Laurisa White Reyes's Blog, page 124

Book Review: ISSAC'S STORM by Erik Larson

ISAAC'S STORM
by Erik Larson
Knopf Doubleday Publishing
336 pp.
Adult Non-fiction

At the dawn of the twentieth century, a great confidence suffused America. Isaac Cline was one of the era's new men, a scientist who believed he knew all there was to know about the motion of clouds and the behavior of storms. The idea that a hurricane could damage the city of Galveston, Texas, where he was based, was to him preposterous, "an absurd delusion." Galveston would endure a hurricane that to this day remains the nation's deadliest natural disaster. In Galveston alone at least 6,000 people - possibly as many as 10,000 - would lose their lives, a number far greater than the combined death toll of the Johnstown Flood and the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. Meticulously researched and vividly written, ISAAC'S STORM is based on Cline's own letters, telegrams, and reports, the testimony of scores of survivors, and our latest understanding of the hows and whys of great storms. It is the story of what can happen when human arrogance meets nature's last uncontrollable force. As such, ISAAC'S STORM carries a warning for our time. 
MY REVIEW:

I've been a fan of Erik Larson ever since I read DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY about seven years ago. Larson is the master of narrative non-fiction, and ISAAC'S STORM is one of his best. The true tale of one of the most destructive hurricane's to ever reach American shores, this book chronicles the tragedy that claimed more than 6,000 lives in Galveston, Texas in September 1900. More compelling and heart wrenching as any fiction novel I've read, ISAAC'S STORM hooked me like few books ever have before. I knew I wanted to read it again before I even reached the last page.  If you are not a fan of non-fiction, please consider giving this or any of Larson's books a try.



CONTENT REVIEW:

Profanity:  None
Violence:  Moderate (descriptive natural disaster violence)
Sexuality:  None

THE WIG IN THE WINDOW NOW AVAILABLE!

SUPER SWAG SUNDAY YOUTUBE VIDEO

SUPER SWAG SUNDAY - 8 DAYS & COUNTING!!!

It's just around the corner, the biggest YA/MG book promotional giveaway ever!!! 54 authors have donated tons of signed swag:  bookmarks, postcards, pencils, t-shirts, books, and so much more!  Every day for a week I will spotlight selected middle grade and young adult books by today's best authors. Six very lucky people will each win one prize pack, and ONE extremely lucky winner will receive the Mega Swag Pack!!! Every day from June 24th -30th is a new chance to win. Please spread the word and we'll see you back in here soon!

For more information on and pictures of the prizes, visit HERE !

Just a few of the authors we have on board:  Lisa McMann, James Dashner, Margaret Petersen Haddix, Kristen Simmons, Megan Miranda, Lissa Price!  For a complete list of participating authors, visit HERE .

BOOK REVIEW: SCARLET by Marissa Meyer

SCARLET (Book II of The Lunar Chronicles)
by Marissa Meyer
Feiwel & Friends
464 pages
Ages 12 -17 years

Cinder, the cyborg mechanic, returns in the second thrilling installment of the bestselling Lunar Chronicles. She's trying to break out of prison—even though if she succeeds, she'll be the Commonwealth's most wanted fugitive.

Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit's grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn't know about her grandmother or the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. When Scarlet encounters Wolf, a street fighter who may have information as to her grandmother's whereabouts, she is loath to trust this stranger, but is inexplicably drawn to him, and he to her. As Scarlet and Wolf unravel one mystery, they encounter another when they meet Cinder. Now, all of them must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen Levana, who will do anything for the handsome Prince Kai to become her husband, her king, her prisoner.  
MY REVIEW:
Loved this book!  Not only is Marissa Meyer a master storyteller, adept at using words to create vivid images and elicit strong emotions for her readers, but Scarlet is just a fantastic yarn! A futuristic sci/fi loose retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, Scarlet is the perfect sequel to Meyer's stunning debut Cinder, about a cyborg Cinderella living in New Beijing. Cinder catches the attention of both the Eastern Commonwealth's young prince, Kai, and the evil Lunar queen Lavana. Cinder is a wiley and resourceful heroine, and her counterpart in the sequel is equally compelling. Wolf, Scarlet's love interest, a burly wrestler type worthy of his name, is perhaps the best YA heart throb to hit the scene in recent years. Move over Edward, Jacob, Gale and Peeta!!!
This book held my attention from page one to the very last sentence. The action scenes were tense and electrifying, the romance sweet and sizzling. I hated for it to end. Thankfully, there are supposed to be two more books in the series: Cress and Winter, due out in 2014 and 2015 respectively. It will be a long wait, but worth it, I'm sure.


