Book Beginnings and Friday 56 -- Faerie Winter by Janni Lee Simner

Book Beginnings on Friday is a meme hosted by A Few More Pages. Anyone can participate; just share the opening sentence, or two, of your current read, making sure that you include the title and author so others know what you're reading.

The woman who would become my mother backed trembling away from the the man who would save her life, and I did not know why.  

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice. Check out the rules and join in the fun.

Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
Turn to page 56.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like) along with these instructions on your blog or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comments section of this blog. Post a link along with your post back to this blog.

Only there was no fire, not anymore.  Kate looked at Ethan, frowned, and drew the blanket away, spreading it on the ground in front of him.  The boy's chest was blackened as well, and the touch of wool on his burns would hurt him more than the cold.

Faerie Winter by Janni Lee Simner is the sequel to Bones of Faerie.  One of the things I liked about Bones of Faerie was its unique combination of the faerie world with a post-apocalyptic world.  In Faerie Winter, Liza's community is still picking up the pieces after war between the humans and the Faerie.  Now that she's brought her mother back from the land of the Faerie, Liza encounters a new set of problems when a young firestarter seeks refuge in her town.  In the course of trying to get help for him, Liza learns more about the cause of the war and meets the Faerie Queen for the first time.

3.5/5 stars.

Teaser Tuesdays -- Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB @ Should Be Reading. To participate, all you have to do is the following:

• Grab your current/upcoming read
• Open to a random page
• Share 2-3 "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers!

A planet no human being has ever been on before.

  

The boy stands up.  He's so tall, it doesn't feel fair to call him a boy, but at the same time, he's got a bit of a baby face, as if he's never seen or done anything to make him grow up, to make the angels of his face sharpen with the harshness of age.

page 88, Across the Universe by Beth Revis 

This one has been making the rounds among YA readers.  Amy is a teenager who, along with her parents, was cryogenically frozen and place upon Godspeed, a spaceship on its three hundred year journey to a new planet.  When she wakes up early, she is quickly thrown into several mysteries -- including the question of who unplugged her, nearly causing her death. 

I was not nearly as captivated with Across the Universe as I expected to be.  In fact, it's one of the few times, when reading a YA book, that I think maybe I understand the reservations of YA-skeptical adults -- I was aware, with Revis' book, that I am older than her target audience -- I felt a disconnect that I seldom experience with YA fiction, but perhaps it happens more often with other adults than it does with me.  Nonetheless, I will want to pick up the sequel when it comes out . . . And it brought some of the same large issues to the surface that Battlestar Galactica does for me.  3.5/5 stars

Delirum by Lauren Oliver

Ninety-five days, and then I'll be safe.  I wonder whether the procedure will hurt.  I want to get it over with.  It's hard to be patient.  It's hard not to be afraid while I'm still uncured, though so far the deliria hasn't touched me yet.  Still, I worry.  They say that in the old days, love drove people to madness.  The deadliest of all deadly things:  It kills you both when you have it and when you don't.  
~book cover flap, Delirium  by Lauren Oliver

Lena is eager to have her procedure, to feel safe and secure from amor deliria nervosa -- love, in other words.    She's been taught, from a young age, how lucky she is that she lives in a time where nobody needs to suffer needlessly from this disease.  Now that the procedure exists, there are no wars, no unhappiness, just stability and stable emotions.  Lena knows and believes this to be true, that things are better now than in the "old days" before the procedure was perfected. When she meets Alex, though, she begins to question what she's been told. 

The ending of this book reminded me of The Handmaid's Tale-- not in detail or plot, necessarily, but in the emotions it leaves behind -- an idea that everything is not perfect, that there is sadness and difficulty ahead, but that the path ahead is nonetheless brighter than the path the character is leaving behind.  (Ooh, and I just read that it's the first in a trilogy!)

Book Beginnings -- The Roar by Emma Clayton

Book Beginnings on Friday is a meme hosted by Becky at Page Turners. Anyone can participate; just share the opening sentence of your current read, making sure that you include the title and author so others know what you're reading. If you like, share with everyone why you do, or do not, like the sentence.

Cover of Roar

I read The Roar by Emma Clayton for Tattooed Books' YALSA Challenge.   First sentence:

The sun was setting over the Atlantic, and as it ran like molten gold into the waves a girl in a Pod Fighter ripped through the scene like graffiti sprayed across a landscape painting.

I just didn't love this book.  It's 481 pages and I found myself plodding through it.    I don't even think I'll pick up the next one in the series, assuming there is one -- and that is rare for me, to not continue with a series. Have others read this and had a different experience?