A Long Long Sleep

by Anna Sheehan

I ran across this book at a local bookstore and thought the premise sounding interesting.  A Long Long Sleep is the story of Rosalinda Fitzroy who is awoken from a chemically-induced sleep by a kiss.  This futuristic version of Sleeping Beauty takes place some unspecified years in the future, after the US and the rest of the world has been devastated by outbreaks of tuberculosis, the plague and widespread infertility.  These "Dark Times" have passed, the US rebuilt itself, and Rosalinda slept through it all.  The world soon discovers that Rosalinda has been asleep for 62 years.  She finds herself in a world completely different from the one she knew.  Technology has changed, vocabulary is different and all the people she knew are dead.  Rose has a hard time adjusting to her new environment and life, and as she begins to learn and remember more about how she ended up in stasis for so long, she finds it hard to come to terms with the truth.

In the end this book is a little bittersweet, which I typically don't love.  However, I found the story to be pretty compelling, and I felt real sympathy for Rose.  While it's not exactly my favorite type of story, I think Anna Sheehan does a nice job of crafting a unique interpretation of Sleeping Beauty and creating a character that you feel for.

The Limit

by Kristen Landon

Matt lives in a society where all families are given a "limit" to their debt. Once a family goes over the limit they must complete some program to bring them back under the limit. One of those options is to send one of their children to a work camp where they work they do will help to pay off the debt. Matt never worries about this until one day his family unexpectedly goes over the limit. Before he knows it a big black vehicle arrives at his house and a small syrupy lady and some large men cart Matt off to the nearest work center.

The work center isn't what Matt imagined. He lives in a plush apartment on the top floor, doing exciting work during the day and playing in the pool and gym in the evenings. However, some things don't seem quite right. Matt phone doesn't work in the building, none of his emails seem to be going through, and kids keep getting headaches and then disappearing. Matt soon decides he needs to get to the bottom of this. The question is, once he figures it out, what will he do about it?

This book is a little hard for me to review. I enjoyed it. As a kids' book it's great. It's got an interesting plot, surprising twists and turns, fun characters, etc. I'd recommend it to many kids.

However, it's pretty much strictly a kids book. Some books in the kid section seem to transcend it and find a way to be relevant or thought-provoking to an older reader. While this book was great fun, it doesn't really have any of that. It's just a cool story.

When Lightning Strikes

by Meg Cabot

After buying the first books of this series nearly two years ago, I am finally getting around to reading them - and I'm glad I did.

I loved Meg Cabot's Mediator series, and the 1-800-Where-R-You books remind me a lot of it.

The main character is Jess, an ordinary, if somewhat anger-prone high school sophomore. Jess's best friend Ruth meets her after school and insists on walking home, despite the gathering clouds that suggest a storm is coming. Ruth and Jess don't get very far before the hail starts and they must take cover under the metal bleachers. As Jess leans against the bleachers, a bolt of lighting hits them, and runs right through her. Despite being knocked quite a distance away, Jess seems to suffer no problems after her brush with death.

However, the next morning Jess wakes up knowing exactly where to find the little boy whose face she saw on the milk carton yesterday. From then on Jess learns that she can find any person, so long as she sees a picture of them and then goes to sleep. Of course, Jess starts making calls to 1-800-Where-R-You to report where to find the missing kids, and that's how she gets a lot more attention than she bargained for. Soon the FBI is following her, wanting to know just how she knew where these kids were and when they learn of her powers, they want her to come work for them. Not long after, reports from all over are camping out in Jess's front yard, hoping to get a glimpse of "lightning girl".

And in case things weren't complicated enough, Jess learns that the first little boy she found, didn't really want to be found. Now Jess must get the press off her back, make things right with this boy, and try to keep the FBI from controlling her life.

It's a fun start to the series, and certainly leaves you wondering, "What's going to happen next?!" Onto book 2!

Devastation

by Gloria Skursynski

It took me a while but I finally figured this book out. This book is the republished version of the first two books in a science-fiction series entitled The Virtual War Chronologs. Devastation contains books 1 (The Virtual War) and 2 (The Clones).

Since the books are so vastly different I will write about them separately first.

