Quick reviews of the books I read in April towards 52 books in 52 weeks.

• Immortal (4-5)
  

  This is a compilation of YA vampire authors, the opener is written by PC Cast, co-author of the House of Night books. One of the stories within is by her daughter (and the other author of HoN), Kristin Cast. I really loved her story in the book and I can’t wait to see what she comes up with in the future. The other story I liked, and the reason I bought the book, was a short by Claudia Gray, author of Evernight. The short story fit into her series and was really good. Its got me jonesing for more by Gray. ^.^

• Evermore (4-7)
  

  Evermore is a step away from the undead (sort of?) It deals with lots of my favorite preternatural powers like psychometry and aura reading. But that’s only a sideline to the major plot involving (shock) a guy and a girl trying to get together. I can’t say much more without ruining the book except that its veins run into a way different genre than I expected. The Alchemist would be a great pre-read for this book, if that helps any. Which it probably doesn’t, but aren’t you more curious to read them both now??

• Gakuen Prince (4-10)
  

  Ever hit the manga section at Borders? Ever notice how some of them are wrapped in plastic? Ah… this is one of them! I still don’t see a reason it was shrink-wrapped, the illustrations aren’t any more revealing than Absolute Boyfriend was. Although they talk about sex a lot more. It was cute but I’m not holding my breath for the next one. >.< (ETA: The next one comes out this month and ah… I’m stoked! Haha.)

• Specials (4-12)
  

  Book three in Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series, Specials takes a dramatic turn from Westerfelds previous two books. The social commentary is still there but its pretty much buried under mountains of drama, confusion, irony and rebellion. If you’re willing to scrape through the layers of all that to get to the good meat of the book its worth the read. The book tries to end on morally high ground but being surrounded by a ton of high school-esque bullshit sort of makes that whole concept fall a little flat.

• City of Bones (4-23)
  

  Straying away from vampires for a few more days, I picked up City of Bones… Could. Not. Put. It. Down. It takes the supernatural worlds that I know and love and explodes them to the nth degree. City of Bones deals with nephilims, angels and demons, a sect of mythology I’m frighteningly educated on and one that I forgot about amidst all these vampire books. The series is on book three as of now and I’m trying to hold off reading book two for as long as possible because I just don’t want to finish it so soon. ^.^

• Wicked Lovely (4-26)
  

  Another non-vampire book… what’s my world coming to? Wicked Lovely also reminded me of a forgotten love, faeries. I adored them growing up and throughout high school. But then I found the bad vampire crack and forgot I guess. Wicked Lovely just tosses you into the world of the fae. Its not just a fantasty book though, there’s a lot of personal struggle, female empowerment and a strong theme of choices within the book. If I had to give my (hypothetical) daughter one book to read as a teen this would be it. Its interesting without being annoying and it has a really awesome message without being preachy. Melissa Marr jumped into my top authors list with just this book alone. And that’s before I read, and fell in love with book two, Ink Exchange.

• Midnighters (4-27)
  

  I love Scott Westerfeld but Midnighters didn’t so much for me. The concept was interesting and the world was really cool but the drama and trudging along to get to the point was a little boring. Rather than focus on the interesting and memorable parts of teenage life that make me really enjoy YA books, Westefeld seems to have focused on the rather mundane ones. Its almost like the universe got in the way of the book. Which is fine if you have 400 pages to work it out, but since most YA books are near the 200 mark its hard to squeeze everything in and keep it interesting. Westerfeld is a great author but this is certainly not my favorite.

• Ink Exchange (4-28)
  

  I mentioned already that I love Melissa Marr, right? Ink Exchange is one of my new favorite books ever. Ever. Ink Exchange preserves the underlying themes of choice, female empowerment and personal struggle of Wicked Lovely but there’s a huge emphasis on the last one. I mean huge. The main character goes through more shit than you would probably care to imagine. (You can replace the fantasy parts with something realistic and the book still has powerful context.) That’s what makes this book so personable to me. Been there. Done that. Got the tumbler mug. And while it might seem masochistic to want to read about someone else going through an atrocious time, its not. The thing that grabs you with a book like this is the knowledge that it didn’t just happen to you. It happened to someone else too. And not just a fictional character, its pretty obvious that Marr pulled from her own life and experience to write this book. There’s a particular part near the end of the book where I realized that, it brought me to tears. She couldn’t possibly understand and express what she says without having been there herself.  I hail her the highest of compliments for that because I know what its like to go through desperate and horrible things too. But I don’t have the courage to write about it for all the world to see.