#YABookReview: 'Panic' by Lauren Oliver

I received an advance reader's edition of Panic at no cost through the Amazon Vine program. I received no other compensation for this review, which represents my own honest opinion.

Panic is a contemporary young adult novel with a realistic plot and characters. It takes place in the small town of Carp, New York. The high school seniors in Carp play a game over the summer called Panic; the winner takes a pot of somewhere around $50,000. To many in the economically depressed town, the money represents the only chance they'll ever have to live better lives than their parents. 

The novel is written in the third person, but chapters are divided into Heather and Dodge chapters, depending on which of the two main characters they follow. Heather Nill lives in a trailer park with her alcoholic, drug-addicted mother and her younger sister Lily. She has no plans for her life beyond high school. She dreams of leaving Carp, but she can't stand the thought of leaving Lily behind. And yes, Heather is aware that her last name literally means "nothing."

Dodge Mason comes from a similar background. He never knew his father, a Dominican roofer. His lighter-complexioned half sister Dayna played Panic when she was a senior, and in the final round she was in a car accident and lost the use of her legs. Their mom can't afford the most advanced medical treatment for her, so chances are she'll never walk again.

Dayna had been competing against Luke Hanahran when she was injured. When it's Dodge's turn to compete, Luke's brother Ray is also a contestant in Panic. Dodge intends to get revenge for Dayna - that's his main motivation for playing the game.

Along with Dodge and Heather, Heather's best friend Natalie (Nat) Velez is a competitor. Nat doesn't have a very strong stomach for dangerous activities, but she wants to win the money to further her dream of being an actress in L.A.

Panic is kept secret from the town's adults, with ever-changing rules, locations, and judges. None of the players know who the judges are.

I've been wanting to read the first book in Lauren Oliver's Delirium trilogy, which is also called Delirium, for quite a while now. After reading Panic, I'm not so sure I want to read it anymore. I just haven't fallen in love with Oliver's writing the way I have, say, Veronica Roth's. I thought Panic was interesting, but not great. There are moments of mild suspense when the characters seem to be in great danger, but very few consequences actually happen to the four main characters. The suspense is kind of a tease.

I hoped this would be more of a "what if real kids had their own version of The Hunger Games" kind of thing, but it was even more realistic than even that - which I didn't love. I knew going into this reading that it wasn't any kind of dystopian or fantasy novel, but it turns out I simply like the speculative genres of young adult books more than the more realistic kind.

This is the second stand-alone Lauren Oliver book I've read. The first was her middle grade fantasy novel The Spindlers. I thought that was just okay, too.

But if you like realistic YA fiction about what kind of trouble bored kids with very little to lose could get into, you may very well enjoy this book.

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Shift by Madison Dunn. $8.99 from Smashwords.com
I'm not sure why it happens, but when I focus just right, I can slow time. Things around me become lighter somehow, and I almost feel the tiny particles of energy spinning inside of them. The thing is, having the ability to transform the world around you isn't all it's cracked up to be -- especially when you are running from the Valencia without any deodorant.

#YABookReview: Vampire Academy #3 - Shadow Kiss (Spoilers)

Excuse me, but why didn't any of you tell me this book was going to end so...?

SPOILER ALERT! Go away and DO NOT READ if you don't want to know what happens in the third book in Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy novel series. This post will discuss the plotline of Shadow Kiss and will include spoilers. You've been warned.

When I finished Frostbite, I was worried about Lissa and Christian's relationship. He seemed so jealous of Adrian Ivashkov. Yet on the very first page, Rose Hathaway unfortunately finds herself inside Lissa's head while Lissa and Christian are getting very intimate. 

I should probably mention that the sexuality in this series is not explicit. This isn't erotica. It's young adult paranormal fiction, and although there's some sensuality, there's no explicit detail. I wouldn't encourage my 10-year-old niece to read this series yet, but - allowing for individual differences in maturity - I'd think it should be fine for most readers 14 and up. 

So we know right off that Lissa is in love with Christian. Later in the novel, they talk about marriage and having children. I'll be very happy if, at the end of this series, Christian and Lissa get married. She's the last living Dragomir, and that would be so lonely. 

Let's face facts: my Vampire Academy OTP (one true pairing) is Rose and Dimitri. Things end very badly for Rose and Dimitri at the end of this book. 

BUT FIRST! First, there's chapter 23. In chapter 23, Rose and Dimitri do the thing. He's 24, she's his 17-year-old student (one week away from turning 18), and they can't keep their hands off each other. They have the sex.