CONTENT RATING:
Profanity:  NoneViolence:  ModerateSexuality:  Mild (kissing)

MY PETALS KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN LAUNCHES!!!

* Book Review: SCARLET by Marissa Meyer
* Win a copy of IMPOSTER by Susanne Winnacker (Ends 6/14) * Win a copy of THE EMERALD RING & a real emerald ring! (Ends 6/22) * SUPER SWAG SUNDAY - GET READY FOR A MASSIVE GIVEAWAY!

Hi Everyone!
I am so excited today to announce the launch of my kickstarter campaign for PETALS, my young adult novella set in Guatemala.  It took a while to get up enough courage to do this, but I decided to bite the bullet and get it done.
Kickstarter is an online community that allows artists of all kinds to raise money to fund their projects. I plan to self-publish PETALS as an e-book. Why? For a few reasons. First, it's not quite long enough to be a full fledged novel (thus the term novella), so my chances of finding a traditional publisher for it are slim. Second, I would love to get PETALS out to the world by the end of the year, and this is the best way to reach that goal.
I am hoping to raise $2,500 dollars in the next 30 days, money that will be used to hire an editor and cover designer, as well as cover publication and marketing expenses. I've got a slew of cool rewards available for everyone willing to chip in. If 100% of the funds are raised, then the project is a go! If I fall short, then the entire project gets cancelled. That's the way kickstarter works.
To find out how you can help, please check out my short and admittedly a little corny video HERE. And please spread the word! I'll be keeping everyone posted on the campaign's progress. Thank you all so much for your support!

BOOK REVIEW: NEVER LET ME GO by Kazuo Ishiguro

NEVER LET ME GO
Kazuo Ishiguro
Vintage International/Random House
288 pp.
Adult

From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day comes a devastating new novel of innocence, knowledge, and loss. As children Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were.

Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special–and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together. Suspenseful, moving, beautifully atmospheric, Never Let Me Go is another classic by the author of The Remains of the Day.

MY REVIEW:

Kathy is a former student of Hailsham, a boarding school for clones destined to complete their lives with a series of donations. When Kathy becomes a carer for two childhood friends, Tommy and Ruth, she reminisces about their years together at Hailsham and later, as adolescents, at the Cottages. When Tommy and Kathy take a chance to request a deferment of their donations, they learn the truth about their existence--and futures.
I know this book has gotten rave reviews since it came out in 2005, and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, but in all honesty, I really can't see why. Not to rip on Ishiguro who is the renown author of Remains of the Day and several other well-regarded books, but the concept of clones being reared for the purpose of harvesting their organs to keep "regular" humans alive isn't new. It's been the subject of science fiction books and films for years. What makes Never Let Me Go different than most clone novels is that this is a "literary" work, focusing on the characters' relationships to each other and the inner discovery of their place in the world rather than on the science or the horror or the shock of what actually happens to them in the operating room.
Never Let Me Go is a subtle exploration of the perceived value of human life. Who decides which sort of human is more valuable than another? The questions it raises are important ones, but the story fails to elicit enough empathy for the characters to really pluck at readers' consciences. What is this book saying? Is it a statement against human cloning, a suggestion of a possibly dystopian future if cloning is pursued? Or is it a broader examination of the value of life in general, and therefore to be applied to contemporary issues such as abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment? The problem for me is that the book does not go far enough. It poses the question and then abandons it. I suppose for some, this is precisely what makes this book so wonderful. And maybe if this were the only problem, I'd accept that explanation. But I also found the story rather boring. Sorry. But I did. I kept waiting for something amazing to happen, something worthy of the comment on the back cover that describes it as "alarming."  But aside from the massive info dump in the final chapters of the book, nothing ever happens. The characters never fully connect emotionally with one another or with the reader.
Again I suppose those who love this book are drawn to its simplicity and bare-bones storytelling, and I use storytelling purposely. This long string of recollections is a very good example of telling as opposed to showing.
Okay. I'm done ranting. I guess I just get annoyed when so-so books get rewarded simply because they are written by an author who wrote wonderful books in the past. This one didn't cut it for me, and I realize that many people will disagree with me on this. That's okay. And I know I'll get in trouble for criticizing a popular award-winning book, but again, I'm entitled to my opinion, right?  But I will say this: If you enjoy truly literary works that are heavy on subtly and extremely light on action, suspense or surprise, this book is for you. Otherwise, you might prefer the movie version.


