The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop by Kate Saunders {Review}

Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers

Publish Date: March 12, 2013

Source: ALA for honest review

Goodreads

Pages: 304

Series: No

Rating: Near Miss

Welcome to the most magical house in London.
The family of eleven-year-old twins Oz and Lily have inherited it, together with the mysterious shop downstairs. Long ago, the shop's famous chocolate-makers, who also happen to be Oz and Lily's great uncles, were clever sorcerers. Now evil villains are hunting for the secret of their greatest recipe. The terrifying powers of this magic chocolate have the ability to destroy the world.
Soon, Oz and Lily are swept into a thrilling battle, helped by an invisible cat, a talking rat, and the ghost of an elephant. It's up to them to stop the villains and keep the magical chocolate recipe out of harm's way. Their family and the world depends on it.

The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop is cute and whimsical, but also has a bit of a dark side.

It seems to me there's not a lot of murder in middle grade. If there is, then I'm totally missing it or forgetting it so it surprised me. And not exactly in the best way. I mean, sure, things end up pretty well, but I just kept thinking about how this character killed in cold blood. It was a little unsettling.

I enjoyed the characters, but it felt like I didn't really get past the surface with most of them. So, while I enjoyed them, I feel like I didn't really get to know them and couldn't care about what happened to them all too much. Plus, I know she's eleven, but Lily's constant need to cry started to get to me.

I liked the story overall, but I'd been hoping for more magic chocolate. Most of the use of magic chocolate happened in the past, so it's just stories about magic chocolate instead of first-hand experience. The stories are imaginative and entertaining, yes, I just hoped it would have a bigger part in the present.

The adventures Oz and Lily get to go on are pretty great. There's everything from scuba-diving to cave dwelling to helicopter rides. Not to mention the romp around town with a giant cat.

The Nutshell: Despite the fact that my review makes it seem I didn't like The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop it was a cute, quick read. I didn't get as attached to the characters as I'd like, but the talking animals, and awesome adventures made it worth the read.

Genie Wishes by Elisabeth Dahl {Review}

Publisher: Amulet Books

Publish Date: April 2, 2013
Source: ALA for honest review
Pages: 288
Series: No

Rating: Miss

This sweet, funny novel follows fifth-grader Genie Kunkle through a tumultuous year. From the first day of school, Genie knows there will be good, bad, and in-between. The good? She’s in homeroom with her best friend, Sarah. The bad? Sarah’s friend from camp, Blair, is a new student at their school, and is itching to take Genie’s place as Sarah’s BFF. The in-between? Genie is excited to be elected to write her class’s blog, where she’s tasked with tracking the wishes and dreams of her class. But expressing her opinion in public can be scary—especially when her opinion might make the rest of her class upset.
I may have liked Genie Wishes when I was Genie's age, but I just couldn't get into it. That being said, I didn't particularly dislike it, I just couldn't connect with the characters or their problems.

First of all, I found the writing style to be a little distant. It felt more like a documentation of events from a neutral third-party than a young girl's personal journey and growth through her fifth grade year. When I read I story I want to feel like I'm right there with the characters, like their hurt and happiness is mine as well, and I just didn't feel that for Genie despite the fact that I've been through the difficult friend change process myself many times.

There were a lot of characters. So many, in fact, that I had some trouble keeping them all apart. Now, a large cast of characters can work if you flesh them out well enough, but I barely got a feel for Genie let alone the rest of her class.

I think I'm probably getting old because I can't remember any of these puberty things happening when I was ten. Do guys really go around snapping girls' bras? This never happened in my class, at any point in time, but do have any of you experienced it? Also, is it really that completely obvious when a girl starts wearing a bra? Maybe I just didn't notice these things, but I'd like to think all the boys in my class didn't immediately notice I was now a proud member of the Bra Wearing Club on the first day. Feel free to correct me down in the comments, though, guys :]

One thing I did appreciate about Genie Wishes was the way it eased into things. Nothing happened all at once. Instead of some big fight with her best friend, Genie just started drifting apart from her. I slowly noticed some change in Genie as she went through the year.

On the other side of that coin, though, is the lack of a clear plot structure. Everything just kind of blended together for me. I couldn't identify a beginning, a middle, and an end. Things were randomly introduced to the story and then never really end up having a purpose or resolution, such as the stray dog, Lulu, and Genie's dad starting to date.

The Nutshell: I recommend Genie Wishes for younger readers who are looking for a story about a girl going through a normal year of school dealing with similar things they might be dealing with. Personally, I couldn't connect with the story or get into the writing style, but that doesn't mean someone else might not enjoy it!