The Virtual War was the better of the two books. We start off by meeting Corgan, a 14-year-old boy who has lived his entire life in isolation, with his only company being a virtual world and computer program mother/father named Mendor. Corgan was created by the government to fight in the upcoming virtual war. The winning region will receive the Isles of Hiva - the last piece of land on Earth that humans can live on without the protection of giant domes. Corgan isn't fighting alone though - he's soon joined by his code-breaker Sharla and strategist Brig. While Corgan is used to obeying every command, Sharla is much more prone to breaking them, and it's not long before she starts telling Corgan things about the government he's never even dreamed.

In The Clones, Sharla is working on a new project - analyzing human DNA. Shortly into the novel we (and Corgan) learn that she has been working on making a clone of Brig. She started with 4, and 2 survived. The government only wants one and tells Sharla to destroy the other. She can't bring herself to do it, and so she brings the tiny baby Brig (named Seabrig) to Corgan and asks him to take care of it. Corgan is shocked to hear what Sharla's been up to, and even more shocked to learn that this version of Brig (as well as the Clone Sharla has kept, named Brigand) will mature at an incredible rate. Things get even more complicated when Sharla comes back a few months later with Brigand in tow, and the two clones (who now look about 12) will actually meet.

Like I said, The Virtual War was better than The Clones, despite having a rapid conclusion. The Clones doesn't seem to know what genre it is. It starts out much like the first book - as a sci-fi post-apocalyptic novel, but somewhere along the way it turns strange. Brigand can communicate with the boars? The cannibal kings have given him their power? It was strange and oddly reminiscent of The Lord of the Flies though this is supposed to be sci-fi, not fantasy fiction. I was confused. Some things got half-heartedly explained toward the end and it did improve from that point.

I might read the next book sometime.

The Softwire: Virus on Orbis 1

by P.J. Haarsma

Virus on Orbis 1 is the start to a four-part series entitled, The Softwire.

Thirteen-year-old Johnny has spent all of his life living on a spaceship in route to the rings of Orbis. His parents (as well as all of the other parents on board) where to complete 4 years of work on the rings of Orbis with the hope of eventually becoming citizens. However, there was an error on the ship and all of the adults died in the hibernation pods. The ship continued to pilot itself there, even somehow "hatching" the embryos of the hundreds of children. When the ship docks on Orbis the children are put to work in factories to pay for the cost of passage that their parents were originally supposed to work off. Soon after arrival, the aliens of Orbis discover that Johnny is a softwire - a being with the ability to enter a computer simply with his/her mind. But when the supposedly all-powerful, all-knowing, never-failing central computer starts to malfunction, suspicious is caste upon Johnny and he must find a way to clear his name, as well as save Orbis' computer.

Despite lack of description in some areas (I never really had a clear picture of what things on Orbis looked like, except maybe for Weegin's World), and a few strange plot twists, this was an enjoyable trip into kids' sci fi. I'm curious enough to read another entry and see how things continue to work out with Johnny and his friends.

Sabotaged

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

I still love the concept behind this series, although I found this book to be less captivating than the first two.

This time, Haddix's time traveling series takes us to early America where Andrea learns that she is actually Virginia Dare. However, immediately upon arriving, the kids find themselves in lots of trouble. They've lost the Elucidator (which allows them to communicate with the time-travelling adults who are helping them) and it seems that someone out there is trying to sabotage their mission to fix time and bring Andrea back.

I found this book to be more confusing than the previous two. It seemed to get bogged down by too much time paradox talk, and incessant mention but brief explanation of "tracers". By biggest complaint though was the ending. Haddix is known for being fond of the cliff-hanger ending, but this one was such a sheer drop that it didn't seem like an ending at all. I think my book is missing a few chapters! Virtually nothing is resolved and the characters are about to start off on an off-shoot to their original mission when, all of a sudden, the book is over. That just seems like the author ran out of time and decided, 'oh well, I'll just finish this story in the next book!"

Runaway

by Meg Cabot

I sort of wish I hadn't started reading this series until all of the books were out. The trilogy of Airhead, Being Nikki, and Runaway really read more like one whole story than 3 separate ones. I also had a really hard time remembering what had happened in the previous book. Cabot provides her reader with some clues, but a lot of the time I was just not sure what was going on.

Runaway concludes the story of Emerson Watts, average teen girl turned supermodel when she almost dies from a giant TV falling on her, and has her brain transplanted into a teen supermodel Nikki Howard's body. Problem is, Nikki's brain was removed and secretly placed into another body. And Nikki would really like her original body back. Oh, and Nikki's employer, billionaire Robert Stark, wants Nikki dead, and Em to obey his every command - after all, he gave her her body and her life back, and he can take it away. In this particular book Nikki is on the run with her ally/enemy Brandon Stark. She's also trying to figure out what shading dealings Robert Stark is undertaking that Nikki overheard and cause Robert to have her killed.

