Cress book cover!!!!

synopsis from goodreads:

Rapunzel’s tower is a satellite. She can’t let down her hair—or her guard. 

In this third book in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles series, Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they’re plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and her army.

Their best hope lies with Cress, who has been trapped on a satellite since childhood with only her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker—unfortunately, she’s just received orders from Levana to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice.

When a daring rescue goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a high price. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing stop her marriage to Emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only ones who can.

Have you guys seen and read this? I got the book cover and synopsis form Goodreads.  So excited to get a copy.  I read that this will be out Feb 2014...See you in Cress!!!!

Episode: New Cago

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

Think Superman entering a local bank coz there’s a crazy super villain terrorizing it. He announces that it’s his city and everyone should obey him.  The police comes in firing at superman and the supervillain. Superman raises his hand and blasts yellow energy on them, vaporizing the police. While that’s happening the super villain tries to grab superman from behind but your dad shoots him. Your dad shoots the super villain dead and superman is looking at your dad. Not coz he’s awesome but coz his bullet grazed his face and is bleeding. it should not happen coz bullets don’t affect him. He walks to your dad and shoot him with his own gun. Your dad dies.  You’d grow up to be a superman anti-fan right? And you’d want him dead!

But it’s not Superman, not even a version of him on black kryptonite. It’s Steelheart, a high epic who just declared that he owns New Cago.  And one of his anti-fan is David, the child of the man he killed at the bank. He grew up in a place called the Factory, like an orphanage and school with child labor issues. His only goal in life is to take revenge on Steelheart.  He studies the Epics, their strengths, weaknesses, where they go, everything.  He’s like Wikipedia of Epics.

Epics are men who started having superhuman powers after Calamity showed up. Calamity is a red star or meteor that appeared in the sky and is still visible even without light. All epics, like super villains, are bad. They destroy, conquer and makes lives miserable for the people living in their city. Nobody stops them but the Reckoners.  The Reckoners is a small group of people that kills epics, lesser Epics till David came and impose on them his mission in life, to take down Steelheart.

If you are a comic book superhero fan, you would like this book unless you’re like me.  It took me more than a week to finish this book coz I keep putting it down after a couple of pages.  The story is good, don’t get me wrong. This story does not have a Superman, Iron Man, Thor or Spiderman to save the world, it has super villains and the ones stopping them are just regular people or at least not as powerful as they are which is so cool.  The problem that I had was not really the story but my low EQ.  Some parts felt like watching a tournament arc on an anime or a fight scene on bleach, it takes several episodes to finish I freaking fight.  In this case, several chapters of David convincing them that they should let him join, or several chapters on testing Nightweilder. I know they are needed, I know planning and strategizing is important coz they’re not powerful like the high epics. I also know that this is not a movie or a comic book but it didn’t stop my mind from wondering off. It’s the same reason I can’t and won’t play strategy games.  What I do like about this book are the action parts especially at the end. It was crazy. And also the twists in the story.  I totally didn’t expect them. It was like seeing that clip after the end credit on marvel movies that makes you say “oh shit!” then you make up possible sequels in your head.

Episode: New Vegas – Frozen

Frozen by Melissa dela Cruz

It’s freezing but casinos in Vegas are still hot hot hot! Welcome to New Vegas.

She eyes me with confusion then says “Can I deal you in?”.  But before I could answer, somebody bumps me off the chair and I hear a man’s voice saying “Maybe, what’s the ante?”. I saw her looking at me from the table and I waved trying to tell her I was ok.  I face planted but I was ok.  She’s Nat, Natasha Kestal, blackjack dealer at the Loss who escaped from the psych hospital by jumping off the window and gliding. She a marked, she doesn’t know what her powers are yet but she is.  And just like other marked, she wants to find the blue, well at least that is what the voice inside her head is telling her. Now you know why she was locked up! Haha. It’s not really why she’s there…but I’ll talk about that later.  The guy who bumped me off my chair (he probably didn’t see me) is Ryan Wesson, also known as Wes, a former marine sergeant now the best runner in New Vegas.  

Frozen is set in the Big Freeze, the second coming of the Ice age.  Some places survived, some became a waste land and some, were fully covered up by ice. It’s also a place where people born with colored eyes are also born with a Mage’s mark and they possess special abilities.  Some can control people’s minds, some have telekinesis, some can tell the future.  There are also the small men, the sylphs and the drau.  They used to be drafted in the military but due to an incident showing how strong their powers were, People were taught to fear them and they get locked up. Nobody knows about the voice in Nat’s head, but she is marked, that’s why she was there.

