Review: The Academy : Game On by Monica Seles, James LaRosa

The Academy is an International Sports Mecca for teen athletes of all sports. There are only two ways in. Deep pockets or enough talent to score a scholarship.

Young tennis star Maya's dreams have finally come true when she earns a scholarship to The Academy. Plucked from her small town, Maya moves to the sports training facility/boarding school to (hopefully) start the beginning of her pro career. But Maya's fantasy of The Academy doesn't quite match the reality. Because where there are hot, talented teens, there's a lot of drama.

description from goodreads

book from netgalley.

I don't normally read this sort of book.....in fact I tend to stay away from them. I'm not really sure what made me choose this one..but I'm glad I did.   

Our main character Maya is a future tennis star, she has has been fighting for the chance to join The Academy and that's where are story begins. She has low self esteem when it comes to friends and boys but knows Tennis is her future. The Academy is full of many future sporting stars. We have Cleo, Maya's punky roommate a brewing golf player. Renee, the stunning swimmer whose parents bought her way in.  Nicole, someone who is already a Tennis star and feels threatened by Maya. We also have Travis and Jake the sons of The Academy owner, one a handsome NFL star and the other a no good wannabe. 

In an attempt to make it to the top Maya starts to change and soon forgets the reason she is really at The Academy. She loses perspective on what is important.

We do have the typical teenage girl with low self esteem and a handsome completely out of reach boy...yeah that same old story. 

However there was something different about it ..I can't quite put my finger on it but there was a difference. This isn't meant to be a serious book, its a bit of fun. A nice easy read to to enjoy and forget about your own life for a little bit.  

To enjoy the sort of characters I'm sure we all went to school with. The sporty girl, the bitchy girl and the quirky best friend. Then the guys, the one you really like but could never get  and the annoying one who likes you but you wouldn't be seen dead with. 

So sit back and relax with this one. I really enjoyed it and got through it a lot quicker than I thought.

Let me know what you think

Review: Worm by Tim Curran

On Pine Street, the houses begin to shake. The earth begins to move. The streets crack open and yards split asunder...and rising from subterranean depths far below, a viscid black muck bubbles up and floods the neighbourhood.

In it are a ravenous army of gigantic worms seeking human flesh. They wash into houses, they come up through the sewers, through plumbing. filling toilets and tubs, seeking human prey.

Cut off from the rest of the town, the people of Pine Street must wage a war of survival or they'll never see morning. As bad as the worms are, there's something worse - and far larger - waiting to emerge.

Book received from netgalley

As soon as I saw this on netgalley I knew I had to have it. It reminded me of those old horror films like 'The Blob' and 'The killer shrew' haha.  It really did not disappoint. It's a cheesy monster on the rampage with people running scared. Plus look at that cover, it just screams at you...well me anyway.

This was a lovely short read and easily got through it in a few hours. It has a great fast pace to it that keeps you reading more. From the title and description you can see what it's about so not really many surprises are in store for you. Though I think the imagery alone is enough to read it. Tim Curran describes everything perfectly...if not a little gross but still amazing. The description of the worm/worms sends a shiver down your spine and goosebumps to appear, you even imagine staring the ghastly thing in the face.

I love that the book is set one street, Curran could easily have spread it over a wider territory which would of ruined the idea of sticking together through tough times and I love the fact that even in one street you can have such a wide variety of characters.

We have the helpless characters, like the elder people in the street, the children and the guys who all want to save the day and defeat the creature.

The day starts like any other in Pine Street until the black muck starts rising from underground. Of course first off everyone assumes its a burst pipe, until it doesn't stop rising and one of their neighbours is pulled under the surface. Whilst many hold up in their homes wanting to wait the situation out a few residents attempt to leave. Everyone is unaware of what this sludge is, so what's to do for the best?

Wade through the muck to higher ground...only to feel something moving under the surface, or to stay inside,  only for the danger to start seeping it's way in.

Short review for a short book I'm afraid but I reckon you should give it a go. If you like a bit of gore and a good survival story then this is for you.

Review : Wasteland by Susan Kim , Laurence Klavan

Welcome to the wasteland

At fifteen,

the citizens of Prin marry.

At seventeen,

they reproduce.

And at nineteen,

they die.

Esther thinks there's more to life than toiling at the assignments - Harvesting, Gleaning, Excavating - day after day under the relentless sun, just hoping to make it to the next day.

She doesn't care that her best friend, a variant, is considered "the enemy." She doesn't care that Levi, who controls the source, is the real enemy and might send his Taser boys after her if she makes one wrong move.

Then Caleb shows up. Could there be another way to fight for survival?

Okay so if you go and look at goodreads..there are quite a few...well a lot of bad reviews.

I myself....really enjoyed this book and it surprises me how much people hate it. 

So when I first read the blurb I thought it sounded like the Michael Grant 'Gone' series which I loved, and the cover did grab me as well, with the end of the world scene and gripping tag line.

 We have Esther as our main character, a little bit of a rebel in her 'town'. She doesn't finish her duties and jobs that are required of everyone over the age of 5....( I believe). She doesn't wear the same clothes as everyone else,  in this post-apocalyptic world the sun is extremely powerful and people suffer from burning very quickly in direct sun. Whilst most adorn white..sort of cloak garments Esther wears a red hoodie and trousers. 

They are governed by their leader Levi, he brought order and supplies to them they in turn work for him, they search for oil and supplies, they are also excavating but what for? they do not know.

A days bike ride from town lies the variants camp. A hermaphroditic society who can choose what gender they want to be. They are know by the people of Prin as 'mutants' they adorn themselves with scars and marks, they have purple eyes and are the enemy. 

Esher however is best friends with a variant called Skar, they have secret meetings and teach each other the ways of their people. 

