Title: Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles, #1)
Author: Marissa Meyer
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Rating: ★★★★★

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly Plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth's fate hinges on one girl.
Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She's a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stephmother and blamed for her stepsister's illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai's, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world's future.

If one thought writing a review about a bad book was difficult, wait until you get the chance to read a one of the best. Cinder is without a doubt in my top five favourite books of 2013. Maybe even in my top three. The writing style, the plot, the characters were truly amazingly done. Although this being a sci-fi novel, filled with hovers and androids and cyborgs, from the first few pages on it managed to grip me and fall in love with it.

That little extra thing that completed it all were the realistic elements. With that, I mean the believability of the characters and the way the plot went. Just because it's based on a fairy tale, does not mean it has to end the same way. Talking about the characters themselves, I love when I get the full opportunity to choose wether to love or hate them. I've chosen to love Kai, to love Cinder, to love Dr. Erland. Maybe even to love Adri. Levena and Pearl can die. I won't mind.

That other thing about the characters I adored, was the choices they made. I've read quite a few YA novels this year to know the pet peeves. One of them was that whatever some charactes did to mess things up, in the end they always make the choice that's the best for everyone. Thank the Gods it did not happen in Cinder. I am so, so grateful. Thank you Prince Kai to make a stupid decicion. Thanks Cinder for not doing what you're supposed to do.

Overall, thank you Marissa Meyer for the creation of Cinder. I may have exams coming up, yet I wonder if that will stop me from starting Scarlet.

Champion (Legend, #3) by Marie Lu
Publisher: November 5th 2013 by Putnam Juvenile
Pages: 369

He is a Legend.

She is a Prodigy.

Who will be Champion?

June and Day have sacrificed so much for the people of the Republic—and each other—and now their country is on the brink of a new existence. June is back in the good graces of the Republic, working within the government’s elite circles as Princeps-Elect, while Day has been assigned a high-level military position.

But neither could have predicted the circumstances that will reunite them: just when a peace treaty is imminent, a plague outbreak causes panic in the Colonies, and war threatens the Republic’s border cities. This new strain of plague is deadlier than ever, and June is the only one who knows the key to her country’s defense. But saving the lives of thousands will mean asking the one she loves to give up everything.

With heart-pounding action and suspense, Marie Lu’s bestselling trilogy draws to a stunning conclusion.

"Time heals all wounds. But not this one. Not yet.

I finished Champion about ten minutes ago. I still don't know what to think. From page 305, I'm glad to say I finished that part in one sitting. The ending left me in tears, as well did the epilogue. I'm so glad Champion didn't turned out to be a major dissapointment. Yet I'm so sad to not be able to rate this any higher than four stars.

I dove straight into Champion with very high expectations. The Republic is on the edge of war. The action-packed events in Prodigy leave you devestated. Sadly, there wasn't much happening in most of this book. From one point to another it just seemed like Marie Lu was writing without thinking what she wrote.

I really don't like writing negative details down about such a wonderful book, so I'm just going to write some down that really did it for me. Champion might be the only Distopian YA novel I've read, that does include other countries, other worlds. Despite the trip being boring, I couldn't help myself being fascinated about how it's like in other countries. For me, that was a big addition to the final world building. Also that June plot twist? I did not see that one coming, at all. Whilst I remembered some details about Prodigy, there were others I completely forgot. Well played, Marie Lu. Well played.

So maybe it wasn't as fast paced and action-packed as I thought it would be, I still enjoyed it very much. The painful ending left me statisfied. And now.. I'm going to wait for The Young Elites, I guess.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Published: May 18th 2004 by Vintage
Pages: 226

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is a murder mystery novel like no other. The detective, and narrator, is Christopher Boone. Christopher is fifteen and has Asperger's Syndrome. He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns and the truth. He hates the colours yellow and brown and being touched. He has never gone further than the end of the road on his own, but when he finds a neighbour's dog murdered he sets out a terrifying journey will turn his whole upside down.

Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them. 

I can't believe I thought how bad this book would be when I got to hear we were going to read it for required reading in English class. I never heard a positive thing about it, so I had such low hopes for this when I started reading. Yet, as I got further and further into it, I started wondering if this was the same book my friends told me about. This wasn't bad at all.

In fact, so beautiful! So well done, and so realistic. The way Mark Haddon described events from Christopher's point of view... I truly believed it. Autism is not a subject I get to read about, being a student of human sciences. In fact, this was a first for me. How interesting it was, I don't think I'll keep reading in that genre.

May I take a paragraph to talk about the plot twist, around page one hundred and fifty? My heart broke into thousands of little pieces. Whilst Christopher was still busy with figuring things out, the minute I read the first letter, I knew. I loved how the family drama part got to play something. It made me appreciate how hard it must be for Christopher's environment to get along with him.

Getting closer to the ending, things started getting complicated for me. Mark Haddon seemed to pay way more attention to unimportant issues, leaving me with other things happening in a jiffy. Maybe that's how Christopher saw it. Still, it was quite a drawback. Also the Math and other clever things did not feel very interesting to me.

Conclusion? I liked it very much, I really did. It's just sad it went a bit downhill towards the end.

Uglies (Uglies, #1) by Scott Westerfeld
Published: Februrary 8th 2005 by Simon Pulse
Pages: 448

Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not fer her license - for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there.

But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all.

"What you do, the way you think, makes you beautiful."

I don't know what happened. It started out really well and I suddenly found myself having high expectations. It really became interesting. The interesting part did not last long enough to give this more than three stars. There were definitely parts I needed to struggle through. Kind in a lazy mood today, so I'm just going to make a "list" to clear my thoughts.

Positives:
As far as I know, not many book have a dystopia where everyone above the ago of sixteen is physically "perfect" because of plastic chirurgery as their subject. First of all: I think plastic chirurgery is such an amazing idea to write about. The many possiblities one can have! No matter how your book turns out, it's original. Maybe even interesting. I mean, in this book, no one knows what an ugly above the ago of sixteen looks like. The idea seemed so cool that the first half was very entertaining to read. Also the end, with you-know-what-if-you've-read-the-book... I finished it so quickly.

Negatives:
I did not connect with the characters at all, nor the story. It felt plain at most times. This book being set hundreds of years in the future has nothing to do with the story not being believable. What did, was - like I said - the lack of connection.
Also names and places in general could have been a lot better. A book with towns like 'New Pretty Town', 'Crumbleville' and 'Uglyville' made it seem as if I was reading a children's book. Not a YA novel. Okay, I understand that the author may have wanted it like this, yet that does not mean I'm love with it.

I'll probably read the second book "Pretties" out of pure curiousity what might happen. Somewhere deep inside, there's a little part of me screaming Pretties won't dissapoint. Now I wonder if I'll follow my instincts, or simply ignore it.