Thursday, October 20, 2011

Review: Burnout - Rebecca Donner and Inaki Miranda & The New York Four - Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly


Where I got it: Library
Rating: 4 stars  
Cover Rating: 4 stars (YAY! Fire! Except boo fire.)  
Genre:Young Adult
Publication Date: June 24, 2008
Publisher: Minx
Page Count: 148 p.
Buy it: Book Depository / Amazon

After her dad leaves, Danni's mother drags her up to Oregon. Here her mother falls in love with an alcoholic and they move in. The man has a son, Haskell, and Danni and him share a room. He is very secretive and sneaks out every night. One night Danni follows him and finds out that he is the elusive ecoterrorist that the town has been trying to catch. She can believe in his cause in the beginning, but soon enough it might get to be too intense for her. Danni will have to try and decide the difference of fighting for a cause and just plan fighting.

First let's talk about the ending. I cannot believe it. It is left completely open and we never get to find out what happened. GAH! I can't even stand it. The rest of the book was interesting. Never really had too much ecoterrorism in my area. We have trees, loads of them, but not too many loggers. Haskell has to be the most broody person alive. He has his hair all in his eyes, and dagger looks that kill. He sort of just cracked me up the whole time. I have to applaud Danni's mom in this novel. She was a good mom and eventually fell into how she should be. The dad was a jerk. It's really too bad, because sometimes people can't help it but you still hate them a bit. If you're a big fan of fighting for the environment you might want to check this out. There's some romance too, just in case spiking trees isn't enough for you ;)

First Line:
"Sometimes when I'm alone... ... I try to see how long I can stand it."

Favorite Line:
"That blaze would be beautiful if it wasn't so terrible."


Where I got it: Library
Rating: 3.5 stars  
Cover Rating: 4 stars (New York, New York indeed.)  
Genre:Young Adult
Publication Date: July 22, 2008
Publisher: Minx
Page Count: 152 p.
Buy it: Book Depository / Amazon

Riley is shy and sheltered. She is also pretty obsessed with her smartphone. Online people are easy to talk to. When she starts going to college in Manhattan though, things start to change a little. For instance, she starts hanging out with her older sister. Riley hasn't seen her sister in ten years, not since she ran away from home. She also gets a crush on an online guy known as sneakerfreak. She's trying to keep up her grades, job and social life, and it's taking it's toll on her. She can't let her parents find out about her romance, but keeping it a secret might be tricky.

Okay, first off Frank is super cute, even if he is a bit of a creeper. He seems pretty awesome, just wrong place at the wrong time. Riley does seem quite snotty and full of herself. She always interrupts people to answer her phone. That is super rude and I would have ditched her as a friend fast. She doesn't seem to even learn from the dirty looks everyone gives her, that she needs to start living in the here and now. I was a bit disappointed in the ending of this novel, because I don't see Riley grow at all. It seems that there was supposed to be a next book, and maybe she grows up then. Having the back drop of the big city was fun and I liked the way the novel was setup. There were little character bios every now and again, I liked that a lot. This was a neat story and there were some pretty interesting characters in it. I'm really disappointed that there is not a sequel right now, because some of the characters were up to some pretty shady stuff and I would love to know how all that pans out.

First Line:
"Riley?"

Favorite Line:
"Is he really into sneakers?"

No comments:

Post a Comment

Hello readers! I love comments, so please feel free to leave them. I do comment back on every comment I get, though it may take me a couple of days. Thanks for stopping by!

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...