Article 5 by Kristen Simmons

Title: Article 5
Author: Kristen Simmons
Series: Article 5 #1
Genre: YA/Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Dystopian
Release Date: January 31, 2012
Format:  Hardcover copy from personal library

Rating:  Break the Bank!

Synopsis:

New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., have been abandoned.

The Bill of Rights has been revoked, and replaced with the Moral Statutes.

There are no more police—instead, there are soldiers. There are no more fines for bad behavior—instead, there are arrests, trials, and maybe worse. People who get arrested usually don't come back.

Seventeen-year-old Ember Miller is old enough to remember that things weren’t always this way. Living with her rebellious single mother, it’s hard for her to forget that people weren’t always arrested for reading the wrong books or staying out after dark. It’s hard to forget that life in the United States used to be different.

Ember has perfected the art of keeping a low profile. She knows how to get the things she needs, like food stamps and hand-me-down clothes, and how to pass the random home inspections by the military. Her life is as close to peaceful as circumstances allow.

That is, until her mother is arrested for noncompliance with Article 5 of the Moral Statutes. And one of the arresting officers is none other than Chase Jennings…the only boy Ember has ever loved.

Review:

I've been extremely interested in reading this book since I first came across it on Goodreads.  The premise of the book really caught my attention...No Bill of Rights!?  Men are the breadwinners of the family!?  It goes on and on.  Naturally I pre-ordered this book and did a little happy dance when the UPS man left it on my doorstep for me.

Article 5 did not disappoint.  The best way for me to describe the world in which Ember and Chase live in is....Think of what the world would have been like if Germany and Japan had won WWII. If you don't follow the Moral Statues to the letter you could just up and disappear. What I really loved about this book was that it was non-stop action from the very beginning.

 Ember's mom is arrested for an Article 5 violation and Ember is sent to a reform school.  As the book progresses you learn a lot about Ember and Chase's previous relationship....The one before he was drafted into the MM (Moral Militia as the citizen's refer to the soldiers).  That Chase sounds like a really great guy, the Chase that we see in the book now has "blood" on his hands, he's hard and at times borderline animalistic. Ember I think started out the book in a pretty sheltered life.  Then things hit the fan and Ember's life is all in an upheaval.  When Ember starts learning about how things really are out there in the world in the beginning she seemed a little bit on the weak side but she did toughen up by the end of the book considerably, even though it was a slower progression that I particularly liked.

Overall, Article 5 is a great beginning to this series.  If this book isn't on your wishlist I strongly suggest adding RIGHT NOW!  I'll leave you with a couple of my favorite quotes from the book...

“He was my anchor in the hurricane, yet at the same time, the hurricane itself, so that I nearly always felt safe and afraid simultaneously. There was nothing in the world as confusing and powerful as being close to him.”

“I could not fall back in love with Chase Jennings. Doing so was like falling in love with a thunderstorm. Exciting and powerful, yes. Even beautiful. But violently tempered, unpredictable, and ultimately short-lived.”

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Title: Shatter Me
Author: Tahereh Mafi
Series: Shatter Me #1
Release Date: November 15, 2011
Reviewed Format: Finished Hardcover
Source: Purchased

Rating: Break the Bank!

Synopsis:

Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war– and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.

In this electrifying debut, Tahereh Mafi presents a world as riveting as The Hunger Games and a superhero story as thrilling as The X-Men. Full of pulse-pounding romance, intoxicating villainy, and high-stakes choices, Shatter Me is a fresh and original dystopian novel—with a paranormal twist—that will leave readers anxiously awaiting its sequel.

Review:

I had been hearing all sorts of AWESOME hype about Shatter Me all over the book blogging community.  I kept seeing the same things, “you have to read this!,”  “it’s different,”  you get the picture right?  So yet again, I put forth the big bucks to have Amazon deliver Shatter Me to my house on release day.

What really drew me into the story was Juliette.  She’s been lead to believe that she is a monster due to her “gift.”  Her family has basically abandoned her and sent her off to an asylum.  She hasn’t touched anyone in 264 days.  See Juliette’s touch is lethal in most cases.  Then Juliette is given a cellmate.  Her cellmate turns out to be someone she knows from her past, the only person in her past life that didn’t have it out to be mean or cruel to her, Adam Kent.

Adam to me isn’t your typical storybook hero.  There comes a time when Juliette is almost certain that Adam has betrayed her to the Reestablisment. You automatically want to think the worst of Adam but the further you read the more you see that “what you see” isn’t always “what you get.”  I was really impressed with Adam overall.

Warner!  I had a love/hate relationship with Warner.  In that I LOVED to HATE him.  He comes off as an overbearing ass and I really didn’t like it.  You hear rumblings about why he is the way he is but really, just because you had a crappy childhood doesn’t mean you have to be a miserable excuse for a human being as an “adult.” His obsession with Juliette just flat-out creeped me out.

I really LOVED the world that the author created.  A world where everything has fallen apart and a group has come in and says “hey we can make things better” and proceeds to make things so much worse.  A sort of creepy look at what our world could be like.  The writing style I really liked a lot.  There are portions of the text that are crossed out and I liked it, I’ve read some reviews where others haven’t liked the crossed out text, for me it worked.

The romance for me at first I thought it was a little bit too much “Insta-love” but the more I read into the book the more I realized that Adam and Juliette have a considerable amount of history.  So naturally, that shot my “Insta-love” theory all to hell.

Overall, if you haven’t added this book to your wish list do so RIGHT NOW!  It really is a touch of The Hunger Games with a little X-Men thrown in to keep things interesting.  I DEVOURED this book and now I’m very sad that I have to wait so long for the sequel.

Favorite Passage:

“H-how could you possibly care about someone…like me?”  I’m barely breathing, nervous and petrified but somehow staring at his lips, studying the shape, counting the drops of water tumbling over the hills and valleys of his mouth.

“Because I’m in love with you.”