Review: Between Shades of Grey

Title: Between Shades of Grey
Author: Ruta Sepetys
Published: 2011
Pages: 338
My Rating: 5/5

One night fifteen-year-old Lina, her mother and younger brother are hauled from their home by Soviet guards, thrown into cattle cars and sent away. They are being deported to Siberia.
An unimaginable harrowing journey has began. Lina doesn't know if she'll ever see her father or her friends again. But she refuses to give up hope.


This book was truly remarkable. I can't even stop myself from saying it's one of the best books I've read, or at least the best historical fiction book I've read. The story is tragic, heart wrenching and shocking. The fact that it's based on true events makes it even more powerful.

Lina, her mother and her younger brother, Jonas are taken from their home one night by the Soviet guards and taken away in cattle carts. There is not a slow description moment in this book. Within the first sentence of the first page we are thrust into this dangerous journey with Lina and her family.

I read this book of over 300 pages in two days, which is pretty fast for me. It's never slow-paced and a proper page turner, and I spent the entire time desperate to know what will happen to Lina, her family and the other people she's suffered with at the hands of the Soviet guards. What they all went through is terrible and shocking, and it's almost impossible to imagine yourself in those situations. Or imagining people doing that to one another. I just hope that this book will open peoples eyes to what happened to these people.

The character's themselves are fictional, even though they are based on real events. The story was told through Lina's point of view, and she was an excellent character. I loved that she conveyed a lot of her stories and emotions through her drawing. When she would see something terrible happening, she would think of how she would draw it and document it in the hopes that some day, someone might know what happened to her and the people she was with.

For me, the stand-out character is by far Jonas, her 10-year-old brother. At the start of the book, it's obvious that he's just a young child by the way he talks and acts. But as the book goes along, and while he and his family witness such horrible things, he's forced to grow-up, and he grows up fast. At the beginning of the book he is the young child who's protected by his mother and Lina. But by the end, he is almost the man who has to look after Lina and his mother, and sometimes is the voice of logic and rationality towards them. I sometimes forgot that he was only 10-11 years old.

I also grew to love the people that are with Lina and her family. The one's who're also being deported by the Soviet guards. Some of them, we rarely even hear the names of. They're referred to as; The bald man, the man who wound his watch, the grouchy women. And yet, I really felt for them when anything happened to them. I especially loved Andrius. I hoped that they would all get out alright, as much as I hoped that for Lina and her family.

Overall, this was one of the most brilliant, powerful and shocking books I've ever read. It's a must-read for any historical fiction fans. And I really hope that more people read this so that they know the terrible things that these people went through, told brilliant through this book.

Review: Plague by Michael Grant

Title: Plague
Author: Michael Grant

Published: 2011
Pages: 525
My Rating: 5/5

Eight months after everyone over the age of fifteen disapeared from the town of Perdidio Beach, California, the stakes are still rising. The kids in Perdido Beach are still starving. Yet despite the simmering unrest left behind by so many battles, power struggles, and angry divides, there is a momentary calm in Perdido Beach.

But enemies in the FAYZ don’t just fade away, and in the quiet, deadly things are stirring, mutating, and finding their way free. The Darkness has found its way into the mind of its Nemesis at last and is controlling it through a haze of delirium and confusion. A highly contagious, fatal illness spreads at an alarming rate as sinister, predatory insects terrorize Perdido Beach. And Sam, Astrid, Diana, and Caine are plagued by a growing doubt that they’ll escape—or even survive—life in the FAYZ. With so much turmoil surrounding them, what desperate choices will they make when it comes to saving themselves and those they love?

May contain spoilers from previous books.

This book was undoubtedly one of the books I'd been most looking forward to coming out. After reading Gone, Hunger and Lies, the Gone series shot up to one of my favorite books series of all time. Everything from the writing and characters points of view to the adrenaline filled survival plot just blew me away. After the amazing first three books, I had high expectations for Plague. Fortunately, I wasn't let down.

