Blood Red Road by Moira Young

Title: Blood Red Road
Author: Moira Young
Publisher: Marion Lloyd
Released: June 2nd 2011
Pages: 492 (Paperback)
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In a lawless future land, where life is cheap and survival is hard, Saba has been brought up in isolated Silverlake. She never sees the dangers of the destructive society outside. When her twin brother is snatched by mysterious black-robed riders, she sets outon an epic quest to rescue him.

I had this on my TBR list, and I've nearly taken it out of the library a dozen times - but something stopped me, and I still don't know what that was. However, since this was my last chance to take out books from the school, I decided to go for it - and almost immediately regretted it. Roughly 500 pages of kind of colloquial writing and a slow pace? No thanks! But thankfully, I pushed forward, and halfway through and I was addicted! Unlike other dystopian novels, Blood Red Road seems to be a series to look out for.

The Power of Six by Pittacus Lore

Title: The Power of Six
Author: Pittacus Lore
Publisher: Penguin
Released: August 23rd 2011
Pages: 380 (Hardback)
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I’ve seen him on the news. Followed the stories about what happened in Ohio. John Smith, out there, on the run. To the world, he’s a mystery. But to me . . . he’s one of us.

Nine of us came here, but sometimes I wonder if time has changed us—if we all still believe in our mission. How can I know? There are six of us left. We’re hiding, blending in, avoiding contact with one another . . . but our Legacies are developing, and soon we’ll be equipped to fight. Is John Number Four, and is his appearance the sign I’ve been waiting for? And what about Number Five and Six? Could one of them be the raven-haired girl with the stormy eyes from my dreams? The girl with powers that are beyond anything I could ever imagine? The girl who may be strong enough to bring the six of us together?

They caught Number One in Malaysia.
Number Two in England.
And Number Three in Kenya.
They tried to catch Number Four in Ohio—and failed.
I am Number Seven. One of six still alive.
And I'm ready to fight.

You know, nowadays I'm usually quite apprehensive when it comes to sequels, especially if their prequel was amazing. I Am Number Four blew me away - it was from a male point of view, yet I could relate to him perfectly and found myself sucked into his crazy reality. Luckily, The Power of Six held exactly the same grip as its predecessor, and I found myself skipping revision in order to read more. If you haven't read the first book, then beware spoilers.

A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

Title: A Game of Thrones
Author: George R. R. Martin
Publisher: HarperCollins
Released: August 6th 1996
Pages: 801 (Paperback)
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Summers span decades. Winter can last a lifetime. And the struggle for the Iron Throne has begun.

As Warden of the north, Lord Eddard Stark counts it a curse when King Robert bestows on him the office of the Hand. His honour weighs him down at court where a true man does what he will, not what he must... and a dead enemy is a thing of beauty. 

The old gods have no power in the south, Stark's family is split and there is treachery at court. Worse, the vengeance-mad heir of the deposed Dragon King has grown to maturity in exile in the Free Cities. He claims the Iron Throne.

Breathe by Sarah Crossan

Title: Breathe
Author: Sarah Crossan
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Released: October 2nd 2012
Pages: 384 (Paperback)
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When oxygen levels plunge in a treeless world, a state lottery decides which lucky few will live inside the Pod. Everyone else will slowly suffocate. Years after the Switch, life inside the Pod has moved on. A poor Auxiliary class cannot afford the oxygen tax which supplies extra air for running, dancing and sports. The rich Premiums, by contrast, are healthy and strong. Anyone who opposes the regime is labelled a terrorist and ejected from the Pod to die. Sixteen-year-old Alina is part of the secret resistance, but when a mission goes wrong she is forced to escape from the Pod. With only two days of oxygen in her tank, she too faces the terrifying prospect of death by suffocation. Her only hope is to find the mythical Grove, a small enclave of trees protected by a hardcore band of rebels. Does it even exist, and if so, what or who are they protecting the trees from? A dystopian thriller about courage and freedom, with a love story at its heart.

Plague by Michael Grant

Title: Plague
Author: Michael Grant
Publisher: Egmont
Released: April 5th 2011
Pages: 522 (Hardcover)
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It's been eight months since all the adults disappeared. Gone.

They've survived hunger. They've survived lies. But the stakes keep rising, and the dystopian horror keeps building. Yet despite the simmering unrest left behind by so many battles, power struggles, and angry divides, there is a momentary calm in Perdido Beach.

But enemies in the FAYZ don't just fade away, and in the quiet, deadly things are stirring, mutating, and finding their way free. The Darkness has found its way into the mind of its Nemesis at last and is controlling it through a haze of delirium and confusion. A highly contagious, fatal illness spreads at an alarming rate. Sinister, predatory insects terrorize Perdido Beach. And Sam, Astrid, Diana, and Caine are plagued by a growing doubt that they'll escape—or even survive—life in the FAYZ. With so much turmoil surrounding them, what desperate choices will they make when it comes to saving themselves and those they love?