Ok so let me fast fast forward to what happened. Nat needed 3 things to get to the blue, the map to Arem which is the doorway to Vallonis (the blue), money and a runner with a boat that would be willing to take her to the Blue.  Nat was in New Vegas to for the map. It’s a blue stone with a circle in the middle which rests on Joe’s neck. Joe also works at Loss. She got the map from him, I’m thinking using some of her unknown powers.  She got the money by stealing 4 platinum chips that Wes tried to steal when she dealt him in.   And for her runner, she got the tall, caramel-colored hair, honey brown eyed Wes and his crew, Shakes, Daran, Farouck, Zedric.  Leaving New Vegas, they got into a gun fight coz they broke the curfew and did not stop to have an inspection for their secondary identification then they were off to the Trash Pile.  During the Big Flood, trash was carried from California to Vegas and that whole stretch of land where the trash settled is was now called Trash Pile. There they passed MacArthur Med, the treatment hospital Nat escaped from, they saw thrillers, a bear killed  by caravan hunters, got into some pop-can explosions while Daran and Zedric were trying to loot houses, they paid a huge amount toll booth, then they hit K-town and won back Wes’s boat.  They took Wes’s boat to the gray poisonous waters of the Pacific now known as Garbage Country coz of the heaps of garbage floating around as if they were icebergs. So what happened during their journey thru the Garbage Country? I can’t say, I got too sea sick. I’d rather not spoil the story too much. ;)

Frozen is one of my top YA dystophian novels. Why? Coz it’s fresh, and if any of the dystophian novels would come true, this is how I think the world would end up.  A great flood then back to the Ice Age.  I think its fresh coz of the Las Vegas feel at the start (casinos, shows, newlyweds, people who don’t know when to stop gambling), the old world inserts (songs, places) and the fantasy novelish ending. And the trash.  Mountains of trash floating at the ocean.  Polluted water. Dark sky.  Those things could happen and as strange as it sounds, they make this novel fresh.  On the Old World inserts,  I liked it that when the first time the thrillers showed up, somebody sang “thriller, thriller night”  I found it funny. There was also K-town. When they mentioned it, first thing that popped was K-POP hahaha. Then after describing its location, I thought maybe it’s Korea town? Then there was turo turo.

“At a turo turo, (Nat knew it meant “point point” in forgotten language), all a customer had to do was point at the food they wanted to eat…”              

I LOLed at that coz I remember my aunt trying to explain what a turo turo was to a visitor we had from the US. She said the same thing! “point point” coz you have to point at what you want, no menu, just point.

Frozen is a good book. Originally realistic world with a different save the world attack.  Hahaha. The only thing that I probably didn’t like is how fast the final battle was. It was so easy. Well, I guess it had to be like that to show how powerful Draikon is.

See you at our next location!

Episode: IM

TTLY by Lauren Myracle

TTLY is different from the books that I usually read. It’s not an escape-to-another-word book but a reminiscing one. It’s a chat log of 3 friends going thru 10^th grade, Maddie (mad maddie), Angela (SnowAngel), and Zoe (zoegirl). Maddie is the tough girl crazy for personality online quizzes and who is so angsty about having in crowds and those who are out. Having everyone follow or copy what the queen bee says or does coz it makes them cool…well, till she got the queen bee’s attention. (But who isn’t like that in high school??). Angela is the trio’s fashionista with a huge tendency to go boy-crazy (she was the one I related with, not the fashionista part thou…and the boy-crazy part not till college. I was a late bloomer.) Zoe is the “good girl”. Straight A student, people pleaser and doesn’t drink.  She had a crush on a teacher who made moves on her. Creepy! Good thing she had BFF’s to save her. 

 I really enjoyed reading TTLY.  At first I thought, I might not be able to appreciate it for more than a couple of pages coz the characters were 20yrs younger than me.  I was wrong.  I just kept turning the pages till I was done. I was so funny.  Well, it wasn’t funny like LOL funny.  It just brought back memories.  We didn’t have IM at that time, but we did have phones and nobody can cut in once we start chatting.  We also wrote letters, notes to each other.  Seems cheezy these days but not then.  Like Maddie, Angela and Zoe, I was not a part of the in crowd and was so angsty about teachers giving them more attention than us and we’d talk about it for hours. I never disliked the popular girls in our level thou coz they were really nice and they don’t really do anything to get extra points or stuff like that.  For me, it was the teacher’s fault.  Plus, their zombies were from the lower level.  During my time in high school, it wasn’t on clique against another.  It was more like, one class against another and we’d talk about them the same way the 3 girls talked about Jana and her minions.  Like they think they’re so good, like they’re above us coz we’re a bunch of misfits. Whatevs haha.

