Tesla's Attic (Accelerati Trilogy #1) by Neal Shusterman and Eric Elfman

Hey, guys!  I read this back in January and am just now posting about it.  Sorry.  But the second book, Edison's Alley, came out very recently, so I thought I'd go ahead and post a little something!

I enjoyed this book.  It was creative and fun.  It's probably important to keep in mind that this book's target audience is probably middle schoolers, though I enjoyed it as a high schooler.  Just keep the fact that it might be a tad juvenile in mind (though it really won't affect your enjoyment of this book).
I read this book mainly because Neal Shusterman helped write it.  He is one of my top three favorite authors of all time, and I love everything he writes.

The Cover:

The Cover:
It shows Nick and Caitlyn as they try to defeat the Accelerati.  I honestly don't have an opinion on the cover.  It doesn't stand out, but it's also not too mundane.

Official Description
Tesla's Attic is the first book in a brilliantly imagined and hilariously written trilogy that combines science, magic, intrigue, and just plain weirdness, about four kids who are caught up in a dangerous plan concocted by the eccentric inventor Nikola Tesla.
After their home burns down, fourteen-year-old Nick, his younger brother, and their father move into a ramshackle Victorian house they've inherited. When Nick opens the door to his attic room, he's hit in the head by a toaster. That's just the beginning of his weird experiences with the old junk stored up there. After getting rid of the odd antiques in a garage sale, Nick befriends some local kids-Mitch, Caitlin, and Vincent-and they discover that all of the objects have extraordinary properties. What's more, Nick figures out that the attic is a strange magnetic vortex, which attracts all sorts of trouble. It's as if the attic itself has an intelligence . . . and a purpose.
Ultimately Nick learns that the genius Nikola Tesla placed the items-his last inventions-in the attic as part of a larger plan that he mathematically predicted. Nick and his new friends must retrieve everything that was sold at the garage sale and keep it safe. But the task is fraught with peril-in addition to the dangers inherent in Tesla's mysterious and powerful creations, a secret society of physicists, the Accelerati, is determined to stop Nick and alter destiny to achieve its own devious ends. It's a lot for a guy to handle, especially when he'd much rather fly under the radar as the new kid in town.
Fans of intrigue, action, humor, and nonstop surprises are guaranteed a read unlike any other in Tesla's Attic, Book One of the Accelerati Trilogy.

My Review:
It was a silly book, but I loved it. I laughed out loud at times and got really into the plot. Also, I'm a huge Tesla fan, so how could I not love a book that frequently mentions him! I strongly recommend it.  If you want to have a light, fun read, I would strongly recommend Tesla's Attic!

Phrase:
Quick! Say something smart!

Currently Reading: Giants, Creatures, and Princes

Hey, guys! This is just a quick update.  I haven't read anything new, yet, but I'm about a third of the way through three different books.

Giants:
I'm reading The Giant's House by Elizabeth McCracken.  It's about a librarian and a boy who cannot stop growing.  It's really deep, ironic, and interesting.  I'm a fan so far!  More to come.

Creatures:
I started the sequeling series to Beautiful Creatures.  It's called Dangerous Creatures.  I haven't read much yet, but I love these authors' writing style and have high expectations.

Princes:
I'm still reading The Little Prince in French and still hating it.  I just don't get it, guys...

Well, that's it for now! I'll see you in three days!

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Phantom (The Vampire Diaries: The Hunters #1) by "LJ Smith" 4/5 stars

Hey, guys!  So I just finished Phantom, the first book in the fourth Vampire Diaries spin-off that I'm still reading for some reason...  If you missed my first few reviews here they are.  Come back once you've caught up!

Original Vampire Diaries Series Review

Nightfall (The Return #1)

Shadow Souls (The Return #2)

Midnight (The Return #3)

Origins (Stefan's Diaries #1)

Bloodlust and The Craving (Stefan's Diaries 2-3)

The Ripper, The Asylum, and The Compelled (Stefan's Diaries 4-6)

Wow, that's a lot of books.  While I don't think these book deserve any more sequels, they keep coming, and, I guess, I keep reading them.

Phantom, and all of the other Vampire Diaries books, aren't really good nor bad.  They are simply decent, quick reads.  I would not go so far as to recommend them, but if you want to, I will not stop you, like I haven't yet stopped myself.

The Cover:

The Cover:

I did not expect much from this cover and didn't receive much.  It just shows half of a girls face (I'm not even sure which girl's!), as is with the tend for books aimed at teenage girls in this day and age.  Not a fan.

