"We Were Liars" by E. Lockhart

Book Title: We Were Liars

Author: E. Lockhart

Genre: YA, Contemporary, "Mystery"

My Rating: 4 out of 5

What's it about? Cadence and her family have summer homes on a small island. Every summer, the Liars (Cadence, her cousins, and Gat) meet up on the island. But then, during the summer of her 15th year, there's an accident... 

What type of reader is it for? Someone who is looking for a beautiful read... The writing in this story is phenomenal for a YA novel. The metaphors and personification woven into the every day thoughts of Cadence are powerful and intriguing. Or someone who likes an unreliable narrator. These are not usually my favorite types of books, but I enjoyed getting to know Cadence and figuring out what lie was hidden beneath her words. GoodReads lists this book as a mystery, but I wouldn't say it really fits into that category well. If you're looking for an extremely mysterious story, that's not what you'll find here.

Should you read it? Yes, but here's the time when it should be done: when you've just finished an amazing series and don't really want to dive into another long series right away. This is the perfect quick, short read in between two daunting series. Also a great book for a cram-a-thon!

What's On My iPhone? (Book Edition)

App Name: Goodreads

What I Use It For: I use Goodreads for a few different reasons. One, I keep track of what I have and have not read. Two, I post status updates of when I start/finish a book. Three, I like to see what my friends are reading or wanting to read. But primarily, I use Goodreads for my book challenge... This is the first year I have done a book challenge and I set it at 50 books. If you update your Goodreads statuses throughout the year, it will log the number of books you read and give you a cute visual progress bar to show you how close you are to reading your goal.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars; the only thing I think could make Goodreads better is its mobile interface. It's hard to navigate sometimes. For instance, I know I found a way to make a list of what books I own, but I have no idea how to access this list anymore! And the feed of the friends page is just ugly...

App Name: Scholastic Book Wizard

What I Use It For: I teach middle school and I use this app to find out the reading level of specific texts. You just scan the barcode and the information about the book's reading level, interest level, and summary will pop up.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars; this is a really cool idea, but it may just be for Scholastic books... I have a hard time finding many titles on this app, which stinks because kids don't understand that not everything is INSTANT!

App Name: Libib

What I Use It For: I use Libib to catalog all of the books I own in my personal library. The interface is clean and will list books for you alphabetically by title. It has a scan feature that is really quick and I cataloged my whole stash of 180 books in 15 minutes. This app also has the potential to help you catalog movies, music, and video games you own. No more buying duplicates!

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars; I've had some issues with this app taking a long time to load or enter book information. But I just exit the app and open it again- which fixes that issue. I'll also say that if you use the scan feature, you need to keep an eye on what titles pop up- sometimes you think you're scanning one book and something about "Buffy, The Vampire Slayer" (or something equally ridiculous) comes up!

App Name: To Read

What I Use It For: I use this app to keep a running list of books I'd like to buy. I LOVE the design of this app. This is what I wish Goodreads looked like. It's so simple and lists book titles, author names, and a photo on whatever list you create. You can search for a book by name or author (no scan feature), but it's very fast and I've found everything I've wanted to list.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars; for what I use this for, it's perfect. There're lots of things that could be added (scan feature, multiple lists, etc.) but why ruin the simplicity of this app!?

Any others I should download? Let me know!

"The Kill Order" by James Dashner

Book Title: The Kill Order

Author: James Dashner

Genre: YA, Science Fiction, Dystopian

My Rating: 5 out of 5

What's it about? The story follows a boy named Mark and his best friend/crush Trina who were riding along in a subway-ish train when the world basically came to an end. They team up with a small group of strangers featuring two ex-soldiers, Alec and Lana, and take on the aftermath of the deadly sun flares. Flash forward to a few years later- this group is living peacefully in rural North Carolina when a Berg flies overhead shooting darts filled with a fatal virus at everyone in their village. The team decides to find out where the people in the Berg come from and why they've decided to make life EVEN WORSE for people like Mark and his friends. 

What type of reader is it for? Someone who has read (at least) The Maze Runner. I suggest reading the whole series before you read this one. And I also suggest reading the series BEFORE you read The Kill Order because I appreciated the back-story much more after knowing so much about the Maze, WICKED, Thomas, and Teresa.

Dashner writes his chapters in this series in really small chunks. So if you're someone who doesn't have a ton of time to sit down and read, it'd be a great book... Some chapters in The Kill Order can take you less than 5 minutes to read.

