Sunday, July 21, 2013

Travel Reading Part 3

For the last two months, I've been gone on a backpacking trip to Europe. My cell phone was the only internet access I had, and the reception was often spotty. Plus I was just super busy. So TONS of reading, but no posts. There were too many books, and I read them too long ago to make individual posts for each one. So I'm dividing them up into a couple posts, and just writing a couple sentences for each. Here goes the third set:

"Strangelets" by Michelle Gagnon
Grade: 2 1/2 stars
Reminded me a bit of the Gone series by Michael Grant: bunch of ethnically diverse teenagers wake up having no idea where they are. Struggle with each other and with the weird, dangerous place they've discovered themselves in. Lots of people die. Not as gripping as Gone, though, but good enough if you like that genre.



"A Corner of White" by Jaclyn Moriarty
Grade: 3 1/2 stars
Great, original story by the author of many great books such as The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie, The Ghosts of Ashbury High, and more. Unusual girl (maybe in a slightly Manic Pixie Dream Girl way--maybe?) from our world and a boy from the Kingdom of Cello somehow manage to send letters across to each other's worlds. Awesome characters (as always, my favourite part of Moriarty's books), but also great world building, and good writing (I loved all the stuff about colours). Really, really liked this one. Left some plot unattended to, so I hope to goodness a sequel comes out shortly.

"You Can Understand the Bible" by Peter Kreeft
Grade: 3 1/2 stars
Short look at every book in the Bible, and its purpose and meaning. For me, it wasn't as informative as I would have liked, as I've gone through a class that was partly based on this book, and put on by a really awesome priest. This class went more in depth, and was much cooler (we watched "The Twilight Zone"!). But it would be great to give to someone as an introduction.



"Another Pan" by Daniel Nayeri and Dina Nayeri
Grade: 2 1/2 stars
Sequel, of sorts, to Another Faust. Retelling of the Peter Pan story (sort of...) set in the same snooty New York high school as Another Faust. I actually can hardly remember anything about this one, which isn't really a good sign. I remember liking it well enough, though. The two authors do creepy temptation very well.




"Kiki Strike: The Darkness Dwellers" by Kirsten Miller
Grade: 2 1/2 stars
Sequel to Kiki Strike Inside the Shadow City and Kiki Strike: The Empress's Tomb. The girls pursue evil royals and meet cute French boys with a fascination with underground cities and try to defeat a horrid finishing school. Fun, though I seem to remember enjoying the previous books slightly more. Kiki's still an awesome character, though.

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