The dead-tossed waves

by Carrie Ryan

Gabry, Catcher and Cira all grew up together in the town of Vista.  Catcher and Cira were siblings and Gabry was their friend.  She lived in the lighthouse with her mother, Mary.  Mary had come to Vista after leaving the forest over twenty years ago.  She left behind everyone.  She actually thought they all died that day she left to go searching for the ocean.  Mary found Gabry in the forest of hands and teeth one day and brought her home to the lighthouse.  Gabry didn't even know her name.  She never knew that Mary wasn't her mother.
Gabry, Catcher and Cass along with more friends went outside the barriers to the old amusement park.  While there, an infected Mudo found them and bit several of them, Catcher being one of them.   He ran off and the rest of them were caught by the Recruiters who enforce justice on those who disobey the rules.  Cira was among those who were caught.  Gabry had run away after Catcher was bitten.  Gabry goes home and talks to her mother.  Mary tells her that she isn't her real mother and Gabry decides to leave home.  She wants to find Catcher.
Mary, after telling Gabry about her life, decides to go back to the forest.  Her life here has no meaning because of all that she had left behind.  Did all her friends die?  Was she the only one left?  She had to find out.  Meanwhile, Gabry finds Catcher with the help of Elias, a souler who helped her get away from the Mudo.  They spring Cira from jail and run into the forest.  By now the recruiters know that Catcher is immune to the Mudo.  They chase him into the forest and don't let up. Gabry finds Mary and Harry (her old boy friend) and they all run from the mob of recruiters. Cira is dying so she runs into the forest so the Mudo can find her.  Mary, Harry and Elias are caught by the recruiters, but Catcher and Gabry get away.  They go on to search for the Dark City and Annah.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth

The forest of hands and teeth  by Carrie Ryan

Mary's father has been gone for a long time.  Her mother waits at the fence in hopes of seeing him again but to no avail.  One day she gets bitten by the Unconsecrated.  She will soon turn and Mary must decide what to with her.  Her brother is nowhere around and it is up to her.  She decides to let her become one of them.  Her brother is furious with her when he finds out and puts her in the charge of the Sisterhood.  One thing Mary does know is that she doesn't want to be a sister.

Mary has been in love with Travis for a long time but it is his brother Harry that speaks for her.  She finds out that Travis has spoken for her friend Cass.  While she is with the sisters, Travis is brought in badly hurt.  She is brought in to nurse him and they find out that they love each other.  She wants him to speak for her but he won't leaving her to believe that she will never marry.

The unconsecrated begin to break through the fence barriers and Mary, Cass, Travis, Harry, Mary's brother, his wife and a small child get out and begin to make their way toward something.  They have hopes to find some place else to live but don't know if it exists.  She always had dreams of finding the ocean because her mother had a picture of one.  Eventually, Mary is the only one left and she makes it to the ocean only to find out that the unconsecrated end up there too.

Hush, Hush

Hush, Hush  by Becca Fitzpatrick

How would you feel if your world turned upside down?  That was just how Nora felt when her dad was killed and her mom had to get a job to keep food on the table.  Nora spends much of her time alone or with her friend Vee.   They take mostly the same classes together and even get to be lab partners in biology until one day the teacher decided to move things around and Nora is partnered with an obnoxious boy who is out to ruin her or make her flunk.  She has to follow him around to get answers to simple questions that determines her grade for the assignment.


Patch is Nora's new lab partner.  He makes her feel inferior at first then she starts to feel something more for him.  Her feelings scare her.  She finds out that he is a fallen angel that needs to save a life so he can get his wings back.  He doesn't really want that.  He wants to be human again.  Nora is accident prone when it comes to people who want her dead, namely a psychotic counselor at school and a real creep named Jules.  Patch saves her life and gets his wings back and is made her guardian angel.  A guardian angel who she is in love with.

Have fun with this book.  I did and I thought it was great.  It is not the usual love story; it's heavenly.  Patch would do anything to keep her from harm.  Can she trust him?

Airborn

Airborn by Kenneth Oppel
This book is a Michael Printz Honor Book.

Matt Cruse is living the life he has always dreamed of, working on an Airship.   The Aurora is a luxury ship that sails hundreds of feet above the ocean. Matt works as a cabin boy, but hopes one day to be a sailmaker. One night he helps rescue a dying balloonist and hears about the beautiful creatures who drift in the skies almost like angels.  He keeps hoping that he will see these creatures one day.

Several months later, a passenger named Kate de Viers, asks Matt about an older gentleman who was brought on board but later died.  Matt had been there to talk to him before he died and she wanted to know what was said.  He was her grandfather and she missed him very much.  Mostly she wanted to know what he said about the last few days before he died.  Matt couldn't tell her much.  She was anxious to learn more about the cloud creatures that her grandfather saw.  That night pirates boarded the Aurora and were about to take off after looting the passengers when  a storm hit.  In an attempt to take off from the ship, the pirates cut holes in the structure of the airship and she started to lose ground.  They landed on an island to repair the ship and Kate figured out that this was the place the cloud creatures were last seen.  They start exploring and find the skeleton of one of the creatures.  The look for signs of life of one of them and find a large nest.  The creature that fell to earth being born survived.

Matt, Kate and Lundardi set out to find the live "cloud cat".  Once it was found they tried to get pictures of it but Lundardi was attacked and had to run for it.  Kate and Matt also stumble into the camp of the pirates who live on the island.  They almost get away but the pirates board them again.  They mean to take the ship down and ruin her.  Matt and Kate find a way to take down the pirates one at a time to save the ship. 


An overall enjoyable book that takes you on an adventure you could never dream of having.  The sky was their portal to the wonderful scenery and breathtaking vistas that were described in the book.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox

by Mary E. Pearson

Jenna Fox is a seventeen-year-old girl who is recovering from a life threatening accident that killed both of her friends, Kara & Locke.  Her memory is almost non-existent and she struggles with that knowledge.  Her days are taken up with watching videos of her life from newborn to just before the accident.  She doesn't understand why she walks funny, why she can't go to school, and why her parents don't want her to go out of the house.  She finally convinces her parents to allow her to go to a school, but the school is just a village charter that caters to students who don't really fit in anywhere else.  She meets Ethan, Allys, Gabriel and Dane.  She works on a project with Ethan at the mission. Jenna also meets her neighbor Mr. Bender, who seems something different than what he is supposed to be. 

Jenna's memory gradually comes back to her and she feels that she is being kept in the dark about what really happened to her.  She finds a key in her mother's room to a closet that contains three computers.  One of them is labeled Jenna Fox.  She wonders what they are for but is afraid to ask her parents about them.  She finally figures out that she is way too many points over the limit in transplants.  When she confronts her parents about her knowledge, they convince her not to say anything.  The knowledge would not only affect them but many people who were in on the operations.  Allys finds out about her transplants and tells her parents to turn them in.  Allys gets sick and almost dies, but her parents come to Jenna's parents and she is helped with the bio-gel that saved Jenna.

Jenna lives to be over 260 years old.  She has Allys as a companion.  She had married Ethan and he was around for 70 years.  Not long after Ethan died, Jenna arranged to get a daughter, Kayla.  Kayla has many attributes of Ethan, but has Jenna's eyes.  Jenna decides that she will go to the cold of Boston when it is time to die, because no parent should outlive her child.