The Fellowship for Alien Detection by Kevin Emerson {Review}

Publisher: Walden Pond Press

Publish Date: February 26, 2013

Source: ALA for honest review

Goodreads

Pages: 432

Series: No

Rating: Direct Hit

Two kids from opposite ends of the country find themselves on a road trip to save the world from an impending alien attack - and bolster their middle-school transcripts in the process.
First came the missing people, missing time events, and untraceable radio signals. Then came Juliette, Arizona, a town that simply disappeared from existence. Suffice it to say, something strange is going on. Enter Haley and Dodger, two kids from opposite sides of the country who both think they can prove that these unexplained phenomena have a very real cause: aliens, and they are about to discover that their fledgling theories about extraterrestrial life are one-hundred-percent accurate.
Having each been awarded a Fellowship for Alien Detection (a grant from a mysterious foundation dedicated to proving aliens have visited earth), Haley and Dodger and their families each set off on a cross-country trip over summer vacation to figure out what is happening to figure out what is happening in towns across America. They soon realize that answers to many of their questions lie in the vanished town of Juliette, AZ, but someone, or something, is doing everything in its power to ensure they never reach it. If Haley and Dodger don't act quickly, more people may go missing, and the world as we know it may change for the worse.

The Fellowship for Alien Detection is the kind of book that reaffirms my love for middle grade. There's adventure, interesting characters, and best of all: aliens.

I like that The Fellowship is told from both Haley and Dodgers point of view for many reasons. 1) Having the point of view of both a boy and a girl makes the story more well-rounded and gives a draw for both genders, 2) it adds more to the mystery since you start out with Haley's side of the story then get Dodger's so the two sides of the story end up coming together to create one (mostly) complete picture, and 3) Haley and Dodger's lives are really different so you get quite a few different dynamics like academic/doesn't care about school much, close family/awkward&distant family, etc.

The mystery in The Fellowship was fantastic. I was hooked from page one and constantly kept on the edge of my seat trying to fit some answers together. Thankfully, everything was answered by the end, though.

The road trip aspect of the story really added to the element of adventure. Haley and Dodger are running from state to state both in escape and pursuit giving the story that extra little charge that kept me flipping pages and eager to find out what happens next. And not to spoil anything, but does it get much more adventurous than flying in a spaceship?

I enjoyed the undertone of Haley and Dodger discovering who they were and finding their places in the world and the contrast between both characters' journey. Haley thought she'd already had everything figured out but ended up discovering she didn't quite know herself as well as she'd thought. Whereas Dodger had always felt lost and ended up discovering things about his past while also figuring out who he really wanted to be and what he believed in.

I do have one small complaint, though. It seemed everything in the story was brown: brown landscape, brown cows with brown eyes, brown seat covers, brown smells. I swear every time I turned there was some new brown thing being described. Now, I know they were in the desert for a chunk of the story and there are, in fact, many brown things in life, but it's okay to use a little creative freedom to make the cows white or the seat covers blue.

The Nutshell: The Fellowship for Alien Detection is a whirlwind of mystery, adventure, and self-discovery. Haley and Dodger each give their own unique voice and point of view to the story making the adventure and mystery all the more thrilling. If you want an adventure wrapped in a mystery with aliens thrown in for good measure, then try The Fellowship for Alien Detection.

Doomed by Tracy Deebs {Review}

Publisher: Walker Childrens

Publish Date: January 8, 2013

Source: ALA for honest review

Goodreads

Pages: 480

Series: No

Rating: Miss

Beat the game. Save the world.
Pandora's just your average teen, glued to her cell and laptop, surfing Facebook and e-mailing with her friends, until the day her long-lost father sends her a link to a mysterious site featuring twelve photos of her as a child. Unable to contain her curiosity, Pandora enters the site, where she is prompted to play her favorite virtual reality game, Zero Day. This unleashes a global computer virus that plunges the whole world into a panic: suddenly, there is no Internet. No cell phones. No utilities, traffic lights, hospitals, law enforcement. Pandora teams up with handsome stepbrothers Eli and Theo to enter the virtual world of Zero Day. Simultaneously, she continues to follow the photographs from her childhood in an attempt to beat the game and track down her father, her one key to saving the world as we know it. 

I was sorely disappointed by Doomed. I was expecting more of the video game aspect, more of a bad-ass main girl (I mean, look at the cover!), more stuff getting done, and just more in general.

So let's start with the story.

