NORTHANGER ABBEY By Val McDermid

Hey folks! Now I know what you're thinking - 'Didn't Jane Austen write Northanger Abbey?' And you are right. Miss Austen did in fact write the original novel named Northanger Abbey. McDermid wrote this as part of 'The Austen Project' which, although researching it a little, I seem unable to really pinpoint what this project is. As with most books, I found this while doing some shelving at work and decided to see whether or not this fancy orange book was deserving of its title.

If I'm honest, I had no trouble reading the book and I finished it relatively easily yet, things didn't quite seem to fit together as they should. The blurb on the back of the book is very misleading. I genuinely thought I was in for a good vampire novel with some dark romances and a bit of drama on the side. That was the impression I got from the blurb and to be honest, I couldn't have been further from the truth. It was only when I found the actual blurb tucked away on the inside cover that I actually got the hang of what was happening.

Basically, Cat lives in a small isolated village in Dorset. She has been home schooled, thinks little about the future and longs to see something outside of the Piddle Valley. (Yes, she lives in the Piddle Valley, lol). When she gets invited to spend a month at the Edinburgh Fringe with their neighbours, she thinks this is the break from reality and her chance to see the real world she has been waiting for.

Cat seemed a little too naive, even for someone who has lived a sheltered life, and I just found her character to be a little too unbelievable for my liking. Her relationships with other characters seemed predictable and almost as if the writer had to force them fit how she wanted them to.

The other odd thing was that Northanger Abbey itself only appears in the books once you get about two thirds of the way through and even then there is nothing special about it, it is merely a location for the story to take place. There's nothing particularly special about it at all.

Of course there is a very clichéd happy ending and everyone gets what he or she wants apart from the father who is portrayed as the villain.

I'm not really going to recommend it. Its not a book you're going to find me raving about, but hey, if you find yourself with nothing else to read on a rainy day, its not going to be the worst thing you could pick up.

THE CLOUD HUNTERS By Alex Shearer

I picked this book up for no other reason than I was browsing through the library looking for something to read, and this particular caught my eye and looked interesting. Once again, I have not been disappointed.

I think that the ideas and the storyline behind this book is really original and new. I, myself , haven't come across anything like this before. I like the idea of taking something really well known, Like sailing on a ship to find out who you are and what your destiny is, and putting it into a completely different scenario. Personally I find the idea of living on a small island as part of a bigger community quite appealing. Being able to have independence and isolation when you need it while at the same time, not being too far away from the life and business of everyday life.

There is only one criticism I have for the book and this is I found some of the names a little repetitive. I feel that there may have been possible alternatives to 'sky-fish', 'sky-whale', 'sky-seal', 'sky-walrus' etc... It just felt a little too repetitive for my liking and I sometimes lost my train of thought and definition between the items talked about.

Other than that though, I though that The Cloud Hunters was a thoroughly enjoyable book.

THE 100 By Kass Morgan

I first came across this book after watching the first few episodes of the new series on TV. While browsing in the local book shop, I noticed that the original book was on offer and decided to give it ago and I am more than pleased to say that I have not been disappointed in any way at all. In fact I've read the entire thing in less than 24 hours. I think I've only ever managed that with one other book before (The Fault In our Stars by John Green). The 100 is totally gripping and makes it impossible for the reader to put it down. The only regret I have is that the book finished. I just want to pick it up and start reading it again.

Now I don't want to make this a comparison between the TV series and the book, however if you have seen the TV version and are debating whether or not to read the book, go for it! Do it! The TV adaptation is so far different to the book. So many characters have been added and taken out to make it more appealing to a television audience. In fact the only characters which are consistent between the two are Clarke, Bellamy and his sister, and Wells and his father.

I like the book more because it gives insight into the everyday live of the people on the ship, parallel to the people who have been sent to earth. You also get to see the same event from two different perspectives, such as the passing of the comet.

This isn't the first time that I've been drawn to a book about younger people being left to fend for themselves in an effort to survive. Similar themes can be seen in The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and also in Gone by Michael Grant. We seem to be living in a world at the moment, where we are obsessed with the possibilities of what would happen if there were suddenly a lock of law and order, who would take charge, who would survive. It seems to be quite a grim obsession we have currently, but definitely one that seems to be selling books. (which is always a good thing)

There doesn't seem to be anything mega special that jumps out at me when I think about this book. No important message forced at me by the author, no life changing epiphany which means I'll never look at life the same again. But maybe that's what make this book so awesome. It's just a darn good book without all the paraphernalia that makes reading books nowadays such hard work. Sometimes less is more.

Read it! You know you want to.

THE HIT By Melvin Burgess

I must say, this has been a really enjoyable and interesting book to read. There are so many different themes and ideas packed into this book and yet it doesn't seem complicated or over crowded in anyway shape or form. I love it! Then again, I'm all for any book that has some sort of moral, especially one that makes you think about, and appreciate it more than you do already. There were a number of times while reading this book when I genuinely found myself thinking about what would be on my bucket list if I found myself under the influence of Death, or equally I might have found myself wondering whether or not I would have chosen to take it.

