REBOOT by Amy Tintera

I decided to read Reboot by Amy Tintera because:

1)  It sounded crazy good!  A world where people reboot after death, becoming stronger, faster and all-around bada**?  I'm in J.

2)  It's sci-fi YA--which is really popular right now.  Since this isn't one of my main genres, I'm looking to find the best there is.

3)  It's a debut that can count toward my DAC challenge reads.

Then there's this:  The perfect soldier is done taking orders.  Yes, yes, yes!!  I love it when an MC stands up for herself and starts kicking butt--especially when it's an MC I like as much as I liked Wren 178.

The 178 tells us the number of minutes she was dead before rebooting.  The higher the number, the less humanity (or so they say).  When a new batch of reboots comes in and Wren has to choose her new trainee, everyone expects her to go with the highest number, the best.  But instead she chooses Callum Reyes, a measly 22.  With his constant smile, great sense of humor, and the fearless way he meets Wren's eyes, you'd think the kid was still human.  Being dead only 22 minutes before rebooting, he almost is human.

And he brings out the humanity in Wren.

I loved the scene where she shocked everyone--herself included--and picked Callum.  It was awesome.

Ever, another reboot and Wren's BFF, was a great side character.  Like Callum, Ever was inherently likable and sympathetic.  The scenes with her showed us why HARC was so evil.  Watching Ever lose herself, seeing her humanity slip away b/c of the drugs HARC was administering, was so incredibly sad.  But I loved that she didn't go down without a fight.  The scene where Ever chooses not to give in, to fight back, was tragic but also very well done.  A great turning point for Wren.

This book reminded me of a lot of different books.  The "government's best soldier goes rogue" concept reminded me of Marie Lu's Legend.  The zombie bent made me think of Mayberry's Rot and Ruin.  The mentor/student relationship definitely reminded me of Armentrout's Half-Blood and Mead's Vampire Academy and Wolff's Isle of Night.  It also made me think of White's Paranormalcy and Roth's Divergent.

But what I liked was that while being relatable to all these books, Reboot was most definitely not the same.

 

For one, Tintera flipped the mentor/student thing on it's head.  Our heroine was the mentor, not the mentee.  Tintera gave our girl the power, and I loved that.  Wren 178 was tough, and she loved Callum 22 even if he was a subpar reboot who didn't want to kill people.  And I loved that!  Made me think of Katniss and Peeta actually lol.

I liked Reboot a lot.  Besides all of the reasons mentioned above, it had a very satisfying ending, which is somewhat rare in book 1 of a series J.

Happy reading,

Ninja Girl

PIN ALL THE THINGS!

Okay, so here's why I haven't been posting recently.  No excuses, just one word:

 

 

I got the invite you guys, and like a lot of people, this was totally my reaction:

And then, after I'd pinned over 100 things, I got to thinking and was like:

 

And then, of course, I saw this (on Pinterest):

And I felt like this:

But then, I saw THIS *_____*:

 

and

 

 

And of course, I was back to:

So yeah...that's where I've been all week lol.  If you want to check out my boards or follow me, you can do so here.   I basically only pin things about books, the Hunger Games, writing and dance.   But I'm telling you right now: Pinterest is addicting.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Ninja Girl

P.S. All pics courtesy of (you guessed it) Pinterest :-)

STACKING THE SHELVES (12)

 

Hi there! Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews.  Here's my haul from this and last week--don't they look awesome? :-)

List of Books: The Girl With the Iron Touch by Kady Cross (FINALLY!!!)
                         Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry
                         I've Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella
                         Peaches by Jodi Lynn Anderson
                         Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
                         The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani
                         The Boyfriend App by Katharine Sise
                         Born of Illusion by Teri Brown

First up to read:

 

OMG to those beautiful covers!!  That veil on Born of Illusion is fierce.  I've been dying to get my hands on The Girl With the Iron Touch forever for several reasons (Jack Dandy!  Hooray!), and it's finally here.  And they all just look so fantastic.  I've been on a historical romance kick lately, but I'm going to have to dig back in soon.  There are just too many great things happening in YA!!