There were also those talks about boys but those did not happen till we were in college.  We’re not weird or anything, it’s just that, we’re from an all-girls high school and the boys that we went to classes with during grade school were basically neighbors.  It kinda felt weird at that time to be attracted to them since they saw you since you were in diapers.  Every girl goes thru that phase, it’s written all-over the YA world.  You don’t fall for someone you grew up will till you spend some time away from them and they turn out so HOT that you’re panties immediately fall.  Or that you suddenly notice that every other girl is into him and he only has eyes for you…awww.

I also like the concept of this book, IM chat logs. It reminded me a lot when I was writing stories.  I had this friend Ivy, and we were crazy about this band.  We fantasized about meeting them, being friends with them, having them as boyfriends.  We ended up creating stories with them and us in it eventually.  At that time in 4^thyr high school, I was just beginning to get into reading and had no clue how to write a story ( I still don’t know how)  so I just made the conversations look like that, chat logs. It was so fun reading them coz every time I read a line it was like there’s this voice over in my head saying how she would have said it. 

The book says it’s a runaway bestseller and I do believe that.  

Episode : Rieux, France

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

This story picks up after Dr Erland, a lunar who has been working at New Beijing at the same time searching for Princess Selene, leaves Cinder at her cell. There are two stories in this book. The story of Scarlet searching for her grandmother and Cinder escaping and looking for Michelle Benoit, Scarlet’s grandmother.

Let’s start with Scarlet’s story.  Her mother went missing and everybody’s saying she just left coz she’s crazy.  Which of course she didn’t believe.  On one of her deliveries,  Scarlet’s family owns a farm that grows the best tomatoes, she met Wolf, a handsome guy with a dangerous aura about him.  Second thing I liked about this story,  first was that Cinder and Kai are still in the story, is that Wolf is not a warewolf.  He doesn’t turn into a warewolf.    He’s strong, he fights like an animal and he howls but does not turn into a wolf.  Except for Infernal Devices and Mortal Instruments, I normally don’t like warewolves.  Especially those that has love triangles  between them, humans and vampires. Oh and those between vampires and warewolves.  I can handle law of physics being broken but pheromones, not.

Scarlet comes home seeing his dad, who she hasn’t seen for 5 years, trashing their house.  He says he’s looking for something his mom, Scarlet’s grandmother was hiding.  He was also abducted like gran-mere but they let him go with the promise to bring back whatever that as that she was hiding. He said that the people who took them had a tattoo with letters and numbers on them, LSOP and some numbers.  A tattoo that Wolf had and made Scarlet hunt him down. LSOP, Loyal Soldier to the Order of the Pact.  Wolf was a part of it but he left.  LSOP a lunars working for Queen Levana and they took Scarlet’s grandmother coz they think that she knows where Cinder is.  Cinder was under the care of Michelle Benoit for several years before she gave her to Mr. Linh.  Wolf knew they took gran-mere to Paris so he and Scarlet went there to get her.  The travel there made me go back a bit to Divergent with the jumping in and out of trains.  As soon as they got to the Opera house in Paris, Wolf hands Scarlet over to the  thaumaturge Jael, the one who controls their pact.  Wolf told her he’d help and they even kissed on the train, Scarlet felt betrayed. And worse, they no longer needed gran-mere coz the  mission to retrieve Princess Selene but still kept her just because she can’t be glamoured. 

Scarlet found gran-mere the day the pact was ordered to do an attack on Paris. Wolf gave her an ID chip that helped her get out of her cell.  She tried to escape with her grandmother but failed coz her grandmother couldn’t move and Ran, Wolf’s brother was there stopping them.  At this part the lines “grandma, what big teeth you have” started running through my head coz I knew someone would end up dead.  Like the story of little red riding hood, grandma was killed by a wolf, a wolfish lunar, Ran. After he was done with gran-mere, he went for Scarlet but Wolf came back saying “She is mine”.  Scarlet escaped but Wolf caught up with her.  They were having a moment but he suddenly fell.  Cinder shot him with a tranquilizer.

