Joelle CharbonneauCritiques

This one had me on the edge of my seat from the beginning. Going to sleep and being an adult was hard when all i wanted was to know what Cia and Tomas were going to face next.

Thos book was intense and although I figured out the ending somewhat before the end it was still awesome.

What are they putting in the water at that Senior Center?

I got this book from the library because I'm supposed to review the third book in the series and I had to know what was going on first. :-) This is not my first book by this author. I read and loved [b:Murder for Choir|13110452|Murder for Choir|Joelle Charbonneau|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1331349721s/13110452.jpg|18283908] so I already knew I loved the writing style.

The humor was great, but Pop was a little weird. I did guess the murderer, but it was late in the story and wasn't blantantly obvious, so it didn't bother me. All in all, I'm looking forward to reading books #2 and #3 (which are already on my shelf waiting for me).

Paige is stuck in a job she hates, with high school students who aren't too fond of her, when things get even worse. A colleague is found dead, and suddenly everyone is a suspect.

I haven't read many of this type of mystery, but I've enjoyed all that I've read. I am wondering, though, if there is some formula somewhere that requires a flaky old aunt/grandmother to encourage the heroine to risk her fool neck by trying to solve a murder? At least in this book, the aunt was less annoying than in some of the others I've read.

This book is well-written and funny. I loved Paige's battles with her aunt's dogs. The mystery and romance are both well-done. I wasn't sure until the very end what was going to happen with either aspect. It looks like I've been sucked into another series. I can't wait to see what happens to Paige next.

I received this book free from the author in exchange for an honest review.

THanks to the author for providing the ARC!

This review originally appeared on my blog at www.gimmethatbook.com.

As pervasive as social media is among today’s students, NEED illustrates what can happen when teens are faced with having every wish fulfulled so they can appear superior to their peers. Angst and stress rule in this small town in Wisconsin, where all troubled and misunderstood Kaylee wants (or NEEDs) is a kidney for her younger brother. She is doubtful of the site’s ability to grant wishes, yet she posts her request up anyway.

Getting deep into the story may take a while: there are many characters and each chapter is told in their own point of view. We see the social media site becoming larger and more greedy, in how it changes its requirements to submit a “need”. These “needs” morph rapidly into “wants”, and grow rapidly from a new pair of skis into setting up an entire VIP package – including car service and front row seats – for a concert. Greed and deceit go hand in hand, while Kaylee (who may or may not be completely innocent) tries to figure it all out. Authority figures see her as an unreliable narrator and thwart her efforts.

Soon, very bad things are happening, and deaths start occurring. As the plot unfolded, it went from believeable to almost over the top; how was it that the police and other school figures weren’t able to stop the killing? However, when you consider the teen hormones and lack of good judgement, it did kind of make sense. Towards the last third of the book, the dark twists suddenly started making sense, and I was on the edge of my seat, hoping Kaylee would be able to figure things out in time to save others from certain death.

There are plenty of lessons to be learned from reading NEED, the most important being if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Plus, reading this from an adult aspect made me truly see how 17-somethings treat everything like life and death, whereas a jaded (read: older) person would see through all the convolutions and machinations and not become sucked in. Kaylee annoyed me sometimes when she was so hesitant to make a move, but given her past (which the author slowly reveals) she has reasons to be that way.

I enjoyed the descriptions of the cold weather and the bare emotions of the teenagers, just trying to get through the drama. The plot twists will keep you interested, and once details are shared, bit by bit you see the big picture and how all the narrators/characters tie in to each other.

NEED should be a big hit in today’s social media obsessed world. YA readers will enjoy the escalating greed of the members of NEED, as well as the ever fluid high school world of who-is-cool-this-moment dynamic. Charbonneau’s premise is brilliant without being too dystopian. Definitely one to check out.

Fine conclusion to this duology. Plenty of intrigue and action, some nice red herrings and redemption for a most flawed character. I greatly enjoyed both books.

I can't say this is a book I would have normally chosen for myself. I received it as part of the reddit book exchange with two others - Sweetly by Jackson Pearce and Marked by P.C Cast & Kristen Cast. I can tell you exactly why I wouldn't haven chosen it - the cover. The cover tells me that this book is not going to be very original and probably borrows heavily from other young adult post-apocalyptic books. It's a mix of Divergent, the Hunger Games and the Maze Runner, just looking at it.

I was right of course. I expected that I would find myself bored and uninterested, however, even though I did find many similarities to other novels and the plot did borrow quite heavily from others - I did become invested in the story. Sure, there were things that annoyed me. I found many of the characters names to be eye-rollingly terrible - at least our main character Cia (short for Malencia) made it out with a not so terrible name. Many of them just sound like futuristic names that are trying a little to hard, or are just purposely misspelled common names.

