Maddie Diaz never should have taken that shortcut through the park. If she hadn't, she wouldn't have seen two members of the Reyes gang attacking a homeless man. Now, as the only witness, she knows there’s a target on her back.

But when the Reyes jump her on the street, Maddie is protected by a second gang and their secretive leader, Lobo, who is determined to take down the Reyes himself. Lobo is mysterious and passionate, and Maddie begins to fall for him. But when they live this close to the edge, can their love survive?

"From Allison van Diepen, author of Snitch and Street Pharm, comes a sexy, dangerous novel about a teen who witnesses a murder and gets caught up in the seedy world of Miami’s gangs." -extracted from book's blurb

Things were looking good for Madeleina "Maddie" Diaz. Her mom was finalizing her divorce with her stepdad from hell, she got accepted to her first choice college on full scholarship, and her friends threw her a party to celebrate. All of that came crashing down when she sees a homeless man getting attacked by the Reyes gang- and decides to get involved by testifying in court. Maddie quickly becomes known as a snitcher, and we all know what happens to people who snitch on gangs.

Truth be told, I had a really hard time getting into this book. The beginning dragged on a bit too much and never really set the pace 'til near the end. It was supposed to be thrilling from the beginning, what with the whole plotline of being involved in gangs and all, but I never really felt my heart beat faster than the normal rate. And the fact that Maddie was kind of a dull character didn't help either. She was made out to be this headstrong student journalist who was smart and sexy at the same time but it just didn't seep through. Her character sort of fell flat for me. She was kind of like a transient being robotically interacting with the other characters and moving from scene to scene. The pacing was choppy too- the transitions between scenes wasn't smooth and it made me confused.

There was one thing that made Maddie come to life though: romance. She became animated and flirty (in a cute, awkward, nice girl way) when it comes to boys. Three of them come into the picture: Manny, her funny, reformed ex-convict co-worker; Ortiz, the quiet, kind, and mysterious boxer who oozes sex appeal; and the gang leader Lobo, the unknown gang leader who saved her life. I only ever liked Maddie when she was talking to either one of the three. The author definitely knows how to develop subtle chemistry and sexy banter. The backstory behind the rivalry between the two gangs was incredibly well plotted though. It was the main reason why I kept reading- it was interesting, dark, and made my arms tingle with excitement. Too bad that it was only made evident in the later part of the story. I would have liked to know more about the two gangs and their members, especially Lobo's partner X.

All in all, On The Edge had the promise of a great plot and well thought-out storyline. However, a story like this needs a main character with strength and conviction, and Maddie unfortunately fell short. 

Seventeen-year-old Genesis Lee has never forgotten anything. As one of the Mementi—a small group of genetically-enhanced humans—Gena remembers everything with the help of her Link bracelets, which preserve memories perfectly. But Links can be stolen, and six people have already lost their lives to a memory thief, including Gena’s best friend.

Anyone could be next. Which is why Gena is less than pleased to meet a strange but charming boy named Kalan who claims that they’ve not only met, but that Gena knows who the thief is.

The problem is, Gena doesn’t remember Kalan, she doesn’t remember seeing the thief, and she doesn’t know why she’s forgetting things— or how much else she might forget. As growing tensions between Mementi and ordinary humans drive the city of Havendale into chaos, Gena and Kalan team up to search for the thief. And as Gena loses more memories, they realize they have to solve the mystery fast.

Because Gena’s life is unhappening around her.

Buy from: Amazon // The Book Depository

730. That's how many days I've been trapped.

18. That's how many days I have left to find a way out.

DAI, trying to escape a haunting past, traffics drugs for the most ruthless kingpin in the Walled City. But in order to find the key to his freedom, he needs help from someone with the power to be invisible....

JIN hides under the radar, afraid the wild street gangs will discover her biggest secret: Jin passes as a boy to stay safe. Still, every chance she gets, she searches for her lost sister....