Now Cinder’s part.  She escaped from prison and went out of Earth with the help of Captain Thorpe.  It was like watching a TV series with escaping convicts.  Going thru air vents, dirty sewers but more like a funnier version coz of Thorpe.  He’s not really a captain.  He was a lieutenant pilot who stole an American hover among other things.   He feels like he is God’s gift to women.  He’s so arrogantly funny and so DOM-ish. Haha. I can totally feel cinder when she rolls her eyes on him. I would too. 

Oh wait, Iko is a ship now. Cinder used her chip to be the auto-control for their ship.  She was totally unhappy at first, well, I guess she’d still rather be in an escort android’s body but she’s not complaining, not as much anyway. Hehe. After they went to the Benoit farm and finding the capsule that used to hold Princess Selene for a few years, Cinder decided to go to Paris to look for Michelle Benoit. And that’s where they met Scarlet, underneath Wolf’s tranquilized body. 

Wait I almost forgot, Prince Kai is marrying Queen Levana.  She lauched attacks on cities around the world and Kai offered marriage to make her stop.  She’s a perv!

I know I didn’t give justice to this story in my retelling, have I ever? I tried but it’s hard. So much good stuff going on.   I realized after reading this that I’m hooked to the Lunar Chronicles as badly as I got hooked on Maguire’s Wicked.  Like they’re the real fairy tale and not an adaptation of it.  One thing I kept thinking about midway of the story was Scarlet being part Lunar. Is she? She is, right? Her grandmother didn’t say that Logan Tanner was her grandfather but she did say he’d be proud of her. Why would he be proud of her if they’re not related, right? So, would she have power’s too? I wish she would so she can take care of Sybil while Cinder takes care of the ugly queen! Wait, is Dr. Tanner really lunar? Can Earthen’s survive in the moon? Argh, I’m making my head hurt!!!

I guess we’ll all find out next year. See you in Cress.

Episode: New Beijing

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

This is a retelling from a Ragdoll: (SPOILER ALERT)

I’m in an anime place but live action.  The business office side, there are  awesomely high tech glassy skyscrapers and on the residential side, dilapidated apartment buildings and a whole lot of people.  I can also glimpse on some pagodas.  Again, a whole lot of people.  In fear of getting my ragdoll-self run over, stomped on, I went to hide on a shop in this weekend market.  Then I saw this girl removing her foot. Yes, her foot. No blood though.  Of course, she’s a cyborg!  Next thing I know, a guy walks in carrying an android.    This totally hot Asian guy’s looking for Linh Cinder who turns out to be the this girl I saw decapitating herself who call’s Mr hot Asian guy Your Magesty! Cinder and a prince? Totally Cinderella!

Cinder and Prince Kai live in New Beijing.  Cinder is the best mechanic and Prince Kai is the heir to the throne. 

After Prince Kai leaves, there were sirens and hovers came.  As I found out while walking around, the world is currently plagued by this blue fever  and it still does not have a cure.  Cinder and her android friend Iko with Prince Kai’s broken android slips out the marketplace.  Of course I follow them.  I can’t be left there.  Once an infected person is found, they test everyone’s blood if they are also infected. Preventive measure, I get it but I don’t have blood. Cotton, I have a lot.

That’s where I saw the wicked stepmom and the stepsisters, Pearl and Peony.  Peony is nice jolly girl, same age as Cinder.  Thank God one of them is nice. I’m done with the one fat, one stick thin and the one bitch and one dumb tandem. I am honestly still traumatized by the tragic sister’s from Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister.  So the one bitch and one sweet stepsister is a breath of fresh air.  Cinder different from the other cinderella’s I’ve encountered.  She doesn’t really do typical housework. Iko does them.  Being a cyborg and since wicked stepmom does not want to use her money to maintain Cinder, she’s not allowed to get wet.  She might rust.    Instead, she fixes stuff at the house and works as a mechanic to bring in money for Her Wickedness.  Plus, she has more spunk.  But same as the other cinderella’s, she’s not allowed to attend the ball.  Not allowed to dance with the prince that every girl is drooling about.  Well, at least she has Peony and Iko.