The book starts off with Astrid's younger autistic brother, Little Pete's, point of view. He is the only character, who's been present during the whole series to not have had that yet. By the end of Lies, you know that Little Pete has a huge part in the mystery surrounding the FAYZ, and that he has a big role to play yet. His chapters are dotted about during the book, giving teases of what his abilities hold and his perception of the outside world. These chapters were deliberately written in a vague tense that just had me begging for more.

The next big problem that the kids of the FAYZ have to deal with is the oncoming epidemic causing people to develop potentially fatal coughs, as well as a new rapidly evolving parasite that grows under the skin and gives life to thousands of metallic bugs that cause devastation wherever they go. This is by far one of the grossest problems that have come to light during the Gone series so far. It gave me shivers right down my spine. At first, I did find the bugs to be a little too far-fetched but as the book went along, I realized how well they fitted in with the whole 'plague' theme of this book.

Even though conditions in the FAYZ get worse and worse in each book, Grant still managed to find a way to bring light and humor at excellently timed points during the book. I was extremely pleased to see that our hero, Sam finally gets a little bit of a break in this book. But that's not saying he doesn't play an important role in it either. 

Unlike the last book, where one of the biggest problems is how the inhabitants of the FAYZ have to survive each other as gangs and rivals form, this book brings opposites and past enemies together as they learn it is the only way to survive what is occurring in deep in the FAYZ.

I had to spread out reading this book over a few days so that I could savor it, rather than reading it in one night, which is what I nearly did. I was not disappointed in this book. It was just as exciting, mysterious and heartfelt as the last three. I was also surprised to see that this book even tackled religious themes, as well as giving us one huge clue that could lead on to explaining the cause of what is happening in the FAYZ. 

If you haven't read the Gone series yet, I really can't recommend it enough. The writing is brilliant. The characters and their actions are completely believable. The story is beyond epic and a must read for any sci-fi fans. As you can see I have given this 5/5, but I would give it 6/5 if I could. It's going to be torture waiting for the next installment of the series, Fear.

The Killing Frost (aka The Third Day, The Frost) Review

Title: The Killing Frost
Author: John Marsden 
Published: 1995
Pages: 278
My Rating: 5/5

In the third installment of the Tomorrow saga, the anything-to-survive existence of Ellie and her friends has sharpened their senses and emboldened their plans. They aren't merely on the defensive anymore; they're also striking back. Their strategy? Attack the enemy not just on land, but also on water. If they have any hope of sabotaging the formidable container ship at Cobbler's Bay, then stealth is a must, but so, too, is one very big explosion. And if they fail, they may face a whole new kind of terror -- imprisonment.


The Tomorrow Series be John Marsden is easily one of my favorite book series, and I've only just read 3/7 books so far! I cannot begin to explain how incredible and powerful, not just the writing but the story and the 
situation. 


A brief overview is: Ellie and a group of friends from Australia go on a camping trip for a week and come back to find that they town (and country) has been invaded. Everyone is being held in the Showground and Ellie and her friends must go into hiding and do whatever they have to do in order to stay alive agaisnt this brutal enemy.


This is only the third book, and already the events are reaching much more powerful and devastating heights than the last few books. The layout of events in this book were also a lot different to the first two, but I can't say anymore on that without giving anything away. One thing that I really love about these books is that, even though the whole series so far has been about the same group of people in the same general situation; it never gets monotonous, boring or repetitive. There is always something new, something exciting, or some shocking twist just waiting to happen! 


I feel as though I am there with the characters and feel myself growing and warming to them. They are all so believable and real. They also react like real people. It's not like in films, where normal characters can just whip out a machine gun and shoot at the bad guy, be the hero and be totally fine like that. They all have their own individual way to coping with the events that happen. 


In this book in particular, there wasn't quite as much character development as the last two. I think this was mainly because Ellie was on her own throughout quite a portion of this book, so it was more of just Ellie's development and thoughts. There was a shocking twist right at the end, that I don't think I'll truly get over, it was so sudden there wasn't any time to be sad! But that's another part that makes it so realistic! 


I think it's a crime that this series isn't more known! I highly recommend it! Though saying that; it's not for everyone. It's one YA book with no fantasy, (not a huge amount of) romance or Sci Fi, but instead follows this group of realistically real teenagers as they struggle to survive during a war on their country.