Books and Sensibility

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Young Adult Fiction

Audiobook Review: Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley

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Release Date: August 1st 2010

Pages: 264

Audiobook Hours: 6 hours 9 minutes

Genre: Contemporary

Publisher: Pan Macmillian Australia

It’s the end of Year 12. Lucy’s looking for Shadow, the graffiti artist everyone talks about.
His work is all over the city, but he is nowhere.
Ed, the last guy she wants to see at the moment, says he knows where to find him. He takes Lucy on an all-night search to places where Shadow’s thoughts about heartbreak and escape echo around the city walls.
But the one thing Lucy can’t see is the one thing that’s right before her eyes


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Audiobook Review: Finnikin of The Rock by Melina Marchetta

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“You list the dead. You tell the stories of the past. You write about the catastrophes and the massacres. What about the living, Finnikin? Who honors them?” 



― Melina Marchetta, Finnikin of the Rock

 

  • Release Date: September 28th 2008
  • Page Number: 416
  • Genre: Epic Fantasy
  • Publisher: Viking Australia

Synopsis: Finnikin of the Rock and his guardian, Sir Topher, have not been home to their beloved Lumatere for ten years. Not since the dark days when the royal family was murdered and the kingdom put under a terrible curse. But then Finnikin is summoned to meet Evanjalin, a young woman with an incredible claim: the heir to the throne of Lumatere, Prince Balthazar, is alive.


Evanjalin is determined to return home and she is the only one who can lead them to the heir. As they journey together, Finnikin is affected by her arrogance . . . and her hope. He begins to believe he will see his childhood friend, Prince Balthazar, again. And that their cursed people will be able to enter Lumatere and be reunited with those trapped inside. He even believes he will find his imprisoned father.
But Evanjalin is not what she seems. And the truth will test not only Finnikin’s faith in her . . . but in himself

Being an epic fantasy, Finnikin of the Rock is completely outside of the genres I usually read. I had previously seen the blog Sash and Em  gushing about this book on Twitter so when I spotted the audiobook at the library I was confident I would enjoy it.  The world created in this novel has so much terminology, so let’s hope I get them all right

After the assassination of the royal family and rouge uprising, in an incident known as the Unspeakable the once peaceful kingdom of Lumatere is cursed and locked away. Half the Lumaterens are trapped inside and other half scattered across the neighboring kingdoms to live as exiles; forced to survive fever, refugee camps and the bloody rage of their neighboring kingdoms.

As son of the imprisoned captain of the guard and best friend to murdered Prince Balthazar, Finnikin has always felt a certain responsibility to help lead his people to a place they can call home. Traveling with his guardian Sir Topher, they’ve spent the last 10 years since the Unspeakable trying to find a second Lumatere. When Finnikin awakes from a dream that leads him to a temple and a novice girl named Evanjilin, a new Lumatere is suddenly closer for Finnikin than he ever imagined.

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Book Review : Vicious Deep by Zoraida Cordova

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  • Release Date: May 1st 2012
  • Pages: 384
  • Genre: Mermaid/Urban Fantasy
  • Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Synopsis: For Tristan Hart, everything changes with one crashing wave. He was gone for three days. Sucked out to sea in a tidal wave and spit back ashore at Coney Island with no memory of what happened. Now his dreams are haunted by a terrifying silver mermaid with razor-sharp teeth. His best friend Layla is convinced something is wrong. But how can he explain he can sense emotion like never before? How can he explain he’s heir to a kingdom he never knew existed? That he’s suddenly a pawn in a battle as ancient as the gods. Something happened to him in those three days. He was claimed by the sea…and now it wants him back.

I have to admit when I saw mermaids making a splash (l know, I know ) on the YA book circuit, I was doubtful. I just always kind of felt like Hans Christian Anderson and Disney had already told the best mermaid story there is; young mermaid falls in love with a human and sacrifices everything. 

But, I’ve been proven wrong as many YA authors put their bold, new and modern twists on the mermaid genre.

Debut author, Zoraida Cordova brings out her spin on the tale with The Vicious Deep, the story of Tristan Hart, a 16-year-old Coney Island lifeguard who discovers he is a merman. But Tristan isn’t just any merman–he is the heir to the Sea King, and to rightfully claim his throne Tristan will have to win the championship for the trident, an epic quest for the pieces of the trident against other merman.


