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Showing posts with label D.J. MacHale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label D.J. MacHale. Show all posts
Friday, October 25, 2013

Pulse-pounding SYLO Hits Intended Target

(Image from Barnes & Noble)

Things on Pemberwick Island, Maine, don't change much from year to year.  The tourists come, the tourists go, and life moves on for the locals.  Bored with small-town life, most of Pemberwick's teenagers can't wait to leave the island behind.  Not 14-year-old Tucker Pierce.  His family hasn't been in Maine very long, but he loves the area's rugged beauty, the island's quaint, laid-back charm.  It beats living in some dirty, crowded city any day.

Tucker's peaceful island world is shattered when Marty Wiggins, a senior tailback, collapses during a high school football game.  His sudden, inexplicable death stuns everyone, especially Tucker, who saw the rage and confusion brewing in Marty's eyes just before he died.  The football player isn't the only islander acting weird—suddenly, everyone seems to be consumed with an unnatural and deadly kind of aggression.  Something weird is definitely going on.  

Then, SYLO, a mysterious military group, invades the island, taking things from weird to worse.  The soldiers allow no one on or off the island and offer no explanation for their actions.  Have the islanders all been infected with some crazy virus?  Are more people going to die?  And what's with the strange, humming aircraft that circle Pemberwick, but only at night?  Cut off from the outside world, with no t.v. or Internet access, Tucker has no idea what's going on.  He only knows he has to find out.  With the help of his best friend, Quinn, and Tori, the girl he's been crushing on forever, Tucker will figure out what's happening on his island.  Even if it means putting everything—and everyone—he loves in grave danger.

With plenty of pulse-pounding action to keep the pages turning, SYLO by D.J. MacHale is an exciting read that will appeal to even the most reluctant of readers (especially if they're male).  The plot's pretty cliché, the characters pretty cardboard, the writing pretty average, but the story moves along at a frantic pace, making you keep reading in spite of the book's hang-ups.  SYLO's overly long and totally far-fetched, but it wasn't a horrible read.  It's entertaining, anyway.  When I finished the book, I handed it to my 14-year-old son and—no surprises here—he's been riveted since Page 1.  Does SYLO hit the spot for its intended audience?  I'd say yes, yes, it does. 

(Readalikes:  Reminds me of other YA dystopian books, although no specific titles are coming to mind)

Grade:  


If this were a movie, it would be rated:


for mild language (no F-bombs), violence and sexual innuendo

 To the FTC, with love:  I received an ARC of SYLO from the generous folks at Penguin.  Thank you!


Tuesday, September 17, 2013

TTT: What I'm FALLing For This Autumn


It's Tuesday again and, although I'm feeling a little under the weather, I'm excited for this week's TTT.  Especially since we've got a nice, easy topic this time around.  Sometimes, I can't think of one item that fits the weekly prompt, let alone ten, but when it comes to books I'm planning to read, that's easy as pie (although I don't even attempt to make pie because it's way too hard, so that's probably a crap analogy ... whatever).  So, without further ado (Wait! One quick ado—Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the lovely ladies over at The Broke and the Bookish), I give you Top Ten Books on My Fall TBR List:


1.  Monsters by Ilsa J. BickThis is the final book in Bick's dystopian Ashes trilogy.  I adored the first installment in the series, was a little less impressed by the second, and can't wait for the third.  If you like zombie novels, definitely give these a try.


2.  More Than This by Patrick Ness—Ness' Chaos Walking series is one of my very favorites, so I was excited to learn that the author published TWO new books this year.  While The Crane Wife, an adult magical realism novel, sounds interesting, it's the YA novel that really interests me.  In it, a boy who's pretty sure he drowned wakes up in a strange, alternative world that vaguely resembles the place he lived as a child.  It's up to him to figure out what in the world is going on.  Sounds good, right?


3.  Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein—Like lots of other readers, I found Code Name Verity a unique and compelling read.  The author's much-anticipated new book is another WWII thriller that's supposed to be just as amazing as her debut novel.


4.  A Spark Unseen by Sharon Cameron—I just finished The Dark Unwinding, the first novel in Cameron's YA steampunk series about a girl who discovers the strange, but intriguing world her eccentric grandfather inhabits.  The next installment sounds just as entrancing.  I can't wait to read it!


5.  Blackmoore by Julianne Donaldson—I enjoyed Donaldson's debut novel, Edenbrooke, and am glad to see that her newest is getting rave reviews.  Good, clean reads are difficult to find, so I'm excited about this one.


6.  SYLO by D.J. MacHale—This one's been out for a little while now, but I haven't gotten a chance to dive into it just yet.  It's about a boy living on an isolated island who witnesses several cold-blooded murders that lead him to try to escape.  It's supposed to be a "high-octane," apocalyptic thriller—how could I not be drawn to this one?


7.  The Clockwork Scarab by Colleen Gleason—Bram Stoker's sister and Sherlock Holmes' niece team up to solve the mystery of disappearing debutantes in this YA mystery/steampunk/romance.  Sounds fun, no?


8.  Frozen by Melissa de la Cruz and Michael Johnston—I just received an invitation to be on the blog tour for this one.  This dystopian thriller is about a young blackjack dealer who risks it all to flee post-apocalyptic Las Vegas for the mythical "Blue," a place where beauty still exists—if only she can survive to see it.  Sounds a little cliché, but still intriguing.                                                  


9.  Dead Girls Don't Lie by Jennifer Shaw Wolf—I love novels about the terrible secrets that tear people apart (I'm just sadistic like that), so this one, about a girl who's trying to figure out how her friend really died, sounds like it will be right up my alley.


10.  Where the Stars Still Shine by Trish Doller—Stories about kids raised in unique situations (cults, remote villages, etc.) trying to integrate into the "normal" world always intrigue me.  This one, about a girl who's been raised off-the-grid by the mother who kidnapped her and is released to her father after her mom is arrested, sounds super compelling.

What do you think?  Any of these sound good to you, too?  What's on your Fall TBR list?

* Book images from Barnes & Noble
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