MEI YEE has been trapped in a brothel for the past two years, dreaming of getting out while watching the girls who try fail one by one. She's about to give up, when one day she sees an unexpected face at her window.....

In this innovative and adrenaline-fueled novel, they all come together in a desperate attempt to escape a lawless labyrinth before the clock runs out.

I always assumed that The Walled City was a dystopian novel, so as I read each page I was surprised to discover that the book isn't set in a distant future or in a different world- it is set in our world, in our timeline. However, it felt like an entirely different world. It was incredibly dark and dangerous, and I could feel the tension in every scene. In a district filled with cheaters, gangs, prostitutes, and drug dealers, you wager your life every day.

The Walled City is a riveting novel written in three different perspectives- Dai's, a drug trafficker with a dark past and a dangerous secret; Jin's, a girl who spent years pretending to be a boy to survive the City and to look for her missing sister; and Mei Yee's, a prostitute with a silent desire to escape and find a better life outside and see the sea. Three different people from different walks of life in the City, three different lives that ended up finding each other and working together to destroy the King Pin's gang from the inside and escape the City forever.

I loved Dai, Jin, and Mei Yee equally. At first glance, they seemed like people who gave up and succumbed to the City's powers, but they actually had this fire within them- this quiet determination that pushed them every step of the way. Learning about their pasts, my heart broke and cheered for them even more. My heart raced along with theirs at every danger that they faced and believe me when I say that it was like they were cats that have nine lives considering all of the near-death circumstances that they got into. Reading this book was like asking for a heart attack!

The book had echoes of a reality that we refuse to accept. There are places out there just like the Walled City, like the Kowloon Walled City that the book is based on. Ryan Graudin managed to create a carbon-copy vision of those places and projected it into the book. It was absolutely masterful and terrifying. Her writing kind of reminded me of Haruki Murakami's- tasteful, smart, fluid, and realistic with a drop of magic. It keeps you guessing and leads you on a spiral of fictional reality that will shake your core. Words cannot express the experience The Walled City gave me, you'll have to read the book yourself. But be careful! In the Walled City, there is no escape.

The explosive conclusion to the series reviewers have likened to Ender’s Game and “Hogwarts-in-Space”

This exhilarating, explosive, and heartrending conclusion to the Insignia trilogy brings Tom and his intelligent, passionate, and brave young friends stunning tests and dangerous confrontations and through to an impossible future they could never have predicted.

Tom Raines and his friends are eager to return to the Pentagonal Spire to continue training for the elite Intrasolar Forces, but they soon discover troubling changes: strict new regulations and the revelation that the Spire is under new military control. What begins as an irritating adjustment soon reveals a dangerous shift in reality. Those now in control are aligned with corporate sponsors and their ruthless agendas. And when the military academy begins welcoming new cadets with suspicious neural processors, the first step in a plan with horrifying worldwide ramifications, Tom is desperate to stop it, even if that means keeping secrets from his closest allies.

Then a mysterious figure, the other ghost in the machine, begins fighting against the corporations, but with methods even Tom finds shocking. And when the enemy comes for Tom, how much can Tom endure in the battle to save himself? He must decide if he can still fight when the odds of success seem to be sliding from his grip.

S.J. Kincaid was born in Alabama, grew up in California, and attended high school in New Hampshire, but it was while living beside a haunted graveyard in Scotland, that she realized that she wanted to be a writer. Her debut, Insignia, came out in July of 2012. The second book in the series, Vortex came out in July of 2013. The final book in the INSIGNIA trilogy will come out in Fall of 2014.

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Can one boy stop a nefarious plot to turn kids into super-mutants?

Maverick Murphy tolerates his life as the sideshow attraction known as "Gator Boy" at Grumbling's Travelling Circus and Sideshow.

His freakish mutations are the result of some billionaire geneticist's experiments gone awry. But life as a mutant is about to get worse, as Maverick uncovers a plot to kidnap kids, turn them into super-mutants, and sell their powers to the highest bidder.

