A Stranger Thing by Martin Leicht and Isla Neal

Series: The Ever-Expanding Universe #2
Genres: Science Fiction, Humor, Young Adult

Release Date: November 12th, 2013
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Source: Library

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In this witty, adventurous sequel to Mothership, which Publishers Weekly called “a whole lot of fun” Elvie Nara is back on earth—but her life (including her new baby) is still pretty out there!

Pregnancy was pretty rough for sixteen-year-old Elvie Nara, what with the morning sickness, constant food cravings, and the alien race war she found herself in the middle of. But if she thought giving birth to an extraterrestrial’s baby would be the hard part, she was sorely mistaken.

After Elvie somehow has a baby girl, the always-male Almiri completely wig out. Suddenly Elvie’s supposed allies have shipped her—along with her father, her best friend, Ducky, and her maybe-boyfriend, boneheaded Almiri commando Cole Archer—off to a remote “retention facility” (aka alien jail) in Antarctica. Talk about cold. But things really get complicated when a new group of hybrid aliens arrive with information that sends Elvie’s world spinning. Before long, Elvie is trekking across the bottom of the Earth with a band of friends and frenemies to uncover the secrets of her own origin. Will Elvie ever be able to convince the Almiri that a conspiracy to conquer the planet is a greater threat than a sixteen-year-old girl and a newborn who won’t stop crying?

This book was not a large improvement over it’s predecessor and I’d go so far to say that it was actually slightly worse but there is something about this series that makes you want to keep reading in spite of its shallowness. Sometimes we just really need is a nice fluffy read that doesn’t make us ask all the important questions and still manages to entertain us. 

Most of A Stranger Thing takes place over a short period of time and I think that’s one of the things that works for this book. Its fast pace makes it so that the reader just wants to continue reading without any interruptions. The pace makes it easy for the book to suck you in.

Elvie remains the fun witty character she was in the previous book but with the added advantage of being more mature because of her new mommy status. Elvie is a fantastic character to read about. Its just so much fun to watch her deal with problems, both external and internal.

One of her internal conflicts in this book is her relationship with Cole and I find that I like that she is questioning if she wants something long term with him. She loves him but considering how he can be completely irresponsible and immature at times, it’s nice that she isn’t going all ‘I love him and we’ll work though everything’. She has a kid to think about now and is Cole really ready for the kind of responsibility that comes with being a parent?

On that note, I am quite interested in the potential growth Cole might undergo. I’d like to see his character develop from the dumb jock he seems to be. He is a nice change from the usual ‘misunderstood jock’ stereotype but at the same time, I really want to see another side of him, something that’ll make me really connect with his character instead of just laughing at his antics. Elvie deserves better and loving her doesn’t quite make up for the fact that he can be so silly at times. Especially considering the seriousness of the situations the two tend to find themselves in.

That said, I don’t want a love triangle and I don’t think the author will introduce one in the final book (that would just kind of be pointless). What I want is to see crucial character development.

Something else I had a problem with was how certain characters were introduced in this book and after the initial ‘get to know you’, they weren't brought up until the ‘twist’ moments. One of the characters is there with Elvie for a good part of the book but they are almost completely forgotten about until necessary to the plot. What were they doing all that time?!?!?!?! 

There are also some twists in this book and while none of them are unpredictable, I have to say, they weren’t all that bad either. They weren’t in your face obvious and even if I saw them coming,  I think the author did a good job executing them.

If you were to look closer at the plot, you would find that it’s actually not perfect (SURPRISE) but at the same time, it works for this story. I liked what was happening. I liked the way the author introduced us to new concepts and I liked how the author developed the story.

This book is not even close to perfect but in spite of all of its fault it’s such a fun and likeable read and if you want something really fluffy, I’d encourage you to pick the series up (so long as you’re prepared to deal with certain annoying things).

Mothership by Martin Leicht and Isla Neal

Genres: Science Fiction, Humor, Young Adult

Release Date: July 10th, 2012
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Source: Library

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Teen pregnancy is never easy—especially not when extraterrestrials are involved. The first in a new trilogy.

Elvie Nara was doing just fine in the year 2074. She had a great best friend, a dad she adored, and bright future working on the Ares Project on Mars. But then she had to get involved with sweet, gorgeous, dumb-as-a-brick Cole--and now she’s pregnant.

Getting shipped off to the Hanover School for Expecting Teen Mothers was not how Elvie imagined spending her junior year, but she can go with the flow. That is, until a team of hot commandos hijacks the ship--and one of them turns out to be Cole. She hasn’t seen him since she told him she’s pregnant, and now he’s bursting into her new home to tell her that her teachers are aliens and want to use her unborn baby to repopulate their species? Nice try, buddy. You could have just called.

So fine, finding a way off this ship is priority number one, but first Elvie has to figure out how Cole ended up as a commando, work together with her arch-nemesis, and figure out if she even wants to be a mother--assuming they get back to Earth in one piece. 

This book is exactly what the cover suggests it is. It’s fluff. The question arises as to whether it’s good or bad fluff and in my opinion, this book is fluff of the good variety. It didn’t always feel that way though. The first 100 pages or so were incredibly painful. I kept questioning the sanity of our main character and my own sanity too for continuing to read a book I wasn't enjoying. The reason I read on, even though I wasn't having a swell time, was because the book was funny. I hoped that the book would get better as I went along and I was right, it did. It got insanely better and I started actually enjoying the book instead of just laughing at the funny parts.

Elvie is our main character and happens to be knocked up. When I first found out about this series, I was intrigued by how the book would deal with teen pregnancy in a sci-fic setting. Worry not though, this book is not serious. It’s pretty goshdarn funny and even if it makes you question whether the author is dealing with an important issue like this with the sensitivity it deserves. Sometimes, you don’t want a deep and moving book! Sometimes you really just want some fluff.

