Willful Machines

Willful Machines by Tim Floreen

Age: Adult / Young Adult
Category: LGBTQIA+ / Science Fiction
Rating: 4 stars

Rosie Thinks: This book is truly a standout for me from all the other YA m/m books out there. It's crafted so well and is perfect for anyone cautious about books featuring gay romance, especially since the plot line is so good!

The main character is Lee, who is the closeted son of a very traditional US president. This is set a hundred or so years into the future, were science has progressed onto robots. The one try at artificial intelligence, however, ended up in chaos - a team of scientists created Charlotte, who escaped by transferring her consciousness to the internet and began launching terrorist attacks on the country. Lee, despite his love of robotics, is more interested in the more immediate - eccentric, beautiful Nico, who spouts off Shakespeare at random and seems to be truly interested in Lee himself. But when Charlotte starts attacking the school and targeting Lee, he starts to believe that Nico isn't really who he says he is.

Nico is an absolutely adorable character, perfectly written to make me want to jump into the story and pinch his cheeks. His charm and infectious laugh translates through the page, and Floreen made not only Nico, but the rest of his characters quite life-like. And I wanted to give Lee a hug, because he's a sad, depressed character with a fairly miserable past, yet he's always trying to stay positive. The love story between the two was so sweet and cute, and despite being a little instalove-y, I still enjoyed it.

Floreen's writing steers towards almost gothic at times, which serves to set up an unsettling atmosphere and suspense. I also loved the way he unapologetically threw philosophical questions into the readers face about free will and what makes us human. And this was all in there without sounding preach-y and ranting. It truly did make me think! This is a super easy read, with Floreen's writing flowing like magic. I definitely recommend!

Chaos Station (Chaos Station #1)

Chaos Station by Jenn Burke and Kelly Jensen

Age: Adult / Young Adult
Category: Science Fiction / LGBTQIA+
Rating: 4 stars

Rosie Thinks: I may have mentioned this before, but I never, EVER read sci-fi. Unless it's m/m, but I read everything that's m/m. I think of sci-fi as too technical for a communications major like me to grasp, and generally have no interest in reading chunks of scientific explanations. So, obviously, this book stayed on my to-reads list for a very long time until I cracked it open. And it had to prove me wrong about sci-fi!

This book is based around two men who were best friends, and then lovers for only a few days before being torn apart. Each thinks the other is dead, until a series of coincidences brings Zander aboard the ship that Felix is a mechanic on. The scenes between the two MCs were beautiful and well-paced, but this book is equally about the other, more action-based storyline. Zander was part of a team of super soldiers before the government cut him loose, and when he sees one of his old teammates in trouble, he races to find her.

The world-building in this is pretty awesome, in the way that Burke only gives you bits and pieces, so it never felt like technical stuff was being crammed down my throat. She did the same with the characters, only revealing their personalities and histories slowly, so it came across as more showing than telling. The secondary characters were awesome, and not one of them felt like a plot device. It isn't an enormous cast, but Burke keeps the action flowing at a fast pace.

This is the first book in the series, and I flew through the next two. The fourth just came out and I'm super excited to read it, and also super excited that I haven't gotten sick of this series yet! So be warned, that these two characters and the awesome plot-making skills of Burke are addictive.

Red Rising (Red Rising #1)

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

Age: Adult / Young Adult
Category: Science Fiction / Fantasy
Rating: 5 stars

Rosie Thinks: I'm going to start this review off strong by saying: this is the best book I've read this year. And this is my favourite YA book of all time. I know my review isn't going to do it justice, but I'm gonna try!

I know I'm quite late to this Red Rising craze - I've seen glowing reviews for this book everywhere, and I did give it a go when it first came out. And I had this ridiculous assumption that I didn't like it, when in reality I read the first page then got distracted by something else (a very common occurence, for me). I'm sure this is what happened, because by the time the first chapter was over, I was hooked.

