Book Review: Unspoken

Unspoken (The Lynburn Legacy #1)
By Sarah Rees Brennan
*****

“A leather jacket,” Kami said as he shrugged into it. “Aren’t you trying a little too hard to play into certain bad boy clichés?”
“Nah”, said Jared. “You’re thinking of black leather. Black leather’s for bad boys. It’s all in the color. You wouldn’t think I was a bad boy if I was wearing a pink leather jacket.”
“That’s true,” Kami said. “What I would think of you, I do not know. So what does brown leather mean, then?”
“I’m going for manly,” Jared said. “Maybe a little rugged.”
“It’s bits of dead cow; don’t ask it to perform miracles.” 

Kami is a teenager living in a small English village called Sorry-in-the-Vale (the English really know how to name their villages...just sayin'). The village is a little quirky, as most small towns are, but Kami is sure it has any number of secrets, and as an enterprising young journalist she's determined to sniff them all out. Kami knows about secrets: she's had a special friend since she was a baby, one who is only a voice in Kami's head. When she was little, everyone thought he was just her imaginary friend. As she got older, she learned to keep his continued existence to herself. But she was closer to the voice than anyone else in the world, and she wouldn't give him up for all the psychologists in the world.

When the Lynburns come back to the village, the secrets begin to come to light. Kami finds herself in the middle of the greatest secret of all - one from which she may not live to tell.

Unspoken is an AMAZING novel! It starts out full of witty banter and quick dialogue. The characters are fun and lovable. Kami's BFF is one of the most gorgeous girls in school who pretty much hates everyone, but loves naps. Along the way, Kami befriends Holly, a girl who's popular with the boys, but not so much with the girls. Jared and Ash are the Lynburn cousins coming home to Sorry-in-the-Vale for the first time. Though they are strikingly similar in looks, Jared is clearly the bad boy to Ash's angel. As the book goes on, it fully embraces the gothic mystery and the tone turns from light and upbeat to dark and mysterious. And in the midst of all this, Kami's mysterious voice turns out to belong to a real boy, and this awakens all kinds of pain and confusion for the two of them.
This book has it all and I loved every moment of it. I turned the last page stricken that it was going to take way too long until the next book was published - I want it in my hands NOW! I can't recommend this book highly enough. Seriously, I just want to hug it and carry it around with me everywhere!

If you'd like a little taste of the book's awesomeness, check out Sarah Rees Brennan's book trailer:

Book Review: The Book of Blood and Shadow

The Book of Blood and Shadow 
By: Robin Wasserman
****

“I should probably start with the blood.”

From Goodreads:

It was like a nightmare, but there was no waking up. When the night began, Nora had two best friends and an embarrassingly storybook one true love. When it ended, she had nothing but blood on her hands and an echoing scream that stopped only when the tranquilizers pierced her veins and left her in the merciful dark.

But the next morning, it was all still true: Chris was dead. His girlfriend Adriane, Nora's best friend, was catatonic. And Max, Nora's sweet, smart, soft-spoken Prince Charming, was gone. He was also—according to the police, according to her parents, according to everyone—a murderer.

Desperate to prove his innocence, Nora follows the trail of blood, no matter where it leads. It ultimately brings her to the ancient streets of Prague, where she is drawn into a dark web of secret societies and shadowy conspirators, all driven by a mad desire to possess something that might not even exist. For buried in a centuries-old manuscript is the secret to ultimate knowledge and communion with the divine; it is said that he who controls the Lumen Dei controls the world. Unbeknownst to her, Nora now holds the crucial key to unlocking its secrets. Her night of blood is just one piece in a puzzle that spans continents and centuries. Solving it may be the only way she can save her own life.


From Me:

The Book of Blood and Shadow is like two books in one: first, you have Nora and her friends, their lives, how they deal with school and relationships. Then you have a mad dash through the streets of Prague searching for mysterious clues to an ancient puzzle, which once solved, can give a glimpse into the divine.

