Blog Tour Review: Day Zero (Day Zero Duology #1)

Title: Day Zero (Day Zero Duology #1)
Author: Kelly deVos
Genre: Young Adult, Thriller, Dystopian
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Format: Ebook
Release Date: November 12, 2019
Rating: ★★★★★

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Goodreads Synopsis:

If you’re going through hell…keep going.

Seventeen-year-old coder Jinx Marshall grew up spending weekends drilling with her paranoid dad for a doomsday she’s sure will never come. She’s an expert on self-heating meal rations, Krav Maga and extracting water from a barrel cactus. Now that her parents are divorced, she’s ready to relax. Her big plans include making it to level 99 in her favorite MMORPG and spending the weekend with her new hunky stepbrother, Toby.

But all that disaster training comes in handy when an explosion traps her in a burning building. Stuck leading her headstrong stepsister, MacKenna, and her precocious little brother, Charles, to safety, Jinx gets them out alive only to discover the explosion is part of a pattern of violence erupting all over the country. Even worse, Jinx’s dad stands accused of triggering the chaos.

In a desperate attempt to evade paramilitary forces and vigilantes, Jinx and her siblings find Toby and make a break for Mexico. With seemingly the whole world working against them, they’ve got to get along and search for the truth about the attacks—and about each other. But if they can survive, will there be anything left worth surviving for? 

Review:

This is an amazing dystopian story!

The story was fast paced and thrilling. The action started right away, with a terrorist attack on multiple banks following an election in the United States in the future.

Unlike other dystopian books, this book doesn’t seem like it’s set too far in the future. The terrorist attack that sparks the problems in Jinx’s life are very realistic. The political world with two warring parties is also familiar in today’s world. This made the story much more tense, knowing that it is a real possibility for the future.

I thought there would be more coding and technical references to the story. The entire event started with a coded program, but I thought there would be more of Jinx playing the online game she liked. Hopefully that will come in the next book.

I loved this book and I can’t wait to read the next one!

Thank you Inkyard Press for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What to read next:

This Mortal Coil (This Mortal Coil #1) by Emily Suvada

Fat Girl on a Plane by Kelly deVos

Author Info:

KELLY DEVOS is from Gilbert, Arizona, where she lives with her high school sweetheart husband, amazing teen daughter and superhero dog, Cocoa. She holds a B.A. in Creative Writing from Arizona State University. When not reading or writing, Kelly can typically be found with a mocha in hand, bingeing the latest TV shows and adding to her ever-growing sticker collection. Her debut novel, Fat Girl on a Plane, named one of the “50 Best Summer Reads of All Time” by Reader’s Digest magazine, is available now from HarperCollins.

Kelly’s work has been featured in the New York Times as well as on Salon, Vulture and Bustle.

Have you read Day Zero? What did you think of it?

It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? – November 18

This blog meme is hosted by Book Date. It is a place to meet up and share what you have been, are and about to be reading over the week.  It’s a great post to organize yourself. It’s an opportunity to visit and comment, and er… add to that ever growing TBR pile!

What I just finished:

This weekend I finished Day Zero (Day Zero Duology #1) by Kelly deVos.

What I’m currently reading:

I’m currently reading The Forbidden Warriors (The Forbidden #1) by Moud Adel.

What I’m reading next:

Next I will be reading Shadow Frost (Shadow Frost #1) by Coco Ma.

What are you guys reading this week? Have you read any of these books?

Jill’s Weekly Wrap-Up – November 17

Here are my reviews for the week with my ratings:

I did 9 weekly blogging memes:

How was your week? What did you guys read?

Sundays in Bed With… Day Zero (Day Zero Duology #1)

The meme that dares to ask what book has been in your bed this morning? Come share what book you’ve spent time curled up reading in bed, or which book you wish you had time to read today! This meme is hosted by Midnight Book Girl.

This Sunday I’m reading Day Zero (Day Zero Duology #1) by Kelly deVos.

Goodreads Synopsis:

If you’re going through hell…keep going.

Seventeen-year-old coder Jinx Marshall grew up spending weekends drilling with her paranoid dad for a doomsday she’s sure will never come. She’s an expert on self-heating meal rations, Krav Maga and extracting water from a barrel cactus. Now that her parents are divorced, she’s ready to relax. Her big plans include making it to level 99 in her favorite MMORPG and spending the weekend with her new hunky stepbrother, Toby.

