The Amazing Book is Not On Fire by Dan Howell and Phil Lester 5/5 stars

Hey, guys!  So, this is a change of pace.  The youtube sensations Dan and Phil wrote this book about their lives in a scrapbook style.  This is different from most books I review here, but I was indecisive about whether or not to read it, so I thought I'd review it to help people like me.  If you have no idea who they are, maybe skip this review.
The Cover:

The Cover:
I love this cover/ title combo.  It combines both Dan and Phil's usernames (danisnotonfire and AmazingPhil) and adds "book" in as well.  The cover just tells you what you are going to get.  Solid A cover.

Official Description:
Hello reader,
In this book is a world. A world created by two awkward guys who share their lives on the internet!
We are Dan and Phil and we invite you on a journey inside our minds! From the stories of our actual births, to exploring Phil's teenage diary and all the reasons why Dan's a fail.
Learn how to draw the perfect cat whiskers, get advice on what to do in an awkward situation and discover which of our dining chairs represents you emotionally. With everything from what we text each other, to the time we met One Direction and what really happened in Vegas...

My Review:
I really enjoyed The Amazing Book is Not on Fire.  You definitely have to be a fan of Dan and Phil's youtube channels to have it make any sense, of course you're probably not interested in it if you are not.  The way its formatted is that about half the book is full of various multiple page long stories and the other half is more of a scrapbook style with side conversations between Dan and Phil and various other small "sketches" such as the guide to draw the perfect cat whiskers.  
It was a fun read, very light.  It is more of a coffee table book (meaning that it has about 2-3 page segments that you can spread out) than a novel, so keep that in mind.  
Overall, it was a really enjoyable read.  The book included sections such as Dan and Phil's university years, fanfictions they wrote about themselves, and the lifestories of Becky and Jessica.
I would recommend it only if you are already a fan of theirs and realize that it's not a full novel and is formatted differently.  I'm glad I read it!

Happy Reading!

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Beauty Queens by Libba Bray 3.5/ 5 stars

Hey, guys!  I just finished listening to the audiobook of Beauty Queens by Libba Bray.  I was reading it for my school's book club, and I did not enjoy it.  It started off pretty good, but it tried to get too deep and the plot went into a downward spiral.
The Cover:

The Cover:
It's a decent cover.  It shows a beauty queen with two sashes, one of the title and the other of lipstick like machine gun bullets.  Solid B cover.

Official Description:

When a plane crash strands thirteen teen beauty contestants on a mysterious island, they struggle to survive, to get along with one another, to combat the island's other diabolical occupants, and to learn their dance numbers in case they are rescued in time for the competition.Written by Libba Bray, the hilarious, sensational, Printz Award-winning author of A Great and Terrible Beauty and Going Bovine. The result is a novel that will make you laugh, make you think, and make you never see beauty the same way again.

My Review:

This book started off strong, but quickly spiraled downhill.  I loved the hilarity of the book.  Thirteen beauty queens must survive on an island while half are more invested in practicing walking down the runway than finding food and shelter.  However, halfway through the book, the author decided that it was more important to make a political point than to have an entertaining plot.

On the "political" aspect of this book, I think it went overboard.  The diversity (in gender, sexuality, etc.) of the characters was forced.  Literally all groups were covered and pushed.  The relationships between the characters did not seem natural and were forced in order to prove a point about lesbian relationships.  Don't get me wrong, I love diversity in books.  It was refreshing in a way to have this cast of characters, but I thought it cheapened the book and was awkward and forced.  

In the same vein, the characters were irritating.  This might have been because of there forced "political" aspects or their general one-dimensionality, but either way there were flat characters who were not very interesting.  

I loved the humor of the book, though.  It was an entertaining and light read for the most part.  

I wouldn't read it again or recommend it to you guys.  I wasn't a fan, though I could understand if you did like it.  It tried too hard to teach a lesson and lost track of the story.

Happy Reading!

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This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp 4/5 stars

Hey, guys!  I just finished This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp today.  I had some mixed feeling about it in the beginning but ended up really enjoying it.  If you love suspense, this is a great book!  (Warning: It can be violent at times.)
The Cover:

The Cover:
I really like this cover.  It shows pieces of chalk being obliterated by a bullet with the title written in chalk.  I like it.  The subheader, in case you can't read it, says, "Everyone has a reason to fear the boy with the gun."  A+ cover

Official Description:
10:00 a.m.
The principal of Opportunity, Alabama's high school finishes her speech, welcoming the entire student body to a new semester and encouraging them to excel and achieve.
10:02 a.m.
The students get up to leave the auditorium for their next class.
10:03
The auditorium doors won't open.
10:05
Someone starts shooting.
Told over the span of 54 harrowing minutes from four different perspectives, terror reigns as one student's calculated revenge turns into the ultimate game of survival.