Nora's past involves a tragedy that she keeps to herself. Her parents are lost in themselves, leaving Nora as an afterthought. Nora, a bit of a Latin prodigy, was admitted to a prestigious school on the other side of town, disconnected enough from her world that no one knows about her past. There she becomes best friends with Chris and his girlfriend, Adriane. Fast forward to Nora's senior year, where she is interning at the local university where Chris is attending, and they both assist a professor in translating and transcribing 400 year old Latin texts, along with Chris's roommate, Max. They're attempting to break a code that has puzzled the best mathematicians and code breakers for four centuries. Nora finds the key to breaking the code, and the wrong people notice, leading to the death of her best friend. To avenge Chris's murder and clear Max's name, Nora and Adriane head to Prague, where the Latin texts were originally written. There, they stumble through clues that lead to an unexpected ending.

The first half of the book feels like a typical real-life-issues young adult novel. The characters struggle through evolving relationships, family issues, and the question of their future. You get to know them and connect to them, the whole time knowing that one of them will shortly die while another is blamed for that murder. The first page opens with these bombshells, quickly followed by a flash-back that leads up to this big moment. After that, we get to the mystery in Prague, where Nora and Adriane search for Max and hide from more than one secret society that wants to hinder or hurt them.

The mystery and historical portions of the story were fascinating. Wasserman does a great job of describing a scene and really getting you attached to the characters. The only thing I wasn't terribly fond of was the religion angle; at times it felt like Wasserman was getting a bit heavy handed with the atheism, while at other times she provided an interesting focus on historical and current Judaism and the mysticism tied to the ancient relic they were searching for in Prague. Like The Da Vinci Code and The Golden Compass, the religious aspect of the book could potentially turn off readers.

I really enjoyed this book and I would recommend it to anyone who loves a good mystery or treasure hunt. Wasserman included a lot of real historical information about Prague, plus the impossible code they were trying to break is actually real - and still unbroken; this will appeal to historical fiction fans. It was great learning about a part of the world and a part of history that I wasn't familiar with, that of Prague during the Renaissance. The Book of Blood and Shadow is a very cool book and a great read.

Teen Reviewer: Hangman's Curse

Hangman's Curse
By: Frank Peretti
Reviewer: Savannah Harris

Description from Goodreads:

The first in a new format of books targeted to tweens and teens, The Veritas Project: Hangman's Curse will keep readers enthralled. Frank Peretti introduces Nate Springfield, his wife Sarah, and their twin children Elijah and Elisha, who are part of the Veritas Project team. This group travels the country aiding the FBI and other organizations in breaking drug rings and solving mysteries. In Hangman's Curse, the family goes undercover at a small town high school - where a mysterious curse has turned several of the star football players into raving lunatics who can only be tied to their hospital beds while doctors are baffled by their symptoms. Elijah and Elisha must befriend the various cliques at school, and help their parents solve the mystery of Abel Frye (a name the sick kids mutter in their delirium).

This story could have come straight from the headlines about many schools around the country and will lead kids and young adults to an understanding of peer pressure and the pain that comes from being different. It is a riveting message on the wounded spirit that teens will never forget.


Savannah's Review:

Hello, my name is Savannah Harris and I am going to be writing a review for a book called The Hangman’s Curse by Frank Peretti.  In this review I will explain my thoughts about the book and why.  First of all, I want to clearly state that I fell in love with this book from the moment I started the first chapter.  I started reading at 1:32 pm and finished it at 6:00 pm that same evening.  When I started I blocked out every other noise and sound in my house and fell into a sort of “trance” that nobody could break me out of until I had finished.  I also noticed that this book was Christian-based which made me like it even more.  I felt like the author did a good job with a balance of Christian theme and a mix of mystery, adventure, and otherworldly beings.  I found that I could relate to the female character Elisha because she is very brave, strong in her beliefs, and if she thinks that something is wrong she will do her best to make it right. Overall it was a great book that I highly recommend and I look forward to reading the rest of the series.