But all that disaster training comes in handy when an explosion traps her in a burning building. Stuck leading her headstrong stepsister, MacKenna, and her precocious little brother, Charles, to safety, Jinx gets them out alive only to discover the explosion is part of a pattern of violence erupting all over the country. Even worse, Jinx’s dad stands accused of triggering the chaos.

In a desperate attempt to evade paramilitary forces and vigilantes, Jinx and her siblings find Toby and make a break for Mexico. With seemingly the whole world working against them, they’ve got to get along and search for the truth about the attacks—and about each other. But if they can survive, will there be anything left worth surviving for?

What book are you in bed with today?

Six for Sunday – I Wanna Snuggle With…

This meme is hosted by Steph at A little but a lot. The weekly prompts for 2019 can be found here.

This week’s prompt is I Wanna Snuggle With… These are a list of books with people hugging on the cover. Here’s my list:

1. Right Kiss Wrong Guy (Offsides #2) by Natalie Decker

2. The Kiss Quotient (The Kiss Quotient #1) by Helen Hoang

3. The Retribution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer #3) by Michelle Hodkin

4. Carmilla by Kim Turrisi

5. The Love Solution by Ashley Croft

6. Laura Dean Keeps Breaking up With Me by Mariko Tamaki, Rosemary Valero-O’Connell

Did you write a #SixforSunday post? What was your list of I Wanna Snuggle With… Books?

(All book cover images from Goodreads)

Review: Obsidio (The Illuminae Files #3)

Title: Obsidio (The Illuminae Files #3)
Author: Amie Kaufman, Jay Kristoff
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Source: Purchased
Format: Hardcover
Release Date: March 13, 2018
Rating: ★★★★★

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Goodreads Synopsis:

Kady, Ezra, Hanna, and Nik narrowly escaped with their lives from the attacks on Heimdall station and now find themselves crammed with 2,000 refugees on the container ship, Mao. With the jump station destroyed and their resources scarce, the only option is to return to Kerenza—but who knows what they’ll find seven months after the invasion? 

Meanwhile, Kady’s cousin, Asha, survived the initial BeiTech assault and has joined Kerenza’s ragtag underground resistance. When Rhys—an old flame from Asha’s past—reappears on Kerenza, the two find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict. 

With time running out, a final battle will be waged on land and in space, heroes will fall, and hearts will be broken. 

Review:

This was an amazing conclusion to the Illuminae Files series.

I was hooked right from the start. Even though these books have hundreds of pages, they are so fast paced that I flew through them.

This story introduced some new characters on the planet Keranza IV. The characters from the first two books were still there, on their ship, the Mao. It was great to see everyone come together in this book.

I loved the ending. It was unexpected. I was disappointed at first, when there were some casualties in the final war, but I ended up loving the ending.

This is a fabulous series! I highly recommend it!

What to read next:

Aurora Rising (The Aurora Cycle #1) by Amie Kaufman, Jay Kristoff

Have you read Obsidio? What did you think of it?

Stacking the Shelves – November 16

This is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews and Reading Reality. Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

I was approved for a book on NetGalley from Kensington Books:

Full Circle: From Hollywood to Real Life and Back Again by Andrea Barber

I was approved for a book on NetGalley from Blackstone Publishing:

The Seventh Sun by Lani Forbes

I was approved for a book on NetGalley from Hachette Books:

Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown by Anne Glenconner

I was approved for a book on NetGalley from Amulet Books:

Mermaid School by Lucy Courtenay, Sheena Dempsey

I was approved for a book on NetGalley from HQ Digital:

One Week ‘Til Christmas by Belinda Missen

I was approved for a book on NetGalley from Inkyard Press:

We Didn’t Ask for This by Adi Alsaid

I was approved for a book on NetGalley from Penguin Random House Canada:

Aggie Morton, Mystery Queen: The Body Under the Piano by Marthe Jocelyn

Thank you Kensington Books, Blackstone Publishing, Hachette Books, Amulet Books, HQ Digital, Inkyard Press, and Penguin Random House Canada for this book!

