Mini Reviews: HarperTeen Impulse Titles

BREATHLESS
Firelight #3.5
Sophie Jordan
Paranormal Young Adult
Novella (ebook only)
HarperTeen Impulse
Available now
Received from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
For Az, it's supposed to be a fun summer vacation with her family. Nothing complicated. Just a quick trip to test the waters as she prepares for a year on her own. That all changes when she rescues a drowning girl and meets Tate—the most gorgeous human boy she's ever seen. Tate throws her heart, her plans, and her life into upheaval, but the closer she gets to him, the harder it is to hide the secret of what she is. With no hope for a future together, the last thing that can ever happen . . . is love.

MY THOUGHTS
Breathless is a quick jaunt into the Firelight world, Jacinda’s friend Az taking center stage as Ms. Jordan delights with a sweet and sexy forbidden romance. Though the setup–a female draki and a human boy–is essentially the same as what we're given in Firelight, Ms. Jordan does a really nice job of creating a distinctly different feel to Az’s story in just a hundred short pages. The same threat of discovery is present, but Az is far more skittish and fearful than Jacinda ever was, the recklessness replaced with an understandable caution that’s suddenly called into question as she develops feelings for Tate.

The romance of course moves forward quickly given the shorter page length, however the relationship still has a nice complexity, and there’s a palpable tension between Az and Tate thanks to the heavy weight of the secrets that lie between them. Breathless concludes perfectly, things left neither up in the air nor wrapped up neatly as we’re left looking forward to a future bright with possibility.

Rating: 4/5

CRUISIN'
Sarah Mlynowski
Paranormal Young Adult
Short Story (ebook only)
HarperTeen Impulse
Available now
Received from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Kristin is ready to take the next step. . . . The only problem is she hasn't found the right guy to take it with her. That's why she agreed to go on the ominously named Cruise to Nowhere with her best friend, Liz. There are plenty of cute guys on the ship to choose from if only Kristin can work up the nerve—and stop worrying about the reports in the tabloids that passengers on cruises have been mysteriously disappearing and that someone suspects it has to do with . . . vampires.

MY THOUGHTS
Cruisin’ is a fun little short story by Ms. Mylanowski that delivers a touch of unpredictability we can’t help but appreciate. Kristin’s search for the perfect guy to assist her in putting her first time behind her in spectacularly anonymous fashion is superficially entertaining (if a touch irritating at times given her and best friend Liz’s utter fixation on the task at hand), but the final few pages bring a huge smile to our faces and force us to look back through the story with very different eyes than the ones with which we started.

Rating: 3.5/5
 

STUPID PERFECT WORLD
Scott Westerfeld
Young Adult
Novella (ebook only)
HarperTeen Impulse
Available now
Received from publisher for review 

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
In this future-set novella by bestselling author Scott Westerfeld, Kieran Black lives in a "perfect" world. Disease and starvation have been eradicated, sleep is unnecessary, and it takes no time at all to go from the Bahamas to the moon. But now Kieran has to take Scarcity, a class about how people lived in the bad old days. And as if sitting through an hour of Scarcity every day wasn't depressing enough, it's final projects time. Each student must choose some form of ancient hardship to experience for two whole weeks. Kieran chooses having to sleep eight hours a night, which doesn't seem too annoying.

Maria Borsotti has never thought much of Kieran, but she decides to take pity on him and help him out with his project. Soon, Kieran is sleeping and having vivid dreams, while Maria, whose Scarcity project is to give up all teenage hormone regulation, is experiencing emotions she never knew she had. As their assignments draw them closer together, they begin to wonder if the olden days weren't so bad. Maybe something has been missing from their perfect lives after all?

MY THOUGHTS
Stupid Perfect World gives us an intriguing look at a far-distant future, one where the world is not torn apart or ravaged with humanity on the brink of extinction, but rather one where life is thriving thanks to numerous genetic and technological advancements. In one particular high school class all the advancements are rendered useless however, and students must experience what life was like in the world we know today, complete with illnesses, hormones, and an inability to teleport anywhere we need to go. We can't help but laugh as the students bemoan the class as a whole, our smile growing larger as we follow two students in particular, Maria and Kieran, as they experience hormones (Maria) and sleep (Kieran) for the very first time. Stupid Perfect World is an extraordinarily cute and quick read with the barest touch of romance that leaves a pleasant flush on our skin by the time we reach the final page.

