The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher

The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher

Published: January 1, 2011

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

(240 pages, hardcover)

Summary: Welcome to a future where water is more precious than gold or oil-and worth killing for.

Vera and her brother, Will, live in the shadow of the Great Panic, in a country that has collapsed from environmental catastrophe. Water is hoarded by governments, rivers are damned, and clouds are sucked from the sky. But then Vera befriends Kai, who seems to have limitless access to fresh water. When Kai suddenly disappears, Vera and Will set off on a dangerous journey in search of him-pursued by pirates, a paramilitary group, and greedy cooporations. Timely and eerily familiar acclaimed author Cameron Stracher males a stunning YA debut that's impossible to forget.

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My thoughts: The Water Wars was an eerie, intriguing look on what might happen with the degradation of society as we know it, and a great debut from Stracher. I didn't really connect with the main characters all that well, but the story line and intense, disturbing concept mostly made up for that. The world that Vera lives in is a desolate, waterless world; water is rationed and most is desalinated ocean water that makes hundreds sick and kills even more. As Vera's mother gets sicker and the world seems even more hopeless, Vera meets Kai, the boy who spills water without care and acts as if the world is at his feet. Then, one day, Kai stops showing up, and when Vera and Will, her older brother, discover his bodyguard dead at his home, they set off on a life-threatening journey to find and rescue him.

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I loved the premise: what if the world ran out of its water supply and all that was left was undrinkable, disease-ridden salt water left? Stracher writes with a dark overtone that makes the novel at once fantastic, mysterious, and realistic. The book starts out kind of slow and eventually progresses into a fast-paced, action-adventure story that makes you keep turning pages late into the night. It was definitely an unforgettable world that Stracher created. And I loved how much action there was, and I'm hoping for a sequel or at least another novel set in the same setting.

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Ulysses, the water pirate, was my favorite character, because he seemed to be the only one with a lot of depth. Vera was kind of invisible, despite her being the main character and the POV character. She just seemed a little bit weak and ignorant. Will was a nice character, but again, he sort of faded to the background when it came to the novel's overall story arc. He was stronger than Vera, certainly, and I loved how loyal they were to each other, but the siblings just weren't all that memorable. On the other hand, Ulysses was a mysterious character, and I would hope to see more of him in future novels (if there are any). Kai was an interesting character too, and although he wasn't physically in much of the novel, he was a strong presence when he was, and I didn't really understand much of the mechanics of how his 'divining' skills worked either. I also liked Vera, whose history wasn't fully revealed, but was still a strong, interesting secondary character.

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The writing was really good, and it added a lot to the story. The long paragraphs explaining the history of their world sometimes seemed a little out of place and elongated. But overall, the way Stracher writes was delicate and gritty at the same time. The plot was a little crazy and all over the place at times. In fact, I couldn't help but feel that Stracher tried to include too many challenges and actions scenes in the last 150 pages. Still The Water Wars is a good, solid read, and while it definitely could have been better, it was a quick, fluid novel.

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Covering the Cover: I love the cover; it's captivating and simple. Definitely one that catches the eye.

Characters: 3/5

Plot: 4/5

Writing: 4/5

Overall Rating: 3.5 stars

The Summoning (Darkest Powers #1) by Kelley Armstrong

Title: The Summoning
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Series: Darkest Powers #1
Published: April 1, 2009 by HarperCollins
(390 pages, paperback)
Summary:  After years of frequent moves following her mother’s death, Chloe Saunders’s life is finally settling down. She is attending art school, pursuing her dreams of becoming a director, making friends, and meeting boys. Her biggest concern is that she’s not developing as fast as her friends are. But when puberty does hit, it brings more than hormone surges. Chloe starts seeing ghosts–everywhere, demanding her attention. After she suffers a breakdown, her devoted aunt Lauren gets her into a highly recommended group home.

At first, Lyle House seems a pretty okay place, except for Chloe’s small problem of fearing she might be facing a lifetime of mental illness. But as she gradually gets to know the other kids at the home–charming Simon and his ominous, unsmiling brother Derek, obnoxious Tori, and Rae, who has a “thing” for fire–Chloe begins to realize that there is something that binds them all together, and it isn’t your usual “problem kid” behaviour. And together they discover that Lyle House is not your usual group home either…
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My thoughts: Let me just start out by saying, I really loved Chloe in The Summoning; despite my complaints about the story line, and the plot holes I noted, Chloe was a great protagonist. Firstly, she was a nice girl. And who doesn't like a sweet girl as the protagonist? Secondly, Chloe doesn't think she's seeing dead people until someone proves she's seeing dead people. Her natural responses made me connect better with her and even allowed me to feel some of her emotions even when weird, unexplainable stuff was happening. Thirdly, and lastly, she took action. I caqn't tell you how many times I've come across protagonists who sit around, moping and whining becaus something out of the ordinary happend, not only did Chloe respond, she responded in a believable, somewhat intelligent way. Even if I didn't agree with her reasoning,  still understood why she made the choices she did.
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Okay, so I like Chloe; what I didn't like, however, was how easy everything was. I mean, it's not like she woke up one day, saw a ghost, thought she was crazy, realized she wasn't, and the world went back to normal. That's not at all what happened. But still, thefact that there are all of these supernaturals all over the place, and the fact that so many of them are at the same mental house seemed a little too far-fetched. Despite the fact that Chloe even mentions how weird it is, it still felt a little too simple to not have a more complex explanation. But maybe that will be cleared up more in the sequels.

