Tag: young adult

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#BookReview: The Rule Of Many by Ashley Saunders and Leslie Saunders

Excellent Middle Chapter. In this middle entry into the dystopian YA trilogy at hand, we get a solid second chapter that does exactly what a middle chapter is supposed to – continue to build out the world while amping up both the action and the consequences. Here we even get a couple of interesting wrinkles thrown in. And of course the inevitable final clash… that turns out to not be quite so final. Which means it aces the final thing the middle book has to do – get you to come back for Book 3. And in this case, you’re absolutely going to want Book 3 to see just how this gets fully wrapped up. Solidly done in world while perhaps playing a bit to closely to the “rules” of the genre. Very much recommended.

This review of The Rule Of Many by Ashley Saunders and Leslie Saunders was originally written on September 2, 2020.

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#BookReview: The Rule Of One by Ashley Saunders and Leslie Saunders

Yet Another YA Dystopia With A Few Interesting Twists. As a YA Dystopia, this book fits pretty squarely within the mold. To the tune that it can easily become forgettable to an extent. But there are some interesting twists to the mold that make this stand out a bit – the focus on twins without any form of romantic subplot chief among them, but also some of the overall tech and concepts about when, how, where, and to a lesser extent why the dystopia could emerge. Ultimately this is interesting enough as a “pilot” to want to see the next episode before making a decision on whether to keep going or not, and sometimes that is good enough. 🙂 Recommended.

This review of The Rule of One by Ashley Saunders and Leslie Saunders was originally written on July 7, 2020.

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#HypeTrain: The Scent Keeper by Erica Bauermeister

With this post, we’re looking at a book that marks the first time I’ve ever been invited to be a part of a blog tour. The book featured in this tour is The Scent Keeper by Erica Bauermeister, and in general it starts out feeling like The Giver… and then becomes more than even that award winning best selling book ever dreamed of. As of this post, it releases in just under a week on May 21, 2019 – and is available for preorder, which I very much recommend.

Here’s my Goodreads/ Amazon review of the book, to give an idea of my own thoughts:

Observe the World. Unlock the World. This book starts out feeling like The Giver – and considering how long-beloved that book is, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But then it morphs into a tale of a young woman finding herself and becomes so much… more. Truly a spectacular work that ends on the same kind of note as another highly successful pop culture phenomenon – Avatar. Amazing work, very much recommended.

And below the jump we feature the excerpt that this blog tour allowed me to publish here. This particular scene is deep into the book – in the 80% done range – but doesn’t feature any major spoilers (just a minor if somewhat expected one). So consider this a SPOILER WARNING for any who are particularly sensitive to even the most minute of spoilers. I specifically chose this selection because it contains my singular favorite line of the entire book – which I’ll bold – and specifically asked for this exact snippet of the chapter to avoid more significant spoilers. (One interesting note: The chapters of this book are not numbered. They are named. This particular one is called “Cocktails”.)
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