I recommended The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare, by MG Beuhrlen in class, but have yet to write about it here. This was my favorite book I read this summer, and it was made all the better by the fact that I didn't expect it to be. I'm honestly not even sure I remember how I came across this title in the first place, but I'm glad I did. Alex Wayfare is 17 and has had visions of the past for as long as she can remember. They're more than visions, though. She has this sense of deja vu - that she's actually lived these visions from real times in the past. She experienced the "Starving Time" at the Jamestown colony and rode the first Ferris Wheel at the St. Louis World's Fair. Because of the visions, she's isolated herself and is considered a freak among her peers. One day, Alex meets a man named Porter, who seems to know what she's experienced and he explains she's not crazy. She was created to travel time - to visit her past lives, but not for warm and fuzzy reasons. She's part of an evil plan and now that she knows, she has to find a way to make sure that this life she's currently living is not her last. I'm not usually a fan of time travel books, but the author did it well and in a way that made sense. There's lots of action, intrigue, and the beginnings of what might later turn into a romance in the later books in the series. The next book The Untimely Deaths of Alex Wayfare will come out sometime in 2015.
I also really enjoyed The Prince of Venice Beach, by Blake Nelson. In this story, Robert "Cali" Callahan is a runaway from Nebraska, who's been living on the streets of Venice Beach, California for the past 3 years. He's technically homeless, but he knows every inch of Venice Beach and pretty much everybody who calls the area home. He lives in a treehouse in the backyard of a friendly woman who reaches out to anyone who needs help and is living a pretty good life, despite his circumstances. When private investigators start coming to him to ask him to help him find other runaways, he thinks he might have a future as an investigator. When he's hired to help find Reese Abernathy, the troubled daughter of a millionaire, he has to decide if what he's doing is worth it. This was an intriguing book with a really likeable main character. It's not filled with a lot of action, but it definitely pulls on your emotions as you read what Cali is going through.
I also promised a summary of The Fifth Wave, by Rick Yancy. In this story, aliens have set up a devious plan to take over the earth. They are quickly annihilating the earth's population through different waves of attack. In the first wave, they set off an electromagnetic pulse that kills anything electric or with a motor. This kills around half a million of the world's population. The second wave is a tsunami that takes out all the world's coastal cities. The third wave uses birds to infect the remaining population with a deadly virus. The story begins in the midst of the fourth wave, and our main character Cassie is on a quest to be reunited with her younger brother. When they were separated, she promised she would find him. She's not sure who else is out there, and she definitely doesn't know who she can trust. Cassie is a dark and troubled main character, and rightly so, but you can't help rooting for her and all of humanity as they try to find a way to gain the upper hand against the aliens before the fifth wave can begin. If you want a creepy story with nonstop action, this is definitely a book for you! As with most books, this is book 1 in a series. Don't worry, though - book 2, The Infinite Sea, is due out on September 16th!
Another good title I just finished was Jennifer Brown's Torn Away. Brown is a local author - she lives in Liberty, MO! In this story, Jersey Cameron lives in fictional Elizabeth, MO, which is somewhere near the KC area. One May afternoon her life is completely changed when a monster tornado rips through her town destroying her home and her family. Her mother and half-sister are killed, and her step-father says he can't deal with her, so he ships her off to the father she's never met and his family in southern Missouri. Already reeling from the things that have happened in her life, she finds herself living with her grandparents, her father and his wife and two daughters, and an aunt and her 3 children. Her room is on the porch - practically outside - and it's clear no one wants her there. This is ultimately a survival story - Jersey has to find the strength to endure and press on and find a way through what no one should ever have to live through. This book is definitely an emotional roller coaster!
Finally, I'll leave you with a plug for Leigh Bardugo's Grisha Trilogy. The first book, Shadow and Bone (click here to read about it) is one of this year's Truman nominees. It is the story of Alina Starkov - an orphan who is so much more. Book 2, Siege and Storm continues Alina's story. I just finished the final book in the series, Ruin and Rising this afternoon. This is a series that does not disappoint. I recommend all three!