CONTENT RATING:

Sexuality:  Moderate
Profanity: None
Violence: Mild

FOLLOW UP ON THE PANSTER VS. PLOTTER EXPERIMENT

* Win a copy of IMPOSTER by Susanne Winnacker (Ends 6/14) * Win copy of THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES (Ends 6/10) * Win a copy of THE EMERALD RING & a real emerald ring! (Ends 6/22)  * Book Review:  SON by Lois Lowry * Book Review: MONTROMOLOGIST by Rick Yancy * SUPER SWAG SUNDAY - GET READY FOR A MASSIVE GIVEAWAY!

I just completed the twelfth (yes, 12!) revision of a young adult thriller called CONTACT. It began two years ago this month as nothing more than a question - What if a teenage girl could upload someone's entire psyche with a single touch?
At the time I was embroiled in the panster vs. plotter debate. Pansters are writers who write without an outline or concrete plot in mind. Plotters work off detailed outlines and like to know all the details of their stories before they start writing them. Up until then I considered myself a plotter. I spent months outlining and summarizing THE ROCK OF IVANORE and THE LAST ENCHANTER, and stuck very closely to the outlines while writing the books. But I decided that I couldn't really claim that being a plotter was preferable to being a pantser if I'd never tried writing by the seat of my pants, so to speak. So I spent the summer of 2011 doing just that, and by that September, just three short months later, I had a 60,000 word novel in hand.
Of course, that was just the beginning. I've spent the past two years revising, restructuring, and reinventing CONTACT until my eyes have melted from their sockets and my brain has transformed into peach jello. But while the process of writing the first draft differed immensely from my plotted novels, the revision process has been exactly the same. So, now that I'm finished with my little experiment, do I consider myself a panster or a plotter?
Well, I think I still lean toward the plotter side. Why? It's just in my nature to want to know the answers to all the questions, to know the destination before I embark on my journey. But I am definitely open to trying a panster project again in the future.
So, what now?
I just submitted CONTACT to an agent, which means now I have to wait for an answer. Sigh. But in the meantime, I recently wrapped up another revision of a historical middle grade novel dealing with the issues of AIDS and the early days of the Civil Rights. THE STORYTELLER is not quite ready to submit to anyone. I need to do a tad more research to make sure all my facts are straight first. Maybe by year's end.
I'm debating whether or not to kick off a kickstarter campaign to self-pub a young adult contemporary novella set in Guatemala called PETALS.
I am half way through the first draft of my first young adult sci-fi/horror novel--plenty of suspense and gore included. And I'm just beginning to write the first draft of the third book in THE CELESTINE CHRONICLES, THE SEER OF THE GUILDE, which, by the way, has been heavily outlined and plotted.
I've got to get busy promoting the release of my second novel, THE LAST ENCHANTER. And I start back to graduate school in the fall, so that will keep me pretty busy, too. But at least I've got this summer to make some progress on my books.
What are you doing this summer?