Rating: 4/5
 

RADIANT
Unearthly #2.5
Cynthia Hand
Paranormal Young Adult
Novella (ebook only)
HarperTeen Impulse
Available Now
Received from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Clara is desperate to get away—from the memories that haunt her in Wyoming and the visions of a future she isn't ready to face—and spending the summer in Italy with her best friend, Angela, should be the perfect escape. . . .

For as long as she can remember, Angela has been told that love is dangerous, that she must always guard her heart. But when she met a mysterious guy in Italy two years ago she was determined to be with him, no matter the costs. Now she must decide whether she can trust Clara with her secret, or if telling her the truth will risk everything she cares about. 

MY THOUGHTS
Radiant is a spectacular teaser for Boundless, reminding us of a few key events from Hallowed as we catch up with Clara and Angela in Rome, while at the same time filling in a few of the blanks in Angela's history that have lingered as Clara's many and varied problems have taken precedence in the series. We get the perfect quick glimpse at Angela both through first person narration and through Clara's eyes as the point of view alternates between them, privy to intimate heartbreak as Angela relives a painful episode from her past as well as a prominent sense of foreboding thanks to our time with Clara, the two combining to have our hearts pounding with anticipation for whatever is in store for our two soon-to-be college freshman.

The story ends with a final parting line that defines the word foreshadowing, leaving us jittery with nerves and breathless with want to know what exactly Clara means with her concluding words, and we stare longingly at our calendars upon finishing, willing the countdown to Boundless to pass just a little bit faster.

Rating: 4.5/5  

Review: Hidden

HIDDEN (Firelight #3)
Sophie Jordan
Paranormal Young Adult
260 pages
HarperTeen
Available Now
Received from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Jacinda was supposed to bond with Cassian, the "prince" of their pride. But she resisted long before she fell in love with Will—a human and, worse, a hunter. When she ran away with Will, it ended in disaster, with Cassian's sister, Miram, captured. Weighed down by guilt, Jacinda knows she must rescue her to set things right. Yet to do so she will have to venture deep into the heart of enemy territory.

The only way Jacinda can reach Miram is by posing as a prisoner herself, though once she assumes that disguise, things quickly spiral out of her control. As she learns more about her captors, she realizes that even if Will and Cassian can carry out their part of the plan, there's no guarantee they'll all make it out alive. But what Jacinda never could have foreseen is that escaping would be only the beginning....

Loyalties are tested and sacrifices made in the explosive conclusion to Sophie Jordan's Firelight trilogy.

MY THOUGHTS
An action-packed conclusion to the Firelight trilogy, Hidden brings Jacinda face to face not only with the Hunters who have been systematically exterminating her kind, but also with all the issues she ran from when she and her family left her Pride originally. Though this last installment flows nicely and easily thrusts us into the middle of death and danger from the first page, some of the tension crackling in the first two books seems absent, problems arising and then easily overcome as Jacinda and company learn a series of uncomfortable and painful truths. There is a both a great deal of pain and passion throughout, but they feel slightly muted – as though we're viewing them through panes of glass – able to see and hear but not reach out and touch.

Jacinda has been a strong heroine throughout, feisty, independent and unwilling to succumb to the expectations of those around her simply because they can only see the Pride as a collective rather than as individuals who make up a whole. In Hidden, Jacinda is as much of a fighter as she's ever been, always protecting those she cares for and making the hard decisions when necessary. Her relationship with Will is one of those elements seemingly free of the aforementioned tension however, the forbidden aspect of their relationship in Firelight a non-issue now that Will has left his family behind, and the acute pain caused by a heart torn in two different directions when Cassian made an epic play for her affection in Vanish is reduced to a mere ache as Jacinda maintains her surety that Will is the right choice for her. While we thoroughly appreciate her decisiveness and the dissolution of the love triangle, her moments with Will seem to lack some of the emotional intensity found in previous books, brief moments of heat flaring before being quickly extinguished by new and often life-threatening intrusions.

The final showdown between the Hunters and the draki is a touch anticlimactic given the magnitude of the hatred on both sides, the battle with Will's family and the repercussions it has on Jacinda's Pride all wrapped up fairly quickly and easily in the final 30 pages. There are several unforeseen twists in those final pages to ensure we're utterly riveted, though a more thorough exploration of one particular revelation might have increased the impact of a few major events, causing our hearts to break instead of merely bruise from the blows. Overall, Hidden is a quick and entertaining read, wrapping up lingering questions as to what the future holds for Jacinda, Will, Tamra, and Cassian, and I can't help but hope a spinoff with Tamra and/or Cassian might be in the works at some point so closing the back cover of Hidden does not mean I've walked out of this world for the final time.