Now, Maverick is on a mission to find the mad scientist who may have created him and destroy his sinister plans!

Its been a while since I enjoyed a middle grade book as much as I enjoyed King of the Mutants. It was fun, witty, and all sorts of crazy. The book is told in Maverick Murphy's point of view. All his life, Mav had been treated as a freak because of his gator-like appearance and because he's just a minor act in the circus, he doesn't have much of a home in Grumbling's Travelling Circus and Sideshow. Desperate to know more about his past, Mav took his chance when he stumbles upon a runaway orphan named Freddie. Together, the two boys motorbike to New Orleans and New York, fighting for answers and a place to call home.

I really loved reading through Mav's thoughts. Gator Boy is one witty kid who never misses a punch line. He had me sold- reading the book was like listening to a thirteen year-old boy telling a story over a campfire. I could practically hear Mav's determination whispering through the chapters. I also really really loved Freddie. He was the voice of reason in the book, the normalness that I clung to whenever things started to get super wierd, but he wasn't annoying at all. He makes a few mistakes here and there but I can't help but love the guy.

Mav and Freddie took me on quite an adventure- clown chases, narrow escapes, hoodoo, evil scientists, and *gasp* wearing high heels! It isn't just all fun and games though, the book also tackles with issues of finding yourself and what it means to be a family. Mav shows us that thee's more to someone than what's on the outside. King of the Mutants is a fun, adventure-filled read with a hero that anyone can relate to and look up to.

Seventeen-year-old Skylar has been haunted for as long as she can remember by fleeting yet powerful sensations that something is horribly wrong. But despite the panic attacks tormenting her, nothing ever happens, and Sky’s beginning to think she’s crazy. Then she meets a mysterious, otherworldly boy named Win and discovers the shocking truth her premonitions have tapped into: our world no longer belongs to us. For thousands of years, Earth has been at the mercy of alien scientists who care nothing for its inhabitants and are using us as the unwitting subjects of their time-manipulating experiments. Win belongs to a rebel faction seeking to put a stop to it, and he needs Skylar’s help--but with each shift in the past, the very fabric of reality is unraveling, and soon there may be no Earth left to save.

Ever since she was a kid, Skylar gets feelings or sensations of wrongness from the most normal things. When she freaks out about a bomb that no one saw and disappeared as quickly as it appeared, she feels like she has completely lost her grip on reality. And then she meets Win, a mysterious boy who somehow knows about the bomb that came and somehow understands her 'panic attacks' completely. After being chased by a group of otherworldly-looking humans carrying weapons Sky had never seen before, Win admits that he is a time-travelling alien rebel hell-bent on stopping scientists from his planet who are experimenting on earth.

Win tells Sky that the sensations of wrongness that she gets are the effects of shifts in the time rift caused by time travellers and takes her back in time to different countries in search of missing pieces left behind by their rebel group's MIA leader- pieces to a device that will stop the aliens from messing with earth's timelines.

Earth & Sky primarily caught my attention because of its Doctor Who vibes. Time traveller picks up a female companion to help him save earth? Sounds like a fun read, right? Unfortunately, the book wasn't as exciting as I expected. Yes, the plot was pretty interesting but I think that the whole concept of a species from another world manipulating Earth just wasn't explained clearly enough. It just didn't sell for me because of that and I found myself stumbling over sentences and getting confused a lot. The world-building was just too weak to hold a massive plot like that.

Sky was a pretty boring protagonist and Win didn't really stand out much for me. I didn't feel a connection with them at all. They went through this cycle of travelling to a timeline, getting chased, finding the piece they need, getting chased again, and returning to Sky's timeline to rest. It got pretty repetitive after a while because there weren't any wow moments that heightened my excitement. I did really enjoy the first part of the book because it started so high, but it just didn't go anywhere after that. Earth & Sky had the makings of a great read, but I think that it just tried to accomplish too much that it fell short in the end.