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March 17th, 2008 by Laura Moncur in Literature
 Touching Darkness by Scott Westerfeld is the second book in the Midnighters series. As with all series by Westerfeld, you will be completely lost if you read the books out of order, so I highly recommend reading Midnighters: The Secret Hour before tackling this one.
In the first book, Jessica finally found out what her power was as flame-bringer, but the darklings are unwilling to give up that easily. They need a way to communicate with the humans that are willing to sacrifice other humans for some of the power the darklings can give them. The human on the darklings’ list right now is Rex. As a seer, his abilities could be a link between the Midnight Hour and the other twenty-four hours of the day. What will they do to save Rex?
I really loved this book and ate it up in a day or so. Unlike most Westerfeld books, however, I wasn’t able to glean any good quotes from this book. That either means that there were no good quotes in the book, or (more likely) I was so into the storyline that I forgot to look for quotes.
If any of you Midnighters fans out there find good quotes from this book, post them here on the comments and I’ll add the best ones to the collection!
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March 12th, 2008 by Laura Moncur in Literature
 My reading binge continues with The Queen Geek Social Club by Laura Preble. I don’t like to admit it, but I bought this book based on its name and the picture of the shoes on the front cover. Sure, I read the blurb on the back, but I was perfectly willing to buy the book solely by the title and cover alone.
I wasn’t disappointed.
Shelby has lived in San Diego for a few years, completely unable to find a real best friend. All the girls seem so… stupid. When Becca moves into town from Los Angeles, the two of them hit it off immediately, but Becca is no ordinary friend. Her ambition for school (and global) domination is unstoppable and she brings Shelby along for the ride.
If you have ever wished you could control how popular you are, you are going to be wishing that Becca was your best friend. I found The Queen Geek Social Club to be the perfect high school fantasy novel. I wish MY high school years worked as smoothly as Becca and Shelby’s.
There were some unbelieveable parts to the book, like a self-aware robot that acts as a mother-figure for the motherless Shelby. Euphoria was supposedly built by Shelby’s absent-minded scientist father. I wanted to believe in Euphoria, but she was just too real to be true. I would have believed a nanny with the dialog given her, or I would have believed a robot that was painstakingly programmed, but not self-aware. I’m just not ready to believe in a loving and feeling robot in a novel set in present time.
Robotic house slaves aside, I LOVED The Queen Geek Social Club and I’m ready to tackle Queen Geeks in Love!
Here are my favorite quotes from the book:
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March 4th, 2008 by Laura Moncur in Literature
 The sequel to Scott Westerfeld’s brilliant novel, Peeps, was sitting on the shelf at Barnes and Noble. I bought the hardcover of The Last Days without even reading a page of it. Then I promptly left it unread until the paperback came out. Why? I have no idea, but I’m sure glad I picked it up a few days ago and started reading. It was an enjoyable romp through the familiar world of vampires.
Moz and Zahler have been playing together for six years. The two guitarists have been jamming with their favorite song, Big Riff, for all this time, but things were going nowhere until Moz met that girl Pearl. Pearl was a Julliard darling until her band broke up in a spat of anger and madness. Pearl’s old bandmate Minerva is battling a strange disease that has her biting her doctors and finally locked in the attic with a strange esoteric who feeds her mandrake tea, garlic and raw meat. Alana Ray is the only normal one of the group and she is a nearly homeless autistic drummer. The five of them fall into a record contract and a world larger than the fame they dreamed of.
My favorite quotes from the book are here:
If you like Peeps, then you are definitely in for a lovely treat with The Last Days.
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February 28th, 2008 by Laura Moncur in Literature
 I just started a new series by Scott Westerfeld with Midnighters: The Secret Hour. I’m not much of a fan of fantasy, so I avoided this series for a long time. This book was written in 2004, long before I discovered Scott Westerfeld, but the idea of the series never grabbed me. After reading Extras, however, I was desperate to read something else just as good, so I jumped into this little fantasy world with my eyes closed and my nose plugged.
Not only did I not drown, I was pleasantly swimming by the first chapter.
Rex, Melissa and Dess are the outcasts of Bixby High School. The small Oklahoma town is a stifling blip of humanity in the dessert. When Jessica moves to town, she is immediately heralded as a popular girl. Fresh from Chicago, she has all the cool kids interested in her. Rex, Melissa and Dess are interested in her as well because they can tell she’s one of them.
Bixby, Oklahoma has a secret. At midnight, the clocks stop and the world turns a frozen blue for Rex, Melissa and Dess. It is the one hour of the day where they are free to move. While the rest of the world is frozen in time for an hour, the three of them have known unprecedented freedom. Now that Jessica is here, their freedom is threatened for the first time in years.
Here is my favorite quotation from this book:
Monsters, spiders, black cats, casting, spells, numerology and all that sounds like a horrible read for me, but Scott Westerfeld was able to make it relatively believable and instantly compelling. Within a couple of pages, I was hooked and after I consumed The Secret Hour in the span of a day, I bought the other two books in the series.
If you are a fan of Harry Potter, you will love a more mature fantasy set in the rural United States. Enjoy!
If you would like to read Scott Westerfeld’s blog, you can do so here:
More reviews of Scott Westerfeld’s books:
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February 27th, 2008 by Laura Moncur in Literature
 Another book binge has me excited about science fiction again. Extras by Scott Westerfeld is the fourth book of his Uglies series. When he finished with Specials, he had tied everything up in the universe so neatly that I truly thought there was no where else he could go, but I loved the series, so I bought the hardcover of Extras without even reading the blurb on dust jacket. I trust Scott Westerfeld to give me a good story enough to buy his books sight unseen.
I wasn’t disappointed.
I really related to Aya Fuse, the main character of Extras. She is a Kicker. She films stories of things going on around her and puts them up for all to see. She doesn’t do it for survival. She has a room, food and medicine if she is sick. She does it for fame. She is always accompanied by her hovercam, Moggle, and she is always filming. Just like me, everything she does is something she could be telling the world about on her feed.
While following a story about rogue girls mag-surfing a train, a dangerous stunt, she falls into an even bigger story. Something that just might consume her. If the fame from her story doesn’t suffocate her, the fallout from its implications just might.
It’s an amazing romp through the Uglies world that was fresh and new. Aya’s world is based on whuffie, or fame. The more famous you are, the more luxuries you are allowed. Even though I was familiar with a version of this world from Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Scott Westerfeld took it to a more imaginative level than Cory Doctorow.
Here are my favorite quotes gleaned from Extras:
These quotes have to do with the new trend in brain surgery, Radical Honesty, where you cannot lie, even if you want to. It’s an interesting look into the meaning of being human, right down to lying. Extras is an excellent addition to the Uglies series.
If you would like to read Scott Westerfeld’s blog, you can do so here:
More reviews of Scott Westerfeld’s books:
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