Maybe I wasn't thinking about the whole “global virus” thing enough, but I really wasn't expecting the government (and running from it) to be such a big aspect of the story. The synopsis lead me to believe the main storyline would be the game and the mystery surrounding it, but it ended up taking a backseat to the survival/on-the-run-from-the-government aspect.

Towards the end things just started to feel a little too convenient. Oh, this is an obstacle? Let's just take it out in a matter of a few paragraphs. I mean, yeah, it's fiction so there's going to be some coincidences, but some of them were just a bit too easy for me.

And then there's the characters.

Pandora was just so...whiny. Okay, okay, it's the end of the world and you unleashed it and your dad created it. I get it. I'd freak out too, but I hope I wouldn't continue to freak out. Over and over and over again. And there was the continuous “what's the point of any of this” when it was made quite obvious from the start. Play the game, save the world. So what does she do? Throw tantrums about how she doesn't want to play the game and how she hates her father. I know, I'm sounding a little heartless, but she really grated on my nerves.

And Theo and Eli were just kind of bleh. They have complete opposite personalities and yet I kept getting them confused. It probably didn't help that Pandora kept giving them the same kind of attention. And gosh, were they pissy about it. Whenever one of them so much as looked at her for too long the other would get all huffy and storm off. Now, you know I'm not a love triangle hater, but I really, really did not like this one. Plus, both boys felt a little shallow. I mean, they have backstories that seem to explain why they act the way they do, but they just didn't do it for me.

It felt like nothing was ever happening. Part of this is probably because I wanted to see more of the game aspect and it just wasn't happening. There was a lot of sitting around and a lot of driving and a lot of running and a lot of charged looks, and yet, I felt bored most of the time. I just couldn't get sucked into the story enough to care about the characters and story in more than a passive way. Even at the end I just thought to myself “oh, well that's nice.”

The Nutshell: Doomed just didn't work for me at all. Part of it is on me since I was expecting something different, but I also couldn't get into the story and characters. If you like stories about being on the run from the government and end of days craziness with a green undertone (or overtone, depending on how you wish to look at it) then you'll probably enjoy Doomed, but if you're in it for the video game aspect you should lower your expectations or skip it altogether.

Nobody But Us by Kristin Halbrook {Review}

Publisher: Harper Teen

Publish Date: January 29, 2013

Source: Publisher for honest review

Goodreads

Pages: 272

Series: No

Rating: Hit

They're young. They're in love. They're on the run.
Zoe wants to save Will as much as Will wants to save Zoe. When Will turns eighteen, they decide to run away together. But they never expected their escape to be so fraught with danger...
When the whole world is after you, sometimes it seems like you can't run fast enough.

I really wish I hadn't seen any reviews for Nobody But Us before reading because I feel like they were all just sitting in the back of my mind poking at the story while I was reading. Still, I did end up enjoying it.

I did not, in fact, really like either Will or Zoe, but I could appreciate their characters. They were supposed to make bad choices and be caught up in each other. I was so torn while reading because on the one hand, I know what new love feels like and that Zoe and Will's was multiplied by their terrible home lives taking it to an even more obsessive level, but on the other hand, I just wanted to take them both aside and slap some sense into them. It wasn't even just the spiral of terrible choices; I wanted them to see the poisons in their relationship as well.

The setting was perfect. I couldn't imagine a better way for this downward spiral of a relationship to play out. Usually when you think 'road trip' happy, carefree thoughts come to mind. That's definitely not what Nobody But Us was about, yet I still loved it. I think the excitement of being on the run really adds something important.

The Nutshell: Nobody But Us isn't my usual read because I usually stick to the fluffy stuff, but I'm glad I gave it a chance since I ended up really enjoying it. If you're looking for a quick read about two teens running away from everything while clinging to each other then you should read Nobody But Us.

The Wrap-Up List by Steven Arntson {Review}

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children

Publish Date: January 8, 2013

Source: Publisher for honest review

Goodreads

Pages: 240

Series: No

Ratng: Direct Hit

In this modern-day suburban town, one percent of all fatalities come about in the most peculiar way. Deaths -- eight-foot-tall, silver-gray creatures -- send a letter ("Dear So-and-So, your days are numbered") to whomever is chosen for a departure, telling them to wrap up their lives and do the things they always wanted to do before they have to "depart." When sixteen-year-old Gabriela receives her notice, she is, of course devastated. Will she kiss her crush Sylvester before it's too late?

I never thought I'd find such a wonderful story hidden behind this unassuming cover and strange description, but there it sits, nonetheless.