Going back to Elvie though. Elvie is snarky and obviously has mommy issues. This leads to her being detached from her pregnancy and the idea that she is actually having a kid.She calls her fetus goober from pete’s sake. But Elvie is smart, and while she sometimes annoyed me with her slut shamming and her general outlook on some of her other peers, she still managed to be likeable because in spite of everything that had happened to her, she didn’t spend a lot of time moping around. She took action!

Cole on the other hand was an entirely questionable love interest. I despised him for the first 100 pages and questioned Elvie’s sanity for being so head over heels for a doofus for whom she was the ‘other’ girl and who bailed the moment he found out about the baby. But we get explanations for his jerk behavior and while they aren’t a 100% satisfying, they brought a much needed explanation as to how someone so smart as Elvie could love a dumbdumb like Cole.

I guess the one thing Cole has going for him is that even though he may not be the brightest bulb, he is loyal and is definitely smarter than he is given credit for. Especially given the way his superiors discredited him. There were moments in their relationship that were adorable and I think what makes their relationship work is that Elvie isn’t with him for his brains, she knows he isn’t super smart, she’s with him because he is sweet and caring (if dense at times).

This book is very fast paced and if I remember correctly, a lot of it takes place over the course of 24 hours. It’s got a lot of action and could be surprisingly brutal at times (meaning not everyone is alive at the end … including a character I had grown to love). I do like how the author paces the book though. It fits what the author is going and he does it just right so that the book never feels rushed. It feels exciting.

This is a fun fluffy book and while it takes a bit to get used to, it is worth it since it’s such a fast-paced cutesy read with a great futuristic setting and a bit of space opera (if it can be classified as such). 

Frozen by Melissa de la Cruz

Series: Heart of Dread #1

Genres: Dystopia, Adventure, Young Adult
Release Date: October 2nd, 2014 (UK Edition)
Publisher: Orchard Books
Source: eARC from Netgalley

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Welcome to New Vegas, a city once covered in bling, now blanketed in ice. Like much of the destroyed planet, the place knows only one temperature—freezing. But some things never change. The diamond in the ice desert is still a 24-hour hedonistic playground and nothing keeps the crowds away from the casino floors, never mind the rumors about sinister sorcery in its shadows.
At the heart of this city is Natasha Kestal, a young blackjack dealer looking for a way out. Like many, she's heard of a mythical land simply called “the Blue.” They say it’s a paradise, where the sun still shines and the waters are turquoise. More importantly, it’s a place where Nat won’t be persecuted, even if her darkest secret comes to light.
But passage to the Blue is treacherous, if not impossible, and her only shot is to bet on a ragtag crew of mercenaries led by a cocky runner named Ryan Wesson to take her there. Danger and deceit await on every corner, even as Nat and Wes find themselves inexorably drawn to each other. But can true love survive the lies? Fiery hearts collide in this fantastic tale of the evil men do and the awesome power within us all. 

This book is sad. Not because it's actually a sad book but because it has the potential to be so much more. I felt sorely disappointed by this book because I found it to be lacking. The premises was so intriguing yet we didn't get what we had been promised.

The book is set in a world where the people are stuck in an ice age of sorts and you can kind of imagine the kind of trouble that would cause. The poor tend to suffer from frostblight since they cannot get warm enough and the rich hoard heat credits. Sounds interesting? Yeah. And over time, the population has forgotten how to read and text speech is now what is being used to communicate with the population. Sounds scary? HECK YEAH! Unfortunately all these things that could have been further developed to make the world more solid and definite were only mentioned. Plus, the mythology fan in me was severely disappointed when the aspect of Atlantis was only mentioned. The entire book is based on them finding it yet we got nothing about it besides how awesome it was. More than a little saddening.

That isn't all though. The characters themselves weren't as well developed as they could have been. I don't know a lot about them and what I know kind of makes me shake my head. The two main characters, Wes and Nat, were just not that smart. When you get ready to plan some sort of adventure across a polluted ocean and you have the money to buy provisions, BUY THEM. Buy them so you don't resort to eating twigs and fishing a polluted ocean for fish that may or may not be poisonous. Think things through.

They are also supposed to be super smart. The weird thing about Wes is that in spite of all his experiences he doesn't seem to be the hardened solider one might expect. In fact he is pretty soft, he admits it himself! He is also a horrible leader, that he also admits. He's got the lives of his own crew to protect yet he is willing to take on extra passengers even if they have nothing to eat and taking on said passengers could lower all of their survival rates. Way to call the shots and make tough decisions.

These little things bothered me but what also bothered me was the fact that two fell into a serious case of insta-love. It seemed like insta-love was the norm in this book. I don't understand how they could have fallen in love so quickly, with so little to go on and so many secrets between them. I am sure love happens but at the same time, there wasn't enough development afterwards to make the insta-love believable.

The plot was okay. Okay is a sad word to use but really that's what it was. A bunch of random things happened and were not really elaborated on and the we never really got a lot of the answers. Of course, the author may be saving the answers for the sequels. I just feel like I wanted more out of this book than I got.

A lot of the plot seems to fly by and in a bad way. They don't face as many challenges as one might expect and on top of that, the major obstacle goes by in a matter of pages, not even a chapter, pages! It happens and then THE END.

I never really noticed them using the map all that much either which made me wonder how they got to their location in the first place. In fact, I would have imagined that having the map would have been useful but with the way things turned out for them, they didn't seem to have needed it.

All these little inconsistencies with the plot bothered me but I never really hated the book.

It's not a bad read, it's just it's not quality reading material either. The pages might fly by for you and you might love this book to pieces but that was just not the case for me.

If you're looking for a quick mindless read and are intrigued by this one, I'd say go for it, just don't expect miracles.