"Orleans"--a book whose time has come

Hurricane after hurricane after hurricane assaults the Gulf states of the US. Damages are beyond belief. Only bottled water is safe. Sound familiar? Right now, in September of 2017, with a fierce hurricane season afflicting Texas, Louisiana, and Florida, the dystopic novel Orleans by Sherri Smith seems prophetic. In the grim world she has created, the Gulf states are so badly damaged by repeated storms that they are dissolved as governments and walled off from the rest of the country, being deemed impossible to fix and riddled with highly contagious disease. The heroine, Fen, becomes caretaker of a newborn girl after the mother dies in childbirth, and she decides to get the baby over the wall before she becomes infected. 

Allegiant by Veronica Roth

 Veronica Roth ends her Divergent series in her third installment, Allegiant. It follows up where Insurgent stopped and artistically ties together the story threads of the other two books. Veronica Roth made a worthy ending for the Divergent series. I highly recommend this book for people between the grades of six and twelve who enjoy the action, suspense, and romance genres; good-looking, intelligent, and  badass characters; and tragedy. The plot runs smoothly and jumps to a fast past in certain sections of the book.  Some adults may also find joy in reading Allegiant. If you loved the first two books, then it's a must read.


Rating: 4

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Thomas has no last name and no memories. He comes to consciousness in a cold, dark, metal elevator, making a slow and noisy ascent to the Glade, acreage surrounded by 100-foot-high stone walls that grind closed each night, keeping the occupants in and keeping out the nocturnal monsters known as Grievers who roam the enormous Maze outside the Glade.

In the Glade, he finds teenage boys like himself, boys who don't know why they are there, cannot remember where they came from, or who they used to be. All Thomas has is questions, and all the boys in the Glade have to offer is a rigidly controlled life of survival with strict rules. Rules for which there are harsh penalties for breaking. The biggest rule? Don't go out of the Glade after dark.

Each boy in the Glade has a job, and Thomas is supposed to spend his first weeks in the Glade rotating from occupation to occupation until he finds his niche. But, he knows right away what he wants to be. He wants to be a runner, one of the boys who leaves the Glade each morning and runs the miles of the Maze, trying to uncover the exit that will mean freedom for the boys of the Glade.

From the very first, readers of this book will be filled with questions, the same questions that Thomas has. Why do the Glade and the Maze exist? What happened to the boys' memories? What are the Grievers? Why are the boys imprisoned there? The promise of answers to those questions keep you turning the pages. The ending will have you smacking your forehead and eagerly searching for the sequel, The Scorch Trials.

Rating: 4

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Katniss and Peeta are selected to play The Hunger Games, a grisly reality TV show sponsored by the totalitarian state of Panem.  Twenty-four players between the ages of 12 and 18 are selected by lottery, then forcibly taken from their families to prepare for the Games. Only one will return. The rules are simple. The last player left alive wins.

Katniss and Peeta know they have to kill to win, but there is a connection between these two. Peeta kept Katniss and her family from starving during the terrible time following the death of Katniss's father, so she owes him a debt of gratitude. And Peeta loves Katniss.

How can they kill each other?