The Body Electric by Beth Revis - Review

Title: The Body Electric
Author: Beth Revis
Format: Paperback
Pages: 460
Rating: 5/5

This is a joke, right? I'm missing the last one hundred pages, this isn't really a standalone, surely there's more, because this isn't fair. A story such as this needs to have more than 460 pages dedicated to it!

In the future, nanobots are a daily occurrence. Everyone has them, a part of everyone's life, especially when your name is Ella Shepherd and your parents are famous scientists. Ella's father is dead, killed by a terrorist attack on the lab he was working in and her mother has a disease called Hebbs Disease, which is fatal and causes the brain to deteriorate. Her mother has developed a way for people to relive their best memories, but everything changes when theory becomes reality. Ella can walk through people's memories, something that was only thought to be theoretical. Her life is throw into chaos and it certainly does help when a mysterious boy shows up. Ella isn't sure who to trust. Can she trust the mystery boy that has attachments to her father, but seems to have secrets? Can she trust her government? Can she even trust herself?

I've read one book by Beth Revis before The Body Electric, and I loved it, so my expectations were pretty high. My expectations were met. Ella is such an interesting character. She has layers of emotion and strength, but as the story progresses we also see her fears, which (I shall not spoil anything) I find very understandable considering the circumstances. I would have loved to see more interaction between Jack and Ella at the end of the book and every time they were together I did a mental happy dance, but at the same time made me want to throw the book at the wall, because it. Is. So. Frustrating. There's almost always action going on, so I just kept flipping the pages. All of a sudden the book was over. How did that happen? The science alone is enough to keep my mind constantly interested, but the twists just throw a little extra something that makes me crazy. I still want more, I can't believe this is just a standalone, this world has so much that it could offer and I hope we see more of it in the future.

Side note: Across the Universe reference, don't think I missed you, I saw you and I love you.

The Program by Suzanne Young - Review

Title: The Program
Author: Suzanne Young
Series: The Program
Book: 1
Copy: Hardback
Pages: 405
Rating: 5/5

The Program is a heartbreaking novel about young love and the importance of family and friendship. I picked up The Program because it sounded interesting enough. When I started reading, I intended to just read the first few pages to get a feel  for in, but what I ended up getting was a book that sucked me in so fast I finished it in one sitting.

Sloane lives in a world where suicide is an epidemic. Almost everyone knows at least one person that has committed suicide. In the hopes of ending the epidemic, the government comes up with a solution, the Program. Unfortunately, the Program isn't all it's cracked up to be. In order to be deemed "not infected" or "cured", you have to spend six weeks in an institution. People that come back from the Program aren't the same. They don't act the same and they don't remember any of their friends and little of their past. Some people die before getting to the Program, some are shipped away, and some kill themselves before the Program can take them, choosing to die instead of living as a shell of their former selves.

Sloane's brother killed himself, leaving Sloane heartbroken and feeling helpless. Luckily for her, she has James. Her other half, the love of her life, and her soulmate. Together, they try to fight the Program, staying off the Program's radar, hiding just how scared and sad they really are. When their friend commits suicide to avoid being put in the Program, James falls off the deep end, slipping into a depression that Sloane can't pull him out of. Her attempts at making him appear normal work for weeks only to falter. James is shipped off the Program and returns with no memory of their love. Sloane's life spins out of control, with no direction, no James, and no hope for him coming back to her.

This book is one of my new favourites. The passion between James and Sloane just makes me so happy, they're so cute together and have such a great relationship. It's such a heartbreaking story to the point where I found myself in tears more than a few times. If I lived in this world, I would never want to lose all my memories, no matter what the outcome. What's the point of living, if they take the best parts of you? The good times and the bad, they make up who we are and the idea of something with the ability to take those memories away scares the crap out of me. I simply couldn't put this book down and I read it in a few hours with the need for more. Certainly one of the best books I've read.

Frozen by Erin Bowman - Review

Title: Frozen
Author: Erin Bowman
Series: Taken
Book: 2
Pages: 359
Rating: 4/5

It's been over a year since I read Taken, but something told me it was time to read Frozen. In my typical fashion, I completely disregarded the idea of skimming book one to catch up on a few things. That was my mistake. However, it's okay, because most things I forgot were explained quickly anyway.
Frozen revolves around Gray Weathersby and his team of Rebels on their quest to find survivors of Group A. Seems like a real simple quest. Trek through the snow and ice for days to find people that may or may not be alive while everyone is looking for you in order to find a group of people that may or may not be alive and may or may not actually want your help! Not surprisingly, things didn't go all that smoothly.
Honestly, my internal struggle mainly revolved around who I liked with Gray. Bree is butch and violent, she and Gray fight all the time (good? bad? it's a toss up). I don't have a fully functioning opinion on Bree. The cold side of people is usually the best side when it comes to things like this, but I just found her entirely unlikable when she tried to face things on her own. Emma is the polar opposite, yet I still don't like her. Her sweet, kind exterior makes her appear helpless and weak, the last thing a survival group needs. Now, if Emma and Bree were the same person, that might work, but they're not. Gray strings both of them along and no one can convince me otherwise.
Some parts were slow, but when things picked up, they picked up fast and stayed that way. So as to not give anything away, I'll give my favourite parts a one word ode. Blaine. Boat. Group A. I'll let the reader sort out what part of the story each belongs to. All in all, though that ending was not something I was expecting and I give props for that. The entire time I was reading I was 100% sure this was a duology until I got to the last page and things were unresolved, then I remembered that Forged is the next book and now I have to buy it in order to see what happens. Looking forward to it!