All These Things I've Done

Title: All These Things I've Done
Author: Gabrielle Zevin
Release Date: 6 September 2011
Genre: Young Adult Dystopian
Series: Birthright #1
Pages: 354

Synopsis:

In 2083, chocolate and coffee are illegal, paper is hard to find, water is carefully rationed, and New York City is rife with crime and poverty.

And yet, for Anya Balanchine, the sixteen-year-old daughter of the city's most notorious (and dead) crime boss, life is fairly routine. It consists of going to school, taking care of her siblings and her dying grandmother, trying to avoid falling in love with the new assistant D.A.'s son, and avoiding her loser ex-boyfriend.

That is until her ex is accidently poisoned by the chocolate her family manufactures and the police think she's to blame. Suddenly, Anya finds herself thrust unwillingly into the spotlight--at school, in the news, and most importantly, within her mafia family.

Anya is a headstrong girl who is mature for her age, and very practical.
Though it made her seem weak willed, or like a push over at times, her ability to keep valuable information to herself has saved her many times, and I admit, if I were in her position I would have died just for getting in trouble with my words.
At times you want just her to talk back to the aggressor, batter them down with witty words and comebacks and spill secrets of their torrid affairs, but then you find out the trouble she circumvented just by choosing her words carefully.
Which makes her very unique in the YA world of course, what with all the back-talking, trigger-happy people who tend to rant speak on impulse and make the situation worse.

She is a girl who can make mature decisions, sometimes risking her pride, without compromising her family's safety, notwithstanding certain relationships of course.
She is obviously the authority in her family, with her brother impaired by an accident, a 12 year old sister and her grandmother strapped to machines. She relies a lot on what she learned from her father to take care of them, flying under the radar- because her father was the previous crime boss of the Balachine crime family and people would gladly blame them for things they did not do.

But then trouble always has a way of finding Anya. One of the perks of reading crime family books is that you can rely on having a backstabber in the family.
Which of course, ultimately causes much trouble for Anya and her immediate family.
She goes through much, and having her ex-boyfriend poisoned by the chocolate manufactured by her family that she gave him does not exactly help her "fly-under-the-radar" status. Suffering through arrogant adults, emotional issues in her personal and family life, and being in a school where teachers on your side are an 11:1 (you can guess the number that likes her), Anya won't fail to keep things up.

This book ends with many questions as to what will happen next, and with such a charged ending like that, no doubt many will be waiting and haranguing their bookstore for the next.

The idea of this dystopia is pretty interesting. Here we don't see much of political/government interest in our characters, but with a focus on just the crime force and the police. Which is a fresh breath of air compared to the other dystopian novels where the government always has something to do with the plot.

Also, the idea that caffeine is prohibited, although only in that country and not Europe and Russia as it seems, paper is scarce and you need a permit to use them, water is costly, disease are rampant- this is actually quite believable. (except for the caffeine part. My lovely choco+coffee= cafe mocha is too dear to me.) It would suggest that the environment is declining at a higher rate, therefore making things seem more drastic.

However, Anya's practical side becomes her demise. There are several moments when it was rather dull and the most you could do was just skim through those chapters until something interesting comes up.
It makes her very uptight, or to for want of a better word, boring. Thank goodness it does not span the entire book or you see hordes of snoring people.
Yes, she is somewhat dull, but that is the downside of having a practical character. To look at it more optimistically at least, we'll have no bouts of screaming at the silly actions of fictional characters.

Now I shall wrangle my piece on the cover.
First off, what is this book essentially about? A crime family, or even more interestingly, a Russian chocolate mafiya family. With a the predecessor's daughter as our protag. It involves intrigue! Mystery! Family shenanigans! Star-crossed lovers! Assassins!

And then you look at the cover. How is that supposed to market to the appropriate audience? If say a person wanted to read about a CHOCOLATE mafia family with a whole bunch of troubles you can stuff inside would a book with a chocolate heart seem appealing? Heck, it looks like something that would appeal more to the contemporary crowd.
Sure sure, there are some words on the bottom, but when you enter a bookstore you would need some pretty strong bionic eyesight or you wouldn't be able to see those small faint gray words.

