical people who live among us. At their helm sits the feuding houses of the Red Rose and the White Rose, whose power is determined by playing the Game - a magical tournament in which each house sponsors a warrior to fight to the death. The winning house rules the Weir.

As if his bizarre heritage isn't enough, Jack finds out that he's not just another member of Weirlind - he's one of the last of the warriors - at a time when both houses are scouting for a player.

I found this book to be an interesting and unique read. The world that is created within this book is complex and well thought out. For every possible question you could ask, you can guarantee that their is an answer, not that any of the characters like to share any important information. Clearly a lot of work has gone into building this world as it continued to expand and become even more impressive and detailed. The Weir and their world is one of a long history of bloodshed, betrayal at the ultimate cost and a world steeped in tradition.

As complex as the world is, the characters are even more so. Every character you meet has some important role to play, some trick or treachery they are meant to fulfill. Just when you think you have the devious characters distinguished from the good guys, you find out you couldn't be more wrong. As I was reading this book I couldn't help but imagine myself in Jack's shoes. The way this story is written meant that I was just as confused and lost as Jack was feeling. The sense of hopelessness, betrayal and fear he feels are so easy to get drawn into.

I must confess that as much as I enjoyed this book I did struggle with it quite a bit. First of all as I mentioned earlier the world and the characters are complex. Each and every time I thought I has it all figured out, I found myself having to start over. The story is also not particularly fast paced, in fact it's slow. The first half of the book is simply Jack learning that he is a warrior and that he must train, with a few hit and miss fight scenes thrown in for luck. The last half of the book is all about him getting ready for the actual 'Game'. And when I found myself with only about 50 pages to go and no Game so to speak, I was seriously beginning to wonder if I had brought a book that was missing part of the story and within a couple of pages you find yourself at end and its game over.

As for the main character Jack, while I found myself getting caught up in so many of his emotions, there were also quite a few times that I was left wondering what the hell he was thinking and why he was feeling the way he was. But overall I did enjoy the premise of this book and the unique world and will continue with the second book. I feel that The Warrior Heir is the kind of book that you appreciate it more the second time, when you know a bit more about what is going on. So if you love betrayal, and a little bit of mystery, I would recommend this book.

An Ember in the Ashes

Title: An Ember in the Ashes

Series: An Ember in the Ashes - book 1

Author: Sabaa Tahir

Rating: 4.5 stars

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Number of Pages: 448

Publication Date: 2015

Publisher: Harper Voyager

Summary: For years Laia has lived in fear. Fear of the Empire, fear of the Martials, fear of truly living at all. Born as a Scholar, she's never had much of a choice.

For Elias it's the opposite. He has seen too much on his path to becoming a Mask, one of the Empire's elite soldiers. With the Masks' help the Empire has conquered a continent and enslaved thousands of Scholars, all in the name of power.

When Laia's brother is taken she must force herself to help the Resistance, the only people who have a chance of saving him. She must spy on the Commandant, ruthless overseer of Blackcliff Academy. Blackcliff is the training ground for Masks, and the very place that Elias is planning to escape. If he succeeds, he will be named deserter. If found, the punishment will be death.

But once Laia and Elias meet, they find that their destinies are intertwined and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire.

I absolutely loved this book. The premise, the world building, the whole thing. This book is set in a Roman Empire type world with magic, betrayals and death around every corner. Everything about this book worked. In fact I found this book so good, I read it all in one sitting. There was always something happening that meant I couldn't put the book down, I just had to keep reading.

Despite the fact that this book is set in a fantasy world with magic and supernatural creatures, you don't get thrust into a new world that is confusing and distant. Sabaa Tahir mixed this strange and magical place in with a Roman Empire feel making it easy to get drawn into.

I loved the idea of the Masks, the soldiers of the Empire, trained from the age of six to twenty, who are taught one thing: obey. Obeying usually involves a horrible death of those that are considered a threat to the Empire. So much detail has been clearly put into creating the Masks and in no way can they be confused as anything other than deadly and dangerous.

