Dystopian – Simplistic Reader

Published by: Delacorte Press
Read: November 28, 2019- November 30, 2019
Rating: 4.5 Stars

“Their heads are heads of rock, their hearts set upon rock. Set your sights on something higher. Something more grand.”
-BRANDON SANDERSON

This is not a book I would of normally picked up. As soon as a book mentions aliens or space I tend to walk away from it. I was never a big sci-fi reader, or watcher. There is honestly one sci-fi book I have ever fallen in love with it, and honestly I forgot it was sci-fi half the time…. that book is the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown for those wondering. I now have another book to add to that list. Brandon Sanderson did something only one other person has done, he made me love sci-fi.

Skyward is about a seventeen year old girl named Spensa who wants to be a pilot, but has trouble after her father was branded as a coward. Her whole life Spensa has had to live with the fact that everyone thinks her father died a coward, and now it’s her time to become a pilot and redeem herself and her father, but they won’t make it easy for her. With the help of a few caring people, and a wrecked talking ship she found, she will fight for her right to be a pilot. Along with answering the questions she always had about her father, and the biggest question of all, what’s among the stars.

I won’t lie, the beginning of this book somewhat bored me, but it was all necessary. It showed us Spensa’s life since her father was branded as a coward, and her as a character. Then it takes us to her in flight school with her squad. A lot of the beginning is getting the reader used to the world and it’s characters and showing us what flight school is. It’s a little boring, but the dialogue makes up for it, and it is a necessary part of the story.

I don’t exactly remember how long it took for the book to get interesting(to me at least)… actually I do, but it includes spoilers so about a little over a quarter of the way through, which wouldn’t seem so bad but the hardcover is 510 pages(according to goodreads anyway), so it does take a while. Or at least it did for me. That’s when the book started to hook me, when it got REAL interesting to me was closer to seventy percent way through the book. That’s when things started to unfold and as I said, got REAL interesting.

I will go into more important details, but I wanna talk about some of the characters first, since they are the most important part of the story usually. Now there is a lot of characters and I’m not going to talk about a lot of them, only the ones who are really important to know.

Spensa- There was times were Spensa got annoying, BUT I liked that, which is not something I would ever really say. Spensa is a seventeen year old girl who never got anything handed to her in life. She had to fight her way to get treated like the others. She’s been society punching bag for ten years, so of course she is going to act that way she acts. She is wrathful, but because of defense. When is isn’t having to defend herself or her family, she’s friendly and jokes around with everyone else. She has her flaws though. She’s narrowed minded. She only cares about being a pilot, and not a coward. This causes many problems with her friends and herself. We also see Spensa go through ALOT within the short time she is in flight school, and the whole time we are watching her change. I loved Spensa, and I loved watching her grow.

M-Bot: I love robots so M-Bot comes next. When I saw that the book had a talking ship in it I thought it was weird but when I met M-Bot I fell in love with him. I thought he was going to have a bland personality, because it’s a ship, but boy was I wrong. M-Bot is best boy. He wins all the awards. He was funny, adorable, and did his best. He deserves as many mushrooms as he wants. Out of all the characters, M-Bot was easily the best.

Jorgen – All of the kids of the pilots from a previous war get an easy ride in life, and Jorgen is one of these kids, and he is also the flightleader of Spensa’s flight squad. Jogen is one of those character I found annoying in the beginning, but as I read more of him I like him more. I don’t love him yet, but I don’t find him annoying. I understand him. He’s very uptight and is like a robot half the time, not because he lacks emotion, but because what he says sounds like something he was programmed to say. He tries really hard though and I hope he gets more time in the next book so I can love him.

Cobbs- Cobbs is the instructor for Spensa’s flight squad, and also her dad’s old wingmate. I loved Cobbs. He is one of my favorite type of mentors in books. He is hard on them, but you can see that he truly cares about all of them.

Admiral Ironsides- She is, of course the Admiral. She is an antagonist, not world wise, but towards Spensa. She tries very hard to not let Spinsa be a pilot. One of my favorite parts of Ironsides is reading her side through her point of view. (She is the only character so far with their on POV, but only at certain times) By the end of the story it’s easy to understand why she does what she does.