Sometimes I sit back and wonder why I still continue with this series. It's a bit like marmite - you either love it or hate it...or in my case, dislike it but have this intense desire to find out what's going to happen next. This is what propels me through this book - the constant countdown to the big she-bang at the end.

Swans and Klons by Nora Olsen

Title: Swans and Klons
Author: Nora Olsen
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Release: May 14th 2013
Pages: 264 (eBook)
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What does it take to survive in a world built on lies?

Sixteen-year-old Rubric loves her pampered life in the Academy dormitory. She’s dating Salmon Jo, a brilliant and unpredictable girl. In their all-female world, non-human slaves called Klons do all the work. But when Rubric and Salmon Jo break into the laboratory where human and Klon babies are grown in vats, they uncover a terrifying secret that tears their idyllic world apart.

Their friends won’t believe them, and their teachers won’t help them. The Doctors who rule Society want to silence Rubric and Salmon Jo. The two girls must flee for their lives. As they face the unthinkable, the only thing they have left to believe in is their love for each other.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Title: Lord of the Flies

Author: William Golding

Publisher: Faber and Faber

Released: 1954

Pages: 225 (Paperback)

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William Golding's compelling story about a group of very ordinary small boys marooned on a coral island has become a modern classic. At first it seems as though it is all going to be great fun; but the fun before long becomes furious and life on the island turns into a nightmare of panic and death. As ordinary standards of behaviour collapse, the whole world the boys know collapses with them—the world of cricket and homework and adventure stories—and another world is revealed beneath, primitive and terrible.

You know, after my teacher chose for us to read To Kill A Mockingbird, I trusted his judgement of books. So when he said that Lord of the Flies was fantastic and I would love it, I believed him. How wrong I was - oh how very wrong I was. Get ready for the GIFs, guys.

Blog Tour: With A Kiss by Stephanie Fowers

About The Author 
Stephanie Fowers loves bringing stories to life, and depending on her latest madcap ideas will do it through written word, song, and/ or film. She absolutely adores Bollywood and bonnet movies; i.e., BBC (which she supposes includes non-bonnet movies Sherlock and Dr. Who). Presently, she lives in Salt Lake where she's living the life of the starving artist. Stephanie plans to share more of her novels, films, and even a musical in the near future. May the adventures begin.

Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi

Title: Under the Never Sky
Author: Veronica Rossi
Publisher: Atom
Released: January 3rd 2012
Pages: 374 (Paperback)
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Worlds kept them apart. Destiny brought them together.
 
Aria has lived her whole life in the protected dome of Reverie. Her entire world confined to its spaces, she's never thought to dream of what lies beyond its doors. So when her mother goes missing, Aria knows her chances of surviving in the outer wasteland long enough to find her are slim.

Then Aria meets an outsider named Perry. He's searching for someone too. He's also wild - a savage - but might be her best hope at staying alive.

If they can survive, they are each other's best hope for finding answers.

The Declaration by Gemma Malley

Title: The Declaration
Author: Gemma Malley
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Released: October 2nd 2007
Pages: 304 (Paperback)
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Anna Covey is a ‘Surplus’. She should not have been born. In a society in which ageing is no longer feared, and death is no longer an inevitability, children are an abomination.

Like all Surpluses, Anna is living in a Surplus Hall and learning how to make amends for the selfish act her parents committed in having her. She is quietly accepting of her fate until, one day, a new inmate arrives. Anna’s life is thrown into chaos. But is she brave enough to believe this mysterious boy?

A tense and utterly compelling story about a society behind a wall, and the way in which two young people seize the chance to break free.

Splintered by A.G.Howard

Title: Splintered

Author: A.G.Howard

Publisher: Amulet Books

Released:  January 1st 2013

Pages: 377 (Uncorrected proof)

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Alyssa Gardner hears the whispers of bugs and flowers—precisely the affliction that landed her mother in a mental hospital years before. This family curse stretches back to her ancestor Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alyssa might be crazy, but she manages to keep it together. For now.

When her mother’s mental health takes a turn for the worse, Alyssa learns that what she thought was fiction is based in terrifying reality. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. There, Alyssa must pass a series of tests, including draining an ocean of Alice’s tears, waking the slumbering tea party, and subduing a vicious bandersnatch, to fix Alice’s mistakes and save her family.

She must also decide whom to trust: Jeb, her gorgeous best friend and secret crush, or the sexy but suspicious Morpheus, her guide through Wonderland, who may have dark motives of his own.

