By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children.
When Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement. Her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next, and Rhine is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape—before her time runs out?
There are many things that Annah would like to forget: the look on her sister's face before Annah left her behind in the Forest of Hands and Teeth, her first glimpse of the Horde as they swarmed the Dark City, the sear of the barbed wire that would scar her for life. But most of all, Annah would like to forget the morning Elias left her for the Recruiters.
Annah's world stopped that day, and she's been waiting for Elias to come home ever since. Somehow, without him, her life doesn't feel much different than the dead that roam the wasted city around her. Until she meets Catcher, and everything feels alive again.
But Catcher has his own secrets. Dark, terrifying truths that link him to a past Annah has longed to forget, and to a future too deadly to consider. And now it's up to Annah: can she continue to live in a world covered in the blood of the living? Or is death the only escape from the Return's destruction?
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Both of these novels are highly acclaimed. Wither is the new dystopian novel to the block, I've heard very gripping and very realistic. Poses questions such as: what will happen in the future? Will modern science advance so much that our live spans will shorten accordingly? And The Forest of Hands and Teeth series I've heard it bone-chilling, keep-you-up-at-night scary. Both are Must Reads! Can't wait till I can get my hands on them!
It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a weekly meme hosted by Book Journey where we share what books we've read, what we're currently reading, and what we hope to read. I'm ALMOST finished with HP! It's been a great series, and I'm so glad that I finally picked it up!
Read: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling
Reading: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling
To Read:
Harry Potter #7 Stolen by Lucy Christopher
As you've well noticed, the light, floral pink is gone and was replaced with a chipper, citrus-y orange. The text has also changed...more of a bay-side grille now, I suppose. Anyway, the idea was to get it less girly although I might have upped the girly a little bit more. So. What's your take on these dramatic changes? I think it's going to take awhile to get used to. It looks so plain, too, but there's really nothing I can do about that because I have a Shabby Blogs background.... But really, have I upped the girly?
He-llo Everybody! I've just heard word that the role of Katniss Everdeen with be played by Jennifer Lawrence of Winter's Bone:
And here's Jennifer Lawrence:
Katniss? Dunno. If she dyed her hair brown, was drenched in burns, cuts, and bruises, and had a more rugged appearence...yeah, maybe. Let's just hope she can play the part!
No news yet on who's going to play Peeta, but I've heard that they're considering casting Alex Pettyfer of I Am Number Four and Beastly. Also, Josh Hutcherson and Hunter Parrish.
As I posted yesterday, Beth Revis, author of Across the Universe, is hosting a contest where you can win five signed books called the 5 Breathless Reads. (Look to the sidebar over on your right where a banner is posted or you can see it here.) Some of you may already know what the Breathless Reads are. You can skip this post and go on your merry way. For those of you who don't, well, hello there!
(First time publishing a video, so bear with me. Anyway, that is the Breathless Reads commercial, featuring the books: The Eternal Ones, The Replacement, Nightshade, Matched, and Sapphique)
Just to be perfectly clear, Sapphique by Catherine Fisher is not a part of this giveaway.
First off, there's The Eternal Ones by Kirsten Miller
416 pages
Published by Razorbill
Haven Moore can't control her visions of a past with a boy called Ethan and a life in New York that ended in fiery tragedy. In our present, she designs beautiful dresses for her classmates with her best friend Beau. Dressmaking keeps her sane, since she lives with her widowed and heartbroken mother in her tyrannical grandmother's house in Snope City, a tiny town in Tennessee. Then an impossible group of coincidences conspire to force her to flee to New York, to discover who she is, and who she was.
In New York, Haven meets Iain Morrow and is swept into an epic love affair that feels both deeply fated and terribly dangerous. Iain is suspected of murdering a rock star and Haven wonders, could he have murdered her in a past life? She visits the Ouroboros Society and discovers a murky world of reincarnation that stretches across millennia. Haven must discover the secrets hidden in her past lives, and loves, before all is lost and the cycle begins again.
Second, The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff
352 pages
Published by Razorbill
Mackie Doyle is not one of us. Though he lives in the small town of Gentry, he comes from a world of tunnels and black murky water, a world of living dead girls ruled by a little tattooed princess. He is a Replacement—left in the crib of a human baby sixteen years ago. Now, because of fatal allergies to iron, blood, and consecrated ground, Mackie is fighting to survive in the human world.
Mackie would give anything to live among us, to practice on his bass or spend time with his crush, Tate. But when Tate's baby sister goes missing, Mackie is drawn irrevocably into the underworld of Gentry, known as Mayhem. He must face the dark creatures of the Slag Heaps and find his rightful place, in our world, or theirs.
Third, Nightshade by Andrea Cremer
528 pages
Published by Philomel
Calla Tor has always known her destiny: After graduating from the Mountain School, she'll be the mate of sexy alpha wolf Ren Laroche and fight with him, side by side, ruling their pack and guarding sacred sites for the Keepers. But when she violates her masters' laws by saving a beautiful human boy out for a hike, Calla begins to question her fate, her existence, and the very essence of the world she has known. By following her heart, she might lose everything-- including her own life. Is forbidden love worth the ultimate sacrifice?
Fourth, Matched by Ally Condie (you can see myreview here)
384 pages
Published by Dutton
Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate . . . until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.
The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.
And finally, Across the Universe by Beth Revis
416 pages
Published by Razorbill
Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.
Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone-one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship-tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next.
Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.
*Gush* Don't they all sound amazing!! Don't forget to answer the contest!
EEP! So exciting! Beth Revis, author of Across the Universe, is having a contest on her blog for the 5 Breathless Reads--and they're all SIGNED! To enter, head over to the contest here and submit. One thing: you have to spread the word. Somehow, someway. She'll explain it over there! I highly suggest you enter. I've read Matched by Ally Condie (see my review right here), and all the others I've heard are amazing!! Here are the 5 Breathless Reads (they are in no particular order):
The Eternal Ones by Kiersten Miller
The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff
Nightshade by Andrea Cremer
Matched by Ally Condie
Across the Universe by Beth Revis
I've already entered and I'm ecstatic! JOIN JOIN JOIN!! I'll have the banner posted on the side bar to the right for the entirety of the contest. You can link to the contest page from there.
By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children. 