I would describe Arnston's writing as uncluttered. He doesn't use extravagant descriptions or take more time than necessary to get the point across and it works splendidly. Often times, this kind of approach creates a disjointed story that doesn't pull you in, but that isn't the case with The Wrap-Up List. The writing makes all the emotions more palpable and real. During the last few chapters I was finding it difficult to read because my tears were making everything blurry. And what an ending it was. Beautiful and yet melancholy. I honestly didn't have any idea how it would turn out either.

Gabriella is an admirable character. She is shocked and mournful when she first receives her letter. But then she comes to terms with it. She keeps it together and doesn't spend her last week tears. She works towards getting her pardon, but she's also there for her friends. It should be the other way around, and they are there for her, but she's right there supporting them as well. She's not helping them mourn the loss of her, she's helping them continue their lives once she's gone.

I love how much Gabriella grows as a person in her last week, as well. She starts to have different views on life and start forming opinions that she can call her own.

The Nutshell: Don't let the simple cover and somewhat strange description put you off of The Wrap-Up List as it is an amazing book. The story is one that's completely new and yet still conveys some of the struggles most of us go through in our lives whether it be in our teenage years or when we face death, that of a loved one or your own. I know this will end up being another book buried under all the shiny covers and trendy plotlines, but it's a book that deserves to be read.

Splintered by A. G. Howard {Review} + Giveaway

Terrible picture, I know, but it was late and
the post needed to go up :P

Publisher: Amulet

Publish Date: January 1, 2013

Source: Publisher for honest review

Pages: 384

Series: No

Rating: Direct Hit

Alyssa Gardner hears the thoughts of plants and animals. She hides her delusions now, but she knows her fate: she will end up like her mother, in an institution. Madness has run in her family ever since Alice Liddell told Lewis Carroll her strange dreams.
But perhaps she's not mad. And perhaps Carroll's stories aren't as whimsical as the seem.
To break the curse of insanity, Alyssa must go down the rabbit hole and right the wrongs of the real Wonderland, a place full of strange beings with dark agendas, a twisted fun-house reflection of Alice's childish tales. Alyssa brings her real-world crush -- the protective Jeb -- with her, but once her journey begins, she's torn between his solidity and the enchanting, dangerous magic of Morpheus, her guide to Wonderland. But no one in Wonderland is who they seem to be -- not even Alyssa herself...

Splintered is officially my new favorite Alice in Wonderland spinoff/retelling. I loved the Tim Burton/Disney rendition and the Syfy Alice special and Splintered is kind of like an awesome mish-mash of both. The bright colors and creepy setting of the Burton retelling combine with the awesome story and characters of Alice to create one amazingly fantastic book.

Though I compare Splintered to other renditions, it completely stands on its own. The story is totally new while still drawing similarities from the original and putting a creepy twist on them. There are certainly no fluffy pocket-watch carrying rabbits here. There are, however, boys. Yes, plural, but I think it works (then again, I'm not an adamant love triangle hater). I'm not one to think romance makes everything better, but it really adds to the story. I certainly wouldn't have cried had there been no romance...

Alyssa reflects Alice with her stubbornness and curiosity, but is definitely her own character. She takes the fate of her life in her hands and literally jumps down the rabbit hole headfirst. And when she's faced with a tough decision (be it who to trust, what to do when a walrus-octopus wants to eat you, or which guy to choose) she makes one. Of course, she's not always right, but we wouldn't want it that way, now would we?

Shall we talk about the boys?

First we have Jeb, the cute, scruffy skater guy who happens to be Alyssa's best friend. He's pretty overprotective, but he always has Alyssa's best interests at heart. Jeb is my favorite of the two, hands down with his sweetness towards Alyssa and their teasing banter.

Then we have our bad boy: Morpheus. He's dark, obsessive, and mischievous. Of course, he also has an irresistible and romantic side, but only for Alyssa. The tortured soul thing does something going on for it, though which made me almost sway towards Team Morpheus a few times.

Part of the ending felt a little rushed to me, but not all of it. More like the intro the climax and ending. That's really the only negative thing I have to say, though.

The Nutshell: If you're a fan of Alice in Wonderland retellings/spinoffs then I can almost guarantee you'll like Splintered. However, if you're not a fan of dark and creepy or simply refuse to read any love triangles at all it might not be the book for you. Splintered does a fantastic job of standing on its own and it kept me flipping pages as fast as I could right to the end.

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And as a little added bonus I'm giving away my ARC :D

Must be 13 or older (or have parents permission)

US only (sorry, to all my international followers. I'll try to have another giveaway open to you guys soon :])

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