This book is told from the perspective of the two main characters Laia and Elias, with alternating perspectives given for each new chapter. At no point in this story did it not work. Despite the constant perspective change, the story flowed in a way that it never would have been able to if only one of them had been narrating.

The characters also contained an unbelievable amount of back story and depth. Just when you think you have the characters all worked out, they get infinitely more complex and well thought out. The pain, the fear and the anger that these two characters feel is so real at times you will feel like its your own. Both Laia and Elias go through an incredible amount of character development. Both, despite being two very different characters, learn to stop letting the world go by and to stand up and fight for what they believe in. 

This book ends at the cusps of a new and dangerous era and I can't wait for the next book to be released in April 2016.

Ignite Me

Title: Ignite Me

Series: Shatter Me Trilogy - book 3

Author: Tahereh Mafi

Rating: 4

Genre: Young Adult Dystopia Sci Fi

Number of Pages: 421

Publication Date: 2014

Publisher: Harper Collins

Summary: With Omega Point destroyed, Juliette doesn't know if the rebels, her friends, or even Adam are alive. But that won't keep her from trying to take down The Reestablishment once and for all. Now she must rely on Warner, the handsome commander of Sector 45. The one person she never thought she could trust. The same person who saved her life. He promises to help Juliette master her powers and save their dying world...but that's not all he wants with her.

What a fantastic conclusion to the Shatter Me Trilogy. This final book is action packed, fast paced, and brings the series to a nice close. By the end of this book I had well and truly fallen in love with the characters and was sad to know that their story had come to an end.

May contain spoilers...

The character development in Ignite Me was perhaps my favourite part of this book and this series. I originally found the characters to be very two dimensional and I couldn't really love them. But by the end of this book I found myself understanding who the characters were and the difficult decisions they were making. Juliette had a huge amount of character development in this book. When I read Unravel Me I thought that she was finally the character she was meant to be, but after Ignite Me I realised that only the surface of the strength and determination she possessed had been revealed.

Warner also makes huge changes in this book. While in the previous books and novella we have slowly been revealed to the human side of Warner, it is in Ignite Me that I fell in love with him. In the previous books Warner, while having genuine and redeeming qualities, had ultimately done what he needed to survive. But in Ignite Me he learns to be a strong individual who not only does the right thing, but isn't scared to do so. Warner also learns to do things for others, and I don't just mean doing things for Juliette because he likes her.

The character development that I loved the most, however, was that of Adam. Why?.. because he went kinda backwards. I loved seeing the petty, angry and not-so-perfect side of Adam. Previously I had found him to be too perfect, too flawless and lacking any realistic dimensions. But seeing him crumble and failing to be this perfect crutch that would help Juliette and the rest of the world onto the right path was a refreshing sequence of events in the book.

I was also pleased to see a more active role of the Reestablishment in this book. This series is meant to revolve around the destruction and corruption of the world and the Reestablishment, but in many ways it was lacking in the first two books. There was a lot of talk of the Reestablishment but no real action. While a large portion of the beginning of this book did continue in this same fashion, the big epic battle at the end did make up for this. 

Fangirl

Title: Fangirl

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Rating: 4.5 stars

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary

Number of Pages: 460

Publication Date: 2013

Publisher: Macmillan

Summary (from the back of the book): Cath and Wren are identical twins and until recently they did absolutely everything together. Now they're off to university and Wren's decided she doesn't want to be one half of a pair any more - she wants to dance, meet boys, go to parties and let loose. It's not so easy for Cath. She would rather bury herself in the fanfiction she writes where there's romance far more intense than anything she's experienced in real life.

Now Cath has to decide whether she's ready to open her heart to new people and new experiences, and she's realising that there's more to learn about love than she ever thought possible...