My Review:
First, I need to talk about this books formatting.  It's told from the alternating first-person perspectives of four students at Opportunity High on the day of a school shooting.  Each POV only lasts for about a page and a half, and each chapter is a set of all the characters' POV over the course of about two minutes of story-time.  This makes it very confusing to keep track of the characters for the first few chapters, but them adds to the suspense and keeps the tension up as the story progresses.  After most chapters will be texts or tweets that are being exchanged between minor characters of the story.  I understand Nijkamp's choice but wish it had been written in third person instead of first person.  
Each of the characters have a unique relationship with the shooter, which gives a neat perspective on all of the events.  The characters were interesting, though I feel like their life-stories were a bit forced and added some unnecessary expositional pages to the book.  That being said, I loved the interactions between the characters.  It was a great decision to compare Sylv and her brother to Autumn and hers. 
The plot was great.  It somehow managed to stay suspenseful constantly.  It can get extremely intense at times.
Overall, I would recommend it if you can handle violence/suspense and remember that it gets better once you understand who the characters are. 

I just checked and This Is Where It Ends doesn't come out until January 5, 2016.  
(I got it a while ago from the folks at Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.)

If you liked this book, you may also like:
Rage by Stephen King
Misery by Stephen King
The Long Walk by Stephen King
(or really any Stephen King book)

Happy Reading!

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Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman 5/5 stars

Hey, guys!  This week, I listened to the audiobook of one of the coolest books I've ever read.  Seriously, it's kind of mind blowing.  I was a bit skeptical at first, which is why I've waited so long to read it because it sounded kind of different than most books.  It was, and it was awesome!
Neal Shusterman is one of my favorite author.  His books are really deep, funny, and thought-provoking, so I knew this book would be at least really good.  I wasn't expected the majesty that was this book though.

Anyways, the cover:

The Cover:
This is a cool cover.  It really depicts Caden's mind really well.  The phrase coming from the string : "The bottom is only the beginning" describes both Caden's mental state and his trips on the sea with the Captain.  The title refers to the bottom of Marianna's Trench.  A+ cover

Official Description (which I don't like):
Caden Bosch is on a ship that's headed for the deepest point on Earth: Challenger Deep, the southern part of the Marianas Trench.


Caden Bosch is a brilliant high school student whose friends are starting to notice his odd behavior.


Caden Bosch is designated the ship's artist in residence, to document the journey with images.

Caden Bosch pretends to join the school track team but spends his days walking for miles, absorbed by the thoughts in his head.

Caden Bosch is split between his allegiance to the captain and the allure of mutiny.

Caden Bosch is torn.

A captivating and powerful novel that lingers long beyond the last page, Challenger Deep is a heartfelt tour de force by one of today's most admired writers for teens.


My Description (simplified):
Challenger Deep is told in alternating segments (of about three chapters each) between Caden in his normal life (where it slowly becomes apparent that he is losing his mind) and his mind/delusions of himself on a ship going  to dive down the Marianna's Trench.  

My Review:
This book was just really cool.  I don't want to spoil anything for you, so this will be very general.  Know that I recommend this book was a passion though.  It was amazing.
As the book continue along, the two alternating worlds/ stories became more and more linked and connected.  They started to blend together slowly, and Caden's circumstances became more and more clear as you start discovering new stories.  Neal Shusterman doesn't just present you with these connections.  They slowly become more and more apparent until you connect them yourself and are blown away.  (Don't worry, after a little while it is declared, so I promise you won't be confused.)  The story with the Captain also contained some really neat symbolism.  That is not something I normally notice or like at all, but it was so artful that I couldn't help but love it.  All of this was really well done.  
The characters were also really complicated and complex.  Caden is the only character we are fully exposed to.  He is a very relatable character, in spite of his position.  The other characters contain complexity too, but Caden doesn't react enough with the other characters to discover too much about them.
The plot was fast-moving, which is surprising for such a mentally oriented book.  It definitely got me hooked.  When you start this book, give it a few chapters before you judge it though.  It may start off a bit confusing (it's sort of the point), so you need to adjust a bit before deciding for/against Challenger Deep.
This is the part where I usually say things that I didn't like about a book.  I have nothing.  Maybe if you actively hate gaining a new perspective from a book, don't read this one?  
I'd strongly recommend Challenger Deep to anyone looking for a well-written, insightful, funny, and deep novel.  Trust me, this is a great book.

