#Murdertrending

#Murdertrending

by: Gretchen McNeil

I was super excited about getting this book. I told my family all about it and they just stared at me like I was crazy. This book definitely has an original storyline. Dee has been convicted of murdering her step-sister and her punishment is being sent to Alcatraz 2.0. Alcatraz 2.0 is an island where convicts are sent, then hunted down and brutally murdered by professional assassins. All of this is filmed and viewed by everyone in America through an app. 

The thing is, Dee is innocent. She was framed for her sisters murder. When she gets to the island she is supposed to be offed by Prince Slycer, only Dee ends up killing him instead. After that, things on the island get stranger and more dangerous every moment. 

Can Dee and her friends find a way off the island? Will she live through the night? 

This book is good for high school kids, it's a little gory for middle school. I generally enjoyed the book. Towards the end it did become a little unrealistic and predictable to some degree. I still couldn't put it down for the last 50 pages though. 

Starsight

Starsight

by: Brandon Sanderson

Here is the problem I am having with this book. It's going to be at least a year before the next book comes out. By then I will have completely forgotten everything that happened with Spensa and M-Bot. 

But I guess that's a good problem right? I enjoyed this book almost as much as I enjoyed the first book. It took me in a direction that I wasn't anticipating in any way, I was hoping to learn more about the fight for Detritus... but instead we were light years away. Literally. 

In the second book Spensa finds a way to jump to the Krell planet and become a member of their new pilot force designed to fight the Delvers (the actual bad guys).

Spensa disguises herself as an alien and befriends several of the Starsight pilots, including a fellow human. Then things go sideways. 

I wasn't sure what kind of journey Spensa would go on after the first book, this is definitely not what I had imagined. This is an engaging sequel to the first book. 

Skyward

Skyward

When I was looking for my next book to read I looked at which books on my Goodreads list had the highest reviews. This one was the highest, so I had some expectations of this book.

It lived up to it! I finished the book at 4:45 and the library closed at 5. I drove halfway there before realizing there was no way I was going to get there in time to get the next book. I had to wait a whole 24 hours to find to what happened to Spensa and M-Bot. Torture! 

Spensa is living on Detritus. She and the rest of humans on the planet live below the surface to hide from the alien Krell that are attacking the planet from space. Spensa's greatest dream is to become a fighter pilot. However, her father betrayed his fellow pilots ten years earlier, therefore Spensa's quest to become a pilot is full of challenges and hurdles. Spensa is a high-spirited, determined, young woman who readers will immediately fall in love with. 

This book is a great read for your readers that like the Hunger Games, Divergent, or Lunar Chronicles series.