Active Voice

By Keith Giffen, John Rogers, Cully Hamner, Rafael Albuquerque, et al [Blue Beetle on LibraryThing]

Jaime Reyes was an ordinary kid, until a piece of advanced alien tech shaped like a scarab attached itself to his spine, giving him superpowers, and the Justice League dragged him into space to fight an evil satellite. Now he’s back in El Paso, trying to put his life back together after being missing for a year – and trying to learn how to control the scarab in his back, which wants to turn him into a killing machine. Oh, and the scarab’s creators, the Reach, have arrived on Earth, and Jaime’s the only one who knows they’re here to take over. Can the new Blue Beetle stop an alien invasion, protect his family and his city, and survive a legacy that’s already killed both his predecessors?

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By Catherine Fisher [LibraryThing]

Incarceron is a prisoner unlike any other: it is alive, and holds thousands of prisoners inside it, in a bleak, ever-changing, deadly landscape. Finn awoke inside with no memories, but is sure he came from somewhere else — even though most other prisoners don’t believe the Outside even exists, or that Escape is possible.

Claudia is the daughter of Incarceron’s warden, soon to be married to a prince. Caught up in a web of intrigue and not sure who to trust, she searches for her father’s key — and through it finds Finn. Desperate, she’s sure Finn is the only one who can help her, and she’s certainly the only one who can help him.

But they have only hours to get him out, before her wedding takes place, and all hope to free not just the prisoners, but the entire trapped world is gone…
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By M. T. Anderson [LibraryThing]

When Jasper Dash, Boy Technonaut, receives a telepathic cry for help from a dear friend at the secret monastery of Vbngoom, he and his best friends Katie and Lily journey to the mountains of Delaware to offer their assistance. But Delaware is a strange and dangerous place, and they must make their way past dinosaurs, tourists, spies, mountain squid, riddles, and a creepy staring-contest team to reach Vbngoom – and there’s something even worse waiting for them at their destination.

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By Suzanne Collins [LibraryThing - Amazon]

The Hunger Games are over, and all Katniss wants is to go back to her normal life. But the government isn’t happy with her – not least because she’s unwittingly become the face of the rebellion. As unrest grows in Panem, Katniss begins to realize that surviving the Hunger Games was only the beginning.

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Book Five
Starting time: 8:55 PM
Ending time: 2:42 AM

Title: Graceling
Author: Kristin Cashore
Genre: High Fantasy
Pages: 471

Summary: Everyone fears Gracelings — and they fear Katsa most of all, for she’s Graced with the ability to kill. Her uncle, the King, uses her as a strong arm to bully his nobles, but Katsa hates being treated like a mad dog, and is determined to get out from under his thumb. Doing that, however, thrusts her into some international intrigue she never could have imagined…

Thoughts: Holy crap, did I love this book. It isn’t perfect, but it’s delightful and exciting and I love Katsa (and Po, and Bitterblue, and Raffin, and etc…). Really, it had me completely at this exchange:

Sighing, Helda carried the dress from the bathing room. “It would look stunning, My Lady,” she called, “with your dark hair and eyes.”

Katsa yanked at one of the more stubborn knots in her hair. She spoke to the bubbles gathered on the surface of the water. “If there’s anyone I wish to stun at dinner, I’ll hit him in the face.”

This book is totally worth a full review someday, and I will absolutely a) reread it, and b) pick up Cashore’s next book when it comes out. Five cupcakes.

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By Suzanne Collins [LibraryThing - Amazon]

Katniss Everdeen is a poacher in the poorest district of Panem, the country that exists where the United States used to be. She’s been single-handedly supporting her family for five years, and would do anything for her little sister — even take her sister’s place in Panem’s brutal Hunger Games, in which tributes (more accurately described as sacrifices) from each district are forced to fight each other to the death. On national television. At first, no one takes Kat seriously, but even as she proves herself a formidable opponent she rages against the system, knowing that if she survives and wins the Hunger Games, she may lose her humanity altogether.

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By Tamora Pierce [Pierce at LibraryThing -- Pierce at Amazon]

For years, Beka has dreamed of becoming one of the Provost’s Dogs, the guards who keep law and order in the kingdom of Tortall. Now she has joined their ranks, but her talent for sniffing out conspiracies and going after the powerful criminals behind them may get her killed before she has a chance to enjoy it. But Beka’s got one weapon no Rat can escape: she can hear the voices of the dead.

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By Libba Bray [Bray at LibraryThing - Bray at Amazon]

Gemma Doyle has lived her whole life in India, but when her mother is killed, her family returns to England, where Gemma is sent off to Spence Academy for Young Ladies. But Gemma can’t escape her grief, or the prophetic visions she’s suddenly privy to. With her friends Pippa, Felicity, and Ann, she discovers the realms, a magical world where they can be all the things their rigid Victorian society won’t allow them to be. But everyone wants power over the magic Gemma holds – the creatures of the realms, secret societies in the ordinary world, and her mother’s killer – and no one can be trusted.

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By Robin Wasserman [LibraryThing - Amazon]

Lia Kahn was beautiful, popular, and rich. Her life was perfect — until she died, only to wake with her brain patterns transferred into a mechanical body. But society isn’t kind to Skinners, as downloaded people are called. She loses her status at school when her friends and her boyfriend abandon her. There’s a whole cult devoted to ridding the world of Skinners. Even her own family is uncomfortable with her. And for her part, Lia’s left wondering… Is she really Lia Kahn, or just a robot programmed to believe she’s a person?

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By Frances Hardinge [LibraryThing - Amazon]

A paraphrased conversation from your bloggers:

Jess: You know what book was awesome? Fly By Night.

(Jess may have edited this paraphrased conversation a tad.)

When 12-year-old Mosca falls in with a low-rent poet and conman named Eponymous Clent in an effort to escape her miserable, provincial life, she has no idea that she’ll soon be at the center of a dangerous web of political intrigue and rebellion. But no sooner have Mosca, Clent, and Mosca’s homicidal goose Saracen arrived in the city of Mandelion than Mosca finds herself adrift in a world of radicals, conspirators, zealots, mad dukes, highwaymen, heretics, and murderers. Mosca will need all her cunning and grit just to survive. Luckily, she’s got plenty of both.

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