This is Meg Cabot, so of course there's a tumultuous romance, and a neatly-wrapped up ending. The series as a whole was fun. This book was fine, but I think I would have rather read the story as one book rather than three. The Mediator series is still Meg Cabot at her best.

Pastworld

by Ian Beck

I picked this book up on a whim at Powell's the weekend before Thanksgiving. The front flap description sounded interesting. It sounded like shades of Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix and the Stoneheart Trilogy by Charlie Fletcher. Both of which I enjoyed. So I decided to give it a shot. Unfortunately, this book doesn't quite live up to its potential.

Pastworld is a sort of amusement park/historical preserve of 1890s London. The actual story takes place in the future, even though all the events take place within the park of 1890s London, so it's almost like it's set in the past. Confused yet?

The characters don't really do much and thus read as unimportant, even though they are the "main" characters. Eve, who is essentially one of the most important characters of the book does nothing but run away and join the circus (yes I'm serious), where she finds she has an amazing knack for tight-rope walking! (Forgive me if this does not qualify as an interesting character to me).

Bible J is an interesting fellow to some extent but he's given virtually no background and no believable motivation for anything he does.

The Fantom I had high hopes for. From the first page he is mysterious and sinister and all the things a great villain should be. Shortly after though he becomes nothing more than a cardboard murderer who has a penchant for cutting hearts out (and with a little too much detail from the author on that aspect - yuck!)

And the ending!! It was the most bizarre ending. And I'm going to **spoil** it, so reader beware: The "twist" is not fully explained. We learn that Eve and The Fantom were created for the park, but we don't learn much about how and what they actually are. Certainly not mortal since the Fantom jumps off buildings but never dies and Eve was created to be killed and then resurrected. I want to know how this is supposed to work! Also, we're left not really knowing what happened to the Fantom - he just gets away and...that's the end?! The author tries to make it sound like he won't come back, but judging from what we just learned about his nature and origin, doesn't it make sense to assume that he WILL come back? No one is concerned though, so book over! And randomly, Eve is pregnant. Why would they even create her in a way that she could reproduce when her whole purpose was to just die over and over? And did she and Bible J ever even kiss? Where they heck did this come from? It felt oddly out of place in the book. So in the end I was left unsatisfied. **end of spoilers**

It gets two stars because I like the concept and for the first half or so it seemed promising. Second half get 1 star or less - could have been so much better!

Being Nikki

by Meg Cabot

The continuation of Airhead, Being Nikki is pretty much the same story as before, just the next part of it. This time around it's quite a bit more exciting, with lots of mystery thrown in. Unfortunately, it's also a cliff-hanger - even more so than the first installment. Again, this is still reading like one long book to me broken into lots of parts rather than a series of books that work on their own also. You can't really read this without first reading Airhead, and I can't imagine felling satisfied without continuing onto the next. Too bad I've got to wait a while for that one.

Despite these gripes, I love the story enough, and Meg Cabot's ever-hilarious writing to give it 4 stars and make a mental note to keep my eyes peeled for the next installment!

Airhead

by Meg Cabot

I love the plot of this book and the hilarious situation Meg Cabot puts her characters into, however it was just a bit too meandering and then abruptly ended for me to give it a 5-star rating.

Emerson Watts hates all things girly and popular among the teen crowd. However, her little sister Frida does, and when she wants to go to a CD signing at the newest Stark mega-store down the street, Em is forced into accompanying her little sis on the outing. Little does she know that this day will change her life forever. When Em dives at her sister to save her from a giant falling plasma screen, Em ends up being crushed beneath it. She blacks out, and when she wakes up she finds herself, well, not exactly feeling like herself. And suddenly, it seems that everyone is calling her "Nikki"...

This book reads more like the first half of a book than a whole book. There isn't much a climax, just a set up for one to come (perhaps in the next book?). So while I really loved the idea of this book, it just doesn't seemed finished. However, I am looking forward to reading the next installment.

Sent

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

I'm really loving this series! However I can't really discuss it without some major spoilers for the first book, so beware!

