Book Review-Adaptation by Malinda Lo

Title: Adaptation

 Author: Malinda Lo

Series:   Adaptation #1

Published:  April 3 2014 by Hodder

Length: 432 pages

Source: publisher

Other info: Malinda Lo has also written Huntress, Ash (review here), and Inheritance.

Summary: Flocks of birds are hurling themselves at aeroplanes across America. Thousands of people die. Millions are stranded. Everyone knows the world will never be the same.
On Reese's long drive home, along a stretch of empty highway at night, a bird flies into their headlights. The car flips over. When they wake up in a military hospital, the doctor won't tell them what happened.
For Reese, though, this is just the start. She can't remember anything from the time between her accident and the day she woke up almost a month later. She only knows one thing: she's different now. Torn between longtime crush David and new girl Amber, the real question is: who can she trust?

Review: It all starts when  Reese Holloway is waiting for a plane back from debating and  birds fall out of the sky. Stranded, she and the debate team decide to head home in a rented car, and things change even more. With no idea of the events after a crash, nor the later happenings or procedures, Reese finds some anwers that will change her life, and humanity, forever.

Huntress, I didn't enjoy especially, but Ash was one of my favourite books due to the writing style and the new take on an old story. Adaptation leaves the fantasy route and goes down the scifi men-in-black route, and it does this really well.

I love the characters. Amber's probably my favourite, because she's adorable and funny and I fell in love with her. I also liked that you had to constantly question her and her loyalties. David- CHINESE MC HECK YEAH (I get excited by chinese main characters) was also really adorable and smart. Reese isn't one of my favourite characters, she seemed a bit ordinary compared to a cast full of scientists and government agents and conspiracy theory website runners and things which I want to say but that's kind of spoilery, but I did like the fact that she constantly questioned things. Oh, and love to Reese's mum. See the lawyering badass love for her daughter and reaction to her coming out as bisexual. 

Nowhere in this book is a good place to stop reading-most certainly not the end.. Every point in Adaptation was either too intriguing or too exciting or too adorable to let you even think about putting it down, and I've had the must-never-stop-reading-this-feeling for very few books before.

Overall:  Strength 5 tea to a book I recommend to everyone, especially mystery, scifi, thriller, romance fans.

Links: Amazon| Goodreads| Author website |

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Daniel X: Game over by James Patterson (Audiobook, unabridged, 4 CD's)Narrated by Milo Ventimiglia
Target audience: Young Adult
Audiobook Rating: Wizard
Book Rating: Fairy

The fourth volume in the alien hunter series begins in a video arcade in Tokyo where Daniel is in pursuit of numbers seven and eight on the alien outlaw list. Milo Ventimiglia deftly portrays Daniel’s easy, comfortable banter with family and friends as well as the sarcastic repartee he saves for his alien prey. The suspense rises exponentially as the plot to brainwash addicted video gamers into becoming non virtual killers unfolds. The narrator transforms the very short chapters that would be distracting in book format into edgy layers of anticipation for the listener. Although Ventigmiglia's expert performance sets the perfect pace for this non-stop action adventure punctuated by explosive battle sound effects, his efforts cannot compensate for the implausibility of the story. Daniel’s abilities – manipulating matter to recreate anything he can visualize including his dead parents and friends who can fight, invent, interact with others all from his own brain, broadband internet in his head, ability to download a degree in engineering directly to his cerebellum, to transform into anything, time travel, enhanced senses - to name but a few referred to in frequent asides to the reader are over the top and far fetched even for the science fiction genre. There is virtually no character development making the story just a laundry list of alien battles. The “Maximum Ride” series by the same author would be a much better choice. (Audiobook provided for review by Children's Lit - www.childrenslit.com).

 

 

 

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Alien attack by Max Chase

111 pgs.
Target audience: Ages 7 to 10
Rating: Wizard

Peri is a pilot and a first year cadet at the Intergalactic Force Academy. It’s the year 5012 and all the planets in the Milky Way have banded together to form the IFA, an elite group of fighters sworn to protect and defend the galaxy. On a routine mission in their space pod, Peri and his half-Martian friend, Diesel, are attacked by an alien ship. But just before their pod is annihilated by DeathRays, they’re transported back to the station which is under attack. The two pilots are immediately forced aboard a cloaked ship that looks like a giant egg and told that they have their orders which of course they know nothing about. As Peri and Diesel desperately try to figure out how to fly this ship, the space station explodes leaving them as the last defense against the alien invasion. The black and white illustrations do a great job of bringing the text alive. The ship is stock full of cool gadgetry and fighting abilities. Add to that Martian curses, monstrous aliens, the deadly vortex that eats spaceships alive and it’s a recipe for an unstoppable adventure series. (This book provided for review by Children's Lit - www.childrenslit.com)

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Adaptation by Malinda Lo

386 pgs.
Target audience: Young Adult
Rating: Dragon

The sky is falling! – well not really, but flocks of birds are falling to earth after causing planes all over the world to crash and burn. The airports are locked down, curfew is imposed and Reese and David on their way back to San Francisco after a debate tournament are trapped in the Phoenix airport. Their debate coach secures a rental car, but the exit routes are clogged with other travelers desperate to reach home. They finally end up making it as far as rural Nevada where their coach is killed in a carjacking at a gas station. Terrified, Reese and David flee north, but a bird flies into the windshield sending the car tumbling into a ditch. Reese and David wake up in a strange military hospital right in the middle of Area 51. They’ve both been operated on and appear completely healed. They sign non-disclosure statements and are escorted back home. Things get even weirder when Reese notices that her scars aren’t just healed, they’ve disappeared as if the accident never even happened. Her memories are sketchy except for a bizarre reoccurring dream. David is experiencing similar anomalies. Reese meets and falls for the beautiful and alluring Amber Gray, while harboring feelings for  David. This brief romantic  interlude seems random,  but Amber is later revealed to be at the center of the government’s web of secrecy. Disaster, government conspiracies, miraculous medical procedures, create a heart pounding science fiction thriller.

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