The ideal cover would be... you know those family portraits? Where everyone is wearing all formal clothes some parlour with the head of the family in the middle, and the rest of the people positioned by rank, whatnot. But with a focus on Anya. Cliched, but you gotta admit it has glamour!

Gabrielle Zevin brings something new into the world of young adult Dystopia, and though this didn't the right spots with me all the time, I'll still recommend this to people who are looking for a new voice in dystopian fiction and enjoy mystery, romance, some strong crime family business, adventure and of course, chocolate.

4/5

Excerpt

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Shatter Me

Title: Shatter Me

Author: Tahereh Mafi
Release Date: 15 November 2011

Genre: Young Adult Paranormal Fantasy
Series: Shatter Me #1
Pages: 338

Summary:

Juliette hasn't touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal. As long as she doesn't hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don't fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war-- and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she's exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice:

Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.

As is with much dystopians and post-apocalyptic novels, we are left in the dark as to how we reaches its terrible, miserable, rotting state. All we know is that something really really bad happened with the environment, then this army comes along and promises to save them from their terrible terrible life, and of course they're corrupted, and they rule with their fist. of. TERROR.

Juliette is this girl who thinks she's a freak because she has the Death-touch (THE cheeseDEATH-TOUCH. GET AWAY FROM HER.) and she's in prison/asylum, as a sort of quarantine to stop her from running around on a world wide massacre, giving people her touch of death because that's what people think she'd do.

One day in her dark and dank prison, a new cellmate gets shoved in. Surprisingly, it's a boy, and he's not insane! Things happen along the way.... and Juliette gets attracted to the boy, Adam, but then she's recruited by the army to be their lethal and dangerous weapon because, yeah she can massacre everyone.

Of course Juliette doesn't want to go on a spree of wanton destruction and death (heh, I like the word wanton) but the other option is back into her cell. Talk about Scylla and Charybdis.
She tries to escape- and with the army on her heels and some baggage to boot, who said life would be boring for Juliette?

***

I was rather disappointed by this book. I wouldn't say it was that bad, it was actually quite good, but not that good. It just didn't hit the spot for me.

After hearing so much rave about the book, I decided to give it a go and judge for myself whether it is, as many reviewers claim, AWESOME.

BUT NOOOOO. It bordered on the line of above average, rather good story line, but NOT as awesome as they have claimed.
The bulk of this book involved foundation building, background building, and most of the action or pacing just led up to escaping where she was or joining the group against the Reestablishment.

The anticipation... was not there. Juliette has numbed her feelings, yes. But in doing so, you have made the voice of the book more unemotional. Less vibrant, so to say. I did feel the moments of her passion, but the words used seemed to induce more monotony, as compared to life.
Useful, when you want to get the point across of her being broken and glum, then using more colourful words when describing her with Adam, or when describing her powers.
But seeing as these moments don't happen much, it sort of makes the book... feel like a death toll. It dampens your spirits. I want to feel the anticipation, but under the circumstances, you just feel quite tired.

But I did enjoy the way Tahereh Mafi's detailed description of well, everything, making much use of metaphors. Although sometimes it may be rather overkill, it helps to paint a more accurate image in your head. It may also suggest that Juliette, being so sensory deprived in her gray dungeon of doom and gloom, or more commonly known as prison, she just soaks up everything she sees and compares it to what she used to know. After getting into the book, you would get quite used to it. Well I'd be shocked if there were no detailed descriptions in every chapter.

The striked out words in the book added a more unique element to the book that we rarely see in other books. It was something new, and I enjoyed how they showed Juliette trying to hide the facts, omitting hurtful memories from the past. They also answered many of our questions pertaining to the mystery of her family, background etc. It was also pretty wicked that it looked handwritten. Like the author took out the manuscript and started crossing out words by hand.