Official Description:

The past is never far. . . .
Elena Gilbert and her friends saved Fell’s Church from evil spirits bent on destroying it, but the town’s freedom came at a price: Damon Salvatore’s life.
Damon’s death changes everything. He and his vampire brother, Stefan, had been locked in a vicious battle for Elena’s heart. Now that he’s gone, Elena and Stefan can finally be together. So why can’t Elena stop dreaming of Damon?
As Elena’s feelings for Damon grow, a new darkness is brewing in Fell’s Church. Elena has been to hell and back, but this demon is like nothing she’s ever seen. Its only goal is to kill Elena and everyone she loves.

My Review:
It was much better than the Return series was. Whether this was because of the situation or the author-change, I don't know.  In case you didn't know, this book and all of the other Vampire Diaries related books from this point forwards are written by ghost-writers, AKA not LJ Smith.  She apparently got fired from writing her own books.  While I am outraged about this in principle, I'm ashamed to say that it was the right move for the series.  It was so much better than the train-wreck that was The Return.
Really, nothing has really changed character-wise.  Elena is irritating, everyone is jealous of each other, and love triangles and fights ensue.  This particular book had an interesting villain, though.  I'm not saying what it was because there is some mystery involved, but I think you guys will like it.

That's all for now.  With summer coming up though, do you guys have any recommendations for books to read?  Comment below with your favorites, and I'll try to read a bunch of them!

Phrase:
An unexpected graduation

Happy Reading!

Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges Trilogy #1) by Stephen King 4/5 stars

Hey, guys!  So, I am in a bit of a reading rut right now, so I though I'd go ahead and review a book that I read back in September, Mr. Mercedes.  Enjoy!

Before I actually start this review, I just noticed that this book was the first in a series.  What?!?!  This was, and will never be, a series book.  I'm just completely floored and kind of offended to be honest.  Anyway, so on to the rest of the review.

The Cover:

We need to touch on how beautiful the cover is. The generic idea of it is an umbrella with a creepy smiley face on the handle protecting from raining blood. However, once I started reading I realized the umbrella is Debbie's Blue Umbrella! (If that isn't significant to you before reading, it will soon.)

Official Description:
In the frigid pre-dawn hours, in a distressed Midwestern city, hundreds of desperate unemployed folks are lined up for a spot at a job fair. Without warning, a lone driver plows through the crowd in a stolen Mercedes, running over the innocent, backing up, and charging again. Eight people are killed; fifteen are wounded. The killer escapes.
In another part of town, months later, a retired cop named Bill Hodges is still haunted by the unsolved crime. When he gets a crazed letter from someone who self-identifies as the "perk" and threatens an even more diabolical attack, Hodges wakes up from his depressed and vacant retirement, hell-bent on preventing another tragedy.
Brady Hartfield lives with his alcoholic mother in the house where he was born. He loved the feel of death under the wheels of the Mercedes, and he wants that rush again.
Only Bill Hodges, with a couple of highly unlikely allies, can apprehend the killer before he strikes again. And they have no time to lose, because Brady’s next mission, if it succeeds, will kill or maim thousands.
Mr. Mercedes is a war between good and evil, from the master of suspense whose insight into the mind of this obsessed, insane killer is chilling and unforgettable.

My Review:
Mr. Mercedes was a good book. It started off a little slow with a few things happening, but those things were not terribly exciting (for the most part). However, in the last half of the book, it really picked up! I enjoyed the storyline a great deal. 
However, the characters were more of a problem. Quite a few were well developed characters with some development, but, at the same time, others were incredibly one dimensional. Some characters simply seemed a little limp in comparison to the others. Also, Janey's entire character was for the purpose of (SPOILER: having sex with Hodges).
Also, every single decision Hodges made was insanely stupid. He must of gone to the school of Let's not Ask for Backup!
I, generally, am not a fan of crime books where the story is told from alternating point-of-views between the cop and the criminal.  It tends to ruin the suspense for me as well as slowing the story down.  Sadly, this was the case in Mr. Mercedes.  I was a little disappointed in that regard, but it was definitely still a good book.  I think that I just got my hopes up too high.
All of these little grievances aside, I did enjoy reading Mr. Mercedes. I LOVED the ending! If I did it over again, I would still read it. On the other hand, it is most certainly not the best Stephen King book I've read. Try Misery and 11/22/63 before you move on to Mr. Mercedes.

Phrase:
Under Debbie's Blue Umbrella

Happy Reading!

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell 5/5 stars

Hey, guys! I haven't read anything new yet, so I thought I'd quickly cover Eleanor & Park, a great book that I never posted a review about!  I had heard that this book was great so I gave it a shot and did not regret it.

The Cover:

The Cover:
I love this cover.  It shows Eleanor and Park sitting on the bus, listening to music.  I like how the cords form the ampersand (&).  A+ cover

Official Description:
Two misfits.
One extraordinary love.
Eleanor... Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough...Eleanor.
Park... He knows she'll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises...Park.
Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.

