Review: And All The Stars By Andrea K. Host

The first thing that attracted me to And All The Stars was the cover. Isn't it pretty? Reading the book made me appreciate it even more, because it actually depicts a character exactly as she's described, which is refreshing. The character in question is Madeleine, a budding artist who is caught in St James train station in the Sydney CBD when a massive spire erupts from the ground and spurts purple dust over the city. A purple dust that kills some, turns some green and others blue. Madeleine herself becomes a Blue and soon discovers she has more power than she's ever had before.

And All The Stars is a unique take on a familiar story. There was so much I loved about it. I loved the plot, and the way certain things were revealed that I never saw coming. I loved the setting – it's not often you come across these kinds of stories set anywhere other than America. It was brilliant and refreshing to know exactly where the characters were and what they were talking about. But most of all I loved the characters. Madeleine took awhile to warm to for me but I liked her in the end, and the secondary characters were all richly developed and likeable. I loved the group dynamics as the random collection of kids banded together to survive.

Often dystopian/sci-fi books are set far into the future, and this is the first one I've come across that is about the immediate aftermath of a disaster. A big chunk of it is about basic survival, the discovery of changes to the landscape and people's bodies, and figuring out what the hell has happened. Some might find this aspect of it a bit slow, but I actually really enjoyed it. It's not something you come across in every book, plus I think the slow build is totally worth it because when THINGS start happening, well, they really start happening.

The action was entertaining and there was a lot of humour, but what surprised me was how emotional And All The Stars made me feel. It was quite heart-wrenching at times – those who have read it will know exactly which times I'm talking about! Still, there were a few scenes that I felt were a bit too rushed or glossed over; the ending in particular happened a bit too quickly for me. But overall it was quite satisfying and left me with a smile on my face, and I can't complain about that.

Rating: 4/5

Spoilery Talking Points

• Theoden! OMG, Theoden broke my heart. I did not see that twist coming, and it makes me want to reread the book again soon to see if I can pick up any clues. However, I felt the big reveal and Theoden's death was one of the parts that was too rushed. I would have liked a bit more emotion in there, and a better farewell between Madeleine and Theoden. I can understand why this didn't happen, as she'd only just found out the truth, but still, it felt kind of anti-climactic. I did like how Madeleine struggled with her feelings for Fisher afterwards, and  that he too had difficulty coming to terms with the situation. It was nice that the happy ending in the epilogue was well down the track, allowing them both time to figure things out and properly mourn Theoden. Of course, it was completely cheesy, but I liked it.
• I couldn't quite wrap my head around the whole alien cycle thing. Maybe I'm dense or maybe the information was crammed into too small a space – I actually had to reread the explanation a few times – but I just didn't get why they invaded planets, fought, then left only to come back again eight years later and do it all over again. Where did they go in the meantime? I was confused.

Action Shots

I embraced my inner tourist and snapped some pics of some of the locations featured in And All The Stars while I was in the city one day.

This is the entrance to St. James station in Hyde Park, you can see the Archibald Fountain in the background.

Side view of the entrance to St. James station.

The Archibald Fountain with St. Mary's Cathedral in the background.

Centrepoint Tower.

 

 

Fine Print

Published: September 2012

Source: Netgalley

Get It: Angus & Robertson

Talking Point: Apocalypse Survival By The Books

Tomorrow is the day. The end of the world the Mayans predicted. Or just, y'know, when their calendar ends. Just in case the world does end tomorrow, I thought I'd get prepared by refreshing my knowledge of apocalypses (apocalypseii?) from the place I get all my life skills (or lake thereof): books. I hereby present the (un)Official Apocalypse Survival Guide of 2012. There's only one problem: it's limited to the books I've read. But time is running out, so here goes nothing...

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Apocalypse: Unspecified disaster followed by a despotic government that controls the population by forcing them to send their children into The Hunger Games, a fight-to-the-death television extravaganza.
Survival Skills Required: Archery, running, cunning, a strong stomach, knowledge of plants, hunting, skinning squirrels, charisma, style and possibly cake frosting.
My Chances: 1/10 a.k.a. Doomed

And All The Stars by Andrea K. Host
The Apocalypse: Alien invasion via purple dust that infects humans, causing them to turn weird colours and manifest powers before being taken over.
Survival Skills Required: Running, hiding, baking, eating.
My Chances: 7/10 a.k.a. Let me eat cake.