I also liked the way they described Warren. The slightly deranged megalomaniac who may be quite, rather, maybe very, infatuated with our protagonist. And here we have our classic villian. I can imagine him with a goatee and an expression of villanous delight. He tries to convince dear Juliette to join his side with her death-touch powers with nice dresses, food, and 24 hour security. Who doesn't love a guy like that?

Now to the romance. You can call this a romance novel. Oh yes, very much. Juliette and Adam burned my eyes off with the times they tried sneaking their in their little romantic interludes. Thank goodness this is Young Adult or we'll have about 150 more pages.
Just a sidenote- is the word 'dystopian' synonymous with the word 'romance'? Not that you can't have romance, but the scale in which we have it is... astonishing. The love at first-kiss thing is getting rather old.
Then again, for those who enjoy romance in their stories, it would be pretty happy-making for them.

Some cover love coming up. I also love the cover. Look at it! Isn't it one of the nicest you've ever seen this year? Oh drool. The dress. The fierce girl rocking the dress and the cover. It also has the symbolism of Juliette breaking away from what she used to think. Does it look good on my shelf? Yes it does. Can I say the same for the story? :'( Pity for a book with such a pretty cover.

Would I recommend this book? I would.... but only when you've read all other better books. I can only cross my fingers and hope that if this is just the foundation builder, the next one would get down to buisness and hopefully get me more into the groove. Personally, I think you should read it to find out your own thoughts on the book.
Having said that, this would appeal to most dystopian fans, romance readers, people who enjoy rather unsettled characters and those who prefer some military action.

4/5

Excerpt

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Clockwork Prince

Title: Clockwork Prince

Author: Cassandra Clare
Release Date: 6 December 2011

Genre: Young Adult Paranormal Fantasy
Series: The Infernal Devices #2
Pages: 497

Goodreads Description:

In the magical underworld of Victorian London, Tessa Gray has at last found safety with the Shadowhunters. But that safety proves fleeting when rogue forces in the Clave plot to see her protector, Charlotte, replaced as head of the Institute. If Charlotte loses her position, Tessa will be out on the street and easy prey for the mysterious Magister, who wants to use Tessa's powers for his own dark ends.

With the help of the handsome, self-destructive Will and the fiercely devoted Jem, Tessa discovers that the Magister's war on the Shadowhunters is deeply personal. He blames them for a long-ago tragedy that shattered his life. To unravel the secrets of the past, the trio journeys from mist-shrouded Yorkshire to a manor house that holds untold horrors, from the slums of London to an enchanted ballroom where Tessa discovers that the truth of her parentage is more sinister than she had imagined. When they encounter a clockwork demon bearing a warning for Will, they realize that the Magister himself knows their every move and that one of their own has betrayed them.

Tessa finds her heart drawn more and more to Jem, though her longing for Will, despite his dark moods, continues to unsettle her. But something is changing in Will; the wall he has built around himself is crumbling. Could finding the Magister free Will from his secrets and give Tessa the answers about who she is and what she was born to do?

As their dangerous search for the Magister and the truth leads the friends into peril, Tessa learns that when love and lies are mixed, they can corrupt even the purest heart.

It was such a delight coming back to the world of Shadowhunters. The most insteresting parts were trying to decipher the ancestors of Clary, Jace, Isabelle, Alex from The Mortal Instruments and go "I know who your descendants are!". Oh what fun times me and my darling book have.

The Infernal Devices is set in Victorian London, the same world in TMI. It is the Shadowhunter world in the past, and we get to see how the problems they have to deal with are equally aggravating and fun.

In the Clockwork Prince, The characters continue to deal with the Magister and his nefarious plans. Apart from getting grief from the Magister, Charlotte's leadership is challenged by some members of the Council of Shadowhunters.

The institute is under pressure to prove itself, which is most certainly hard in these dark days.