Alternate Official Description:
Eleanor is the new girl in town, and with her chaotic family life, her mismatched clothes and unruly red hair, she couldn't stick out more if she tried.
Park is the boy at the back of the bus. Black T-shirts, headphones, head in a book - he thinks he's made himself invisible. But not to Eleanor... never to Eleanor.
Slowly, steadily, through late-night conversations and an ever-growing stack of mix tapes, Eleanor and Park fall for each other. They fall in love the way you do the first time, when you're young, and you feel as if you have nothing and everything to lose.

My Review:
This book was just too cute. I would be reading it and then be surprised that I was grinning from ear to ear. It was also kinda deep. I loved the characters. They were really well executed and realistic.
There were three stages of Eleanor and Park.
1. This book is so cute! I ship Eleanor and Park so much!
2. Man, Eleanor's home life is awful... But they are still really cute together! 
3. Everything hits the fan
Highly recommend! I recommend it enough that I plan on reading all the other books by this author.

Phrase:
Karate kicked him in the face!

Happy Reading!

If I Fall, If I Die by Michael Christie 4.5/5 stars

Hey, guys! I just finished reading If I Fall, If I Die by Michael Christie (I apologize for accidentally calling it "If I Fall, I Die" earlier) and I really enjoyed it.  It was just a really interesting idea for a book that was well told.
(Note: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review)
The Cover:

The Cover:
The cover shows our protagonist, Will, stepping outside for the first time.  It's a decent cover, though not stellar.  It also has the horrid "A Novel" subtitle, my pet peeve.

Official Description:

A heartfelt and wondrous debut, by a supremely gifted and exciting new voice in fiction.

Will has never been to the outside, at least not since he can remember. And he has certainly never gotten to know anyone other than his mother, a fiercely loving yet wildly eccentric agoraphobe who drowns in panic at the thought of opening the front door. Their little world comprises only the rooms in their home, each named for various exotic locales and filled with Will's art projects. Soon the confines of his world close in on Will. Despite his mother's protestations, Will ventures outside clad in a protective helmet and braces himself for danger. He eventually meets and befriends Jonah, a quiet boy who introduces Will to skateboarding. Will welcomes his new world with enthusiasm, his fears fading and his body hardening with each new bump, scrape, and fall. But life quickly gets complicated. When a local boy goes missing, Will and Jonah want to uncover what happened. They embark on an extraordinary adventure that pulls Will far from the confines of his closed-off world and into the throes of early adulthood and the dangers that everyday life offers. If I Fall, if I Die is a remarkable debut full of dazzling prose, unforgettable characters, and a poignant and heartfelt depiction of coming of age.

My Review:
I enjoyed this book.  And was surprised by how different and interesting it was to have the main character's mother have agoraphobia (the fear of the outside).  It complicated his Will's life so much and allowed everything in the world that we take for granted to be seen in a completely different light.  
The beginning of this book, when Will was just aquatinting himself with the Outside contained some of the best, funniest, most awkward scenes that I had ever read in a book.  It was absolute gold.  Yet, later in the book, there was drama and action.  It contained a little piece of everything.
The characters were complex.  Really complex.  Like wow.  Will was complex, obviously as the main character, but his mom was also incredibly complicated.  I could understand her madness, which I consider to be a great literary achievement.  
My complaint about this book though was the fact that it got confusing at times.  I am 99% sure that this was purposeful confusion, but spending twenty pages trying to find out who a man was and having no idea can be pretty frustrating.  Also, in the beginning, the terms that Will and his mom used were really confusing.  For example, they would talk about the "Black Lagoon" and I couldn't tell what it meant.  I am kind of glad that it took effort to understand these things though because (1) It was very satisfying when you found out and (2) It added to the mystery/suspense element.  
Overall, this was a unique book that I found worth reading.  If you want to read a book that has a different perspective on the world, give it a read!

Quote:

"'I got my brother Enoch to call the school this morning so that I could sleep in.  Last time it was the house fire, this time I have scoliosis.' 
'You never had a fire?'
'No.  I just wanted to stay home for a while to study and draw. I learn twice as fast when I'm not in that classroom.  But I was, like, 'Enoch, you could've just said I had mono, dumbass.''"

Phrase:
Helmets and garden hoses

Happy Reading!

Alcatraz vs the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson 5/5 stars

Alert: Stop! Do not go away because of this title!

Hey, guys! I haven't yet read anything new so I thought I'd cover an old favorite, that I think is terribly underrated.  Alcatraz Vs the Evil Librarians was one of the funniest, and most worth-reading books I've ever read.  It's at the level that I managed to convince my real-life friends to read it (they don't read much), and they loved it!  All I ask is that you give this book a chance, at least in this review.

It is true that I have already reviewed this book, but I am both dissatisfied with the job that 12-year-old me did and want to celebrate the eventual release of book five.