The premise for this story is: Darrow, our MC, is a Red. He's spent his whole life toiling below the ground on Mars, mining a precious gas that will help make Mars and other planets habitable. He and the other Reds believe they're Earth's last hope, but after a series of events put into motion by the death of his wife, Darrow realises that his life has been a lie - Mars and the rest of the solar system has been habitable for years, and the Reds are being used so the aristocratic Golds can live out their decadent lives at the top of the food chain. With this knowledge, Darrow is recruited into a rebel group and plans to infiltrate into the Golds' command school and bring the whole system down.

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Hover Car Racer

Hover Car Racer by Matthew Reilly

Age: Young Adult
Category: Contemporary, science fiction
Rating: 5 stars

Rosie Thinks: This book is definitely not something I would normally read. I normally don’t touch science-fiction, and especially not a book classified under ‘childrens’ on Goodreads! But this is one of my most favourite authors and I first read this book about eight years ago - and on my third read-through (at 22 years old) this book hasn’t lost any of itsmagic!

We follow Jason Chaser and his brother, the Bug, as they navigate their way through the hover car racing world. The story starts with the two just scraping their way into the International Race School and their uphill battle to the top as they go up against the best racers in the world.

In the same vein as most children’s fiction, this story is fairly black and white. Jason and his friends are good, the bullies are bad. The basic plot (The Underdog) has been done a million times, but that didn’t stop me absolutely adoring this. Jason, the Bug and their mismatched hover car are constantly beset by obstacle after obstacle, but none of it feels overdone or ridiculous. Matthew Reilly is one of my favourite authors because his books always deliver fast-paced action and suspense that keeps me glued to the book, and his usual flair translated well into children’s fiction.

When this book was first released, it was done for free online and in installments. And it says something amazing about the book when Disney picked up the rights to it without all the installments even out! Although that was ten years ago, I’m still hoping for a movie to come of this!

I mentioned earlier that I don’t like reading science-fiction, but this is only set a few years into the future (at an unspecified date). It’s kind of like the exact same world as now, plus hover car technology for everyone. But the entire world and intricate detail Reilly put into this was awesome to read. The details of the racing tournaments were like an amalgamation of several different sports, and I was consistently in awe of Reilly’s imagination in putting it all together.

So please don’t be put off by the age! This is a fantastic book that can be read in a few sittings and leave you with the warm fuzzies.

Line and Orbit (Root Code #1)

Line and Orbit by Sunny Moraine & Lisa Soem

Age: Young Adult, Adult
Category: Science-fiction, romance, LGBTQIA+
Rating: 4 stars

Rosie Thinks: What I expected was a quick, light sci-fi/slash story. What I got was an intricate story that was focused on the struggle, rather than solely the sci-fi world or the romance. Which is a great thing, seeing as how I don't ever read sci-fi. The only reason I picked this up was because I was running out of m/m books to read, and this had such tremendous reviews!

Adam Yuga is everything his people strive to be: perfect, intelligent, on the rise. He has the world at his feet until a routine physical reveals him to be seriously ill. His people cast him out and he wanders, lost, until one of the reviled Bideshi saves him from deaths door. Through Lochlan, Adam discovers that the Bideshi are much more than the propaganda he's heard, yet neither the strange sickness nor his people are done with him yet.

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Remembrance

Remembrance by Meg Cabot

Age: Young Adult / Adult
Category: Science fiction, romance
Rating: 4 stars

Brittany Thinks: In high school, Meg Cabot was my favorite author. She really introduced me and so many other young readers to the YA genre with her interesting stories that portrayed real teens with real problems. And, yeah, a lot of those problems stemmed from something insane in their life, - like discovering they were royalty or seeing ghosts or saving the President - but they still fought with their friends and hated doing homework. Her books made me feel like I wasn’t alone.

I’ve grown out of my Meg Cabot phase over the years, but I was thrilled when she announced that she’d be writing Adult follow ups to two of my favorite - and her most popular Young Adult series. Remembrance is the second book in her nostalgic project and, to be honest, the venture I was most excited for. If any of you were fans of the original Mediator series, - 6 fun, quick reads about a girl who discovers it’s kind of her family’s duty to help ghosts move on - then I am thrilled to tell you that Remembrance totally holds up. Sure is still the stubborn, strong, funny lead that we grew up reading about and Jesse still made my knees a little weak. Cabot touches base with all of our favorite characters and it’s great to see where they are now. The case itself carries the same depth - even if Suze is a little more prepared to carry out her duty than before.

