Welcome to Ella!

I'm very happy to announce that A Bookworm's World has a new resident guest blogger - this time with a focus on YA titles. Welcome to Ella, who just happens to work at the library as well.  She's one of our teen pages who gets to shelve all those books that cross over my counter. And she's a voracious reader as well.  Now that school is out, she's got a bit more free time on her hands and has come up with a few quick reviews for us.

 Abandon by Meg Cabot: Not actually a suggestion, more of a warning. I never thought I'd see the day when I wouldn't love a Meg Cabot book, but it has come. It was a cool idea (modern-day Persephone and Hades, a little rearranged), but the book itself was kind of blah. She didn't bridge the gap from memory-story to happening-right-now-story very well, and it fell kinda flat.

Soulless by Gail Carriger: Amazing! Really, really funny. Romance/non-obnoxious Victorian quasi-mystery on a backdrop of unimposing steampunk with characters that happened to be vampires, werewolves and 'soulless' beings. It's the first in a series, but I have yet to try the rest.

Red Moon Rising by Peter Moore: Humanity evolved into humans, werewolves and vampires, and now that vampires invented fake blood, they're the elite of society, and the wulfen (werewolves) are second-class citizens. Parts of it rang a little too close to Nazi concentration camps for comfort, actually. Second half wasn't as cool as the first, but still pretty good. The hero is half-vamp, half-wulfen and is turning at the next full moon for the first time-drama, drama, drama.

Bumped by Megan McCafferty: what every dystopian, adults-get-a-funky-virus-so-teens/early-twenties-people-have-to-have-the-kids, 'the man'-is-too-powerful-man,the-media-is-controlling-us book tries to be, only it works. It was the funniest end-of-the-world I've read in a while, but not a "ha-ha!" funny, more of a comedy of errors. Twin sisters were separated at birth and raised in wildly differing environments- one religious extremist, one being groomed to "bump" and carry a baby for big bucks (but that actually means she has to be the best at everything).

Those That Wake by Jesse Carp: freaky. Dystopian, despair, the-end-is-upon-us-only-we-don't-care-'cause-we-have-cell-phones (which were actually totally cool, really advanced) crossed with zombies that weren't dead (but may as well have been) and epic journey style fantasy. Also Jungian theory. The opening: Laura, a suburbanite, is suddenly erased from the memories of everyone she knows, as well as computers, pictures (sorta), the works, and Mal's brother has dropped off the face of the Earth. Why has this happened? What's with the building with the endless doors? Are those men really Homeland Security agents? When it was done, I felt kind of stunned, like at the end of a roller coaster, minus the nausea. Still thinking about it, a while after I'm done.

Born at Midnight by CC Hunter; I might have already told you about this, but I was pleasantly surprised enough to repeat myself: I thought the genre was dead, that no more good would come of the unknowing-teenage-magic-girl-goes-to-boarding-school/her-relative's-house-for-the-summer/summer-camp-for-troubled-teens-and-finds-out-she's-a-*insert flavour of the week*, but I was wrong. Quite good.

Red Glove by Holly Black: Holly Black. Need I say more?

Thanks Ella! So glad to have you on board and I know we'll all be looking forward to more of your reviews!