The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman
The Apocalypse: Zombies. Lots and lots of zombies.
Survival Skills Required: Running, being quiet, shooting, hacking, hitting, stabbing, decapitating, foraging, raiding, a strong stomach.
My Chances: 2/10 a.k.a. I'm hiding upstairs.

The Children of Men by P.D. James
The Apocalypse: The human race is suddenly infertile.
Survival Skills Required: Strong mental health and resilience.
My Chances: 6/10 a.k.a. Depressed, much?

Legend by Marie Lu
The Apocalypse: This is never really clear, to be honest.
Survival Skills Required: All-round perfection, money.
My Chances: 4/10 a.k.a. I'm too confused to give up all hope.

The Host by Stephanie Meyer
The Apocalypse: Invasion of the alien body snatchers.
Survival Skills Required: Running, hiding, being really strong-willed.
My Chances: 5/10 a.k.a. Nobody messes with my brain but me.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Apocalypse: Terrorist attacks + low fertility = Biblical-inspired misogynistic, extremist society where women are reduced to the archetypes of the pure (and barren) wife and the objectified (and fertile) whore.
Survival Skills Required: A fertile womb and subservience.
My Chances: 3/10 a.k.a. I don't know about my fertility, but I do know I probably wouldn't want to survive in this world.

That's about as far as my apocalyptic reading has gone to date. Here's hoping the world doesn't end tomorrow and I can add to the list! In the meantime, feel free to share your book-inspired survival tips in the comments.

Review: What's Left of Me by Kat Zhang

What's Left of Me is set in an alternate reality where every body is born with two souls. One soul is dominant, and by the time the body is a teenager, the other soul is supposed to naturally fade away. But it doesn't always work that way - not for Eva, at least, who is still most definitely alive in the body her sister, Addie, controls. Addie has to keep Eva's existence a secret, because "hybrids" are considered against nature and are taken away by the government. Then everything changes when the girls discover a pair of siblings who are both hybrids, and learn that Eva could potentially regain control... and that perhaps being one-souled isn't so "natural" after all...

I first discovered this book when all of my Goodreads buddies started raving about it. I was intrigued and thought the plot sounded ambitious and interesting, so I was keen to give it a go. Now I find myself in a strange position - I loved the book for the characters, writing and pace, but am left with so many questions and frustrations with the world building, I just don't know how to rate it. I think the plot was perhaps a little too ambitious. It's supposed to be an alternate reality where everyone has always been born with two souls, but if this were the case I feel like society would have developed in a very different way to our own. Relationships, families, schooling, work - all would look different if every body had two personalities in it. But it doesn't. Aside from the mildly dystopian creepy government control/conspiracy thing, the society in What's Left of Me looks exactly like ours. Granted, everyone is supposed to have one soul by adulthood in Eva's culture, but this hasn't always been the case, and surely society would have developed differently in some way. It just didn't make any sense.

It also didn't make sense that everyone would just pretend like the second soul never existed. If both souls are treated equally in their early childhood, and both loved by their parents, there would be considerable grief over losing one of those souls, not just for the one left behind but for the family, too. Even if it's the "natural" way of things - especially if it's the "natural" way of things - surely there would be some sort of cultural practice in place for this kind if thing. A type of funeral or memorial to honour the lost. To just pretend like they didn't happen, after loving them for years? That's just not logical, and it bothered me.

But. Those gripes aside, I really enjoyed What's Left of Me. Eva was a great character, and I really connected with her frustration and also her burning desire to live and not just exist. It was a smart choice to have the secondary soul as the protagonist rather than the dominant one, as it definitely made for more compelling storytelling. The relationship between Eva and Addie was complicated and fascinating, and Zhang did a wonderful job of exploring the tension that their unique problem created. The secondary characters were also well-written, and I especially liked the blossoming romance between Eva and Ryan - including, oddly enough, the way it wasn't central to the plot. Just a nice part of it. I'm so over YA books where the plot functions as nothing more than a vehicle for a swoony boy, so it's nice when the love story forms part of the plot, and doesn't completely obliterate it.