I think it was quite brave of the author to take on a topic like drugs and gang violence, because these are covered a lot in novels now-a-days and it can be difficult to write about it in a way that makes your story stand out from the others. But I'm am pleased to say that I think Burgess has done an incredible job and has definitely written a novel which tackles common but important themes while making it stand apart from everything else at the same time.

A brilliant book and one that I would definitely recommend, I'm looking forward to reading some of Burgess's other work.

The 'GONE' series by Michael Grant

Despite it being a series of six books, there is no way I could ever review them as individual books; it would be like trying to write a book review for on a chapter of Harry Potter or the first half of the Hobbit. The GONE series is less like a collection of book that follow on from each other, and more like one single story that is just too voluminous to be pack into a single book.

Initially I was reluctant to pick up the first book as I thought it was going to be below my usual reading level and I didn't want to think of myself as reading a book that was aimed and written for much younger people than myself. I now see what a terrible attitude this was to have. However, in the end it was the brightly coloured pages and the contrast between black and neon that drew me to the book and force fingers to turn the first page, and I must say that after the first page was turned, there was no stopping them.

When a melt down happens at the nuclear powerplant, Little Pete Ellison uses his unknown power to create the FAYZ, a 'protective' barrier around Perdido Beach and all of its residents. However in his ignorance, Little Pete teleports everyone aged fifteen and over outside the dome, leaving hundereds of children to fend for themselves in a world riddled with mutant creatures. Fortunately, Sam Temple steps up to the plate and takes the role of mayor in this very different town. Through out the story, you will follow these children as they prematurely become young adults, as they fight to survive the FAYZ.

The thing that shocked me the most about these incredible books if the connections that you create with the characters and the way these feelings change so dramatically. The best example of this would be the connections I made with the character 'Diana Ladris'. Diana is the girlfriend and companion of the sociopath Caine. At the start of this journey I hated Diana with everything I could muster within me. I thought she was an evil witch who would do anything to get her own way or allow Caine to get his. This is very much how she was for the first three to four books in the series. I despised her character and genuinely wished ill of her if there was ever a battle or an argument between her and Caine. I wished for Caine to use his mutant telekinetic powers to destroy her in some brutally horrific way that would cause her to suffer as much as the people she herself had damaged. However when she becomes pregnant and leaves Caine to live with Sam (the other main character (the good one)), I began to truly believe that maybe she had a good seed in her heart that just needed nurturing in order to flourish. It was then I began to feel bad at myself for being so hostile towards Diana and not giving her a chance to show herself for who she really was when she didn't have Caine to perform for twenty four hours a day. I thought the way the Grant lures you into thinking to that you can trust her and that she is a changed woman, is very clever. He appeals to the human nature of his readers. It doesn't matter that you hated her before and that you wanted her dead, now she is pregnant and our own human instinct is to look after and care for this person so that they don't die and the don't get hurt; just by changing one element of Diana's situation, Grant has cleverly turned our opinion of her on it's head.

Later on in the story though, when Diana gives birth to her child, the baby is taken over by the Gaiaphage which takes the baby to use as its own body. Understandably Diana follows that dark and evil creature, following her newly found mothering instincts to look after what she believes is still her baby girl. Even though as a reader I understood that Diana couldn't possibly tear herself away from her child, I still felt deeply hurt and disappointed in Diana  that she had turned and followed the Evil one. I really felt like I'd been let down, as if I'd put my trust in a close friend and they had turned they're back on me. This really knocked my opinion of Diana for the rest of the story and even right at the end when Sam and Astrid (his girlfriend) offer hospitality to Diana, I still felt unsure of her however, because Sam had been the leader and the hero from the beginning I felt obliged to trust his judgement and not to question his decisions as after all, they were the reason so many people had survived the FAYZ.

This deep connection that I built with many of the characters, lead me to start thinking in the same way as the children trapped beneath the barrier. At the start I desperately wanted them to escape so they could be with their parents again, but as the story progressed and I journeyed with the characters, I almost became adverse to the idea of the of the FAYZ wall coming down. The young people had learnt to build a society on their own and I as a reader had been there with them while they had committed atrocities that would appear outrageous and worthy of various prison sentences to the outside world, however being there with them, I understood that these children had no other choice and that the majority of them only did what they had to in order to survive. I wanted the wall to come down only because no one would survive very long unless it did. I was scared for the young people because I knew the outside world would not understand what had happened and they would try and prosecute and drag them through councelling and various therapies. The people who had survived the trauma of living in the FAYZ would not get the medals and the heroic welcome they deserved so badly.

Right at the end of the final book, after the acknowledgements, Grant wrote a short letter to his readers, thanking them for reading his books and taking the time to take the journey with Sam, Astrid, Diana, Caine and all the others. During the letter he explains that the main thing he wanted to achieve was that his readers would be able to feel for the characters and feel as if they were really there with them.

I feel that the author has achieve his goal many times over in the course of these books, and I feel that this is only emphasised by the fact that each relationship between reader and character is completely unique from any other one.

Finally I would just like to add that I would highly recommend this series to just about anyone, no matter how old you are.

This book probably should not be read by people who feel strongly against children being exposed to violent and life threatening situations.