I think that Remembrance would still be an interesting read for those unfamiliar with the story. Some connections or discussions may be a bit confusing and may not carry the emotional punch without reading the originals, but Cabot explains everything well and the story works as a stand alone. All in all, it’s a fun, fast read full of mystery and strong characters. I was pretty apprehensive to read anything from Cabot’s nostalgia project at first, because I was afraid the books would feel forced rather than necessary. That wasn’t the case with Remembrance. I read the Mediator books when I was the same age as Suze in the original series and it was fun to read about “Suze the adult” now that I’m an adult, too. It was like catching up with an old friend now that we know a bit more about ourselves and I’m grateful that Cabot provided fans with that opportunity.

Ticker

Ticker by Lisa Mantchev

Age: Young Adult
Category: Science fiction
Rating: 4 stars

Helen Thinks: Having lost both her sisters to a hereditary heart disease, Penelope ‘Penny’ Farthing was saved by Doctor Calvin Warwick – who was engaged to Penny’s older sister – when he implanted a brass ‘ticker’ into her chest to replace her heart. The success of this operation made Penny the first person to become augmented. However, it soon came to light that for Warwick to be so successful he had practiced on unwilling patients and was arrested for mass murder. On the final day of Warwick’s trial, everything starts to go wrong for Penny and her brother, Nic – their factory is bombed, Warwick escapes, and their parents kidnapped, a ransom note sent demanding their notes on the augmentation trials if they ever want to see their parents again. Ticker sees Penny, Nic and their friends (Violet, a baker, and Sebastian, a rich gentleman) working alongside a young Army general as they try to stop Warwick once and for all.

Ticker had been on my to-read list for many months; due to the beautiful cover art catching my eye on Amazon; before I eventually got around to reading it and I can honestly say that Mantchev did not fail to deliver! Despite there being many characters to trip over (and each one having their own set of individual quirks and ways that could have easily got a writer confused!), Mantchev did not lose control of the characters once. There were many relationships between the characters; familial, romantic and traitorous; and they all developed perfectly along with the plot. The characters were written that well I even developed a tiny crush on the young Army general, Marcus Kingsley!

This was my first time reading Steampunk fiction but it definitely won’t be my last! It was a great look into science fiction with Penny’s ‘Ticker’ being the focal point and the idea that we can create stronger human beings through having mechanical organs and body parts. However, Warwick’s methods of practicing on unwilling participants had the characters divided. Penny, despite it saving her life, believed it was murder and wrong whereas her brother, Nic, thought it was for the greater good, especially seeing as it will allow him to grow old with at least one of his sister’s.

With a plot filled with adventure, Ticker was a novel that I couldn’t put down and read in one entire sitting because I was just dying to know what happened. I hope you’ll all feel the same if you give it a try!

The Rules

The Rules by Stacey Kade

Age: Young Adult
Category: Science fiction; romance
Rating: 3 stars

Melissa Thinks: To start, I would like to point out that despite the fact that this is a sci-fi story, there won’t be much science fiction in it. I like to think of this as more of a character driven story rather than a plot driven one. That being said, the plot was still intriguing albeit cliché at times. So, let’s dig in shall we?

Ariane is not your typical teenager. She lives by a set of rules put in place by her adoptive father; never trust anyone, they are always searching, don’t get involved, keep your head down, don’t fall in love. These restrictive rules are there to keep her safe and for the last ten years of her life living on the Outside, Ariane has followed them closely. Now she finds herself in the middle of some typical high school drama surrounding one Rachel Jacobs and her stereotypical jock friend Zane Bradshaw. To get back at Rachel for her childish bully behavior, Zane and Ariane team up to give her a taste of her own medicine. What Ariane wasn’t expecting was for Zane to turn out to be an okay guy. In fact, he’s more than okay; better than she could’ve imaged. She’s breaking all her father’s rules for him, but when their “fake” relationship comes to an end, will they stay together? How long can Ariane pretend she’s a normal girl? How long until Zane finds out she’s half alien?

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