There's a lot of action in What's Left of Me, making it difficult to put down. I love it when a book stays on your mind even when you haven't got it in your hand. It's been awhile since I experienced that, so I got really excited while reading this. I was also grateful for the sense of closure at the end of the novel. Don't get me wrong, it's part of a series and there's definitely a lot of open threads and avenues to be explored in the sequel(s), but it didn't just end abruptly and frustratingly as so many other first instalments seem to do. It's not a massive cliffhanger, and impatient little ol' me loved that. In fact, despite my misgivings, I enjoyed What's Left of Me so much they I found myself still thinking about it days later. Sure, I wish the world building was stronger, but I can't deny that it had an impact on me, and for that I guess I have to rate it highly. I still have a lot of problems and questions that I suspect won't be answered in coming instalments, but I loved it nonetheless, and can't wait to see what Zhang has in store for us next.

Rating: 4/5

Fine Print
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction/Dystopia
Published: October 2012, HarperCollins
Get It: The Nile
Source: I received a review copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley.

Review: Legend By Marie Lu

Set in a dystopian future, in a Los Angeles that is at war, plague-ridden and divided, Legend is told from two perspectives: that of Day, a Robin Hood-like fugitive trying to protect those he loves, and June, a Government golden girl bent on avenging her lost brother. They're both strong characters, but while Day is easy to like, June took a while to warm to. It was so obvious the Republic was evil, and yet she was on their side for much of the book, making it hard to sympathise with her. Of course, she's a privileged teen who has been brought up to believe in her Government, so it's natural for her to have that viewpoint, but then again, she's supposed to be a freaking prodigy, so it was extremely frustrating that she took so long to figure things out - and even then, she couldn't do it on her own. It was a bit unbelievable and made it hard to really get behind her.

Day, on the other hand, was the underdog from the start - and who can resist the underdog?! Not June, that's for sure. Their romance was inevitable, but perhaps because I didn't particularly like June, I didn't really feel any chemistry between them. I could see why they were a good fit for each other, but I just wasn't aching for them to get together. It was also difficult to believe that both Day and June were 15. Even taking into account all they've been through, they didn't really feel like 15-year-olds at all. I know it's YA, but I don't get why they need to be SO young - you could make the characters 18 and it wouldn't make any difference. If anything, it would make it feel slightly more authentic.

The story itself was good and fast-paced, and I was glad to see that it was quite different from The Hunger Games (the only other YA dystopian I've read), but unfortunately it was pretty predictable. On the plus side, Lu's world-building was strong, and although I would have liked a bit more detail about the history of the Republic, it did feel like a realistic (if terrifying) possibility. Lu's writing was smooth and it's a credit to her that, after just reading a book written in the present tense and not enjoying the style, I didn't even notice until I was near the end of Legend that it, too, was written in the present tense. It was so effective and fluid I didn't consciously register it or feel put off at all.

One little niggle I have to express - and it's not with Legend in particular, but with what seems to be most YA books these days - is that the story isn't contained within one book. It's not that I don't like series, because I do, but I still feel that within a series, each book should tell a complete story even if there's a larger story arc. Legend did do this to some degree, but there were a few threads left hanging that irked me a bit. If it wasn't a consistent thing across many series, it probably wouldn't have bothered me at all. As it is, it just made me roll my eyes. All in all, Legend was a good book that didn't quite blow me away.

Rating: 3.5/5

Eye Candy
Day is described as Caucasian/Mongolian, with white-blonde, long hair, piercing blue eyes and a beautiful face. He was tough to "cast", but I imagined him as Jamie Campbell Bower:

June is athletic, with dark hair and black-gold eyes (side note: have you ever met anyone with black eyes? I don't think I have. They seem to crop up a bit in fiction). I pictured Nina Dobrev (June totally wears a pretty white gown in the book, so I thought this pic was appropriate):

Fine Print
Genre: Dystopian/Young Adult
Published: December 2011, Razorbill
Get It: Book Depository