Turmoil has not spared the other members of the institute- Will has to confront the demons (or should I say demon?) of his past, Tessa finds out more about her true parentage and her family, Jem has to deal with his illness and other matters of the heart, Sophie recieves quite some attention from a man she doesn't know if she can trust, and Jessamine runs off in the night in boy clothes.

With such troubles plaguing them, who are we to be bored?

The London that Cassandra Clare described.... What is with authors making me fall for this industrial city? It certainly is a mystery, as to how the moved from London in TID to Manhattan in TMI but ah I'm sure it'll be revealed in later books.
It is the London with their grand balls, albeit rather otherworldy, (okay that sounded rather wrong. But what can I say? I'm a teen!) and and the sooty rain of the dirty streets, filled with slummers and drug dens. You cannot help but glue you eyes to the page in the oh so valiant hope that you can learn more (Please sir, can I have some more?) about this place we only know through our musty history books. Of course we can now experiece it in the full colour that the author's words conjure.
Piled with the mysteries that the characters have to solve, the betrayals they have to face, the emotianal outburts, and some firstbase action, it makes the experience much more interesting.

Tessa is the strongwilled heroine we see in most books set in the Victorian era, but with none of their unpleasantness and harping on the liberties of women or whatsoever. She simply is, no speech needed.
She is also witty, a refreshing change from most dull heroines, which is most probably why she is not just another heroine. She can actually reply Will with the same dry humour, which is a feat in itself. Her ability to shapeshift into anyone and tap into their memories is what makes the story extraordinary as she is needed several times to utilise her talents throughout the books. When in her head, it is rather disconcerting as she has to sort though their memories but no less riveting.

William Herondale. Be glad I'm dedicating a paragraph to you and your arrogant descendants. For those who have read The Mortal Instruments, it is easy to see the resemblance between Will and Jace- If only we had this series in the first place, and we wouldn't have to doubt Jace's parentage at all. But ah- another book, another series, another time. They are both infuriatingly arrogant, rude, tactful, witty- expect lots of dry humor- and of course, with the pretty boy look. Hmmph.

But then again, we don't know for sure if Will is Jace's descendant, but I'll give it a 60 % chance. Jace is a mini-Will! How can he be not of his kin?

Other than than, on to things related to Will. The description of Wales, as compared to the cramped houses of London, was enchanting. Wide open spaces with grass and the fresh smell of untainted air, oh I sound like a travel brochure! It just fills you with wistfullness- but then (as expected) Will will say something deprecating of Wales along with a quote from another piece of poetry and your happy afterglow just pops out.

Cassandra Clare begins to write more of Jem, sometimes incorporating his Chinese heritage- and surprisingly, his chinese words are actually intelligible and used in the correct context! Oh I love authors who don't use google-translate. I enjoyed the Jade-topped cane that he uses frequently, and you will eventually warm up to him (if you haven't done so already). As the parabatai of Will we see him care for him as if he were his own brother. We also find out how and why he became Will's blood brother, which is another insight into the strange goings of the Shadowhunter universe.

The ending. THE ENDING. To give fair warning to dear readers, it is an infuriating cliffhanger that really makes me wish Henry created a teleporter for me to recive the next book now. Why do authors torture us dear readers so?! The agony is ripping us all apart *wails futilely*

For those who have not read The Mortal Instruments- do not worry. Reading it will not change anything in the plot, just increase your familiarity in the world they live in. The Infernal Devices can be read without reading The Mortal Instruments because it is a whole different time period, and they can't really affect each other too much unless you create a time paradox plot or something. But then it'll be Sci-Fi. Which is basically fantasy on drugs. Though hmmmmm it would be insteresting to see Will and Jace banter with each other..... But I digress.

This book really did well as a sequel, and I loved it more than the Clockwork Angel, and it kept me reading it in one sitting- if there's one thing you cannot disclaim to Cassandra Clare's talents, it's her ability to immerse you in her book, and make you love every moment of it as well.

5/5

Excerpt
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