What books did you get this week?

Review: Mary Shelley (Little People, Big Dreams)

Title: Mary Shelley (Little People, Big Dreams)
Author: Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara
Genre: Children’s, Nonfiction
Publisher: Frances Lincoln Children’s Books
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Format: Ebook
Release Date: October 1, 2019
Rating: ★★★★★

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Goodreads Synopsis:

New in the critically acclaimed Little People, BIG DREAMS series, discover the incredible life of Mary Shelley, the English novelist and creator of Frankenstein.

When Mary Shelley was a little girl, she used to write stories beneath the trees in her garden. As an adult, Mary was inspired by this same imagination to create a ghost story, which became the famous novel: Frankenstein. This gripping book features stylish and quirky illustrations and extra facts at the back, including a biographical timeline with historical photos and a detailed profile of the novelist’s life.

Review:

I love the books in the Little People, Big Dreams series! The books teach kids about important historical figures.

Last year was the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. There were many retellings and biographies of her that were published last year to celebrate.

Shelley was an intelligent and innovative woman. She used the knowledge of new inventions of the 1800s to write one of the most famous horror stories of all time. It is amazing that she wrote it when she was a young woman. She wrote it for a competition between friends to write a scary story. She was very successful with that project.

This is a great book to teach kids about Mary Shelley.

Thank you Frances Lincoln Children’s Books for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What to read next:

Agatha Christie (Little People, Big Dreams) by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara

Jane Austen (Little People, Big Dreams) by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara

Have you read Mary Shelley? What did you think of it?

First Lines Friday – November 15

This is a weekly meme hosted by Wandering Words, where you give the first few lines of a book to hook your readers before introducing the book.

Here are my first lines:

“It would be inaccurate to say that my childhood was normal before they came. It was far from normal, but it felt normal because it was all I’d known. It’s only now, with decades of hindsight, that I can see how odd it was.”

Do you recognize these first lines?

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And the book is… The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell.

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Goodreads synopsis:

From the New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone and Watching You comes another page-turning look inside one family’s past as buried secrets threaten to come to light. 

Be careful who you let in. 

Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am. 

She soon learns not only the identity of her birth parents, but also that she is the sole inheritor of their abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable Chelsea neighborhood, worth millions. Everything in Libby’s life is about to change. But what she can’t possibly know is that others have been waiting for this day as well—and she is on a collision course to meet them. 

Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying. When they arrived, they found a healthy ten-month-old happily cooing in her crib in the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone. 

In The Family Upstairs, the master of “bone-chilling suspense” (People) brings us the can’t-look-away story of three entangled families living in a house with the darkest of secrets.

Have you read The Family Upstairs? What did you think of it?

Review: Reveal Me (Shatter Me #5.5)

Title: Reveal Me (Shatter Me #5.5)
Author: Tahereh Mafi
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Publisher: HarperCollins
Source: Purchased
Format: Paperback
Release Date: October 8, 2019
Rating: ★★★★

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Goodreads Synopsis:

This fourth companion novella to Tahereh Mafi’s New York Times bestselling Shatter Me series is narrated by fan favorite character Kenji Kishimoto!

The explosive revelations in Defy Me have left readers reeling and desperate for answers. This fourth and final novella in the series will bring readers back to the world of the Shatter Me before the final novel installment hits shelves in winter 2020.

And don’t miss Find Me, the gorgeous paperback bind-up that brings together Shadow Me and Reveal Me in print for the first time!

Review:

This book has my favourite cover of all the Shatter Me books. I’ve loved all the covers, but this one is my favourite.

Each of the novels ends with a huge cliffhanger. The novellas fill in some of the time in between, from the perspective of a different character. This one is told by Kenji, like the previous novella. He is one of my favourite characters.

The plot of this novella went up and down constantly. There was lots of tension between Kenji and Nazeera. They were friends one minute and enemies the next. It got a little frustrating after a while, because they kept going back and forth. This novella was disappointing because it didn’t move the plot forward very much.

I’m so excited to read the next novel in the Shatter Me series next year! This novella is a good interlude to read before the next book is published.

What to read next:

Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles #1) by Marissa Meyer

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer #1) by Michelle Hodkin

Have you read Reveal Me? What did you think of it?