At the end of Found we learn that the adoptive kids who have been gathered together for the fake conference are actually famous missing children from history, who have been taken from their time by some advantageous businessmen in the future to be adopted. However, the plan went wrong and the children were dropped into the end of the 20th century and adopted by a variety of families.

This great tampering with time had caused a ripple effect that one group wishes to repair - and to do that they must send these children back to their own times. In Sent, Jonah and his sister have followed their friends, Chip and Alex back into time - to the 15th century. They must find a way to "fix time" and also save their friends from their inevitable deaths. The hard part - Chip and Alex are really Edward V and Richard - king and prince of England.

What I love about this book:

1) Haddix finds a way to simplify time travel and the time paradox in a way that kids can understand, but not so much that it is boring or silly for adults.

2) The events in the book are based on accurate historical facts, and real historical mystery. No one knows what happened to Edward V and his brother Richard, so Haddix explanation of time travel lends itself well to the historical facts.

3) The book cover is just pretty cool looking. And yes, I admit I'm a sucker for pretty cover-art.

4) There's going to be more! While I'm not sure how many more, Haddix clearly sets herself up for multiple sequels to come. If they are a good as the first two offerings I can see this books as being a great series to introduce to students or read to a class.

The Time Traveler's Wife

by Audrey Niffenegger

Yuck yuck yuck! I hated this book! Despite the fact that I still think the premise is quite interesting - the book was just terrible!

I would actually like to see what a different author would do with the idea of a man involuntarily traveling back and forth in time - meeting with his younger self, his wife's younger self, his older child, etc. Preferably an author without such a fondness for all manner of curse words. Page after page after page just littered with profanity - it didn't come across as "realistic" - it reads more like the author was trying to shock us. It makes the author and the characters seem crude and uneducated. In high school one of my teachers informed the class on the first day of school that there would be no cursing in his classroom. He then directed our attention to the quote displayed in the room: "Profanity is a weak mind trying to express itself forcefully." I couldn't help but think of that quote time and time again while reading this book. Really author, are those the only words you know? Because I know some words that you could have used instead that wouldn't make you sound like a jerk trying to impress us with your "tough" language. A few profanities in a book, I can look over, realize that some people do talk that way and let it go, but in this book it was just excessive.

Secondly, and in addition to the profanities, there were many scenes in the book that were intensely suggestive, crude and explicit. I found myself flipping through pages just to find where it ended and it was safe to read again. Henry's and Clare's love wasn't believable at times. Why do they love each other? - the author doesn't really tell us, except that Henry's all Clare's ever known and they have sex a lot. Henry as a 30- and 40-something adult time travels back to when Clare is a child. He meets her, tells her about his time travelling, asks her to keep it a secret, etc. I found the whole exchange to be creepy. In his time he's married to Clare, and sometimes when he's visiting with teenage Clare he has a hard time thinking of her as a child. Ew!

Thirdly, Henry and Clare aren't even that likable. Henry's a cad and an alcoholic. He's selfish, he thinks only of himself. Clare just acts like a martyr. She does nothing but wait for Henry. She takes advantage of her friend's trust. The don't read as real, and I didn't really care what happened to them because I didn't like them. I like to feel like I could be friends with the characters in the books I read, if they actually existed in real life. If I were to meet a real life Henry and Clare I'd try to stay as far away as possible!

And lastly (yes, I have one more thing to complain about!), throughout the whole book the author litters the text with references to obscure authors and artists as if to impress the reader with her great knowledge. Often we are forced to read through sentences, paragraphs of text in French or German. Almost none of these sections are translated. If they aren't important enough to the story to need to be translated, then why include them at all? Again, it gave me the distinct impression that the author was talking down to me, the reader. Pretty much guarantees that I will never read a book by her again.

So to summarize, I thought this book was a tasteless, crude adaptation of what could have been an interesting story. I can't think of anyone I'd recommend it to - in fact, I'd be more likely to warn people not to read it. Yuck. I'm so excited to read something else!

Hunger

by Michael Grant

After reading Gone I was upset by the cliff-hanger ending - then I realized that it was not a stand-alone book as I'd thought, but rather the start to a series. Hunger in the second book.

There were a lot of things that happened in Gone, and at the start of Hunger I was afraid I'd forgotten too many of them. And while the author used practically the whole length of the book in reminding readers of the back story, I did feel it was pretty effective, without feeling like I was reading something redundant.

