to tide you over until regular programming resumes...

honestly, with christmasmadness and workingworkingworking, failing NaNo and trying to get word count to a respectable figure, and the delightful black hole of music and joy that was the meredith music festival i'm a slack blogger.

so here are some sneaky peeks at reviews to come (aka notes on a review, aka a cheat sheet for fellow staff members at chez workingworkingworking during christmasmadness):

Freefall, Mindi Scott (Simon Pulse)

This is great. Pretty simple screw-up-comes-good story, great characters, excellent dialogue. Slightly more dark/troubled than Sarah Dessen books, but would appeal to her readers. Sex, drugs and rock and roll alert. And lots of drinking and some death. But also funny and heartwarming. Under-the-radar sucess!

Matched, Ally Condie (Razorbill)

Ah, dystopian futures. They truly are the new vampires.

In this world, people’s lives are completely controlled, from your daily work and activities and when you will die, right down to what an individual eats, who they marry and how many children they have (if any). Cassia (the main character) is Matched on her 17th b’day, and the society has chosen her friend Xander as her ideal Match. But is he? There’s the obligatory bad boy (Ky) and Cassia becomes more and more involved with him. There’s also repeated reference to Dylan Thomas’ Do not go gentle... as Cassia starts to make decisions for herself...which isn’t going to go down very well. Will be a series.

The Chosen One, Carol Lynch Williams (Simon and Schuster)

Polygamist cult, young 14-y/o female protagonist about to be married off to her uncle, one of the community elders. She has been secretly reading books from a mobile library and also falling in love with boy, also community member. Both are starting to think they need to get out. Pretty well written, bound to interest teenage girls. Quite a bit of violence.