Book Review - Feed

 📖Recommend for Grades 8 and up📖

Feed

by M.T. Anderson

Reviewed by Scared Heart Academy 9th Grader Michelle V.

The feed is a computer chip put in your brain at a young age. Link meets a girl named Violet who soon becomes his girlfriend. She didn’t get the feed early, so it is messing with her body. As more problems unravel, she becomes less and less well.

It was good but very confusing. The feed ads kept on interfering with the actual book so I could barely tell what was real and what was an ad.

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Book Review - Early Departures

 📖Recommend for Grades 9 and up📖

Early Departures

by Justin A. Reynolds

Jamal’s best friend Quincy, aka Q, dies in a freak accident just to be brought back to life by a mysterious organization. The thing is, Q is just going to die again, as reanimation only gives him a limited amount of more time. Also, Q is technically Jamal’s former best friend, as the pair haven’t been friends since Jamal’s parents died, and he planned Q for what happened. With this second chance, Jamal is determined to make things right with Q, but there are complications as Jamal can’t fully explain why. Only a few people know Q is reanimated and set to die again, and Q isn’t one of them.

Though longer than it needs to be, this is still an intriguing read that will make you question how you would handle this situation if you were in it. While this book is a work of science fiction, it isn’t heavy into it beyond the reanimation itself, making it a lighter sci-fi novel. Despite the impending sadness of Q’s death, there is humor in the story, including transcripts of videos the boys made back when they were initially friends. If you can get past the slow start, this is worth the read.

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Book Theme Graphic - Sci-Fi and Dystopian Reads

 

E-books - Science Fiction

• A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray
• War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi
• They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera
• Also available on Hoopla
• Be More Chill by Ned Vizzini
• Also available on Hoopla
• The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

Book Review - What Goes Up

📖Recommend for Grades 6 and up📖

What Goes Up

by Kate Kennedy

NASA’s top-secret Interworlds Agency (IA) is looking for recruits; Teen recruits to be exact. Rosa and Eddie are among the group of teens participating in a series of tests to join the program. When aliens from an alternate Earth show up, well, not in peace, Rosa and Eddie must travel to their planet along with two other recruits and their instructor Reg, to help save their own planet.

A fun, humorous, and entertaining science fiction novel. Rosa and Eddie differ from one another but make quite a pair. The other characters in the story are equally enjoyable. The dynamic between them all is done so brilliantly and readers may find themselves wishing to be among them.

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Book Review - They Both Die at the End

📖Recommend for Grades 9 and up📖

They Both Die at the End

by Adam Silvera

In a near-future people get a phone call from Death-Cast on the day they are going to die, informing them that it will be their last day. Mateo and Rufus both get these phone calls on the same night. Having nobody they can or want to spend their last day with, the pair meet via an app called Last Friend. Together they tackle the challenge of living a lifetime in a day.

An intriguing story with the refreshing aspect of knowing that both of the main characters will die come to the end of the book. Mateo and Rufus aren’t the most likable characters but their story is enjoyable, though sad, one. Fans of Adam Silvera should not miss this one. 

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Book Review - The Eye of Minds

📖Recommended for Grades 7 and up📖

Book Review from the Bookster

Title: The Eye of Minds by James Dashner & Narrated by Erik Davies

Book Edition: Audiobook (Available on OverDrive)

Genres: LitRPG*

Warnings: Virtual terrorism, suicide, and suicidal thoughts are mentioned in the book.

Series: Yes. Book 1 of 3 of the Mortality Doctrine.

The Eye of Minds is an interesting mix of Sci-Fi gaming adventure where the characters are desperately searching for what is the Mortality Doctrine. They hope to stop a terrorist plot from further killing other users of the VR gaming system that is slowly becoming a death trap. The game’s technology and coding is more of a focus rather than world building or game statistics found in other LitRpg. The book itself is written as nice easy read for those who are not really interested in books yet but with a little more sophistication to the writing style compared to his other series, the Maze Runner Trilogy. The narrator has a clear voice and easily voices each character with defined voices, a good quality audibook that won’t have you repeating sections over and over to understand. This is a good book for reluctant readers and those who love video games or Sci-Fi.  

*The genre LitRPG is the combination of literature and Role Playing Games; books that would be listed under this genre focus on either a science fiction themed gamed or fantasy themed world. All LitRPG focus a lot on world building and tend to have game references such as the stats of their game characters and their accessories. A lot of the newer storylines use VR, Virtual Reality gaming system to make it seem more immersive for both the characters and the readers into the world of the game.   

Book Review - Spill Zone

📖Recommend for Grades 8 and up📖

Spill Zone (Spill Zone #1)

by Scott Westerfeld

Three years ago a mysterious spill destroyed Addie’s hometown killing many residents including her parents. Addie wasn’t there when the spill happened and thankfully her younger sister Lexa was on a bus of kids that managed to escape. Now Addy travels into the forbidden spill zone to take pictures that she sells to support Lexa and herself. She takes Lexa’s mysterious doll with her who needs to “recharge” and whom Lexa seems to communicate with. When a collector offers Addie a huge sum of money for a dangerous task in the Spill Zone, Addie must decide if she is willing to break her rules to help her and her sister.

It's bizarre, but a good bizarre. While this story may have a female protagonist, readers who prefer male protagonists should not let that stop them. The mystery of what happened to Addie’s hometown and the illustrations of what she sees will intrigue readers. 

Fans of The Walking Dead should give this YA Graphic series a try.

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