One of the reviews on the back of this book states, "If Stephen King had written Lord of the Flies, it might have been a little like this." (VOYA (starred review)). I think this is actually a pretty good way to describe the feel of the series. It has a dark, menacing creature that taunts its victims mercilessly - all set into the back story of an entire town of kids who suddenly find themselves living in a world without adults. Everyone over 15 has simply vanished. The kids who are left have to find a way to survive and coexist. Food is scarce, arguments erupt, and soon they are the brink of war with each other.

My biggest complaint for this book was that you were never quite sure who was dead and who was alive. Sometimes a kid would die and it would almost be glossed over as if the author was afraid to say it. Pages later I'd find myself thinking, "Wait. They're dead?" On the opposite side of the problem though was that many characters were pronounced dead in the narration, and then only pages later it's proclaimed that they were not QUITE dead after all. Cue Lana: magic healer girl who can fix all sorts of mortal injuries! I half expected Magical Max from the Princess Bride to pop out and tell us that they were "not all dead, only mostly dead". Not that I wish for lots of deaths, but don't tell me they're dead if they're not!

I do love the concept of this book though. I'm excited to see how the creation of the FAYZ will be explained. I also am looking forward to reading how the kids create order in their town. Will Sam continue to lead? Will they finally set up some sort of monetary system? Can they ever find a way to work with each other? I'm looking forward to seeing where the rest of this story leads!

The Adoration of Jenna Fox

by Mary E. Pearson

Love this book in such a different way than I love other books.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson is a book that makes you think. What starts off seeming to be a simple mystery, turns into a medical science fiction novel that asks many tough questions.

Jenna wakes up for a coma not remembering anything about herself. She doesn't remember who she is, where she's from, or who her family and friends are. She learns that she was in an accident that caused the coma, but no one will speak any more about it.

It's hard to discuss it much more without giving away the ending, so consider yourself warned: spoilers coming.

Partway through the book we learn that Jenna almost died in the car accident. In fact, only 10% of her brain was salvageable. In the future time that Jenna lives in there exists technology to recreate any part of the body. However, each body part has a point value, and each human is allotted only a certain amount of points. Once one has reached the point limit, they cannon receive any more "replacement parts". In order to save Jenna after the accident, she needed replacements for nearly every part of her - a point total far exceeded the limit. However, Jenna's parents developed the technology to create these replacement parts, and in defiance of the law, they spirited Jenna away in secret in order to recreate every part of her in an effort to save the 10% of the girl they have left.

The reader is then forced to grapple with the questions: What is it that makes us human? At what point does a soul leave a body? If science exists to keep a person alive, should it be used no matter the cost? Is Jenna the same person as the girl who was in the accident or simply a nearly-exact copy? Is that 10% the most important part? The only part that really matters?

Fast-paced and thought provoking - totally different from most of the stuff I've been ready lately, but I really enjoyed it.

The Girl Who Could Fly

by Victoria Forester

I have to admit I'm not sure if I would have paid much attention to this book if I'd just seen it on the shelf. The cover and title just seem to hint at a rather simple story. Not sure why I thought that, but I did. However, this book was recommended by Stephenie Meyer (author of the Twilight series) on her website. The last book Ms. Meyer recommended on her site was The Hunger Games which I absolutely adored and for which I'm eagerly awaiting the sequel. Meyer described this book as "the oddest/sweetest mix of Little House oh the Prairie and X-Men." I found this to be a very true description of the book, although I also was reminded of Harry Potter and The Golden Compass at certain parts as well.

This is a particularly difficult book to describe without giving away the entire plot, but I will say that it is equal parts joy and sadness - filled with people who you're never sure if you should trust or if they are about to turn around and betray everyone. At only 328 pages I found myself wishing it was longer, so the individual characters could be more fleshed-out. I also felt like I had to remind myself frequently that the main characters were supposed to be young - the oldest being 11. Seemed to me liked they behaved in a way that was much older than that a lot of the time. I had a hard time not picturing them as 15- and 16-year olds. I actual think it would be interesting if the author did a sequel to this book when the charcters were that age.

Gone

by Michael Grant

I love it when new books hit the shelves at Borders or Barnes and Noble and they get put on that special "Newly Released" shelf! Everything is so shiny and new! I've seen this book on said shelf frequently in the last couple months. I finally remembered to put it on hold at the library so I could read it!

