Tag: sci-fi

Recent Sci-Fi Reads: The Diabolic and The Handmaid’s Tale | Book Reviews

November 30, 2016 / 0 Comments / Posted by Tiff @ Mostly YA Lit in Mini-Reviews, Review
Recent Sci-Fi Reads: The Diabolic and The Handmaid’s Tale | Book Reviews

The Diabolic is the story of Nemesis, a biologically engineered bodyguard programmed to protect one person against anyone around her. Nemesis is the Diabolic for Sidonia, the daughter of an intergalactic Senator under investigation for treason. The Galactic Empire decides to force Sidonia to come to their planet instead as a punishment. Scared for her life, Sidonia’s mother sends Nemesis in disguise, where Nemesis must traverse the political establishment while pretending to be human. I wanted to like The Diabolic, but unfortunately, it wasn’t for me. The main issue was that Nemesis’ voice was kind of robotic and completely devoid […]

“Fighting Evil by Moonlight” Fate of Flames by Sarah Raughley | Review

November 24, 2016 / 2 Comments / Posted by Tiff @ Mostly YA Lit in Review
“Fighting Evil by Moonlight” Fate of Flames by Sarah Raughley | Review

Review: Fate of Flames by Sarah Raughley Is Fate of Flames is sci-fi or fantasy? I’m not sure it matters. The book has elements from both genres, with a lot about celebrity, teamwork, and memory thrown in. In the near future, the world has been overrun by phantoms, shadowy beasts who wreak havoc wherever they go. Most major cities on Earth have anti-shadow technology that keeps the phantoms outside of the atmosphere. Sometimes, though, they break through, and that’s where the Effigies – four girl superheroes who can each control an element – come in. The Effigies are able to battle […]

GEMINA by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff | Review

October 31, 2016 / 3 Comments / Posted by Tiff @ Mostly YA Lit in Review
GEMINA by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff | Review

Review: GEMINA by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff I’m not sure what I can say about GEMINA that I didn’t already say in my review of Illuminae last year. Like Illuminae, Gemina is a fast-paced, sci-fi thriller with brutal death toll, a shippy romance, and twists at every turn. And like Illuminae, Gemina is also told completely in gorgeous source documents that get you right into the action. While Illuminae is set on two spaceships just outside the Kerenza colony after an attack by a corporation trying to cover up their illegal mining operation, Gemina is set on a space […]

Middle Grade Reads #1: Gertie’s Leap to Greatness and Rebel Genius

Middle Grade Reads #1: Gertie’s Leap to Greatness and Rebel Genius

Hi guys, today I have some middle grade recs for you, courtesy of my husband, Evan! Evan is a mostly comic book reader, with lots of literary fiction interspersed. That said, he’s really interested in the middle grade age group – his favorite cartoons (Adventure Time and Steven Universe) explore that age. So when we saw that Gertie’s Leap to Greatness was illustrated by Jillian Tamaki (one of the artists on Adventure Time), and Rebel Genius was written by the creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra (the cartoons), he volunteered to read and review. Read […]

Wires and Nerve, Volume 1 by Marissa Meyer and Douglas Holgate | Waiting on Wednesday

Wires and Nerve, Volume 1 by Marissa Meyer and Douglas Holgate | Waiting on Wednesday

If you know me, you know I’m a huge The Lunar Chronicles fan. Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter are on my list of best YA sci-fi ever. (I also really loved Fairest and Stars Above!). Marissa Meyer is a master at blending young adult feels with spaceships, misfits, and fairy tales. I was so excited to find out that we’d be hearing more from one of my favorite characters in the Lunar Chronicles, Iko the android, via this new graphic novel, Wires and Nerve. In the novels, I loved how well Meyer managed to blend Iko’s fun personality with the unique issues that come […]

12 Books Set Outside USA | Top Ten Tuesday

12 Books Set Outside USA | Top Ten Tuesday

I actually read a lot of fiction not set in the US, which should be obvious since I’m Canadian. But this list is (unsurprisingly?) Europe heavy! 1)  2)   3)  4) 5) 6) 7)   8) 9) 10) 11) 12) Mostly YA Lit’s Top 12 Books Set Outside USA 1. Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery | PEI, Canada – who doesn’t love this series? 2. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein | Great Britain – Tears. All the tears. If you haven’t read it, you must. 3. Across A Star-Swept Sea by Diana Peterfreund | Post-apocalyptic New Zealand […]

Learning to Swear in America | Giveaway + Guest Post by Author Katie Kennedy

Learning to Swear in America | Giveaway + Guest Post by Author Katie Kennedy

Hi guys, today I have the lovely Katie Kennedy here to talk about her upcoming debut, LEARNING TO SWEAR IN AMERICA. If you know me, you know I really love science in my YA and I’m especially partial to physics, so this book has been on my to-be-read list since I first heard about it. I love that there’s this 17-year-old physics prodigy who’s going to learn how to be a teenager from this normal kid…with a backdrop of living your life to the fullest. SO my kind of book. Read on to find out more about the book, then […]

Review: Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

October 23, 2015 / 10 Comments / Posted by Tiff @ Mostly YA Lit in Review, Uncategorized
Review: Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

Review: By now you’ve probably heard the flails, the gasps, the “OMG NONONONONOs” that come from reading Illuminae, the 600-page sci-fi brick by Aussie writers Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff – if not from me, then hopefully from the rest of the book community. And if you’re coming here looking for an extremely well-written review, well… Reason being that this book is all feels, guys. It starts with a bang, then a character/world building section, and then THE ENTIRE WORLD FALLS APART. Ok, let me rewind. Illuminae, as you probably know, is told all in found documents, sent by a secretive […]

“Like You’re My Mirror”: Ten Thousand Skies Above You by Claudia Gray

October 15, 2015 / 2 Comments / Posted by Tiff @ Mostly YA Lit in Review, Uncategorized
“Like You’re My Mirror”: Ten Thousand Skies Above You by Claudia Gray

Review: Spoilers for A Thousand Pieces of You, the first book in the series. Don’t you dare read on if you haven’t read the first one – go check out my review for ATPOY instead.  Claudia Gray, you brilliant, evil genius, you. In A Thousand Pieces of You, I raced through the different worlds with Marguerite, fell in love with Paul right with her, and learned about how to traverse the universes. Descriptive world-building and a fast-pace kept things going, but left me wanting more character development. Ten Thousand Skies Above You has Marguerite whipping through worlds with a lot more […]

GIVEAWAY + Interview with We All Looked Up Author Tommy Wallach!

May 29, 2015 / 21 Comments / Posted by Tiff @ Mostly YA Lit in Uncategorized
GIVEAWAY + Interview with We All Looked Up Author Tommy Wallach!

Hi guys! Today I have something very special for you: an interview with author Tommy Wallach on his recent debut, We All Looked Up, about an asteroid that is about to hit Earth and four teens who try to deal with what that means to them and the world. If you read my review, you know that I loved WALU, and I felt like I learned a ton just from reading it – partly because the very concept of death and annihilation scare me and I needed to hear from others who felt the same way as I did. After […]