BOOK REVIEW: SON by Lois Lowry

SON
Lois Lowry
Houghton Mifflin-Harcourt
400pp.
Ages 12-17

They called her Water Claire. When she washed up on their shore, no one knew that she came from a society where emotions and colors didn’t exist. That she had become a Vessel at age thirteen. That she had carried a Product at age fourteen. That it had been stolen from her body. Claire had a son. But what became of him she never knew. What was his name? Was he even alive?　 She was supposed to forget him, but that was impossible. Now Claire will stop at nothing to find her child, even if it means making an unimaginable sacrifice.
Son thrusts readers once again into the chilling world of the Newbery Medal winning book, The Giver,　as well as Gathering Blue　and　Messenger　where a new hero emerges. In this thrilling series finale, the startling and long-awaited conclusion to Lois Lowry’s epic tale culminates in a final clash between good and evil.
MY REVIEW:
I've been a fan of Lois Lowry's books ever since I first read The Giver many years ago. I'm always surprised when young readers tell me they've read The Giver but haven't even heard of its sequels Gathering Blue and The Messenger, both equally compelling stories. I anxiously awaited the release of SON, the story that ties all three books together and provides answers to so many questions left unanswered in the series.
Claire is a young girl of twelve when she is chosen to be a birth mother in the same community where Jonas lives in The Giver. Shortly thereafter she gives birth to a little boy who is taken from her, but unlike the other people in her village, she feels a distinct longing for her son. Her story takes her through many years, remote locations and intense challenges as she searches for her son.
While Son is not my favorite of Lowry's books, it did satisfy the curiosity I've had lingering from reading the other books. Claire is a remarkably strong character, as is her son who longs just as much to find her. I enjoyed this story, though it did feel a little long toward the end, which lacked the punch I was expecting and which makes the other books in the series so memorable. But Lowry is a master storyteller and tells Claire's story with grace and finesse.
If you read The Giver and have always wondered what happened to Jonas and Gabe, read Son. While reading The Messenger and Gathering Blue is not a necessity to enjoy this book, it would definitely help you understand some of the references to other such as Kira and Mattie.

CONTENT RATING:
Profanity:  NoneViolence:  ModerateSexuality: Mild

COUNTDOWN TO SUPER SWAG SUNDAY BEGINS!!!

* Win a copy of IMPOSTER by Susanne Winnacker (Ends 6/14) * Win copy of THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES (Ends 6/10) * Win a copy of THE EMERALD RING & a real emerald ring! (Ends 6/22)

GET READY FOR
The 2nd Annual
SUPER SWAG SUNDAY!!!


When:  June 24th thru July 1st

Where:  laurisareyes.blogspot.com

Why:  For a chance to win lots of cool promotional items signed by 40+ of today's best middle grade and young adult authors!

Win? Did you say WIN?

YES!

Every day for seven days, Laurisa's blog will spotlight some of the most amazing new books for kids and teens! Monday thru Saturday visitors will be able to enter for chances to win one of 6 swag packs containing everything from signed bookmarks and postcards, to pins, pencils, totebags, stickers, key chains, lip balm, charms and more!
On the last day, SUPER SWAG SUNDAY , one last MEGA SWAG PACK will be given to one very lucky winner! This pack so far includes everything listed above PLUS:
1- hardbound copy of THE UNWANTEDS signed by author Lisa McMann
1- TEST TASTE charm bracelet
1- TOUCHING THE SURFACE T-shirt
1 - LOVE AND LEFTOVERS charm necklace
1 - SEND ME A SIGN guitar pick
1 - paperback copy of EVERTASTER: THE BUTTERSMITH'S GOLD signed by author Adam Sidwell
1- hardbound copy of THE SCORCH TRIALS signed by author James Dashner
1- hardbound copy of THE ALWAYS WARS signed by author Margaret Peterson Haddix
1 - OyMG! T-shirt
1 - Original Artwork Print from FISHTALE signed by author Catherine Masciola
1- LOSING IT water bottle signed by author Erin Fry
1 - hardbound copy of LOSING IT signed by the author
1 - paperback copy of HYSTERIA signed by author Megan Miranda

And more prizes are still being added to the pile!
So be sure to stop by laurisareyes.blogspot.com every day from June 24th thru July 1st for plenty of chances to win. Stop by now and follow the blog to receive notifications of when the event starts posting.
See you then!