Lies by Michael Grant

Title: Lies
Author: Michael Grant
Publisher: HarperCollins
Released: May 4th 2010
Pages: 472 (Hardcover)
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It happens in one night: a girl who died now walks among the living, Zil and the Human Crew set fire to Perdido Beach, and amid the flames and smoke, Sam sees the figure of the boy he fears the most - Drake. But Sam and Caine defeated him along with the Darkness - or so they thought. As Perdido Beach burns, battles rage: Astrid against the Town Council; the Human Crew versus the mutants; and Sam against Drake. And the prophetess Orsay and her companion, Nerezza, are preaching that death will set them all free. As life in the FAYZ becomes more desperate, no one knows who they can trust.

The Hobbit by J.R.R.Tolkien

Title: The Hobbit
Author: J.R.R.Tolkien
Publisher: HarperCollins
Released: September 21st 1937
Pages: 277 (Paperback)
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Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely travelling further than the pantry of his hobbit-hole in Bag End. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard, Gandalf, and a company of thirteen dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an unexpected journey ‘there and back again’. They have a plot to raid the treasure hoard of Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon...

I feel quite disappointed in myself, based on the fact that after years of owning a copy of this book, I only picked it up so that I could go and watch The Hobbit in the cinema (I love Martin Freeman, sue me!). But OH MY GIDDY GOSH this novel was and is amazing! I can't believe it took a bloody film to rouse me round into reading it! If you're planning on going to see the film, I implore you to read it first - even if Christmas shopping has made you broke, go to your closest library, I'm sure they'll have several gazillion copies. This is a must-read.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Title: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Author: Douglas Adams
Publisher: Young Picador
Released: October 12th 1979
Pages: 224 (Paperback)
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Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.

Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years.

I have never read a bad review of this novel. Whenever I mentioned that I wanted to read this book, people immediately told me that I'd love it - that I have a Babelfish in my ear, anyway. I was convinced that I would find this book amazing - great concept, witty author, and a film with Martin Freeman in it - what could be better? Unfortunately - brace yourself for the anticlimaxes of all anticlimaxes since Twilight - I didn't like it.

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Title: Uglies
Author: Scott Westerfeld
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Released: February 8th 2005
Pages: 425 (Paperback)
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Tally can't wait to turn sixteen and become pretty. Sixteen is the magic number that brings a transformation from repellent Ugly into a stunningly attractive Pretty, and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks, Tally will be there.

But Tally's new friend, Shay, isn't sure she wants to be Pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the Pretty world - and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn Pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

Pure by Julianna Baggott

Title: Pure
Author: Julianna Baggott
Publisher: Headline Publishing Group
Released: February 8th 2012
Pages: 480 (Paperback)
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We know you are here, our brothers and sisters . . . 
Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost--how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run. 
Burn a Pure and Breathe the Ash . . . 
There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked: Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different. He thinks about loss--maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter. Or maybe it's his claustrophobia: his feeling that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. So when a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her. 
When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.

Red Leech by Andrew Lane

Title: Red Leech
Author: Andrew Lane
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Released: November 1st 2010
Pages: 338 (Paperback)
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Fourteen-year-old Sherlock Holmes knows that Amyus Crowe, his mysterious American tutor, has some dark secrets. But he didn’t expect to find John Wilkes Booth, the notorious assassin, apparently alive and well in England—and Crowe somehow mixed up in it. When no one will tell you the truth, sometimes you have to risk all to discover it for yourself. And so begins an adventure that will take Sherlock across the Atlantic, to the center of a deadly web—where a friend is in peril and a defeated army threatens to rise again.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K.Rowling

Title: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Author: J.K.Rowling
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Released: June 30th 1997
Pages: 223 (Paperback)
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Harry Potter thinks he is an ordinary boy. He lives with his Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia and cousin Dudley, who make him sleep in a cupboard under the stairs. Then Harry starts receiving mysterious letters and his life is changed for ever. He is whisked away by a beetle-eyed giant of a man and enrolled in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The reason: Harry Potter is a wizard!

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Title: Delirium
Author: Lauren Oliver
Publisher: Hodder
Released: February 1st 2011
Pages: 393 (Paperback)
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Ninety-five days, and then I’ll be safe.
I wonder whether the procedure will hurt.
I want to get it over with.
It’s hard to be patient.
It’s hard not to be afraid while I’m still uncured, though so far the deliria hasn’t touched me yet.
Still, I worry.
They say that in the old days, love drove people to madness.
The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don’t.

Death Cloud by Andrew Lane

Title: Death Cloud
Author: Andrew Lane
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Released: January 1st 2010
Pages: 306 (Paperback)
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The year is 1868, and Sherlock Holmes is fourteen. His life is that of a perfectly ordinary army officer’s son: boarding school, good manners, a classical education – the backbone of the British Empire. But all that is about to change. With his father suddenly posted to India, and his mother mysteriously ‘unwell’, Sherlock is sent to stay with his eccentric uncle and aunt in their vast house in Hampshire. So begins a summer that leads Sherlock to uncover his first murder, a kidnap, corruption and a brilliantly sinister villain of exquisitely malign intent...