The Krell- The Krell are THE antagonist of the story. They are the alien forces that try to kill and destroy whatever the humans build. The Krell is why pilots are needed and why they are stuck on the planet they are stuck on. Not much is known about the Krell. No one has even seen one. Just their ships.

Easily, I found the best part of this book to be character development. We see all of the characters change along the way, but especially Spensa. As each event unfolded we got to see her process it and how it affected her. There is no question of whether these characters devlop or not. The Spensa at the beginning of this book, is not the same Spensa at the end. Within one book she has changed so much. She isn’t the only one that changes either. Watching each character change as they faced real problems for the first time in their life was my favorite part of this book. It was like watching a flower blossom. You saw what it looked like when it was closed off to the world, but watched as slowly, it opened up and became something beautiful, getting to truly experience the world.

There is a lot to love about this book. M-Bot is one, Doomslug the other. I read this book, solely because of it’s author. The first book I read when stepping into the adult type novel world, was Mist Born by Brandon Sanderson. It easily became one of my favorite books and I fell in love with his characters and the worlds he builds. This book did that. I loved the world, and I loved the characters. I loved the dialogue. It felt real, and funny. It would actually make me laugh and it was believable. I’m pretty sure half of my notes in the boot were parts I found funny. It was a really fun read, not to mention that ending. I’m pretty sure within a few chapters we somewhat get the gist of what’s going to happen at the end, but actually reading it… masterpiece.

Another thing I would to note, the eyes. Most people probably didn’t or don’t have this same reaction, but I have a fear of deep space and the vast unknown, so when I got the spot about the eyes, (you’ll know when you get there.) I actually got scared. I won’t say anymore about that. Just had to mention that.

As someone who avoids sci-fi like it is a horrible disease, I can say I LOVED this book and can’t wait till I can relax and read it’s sequel…which will probably be in a few minutes to be honest. Towards the end I couldn’t put it down. It was late, and I knew I needed to go to bed, but I couldn’t. I HAD to finish it and know how it ended. The thing I found when it comes to books, shows, anime, manga, is that there is usually a genre we don’t like, but there’s exceptions to those rules. I hate mecha anime, but I love Gurren Lagann. When something has good writing, you can’t help but throw away your opinions about a genre and just devour it. I don’t like sci-fi, but I love this book. This book is my exception(along with Red Rising). Brandon Sanderson is a creator of masterpieces, and this is another example of his beautiful work.

“Good night, sweet prince.” M-Bot whispered as the junk crashed to the ground. “Or princess. Or most likely genderless piece of inanimate space junk.”
bRANDON SANDERSON

I had to include a quote from M-Bot. I couldn’t just not show why I love him. That would be wrong.

The Young Elites

Marie Lu

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Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers

Year Released: 2014

Date I Read It: June 2018

Genre: Fantasy, Science fiction, Dystopia

Grade: C/ 3 Stars

“So. Tell me, little wolf. Do you want to punish those who have wronged you?”
― Marie Lu

The young elites is an anti-hero story about a world where an deadly illness has infected kids, killing some, changing others. Those who survived the illness have been given a mark on their body. The mark is different for everyone but it is always a clear sign to the public, those who bear the mark are the Malfetto. Adelina is our main character. The sickness causes Adelina’s hair and lashes to become white, and takes one of her eyes, leaving behind a jagged scar. Those with marks like these are treated as damaged good, and most of all, are feared. It is rumored that some of the kids with a mark posses gifts. Powerful gifts. These kids are called, The Young Elites and they don’t want to settle for the public treating them like garbage.