Rating: 3.5/5

Review: Vanish

VANISH (Firelight #2)
Sophie Jordan
Paranormal Young Adult
304 pages
HarperTeen
Available September 6th
Received for review through Teen Book Scene

Warning: Synopsis contains spoilers from FIRELIGHT, but review is spoiler free.

THE STORY
Jacinda risked the safety of all her draki brethren when she revealed her true form to Will and his Hunter family. Now they know one of the draki's most fiercely guarded secrets: draki can shift into human form. Luckily for Jacinda, another draki is able to use her abilities to wipe all the Hunter minds clean of what they saw, including Will's. With his mind shaded, he'll think she's just vanished without a trace since Cassian is dragging her back to the pride.

Once home again, Jacinda finds herself an outcast. News of her reveal to the Hunters and her love for Will earns her hateful glances and whispered insults from those she used to count as friends. One of the few willing to speak to her is Cassian, proving himself to be understanding of her situation while making it known that his feelings for her haven't changed.

Though Jacinda tries to put Will behind her and focus on her future in the pride, thoughts of him refuse to stay buried, and when he shows up looking for her she knows with absolutely certainty that her place is with him. Will's family draws ever closer to the pride however, and when things go wrong for her yet again, she vows to set it right no matter the cost.

MY THOUGHTS
While Firelight detailed Jacinda being snatched from her home and forced into the sweltering isolation of the desert only to find a true sense of belonging and love, Vanish sees her returned home again more alone than she was being the single draki in a vast barren landscape. Only by experiencing the freedom Jacinda found in Firelight despite having to keep so much of her true self hidden are we able to truly understand the stifling effect her return to the pride has on her. What once was a sanctuary is now a prison, her role as a female draki and a fire-breather permanently etched in stone with little hope that her wants for her life will be taken into account. This startling contrast helps our bond to Jacinda strengthen, her restlessness and heartache echoed in the erratic nature of our breathing as her future presses its weight down on us all until we're as ready as she is to escape the claustrophobia of what her pride deems inevitable.

Jacinda, full of fire and fight in the first book, has that passion for life all but extinguished in the opening chapters, stuck in the purgatory of ignorance as to how profoundly Will is affected by the memory wipe, half-heartedly trying to move on but ultimately unable to do so while certainty and closure continue to elude her. However, the more Severin and the other draki push her to conform to what she's never wanted to be, the more air they breathe on the spark buried underneath her guilt, anger, and pain until she comes roaring back and begins to take responsibility for her thoughts and actions as well as the needs of her heart. By the end, the girl who had been existing in pieces separated by conflicting desires begins to knit herself back together and rebel against those, both Hunter and draki, who would hurt her or those she cares about.

Though Will earned our affection and loyalty in book one, he is relegated to the magnificent shadow cast by Cassian in this tale, and only our lingering memories of his moments with Jacinda in Firelight keep us from throwing our full support behind the sleek black onyx draki making a play for Jacinda's heart. Cassian's deliciously diabolical attack on our emotional attachment to Will is all the more dangerous and effective for its subtlety, his staunch support of her upon her return when she faces nothing but mockery and contempt coupled with his willingness to let her create distance between them as she deems necessary is a powerful weapon. Under the quiet onslaught we quickly find ourselves wondering if it would really be so bad for Jacinda to find a new home with him, one half of a power couple leading the pride together. The new dynamic between the three of them is intensely fascinating, and the few brief moments in which she succumbs to Cassian's strength and genuineness are much more believable and forgivable as she battles with individual want versus societal and species responsibility.

Those who get frustrated with cliffhanger endings will most likely shake their heads in dismay at the conclusion of this story though, the final page ending just as momentous events are about to occur. That being said however, Ms. Jordan not only ratchets up the romantic conflict in a way that emotionally splits us down the middle without once frustrating us at the development of a love triangle, but she also reveals some interesting tidbits with regard to Tamra and Will, making us wish for more page time as we attempt to make peace with the wait for book three. Overall, Vanish is a thoroughly enjoyable sequel despite its whopper of an ending, and things are certainly shaping up to only get darker and more dangerous as Jacinda and company attempt a role reversal with the family of Hunters who have been killing them off slowly.

Rating: 4/5