Anyway - Cia Vale is from the Five Lakes community of the United Commonwealth, which would be what is considered the Great Lakes area in the current US. This made me happy because I am originally from that area - hailing from Detroit, Michigan. I can still tell you all 5 of the Great Lakes. Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior (They spells HOMES - if you were wondering how they grilled it into our brains in elementary school). So she is from this small community which is not unlike Katniss' district 12 in that it is tiny and poor and generally dismissed by the rest of the population. At her graduation from school, Cia finds out that she has been chosen for the testing along with 3 of her classmates and they are off to the capital city to take a test and hopefully attend the university. Only - of course - the test is not like the test we take to get into college. It a battle for your life (in case you didn't see where this was going).

So like Katniss - Cia is taken to the capitol city. Like Tris she faces a series of challenges in order to be accepted into the University. Like Thomas she must battle her way through a maze to get to the other side. Like all of three of them - she makes it to the end of the novel and on to the next challenge because of course this is a trilogy. We'll see what the future holds for Cia in book two - Independent Study (which has to be one of the most boring title's for a book, ever).

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Picked my copy up at a book sale, opened it when I got home and was immediately hooked. You have huge monsters that stir in winter darkness, barely repelled by magical wind-driven light orbs atop castle walls, and twins who are a princess and prince with secrets they've vowed to hide while protecting each other. Add in an older brother who's more like their rigid and brutal father, a mother who may or may not have a soul, romantic interests for both twins, (who may or may not be what they seem), and stir with excess action and intrigue. Leave readers hanging with multiple questions that are to be answered in the sequel. That tome is going to be my next read as soon as my copy arrives.

Comparisons are a popular for describing books right now, it seems. It can be an extraordinarily helpful tool to find interesting books in a genre or to find other stories of a similar style. In Dividing Eden case, I'd perhaps describe it as a more nuanced [b:Red Queen|22328546|Red Queen (Red Queen, #1)|Victoria Aveyard|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1449778912s/22328546.jpg|25037051] mixed with the spectacular Conquerer's Saga.

Dividing Eden's style is similar to Kiersten White's Conquerer's Saga: dual narratives of a brother and sister in alternating chapters. It's a simple technique but one I find myself enjoying every time it appears. In this book, Andreus and Carys are royal twins in their late teens, each with their own secrets and motivations. I found them both deeply appealing, particularly late in the book as they both start to fracture under the physical and emotional impact of the book's events.

And boy, do the events of the story really pack a punch. Dividing Eden comes at you fast and hard, delivering more than enough information to piece together the complexity of Eden's society on top of obstacles like murder, assassinations, politics, drugs, and (off-page) sex. I found myself able to get a pretty clear picture of what Joelle Charbonneau intended, envisaging a complicated world lit by wind power.

There is very little romance in Dividing Eden - thank goodness, as it would have felt forced and distracted from more important storylines - but what little exists is very straight and very white. In fact, it's unclear if queerness or people of colour even exist in Eden. To others, that might not be a problem or even something they noticed at all, but to me, it's a failure in world-building.

Overall, I really enjoyed it and am eagerly anticipating the next book, even if it's a long ways away.

Review posted at SoManyBooksSoLittleTime

2.5 Stars

A modern day twist on Fahrenheit 451. Super strong female protagonist who, when she opens her eyes, is able to see the truth & power words truly have. I will admit when I first started reading the book, I was skeptical, but then the story started to flow even faster and I was unable to put it down...and wouldn't you know, a CLIFFHANGER! Favorite quote "Words have power. They change minds. They inspire and create fear. Words shape ideas--they shape our world--..."

Very powerful, especially in this day and age of "fake news". Highly recommend this title, especially to HS ELA Ts.

Wow. You just never know about someone while at the same time you should never judge a book by its cover. I felt like I was part of the story. I could empathize with the kids in this story. Never saw that twist coming!

If you've read Divergent and The Hunger Games you've basically read this book. It's been a while since I've read it and I don't want to subject myself to it again so that's about as in depth as I can get. This was just... not a good book. I'm almost curious how it even got published as it was basically just a rehashing and mashing of every other popular YA dystopian book.

So...I started this one rolling my eyes and knowing I'd read it all before, but by the end, I stayed up till 1am on a school night (by which I mean, taking my 9yr old to school, I most definitely am NOT a young adult myself) and I added the second book to my wish list. Yes, it was a mash up of Divergent-meets-Hunger Games - girl is special and gets chosen, can't believe impossibly cool handsome every girl wants him manboy likes her, circle of friends made despite hardships,some fall, girl makes it through by being so impossibly clever/daring/brave/amazeballs and yay everybody loves her but...

Despite my cynicism and the familiarity of the general plot, I did enjoy it. It had more of the post-apoc aspects that these books often mention casually in passing and that I like to hear about - both before she leaves home and after, including a journey through a sanitised version of a post-apocalypse city, and discussion of growing food to live on in the ruined earth. I mean, it wasn't done incredibly well, but it was at least done. The civilisation was happy and the 'bad dystopia' bits were hidden from general population, which was better than, for example, the entire population agreeing to kill teenagers once they reach a certain age...

The characters were...okay. A bit nothing. Amusingly, with the film of Divergent being around at the moment, Tomas looked like Theo James in my head - but he has never looked like Four to me. The girl,um, Cia, was fine, same old. Bit annoying and naive, but having read this not long after The Forest of Hands and Teeth, at least she was vaguely likeable. Pointless friends were pointless, really.

