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pub 10/18/16 by Poppy
YA - Contemporary
Received ARC from pub
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First, I love that Fiona Wood is calling her contemporary series
The Six Impossiverse. Second, I've read them completely out of order. And third, that's okay. You don't need to read one to understand the other. (FYI: I've read
Wildlife but not
Six Impossible Things.) Vân Uoc Phan is the daughter of Vietnamese refugees and a scholarship student at a high school where she doesn't
quite fit in. She's often torn between meeting her parents' hopes for her (aka a future doctor) and her own aspirations of becoming an artist. By all means, she's your typical girl who enjoys spending time with her best friend, loves Jane Eyre and crushes on the popular boy. Then one day said crush – Billy Gardner – starts paying attention to her and she's convinced it's because of a wish she made. The whole "I don't believe in magic but I think my wish came true" thing is kind of where the author lost me but it did add a fun quirk to the book. What ultimately stuck out for me though were the number of meaningful themes the author addressed. Wood covers growing up with immigrant parents, PTSD, the complicated nature of family, friendship, bullying, sexuality and falling for someone for the first time. It's definitely one of those cases where you should
not judge a book by its cover or even its synopsis and I genuinely hope young readers will pick this one up.
Do I recommend? I do. Even though I can't say that I love this series, I will say each book I've read has had strong themes that struck a chord with me.
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pub 10/4/16 by HarperCollins
YA - Dystopian
Received e-ARC via Edelweiss |
Disruption is a dystopian world that to me felt like smart watches on steroids. Basically everyone is required to wear Mercer Corporation's M-Bands which are bracelets that monitor every aspect of your life and can even tell you who your perfect match is. It takes out all thought, all "mistakes" and the joy of discovering what your future may hold and instead tells you what it is. There are some who buy into the tech wholeheartedly and there are others like Maggie Stevens who oppose it. Since the day her own life fell apart because of these bands, she's vowed to take down the M-Corp empire and vital to that plan is Quentin Mercer, the son of its founder. What was good about
Disruption was the whole concept. Given how reliant we are on technology now, Shirvington's world doesn't seem too farfetched. But unfortunately, I didn't connect to Maggie the way I had hoped to. Her path throughout the book was either predictable or exasperating. Instead it was the voices of the secondary characters like Quentin and another guy she'd blackmailed into helping her, that resonated with me more. I just needed more from Maggie. More of her family, more time spent with Quentin. Just more, period.
Do I recommend? I liked it and book does end on a bang but it's not enough to make me want to continue the series. I do know a lot of people who really enjoyed this book though so it's worth giving it a shot if you're interested.
I really liked Cloudwish! It's actually my favorite of that companion series, and I'm fairly confident that it's because I enjoyed the main character so much. I thought it was really interesting, and I'm happy I read it!
ReplyDeleteI wound up loving Cloudwish enough that I picked up Six Impossible Things. Still have to find time to fit in Wildlife soon. Funnily enough I really liked the wish aspect but it is a theme I tend to gravitate toward in books most of the time.
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