Personal Rating: 1.7 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.55 Stars Individuality vs. Conformity Identity vs. Access Freedom vs. Control The bar code tattoo. Everybody's getting it. It will make your life easier, they say. It will hook you in. It will become your identity. But what if you say no? What if you don't want to become a code? For Kayla, this one choice changes everything. She becomes an outcast in her high school. Dangerous things happen to her family. There's no option but to run...for her life. (goodreads.com) I honestly do not know what to say about this book first. Do I comment on that zombie like figure on the cover? The many errors within the story? The poor writing? Or the hilariousness of how bad it was? I don’t know! So I guess I’ll start with this: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! THIS WAS TOO FUNNY! THE MELODRAMA! THE CHARACTERS! THE ROMANTIC SCENES! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but I can’t stop snickering at this book. It wasn’t that the topic was funny - far from it! It wasn’t like the situations were funny, in fact I don’t think a single joke was cracked throughout the entire book. It was just… the writing. The writing is, how shall I put this nicely? Reminiscent of the writing styles of twelve year old Corrie. And let me tell you, twelve year old me was no prodigy. Okay, okay, it was much better than what I could write when I was a preteen. However, the style was not something I enjoyed. I would like to give you a quote from probably the most romantic scene in the book to give you an idea of what I’m talking about. “She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her cheek against his chest. He embraced her, holding tight. Then she looked up at him and they kissed.” -The Barcode Tattoo, Chapter 22, page 206 And then a little bit later the love interest says: “I love you Kayla, I’ve loved you since the first day we met … I thought I loved you back then, but that was nothing compared to the way I feel about you now.” -The Barcode Tattoo, Chapter 22, page 207 Okay? So you’ve loved her since you met her, but you only thought you loved her because how you felt then is nothing compared to how you feel now? I’m slightly confused. The next paragraph left me even more confuddled. Seriously, take a look: “Kayla listened, growing happier with every word. They were so close now. She’d known since they kissed at the truck stop that day that she loved him - was in love with him and loved him deeply as a person, both. She knew he felt the same. Why else would he have gone through all of this with her? But hearing the words made it so real, so out in the open. And then she heard snoring.” -The Barcode Tattoo, Chapter 22, page 207 Wait, I’m sorry, what? She was in love with him and loved him deeply as a person, both? Can someone please explain this line to me? I seriously am so bewildered by that line. What the heck does it mean (pardon my language)? What? What? WHAT? Was there no better way to word this? None at all? I just… I don’t… I can’t… HUH? And then there is that line about hearing snoring. Now, I don’t want to get too spoilery, but the guy who, moments before, confessed his love for this girl just fell asleep. I’m not kidding. That’s what happened next. He said he loved her and then he fell asleep. Um. Again I am left to ask: what the heck? Let’s talk about the premise of the book, shall we? It’s quite interesting. A dystopian story about a future (not too far a future, it’s set in 2025) where everyone wears these barcode tattoos, which are seemingly awesome. One swipe of this and you’ve paid for whatever you were buying. Get pulled over? Police can just scan your arm rather than worry about a driver’s license. All of your information is in this tattoo so you don’t have to worry about a thing. Oh, and who controls these tats (or ‘toos, as they are referred to in the book)? Global-1, the company who runs pretty much everything in the world, including the American and European governments. And what’s this? For some reason there are people who are desperate to get the ink removed? So desperate that they’ll try and burn it off? But why would anyone want to get rid of something so convenient? Sounds pretty creepy and like an exciting read. Yeah, the idea is great. I’m just not sure it was carried out in the best way possible. While the plot was indeed a bit spooky with all the secrets that get revealed, it also jumped around really fast. One moment we’re worried about school bullies and the next we are trekking through the wilderness. And though it was really easy to follow along with, it seemed a little like info dumping to me. You know how they tell young authors to “show don’t tell”? What they mean by that is “let your readers see a picture of what’s going on without actually giving them any answers”. Unfortunately, in some cases we will have the book basically vomit all of the facts onto the reader (pardon my imagery) and then move on. This was one of those instances. Alright, alright, let’s talk about the characters. Kayla was very grounded in her beliefs. She stuck to her gut and that was admirable. Even when the going got tough and it would have been so easy to give into the peer pressure, she said “no” and did what she thought was right. That’s real good of you, Kayla. Real nicely done. I ran out of positive things to say about her. She was boring. Like, Bella Swan boring. Like, standing in line waiting for