Again, not explicit, but rather poetically described from Rose's point of view. In Frostbite, we could presume that Christian was probably a virgin and that Lissa, the sexually experienced one, took the lead and guided him.We know Rose, despite her reputation as being sexually adventurous, has never gone so far as to have intercourse, and we can assume gorgeous Dimitri Belikov is not a 24-year-old virgin. (Not there's anything wrong with being a virgin. Not that there's anything wrong with not being a virgin. Everybody has to make the sexuality decisions that work best for themselves.) As usual, Dimitri gets to be the teacher and Rose the student. 

Yes, this seems a little wrong. She's really close to being an 18-year-old adult woman, though - that one last week isn't going to magically make a difference. She's already been in combat with mortal enemies and watched a friend die. For that matter, she's already come back from the dead herself! For all practical purposes - if not for all legal purposes, depending upon the age of consent in Montana - Rose is a grown woman. 

(I looked it up. Weirdly, Montana has different ages of consent for women and men. Women can legally consent to sex with a man over 18 at the age of 16, but the age of consent for men is 18, and a woman has to be 18 to legally consent to sex with a woman over 18. Montana, your sex laws are heterosexist - you should fix that.)

Yet, it still doesn't seem quite as wrong as the relationship between 17-year-old Muslim Bosnian basketball player Irena Zaric and 40-ish Coach Dino in one of my all-time favorite books, Pretty Birds. ("You could run laps, or...") Coach Dino is married and sleeping with the women's soccer coach. At least Dimitri is only seven years older than Rose (not that age matters much once you turn 18), single, and unattached. 

If you want my detailed exploration into the intricacies of underage intimacy, you can read "Reviving the Runaways: Who Should Rule When Law, Psychology, and Teenage Hormones Collide?" 

Rose and Dimitri have legal, consensual sex and then admit they love each other. Their feelings are mutual - they are in love.  

And then the bad thing happens. The very bad thing. 

Remember at the end of the Vampire Academy movie how all the Strigoi (bad, undead vampires, not the living Moroi like Lissa and Christian) were lurking in a cave, and Strigoi Ms. Karp ominously said, "Soon?"

Well, that didn't happen in the first book at all, but in this third book, the Strigoi do get onto the grounds of St. Vladimir's Academy. (Ms. Karp isn't with them, though.) They kill people, and they kidnap people to snack on later. The Guardians decide to go on a risky rescue mission.

This is a bad idea. The Strigoi get Dimitri. They turn him into a Strigoi. Dimitri is now not only dead, but he's become an evil vampire. The last line of the book is, "I set off, off to kill the man I loved." 

I feel a little bit like Richelle Mead has taken a silver stake to my heart. I remind you, I'm only halfway through the series. I have three books to go, and half of my OTP is dead already. This reminds me unpleasantly of a certain TV series that has ripped out my beating heart and shown it to me. NO ONE warned me that anything sad was going to happen to Rose and Dimitri's relationship. I feel...sad, in the way only devastating fiction can create. 

Damn you, Vampire Academy movie, for making me read these sad-ass books. 

I checked this book out from my local library. I wasn't solicited or obligated to review it in any way. This review represents my own honest opinion.

Next up: Panic, a contemporary YA - no fantasy or dystopian elements - by Lauren Oliver, which I got for free from the Amazon Vine program. 

This is an affiliate link:

Shift by Madison Dunn. $8.99 from Smashwords.com
I'm not sure why it happens, but when I focus just right, I can slow time. Things around me become lighter somehow, and I almost feel the tiny particles of energy spinning inside of them. The thing is, having the ability to transform the world around you isn't all it's cracked up to be -- especially when you are running from the Valencia without any deodorant.

Top 10 Tuesday: 10 Books I Wouldn't Be Sad If Santa Brought Me

Inspired by this post at It's a Book Life, which in turn took its cue from this post at The Broke and the Bookish.

I love to give books for the holidays, as my nieces will find out tonight (they're also getting Subway gift cards so they can pay for their favorite sandwiches with their own money - very exciting when you're 7 and 9) and my cousin's baby daughter will find out tomorrow.

Which books would I most like to get from Santa Claus? I checked with my Goodreads to-read list, and here's what I came up with (in no particular order):

1. I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb

2. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

I really want to see the movie, because Emma Watson looks amazing in the previews, but I want to read the book first. I've simply refused to pay the full retail at my local Barnes and Noble.