Despite this, it flowed pretty well, didn't bog itself down in exposition too much (liked them making some of the back detail of apocalypse as test answers) and didn't spend too much angsty time bemoaning their fates - just got on with it and went from one 'action sequence' (please note it was not an action packed book) to the next. Once I'd disengaged brain and stopped comparing it to all the other ya dystopias out there, it was an enjoyably silly romp. If the sequel is reduced, I'll pick it up, if not, I'll live without it...

“The earth is resilient, but it’s hard to imagine a time when this place will be anything but a terrible reminder of what we as a people can do.”
― Joelle Charbonneau, The Testing

The Testing is another Dystopian book, part of a series, although I have just read the one. I did not enjoy it to much.

In this world, the story revolves around an Elite college, that some kids get into. It is a chance at a gr eat education in a world where daily struggles are to common. But students are vanishing at the school. Once one gets in..do they get out?

If I am making it seem like a horror novel it is not. This is pure Dystopian and that was one of the issues for me.

There was nothing I can say that was inherently wrong with The Testing. My main reason for not really getting into it, is it is to much like other books I have read which seems to be an issue more and more with this type of novel.

The testing has an interesting premise but the story delves into Hunger games territory and I’ve already read the whole Hunger games trilogy and didn’t have much of an interest reading such a similar book. It did not strike me as that original a story and the plot kind of left me cold. Again, this book is not bad. But I felt like I'd read this plot one to many times.

I did make it to the end but I did not read the follow up books. I think if you are a fan of Dystopian and don’t mind a book that is so similar to others, you may like it but for me it did not differentiate itself and I was growing tired as the book went on.

This was a fast paced action packed story about a social media website called need which fufills real life needs that. Sounds great right? But everything had a price right? In this book you will see just how far these teens will go to get what they need (or sometimes want) It has multiple points of view. I liked the beginning and middle better then the end because I feel like the end got really unrealistic and unbelievable. I spent a good chunk of my time reading this article the edge of my seat trying to figure out who was behind Need but when it was revealed I was dissapointed.
Overall it was an enjoyable fast paced action packed book that I enjoyed but wad dissapointed by the ending (which is why I rated it 3 stars)

When The Testing isn't busy infodumping all over your new brain-carpet, it occupies itself by imitating The Hunger Games - not just the big picture, either. We've got a crazyass government and kids from the smallest area as our heroine and her boyfriend. There's even a government official whose red jumpsuit "clashes with her bright orange hair."

Now I don't know if The Hunger Games, in turn, hasn't been stealing its ideas, but I do know that The Testing has.

If I'd bought this book, I would have pushed myself to finish it... but I don't think it would have been too hard.

"The Seven Stages War left much of the planet a charred wasteland. The future belongs to the next generation's chosen few who must rebuild it."

In this dystopian world, students who want to continue their educations must be chosen for, and pass, a series of tests, the exact nature of which isn't known to them. Cia Vale is one of those chosen, along with 3 other members of her village, and they set out together to the testing city, but what they go through is way beyond what any of them are expecting.

I enjoyed this book so much! I've seen it compared to The Hunger Games, and while I can see some similarities, this story stands on its own. The world building is phenomenal and the story moves along at a good pace. The first third is mostly setting up the story, introducing the characters, giving us background, etc., but then things take off and you're glad you got all that information. The characters were well developed and seemed believable for teenagers.

In summary, this was a very enjoyable dystopian read and I look forward to reading the rest of the series to find out where it goes.

5/5 stars.

Ok, like The Hunger Games and Divergent, there's a certain level of unbelievibility that you just have to accept to get through this book. The premise is just... well, odd. Even the main character frequently questions why, in a society that is barely coming back from apocalypse, they would be finding their new leaders by killing the best and the brightest that do not make the cut, and I gotta say: great question. However, it is a fast-paced plot with a stubbornly likeable herione who deals well with all the moral grey-zone heading her way. It also made me deeply paranoid reading it, so there's that.

Interesting dystopian with cool competition aspect, poisons, and as always, who can you really trust? Enjoyed this one.

Never guessed who did it!

It’s not the plot that makes this book great. This is standard dystopian fare—teens living under evil regime must compete in a contest where only some will come out alive, &c. It’s just really tight and well-written and fun. A total page turner.

As school is about to begin, several students have come in early for a variety of reasons. All of them have brought a bag with them, and those bags contains the motivations behind their advance school visits. The different motives all relate to serious problems that they have had both at home and at school. While they are there, a bomb explodes. As the students come together and try to survive, fingers are pointed, questions are raised, and issues begin to boil over. Their survival will depend on whether or not they can overcome their contempt for each other and work together to survive.

Time Bomb takes a look at what makes high school grueling for so many students. Throughout the story we try to figure out what is in each of the bags and how the items inside relate to the students. The mystery that is teased is whether or not any of the students have something to do with the bombing. The plot is very well thought out, but I found it hard to feel a connection with the characters. Overall, this is an interesting story that I would recommend for YA not middle grade due to the amount of violence and mayhem to which the students are subjected.