Should you read it? Yes, but after the other books in this series! I loved The Maze Runner series and this was just the icing on the cake for me. I love nothing more than reading up on the back-story of characters/plot lines. Prequels for dystopian texts are awesome; it gives the reader insight to how the world came to be.

I knew I'd rate this book highly before I end picked it up because I like Dashner's writing style. Not only is each chapter short enough to take in in a few minutes, each chapter has a small cliff hanger that holds your interest in the best way possible. I was hooked all the way to the end and could've easily read it in one sitting (had I had the time).

"Uglies" by Scott Westerfeld

Book Title: Uglies

Author: Scott Westerfeld

Genre: YA, Science Fiction, Dystopian

My Rating: 5 out of 5

What's it about? Tally Youngblood is about to turn 16 years old. When she does, she will undergo an operation to turn her pretty. She'll get to leave Uglyville and start a brand-new, carefree life in New Pretty Town. But right before the operation, she meets a friend named Shay who doesn't want to be turned pretty. Shay leaves Uglyville in search of The Smoke, a city where people are judged for what's in their heads- not what they look like. Tally is forced by the authorities to go after Shay and bring her back OR stay ugly forever... When she finally arrives in The Smoke, Tally needs to decide: does she betray her friend and turn herself pretty? Or does she leave her old pretty dreams behind to stay in the wild forever?

What type of reader is it for? You'd think that, based on the cover and the title, this book is meant for teenage girls. But I could totally see any lover of YA fiction reading this book. Especially if you were a fan of Hunger Games or Divergent. It reminds me A LOT of Delirium, with a romantic interest for the main character and having to make the choice of whether to stay in an extremely controlling environment or branch out into the unknown. If you liked any of those books, Uglies is a great next read.

Should you read it? If you haven't already, YES. I really enjoyed this book. It took me a few days to get through, but that's only because I was super busy with work. It's the first book in a series and really hooked me. I was lucky to find the entire rest of the series at Savers all in really good condition. I will be reading the rest of these books after I tackle a few others on my TBR list.

"The Shade of the Moon" by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Book Title: The Shade of the Moon

Author: Susan Beth Pfeffer

Genre: YA, Science Fiction, Dystopian

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5

What's it about? Four years ago, Jon Evans and his family were living in suburban Pennsylvania when the moon was hit by a meteor. This cosmic event wreaked havoc across the entire world, creating incessant tsunamis, earthquakes, tornados and sunless skies. Now, Jon, his stepmother Lisa and half-brother Gabe live in an enclave/safe-town in Sexton, TN. His entire family was split up and only he, Lisa, and Gabe live normal, healthy lives as "clavers". The rest of his family are "grubs" that live outside the enclave and are forced to do all of the clavers' dirty work. A riot ensues between the clavers and grubs, which leaves Jon in a tough spot. Does he side with the clavers to protect the life he knows any grub would die for? Or does he side with the grubs to protect his mother, sister, and new girlfriend Sarah?

What type of reader is it for? A reader who enjoys: books written in a diary/journal format, movies like "2012" or "The Day after Tomorrow", or books written from a young male perspective.

Should you read it? Yes and no. If you get hooked on the first two books like I did, it's definitely worth finishing the series. But it's not a stand-alone book and shouldn't be read as one.

The first book, "Life as We Knew It", is written from Jon's sister Miranda's perspective. The second book, "The Dead and the Gone", is written from another young male perspective (Alex's). And the third book, "This World We Live In", is how Miranda meets Alex.

Going into the last book, it surprised me that it would be written in Jon's perspective- but I decided to finish the series. I loved the concept of the moon/meteor/end-of-the-world at first, but I felt like the series became repetitive by the last book. I was sort of sick of hearing about the lack of food and comfort in the post-apocalyptic world. Yes, we already know it sucks. But, Jon, what are you going to do about it!?

Pfeffer added in some interesting elements with the new "clavers" and "grubs", but Jon and his girlfriend Sarah just weren't characters I was really rooting for. I wanted to see what happened to Jon's mom and stepmom. I wanted to find out what happened to Miranda (Jon's sister). And you do find out all of these things, but the ending is really vague. It leaves you guessing a bit too much and wishing there was one final chapter to clear up some details about their future.

Have you read this book? What were your opinions on it? Leave a comment below and I'll be sure to respond with my thoughts!