I love anti-hero stories. Heroes mess up and aren’t perfect. This book sounded really good and had high praise from everywhere I saw. Sadly, I did not like it. It wasn’t the story that was bad. The story was very engaging. It was Adelina. I did not like her. I found her very annoying. Most people get annoyed by characters that don’t do anything or are very weak. That is not why I don’t like Adelina. The whole story point from Adelina’s view was focused on the betrayed her. Except they didn’t betray her. Adelina was selfish and didn’t trust them. She got them into trouble and betrayed them so they cut off contact with her. She wasn’t betrayed, it was the equivalent to firing someone because they majorly fucked up. If someone causes you to lose everything and continue to do what they want you wouldn’t keep them, you would cut them loose. You don’t keep a leech attached to you while it sucks you try, you get rid of it. Adelina throughout the series that they betrayed her when they didn’t. They helped her and she screwed them over. I got tired of hearing her complain about it. Adelina acts like a brat. She is aloud to do something, while others can’t. And if she only felt betrayed for a little while, I would understand, but she holds on to that fire like it is her only life source. The book is muddied by Adelina’s hatred for the people who ‘betrayed’ her. The only people who betrayed her is her father.

Pros

The one thing I like about Adelina was the realness of her mentality as far as showing how each experience takes a toll on her. As the books goes on and Adelina does even more villainess things, caving into the villainess role, she starts to actually lose her mind. She literally starts to go insane. I think the author wrote her mentality very well. Adelina’s family relation wasn’t good and that reflects very well on Adelina’s character. My favorite part of this book was watching Adelina go from having only a little bit of darkness in her to going to where she is almost completely corrupt and is starting to barely make sense of reality.
The abilities are actually really cool. They have some unique ones that I haven’t seen in other stories so reading how they worked was interesting. I liked reading how Adelina’s power worked and I liked Magiano’s ability as well.
The plot twist was by the best part of this book. I haven’t expected it and it was the only reason I wanted to keep reading. I give Marie Lu props on that one. It was good. It pulled me back in where it had been losing me. That mixed with Adelina’s compete spiral into insanity.
The actions scenes were, in my opinion, the best written parts of the book. I’m usually the type who when reading action like scenes have a hard time paying attention. The action in the book wasn’t just telling you. It made you feel emerged into it.

Cons

Once again, despite the things I said I liked about Adelina, the whole her thinking she was betrayed and sticking to that ruined her as a whole. There are even moments where she admits that she betrayed them, but she doesn’t think they should be mad and betray her. When I read it I keep thinking of a child who knows they did wrong but refuses to actually accept it. I hated reading it. Adelina could of been so good, but I couldn’t get past it. She kept bringing it up and wouldn’t let it die. I know that authors need to give a reason for the characters to keep going and do these big things they do, but there are better ways to do it. The idea of the push wasn’t even bad, it was how Adelina handled it. And I guess I can see the other side of it where people say it’s more realistic because Anti-hero’s would have that set of mine, and I agree that some anti-heros would, but anti-heroes also hero characteristics to go along with it. Adelina has none. She doesn’t help anyone but herself. That would make her a villain, not an Anti-hero. Even then, that’s a whiny villain and I prefer smart, terrible in a good way villains, not someone who complains non-stop, that’s just a bratty child.
Adelina and Magiano. At first I loved it. I thought it was cute. But then both of them couldn’t decide if they wanted each other. I liked Magiano, he was probably my favorite character, but they were constantly going back and forth about how they felt with each other, and it got annoying kinda quick.

I don’t hate this book by any means. It was not bad. If Adelina’s character wasn’t as whiny to me, then I would have fully enjoyed it. Books to me really depend on the characters, especially the main character since you see them the most. When I don’t enjoy a book’s characters it’s really hard to enjoy the book. The other most important part of a book to me is the relationships built between all the characters and I didn’t particularly like the relationships in this besides how loyal Magiano felt towards Adelina. If these things don’t bother you like they do me, then this book will probably be very good to you. These characters are definitely more on the darker side, and not very much on the good side other then wanting equality, which is important, but it feels like Adelina is doing it for more selfish reasons while the other people, the ones who ‘betrayed’ her are actually doing it for the right reasons.

“Embellish your flaws. They will turn into your assets.”
― Marie Lu

I haven’t read any other Marie Lu books but I do plan on reading her Legend series. I enjoyed the tone of the story and dark atmosphere. I don’t believe that just because I don’t like one of her series that much that I won’t love her other series. The Young Elites just wasn’t for me.

“Sometimes, the only way to set things right is to do what is difficult.”
― Marie Lu

Category: Dystopian

Skyward By Brandon Sanderson

The Young Elites

The Young Elites

Marie Lu