a lecture on dirt boring. That’s really the only other thing I can think to say about her though. I didn’t hate her, I just didn’t like her at all. She was dull. The two boys who were important to the plot (there were other boys they just didn’t do anything interesting) were Mfumbe and Zekeal. I cannot say much about them without spoiling things for you, should you chose to read this book for yourself, but apart from one big instance they were basically the same guy. They like the same girl, they are part of the same outcast group, and they don’t do anything but swoop in and save Kayla on a couple of occasions. I feel like the MC’s best friend, Amber, was crucial at some point in the story and then I just kind of forgot she was alive. I’ve heard there are two more books to the series and maybe that’s when Amber shows up again, but I don’t think she’s doing much that’s relevant so who knows if she’ll ever be mentioned again. I should probably calm down a bit and stop ranting about this book, but I found it so funny. The writing style had me in giggles and rolling my eyes the whole way through. The sporadic and intense plotline was a teensy weensy bit over the top (I wish I could tell you the shocking discovery Kayla makes about herself, but that’s a spoiler), and it just made me laugh how often the direction changed. One minute we’re in the hospital and the next we are driving to Canada at 140 mph! Then we find out that Kayla is actually - oh, right, spoilers. Sorry. Despite this book’s many, many, many, many flaws I enjoyed it heartily. It was so absurd that I couldn’t help but like and hate it. However, I don’t think I will be reading the next two books in the series. Thanks for listening to me go on and on about this dorky book. I hope if you read it you get as much enjoyment out of it as I did. If you read my next post or left a comment that would be totally “final level”! Image: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/592089.The_Bar_Code_Tattoo
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Personal Rating: 4 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.91 Stars Life in the outer realm is a lawless, dirty, hard existence, and Solara Brooks is hungry for it. Just out of the orphanage, she needs a fresh start in a place where nobody cares about the engine grease beneath her fingernails or the felony tattoos across her knuckles. She's so desperate to reach the realm that she's willing to indenture herself to Doran Spaulding, the rich and popular quarterback who made her life miserable all through high school, in exchange for passage aboard the spaceliner Zenith. When a twist of fate lands them instead on the Banshee, a vessel of dubious repute, Doran learns he's been framed on Earth for conspiracy. As he pursues a set of mysterious coordinates rumored to hold the key to clearing his name, he and Solara must get past their enmity to work together and evade those out for their arrest. Life on the Banshee may be tumultuous, but as Solara and Doran are forced to question everything they once believed about their world—and each other—the ship becomes home, and the eccentric crew family. But what Solara and Doran discover on the mysterious Planet X has the power to not only alter their lives, but the existence of everyone in the universe... (goodreads.com) Dang, whoever does Melissa Lander’s covers is amazing! I thought the cover for Alienated was cool and then I saw this one and I just about swooned. It’s even prettier in person because the golden trail has little gold flecks throughout it that shimmer and sparkle. IT’S JUST SO PRETTY, MAN! Pardon my outburst, but I really like shiny covers. Oh, and the content was pretty good too. Okay, so this book was really fun to read. Some parts of it felt a little bit like they were borrowed from The Lunar Chronicles, but on the whole it was a fun, fresh space adventure. In some ways it reminded me of Guardians of the Galaxy, which is certainly not a bad thing. (I’m also kind of in a Guardians mood because I just watched the second one and I’m still fangirling over it like crazy. It was hilarious and wonderful.) To be sure, there were parts that had me cringing and at times I kinda just wanted to put the book down, but for the most part I enjoyed the antics of the crew and the main characters. Plotwise, the story was great. For some reason it made me think of a space Moana. I enjoyed the pirates, planets, and scientific shenanigans. I feel like it would have made a good musical. It was lighthearted, but had enough serious tones that it didn’t feel cheesy. Solara was fun, I guess, she seemed a bit to close to Cinder for comfort, but she did have her own personality. Her past was given to us neatly and without over explanation. Sometimes she made dumb mistakes, but they seemed like mistakes that any teenager could make. In that way her flaws were relatable. Doran was not my favorite guy at the beginning. In fact, you could even say that I didn’t like him. Perhaps I even loathed his posh boy attitude and demeaning nature. But good characters have a way of changing. By the end I almost liked him more than I liked Solara. Of course there were some parts of him that still had me rolling my eyes, but it was nice to see him grow as a character. Cleanliness for this book was about what I expected from a Melissa Landers book. Pushing the limits of PG-13 is the best way to describe her writing, but still a PG-13. Language was not fantastic, and