Gone is the story of a bunch of teenagers who suddenly find themselves in a world without parents. One day, all people in their town over the age of 15 simply vanish (or "poof" as many of the kids call it). I eagerly dove in to this book waiting to find out the reason for the disappearances. Was it going to be an alien invasion? Parallel universes? Some spiritual disturbance? Bizarre natural disaster?

The book is fairly well paced, and interesting. There is a LOT of flip-flopping of the balance of power though. Part way in the kids and teens start to fall into two groups - for the sake of this entry I'm going to call them the "good kids" and the "bad kids". Clever aren't I? It seems that every 1-3 chapters the power would transfer from one group to another. The bad kids took over the town. The good kids fight back and surprise the bad kids. The bad kids are sneaky and gain back control. The bad kids are going to kill some good kids. The good kids escape. The bad kids catch them again. They're trapped. Then they escape. Etc. Etc. I like not knowing what's coming next, but after a while I started to feel a little tossed about by this pattern of events.

Most frustrating - the ending was completely ambiguous and did not give a clear explanation of what caused the disappearance or even what was happening with certain characters! I was completely shocked by this non-ending. I thought this was a stand-alone book! Then I got online. Somehow I had missed the fact that this book is the first in a series - a series that will likely end up having 6 volumes! So now I can forgive the cliff-hanger ending. Unfortunately I'll have to wait awhile to read more of what happens.

Artemis Fowl

by Eoin Colfer

Just finished the 6th book in the Artemis Fowl series: The Time Paradox. I can't say if this is my favorite of the series though, because it's been so long since I've read the others.

That was actually one of my biggest problems while reading the book: it has been almost a year since I read book 5, so I had a lot of trouble remembering what had happened in that book as well as the details on some of the characters. Thankfully, the author gives enough hints in this book to people like me who've read the others but just don't have that great of a memory. After a few chapters I was reminded of some of the key points of the previous books - enough so that I wasn't feeling confused throughout the whole thing. However, I would not recommend reading this book if you haven't read the previous 5 - too much important stuff happens in those books that contribute a lot to the overall plot and character development.

In this book Artemis has to travel back in time to find a cure for a mysterious disease his mother has contracted. The cure lies in the brain fluid of a specific type of lemur that is now extinct. In fact, Artemis himself was indirectly responsible for causing the extinction of this animal 5 years ago. In order to save the animal Artemis must outsmart his younger and more devious self.

The time travel topic itself makes for an interesting book. If Artemis goes back in time and does something, does this change the future; or is the future the way that it is because he's already gone back? Fun mind boggling stuff!

The way the book ends sort of seems like it could be the end of the series, but also, there are a lot of themes and stories left open, so I'm hoping that there will be more to Artemis's story. Still loving Artemis, and while some of the chapters were too long for my taste, it's a relatively quick read with good amounts of action, humor, surprise endings, and just a hint of potential romances to come! Dani - get to work on these already!

The Diamond of Darkhold

by Jeanne DuPrau

Before reading Graceling I read the forth (and final?) book of Ember: The Diamond of Darkhold by Jeanne DuPrau.

I was apprehensive when starting the book because the previous book in the series was so un-fun! The series begins with the book The City of Ember, continues with The People of Sparks and then with The Prophet of Yonwood. Ember was refreshingly fun and mysterious and a quick read. Sparks began were Ember left off, but did lose a little of the magic of the first. The third book was a prequel to the first two, but the story seemed irrelevant and forced. I didn't like the characters and thought the whole story was a bit hokey. So when I heard there was to be a forth book that returned to the original story I was hopeful the series would be redeemed, but also worried that it might ruin it.

Thankfully, this book captures much of the flavor of the original. It starts up right where Sparks left off, and there is a much more interesting adventure than in the previous two.

One thing missing (as is missing in all the books) is a romance. I can forgive this since the books are for younger readers, but I was still hoping that in this book we would find the characters grown up a few years and perhaps our main two would be paired up. No such luck though, they are only about 6 months older than at the start of the series, and an eventual romance is only hinted at at the end.

Speaking of the end: the last 6 paragraphs are unnecessary. It felt like the author was trying too hard to wrap everything up and make is sound very lyrical or poetic. It also referenced the third book in a rather corny way. So I just went back a few pages and re-read, and then stopped at what I determined the "proper" point. Much better that way. I'd recommend it to all who read it. Other than that a quick and entertaining read. Not quite as good as Ember, but worthy to sit on the shelf beside it.