Anyway, I was really skeptical to begin this book because I think that I thought I was too cool to read a book with this title.  (Who was I kidding?)  I reluctantly picked it up and started reading and couldn't stop.  It is just fantastic!  It's the first book in a five book long series; however, there was a few year long pause between books four and five because the author also writes New York Times bestselling books for adults.  Imagine taking the writing style of Lemony Snicket (Series of Unfortunate Events) and combining it with a first person book and fantasy.

The Cover:

The Cover:
I really hate this cover.  It's just so lame.  Sure, it has the main character, Alcatraz Smedry, wearing glasses (significant!) in a library.  I feel like it could be better, but at least it has something to do with the book's plot.

Official Description:
A hero with an incredible talent...for breaking things. A life-or-death mission...to rescue a bag of sand. A fearsome threat from a powerful secret network...the evil Librarians. 
Alcatraz Smedry doesn't seem destined for anything but disaster. On his 13th birthday he receives a bag of sand, which is quickly stolen by the cult of evil Librarians plotting to take over the world. The sand will give the Librarians the edge they need to achieve world domination. Alcatraz must stop them!...by infiltrating the local library, armed with nothing but eyeglasses and a talent for klutzines

My Addition to the Description/ Review:
In order to understand, you all need examples of this book.
The Talents in these books are FANTASTIC! The talent of breaking things is not just a simple "talent".  It's extreme.  For example, at one point, a man points a gun at Alcatraz and the gun breaks apart.  Alcatraz's grandpa also has the talent of... being late?  Sounds awful, right? Meetings are terrible, until you realize that you can be falling out of a plane and be late on hitting the ground. Therefore, not dying, just being a little bruised.
I wrote like ten more examples and erased them because you need to be surprised.
You will rather love this book or despise it.  It will rather seem hilarious or very stupid or both.  I suggest reading the first few pages to get a feel of the book.  You will know early on if which type of person you will be.
I have a pet peeve of first-person books that don't explain how/why the person is recording the story; however, this was one of the only books that bothers to explain itself.  (Note: I cannot remember when/ in what book it explains it, so sorry if its not book one.)  I really appreciated that.
The writing style was, for lack of a better word, sassy.  It's just really ironic/critical/self-aware (similar to Lemony Snicket/ Obert Skye).

Basically, this book was, surprisingly, not awful and actually pretty fantastic!  I consider one of my missions in life to increase the popularity for this book/series.  It is not appreciated nearly as much as it should be!

In related news, I joined Brandon Sanderson's newsletter a few years ago so that if he ever wrote book 5, I would know.  Usually all the notices are about his adult series that I haven't read.  Yet.  However, a few months ago, he released the first chapter of book five solely on the newsletter.  This, of course, was beyond exciting.  Even though it will be forever until I can read the next book, I am pretty hyped.  Make that really hyped.

Happy Reading!

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Currently Reading: French Philosophy and Phobias

Hey, guys! Sorry I'm off on posting.  I haven't been able to finish any new books because life's been hectic.  I'm currently reading two different books.  One is a book that I'm reading in french class, Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince), and the other is If I Fall, I Die which is actually a pretty cool book. I'll post a full review of both later, so this is just a mid-reading update.

The Little Prince (you can also find this in English) by Antoine de Saint-Exupery:

I despise this book.  Apparently, it is the second most popular book in France, second only to the Bible. This makes me think that France (no offense, guys) rather has few readers or few books.  I just do not understand its appeal.  I am a third of the way through the book and all that has happened is that the narrator has complained about how terrible and unimaginative adults were, when he, himself, is an adult.  It is almost as if it is told in alternating chapters.  The odd chapters he complains about adults.  The even chapters he tells a story about meeting a kid (a little prince) in the desert who is from a different planet.
Did that last sentence spark your interest?  Yes?  It shouldn't.  Basically all of their encounters involve the kid asking the narrator about sheep.  Yes.  Sheep.  Rather drawing sheep or asking if sheep eat flowers, this little prince seems to love them.
I just find myself becoming upset with how poorly done this book is.  Maybe something is lost in my translation from French to English, but everyone else in my class seems to also hate it.
It might get better.  I'll let you know when we finish!

If I Fall, I Die by Michael Christie:

This book is the one that I am choosing to read.  I've only read a few chapters but I am really enjoying it.  The premise is that this teenage boy, Will, has never gone outside his house because his mom has a paralyzing fear of the outside.  He grew out thinking that the outside (and to some degree, the inside) was impossibly dangerous.  Until, one day, he goes outside and nothing happens. He is not immediately killed and all still seems fine.  This sparks a desire to keep going outside, but his mom is a total wreck about the whole situation.... (This is as far as I've gotten.)
The way that it's told is really interesting.  The writing style is fantastic, and even though the story has not really begun, I am hooked.
For the record, I've only just begun this book, but I am sure that it's going to be fantastic and would already recommend it.  Full review to come!

Happy Reading!

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