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I loved a lot of the secondary characters; Derek was my favorite. Okay, so Simon was the cute one; I liked Derek, the poor, puberty-stricken boy who seems to be shadowing Chloe around the house. I think he’s more complex than he seemed and I’d like to read more on his back-story and find out more about what exactly he is. I’m trying hard to keep this review non-spoiler-y, since a lot of the revelations come in the latter half of the book, so I’ll just say that while the developments were interesting and definitely intriguing, Simon was a good character, and I’m hoping for a tiny bit of a romance maybe involving him and Chloe. But really, it was hard to tell whether there was anything there at all. Rae was my second favorite character; even though she was somewhat sometimes immature, she was often the only voice of reason and I’m interested to see where her story is going, and how she’s going to help (or hinder) Chloe.

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Even though I would think it was freaky to see dead people and even be able to raise them, I liked the idea. It was somewhat original and well executed when it came to Chloe’s response and the powers she actually possessed. I’m still not totally sold on the idea of supernatural beings being everywhere and never being noticed. Again, I’ll keep the review non-spoiler, but it’s hard to explain unless you’ve read the book. I wasn’t totally satisfied with the explanations, but it was still intriguing enough to make me forgive most of that.

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The cliffhanger ending seemed like more of a device than a nicely written ending. There was absolutely no closure; I’ll definitely get the sequel, because, despite my complaining, the series is definitely dark and even more interesting. Plus, I’m desperate to find out what happens next. I’ll give Armstrong one thing: she’s great at luring readers in and keeping them there. The story was mostly predictable but it was okay in the end, because the book wasn’t a deep, thought-provoking one, just a scary story with an interesting cast of characters and a strange plot. Overall, The Summoning was a great read at face value, but a good book in the grand scheme of things. I’m caught between loving the (somewhat) original story and just enjoying the lightness.

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Covering the Cover: I really like the cover; the girl is a nice model of Chloe, and the necklace gives it a paranormal look that fits the story.

Characters: 4.5/5

Plot: 4/5

Writing: 3/5

Overall Rating: 3.5 stars

Fallout (Crank #3) by Ellen Hopkins

Fallout by Ellen Hopkins
665 pages, Paperback
Published on September 17, 2010
Summary: Hunter, Autumn, and Summer—three of Kristina Snow’s five children—live in different homes, with different guardians and different last names. They share only a predisposition for addiction and a host of troubled feelings toward the mother who barely knows them, a mother who has been riding with the monster, crank, for twenty years.

Hunter is nineteen, angry, getting by in college with a job at a radio station, a girlfriend he loves in the only way he knows how, and the occasional party. He's struggling to understand why his mother left him, when he unexpectedly meets his rapist father, and things get even more complicated. Autumn lives with her single aunt and alcoholic grandfather. When her aunt gets married, and the only family she’s ever known crumbles, Autumn’s compulsive habits lead her to drink. And the consequences of her decisions suggest that there’s more of Kristina in her than she’d like to believe. Summer doesn’t know about Hunter, Autumn, or their two youngest brothers, Donald and David. To her, family is only abuse at the hands of her father’s girlfriends and a slew of foster parents. Doubt and loneliness overwhelm her, and she, too, teeters on the edge of her mother’s notorious legacy. As each searches for real love and true family, they find themselves pulled toward the one person who links them together—Kristina, Bree, mother, addict. But it is in each other, and in themselves, that they find the trust, the courage, the hope to break the cycle.

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Overview: Fallout is the latest novel in the Crank series, and while I've yet to read a Hopkins' novel I didn't really enjoy, Fallout may have been my least favorite. Now, that being said, I really liked Fallout, it simply fell flat compared to the other novels she's put out there. This novel follow Kristina's children's lives as teenagers. This book is written from each of their views, and since none of them live together, the story lines remained pretty much unconnected until the last 50 pages. Hunter, the oldest, is in college with a girlfriend he cheats on and is doing drugs fairly often. Hunter was my favorite character since he seemed the most human and in-depth. He was also the worst character because of the fact that he thinks drugs aren't going to have the effect on him that they did on his mother. Autumn was sweet, but a little too goody-two-shoes for me. She seemed like she blamed herself for her mother's mistakes and her main problem rooted from her attachment to her boyfriend. Summer was a great character because she also felt real and I felt horrible knowing her history and the fact that she couldn't escape the life she'd been thrust in. All in all, Fallout was a good novel, emotional and poignant, and, as always, detailed in a gritty and raw way. My main complaints were that 1) It seemed like Hopkins was combining a bunch of her previous novels and then changing a few tiny details, making it the least original of her works; and 2) I didn't really see that what Kristina's kids were doing that was so terrible that they felt they were just like her. They weren't being the best kids ever by any means, but they weren't nearly as bad as Kristina ever was. The best part of this novel was the writing, and not because it was Hopkins' best prose, but mostly because nothing else in the novel stood out as much. I'd love to do a full review with seperate paragraphs like I usually do, but I'm writing this from my iPhone and it's hard enough to do one paragraph. I'll just leave you with the fact that Fallout definitely isn't one to miss if you've read the Crank novels or are an Ellen Hopkins fan, but it's not her best work.

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Cover: Since it's just the title, as are all of her covers, I won't rate it. But it's definitely eye-catching.

Characters: 3 stars

Plot: 3 stars

Writing: 4 stars

Overall rating: 3.5 stars