Audiobook Review:
This is one of the best audiobooks I've listened to.  Michael Curran-Dorsano (the narrator) did a fantastic job.  I have no complaints.

Phrase:
Moping the brains off the deck.

Phrase I said the most often while reading:
Aw, honey.

More Books By Neal Shusterman:
The Schwa Was Here
Antsy Does Time (sequel to The Schwa Was Here)
Downsiders
The Shadow Club
The Shadow Club Rising (sequel to The Shadow Club)
Speeding Bullet
The Dark Side of Nowhere
Unwholly (Unwind #2)
Undivided (Unwind #4)
Tesla's Attic
Edison's Alley (sequel to Tesla's Attic)

Happy Reading!

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Feed by M.T. Anderson 4/5 stars

Hey, guys!  I listened to Feed on an audiobook, so I apologize for any spelling mistakes, but I'll include an review of the audiobook's style at the end of this review!
For the first three quarters of this book, I was not engaged.  It was kind of boring and heavy on its political message (more on that later).  However, the last quarter of this book was amazing.  It was one of the best and most organic endings I've ever read.  It was so good, in fact, that it bumped my rating of the whole book up to four stars.  Feed is definitely an interesting book to analyze, but it isn't as good for casual reading.
The Cover:

The Cover:

It shows a normal human during later events of this book, Titus, completely bald and with the Feed (a kind of built-in computer) stuck into his head.  The words on the cover are from the first page or so of the book.  It's won quite a few awards, as you can see, which I think were justified.  It's one of those books that you finish and feel like you've earned an insight into human society.  Overall, the cover is straightforward and interesting.  It's intriguing, but not insightful.  Overall A- cover

Official Description:

Identity crises, consumerism, and star-crossed teenage love in a futuristic society where people connect to the Internet via feeds implanted in their brains.
For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon - a chance to party during spring break and play with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires. Following in the footsteps of George Orwell, Anthony Burgess, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr., M. T. Anderson has created a not-so-brave new world — and a smart, savage satire that has captivated readers with its view of an imagined future that veers unnervingly close to the here and now.

My Review:
I'd heard about this book for years and just now decided to read it.  I wish that I hadn't waited so long because I felt like I had already read it.  Feed was published back in 2004 but with all of the dystopian books popular now it was just kind of repetitive (although it was first).  I feel like I would have appreciated it more if I wasn't as familiar with all of these more recent books.
Feed was an objectively good book.  I finished reading it and I felt that I had actually gained something from reading it.  I think it'd be a good book for schools to teach as well or maybe even a book club.  It deserves to be at least slightly analyzed.  However, for just a casual read, it can be a bit slow.  Still good, but slow.
The narration style was interesting.  It was told like a conservation, slightly stream of conscious.  It was in first person and used future-slang constantly in a way that actually wasn't confusing.  Also, sometimes the dialogue was introduced in a way similar to, "and Marty was like, "Unit!"".  It was really neat to have the style be like that and added to the book.  It felt a lot more intimate, for lack of a better word.  Of course, at the end of the book, that choice makes perfect sense in a beautiful way.
The characters were... interesting.  I thought that M.T. Anderson did a nice job on Titus, the main character who is only mostly brainwashed by consumerist America.  He was complex and was mostly predictable (which is kind of the whole point of the book) until sometimes he wasn't.  Titus had very human responses to his situations.  On the other hand, Violet the only other character who was developed at all was unrealistic.  I think this is the thing that bugged me the most about this book.  She had no real reason to do anything that she did until the last fourth of the book.  She was supposed to be the stereotypical girl who opens the main character's eye to how messed up the world was,  but she was flat.  She liked the personality necessary to earn sympathy.  I hated her, but I hated Titus's other friends (who you are supposed to dislike) more, so I won't complain too much.  Her character made the book lose its realism.
Overall, I think that this book is great to think about and is a sort of classic dystopian novel, but it isn't as great for just a casual read.  I would recommend it if you are interested in reading about a future where technology and consumerism get out of hand.

Audiobook Review:
It both did some things well and others terribly.  Violet constantly whispered, and you had to strain to hear her.  That was terribly irritating.  On the other hand, whenever Feed had an add inserted into it, the various narrators and music backing it made the adds seem real and to cut in, just like the book envisioned.  That was really neat.  David Aaron Baker (the narrator) did a great job making the book seem like a conversation between Titus and the reader/listener.  It was a decent audiobook that I would recommend if you have good volume control.

Phrase:
Hey, Unit!

Happy Reading!

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