But that did not last long. Peony got infected during their trip to the Junkyard. They were looking for a belt to fix the family hover for the ball.  They also found a car among the junk, Cinder’s get away car.  She’s planning to leave New Beijing during the ball.  I heard Iko saying that gas is pretty expensive and as I figured no body uses cars anymore.  That’s when Cinder saw a spot on Peony’s skin.  She’s infected and was taken by the Med-drones.  Cinder was not infected. She did not catch the infection from the market place and infected Peony but she was still blamed.  Ardi volunteered Cinder to be a test subject.  In trying to find a cure for the plague, the government uses cyborgs as test subjects.  They have a list of cyborgs and if you end up on that list, your family would be compensated and the cyborg dies.  In the lab she meet’s Dr Erland. She was a perfect test subject, young, with enough percentage of human left in her.  And like a miracle, the virus does not affect her.  They injected her with the virus and it disappeared.  While she was there, the prince came and he was obviously into her. Obviously!  As much as she was into him.   But then, something weird happened.  The doctor lied.  He didn’t tell the prince why Cinder was there and didn’t tell him what he found on Cinder’s test results.  I wanted to punch him in the leg. He’s a bad man! I was so sure he was planning something devious. Thank god I was wrong and I’m preempting.

The next events were a total chaos.  The King dies.  He’s infected and have been struggling with the illness.  Queen Leevana is coming to New Beijing.  Peony is on stage 4 and dying. I know I failed to mention the queen.  Queen Leevana is the queen of the moon, literally.  They are people who has characteristics superior to humans and their military force is a lot stronger than all 6 military forces of the world combined and they live on the moon.  She and the Earthen Commision led by the emperor of New Beijing (now Prince Kai) are attempting to make a peace pact.  Earth want’s peace, the Moon Queen want’s prince Kai, Emperor Kai to be her husband.

As the queen arrives, she glamors everyone to think she’s beautiful and she tries to control Prince Kai’s mind into thinking he’s in love with her.  Good thing our Prince isn’t only hot, he’s smart to and was able to resist.  She also has a vial of plague cure and hand’s it to the prince.  A day after the king dies, she hands a cure! She wanted the old Emperor dead coz he wouldn’t cave in to her demands.  Prince kai gives the vial to the doctor to see if it’s legit and if it can be replicated.  The doctor in turn gives a part of it to Cinder as a part of their agreement.  Cinder agreed to continue with the tests but Peony has to be the first to get the cure once available.  Oh and money deposited to Cinder’s account.  But the cure is too late, Peony was dead.  So she just gave the cure to another kid.

One thing I don’t get though is Prince Kai’s ability to push aside bigger issues like his dad’s death and Queen Leevana’s motive for being there, whenever he sees Cinder.  I felt that there was no trace of sadness, frustration. He was just focused on asking her to the ball.  Too focused. What the hell is wrong with you? I get it, he likes her, a lot and her being with him at the ball would give him less time with Queen Leevana or his fangirls.  But It’s too flirty, like everything not Cinder dissolves.  Then I remember, it’s YA love.  I love it!   But I still wanted to kick him so he’d come back to his sense…or maybe kiss him. LOL!

Then comes the ball. I always love this part. Cinder said she wouldn’t go but she now has to.  She found out what Queen Leevana’s plan and she needs to warn the prince. Wearing Peony’s gown and riding the car she fixed, Cinder goes to the ball.  She would have looked ok, I guess, if it didn’t suddenly rain.  The drenched Cinder walks in, the prince, now officially emperor, dances with him.  The final dance. Final coz after that the Kai will make his announcement, marry the queen to save his people or start a war. Cinder warned him but he has already decided. He has decided not to marry the Queen. The furious Queen sees Cinder and announces that she is Lunar, moon people. And it is people like her, a Shell,  that has brought the virus to earth.  But she’s not a shell!!!  She’s the princess the prince has been looking for! But she didn’t’ say it.  it’s suddenly like when the clock struck 12, chaos. Words, gun shots, Cinder fleeing, Cinder falling leaving her foot.

Cinder got caught and will be brought back to the moon and for sure will be executed. Good thing the doctor told her to escape and she does…I just hope Kai still believes in her.

I love Cinder. It’s fast paced. It made me dizzy sometimes. It did not have the action scenes that I love but it didn’t matter.  All the conflict and twists made it so interesting.  I also loved that the world wasn’t totally made out. I mean, most stories would describe the world in detail and here Melissa Marr didn’t.  I think it’s coz much detailing is not needed as compared to novels like Partials, Maze runner and Divergent.   It gave me more space to make up my own.  And yes I imagined it like I was watching anime.  For some reason KARAS and Resident Evil kept popping in my head.  I didn’t get sucked in enough to feel like I was Cinder but it was more like watching my favorite series or anime of playing a new game. I’d feel dizzy sometimes coz without realizing it, I’ve been holding my breath.  And the never ending what’s next what’s next what’s next…

See you all in Scarlet!