innuendos and romantic smoochy smooch were noticeable. It wasn’t intolerable, but it does kind of put a damper on my enjoyment of the story. There was one line in the story that I actually blacked out with marker (don’t worry, it was my copy, not the library’s) because, though it was meant in fun, it was not a line I thought necessary to the book or even like something that the characters would have said. It kind of felt like Melissa Landers threw it in there to make fun of Christianity. So, yeah, I blacked it out because I figured it’s my personal copy and I can censor things for myself if I want. It’s not like I’m forcing everyone to black out that line. I just didn’t approve of it for myself so I covered it up. And, yes, I did feel kind of bad about marking a book. To summarize: I really liked this book, I thought it was a good read, and I recommend it to people who like sci-fi space stories. Or friendship stories. Or piratey stories. Or just because the cover is gorgeous. Thanks for reading my second post in one week (you might be wondering at this point if I’ve been replaced by some sort of writing machine, but fear not it’s still me… though I could be programmed to tell you that). I hope you enjoyed it and that I won’t be too long in posting another one! Until next time mis amigos. VWOOSH! (That was me flying by in my spaceship.) Image: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21793182-starflight Personal Rating: 2.8 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.41 Stars You ever open your locker and find that some joker has left something really weird inside? Seventh-grader Dorso Clayman opens his locker door to find a dead body. Thirty seconds later it disappears. It’s not the first bizarre thing that has appeared in his locker and then vanished. Something’s going on. Somebody has decided to make Dorso and his buddy Frank the target of some strange techno-practical jokes. The ultimate gamesters have hacked into the time line, and things from the past are appearing in the present. Soon, the jokes aren’t funny anymore—they’re dangerous. Dorso and Frank have got to beat the time hackers at their own game by breaking the code, before they get lost in the past themselves. (goodreads.com) I picked up this skinny little book at a booksale at one of the libraries I frequent, saw it was about time travel, and decided to give it a shot. While I was not really disappointed in the book, that could have been because I wasn’t really expecting much from it in the first place. The book itself is only 87 pages long and the text is pretty big so I already wasn’t expecting much from the plot. The characters were kind of boring, being stereotypical static young teen boys. But it was a pleasant enough way to occupy my brain during my lunch break. If you do decide to pick up this book for yourself, I would highly recommend you don’t eat anything during the first few pages. The description of the things found in Dorso’s locker are somewhat vivid. And when you are trying a dubious smelling microwave meal to begin with, it might make you lose your appetite. Just saying. Dorso and his pal, Frank, are rather dull characters. It’s one of those stories where the characters acting out the plot don’t matter as much as the plot itself. We hardly got to know any of the people in this book. Really, all we know about Frank is that he wants to try and look at naked ladies. That’s pretty much everything I know about Frank. So yeah… gross, Frank, go look at dinosaurs instead. We do see some of Dorso’s home life, but just in the teeniest snatches. And the other few characters that get thrown in are really boring. I think my favorite was Dorso’s little sister and she was barely in it. On a side note, for some reason my brain can't pronounce Dorso's name as Dorso, it reads it as Dorito. So if we are ever having a face to face discussion about this book forgive me if I talk about delicious chips and not a seventh grade boy. The plot was interesting enough to keep me reading. I wanted to see what was going to happen next and who was behind all of the time hacking. The ending was anticlimactic in my opinion and very convenient. Resolving itself by way of many coincidences and accidents, the ending was almost hard to follow along with. I think for a book that relied so heavily on its plot to keep the story interesting it should have had a more in depth plot. Of course, the book was only 87 pages, so maybe it did a brilliant job for such a short story. Then again, some of my “learning to read” books were shorter than this and had better characters and more riveting plots. Regardless, it wasn’t so boring that I put it down and, like I said, it wasn’t as if I was expecting much from this book to begin with, so it was… okay. Relatively. I’d recommend this book for maybe third and fourth graders, I feel like they might enjoy it more than I did. For anyone seventh grade and up, it’s kind of a long shot that you’ll like it I think. Thanks for reading this short review for this short book. I hope my next review won’t be so far in the future as this one was from my last one. I have Thursdays off now so I’m thinking I might try to post every week again. We’ll see how it goes I guess. (You know and I both know that I stink at sticking to schedules.) See you in the future my friends! Image: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2919.The_Time_Hackers |
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