Pandemonium (YA)

Pandemonium. Lauren Oliver. 2012. HarperCollins. 384 pages.

Alex and I are lying together on a blanket in the backyard of 37 Brooks. The trees look larger and darker than usual. The leaves are almost black, knitted so tightly together they blot out the sky. 

Pandemonium is the sequel to Lauren Oliver's Delirium. To get the most out of Pandemonium, you probably should make a point of reading the first book, though I don't think it's essential. It had been a full year since I'd read Delirium, so much so that I was, "Alex, who?!" But then again I remember being unimpressed with the romantic storyline in Delirium to begin with. Which made Pandemonium a VERY interesting read for me!!!


The novel definitely has a different format. The chapters are arranged "now" and "then." Readers are thrown in the middle of two stories with no idea really how the main character, Lena, got from one to the other.  In both realities, Lena is still missing Alex, the man she loved and lost in the first novel. But one reality is set in the wild and has Lena interacting with "Invalids" those who have not had the cure, those who don't want to be cured of love or passion. These chapters are all about survival, learning the skills it takes to survive. The other reality has Lena back in society...and mingling with the enemy.

The "now" story definitely proved more thrilling...in my opinion! Once she meets Julian Fineman. I don't want to spoil the book for anyone. I really don't. Maybe I just don't remember enough about Alex to care, but I definitely enjoyed Julian! These two had some great scenes--very exciting, very intense--together!

Read Pandemonium

• If you enjoy dystopias, particularly YA dystopias. (The premise is that love is a disease that needs to be cured--with surgery. Strong emotions are bad--not just for society, but for individuals as well. Love is too dangerous to be allowed to exist.)
• If you enjoyed Lauren Oliver's Delirium
• If you enjoy your science fiction with a bit of mystery, action, and romance
• If you enjoy YA books

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

The Sunday Salon: Watching George Washington Slept Here (1942)

Why oh why oh why oh why hasn't anyone put this on DVD yet?! Seriously?! This black and white comedy from 1942 is SO SO SO good. It stars Jack Benny and Ann Sheridan as Bill and Connie Fuller. (Hattie McDaniel plays their maid; you'd probably recognize her from her role in Gone With The Wind. Joyce Reynolds plays Connie's younger sister; I recognized her from Wallflower which I reviewed earlier this year. And if you've watched many classic comedies, you'd probably recognize Percy Kilbride of Pa Kettle fame.) This wife "surprises" her husband by buying a "historic" house--a house that George Washington supposedly slept in during Revolutionary times. The house doesn't have water--no well, the well has gone dry. The kitchen is even missing a wall. There are no bathrooms, no closets, and the flooring of the upstairs, well, let's just say that Jack Benny takes more than a few falls. The movie is all about the couple's attempt to fix this house up and make it a true home. Will they succeed?! Or will it cost them everything they have and then some?!

Watch George Washington Slept Here

• If you're fortunate to catch it when it's on TV. In a perfect world, it would be available on DVD. It's definitely DVD worthy, in my opinion.
• If you enjoy classic comedies, black and white films
• If you're a fan of Jack Benny
• If you're a fan of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Library Loot: Second Trip in April

New Loot:

• Zeina by Nawal El Saadawi, translated from the Arabic by Amira Nowaira
• Island of Wings by Karin Altenberg
• The Dog Who Danced by Susan Wilson
• Take a Bow by Elizabeth Eulberg
• Out of Sight, Out of Time by Ally Carter
• The Angel Makers by Jessica Gregson
• The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? by Mo Willems
• The Pregnancy Project by Gaby Rodriguez

Leftover Loot:

• Irena Sendler and the Children of the Warsaw Ghetto by Susan Goldman Rubin
• A Breath of Eyre by Eve Marie Mont
  Blue Thread by Ruth Tenzer Feldman
• No Cooperation from the Cat: A Mystery by Marian Babson
• Soul Music by Terry Pratchett
• Article 5 by Kristen Simmons
• Becoming Queen Victoria by Kate Williams
  The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
  The Lunatic's Curse by F.E. Higgins
  We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals by Gillian Gill
  A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary by Anonymous   

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire and Marg that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.   

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Radiate (YA)

Radiate. Marley Gibson. 2012.  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 416 pages.

You know how you always think there's something...more?