Tristan is popular at school and with his friends, which is an unexpected change from the more common outcast, loner YA protagonist. His first-person narrative is filled with snark and a little bit arrogance as he discovers what his past.…

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Book Review: Fingerprints of You by Kristen-Paige Madonia

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  • Release Date: August 7th 2012
  • Page Number: 256
  • Genre: Contemporary
  • Publisher: Simon and Schuster for Young Readers

Synopsis: Lemon grew up with Stella, a single mom who wasn’t exactly maternal. Stella always had a drink in her hand and a new boyfriend every few months, and when things got out of hand, she would whisk Lemon off to a new town for a fresh beginning. Now, just as they are moving yet again, Lemon discovers that she is pregnant from a reckless encounter—with a guy Stella had been flirting with.On the verge of revisiting her mother’s mistakes, Lemon struggles to cope with the idea of herself as a young unmarried mother, as well as the fact that she’s never met her own father. Determined to have at least one big adventure before she has the baby, Lemon sets off on a cross-country road trip, intending not only to meet her father, but to figure out who she wants to be.


Kristen-Paige Madonia just happens to be a Virginia author and I was fortunate enough to meet her at Fountain Bookstore in August. While there, Madonia discussed was how she did not write this book to be a YA, she just wrote a novel with a teenage protagonist and it was decided it would sell best as a YA. I love this idea, because by not being written as a YA, Fingerprints of You  avoids a lot of the tropes and cliches associated with the genre.

17-year-old Lemon’s whole life has been her and her mother, Stella, against the world. Living in suitcases and moving every few years, Lemon describes her mother as a

“…restless woman who yanked us from town to town, an impulsive mother bound by bitterness, a woman boarded in  by secrets and regrets.”

When Lemon discovers she is pregnant, by a man forgotten in another state, she decides to take a journey of her own. With her friend, Emmy she travels west to San Francisco to find her father and possibly roots of her own.

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Book Review: Stealing Parker by Miranda Kenneally

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  • Release Date: October 1st 2012
  • Pages: 245
  • Genre: Contemporary
  • Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Synopsis: Parker Shelton pretty much has the perfect life. She’s on her way to becoming valedictorian at Hundred Oaks High, she’s made the all-star softball team, and she has plenty of friends. Then her mother’s scandal rocks their small town and suddenly no one will talk to her.
Now Parker wants a new life.
So she quits softball. Drops twenty pounds. And she figures why kiss one guy when she can kiss three? Or four. Why limit herself to high school boys when the majorly cute new baseball coach seems especially flirty?
But how far is too far before she loses herself completely.

Parker Shelton was always a good Christian girl.With good Christian friends and a clean reputation. That is until her mother comes out as a lesbian and runs away with the church’s secretary. Like the tagline says, one strike– to her facade of a perfect life that is– and she’s out. Parker loses her grip on who she is, to become the person she believes everyone needs her to be.

Stealing Parker is the follow up to Kenneally’s Catching Jordan. Like Catching Jordan this novel is sports-themed however Stealing Parker is less about the sport and more about the characters.

Parker is your average self-conscious snarky teenager. She is so concerned with what everyone thinks and things never seem to turn out the way they should for her. She loses weight, stops playing softball and starts making out with more boys just to confirm to everyone she is not a lesbian like her mom.

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Audiobook Review: Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

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  • Published : August 31st 2010
  • Publisher : HarperTeen
  • Genre : Paranormal/Romance
  • Audiobook Length : 8 hours 40 minutes

Synopsis:Evie’s always thought of herself as a normal teenager, even though she works for the International Paranormal Containment Agency, her ex-boyfriend is a faerie, she’s falling for a shape-shifter, and she’s the only person who can see through paranormals’ glamours.
But Evie’s about to realize that she may very well be at the center of a dark faerie prophecy promising destruction to all paranormal creatures.
So much for normal.


Evie, the heroine ofParanormalcy has spent most of her life working for the International Paranormal Containment Agency, a government
organization  chasing after and  “bagging and tagging” dangerous Paranormals; using nothing but her skills to see through glamours and her Taser.  Evie is painted as your average strong who can fend for herself against some pretty scary creatures

Oh, and she likes pink.

For some reason her preference for a pink taser and pink leather boots seemed to go hand in
hand with Claudia Gray’s “I’m Not Like Other Girls post.

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