3. Delirium by Lauren Oliver

4. Hollow City by Ransom Riggs

5. Lillian Holmes and the Leaping Man by Ciar Cullen

Gender-swapped, steampunk Sherlock Holmes? Uh, yes please!

6. The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming by Lemony Snicket

Hanukkah is over, but my desire to read this is not.

7. Christian Bale: The Inside Story of the Darkest Batman by Harrison Cheung

8. House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones

9. Little Women and Me by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

10. This Star Won't Go Out by Esther Earl

Okay, this one doesn't come out until January 28th, 2014, but Santa can preorder it for me if he wants to.

Which books are you hoping for on Christmas morning?

SOC Sunday + Writing Update + A Review of 'The Spindlers' by Lauren Oliver

This Stream of Consciousness Sunday's theme is "Pass It On:" what have we passed down to our children and what our parents have passed down to us. Jana wrote about the fear of the dentist she passed down to her youngster. I have the dental anxiety from my own bad dental experience as a 20-year-old, but my anxiety in general is a gift of dubious value from my mom, and she got it from her mom.

I'm nervous a lot. Ask my husband - it drives him crazy. I'm always imagining worst-case scenarios, and it's hard to be happy when you're always anticipating something bad being around the corner. I haven't been happy very much lately - more like just muddling through. It may have something to do with the fact that the prescription I get for my terrible PMS (I would say full-blown PMDD) ran out a little while ago and I haven't refilled it yet. It does seem to make me a slightly happier person at all times of the month.

Right now, things that are hard to tolerate are REALLY hard to tolerate.

Which brings me to a writing update. The husband/co-writer and I are putting the finishing touches on the third book in the Pagan Spirits novel series. Back in July of 2012 (that's how long it's been since I worked on this book), we wrote a really nice romantic scene that takes place at a fairy-haunted graveyard in Scotland, where Zen and Ramesh have gone for their honeymoon.

Not the final draft of the artwork, but it gives you some idea.

We wrote it on our old laptop. Said laptop is now a dead brick. The vast majority of the novel was saved elsewhere, but that one little scene that made the honeymoon chapter so much more interesting and romantic is now just a memory.

I have to rewrite it - and I HATE having to rewrite a lost scene. I know it'll never be as good as the lost one. I have had more than my fair share of anxiety and frustration (mostly frustration!!) over that stupid missing scene. I am not looking forward to the rewrite at all. We attempted to work on it today, but our collaboration devolved into an argument. It's been set aside for a few days until we can work on it without all the high drama and heartbreak.

If you're not a writer, you might not have any idea how hard it is to get your thoughts to cooperate with the scene you intend to write, and how precious the draft is once it's been written. Writing something that reads smoothly and sounds professional is nowhere near is easy as it seems.

But, God willin' and the creek don't rise, we'll have St. James's Day (Pagan Spirits Book Three) back from the proofreader's soon and ready for a late spring debut. I may be just a little burnt out at the moment, especially with erotica and writing sex scenes. I have been doing it since 2006, after all. Maybe I should try writing a children's book for a change of pace.

Which brings us to part 3 of the blog post: a review of The Spindlers by Lauren Oliver


The Spindlers by Lauren Oliver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lauren Oliver is famous for her books for slightly older readers, particularly Delirium and Pandemonium. There are too many good YA series for me to keep up with these days, so I haven't read those, but I picked up The Spindlers because it was a stand-alone book available for free from Amazon Vine.

The back cover of my ARC compares it to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass and Coraline, but there's really only one scene near the end that really reminded me of Coraline. (For the record, I have only seen the movie of Coraline. I did not read the book.)

It's a fairly dark story, in some ways akin to the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, if that couple were a brother and sister and the sister had to go to the Underworld (here simply called Below) to rescue the brother. Like Alice, Liza is a sensible, level-headed girl who finds herself on an adventure with talking animals, strange creatures and homicidal queen. Like Alice, she finds herself equal to the challenge - even when confronted, like Harry Potter, with a 3-headed dog.

Reading this, I had neither the sense that I was reading a wholly derivative retold Greek myth nor the sense that I was reading something wholly original - it falls somewhere in the middle. It touches on the issues of trust, friendship, honesty, the value of siblinghood and how children should treat their parents, but it's not overly didactic. I probably would have enjoyed this as a bedtime story when I was a middle-grade reader.

View all my reviews on GoodReads

Pagan Spirits novels:

Beltane (Book 1)

Midsummer Night (Book 2)