Prin is a town of ruin, the people live in crumbling houses and slave away for a small amount of food and water. Levi lives in 'The Source) for some reason he lives in an almost mansion which runs on electricity whilst the rest live in darkness. ( It does seem strange that he gets away with this). Humans don't live past the age of 19 and we have no idea why. It's hard to imagine a world that's completely run by teenagers who have to grow up very quickly after not having much of a childhood.

The people of Prin struggle on day by day, working their short lives away for what they need to survive. They are the targets of attacks from the variants and pretty much live in fear.

Caleb stumbles upon Prin and fights off some variants, so soon becomes the new hero of Prin. 

Though as events unfold Esther and Caleb discover some truths about their world and things aren't quite as they seem.

I found the book was at a great pace for me,  it felt like something was always happening, someone to worry about a new character to meet. This is a relatively short read but it flew by because I just couldn't stop reading.

There are a few down points. I do hate relationships that happen in the space of a few days in books. Though in Wasteland, the relationship isn't the main  focus of the book,  the characters and world is set up throughout the book that it doesn't leave much time for building up the love story.

It's also something that happens in many YA novels so I'm just going to have to learn to live with it. 

There are also a lot of unexplained things. For example the rain is dangerous..... I know right sounds weird but no one can go out in it and no one can drink it but we have no idea why.  We also don't know why the world has ended up in this way.  What happened for these people to end up here and the world to be in ruin.

Why do people not live past 19??

These and more are put in the bad reviews I have seen. Though this is just the first book in a trilogy. So I'm hoping these explanations will come as the characters learn the answers themselves. As at the moment they seem as clueless as the reader, I'm looking forward to reading the explanations.

I would recommend this book. Especially if you can get it relatively cheap..like I did on kindle :D

I've read a few things about bad writing, but I didn't really think anything of it. I don't know anything about good writing (as you can tell from this blog haha) I was really bad at English writing, I'm fine at the creativity side but when it comes to sentence structure/grammar/punctuation etc I am clueless. I just don't have the knowledge to judge a book by these means I am definitely more about the content.

Anyway, I would just like people to give it a try as I think it's worth it.

Showcase Sunday

Welcome to this weeks Showcase Sunday.

It is a weekly meme host by Vicky over at Books, Biscuits and Tea where we show what books we received that week.

Well I was a little better behaved this week. Not such a HUGE amount of books were bought as the previous week. so here we go.

So first up I have my two latest Agatha Christie books from the magazine I'm subscribed to.

The 4.50 from Paddington

The Man in the Brown suit

Worm by Tim Curran (netgalley)

Love & Zombies by Eric Shapiro (netgalley)

Article 5 by Kriston Simmons

Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne

Tomorrow when the war began by John Marsden

I also bought the chronicles of Narnia by C.S.Lewis but I don't have time to do all those pictures haha

At the time they were 99p each on kindle so I thought I'd get them.

So that's all this week, let me know if you have read any of these and what you thought.

See you next time 

Review: The Edge of Never by J.A.Redmerski

Twenty-year-old Camryn Bennet had always been one to think out-of-the-box, who knew she wanted something more in life than following the same repetitive  patterns and growing old with the same repetitive life story. And she thought that her life was going in the right direction until everything fell apart.

Determined not to dwell on the negative and push forward, Camryn is set to move in with her best friend and plans to start a new job. But after an unexpected night at the hottest club in downtown North Carolina, She makes the ultimate decision to leave the only life she's ever known, far behind.

With a purse, a cell phone and a small bag with a few necessities, Camryn with absolutely no direction or purpose boards a Greyhound bus alone and sets out to find herself. What she finds is a guy named Andrew Parrish, someone not so very different from her and who harbours his own dark secrets. But Camryn swore never to let down her walls again. And she vowed never to fall in love.

But with Andrew, Camryn finds herself doing a lot of things she never thought she'd do . He shows her what it's really like to live out-of-the-box and to give into her deepest, darkest desires. On their sporadic road - trip he becomes the centre of her exciting and daring new life, pulling love and lust and emotion out of her in ways she never imagined possible. But will Andrew's dark secret push them inseparably together, or tear them completely apart?

Amy from HarperCollins emailed me to notify me it was on netgalley so thankyou Amy.

Well where to start...it's amazing!

Basically that is all  you need to know...I know, I know it sounds like the typical boy meets girl story but please believe me when I say it is so much more. Much much more. 

Camryn has not had much luck with boyfriends..well the 'love of her life' died in a car crash, so has ruled she will never fall in love again. She has also fallen out with her best friend hence why she wants to escape for a while.

Andrew however is on the trip to go visit his dad who his on his death bed.... You will have to read it to find out his secret.

I never though a roadtrip book that was half set on a coach and half in a car could be so damn good. I mean really what is that exciting that has ever happened on a coach to you or I? The author does an amazing job of keeping us gripped to keep reading. With each chapter alternating between Camryn's and Andrews point of view we really get to delve into each characters feelings and learn who they are. 

I do find it a little bit hard to believe that they could fall for each other in such a short amount of time when they were complete strangers to start with but that aside I loved almost everything about this book.

I loved Andrew and how he isn't perfect, he is fiery and unpredictable but also caring and kind and maybe a little bit good looking haha.

Camryn is similar accept she is a little less experienced of the world, a little naive and cautious. We really see Andrew open her up to what else the world has to offer outside her small little world.

As much as this book is amazing ...I cried..okay when I say cried I nearly bawled my eyes out. I hate that a book can keep me up all night, until 2 am and then keep me up way after I've finished because I can't stop thinking about it.

 I also love a book that can do this.

A book that somehow makes a difference to you and then get frustrated that others around you haven't experienced the same thing.