Did you get anything good this week?

Have a great weekend,

Ninja Girl

THE COLLECTOR by Victoria Scott

He makes good girls…bad.

I knew.  Immediately, I knew this was my kind of book.  Just a take a sec to admire the awesome cover/title/book design.  I'm just going to say it: Whoever thought up that "He makes good girls…bad" deserves a dozen cupcakes, a batch of double chocolate chip cookies and an I ROCK HARD button b/c it is snappy and fresh and heck yeah!!!

Phew.  The Collector by Victoria Scott was a fun, fast-pasted paranormal read with one very naughty lead male and a nerdy heroine you can't help but love.

Dante Walker (props on the name as well) isn't your average mix of hot and cocky bad boy.  He's from hell.  Literally.  Dante is a soul collector for the Big Bad, and if he catches you doing something naughty, he'll mark you with one of his seals.  As the summary says, "Old Saint Nick gets the good guys, and he gets the fun ones.  Bag-and-tag."

Collect enough seals, and that's it.  Your soul is officially marked for hell.  No take backs.  It's about the choices you make--or at least it used to be.

For some reason, Dante's boss wants a specific soul.  A girl named Charlie Cooper who is Dante's opposite in every way.  She's good, as in really good.  Her soul is brighter than bright, hardly no seals at all--which means Dante has his work cut out for him.  But as he leads nice n' nerdy Charlie down the pathway to sin, Dante finds himself becoming her reluctant protector and discovering that maybe, just maybe, he's not all bad.

So okay, what really made this book stand out?

The Voice.

Yes, that's Voice with a capital "V."  The whole book is first person POV from Dante's perspective.  His head is a strange (and wonderful) place to be b/c seriously the guy has no shame.  None.  His thoughts were surprisingly hilarious and unapologetic and frequently a-hole-ish.  But even if I had the urge to smack him--like when he was mean to or tricked Charlie--Dante remained true to himself.  He was the guy you should hate.  He was also the guy you wish would get over himself already and just be nice.  In Dante, we find a character who needs to go from D-bag to good guy without losing his edge--which is hard to pull off.  But Scott did it quite nicely.  She didn't rush.  He didn't all of a sudden grow a heart of gold.  Dante was still Dante at the end of the book just slightly redeemed--and that's good since there is a book 2 :-).

Loved the idea of the seals.  The soul collectors have the power to use and see them with a flick of their wrist--which basically gives us the visual of a person's sins.  Very cool idea.  I also loved the pairing of bada** Dante with nerdy Charlie.  They had good chemistry.  One of my favorite scenes involved hide and seek, kissing, the mean kids playing a cruel joke on Charlie, and Dante who comes to the rescue.  Sigh.

The only things I didn't like were when Dante made Charlie feel bad about herself, particularly her looks.  And I didn't like that she let him make her feel that way.  These character flaws were believable, but I just wished that Charlie would've stood up and been like: I love myself the way I am!

 

 

(channeling Penelope here; btw if you haven't seen the movie I definitely recommend lol)

Anyway, loved the concept and Dante's voice.  The Collector would be good for anyone looking for a YA paranormal with humor, romance, and a voice that's undeniable J.

Happy reading,

Ninja Girl

HAVE YOU HEARD...

 

...of Tom Odell????  I just discovered him last week (thank you, Letterman ;)), and now I cannot stop listening!  His song "Another Love" is so fraught with emotion, and I love his voice and that haunting piano.  To me, Tom's kinda like the male version of Adele lol.  Anyway, here's the song performed live on Letterman.  Spectacular!!

Do you have chills?  I get them every time.  Completely unrelated to anything bookish, but I love this song and artist--especially the way he says "daffodils" :-).

Hope you have a great week,

Ninja Girl