I absolutely adored this book. If you love living in books and have gone to university, you will really be able to relate to Cath's experiences. This book is very much a coming of age story; finding who you are and more importantly accepting who you are. On top of finding out who she is, Cath also faces the problem of dealing with her social anxiety. Something that I found Rainbow Rowell handled really well.

I found this book to be a fun, light read that is very realistic and for the most part couldn't find any faults with it. But at the same time I can't say I found anything overly amazing about it either. This book just was. Yet despite this I would recommend it to anyone. One of the reasons I personally think it lack the wow factor is that I do prefer fantasy to contemporary.

This probably explains why my favourite parts of the book were the events surrounding Cath writing her fanfiction and the inserts both from the fictional Simon Snow books and the fanfiction that Cath has written. And I must say, I am really interested in reading Carry On after reading the small snippets throughout the book.

This book is very dialogue based, which I personally love. I find that dialogue is what brings any story forward. It is one thing to be able to write and describe a story but to have characters that can talk and communicate between each other and effectively is what I love and more importantly, it's what I remember. Another thing about a good dialogue driven book, is that the things that aren't said have such a greater impact.

This book is one of the best stand alone's that I have read this year and I can't wait to read something else that has been written by Rainbow Rowell.

Unravel Me

Title: Unravel Me

Series: Shatter Me Trilogy - book 2

Author: Tahereh Mafi

Rating: 4 stars

Genre: Young Adult Dystopia

Number of Pages: 461

Publication Date: January 2013

Publisher: Harper Collins

Summary (from the back of the book): Juliette is still haunted by her deadly touch. But now she has teamed up with other rebels with powers of their own, she'll be able to fight back against the Reestablishment to save her broken world. With the help of these new allies, she will learn the secret behind Adam's-and Warner's-immunity to her killer skin.

I didn't particularly like the first book in this series but I had heard that it gets better as you go along so I picked up Unravel Me and I'm really glad I decided to. Everything that I didn't like in Shatter Me seems to get sorted out in this book and everything that I was uncertain of, was cleared up. It's not often you come across a second book in a series which is the one that holds it all together. 

The main thing that I disliked in the first book was the relationship between Adam and Juliette, and Warner and Juliette. It all felt a little forced. After reading this second book and watching the characters develop I began to understand why the characters came across like this. In Shatter Me all the characters seemed to be going through the motions, doing what they thought was expected of them. But in this book they start to see that maybe they need to think a little of themselves and do what they want. But not quite as much as the reader realises how much they need to rethink a few things.

I was also glad that who the Reestablishment was and their goals were brought more into this story. Once again I did, however, find that the role of this corrupt group did play a slightly less significant role than Juliette working out who she is and what her abilities are, and her boy issues.The ending of this book has set up the Reestablishment to play a huge role in the final book and I hope I won't be disappointed. 

Que some minor spoilers....

In this second book we learn why it is that Adam and Warner are immune to Juliette's powers...but more importantly we see Adam stop being immune to Juliette's power. Something which brings a staggering amount of reality into the story. When Juliette and Adam realise that he is not quite as immune to her powers as they thought, they are forced to seriously reconsider their relationship and whether or not it is wise for them to keep seeing each other. When Juliette pulls away to protect Adam, we also get to see a darker side of Adam. Especially when he is put in situations involving Warner.

Without Adam acting as a crutch on reality for Juliette, she is forced to be a little more independent and we begin to see her learning to live and not just existing. Juliette begins to make friends and with Warner a prisoner at Omega Point, we get to see her interact with someone who actually understands what she has been through. It is through Juliette's interactions with Warner that as a reader you begin to understand how badly Juliette has been forgetting to live her own life, how much she has been relying on others and doing what she thinks is expected of her. And much like the first book, Warner pushes all her buttons and makes her react and feel. Something that Juliette has spent a large chunk of her life trying not to do.

I found Unravel Me to be the book where the story started. In many ways I have found Shatter Me to simply be the starting point, the book that sets the scene. But now the story has really begun.