Months before her Senior year in high school, our heroine, Hayley Matthews decides to give up marching band and try out for the varsity cheerleading squad. She isn't sure she'll make it, even though she knows how to tumble and is a fast-learner when it comes to dance. She makes the team--to her delight--and then her real struggles begin. But don't worry, these struggles all work together for her good.

ETA: The author thinks there should be a spoiler alert for my review, and I'm happy to comply. There is nothing in my review that the reader wouldn't learn for themselves after the first few chapters, or even after the prologue, but if you want to truly pick this one up knowing nothing about it. Don't read the rest of the review. Just don't. 

I'm not sure I like the prologue to Radiate. I'm not saying I hate it. I don't. It's just that sometimes you don't want to be told on page one that a book is a cancer-book. (Okay, it's not page one, but it is in the first few pages.) Not when there are chapters--quite a handful of chapters--to be read before she even goes to the doctor about a suspicious lump and a pain that just won't go away.

So our heroine Hayley is making new friends in the days and weeks following the announcement that she's now on the squad. And surprise, surprise the boy that she's liked since forever knows who she is now. And he can't stop flirting with her. Fortunately, Hayley is so smitten, so very, very smitten, that she fails to see he has any personality, any depth, any genuineness to him. Unfortunately--at least for this reader--I found little charm or charisma. In fact, I saw right away that he was so not the one for Hayley. That there was no way in the world he could possibly be there for Hayley when things got rough. But the lack of depth in the boyfriend is partially made well by the fact that there's a cute boy next door that has just come back to town. A boy that she grew up with. A boy that seems to genuinely see Hayley as a real person and not an object.

Did I like Radiate? Well. I'm not sure. On the one hand, it's hard not to cheer for a cheerleader who overcomes such harsh obstacles. She shows determination and courage, there is a real genuineness to her, a sincerity that makes her anything but shallow. But at the same time, the book lacks other developed characters. I had a hard time with most of the minor characters--including the boyfriend and the rest of the cheerleaders, for the most part. The family, on the other hand, had a little more depth. I felt there was definite potential there. I could see how this family functioned--or didn't function, as the case may be. For everything I liked about the novel--and there were quite a handful of things I liked about it--I found little things that didn't quite work for me. One thing that bothered me--and it's a thing that may not bother other readers at all--was the fact that this family was displayed as a Christian family, our heroine, so we're told is a Christian. Yet the novel itself uses language I wouldn't feel comfortable recommending to Christian readers. (Though it's miles away from being Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist!)

Read Radiate

• If you're looking for a happy-ending Cancer book
• If you're looking for a YA book with a realistic school setting
• If you love reading about cheerleaders and football games
• If you love stories about how the boy-next-door is a much better catch than that oh-so-secret-crush you've had for years and years

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Parallelogram: Book 2: Caught in the Parallel

Parallelogram: Book 2: Caught in the Parallel. Robin Brande. 2011. (Dec. 2011). Ryer Publishing. 334 pages.

I am sitting on a plane. A private jet. Someone has put a glass of fresh pomegranate juice in front of me, but I haven't taken a sip. 

I think I enjoyed this one even more than the first book in the series. Perhaps because I've already made friends with the heroine, Audie. Though in this second novel, Audie is in a terrible-terrible mess. You see, in the first novel, Audie risked everything to try to save her other-self, her parallel-universe self, Halli. And now she's trapped in Halli's body, in Halli's universe, unsure if she'll ever, ever be able to get back to her own life, a life that she is only now beginning to appreciate. Halli's life is so completely, fundamentally different than her own. So how can Audie pretend to be Halli? She has to, she knows she has to, but she has to tell someone what has happened. But who can she trust?

Most of Caught in the Parallel takes place in Halli's universe with readers just as completely clueless as Audie is. I'm reminded in a way of The Parent Trap only in this instance there was no warning, no tips, no advice, and no way to switch back.

I enjoyed this one very much. Audie has so much to think about, there is so much on her mind. Some of it big stuff, some not so big stuff. It's hard to know what to do when you don't know whose life you're trying to save. Should she make the decisions based on what she thinks Halli would want to do, how Halli would like her life to be if/when she returns? Or should she make the decisions that feel right to her? After all, she's very different from Halli! They have very different personalities and they've lived such very different lives.

Read Parallelogram: Caught in the Parallel

• If you're a fan of science fiction
• If you're a fan of science fiction with a touch of a love triangle
• If you're a fan of science fiction with alternate/parallel universes
• If you're a fan of Robin Brande

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews